Where are all the multiplayer windows phone games at?
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Especially real time ones.. I found out about photon cloud from some podcast about that windows phone soccer game that uses it.. But I have not found anything else.. Is there some sort of list out there of wp multiplayer games?
My and my wife have the windows phone so I would love some simple real time action game we could play over the wifi network . ?
My and my wife have the windows phone so I would love some simple real time action game we could play over the wifi network . ?
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until WP 7.5 it was not possible to do realtime networking on WP so games are still starting to pick it up (if at all due to Microsofts horrible decision to introduce lower capability phones with the rumor that the next WP version codename apollo will not support any device that was shipped with 7.5 at all)0
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It's the perfect time to make some games for WP7.5 and WP8
There are relatively few titles and as current devices will not get Windows 8, everyone seems to be in waiting limbo.
Aside from that, we don't have proper lists of titles for each platform. The Air Soccer for WP7.5 is most likely the only title on that platform though.0 -
no phone will get windows 8 so thats no problem ;-)
and the decision of non compatibility is not something that makes everyone wait in limbo, it will kill the platform as it already did pick up badly and the decision to punish everyone stupid enough to get one of those HTC Desires with a different OS (thats what all gen 1 devices are ahrdware wise) at a premium price is just simply and utterly plain stupid and would simply kill the platform as whole.
I've some apps on the Marketplace and am holding any further commitment down until its clear if MS really intends to destroy all our efforts or not.
I love WP for how it works, how performant it is and how freaking long the battery lasts on my Omnia 7, but if they really pull off the apollo incompatibility, then the Windows Phone platform can just flat out die and take nokia with it to ensure no resurrection later on0 -
Well in that case then it seems like a good idea too make some very basic multiiplayer games like pong for WP. Everything else is already out there for WP except real time multiplayer..
So if I can figure out photon enough then that is what I will attempt to do next..
If there are any other hello world samples out there please let me know .. more samples the better.... Ill go dig through the forums now and see if there iss anything else besides what is included in the sdk.0 -
don't think so, most interest here is about Unity + Photon with a recent pickup of interest on flash (thanks to Stage3D I guess) and native code.
But the stuff you see on the regular .net sdk in direction of unity can still be a good guide if you ignore the Unityengine stuff and just apply its logic. A simple pong though is really simple, even expanding one of the XNA examples with networking would be trivial thanks to Photons clean and simple client sdk
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ok ill post some questions later.. just getting things up and running and being able to trace through is is the first big hurdle.0
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Ok. Got the sample running.. Ill need to figure out how to build things from scratch. I wish the sample was in pieces so I knew better where to start. I guess Ill look at creating my game by working through things in order of how it all loads in the demo.
Main question now is how do you debug 2 instances? Should I run one in the emulator and one or the phone somehow or what do I do ?0 -
I'm unsure if the emulator supports network connection actually
But yes thats what you generally would do or just build an instance to use on desktop actually.
If its a game -> XNA will run on desktop too (VS has the option to copy convert a C# project to give you a desktop clone). If its silverlight -> will work too0 -
Just my 2 cents on the topic and answer to some questions.
My game Air Soccer Fever is WP7.5 XNA game that uses Photon Cloud for realtime multiplayer. With the help of the awesome folks at ExitGames, I also ported the game to the brand new OS Windows 8 Metro (not WP8). So now Air Soccer Fever is cross platform realtime online multiplayer. Watch video on my development blog here:
http://danglingneuron.wordpress.com/2012/05/13/air-soccer-fever-wp7-vs-windows8
Another 3d action game is in the works which also provides real time multiplayer based on Photon.
1. Photon is Awesome
2. There is a great opportunity for multiplayer games (realtime) on Windows Phone
3. Windows Phone is not going anywhere, I dont pay too much attention to rumors. I will make my decision when Windows Phone 8 OS is showcased by Microsoft, and I dont think we have to wait long, In about 4 weeks there is a conference where Microsoft will most probably talk about it in detail.
4. Expand your skillset to add Windows 8 to your target platform too (more specifically Windows 8 Metro Apps), cuz thats the future Microsoft is betting on.
5. Yes you can test photon based multiplayer game in WP7 emulator. also you can start two emulator instances on yoru machine so you dont really need a device, but best practice, its best to use a real device as well. Just google "how to do two instances of WP7 emulator". Note that you will have one emulator runing the app and the otehr emulator in debug mode. Both cannot be in debug mode unless you create two different copies of your project and open them in two seperate visual studio instances.0 -
danglingneuron,
Did you have any samples to work with before you created your game ? Did you have any games in the marketplace that were doing multiplayer that helped give you some ideas ?
I suppose the best thing to do with simulating 2 players is run one in release mode and one in debug mode ?0 -
Also, is it possible to do anything more real time ? Action type 2d games for example.. Or perhaps that is impossible now because of lag... A simple example would be a 2d game of tag where the red square chases the blue square.
I see there is photo docs but these are for the server.. so is photon cloud just the same thing as far as the client side ?
And how do you send your server side code to the server? Or you don't ? Im a bit confused by the basics.0 -
Yes I had the basic WP7 sample that they have in the WP7 Photon Cloud SDK (Loadbalancing demo). But I think now they have really improved the sample so with teh current sample it will be posible for you to get ideas.
I had Air Soccer Tour in marketplace that is the essentially the same game but without realtime multiplayer, so this was my first multiplayer game. So I had to do lots of researching on how to do realtime multiplayer but it was well worth the effort and people on these forus especially Tobias from ExitGames helped alot.
The way you run two emulators is a registry hack that you will find in google. Once you have that setup, you will be able to see two emulator images in Visual Studio for debugging. You first start your "application" (not game - I will explain why) in one emulator in debug mode. Then you just stop debugging. DO NOT close the emulator (the objective was to deploy the app to the first emulator)
Then you select the second emulator image in Visual Studio and start debugging the same app. When you start seeing your app in the second emulator. Bring up the first emulator, place it besides the second one. And then open the app directly in the first emulator.
When I say app and NOT game, the reason is you cannot see the game hub on emulator so if you have configured you "app" as "game" you wont be able to start it directly in emulator. So you have to configure it as an app. Hope that makes sense.
realtime 2d action type games: well it really depends on the mechanics of the game but in principle anything is possible with Photon. If you could elaborate on what you want i will comment on it. FYI I am working on a 3d action game based on photon right now.
The difference between photon server and photon cloud is two fold:
1. IF you are using Photon cloud, you do not write any server side code. You only write client side code that will execute in your WP7 app/game and you will use the photon cloud that will relay messages between your players. Photon cloud provides a simple, yet elaborate and robust API using which any one can write a game and relay messages across. On another front it also means you DONT deploy any server of your own, and you pay a very very reasonable $9/month for the photon cloud service. Turn based static games are very suitable for cloud based approach,but as you can see Air Soccer fever is a rather dynamic game where lag plays a very important role and still photon cloud is a great option for it.
2. If you are using Photon Server, you basically write Server side code as well as client side code. You also have to use two SDK's one for server, one for client. You also have to deploy your own server and pay for it to whoever is your service provider (and let me tell you it will be much more than $9/month). Games that are suitable for this approach are more serious games e.g. First Person Shooters etc.
So in photon cloud there is no server side custom code... Photon cloud already has the necessary code deployed and maintaind by ExitGames.
In photon server, you build your own server , write your custom server side logic and then you maintain your server on a daily basis so even though it provides more customiation and control, it also means more effort and responsibility on your end.
Hope that answers your questions0 -
I am not using XNA so its already an app.
Ill look on google later but is this method better than using a emulator for one session and the phone for another? ..
I know you can compensate for lag with prediction but I was thinking more of a old school 2d game .. There is a fun internet java game that is multiplayer and soccer.. I forget the name.. Im not a great programmer so id be excited if I could get pong or something extremely basic working.
So it sounds like Photon Cloud is the easier one to start off with right? Otherwise I need to get a dynamic DNS and keep my computer running I suppose ?
I just wish there were more examples or atleast that one example was built in pieces so I could get alittle running at a time.. For example maybe for starters I just want to have a 'Search for game' button and nothing else.. and that will search the lobby and start a game with whoever is there.. in that case I don't need all that is in the example so Im going to have to figure out what to cut out.. I just worry during this process something won't work and ill get stuck .
Is photon cloud done in such a way where I can just make the game (2 player pong) and then plug in the multiplyer stuff later.. Or should I build in from the ground up with the multiplayer in mind0 -
No, you can definitely use one emulator and one phone device but again you cand ebug only one instance at a time, unless you mke a copy of yoru project and open two visual studio instances. pong multiplayer synchronization will be slightly challenging to implement in my opinion. You will have to reduce the speed of the paddle and the ball to have consistent gameplay. Basically you need to take into account that you might have 250 milliseconds message travel time between one wp7 phone and the other. So if your paddle and ball movements are too fast, you may end up striking the ball on your local phone but by the time the message arrives on the other phone the ball may have passed that point I have had to handle alot of sync issues in my game Air Soccer Fever. Also keep in mind that physics simulations are not really deterministic.
You will never use photon server on your computer and keep it running not for production at least.
Photon cloud is the way to go if you have a simple neough game. Also rule of thumb for multiplayer game is to design and implement it as a multiplayer game, you may be able to force in multiplayer later but its not pretty 0 -
I would savely assume that its easily 1000ms traveltime between phones actually unless you do not allow 3G gameplay as the latency of the photon to any server on its own can already easily exceed 250ms and you have 2 times this travel time at very least (if you don't have an authorative play model)0
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I am interested In Playing Games so much so I like to Play an individual Game as well as Multilayer Games..
For me the best Phone Game to play is Temple Run....I know this is now a multiplayer game but instead of that I like it...0
