Game developed in cocos2d-x -- photon compatible or custom?

kitjaii

Hey guys,

I'm planning to develop a multi-player gaming app and I have a few concerns I want to ask and perhaps get some feedbacks on. I have been given a mixture of different solutions to my idea and I want to confirm and see which solution will be most efficient and cost effective. This game will be a multi-player game, some of the main features of this game is as follows:

1) users will be faced up against each other online, we will be using an XP(experience points) leveling system
2) We plan to pre-record all the "moves" in the game, so at times player will be playing against an opponent from actions that were recorded in prior games.
3) Each players will be arranged in each match according to their XP. Level 1 players will be playing against Level 1-5 players while Level 5 will be playing against Level 5-10 etc.
4) Notification of Matches, Game news will be sent to players occasionally
5) we plan to integrate messaging system, adding friend feature in the near future

I was given two solutions.
1) photon server with script add-ons ( was recommended by a few that photon shouldn't be a problem, similar to SmartFox server but alot of games use Photon due to its compatibility and features.
2) our own custom back end server ( Was also recommended by a few that based on the "multi-player" compatibility, it wouldn't be possible to go with photon and better off developing a custom)

There is a huge gap in regards to the pricing for both solutions as custom does cost more @ the end of the day.

What do you guys think? Will photon work with my features? Or will it be better to go custom long term wise. Or any alternatives I should look at?

Thanks guys!

[Deleted User]

Hello,

of course I'm biased in this question - but I think Photon will fit your needs quite well, although you probably need to do some customization.

Photon is basically an extensible networking solution. You get Client- and Server SDKs that handle the whole player communication for you, there is no need to spend many thoughts on networking, on message protocols etc. - so you can concentrate on developing your game play. It's easy to exchange data between clients and server.

On the server-side, Photon is a host for .NET applications. All requests that the clients send to Photon are forwarded to a .NET application that is completely open-source and under your control.

You can either use and extend our example applications ("Lite" or "Loadbalancing" are simple, room-based applications), or you can develop your own application from scratch. You can integrate any database that can be called from .NET libraries, you can call external webservices, integrate 3rd party tools, implement authentication, highscores, any type of game logic - whatever you need.

If you choose Photon, you get a solution that has lots of features "out of the box", and you still have the full flexibility of a custom back end server.

Does that help, or do you need more specific information on any Photon features?