Simple Game Server

A (very) simple and lightweight game server for managing lobbies.

Vanilla compilation provides a standalone executable that runs a server on port 3000. Clients use websockets to communicate with the server at the /game_server endpoint. You can check generic status information via a get request to the /status endpoint.

A simple usage would have a client try to create a lobby by specifying the lobby and game names. After receiving a success message, the client will become a lobby leader. Future lobby members will have all of their traffic forwarded to the leader, and all leader traffic will be forwarded to each member. The leader can also send initialization information which informs new lobby members how to initialize their game. A lobby is closed when all members leave. Members can also find available lobbies through the /lobbies get endpoint.

Configuration is done in the config header before compilation. You can add custom processing functions to the configuration, but the server is designed for games where a lobby leader (the first person to join a lobby) manages data validation on the client side.

Building && Running

# Compile uWebSockets
git submodule update --init --recursive
cd uWebSockets
make
cd ..

# Build sgs
make

# Run
./sgs

Future work

• Generalize makefile
• Create some interface for managing the server after it already launched
• Consider adding security (SSL)
• Manage multiple servers for use in something like kubernetes
• Robust exception handling so clients can't crash server
• Loop/track player IDs
• Add documentation about json messages

FAQ

• There are no launch flags, all configuration is done before compilation
• All information is serialized in json
• Tested on linux and macos, but should be compilable on Windows if Makefile is generalized