Build New Games

This article looks at the development of Team Snake, a rapidly developed multiplayer game designed to be played in a large lecture hall using mobile devices as game controllers.

Like a snake in tall grass, bandwidth costs can seemingly come from nowhere. This article discusses the oft overlooked cost of network bandwidth and techniques for minimizing it.

We will look at input prediction, lag compensation, client interpolation and more importantly - how to do this in your normal browser using websockets. The article will present a playable demo with parameters to play with, showcasing the concepts discussed.

It is useful to first look at the history of WebSockets and gain an understanding of how WebSockets work at a technical level before we examine how we may use WebSockets most effectively. Armed with this knowledge, we can simplify the network layer and build amazingly responsive games that provide a high level of multiplayer interactions.