Mborch

Mborch (Multiplayer Browser Orchestrator) gives you a server and browser side API to easily implement multiplayer web games with peer to peer communication between players.

Components

• A websocket server (powered by the ws library) to work as coordinator and signaling server.
• A browser side javascript API to manage the server connection and the peer to peer communication.

Server Side API

Server Side API Features

The main class (Mborch) on instantiation will start a ws server publishing the below services trough the ws server:

• create a new room any player can create a room if the number of rooms in the server has not reached the limit
• join to room any player can join to a specific room if it has the name/password and the number of players in the room has not reached the limit
• join to any room any player can join to any available room, a room is available if it doesn't have a password and the number of players in the room has not reached the limit
• rejoin if a player accidentally disconnects, it can return to its previous room. There is a offline timeout to finally remove the player from the server
• (TODO) kick player ability to kick a determine player from a room by other players votation
• No room clean up required, rooms are deleted once the last player on it leaves
• For players and rooms names the restriction is given by the regex /[azA-Z0-9]{4,10}/

The Mborch class also provide the below public methods

• writeClient(browserifyInput, browserifyOutput, mainClass) where main class is optional in case you don't want to publish a standAlone class

Server Side API Configuration

The main class constructor accepts a configuration object to define the below parameters

• maxPlayersPerRoom the limit of players per room
• maxRooms the limit of rooms per server
• browserLibPath the path where Mborch will create the browser lib file
• wsPort the port for the ws server
• offlineTimeoutSecs the max time in seconds a player could be offline before get removed from server
• (TODO) browserLibMin flag to create the browser lib file in its min format

Server Side API Usage

var Mborch = require('mborch');

var mborch = new Mborch({
  maxPlayersPerRoom: 5,
  maxRooms: 10,
  browserLibPath: 'public/mborch.js', 
  wsPort: 8080,
  offlineTimeoutSecs: 60
});

On instantiation, the mborch object will start the ws server and it will write the browser library to public/mborch.js

Browser Side API

Browser Side API Features

The browser side library will offer a layer of abstraction to consume the ws server. The mail class again will be Mborch but this time publishing the below methods.

• connect() start the connection with the ws server, this doesn't create any element in the server domain
• createRoom(roomName, playerName, roomPassword) creates a new room in the server
• joinRoom(roomName, playerName, roomPassword) joins to an existing room
• joinAnyRoom(playerName) join to any available room in the server
• rejoin() helps to reconnect a player to its previous room if the player is still in the offline time window
• sendMsg(target,msgObj) send a message to another player in the room trough peer connection
• broadcast(msg) broadcast a message to all the players in the room trhough peer connection
• getDomain() gets the current domain object that the browser side keeps updated with the server internally

Browser Side API Configuration

The browser api will provide all the event callbacks assignment using a configuration object which can be passed as a parameter on its instantiation. Below are the supported variables

• onCreateRoomSucc function called when player creates a new room, updates the domain object with the room and player info
• onJoinSucc function called when player joins an existing room, updates the domain object with the room and player info
• onRejoinSucc function called when player rejoins to its previous room after disconnect, updates the domain object with the room and player info
• onPlayerJoin function called when a new player enters to the current room, updates the domain object with the room info
• onPlayerRejoin function called when a new player get rejoin to the current room, updates the domain object with the room info
• onPeerConn function called when a peer connection has any update (connect, close, disconnect etc)
• onMsgFromPlayer function called when one player sends a message trough peer comunication
• onPlayerOffline function called when a player disconnect from the server and enters in the offline state
• onPlayerLeft function called when a player is removed from the server due to offline timeout
• onError function called when server returns an error instead of the expected result
• onConnectionOpen function called when the browser lib gets connected to the ws server
• onConnectionClose function called when the browser lib gets disconnected from the ws server
• wsUrl variable to set the wsUrl of the ws server
• cookieName variable to set the name of the cookie to be stored in the browser for player reconnection scenario
• cookieExpirationTimeInHours variable to set the duration of the cookie to be stored in the browser for player reconnection scenario
• enablePersistentSession if true, store the player session in the coockies this is required to enable the rejoin when player is in offline state

Browser Side API Usage

<script type="text/javascript" src="/mborch.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/require.min.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript">
  window.onload = () => {

    var out = document.getElementById('out');
    
    var mborch = new Mborch({
      onConnectionOpen: (v) => out.innerHTML = out.innerHTML+'<br><br>'+'onConnectionOpen - ' + JSON.stringify(v),
      onConnectionClose: (v) => out.innerHTML = out.innerHTML+'<br><br>'+'onConnectionClose - ' + JSON.stringify(v),
      onCreateRoomSucc: (v) => out.innerHTML = out.innerHTML+'<br><br>'+'onCreateRoomSucc - ' + JSON.stringify(v),
      onJoinSucc: (v) => out.innerHTML = out.innerHTML+'<br><br>'+'onJoinSucc - ' + JSON.stringify(v),
      onRejoinSucc: (v) => out.innerHTML = out.innerHTML+'<br><br>'+'onRejoinSucc - ' + JSON.stringify(v),
      onPlayerJoin: (v) => out.innerHTML = out.innerHTML+'<br><br>'+'onPlayerJoin - ' + JSON.stringify(v),
      onMsgFromPlayer: (v) => out.innerHTML = out.innerHTML+'<br><br>'+'onMsgFromPlayer - ' + JSON.stringify(v.data),
      onPlayerRejoin: (v) => out.innerHTML = out.innerHTML+'<br><br>'+'onPlayerRejoin - ' + JSON.stringify(v),
      onPlayerOffline: (v) => out.innerHTML = out.innerHTML+'<br><br>'+'onPlayerOffline - ' + JSON.stringify(v),
      onPlayerLeft: (v) => out.innerHTML = out.innerHTML+'<br><br>'+'onPlayerLeft - ' + JSON.stringify(v),
      onPeerConn: (v) => out.innerHTML = out.innerHTML+'<br><br>'+'onPeerConn - ' + JSON.stringify(v),
      onError: (v) => out.innerHTML = out.innerHTML+'<br><br>'+'onError - ' + JSON.stringify(v),
      wsUrl: 'ws://localhost:8080',
      cookieExpirationTimeInHours: 24
    });

</script">
<input id="input" type="text" autofocus>

Licenses

MIT