Improving local network performance for real-time multi-player games

Noodlecake Studios Inc已经为移动的平台开发了几款流行的游戏，超级火柴人高尔夫（SSG）系列非常成功，拥有数百万的下载量和众多奖项（例如，“2013年Appstore最佳”，以及Google编辑选择奖）。SSG是一个基于物理的模拟，玩家试图通过（有时是幻想的）高尔夫球场击球。 SSG的主要游戏模式之一是“本地多人模式”，玩家通过无线网络（蓝牙或Wi-Fi）与朋友连接，比赛看谁能最快完成每个洞。这种模式非常受欢迎- Noodlecake的日志显示超过1900万个本地游戏。然而，当前的本地网络存在一些限制。 本研究的目标是提高网络性能的种族风格的多人游戏，通过本地无线网络连接。我们将通过三项活动来实现这一目标：（A）确定SSG游戏中本地无线网络的具体实际性能，并确定网络改进的环境限制和机会;（B）开发能够解决上述三个问题的应用级网络（ALN）技术（P2P拓扑中的高速一致性维护，中央服务器拓扑中的消息延迟，以及中央服务器拓扑中的服务器容错）;以及（C）将联网技术集成到游戏界面中，以确保游戏尽可能实时，但也能适应网络困难。

Noodlecake Studios Inc. has built several popular games for mobile platforms, and the Super Stickman Golf (SSG) series has been extraordinarily successful, with millions of downloads and numerous awards (e.g., "Appstore Best of 2013", and Google Editor's Choice award). SSG is a physics-based simulation where players attempt to hit a ball through a (sometimes fantastical) golf course. One of SSG's main game modes is "local multi-player mode", in which players connect to friends through a wireless network (Bluetooth or Wi-Fi) and race to see who can complete each hole the fastest. This mode is extremely popular - Noodlecake's logs show more than 19 million local games played. However, there are several limitations with the current local networking. The goal of this research is to improve network performance for race-style multiplayer games that are connected through a local wireless network. We will accomplish this goal through three activities: (A) determine the specific real-world performance of local wireless networking in the SSG game and identify situational constraints and opportunities for network improvement; (B) develop application-level networking (ALN) techniques that can address the three problems discussed above (high-speed consistency maintenance in a p2p topology, message latency in a central-server topology, and server-fault tolerance in a central-server topology); and (C) integrate the networking techniques into the game interface to ensure that gameplay is as real-time as possible but also resilient to network difficulties.