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

Noodlecake Studios Inc.已经为移动平台开发了几款流行的游戏，Super Stickman Golf(SSG)系列非常成功，有数百万的下载量和无数的奖项(例如，2013年最佳应用商店奖和谷歌编辑选择奖)。SSG是一种基于物理的模拟，玩家试图通过一个(有时是梦幻般的)高尔夫球场击球。 SSG的一种主要游戏模式是“本地多人模式”，玩家通过无线网络(蓝牙或Wi-Fi)与朋友连接，看谁能以最快的速度完成每一洞。这种模式非常流行--Noodlecake的日志显示有1900多万个本地游戏在玩。然而，当前的本地联网有几个限制。 这项研究的目标是提高通过本地无线网络连接的种族风格的多人游戏的网络性能。我们将通过三个活动来实现这一目标：(A)确定本地无线网络在SSG游戏中的特定现实世界性能，并确定情景限制和网络改进的机会；(B)开发能够解决上述三个问题(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和中央服务器拓扑中的服务器容错)的应用程序级网络(ALN)技术；以及(C)将网络技术集成到游戏界面中，以确保游戏尽可能实时，但对网络困难也具有弹性。

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.