Simplest way to implement backend server for multiplayer JavaScript game? (COMET/longpolling)

Question

I've been writing a game in JavaScript, and it's time to make it multiplayer. I would like to use AJAX long-polling to get the current game state, as well as implement the lobby.

The server just needs to perform basic functions, like store the gamestate in the mysql database, retrieve the gamestate, and format the scoreboard.

I think that writing it in PHP would be easiest, but that would be a bad idea due to the number of apache processes it would spawn.

What do you recommend? I'm looking for the most straightforward approach.

Edit: StreamHub seems good, but the community edition only allows for 10 concurrent users.

Answer 1

Hi,

You'd probably be interested by something called Comet.

About Comet and PHP, you can take a look at these questions and their answers :

• Comet & PHP: How to use Comet with a PHP Chat System ?
• Using comet with PHP?
• Simple “Long Polling” example code?

And, not necessarily in PHP (which doesn't seem to be that adapted for Comet ; many people seem to recommend using another language / technology for the backend server...) :

• Is there some way to PUSH data from web server to browser?
• Comet and jQuery
• How to display HTML to the browser incrementally over a long period of time?

I'm seeing more and more of those Comet questions... I'm going to try one day or another, I think... Seems fun ^^

Answer 2

I think http://nitrogenproject.com/ have a good comet example here http://nitrogenproject.com/web/samples/comet2

Answer 3

Maybe better to use push-channel like juggernaut.rubyforge.org, rather than longpoll?