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By Eric Terpstra

With the release of the Ouya, Xbox One and PS4 this year, couch-based console gaming appears to be as popular as ever. Despite the proliferation of multi-player games available on mobile devices, and even the advent of multi-player experiences available on the web, sitting next to the person you’re playing a game with is still an irreplaceable experience. While experimenting with Node.js and the Socket.IO library, I found a perfect opportunity to not only learn some interesting new technologies, but also experiment with using the web and common devices (computers and mobile phones) to replicate a console-like gaming experience.

This article will give a brief overview of the fundamental concepts of the Socket.IO library in the context of building a multi-player, multi-screen word game. A web browser on a large screen device, such as a TV or computer will be the ‘console’ and mobile browsers will act as the ‘controllers’. Socket.IO and Node.js will provide the necessary wiring for all the browsers to share data and provide a cohesive, real-time game experience.

The Game – Anagrammatix

The game itself is a made up challenge involving anagrams – words that can have their letters re-arranged to form new words. The gameplay is quite simple – on a large ‘Host’ screen, a word is displayed. On each player’s controller (phone) is a list of similar words. One of the words is an anagram of the word on the Host screen. The player to tap the anagram first gets points for the round. However, tapping an incorrect word will lose points for the player. After 10 rounds, the player with the most points wins!

To download the code and play locally, first ensure that Node.js is installed. Visit the Anagrammatix GitHub repo, clone the repository with git clone https://github.com/ericterpstra/anagrammatix.git and then run npm install to download and install all the dependencies (Socket.IO and Express). Once that is complete, run node index.js to start the game server. Visit http://localhost:8080 in your browser to start a game. In order to test out the host as well as multiple “player” clients you’ll need to open multiple windows.

If you want to play with mobile devices, you will need to know the I.P. address of your computer on your local network. Your mobile devices will also need to be on the same network as the computer running the application. To begin, simply replace ‘localhost’ in the URL with the I.P. address (e.g. http://192.168.0.5:8080). If you are on Windows, you may need to disable Windows firewall, or ensure port 8080 is open.

The Underlying Technology

Anagrammatix is implemented using only HTML, CSS and JavaScript. To keep things as simple as possible, the use of libraries and frameworks was kept to a minimum. The major technologies used in the game are listed below:

Node.js – Node provides the foundation for the back-end portion of the game, and allows the use of the Express framework, and the Socket.IO library. Also, some of the game logic for Anagrammatix takes place on the server. This logic is contained in a custom Node Module which will be discussed later.

– Node provides the foundation for the back-end portion of the game, and allows the use of the Express framework, and the Socket.IO library. Also, some of the game logic for Anagrammatix takes place on the server. This logic is contained in a custom Node Module which will be discussed later. Express – On its own, Node.js does not provide many of the necessary requirements for creating a web application. Adding Express makes it much simpler to serve static files such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Express is also used to adjust logging output, and create an easy-to-use environment for Socket.IO

– On its own, Node.js does not provide many of the necessary requirements for creating a web application. Adding Express makes it much simpler to serve static files such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Express is also used to adjust logging output, and create an easy-to-use environment for Socket.IO Socket.IO – Socket.IO makes it dead simple to open a real-time communication channel between a web browser and a server (in this case, a server running Node.js and Express). By default, Socket.IO will use the websockets protocol if it is supported by the browser. Older browsers such as IE9 do not support websockets. In that case, Socket.IO will fall back to other technologies, such as using Flash sockets or an Ajax technique called long-polling.

– Socket.IO makes it dead simple to open a real-time communication channel between a web browser and a server (in this case, a server running Node.js and Express). By default, Socket.IO will use the websockets protocol if it is supported by the browser. Older browsers such as IE9 do not support websockets. In that case, Socket.IO will fall back to other technologies, such as using Flash sockets or an Ajax technique called long-polling. Client side JavaScript – On the client side, a few libraries are used to make things a little easier: jQuery – Mainly used in this case for DOM manipulation and event handling. TextFit – A small library that will expand text to fit the size of its container. This is what allows the ‘Anagrammatix’ title screen to fill the entire width of the browser no matter the screen size. FastClick.js – A small library that helps remove the 300ms delay on mobile devices when ‘tapping’ the screen. This makes the game controller slightly more responsive when playing.

CSS – Some standard CSS is used to add a little color and style to the game.

The Architecture

The basic setup for the game follows the recommended configuration for using Socket.IO with Express on the Socket.IO website. In this configuration, Express is used to handle HTTP requests coming into the Node application. The Socket.IO module attaches itself to Express and listens on the same port for incoming websocket connections.

When a browser connects to the application, it is served index.html and all the required JavaScript and CSS to begin. The JavaScript in the browser will initiate a connection to Socket.IO and create a websocket connection. Each websocket connection has a unique identifier (uid) so Node and Socket.IO can keep track of which communications to send to which browser.

The Code – Server Side Setup

The Express and Socket.IO modules do not come packaged with Node.js. they are external dependencies that must be downloaded and installed separately. Node Package Manager (npm) will do that for us with the npm install command as long as all the dependencies are listed in the package.json file. You can find package.json in the root of the project folder, and it contains the following JSON snippet to define the project dependencies:

"dependencies": { "express": "3.x", "socket.io":"0.9" }

The index.js file in the root of the project is the main entry point for the entire application. The first few lines instantiate all the required modules. Express is configured to serve static files, and Socket.IO is set up to listen on the same port as Express. The following lines show the bare minimum to get the server going.

// Create a new Express application var app = express(); // Create an http server with Node's HTTP module. // Pass it the Express application, and listen on port 8080. var server = require('http').createServer(app).listen(8080); // Instantiate Socket.IO hand have it listen on the Express/HTTP server var io = require('socket.io').listen(server);

All of ther server-side code specific to the game is in agxgame.js. This file is pulled into the application as a Node module with var agx = require('./agxgame') . When a client connects to the application via Socket.IO, the initGame function of the agxgame module should run. The following code will make that happen.

io.sockets.on('connection', function (socket) { //console.log('client connected'); agx.initGame(io, socket); });

The initGame function in the agxgame module will set up the event listeners for Socket.IO. These event listeners are what allow the browser and server to communicate in real time via Socket.IO. An example of an event listner is:

gameSocket.on('hostCreateNewGame', hostCreateNewGame);

In the code above, the gameSocket is a reference to an object created by Socket.IO to encapsulate functionality regarding the unique socket connection between the server and the connected browser. The on function creates a listener for a specific event and binds it to a function. So when the browser emits an event named hostCreateNewGame through the websocket, Socket.IO will then execute the hostCreateNewGame function. Names of events and functions don’t have to be the same, it is just a nice convenience.

The Code – Client Side Setup

When a web browser connects to the game, it is served index.html from contents of the “public” folder, which consists of an empty div with an id of gameArea. Also within index.html are several HTML snippets contained within <script type=text/template"> tags. These bits of HTML are substituted into the gameArea depending on what needs to be displayed on screen.

The Socket.io client library is required for the browser to connect to the Socket.IO server. Because we are serving Socket.IO using Express, we can use an Express route to request the library files from the server using the following script tag:

<script src="/socket.io/socket.io.js"></script>

The majority of the game logic, and all the client-side code is stored within app.js. The code is enclosed within a self executing function, and is organized using an object literal namespacing pattern. This means that all the variables and functions used in the application are properties of the IO and App objects. The basic outline for the client-side code is as follows:

// Enclosing function function() { IO { All code related to Socket.IO connections goes here. } App { Generic game logic code. Host { Game logic for the 'Host' (big) screen. } Player { Game logic specific to 'Player' screens. } } }

When the application first loads, there are two functions that execute when the document is ready – IO.init() and App.init() . The first will set up the Socket.IO connection, and the latter will display the title screen in the browser.

The following line of code in IO.init() will initiate a Socket.IO connection between the browser and the server:

IO.socket = io.connect();

Following that, a call is made to IO.bind() , which sets up all the event listeners for Socket.IO on the client. These event listeners work just like those that we set up on the server, but work in the opposite direction. Take the following example:

IO.socket.on('playerJoinedRoom', IO.playerJoinedRoom );

In the above line of code, IO is a container object used for organizing code, the socket object is created by Socket.IO and has properties and methods related to the websocket connection, and the on function creates an event listener. In this case, when the server emits an event labeled playerJoinedRoom , then the IO.playerJoinedRoom function is executed on the client.

Client-Server Communication

The gameplay of Anagrammatix is quite simple. There are not many rules, no graphics or animation, and there are never more than a few words on any screen at a time. What makes this application a cohesive game and (arguably) fun is the communication between the three browser windows. It’s important to re-iterate that browsers do not communicate directly with each other, but rather emit data to the server, which is then processed and re-emitted back to the appropriate browsers. Each of these events carries data with it, so information from the client browser such as the player name or selected answer can travel to the server and make its way into other clients.

All of this data flowing from client to server and back again can be a bit difficult to follow, especially with three clients connected at once. Luckily there is a great tool available in Google’s Chrome browser to help out. If you open the Chrome developer tools window and go to the Network tab, you will be able to monitor all websocket traffic for that particular window by clicking the WebSockets button along the bottom toolbar. Within the WebSockets panel, a list of connections appear in the left-hand column. Clicking on the connection, and then clicking the Frames tab will display a list of communications that have occurred through that particular websocket connection. See the screenshot below for an example

The first column of the Frames tab is the most interesting. It shows the data that is passed through the websocket connection. In the screenshot above, each object in the data column represents and event that was emitted. Each object has a “name” and an “args” property. The value for the name is the name of the event being emitted, such as playerJoinedRoom or hostCheckAnswer . The args contains an array of data elements passed between the client and server.

The Frames tab in Chrome developer tools, along with liberal use of console.log() makes it a bit easier to debug the application and keep track of events and data passing between clients and the server.

The Gameplay

Now that we have a brief overview of how the game is set up and how the underlying architecture works, let’s step through the actual gameplay and trace the flow of a single playthrough of a game of Anagrammatix.

Open a Browser and Visit the Application URL

Node.js and Express serve the files from the public folder. The index.html file is loaded, along with app.js and the required client-side JavaScript libraries.

IO.init() and App.init() are called in public/app.js. The client side game code is initialized. Event handlers are set up for Socket.IO, and code is initiated to load the title screen. The FastClick lib is loaded to speed up touch events. The following code in the App.showInitScreen function will load the intro-screen-template from index.html into the gameArea div so it is visible to the user.

App.$gameArea.html(App.$templateIntroScreen);

Also, the App.bindEvents function will create a number of click handlers for buttons that appear on-screen. The following lines of code create click handlers for the CREATE and JOIN buttons that appear on the title screen.

App.$doc.on('click', '#btnCreateGame', App.Host.onCreateClick); App.$doc.on('click', '#btnJoinGame', App.Player.onJoinClick);

The Create Button is Clicked

The hostCreateNewGame event is emitted by the client. The function App.Host.onCreateClick does one thing – emit an event to the server to indicate that a new game must be created: IO.socket.emit('hostCreateNewGame') .

The server creates a new room for the game, and emits the room ID back to the client. The concept of a room is built into Socket.IO. A room will collect specific client connections and allow events to be emitted only to the clients within the room. Rooms are perfect for creating individual games using one server. Without rooms, it would be much more difficult to figure out which players and hosts should be connected with each other if multiple people are trying to initiate lots of games on the same server.

The following function in agxgame.js will create a new game room.

function hostCreateNewGame() { // Create a unique Socket.IO Room var thisGameId = ( Math.random() * 100000 ) | 0; // Return the Room ID (gameId) and the socket ID (mySocketId) to the browser client this.emit('newGameCreated', {gameId: thisGameId, mySocketId: this.id}); // Join the Room and wait for the players this.join(thisGameId.toString()); };

In the code above, this refers to a unique Socket.IO object storing connection information for the client. The join function will place the client connection into the specified room. In this case the room ID is a randomly generated number between 1 and 100000. The room ID is sent back to the client and re-used as the unique game ID.

The client (the Host) detects the newGameCreated event from server, displays the room id as the Game ID on screen. On the client (in public/app.js), the App.Host.gameInit and App.Host.displayNewGameScreen functions are called in order to display the randomly generated game ID on screen. The game ID and the Socket.IO room ID are the same.

A Player Connects and Clicks Join

Display the join-game-template HTML template. When a new window is opened, the client connects via Socket.IO just as before. If the JOIN button is clicked, a screen is displayed to collect the player’s name and the desired game ID.

The First Player Clicks the Start Button

The player’s name and game ID get sent to the server. When a player clicks ‘Start’ after entering his or her name and the appropriate game ID, that information is collected into a single data object and emitted to the server. The following code in the App.Player.onPlayerStartClick function does this.

var data = { gameId : +($('#inputGameId').val()), playerName : $('#inputPlayerName').val() || 'anon' }; IO.socket.emit('playerJoinGame', data);

On the server, the player is placed into the game room. When server hears the playerJoinGame event, it calls the playerJoinGame function (in agxgame.js). This function places the player’s socket connection into the room specified by the player. It then re-emits the data (the player’s name and socket ID) to the clients in the room so the Host client knows about the connected player.

In the code below (from the playerJoinGame function), the gameSocket refers to the global Socket.IO object. It allows us to look up all of the created rooms on the server. If the room is found, the game continues, otherwise an error is displayed for the connected player.

var sock = this; // Look up the room ID in the Socket.IO manager object. var room = gameSocket.manager.rooms["/" + data.gameId]; // If the room exists... if( room != undefined ){ // attach the socket id to the data object. data.mySocketId = sock.id; // Join the room sock.join(data.gameId); // Emit an event notifying the clients that the player has joined the room. io.sockets.in(data.gameId).emit('playerJoinedRoom', data); } else { // Otherwise, send an error message back to the player. this.emit('error',{message: "This room does not exist."} ); }

The player is shown the waiting screen. When the playerJoinedRoom event is detected by the clients, a message is displayed on screen indicating that the player joined the game (See screenshot above).

Another Player Connects and Clicks Join

The same sequence occurs until the playerJoinedRoom event is emitted from the server. When the playerJoinedRoom event is detected by the client, and the client happens to be a Host screen, then App.Host.updateWaitingScreen is called. This function keeps track of the number of players in the room. If there are two players, then the Host will emit the hostRoomFull event.

The Countdown Begins

The server detects the hostRoomFull event and emits beginNewGame . The beginNewGame event is emitted from the server to the Host and two connected players in a specified room with the following code:

function hostPrepareGame(gameId) { var sock = this; var data = { mySocketId : sock.id, gameId : gameId }; // Emit the event ONLY to participants in the room io.sockets.in(data.gameId).emit('beginNewGame', data); }

Remember, the game ID shown to the players and the Socket.IO room ID where the client connections are stored are the same thing. The in function will target a specified room, and in(...).emit() will emit an event only to participants in that room.

The Host begins the countdown, and players are informed to “Get Ready”. On the client, the beginNewGame event is the signal to start the game. The Host will execute App.Host.gameCountdown which loads the host-game-template HTML and displays a five second countdown. On the players’ screen, App.Player.gameCountdown simply displays ‘Get Ready!’.

The Game Begins!

The countdown ends, and the Host notifies the server to start the game. Because the Host client cannot directly communicate with the players it must signal to the server that the countdown has ended. When the countdown reaches 0, the Host emits a hostCountdownFinished event. The server detects it, and starts the game by calling the sendWord function.

The sendWord function prepares the data for the next round in the game. In this case, it is the first round. The sendWord function has two parts, gathering the data for the round, and emitting that data to the Host and players in the room.

The getWordData function actually does the heavy lifting of selecting words for the round and preparing them to be sent to the clients. Word data for each round is stored in the following format:

{ "words" : [ "sale","seal","ales","leas" ], "decoys" : [ "lead","lamp","seed","eels","lean","cels","lyse","sloe","tels","self" ] }

Before each round, the words array is randomly shuffled. The first element is selected as the word displayed on the Host screen. The second element is selected as the correct answer. The decoys array is also randomly shuffled, and the first five elements selected as incorrect answers.

The correct answer is then inserted into a random spot in the list of incorrect answers. This data is emitted back to the client in the following format (see the getWordData function in agxgame.js):

wordData = { round: i, // The current round in the game. word : words[0], // Displayed Word answer : words[1], // Correct Answer list : decoys // Word list for player (decoys and answer) };

The Host displays the word on screen. The App.Host.newWord function will display the word in big letters on the screen, and store a reference to the correct answer and the number indicating the current round.

The player is shown a list of words. The App.Player.newWord function will parse the list of decoys (which contains the correct answer, as well) and construct an unordered list of button elements to display on the players’ screens.

A Player Taps a Word

The tapped word is sent to the server, and re-emitted to the Host. Each of the word buttons displayed to the players has a click handler that will call the onPlayerAnswerClick function when clicked or tapped. The following code will collect the necessary data, and emit it to the server:

var $btn = $(this); // the tapped button var answer = $btn.val(); // The tapped word // Send the player info and tapped word to the server so // the Host can check the answer. var data = { gameId: App.gameId, // Also the room ID playerId: App.mySocketId, answer: answer, round: App.currentRound } IO.socket.emit('playerAnswer',data);

The playerAnswer event is detected by the server, and the answer is emitted to the Host. The server emits the hostCheckAnswer event and attaches the player’s answer.

The Host Verifies the Answer

The Host checks the player’s answer for the current round. The App.Host.checkAnswer function first checks to see if the answer came from the current round. This helps avoid timing problems where one player taps a correct answer, and the second player taps the same answer immediately afterwards. Because the first player tapped the correct answer, the round should advance, and the second player should not get credit (or a penalty) for the tapped answer.

If the correct answer is tapped, the player’s score is incremented and the hostNextRound event is emitted. If the incorrect answer is tapped, the player’s score is decremented, and play continues for the current round.

The Game Ends When the Wordpool is Exhausted

The hostNextRound function on the server will determine if the game is over. If the number of the current round is less than the number of elements in the wordPool array, then the game continues with the next round. If the current round exceeds the number of words available, then the server will emit the gameOver event to the clients connected in the room.

The Host displays the winner. The App.Host.endGame function is called on the client when the server emits the gameOver event. In that function, the Host checks to see which player has the highest score. The winning player’s name is then displayed on the screen.

Also, the App.Host.numPlayersInRoom variable is reset to 0 (even though technically the players’ socket connections are still in the actual Socket.IO room). This is done to allow players a chance to begin a new game. The App.Host.isNewGame flag is set to true as well to indicate that a new game is about to begin.

The Players Start Again

The player taps the Start Again button and the client emits the playerRestart event. The server will notify the Host that a player wishes to play again by re-emitting the playerJoinedRoom event. The function App.Host.updateWaitingScreen will check the App.Host.isNewGame flag, see that is is true, and display the create-game-template on screen until the next player joins the game.

When the second player clicks the Start Again button, the same sequence occurs and the game begins anew.

In Conclusion

This application only touches on a couple of the important concepts within the Socket.IO library and in building real-time web applications with Node.js. If you have never worked with real time web applications, hopefully this has been a good introduction to get you excited about learning more. The Socket.IO website provides a decent amount of documentation, as does the Socket.IO wiki on GitHub.

Eric is a web developer living in Memphis, TN and works with SandStorm Innovations on a variety of projects using a variety of technologies. He is also recently the co-founder of Theme Spectre – a source for themes, plugins, and other resources for the Ghost blogging platform. Eric tries desperately to keep up with evolving web standards and modern JavaScript techniques. When he’s not in front of a computer, Eric can be found playing with gadgets in the kitchen (current favorite: food dehydrator), or bouncing around various meetup groups in Memphis. Follow Eric on Twitter Visit Eric’s site www.ericterpstra.com