Summary

In this chapter, we learned about another server technology known as Player.IO. Player.IO differs from Photon in that it's better suited to room-based setups and smaller Flash-type games, rather than network-heavy twitch games or massively multiplayer games. It also cannot be self-hosted, similar to Photon Cloud.

We have learned how to connect, join rooms, send and receive messages, and work with BigDB for persisting player data. We then applied this knowledge in creating a pseudo-RTS demo where the player can command 5 units to attack other player-controlled units. In the process, we also learned how we can generate a unique 64 bit ID on the client with no server intervention by using a 32 bit player ID.

In the next chapter, we'll cover our final networking system, an HTTP push service known as PubNub.