Networks and Games

Multiplayer computer games are some of the most complex applications designed, requiring real-time rendering, networking, artificial intelligence, physics simulations, and careful game design in order to be both popular and playable by humans.

In this course, we will look at one important aspect of games: networking. Ever since IBM coined the term "client/server", this architecture has been the dominant paradigm for most networked applications, including games. The client/server architecture is fairly easy to program, can scale reasonably well, though it must be typically overprovisioned to handle peak demands.

The main question we must ask is whether the client/server architecture should continue to be the primary technology that enables multiplayer games. To answer this question, we will evaluate current multiplayer game technology, read current game research papers, and implement a peer-to-peer networking protocol in a multiplayer game.