Warp (previously GM-Online-Framework)

A feature-rich framework for multiplayer games, written in GameMaker and NodeJS

Maintained by @evolutionleo

If you have any questions, please join my Discord

Features

• Simple one-line calls to send/process packages on both server and client sides
• No need to deal with buffers whatsoever
• Advanced features: server-side physics, entities, lobbies, account/profile system, saving/loading data with MongoDB
• Well-commented code if you decide to dive into the sources
• NodeJS server can run on a Linux hosting/dedicated server, as opposed to servers in GML
• MIT license (you can use this framework in commercial projects and modify/contribute in any way)

Examples (use old versions)

• Chess Example (uses v5.0)
• Platformer Example (uses v3.0)
• 1v1 Pong Example (uses v3.0)

Installing

[New!] Client + Server

• You need to have NodeJS and npm installed
• Install the packet with npm i -g @evoleo/create-warp-app
• Run npx create-warp-app
• Follow the instructions, select the templates for the Client and the Server
• Done! It will automatically pull everything from the latest release

Client-side

• Install .yymps from the latest release
• Import it to your project using Local Package system (you can also choose to include the Demo)

OR

• Clone EmptyClient/ or Releases/EmptyClient.zip

Server-side

• Install NodeJS

• I recommend using VS Code, as it provides a very convenient command line embedded into the code editor

• Download JSServer.zip from the latest release

• Open the clonned folder in command line (or open the folder in VS Code)

• Run npm install

• (Optional) To use the accounts/saving system, install the database engine:

Database (Optional)

• Install MongoDB
• Choose the default settings, it should now run in the background
• Done!

If you don't need MongoDB - please disable it in the config file (it's under common_config.db_enabled), otherwise you will get an error!

Usage/Workflow

Congratulations if you've completed the Installation step!

Anyways. You see, many other networking frameworks might seem a bit overwhelming (even to people who are somewhat experienced in the topic).

And even though with time Warp has grown a lot with many advanced features introduced, I still tried my best to provide the simplest interface for the basic packet sending/receiving:

Sending a packet (JS and GML)

Sending a message to the server might be as easy as:

send({ cmd: "Hello", str: "Hello, Server!" })

or even:

sendHello()

if you create a wrapper function

Adding a new command:

(Advanced) Using lobbies and maps:

• Add new maps in the maps/ folder
• Choose how many lobbies you need in initializers/04_lobbies.js
• Use "lobby list", "lobby join", "lobby leave" to work with lobbies
• Most of the generic logic is already coded, but you can add specific features that you need for your game
• You can extend the Lobby class in concepts/lobby.js, the Map class in concepts/map.js

(Advanced) Using entities and rooms:

• (You can always disable entities and rooms completely from config.js if you don't need the functionality for your game)
• Entity types are located inside internal/entities/entity_types/, you can add new ones or modify/delete the existing ones
• Your custom entities generally should inherit from PhysicsEntity if they are moving and colliding with other entities, and from the regular Entity class otherwise
• You only need to code the entities behaviour logic once, on the server-side. The client will then interpolate between the data that it receives
• The Entity.create() and Entity.update(dt) methods function similarly to GameMaker's Create and Step events (except tps (the game's tickrate) is 20 by default as opposed to 60 in GM, and so it's recommended to use the dt (aka "delta time") parameter to implement your game physics in a tickrate-agnostic way)
• The Entity.object_type property links the server-side entities to GameMaker's instances/objects
• Rooms are automatically loaded with all the entities from GameMaker's .yy files from a path defined in config.js (by default it's a path to the Client/rooms/ folder)

(Advanced) Using accounts and saving:

• Make sure you installed MongoDB (instructions in the Installing section)
• Use the "register" and "login" commands on the client-side, the server will do all the authentification for you
• Info: "Account" is an object that holds a pair of login + password, and some data bound to them, while "Profile" holds the actual gameplay data. One Account can theoretically have many profiles bound to it
• You can access the gameplay data of each client in c.profile.%insert_variable%, it will save automatically
• If you want to add new properties, extend the schemas in the schemas/ folder

Running

• Client runs as a usual GMS2 project
• To start the server - navigate to the folder and execute node .

Configuration

• Edit the server configs inside config.js
• Edit the client configs inside __NetworkingConfig.gml
• Select the server config by adding --env=prod or --env=dev parameter to the classic node . command
• Select the client config by clicking the 'target' button in the top-right corner of IDE

Typescript Server

Installing

• Follow the original steps, but install TSServer.zip instead of JSServer.zip
• Install the Typescript compiler with npm i -g typescript

Running

• Compile the project by running npx tsc or run npx tsc -w in the background to avoid recompiling after every change
• Run npm run dev, node . or node out/server.js

Contributing

I accept pull requests with bug fixes/new features that make sense for the framework. Here are some rules for submitting a PR:

• Please try to keep the coding style consistent with the rest of the project (e.x. use tabs instead of spaces, etc.)
• When modifying the server code - please only edit the TypeScript version, as it can be then automatically translated to JS, but not the other way around
• After you've made your changes to the TS server, go to /autorelease/ and run npm run release to compile everything to JS and create the .zip files in /Release/
• If you want to introduce a brand new feature, please lmk first (create a new issue) because it could be either something that I don't want to be a part of Warp, or it already has an alternative, or it's just something that I'd want to implement myself

Feature requests/typos/bug reports:

• Check if someone has already made an issue about your bug/feature on the issues tab
• If not, open a new issue detailing the bug that you found in Warp/the feature that you want to be implemented
• If it's a feature request, please write why it makes sense to include it/what problem it solves

Credits

• Messagepack serialization format
• @jujuadams's SNAP library, which enables Messagepack's encoding/decoding inside GameMaker
• NodeJS Messagepack encoder/decoder
• rm2kdev's ancient series that inspired all this
• Pull request for the first TypeScript version: @davawen
• @YellowAfterlife's execute_shell_simple extension
• Framework by: @evolutionleo (me)