pico-online-engine v1.0.1

pico-socket

Server and Client library for adding Online Multiplayer to Pico-8

This Project borrows heavily (but simplifies) the logic in Ethan Jurman's Pico Tiny Tanks - https://github.com/ethanjurman/pico-tiny-tanks

What is it?

pico-socket is a library that allows multiple Pico-8 web clients (HTML export) to talk to each other via websockets. The communication between clients is done using Pico-8's GPIO addresses.

Simple Example

In your Pico-8 game, use GPIO addresses as a substitute for game state, using PEEK and POKE to access data for the different players.

room_id_addr = 0x5f80 -- index 0
player_id_addr = 0x5f81 -- index 1
player_0_y_addr = 0x5f82 -- index 2
player_1_y_addr = 0x5f83 -- index 3

function _init()
	poke(room_id_addr, 0) -- hard code to 0
	poke(player_id_addr, 0) -- start as player 0
	poke(player_0_y_addr, 64)
	poke(player_1_y_addr, 64)
end

function _update()
  player_addr = 0
	if (peek(player_id_addr) == 1) player_addr = player_0_y_addr
	if (peek(player_id_addr) == 2) player_addr = player_1_y_addr

	-- move up and down
  cur_y = peek(player_addr)
  if (btn(⬆️)) poke(player_addr, cur_y-1)
  if (btn(⬇️)) poke(player_addr, cur_y+1)

	-- swap player id
	if (btnp(❎)) poke(player_id_addr, 0)
	if (btnp(🅾️)) poke(player_id_addr, 1)
end

function _draw()
  cls()
	rect(40, peek(player_0_y_addr), 44, peek(player_0_y_addr)+4, 12)
	rect(88, peek(player_1_y_addr), 92, peek(player_1_y_addr)+4, 8)
end

Create a server.js file next to your .html and .js export, configured in the following way:

const { createPicoSocketServer } = require("pico-socket");

createPicoSocketServer({
  assetFilesPath: ".",
  htmlGameFilePath: "./sample.html",

  clientConfig: {
    roomIdIndex: 0, // ROOM_ID

    // index to determine the player id
    playerIdIndex: 1, // PLAYER_ID

    // indicies that contain player specific data
    playerDataIndicies: [
      [2], // PLAYER_0_Y
      [3], // PLAYER_1_Y
    ],
  },
});

If you run the server.js using node server.js, you can navigate to localhost:5000 in two separate windows. If you press ❎ in one, and 🅾️ in the other, you'll see that each window controls a separate box.

Pong Example

For a more complex example, here is a Pong game as an example of how to use pico-socket. We have the following data:

• The PLAYER_ID is the selected player in a single game instance (either 1 or 2).
• ROOM_ID is a unique value that separates players into isolated sessions
• SCORE_1 and SCORE_2 are the values for the two players
• PLAYER_1_Y and PLAYER_2_Y are each player's paddle position in the game
• BALL_X_POS, BALL_X_SPD, BALL_Y_POS, and BALL_Y_SPD are values for describing the moving ball

The ROOM_ID and PLAYER_ID are unique in that they change the behavior of the server. The ROOM_ID when set will establish a connection to the server so that it can communicate with other clients in the same ROOM_ID. PLAYER_ID determines what other data we will send to the other clients.

Functionally, we want each player to be responsible for their own data (Player 1 should never read their position from another player, and similarly, should not be responsible for sending Player 2's position). We also want a single player to be responsible for general game state (so there is no conflict on who should resolve the final game state).

So, in pico-socket we have indicies associated with each player that determine what data they should send. We have PLAYER_2_Y associated with the Player 2, and we have PLAYER_1_Y associated with Player 1. Additionally we have all the game state associated with Player 1 (the score and ball data). This makes Player 1 the source of truth in what data should be presented to both clients.