Wazoo Enterprises

The “typical” process for tackling multiplayer support in a game is to first decide to either roll your own, or purchase a 3rd party library. Because of the incredibly complex features that a proper game networking library must have, and all the networking contingencies you need to handle, it is often quite difficult for a beginner (or even intermediate) to sit down and write their own networking package. It’s one thing to roll a simple chat client / server program, but quite another when working with a real-time multiplayer system capable of supporting a large number of clients all of which could be all over the world each with their own network latencies.

Due to this complexity, most commercial networking libraries are also quite expensive. Certainly they’re out of reach for hobbyist or smaller game development studios. So where does that leave us?

One possible solution is the high performance cross platform Raknet library by Jenkins Software, http://www.jenkinssoftware.com/, which runs on Windows, Linux and various consoles. It is a C++ library based on the UDP protocol that provides a networking layer that you can essentially drop into your project. It’s been a project that has been around for some time, and so has developed a mature stability through each update / release.

There are various levels of licensing options for using the library, but you won’t need to actually settle up with Jenkins Software until you are ready to ship your product. Even then, the licensing provides enough flexibility and affordability to allow the even the smallest of game projects to be released. All versions of the library also include the full source code allowing you to develop a deeper understanding (and appreciation) of properly handling network communication.