Inspiration
While trying to build a local multiplayer game inspired by conway's game of life, we realised we needed new more convenient way to provide player input. Sharing a keyboard simply wasn't feasible and we didn't have any special adapters and controllers to meet the needs of the new game. We then thought, why not use our phones as the controllers and our laptop as the console? And imagine how many different controller configurations and how many smart phone sensors we can use to play games and make them more interesting? We then came up with PlaySyncJS and thought it would be an awesome and fun open source project. Developers can contribute by building great mobile controller interfaces.
What it does
PlaySyncJS is an open source javascript library that exposes a simple API to allow developers to build custom game controller interfaces to be used on mobile phones using Javascript html and css. The API also allows for developers to easily integrate these controllers into their web based games. This enables users(players) to play web based video games using their smartphones using any controller layout/interface of choice. PlaySyncJS is client-side and very light weight.
How we built it
We built the project using Javascript, Firebase, html and css. We use the database to manage the state of the control on the game side of application while updating the database using the controller side of the application.
Challenges we ran into
Integrating the mobile virtual joystick from another open source project into our platform http://jeromeetienne.github.io/virtualjoystick.js/examples/basic.html
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Building a controller interface on mobile that can interact with a web based application on a computer. Integrating mobile virtual joystick from another open source project Producing a very simple API that abstracts much of the underlying complexity of how the application and data flow works so that developers can work on building fun and innovative controller interfaces.
What we learned
How to produce a good open source project. THe values and benefits of of open source
What's next for PlaySyncJS
Creating more complex controller layouts and formats. For example being able to use two phones to model a sword and shield in a combat game. Fixing bugs and issues on github integrating library in popular online games especially with local multiplayer features.
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