best language for multiplayer game?

[IrishYoga]

I would like to create a "game" that focuses on the rankings of people at my school. For example, you would have to put your name, and your grade point average and you submit and the tables are refreshed and you find out your ranking in the game(not the school because everyone in the school would have to play the game for that to happen). Any suggestions? Could you guys also provide some pseudo code for me to start working on? I haven't made any multiplayer programs only single player programs, so i don't have much experience. The game doesn't have to have amazing graphics, it will only have this simple table. I know their will be a lot of people cheating with like 5.0 gpa, but it'll just be for fun lol.

[Zesh]

Any language that can use sockets will do. You can store the grade point averages in a file or better yet a database. You will have the the client program connect to the server and the server will pull the data from file/database and send it to the client so it can be displayed.

Better yet, as this will be used in school, is to place the file/database on a local drive that can be accessed from anywhere within the school network and just create a program to pull the data from the file/database, sort it into rank and display it.

Do you know any programming languages? I'm sure all languages can work with sockets and do some simple file I/O.

[IrishYoga]

I know python, but i don't know much about ports. I would like this to be accessed from anywhere that has internet connection, is this possible? Because many students don't have access to a computer lab in my school.

[Zesh]

You can Google "python winsock" for some examples on how to create client and server programs. Is the school network on all the time? If so then maybe you could host your server program on the school network instead of buying a VPS.

So basically, you'll create a client and a server. The server will be hosted on a VPS, home computer or maybe even the school network. The client program is what you'll give to the students.

[Fur]

If you just want a comparison to other users' grades (perhaps a rank and a bunch of people sprites with a coloured one that indicates the user, like www.7billionworld.com), I'd go with PHP and MySQL. Much more accessible than a Python script.


Just keep an eye on the personal information laws in your country and don't forget to tell the user that submitted data will be stored.

[IrishYoga]

How could i host my program on the school servers? I've tried to code php, but i haven't tried mysql. It doesn't have to be that fancy, i just need a chart saying the person's name and their gpa and their ranking based in the game. I think the school servers are on all the time.

[bluechill]

Any language that can use sockets will do. You can store the grade point averages in a file or better yet a database. You will have the the client program connect to the server and the server will pull the data from file/database and send it to the client so it can be displayed.

Better yet, as this will be used in school, is to place the file/database on a local drive that can be accessed from anywhere within the school network and just create a program to pull the data from the file/database, sort it into rank and display it.

Do you know any programming languages? I'm sure all languages can work with sockets and do some simple file I/O.

Never *ever* *ever* do something like a multiplayer game through commits in a database.  Use UDP and a dedicated (or built into client) server.  If you use a database it will be *extremely* slow because of position info and what not. 

[IrishYoga]

Thanks for a straightforward answer! I was afraid that if i uploaded this post, i would have responses like "Use the program that you think is best."

[Xinapse]

While its possible writing it from scratch with sockets, I would use a prewritten game engine, you will develop with it a lot faster as it does most of the work for you.
http://unity3d.com/ Is very popular, but here is a list
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_game_engines

Xin

[vezzy]

An engine for a simple web game? Impractical and overkill...

[bluechill]

An engine for a simple web game? Impractical and overkill...

You'll end up making one anyways.  All games should, if they're done right, use some kind of framework however simple.  It can be as simple as a basic starter class and an object class but it has to have some kind of game engine to be extendible and easily coded ( the game) .

[vezzy]

Oh yes, I do understand that a game's codebase is by itself an engine, but I was referring that a heavy engine with advanced AI, rendering, lighting, physics, etc. frameworks is unnecessary. This is effectively a game that manipulates HTML tables.

[evensteven]

Python great for general game logic design.