Red5 or zendZMF or BlazeDS or Cirrus?

Question

I've been trying to develop a multiplayer turn based game which is mostly free to play - I just want to see if the game idea is appreciated - hence I want to do it with minimal cost and I'm confused which one of these to use: red5, zendamf, BlazeDS or Cirrus.

Red5 seemed the best option for me initially but getting a media server to host seems to be quite expensive. Same reason why I couldn't use Electroserver - cost. Both are very attractive options though.

ZendAMF then looked a feasible option since it supported remoting. But how do I let the other players get updates on actions of one player through zendAMF, which as far as I know does not do data push. I'll have to do it by polling - asking server constantly for updates - which wont look very real time.

Then I heard about BlazeDS which does support data push. Now I have to learn java if I want to use that and get a new web host because my existing host does not have tomcat.

Then I heard about cirrus which is still in 'codename cirrus' stage. It looks like a very feasible option since its peer to peer with miniamal server support needed. Is it good for a mutiplayer game?

Well if anyone has experience developing multiplayer flash games I'd like to know if a turn based multiplayer game with more than two players participating can be implemented using zendamf. ZendAMF because I know PHP and AS3.

Answer 1

Try NodeJs, it may fit your realtime needs, because you already know AS3 which shares many similarities with Javascript since they're both ECMAScript languages.

Answer 2

I have some experience with Red5. It is similar to BlazeDS in that it uses a Tomcat server. It has a built-in Tomcat server but I've heard some people got it to run on a stand-alone Tomcat (7) server. That would be an option if you find a host that provides Tomcat.

You can probably keep the Java code to a minimum by having Red5 provide no more than a gateway to pass (remote procedure call or state update) messages. I think there are standard classes that already do something like that, but I have no experience with them.

Answer 3

I have no experience of any of the above solutions but I would like to suggest a solution that fits your need.

Take a look at http://www.gamooga.com/. Its a hosted communication framework for realtime apps and multiplayer games. You will need to just upload your server side code to Gamooga website, no infrastructure or hosting required.

It provides you with Flash API that you can use to connect from your frontend to Gamooga backend. On the server side, you have to implement your logic in Lua, and there are good demos that you can look at for help.

Answer 4

I've implemented the game using cirrus. Its free, atleast for now. No need to change my hosting server - its a simple php-mysql web server. I also use zendAMF in the backend - so the solution is a combination of zendAMF + Cirrus. With Red5 and BlazeDS I'd need to find a new hosting service which is a needless expense.