Synchronization medium: A consistency maintenance component for mobile multiplayer games

In multiplayer games, where many players take part in a game while communicating through a network, the players may have an inconsistent view of the game world because of the communication delays across the network. This problem of inconsistency is even more crucial when playing on a mobile phone via a 3G network where the communication delays can be of several seconds. Consistency maintenance algorithms must be used to have a uniform view of the game world. These algorithms are very complex and hard to program. In this paper, we discuss different consistency maintenance algorithms from the point of view of mobile devices and present an approach where the consistency concern is handled separately by a distributed component called synchronization medium, which is responsible for communication as well as consistency maintenance. The game logic components interact with the synchronization medium to communicate between them and synchronize their data. We argue that this separation of concerns reduces the burden on the game developer. Moreover, a medium offers a generic interface and is designed to be easily reused for different game applications. Finally, using a medium, different consistency maintenance approaches can be tested and compared easily for experimentation.