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Enhydra Peer-to-Peer
Wireless Gaming Server for J2ME

Rob Balahura, java-x
Ed Kelly, Senior Java Developer, java-x

We set out to build a peer to peer wireless gaming platform and a suite of gaming clients to sell to network providers who are beginning to support J2ME compatible devices such as the new Motorola i85 phones. The result of our efforts create the first J2ME enable platform to focus on multiplayer wireless J2ME gaming. Basically, we fill the need for wireless users to play games against each other or even between a wireless device and a desktop connected to the internet. Some current games we will make available are chess, battleship, scrabble, multiplayer poker, hangman, checkers. The key features of the gaming platform include chat, opponent finder, peer to peer & multi player connectivity, buddy list, tournament play.

For the infrastructure of our peer to peer wireless gaming platform, we chose the Enhydra application server. Enhydra was an ideal choice due to its support for the Servlet 2.2 specification. The full J2EE support in the next version of Enhydra may be useful in further extensions of the game server.

For the gaming clients that reside on the phone or PDA, we chose J2ME. J2ME was also ideal since we needed a fatter client than what a mobile browser could offer so logic could be performed on the client without too many trips to the server and users wouldn't be using up too much network time which can be costly. The other obvious choice for our decision to use J2ME was its portability to other gaming clients without many rewrites. We also found helpful and used the Sun Tookit and the Motorola development tools for their IDEN J2ME enable phones.

Our biggest problem to date has been in moving from our development environment to deployment. J2ME/Enhydra development and testing was relatively straightforward, but at this early stage of J2ME networked application support with service providers, moving from the development environment to deployment takes patience.

We are currently working on trials with certain network providers in North America and overseas who support J2ME devices, especially Motorola devices such as the i85 and the Accompli and are working on developing strategic alliances with network providers world-wide.

For more info or questions about developing using J2ME/ENHYDRA, email gaming@java-x.net.


Robert Balahura President of java-x inc. Background designing online ticketing ecommerce system with tickets.com before starting a java development company.

Edward Kelly is senior java software engineer at java-x. Ed is responsible for architecting and lead developer on the gaming platform and the gaming clients. Ed holds a BSC in computer science from University of Guelph in Canada.

 
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