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Grapple (network layer)

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Initial release
  
2006

Written in
  
C

Stable release
  
0.9.8 / August 8, 2009

Type
  
Library

Original author(s)
  
Michael Simms of Linux Game Publishing

Operating system
  
Linux, Microsoft Windows, macOS

Grapple is a free software package for adding multiplayer support to computer games and applications. It uses Internet protocols, supporting both TCP/IP and UDP/IP. It is intended to be simple enough that multiplayer features can be added to a game "as little as a dozen lines of code", but also offers advanced features if desired.

Contents

Grapple takes care of creating, monitoring and closing connections to a server, and supports multiple servers. It is a message-oriented system, with clients and servers each having a message queue; it can also relay messages from client to client. It also provides a fully functional lobby system.

The package was created in 2006 by Michael Simms of Linux Game Publishing. It is released under the GNU LGPL.

Features

The features grapple supports at this time is:

  • Simple client-server networking
  • Keeps all clients aware of all other clients
  • Network messaging by either a push or a pull model, or a mixture of both
  • Unlimited connections to multiple servers.
  • Multiple methods of querying users
  • Data transfer via TCP, UDP, or reliable UDP
  • Passworded servers
  • User Groups for client bandwidth saving
  • Server security - server can disconnect any client
  • Network load reacting data transmission and retransmission
  • Background pinging to monitor network states
  • A fully functional lobby system
  • Server failover
  • NAT traversal using STUN

    • Games using Grapple

  • Ballistics (Linux Version) by Linux Game Publishing
  • Candy Cruncher (Linux Version) by Linux Game Publishing
  • Jets'n'Guns (Linux Version) by Linux Game Publishing
  • Knights and Merchants: The Shattered Kingdom (Linux Version) by Linux Game Publishing
  • Majesty: Gold Edition (Linux Version) by Linux Game Publishing
  • Sacred: Gold (Linux Version) by Linux Game Publishing

    • Applications using Grapple

  • PenguinPlay, Multiplayer matchmaker for games.

    • References

    Grapple (network layer) Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA