Google App Engine for Games

Google App Engine has many properties that makes it suitable for indie development. Two articles in Dev.Mag look at GAE for game development (Issue 24 and Issue 25). The first is an overview of Google App Engine, with some focus on games. The second is a tutorial that explains the implementation of “Guess a Number” on Google App Engine, for which you can download the code. For the tutorial you will need:

• Python runtime (http://www.python.org/download/).
• A Google App Engine account (http://appengine.google.com/).
• The Google App Engine SDK (http://code.google.com/appengine/downloads.html).
• The files for this tutorial (http://code-spot.googlecode.com/files/code-spot_0.1.zip).
• Your favourite web browser and general purpose code editor.

Below are some links to related web sites.

Links

Reference

http://appengine-cookbook.appspot.com/ Google App Engine Cookbook.

http://www.poromenos.org/tutorials/python Learn Python in 10 minutes.

http://www.djangoproject.com/documentation/templates/ Django template reference.

http://www.djangobook.com/en/1.0/chapter04/ Django templates from the Django book.

http://code.google.com/appengine/articles/rpc.html Using AJAX with Google App Engine.

http://aralbalkan.com/1318 Using Flash with Google App Engine.

Games on Google App Engine

http://www.ajaxbattle.net/ AjaxBattle is a multi-player real-time strategy game for 2 to 4 players. It is a web-based version of the old X-Windows game xbattle. Works best with Firefox 2.

http://uboggle.appspot.com/ uBoggle is a app to play Boggle – the popular word making game.

http://mnk.appspot.com/ This game lets users set up most types of x-in-a-row type games – can be played against another online player, or the computer.

http://gaesudoku.appspot.com/ Sudoku.

http://games.wtanaka.com/ Card and board games.

http://www.guessasketch.com/ A multiplayer game where players guess what other players draw.

http://achi.appspot.com/ A tic-tac-toe-like board game.

http://photomunchers.appspot.com/ and http://jamendogame.appspot.com/. These two games are really ways to get users to tag images and music, respectively. They illustrate how to tap into other networks.

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