Gaming/GameCenter/Architecture

Any architectural decisions (e.g., language, database, data models, API) should be noted on this page.

Languages

Galaxy prototypes have been written in Node.js, but the language choice should still be discussed.

Below is a list of pros/cons of Node.js and Python (a possible candidate for the Game Center).

[For synchronous parts, we should also consider Go]

Node.js

Pros

• Mozilla has deployed Node.js projects to scale (e.g., Persona, FxA)
• Node community is vibrant
• JavaScript would be both on the server and the client, easing context switching and contributors (hopefully)
• WebSocket libraries are fantastic (WS, Socket.io), among other composable networked components
• Everything is event-driven, asynchronous
• Excellent for real-time apps with high throughput and low latency (and some/most gaming services may need to be real time)
• Learned from previous languages/environment’s mistakes (e.g., npm for package management)
• Frameworks are fantastic (Express, Koa, Restify)
• Very fast (with V8)

Cons

• Event-driven, asynchronous; callbacks are a pain (but we have promises!)
• Few mature SQL ORMs (Knex, Bookshelf, Sequelize are decent); NoSQL is usually preferred

Python

Pros

• Mozilla has deployed Python projects to scale (e.g., AMO, Marketplace)
• SQL ORMs are mature (SQLAlchemy, Django ORM)
• Frameworks are fantastic (Flask, Django)
• Synchronous code (easy to write)
• Mature libraries (and well-documents too)
• Strong community
• Simple syntax (makes it easier to write things elegantly)
• [TE] At the moment, we probably have more resources available on the Python side

Cons

• Synchronous, blocking code
• Real-time, socket network is unnatural and difficult (forced to use such libraries as Tornado/Twisted/gevent)
• Throughput (requests per second) can be lower than Node.js's (depending on which benchmark you read)

Data Models

PostgreSQL

• Game
  • id
  • name
  • slug
  • app_url

• User
  • id
  • email
  • username

• LeaderboardInfo
  • id
  • name
  • slug

Redis

• LeaderboardScore
  • Sorted set for each leaderboard (where key is `LeaderboardInfo.id`, score is score, member is `User`.id)

API

Full documentation will live elsewhere, but this is the tentative API structure.

Game

GET /games
Retrieve a list of all public games.

POST /games
Create a new game. Name, slug, and URL are required in a JSON payload.

GET /games/:game_slug
Retrieve a single game.

PATCH /games/:game_slug
Update a game’s info based on the fields specified in the JSON payload.

PUT /games/:game_slug
Replace a game’s data with all of the data in the JSON payload.

DELETE /games/:game_slug
Delete a single game.

Leaderboard

GET /games/:game_slug/leaderboards
Retrieve a list of all leaderboards’ names+slugs for a particular game.

POST /games/:game_slug/leaderboards
Create a new leaderboard for a particular game. Name and slug are required in a JSON payload.

GET /games/:game_slug/leaderboards/:board_slug
Retrieve a single leaderboard belonging to some particular game.

PATCH /games/:game_slug/leaderboards/:board_slug
Update a leaderboard’s name or slug based on the fields specified in the JSON payload.

PUT /games/:game_slug/leaderboards/:board_slug
Replace a leaderboard’s name and slug with the data in the JSON payload.

DELETE /games/:game_slug/leaderboards/:board_slug
Delete a single leaderboard.

Leaderboard Score

GET /games/:game_slug/leaderboards/:board_slug/scores
Retrieve a list of all scores for a particular leaderboard.

POST /games/:game_slug/leaderboards/:board_slug/scores
Create a new score for a particular game.

GET /games/:game_slug/leaderboards/:board_slug/scores/:score_id
Retrieve a single score belonging to some particular leaderboard.

PATCH /games/:game_slug/leaderboards/:board_slug/scores/:score_id
Update a score based on `score` field specified in the JSON payload.

PUT /games/:game_slug/leaderboards/:board_slug/scores/:score_id
Replace a score based on `score` field specified in the JSON payload.

DELETE /games/:game_slug/leaderboards/:board_slug/scores/:score_id
Delete a single score.