Portable Open Game Protocol 0.0.3

Making games is hard. It shouldn't have to be.

Making games should feel like playing games.

Introducing the POG protocol

The POG Protocol defines language-neutral binary and json representations of Inputs and State.

Portable

prototype and playtest game logic in rust, c++, c# or typescript in the browser
compile your logic for unreal, unity, bevy, godot etc (WIP)
support online multiplayer by running your logic on a server or exchanging binary input payloads peer to peer

Open

input representations are based on web standards
state representations use open standards (WIP)
games that adopt the protocol can benefit from shared solutions for common functionality

Game

immersion during the development process is sacrosanct. making games feels like playing games.
memory management is baked in to the protocol
all the tools you use to build for mobile and console targets can be used with your pogp-compliant binary (WIP)

Goals

The goal of the POG protocol is to help create better games for players, to allow indie devs to effectively compete with AAA, and to reduce crunch globally.

If this sounds ambitious, just look at the development ecosystem for web and app developers.

Industry-wide adoption of the HTTP protocol and open source technologies like Linux leveled the playing field for web and app developers.

Shared solutions and common development environments saved everyone countless years of time-to-market and ushered in an era of innovation and enlightenment in developer experience.

I believe that in many ways, game development is still in the dark ages.

Why does it take most teams 3-4 years to get a game to market?

Yes, crafting compelling experiences takes time and is hard. But the average hollywood movie takes 2 years to create.

Yes, writing software takes time and is hard. But the average tech startup releases a first product in the first 6-12 months of development.

I believe that technical debt is the silent killer across our industry.

I believe that a lack of shared solutions is creating a barrier to entry for making games that excludes many voices.

I believe it's inhumane for us to subject ourselves to 30 second immersion-breaking compilation times every day for years of development.

I love games, and I hope that there can be a better world for developers and players of games.

Project Status

The Pog Protocol is in a pre-alpha state. The protocol itself is still being written, and client libraries do not yet exist beyond the demos in this repo.

For this to work for devs, we'll need domain experts contributing to client libraries for each major game engine and runtime environment.

If you are interested in contributing or adding an environment to the list, please open a github issue or drop me a line on discord nu11#1111 or neil at nullent.com

Game Logic Client Libraries

Rendering Client Libraries

Contributors:

@ns - @neilsarkar

Why

Why would it be useful to write these pieces in different languages or run them in different engines?

Surely most devs / teams would prefer to write everything in one language and one framework (e.g. c++ with unreal, c# with unity, javascript with phaser, rust with bevy).

In practice, any given team will likely stick to the language(s) and framework(s) they're currently using. But the shared input and state representations will allow for greater portability and sharing of solutions.

Also the separation of logic and rendering will enable teams to scale their development better as the project size grows without having to embark on a costly rewrite when already behind schedule and over budget.

Interactive Examples (WIP)

https://pogp.gg/examples/pong (WIP)

Reference

Inputs

Inputs contain the state of the input at the current frame.

Whenever possible, representations are based on open standards.

Gamepad (a.k.a. Controller) Input

Touch Input

Mouse Input

Keyboard Input

Gamepad Input

Gamepad input represents what's commonly called a "Controller".

We extend the open standard https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Gamepad with a standard for generic positional identifiers.

JSON Schema | JSON Example

Binary Schema | Binary Example

Gamepad JSON Schema

type

This will be an Input Type set to gamepad

The Gamepad.id of the gamepad

vendorId

The vendor id of the gamepad.

productId

The product id of the gamepad.

vendorName

A human readable name for the vendor, e.g. Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony etc

productName

A human readable name for the product, e.g. Left joy-con, Xbox Series S, Dualshock 5

buttons

An array of Button states
- label
  - the text printed on the button, e.g. Triangle, A, ZR
- value
  - int representing the percentage depressed with four digits of precision
- touched
  - boolean representing whether button is touched
- position
  - string enum representing button position , e.g. left-face-top, right-shoulder-front

axes

An array of Axes states
- hand
  - string enum representing hand intended to be used with joystick: left | right | unknown
- value
  - an array of two signed longs representing the x and y position of the thumbstick

Gamepad JSON Example

```js { type: 'Gamepad', id: 'Stadia Controller rev. A (STANDARD GAMEPAD Vendor: 18d1 Product: 9400)' vendorName: "Google", productName: "Stadia",

buttons: [
    {
        label: 'A',
        position: 'right-face-bottom',
        value: 100000 // 100%
    },
    {
        label: 'B',
        position: 'right-face-right',
        value: 500600 // 50.06%
    },
    {
        label: 'X',
        position: 'right-face-left',
        touched: true,
        value: 0
    },
    {
        label: 'Y',
        position: 'right-face-top',
        value: 0
    },
    {
        label: 'L1',
        position: 'left-shoulder-front',
        value: 0
    },
    {
        label: 'L2',
        position: 'left-shoulder-back',
        value: 0
    },
    // ...
],
axes: [
    {
        hand: 'left',
        value: [
            0n, // x-axis idle
            2147483647n // y-axis max up
        ]
    },
    {
        hand: 'right',
        value: [
            -2147483647, // x-axis full left
            -2147483647  // y-axis full down
        ]
    }
],

} ```

Gamepad Binary Schema

Gamepad Button Binary Schema

data | example | type | index | length (bytes) |-|-|-|-|-| position | 2 | byte (ButtonPosition) | 0 | 1 value | 100000 | uint32 | 1 | 4 label | "A" | string | 5 | 64

Gamepad Axes Binary Schema

data | example | type | index | length (bytes) |-|-|-|-|-| hand | 1 | byte (Hand) | 0 | 1 x | 100000 | int64 | 1 | 64 y | 100000 | int64 | 65 | 64

Keyboard Input

Keyboard keys are represented using the w3 standard, supporting standard 101, Korean, Brazilian and Japanese keyboards.

https://www.toptal.com/developers/keycode

https://www.w3.org/TR/uievents-code/#keyboard-mac

js { type: "keyboard", keys: [ 27, 65 ] }

Touch Input (WIP)

js { type: "touch", resolution: [0,0], fingers: [ // there will always be at least one element { position: [0,0], pressure: 0 } ] }

Mouse Input (WIP)

js { type: "mouse", resolution: [1920, 1080], position: [100, 100], buttons: [ { id: 'left', down: true }, { id :'right', down: false }, ], wheels: [ { id: 'scroll', delta: [0,20,0] } ] }

Custom (WIP)

js { type: "custom", id: 'my-flightstick', fields: [ { id: 'whammybar', values: [420,69] }, { id: 'something', values: [0] } ] }

State (WIP)

Game state represents the state of the game. This is going to be custom for each game.

int is short for int32

```js { // this is the pog protocol major version pog: 0, // this is the pog protocol minor version pogMinorVersion: 1

// these are the members of the state.
fields: {
    // primitives
    timeLeft: 'int',

    // objects defined below
    player: 'player',
    level: 'level',

    // arrays of primitives or objects
    enemy: ['enemy'],

    // dictionaries of primitives or objects
    levelClearTimes: {
        int: 'int'
    },
    levelsById: {
        int: 'level'
    }
},

// these are objects defined by the game
objects: [
    player: {
        position: 'vector2',
        score: 'int',
        jump: 'bool',
        myIntList: ['int'],
    }
    enemy: {
        position: 'vector2',
        health: 'int',
    },
    level: {
        id: 'int',
        tiles: ['tile']
    },
    tile: {
        position: 'vector2',
        type: 'int'
    }
],

} ```

The json state will exist in both the logic and the renderer, so object structures are not shared, only the values

data | example | type | index | length (bytes) |-|-|-|-|-| pog major version | 0 | int | 0 | 4 pog minor version | 1 | int | 4 | 4

``` * fields are done alphabetically

vectors and fixed length structs are inline
arrays, lists and dictionaries are represented as an integer of their total length
array, list and dictionary reading happens after reading the primitives in the state
strings are utf32 encoded ```

tic tac toe example:

json { // 0 is not taken, 1 is X 2 is O board: [ 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0 1, 0, 0 ] }

``` // fields uint 9 // length of array

// arrays, lists and dictionaries ubyte 0 // top left ubyte 0 // top middle ubyte 0 // top right ubyte 0 // middle left ubyte 2 // middle middle ubyte 1 // bottom left ubyte 0 // bottom middle ubyte 0 // bottom right ```

pong example: { isGameOver: false, player1: { position: [0, 100], score: 1 } player2: { position: [100,-100], score: 0 }, ball: { position: [50, 50] } }

Client libraries:

``` (json schema) => file of native object

(binary data, json schema) => native object

(native object, json schema) => binary data ```

e.g. csharp

``` public static string StateFile(string json, string path) { // outputs a .cs file to path that has the structure of the json file }

```

Button Position Enum

Input Type Enum

Hand Enum

Key Enum