HTTP server Maker?

Stencyl allows someone without programming knowledge to make a great single-player game, and it provides http options for multiplayer possibilites.

Is there a program that will allow someone without knowledge of http coding etc, to make an http server? The other half of the equation?

A friend with a knowledge of http is setting me up for my grande project, however I hope that there is a way that (for other projects) I could set up an http server to handle that aspect of things.

It's not only doing a "HTTP Server", you possibly need more in terms of logic, i.e. a database installed and some custom development to implement the multiplayer game logic.

For Mac, there are tools like ModelBaker that might help you a little bit. It's mainly for creating form-driven Web-applications, but roughly spoken you can call the back end  (i.e. the model) logic also from any other client, i.e. your game.

Yes, i would need the server side to do some thinking, i've briefly considered the idea that i could create a Stencyl "game" that runs on the server, and is not a game at all, but exists only to recieve http info from actual game clients, process them, and send them back what they need.

I don't know if that sounds strange, particularly to someone who knows how to use a variety of tools, but it is a thought experiment worth exploring for someone like me. Any thoughts?

Also a friend spoke well of dreamweaver for making an http server, my only dreamweaver experience is about 12 years ago making a webpage in college.

So, what is the server part of your game doing?
Is it more a scoring/leaderboard thingy, or does the server part creates game elements (information, maps, scorings, RNG, and so on) essential for the game?

Just installing a Stencyl-game on a server wouldn't work as the Stencyl-blocks are client-side only, there's no HTTP-Listener. Implementing such could be possible, but doesn't really make sense.

Dreamweaer is not really a tool to create a server part, it's a tool to create web pages (more ore less dynamic), but this pages need a web-server who hosts this.

Finally, the basic setup for a HTTP-Server as a game back-end typically looks like this:
1. Webserver (e.g. Apache)
2. Database server (e.g. MySQL)
3. Java / PHP / Grails / Ruby / JavaScript-Install...whatever

With the prefered language mentioned in 3. you develop your game back-end that relies on the database in 2. and serves it information through 1.
(We're using Java for all back-end related stuff in our games and services)

That's not really complicated, but if you have never done this, it's a tough job.

In theory couldn't there be a very rudementary web server set up that would only handle get / post stuff, that could act as a go between for a " server app "stencyl creation and the true clients?

Then this "server app" "game" could process the incoming data and send back the needed info.

I want to provide a good answer on the server side needs you inquired about, and will tomorrow (melatonin taking hold) thanks for your thoughts!

That could work in theory, that concept is called CGI. CGIs are commands that are called by the webserver, the processed input is delivered then back to the server and he delivers the output back to the client.

I am not that experienced with Stencyl, but I still think the problem is the missing networking capabilities of Stencyl.

There are server packages that you can purchase/rent (or maybe there are also some that you can use for free) that provide the most common functionality needed in games, so that you don't have to write it yourself.

I am not that experienced with Stencyl, but I still think the problem is the missing networking capabilities of Stencyl.

What do you feel that is missing? Stencyl has blocks for HTTP GET and POST.
(Personally I think that the error handling of those blocks could be better, but you can also always just do the code by hand.)

 

Running an actual web server in Stencyl isn't what it was designed for. It's fine for clients, since as captaincomic mentions, we've got HTTP request blocks, and there are lots of libraries you can use that give you client-side networking ability.

But to have a Stencyl app running indefinitely on a server somewhere parsing requests and sending back data...? Not really something I'd recommend doing.

There are server packages that you can purchase/rent (or maybe there are also some that you can use for free) that provide the most common functionality needed in games, so that you don't have to write it yourself.

(Personally I think that the error handling of those blocks could be better, but you can also always just do the code by hand.)

Can you tell me more about where I can find these server packages? I'm curious about how they could handle the specifics. For example I need my server to provide a lot of information to the client, to make it harder for players to use any client side tricks to cheat each other.

Maybe these packages are configurable?

You also reference problems with the HTTP error handling, can you tell me more about that? It sounds like something very important for me to know about.

Running an actual web server in Stencyl isn't what it was designed for. It's fine for clients, since as captaincomic mentions, we've got HTTP request blocks, and there are lots of libraries you can use that give you client-side networking ability.

But to have a Stencyl app running indefinitely on a server somewhere parsing requests and sending back data...? Not really something I'd recommend doing.

Thank you, can you tell me a little more about these "libraries" please?

I can't tell you much, I never used one, but here is one for example:
http://www.smartfoxserver.com/products/sfs2x#p=api

Not to dampen your enthusiasm, but if you have to ask questions like these, for example "how to create a http server", I'm guessing you shouldn't be messing around with them.  It'd be like me asking "Hi, I heard you can measure a subatomic particles energy by colliding it with other particles. I need to do that so can someone tell me about colliders". (Obviously down a few levels of complexity )

I have a friend who knows this stuff who is taking care of it on my primary game, right now I'm exploring exactly how much new stuff I would have to learn to do it on my own in the future.

What do you feel that is missing? Stencyl has blocks for HTTP GET and POST.
(Personally I think that the error handling of those blocks could be better, but you can also always just do the code by hand.)

This blocks are meant to build a client. For a server, you need a listener, something Stencyl doesn't provide at the moment.

As I can say that I'm not an expert with Stencyl, but I am with server side development. That's my daily business now for years.   

SmartFoxServer could be a good start if you're looking for a game back-end / backoffice for Multiplayer game. There are a couple of this products on the market, like ArkadeCity's Ridjit or GMS from SpieloG2. But this are professional (and expensive) systems.

Hi all,

I'm the friend he's referencing. I'm a Sysadmin focused mostly in the Windows space. i've created a amazon AWS image running windows/IIS/asp/mssql, but scratched that and setup a LAMP stack instead.

What I am not is a web coder/scripter. If someone had some sample back end php code for doing an initial http post/get.  Anyone know where I could find that?
Stencyl has a tutorial for their side for the http requests, I just need to see the other side and I can expand from there.

What do you feel that is missing? Stencyl has blocks for HTTP GET and POST.
(Personally I think that the error handling of those blocks could be better, but you can also always just do the code by hand.)

This blocks are meant to build a client. For a server, you need a listener, something Stencyl doesn't provide at the moment.

Ah, okay, I didn't realize you were talking about writing the server with Stencyl.
Like Joe said as well, Stencyl is not the right tool for that.