Needle Engine Networking Server

This repsitory demonstrates running the Needle Engine networking server on top of the node.js-based Express framework. The server can be run locally or hosted in the cloud.

For more information about networking in Needle Engine, please refer to the Needle Engine documentation.

Running the server locally

Starting the server

1. Install Node.js
2. Do either of the following:

   • Option A – automatic setup

     1. Run START_EXPRESS.bat, which will install dependencies and then start the server on port 9001

   • Option B – manual setup

     1. Open the /express folder
     2. run npm i
     3. run npm run dev, which will start the server on port 9001

Using the local server

1. Start the server using one of the options above.

2. The server console should print a message like

   Websocket endpoint is wss://localhost:9001/socket**

3. Copy the base websocket URL, and paste it into the Needle Engine Networking component:
   Set the Localhost field to wss://localhost:9001.

   

4. Start your Needle Engine local server as usual. The browser console will contain a log like

   Connected to networking backend wss://localhost:9001/socket

5. All network messages are now sent to the local server. The room state is stored in /express/.data as JSON files. The console will contain additional logs for users joining, leaving rooms, rooms being created and closed, and so on.

Hosting the server in the cloud

Glitch

• Go to https://needle-networking.glitch.me/

• Click "Remix" in the bottom right corner

• Wait for the server to start

• Click on "Open in new window" in the top right corner of the Glitch UI

• Copy the URL from the new window and paste it into the Needle Engine Networking component.

Google Cloud

• Go to https://console.cloud.google.com/run/create
  

• Select Continuously deploy new revisions from a source repository
  

• Click the SET UP WITH CLOUD BUILD button

• Select your source repository (it can be this repository or a fork)
  

• Click NEXT

• Optionally change the branch that should trigger a build. By default it uses your main branch.

• In Build Type select Go, Node, ... Google Cloud's buildpacks

• Enter the directory where the server is located. In this case /express
  

• Click SAVE

• Select a Region where your server should run

• Modify the Autoscaling options to your liking

• Enable Allow unauthorized invocations
  

• Click CREATE

• You can now go to the google cloud builds page to see your server being deployed and it should shortly after be available on your cloud run URL

You can enter your new server URL in the Needle Engine Networking component to send and receive messages from there:

Contact

needle – tools for creators • @NeedleTools • @marcel_wiessler • @hybridherbst