Friday was mostly spent understanding how Smartfox operates and ensuring that I could make the necessary calls to and from the server. But as I dug deeper into what it offered and began to understand more and more what Overflow actually needed I discovered that Smartfox was not the right direction.
Smartfox has some really cool features. Player connect to a lobby where they can browse the games and then connect, which is ultimately what I do want. However, it does it all in a way designed for real-time multiplayer scenarios. I began to look over the async tutorial again and discovered that he was only using the Smartfox as a hand off between the client and his database. He was not actually taking advantage of any of the multiplayer functions Smartfox came with.
So Matt and I really started to break it down and have decided to ditch the server and instead send calls out directly to a PHP page which will add, subtract, and edit the database for us. We are doing this for a variety of reasons, 1. We are both far more comfortable using PHP. Yes, we will have to figure out how to make it secure, but just getting async working is the goal. 2. The server would have required us to keep a machine running 24/7 and we would have probably had to start paying to use Smartfox. It allows for 20 concurrent users for free, which is at the end of the day only good for testing purposes.
The other good news is that if we get this system working, not only will it work for Flash, but also for Unity. Killing two birds with one stone.
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