Implementing a Lobby Client

A lobby client is an application that resides on a user's computer. It typically serves as a link between a game application on the user's computer and a lobby server on a remote computer. However, lobby clients can also function as stand-alone applications. For instance, they can be used to arrange a game session among the users of a particular LAN subnet.

Lobby clients typically consist of three primary components that handle the following tasks:

• Communicating with the outside world, either a lobby server or other lobby clients.
• Communicating with the user, typically through a graphical user interface (GUI).
• Communicating with Microsoft® DirectPlay® .

DirectPlay does not specify how the first two items should be implemented. Lobby client vendors should use whatever approach is suitable to their product. What DirectPlay provides is a standard API that a lobby client can use to communicate with DirectPlay, and through DirectPlay with the user's lobbyable game applications.

This section discusses the following essential details of lobby client implementation.

• Initializing a Lobby Client
• Launching a Lobbied Application
• Implementing a Lobby Client Message Handler
• Communicating with a Lobbied Application
• Closing Down a Lobby Client

See the LobbyClient sample application for a fully implemented example of a simple lobby client.