WGDE -- WAP Game Development Environment

Abstract

Due to the abundant resources and diversified information services, the popularity of Internet has rapidly grown recently. However, in the traditional Internet, user can only access services at some fixed locations. Because the progress of technology in wireless communications and the portable communication devices, along with the wireless application protocol, users can access Internet information through the cellular phones that support Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). Many wireless applications had been developed, including stock application, restaurants services and on-line games, etc. Among these applications, the on-line wireless games will become more popular in the near future. WAP has been criticized as “Wait And Pay” due to lack of killer applications. This is because that the wireless terminals and communications have many constraints. It is not an easy task to develop WAP games, especially a large one. In this paper, we design and implement a platform that provides useful classes for WAP game development. The platform provides a Wireless Markup Language (WML) page generator, called the WAP Game Foundation Classes (WGFC), containing layout manager, database access, and game templates. Programmers can develop WAP games easily without much knowledge of the WML. Moreover, the WGFC also deals with common security issues, including authentication, integrity, and confidentiality.