Game channels

TL;DR

Talo Channels are a way of passing messages between players that are subscribed to a specific topic. Channels can be used for player chats, sending arbitrary JSON to various groups and pushing game updates directly to clients.

Send messages between players

Talo Channels are designed to send messages between players in your game. Channels are flexible and can be used for a variety of purposes, such as in-game chat, notifications, or sending updates to players.

Channels work by sending messages to a specific topic. Players can subscribe to a channel to receive messages, create channels and send messages to channels. When a message is sent, all players subscribed to that channel receive the message.

Channels can have owners (typically the player who created the channel) who have full control over the channel. Owners can update channels, delete channels and transfer ownership to another player.

Custom data with props

Like players, channels can have custom data using props. Props are key-value pairs that can be used to show more information about a channel - like whether its public or private and if there any rules for joining the channel.

Props make channels more flexible and can be used to create different types of channels. For example, you could create a public channel for all players to join or a private channel where players need to reach a certain level before they can join.

Dashboard oversight

The Talo dashboard shows a list of all channels in your game. You can view the total amount of messages sent to each channel, the number of players subscribed to the channel and the channel owner.

You can also (coming soon) create, update and delete channels directly from the dashboard.

Powered by the Talo Socket

Channels are powered by the Talo Socket, a secure WebSocket connection that provides a convenient way to send and receive messages between players in real-time. Messages are validated against a robust schema to ensure that only valid messages are sent and received.

The Talo Socket has a two-tier authentication system using your access key and a token generated for each player. Socket authentication also works with Talo Player Authentication to ensure that only authenticated players can connect to the socket.

If you're using the Godot plugin or Unity package, the Talo Socket runs automatically in the background, making it easy to get started with Channels.