Plugin for Unity: Deploy your game to managed EC2 fleets

In this workflow, you use the plugin to prepare your game for hosting on cloud-based compute resources that are managed by Amazon GameLift. You add client and server game code for Amazon GameLift functionality, then upload your server build to the Amazon GameLift service for hosting. When this workflow is complete, you’ll have game servers running in the cloud and a working game client that can connect to them.

To start the Amazon GameLift managed Amazon EC2 workflow:

• In the Unity editor main menu, choose Amazon GameLift and select Host with Managed EC2. This workflow presents a six-step process to integrate, build, deploy, and launch your game components.

Set your profile

Choose the profile you want to use when following this workflow. The profile you select impacts all steps in the workflow. All resources you create are associated with the profile’s AWS account and are placed in the profile’s default AWS Region. The profile user’s permissions determine your access to AWS resources and actions.

1. Select a profile from the dropdown list of available profiles. If you don’t have a profile yet or want to create a new one, go to the Amazon GameLift menu and choose Set AWS Account Profiles.

2. If bootstrap status is not “Active“, choose Bootstrap profile and wait for the status to change to “Active“.

Integrate your game with Amazon GameLift

For this task, you make updates to the client and server code in your game project.

• Game servers must be able to communicate with the Amazon GameLift service to receive prompts to start a game session, provide game session connection information, and report status.

• Game clients must be able to get information about game sessions, join or start game sessions, and get connection information to join a game.

Note

If you imported the sample game, you can skip this step. The sample game assets already have the necessary server and client code in place.

Integrate your server code

When using your own game project with custom scenes, use the provided sample code to add required server code to your game project. If you integrated your game project for testing with an Anywhere fleet, you’ve already completed the instructions in this step.

1. In your game project files, open the Assets/Scripts/Server folder. If it doesn’t exist, create it.

2. Go to the GitHub repo aws/amazon-gamelift-plugin-unity and open the path Samples~/SampleGame/Assets/Scripts/Server.

3. Locate the file GameLiftServer.cs and copy it into your game project’s Server folder. When you build a server executable, use this file as the build target.

The sample code includes these minimum required elements, which use Amazon GameLift C# server SDK (version 5):

• Initializes an Amazon GameLift API client. The InitSDK() call with server parameters is required for an Amazon GameLift Anywhere fleet. These settings are automatically set for use in the plugin.

• Implements required callback functions to respond to requests from the Amazon GameLift service, including OnStartGameSession, OnProcessTerminate, and onHealthCheck.

• Calls ProcessReady() with a designated port to notify the Amazon GameLift service when the server process is ready to host game sessions.

If you want to customize the sample server code, see these resources:

• Add Amazon GameLift to your game server

• Amazon GameLift server SDK 5.x for C# and Unity: Actions

Integrate your client code

For game clients that connect to cloud-based game servers, it’s a best practice to use a client-side backend service to make calls to the Amazon GameLift service, instead of making the calls directly from the game client.

In the plugin workflow for hosting on a managed EC2 fleet, each deployment scenario includes a pre-built backend service that includes the following components:

• A set of Lambda functions and DynamoDB tables that are used to request game sessions and retrieve game session information. These components use an API gateway as the proxy.

• An Amazon Cognito user pool that generates unique player IDs and authenticates player connections.

To use these components, your game client needs functionality to send requests to the backend service to do the following:

• Create a player user in the AWS Cognito user pool and authenticate.

• Join a game session and receive connection information.

• Join a game using matchmaking.

Use the following resources as a guide.

• Integrate the client with the GameLiftCoreApi class in the GitHub repo aws/amazon-gamelift-plugin-unity. This class provides controls for player authentication and for retrieving game session information.

• To view the sample game integrations go to the GitHub repo aws/amazon-gamelift-plugin-unity , Samples~/SampleGame/Assets/Scripts/Client/GameLiftClient.cs.

• Add Amazon GameLift to your Unity game client.

Select deployment scenario

In this step, you choose the game hosting solution that you want to deploy at this time. You can have multiple deployments of your game, using any of the scenarios.

• Single-region fleet: Deploys your game server to a single fleet of hosting resources in the active profile’s default AWS region. This scenario is a good starting point for testing your server integration with AWS and server build configuration. It deploys the following resources:

  • AWS fleet (On-Demand) with your game server build installed and running.

  • Amazon Cognito user pool and client to enable players to authenticate and start a game.

  • API gateway authorizer that links user pool with APIs.

  • WebACl for throttling excessive player calls to API gateway.

  • API gateway + Lambda function for players to request a game slot. This function calls CreateGameSession() if none are available.

  • API gateway + Lambda function for players to get connection info for their game request.

• FlexMatch fleet: Deploys your game server to a set of fleets and sets up a FlexMatch matchmaker with rules to create player matches. This scenario uses low-cost Spot hosting with a multi-fleet, multi-location structure for durable availability. This approach is useful when you're ready to start designing a matchmaker component for your hosting solution. In this scenario, you'll create the basic resources for this solution, which you can customize later as needed. It deploys the following resources:

  • FlexMatch matchmaking configuration and matchmaking rule set to accept player requests and form matches.

  • Three AWS fleets with your game server build installed and running in multiple locations. Includes two Spot fleets and one On-Demand fleet as a backup.

  • AWS game session placement queue that fulfills requests for proposed matches by finding the best possible hosting resource (based on viability, cost, player latency, etc.) and starting a game session.

  • Amazon Cognito user pool and client to enable players to authenticate and start a game.

  • API gateway authorizer that links user pool with APIs.

  • WebACl for throttling excessive player calls to API gateway.

  • API gateway + Lambda function for players to request a game slot. This function calls StartMatchmaking().

  • API gateway + Lambda function for players to get connection info for their game request.

  • Amazon DynamoDB tables to store matchmaking tickets for players and game session information. .

  • SNS topic + Lambda function to handle GameSessionQueue events.

Set game parameters

In this step, you describe your game for uploading to AWS .

• Game name: Provide a meaningful name for your game project. This name is used within the plugin.

• Fleet name: Provide a meaningful name for your managed EC2 fleet. Amazon GameLift uses this name (along with the fleet ID) when listing resources in the AWS console.

• Build name: Provide a meaningful name for your server build. AWS uses this name to refer to the copy of your server build that’s uploaded to Amazon GameLift and used for deployments.

• Launch parameters: Enter optional instructions to run when launching the server executable on a managed EC2 fleet instance. Maximum length is 1024 characters.

• Game server folder: Provide the path to a local folder containing your server build.

• Game server file: Specify the server executable file name.

Deploy scenario

In this step, you deploy your game to a cloud hosting solution based on the deployment scenario you chose. This process can take several minutes while AWS validates your server build, provisions hosting resources, installs your game server, launches server processes, and gets them ready to host game sessions.

To start deployment, choose Deploy CloudFormation. You can track the status of your game hosting here. For more detailed information, you can sign in to the AWS Management console for AWS and view event notifications. Be sure to sign in using the same account, user, and AWS Region as the active user profile in the plugin.

When deployment is complete, you have your game server installed on an AWS EC2 instance. At least one server process is running and ready to start a game session.

Launch game client

When your fleet is successfully deployed, you now have game servers running and available to host game sessions. You can now build your client, launch it, connect to join the game session.

1. Configure your game client. In this step, you prompt the plugin to update a GameLiftClientSettings asset for your game project. The plugin uses this asset to store certain information that your game client needs to connect to the Amazon GameLift service.

   1. If you didn’t import and initialize the sample game, create a new GameLiftClientSettings asset. In the Unity editor main menu, choose Assets, Create, GameLift, Client Settings. If you create multiple copies of GameLiftClientSettings in your project, the plugin automatically detects this and notifies you which asset the plugin will update.

   2. In Launch Game, choose Configure Client: Apply Managed EC2 Settings. This action updates your game client settings to use the managed EC2 fleet that you just deployed.

2. Build your game client. Build a client executable using the standard Unity build process. In File, Build Settings, switch the platform to Windows, Mac, Linux. If you imported the sample game and initialized the settings, the build list and build target are automatically updated.

3. Launch the newly build game client executable. To start playing the game, start two to four client instances and use the UI in each to join a game session.

If you're using the sample game client, it has the following characteristics:

• A player login component. When connecting to a game server on an Anywhere fleet, there is no player validation. You can enter any values to join the game session.

• A simple join game UI. When a client attempts to join a game, the client automatically looks for an active game session with an available player slot. If no game session is available, the client requests a new game session. If a game session is available, the client requests to join the available game session. When testing your game with multiple concurrent clients, the first client starts the game session, and the remaining clients automatically join the existing game session.

• Game sessions with four player slots. You can launch up to four game client instances concurrently and they will join the same game session.