Gameplay workflow: a distributed game control approach

Abstract

Modern distributed game environments are large and complex, and require sophisticated control systems to manage player tasks and game environment resources. We show in this paper the similarity between workflow business process management within a large enterprise and task management within large distributed game environments, and how easily a workflow implementation can be used to control a distributed game. Furthermore, we highlight how the pictorial representation of workflow specifications is an intuitive representation of game task scripting. Our analysis and results provide support for the use of enterprise workflow as a theoretically rigorous approach to games control within modern multiplayer environments, thus allowing for the development of game independent task management middleware.