Awesome
WARNING
This library is incredibly new. I value building in public so I'm making Tangle available very early. As a result Tangle has major bugs, TODOs, and known issues. The library is not stable: it will change constantly! Give it a try, be patient, and consider contributing!
Tangle
Tangle is a library that aims to make multiplayer apps and games far easier to build.
Tangle 'magically' wraps WebAssembly so you can write programs without worrying about message passing, serialization, or consensus.
Check out the examples to get started!
Questions
What is this for?
Tangle is a great fit for small games and apps that want to add multiplayer. In the future it may be useful for all sorts of things including (but not limited to): syncing programs between servers / clients, untrusted plugins in networked software, 'metaverse'-like scripting, and backend-less collaborative software.
Does this use WebSockets or WebRTC?
Under the hood Tangle uses peer to peer WebRTC connections. This may change!
How is this hosted?
Connections are peer to peer but the initial connection needs to be facilitated by a central server. Right now I run a free instance of that server but if it gets serious traffic I may offer a paid version.
How does it work?
Tangle syncs initial state and networks all subsequent inputs that could cause simulations to diverge. Tangle keeps every bit identical between all connected Wasm instances. 'Snapshots' are taken at each simulation step to enable 'rewinding' and 'replaying' events to ensure all peers apply events in the same order, without adding latency to user input.
TODO: Write a more detailed explainer.
What are its limitations?
Due to how rollback works frequently updated programs will have increased input latency if they do not keep CPU and memory usage low. This is an area that will see future improvement.
Tangle does nothing to merge long stretches of offline editing. It is not a CRDT.
What languages does this support?
In theory: Any language that targets WebAssembly. In practice I've only tested AssemblyScript and Rust.
Is this web only?
Right now Tangle is implemented as a TypeScript library for web but its fundamental architecture could eventually be made to work on native platforms.