Developing multi-user online games with agents

This paper presents a software framework able to extend the coverage of virtual communities across the boundaries of the everyday Internet by providing ubiquitous and integrated access to applications regardless of the users connecting though conventional, fixed-network computers, mobile, wireless-network devices or even interactive digital television set-top boxes. This software framework is an extension of the JADE multiagent development environment and has been experimented for the realization of a special kind of virtual community applications, i.e., multi-user online games.