Tutorials - Friends' Lobbies

In this quick tutorial we will cover how to get a dictionary of lobbies to friends that are visible to the user. This was created as it's a pretty common feature for multiplayer games.

We will break down the different steam functions to call first before looking at the code samples.

---

Functions explained

var number_of_friends: int = Steam.getFriendCount(Steam.FRIEND_FLAG_IMMEDIATE)

This must be ran before Steam.getFriendByIndex according to the Steamworks documentation, we'll be using this for our loop over each friend in our friends list.

var steam_id: int = Steam.getFriendByIndex(index, Steam.FRIEND_FLAG_IMMEDIATE)

Inside of the loop we'll call Steam.getFriendByIndex to get the Steam ID of our friend at this index.

Note: you must use the same flag as the flag used inside of Steam.getFriendCount. List of friend flags.

var game_info: Dictionary = Steam.getFriendGamePlayed(steam_id)

With our friends Steam ID we can now get information about the game our friend may or may not be playing.

This dictionary will be empty if the friend is offline or not playing a game.

Here's the fields and possible values inside this dictionary:

• id: int
• The app id of the game they are playing.
• lobby: int or String
• If the friend is in a lobby visible to this user, it will be an int of the lobby ID
• Otherwise, it will be a String equal to: "No valid lobby"
• ip: String
• game_port: int
• query_port: int
• Depends on the lobby settings, but ip, game_port, and query_port will probably all just be zeros.

---

Putting it all together

func get_lobbies_with_friends() -> Dictionary:
  var results: Dictionary = {}

  for i in range(0, Steam.getFriendCount()):
    var steam_id: int = Steam.getFriendByIndex(i, Steam.FRIEND_FLAG_IMMEDIATE)
    var game_info: Dictionary = Steam.getFriendGamePlayed(steam_id)

    if game_info.empty():
      # This friend is not playing a game
      continue
    else:
      # They are playing a game, check if it's the same game as ours
      var app_id: int = game_info['id']
      var lobby = game_info['lobby']
      if app_id != Steam.getAppID() or lobby is String:
        # Either not in this game, or not in a lobby
        continue

      if not results.has(lobby):
        results[lobby] = []
      results[lobby].append(steam_id)

  return results

If you would rather get back a dictionary of friend_id -> lobby_id you can instead use:

func get_friends_in_lobbies() -> Dictionary:
  var results: Dictionary = {}

  for i in range(0, Steam.getFriendCount()):
    var steam_id: int = Steam.getFriendByIndex(i, Steam.FRIEND_FLAG_IMMEDIATE)
    var game_info: Dictionary = Steam.getFriendGamePlayed(steam_id)

    if game_info.empty():
      # This friend is not playing a game
      continue
    else:
      # They are playing a game, check if it's the same game as ours
      var app_id: int = game_info['id']
      var lobby = game_info['lobby']
      if app_id != Steam.getAppID() or lobby is String:
        # Either not in this game, or not in a lobby
        continue

      results[steam_id] = lobby

  return results

From here you can create your UI however you like, and simply call Steam.joinLobby(lobby_id) when the user has made a selection.

---

Checking if a friend is still in a lobby

In the likely case that you are not running get_lobbies_with_friends() every frame, there's a small chance a user might click on a lobby a friend has since left, or worse, a lobby that no longer exists.

This is a little check you can do before joining the lobby:

# check if a friend is in a lobby
func is_a_friend_still_in_lobby(steam_id: int, lobby_id: int) -> bool:
  var game_info: Dictionary = Steam.getFriendGamePlayed(steam_id)
  if game_info.empty():
    return false
  # They are in a game
  var app_id: int = game_info.id
  var lobby = game_info.lobby
  # Return true if they are in the same game and have the same lobby_id
  return app_id == Steam.getAppID() and lobby is int and lobby == lobby_id

---

Troubleshooting

If you don't see any lobbies while testing, make sure to check the flags for how the lobby was created.

For instance, you won't be able to see a lobby with this flag:

SteamLobby.create_lobby(Steam.LOBBY_TYPE_INVISIBLE, 8)

If the lobby is configured in such a way that's it's invisible to you, or at max capacity, Steam won't provide a lobby ID.