Build interactive experiences with data channels in Amazon GameLift Streams

This article explains how to build interactive experiences using data channels in Amazon GameLift Streams, demonstrating a practical copy-paste feature between a streamed Unreal Engine game and web client.

• Data channels enable bidirectional custom messaging between streamed applications and web clients
• Messages consist of a 4-byte header (client ID, type, length) and up to 64KB data payload
• Implement three JSON actions: copyText, pasteText, and pasteTextResponse for clipboard synchronization
• Integrate data channels in Unreal Engine using FSocket and FTSTicker for TCP communication
• Handle message reading/sending with proper UTF-8 encoding and full byte consumption from socket
• Create UI components to intercept keyboard copy/paste commands and manage clipboard operations
• Test locally with socket server before deploying to Amazon GameLift Streams
• Modify web client to decode messages and interact with browser clipboard using Web SDK
• Build, upload application to S3, create stream group, and stream via Web SDK sample client

This walkthrough provides a foundation for building advanced interactive features between streamed games and web clients using data channels.