CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidunity-game-enginemultiplayermultiplatform
Kenneth .J
Kenneth .J

Reputation: 1433

Implementing online connectivity and multiplayer/PVP for a newbie

Background

I'm a noob programmer looking to create a simple turn based mobile game as a side project. I've pretty much got the game logic down and am left with implementing the online multiplayer/PVP portion.

More specifically, i'm looking to implementing a system when the player clicks play and will be matched with an opponent in a 1 v 1 format, without any lobbies etc etc.

I'm currently trying to develop my game in android studio(i'm new) but am also open to unity if it makes the development easier.(I have no experience in Unity).

What i want to know

From what i understand,i need to create and host my own server for the multiplayer to run(i.e matching of player to opponent). Do i also need the server to run the game itself or am i able to connect the player to the opponent and simply record the result of the game to my server/database?

Also, how would i go about creating and running/hosting the server? I heard nodeJS is a good choice for writing the server.

Can anyone point me to a good resource/tutorial for creating and running my own server, and if possible free(or cheap) hosting for my server? Also, is unity a better choice than android studio for my game?

End Goal

I just wanna publish my game onto the app store,IOS store,etc etc.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1856

Answers (1)

Arshia001
Arshia001

Reputation: 1872

If you don't have any experience with creating multiplayer games, I'd recommend looking into one of the several ready-made solutions available on the market (Unity Multiplayer is one such service). You could essentially make your entire online game without ever needing to code a server.

Coding game servers is more work than you think. You'd first need to make a working game server, then you'd need to consider hosting, data storage, scaling, ping, etc. The downside is that you'll get less customizability and less security (you'll need to handle much of the game client-side, which means you're susceptible to hacking by modification of the client, known in the android world as "mods"). However, if you're just starting out, a game server of your own will probably do more harm than good.

You should always choose a multiplatform engine for mobile games. You do not want to code your entire game twice. So yes, Unity is a good choice, and it's the de-facto standard for mobile these days. If you're going to be making games, learning Unity is a worthwhile investment.

Last, and this one comes from my personal experience only with no real statistical data to support it, people who implement game servers with node often end up discovering that their server just can't handle the load, which leads to a need for stacking a whole lot of technologies up on one another to scale the server(s) out or squeeze more performance in some way. It'll often prove to be bad choice in the long run. Or then again, maybe the people I know just aren't good with node.

Upvotes: 1

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