Very Simple Multiplayer Space - Is Unity Right Platform?

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1

Hi there, many thanks in advance to anyone who can help answer my question. There’s a simple piece of software I’d like to build, and I’d like to know if Unity3D is the right platform or not (and if it is, any brief pointers in the right direction would be amazing).

Here’s what I want to do:

  • 2D orthographic view displaying a map surface (non-tiled, effectively a background image), with drag-and-drop movable sprites on top.
  • Background image is scrollable (i.e., as in an image viewer).
  • Up to five players. First player/host has a “GameMaster” role, others are “Players” (all defined below).
  • GameMaster can set background image and add/remove tokens (i.e. sprites).
  • Players can add a limited set of tokens (their own token, plus some symbols).
  • Chat window (ideally movable/resizable).
  • People can be “on” different background images at the same time. GameMaster chooses what background people are on at a given time.
  • Wishlist item: GameMaster can cover image in a “fog of war” (i.e. solid colour, or even better, another image) and dynamically remove sections of it to reveal the background image and tokens beneath.
  • Wishlist item: GameMaster can add image files as background during gameplay. But this not essential. Happy to edit Unity project to add additional backgrounds.

Would it be possible to do this in Unity3D, and if so, what would be the most rapid route to putting it together? Consider me as wanting to have a working prototype, nothing more. (It’s certainly not a commercial project.)

Many sincere thanks in advance for any advice you have!

2

Yes, you could do this in Unity, though it’s not a simple project.

(If your objective is just to have this functionality, it’d be far easier/faster to simply log on to roll20.net.)

3

Right! I would, but I want control over the UI design and I’d prefer the faster performance and expandability (e.g. it’d be nice to distribute hi-res visual and audio assets to players in advance, and to skin the UI to fit the content being used). Since I’d be using the software in an ongoing fashion, I’d like to slowly add features.

May I ask what makes the project non-simple?

(P.S. About me: I have a few years coding experience, though I haven’t done any coding in about five years, and I’ve got even more experience using a variety of production software - Adobe CC, Cubase, Blender, and a variety of game editors/toolsets, so I’m not completely green behind the ears viz. getting my hands dirty.)

4

What’s non-simple about it is the networking. There’s just some inherent complexity there — syncing state across multiple machines — that even Unity can’t abstract away.

They do have some good support for it, but I would suggest planning a few weeks to get up to speed in Unity in general, and then a month or two working through networking tutorials and applying what you learn there to your project.

5

Thanks very much for the advice!

6

Have you considered simply using existing software for the job? I do remember there being some pretty good free solutions out there from my tabletop days. Along with complete kits for virtually any game type.

Unfortunately I can’t track down a link for you. But a few hours of google work may save you a few months of programming.

7

Yes, there are quite a lot of extant VTTs for roleplaying in, and I’ve used most of them; none of them quite work the way I want them to work, though. Mainly: (a) they either have a pretty brutal, office-application interface, or, (b) they don’t handle images and text the way I want them handled. Thus my little quest to create a simple DIY solution. It shall hopefully be a fun project!

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