My goal is to create a multiplayer game that can work off of a server/client infrastructure. Given that the majority of free middleware limits to around 25 players, this will probably be the cap for quite a while.
My first goal is smaller though. It is to make a very simple game, with an extremely small play area,
In actuality, I want to make this:
A Simple Tower Defense Game. A static screen (or possible two screens-- one being the Castle/Land, and one being “inside the castle” where players can recover.
Multiplayer for 2 to 4 players, and then expand to 5 to 10 players.
Eventually though-- I want to transform this game into multiple games inside of one game. In essence, to turn it into an online multiplayer game capable of supporting all 25 players, and if popular and well-liked, extended to support players or more.
Should I start with just simple 2-4 player multiplayer…and THEN add a client/server middleware? Or should I just start that way?
You’re going to make mistakes and should have a better feel for what you need to do when you scale it up.
I had a perfect example the other day. I was working on code to dent cars in collisions. Works fine in single player, but is no way I can send all that new vertex info over the internet, so I have to send the collision hit info and let the clients deal with it.
I’d ask someone with more knowledge on how to do the big scale.
Using the built-in networking would give you an insight into what the database server will require. If you keep client and server functions separated then it would be a lot less painful to migrate/scale up.
If you weren’t asking these questions, I’d have suggested going straight for the database.
If you plan on having any persistence in your game, or you want a centralized or dedicated server for your game, that is probably the way to go. The built in networking has some advantages as well, so it just just depends on what is most important for your game. If you have any questions about Electroserver just let me know!
