[WIP] Slash'n'Stash - Online, Hack'n'Slash, 2D Platformer

High level game concepts:

  • Adventure - each adventure is a random generated map, with random monsters, challenges and a boss. All depends on player character’s level and picked difficulty.
  • Each adventure play-through will be around 5 to 10 minutes. Aim to be fast paced and relaxing.
  • During play-through player gathers loot - items in diablo-style.
  • Players can team-up what will result in more difficult adventures but better loot.
  • Brawl - a form of pvp death-match. It will be either purely random, or based on a guild rank system, TBD.
  • Global item’s marketplace.
  • Daily randomly generated quests.
  • Skins, skins and even more skins - as additional monetisation strategy.

At the moment I’m working on core network mechanics and infrastructure foundations. I have a working POC but it consists of many moving pieces and takes a lot of time to plan and connect all the bits.

Below a very rough high level diagram of the system.


I’ll try to describe all the integrations as I progress…

First showcase is about Character Builder. Based on Hippo’s asset graphics which got tailored to my game model.
Character builder already allows for quite advanced customisation but I have plans for more head-types/visuals as game progresses.

Game already has a foundation of Headend Server which is handling all the authentication, player’s data management and persistence. Server is using open source DarkRift2 as a networking layer and cloud MongoDB replica set as a storage, it is written in .net, hosted on AWS Linux as docker container.

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Networking proof of concept and integration with Multiplay.

Game simulation is running on both sides: client and server (Photon Fusion)
Both sharing the code base, but server is a no-gfx headless ‘dedicated server’ linux build.

Simulation server is published as a docker image and hosted in Unity Multiplay cloud. From there all client-server communication happens via Photon cloud.
Server is fully authoritative in terms of control of what player can do, but because of client-side prediction - control still feels instant.
Simulation is ‘Input’ based - client and server receives same inputs to perform the simulation.
Any hacky behaviour is not possible as it will cause client simulation to roll back.

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Foundation of combat and enemies.

Character statistics, combat mechanics, hits processing, enemies AI, with a whole networking and how to visualise it - on top of that.
Really big chunk of work as all of these bits are interconnected - but it is getting some shape… maybe not visually but mechanically :wink:

A bit more of user interface - basics of Character Equipment.

This part of the system is not controlled by Photon Fusion but by DarkRift2 networking. Inventory is server authoritative as well and operates on character loaded in server memory. After modifications acceptance and validation - character state is stored and ready for adventure:)
Couldn’t help myself and inspired by Diablo2 - implemented switchable weapon sets.