Ask HN: Advice for Multiplayer Back End

#1

Post by houseinthewoods » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 2:53 AM UTC

Lately I've been yearning to make simple multiplayer Javascript games with as much ease as simple single player games, for the sake of prototyping with friends. I have a sneaking suspicion that for discrete (turns or timers) match-based games, you could have a Firebasey store synchronized between clients and an authoritative server built on top of web sockets, such that the programmer doesn't have to design a new protocol for every game. The reason I don't reach for Firebase immediately is partly due to lock-in/pricing concerns, and because I imagine there would be a simpler tool with the above constraints in mind.

I've stumbled across https://colyseus.io/, but it doesn't look like it quite fits my needs.

Does anyone know of a library out there with the mission of Colyseus, the behavior of Firebase, and simpler than both? Alternatively, has anyone had a pleasant experience building a discrete game with Firebase?

Re: Ask HN: Advice for Multiplayer Back End

#2

Post by advaita » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 3:27 AM UTC

I dont have answers to your questions but you might want to prefix the post with "Ask HN: ". It will drive better reach.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for Multiplayer Back End

#3

Post by konaraddi » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 3:28 AM UTC

You might find https://boardgame.io/ helpful

Re: Ask HN: Advice for Multiplayer Back End

#4

Post by bird_monster » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 4:01 AM UTC

Playfab offers multiplayer servers as a selling point, but does not solve your vendorlock concern.

The combination of Playfab's player data + multiplayer server functionality sound like what you're looking for though.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for Multiplayer Back End

#5

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 4:11 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Advice for Multiplayer Back End

#6

Post by marshmellman » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 4:39 AM UTC

I went with Colyseus for my multiplayer bananagrams prototype. It’s not quite the use case, but it did make life easier after figuring out how to model the game with Colyseus’s state mechanics.

Basically you apply game logic on the server to mutate game state, which is automatically synchronized to each client. It’s been a few months and I don’t have the code in front of me, but can give more details later if you’d like.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for Multiplayer Back End

#7

Post by kopos » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 4:44 AM UTC

konaraddi wrote: post #3

You might find https://boardgame.io/ helpful

Boardgame.io is good but it doesn’t have timers, iirc

Re: Ask HN: Advice for Multiplayer Back End

#8

Post by sali0 » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 5:08 AM UTC

Check out Nakama by Heroic Labs.

https://heroiclabs.com/nakama-opensource/

Re: Ask HN: Advice for Multiplayer Back End

#9

Post by lecarore » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 5:28 AM UTC

I'd build it with meteor, mostly because I'm used to it. It's excellent for prototypes and real time by default

Re: Ask HN: Advice for Multiplayer Back End

#10

Post by lecarore » Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 6:12 AM UTC

lecarore wrote: post #9

I'd build it with meteor, mostly because I'm used to it. It's excellent for prototypes and real time by default

There's some lock in in terms of framework specific code but no lock in of your data,it's just a mongo dB. The reliance on mongo means it's always a bit tricky to make join-like calculations, but otherwise I'd really recommend the meteor stack. For hosting as a side project I'd recommend a shared digital Ocean droplet, you'll get much better performance than heroku. Use "meteor up" to deploy. It will be 5usd per month but you can host many small apps on one droplet