On Multiplayer

So, the past few days have involved one of the most critical possible design decisions for me, that is, multiplayer. More to the point, not just "is multiplayer possible"—and I can't think of a client-side objection to why it should be—but how is it used, how am I handling it, and how many different multiplayer services can it use? ENet and WebRTC (should I decide to make this game for the web on some level) are two givens with Godot, but other services, like Steam or Xbox, should be able to be spliced in pretty cleanly.

My current vision is for people to be able to join, at any time, when another player is on. Suppose you see them in your friends list on that platform, and they're playing, and you want to pop in. You should be able to join their game at any point, and spawn in at the last spawn point, right? Then, pop out as you like. (Naturally, this is something that's going to be togglable from the settings menu.) This would also open up the possibility for levels tailored to different player counts and puzzles which might take more than one participant, which shouldn't be central to winning, but could be a lot of fun to have around.

I'm thinking about a player cap of four gummy bears, Borderlands-style. We'll definitely be using a synchronization system not unlike what Team Fortress and Opposing Force use.

Possible multiplayer modes could be co-op (the default), race, and potentially a few specialized versus modes. I'm very much open to suggestions, with the usual legal caveats—if you suggest and idea, there's nothing saying I hadn't already thought of it, it is not a promise of employment or revenue sharing, and you're forfeiting exclusive rights to the idea, so bear that in mind. But really that isn't personal, and if any of you think it would be fun and aren't worried about IP, do bring it up in the comments; it's always nice to get feedback from interested people!

Talk at ya on the next update.
—Mick