Multiplayer A Future Possibility

[Kemptacion]

While I know not every game needs a multiplayer aspect, my wife and I really enjoy playing games together, and we feel like their could be a nice multiplayer aspect to this game. It would provide a Giligans island opportunity for multiple persons to work together to survive and make some of the dangers easier (ie injuries) while adding a new challenge in the form of sourcing enough water early game.

[Verwunscht]

I would love that, too!!! :)

[maara.kai]

Originally posted by Kemptacion:

While I know not every game needs a multiplayer aspect, my wife and I really enjoy playing games together, and we feel like their could be a nice multiplayer aspect to this game. It would provide a Giligans island opportunity for multiple persons to work together to survive and make some of the dangers easier (ie injuries) while adding a new challenge in the form of sourcing enough water early game.

Interesting. How would you imagine that playing? Would you each have your own screen, with hand rows? Or would it be a combined "hand" row?

[Doc]

I would imagine each player has their own hand and equipment but they would have shared middle and top rows. Storage would need a way of locking or thefts could happen. My thinking is it would have to basically work via showing each player (other than the one's self) as top row cards in whichever locations they are in, so if "Example Bob" is on the beach everyone else could see a card of his character image/profile next to the locations on the beach just as if he were a built structure, his actions would either remain in his hands as normal or appear to the other players as a product of that card. Further that card system would be how other players could interact with (or even attack) each other. The game is already turn based, we just have to make it also have meta-turns (each player spends their day in periods of a few hours or even a full day once everyone hits that same time mark the next turn starts that way not everyone is waiting on each other all the time)

EDIT: It would basically be either a "Meet me back here in #" or "I'll be here if you need me" style with the players having benign interactions such as "chit-chat" or "Comfort" or "Give First-Aid" or "Hit with Rock" from the other players' cards for in-game purposes and similar interactions apart from actual player to player chat.

[Doc]

However, that all seems complicated to pull off... what could be REALLY cool is if we had a way to save the files for the island from different players who either die or escape and upload them as seeds for random islands found for other players to play... Like you can find their camp and stuff, depending on how much time has passed etc. It would be single player but it could give paper a function cause players could use it to leave messages for others when they either leave the island or die on the Oregon Trail as it were.

[Albie There]

The only way I can see this working is each player having their turn. You could only do stuff after the other player hits his "end turn" button. I also think it could only work out as cooperation mode, to survive, not attack each other. On the 1st fight one would die, and that was it.

[maara.kai]

Hmm, i think this would be especially difficult simply because of the way time works. You would have to have both character agree on a particular action to use time, or set it up so that time flows separately and the characters have to use it selectively.

In minecraft to make the day end, all characters have to "sleep". One person not sleeping keeps time flowing in normal speed. If all "sleep" the night is skipped and the next day starts sooner.

Maybe have it be turned based, but each turn has X number of actions (time). Character 1 has, say 4 hours and must input four hours of action before executing? But then you have things that run long when you are injured or ill.

Honestly, the only way I can see this working is being able to invite someone to your island to work on it when you are not there.

[Albie There]

@maara.kai

Not difficult. The time is exactly the same for all players.

If you have 3 players in co-op, when player 1 is performing his actions, time is frozen for player 2 and 3, they can´t do anything until the next player hits "end turn" button.

Each player must have a "time unit" bar something like that, so each turn will last the same time for each player. You can´t have player 1 doing stuff that take 6 hours, then player 2 doing stuff that takes 9 hours, for example.

[Kemptacion]

I imagined it when I suggested in a similar way to Doc. Share the middle and top rows with an icon at the top. Coop only was my intention, but saving past playthrough progress would also be pretty awesome. Turn based would be a must to make it function consistently, but the same system with a couple extra lines of code should allow for single player multi survivor gameplay too. Essentially it would be each person chooses a task and then the time forwards by the standard 15 minute increments until someone has to choose another task. To avoid annoyance with AFK an option to force others to simply wait/rest after x amount of waiting for their input would be a useful addition in a multi-player world settings.

[FenrisLycaon]

I think it should be possible to write a small script that merges save files or makes modifications to one base on the other and vice versa. This could be used to sysn or swap items. A full item sync should be possible but may make any play through too easy (But why not let people play the game as they like). Two other ideas maybe possible too.

One is to have a named chested that swaps items between them. So trading or help could be sent between saves.

The second idea is to have all the items randomly be assigned to one or the other. This would be like items are randomly phasing between the two islands.

Note: This would only work on saves and not during game play. Will giving an update if I get something working. Maybe it could be made into a web app. Where both players upload a save and select the type of syncing they would like.

[FenrisLycaon]

Note true multiplayer can be hard to do as it adds a whole other network layer that must be managed by the game. I don't know if Unity has any easy short cuts but its a larger task then just the UI/gameplay aspect.

[maara.kai]

Anyone see how Wingspan does multiplayer? A turn based card game. *shrugs*