Adding multiplayer support to a location-based game, as discussed in the preceding section, will not be easy. In fact, we avoided multiplayer support for our demo game because of the added complexity. Also, it was important to demonstrate that you could still build a functional location-based game without backend servers and multiplayer. In the end though, you are now here wondering how to add multiplayer support to your game.
In the preceding section, we discussed a couple of viable options to add multiplayer support: developing your own server, extending an existing platform and using an online real-time cloud database. These options may be attractive, but before we get into the specifics, let's review the fundamental problems of location-based multiplayer games, as listed:
- Game is continuous: Our game needs to continually save state globally for all players. If you don't appreciate the magnitude of that last sentence, take a second and think about it. When...