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When I made Nora's Mouse Chase! for p8jam2 last month, it left me unsatisfied. So I started work on my own 2D game engine again. At first I was making it from scratch, but then I realized all the C libraries I had gathered made up basically the same thing as LÖVE anyway, so I switched to using that as the base. There were some other snags and I've had to basically start over a few times, but I'm working out the details as I go.

I don't have anything to show for my work yet, so I don't know why I'm posting... And I certainly don't know why I'm posting it here, of all places. Maybe I just really adore this quiet little corner of the Internet.

Anyway, I've given this project the working name of Nora-Net. The goal? A decentralized online multiplayer game engine and service, capable of supporting at least 100 players per server (although ideally somewhere around 1024 players would be amazing), where the game itself can be edited cooperatively online by admins who can upload new scripts and sprites on the fly and build the world together.

In one sense, the continuing efforts where pico-hotel left off. In another, a decent replacement for BYOND and Second Life, with realtime action gaming in mind. I want Nora-Net to be able to support puzzle games, platformers, and RPGs all just as effortlessly, with a Bitcoin Wallet type of client-side account registration and identification to access server-side save data which servers can share with eachother if set up to allow it.

I want this to be something I can go to as my game engine of choice for all my future projects, an engine capable of virtually any 2D game imaginable, supporting singleplayer, multiplayer, and massively multiplayer, with optimized renderig and networking behind the scenes. I want to run a Mii-like character creation service on it which exports finished character head sprites in a variety of sizes, styles, and poses for other games on the engine to use with their own body sprites to make a unified-yet-customizable avatar for you to take with you everywhere, whether that head is getting tacked on to a space marine or used as a portrait when you win or lose a round of Puzzle & Flower Land 3.

This is too big of a project for me to tackle alone, and I know it. I also have no income and approximately two years left before my life will almost certainly take a turn for worse. But what the hell, let's see where this road takes me anyway. It'll be fun.

P#22887 2016-06-14 17:51 ( Edited 2016-07-30 01:50)

I really need to stop writing these when I'm half awake, too tired to work, and feeling depressed.

P#22911 2016-06-15 05:03 ( Edited 2016-06-15 09:03)

I am glad you wrote it though. Because I was thinking of the same thing when I thought of Pico-8 and all the collaborative online editors. You just took the idea a bit farther ;) It's a really neat idea.

It would be cool to have an empty canvas of sorts there, have someone else join, and start putting things in place one by one on the fly, while actually playing the game that is being created, from scratch. Even edit the code while the game is running. That would be neat even in single player.

Some day, this will be reality, I think.

P#26109 2016-07-29 21:50 ( Edited 2016-07-30 01:50)

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