This time we tried something different

Multiplayer games seem to be a bad fit for game jams. Online multiplayer requires more than one person to be playing at the same time and couch coop requires you to have a second player around. In both cases you will miss out on many players because of these limitations.

But what about asynchronous multiplayer? Instead of having two or more players play at the same time, build a singleplayer game that is impacted by the actions of previous players. This is what we did. While our game is played by only one player at a time, the map is persistent and is passed from one player to another.

Networking is awful

Another big downside of multiplayer in any form is the additional workload. Apart from the game itself you have to develop a server that can handle the game's requests and manage the game state. We had looked at different solutions for this in advance but we still spent quite some time getting everything to work. We hosted the server ourselves and while this gives you great freedom, rapid development iterations and is essentially free it also adds even more work. For anyone else planning on going multiplayer I would recommend renting a cheap server space and domain somewhere for little money. It it definitely worth it, not having to set everything up yourself (CORS, SSL, etc.) while also not having to run a computer 24/7 for your game to work.

Nobody finishes the game

And finally a mistake we made in designing our game. In To Hot too Handle you have to build up production to assemble a rocket and to escape from earth. The resources on earth, however, are limited for all players. When you start your round you will find the ruins of the previous player's civilization and you only have the resources that the previous player left behind.

The problem is, for this loop to work players have to finish the game. Only when a player launches his rocket is the data sent to the server and prepared for the next player. But at this point we have received 8 ratings but not a single server update. This is very unfortunate as the game's core message is about preserving the planet for future generations/players. We want you to finish the game, see your impact on the planet and think about your decisions.

For future games of this type I would suggest a system where updates are sent more frequently. Of course this requires a game idea that supports it.

Check out the game

If you came this far and want to try out our game yourself, here is the link:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/too-hot-to-handle

But make sure to launch the rocket!

~TheMoonrise