Salvé Lanistas!
Today I am very excited to show you what I have been very busy with lately, and as you can probably tell from the title, that is Multiplayer!
I will be honest and say that this was by far the most difficult feature that needed to be added to the game. Especially because, at the time, I had made the mistake of not building many of the systems with multiplayer in mind. On the other hand, I am also very proud to announce that I have achieved it — and more importantly, that it is actually working great and is a ton of fun to play!
Before I show you how Multiplayer works in practice, I also want to highlight that all the reworking and refactoring had a very positive side effect: a lot of the code has been optimized as well. This means everything now runs smoother in Singleplayer too :)
So, let’s start with what it looks like when you are hosting a new Multiplayer game.
For those of you who played the demo back when it was active, you will notice that there are a few new settings here exclusively for Multiplayer. The most important one is probably “Club Selection”, which has three different options:
Division 7 only - New players can only select clubs from Division 7.
Host's Division - Players joining can select any team from the same division as the Host.
Unrestricted - All players, including the host, can pick any team from any division.
These settings are especially useful when hosting saved games. For example, if you as the host are already in a higher division, your friends will not be stuck in Division 7. That is also why it is possible to change this setting whenever you host one of your saved games.
As for joining games, there is a basic lobby list showing the kind of information you would expect. I have also integrated Steam multiplayer, so you are able to invite your friends directly through Steam.
For now, I have set the maximum number of players per session to 8, but this can be increased to 16 if there is demand for it. And honestly, it could be really fun to try a full season where every team is player controlled!
After you have designed your Lanista, you move on to Ludus Selection. This is where I had to overcome quite a few small but important issues — for example, what happens if two players select the same Ludus at almost exactly the same time?
Thankfully, after a lot of testing, this issue has been solved. You will now see that Ludus already selected by other players are shown as unavailable in the list.
Once you are in an actual game, you will see that other player-controlled Ludus are marked with a special colour in the League panel. The same also applies to their Gladiators.
I have also implemented it so that if you join a new game on Day 1, you receive the same starting conditions as the host. However, if you join an ongoing game or a saved game, you are essentially taking over the existing club, including all their equipment, assignments, and so on.
When you play against AI-controlled teams, it functions much like Singleplayer, except the results are sent to the host so everything remains synchronized.
Player matches, however, work a bit differently. As you can see in the screenshot below, once you submit your selection, it is synced to the other player. This is why you need to wait until both players have submitted their selections.
Once you get into the match, both players also need to click the “Start Match” button before the fight actually begins. This ensures that both players are watching the match play out “live”.
Please keep in mind that there can be around a 0.5 second delay for clients compared to the host, but aside from that, everyone sees the exact same match.
Multiplayer is honestly a ton of fun in this game. Even during testing, where the main focus was finding bugs and desync issues, we still ended up having a great time playing it.
I know it all looks pretty straightforward, but as you can imagine, there are a lot of small things that need to work together to make sure everything is correctly synchronized in a setup like this. After extensive testing, I am pleased to say that all known bugs have been fixed so far, so hopefully you will be able to enjoy a smooth release with limited to no issues.
That being said, if you do encounter a bug, please report it as soon as possible here on the Steam forums so it can be fixed.
I am very excited to see you all getting to enjoy the game just one month from now!
Best regards,
Mathias