Although the goal was to make it similar, there is still one massive difference: inventory size. Because everyone will be (probably) be playing on keyboard and mouse, I no longer have to optimise the game for the more restrictive controller layout, and use the full power of the keyboard to give players five weapon slots. They’d switch to and between the first two with Q, like in the original, but they can also use 1-5 to swap to any five of their weapons.
I even had to learn a bit of (pseudo?) rollback netcode, as enemies would always receive damage and die up to a second AFTER you hit them, so I devised a system where they’d ‘fake their death’ to give you that instant punch of satisfaction before the game checks and sees: “Okay yes, they’re actually dead.” and keeps them dead.
If not, (and this is highly unlikely) then they’ll quickly pop back into existence and kill you. Oh well, nothing’s perfect.
I’m not exactly sure how to release this game if I ever monetize it… but I’d probably bundle it in through a launcher like Sonic x Shadow Generations.
By far, the idea I’ve gotten the most requests for has got to be an online multiplayer update for Pathmaker. It makes sense, most games are played online nowadays, and there are many modes I cannot do offline in Pathmaker due to the game’s splitscreen, four-player nature.
It was going to be quite an undertaking however. I’d never done online before, and it was going to be such a different way of scripting everything that it simply wasn’t feasible for online to be a mere gamemode… no, it had to be it’s own standalone game… and beyond that, online multiplayer had always loomed over me as this terrifying, mysterious force of dark magic… that as it turned out, was actually somewhat trivial to learn.
Enter Photon Fusion, an online multiplayer solution that not only has relatively simple, concise, well-documented code but, and this was the killer for me, FREE SERVER HOSTING for up to 100 PLAYERS* (for one game). I knew if I was to EVER start an online game, it was always going to be on Photon.
I was pleasantly surprised as well by how easy it was to transfer the Pathmaker code and architecture into the online workflow. Many things had to be changed, mainly everything to do with Time and the Update() function. Aside from that though, I was able to copy most of the code down to make this game as close to the original Pathmaker as possible.
*Offer only valid for one Fusion and one Quantum game at a time.
♪ Junko Shiratsu - Door Into Summer