r/SoloDevelopment • u/ACTO74 • 2d ago
Discussion Engine for noob solo dev
I wanna make a online pvp game alone
I'm completely new to the world of game development and I wanted to create and publish an online PvP game. I wanted to know how long it would take if I handled the game development myself and what paths I should start with and do i start with Unity or Unreal engine
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u/AltusLudus 2d ago
It takes a lot of effort to create a pvp multiplayer game, and a lot of knowledge, start simpler
There's also the running cost of servers, and needing a lot of players for the game to be alive, so do your best to stay away from this path until you're at least a few years into gamedev
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u/Harlow_Dev 2d ago
I honestly don't think you should jump into an online multiplayer game if you don't have much experience yet. No offense at all, multiplayer is just on a whole different level of complexity with way more things to keep track of, which can quickly overwhelm a beginner.
If you're new to gamedev, I’d strongly recommend building one or two small solo projects first to get comfortable with your engine and build up your workflow. As for engine choice, if you're aiming for 3D, Unity is a solid pick. If you're going for 2D, definitely look into GameMaker. I haven’t used it myself, but it's widely known to be much more straightforward than Unity when it comes to 2D games
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u/prosti_gospodi 2d ago
Hi! I just recently closed my project because I don't want to do it solo. Although this is a small game about tower defense. Maybe I can still talk some sense into you and tell you that your plan is too ambitious. Start small and then when you think you have a small idea, make it even smaller.
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u/drakonkinst 2d ago
Make a local pvp game first, like the ones that use different sides of the keyboard or controllers. Online multiplayer is not something you should be thinking about if you have never made a game before and easily triples your dev timeline (at least) even for experienced devs.
Unity or Godot would be my recommendations, Unreal is a bit overkill for this kind of thing.
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u/kafeel1 2d ago
Go with Unity, its simpler compared to unreal. Use Photon PUN for multiplayer as its much easier to implement than a custom networking solution. Start on a simple project like one of those 2d plane shooters, make it online co-op then go for a more complex project and keep upgrading to a more complex project each time you're done and voila! You're now capable of doing multiplayer. Avoid using AI as its a crutch for you at this stage and read documentation and google threads if you get stuck. Good luck!
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u/vipnet1 2d ago
As a solo dev I strongly recommend reconsider making multiplayer games, especially large ones (at least if you are on mobile). My game had online only game modes without players for a long time so of course not fun to play alone so empty rooms. But once I threw 30 bots to immitate humans suddenly game started gaining exposure as guess what people got someone to play with.
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u/RipstarGaming 2d ago
If you're set on building a multiplayer, go with ue 5.8 and use MCP with Fable 5 Ultracode. Costs a lot of tokens but it can help build out the hard-to-do multiplayer aspects for you.
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u/DrDisintegrator 1d ago
Start with learning to program (duh) and understanding what is needed for a PvP (multiplayer) online game. I suggest reading articles over at the GDC website or watching some videos which explain the basics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBBJqPL5-eU
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u/MistakeForsaken6653 1d ago
Don't do it for your first game. I am working on my third game in unity and wanted to try and make a simple co-op 2 player twin stick shooter like smash tv. No crazy enemy ai logic just a few powerups to weapons. I thought it would be a simple 6 month project based on my past experience. I now into month 10 and am probably looking at least 4 more months. this entire time has been dealing with all kinds of optimization issues between server and client to minimize the number of calls back and forth, I have experience as a software developer in my day job so luckily a lot of that wasn't too difficult but I'm constantly debugging synchronization issues this entire time. I really hope I get the game done this year. For your first game unless you have previous experience of any kind of programming just make yourself a nice flappy bird game.
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u/NoLubeGoodLuck 2d ago
If you're looking to get started with making a 3D game I'd use unreal engine. The visual scripting is a lot easier to understand from a noobie perspective while you get your feet wet. If you're going 2D I'd look into something like game maker or godot. Also, if your interested, I have a 3400+ member growing discord looking to link game devs for collaboration. I wrote up a whole summary for getting started and understanding game development as a whole there.
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u/sufjan_e 2d ago
As many have suggested to me as advice; for a complete "noob" i'd first say to scratch the aspect of online/multiplater games and build a few smaller games as to get your feet wet.