Create Multiplayer Web Games, Faster

Open-source Product Announcement! Check out create-multiplayer-game on NPM and GitHub. Currently in alpha.

Imagine this...

You have a great idea for your next indie game, and since the world is online-first, you dive into the world of multiplayer game development, but you want to skip the tedious setup process. Sockets? Firebase Realtime DB?

Eventually, you give up on multiplayer, and focus on building a great single-player experience first. When you do, and you put off multiplayer to the end, you end up having to refactor a lot of code to make it "multiplayer-ready".

What if games were built multiplayer-first?

That's why we built a React/Vite powered game template, powered by Playroom. It swiftly conjures up a multiplayer game template in React, so you can focus on bringing your gaming vision to life.

npx create-multiplayer-game@latest

It will ask you a few small questions to personalize your game. Have a look.

Name Your Game: First off, we need a name for your masterpiece. What will you call it?

Project Name: Need a project name, or are you happy with the default generated one? Feel free to customize it as you like!

Choose Your Template: Now, which template suits your fancy? Use your arrow keys to browse the options:

Option A:

"vite-react-ts": A ReactJS project with Vite, crafted in TypeScript. It's equipped with PlayroomKit for multiplayer magic, along with an array of game components, sounds, and interactions. Usually the top choice.

Option B:

"next-ts'': A NextJS project in TypeScript, powered by PlayroomKit for multiplayer functionality.

Once you've made your choice, sit back as we download your selected template. Then, you'll be greeted with a message: "Project initialized at <project-path>. Happy Coding!"

What's next?

• We're building a mechanism for you to keep updating your game, as we improve our templates.
• We're building a useful Chrome DevTool for debugging game states (no more hardcoding or adding "cheats" to go forward in a game).
• Some premium templates with some extra goodies.

Read more here: https://grayhat.studio/games/pricing

We love open source, bringing useful tech to builders, and contributing to the overall knowledge stream. A lot of our work is R&D-based and on experimental tech. If you're interested in working with or for Grayhat, DM or comment!

This article was authored by Syed Abdullah Nasir, Software Engineer at Grayhat.