Unity Multiplayer Games

An easy-to-follow, tutorial manner that uses the learning-by-example approach. If you are a developer who wants to start making multiplayer games with the Unity game engine, this book is for you. This book assumes you have some basic experience with programming. No prior knowledge of the Unity IDE is required.

An easy-to-follow, tutorial manner that uses the learning-by-example approach.If you are a developer who wants to start making multiplayer games with the Unity game engine, this book is for you. This book assumes you have some basic experience with programming. No prior knowledge of the Unity IDE is required.

Take a deep dive into creating large-scale, multiplayer games with Unity 3D, using Mirror Networking and a variety of powerful transports. You will learn the fundamentals of RPC/Command multiplayer architecture and dig deeper into networking and data persistence to achieve scalable, highly performant, large-scale, multiplayer games in Unity. This book explains how to develop multiplayer games using Unity within a commercial or enterprise environment. You will take a look at the networking fundamentals behind multiplayer games, including packets and the importance of keeping packets small. Next, you will look into Mirror Networking and see how to leverage a variety of transport layers to achieve large-scale, multiplayer games. Using Unity 3D as the core focus, you will get an understanding of the RPC/Command architecture and how you can utilize different authoritative structures to best suit your needs. You will also learn how to scale your architecture and explore industry-leading methods of deploying your game to the masses. You will also get a solid understanding of networking principles. The book wraps up with advice from leading experts who shed light on past mistakes and provide valuable insights for your next project. This book breaks down daunting concepts into easy-to-understand pieces of knowledge to help you create your first multiplayer game. It is a must-read for any developer looking to understand multiplayer games and networking. What You Will Learn ● Learn advanced multiplayer concepts and how to use them ● Understand the key concepts for creating multiplayer virtual experiences ● Know the basics of computer networking and how to employ them ● Deploy large, scalable multiplayer infrastructures for your games ● Gain insights from other industry professionals Who Is This Book For Intermediate to advanced Unity 3D developers looking to understand multiplayer networking and deploying large-scale products. Having a solid understanding of C# and Unity is required, and having an understanding or prior experience with networking principles such as IPv4 would be advantageous.

Learn the fundamentals of networking with Unity and C#. This book covers a variety of topics, including accessing data using RESTful APIs, local networked games, and creating multiplayer online games using client-server architecture. The book provides the basics of networking, sockets, TCP vs. UDP, client-server architecture, serialization, RESTful APIs, network latency, and client-side prediction. Projects are presented to illustrate the concepts, including a chat client/server overlay for your game, and a 3D maze game that allows up to four players to connect over the network. By the end of the book, you will be familiar with low-level networking concepts such as protocols and architecture as well as high-level knowledge on how to create applications that use a client/server architecture for multiplayer games. What You Will Learn Know the difference between TCP and UDP, and the pros and cons of these protocols Create client-server multiplayer games in Unity using C# Receive and process data from a remote server using RESTful APIs Understand latency and how to mitigate its impact Who This Book Is For Readers familiar with Unity and C# development who want to create multiplayer games

The Practical Guide to Building Reliable Networked Multiplayer Games Networked multiplayer games are a multibillion dollar business: some games now attract tens of millions of players. In this practical, code-rich guide, Joshua Glazer and Sanjay Madhav guide you through every aspect of engineering them. Drawing on their immense experience as both game developers and instructors, the authors lead you through building a robust multiplayer architecture, and creating every engine-level system. You’ll learn through in-depth working code examples for two complete games: an action game and a real time strategy (RTS) game. First, Madhav and Glazer review the essentials of networking and network programming from the standpoint of game developers. Next, they walk through managing game data transmission, updating game objects across the network, and organizing the devices that join your game. You’ll learn how to ensure reliable performance despite the Internet’s inherent inconsistencies, and how to design game code for maximum security and scalability. The authors conclude by addressing two increasingly crucial issues: incorporating gamer services and hosting your games in the cloud. This guide’s content has been extensively tested through the authors’ multiplayer game programming courses at USC. It is equally valuable both to students and to working game programmers moving into networked games. Coverage includes How games have evolved to meet the challenges of networked environments Using Internet communication protocols and standards in game development Working with Berkeley Socket, the most widely used networking construct in multiplayer gaming Formatting game data for efficient Internet transmission Synchronizing states so all players share the same world Organizing networking topologies for large-scale games Overcoming latency and jitter problems that cause delays or lost data Scaling games without compromising performance Combating security vulnerabilities and software cheats Leveraging the networking functionality of the popular Unreal 4 and Unity game engines Integrating gamer services such as matchmaking, achievements, and leaderboards Running game servers in the cloud About the Website C++ source code for all examples is available at github.com/MultiplayerBook. Instructors will also find a full set of PowerPoint slides and a sample syllabus.

Nowadays, online gaming has become a multi-billion-dollar industry, but in the past, it took a lot of time and manpower to develop an MMOG (massively multiplayer online game). This is because MMOG is a very complex system, and the development of a fastpaced online action game requires further technical considerations. After reading books and tutorials related to online game design, many readers are still unable to develop a multiplayer online game because the current books on the market are all focused on the technical discussion, but lack a complete and coherent example. This book adopts a new way to explore this complex topic; that is, a working online game example is focused and comes with programming details to verify the theoretical discussion. The reason why it can be presented in this way is based on my work over a decade as both a professional game developer and a lecturer of multimedia and game development at several universities in Taiwan. Over the years, our team has accumulated experience and achievements in making online games, and obtained good results in related online game-design competitions. This book aims to share our experience with anyone interesting in making MMOGs. If you have some experience in any programming language and want to know how to implement a massively multiplayer online game, this book is perfect for you. In the first part of this book, the essentials of the C# programming language, which is currently the main script language of the Unity game engine, is covered, followed by exploring the C# Object-Oriented Programming techniques required in the later chapters. After you become familiar with programming in C#, further examples are provided in the rest of this book to guide you to build and host an MMOG. If you are an experienced Unity game developer who is interesting in MMOG development, this book is also useful. C# network and multithreaded programming are introduced in the second part to help the readers understanding the fundamentals in the network library, like the UNet or Mirror used in this book. Also, a dedicated chapter for mobile online game development covers the details of porting your MMOG to the largest gaming platform. Through the provided working examples, you'll not only understand the details in implementing an MMOG but also can apply the techniques presented in this book to the other networking libraries or game engines.

Learn how to build a complete 3D game using the industry-leading Unity game development engine and Blender, the graphics software that gives life to your ideas About This Book Learn the fundamentals of two powerful tools and put the concepts into practice Find out how to designand buildall the core elements required for a great game - from characters to environments, to props— Learn how to integrate Artificial Intelligence (AI) into your game for sophisticated and engaging gameplay Who This Book Is For This book has been created for anyone who wants to learn how to develop their own game using Blender and Unity, both of which are freely available, yet very popular and powerful, tools. Not only will you be able to master the tools, but you will also learn the entire process of creating a game from the ground up. What You Will Learn Design and create a game concept that will determine how your game will look and how it will be played Construct 3D models of your game characters and create animations for them before importing them into the game Build the game environment from scratch by constructing the terrain and props, and eventually put it all together to form a scene Import and integrate game assets created in Blender into Unity—for example, setting up textures, materials, animation states, and prefabs Develop game structures including a game flow, user interface diagram, game logic, and a state machine Make the game characters move around and perform certain actions either through player inputs or fully controlled by artificial intelligence Create particles and visual effects to enhance the overall visual aesthetic Deploy the game for various types of platforms In Detail In the wake of the indie game development scene, game development tools are no longer luxury items costing up to millions of dollars but are now affordable by smaller teams or even individual developers. Among these cutting-edge applications, Blender and Unity stand out from the crowd as a powerful combination that allows small-to-no budget indie developers or hobbyists alike to develop games that they have always dreamt of creating. Starting from the beginning, this book will cover designing the game concept, constructing the gameplay, creating the characters and environment, implementing game logic and basic artificial intelligence, and finally deploying the game for others to play. By sequentially working through the steps in each chapter, you will quickly master the skills required to develop your dream game from scratch. Style and approach A step-by-step approach with tons of screenshots and sample code for readers to follow and learn from. Each topic is explained sequentially and placed in context so that readers can get a better understanding of every step in the process of creating a fully functional game.