One game or two? Must Have Air multiplayer version + solo version

Core General
#1

Trying to decide if it would be worth breaking up Must Have Air into two separate games. I solo version where a player would focus on time attack, challenges, etc. It would be much easier with my scripting skill I think to break them into two BUT I think the better experience is a single game with the ability to run solo challenges and multiplayer if that is what the lobby wants. If I broke the game into two I would put portals to each so if a player loaded into Multiplayer and no other players were present then they could portal over to the single player and run challenges. If I do that, I would like to put some sort of notice, if possible, in solo mode to notify solo players that people want to run multiplayer matches. Is there a way to have games communicate to other games and trigger messages? I have been reading the docs and API but have not gotten a clear grasp on it quite yet.

Would love to hear suggestions and opinions from the community.... one game with more complex options which would most likely slow down updates and releases on my end OR two games... one multiplayer and one solo. The downside here is that I would need to carry certain updates from one to the other can cause myself some rework. That may actually be faster though than spending the dev time. Thoughts?

Lastly, if I create the solo game and set required players to one then of course only one player can be in there... which would take some of the lobby / obby / and social hang out of it. Would it be better to keep player count higher and then just spawn a player into a solo map just for that player number. Open to education here. I just don't know the best way to go about it and am looking for some help! Appreciate you all in this great community. Happy New Year! Cheers to 2021!

#2

Do what Race Day does and have people queue into a session. You can have one keybind go into solo play and another queue into multiplayer play.

#3

I tried out Race Day. My understanding is that if they select solo or free roam it is going into one map. If they choose to race it will go into another. However, how do I determine which players are playing against each other vs which one is in a solo round? Is there a way to use the same map? I don't feel like there is in that the air canisters need to be accessible by for the solo player and they could not be running the same course at the same time. Therefore I would need a solo course and multiplayer course. How do I pull the solo players out of the multiplayer queue? Trying to think about how all this works and still wondering if two separate games would be easier then create a portal between the two. If a player shows up in single and wants to play some multiplayer they can broadcast to other players. they could meeting or jump to the same place in the level and portal over to multiplayer.

Having it all in one would be great but not sure I have the scripting chops to really nail it.

#4

Following what @InsertYourself mentioned - Think of it this way @MtnMan365 (Just my two cents but may clarify in a fellow art based thought processes mind).

You have your multiplayer version as a stand-alone
You have your solo course - stand-alone

Both of these could potentially be "Unlisted" games - private

Your "Lobby per say" is the published game and is the que or main entry point for all players. They then decide if they go to portal "A" - solo or portal "B" - PVP.

And both of your stand alone, fully functional games are "children" to the "Lobby".

#5

Think of it as the Lobby being the base of the tree. Climb into the base and then you have unlimited options (branches or your different games)

That's how I imagine it working..

#6

@NoobDadGamer makes so so much sense. I did not know you could port people to other games that are unlisted. That is totally what I want to do and just blew off the doors of what I was thinking.

@InsertYourself is that what you were meaning?

I am going to try that either way to see what I can come up with. I think it will massively benefit performance, level building, etc. You guys are both fantastic. Thanks for being such good community members and always super kind to me specifically.

#7

No that is not what I was meaning lmao. I already gave you the example of Race Day. All your questions of "How to do this" and "How to do that" can be all solved with logic and coding.

#8

@NoobDadGamer turns out you were spot on my man. Looks like Slinkous did a whole stream about some of the new features that are available of which the child parent gaming relationship is full discussed. This is exactly what I was looking for and was in line with how you were thinking about it. She goes into more detail about how things can persist as well which I have not watched yet but is going to be what I watch during breakfast this morning...

Core Academy: Creating Linked Games

Thanks for both of your help!