Is multiplayer even possible?

[UristMcDorf]

While my heart tells me that yes multiplayer is amazing and should be made, my mind is more reasonable about this. This game isn't built for multiplayer: having different giants assigned to different players would result in a lot of idle time for some of them (and that's not fun), having an extra set of giants for the second player would necessiate a bigger planet, which would probably make it unmanageably big (though it would result in being able to get ALL THE UPGRADES what with different ambassador paths you can take), and I don't even know how competitive would work.

This is not an encouragement/suggestion to add MP, this is more of a query: if there are plans to add it, how exactly are you going to design it? It's a point of interest for me.

[kingofhell214]

Well the way i see it is that 2-4 players would be put on different planets with each one of them with the 4 main giants on all the planets. They would compete who would get the highest score on their planet before the 30-60-120 time limit ran out. Scored would be prosperity of course!

[Touriste]

There is a thread on it on Steam Community hub, check it out :

http://steamcommunity.com/app/222730/di ... 461567664/

For now, there is no fixed ideas, don't be shy and share your views on multiplayer :)

[UristMcDorf]

I already did. And, well, I'm more interested in the professional devs' response than some random guys who are unlikely to take any considerations beyond "it could work I guess" and "it looks cool" into account. No offence.

[JInFi]

if i remember correctly, there was some debate about this a while back, i think the idea was that the game was to challenge the player against his own creations rather than challenge the player against others' creations, which is the core reason why that wasn't done.

though, i'm not 100% sure as to the backstory of this, so don't take my word for it.

[Adriaan]

Multiplayer in Reus is very unlikely. JinFi is right, plus, making multiplayer takes a lot of time. :P I'd liked some way to compare planets, that would be cool, but real competitive is not really attractive.

1) Reus has random factors, which makes singleplayer fun, but makes multiplayer unfair.
2) The whole point of Reus is indeed, creator vs creation.
3) I'm a lousy competition designer. :P
4) Making multiplayer would basically take up 100% of the resources, which I would prefer to put in a more fun singleplayer.
5) The base mechanics have no sensible interaction with other players. (except for sending your civs in an all out war after en era ends. That would be at least entertaining to look at :P)

Co-op is a lot more interesting (8 giants, divide the planet or multitask to complete stuff) and I think would work well if you balanced the set of giants to be independant, but synergizing. Exploring together, helping eachothers village, fighting over which war should be won, or set up your ants against eachother (for no merit). A bit like pikmin 2. Problem with that is that is just again that it takes a lot of design and code work to make it happen. Not to mention the content needed to add. I mean, it will need more giants, a different progression system, a bigger planet, more happening at the same time. etc.

But it's certainly something I will keep an eye out for if we decide to make Reus 2 or something. Because you know, it's pretty damn cool! So keep the ideas roaming!

[UristMcDorf]

Thanks for the answers. To continue the theme laid in the first post, now my heart and mind are aligned, and there is balance in my soul. :3

[Spyre2k]

Multiplayer isn't something that can just be tacked on a game. It requires a lot of back end coding for network traffic along with making the engine which handles multiple inputs. All that is a huge under taking and it's just the coding side of things that doesn't even include all the new mechanics and interactions that would have to be setup. And it's something that really needs to be planned from day 1 of any game development, if it's not it's usually very obvious as a poor quality MP option which even some AAA titles end up with.

Also given the confines of the current game's mechanics it doesn't really fit either Coop or PvP style combat. Other God Games, like populous, are designed with the whole verses mind set right from the start. You build up your villages and use them to take out the enemy God's villages, whether it's an AI or Human doesn't change the basic game.

Perhaps if Reus is popular enough to pay the bills they will make Reus II and it will have multiplayer. ;)

[VDZ]

I wonder why it has to be this difficult.

Wouldn't it be fun if you'd simply have the normal Reus gameplay, but with two (or more) players sending commands to giants/upgrading resources/otherwise providing input? I don't really see the need for an additional 4 giants if you can just share the ones you have already. Sure, more complicated stuff is possible, but is it necessary? I think it would already be fun if you could just play the exact same game as is, but with two players.

On the technical side, the only real problem would be in keeping the two games synced properly, as Reus has a lot of information that has to be shared (though I'd say it's definitely doable). Aside from syncing it's just a matter of relaying actions (move rock giant to X, Y, make rock giant create precious minerals, etc) and adding a chat feature.

[JInFi]

I wonder why it has to be this difficult.

Wouldn't it be fun if you'd simply have the normal Reus gameplay, but with two (or more) players sending commands to giants/upgrading resources/otherwise providing input? I don't really see the need for an additional 4 giants if you can just share the ones you have already. Sure, more complicated stuff is possible, but is it necessary? I think it would already be fun if you could just play the exact same game as is, but with two players.

On the technical side, the only real problem would be in keeping the two games synced properly, as Reus has a lot of information that has to be shared (though I'd say it's definitely doable). Aside from syncing it's just a matter of relaying actions (move rock giant to X, Y, make rock giant create precious minerals, etc) and adding a chat feature.

if only it was that simple....