Multiplayer
Games launched into a NEO session are multiplayer with no code of their own, through the platform's game relay; hosting options and server sizes explained.
On this page
A NEO game that the platform launches into a session is multiplayer. You don't write networking code for it: players in the same session see each other move, on the web and on the desktop, through the platform's game relay. A game made from the GASP template shows other players as fully animated characters with name tags over their heads.
Without a session (for example in Play in the Studio) the multiplayer part does nothing, and the game is single player.
How it works#
- A player presses Play on a game's page. The platform puts them in a session: one running copy of the game that a group of players share, shown on the game page's Servers tab.
- The platform hands the game the session's details: which relay to connect to and a game token that only works for that session.
- The game connects to the relay, which puts the player in the session's room and tells them who else is there.
- From then on each player's game sends its own player's position, facing, speed and movement state about 20 times a second, and the relay sends each player the others' states. The game shows remote players slightly in the past (0.1 s), smoothly interpolated.
For the steps in detail, see Sessions and joining.
The relay#
The relay is the platform's server that every multiplayer session meets on:
| Behaviour | Detail |
|---|---|
| Tick rate | 20 updates a second. |
| Who you see | Players within 128 m of you, the nearest 32. |
| Slow connections | A player who reads slowly gets the newest state, not a backlog. |
| Dropped connections | A player's slot is held for 30 seconds, and the game reconnects and resumes it on its own. |
| Signed in elsewhere | If the same account joins the session from somewhere else, the first copy stops instead of reconnecting. |
| Host | The room's longest-connected player is its host; when they leave, hosting passes to the next. |
In a GASP template game, up to 24 remote players (the nearest) are shown as full animated characters. A player who is reconnecting shows "(away)" on their name tag.
Hosting and server size#
When you create a game in the Creator Hub (New game), the second step asks who hosts it and how many players fit in one server:
| Option | Shown as | Players per server |
|---|---|---|
| Solo | "One player. No server needed." | 1 |
| Small groups | "Up to 16 players; one player's device hosts." | Up to 16 |
| Hosted rooms | "Up to 50 players on a light hosted room." | Up to 50 |
| Dedicated servers | "Big, competitive or persistent worlds." | Up to 200 |
Players per server defaults to 12 and can't exceed the option's limit. The game page shows the result as Up to n players, and the Hosting and Server size stats.
Today every multiplayer option meets on the platform's game relay, so the choice mainly sets how many players share a server. A Solo game gets its own server for each player and no relay connection. Games published from the Studio start as Small groups with 8 players per server.
What multiplayer doesn't do yet#
The relay shares where players are and what they're doing. It doesn't run game logic. Not available yet:
- Authority. Each player's game owns its own player's state, and nothing checks it.
- Prediction, rollback and server scripts.
- Physical contact between players. Another player's character isn't solid on your screen: it doesn't bump into you and can't be shoved or knocked down.
Games can still send their own reliable messages to everyone in the room; see Sessions and joining.
In this section#
- Sessions and joining: how a player joins, what the game receives, web and desktop, and what a game author does with the engine's networking.
- Chat and presence: the platform's chat, friends' online status, filtering and guests.