Setup Testing Environment

Years:

  less than a minute  

Late last year I decided to get more serious about learning game development, and I began a game project to help me learn development in Unreal Engine from start to finish. To avoid overthinking the game design, I will draw most of my content, game mechanics, and data from an existing tabletop RPG called Lejendary Adventure. Since the game will be a real-time network multiplayer combat RPG, I have already installed the Gameplay Ability System plugin, which is reputed to be powerful and flexible, and very performant for network play.

My first task is to setup a multiplayer test environment. After referencing various YouTube tutorials, I decided to use the Steam Advanced Sessions plugin and implement my test environment over the Steam Network. So far, this is working well for me. I was able to:

  • Connect via LAN
  • Connect to a remote user in-state using a custom session browser
  • Connect to a remote user out of state using a custom session browser
  • Connect via the Steam friends list
  • Accommodate 2 separate clients and a listen server simultaneously
  • Successfully replicate custom animations and a crude damage system so that client and server are in synch

This was an exciting first step and much easier to implement than I expected.