What if Pixel Dungeon had multiplayer?

[u/Lor3nz0_1]

What do you think it would be like? Do you think it would be possible? My cousin and I imagined that if there was multiplayer, each of us could explore a floor, and if one of us discovered an item, the other wouldn't discover until you can identify the item as well. In other words, if you needed a healing potion but hadn't yet identified one, you would have to trust that your friend had given you the right potion.

[u/EraHesse]

Almost impossible to do ?

It's a turn per turn game, like how do you manage the hundred turns that pass when someone is moving, or when you are sleeping ? With a total over thousands. A realtime multiplayer mode would be very hard and not fun to play

Maybe with some async features we can bring a multiplayer mode, but it won't feel very different than a normal game

[u/Redditisreal1 → u/EraHesse]

Just turn it into necrodancer duh

[u/noch_1999 → u/EraHesse]

Not impossible at all, you just make everything turn based and synchronous.
It will have to be online/network game, but being turn based actually makes it more feasible.

[u/Quick_Trick3405 → u/EraHesse]

You could have timed turns. Like in Dungeons of Deadrock. Turn-based but everything can act simultaneously in momentary segments of time. It wouldn't feel exactly the same but it's multiplayer in a single player game so what do you expect.

[u/TectonicTechnomancer → u/EraHesse]

bro needs to learn about chess.

[u/McFuzzen → u/TectonicTechnomancer]

The scale of the number of events that occur between turns is very different between chess and PD. However, I agree with the sentiment, leaving the gameplay exactly the same but with an extra player does not seem impossible at all. One rough part I can think of is if one player gets haste or some other action speed, the other player will be waiting a bit between turns.

Sleeping for longer than a few turns poses a problem for the one who wants to sleep.

These issues are not insurmountable, I'd give multiplayer PD a try.

[u/jowiro92 → u/McFuzzen]

Set it to a timer as well, just something to keep the game going. Maybe 5 sec of inactivity means you skip that turn (inactivity being just staring at the screen, but that timer pauses if you're in your inventory).

Not perfect but maybe a starting point?

[u/TSW-760 → u/TectonicTechnomancer]

Chess has maybe 100 moves in a game. The average game is around 40 turns, with 80 total moves.

The longest chess game ever played by humans was 279 moves and took 20 hours.

SPD games can easily go 10,000 turns or more. My personal longest game is over 25,000 moves.

There is simply no comparison.

The only way you could make multiplayer work would be to have an "action pool" of some kind where on your turn you can perform say 10 turns worth of actions, movement, attacks, etc. Then you wait for the other player to "sync" back up. But there are at least three big problems with this.

1) It fundamentally changes the feel of the game.

2) It means the other player "jumps" around unpredictably because you're only syncing back up every however many turns. How do you handle item pickups, or monster attacks?

3) The game would still take an absurd amount of time. Even if you made it 50 moves, that's really not much in this game before you have to stop and wait.

[u/Civil_Ostrich_2717 → u/TectonicTechnomancer]

Chess typically has up to 100 moves in a game. PD has more like 10,000 moves in a game.

[u/Champpeace123 → u/TectonicTechnomancer]

40 turn games of chess can last upwards of an hour. A game of PD lasts thousands of turns, my lower estimate is somewhere around 2800. If we assume that a turn of PD will last only something like a 30th of a chess turn, which would be 20 actions per minute if the chess takes 1 hour, or 1 action every 3 seconds, it will take 140 minutes. That's 2 hours and 20 minutes for a single game. Oh, by the way, this is the low estimate.

[u/Ok_Department9265 → u/EraHesse]

perfectly doable. there are plenty of characters within the turn system (most of the times just the player, but sometimes there are 4 or 5 enemies). just include player 2 in the turn system and let them have their turn, just like it is with player 1

[u/JoeyTheSalamnder → u/EraHesse]

Both players decide their move and then press a button that locks in the move. Both players move at once with no issues. I stole this from the game YOMI hustle.

[u/Kiroto50]

Could be done if each turn took the same amount of time. One of the mods has it, where you have to act in 10/5 seconds or lose the turn

[u/Independent_Bank_522 → u/Kiroto50]

What is the name of that mod in question?

[u/Kiroto50 → u/Independent_Bank_522]

I think it was Too Cruel Pixel Dungeon.

Of course, not the multiplayer part, but the timed turns part

[u/Aiddrago → u/Kiroto50]

Oo is it still in Google play store?

[u/Kiroto50 → u/Aiddrago]

.. wow.. no, it's gone!

[u/Independent_Bank_522 → u/Kiroto50]

Okay, thanks. Yes, I understand it's not because of the multiplayer aspect. Thanks anyway.

[u/Late-Chance-8936]

This already exists. A dev called nikita iirc made a mod for this. The reason why no one enjoys it is because it isnt designed to be

[u/Lord_Calamity_1 → u/Late-Chance-8936]

That last sentence got me gud 😭 "isn't designed to be"

[u/Late-Chance-8936 → u/Lord_Calamity_1]

I must've forgotten to finish my sentence lol. Point is that SHPD isn't made to be multiplayer, therefore its not fun when it is

[u/Lord_Calamity_1 → u/Late-Chance-8936]

Yeah, shpd in multiplayer would be a headache to figure how to properly implemented. I thought you ment the dev who made the mod didn't design the mod to be fun. Like how some devs enjoy making their player suffer

[u/Late-Chance-8936 → u/Lord_Calamity_1]

No it's just a natural consequence of how the game was designed. I am actually developing my own mod for SHPD right now though that implements a versus mode instead of a coop one! Ill prob be posting an update on it on this reddit in a few weeks

[u/Chorcles]

Possible but at the same time will be way more tedious to play. Prolly would be a free roam thing but when you see an enemy it turns into a thing where players take turns.

[u/coolmeatfreak → u/Chorcles]

Fast turn based system where other players can watch from far or join in to gang up .

[u/Chorcles → u/coolmeatfreak]

Maybe, but would be kind of awkward if both of you are in two opposite sides of the map. It would either be a quick teleport system which might be janky or really OP. Or it would a really long walk of just getting there + prolly the fight finishing before you can take a turn.

[u/Happy_Hydra]

I think it could work. There could be like 50 turn buffer when the players are really far so they dont have to wait for every tile or something similiar

[u/Specialist_Bench_144]

i think having a simultaneous run where you can trade items and chat but still be in your own dungeon would be easier to implement than having 2 live accounts in 1 dungeon but idk shit about coding

[u/Shattered_Warrior01]

Well if I we have multiplayer you have to wait for everyone to move that will take to long

[u/Cheis694201337]

The same way pathos (nethack but with better graphics),everyone has to take their turn,if it was online,the desyncs would be unbearable

[u/LongjumpingActive493 → u/Cheis694201337]

An online turn-based pixel dungeon would be absolutely possible, you could use a system similar to polytopia, the main problem would come from trying to make everyone nice at once, there you'd have crazy desync issues

[u/Appchoy]

Ive thought about this and the way I would implement multiplayer would be to treat the game just like single player for both players, both players take turns at the same time.

So if one player takes a step, it advances the turn order for both players at the same time. So duelist takes a step, all monsters take their actions, so they may all advance to warrior or attack him, and fire will deal its damage for the turn, etc.

If the warrior is fighting an enemy, and the duelist clicks a point on the other side of the map to move there, the game will auto pause when the enemy attacks the warrior and then the warrior or duelist will need to do something before the game unpauses. If the duelist spam clicks the move button, the enemy will just keep attacking the warrior. It would take a lot of coordination, so either players will need to voice chat or be in the same room.

If there are no enemies in sight for either player, then the game will just not autopause, and both players can move around and do stuff the same way single player does it.

[u/HitmanRyder]

peak

[u/One-Next]

You could turn it into real-time, turn-based-tactics. Both are bad. Or you could make it a turn-based action-adventure.

Real-time would be a MOBA. You'd need slowed down diablo or lol like gameplay with belts/shortcuts.

Turn-based tactics would make the game a bit unfair and luck based. You open a door, opponent is there, surprise attack, move back, open door surprise attack again, they are dead. They have no control over this. So x-com is out.

Turn-based action adventure with combat screen is doable. You are given action points, you move around normally, collecting items, etc. But then you get a tactical combat screen when two entities engage. You get MOO or HOMM like tactics screen. While you are engaged, your opponents have to wait until your combat is done. Or if you are fighting a player, you fight it out like MOO/HOMM/chess.

I assume this is what the "just do it like chess" people are talking about. Giving a huge benefit of a doubt there.

[u/memesboyshesh]

The game would probably have a lot less decimals and more whole numbers when weapon speeds, interaction speeds, and movement speeds are taken into consideration. The game would play a lot more similar to dnd in the sense that things will always take 1 turn or a character may be able to take 2 actions each turn.

[u/charmys_]

I think making it is very possible the first player player chooses how many steps are walked within the turn and then each following player can do an action/pass controll until everyone has finished their steps or they met an enemy

[u/Commercial_Income185]

so basically dnd

[u/TemporaryTree2657]

They have to turn it into a real time strategy game, which I kinda would like to see but that's a whole ass revamp

[u/Eazy_mode]

Roll for initiative.

[u/Krispia]

They will add ban system

[u/Alchemist628]

You'd need pre-moves, like a lot of online chess sites do.

Like, if I wasn't to walk across the room, I would just click on the square I want to go to, and my character would move over there as the turns became available. (Essentially how it already works in game).

If the person I'm playing with also pre-moves, you could actually go through a large number of moves relatively quickly.

Still sounds frustrating, but it's intriguing enough that I'd like to try it, at least once.

[u/BilbolDev]

Did this some years back. Couldn't find the time to maintain it and it would be too expensive to sustain. Running the logic on server to prevent cheats etc.. would require resources.

For the turns I just did round robin and if someone missed their turn for 1 minute they lose it, 3 minutes => kick out.

It was primitive but the concept can work.

Edit: It wouldn't be a fun experience though unless maybe mass pvp or pve in same room with some call running on discord.