Godot-matcha is an addon that lets you use WebRTC for multiplayer games by handling matchmaking using WebTorrent trackers. Conceptually it’s quite an interesting, novel approach.
WebTorrent uses a modified BitTorrent protocol that allows it to work with WebSockets. A WebTorrent tracker is essentially a directory service that keeps track of torrents offered by users. A torrent is uniquely identified by its info_hash, so if you have the torrent information, you can look up who is offering a file for download.
Rather than tracking a specific torrent file, godot-matcha generates a random identifier, which it uses as a room (or lobby). If another player has the same identifier they exchange the WebRTC’s SDP details to establish a connection.
Connecting players this way is essentially free. This is a suitable approach for mobile games, for example, where you start a game, and share an identifier with someone else to join in. Mobile party games, for example, use such an approach: One player starts a game, and others join by using some random id such as “FJRLE”.
While godot-matcha is a great proof of concept, I’ve done some testing that showed that the various clients disagree on their unique IDs. This results in challenges when setting the multiplayer authority, a key part of making the high-level multiplayer abstraction work well. The reason for the mismatch is how godot-matcha creates offers, which sets a random id as peer ID before the peers are even connected.
Are you using @onready to reference nodes? There’s a better way! Here’s a simple example of how many tutorials use @onready to reference nodes: That script is attached to a CanvasLayer node with a ProgressBar called HealthBar. And yet, when running the scene, it will throw an error: This is because there’s actually a spelling …
Hugo-Dz created Super Godot Galaxy: https://github.com/Hugo-Dz/super-godot-galaxy, which he announced in this Reddit post. It uses the 3D Starter Kit from Kenney and shows how to achieve the effect of applying gravity toward the center of a small spherical planet.
Per feedback, we’ve exposed more inventory user interface component signals to make it easier to react to slot/item interactions with custom logic. New features: In addition, these bug fixes are included:
This release contains the new Godot editor integrations. It offers an Item Library bottom panel that makes it easier to manage your inventory item types, and an inspector plugin that lets you edit items in a GGItemCollection. This also reduces the need for manually creating GGItemData resources, which simplifies item management at design time significantly. …
godot-matcha: Free multiplayer without a server
Godot-matcha is an addon that lets you use WebRTC for multiplayer games by handling matchmaking using WebTorrent trackers. Conceptually it’s quite an interesting, novel approach.
WebTorrent uses a modified BitTorrent protocol that allows it to work with WebSockets. A WebTorrent tracker is essentially a directory service that keeps track of torrents offered by users. A torrent is uniquely identified by its info_hash, so if you have the torrent information, you can look up who is offering a file for download.
Rather than tracking a specific torrent file, godot-matcha generates a random identifier, which it uses as a room (or lobby). If another player has the same identifier they exchange the WebRTC’s SDP details to establish a connection.
Connecting players this way is essentially free. This is a suitable approach for mobile games, for example, where you start a game, and share an identifier with someone else to join in. Mobile party games, for example, use such an approach: One player starts a game, and others join by using some random id such as “FJRLE”.
While godot-matcha is a great proof of concept, I’ve done some testing that showed that the various clients disagree on their unique IDs. This results in challenges when setting the multiplayer authority, a key part of making the high-level multiplayer abstraction work well. The reason for the mismatch is how godot-matcha creates offers, which sets a random id as peer ID before the peers are even connected.
In contrast, the godot-demo-projects repository has a webrtc_signaling demo, which uses the lobby/signaling server to tell the clients their ID, so that all clients (including the one acting as the server) add the same peer ID.
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Ditch @onready, use @export instead
Are you using @onready to reference nodes? There’s a better way! Here’s a simple example of how many tutorials use @onready to reference nodes: That script is attached to a CanvasLayer node with a ProgressBar called HealthBar. And yet, when running the scene, it will throw an error: This is because there’s actually a spelling …
Super Godot Galaxy Concept
Hugo-Dz created Super Godot Galaxy: https://github.com/Hugo-Dz/super-godot-galaxy, which he announced in this Reddit post. It uses the 3D Starter Kit from Kenney and shows how to achieve the effect of applying gravity toward the center of a small spherical planet.
Inventory System v1.6 available
Per feedback, we’ve exposed more inventory user interface component signals to make it easier to react to slot/item interactions with custom logic. New features: In addition, these bug fixes are included:
Inventory System 2 Alpha 2 available
This release contains the new Godot editor integrations. It offers an Item Library bottom panel that makes it easier to manage your inventory item types, and an inspector plugin that lets you edit items in a GGItemCollection. This also reduces the need for manually creating GGItemData resources, which simplifies item management at design time significantly. …