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.
The Terrain3D addon for Godot lets you create and manage 3D terrains within Godot. It looks quite promising for making landscapes, hills, valleys, and other natural environments. The addon provides tools for sculpting the terrain, and you can paint different textures like grass, dirt, or rock, and blend them smoothly. It also supports features like …
The latest version includes a few new enhancements, and an experiment: The sequencer demo uses inventory instances to hold music notes, which can be played back. This was inspired by music trackers that were popular in the 90s, such as Scream Tracker and Impulse Tracker. The sequencer isn’t meant to be a production-ready digital audio …
A new version of the Inventory System is available with more multiplayer-related features. The Multiplayer Interaction Demo can now run in multiple modes, through two separate implementations of the Character scene: The simple character scene leverages the MultiplayerSynchronizer and can either let the client have authority and move the character, or have the client send …
I had a setup with nested CanvasLayer nodes. Toggling the visibility of the root CanvasLayer doesn’t hide any nested CanvasLayer nodes. My solution was to listen to the visibility_changed signal, find any CanvasLayer child nodes, and apply the same visibility to them.
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.
Related Posts
Terrain3D for Godot has been released
The Terrain3D addon for Godot lets you create and manage 3D terrains within Godot. It looks quite promising for making landscapes, hills, valleys, and other natural environments. The addon provides tools for sculpting the terrain, and you can paint different textures like grass, dirt, or rock, and blend them smoothly. It also supports features like …
Inventory System v1.8 available
The latest version includes a few new enhancements, and an experiment: The sequencer demo uses inventory instances to hold music notes, which can be played back. This was inspired by music trackers that were popular in the 90s, such as Scream Tracker and Impulse Tracker. The sequencer isn’t meant to be a production-ready digital audio …
Inventory System v1.14 available
A new version of the Inventory System is available with more multiplayer-related features. The Multiplayer Interaction Demo can now run in multiple modes, through two separate implementations of the Character scene: The simple character scene leverages the MultiplayerSynchronizer and can either let the client have authority and move the character, or have the client send …
Toggling Visibility of Nested CanvasLayers
I had a setup with nested CanvasLayer nodes. Toggling the visibility of the root CanvasLayer doesn’t hide any nested CanvasLayer nodes. My solution was to listen to the visibility_changed signal, find any CanvasLayer child nodes, and apply the same visibility to them.