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My Backyard (2019)

Used tools: Godot Engine, Node.js, Blender

"My backyard" was a social game experiment inspired on Habbo. Obviously I wasn't aiming to achieve the same scope. Took approximately a week of fun. Made the little robot 3D model and textures as well.

Development

Github Page
*Currently lacking a Linux exported executable*

There isn't much you can do besides walk (WASD) and chat. Although the client game was made in Godot, to play it is necessary to join a Node.js server through a websocket connection. The server does everything that there is to do: hosts rooms. The room data (positions+chat) is server-centralized in the most simple way... it just repass JSONS to connected peers in the room.

Fun story is that I even bought a cheap domain for it (mybackyard.xyz). The plan was to to publish the client for web browser (Godot exports to HTML5) through Github Pages. For some reason I don't exactly remember, I had to host the server using HTTPS (I think it was due to mandatory HTTPS from Github pages and the restriction that websockets from HTTPS pages only connect to SSL websockets)

Currently I don't host it anywhere and I don't own the domain anymore, so I can't just give you a link to test it (you can try to host a server though).

I remember having a hard time to grasp the thing about SSL certificates and whatever. But I managed it and after port-forwarding my router, I finally got some friends to join my room:

The feeling was awesome... It's hard to explain: I was excited to do something with networking and to know that a little Raspberry PI at my desk was hosting something for 4 persons out there and we were communicating through it? Very awesome.

Also, at this moment I was sure that I was not developing it any further, I knew that things weren't scalable. Just threw it away. Good learning. The future is great. Next.

Google Cloud hosting

Some weeks later, I was experimenting with Google Cloud and tried the *Host your App* thing. To host my Node.js server out there was almost just like a drag-n-drop. It even took care of the SSL and domain thing automatically.

I was very excited: maybe I could just have it published out there and show it off to anyone? Well, I knew about the costs, but I had the free U$300 they gave for free trial, I thought it would be enough to host for a couple months maybe? Using the cheapest server? I was disappointed, the costs were way unviable... I don't quite remember the values, but I had to disable it in a couple days.