Roadmap

RPG98 › Roadmap › Phase 5 — Multiplayer & Queues

Phase 5 — Multiplayer & Queues

Version: v0.5.0 Status: 🔲 Planned

Goal

Bring multiple players into the same dungeon. The queue system matches teams, manages dungeon instances, and enforces the two run types — PvE-only co-op and PvPvE with rival teams. Sound effects and the Onion OS launcher package ship here too, making the game feel complete and distributable.

Deliverable

A fully playable multiplayer build launchable from the Miyoo's Onion OS game list: queue into a PvE or PvPvE session, run a dungeon with matched teammates and rivals, hear sound effects, extract successfully, and see corpse-looting work correctly in PvPvE.

Planned

Multiplayer Rules

PvE-only

  • Max 4 players, one team, no friendly fire
  • On death: half of equipped loot randomly destroyed, the rest remains on the corpse for teammates to retrieve and return
  • All portal modes available

PvPvE

  • Up to 8 players across multiple teams
  • Max 4 players per team — flexible compositions (e.g. 4v4, 3v3v2, 2v2v2v2)
  • On death: all equipped loot stays on corpse, looted by anyone
  • Required for Empowered portal mode

Queue & Matchmaking (Server)

The server maintains a lobby queue per run type and portal mode combination. When enough players are ready, the server:

  1. Creates a new dungeon instance (fresh procedural generation)
  2. Assigns players to teams (tries to balance team sizes)
  3. Sends each player their Connected message with the map and spawn assignment
  4. Opens the instance for play

Solo players can queue into either mode with a warning that they will be outnumbered in PvPvE. No forced wait timer — if the queue has at least 1 player and a threshold time passes, the run starts.

Instance management:

  • Each dungeon instance is an isolated task on the server (tokio::spawn)
  • State is not shared between instances
  • Instance cleans itself up when all players have extracted, died, or disconnected
  • Max concurrent instances is capped to stay within Pi/VPS memory budget

Server: Interest Management

With up to 8 players, sending every entity state to every player every tick wastes bandwidth. Each player only receives WorldSnapshot data for entities within a configurable radius (~15 tiles). Entities outside that radius are omitted from the snapshot.

This also prevents cheating via packet inspection — players can't see enemies or rivals they shouldn't know about yet.

Client: Other Players

Remote players render the same way as the local player — 32×32 sprite sheet, class-appropriate animation. Team affiliation shown via a small coloured indicator above the name tag:

  • Same team: green
  • Rival team: red
  • PvE session: no indicator (everyone is friendly)

No player names displayed in-run by default — keeps the screen clean on the Miyoo's small display.

Client: Corpse Looting (PvPvE)

When a player dies in PvPvE, their corpse remains in the dungeon as an interactable entity. Walking over it and pressing R1 (SDLK_t) opens a loot grid showing their dropped equipped items. Items are claimed on a first-come basis — server validates each pickup.

In PvE, the corpse only shows to teammates and only holds the surviving half of the loot (the rest was destroyed server-side on death).

Sound Effects

WAV files only — SDL_Mixer OGG is broken on the Miyoo platform. All audio converted to WAV before inclusion.

Target sounds for this phase:

  • Melee swing and hit
  • Spell cast and projectile impact
  • Player hurt and death
  • Item pickup and equip
  • Portal activation and extraction success
  • UI navigation clicks

Audio is client-side only — no sync needed over the network. Volume levels must be tuned for the Miyoo's small speaker.

Onion OS Packaging

The game ships as a proper Onion OS port package, launchable from the Miyoo's game list.

App structure on SD card:

Roms/PORTS/Games/RPG98/
├── rpg98               # ELF ARM binary (statically linked musl)
├── rpg98.port          # Launcher config
└── assets/             # Sprites, tilesets, WAV audio

Saves/CurrentProfile/saves/RPG98/
└── config.toml         # Server address, session token, keybinds, class cache

rpg98.port fields:

GameName=RPG98
GameExecutable=rpg98
GamePath=/mnt/SDCARD/Roms/PORTS/Games/RPG98

Config path on device: /mnt/SDCARD/Saves/CurrentProfile/saves/RPG98/config.toml Box art (optional): Roms/PORTS/Imgs/RPG98.png

Build & package script:

# Final Miyoo build
cargo build -p client --release --target armv7-unknown-linux-musleabihf

# Copy binary + assets to package dir, then scp the whole folder (replace 192.0.0.1 with your Miyoo's local IP)
scp -r RPG98/ root@192.0.0.1:/mnt/SDCARD/Roms/PORTS/Games/

Release builds (--release) are significantly smaller and faster than debug — use release for all hardware testing from this phase forward.

Deploy & Test Loop

# Server (production build for Pi/VPS)
cargo build -p server --release
./target/release/server

# Miyoo release build (replace 192.0.0.1 with your Miyoo's local IP)
cargo build -p client --release --target armv7-unknown-linux-musleabihf
scp target/armv7-unknown-linux-musleabihf/release/client root@192.0.0.1:/mnt/SDCARD/Roms/PORTS/Games/RPG98/rpg98

Key multiplayer tests:

  • 2-player PvE: one player dies, confirm correct loot destruction/retrieval
  • 4v4 PvPvE: full corpse looting works, rival indicators display correctly
  • Mixed team sizes (3v3v2): matchmaking assigns teams correctly
  • Empowered mode only opens in PvPvE queue
  • Sound plays on Miyoo speaker without crackling
  • Game launches cleanly from Onion OS launcher (not just SSH)
  • Config persists across sessions (server address, class choice)

Completion Checklist (Planned)

  • Server queue system per run type + portal mode combination
  • Dungeon instance management (isolated tokio tasks, auto-cleanup)
  • Team assignment with flexible sizes (max 4 per team, max 8 total)
  • Solo queue warning in PvPvE
  • Interest management — server only sends nearby entity data
  • Remote player rendering (class sprite, team colour indicator)
  • PvE corpse: half loot destroyed, half retrievable by teammates only
  • PvPvE corpse: full loot, loottable by anyone, server-validated pickup
  • WAV sound effects (swing, cast, hit, death, pickup, portal, UI)
  • Audio tuned for Miyoo speaker volume
  • Onion OS .port package with correct directory structure
  • config.toml persists server address, session token, keybinds, class cache
  • Release build (--release) tested on hardware for performance
  • Game launches from Onion OS launcher without SSH

Actual

— Not yet started. To be filled in when Phase 5 is complete. —

What Was Built

Deviations & Discoveries

What Was Deferred

Completion Checklist (Actual)

  • Server queue system per run type + portal mode combination
  • Dungeon instance management (isolated tokio tasks, auto-cleanup)
  • Team assignment with flexible sizes (max 4 per team, max 8 total)
  • Solo queue warning in PvPvE
  • Interest management — server only sends nearby entity data
  • Remote player rendering (class sprite, team colour indicator)
  • PvE corpse: half loot destroyed, half retrievable by teammates only
  • PvPvE corpse: full loot, loottable by anyone, server-validated pickup
  • WAV sound effects (swing, cast, hit, death, pickup, portal, UI)
  • Audio tuned for Miyoo speaker volume
  • Onion OS .port package with correct directory structure
  • config.toml persists server address, session token, keybinds, class cache
  • Release build (--release) tested on hardware for performance
  • Game launches from Onion OS launcher without SSH

Previous: Phase 4 — Loot, Extraction & Hub Next: Phase 6 — Polish & Release