Overview
Dummy Pirates is a PC-based battleship multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game featuring six distinct ships with unique skills. The core gameplay involves stealing enemy chests from their bases while safeguarding your own. In the main menu, players can customize their "dummy" (character) with aesthetic items purchased from shops.
Released in the first quarter of 2023.
Fetch/steal chest mechanics
AI controlled monsters
Development Process
The project commenced in the 2nd to 3rd quarter of 2022, with a team comprising an artist, a lead manager, and myself as the lead programmer. My primary focus was on programming the game's logic, flow, and, crucially, its multiplayer feature.
We opted for Unity due to its simplicity for both programmers and artists.
Photon PUN 2 handled multiplayer features such as room creation, lobby management, and matches.
Steam SDK was integrated for Steam features like achievements and authentication, with support from Unity Gaming Services. This integration allowed us to save player data to the cloud through Steam account logins.
GitHub was used for collaborative development, utilizing its branching and version control functionalities to ensure coordinated and well-documented builds.
The time we added players' statistics screen
First time we playtest the multiplayer mode
Early stages of the game
Challenges and Key Learnings
In the final stages of development, during the testing phase, we faced a challenge with game balancing. With only three team members and no dedicated testers, we enlisted the help of friends willing to participate, as the game required a minimum of six players.
To address this limitation, I implemented a scalable "bot" feature into the game, allowing us to set its parameters during testing. This not only helped in balancing but also evolved into a valuable game feature.
Recognizing the limited player base at the time of release, we decided to retain the bot as a permanent feature. This addition ensured that the game could provide entertainment even with fewer human players.