BattleBit, a small indie development team of only 3 developers, has achieved unprecedented overnight success with their game, BattleBit Remastered. Despite six years of hard work and limited resources, their dedication paid off as the game soared to remarkable heights. BattleBit Remastered boasts an astounding average of over 87,323 concurrent players and sold a staggering 1.8 million copies within its first two weeks since launch.

BattleBit’s Multiple, Multiplayer Challenges

The small development team faced numerous challenges along the way. With limited resources, they had to wear multiple hats, taking on roles ranging from coding and design to marketing and community management. The pressure to deliver a polished product while competing against major studios was immense. However, their passion for the project and unwavering commitment to quality drove them forward.

From a development perspective, multiplayer is extremely challenging. As their lead developer, SgtOkiDoki, “If you are planning to make a multiplayer game, don’t! I am not going to lie, don’t. Make a single-player game (if this is your first game). it is very trying. If you are going to accept that you are going to be slammed by a hammer.”

… and that’s before the game is available to players! Since its launch, developers had to fight constant DDoS attacks actively. BattleBit's developers stated that a group discovered a vulnerability in the firewall. They exploited this weak point to launch attacks on various servers, causing disruptions and malfunctions in the server scheduling system. This, in turn, led to issues like long queues with up to 900 people waiting to access the game. The development team had to shift their focus towards addressing the flaw in the firewall instead of further developing the game.

Indie’s Easy & Convenient Solution

Fortunately, there is a simpler way for developers than to go alone. Backend-as-a-service solutions such as Edgegap provide convenient solutions with “AAA game” quality and make them available to any developers.

For example, Kung Fu Kickball, was developed by a single developer at WhaleFood Games. Through containerization and a proprietary server allowing the game to deploy servers nearest to users to minimize latency. This region-less approach allowed Whalefood to split its user base into regions, reducing matchmaking and improving the player experience.

Another example is Soliton Interactive. A team of 10 developers successfully shipped their first playable (core loop) through their multiplayer experience. Soliton Interactive embraced external tools, services, and platforms to skip the development of crucial backend components. This enabled them to prioritize their core game development and ship faster.

Edgegap supported Soliton Interactive’s server orchestration through its robust and automated platform, ensuring the studio was ready for any scale of players, with the lowest latency possible for players worldwide and completely removing the work of planning and provisioning. It’s automated orchestration across 17+ cloud providers and 615+ locations also ensured they had total peace of mind – instant DDoS protection in case.

Conclusion

By embracing established tools and platforms, such as backend-as-a-service platforms such as Edgegap, taking on the challenge of building a multiplayer game by indies (or any studio size!) is not only possible. It can be fun!