Building a multiplayer version of Space Invaders

by Srushtika Neelakantam

“Do you play games?”.... Duh! “Ever thought of building one yourself?”...Yes, but, umm... Games innately seem difficult to build. With lots of moving pieces involved (quite literally), game development seems like it’s restricted to devs who’ve immersed their feet deep into the holy waters of networking, mathematics, graphics, and the like. However, with the web evolving ever so rapidly and with all the new protocols and libraries that have spanned in recent years, it’s now super simple to get started with building browser-based multiplayer games. In this talk, we'll understand the core elements of a web-based multiplayer game, including game design and architecture. We'll also understand how these concepts can be implemented to build a multiplayer version of Space Invaders, and of course, play that game together too!