Happy 2020 everyone! We’re kicking off this decade with one final look at all the backend systems for Super Plexis, especially since our next big update will be demoing the game client and backend finally working together! If you haven’t been on our discord recently and are wondering “Why the slow updates?” or “What’s with the focus on technical stuff?” definitely check out our earlier blog here for more detailed info on our status. And with that, let’s jump in!
The Infrastructure
For awhile now you’ve heard us talk about things like Plexnet, MedleyIDs, game servers, databases, etc. But we’ve always revealed and discussed each separately, when really, they’re all pieces of a larger system. In fact, some of the more abstract pieces like “Harmony” and the trio of “Medley Internal Services” we’ve never officially introduced, until today! With this “Super Plexis Infrastructure” nearing its first functioning state — game client included — it’s proper time we share this handy graph of it all working together, created and described by the engineer himself:
In order to make Super Plexis the best online playing experience possible, we've taken a "decoupled" approach to the backend, and opted to create our own distributed services which support Super Plexis. Medley's infrastructure has been in the works (research + implementation) since 2018. So far all of the systems you see here have been successfully prototyped in-house, with the dedicated server being the current focus of development. We’ve made steady progress and are confident in being able to showcase multiplayer demos by the end of Q2 2020!
All hosting is managed on AWS to provide maximum availability. By decoupling all of these complex systems into their own services, we are preparing ourselves for Super Plexis's userbase and feature set to grow exponentially upon cross-platform launch. Most important, however, is that Super Plexis has very few immediate dependencies: Harmony, and Plexnet. This is a massive win for Medley and all fans of Super Plexis because:
1: You'll never get kicked out of an online game due to a backend update to Conductor (for example)
2: Future titles under Medley can reuse Arbiter, Conductor, Herald, and the data stores (yes, "future titles")
We're so excited to finally be in a place where we can share this progress, and we look forward to showcasing as much Super Plexis progress as possible for 2020!
— Andrew
Bonus UI Update!
But wait there’s more! You might’ve seen our last blog post about designing “The Journal”, and with all this talk about online and databases you can see why we were focused on it. Post-game stats are full of useful information, but fitting everything neatly for different screen sizes can be a design challenge. Even from an engineering perspective it helps to know in advance what exactly we plan to track and log for players (like replays and lifetime stats), and design mock-ups help solidify the vision for that. Previously we shared the simplified “game history” screen, with a truncated view of each game’s stats in a list. But what happens when you select a game entry on that list? Here’s a mocked-up example of the stats you’d see for a “Ranked Versus” game (as always subject to change):
And with that we’ll sign off with one final bonus, a little concept also in the realm of UI that we’ve been playing with:
Might this be considered a teaser / reveal of a new title screen? Who can say!
Thanks for reading and looking forward to sharing more with everyone soon! As always if you guys have questions feel free to reach out to us on our Discord server here.
— The Medley Studios Team