Multiplayer & Leaderboards.

Turn solo games into social experiences without a server engineering degree.

After this lesson you'll know

The different types of multiplayer and which fits your game
How to add leaderboards with free backend services
How to implement local multiplayer with minimal code
When to avoid multiplayer entirely (and why that's often smart)

Multiplayer Types

Not all multiplayer is created equal.

There's a massive difference between "two players on one keyboard" and "thousands of players on a server." Let's break down your options from simplest to most complex:

Local Multiplayer: Two players, one device. Split keyboard controls or pass-and-play. Easiest to implement. Think classic arcade games.

Asynchronous: Players take turns at different times. Leaderboards, ghost runs, daily challenges. No real-time connection needed.

Real-time Online: Players connected simultaneously over the internet. Hardest to implement. Requires servers, latency management, and security.

Honest advice: For your first game, go asynchronous. Leaderboards and daily challenges give you 80% of the social engagement with 10% of the technical complexity.

Leaderboards

Competition drives retention.

A leaderboard transforms "I got 500 points" into "I'm ranked #47 globally and I need to beat Sarah's score." That's the difference between playing once and playing daily.

Free backend options for leaderboards:

Supabase: Free tier gives you a PostgreSQL database with real-time subscriptions. Perfect for leaderboards. Ask AI to generate the schema and API calls.

Firebase: Google's free tier handles reads/writes and real-time updates. Well-documented and AI knows it inside out.

"Add a global leaderboard to my browser game using Supabase. Create a table with columns: player_name (text), score (integer), created_at (timestamp). Add functions to submit a score and fetch the top 10. Show the leaderboard on the game-over screen with the player's rank highlighted."

That's a 15-minute feature that dramatically increases replay value.

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