While working at exar studios I was given the chance to research, develop and ultimately make a prototype for a multiplayer system and game that works on mobile devices and is played in augmented reality. This presented many unique challenges that aren't typically present in multiplayer development.
Since each device defines its own world space in AR, player movement and physics couldn’t be synced using standard world coordinates. Instead, all interactions were calculated relative to each player's anchored AR game board, ensuring consistent behaviour across devices. A custom setup flow was also built to notify the host when each player had placed their AR board, allowing the game to begin only after all boards were placed and anchored.
Unity Lobby and Unity Relay were used to host and join public lobbies for user to group up and play together without the need for users to be on the same network and to avoid the cost of dedicated servers.
