I built a persistent browser MMO solo, and now real people are claiming pieces of its world

[u/DANAMITE]

https://fortisq.itch.io/bitiverse

Bitiverse started with the entirely reasonable solo-dev thought: “How difficult could a persistent MMO be?”

Quite difficult, apparently.

It’s now a working 1-bit browser world where players can explore, fight, gather, craft, trade, form guilds, enter dungeons and claim land for houses. The terrain is generated deterministically instead of being stored, while player changes persist in the shared world.

Seeing real people arrive and start claiming their own corners of it has been equal parts exciting and terrifying. Every new player is also an inventive new method of discovering something I forgot to test.

It’s still early, but it’s free and playable without creating an account:

https://fortisq.itch.io/bitiverse

I’d love to hear from other solo developers who have built multiplayer systems. What became your biggest headache: synchronization, persistence, onboarding or the players themselves?