Nakama and Edgegap: Powering Online Games with Scalability and Resilience

Players of multiplayer games expect the same high quality online experience from Indies to AAAs, whether they play in New York or Jakarta.

For game developers, this standard requires scalable backend services that work in sync with their game server hosting to ensure a seamless end-user experience that instantly helps users get online and play on game servers with real-time performance.

Two powerhouse solutions are making this easier for developers: Nakama from Heroic Labs and Edgegap.

Integrating these platforms enables games to deliver a consistent, enjoyable experience for players around the world. Let’s break down the integration and its benefits.

Understanding Nakama and Edgegap

Nakama by Heroic Labs

Nakama is an open-source game server that offers essential features like user accounts, social graphs, multiplayer matchmaking, leaderboards, in-app purchasing, and more. Designed to handle the backend needs of real-time and asynchronous multiplayer games, Nakama supports millions of players globally, providing essential game mechanics without requiring developers to build complex infrastructure from scratch.

Edgegap

Edgegap’s patented game server hosting and orchestration leverages the world’s largest, and only, regionless edge network with over 615+ locations worldwide it built tailored for multiplayer games.

Edgegap’s platform deploys game servers at the ideal location closest to players, which reduces latency by 58% on average and with 3 seconds average server boot time ensures a flawless multiplayer experience for players.

For developers, scales up to 14M CCU within 60 minutes to support the biggest of launch-days player spikes. It is cross-platform by default.

How the Integration Works

The integration between Nakama and Edgegap is designed to streamline the process of deploying scalable, low-latency game servers. Here’s an overview of how it works:

1. Matchmaking and Player Management with Nakama: Nakama handles user accounts, matchmaking, and player data management, using a robust architecture to support real-time interactions between players. Once Nakama identifies that a match should start, it triggers a game instance on Edgegap.

2. Dynamic Server Deployment with Edgegap: Edgegap receives the request from Nakama and deploys a server instance in the optimal location based on real-time data, such as the players’ locations and device information. This ensures that game servers are close to players, minimizing latency and creating a smooth in-game experience.

3. Real-Time Communication: The integration allows for seamless communication between Nakama’s game server and Edgegap’s deployment network. Nakama provides the matchmaking, lobby system and general meta game play features, whilst Edgegap ensures that the core game loop (running with a Headless game engine such as Unity) runs as efficiently as possible, no matter where the players are. The connectivity between Edgegap and Nakama mean that players can matchmake better with each other and with existing or new matches running in Edgegap.

4. Scalability and Load Management: Edgegap’s system dynamically scales resources up or down depending on player demand, while Nakama scales to accommodate millions of users, even during peak times. This combination allows developers to maintain consistent performance during traffic spikes without over-committing resources.

How Developers Can Get Started

Integrating Nakama and Edgegap is straightforward. Here’s a quick guide for developers interested in leveraging the combined power of these platforms:

1. Install and Configure Nakama: Start by setting up Nakama as your game’s backend. Configure it to handle user accounts, matchmaking, multiplayer sessions, and other game logic.

2. Sign up to Edgegap: Sign up to Edgegap web platform to upload your dedicated server image and retrieve API keys and secrets needed for the next step. Edgegap’s hosting is free during development with its free trial, and its no-commitment, highly competitive pay-per-minute pricing ensures studios only pay when players are active, with no upfront costs or fixed monthly fees.

3. Connect Nakama to Edgegap: Use Nakama’s FleetManager implementation to connect with Edgegap’s deployment service. Follow the in-depth guide and integrate the nakama-edgegap repository into your codebase.

Conclusion

The Nakama and Edgegap integration offers a powerful, scalable, and flexible solution for multiplayer games, addressing key challenges in real-time connectivity and performance.

By combining Nakama’s robust game server capabilities with Edgegap’s edge-based game server orchestration, developers can build games that meet players’ high expectations for low-latency, stable, and immersive experiences.

This integration empowers studios of all sizes to deliver world-class multiplayer games that feel responsive and enjoyable, regardless of where players are located. Whether you’re an indie developer or an established AAA studio, Nakama and Edgegap provide the tools needed to take your game to the next level.

Start today for free, join Edgegap’s Discord to share with our GameDev community, or contact them directly.