u/OtherwiseExternal197

https://preview.redd.it/brnvhfgau3eh1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=cb068e4826309f1817c997f9548e7aa4dfc1dde4

My brother and I have spent the past year building Mortumus, a hardcore full loot PvP MMO ARPG, in our spare time around day jobs. He owns the server side, I own the client, and that clean split has honestly been one of the biggest reasons we've kept momentum for a full year without stepping on each other.

The unglamorous truth of year one is that almost none of it was game content. It was all foundations: server authoritative networking, combat, spells, and the PvP and full loot systems. We're only now reaching the point where we can start actual world creation, which is both exciting and slightly terrifying because it means the excuses are over and the game has to start being fun.

Latest devlog showing the current state: https://youtu.be/_T33cddn7ms

Happy to go deep on anything, whether that's the networking approach, how we scoped an MMO down to something two people can realistically ship, or how we've kept motivated a year in. If you're considering a multiplayer project I'm glad to share what we'd do differently.

https://preview.redd.it/bhatpsr0t3eh1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=cd1e89dd514800837957c5618bd7fa9032b52f1d

My brother and I have spent the past year building Mortumus, a hardcore full loot PvP MMO ARPG, in our spare time around day jobs. He owns the server side, I own the client, and that clean split has honestly been one of the biggest reasons we've kept momentum for a full year without stepping on each other.

The unglamorous truth of year one is that almost none of it was game content. It was all foundations: server authoritative networking, combat, spells, and the PvP and full loot systems. We're only now reaching the point where we can start actual world creation, which is both exciting and slightly terrifying because it means the excuses are over and the game has to start being fun.

Latest devlog showing the current state: https://youtu.be/_T33cddn7ms

Happy to go deep on anything, whether that's the networking approach, how we scoped an MMO down to something two people can realistically ship, or how we've kept motivated a year in. If you're considering a multiplayer project I'm glad to share what we'd do differently.

My brother and I are from Australia and we've spent the past year building Mortumus, a hardcore full loot PvP MMO ARPG. He handles the server, I handle the client, and we both have day jobs so this is all spare time work.

A year in, most of the core is in place: server authoritative networking, combat, spells, and PvP with full loot drops. We just hit the point where we can stop building systems and start building the actual world and content, which honestly feels like the real beginning.

Latest devlog if you want to see where it's at: https://youtu.be/_T33cddn7ms

Happy to answer anything about the tech, the workload split, or what it's actually like trying to build an MMO with two people. Everyone told us not to, and they were probably right, but here we are.

https://preview.redd.it/d94sifejs3eh1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=f2cc095dca6f6c7f5c3697592e193352bb082ee9

My brother and I are building an indie MMO together, and early on we hit a problem I imagine a lot of DMs and worldbuilders know well: trying to plan a world over Discord screenshots. One of us would sketch something, screenshot it, the other would mark it up in paint, send it back, and within a week nobody knew which version was current.

So we built ourselves a shared map canvas. You paint zones onto a grid, drop markers and labels, add dungeon layers underneath the overworld, and the key part is that it's live. Two or more people on the same map at once, seeing each other's cursors, painting together in the browser. It ended up working so well for planning our game that we cleaned it up and released it free for anyone.

A few honest details so you know what it is and isn't. It's a planning and sketching tool, not a map art tool, so if you want gorgeous painterly maps, Inkarnate does that better. This is for the layer underneath: agreeing on the layout of a region with your co-DM, blocking out a dungeon level by level, marking where the towns and encounters go. It's self-hosted, which sounds technical but genuinely isn't, you download one file, double-click it, and share the link with your group. No accounts, no subscription, no cloud, your maps live in plain files on your own machine. It works on tablets at the table too.

It's completely free, we just take optional donations that go toward our game. Happy to answer any questions about how we built it or how people are using it.

Live demo you can try right now, no download: demo.mortumus.com

Site and download: blueprint.mortumus.com

Disclosure: I'm one of the two developers.

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My brother and I are building an indie MMO together, and early on we hit a problem I imagine a lot of DMs and worldbuilders know well: trying to plan a world over Discord screenshots. One of us would sketch something, screenshot it, the other would mark it up in paint, send it back, and within a week nobody knew which version was current.

So we built ourselves a shared map canvas. You paint zones onto a grid, drop markers and labels, add dungeon layers underneath the overworld, and the key part is that it's live. Two or more people on the same map at once, seeing each other's cursors, painting together in the browser. It ended up working so well for planning our game that we cleaned it up and released it free for anyone.

A few honest details so you know what it is and isn't. It's a planning and sketching tool, not a map art tool, so if you want gorgeous painterly maps, Inkarnate does that better. This is for the layer underneath: agreeing on the layout of a region with your co-DM, blocking out a dungeon level by level, marking where the towns and encounters go. It's self-hosted, which sounds technical but genuinely isn't, you download one file, double-click it, and share the link with your group. No accounts, no subscription, no cloud, your maps live in plain files on your own machine. It works on tablets at the table too.

It's completely free, we just take optional donations that go toward our game. Happy to answer any questions about how we built it or how people are using it.

Live demo you can try right now, no download: demo.mortumus.com

Site and download: blueprint.mortumus.com

Disclosure: I'm one of the two developers.

https://i.redd.it/eor6fa8l4ych1.gif

My brother and I are building an indie MMO together, and early on we hit a problem I imagine a lot of DMs and worldbuilders know well: trying to plan a world over Discord screenshots. One of us would sketch something, screenshot it, the other would mark it up in paint, send it back, and within a week nobody knew which version was current.

So we built ourselves a shared map canvas. You paint zones onto a grid, drop markers and labels, add dungeon layers underneath the overworld, and the key part is that it's live. Two or more people on the same map at once, seeing each other's cursors, painting together in the browser. It ended up working so well for planning our game that we cleaned it up and released it free for anyone.

A few honest details so you know what it is and isn't. It's a planning and sketching tool, not a map art tool, so if you want gorgeous painterly maps, Inkarnate does that better. This is for the layer underneath: agreeing on the layout of a region with your co-DM, blocking out a dungeon level by level, marking where the towns and encounters go. It's self-hosted, which sounds technical but genuinely isn't, you download one file, double-click it, and share the link with your group. No accounts, no subscription, no cloud, your maps live in plain files on your own machine. It works on tablets at the table too.

It's completely free, we just take optional donations that go toward our game. Happy to answer any questions about how we built it or how people are using it.

Live demo you can try right now, no download: demo.mortumus.com

Site and download: blueprint.mortumus.com

Disclosure: I'm one of the two developers.

My brother and I are building an indie MMO together, and early on we hit a problem I imagine a lot of DMs and worldbuilders know well: trying to plan a world over Discord screenshots. One of us would sketch something, screenshot it, the other would mark it up in paint, send it back, and within a week nobody knew which version was current.

So we built ourselves a shared map canvas. You paint zones onto a grid, drop markers and labels, add dungeon layers underneath the overworld, and the key part is that it's live. Two or more people on the same map at once, seeing each other's cursors, painting together in the browser. It ended up working so well for planning our game that we cleaned it up and released it free for anyone.

A few honest details so you know what it is and isn't. It's a planning and sketching tool, not a map art tool, so if you want gorgeous painterly maps, Inkarnate does that better. This is for the layer underneath: agreeing on the layout of a region with your co-DM, blocking out a dungeon level by level, marking where the towns and encounters go. It's self-hosted, which sounds technical but genuinely isn't, you download one file, double-click it, and share the link with your group. No accounts, no subscription, no cloud, your maps live in plain files on your own machine. It works on tablets at the table too.

It's completely free, we just take optional donations that go toward our game. Happy to answer any questions about how we built it or how people are using it.

Live demo you can try right now, no download: demo.mortumus.com

Site and download: blueprint.mortumus.com

Disclosure: I'm one of the two developers.