No idea why they bother with this, not sure what it provides me over something like enet. That's my point. If your game engine is just saying, "Well, here are some sockets, have fun!" then it's not doing multiplayer networking.
Maybe we have different definitions of out-of-the-box multiplayer, but Grid allows you to `git clone` and run `map <map name>` and you've got a multiplayer server and your friend can `connect <IP address>`.
If you want to do a top-down game, great. If you want to do a side-scroller, sure. If you wanted to do a board game, you're set.
Out-of-the-box multiplayer doesn't mean 1,000 lines of code later I can move something on my screen and some other guy finally sees it move, but it's not predicted, doesn't respond to field changes, etc.
Out-of-the-box multiplayer to me means without writing a line of code, I can start a server and do everything a published video game can and I can do what I actually care about, which isn't serializing data, or figuring out when I should network something because it's not visible anymore.
They also use Enet[1]. The fact that you didn't even know that before you went off on a rant about your engine being superior makes me think you are just mad that their engine is much more popular than yours.
I would venture to guess the low level api is useful if you want to get Havok or some other non-built in physics engine working. Not every game fits into the same 2d pixel phsyics mold. You can't ship such a one size fits all solution with a general purpose game engine like Godot.
There's no requirement to use physics in Grid, just as there's no requirement to use physics in LÖVE, which is what the engine is built on.
We build the game engine from this approach because most games want "maps," and "entities."
We use a Quake-style architecture because even if you're rebuilding a 2D version of Tabletop Simulator, you're going to want a map and entities.
We'd rather have a one-size fits all solution (worked for Quake and Source pretty well) versus a Unity/Unreal style flashy game engine where you're suckered into still doing all the work yourself, but hey PBR looks good.
>Out-of-the-box multiplayer to me means without writing a line of code, I can start a server and do everything a published video game can and I can do what I actually care about, which isn't serializing data, or figuring out when I should network something because it's not visible anymore.
Well, you don't have to care about serialization or sockets:
Maybe we have different definitions of out-of-the-box multiplayer, but Grid allows you to `git clone` and run `map <map name>` and you've got a multiplayer server and your friend can `connect <IP address>`.
If you want to do a top-down game, great. If you want to do a side-scroller, sure. If you wanted to do a board game, you're set.
Out-of-the-box multiplayer doesn't mean 1,000 lines of code later I can move something on my screen and some other guy finally sees it move, but it's not predicted, doesn't respond to field changes, etc.
Out-of-the-box multiplayer to me means without writing a line of code, I can start a server and do everything a published video game can and I can do what I actually care about, which isn't serializing data, or figuring out when I should network something because it's not visible anymore.