DEV Community: DomTech Gaming

MAGICKNESS Dev Log #03: Obstacles And Perseverance — Disaster Recovery, Multiplayer Fixes & Cross-Platform Testing

DomTech Gaming — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 19:33:01 +0000

Building a classless MMORPG in Unreal Engine 5 while navigating workstation failures, networking issues, and the realities of independent game development.

Indie game development is often portrayed as a continuous process of building features, creating assets, and implementing new mechanics.

In practice, it's rarely that straightforward.

Sometimes the most important development milestone isn't a new gameplay system. It's getting your entire workstation operational again after an unexpected failure.

Welcome to MAGICKNESS Demo Dev Log #03 — Obstacles And Perseverance.

In this update, I'm covering our recent development workstation recovery, gameplay improvements, multiplayer synchronization work, cross-platform testing, and a couple of new networking bugs uncovered along the way.

1. A Windows Update Incident That Nearly Stopped Development

One of the biggest obstacles we've faced recently had nothing to do with Unreal Engine.

Following a Windows Update incident, my primary development laptop became unbootable.

This wasn't simply an inconvenience. The machine housed a substantial portion of my active development environment, including custom tooling, project resources, and the software required to continue building MAGICKNESS.

With our Kickstarter campaign underway, losing access to the primary workstation was particularly disruptive.

Recovery Before Rebuilding

The first priority was preserving data rather than immediately attempting destructive repairs.

The recovery process involved:

Investigating the boot failure and storage integrity.
Creating a complete disk image to preserve recoverable data.
Using recovery utilities to access files from the damaged installation.
Performing a clean Windows installation.
Restoring development directories, toolchains, and application configurations.
Verifying that the recovered environment could support development again.

Fortunately, a combination of existing backups, source repositories, recovery tools, and AI-assisted troubleshooting made it possible to recover and reconstruct the environment.

Where AI Actually Helped

AI was particularly useful as a troubleshooting and research assistant throughout the recovery process.

Instead of navigating every unfamiliar recovery scenario independently, I could use it to evaluate diagnostic results, explore potential recovery approaches, and work through environment restoration procedures.

That doesn't eliminate the need to understand what the tools are doing.

Storage recovery and system administration still require careful validation, particularly when a mistake could destroy the very data you're trying to preserve.

But having an interactive technical assistant made navigating the recovery process more manageable.

The takeaway: Development infrastructure is part of the project. Protecting it deserves the same attention as developing the game itself.

2. Back to Unreal Engine: Gameplay and UI Improvements

With the development environment restored, attention returned to MAGICKNESS and several improvements to the publicly available demo's gameplay systems.

Hotbar Fixes

The hotbar is a critical part of the player interface, particularly in an MMORPG built around character progression and ability usage.

We've implemented fixes to address hotbar behavior and improve its reliability during gameplay.

Continued UI Polishing

Interface development is an ongoing process.

Even when the underlying gameplay mechanics work, presentation and responsiveness can substantially influence how players perceive the experience.

We've continued refining UI elements to improve consistency and usability throughout the demo.

Floating Text for Item Pickups

One of the new feedback improvements is floating text whenever a player picks up an item.

The purpose is straightforward: make item collection immediately recognizable without requiring players to constantly inspect their inventory.

For a game involving exploration, resource gathering, and progression, clear feedback is particularly important.

It's a relatively small feature, but one that contributes to the feel of moment-to-moment gameplay.

3. Client-Server Synchronization Improvements

Networking continues to be one of the more challenging aspects of developing MAGICKNESS.

An MMORPG isn't simply a single-player experience with multiple characters rendered on screen.

The server and connected clients must maintain consistent representations of game state while handling player actions and gameplay events.

We've implemented another client-server synchronization fix as part of this development cycle.

This is especially relevant as we continue testing gameplay with multiple connected accounts and across supported platforms.

While synchronization improvements aren't always visually dramatic, their importance becomes obvious as multiplayer systems grow more complex.

4. Testing PC and Android Together

MAGICKNESS is being developed with both PC and Android experiences in mind.

For this dev log, I also kept our mobile test account connected live while recording.

This provided another opportunity to demonstrate and evaluate the multiplayer environment with clients on different platforms.

Cross-platform development introduces considerations beyond simply producing separate builds.

Both clients must interact consistently with the shared multiplayer systems, even when differences in hardware, controls, and user interfaces affect the experience.

Testing these configurations together helps expose issues that might not be apparent when evaluating each platform independently.

5. New Multiplayer Bugs Discovered

Of course, improving one part of a multiplayer game doesn't mean every other system will behave correctly.

Recent testing exposed two issues worth documenting.

Bug #1: Respawn Replication Affecting All Players

We've identified an issue in which respawn behavior replicates across all players when it shouldn't.

The intended behavior must be scoped appropriately so one player's respawn does not incorrectly affect other connected players.

We've identified a solution, and a hotfix is planned.

This issue highlights how important replication scope is when working with networked gameplay events.

Bug #2: Arrows Failing to Deal PvP Damage

Another issue involves projectile combat.

Arrows currently fail to inflict damage during player-versus-player encounters.

This remains unresolved and requires further investigation.

Projectile-based combat in a multiplayer environment involves several interacting systems, including collision detection, damage processing, and server-client coordination.

Determining exactly where the failure occurs is part of the debugging work ahead.

We're documenting the issue rather than presenting it as already fixed.

6. Crowdfunding and the Road Ahead

Beyond the technical work, we're also preparing for the next stage of MAGICKNESS development.

Our Kickstarter campaign is approaching its conclusion, and we're planning to transition our crowdfunding efforts to Gamefound.

The Gamefound project is currently under review, with pre-launch promotion planned once approval is complete.

The broader objective remains unchanged: establishing the community MAGICKNESS needs to grow into a thriving MMORPG.

Funding supports development, but it's the players, their feedback, and the community we build together that will ultimately shape the future of MAGICKNESS.

MAGICKNESS is still in its early stages. The Open Demo represents a playable foundation, not the final MMORPG experience.

There's considerable development ahead, including continued work on combat, multiplayer systems, progression, world content, and platform optimization.

7. Perseverance Is Part of the Development Process

Losing access to a primary development environment was a significant setback.

But the recovery also reinforced several lessons:

Maintain independent backups of critical project resources.
Preserve data before attempting potentially destructive recovery operations.
Keep source control and development environment recovery separate concerns.
Treat multiplayer testing as an ongoing process rather than a final development phase.
Use AI-assisted troubleshooting as a tool while independently validating important operations.

Development rarely follows a perfect roadmap.

Sometimes progress means implementing new features. Sometimes it means identifying bugs. And sometimes it means spending days rebuilding the tools necessary to continue.

What matters is continuing to move forward.

Watch MAGICKNESS Demo Dev Log #03

Obstacles And Perseverance

https://youtu.be/vYxFsQweJCg

Play the Open Demo on Steam:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4824870/Magickness

Official Website:

https://magickness.com/

Join our Discord:

https://discord.gg/sjes8SDmZj

MAGICKNESS is an independently developed, classless fantasy MMORPG built in Unreal Engine 5.

What Magick Will You Discover?

Magickness™ Kickstarter Is Live — Nearly a Year of Building a Discovery-Driven Fantasy MMORPG

DomTech Gaming — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 19:28:10 +0000

DomTech Gaming, LLC | October 16, 2026

Magickness™ has officially launched on Kickstarter!

After nearly a year of active development, DomTech Gaming, LLC is taking the next major step toward bringing its discovery-driven fantasy MMORPG to life.

What began as an ambitious experiment has evolved into a playable online world with character progression, combat, magical abilities, multiplayer infrastructure, and three distinct distribution pipelines.

Now, we're inviting players and supporters to help us advance from the Open Demo toward Alpha production.

Our Kickstarter campaign is live with a $60,000 funding goal to support the next 15 months of development.

Support Magickness™ on Kickstarter

Almost a Year of Development

Building an MMORPG is an enormous undertaking, particularly for an independent studio operating with a solo-development structure.

Rather than beginning with promises of an expansive finished world, DomTech Gaming has concentrated on establishing functional gameplay systems, multiplayer infrastructure, and playable builds.

Over the past year, development has produced:

Character creation, customization, and progression systems.
Combat mechanics, enemy AI, and evolving Magick abilities.
Character statistics, skill levels, and ability progression.
Equipment systems, including emerging Weapon Memory mechanics.
Morality mechanics that introduce consequences for player decisions.
Multiplayer foundations and online gameplay.
An Open Demo distributed through three separate pipelines.

These systems represent the foundation of Magickness, not the completion of its long-term vision.

The objective now is to build upon that foundation with additional content, refinement, and interconnected gameplay systems.

Three Distribution Pipelines — One Connected Vision

One of our most significant technical milestones has been establishing three distinct ways to distribute and experience Magickness:

1. Steam

The Open Demo is available through Steam, providing a familiar PC distribution channel.

2. Standalone Windows PC

A direct-download Windows build provides an independent distribution pipeline outside Steam.

3. Android APK

A dedicated Android distribution pipeline extends access to mobile players.

Developing these pipelines has been an important part of establishing the technical foundation for a cross-platform MMORPG.

Players can explore the current Open Demo through our official website:

Play the Magickness Open Demo

Curiosity Is Part of the Gameplay

At the heart of Magickness is a simple design philosophy:

Magic should feel discovered, not just selected.

Traditional MMORPG progression often revolves around predefined classes and fixed ability paths.

Magickness is being designed around experimentation, exploration, and the gradual discovery of magical potential.

Players begin with relatively simple capabilities and develop their characters through gameplay, uncovering new techniques and opportunities as they progress.

The goal is to make curiosity rewarding.

Exploring unfamiliar environments, experimenting with combat approaches, and pursuing new challenges should offer meaningful opportunities to discover abilities, acquire loot, and expand a character's capabilities.

Progression should feel like uncovering the possibilities of the world rather than simply completing a checklist.

This philosophy also extends to equipment.

Our recent Demo Dev Log #02 introduced Weapon Memory progression, allowing weapons to accumulate experience through successful attacks.

It's another step toward making a character's journey feel shaped by actual gameplay.

Watch Demo Dev Log #02 — Stats Overhaul & Weapon Memory

An MMORPG That Respects Solo Players

Massively multiplayer worlds offer something special: the possibility of sharing an evolving environment with other people.

But enjoying an MMORPG shouldn't require belonging to a permanent group.

Magickness is being designed to support players who prefer to explore, progress, and discover the world independently while preserving the benefits of a connected community.

Our long-term direction is to make solo progression viable without diminishing the value of cooperation, social interaction, and shared experiences.

Whether players prefer independent exploration or community-driven adventures, the world should provide meaningful opportunities for both.

Solo-friendly gameplay and a rewarding multiplayer experience are complementary design goals, not competing ones.

Why Kickstarter? Why Now?

After nearly a year of building the game's foundations, our next challenge is expanding those systems into a more substantial Alpha experience.

The Kickstarter campaign seeks $60,000 to support a 15-month Alpha production cycle.

This funding is intended to advance:

Gameplay development: Expanding and refining combat, Magick, and character progression.
World development: Building additional explorable environments and playable content.
Equipment and progression: Deepening the systems that make discovery and character growth meaningful.
Technical infrastructure: Supporting continued multiplayer development, testing, and optimization.
Production resources: Providing the development tools, assets, and operational support necessary for the next phase.

Importantly, this campaign is not a promise to complete the entire MMORPG in 15 months.

It is a defined production milestone intended to move Magickness from its current Open Demo foundation toward a more developed Alpha.

Be Part of What Comes Next

Magickness is already more than a concept.

Its gameplay foundations exist. Its multiplayer systems are in development. Its Open Demo is available across Steam, standalone Windows PC, and Android APK.

The next step is expanding what players can discover.

Our Kickstarter offers several digital reward tiers, including Alpha Access, founder rewards, and opportunities to become part of the game's development history.

Whether you choose to back the campaign, explore the demo, or share the project with other MMORPG enthusiasts, your interest helps us continue building awareness around Magickness.

The Magickness Kickstarter is live now!

Explore the Rewards & Back Magickness on Kickstarter →

Thank you for following the development of Magickness and supporting independent game development.

What Magick Will You Discover?

— DomTech Gaming, LLC

Official Links

Website: https://magickness.com
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4824870/Magickness
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Magickness
Discord: https://discord.gg/sjes8SDmZj
Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/domtechgaming/magickness?ref=7fykmx

Magickness™ Demo Dev Log #02 — Stats Overhaul & Weapon Memory

DomTech Gaming — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 02:19:02 +0000

Development continues on Magickness™, our fantasy MMORPG built around magical discovery, evolving abilities, and player progression.

Our latest Demo development update focuses on expanding combat progression and introducing Weapon Memory, a system that allows weapons to accumulate experience through use.

Development highlights

Stats & Skill Progression

Successful attacks now contribute to combat skill progression. We've also introduced dedicated Archery and One-Handed Combat skill levels.

Weapon Memory

Weapons now gain XP when attacks successfully connect, establishing a foundation for weapon-specific progression.

Weapon durability has also been adjusted to decrease on kills.

Morality Adjustments

Attacking knocked-out humanoid enemies now carries an increased Negative Morality penalty, reinforcing the consequences of player decisions.

Bug Fixes

Corrected hot slot dislocation to improve combat usability.

Watch the development log

https://youtu.be/1sIIqqQB6WA

Magickness Kickstarter — October 16, 2026

DomTech Gaming, LLC is preparing to launch the Magickness Kickstarter to fund the next 15-month Alpha production cycle.

Follow the pre-launch campaign to receive a notification when it goes live:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/domtechgaming/magickness

What Magick Will You Discover?

Magickness Open Demo Is Live on Steam — Starting a New Chapter of Development

DomTech Gaming — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 00:11:15 +0000

Over nine months ago, Magickness started as an experiment: could a solo developer use AI as part of the development process to build a functional MMORPG in Unreal Engine?

Today, the Magickness Open Demo is live on Steam.

This release represents the end of one phase of development and the beginning of another.

The original Magickness Dev Logs documented the process of building the game's core foundation — multiplayer infrastructure, character creation, combat, progression, abilities, enemy AI, crafting, harvesting, and the systems needed to turn an experiment into a playable online world.

Now that foundation is publicly playable.

I'm starting a new series, Magickness Demo Dev Logs, which will follow development of the live demo as I continue adding content, improving systems, fixing issues, and expanding the world.

Demo Dev Log #01 – Now Live on Steam:
https://youtu.be/YbJlAivKzHY

Play the Open Demo on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4824870/Magickness/

Website:
https://magickness.com

Discord:
https://discord.gg/sjes8SDmZj

The foundation is built.

Now we build the world.

I Opened the Demo for My MMORPG — Magickness™ Is Now Playable

DomTech Gaming — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 22:33:27 +0000

After months of building, rebuilding, debugging, and gradually assembling the systems behind an online world, I've reached one of the biggest milestones of the Magickness project so far:

The Open Demo is live.

Magickness is an open-world MMORPG being developed in Unreal Engine. The goal of this demo isn't to represent the finished game. It's the playable foundation I've been building toward.

Players can now enter Pangea and experience systems including:

Character creation and progression
Real-time combat
Magick abilities
Melee and ranged combat
Enemy AI
Gathering and resource harvesting
Crafting
Equipment
Loot
Multiplayer
Persistent online-world infrastructure

The latest addition was archery with bows and arrows, which I decided to squeeze into the demo right before opening it.

Because apparently releasing software wasn't stressful enough.

Windows + Android

The Open Demo is currently available directly for Windows PC and Android.

https://magickness.com/#demo

I've also completed the SteamPipe pipeline for the Windows build, uploaded the demo to Steam, installed it through the actual Steam client, and successfully played it from my Steam Library.

The Steam Demo is now in Valve's review queue.

That was a particularly satisfying moment. There's a big difference between running your own packaged executable and seeing something you've spent months building sitting in your Steam Library with a DEMO banner across it.

Now I Want Players in the World

The next milestone isn't another backend service or gameplay system.

I want to see people playing Magickness together.

Part of the reason for opening the demo now is to start gathering real-world feedback, find problems that only appear when actual players enter the world, and capture multiplayer gameplay as I finish the project's Kickstarter trailer.

This is still an early demo. Things will break. Things will change. Some systems are much further along than others.

But that's exactly what this stage is for.

Nine months ago, Magickness was an experiment.

Now there's a world you can actually enter.

The Dawn of Magick has begun.

What Magick Will You Discover?

Completing the Gameplay Foundation with Custom AI Enemies (Dev Log #22)

DomTech Gaming — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 20:43:39 +0000

This development cycle focused on completing the custom enemy pipeline for Magickness™.

Using our DAZ Studio → Unreal Engine 5 workflow, we've integrated custom enemies that now support the core gameplay behaviors needed for the first public demo.

Current enemy functionality includes:

World spawning
Free roaming AI
Player aggro
Combat
Taking damage
Death
Loot drops

This concludes the Demo Series of development logs.

Over the past several months, we've built the core gameplay systems that form the foundation of Magickness™—character progression, gathering, crafting, equipment, combat, Magick, consumables, clothing, and now AI-driven enemies.

With the technical foundation established, development can now shift toward expanding the world of Pangea with new environments, creatures, quests, and gameplay content.

📺 Dev Log #22:
https://youtu.be/MAP2LJh_Cc

⭐ Wishlist on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4824870/Magickness

🌐 https://magickness.com

Rebuilding Our Character Pipeline with Character Creator 5 (Dev Log #21)

DomTech Gaming — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 23:20:34 +0000

This sprint wasn't about adding new gameplay systems—it was about replacing the technology that creates them.

Our original prototype character setup successfully carried the project through early development, but it wasn't scalable enough for the amount of content planned for Magickness™.

After completing the Character Creator 5 overhaul, the project now has a dedicated production pipeline.

New Production Pipeline
Character Creator 5 → Player Character Base
iClone → Animation Production
DAZ Studio → Clothing & Enemy NPC Creation
DAZ → CC5 → Unreal Engine 5

This migration also included updating the character animations to the new framework.

While this isn't a player-facing feature in the same way as combat or crafting, it's one of the most impactful technical upgrades completed so far. The new workflow significantly reduces the effort required to create future equipment, NPCs, enemies, and animations while providing a much more consistent asset pipeline.

📺 Dev Log #21:
https://youtu.be/3Mrkl2i-7ss

⭐ Wishlist on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4824870/Magickness

🌐 https://magickness.com

Polishing the Gameplay Experience in Magickness™ (Dev Log #20)

DomTech Gaming — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 23:35:33 +0000

After several feature-heavy development cycles, this sprint focused on refining the gameplay experience.

Recent updates introduced harvesting, crafting, weapons, consumables, clothing, and the first Magick ability. This week was about making those systems work together more smoothly.

Improvements
Fixed the Character Preview display.
Consumables can now be assigned directly to the hotbar.
Magick Burst now applies physics to environmental objects such as sticks and stones.
Magick Burst now deals damage and knockback against NPCs and in PvP.

While none of these changes are individually large, together they make the game feel significantly more responsive.

As the core gameplay loop becomes more complete, development is steadily shifting from implementing new systems toward refining the player experience in preparation for the first public demo.

📺 Dev Log #20:
https://youtu.be/i0L7WKVEhpc

⭐ Wishlist on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4824870/Magickness

🌐 https://magickness.com

Building Magickness MMORPG: DevLog#19 — Adding Consumables, Wearables, and Preparing for Platform Certification

DomTech Gaming — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 20:43:51 +0000

For the past several weeks, development has focused on transforming Magickness from a multiplayer framework into a playable survival RPG.

This update introduces two important gameplay milestones.

Players can now consume items that restore both Health and Magick, creating the foundation for resource management and long-term exploration.

The first wearable equipment has also been implemented with primitive Leaf Top and Leaf Bottom garments. These represent the beginning of Magickness' equipment progression system while replacing temporary character meshes used throughout earlier development.

Alongside gameplay, this milestone also includes updates to platform certification. Steam and Google Play submissions now reflect the current state of development, including appropriate content ratings while placeholder character models remain in use.

Every milestone continues bringing Magickness closer to a public demo.

🌐 https://www.magickness.com

Building the First Magic Ability for an MMORPG in UE5 (Dev Log #18)

DomTech Gaming — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 20:55:11 +0000

After months of building backend systems, combat, crafting, progression, and player interaction, Dev Log #18 reaches a milestone I've been looking forward to since the project began.

Magickness™ finally has its first Magick ability.

Rather than beginning with spellcasting immediately, Magick is introduced through gameplay.

When the player's health falls low enough, Mana awakens and the player unlocks Magick Burst.

This update required connecting multiple gameplay systems:

Gameplay events
Character animation
Visual effects
Ability activation
Mana systems
Ground impact effects

One of the biggest learning experiences during this milestone was integrating Unreal Engine's visual effects workflow and synchronizing those effects with gameplay animations.

While Magick Burst is only the first ability, it establishes the technical foundation for every future Magick technique in the game.

Video:

https://youtu.be/WadXQqg01...

Website:

https://magickness.com/

Building the First Craftable Weapon for an MMORPG (UE5 Dev Log #17)

DomTech Gaming — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 19:05:03 +0000

One of the most important steps toward a player-driven MMORPG is moving beyond resources and tools into actual equipment.

In Dev Log #17, Magickness™ gains its first craftable weapon.

The new Battle Stick is fully integrated into the game's progression systems.

This required connecting:

Crafting
Inventory
Equipment
Combat
Abilities
Multiplayer replication
UI systems

The update also introduces creator ownership tracking.

Crafted items now store information about the original crafter and display that information through a weapon information panel.

That may seem like a small feature, but it becomes important later for player economies, item identity, reputation systems, and world persistence.

The Stone Axe harvesting tool was also completed, helping finalize the current crafting foundation.

Video:

https://youtu.be/mDyu0JuVMYE

Website:

https://magickness.com/

Building the First Crafting & Progression Loop for an MMORPG (UE5 Dev Log #16)

DomTech Gaming — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 18:10:40 +0000

One of the most important milestones in MMORPG development is creating a gameplay loop that players can naturally progress through.

Dev Log #16 completes the first version of that loop in Magickness™.

Players can now:

Gather resources from the world
Craft tools
Equip those tools
Unlock access to additional resources
Earn experience
Track progression through skills

The current progression path looks like this:

Gather Stick + Vine + Stone

↓

Craft Stone Hammer

↓

Mine Rocks

↓

Gather Flint

↓

Craft Stone Axe

↓

Unlock Future Harvesting Systems

XP is currently awarded for digging, mining, and crafting, with progression visible through the Character Skills interface.

This is the first time multiple gameplay systems have connected together into a complete player progression chain.

Video:

https://youtu.be/p8t3Ad5EUNc

Website:

https://magickness.com/