DEV Community: TashiGG

Mesh Multiplayer Gaming - The Future of Multiplayer Gaming Powered by Tashi Gaming

TashiGG — Mon, 11 Sep 2023 08:41:53 +0000

I. The Surge in Gaming:

The digital age has ushered in an era where connectivity is paramount. Gamers no longer want isolated experiences; they crave interaction, competition, and collaboration. Multiplayer games offer all this and more. Here's a look at the numbers:

Global Growth: In 2023, the global online gaming market raked in an impressive 26.14 billion U.S. dollars, marking a 9.8 percent growth from the previous year. This growth is indicative of the increasing demand for multiplayer experiences.
Unity's Contribution: Unity's 2021 gaming report sheds light on the changing dynamics of the gaming world. There was a 38% surge in HD gaming and a 28% rise in mobile gaming. Interestingly, weekday gaming saw a 52% increase, hinting at the pervasive nature of gaming in our daily lives.
Mobile Gaming: With 1.93 billion mobile gamers worldwide, the potential for multiplayer mobile games is immense. Unity's versatile tools cater to this vast audience, ensuring optimized experiences across devices.
Gaming Penetration: A staggering 81.9% of internet users are gamers. In the U.S., this number rises to 82.9%, with 63.1% playing on smartphones. Unity's cross-platform capabilities ensure that developers can tap into this vast market with ease.

II. Unity and the Rise of Multiplayer Gaming

In the realm of game development, Unity stands as a beacon of innovation and adaptability. As the digital landscape evolves, so does the demand for more interactive and immersive gaming experiences. Multiplayer gaming, in particular, has seen a meteoric rise in popularity, and Unity is at the forefront of this revolution.

Unity's emphasis on multiplayer gaming is evident in its suite of tools and services. The platform offers a range of solutions, from matchmaking services to real-time synchronization. Developers can leverage Unity's cloud-based solutions to host multiplayer games, ensuring smooth gameplay regardless of player count.

Furthermore, Unity's Asset Store is a treasure trove of resources for multiplayer game development. From networking plugins to player avatars, the Asset Store has everything a developer needs to jumpstart their multiplayer project.

III. Introduction to Mesh Multiplayer Gaming with Tashi

The digital gaming landscape has consistently evolved, adapting to technological advancements. As players from diverse regions converge in virtual arenas, traditional server-client models often face challenges in delivering seamless experiences. Centralized infrastructures, while prevalent, have limitations, including latency and connectivity issues.

Tashi is introducing a new solution: mesh multiplayer gaming. This approach leverages decentralized networking to address the challenges of traditional models. By eliminating the need for a centralized server, Tashi's mesh technology ensures efficient communication between nodes, leading to reduced lag and enhanced connectivity.

IV. Understanding Mesh Network through Tashi's Lens

A mesh network is a system where nodes or devices are interconnected, allowing data to be shared and propagated collaboratively. Unlike centralized networks, where data passes through a single point, mesh networks operate on a decentralized model. Visualize a city where traffic isn't dependent on a single main route but has multiple interconnected pathways. This is the foundation of a mesh network.

In Tashi's mesh multiplayer mode, each player becomes a part of this network, contributing to its efficiency. Data doesn't rely on a central hub but moves dynamically, selecting the best path from one node to another. This ensures faster response times and reliability. If one node faces issues, the network reroutes the data, maintaining the game's flow.

V. Tashi's Innovation in Mesh Multiplayer Gaming

The company's focus has been on developing a consensus algorithm-based transport protocol tailored for gaming. Drawing inspiration from distributed ledger and cryptography, Tashi recognized the potential of Web3 technologies. Tashi successfully adapted one of the leading consensus algorithms, optimizing it for gaming by rewriting it in Rust. This allowed for closer hardware integration and multi-architecture deployment.

Tashi's proof of concept demonstrated the viability of running a game atop a consensus algorithm. Tashi's approach not only ensures efficient data flow but also addresses common gaming challenges like lag switching and local state edit cheats. By using a consensus algorithm, Tashi ensures that all players contribute to the message ordering, creating a decentralized message queue. This system provides a fair timestamp for each event, enabling accurate event sequencing and conflict resolution.

Low Latency: The Heartbeat of Real-time Gaming
One of the most significant challenges in multiplayer gaming is latency. Every millisecond counts, especially when players from across the globe converge in virtual arenas. Tashi Gaming understands this critical need for speed. Their unique architecture boasts impressively low latency numbers, averaging between 50-80 ms consensus times. Such rapid response times mean that players can react in real-time, ensuring that gameplay remains fluid, responsive, and devoid of frustrating lags.

Handling Massive Game State Changes
In the heat of intense multiplayer battles, game states can change rapidly. Whether it's character movements, in-game purchases, or dynamic environment alterations, these changes need to be tracked, processed, and reflected in real-time. Tashi's robust system is designed to handle a staggering 3,000,000 game state changes, ensuring that no detail, no matter how minute, is overlooked. This capability not only enhances the gameplay experience but also ensures that every player's action, strategy, and decision are accurately represented in the game world.

VI. The Future of Multiplayer Gaming with Tashi and Unity

The gaming industry is on the cusp of a transformative era, and both Tashi and Unity are poised to play pivotal roles in this evolution. Tashi's mesh multiplayer mode offers a decentralized approach, which not only reduces infrastructure costs but also addresses challenges like network complexity and consensus latency. This innovative mode ensures that players from different parts of the world can engage in seamless gameplay, free from the constraints of traditional server-client models.

Unity, on the other hand, brings to the table its vast experience and a suite of comprehensive tools tailored for game development. As multiplayer gaming continues to gain traction, Unity's emphasis on creating interactive and immersive experiences becomes even more crucial. Their platform is designed to be adaptable, catering to both novice developers and industry giants. With features like real-time synchronization and matchmaking services, Unity ensures that multiplayer games remain dynamic, engaging, and accessible to a broad audience.

Furthermore, the collaboration potential between Tashi's decentralized solutions and Unity's development tools is immense. Imagine a scenario where game developers can harness the power of Tashi's mesh networking while utilizing Unity's advanced game development tools. This synergy could lead to the creation of games that are not only technologically advanced but also offer unparalleled user experiences.

Additionally, as the gaming community continues to expand, the demand for more diverse and inclusive gaming environments will rise. Both Tashi and Unity have the potential to cater to this demand by fostering communities where players can interact, collaborate, and compete in a global arena. This global connectivity, combined with high-quality game development, will set new benchmarks in the industry.

In conclusion, the future of multiplayer gaming looks promising with Tashi and Unity at the helm. Their combined expertise, innovation, and commitment to enhancing player experiences signify an exciting era for gamers and developers alike. As the boundaries of what's possible in gaming continue to expand, Tashi and Unity are undoubtedly leading the charge towards a more interconnected and immersive gaming world

VII. Tashi Gaming's Presentations on Mesh Multiplayer Architecture at Unity Dev Day and DevCom 2023

Ken Anderson, our C.T.O from Tashi Gaming was invited to present at the Unity Dev Day, an event organized by Unity in Copenhagen. This event, known for its focus on the latest advancements in game development, provided Tashi with a platform to showcase and talk about its innovative approach to multiplayer gaming.

Following this, Tashi Gaming also made an appearance at Devcom 2023 in Koln. Here, our team delved deeper into the intricacies of their mesh multiplayer mode, enlightening attendees on the benefits and potential of decentralized gaming networks.

For those who are keen on understanding Tashi's mesh multiplayer architecture in detail, the presentation from these events is available for viewing. You can watch the entire presentation on our YouTube channel https://youtu.be/Ry1Ehs096OU. Additionally, if you wish to download the complete presentation, it's accessible on Tashi Gaming's official Discord channel - https://discord.gg/fPNdgUCGnk. This will give enthusiasts and fellow developers an opportunity to dive deep into the technology and perhaps even collaborate or innovate further.

Sources -

https://www.statista.com/topics/1551/online-gaming/

https://blog.unity.com/games/why-demand-for-cross-platform-multiplayer-games-is-growing-2021

https://www.statista.com/topics/1680/gaming/

https://unity.com/

Why Would I Use Tashi Monitor Nodes?

TashiGG — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 03:39:01 +0000

For those that haven’t read our previous article, Tashi’s unique architecture allows for the benefits of dedicated game servers, such as low latency and secure communication, while maintaining the cost-effectiveness of peer-to-peer game servers.

This approach not only provides better performance and security, but also allows for easy scalability. And because the network is decentralized, there is no single point of failure.

But what about accessing game data for analytics or interacting with game sessions from your game backend? Tashi has you covered. The platform includes robust monitor nodes that allows for easy integration with any game backend, providing access to all necessary game event data.

The monitor nodes extract all game event data and can be easily dropped onto a Kafka stream. This allows for seamless interaction with microservices and other applications that consume data from the stream. With this functionality, Tashi’s monitor nodes can help game developers streamline their entire backend infrastructure, from data collection to processing and analysis. By leveraging the power of Kafka, developers can build scalable and resilient architectures that can handle large amounts of game event data. This also enables real-time analysis and decision making, which can be critical for ensuring a successful game launch and long-term user engagement.

While Tashi monitor nodes can also be utilized to emit game events that only the developer can trigger. For example, Tashi monitor nodes can be used to implement features such as truly random loot boxes or kicking a user out from a game.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up for our open beta at tashi.gg

The Tashi Game Architecture

TashiGG — Fri, 24 Feb 2023 02:26:13 +0000

Multiplayer game backend architecture is a complex and challenging field. There are many factors that must be taken into account when designing and implementing a multiplayer game, including performance, scalability, reliability, security, and data flow. Check out what a heavily simplified multiplayer game backend looks like

One approach that can make multiplayer game backends more robust and easier to reason about is the use of a message queue architecture with unidirectional data flow. This approach is inspired by the popular front-end data library Redux, which simplifies the management of application state.

In a message queue architecture with unidirectional data flow — which we refer to as the “Tashi architecture” — all in-game events are treated as messages that are added to a queue. These messages are processed in a predictable and deterministic way, with the game state being updated as a result of the processing of these messages. See how simple that is in the case of Redux:

Redux architecture

This approach has several advantages for multiplayer game backends. First, it allows for easier debugging and testing, as the processing of messages can be traced through the system in a linear fashion. Second, it makes it easier to scale the non-multiplayer parts of the backend backend (you can leverage the Tashi multiplayer engine for that, currently in closed beta), as messages can be processed in parallel and distributed across multiple servers. Third, it simplifies the implementation of new features, as all in-game events are available as a data stream that can be easily consumed — and added to — by other systems.

For example, if all in-game events are available as a data stream, it becomes much easier to implement analytics, advertising, and other additional functionality. This is because these systems can simply consume the data stream and perform their own processing on top of it, without having to be tightly integrated with the rest of the system.

In summary, the use of a message queue architecture with unidirectional data flow can make multiplayer game backends more robust and easier to reason about. By treating all in-game events as messages and processing them in a predictable and deterministic way, it becomes easier to debug and test the backend, scale it to meet the needs of the game, and add new features.

How Do I Try It?

Simple! Sign up for our closed beta program here.

How Tashi Will Facilitate The Rise of Indie Multiplayer Games

TashiGG — Fri, 24 Feb 2023 02:20:37 +0000

Indie games have been a staple of the gaming industry for decades. From the earliest days of arcade games to the recent explosion of mobile gaming, indie games have always been at the forefront of innovation and creativity. However, when it comes to multiplayer games, the indie scene is notably lacking. Why is this the case, and what can be done to change it?

The Problem

The answer fundamentally boils down to two things: complexity and money. Creating a multiplayer game requires a significant investment in technology and infrastructure. You need servers to host the game, solid netcode to ensure low latency and smooth gameplay, and an anti-cheat system to keep the game fair. All of these components require a lot of expertise, time, and money to develop and maintain. For many indie developers, this simply isn't feasible.

Tashi — The Solution

This is where Tashi comes in. Tashi is a purely peer-to-peer multiplayer consensus-driven solution that addresses both of these issues. With Tashi, you don't have to worry about game server infrastructure, proximity to your players, or the high cost of data center egress. Tashi is the game backend that has your back.

Functionality

Tashi’s combines the security of dedicated game servers with the affordability of P2P servers, and allows you to forget about your netcode troubles. The Tashi gaming engine is designed to provide the best possible gaming experience, with the lowest latency and smoothest gameplay possible while retaining the benefits outlined in the articles above. Also did we mention all Tashi game sessions come with anti-cheat features that your gamers will love?

Cost

Given that you get the benefits of a dedicated game server without actually having to host one, Tashi is essentially the cheapest game server on the market. You can optionally choose to pay for session monitoring, and even that comes in at the fraction of the cost of a game server which falls in the $3-7/CCU range, not counting idle capacity as you’re growing your game.

Further, if all you want is multiplayer sessions, Tashi will give them to you for free, forever. Because Tashi is built on decentralized technology and is not reliant on traditional servers it doesn’t cost us a penny, and it shouldn’t cost you either. From Tashi to indie devs with 💞

Summary

The lack of indie multiplayer games is due to the complexity and cost involved in creating and maintaining such games. Tashi addresses these issues by providing a serverless gaming solution that is fast, fair, and affordable. With Tashi, indie developers can focus on creating great games, without having to worry about the technicalities of multiplayer gaming. So, if you're an indie developer looking to create a multiplayer game, give Tashi a try - it's the best multiplayer backend on the market.

Why Anti-Cheat Sucks and How Tashi Can Make it Better?

TashiGG — Fri, 24 Feb 2023 02:17:45 +0000

The State of (Anti-) Cheat

With the rise of online gaming, the issue of cheating has become more prevalent. Players are using various methods to gain an unfair advantage in games, ranging accross exploiting bugs, ping hacking, manipulating the game state etc. This not only ruins the gaming experience for other players but also undermines the integrity of the game itself. To tackle this issue, many game developers make use of anti-cheat software such as Valve Anti-Cheat, which runs as a super-privileged module on your PC that has access to everything the computer does. This raises concerns about privacy and security; some players even keep a dedicated gaming PC to avoid these issues.

Tashi — A New Approach

But what if there was a solution that could address cheating without sacrificing privacy and security? This is where Tashi's multiplayer sessions come in. Tashi's sessions run on each gamers PC atop a fast consensus algorithm that handles every in-game action. This means that state hacking doesn't even need to be detected or penalized to be ignored (though it can be). Once the cheater realizes that their actions are no longer affecting the game and reverts to the consensus state, they can simply rejoin the game. All while Tashi’s super-fast (as low as 4ms consensus algorithm you can explore here) ensures a smooth, low-latency gaming experience.

Tashi sessions also provide a number of other benefits. For example, they implicitly provide efficient and fair notcode, which makes for an enjoyable gaming experience, while fully trustless game logs open up new in-game economy possibilities. Tashi’s serverless, P2P nature further reduce costs, increase scalability, and enhance the gaming experience for players far from data centers (games should be fun everywhere, not just in SF).

Coming Soon

Tashi is also working on new solutions to address wall hacks and other cheating methods. By using zero-knowledge proofs and encryption-based solutions, Tashi is developing an even more robust anti-cheat technology that does not invade your privacy. This functionality will also have interesting applications in web3 games, which are growing in popularity.

Summary

Tashi's multiplayer sessions offer a new anti-cheat approach to online gaming. By eliminating the need for anti-cheat software to run on players' PCs for whole classes of hacks (e.g. ping hacking, state edits), Tashi provides a secure and fair gaming experience for all. With its fast consensus algorithm, low-latency sessions, and anti-cheat functionality, Tashi is poised to revolutionize the way we play games — web2 and web3 alike. So, whether you're a large studio, or solo indie dev, give Tashi sessions a shot.

Tashi — Making P2P Multiplayer the New Dedicated Game Server

TashiGG — Fri, 24 Feb 2023 02:14:35 +0000

People love playing games. From Japan to the States, the gaming industry has been experiencing a rapid growth. It’s also one of the few industries that benefited massively from the global COVID pandemic. For example, Tencent’s online games revenue increased by more than 65% in just two years while new Animal Crossing sold more digital units than any other Switch game.

Advancements in technology also dramatically changed the way we play games. With the rise of online gaming, players now have the ability to play games with others from around the world, in real time. However, this has also created some challenges, some of the biggest being the lag, cost, and fairness P2P servers often result in terrible ping and allow for cheating galore, while dedicated game servers cost a pretty penny and still penalize players further from the central server (or aid & abett ping hackers through lag compensation).

Enter Tashi

To create a new multiplayer game, developers need to choose how to host game sessions, via dedicated servers(hard for indie developers to fund for years before some Twitch streamer discovers their game) or through P2P networks. While the former are more reliable but expensive, the latter are cheap but less stable and do a bad job of preventing cheating (here’s a brief guide on the distinction between the two)

Tashi brings together the best of both worlds. It’s flagship offering — a low-latency gaming, serverless multiplayer sessions — provides the cost-effectiveness and scalability of P2P networks, while also offering the performance and security of dedicated servers. Thanks to its proprietary consensus engine, Tashi ensures all players are working with the same accurate and updated game state, while only adding 4-20 ms of consensus time to your ping.

Fairness

Cheating is a huge problem in gaming. 9 out of 10 players report their experience being negatively impacted by cheating, while some gaming companies were estimated to lose billions of dollars due to cheating.

Tashi is fair in the sense of preventing cheating. All local state edits are easily detected and discarded by our consensus engine.

Tashi is also fair in the sense of event ordering. Who shot first is determined by when a game event reaches the majority of players, not based on who’s closes to the server. This means there is no need for artificial lag compensation either, which ping hackers frequently exploit.

The magic of the Tashi Concensus Engine (TCE), allows Tashi to provide the security of a dedicated game server, the cost and infrastructure simplicity of a P2P server, and fairness neither offers.

Who Is It For?

Tashi is not limited to the biggest and most popular games. It also supports indie multiplayer games and web3 gaming, making it the perfect platform for indie game developers to create and launch and scale their games for pennies on the dollar. This level of flexibility makes Tashi a suitable multiplayer backend for any game, regardless of its size or popularity.

Is It Pricey?

In terms of cost, you can think of Tashi multiplayer as the most affordable game server on the market. By eliminating the need for dedicated servers, Tashi significantly reduces the cost of running a multiplayer session (down to 0 if you don’t care about monitoring — the only thing we will be charging for at a fraction of the cost). This, in turn, results in lower costs for players, making it possible for them to enjoy the ultimate gaming experience without breaking the bank.

Integrations

Tashi is also integrated with the modern game development tech stack. Our first offering is Unity plugin you wont even notice you’re using. You can already apply to participate in our close beta at tashi.gg. Unreal integration is coming soon!

Tashi Consensus Engine — Why Fairness (and Less Netcode) Matters to Game Developers

TashiGG — Fri, 24 Feb 2023 02:09:21 +0000

Netcode, the underlying technology behind multiplayer gaming, is a crucial aspect of online gaming experiences. It is responsible for the transmission of data between players in real-time, determining the outcome of in-game events, and creating a sense of fairness and reliability.

However, writing effective and efficient netcode is a challenging task, and it requires an in-depth understanding of network protocols, data transmission, and low-latency gaming. Not only does it have to be performant, but it also has to maintain a perception of fairness. This is where Tashi comes in.

Tashi's proprietary consensus protocol provides the fastest P2P multiplayer sessions possible while maintaining dedicated server-like authority. It assigns each in-game event a fair timestamp that is determined by the median of when the majority of players saw it. This eliminates the need for a centralized server and the need for lag compensation, providing the most reliable and fair experience for players.

Tashi’s multiplayer backend ensures that gamers are playing on a level playing field and that cheating is prevented through its consensus layer. By bringing the best of P2P and dedicated game servers together, you can think of Tashi multiplayer as the cheapest game server you’ll find, making for a more accessible game development experience, especially for indie game developers.

Tashi's approach to netcode is not just about fairness and performance, but also about providing a seamless gaming experience across the Web2 and Web3 world. The indisputable game results of Tashi sessions can easily integrate with smart contracts to bolster in-game economy, scaling Web3 games to AAA-levels or boosting player trust in traditional, Web2 games.

Convenience is a philosophy we live by, which is why in addition to offering a low-latency gaming experience, a sense of fairness, and reliability that is unmatched by other multiplayer solutions, Tashi provides the most painless multiplayer solution out there. Our Unity plugin (closed beta is live right now) allows you to completely forget that you’re even using Tashi. Tashi Network Transport (TNT) integrates seamlessly with Unity’s Netcode for GameObjects. There is almost nothing you need to change about your game other than import the plugin.

Tashi Consensus Engine (TCE) — Why Fairness Matters to Gamers

TashiGG — Fri, 24 Feb 2023 01:54:39 +0000

When it comes to online gaming, lag — the result of slow internet speeds or distance from the game server (dedicated or P2P) — is the root of all evil.

Who shot first — a diagram of your average in game chat

From a UX perspective, lag makes it difficult for players to move their characters smoothly and respond quickly to in-game events.

From a fairness perspective lag just plain ticks players off. Game netcode often tries to strike the balance between improving the in-game experience of players with higher ping — through lag compensation and other techniques — and maintaining the perception of fairness (the good ol’ who-shot-first problem). This is particularly important in competitive and high-stakes games where players expect to be treated fairly and to have the same chances of winning as their opponents. It’s a difficult task however, and it can make or break a game.

To address these issues, Tashi Network Transport (Unity TNT) has implemented a fair ordering consensus algorithm through its proprietary Tashi Consensus Engine (TCE). The TCE ensures that all players see the same events in the same order, regardless of their internet speed or latency. This eliminates the need for lag compensation and other arbitrary refereeing, making the game fairer and more enjoyable for all players.

The TCE operates by using a distributed ledger system to maintain an accurate and consistent record of all game events. Each event is verified by the majority of nodes in the network, ensuring that there is no single point of failure. This means that even if one node fails or is compromised, the TCE will still be able to maintain its integrity and provide a fair ordering of game events.

Tashi’s fairness goes beyond fair ordering and extends into game events that cannot be falsified by anyone - even by game developers or publishers. This is because the TCE operates on a decentralized network that is controlled by the players themselves, making it almost impossible for any single entity to manipulate the game in their favor. This ensures that all players have an equal chance of winning and that their in-game achievements are indisputable.

Indisputable and cryptographically provable game results have various implications for competitive and high-stakes games, where victories have real-world rewards and losses have real-world consequences. Web3 games can trusltessly support in-game economies and real payouts, while gamers can trust that even Web2 games/tournaments can’t fudge the numbers on their central server.

Tashi Makes Games Web3, Not Web3 Games

TashiGG — Fri, 24 Feb 2023 01:47:46 +0000

Web3 gaming has been rapidly growing over the past few years. Despite an overwhelming and tumultuous year for crypto with the collapse of former industry bulwarks (Three Arrows Capital, Terra/Luna, and FTX to name just a few), web3 gaming stayed afloat and continued to attract interest all across the ecosystem in 2022.

Investments? Andreessen Horowitz a.k.a. a16z launched in $600M inaugural Web3-focused gaming fund; Web3 gaming emerged as an indisputable leader in Web3 investments, snagging $4.49B or 62.5% of the total amount invested in Web3 in 2022

Veteran gaming shops? Epic Games secured $2B in funding from Sony and KIRKBI, the company behind The LEGO Group, to spearhead metaverse development; Square Enix partnered with Enjin to bring Web3 capabilities to its Final Fantasy game

Players? despite web3 and NFTs still being a controversial topic in the world of gaming (look at the reaction to the Call of Duty Quartz project), players are getting more and more comfortable with them as Coda Labs show in their report

How About Game Devs?

With money and players flowing in, more and more developers seek to leverage the benefits of distributed ledger technology. While this has created a plethora of exciting new opportunities, it has also led to a number of challenges, particularly when it comes to ensuring a seamless and enjoyable gaming experience. One of the biggest problems with Web3 games today is that they are often developed by crypto developers rather than game developers, resulting in a focus on in-game economy at the expense of gameplay. The result is a crop of games that may be innovative from a blockchain perspective, but lack the polish and engagement that are essential for a truly great gaming experience.

Do Web3 Games Really Offer “True Ownership” and “Decentralization”?

There is a strong case for decentralized ownership of in-game assets from the resell opportunities for avid gamers to fairer monetization strategies for game publishers.

Now, the trick is that blockchain technology can’t really support this functionality in its current state. Currently, no blockchain is capable of handling every in-game event of every game session, except for very simple games (we’ve written a brief guide on traditional approaches that game developers take for multiplayer games). This has forced developers to mix centralized and decentralized architecture to boost performance, and to rely on oracles as a sources of truth, which breaks the chain of trust. Most prominent Web3 games use this hybrid approach (for example, Improbable, who supported Yuga Labs, in their prominent Otherside Game use their underlying networking engine SpatialOS that necessitates centralized servers). What’s the point of recording who owns what on a trustless network, when all transfers are controlled by a trusted party?

Tashi makes it possible to make games truly trustless and decentralized. — while handling even the most demanding AAA FPS games with ease — making it ideal for developers looking to build high-performance, engaging Web3 games. The Tashi platform leverages the latest low-latency consensus technology, ensuring the fastest distributed multiplayer session possible (4-20 ms to consensus not counting network travel time) with fair netcode and and anti-cheat functionality gamers will love baked in.

How Does it Actually Work?

For a step-by-step explanation you’ll need to stay tuned, but in a nutshell, we take P2P server approach and blend it with our own unique consensus algorithm. What it means is that Tashi’s consensus-driven game session can provide verifiable and indisputable game results, which can be sent straight to smart contracts for algorithmic verification, facilitating all kinds of on-chain, in-game economics. Once a game session is over, one of the participating nodes (i.e., player’s game client) — or a monitor node — sends a proof of the game results to a smart contract, the smart contract verifies it in a trustless manner, and publishes the results on its respective blockchain. All of this is done without a single trusted party involved.

The best part is that Tashi is integrated with the modern game development tech stack. For Web3 game developers, Unity is the engine of choice (41% of devs use it in this space), and that’s why we are starting our product launch with a Unity plugin. You can apply to participate in our closed beta at tashi.gg. Unreal integration is coming soon!

Closing thoughts

For Web3 gaming to enter the mainstream, game developers need tools that can match the performance of modern multiplayer games and that seamlessly integrate into their tech stack. Tashi helps to bridge the performance and trust gap that exists in the Web3 gaming industry with its novel serverless multiplayer engine that bring true decentralisation to games.

See more at tashi.gg.

Tashi Concensus Engine (TCE) — High-Throughput, Low-Latency, Fair Ordering & the Doors it Opens in the Cloud

TashiGG — Fri, 24 Feb 2023 01:32:03 +0000

Distributed systems are becoming increasingly important as the need for scalable and highly available applications grows — especially with the rise of cloud computing . The CAP theorem forces us to choose between consistency, availability, and partition tolerance. This is a problem all distributed systems face — databases like MongoDB, caches like Redis, message queues like Kafka, and scheduler like Kubernetes — and Tashi could make all of them better.

CAP theorem tradeoffs between different products

It all comes down to one fundamental issue - reaching consensus between different computers. Many algorithms have been proposed to solve this problem, with Raft being one of the most popular (seriously, it’s pretty much everywhere). However, Raft has some limitations, especially in terms of performance and scalability, which can make it a less-than-ideal choice for certain use cases. Its leader-based nature both reduces its availability and caps its throughput to the horsepower of a single server.

Enter the Tashi Consensus Engine (TCE), Tashi’s proprietary implementation of a consensus algorithm that promises to improve upon Raft in a number of ways. TCE is fully asynchronous, leaderless (throughput grows linearly with the number of nodes, with minimal impact on latency), and designed for high-throughput and fair ordering, making it an attractive alternative for pretty much all applications outlined above, as well as Tashi’s first market offering — Unity TNT, bringing together the best of P2P and dedicated game servers.

How TCE Works

TCE is a consensus algorithm that achieves high-throughput and fair ordering by allowing multiple nodes to make progress in parallel, rather than relying on a single leader to coordinate all activity. This approach eliminates the performance bottlenecks that can arise with leader-based algorithms like Raft, making TCE well-suited for high-volume workloads.

Additionally, TCE is fully asynchronous, meaning that it can continue to make progress even when network delays or failures occur. This robustness makes it a good choice for use cases like distributed message queues, where the ability to process messages even in the face of network partitions is critical.

Improvements Over Raft

One of the biggest advantages of TCE over Raft is its scalability. TCE can handle more nodes and higher volumes of data than Raft, making it a better choice for use cases that require high levels of concurrency and parallelism. This scalability is achieved through the use of a leaderless design, which eliminates the need for a central coordinator, freeing up resources for processing data.

Another key advantage of TCE is its fair ordering. In Raft, the leader is responsible for ordering all requests, which can result in unfairness in the event of network delays, failures, or problematic network topology (a nodes not being equidistant from the leader/server). TCE eliminates this problem by allowing multiple nodes to make progress in parallel, ensuring that all requests are processed fairly, even in the face of failures.

Finally, the TCE delivers an increase in robustness. In any two-phase commit system with a single leader. A system failure of the leader results in 100% uncommited data loss. In the case of the leaderless TCE, only 1/n data is lost, with n being the number of nodes in the system.

Use Cases for TCE

TCE is already being explored and implemented for a variety of use cases — with the gracious help of the the Scale tier of Microsoft’s Founders hub, and our friends at the company — including distributed message queues like Kafka, schedulers like Kubernetes and Nomad, databases like MongoDB and CockroachDB, and caches like Memcached and Redis. The TCE is also being used as the backbone for Unity TNT (Tashi Network Transport), a multiplayer offering that leverages the high-throughput and fair ordering capabilities of TCE to provide low-latency, high-performance network transport for multiplayer games and other applications.

TL;DR

The Tashi Consensus Engine (TCE) is a new consensus algorithm that offers a number of improvements over Raft, making it a better choice for use cases that require high throughput, strict fairness requirements, as well as highly robust systems. Whether you're building a distributed message queue, scheduler, database, cache, or multiplayer application, TCE is worth exploring as a potential solution for your needs (if we don’t get there first). Shoot us a message if you’re interested in exploring a partnership.

Tashi — The Next Generation of Multiplayer Gaming

TashiGG — Thu, 23 Feb 2023 02:07:59 +0000

In the world of online gaming, there are two main approaches to hosting multiplayer sessions: Dedicated servers and Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks. Each has its own set of pros and cons, and game developers must carefully consider which approach is best for their particular game.

Dedicated Multiplayer Servers

Dedicated servers are owned and operated by the game developer, publisher or a third-party provider. All gameplay data is sent to these servers, which then broadcast the data to all other players in the session. This approach has several benefits. First, it is generally more stable and reliable than P2P networks, as the servers are dedicated solely to hosting the game and are not subject to the fluctuations in bandwidth and connectivity that can affect individual player devices. Centralized servers also offer a higher level of security, as they can be better equipped to handle malicious activity and cheating.

However, centralized servers also have some drawbacks. The most significant is cost: hosting and maintaining servers can be expensive, especially for games with a large player base. In addition, there is a limit to the number of players that can be accommodated on a single server, and adding more servers can quickly become cost-prohibitive — especially for indie game developers.

P2P Multiplayer

P2P networks, on the other hand, rely on the players' own devices to host the game. In this approach, each player's device connects directly to the devices of the other players (possibly through a relay), or more commonly to a single player’s computer designated as the “server”. P2P networks also have the advantage of being cost-effective and more scalable, as there is no need to add more servers to accommodate additional players.

But P2P networks aren’t perfect. They are generally less stable and reliable than centralized servers, as they are subject to the fluctuations in bandwidth and connectivity of individual player devices. P2P networks can also be more vulnerable to cheating and other malicious activity, as there is no central authority to monitor and enforce the rules of the game except for the designated server which can then perform state edit cheats (it’s the reason GTA Online is such a cheat-fest)

Tashi Multiplayer

One solution to these issues is the use of a high-speed consensus mechanism to sync player state. Tashi multiplayer sessions are built on the latest and greatest tech in this space. Our proprietary consensus library enables multiple players to reach consensus on game events in a fast, secure, and fair manner. For your players that means 3 things:

Insanely low latency — Tashi sessions reach consensus in 4-20ms depending on CPU architecture and that’s without enabling GPU acceleration. Everything else depends on network travel time.
Super high security — Not only can players not cheat by editing their local state (they’ll just be ignored), provable records of each game can be maintained on each players computers as well as centralized servers without the need to trust a third party. As these records cannot be forged they are perfect for high-stakes games, whether it be in real-world or in-game currency
No more ping woes — All in-game events are fairly timestamped based on when they reached the majority of players. Being too far way from the server is no longer an excuse, and ping hacking/teleporting is no longer an option

For you though, it means one thing: 💰🔺. No servers, no cost.

Tashi can bring together the best of both dedicated and P2P multiplayer servers. On the one hand, it allows for the low cost and scalability of a P2P network, as data is exchanged directly between player devices. On the other hand, it provides the stability, reliability, and security of a centralized server, as the consensus mechanism ensures that all players are working from the same accurate and up-to-date game state. Further, it adds fair and trustless communication to your game at the network level

The Catch

There is none. You can sign up for our early access program ([ https://tashi.gg ]).

And we mean no catch — Tashi 💘indie game devs and will never charge them (or anyone) a penny for multiplayer sessions. The only thing we will ever charge for is inexpensive in-game monitoring that allows you to have the benefits of a centralized server (like robust analytics and easy in-game monetization) and A LOT more at a fraction of the cost.