Dedicated Game Server development became the biggest priority during week seven of rebuilding My Life as a Spy. With only one week left before more than 50 players joined the game, the team faced performance problems, server challenges, and dozens of bugs. Despite the pressure, week seven transformed the project from a prototype running on a developer’s PC into a real online game with a professional foundation.
Week 7 Overview
Week seven had one clear goal.
Get the game ready for strangers.
After six weeks of development, the team stood only days away from the first public playtest. More than fifty players would soon experience the game for the first time.
That deadline forced every decision. This is Week 7.
My Spy Game Was Unplayable 5 Days Before 50 Strangers Played It
Dedicated Game Server Setup Changed Everything
Moving Away From Developer PCs
For six weeks, the game ran from one developer’s computer.
That approach worked during internal testing, but it would never support dozens of players. The team needed something reliable and independent.
Nobody had built a server before.
Still, the systems engineer stepped up and created a Dedicated Game Server using a headless Linux build running around the clock.
Once two developers connected and started fighting in Chinatown, the difference became obvious.
The game finally felt like a real product.
Dedicated Game Server Introduced A Real Home For The Game
The new infrastructure meant the game no longer depended on anyone’s machine.
Even if somebody shut down their computer, the world would continue running.
That moment marked a major milestone. The Dedicated Game Server turned the project into a professional multiplayer experience.
Those agency headquarters and districts look very different from the gray prototype city we had a few weeks earlier, when My Life as a Spy finally started feeling alive.
Dedicated Game Server Added A Better Player Introduction
New players now begin with a proper setup process.
They:
- Enter a codename.
- Choose the Red Agency.
- Join the Green Agency.
- Enter the Black Agency.
After selecting their faction, players spawn inside their headquarters.
That small sequence helps players become agents instead of simply controlling characters.
Dedicated Game Server Supported Eight Weapon Types
New Weapons Arrived
Week seven expanded combat in several ways.
Players now have access to:
- Chemical Gun
- Glue Gun
- Stun Gun
- Heavy Pistol
- Blow Gun
- Brass Knuckles
- Knives
- Additional specialized weapons
Each weapon behaves differently and encourages different strategies.
The chemical gun ignores armor.
The glue gun slows enemies.
The stun gun disables opponents with electricity.
Poison became especially dangerous because no armor counters it.
Healing remains the only defense.
Dedicated Game Server Expanded Armor And Equipment
More than twenty armor pieces entered the game.
Items now include:
- Chemical suits
- Gas masks
- Impact armor
- Stealth shoes
- Full body suits
Every item uses the quality system.
Equipment ranges from 1 to 100 quality. Higher numbers provide stronger performance and better results.
Dedicated Game Server Introduced Smoke Bombs And EMP Bombs
Smoke bombs went through five versions in one afternoon.
Eventually, the team found the right combination.
The smoke became thick, instant, and realistic.
Inside buildings, it stays within the room instead of passing through walls.
The team also added EMP bombs.
These temporarily disable security systems inside enemy headquarters and create opportunities for infiltration.
Many of these new systems expand on the spy game mechanics introduced during week five, when the project began transforming from a shooter into a true spy sandbox.
Dedicated Game Server Improved The Stealth System
Originally, players became invisible automatically by standing still.
That system caused problems because players sometimes disappeared accidentally.
The team changed the mechanic.
Now players must activate stealth manually.
This change gave players more control and made the system feel intentional.
Spies choose when to hide.
Dedicated Game Server Forced Another Hard Decision
Saying Goodbye To Fog of War
The team officially removed fog of war.
Ironically, fog of war was once one of the biggest milestones in development. Earlier in the project, we built a complete fog of war Unity multiplayer system and considered it one of the game’s defining features.
Several reasons led to that choice:
- Camera improvements already limited visibility.
- Performance needed attention.
- Other systems handled tension naturally.
Fog of war demanded too many resources without improving gameplay enough.
Removing fog of war was another example of avoiding the same indie game design mistakes that nearly pushed the project in the wrong direction the previous week.
The door remains open for the future, but the priority now is player experience.
Dedicated Game Server Survived While The Game Fell Apart
The first playtest of the week revealed a strange situation.
The server performed perfectly.
The game itself did not.
Frame rates dropped to only 11 FPS.
The closer players looked toward the center of the map, the worse performance became.
With less than one week remaining before public testing, the situation became critical.
Diagnosing The Performance Crisis
The team entered full investigation mode.
They discovered three major problems.
Audio System Problems
The game constantly read music files from the disk.
Every transition caused noticeable freezes.
Two Cameras Existed
A second camera had somehow entered the scene.
As a result, the entire world rendered twice.
Massive Draw Calls
The map contained more than 30,000 objects.
Draw calls reached 21,000.
Most PC games operate around 2,000 draw calls.
The GPU simply could not handle the load.
Dedicated Game Server Helped The Team Focus On Optimization
Nobody panicked.
Everyone attacked the problems at the same time.
Audio Fix
The systems engineer rewrote the sound system.
Stutters disappeared.
Occlusion Improvements
Another developer prevented hidden objects from rendering.
Performance immediately doubled.
The Ultimate Merge Tool
The newest developer built a custom optimization tool.
The tool merged buildings into single meshes and automatically created level-of-detail versions.
The results were dramatic.
- Draw calls dropped from 21,000 to 6,000.
- Objects dropped from 30,000 to 13,000.
- Frame rates climbed from 11 FPS to over 60 FPS.
Native compilation also reduced CPU usage dramatically.
What looked like a disaster became one of the biggest victories of the project.
Dedicated Game Server Enabled More Features
As the week ended, the team focused on stability.
They fixed bugs involving:
- Invincible players.
- Shopping while dead.
- Vendor interactions.
- Combat balancing.
- UI notifications.
Another major feature received approval.
Power Struggle System
Every action now contributes to agency scores.
Players earn points by:
- Eliminating enemies.
- Delivering documents.
- Using spy mechanics.
- Completing objectives.
For the first time, players would compete for faction dominance instead of simply testing systems.
The scoring system builds on the foundation created when the team finished the indie game core loop earlier in development.
Looking Ahead To Week Eight
Week seven delivered more than thirty systems and merged over fifty pull requests.
Six weeks earlier, nobody on the team had ever created a dedicated server. It is amazing to compare where we are today with our first week as a game producer, when this entire journey was just getting started.
Now the project runs on a professional foundation.
Most importantly, the performance crisis that could have destroyed the first public playtest was solved.
The next challenge is bigger.
More than fifty real players are waiting.
And week eight will reveal what happens when strangers finally enter the world of My Life as a Spy.