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You sound like you've explored at least a few options in this space. Have you looked at https://agones.dev/ ?

Yes! It’s a great project. I’m super happy they have a coherent local development story. I kinda abandoned using it though when I said “keeeep it simple” and stopped using containers/k8s. I think I needed to journey through understanding why multiplayer game services like Agones/gamelift/photon were set up like they were. I read through Multiplayer Game Programming: Architecting Networked Games by Joshua Glazer and Sanjay Madhav really helped (not to mention allowed me to better understand GDC talks over multiplayer topics much better).

This all probably speaks to my odd prioritization: I want to understand and use. I’ve had to step back and realize part of the fun I have in pursuing these projects is the research.

I’ve also found docker / k8s to mostly just get in the way. Even VMs are often a problem, depending on the details of the game.

Bare metal is the only actually good option, but you often have to do a lot yourself. Multiplay did offer it last time I looked, but I don’t know what’s going on with them now.

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