Hi! So, unfortunately the servers have been down for a couple hours now. This is slightly alarming because GameMakerServer has been threatening to EVENTUALLY shut down permanently.

Is the game done? Should we panic?

Well no, we can't jump to any conclusions just yet. This is most likely a temporary outage and the game could be back up super soon. IT HAS HAPPENED BEFORE.

I am monitoring the situation and I'll let you guys know ASAP. So until then, don't panic.

But either way, it does bring up a larger problem for future me.

What is GameMakerServer?

GameMakerServer is an extension that handles most of the difficult stuff a multiplayer game would usually need. Logins, rooms, saves, variables, player locations, etc.

But most importantly, the servers are hosted by its creator, Size43, entirely for free. And eventually, he won't be able to continue doing so.

If GameMakerServer were to disappear, I'd have to code everything from scratch. And I mean EVERYTHING. Stuff that I didn't have to code before. Which is why I haven't already switched to something else.

Size43 has supposedly offered to make all of the code open source, which I HOPE will help preserve the game, but I'm not entirely sure what that would look like.

Will Five Nights Together die with GameMakerServer?

Definitely not. There are WAYS to code multiplayer games without GMS. Especially a game that is extremely simple such as mine.

But so far, I haven't really found anything that is going to be as simple as GMS. So I'm not excited about that. But I WILL go through great lengths to keep FNT alive.

Calling Other Devs

If you know of anything similar to GameMakerServer, even if it's in an entirely different engine, please let me know.

Even if GMS ends up going on for years after this, I'd still like to plan ahead.

That's all for now! If there are any updates, a link to a new devlog will be posted here. ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Update: SERVER IS BACK ONLINE!!