--- title: 2 Days Trying To Create a Multiplayer HTML5 Game | daily.dev description: A web developer spent two days building a prototype multiplayer browser game using Node.js, HTML5 Canvas, and Socket.io to understand the challenges of... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/2-days-trying-to-create-a-multiplayer-html5-game-feplf0ui1 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: 2 Days Trying To Create a Multiplayer HTML5 Game | daily.dev og:description: A web developer spent two days building a prototype multiplayer browser game using Node.js, HTML5 Canvas, and Socket.io to understand the challenges of... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/2-days-trying-to-create-a-multiplayer-html5-game-feplf0ui1 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/FePlf0uI1.png og:image:alt: 2 Days Trying To Create a Multiplayer HTML5 Game og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # 2 Days Trying To Create a Multiplayer HTML5 Game **[Marc G Gauthier](https://daily.dev/sources/marcgg)** · 6 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A web developer spent two days building a prototype multiplayer browser game using Node.js, HTML5 Canvas, and Socket.io to understand the challenges of real-time online games. Key problems encountered included WebSocket hosting limitations on Heroku (requiring a switch to DotCloud), network inefficiency from broadcasting full game state instead of diffs, client-side lag due to no local state, gameplay design complexity, and concurrent access issues requiring a basic mutex. The experiment revealed why multiplayer game development is hard and suggested turn-based designs as a simpler alternative. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Hardening Real-Time Matching Systems with Node.js and WebSockets](https://daily.dev/posts/hardening-real-time-matching-systems-with-node-js-and-websockets-niwsqbayc) · SitePoint · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#webdev](https://daily.dev/tags/webdev), [#nodejs](https://daily.dev/tags/nodejs) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/2-days-trying-to-create-a-multiplayer-html5-game-feplf0ui1) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"2 Days Trying To Create a Multiplayer HTML5 Game","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/2-days-trying-to-create-a-multiplayer-html5-game-feplf0ui1","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/2-days-trying-to-create-a-multiplayer-html5-game-feplf0ui1"},"datePublished":"2026-03-26T08:35:52.597Z","dateModified":"2026-03-26T08:36:48.558Z","description":"A web developer spent two days building a prototype multiplayer browser game using Node.js, HTML5 Canvas, and Socket.io to understand the challenges of...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/71127b03cea5170e12a8941f3db0b7f1?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/71127b03cea5170e12a8941f3db0b7f1?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Marc G Gauthier","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Marc G Gauthier","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--P4lsZKFE--/f_auto,q_auto/v1774514113/logos/marcgg?_a=BAMAMiWQ0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/marcgg"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/2-days-trying-to-create-a-multiplayer-html5-game-feplf0ui1","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"webdev,nodejs","timeRequired":"PT6M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Marc G Gauthier","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/marcgg"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"2 Days Trying To Create a Multiplayer HTML5 Game"}]} ```