Beginner's Network/Multiplayer Education or Resources (PC)

Hi there! I'm just wondering, are there any good books about Unity that deal with making multiplayer network gameplay? I'm not talking about something as big as an mmo network, I'm thinking more along the lines of classic games like Doom or Quake where a player can host a game, and all the second player needs to play with him is to know his ip address.

All the games that I've made so far using C# are single player and now I think it's time that I started experimenting with the multiplayer part of game development. I want to start in the most basic of ways, which is probably a simple non-complicated game where players can connect to each other using an ip address. I honestly have no idea about network programming for games and I imagine it to be quite a complex matter that needs its own book similar to how there's a book dedicated to shader programming in Unity.

An example of a non-complicated game that I can think of is simply a game that has two boxes where players connect to each other via ip address. Player 1 on the first computer can press the space bar to make his box jump and his score will increase. Player 2 on the second computer can also press his space bar key to make his own box jump and increase his own score. The game has a time limit of 20 seconds, and after that time, the game loads the next level with their saved scores intact. After 2 levels, the winner is the one with the higher score, or a draw is declared if they have the same score. After that, the game resets all scores back to zero and goes back to the first level.

I wonder how complicated it is to implement that kind of "connect to host using ip address" type of network game I described.


Anyway, I haven't focused my attention on networks and what I know about them are the most textbook basic of basics. My main goal is to learn how to make a simple 2 player game where people can connect and play together as long as they know the host's ip address similar to Quake's network gaming feature a long time ago.

I would appreciate it greatly if someone could point me to good resources where I can learn network programming for games specifically for Unity. If it's being taught in C#, then the better because that's what I use.

Thanks in advance

 

Packtpub released a multiplayer book recently that seems pretty good. Look at the Tasharen stuff as well. TN is quite good and does cover this type of networking. I believe there are a couple of resources available on the asset store, some free.