Building an Online FPS Game on a $6 Monthly Budget

Hello everyone,

I'm thrilled to be the sole developer behind Daikombat Online, a free, adrenaline-pumping online shooter that brings back the fast-paced action of classics like Doom. What's even more exciting? It only costs me $6 a month to keep this game running smoothly.

TLDR: You can use top enterprise-level tools and infrastructure for little-to-no cost

Despite operating on an ultra-low budget, Daikombat delivers an immersive gaming experience with solid code quality. Here's a peek behind the scenes at how I achieved this for free(literally):

• Code Repository: GitHub (free)
• CI/CD Pipelines:  CircleCI (free)
• Static Code Analysis: Spotbugs (free)
• Code Vulnerability Check: Snyk (free)
• Jar Artifactory: Jitpack (free)
• Docker Image Registry: GitHub packages (free)
• Website Hosting: GitHub Pages (free)
• Crash Analytics: Sentry (free)
• Game Files Storage:  Dropbox (free)
  
• JVM Monitoring: JMX (free)
• Marketplace: itch.io (free)

But what about the essentials? The only expense I incur is the DigitalOcean Droplet, a Linux-based VM with 1 GB RAM, which costs roughly the equivalent of a Big Mac meal each month. Here's what it includes:

• Preinstalled Docker for streamlined deployment and management.
• Comprehensive monitoring for network, memory, and CPU usage, ensuring optimal performance for players.

For just $6 a month, you can access enterprise-level tools and infrastructure, empowering indie developers like myself to create and maintain high-quality games without breaking the bank. Isn't it incredible how far technology has come?