HYTOPIA SDK

Quick Links

Quickstart • Developer Docs • API Reference • Examples • Join Our Developer Discord • Report Bugs or Request Features

What is HYTOPIA?

HYTOPIA is a modern games platform inspired by Minecraft, Roblox, and Rec Room.

HYTOPIA allows you to create your own highly-sharable, immersive, massively multiplayer games in a voxel-like style by writing TypeScript or JavaScript. All playable in a web browser on any device!

What is this SDK?

Note: This SDK is currently in alpha development. Expect breaking changes with new version releases.

The HYTOPIA SDK makes it easy for developers to create multiplayer games on the HYTOPIA platform using JavaScript or TypeScript.

Available as a simple NPM package, this SDK provides everything you need to get started:

• Compiled HYTOPIA Server: The ready-to-use server software.
• Game Client & Debugger: Accessible at https://play.hytopia.com
• TypeScript Definitions: For strong typing and code completion.
• Documentation: Detailed guides and API reference.
• Default Assets: Textures, models, audio and more you can use in your games.
• Examples: Sample projects & scripts showing how to build different types of games.

With these resources, you can quickly build and share immersive, voxel-style multiplayer games on HYTOPIA.

Quickstart

1. Install a compatible JavaScript runtime. We recommend you use Bun, but Node.js and Deno can work with additional configuration. All examples will be given using Bun.

2. Create a new project directory somewhere on your machine and navigate into it.

mkdir my-project-directory && cd my-project-directory

3. Initialize a hytopia project from boilerplate or an existing example. Sets up package.json and all dependencies, copies assets and an index.ts game script into your project.

# Option 1: Initialize a boilerplate project
bunx hytopia init

# Option 2: Initialize a project from any of the examples in the examples directory like so:
bunx hytopia init --template payload-game

3. Start the server, use --watch for hot reloads as you make changes.

bun --watch index.ts

4. Visit https://play.hytopia.com - when prompted, enter localhost:8080 - this is the hostname of the local server you started in the previous step.

Note: If you'd prefer to use JavaScript instead of TypeScript, simply change the file extension of index.ts to index.js - Your editor will highlight the TypeScript syntax errors, simple delete the type annotations and everything should work the same without any TypeScript usage.

Once you're up and running, here's some other resources to go further:

• Developer Docs
• Game Examples
• API Reference

Architecture & Motivation

HYTOPIA gives developers full control to create any game imaginable in a voxel-like style. The underlying architecture handles low-level tasks like networking, prediction, entity lifecycle, physics and more, so you can focus on building and deploying games quickly.

With HYTOPIA's 100% server-authoritative setup and overall implementation, games are default-deterministic. All game inputs by players are relayed to and verified by the server, making gameplay naturally anti-cheat and preventing exploits like position spoofing.

HYTOPIA overcomes the creativity limits of Minecraft, the complexities of Unity and UE5, and the difficult developer learning curve of Roblox with a developer-first, flexible approach, enabling you to build games in hours using JavaScript or TypeScript.

Bring your own game assets as GLTF models with full server-driven animation support, block textures, ambient and sfx audio, and more - or use HYTOPIA's defaults included with this SDK to craft your game.

We built HYTOPIA to empower both veteran and aspiring game developers to create multiplayer-first, voxel-style, hyper-sharable games. Developer APIs and documentations are simple, powerful and clear. Whether you've been building games for years, a frontend web developer who's dreamed of building a game, an eager learner that's always dreamed of building games, or a curious school student, HYTOPIA was built for you..