Goose Goose Duck Hits New Heights With 700k Players: How RTI is Driving the Game's Success

According to SteamDB's charts, Goose Goose Duck, a game developed by Gaggle Studios, has recently reached a new milestone with 700,000 concurrent players on PC and mobile. The staggering player count can be likened to the virtual eradication of over 9 million geese in a day.

According to Gaggle CEO Shawn Fischtein, Goose Goose Duck stands out due to its built-in proximity chat, which sets it apart from other games that add chat features as an afterthought. The game's concept revolves around communication and real-time information sharing, with chatting as a key component that keeps the gameplay dynamic and exciting.

Goose Goose Duck in the Eye of Players

Let's first take a look at some interactive/fun scenarios in the game:

• Task exploration: There are 16 players in the game, and when they get close to each other on the map, they can use voice chat, but the voice volume decreases or disappears when they are far away from each other or in different rooms.

• Voting: During the voting session, all players can hear each other's voices regardless of their location on the map.

• Pigeon: As a Pigeon in Goose Goose Duck, your objective is to spread infection to other players on the map. To do so, move around, approach other players, and hit the "Infect" button.

• Pelican: With the Pelican role, where you can swallow other players, the trapped players can communicate with you and each other while inside your belly! These conversations can not be heard by other players.

• Party Duck: Party Duck can make players sound high-pitched during meetings, which is similar to Silencer but much more humorous.

All of these scenarios can be easily implemented through RTC SDKs. We will explain in more detail later.

The Advanced RTI Technologies it Takes to Make Goose Goose Duck Players Happy

When you're talking to other players in the game, you're doing simultaneous voice chats with multiple people. And large-scale simultaneous voice chat refers to the ability of a system or application to support a high number of users speaking and listening to each other in real time.

Why is it important for today’s apps?

Today's Real-Time Interaction (RTI) apps are already talking about supporting 10,000+ people voice chatting simultaneously. This feature is vital for many social apps and platforms, such as online games, virtual events, and remote work and education tools, where large groups of people need to communicate and collaborate effectively. Supporting large numbers of concurrent users has become a critical competitive advantage for social apps.

What it takes to support large-scale simultaneous voice chat?

• Adequate bandwidth to support the high volume of voice traffic.
• Low latency to ensure minimal delay in voice transmission.
• Scalable and flexible architecture to handle increasing numbers of concurrent users.
• Efficient load balancing and distribution to prevent overloading of servers or network nodes.

This is related to Proximity Chat in the game. Spatial audio allows players or users to hear sounds as if they were coming from specific directions and distances, which can help them locate and identify objects, events, or other players in the game or application.

To deliver an immersive spatial audio experience, it takes:

• Network bandwidth and latency: Spatial audio delivery requires significant bandwidth and low latency to ensure real-time audio delivery and prevent delay or jitter in the audio stream.
• Audio processing: To accurately capture and reproduce the spatial audio experience, the audio processing algorithms need to handle a large number of audio sources and channels and perform spatial audio mixing and rendering.
• Audio codecs: The use of high-quality audio codecs is crucial for maintaining audio quality, especially for higher-order ambisonics, which require additional audio channels to be transmitted.
• Interoperability: There are different standards and approaches for delivering spatial audio, and ensuring interoperability between other platforms and devices can be challenging.

This has to do with the Pigeon role in Goose Goose Duck. The Pigeon needs to constantly hit the "Infect" button, and there isn't such a thing as a "noise cancellation keyboard." Players who don't install additional plugins will be exposed when getting close to others, as keyboard typing will give away their identity, leading to a poor experience for those playing Pigeon.

How AI-powered noise suppression is implemented in RTI applications?

Use machine learning algorithms to analyze real-time audio signals and identify and reduce unwanted background noise. The process involves analyzing each audio input during audio and video calls, determining the spectral and temporal characteristics of the background noise, and then using this information to filter out the noise and enhance the speech signal.

This is achievable using hardware-based solutions, specialized noise suppression software, or RTC SDKs with built-in AI-powered noise suppression capabilities.

After you enter the game, the lobby is an Audio Room. Also, with the Pelican role, the Pelican's belly is another Audio Room.

The technical requirements and their importance to multiple rooms in social audio apps:

Multiple rooms in social audio apps are important for creating a more immersive and interactive user experience. It allows users to separate into smaller groups and participate in different activities simultaneously. The following technical requirements need to be met.

• Low-latency audio communication: To ensure seamless real-time audio communication between players in different rooms.
• Cross-platform compatibility: The platform must be compatible with different operating systems and devices, such as desktop, mobile, and web.

Party Duck's ability is essentially a voice changer. You can add a voice changer feature to RTC apps with the following approaches:

• Integrating third-party SDKs: Leverage existing SDKs that offer voice changer functionalities. This approach is less time-consuming and requires less expertise in audio processing.
• Using audio effects libraries: Use audio effects libraries, such as Web Audio API or AudioKit. These libraries provide a set of audio processing tools that can be used to change voice pitch, speed, and tone.
• Developing custom audio processing algorithms: For more advanced voice changer features, one can build custom audio processing algorithms using machine learning, neural networks, or digital signal processing techniques. This approach provides more flexibility and control over the audio processing pipeline.

Choose a Cloud Vendor to Ensure Server Stability for Your Trending Apps

A dependable server is an essential component of any thriving app. You can find complaints (on social media) from GGD players and their desire for a more stable game.

"Crash again. We can only play together at night. C’mon!"

"Why crash servers every night at 8:00 on the dot?"

"Hi, the chart of recent people I played with has been lost after this system crash. Can it be restored???"

"My account can not be logged in after the server crashes!!"

"Everytime I pull out my earphones during the game, I lose the player's voice. The only way to hear any player's voice after changing an audio device is to close the game entirely and reopen it."

Points to consider when choosing a cloud vendor:

• Reliability: Opt for a vendor with a demonstrated history of delivering dependable and consistent cloud services. Look at their service level agreements (SLAs) and assess their ability to handle traffic spikes and provide consistent performance.
• Scalability: The vendor should provide a flexible and scalable infrastructure that can accommodate growth and changing needs as your app becomes more popular.
• Security: Ensure the vendor implements robust security protocols, such as encryption, firewalls, and frequent software updates.
• Compliance: If your app requires compliance with specific regulations, such as HIPAA or PCI DSS, make sure the vendor is compliant and can provide the necessary certifications.

Building a successful app is challenging, and maintaining its success is even more so. It's essential to keep up with evolving real-time interaction technologies to ensure the app remains relevant and reliable for its users and empowers users to form meaningful relationships. Overlooking the importance of these advancements can lead to negative user experiences, impacting the app's success in the long run.