Props that you're branching out and having fun. That's what makes software special. Agar.io is slow and simple. There isn't much state to encode and state does

Props that you're branching out and having fun. That's what makes software special. Agar.io is slow and simple. There isn't much state to encode and state doesn't change drastically that a few re-sent packets here and there are going to ruin the gameplay. Granted, if you're on a terrible connection with high packet loss, even a great algorithm on top of UDP won't save you. There are better explanations than I can provide on why TCP isn't great for (parts of) fast, complex games, but it's enough to say that there's a huge difference in the complexity of state and state updates between say Battlefield and Agar.io or the game you described. Modern TCP on modern network connections will get you very far, but there's only so much you can deal with when a split second can mean the difference between "A was under the crosshair of B" and "A actually went around a corner, sorry B". What you described is likely not going to be so sensitive. I don't think you'll personally have to worry about implementing a custom networking protocol over UDP any time soon - maybe unless you think your game is going to be played by people on terrible connections (possible!), or you end up with some abysmally inefficient state sharing over the network. And, from a different perspective, getting caught up in those details tends to risk getting burned out. Better to see your game through to MVP then go back and make it great.