A developer frustrated with rewriting network code for every game built Project Neon, a minimal UDP protocol designed for any multiplayer title. It features an 8-byte header and lets developers define their own packets, avoiding vendor lock-in from frameworks like Photon or Mirror. The MIT-licensed tool works with Unity, Unreal, and Godot via JNI, offering a raw socket alternative without the complexity.

The core insight is that every game needs connection management, but no two share the same game logic. Project Neon acts as a dumb relay, forwarding bytes without parsing payloads. This handles NAT traversal for games behind routers, supporting both client-server and peer-to-peer models. The architecture is simple: clients connect to a relay, which routes packets to a host or broadcasts them.

It's infrastructure, not a full framework. Developers still implement player synchronization and lag compensation, but Neon handles sockets, routing, and lifecycle. The trade-off is no built-in encryption—plaintext UDP is fine for LANs, but the developer recommends app-layer encryption for internet play. Performance adds about 1ms overhead, with relays handling 1000+ packets per second. The project is in beta, with plans for DTLS and WebSocket support.