rplace.tk has had a rocky development history. With such a high demand for different things, features have remained broken, scrapped or non-existent for long periods of time. Despite these issues, with the 10+ contributors to the main project, lead mostly by zekiahepic, and initially BlobKat. The site has found a relatively stable update cycle, with new features, fixes and bug improvements appearing each fortnight.

The game protocol

The site was initially coded within a day, and main development, jump started by BlobKat over three. This has had many long lasting impacts on the site, resulting in some development decisions that made sense for that short term period, but have proved very complicated and confusing in the long term. One of the biggest impacts was the choice to use "git and changes system", for syncing the canvas between the client and server, while also ensuring minimal bandwidth on the hoster's behalf. Further complicated by the introduction of the new server software, RplaceServer, which chose to use a completely new system, wherein the site is solely dependent on the monolithic server software, which handles both the socket live pixels, and hosting the canvas files directly for client consumption in a compressed form.

Basic protocol and API documentation is made available on the rplace github at https://github.com/rplacelive/game/blob/main/PROTOCOL.md