Looking for suggestions: Clients connect to server running different project

I would like to make a game with a multiplayer feature similar to the one used in the game Jackbox Party Pack.

[Description of multiplayer feature in Jackbox Party Pack, skip if you are familiar already]
In Jackbox Party Pack the game is run on a device such as a PC or console. The game displays a website and room code on the screen. Players connect to the game using their mobile phones or tablets by navigating to the displayed website via their web browsers and entering the room code into the site. Once all players have joined the room the game begins and players use their mobile devices to answer trivia questions, all through the mobile device's web browser.

The game I'm trying to make will differ slightly in that I want the players to have a Unity game client (app) running on their mobile devices. The app will then connect to the game server which will also be a Unity executable running on a PC or console. The game server will not have any controls or a player, the server is just used to display the actions of the players. Actions performed on the server only come from the user's connected via with mobile devices (well there are some controls for the server, such as exit/shutdown, volume, etc.).

The mobile clients act mainly as controllers. They display UI buttons that send commands/messages to the server and receive them but are very different in terms of scene, layout, UI. Basically I see the PC/Console server and the mobile client apps as different Unity projects but they need to communicate with each other.

I've skimmed through the new Unity Networking documentation and it seems that it is designed more for games that all share the same client/project. Is what I'm trying to achieve possible in the new HLAPI or do I have to drop straight down into the transport layer? Should I look into Photon or some other plugin?

Any thoughts or suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Thank you!

 

Hey Chris! I'm also trying to do something similar. However, I must first ask; how are you planning on getting the game client to run through web browsers on mobile? Old Unity web player is depreciated and was never supported on mobile, while the new WebGL build option is too much overhead for mobile to handle.