Hawtzorz!

In the tradition of the travian 'click now, my lord!' lingerie adverts, I just saw an advert for another browser game which makes the travian ones seem a little subtle and sublime.

'One click for a roman orgy! Click now!'

Giggity giggity!

Two Player MMORPG

Of course, eventually you'd end up hitting each other, streets of rage style...

Sounds funny, doesn't it? A two player mmorpg.

Yet I've thought about this for ages and would really like it!

What I mean is that two people can play from one computer. So you can actually journey together through the mystical world. Remember the old fashioned version of together, which didn't involve squinting at a chat box or wearing a headset?

Maybe split screen, or maybe both on one screen (ala lego star wars).

Maybe I should try and make a browser game like that, some day...?

Driftwurld: Raptor Slayer

I'm figuring out the next stage of my browser game, Driftwurld.

Basically the premise is slaying raptors for power! You attempt to slay raptors to improve the conditions of the local community...which means you can make more money from them! lol! AND better weaponry starts to become available for purchase, if you kill enough raptors. With the eventual aim of aquiring the WG-57 Heavy Ion Blaster Pistol! Because raptors are actually at the bottom of the heap of lethal monsters and you need some severe firepower to break out and actually face the far nastier drift monsters that infest Driftwurld!

Coming soon - an article breaking down the ways you can encounter a raptor - whether that means ambushing, or being ambushed!

Grunt Box

I'm working on a preset shoutbox system for driftwurld, to help give a sense of other players being 'out there' in it. So far you clash your stats against theirs, but don't talk as yet.

But I want it preset shouts and preset replies. For a start it avoids security concerns of clensing incoming data. But more importantly I just am disinterested in yet another gutter talk chat environment! Where the cultural habit of spewing out the most half baked, lowest denominator thoughts is seen as a must. I mean, may as well have a system where you can only communicate in pre set grunts! That's what it comes down to, so why not just be honest about the arrangement instead of trying to dress up the grunts with text that vaguely resembles words?

I'm going to have a chat room latter where you can type what you want. But in the meantime a shoutbox system is what I'm going for.

You only get out what you put in...sux!

The first castle I built sank into the swamp...

After extensive play testin g I've been making a wee adjustment to the lumbering in Driftwurld, due to go live tomorrow.

The adjustment is that when your playing the mini game to gather lumber supplies, once you get some you have a chance of winning 2 extra lumber on top. You can win this once a day - just keep gathering until you win (secret in the know knowledge - each time you have completed gathering lumber, you have a 33% chance of winning this extra 2 points of hard wood lumber).

I was basically playing and I realised how horribly linear the aquisition of this important resource is. You want more lumber? You just keep playing it over and over and over until you've gotten the amount you needed. There would be no surprise twist - it was as predictable as just grinding away at it.

The whole essence of gameplay is uncertainty. Sure, in the mini game you might choose the wrong answer, but in the larger 'game', there was no uncertainty. Just a predictable increment, as bad as the Flanders version of snakes and ladders where everyone moves one square at a time (because dice are the work of the devil!)

It's nice to have the idea the player has put in, in order to get something. But not at the expense of gameplay/uncertainty.

Driftwurld - latest update

 Yay! I've added the next stage, which is harvesting crops so you can trade the food to a shady mercenary, for your first real firepower - omega frag grenades!

But the reason that power is needed is because of the raptors sneaking around!

Once you have 30 tactical skill (the skill aquisition is accelerated to this point) you can harvest.

I like what I've done with the harvest game - it combines the 'spot that your in trouble' keep your eyes peeled game I did with tactical combat along with a memory game, as the raptors north/south position is flashed ever so often and when the time comes to move, you have to remember it so you can go the other way!

I'm enjoying how I'm fitting in somewhat challening obstacles in my game (which is better than I've seen on a professionally laid out vampire game on facebook)

http://www.driftwurld.herobo.com/login.php

I think this is a little bit of fun to play in itself, AND your building up your account in the game. There seem to be alot of browser games out there with many players, but the game play just seems to be clicking and not fun. I hope I can draw some people who want game play that's a bit of fun.

I've also made an no log in version if you want to try it out. Of course it's not going to record your results in the database, is it!

http://www.driftwurld.herobo.com/tactics/reapol.php

And congrats to is (screen name: iz) for getting top brawl skill and top tactical skill! If you play the tactical game you can see his victories showing up on the event field!

Thanks for reading!

Browser games - more accessability

When I look at browser games, what I'd like to see is an offline demonstration of play - so I don't have to sign up to see what it's like, I can just, like, crazily enough, play. No typing in my e-mail, no trying to make out capture images and waiting for e-mails to click on the activation link in them. Just play.

The funny thing is not only that, but so many browser games have the most plain, non descriptive front end - can't really tell anything about the game from it? Does that work for the vast bulk of people - some kinda mystery that draws them in? Just puts me off.

Anyway, I'm coming up with an offline version of my new group zombie hunting add on to my Driftwurld browser game. I think it'll be fun - just have to decide whether to release it soon and then the online version latter, or wait alot longer and release both at the same time?

Developing: Zombie to the grindstone

Few, you get your PHP code to a certain size and it's STILL not done.

I've got it to the point where you can, on my offline version, fight a zombie along with a couple of other players. Faked players for now AND even in the full version it's just pulling their name and stats from the database, not a syncronous play.

Indeed that's one of the extra things to do. That I don't really wanna.

But yeah, I get to the point where the game is pretty much fun as a game and I strictly don't have any reason to make fun funner since it's already fun. Yet the extra stuff like pullling other players in, showing a highscore, accumulating favour points and possibly the big one, gathering zombie crafting gear...well, I guess I kind of envisioned because that seems to be the online game template of success. But honestly, while it does add some more fun - my game is already a kind of fun. It'd feel like making a chocolate cake - then sweating alot to whisk milk into cream to pile onto the chocolate cake - it seems a bit much AND alot more work, now I'm at this point.

I'd like to get it out there - I intended to put an offline version on my site first. I may put a barebones version on first. Though it was supposed to be a teaser for registering, so it'll be a teaser for nothing. I dunno.

Anyway, here's a link to my game, incidentally (standard plug)
http://www.driftwurld.herobo.com/login.php

Driftwurld : Brawl now!

Yes! Basic PVP brawling is now implimented in my Driftwurld browser game!

http://http//www.driftwurld.herobo.com/login.php

It's always comes down to a tavern fight!

PVP in browser games seems very popular, so I've been looking into making a brawler add on to the Driftwurld browser  game I'm making! The screen shot from above is from my work in progress so far! It's a very simple game so far (I'm not really focusing on PVP) of stat vs stat, with gear coming in latter. Anyway, that Fred and Wilma, always into yaba daba domestics....wait, that sounds really wrong!

Driftwurld : Highscores

I've implimented a high score system in my browser game, Driftwurld! I think it works!? It updates once per half hour. I'll be posting a rough tutorial with the code for a high score table in awhile.

It also has a system where it only shows the first two letters of names not checked out yet. I really quite hate it when games go to all the effort of having nice graphics and depictions, only to let players have crappy names (ie, not a jot of connection to the fiction, or any fiction for that matter) and display them everywhere. I'm checking them manually in the DB at the moment.

I'm wondering whether to make it that when you log in it takes you to the high scores then you click to homebase, so as to emphasise high scores, or just keep high scores as a button on the homebase screen?

Also implimented the ability to gain these scores (power factor) by only three per hour, so far (ie you play for five minutes, get the points, but then it'll be an hour before you can do so again). You get one point at the end of each paragraph of the story completed.

Latter I'll add a lords system that uses the power factor to determine who is promoted to one of the limited number of lord positions for a month!

My browser game WIP! #1, Introduction to Driftwurld!

Yus! I've got a little work in progress browser game going now! It has a short story and a combat system where you have to watch out for the monster special attack! Also a timed weapon system - maybe you'll get lucky and get quad damage!

Here's the link! (recently edited due to migration)
http://www.driftwurld.herobo.com/login.php

Be vewy vewy quiet, I'm hunting browser games...

I've been quiet because I've been busily coding a browser game! I've just uploaded it to a free host and by and large, it worked! Just need to hammer out a few more parts then I'll give a link!

Yay, nailed some basics in the browser game php code!

I finished my commenting and coding of some php code changes to the indie resources tutorial that do the following...

A. Monsters to not delete from the database upon death
B. Monsters not to have their HP changed in the database and
C. To not pass on the monster type through the address line
D. Record where the player is in a fight, so even if they close the browser, when they come back they'll come back to the fight just where they left off!

I've posted it over at indie resources. I'm pretty pumped it worked out (and now I've said that I'm dreading some unforseen bug coming up...I did test it a few dozen times though...)

One small step for (a) man in browser MMO programming

With the tutorial from indie resources I managed to change the code so when you kill a monster it doesn't delete the creature from the database and it doesn't reduce it's hitpoint score from damage. Instead I added an integer to the player database to store a temporary hitpoint count for the monster, and managed to access it.

I feel quite proud that it did NOT explode or catch on fire or any other dire, unassailable error came up!

Roll to dodge writers block

I made up that draft of a browser mmorpg (written in game maker), but

A: It's not that attractive to look at and far more importantly

B: Trying to impliment it into what I know of browser coding right now would exceed the VITAL effort to reward ratio.


Basically the effort to reward ratio is where alot of burn out or writers block comes in. It basically means trying to put in more effort than you have a certain feeling you will be rewareded for it. Maybe you think all the coding will turn out awesome - but at a certain point during it you feel the effort building up and you haven't had any actual fun out of it yet. That makes the coding a chore or even downright repulsive and it burns you out.

I like my draft, but I'm going to instead take a simple random element and see if I can get that to show up in the code from the tutorial I followed. Then I'll see if I can get that random element to go to the database. Then I'm going to work in a cash in your chips won so far or keep gambling them for the chance of winning ten times as many chips, mechanism.

I could post the draft - it's ugly to look at, but fun to play (kind of when you bake a cake that looks ugly but is yummy to eat). Comment if you want to see it! But I doubt anyone will commnet... :( ...so I'll not doubt continue with my plan not to post it.

Scaming browser game and bad math, or just more scam?

There was a browser game recently that said it was going to have a real world economy. Ie, it's game tokens represented real life cents. I wont say the name because they hiked up the cash out requirement and then, a couple of months in after getting a whole bunch of players, removed the cash economy entirely.

Yeah yeah, some TOS clause that says we can change anything we like whenever? But then they send an e-mail around two months in saying the 'experiment' (ie, the main feature to set this apart from a million other browser games) was being removed.

Perhaps say it's an experiment at the start/sign up screen, that might be removed? Oh no, that might get you fewer players! It's more important to get the players than tell the truth on this.

I'm still wondering whether to report this to some authority, given the geological locations of myself and the game company. Also their upgrades page, which previously used game currency you could get by playing are now cash purchase only, making it a very different game to before.

But really what I wanted to get at is that I think the author is just shit at math. He had a cash out requirement of 10,000 points ($100) at level 20 (latter to change to 30, then cash out was removed).

It's just stupid - even if the player has somehow sunk say $1000 into the game, now he's at cash out he can just keep cashing out each time he gets enough - he will eventually drain more than he put in. And you've got a hundred players slowly getting toward this.

Or, I'm thinking right now, was he shit at math or did he just know this wouldn't work out?

I even made a post about this in the games forum, about putting a cash out limit on each player and it would rise as the appropriate amount of income came into the game. It was ignored.

And now I'm thinking it was just a scam. It wasn't an experiment that went wrong, it was just a scam.

I wanted to describe how it went wrong and if he'd just designed it better...but I'd look pretty stupid saying that if it was a scam that was intended not to work.

Oh and of course when I posted about the 20 to 30 level requirement rise, I got a bunch of evangelicised game fans jumping on me about questioning that. People will nastily defend things without even a thought in their head they are being scammed. Probably they get so defensive because the very thought of it would make them feel really stupid. So no, they defend all the harder to prove they aren't stupid!

Given this is the internet, I'll say it being a scam is my opinion. Hell, I haven't named the stupid game here anyway. Though I don't know how you can say something is a scam without hitting libel, even if it IS a (as yet, not trialed in court) scam.

Bog off, hope

I've been looking at the browser mmo tutorial over at indie-resource.com.

It nails some basics quite nicely, but then it's drifting into traditional design. ie, you have potions, you have spells...stuff weve all seen a million times before and even if I hadn't, drinking a potion or casting magic missile isn't terribly exciting in itself. I suppose I need it justaposed onto some sort of issue...I was about to link to this cheesy movie about a cyborg (and how for me it turned cool when he got betrayed, etc), but youtube pulled it (the movie was called 'Eliminators', from the 80's).

Anyway, so in terms of learning I'm at this tricky point where I don't want to learn to do the traditional design yet again - I've learnt that so many times already in other formats. But I'm still not so hot on things that I can deviate and yet still learn from the videos. Also I haven't ploted out what I want to do with a browser game AND I'm trying to gain some ground in the real world in terms of advertising (I happen to like project wonderful atleast for the moment).

I'm just really tired of running off faith 'things will work out'. You can run off that for years and I think I already have - when does 'things will work out' end? Ie the point where you accept that no, they did not work out? And the answer is that the idea that 'things will work out' can keep going until your dying day. I don't think 'things will work out' is right, to be honest. So I don't want to go there - but in terms of right here, right now returns for doing things, I'm not really seeing many options (except at the abusively low 'five cents for two hours of work' level).