Why play web games?
Before I start on a new design, which is often… I have too many idea’s and not enough time with life being as busy as it is… But anyways, whenever I start a new design I think to myself: Why will people want to play this game and not that game? What will make mine stand out and attract people? How can I do everything better and then do it better than that? How much effort do I want the player to need to put into the game?
Can you answer all of these questions when you think of your game or designs?
PBBG RPGs
So I have been looking for about the last month for a pbbg rpg that can captivate me the way torncity did when it was first released. And to date I have failed. I have found Renaissance Kingdoms, which is really good, but isn’t active enough.
There are also a few beta’s that I have been playing in hope that they will head in a direction that I think would be good, but I’m not their developer so God knows where they are heading. What has really been annoying me is all these games that clone other’s and claim to be original. Or the games that are so poorly laid out or so poorly executed, such as description and pace for the players.
“What don’t you make one” people have said to me before. Well I am.
And while I want to play my game, I know exactly everything that will happen. I want to place some one else’s game. I am waiting for Cameron’s Perenthia. From what I have read about it know his blog it looks promising.
But I am going to list my biggest qualms with PBBG RPGs. Please, feel free to debate these points with me. The only way will be ever come up with the best solutions is if we have someone play the devil advocate just to punch hole’s so we can fix them. But anyways, online the list.
- Interactivity
- Pace
- Freedom
- Depth
- Balanced
Interactivity
This is something I have been preaching since I first started discussing web games online. This is a wide category and applies to player communication to player interaction with npc’s or stores or guilds or even other players.
Pace
I have signed up for far too many games where just during the registration process you are presented with about fifty options about your character without links to information about these choices. Take it slow, and walk the player through everything, explaining it all clearly. Especially if you can only have one char and it’s a continuous game. You also need to explain what kind of game play the player should be expecting before having them develop a character.
Freedom
This is more than just giving the players the ability to play outside the boundaries of the game (such as forum based guilds and the such). But to give the player the option to do anything (to a point) that they desire. Say I’m making a RPG that’s surrounds marketing, I would give players options such as steal other peoples goods, the means to give them a bad rep, maybe an option to taint the others goods, to work with other merchants, to create/sell goods as a group. etc etc. Allow the player to choose their alignment and play to it.
Depth
This is something a lot of web games lack and the main reason is development time to add a high level of depth is huge. But we are at the point where players are expecting more from us. But for an explain, quests. Some games will only let you train 4 stats with only one way to train. Or give you 20 quests and after that nothing is left but to train. There needs to be more than just player interaction to give people back to play the game.
Balanced
This is something stat based games have a big problem with. People find the single way to become the strongest and they all follow it. What needs to be done is to have several ways for characters to develop and allow each path to have special skills that set them apart from other paths, but all their skills are relatively equal.
Also making sure there is more than one way to achieve the goal so not all players follow the path the exact same way is important. You want your players to feel special and unique, and an easy way to achieve that is to allow characters to develop in a multitude of ways.
I’m sorry it took me so long to get this out. I have been ridicously busy over the last 2 weeks with attempting to get time in to development my own game and my gf and mine birthdays and she’s moving to university soon 
I hope to next week right a similar article about strategy games. I’m sure you guys have realized that my main focus is strat’s and rpg’s.
Again, I would like to have some debated started about the points I made. As I said, if we don’t analysis and even be the devil’s advocate we start to miss or overlook things.
Pen and Paper
I know this doesn’t exactly have to deal with web games, but I am wondering what everyones favorite pnp is. I am personally attempting to get my friends to start playing again and I would like to play something other than DND. We may be actually making our own if we can’t find one that suits us, which I would likely share and based at least one web game off 
Speaking of my web games, my current situation is 3 in design, 2 finished design, 1 in coding, the other on hold. What does your guys plates look like?
How do you code?
When I sit down to code I usually have a pretty clear idea of how I want the program/function to work when I finish it. But I don’t just jump into it. What I normally do is start out the basics, using set variables. I then complete all the basic features, such as having the proper returns come out, or the proper fields update.
I will then make the script dynamic. Such as read all the incoming information from a database, or XML doc and that it is returning the information again to the proper place.
And then I put the polish onto the pieces such as tweaking equations, removing little bugs, making it look pretty, etc etc.
So how do you generally go about writing a script? Do you jump in with all the advance features from the start or do you do it slowly like me? Or do you have another way?
The hunt is on…
I have just finished the design of a game of the first game I am going to produce. I have design several others but this is the first one I feel is ready for the web. Currently I am the only code developer in the group of people that I design with. So in an attempt to get a hand I post this ad on Kijiji.
Hopefully this will work and that I find another developer or two within my city that would help create the code with me. My second game, which I hope to finish design within the month, will likely be launched into beta within a month after the first ones beta launch.
I will post back with how well this ad works. If it does some other may want to try doing something similar to this.
Gonna try to write a quick post tonight about sandbox style games and what I think of them if I’m able to remain awake.
