I’m a horrible blogger…
Hey all,
Sorry I haven’t posted anything new in a while… Like a month I think. I’ve been mad busy with work and I can actually show ya’s: http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/project-earth/game/game.html
Please note I had no hand in the play game design. I’m just a coder on this one. But this has given me quite a bit of experience working with a multiplayer server and as3 coding, which (hopefully) will translate into me eventually creating a flash mmo of some sort.
Taking a quick look at all the pbbg’s I’ve tried in the last month: no new development. I’ve seen people boosting unique game play, and I have been let down. All I’m finding are clones and a bunch of games where you click fight, you fight, then you level and actually buy new weapons/armor/etc then do it all again.
Sorry for anyone with a game like that, but that’s not new or inventive.
On the bright side, I have found a blog that I’d liek to share. This guy posts far more often than me and has some interesting stuff.
http://buildingbrowsergames.com/
And I leave ya with a question. Do you think that PBBGs are stagnating? There’s a few really good ones but the majority are clones and poorly done clones at that. We aren’t seeing a huge number of new features being thought of/used. And I’ve seen little to no advancement in gameplay. I may wrong and if I am, someone please show me a game that can prove me wrong ( I know of a few in alpha/betas that aren’t open yet that look really cool.. I’m look at you Cameon).
Cameron said,
September 9, 2008 at 11:35 am
Ah, the pressure
That is cool you get to work on games at work! I am sure you had to do a lot of research and play a lot of games in order to get a better understanding right?
Anyway, I hope I can break out of the redundancy of the RPG. I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to think of ways to liven the play process and change the overall goals for the different player types. I am hoping to get a system in place that will change the game play and goals with each phase of the player’s progress. We will see how it works
bardicknowledge said,
September 9, 2008 at 11:50 am
I hear ya on that front Cameron. I have been pooling all my idea’s for an RPG into one pot lately, attempting to sort the good idea’s from the bad.
One of my current goals is to finish my strat games database and then to start on it. The other is to make a final design on a RPG to build into a flash game. Hopefully with all the knowledge gathered from this project at work I will be able to do it.
I’m can’t wait to try your game Cameron ^^ (hint hint for beta invite
)
Luke said,
September 12, 2008 at 12:06 pm
I have been getting a few e-mails lately from prospective PBBG owners, who are still in the process of planning their game. Most of them are of the opinion that their ideas are inventive, and I think that most of them set out with good intentions – but then reality sets in. All too frequently, it’s the inventive solutions that are deemed ‘too hard’ and removed when it comes time to sit down and build the game – leaving you with yet another ‘click fight and collect loot’ sort of game.
I see a few promising ideas, though – while I can’t disclose what the idea was, I recently had someone send me the documentation on their plans for a handful of PBBGs – most of which were different enough from the norm to be considered ‘inventive’.
I think that PBBGs have a long way to go, and there’s a lot that has yet to be explored – it is just a matter of someone doing it.
bardicknowledge said,
September 12, 2008 at 12:34 pm
“I think that PBBGs have a long way to go, and there’s a lot that has yet to be explored – it is just a matter of someone doing it.”
I agree whole heartedly. And I wish to be one of those someones, but I’ve been just so busy.
And you touched on a subject that stops me from posting more ideas. We guards our idea’s very closely in fear someone may steal them and create it before we do. I really wish we could share without the fear of someone stealing our ideas.
Luke said,
September 12, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Yeah – and I think that that’s something that the community as a whole needs to get over.
The reality of the fact is that your idea is only valuable to you. Even if it’s the most amazing idea ever, you are the only one(currently) who is interested in pursuing it. Thinking that people will steal it just because you’ve explained it is an exercise in futility; if you won’t explain your idea to anyone, how will you improve it?
Ideas *do* get stolen. But it’s pretty arrogant to think that your idea is so amazing that the moment you explain it to someone, they’ll steal it.
I think that that mental roadblock is one of the things holding PBBG’s back – once more creators can get over their need to keep their uber-combat system secret and start actually discussing things with each other, we’ll see more innovation happening and at a faster rate.
Laumania said,
September 12, 2008 at 4:49 pm
I’m looking forward to try out Camerons game too
Yeah it’s hard to get further with your game, if you can’t discuss it on the net with others be cause you fear they might steal your idea.
But what about collaboration over the net instead of making all our own games, which never gets finished?
You could set up a private forum for 3-4 people all wanting to create an PBBG. Then you take the discussion in this forum, and the game comes to life in there, meaning that the game-idea is the property of all the 3-4 people in the forum. At the same time the game-idea is still hidden for the public.
In theory this is a good idea, but I have tryed it out sometimes now, and it seems to never work, why? I don’t know. After sometime, progress just slows down fast and eventually it dies out. Guess the main reason is that people don’t have time for it, as most of us have real day jobs, family etc.
But to get back to the main subject, there is alot of clones out there. I have made tried alot of different PBBG now, and they seem to fall into these categories. This list is my personal opinion and is rather subjective.
1. “Travian”-clones. Travian is a really nice and good game, but one of it is enough. It shows only the information you need, is has nice balanced graphic and a over all good design (we talking graphic here) Example: http://travian.com/
2. “Too many info’s” – Alot of game spam you with informations at first sight. You create an account and get into game, so far so good. At the main page you have 45+ possiblities, which makes you think “Shit, this is complicated” and you go back playing Travian. Example: http://www.kingsofchaos.com/
3. “Too much graphic” – Some of the games has way to much grahics which isn’t MY idea of an PBBG. To me an PBBG should be simple, fast and use low bandwidth. I alot of people will disagree here, but thats just my opinion. Example: http://seafight.com/
4. “Too bad graphics” – In the other corner of category 3, we have games that has too bad grahics and the over all graphical design is just too bad. Example: http://www.omegacrime.com/login.php
Hmm….I think I have to make this to a blog post on my own blog
Dracmuller said,
September 13, 2008 at 10:49 pm
(I’m not a game builder, just have the one favorite game. Interested in game design though.)
I’m glad you’re back. After nearly a year of playing the one game I am involved in I finally went out and checked out a heap of others. My impression was that they tended to have little depth and replicated the core mechanic as described above (kill, level up, buy up, kill). So I returned back to my own favorite cyberverse, thinking I was too picky or something. Glad to see it’s likely to just be a phase this ‘genre’ is going through as the possibilities seem endless.
The possibilities are endless
DarkRat said,
September 15, 2008 at 1:44 am
The “Buildingbrowsergames” link doesn’t seem to work
DarkRat said,
September 15, 2008 at 12:46 pm
ok, works now
John Munsch said,
September 20, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Your sidebar refers to using the “contact page” to find your email but I haven’t found a contact page anywhere on your site. Is there one that just isn’t linked in? I wanted to send you an email.
Andy said,
October 13, 2008 at 6:46 am
Here’s my game that’s, well, different.
http://www.clickpbbg.com/
You might not call it an advancement in gameplay, but as far as I know, it’s unique. Instead of click, fight, level up, etc… you just click. Some people love it, some think it’s boring and others are addicted.
I’d love your thoughts on the idea in the game