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Journal FortKnox's Journal: Turn Based Web Games... 21

Journal by FortKnox
Well, we've seen Nationstates, KoC, and now the new Galaxis web games. Using turn-base strategy elements, they appear to be the new thing to do.

Problem is, most of them are written by amatuers (nationstates), high school kids that don't know what transactions are (KoC), or just written in hard to maintain languages like PHP. So... a solution?

Why not jump on the bandwagon? I've been toying around with the idea a bunch and have had some pretty good thoughts. First, make attacking not the necessary way of life. In a game like KoC, once you get to the top, its next to impossible to knock you off. You need several different ways of 'getting better' to determine who is the best. In fact, I'd say a ranking system isn't worth having. But country negotiation, communication/intel, trading, economics, AND military should be part of the grand scheme of the game. Putting players 'near' other players (think, territorial borders and such) helps give the player more of a feeling of land and ownership and neighbors.

Anywho, design and coding the backend are easy enough, but I'll need help on the html/javascript side of things, algorithms and units, and overall ideas and such. Anyone interested in helping??
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Turn Based Web Games... More

Turn Based Web Games...

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  • I clicked their link from KoC. You'll need IE / Windows to play (it does popups for a lot of information) but it is land based as you have said.

  • Muh (Score:2)

    by JMZero ( 449047 )
    I'd help, but I think my strong suits are likely the same as yours - backend work. I've done some fairly complex games in the past, and I've thought about doing a project like this - but with a more rich client than can really be implemented in HTML.

    Anyways, post some ideas about your game design as they come along. I think the game needs to have defined territories in order to hold much interest. How about some kind of economics in the game - trading between different lands, or perhaps manufacturing go
    • Have you ever tried any of the games over at ffiends.com, I used to play Dragon Court daily when I was working the helldesk at UK, nice little java applet, but it is painful over dialup.
  • I've been mulling over a new web game for a long time now. I used to help run DroidArena and Cybots, plus a few smaller ones, so I've learned a thing or two along the way. Just let me know
  • How about baseball.
    I started writing up specs for such a game once.
    You can take turns against EACH player, build skills between games based on runs scored, attendence, etc.
    The 'games' would either have to be 'played through' automatically, diminishing strategy, somewhat, unless you played an inning to three innings at a clip. You could even build skills by position, like, say a shortstop who can bunt/work the count etc.
    Add in the element of trades, and it could get rather beefy.
    • Interesting concept. Almost like a baseball mogul type of game. Do it from the owner perspective to try and build the best team available...

      Make it football, and you have to work under a strict salary cap.

      • Hmmm (Score:2)

        by JMZero ( 449047 )
        And have "smallish" leagues with 28 or so other players. Trade offers. A compressed season. Playoffs. Newspapers. Different 3d faces for the available players.

        Except this: anything but baseball...
        • Baseball is too open ended. You need something like the NFL salary cap. Football may be the answer, and it could be done before the new season.
          • The only reason I like the salary cap is that prevents a player from having another "mule" player that unfairly trades him good in-game-players.

            I think there's a potential for a great game here. I'd play, if you can come up with an engaging play mechanic.

            Here's a thought: You shouldn't be able to directly see a player's internal-stats. Ever. You should have to get to know how well they play (and what their strengths are) by looking at past performances.
            • You should have to get to know how well they play (and what their strengths are) by looking at past performances.

              That's what scouts are for. Of course, paying a coach and scouts go against some sort of 'management cap'. Good GM's and scouts will know how someone plays and strengths and weaknesses... you just can't count their opinions as 100% truth ;-)
      • Football might work better. See if you can institute some kind of 'revenue sharing' where better games mean more capital for all.
        Make the offense and defenses some base components and increase skill levels at each area. Use a random set of 'plays' to test all areas of strength in a game.
        Interesting.
  • oke. we should talk ideas... like we didn't over nationstates *grin* seriously, if you make it, i'll try it out, and i've got a few ideas on structuring but no practice.
    • then email me, gal... and we can talk all the details or structure ya like.
    • Back in the mid- to late-80s, play by mail games (PBMs) were popular as an alternative to role-playing games (RPGs), and one of the most popular was It's A Crime (IAC), where you controlled one of hundreds of street gangs in New York City.

      You could expand your gang by capturing new turf (the city was made up of a 99 by 99 block grid), gain wealth and notoriety through robberies, arson, mugging, drug-dealing as well as attacking rival gangs, and buy weapons, etc to increase your firepower.

      This particular P
      • I don't care what the scenario is but I'd like a game that caters for more than just kids who can log on every spare minute of the day.

        Absol-frickin-lutely!
        That's why combat wouldn't be absolutely essential.
        B I need more time to think on it... making a sports (football) turnbased game would be fun, easy, and quick to do. I can learn the ropes with it, then do something rather complex. If you can get some paper on that IAC game, perhaps with formulae and such, I could take a gander at it.
  • I'm interested, just not that damn creative!
  • If there is a clear cut idea. I have a lot of experience coding MUDS in the early 90s (Gateway (LPC mud), ShadowMud (Nightmare Mud), Forgotten Paradigms (My own based on a Nightmare Lib) and built my own core driver when I got bored with the others. I don't have a lot of code experience outside of LPC, VB, and several little known scripting languages, but I am a quick learner.

    I do tend to understand what makes a game good (and not what players think they want). I'm also fairly good at setting up anti-bo

  • What about Earth 2025? [swirve.com]

    It's been around quite a while and I remember some good times playing a couple years ago. I had a decent strategy and played in the 'A' game with a clan.

    You might want to take a look.

  • I'm pretty damn good at html when i have a moment of inspiration to think up something new, and it only took me about 5 days to lear php/mysql to the point of writing an entire web based shopping program for a local company, so I should be able to learn any new languages fast enough to be of some assistance.

  • First, make attacking not the necessary way of life. In a game like KoC, once you get to the top, its next to impossible to knock you off. You need several different ways of 'getting better' to determine who is the best. In fact, I'd say a ranking system isn't worth having. But country negotiation, communication/intel, trading, economics, AND military should be part of the grand scheme of the game. Putting players 'near' other players (think, territorial borders and such) helps give the player more of a fe

  • Though there continue to be problems, the worst of them are gone. I emailed the kids who run KoC and they have fixed problems and made changes very quickly. They actually do use transactions, or so they say.

    I am willing to help in making a new game (put up a long post with ideas a while ago), though I think attacking is great. I have put some thought into how geography would work in a game like this. I think you would have to go at least 3D (maybe a space-based game) or maybe n-dimensional and be able

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