New Game Ideas

[succat]

Thought I would throw this out there to get some fresh ideas about what kind of a game would be good to create.

The Grid has pretty much run its course as I have promoted it on probably over 100 game forums and while I will still maintain it and work on it here and there, I plan to start on a brand new concept soon - a completely new kind of game, but still a browser web game that is multi-player.

Right now, I have a couple of ideas in mind, but they are not fleshed out well at all. I don't want to make another 'Grid' game, but something different than that, but also something different than anything else out there. It has to be totally unique.

One thought I had was to make a game similar to Warlocks, but right off the bat cut out half of the spells to make it simpler for ordinary gamers. I would also add simple animations during the turns, and allow other players to watch games that are in progress in real time with the animations.

But, the problem with this Warlocks style of game is that even with the game dumbed down and some added animations, I think it would still be difficult for most players to understand quickly, and my main gripe with the game is that it's way too slow. I hate being in Warlocks matches where the game drags on for days and days... I would rather that each game gets finished within an hour, or a couple of hours at the most... but for a Warlocks style of game, this may not be feasible. Many players like to take their time with this kind of game, and since it is turn based, each player has to wait on the other. Could possibly make it like online chess where you have a limited number of minutes to complete your turn.

But again, remaking a dumb downed, flashier, and fast-paced version of Warlocks still may not be enough to grab people - I don't know. A big part of Warlocks as well seems to be the melee matches, which I have never been able to really appreciate - they can be extremely slow, sometimes they take weeks to complete. I'm thinking a Warlocks style of game will probably not be the best route to go...

Another idea I had was a 'Gauntlet' style of game with text characters, similar in looks to this ( celtruler.com/games/test/ ), but the characters would be much more developed... and there would be different classes of characters with different abilities. I even have notes on how all of the characters will look and what they will be able to do. Also, the landscape would be open-ended, not contained in a single box that is 1400 X 1000 pixels, or whatever. I have a name for this game concept as well, but beyond the characters being able to fight with each other and build up their experience by fighting computer-generated enemies, and being able to wander the area endlessly... I have no further details on what the goal of the game should be. I was thinking that perhaps the characters could build different structures, say... a gate, to keep out enemies, or a castle to be better protected, or a forest that would attract weak enemies for experience-building, etc., etc. Players could also build up their gold by selling the properties they build (similar to The Grid, in a way, I guess).

So another idea I had, which may be too similar to The Grid, was to basically re-create the Intellivision game, Utopia ( upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7d/Utopia_(Intellivision).png ), but add a multi-player twist to it. The graphics would be simple enough, and each player would start off as a fishing boat, which is actually how you would spend most of your time playing Utopia anyway. As you build up your profits you would start to build assets on one of the two islands, and eventually take over both islands, or what would probably end up happening is sharing the island with other folks while battling the folks who run the other island. Again, I don't have all of the details worked out, but it could be fun, although this kind of game would not be completely unique since it would be based on Utopia and might feel a little too similar to The Grid - I don't know.

That's basically the extent of what I have for ideas right now, but I was hoping to get ideas from you all that would maybe spark something interesting, or give me a better idea than what I have now to possibly explore and shape into something if it strikes me as good and doable. I would suggest nothing too complex here... the idea is for a simple web game that focuses more on game depth and originality and less about graphics, although some extremely basic graphics may be OK.

[psykosis]

Hi Succat - for what it is worth, I think the second idea (the gauntlet style game with more depth) likely would have the widest appeal. I would question however whether utilizing text would be the best method to present it; I think the text is a turn off for the (less techy) masses - not everyone appreciates the charm/retro-ness of text only. Perhaps you could use some of the free rogue-like graphic sets that are available out there and canvas'?

[succat]

Good point. I'm leaning more towards the Gauntlet style game as well, and am thinking about using this JavaScript web game engine possibly for the animation/graphics: www.effectgames.com/games/tutorial1/

[ioiooiioio]

I'd also opt more for the test gauntlet style game, because it is probably the most malleable of the options.

What I mean is, the grid began as just a 6x7 array of squares that held one number and had an owner, and that was it. Now, the array is bigger, squares have 5 numbers and a string of characters, and there are wizards and so many more features than you probably thought there would be at the time you created the grid.

I feel it would be very difficult to make a good warlocks style game, just because you have likely played warlocks so much that the spell styles have been ingrained into your mind, making creative power less expansive.

A Utopia style game seems to me to have an unchanging total area with an increasing player base, which would be like if the grid still had only 42 squares -- there would be no space.

I feel like the gauntlet style test has the greatest potential for introducing new features, so I would pursue that.

That in mind, I don't know how quickly information is relayed between browser and server, but if it is a many second delay as it seems to be on the grid, this might not work as well.

[succat]

Yes, I think I'd agree with all of that. As for the information being relayed between browser and server, on a good server that can handle many requests, this shouldn't be an issue. I've purposely slowed down the server requests on The Grid to about 10 seconds or more for game actions because I've been reprimanded already by the web hosting company that the plan I'm on doesn't allow for so many frequent requests. They say if it happens again, the game will be suspended for good. They don't have a plan that I want so I have a new dedicated server with a new web hosting company, but at this point I have not really used it or transferred all of The Grid code over to it. I am not really motivated to do that with such a low player base, so it makes sense to me at this point to begin work on a new project, which would utilize the new server... and just let The Grid die a slow death in the meantime unless it miraculously gets revived.

What's puzzling to me is that I have done many searches for web strategy games or even text strategy games, and all of the games I have tried really seem overly complex, have cheesy graphics, feel like you just point and click and wait, or seem like there isn't much player interaction. I am not sure what those games are doing for advertising to get all of the players they have, but from the games I have tried, I have not experienced any that make me want to continue playing. I don't know if this game genre is really just a bad one to try to make any headway in, or if you can pull it off with enough marketing even with a crappy product.

[mikeEB]

Making a good browser strategy game is hard. The Grid was not a good strategy game. The only one that comes to mind is Urban Dead, and even that had its holes - the fun mainly came from teamwork.

Drop Shock had nice core gameplay, but the in-game economy gives such a huge advantage to established players and factions that I can't seriously recommend it. (Notable because it was the game where I amassed a large pile of ingame resources through market arbitrage and promptly quit because I figured out the minimum buy-in for competitive was orders of magnitude higher)

[succat]

Oct 3, 2012 22:27:59 GMT -5 mikeEB said:

Making a good browser strategy game is hard. The Grid was not a good strategy game. The only one that comes to mind is Urban Dead, and even that had its holes - the fun mainly came from teamwork.

Drop Shock had nice core gameplay, but the in-game economy gives such a huge advantage to established players and factions that I can't seriously recommend it. (Notable because it was the game where I amassed a large pile of ingame resources through market arbitrage and promptly quit because I figured out the minimum buy-in for competitive was orders of magnitude higher)

Making a good strategy game is hard? Are you speaking from experience? I don't think it's that difficult to actually create a decent strategy game if you are going with a format that is already in place and are just re-creating an existing idea. But, if you are creating a brand new style of strategy game from scratch that is unique to anything else, then of course there are going to be issues along the way and you can't really compare it to anything.

Anyway, when you say The Grid is not a good strategy game, that may be the case, and it truly may not even be a 'strategy' game, but you can't be a good judge of that when you really haven't played it for like 6 months, because everyone who plays regularly knows that in that amount of time the game can change drastically as ioiooiioio mentioned earlier. There are so many aspects of the game now that I didn't ever foresee. I can pretty much agree that the first Grid was not a good game, but after all of the evolution that has happened, I think that it is a decent game now. It may not be a great game, though, and it lacks proper marketing, but also, I'm not sure what a great web strategy game looks like with a large active player base because I have not found one yet that I like.

Urban Dead I have tried, and did not like at all. It is not even a strategy game, though. It's more like a weird point and click role-playing game. It has some uniqueness to it, but the boring factor was overwhelming for me.

Drop Shock I also couldn't get into. Right away, the graphics and just overall layout of the site was a turn off for me. The game play itself seems boring and maybe after you wade though all of the documentation you would get a perspective of where you are in relation to everyone else and can start trying to do something about it, but it's not apparently obvious to me where you even fit in when you first start playing, and there certainly is nothing interesting about it to me that would make me want to continue.

[psykosis]

For what it is worth, I think The Grid is an excellent strategy game, especially for a web format. I have played many that may look better and many with a hoard more people, but none that quite held my interest as long. As testament, I have a Steam account with ~$3200 worth of games - half unplayed - and I bet I have spent more time in the past six months on the grid than the sum of all those games. Now I will say it does have somewhat of an acquired taste to it - but once someone spends enough time, they can be hooked. I don't think people probably do this enough, but thank you for your time and effort with it.

I would highly recommend whatever you choose to dev up next that you keep a sharp eye on the mobile space; either through native applications or separate, well designed HTML5 driven web interface. While The Grid is playable on a relatively new phone, the experience is certainly sub-par. I believe having a solid phone interface would allow for a lot wider of audience and likely would keep people more engaged. A native application, even if it is a simple web wrapper for the web interface, would allow you to tap the various markets as a means to publicize the game.

[succat]

Thanks for the props, Psykosis - encouraging to hear. If I had to do it all over again, I would probably have a more mobile-friendly interface and also more of a point and click type of interface for the commands with icons to represent the commands visually, but without dropdown boxes. But, of course, right now I'm really looking to steer away from The Grid and find inspiration for a new kind of a game - hopefully something simple enough for anyone to begin playing and get addicted to, but with enough real strategy to make it so that your ranking in the game is mainly determined by actually how good a player is, although there can still be a little bit of other factors like luck and how well you can bend other players to join your cause. Tough to pull that off, I'm sure. Actually, I had another idea, but it would only appeal to programmers - which, unfortunately would really make it a niche game since it would involve programming logic.

[psykosis]

I am not sure how well full out gauntlet style action play would work on the web, especially with the servers you have. There is considerable lag on The Grid, which is generally okay - but for an action orientated game, it could be a killer. Perhaps an idea would be to create a web based rogue type game, where actions are turned-based. Could have players be able to party up to venture into dungeons etc. Potentially, I could see players being able to construct guild halls, castles, and the like and allow raiding of opposing resources.

Allow death to be fairly frequent like most rogue-likes, but allow players to spawn new characters from the same 'dynasty' or bloodline. Thus their holdings (castles, guild halls, etc) would be retained, but their character stats and items would be lost to the hoards. This would allow for amassing some strength, but limits the issue of old players vs. new players in relative strength.

[succat]

Sounds interesting, but I don't know that I'm really familiar with rogue games. My impression was that it's kind of like a text based game, and the guy moves from tile to tile as a piece of text, or something. I've heard there can be a lot of different commands, but maybe I'd actually have to play an actual game like that to sort of see what you're talking about. The ability to build castles and halls sounds cool, though.

[ioiooiioio]

I would also be interested in the development of a type of text based game that is straightforward at first, something like taking 10 typed commands to beat the game, but these 10 commands may not be obvious.

People may type a command that is not implemented at the moment. Store all these unimplemented commands somewhere, and at every arbitrary increment of time (maybe every few days), pick something like 5-10 of them and expand the story/world by implementing them.

You already have something similar to this with the Golden Sword on Celtruler. It could probably go somewhere.

[cybercitizen]

Whatever comes up, I'll be glad to try it out!
I have to agree with mike, a big part of mass multiplayer (more than just 1v1) is teamwork. It really helps an in game community form.

[Philoten]

Oct 3, 2012 13:38:06 GMT -5 succat said:

... and just let The Grid die a slow death in the meantime unless it miraculously gets revived.

Looking through these and I found this.... NEVER!!!!!! THE MUST NEVER DIE I WILL KEEP IT ALIVE IF I MUST.... I will promote twice as much now