CeasterTrade

Round-up post: Pre-Alpha, history and future

2009-08-26T14:34:00.000+02:00

Intro

Hello everyone. This will be the last post on this blog, at least for a while. I'm going to share with you my experiences about the pre-alpha and I will look back at the development of CeasterTrade.

I'm going to put CeasterTrade away for now (but I'll probably get back to it somewhere in the future). But I'm also launching a new blog, and probably also a new project.

I'll try to give you an interesting story to read, and try not to forget anything. But it will, like always, be just how I write: what I remember, just how it is for me. And perhaps a little bit messy. Please forgive me that ;).

Pre-Alpha

When I started writing this article CeasterTrade had been in pre-alpha for 9 days, most action is over now. I had 23 sign ups. The people who signed up were people I met on bbgamezone, modulargaming and some friends. It was an interesting happening.

Bugs

While testing, people found heaps of bugs. Like I expected these were very small though. Like typos and small mistakes in the code. The first 2 days I worked on fixing these bugs, and fortunately the people testing my game were very helpful and kind.

I hope *all* bugs are fixed now. Thanks to good testers and much free time.

Testing the game itself would have gone MUCH better without all these bugs though. I don't regret that I didn't extensively tested everything before putting CeasterTrade online, it was so much easier for me this way. I was tired of messing around on my local machine and I needed to go online.

So it's something good to remember: what are you going to use your "beta-time" for? people will only sign up once. You can ask them to find bugs, or you can ask them to test gameplay. Or something in between off course. But remember you can't have it all.

Wikia & Help page

When going online I created a wikia for CeasterTrade. Though nobody contributed to it (as far as I know) it was a good move I think. A wiki is easy to edit, and people feel comfortable with the user interface. But what I should have done earlier:

Devote enough time to create a beginners guide. It's not as easy as it sounds though!
Create a link to the wikia in the menu. I linked to it in the news post, and it could easily be found on google, but a link in the menu was much clearer.

Apparently CeasterTrade is not an easy game to learn. This can and should be worked on. Still, even in testing phases, there should be a good documentation. Even if many things will change in future development, you should devote enough time and energy to a help page.

Feedback

I didn't get very much feedback. But I had a small audience, so I can't complain. The little feedback I got was very positive though. I'm happy they didn't demolish my idea, nor my game ^^.

I tried to write something about negative feedback here. But it all comes down to this: you should try to learn from feedback, but don't listen when it harms you. You should never loose your confidence because of it.

Dealing with feedback is important for a developer (of any product). Just remember that. There's plenty of good information on the subject to find on the internet.

Game design flaws

These are the flaws I noticed during the pre-alpha:

The first flaw was that it was a little bit too complicated. The player had to take too much actions before (s)he could actually sell some goods. I have to improve by cutting in the amount of actions. There were some actions (like hiring workers) which really did nothing. They make perfect sense in an economics based game, but added no value to gameplay.

Off course I had my reasons for them. Workers, for example, leave room for great features. They can be modified and used to create an extra dimension for the game. I already implemented these and left them there in an unfinished state. I wanted to improve them later, and "just leave them there for now".

The only problem is that it was too soon. Instead of creating the "bones" for later features, I should have just added them when they're really finished. And keep the actual playing simple.

The game needs too much players to really become interesting. It's more a virtual world then a simple game. The whole game is based on player interaction, so when there's too little players the game just can't work properly. Also the fact not many players where able to even get products in their shop didn't really help much.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but improvement is possible.

To set up a working economy you need X amount of players. I didn't have that X testers. A combination of tweaking the game design and motivating more players are solutions.

Economic balance: the currency flow. While people are constantly loosing currency to the game (buying land, hiring workers) there was no way to create new money. Only when a new player signed up.

This problem was taken care of in the design process though. An NPC (in the form of virtual countries etc buying from the players) was designed. This would also come with a little bit of storytelling (country X is hit by a typhoon and needs to buy much wood etc).

By giving hints to which goods would be needed next week we could even stimulate players to go to the stock market. (that's a little extra ;)

Also more ideas were kept in mind for later development.

The mistake I made here was not creating this NPC from the start. It was on a todo list for further development, but "not needed for a prototype". I was wrong.

Prototype

When I first decided to create a game, I wanted it to be a full game. Even if it would take forever I wanted to put a full featured and completed game online.

Now I know that's not a good idea. Feedback is important. Keeping yourself motivated is important. You need to create a prototype!

I changed my mind, but I couldn't really fit it in development. For me a prototype was about testing game mechanics, but that might be a bad approach. Your game should look clean, manuals should be there, it should be a finished game. Even art and a good user interface are important. Finished is more than playable.

A prototype should be small but finished. Then extended afterwards.

The other side

The most magical about the pre-alpha for me was standing on the "other side". The experience of being the developer, and not the gamer.

It's hard to be on the other side. Because when I'm the developer, I can't have that experience of entering the game for the first time. I don't have the opportunity to learn the game, I know it already from the inside out (almost literally, since I did the coding).

You can never experience the game as a player. You have history. This means there are flaws in your design you can never notice. This means you don't know how hard it is to learn the game. This means you don't know how fun it is. This means you don't know what sort of fun it is.

Fortunately it doesn't mean you can't know. Good testers become of real value. You can't rely on yourself: your view is troubled. You can only rely on your testers.

I remember that I could sign up on a game and say: *this* and *this* is wrong. They should do *this* and *this*, ... Why the hell did they do *this*? They could have just done *this*. And oh yeah, it would be cool if they did *this*.

But it's hard to do when you're the developer. Much harder than I expected at least.

It's hard to describe this, but really interesting to feel it. So remember: don't hesitate to credit your testers!

Hereby I thank everyone who helped me test out CeasterTrade!

History & Postmortem

Since this is supposed to be a round-up post I thought on looking back at the development of CeasterTrade. What it did to me, what I learned, ...

The beginning

When I was younger I didn't have much computer games. The only game I really played was the Settlers (III and IV), and it's still my favourite game.

Since we didn't have much games and there was nothing to do when I was at my father's in the morning (besides watching tv) I played browser based games.

What I looked for in games was a feeling of some kind. I wanted to live what I saw on television. I can remember a period when I was really into spies and secret agencies and stuff. So I was looking for a browser based games where I could be part of an agency, a world with intrigues. A game where I could sense the excitement.

Unfortunately most of the time I couldn't find such a game. There was no browser game where you could sense the excitement of being a spy, no browser game with agencies.

Sometimes I found good games, but they were not perfect. Sometimes i found nothing good at all. That's where I developed an interest in designing games I think. But I didn't think I would actually make a game some day.

The idea

I don't know exactly when, but a few months before I started development of CeasterTrade I discovered Miniconomy. At that moment I was really interested in economy, so as usually I browsed the net and looked into browser games too.

Most economy based games were boring though. But when I discovered Miniconomy I was really excited! It sounded so good. So I signed up and it was a hard game to learn. I was interested so I learned. And it was one of the most interesting games I played, but it wasn't perfect.

After a few attempts to change things, the admins almost didn't respond to my questions/suggestions, I started to think it would be cool to make a browser game by myself. I could do it right.

Then just before the holidays I was thinking of what I would do with my time. I had multiple ideas, and making a browser game was one of them. But while showing Miniconomy (and where I stood in the ranking) to a friend I was getting really exciting. That's when I decided I would make a browser game of my own.

Getting started

When I started with the development of CeasterTrade I had almost no experience with web development. I had learned some html and css, and I had worked with a Content Management System.

So one of the the first things I did was asking my father (he builds websites) what I should do and he suggested I should learn php. So I bought a php book.

Off course I also used google to find information about building browser games. I didn't find much though. But I didn't give up the search, at the moment of writing i have quite a few links to blogs about (browser based) game development & design. Still there seems to be information lacking for the absolute beginner.

Bit by bit I learned to understand how it all works. I learned that it wasn't going to be easy to built a complicated game like miniconomy (my game isn't a clone, but would have an almost equal level of complexity). I learned what php is, what a programming language is. I learned how to use php. And I learned so much more, the list is almost endless. (and endless is boring, so I'll stop here)

Bottom line is: it's a hard world to get into, but once you're in things go so much easier. For me that was once I found bbgamezone and modulargaming.

Game Design Doc

When I started I had no programming experience so I had to learn that first. I took my time (I always did) and I created a design document. Some people work better with a game design document, some choose to not use one.

Although every designer uses different methods, I suggest you write down your thoughts. Even if you're not making a full game design doc you should write down your thoughts. If you're serious about game design, if you want to create a good game, I suggest you go into details. You should write it down.

I spent the first 2 months on learning php and creating the design, and learning how it all worked. I took my time and I don't regret it. You should take your time too.

Modulargaming

I started on the development of the actual game when I discovered modulargaming. My father said that when something's done already, it's only a waste of time to reinvent the wheel. Now I'm talking about things like registration and login, security, ... Basically a framework. Reinventing the wheel is not a bad thing though: it's a good opportunity to learn. There's people on bbgamezone who would suggest you reinvent the wheel, only for learning purposes. An they're totally right.

I wanted to code everything from scratch too first. But I wasn't going to make a very simple game, and there was a good chance that reinventing the wheel would bore me, demotivate me. I'm not really the programmer type too, though I can enjoy it.

So I searched for a framework, and I found modulargaming. It's thanks too modulargaming I could understand how a web application really worked, how a game really worked. I got to learn the structures and I got to analyse the code.

If you should use a framework or not depends on what sort of person you are. I suggest you make the choice by yourself.

BBGamezone

When making CeasterTrade bbgamezone was the biggest help. It's a beautiful community with beautiful people.

Even if I didn't have any questions, I could learn from the questions of someone else. Being active on bbgamezone also kept me motivated. Seeing the successes of others makes you work harder to experience the same success.

It's the only good community I know dedicated to browser based game development, and that's sad. Because there are so many browser based games, but there's so little information being shared.

Game designers and game programmers can all help each other, but why is it so hard for developers to meet? Why is it so hard to cooperate? There's so many times I ask myself where all the browser based game developers are. And then I'm talking about Persistent Browser Based Games (PBBG's). I believe there are communities dedicated to flash game development, but that's something totally different.

BBGamezone is a great community, please join us, so we can learn from each other. I also want to thank everyone from bbgamezone, I'm very grateful for all their help!

The Blog

Another element in the development of CeasterTrade was the blog. It was like some sort of reminder. It was a cheap way to keep the world up to date. It was a way to share my thoughts.

I just hope game developers can learn something from it.

The blog should describe the development process, or at least give some hints. In the end you'll have to find it out for yourself.

But what surprised me is that some people are afraid of sharing their ideas. They think people will steal them. Really, it doesn't make any sense.

Do they really think their ideas are worth stealing? Do they really think their ideas are so original that no one has ever done it before? Do they really think nobody will steal it when their game goes online?

I want to encourage sharing ideas. We can add value to other's ideas, and they can review and improve your ideas. It's equivalent trade: you give something and you get something in return. You've got to keep moving and beautiful ideas will grow.

Twitter

I discovered twitter at the end of my journey, but it was a wonderful surprise. Like the blog I could share my thoughts and keep the world up to date, and it became even simpeler.

So when I have something more, or important, to say I can take my time writing a blogpost. And for everything else I can use twitter.

People

On my journey I met a lot of people. Some guys from modulargaming. A lot of people from bbgamezone. It's was a real delight to have some one to talk to on my journey. To share ideas and thoughts, it was a real motivation.

It was really nice to see these people test out my game in the pre-alpha.

Also I'm grateful to my friends. They were always prepared to listen to me, even if I knew they weren't that interested.

I want to thank my father for everything he did for me. Providing a server, svn and good advice. He was willing to help me when I needed it.

I created CeasterTrade on my own, no one did it for me. I'm proud I did it, but I have to thank all these people who helped me and gave me strength. Even if you only said one word to help me, I appreciate that one word.

My Pace

I was making a game, a complicated game. I had to learn everything. I had no experience. So I decided not to rush into things. When I wasn't very motivated at times I just didn't do anything. When I had to much homework I didn't do anything. When there was something more fun to do, I didn't do anything.

When I couldn't post on my blog for a while, so be it. Though I knew I had to work from time to time to rediscover the fun of making a game.

Following my own pace felt uncomfortable sometimes, but it was the best decision I made. Some people work better with deadlines, but this wasn't the case for me.

I'll keep following my own pace in future projects, and I hope I'll be able to follow it in my everyday life too.

There's a nice japanese song titled My Pace (though I can't understand what they're singing): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcTAXrFxY8Q

The End

Development ended with the Pre-Alpha. After fixing bugs and gathering feedback CeasterTrade is put away, for now.

I'm making room for new projects, but in the future I will probably pick up CeasterTrade again. I'm happy with the prototype, so I can make a good game with it. I know how I can improve CeasterTrade and it really can be a fun game. Maybe I'll complete it some day...

Questions?

I hope this info, about the pre-alpha and the development process, had any value to you. I hope you learned from my experiences and that, together with previous posts, it can give you some insight on the development of a browser based game.

If you have any questions you can leave a comment. I will be happy to answer them!

Future & new blog

Now that I decided to put CeasterTrade away I can make room for other projects. I realy love game design, it became something of my own. So I'm definitely going to keep designing and creating games. Therefore I'm going to create a new blog.

On this new blog I will post anything about game design & development. Including information about my project, as well as thoughts and notes. Kinda like this blog I will post at my own pace.

At the moment I don't know yet which project I will be starting. When I will be working on it etc.

So you are all welcome to visit my blog, you'll notice when there's something going on. Let it be a place where you can take a look from time to time, follow my projects, give comments, find inspiration, help you think, ... Whatever it can do for you!

http://bbgamedesign.blogspot.com/

Reminder

2009-08-23T23:52:00.002+02:00

Hey everyone

I just want to say that I haven't forgotten this blog. I'm currently working on a longer post about the pre-alpha and stuff.

The reason it takes so long is because

1. I'm lazy

2. I'm working on it in little bits, it's hard for me to focus

3. Since I'm not a very good writer it needs some re-writes if I want the post to be something decent.

But you'll see it once it's here.

Comment: game design vs game mechanics

2009-08-07T17:59:00.006+02:00

This is a comment I posted on an old topic. There was a misunderstanding between the author of an article and some one who commented. I just felt like clearing it out, though it will probably never be read by either of these 2 people.

While I was writing this comment I defined my interpretation of the difference between game design and game mechanics.

Here's the link to the article : http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/zarathustran-analytics-in-video-games-part-2-the-role-of-depth/

Here's my comment :

I know this is old, but I still feel like making this comment clears something up. The comment by Christopher J. Rock saying it's strange to divide games in player input, story and game design is definitely right. Though, I think that's not what the author of this article meant.

"player input, story and game mechanics"

That would be a better word choice. I would describe a game design as the description of how a game works, which elements are in it, etc. That includes story and takes user input in account.

Game mechanics though are the rules of how a game work. In that light, story and user input only are the citizens following the rules.

The game is the country, which consists of citizens and rules. The design is the description of that country. The user input and story are citizens. The game mechanics are the rules. --- Note that this is my interpretation. But I think this is where a misunderstanding came to life.

CeasterTrade is open!

2009-08-05T10:57:00.001+02:00

You are all welcome to join and play:

http://www.ceastertrade.com/mg/

Pre-Alpha : 08 / 5 / 2009

2009-08-03T12:23:00.005+02:00

We are open for registration on the fifth of August, 10 o'clock, standard time (GMT). CeasterTrade is opening in 2 days!

Pre-Alpha

I called it a preview, I said it was for testing. Now I'm calling it a "pre-alpha". Now, what does that mean?

It means that I'm putting the game online, open for registrations. That the game can be and must be played. The game will has to be tested, bugs have to be found, values have to be balanced, ... But it's also an opportunity to show the game, which is long before finished, to the world. It means I have to gather feedback. Testing the basic elements of this game in several ways.

TODO in Pre-Alpha: For players and developers

Bugs have to be found and fixed, so when you find one, post it on the forum.
Fun: Is this game fun? How come?
Security: I haven't really payed very much attention to security, so maybe some one will hack this game for me. That's the easiest way to learn, I guess.
Balancing: This is very important.
Wikia: A good manual has to be made, the wikia has to be extended.

Wikia

I have created a wikia for CeasterTrade: http://ceastertrade.wikia.com/

I really hope testers will be enthusiastic enough to write a manual, 'cuz I suck at it ;). Otherwise I'll give it a try.

The manual is pretty important though, because I don't think CeasterTrade is an easy-to-learn game, at least not at this stage. I will be online to help people getting started on the ingame chat, but a manual would be a LOT better.

What I expect

I really don't expect anything. I don't have any experience with beta testing, putting a game online or running a game. So what would I know? I'm just putting this game online, and I'll see what happens.

I have certain assumptions, but I wouldn't know these are true.

You're all invited!

Please come and register an account! You're all invited to take a look or play the game. If you have feedback, post it on the forum, talk to me on the chat, or post a comment here.

See you on Wednesday!

CeasterTrade online?

2009-07-22T17:25:00.002+02:00

Hey everyone

Like I said before, the core of CeasterTrade is ready, but it needs a lot of improvement. But fact is, I'm not motivated. I'm still addicted to the project, but I just want to move on to more intresting stuff...

I want CeasterTrade online.

That way I can gather feedback and I'm more motivated to keep improving it. So I decided I won't work on it until it can be put online.

My dad has to do some stuff first before I can put it online, so I will putting some pressure on him. It's acctually big news:

If things go as planned CeasterTrade will be online, as preview, in less than 2 weeks!

There is absolutely no certainty things will go as planned, but hey, who cares?

From ProtoFlow to ImageFlow

2009-07-20T22:11:00.004+02:00

Since my last post I haven't been working on CeasterTrade that much. Mostly I was trying to addapt ProtoFlow to fit all my needs.

I am still not very skilled in javascript so I took it as a chance to improve. I learned a lot, but the challenge was to big. I had to go looking for something else.

ProtoFlow uses the Prototype library and scriptaculous to imitate the CoverFlow effect. Now, ImageFlow does the same but uses the jQuery library.

The reason I went with jQuery after all is that it is well documented (ProtoFlow is not) , has more options and you can give the script some variables to display it the way you want.

I think the "Town Center" should be fine now.

The next few days I hope I can code:

Starter Kits (when you built a new workshop you get a free tool, so you can start right away)
Fix bugs that will certainly appear (this happens all the time ;)
Perhaps more UI stuff (make things clearer)
Other stuff I think about

When I'm done with that I can evaluate and see where I stand. Maybe I'll be ready for some basic testing (with friends, before I put it online) , maybe there's some other stuff I need to do.

But I'll keep you updated, remember you can follow me on twitter for faster updates.

Town Center Screenshot:

ProtoFlow

2009-06-29T07:06:00.013+02:00

Hello everyone!

What's going on?

My exams are over (getting results today) and I've had some time to code again. I've done some rewrites of bad code. Cities have a simple coordinate system, created for a linear map. I also extended the admin panel again with some extra fields here and there.

The rest of this post works towards “ProtoFlow”. Hope it can help you in one way or another.

The explanation of the coordinate system copied from the script (as comment) :

CeasterTrade uses a linear map system, which looks like this:

(Hongkong) <- 10 min -> (Brussels) <- 20 min -> (Capital) <- 15 min -> (Washington DC) <- 6 min -> (Rio De Janeiro)

The Capital is in the middle, and the distance to a next city is given. You can calculate the distance to another city by making the sum of the distance to each city in between.

For example: Distance from Brussels to Rio = (Brussels -> Capital) + (Capital -> DC) + (DC -> Rio) = 20 min + 15 min + 6 min = 41 min

The order of the cities and the distance between them is important.

We go out from the Capital, which has CO = 0. Every number in a CO stands for 1 minute. When the CO is positive, it's right from the Capital. When the CO is negative, it's left from the Capital.

So when: CO = -60, that means that city lies on 60 minutes to the left of the Capital.

Then we can easily find the order by arranging them in descending order.

Back to the example, each above city would have these coordinates:

(Hongkong, CO=-30) <-> (Brussels, CO=-20) <-> (Capital, CO=0) <-> (Rio De Janeiro, ) <-> (Washington DC, CO=+15) <-> (Rio De Janeiro, CO=+21)

Polishing

I’m very happy with where my game is right now. I have a descent framework, with some good basic features. It’s playable. The only thing is, I don’t think it’s fun, and it doesn’t look fun. Honestly, for me, it doesn’t necessarily have to be fun. This is an experiment and a journey. But, I think there is potential in the basics I’ve laid. Now I will have to polish it into a good game.

UI is needed to show the potential

To make good use of the basics, I need a good UI. At first I didn’t think it was important for a preview / ALPHA, but I started thinking…

“I think there is potential in this game.”

For other people to see this potential, I’ll need to give them guidance. From the start on I had the UI in mind, and acknowledged its importance. This thought moved to the background while creating a working prototype, and partly because of my lack of experience with javascript.

An innovating and interactive 2.0 game interface

I like to design an UI, and my dream is “an innovating and interactive 2.0 game interface”. I expect it to be less romantic to implement it in reality. Many of my ideas for a good interface are from the period before I started coding. And I still like ‘em. So I can just start working!

Browsing

The browsing through shops has been important since the beginning of this game’s design. I decided I would use a “linear map” and chose the same for cities.

The only thing what was bothering me was how to fit it in the UI in a decent and pretty way.

Somewhere down the road I had an idea for a cool way of showing the shops, on a “linear map” without all that annoying scrolling. I only didn’t know how to look for it (I didn’t have the right vocabulary).

Advanced javascript UI

Yesterday I decided I would explore the world of advanced javascript and cool interfaces. So I just googled “advanced javascript UI”. The result was some interesting sites and… CoverFlow!

This was what I was looking for… the magic ingredient for my shops. To some of my readers this may look dumb to not know this (I wouldn’t know) but to me it is new.

This is what CoverFlow is: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cover_Flow (now I remember where I got my idea from, safari and apple)

ProtoFlow

Now I had something to work with! I needed CoverFlow, I needed it to be javascript, and it would be cool if it used Prototype (the javascript library I’m working with). A quick search on google showed me ProtoFlow. Now I hope I can rework it to a feature of my game-with-potential.

http://www.deensoft.com/lab/protoflow/

Twitter

I know I have promised you some posts and that I would post more often, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to accomplish that. But, for faster updates, follow me on Twitter!

http://twitter.com/jannesiera

I suggest you download twhirl (http://www.twhirl.org/)

See you later!

PS Don’t be surprised if I’ve changed my mind about the UI the next time you hear me, I do that sometimes ;).

Hiatus

2009-06-04T20:10:00.005+02:00

I like that word. Sounds like a cool title, but maybe a little over the top, since I mean a 2 weeks break. But I didn't do much the past weeks either.

My exams start next week, so I won't be able to do anything. But I hope I can start with renewed energy after that!

As from the 24th I'll have lots of time. (that doesn't mean I'm going to work on my game full time, though)

I also made a new (temporary) header for the prototype. Didn't took me long, but I kinda like it for now.

Screenshots

2009-05-21T21:13:00.007+02:00

Keeping you up to date: Prototype

2009-05-16T12:58:00.001+02:00

Hello everyone,

Again, the writing of this post took me longer than I expected. With this post I want to let you know where I am with CeasterTrade.

I actually have (almost) finished a very basic prototype of the game. This is important because I can test features and game play before spending to much time and energy in bad features.

The most important things you should know about this prototype are:

It has a crappy layout and no (good) graphics. For its final release I'm planning many graphics and a very user friendly interface, but these are problems for later. Testing the game itself is more important.
Basic features are implemented. Like for example: buying, selling, producing, building. But some systems are simplified. There is room for improvements/expansion after the testing!
More complex features and cool stuff aren't implemented yet. I have to make sure the basic ideas work properly.
Security and some back end stuff (like a decent admin panel) I need to work on later on the road.

So, with this prototype my goal is to gather information about what is fun about the game and what is not. Just so I can make further development more targeted. Off course, I'm also dying to see my game working ^^.

I'm currently doing some small things while waiting for my father to host the prototype. I'm also spending my time more on other things, like school and designing other games.

When the prototype is going online, I'll let you know. But note it's just a prototype, and by no means an alpha phase. I'll just be testing stuff, and showing it to some people.

That's it for today, but I hope I'll be able to post more often in the future!

Greetz,

Janne

Little Update: future posts

2009-05-02T23:10:00.002+02:00

Hey everyone,

Long time no see ;). I haven't been able to work on CeasterTrade so much lately, because I was on a 2 weeks holiday, and because I've got other things to do also. But it's going well, and I certainly won't give up on it!

My intention was to post something earlier, but there was a little to much to tell. So I decided to give myself some time to create them, avoiding too chaotic posts.

In future posts I'll cover subjects like:

- My holiday (not really game related).

- Which aspects of CeasterTrade have been done, and which not.

- Sharing some game ideas (and how they developed).

- Something about a preview.

It will be, as always, nothing big. But, as always, my own notes of a journey.

PS: Wow, just noticed how long it has been since my last post... So you have to know the project is still alive! I'll try to keep you a little bit better up to date in the future!

Ranking

2009-01-30T00:17:00.002+01:00

The last few days I’ve been thinking about how I would arrange the ranking system. I decided to have one ‘main ranking’ and besides that multiple other, less important, rankings. This iswhat I’ve got:

Most Sales: the quantity of sales you make decide your ranking
Most Goods Produced: the quantity of goods you produce decide your ranking
Stock Market Profit: the total profit you made by trading shares on the stock market decide your ranking

These are the ‘side rankings’. It’s the main ranking which I’m not sure about. Now I have:

Ranking: your total value (in ‘points’). An example how this would be arranged: Cash on hand + (each level of each building you own x 3) + (each piece of empty land you own x 2) + ((every good + gold you own) x 1) + (every resource you own x 0.5)

I think I can’t do much wrong with this, still if anyone has a better idea, feel free to tell me ^^. The ‘side-rankings’ would be available during each rounds. The ‘main ranking’ only after each round.

A little game theory based on "Maslow's hierarchy of needs"

2009-01-22T23:19:00.003+01:00

This is a post about little theory of mine concerning the development of browser based games.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

Maslow's hierarchy of need says human's needs are divided into 5 levels.

Most important first:

Physiological needs (water, food, ... )
Safety needs (security from crime, health security, ... )
Social needs (friendship, ... )
Esteem (achievement, respect by others, ... )
Self-actualization (morality, creativity, ... )

When the first need is satisfied, people will move on to the second need, and so on.

So why do people play (browser based) games? Where do games fit into this hierarchy?

I think it's pretty clear.

Social needs
Esteem

I would consider Self-actualization too, but I think that's less important. Note some people don't even get to this last level of needs.

When people play games, the reasons are:

They want to make friends
They want a feeling of achievement (e.g. quests)
They want respect by others (Dude, see my lvl 100 char!!!)
...

I conclude that if a game wants to be succesfull it should take care of the social needs and esteem of it's players.

An intresting topic on bbgamezone was for me "Game Play vs. Graphics". And "What makes a good game?". In both topics there were people for graphics and there were people for gameplay. But most people agree that the community makes the game, the community makes the players stick around.

I noticed this in games I played already to.

My little theory applied on some games:

Erepulik:

Built on it's community, became very popular. The "social needs" are taken into account. Maybe it could invest some more in "esteem".

Neopets:

The "respect by others" is very important here. You can win prizes, collect things, make a beautifull pet, ... just to show off to your fellow players!

Tribalwars:

This game has good gameplay, but the reason I sticked around was because of the "clan" I was part off.

I bet you could apply this theory to almost every popular browser based game out there will forfill one of these 2 needs. And the bad games, the failures, couldn't forfill them.

Not browser based games usualy took care of the "esteem" (achievement), but now are focusing more and more on the "social needs". Playing together is always better than playing alone :D.

I didn't do a lot of research, so there is a very real chance I'm wrong on this, so feel free to comment.

Though, this is just a little theory of mine. And Maslow's hierarchy of needs isn't exact sience either. (chapter: "criticism" on Wikipedia)

Still alive!

2009-01-18T20:30:00.002+01:00

Hey again,

It's been a while since my last post :D. But I'm still alive. I've been working realy hard on the gaming and it's going well. I started learning JavaScript (http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javascript) a few days ago and that also is going well.

If I get to it, I'll give you guys more information about what I've done already and what the next steps will be. But for now just know the project is more alive than ever!

See you soon, hopefully

Changes in the basics: Villages

2008-10-30T12:13:00.002+01:00

I’ve made a change in my design document.

There are 2 kinds of villages.

1. ‘Resource villages’

2. ‘trading villages’

Resource villages are smaller and have a certain amount of one or more kinds of resources. And you can only build buildings to gather resources or to make goods.

Trading villages are usually bigger and you can only build shops or buildings which deliver services.

Both kinds of villages can contain governmental buildings.

You don’t have a ‘home village’ anymore. First of all you have to build a warehouse in a village to be ‘active’ in that village. Then you can buy building grounds (just like before) and build buildings etc. So every good from your buildings in that village go to your warehouse in that village, and you have to transport goods between warehouses. So you will have to build 2 warehouses at least: one in a resource village and one in a trading village. For the rest everything stays the same, expect you don’t have to buy land anymore, but build the right type of building and upgrade it so it can contain more workers. (so there will be a building: woodcutter, sawmill, … ).

When a resource town is depleted you can move your workers to other buildings and destroy the buildings which gather resources and build buildings which make goods.

The pros:

- More interesting gameplay
- Simpeler?

The cons:

- I have to revise the taxes system and politics

Current state of development

2008-09-14T15:43:00.002+02:00

Edit: This post may be a bit messy

Start of the new school year
The first of September was the start of the new school year. This had a serious impact on my spare time (obviously), and school is taking a lot of my energy. So from now on things will probably go even slower. It’s just that you know!

Modular Gaming
I have decided that I’m going to work with a framework for browser based games, called Modular Gaming. (http://modulargaming.com/) That means that I don’t have to set up the login, registration, inventory, … off course I’ll have to change some things. But it saves me a lot of time and work. However, with my programming skills, it’s going to take me long enough.
For the ones of you who want to make their own browser based game, you should really check it out!

My illustrators
Now I’m going to tell you a bit about my illustrators. Two eighteen year old guys were willing to make some (well, a lot) drawings etc. for my game. One of them is a cousin of a friend, the other one is a friend of a friend. I have spoken with them on msn and mailed with them.
Because one had an accident he wasn’t able to do anything yet. The other one is already making some drawings and sketches. I haven’t seen them yet, but I’m very curious! They can take their time, because it will take ME very long to program my game. I hope that I can post some sketches soon.

The next steps
The next steps in the development of CeasterTrade will be the programming of all the basic stuff, which will take a while. I will have to learn and practice. If that’s done I will concentrate on some more “special” features.

The name
As last item I will shortly explain the name CeasterTrade. “Ceaster” is old English for City, I chose the name because of the sound and because the game is all about trading and cities (trading in your own city, or with another city). What also represents the feature of “virtual cities” which creates almost a storyline.

Customizable shops

2008-08-09T12:53:00.002+02:00

In CeasterTrade you will be able to customize your shop. This has 2 purposes:

1. Marketing. Everything you do has influence in your visibility and you can convince people to
buy their stuff in your shop quick and cheap.
2. Just the fun of the customization. This could go with contests for the best looking shop etc.

Every shop will have a main building. To see the discounts, prices etc. you’ll have to go inside. BUT a shop owner will be able to buy extras! And I hope you will help me decide which extras that will be. I had already some ideas:

1. A pricelist next to the main building.
2. A sign (banner). Some basic banners and also the possibility to upload one yourself.
3. A message.
4. A shop name (I think that’s a very important one, so people will recognize you!)
5. Spotlights. This is a very original one, but maybe not a good one. So there will be spotlight
shining on the shop so it is more notable.
6. This is not really for visibility, but I could make a little change to the discount feature and
make people pay to enable it.
7. This spot is for my blog readers to come up with some ideas!

I’m awaiting your opinion and maybe some ideas! Then I’ll soon make a poll.

Chat

2008-08-08T18:29:00.001+02:00

The past few days I’ve been thinking about the chat. As I mentioned before in this blog, my original idea was to make a chat room in the inn. I changed that and decided to make a small chat on each page. I was thinking about the following features:

1. A list with all the users that are online in the chat.
2. Different “tabs” or “rooms”. So there would be a room for each village and an “international”
room etc.
3. Private chat.

With all these features in mind, and the fact that there might be a lot joining a conversation in the chat, I decided to return to my original idea and to make the chat in the inn.
What do you think?

Rounds and special certificates

2008-08-05T21:37:00.001+02:00

Rounds
I don’t know yet how long rounds will last. But it will be between 3 and 5 weeks. between rounds you can change your home city.

Special certificates
I also will add special certificates. They don’t lower the cost for the workers to make a certain product, but they will have other effects. That can be the right to start something (like a private bank) or to shorten the time that is necessary for a certain action or that will lower other costs.
I have some ideas for special certificates, but when the game grows, more special certificates will be available.
1. Merchant (lower the toll cost?)
2. Private bank (makes it possible to start a bank)
3. Stock market expert (lower or ban the transaction cost for shares)?

The Buildings

2008-08-05T21:23:00.004+02:00

I promised you in the previous entry that I was going to post something about the shops and buildings, so here it is: A list with all the buildings and descriptions till now. In a later phase of the game probably a few more buildings will be added. And also there will be added some more features in some of the buildings (like in the stock market).

The Town Hall
This is probably the most important building in the game. Here you can hire workers, vote for the major of the next round and buy certificates.

The Inn
At the beginning I wanted to build the forum here. But I decided to add a simple link in the menu to the forum. Now I’m thinking off making a sort of bulletin board-like thing. But I haven’t totally figured this out yet. So if any one of you has an idea, please, tell me.

National Bank
You have to pay administration costs for everything you do here. You can borrow money and open a bank account (for money transactions and you get a small interest), but all this for high tariffs.

Private Banks
Players can open a bank themselves. They should be able to make a lot money with it, but you also have to have some money already to start a successful bank. They would be able to offer the same services as the national bank but for lower tariffs, and they would be able to offer deposits.

Stock Market House
Here is the stock market. I’m going to try to expand the stock market when the game is running successfully, and to ad A LOT of features here. But to begin I will keep it modest.

A player can buy shares here. Obviously. Not shares from companies, although I’m planning to add this MUCH later. But you can buy shares from sectors. Sectors would be divided in products and cities. So an example for a sector would be: “the wood sector from city 1”. So when there is selling a lot of wood in that specific city that hour, the shares go up. If the next hour there is less wood being sold, the price of the shares goes down.

There is also a transaction cost for every transaction of shares.

In my example I used hours, but this also could be days. What do you think is best?

The Town Hall’s Market
The products that the mayor has imported will be sold here.

The Market
The market has a double function. Products that players have bought in other villages will be sold here. AND players can offer a LIMITED amount of products here if they pay a small fee.

At the beginning of the game, I will start with the town hall, the town hall’s market and maybe the stock market and the market. The rest I will add later.

The basics

2008-08-03T22:41:00.002+02:00

Every round you start with a certain amount of money (CeasterCoins) and your aim is to end the round as the richest player.

The most common way to make money is to produce your own goods and to sell them.

First you have to decide in which city you will live and work. Every city has advantages and disadvantages. Of course you will be able to travel and import and export goods.
Now you will choose which product to produce. What does my city need? And what will make me the most money?

These are all the goods in the game:
Resources
1. Trees
2. Iron ore
3. Gold ore
4. Diamond
5. Coal
6. Clay
7. Salt
Goods
1. Axes
2. Pickaxes
3. shovel
4. saw
5. iron
6. wood
7. gold
8. hamper
9. stones
10. glass
11. jewels
12. furnace

Now you will build a shop. You have to buy 3 things:
1. Building materials
2. A construction ground
3. money

You can buy them in various shops. Most likely in a shop owned by another player, I’ll discuss other shops later in my blog. Or you can make them yourself of course. A construction ground can be bought in the city, next to the shops, and it’s the task of the mayor to make sure that there are always enough building grounds available.

Building or leveling up your shop or warehouse is easy and real-time (more about the real-time element later in this entry). There’ll be also a possibility to buy extra’s for your shop (like pricelist, etc.).

The last thing you have to do before you can start producing goods is to hire workers and to buy land and/or tools. You can hire workers in the town hall and buy land on the map. You always need hampers to transport your goods.

When you produce goods you will put some workers to work. You’ll have to use the right sort of worker for the right sort of product (e.g. woodcutters to cut trees). And before that you will have to give them the right tools (e.g. the woodcutter needs axes). Then your workers will work for a certain time (e.g. 30 min.)(That’s the real-time element) and when they’re finished, the goods will be transported to your warehouse and their wage will be automatically deducted from your money.

Then you’ll have to set the price, transport the goods to your shop and other players will buy it! (Hopefully ;))

That’s the basic of the game. I will discuss other game elements in my next entries.

Comments are more than welcome! :D

The Project

2008-07-23T17:38:00.000+02:00

Hey,

My name is Janne Siera. I am making my first browser based game, that is my project.

This blog is to keep you up to date about the developments, but more important, to get your feedback.

CeasterTrade is an online trading game. In a medieval setting with modern elements you have to built a shop, buy or gather resources and produce your own goods, and then sell them ofcourse!

In the next posts I will explain the game more in detail.

And don't forget to comment! Because feedback is what this blog is about!