Screenshots

Keeping you up to date: Prototype

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:

1. 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.
   
2. 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!
   
3. More complex features and cool stuff aren't implemented yet. I have to make sure the basic ideas work properly.
   
4. 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

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

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:

1.   Most Sales: the quantity of sales you make decide your ranking
   
2.  Most Goods Produced: the quantity of goods you produce decide your ranking
   
3.   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:

1.  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"

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:

1. Physiological needs (water, food, ... )
   
2. Safety needs (security from crime, health security, ... )
   
3. Social needs (friendship, ... )
   
4. Esteem (achievement, respect by others, ... )
   
5. 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!

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

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