The reason I started to learn web development stuff like HTML & CSS when I was a kid was so that I could one day make a massive multiplayer online role playing game(MMORPG). I still have that goal in mind!
For a couple of years now, I’ve been developing a game in my head. I’ve created some goals that I want that game accomplish:
- It has to be open-ended
- It should be realistic
- The interface should be text-based with natural language
- It should have different types of gameplay
- It should be free
The open-ended feel, realism, and natural language interface goals are there to make the game immersive. I don’t want the player to feel like they’re playing a game. I want them to invest more time, thought, and emotion in this game than the usual game. The game should almost feel like an extension of life. A sort of alternate universe where the player gets to live out different life scenarios. It’s not just a game. It’s a way of living a different life.
That means the point of this game isn’t pretty graphics. You’re going to be able to shoot somebody–and maybe even headshot somebody–but you’re not going to see it on the screen. You’re going to read it. The imagination has a much better visualization engine than anything I could write or any open source alternative out there. And, that is why I want the game to be text-based. I’m hoping the immersiveness of it aids the player in imagining everything while reading how the game is playing out.
The game should have different types of gameplay so that its hard to be bored by the game and so that it can broaden its audience. That does mean that two players should be able to get a similar experience from the game even if the part of the game each player takes part in has different gameplay. For example, some players can have a purely business/logisitcs/tycoon kinda game, others can have a stock market kinda game, others can have a kingdom/mafia kinda game, and others can have a third-person(in the literary sense) shooter.
It has to be free because I remember being bored as fuck as a kid. I remember wishing a game like this existed and that it was free so I could play it. So, yea its gonna be free.
I’ve of course thought about how all of this will be coded. Creating a realistic feel and a an open-ended feel will be complicated. I need to make walking, driving, bus routes, non-player characters(NPCs), and a whole lotta other complicated crap work smoothly. We’re not even talking about natural language yet. If a PHP library, jQuery plugin, or Drupal module don’t already exist for natural language interpretation, it’s probably gonna be a bitch to code. Maybe some crazy Python programmer out there made something I could use. We’ll see. Since it’s text based, I’m going to need to output everything properly. Everything includes: location description, actions taking place by neighboring players & NPCs, actions you’ve done, possible error messages. Creating functionality for different types of gameplay and making sure each interacts with the other gameplays in a realistic and meaningufl way will also be difficult. The stock market player’s decisions should affect the kingdom players decions. To make it free, the coding has to be done well as to not waste calls to the server.
This is going to be a very complex game. The decision tree will be huge. The possibilities will be hopefully endless.
