August 2008

• [Design] Design challenge: Bed-time game Soyweiser
• [Design] Design challenge: Bed-time game Peter Harkins
  On Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 11:14:36AM -0600, Acius wrote:
  > One style of game that seems appropriate is the Ikariam/Travian style of
  > web-based empire building.
  
  On a tangent, does anyone know of a nice name for this class of games?
  Think of games like:
  
  * Earth 2025
  * Ikariam
  * Jennifer Government
  * Planetarion
  * Simcountry
  * Trade Wars
  * Travian
  * Utopia
  
  The common features seem to be:
  
  * Turn-based, usually turns granted every X hours
  * But events happen in real-time, like an army taking 2h to march
  * Almost exclusively PVP
  * Players are usually countries/companies/planets rather than individuals
  * Multiplayer, dozens to tens of thousands per server
  * Often several games running at different timescales
  * Often very stat-heavy, few or no graphics on top of them
  * Rarely commercial, but when they are, commercialization is:
  - Subscription to reach pay-only server
  - Unlock late-game content
  - Virtual currency to buy items/bonuses
  
  I admit completely they're not muds, but they share a lot of features.
  I'm continously surprised by how large some of the crude games get. They
  feel to me a lot like muds of the early 90s: hobbyists running world
  games with a slowly rising trend of commercial products. I've got a few
  browser game designs I've been considering building, I just don't even
  know what to call the genre. Thoughts?
  
  --
  Peter Harkins - http://push.cx - http://NearbyGamers.com
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