On the road to - A Browser/text Based RPG

Hi peeps!
Today I'm not going to talk about a fancy game of some sort. Instead I'm going to put some ideas on the table. I've always thought about creating a game. In the past, I've done some things and tried a bit, but it never actually worked out as I wanted to or it didn't progress as fast enough. Having a job and being on the road from 6 am until 8 pm didn't do any good either. It always ended up in having a lot of ideas that looked good in my mind, but ended up in the twilight zone somewhere because I didn't write them down.

Currently, I live a lot closer to where I work, so I'm not on the road too long which gave me the idea to get creative. I don't know a lot about development, or development languages, but I did follow a course in PHP a few years ago. Sadly enough, I didn't put time and effort into maintaining it, but I've managed to create some okay looking things. Basically, front-end is not something I shine at, but I do love doing back-end stuff. Creating an application and making sure everything's working as it should. It brings me a lot of joy to see the information flowing from the database into the webpage, just the way I want it to.

Talking about this stuff makes me wonder though... Is it still worth creating something in that format? Will I be able to make everything work the way I want to? Am I looking at things the right way? It all starts with the basics I guess... Having an idea on paper is way better than having it in your mind. Your mind is more easily subject to change than a paper is. It all seems a bit easier now than it did back when I first had the idea of creating a video game.

Back when I didn't know anything about PHP or web-development, I tried some games that were already out there. Imperial Conflict was one of the first ones. It was pretty simple to play. You colonize worlds, create some infrastructure, build a fleet, colonize and conquer more worlds. There was even the ability to spy on other empires and trying not to have your spies killed. It featured a "tick" based system. You gained resources every hour and your build orders would be finishing up in x ticks. It wasn't graphically very enhanced, but the gameplay was alright. I also liked not having to download a big file in order to play something.

Another game that I still enjoy playing is Kingdom of Loathing. It's also browser based and written in PHP, but more of an RPG. It has some decent mechanics, but is more of a parody of RPG's. Like instead of a necromancer, there's a pastamancer. Instead of a warrior, there's a seal clubber. And it's that flavor that makes me want to pick it up again.

If you're making a game in a programming or scripting language that is not able to render some decent graphics, your game needs to have a lot of good mechanics and flavor in it. One of the games that started out with only one mechanic, but grew a lot in flavor, is Cookie Clicker. Cookie Clicker is an incremental game or an "idle" game. You progress by not doing a lot. You click on the cookie to generate... a cookie. You then spend those cookies on various upgrades like a grandma that bakes cookies for you. If you get enough cookies, you can even unlock the grandmapocalypse, changing grandmas into "Wrinklers" that grant you even more cookies. There are a lot of achievements to earn as well, so you could boast to your friends about having that rare achievement.

What would be an ideal game then? One that has a little bit of everything? An RPG that has a little bit of idle gaming and base management. That's my goal. I would even throw in some card collecting. The main goal is to keep it simple but fun and add a lot of flavor or lore that the lore-a-holics would love to read about but keep it simple enough for a "no-brainer" to progress and enjoy the game as well.

The current stage of the game is actually still getting it all on paper. Analyzing which mechanics I want in there and which information would be needed for those specific mechanics while at times thinking about some content I definitely want to get in there. I've got a little bit of the combat system planned out and I'm well on my way to testing out some stuff locally. Honestly, I can't wait until I get to a stage where I can just input content in order to expand the game and not have to tinker with the basic mechanics anymore.

I will definitely keep you posted on the game's progress. Also, ideas, things you would like to see in a mostly text-based browser RPG can always be posted as a comment on this post:)

As always, thank you very much for reading. Take care peeps!

Cheers!

Got a constructive comment or want to play something together? feel free to leave a comment!
Be sure to also check out my girlfriend, @mevilkingdom, who has an awesome collection of toys and my brother in law @steve-walschot, the creator of SteemPay.io and vouched Steem applications developer.
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