Update: Online demo here: http://www.loota.com/protohut/?12345
Hi,
I'm sort of lurker in these forums, and haven't posted often (entered challenge once though - http://www.bgdf.com/node/47)... but now thought to ask a bit of feedback.
I've been thinking of doing an online ajax based boardgame tool that would help people 'play' boardgames online. I initially started thinking of this to test sort of a (easier) Diplomacy type of game with some of my friends. The basic idea of online system would be that first of all it would be easy to start using it (no need to download anything, or support Java or flash - just basic Firefox/IE + Javascript support would be enough). To start a new board, you wouldn't need to register - just click 'start new board' and it would generate a random link to you (for example thefancyboardgametool.com?2z94a5mp5Q61S) which you could then share with other people. The benefit of course is that (1) it would be online tool and (2) good software support.
Now, for functionality, I would like to get some feedback. What sort of features would you want from a tool like this?
Here's my list so far for basic features:
- Possibility to create a new board and share it with your friends
- Possibility to upload pictures (to create some sort of 'pool of art' for you)
- Possibility to create objects that use pictures from 'pool of art'
- Possibility to move objects in the field
- Possibility to move objects under & on top of each other (as in you can make sure that 'map' is under 'tower unit' and not vica versa)
- The 'new board' must automatically save each move (so that each player sees the same board and can exit the game & come back to see the current state of the game)
- Moves are updated real-time
(With these features alone, one could play Democracy in the board - first you could upload a map (800x600 for example) and then upload units (30x30 or something) and then you could create different units for different players and play the game.
Then some additional features I had in mind:
- Chat (although I think this one isn't so important in the beginning - if you play with friends then you can use Messenger or skype or something to chat with people)
- Throw dice (again I think this is not so important, after all - you as the designer can handle dice throwing and if you cannot trust your friends - then why play with them?)
- Unit front side visible only to certain player (it would be possible to flip units so that they would show only the back of the unit to the other player. With this, you could upload playing cards and then each player could see only their own cards).
- Unit visible only to own player (bit same as above, but so that the unit wouldn't be seen at all by other players. Not sure how practical this could be in board games, but something to consider I think)
- Deck, and shuffling it (one could create decks and link units to a deck. Deck could be considered as 'an area somewhere' and when one clicks 'shuffle', the units in the deck would be shuffled. For card games this would be very practical. The usability should be thought well here).
One more thing: downloadable or not?
Another consideration is if this tool should be downloadable instead of online? You could still 'play' it with your friends, but both of you'd need to download the tool first and then connect (one is the server, other joins the game). Everything would stay the same, except you could not 'give link to your friend'. (Oh, and of course the downloadable version's graphics could be more fancy and it would have more smooth moves etc. - since the connection is much faster than basic http calls online)
Which one you'd prefer:
1) Online non-downloadable version (AJAX+Javascript web page tool)
2) Downloadable version (supports win/unit/mac)
3) Either way is fine...
Notice:
I must say that I don't plan to have any kind of 'automatic calculation' ("if unit A attacks unit B, then do X damage"). All this needs to be handled by the designer. Also notice that I'm gathering info before making the decision on how to proceed (or not). All feedback would be most welcom.
Hey, this is cool, and it has plenty of those ideas listed I was thinking of. Thanks! Some of those features aren't needed very early (for example the dice - everybody can throw dice in their own home). The 'rotating card' option is bit tricky. I'm afraid browser based card rotation would be quite hard (there's no CSS, so it would possibly need to generate new rotated images) - but of course in downloadable version this would be no big deal.
As for those 'admin modes' I was thinking that maybe some sort of basic admin system could be useful.
One more thing I remembered: "player turn" indicator. This could be useful for some purposes.
Is there a way to create poll - would be nice to see 'downloadable' versus 'non-downloadable' votes - since both have their pros and cons. (downloadable meaning faster & smoother user interface, non-downloadable means slower interface but easier to start using).
Any more votes on that 'poll'? :)