increpare’s pointed out that for all that it’s become easier for amateurs to create little games, the one thing that still seems unduly hard for a hobbyist to surmount is online play, which seems to require a lot of byzantine network knowledge. there’s no easy solution to online play. it’s a shame, because i’d like to see more simple multiplayer games like five minute mmorpg.
tom sennett has been running an online game he calls tom’s crown affair. it’s not running at the moment, but he’s promised to update his twitter when it is. i got the chance to play it (mostly i watched slut play), and i found it pretty interesting, a form of red-light-green-light: one player wears a crown, and uses the mouse to search for the other players and zap them – but only if they’re moving. those players are trying to get to the king and take the crown for themselves.
the only decisions the players who aren’t the king have is when to move (by mashing keyboard keys) and when to stay still, but it’s an interesting decision because a player’s strategy often depends on the other players’ positions: you need people to distract the king while you make a grab for the crown, so the peasantry has to cooperate to dethrone the tyrant, but only one of them can take the crown and become the new despot. it’s a rich dynamic.
and while i’m mostly interested in the kinds of dynamics that build between players who are in the same space, i think the anonymity of online play emphasizes that dynamic in an interesting way. the only means of interaction these players have is through the rules of the game – there’s no voice chat, no means of reaching over and punching the player next to you – so the players are simply their roles in the game’s heirarchy: either the king or the peasantry. and i think that’s an interesting quality for online games to explore, which is why i wish they were easier to experiment with.
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The one thing that is always difficult to achieve with players in the same space is exclusive vision situations (such as the line of sight for the king here). Online games do seem to accomplish this best. Unless the game is for handhelds, you can’t do much more than hidden input (like the rock paper scissors battles in some dragonball fighting game). My personal favorite solution is “the cardboard divider”, which my last KOTM game experimented with. (Linked in my comment)
I really can’t wait to get back to working on MarMOTS.
From what I recall, BYOND is a fairly accessible way to build online multiplayer games. You may want to check it out.
It’s worth noting that most of the indie online multiplayer innovation is just hidden away in mods for various games. Sadly, that scene is splintered between different games / engines, and almost universally requires that you own certain specific games as a barrier to entry.
Sadly the problem extends outside of the context of the game. Multiplayer games only work if there’s enough simultaneous interest in them, which by necessity dramatically limits the pool of possible active games.
What do you think about Media Molecule’s claim that Little Big Planet 2 will become a platform for games? Of course, the cost of entry is quite high – about $350 if you don’t already own a PS3 – but it may offer some sort of intuitive multiplayer options.
theres actually a chat that you can type to by hitting enter >:O
i’m suspicious of any platform with totalitarian game distribution. i recall a lot of levels for the original little big planet being censored by sony. i’m skeptical of any format in which the only means to transmit expressive works is through an owner corporation’s pipeline.
Definitely a great point. These are the kinds of things that I never think about. I suppose you’re not a great fan of the App either.
Hello there!
I’m one of the programmers behind 5 Minute MMORPG. Thanks for the kind mentions!
I definitely agree with your post – it’s a shame that network programming is so bothersome! As I see it, multiplayer gameplay is still under-explored, especially in the indie world.
But I just wanted to comment here to recommend the Nonoba platform, the free API/site we used for 5 Minute MMORPG.
The network API was straightforward and easy to learn. Seriously. 5 Minute MMORPG was largely made over a weekend, at the Nordic Game Jam. And I hadn’t ever touched Actionscript before that weekend! (Though in fairness, I was already an experienced C# coder).
You use Flash on the clientside and C# on the server side. Then you just upload a swf and a dll, and bam, your game is live, hosted on the Nonoba servers!
I learned the API by looking at example code. A fellow Københavner, Jonas, has generously posted the code for his Zombies game here:
http://yaief.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/open-source-zombies/
Admittedly, none of this is as accessible as one might hope. Still, I think it’s a step in the right direction.
And, as far as I can tell, the Nonoba folks aren’t evil. Actually, we’ve met them, since they’re based here in Copenhagen. They seem like nice guys!
You can embed Nonoba games wherever, so the games aren’t 100% limited to the “owner corporation’s pipeline.”
Anyway, that’s just my two cents :)
Greetings from Copenhagen,
- Doug -
http://www.copenhagengamecollective.org/
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