Browser game "Cyberset" - the successes and failures of the project

The game "Cyberset" is a browser-based turn-based game with the reconstruction of the economy and the foundations of society. Its distinctive feature is that the players themselves can improve the game world by inventing and creating a variety of products. This game, unlike its counterparts, does not require a constant presence in the game, but it doesn’t take a painfully long time to wait for a recount of the game situation. You just play when you have time to manage the agent.

So, we have come a long way from raw ideas , alpha testing, and now we can play in beta testing. Below I will talk about the development of this game.

And you can play here .
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Project successes and failures

One of the failures of the project is that of the programmers, I was left alone - the rest just disappeared :). True, the forum is supported not by me, but by one of the enthusiasts. But given the fact that I have some time programming it’s not so terrible.

On the other hand, during alpha testing and after publishing to Habré - more than 300 people registered in the game, but only 5-10 for a whole month they played constantly. Which is also not so bad for quite raw development. Thus, with the help of these 10 pioneers, we have quite strongly developed the logic of the game, slightly improved the interface and fixed a lot of bugs (and even more of them remained;)). For me, I also had a good experience in real time to correct bugs and improve the logic at the request of players, especially since this is my first project on ASP.NET.

But now I am ready to order to a larger number of players. Then I will praise the game, although I understand perfectly well that there are no friends in the taste and color. Therefore, make a discount on it, and express constructive criticism.

The development of the logic of the game

It's not so easy to write about the logic of the game in two paragraphs, so I suggest reading the game documentation first. I will tell you about the strengths of the game, the distinctive features that have no analogues.

Players can introduce new products and their manufacturing technology.

Ordinary games have a closed, pre-calculated logic. In all known strategies there is a technology tree, and one way or another pre-programmed progress of the player’s character development. It only depends on the player whether he will play above average or not. Interest in such games often depends on how well the character development logic is balanced.

In the “Cyberset” game, it seems to me, a revolutionary step forward has been taken - the player himself develops the technological lines. After that, he quickly enough approves his innovations with a moderator (at the moment with me, but I hope someday there will be some trusted players with special rights). After that, “the world is changing” - what was previously difficult to do, it becomes easier or the appearance of new products increases the demand for others. Thus, everything is in the hands of the player - the internal logic of development is improved by the players.

Players can perform their actions asynchronously, but they still have equal starting opportunities.

As you know, games are turn-based and in real time. Those who are step-by-step in multiplayer mode have one significant problem - the need to synchronize the steps of all players. For example, in Virtonomics - because of this, you need to wait the whole day for the server to recalculate the game situation. And vice versa, if you don’t attend the game, say a week (went to the Caribbean) - then you can easily be lost in the game.

It seems to me that here too in the game “Cybernet” we took a step forward. A player plays when he has free time. Time still flows step by step in 10 real minutes (not a day!) It takes 6 game hours. And asynchrony we achieve the so-called. "Bonus moves". First, the player at the start receives as many bonus moves as he missed the time since the start of the game divided by 2 (and this is quite a lot). Secondly, the philosophy of the game is such that if the player does not indicate what action to take in the scheduler, then it is considered that he simply misses the turn. And if he missed 4 moves in a row, he is given one bonus move, which he can use when he returns to the game.

Thus, the players' capabilities are almost evened out - although of course the most zealous can achieve more.

Players can enter additional agents and open companies

Also in multiplayer games has its own characteristics associated with clones. For example, in Virtonomics, clones are banned simply by force (the administration catches). And what is the problem of clones? The problem is that in games with unbalanced logic - an additional clone allows you to get additional benefits in the game.

In the game "Cyberset" was the task not to apply this kind of non-game logic of the ban. Therefore, on the contrary, in "Cyberseti" clones are encouraged, and for this purpose a special interface has been made that allows you to manage an unlimited number of additional agents from one main agent account. Each agent must be specifically managed and spent time on it. In conditions when it is not necessary to wait for a painfully long recalculation of the game situation, it becomes not so beneficial to introduce additional agents and manage them, spending time not on the main agent, but on an additional one.

Only, because the quality of the product produced by an agent depends on his skills, it makes sense to specialize an agent for a specific job, and buy the rest of products on the market. But sometimes market interaction may not be satisfying and one wants to simultaneously manage the interaction of agents, and not interact with real, but often with non-regular players. Then there may be interest in the introduction of additional agents, but it will be necessary to “break up” between them.

A few more to improve the situation allows the opening of companies and employment contracts. Under an employment contract, any agent may be hired to do some kind of work with the company. The company will provide raw materials, and the worker will produce 12 hours a day for the company. But for a contract of a certain duration, the company will immediately pay a fee with a set of various goods. It is also possible for players who do not want to trade on the market to work for someone else’s company (after all, in reality, 80% work for others).

Natural market

I myself was often interested in economic strategies, but they all have a significant drawback - they have an artificial demand in the market. Yes, all economic models somehow try to portray the behavior of the consumer. But this is a very artificial demand - such as at a lower price they will buy more, and they will buy better quality. Then interest arises to play in such games where there is a more interesting demand model. But with over-complication, it becomes close to random, otherwise it is too primitive. Both through time-bothers.

Therefore, here in the game "Cyberset" we are trying to innovate. There is no artificial demand in the game at all - there is no one to sell goods to - just other players. Therefore, a primitive gameplay - buy a more profitable product and collide in the artificial market, it does not work here.

Yes, we are faced with that to organize a natural market is not easy. Especially without money, but by barter. In the natural market, agents' needs control supply and demand. The different specialization of agents here is of key importance. But to calculate which product is better to produce and change to another is also not easy. Therefore, in the game is production statistics and calculated intricate indices. This all should run a natural market.

Agents can be managed by bots

This opportunity was conceived from the very beginning. And here it is almost implemented. A player should just send a script written in MySQL (or just write in words (or a block diagram, or pseudo-code) what kind of logic he wants to perform, and I will help translate it into code). However, in order to level the situation with those players who play without bots - for each move of the bot you will need to pay 1 point of intelligence (which the agent earns in the game).

And again there is no such possibility in other games. Together with other features, the game becomes quite unique, but of course it will be developed only with active players.

Of course, you can think differently, so below polls. Thank you for your attention, and I will be glad to receive feedback and suggestions on how to improve the game here or on our forum .