4 ms·

Thanks a lot for the links. It brings into perspective what those sites are missing,from what i can tell, that would make this idea more viable. But I do have

Thanks a lot for the links. It brings into perspective what those sites are missing,from what i can tell, that would make this idea more viable. But I do have to disagree with you on a point. I do believe that a widget based game maker can make original games as long as its open enough to allow creativity. From a programming stand-point this directly affects usability, but I would approach it from a design position. Imagine a standard 2d side-scrolling platform engine. Characters have a bunch of predefined states. Users must only choose which states they want their character to have(selectable through a survey or wizard). What differentiates Mario from Sonic is only a few actions difference. They are mostly distinct in design. Allow users a "bone man" with pre-made animations and abilities. Users can build the look with our online editor. then the designs are applied to the appropriate section of the "bone man". Background tiles and objects can also be skinned or selected from pre-made props. Right now at my 9-5 I am working on a children's virtual world and the most time intensive process is asset creation. This would also be the case in the stated idea. Animations, character states, and npc's and props would have to be developed over time, and can also be user submitted to speed up the process. I would do 2d games a puzzle game (standard scrolling, adjustable rules) a fighting game (actions ability and looks would be adjustable to name a few) a side scroller action game a racing game and others. All of these would have premade "bone man" animations stock that can define a player's personality and skill set. The custom design is the key in my opinion. i personally would love this.

Jd 19y ago
Sort of a side story but hopefully illustrative of the problems in this space. A couple of months ago I started on a side project to do a game creation suite modelled on the Dvorak card game (a Nomic varient). This is a very small subset of what y'all are trying to do, but some similar problems. The very brief summary of the game is that Dvorak is a very basic card game with each card created at the beginning of the game. In other words, custom game creation within limited parameters. If you want more on the ruleset google and go to the co.uk site. My idea was to take this in a 'Magic the Gathering' esque direction. Set up a basic model for combat, and have each card be taggable. Each tag would contain a function as a String (some extension of Rails's acts as taggable on steroids plugin and Raganwald's work on methods as Strings in Ruby). Consequently, any action could be custom defined in ruby code as a method and then attached to a card. The end user might not be proficient with Ruby but could create their own card set with the attributes/tags provided. I also had a basic attack/defend hitpoint system designed , never implemented. Well, the short story is I found that from a design side this worked great. In fact, I used the same principles to make several card games and played them with friends locally (in Tokyo). But translating this concept into computer code was far too difficult and time consuming and with little or no upside. Doing anything even marginally visually satisfying w/ the GUI (esp. off Rails) is also no small undertaking. Consequently, my advice in this space is to: (1) Start small - single concept which could be expanded upon and preferably has some inherent profitability (2) Extensively discuss the technical details w/ someone who knows their 'shit.' No offense poppy, but you don't seem to have done this and much of what you say seems impracticable.

Jd 19y ago

Sort of a side story but hopefully illustrative of the problems in this space. A couple of months ago I started on a side project to do a game creation suite modelled on the Dvorak card game (a Nomic varient). This is a very small subset of what y'all are trying to do, but some similar problems. The very brief summary of the game is that Dvorak is a very basic card game with each card created at the beginning of the game. In other words, custom game creation within limited parameters. If you want more on the ruleset google and go to the co.uk site. My idea was to take this in a 'Magic the Gathering' esque direction. Set up a basic model for combat, and have each card be taggable. Each tag would contain a function as a String (some extension of Rails's acts as taggable on steroids plugin and Raganwald's work on methods as Strings in Ruby). Consequently, any action could be custom defined in ruby code as a method and then attached to a card. The end user might not be proficient with Ruby but could create their own card set with the attributes/tags provided. I also had a basic attack/defend hitpoint system designed , never implemented. Well, the short story is I found that from a design side this worked great. In fact, I used the same principles to make several card games and played them with friends locally (in Tokyo). But translating this concept into computer code was far too difficult and time consuming and with little or no upside. Doing anything even marginally visually satisfying w/ the GUI (esp. off Rails) is also no small undertaking. Consequently, my advice in this space is to: (1) Start small - single concept which could be expanded upon and preferably has some inherent profitability (2) Extensively discuss the technical details w/ someone who knows their 'shit.' No offense poppy, but you don't seem to have done this and much of what you say seems impracticable.