A game

Projects
1

Idle text game

Latest alpha instance: v 0.4.0 ((( RETIRED )))
Last update: 2016.11

[] Check your character status every day (or whenever you like)
[] Optimized for small screens
[] Control eating policy, equip weapons
[] Schedule dungeon explorations; seek treasures
[] Buy food; sell loot
[] It is not necessary to save game. The character runs on server even when you are not looking.
[*] To open character list, click page title which says “Meadoiwe”

[] Basic inventory, equipment
[] Sell items, buy foods
[] More dungeons, improved balance (not to say balance is good now). 12th dungeon is supposed to be the most difficult one.
[] Eating policy: set both how much and how often character eats.
[] Lunch breaks in dungeons
[] Part time job: can be enabled or disabled. Might help with losing weight.
[] Game pace set to 1:6 meaning that one real-life day is like six days for the character.
[] Long-journal page added.
[] Effects page added. It is possible that not all effects are present right now; I might add new effect messages later. I also should probably implement effect reordering to reduce effects jumping.
[] Added “government financial aid” for character that are low on money so that they don’t die from starvation. It activates when money < 5000

I intend to update the first message of this forum thread every time there is a major update.

I can’t restore passwords because user accounts are not connected with emails in any way so I cant mail a new password.

Please provide suggestions, complaints, bug reports. Please send bug reports as private messages to my account on this forum.

2018.11.25 upd
Posted source code of the porj.: A game - #110 by dj_sharp

3 Likes
2

I look forward to playing/ watching? it! good luck!

3

hopefully this comes to be a reality soon

4

What language(s) are you using? It’s a web app so that’s my area of expertise if you need any help. Or chances are I’ll already have coded something similar to what you need. It’s an interesting idea that I’ve wanted to pursue, sort of a real time idle game.

5

Good idea!

6

Sounds suspiciously like a WG-themed take on those cookie clicker esque games that had a big spike in popularity a few years ago, incrementals or whatever you call them.

Personally, I dislike it as a genre but they can be addictive and fun.

7

I use the Go programming language on server side. Not sure if it is a good idea but whatever. I use HTML, JavaScript for client side.

Thx; Good luck with ur mods))

8

Here is a list of what I managed to implement recently

:slight_smile: User subsystem: Log in; Log out; Register new user; Storage; Backup. Custom. I could try to integrate an existing library but I did not so I reinvented this wheel.
:slight_smile: Captcha: protect app from bots, to an extent. 3rd party library used. I hope nobody is going to abuse the web app but if someone tries to, they will most likely succeed and crash it or make it unavailable.
:slight_smile: Basic character subsystem: Create character; Character status page with continuous update; View character list; Tick characters on server; Storage; Backup. I decided not to use DB for storage because I plan to update characters every second; and writing to DB every second could affect performance badly. I could still use DB but save data only every hour, not every update, but that would not be much different from what I have now.

So basicly nothing is ready yet. But. Well. What can I say… its something. I managed to build some sort of foundation for the project. I could deploy the app and make it available from the Internet right now but I think there is no sense in doing that because it is not playable yet.
I track time for this project. So far I wasted 25 hours on it.

Here are screenshots of some UI I have now. On status page there is currently only weight. +1kg every second (regardless of whether the page is visible or not). ???

9

STATUS UPDATE #3

[ul][li]Characters can now eat sleep rave repeat go for a walk [/li]
[li]The character can stop to rest while traveling in case it runs out of stamina[/li]
[li]Status screen: updated[/li]
[li]Detail screen: added[/li][/ul]

Status screen now has

[ul][li]Weight[/li]
[li]Game-world time: global, shared for all characters on server[/li]
[li]Stamina bar[/li]
[li]Energy bar[/li]
[li]Stomach bar[/li][/ul]

Bars work like this: food → stomach → energy → stamina. Stomach can be filled with food. Food inside stomach is being converted into energy. Energy is converted into stamina. Stamina is some kind of short-term energy. Makes sense? ??? I dunno; whatever

Detail screen shows lots numbers…

Character can make simple decisions: rest if tired while traveling. At home: eat, rest until energy is filled; then go travel.

See PendingTasks screenshot to see what I plan to develop next. I plan to add health bar. Thats a lot of bars for a small screen. That is probably going to be the last bar I can add to the status screen. As u can see I decided to develop mobile view from the very beginning (instead of another possible approach which is to develop desktop UI first and then adapt it for small screen or make another version of the UI)

10

nice; looking forward to trying this out!

11

This looks like a fun game, can’t wait to play it

12

<< STATUS UPDATE >>

Well what can I say… I developed something but not much because recently I have been feeling lazy and also tired for some reason. That is a natural thing to happen. Like you know, the wind blows. I feel lazy. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Feature set 4 is now completed:

  • Gain, loose weight
  • Control eating policy
  • Health bar

I said “completed” but actually no feature is ever complete because there might be bugs to fix or something to improve. I anticipate that balancing shit is going to be difficult. For example, I set eating policy to “max” and I left the game running for two real-life days and my character gained weight from 80 kg to 150 kg. Seems too fast to me; I think it should gain weight a bit slower. But right now it is hard to tell what exactly should be done. I think I will attempt to improve balance later when more features will be in place.

On third screenshot: the new “Control” page (it has no “save” or “apply” button because the setting is saved instantly when u click).

Feature currently in progress: Dungeons.
For this feature I plan to introduce yet another page with a list of dungeons (names + difficulties), something like this:
Cave of Cats; difficulty: 1
Castle of Thieves: difficulty: 2
From the Dungeons page the user should be able to send his/her character to explore a certain dungeon…

Also a very important feature is the journal where u view the recent events… I should add it soon. The “journal” should take the rest of the empty space on the status page.

13

Great job on the game :slight_smile: … Any hint on when the first build’s coming out…?

14

I can release it sooner but with fewer features. Alternatively I can release it later but with more features.
I already tested the possibility of deployment. It seems that the app can be deployed with no problem. My friend let me use his server & domain name.
Currently I am implementing dungeons

ideas, suggestions, criticism are welcome. (though there is not much to criticize now) I wont be upset if you tell me that you hate me and the piece of shit I am attempting to build so feel free to do so

On screenshots:
[] The menu page: I realized that I need a menu page because I keep adding more and more screens so there should be a page from where all screens can be accessed. The character menu page is functional.
[] The dungeons page: the items are expandable. There are two distances. The idea is that to reach a dungeon the character must travel some distance by foot and some distance by horse. Because presumably thats how noble ppl traveled in the past. U rent a horse and ride it from village to village. Then u leave the horse at the village. And then u have to walk some distance. Well something like that. Dungeons have random-generated names and distances but they are not functional yet

15

Will we be getting advanced character descriptions or just a weight number

16

I think it would be best for an earlier release, with a clear statement of alpha, then continue to work on it until its done to your liking, and updating/adding features as suggested by your testers (aka. the weightgaming.com community). Thus you could improve your game faster

17

UPDATE

The development is progressing slowly because I am lazy or maybe busy or maybe bored or tired.

[] The character can gain weight. It gains weight either when the energy bar overflows or when the energy is above 80%.
[] There are dungeons. The dungeons can be visited. Click “Schedule exploration” from the dungeons page. The character will only leave its home from 8:00 to 14:00 (in-game time). In case the time requirement is not met, the exploration is postponed until 8:00.
[] There is now journal. The journal is a crucial feature of the game. I plan to add many more randomized phrases and events to it. The items of the journal are expandable. Each item has (or can have) detailed information inside.
[] Character can now regenerate health from energy. Energy is converted to health slowly over time.
[] There are now enemies; each dungeon has its own specific enemies.
[] The character fights enemies. In dungeons there are rooms. When the character enters next room, it can encounter from 0 to 5 enemies. The damage of the character is based on its upper body strength. Currently the upper body strength cant be changed.
[*] Other stuff…

I deployed a game instance at this address: http://hinst.ru/meadowie0003/ [alpha] … [shit is extremely unfinished]
Please test at your own risk. Suggestions are welcome. At this moment I am not sure what to do next (because there is still so much to do) so I might start with the feature u suggest (or not; no promises ofc).

Also I have no idea how many users it can handle and I have no monitoring of any kind (to be implemented later). So in this regard just hope for the best. I wont be surprised if it crashes from 10 users, or even from 2 users. Or one.

Known issue: Journal is updated once in 6 seconds so it will not appear instantly when status page is loaded; it will only appear after some time…

To be implemented later:
[] Eating policy in dungeons
[] Inventory
[] Stomach stretching
[] Find random items in dungeons
[] Use food items in dungeons (according to policy)
[] Other stuff…

About existing UI: Register; Log in; Click title [Meadowie] to access character list when logged in. Create character. On character status page click * (at right-top) to access character control page. U might want to resize browser window to look more like smartphone screen; or U might access game from a smartphone. However u can only be logged in from one browser. When u log in from another browser, the previous session expires.

A description, yes. Though I am not sure about it being advanced.

Maybe…)))0000)))0

On screenshot: the status page; now with journal

18

So, I’ve been letting your game run, and I love the concept, and I think it shows a lot of promise.

There are a few things that I think should probably be addressed first as you move forward. First, the game has long periods where nothing at all happens. Having long periods where nothing interesting happens, in game time, is fine, but maybe fast forward through these times so that the player doesn’t experience the lull? Or, you could add more events to fill those times so that the player always has something interesting to observe. Or, you could change the scheduling so that the character can explore at all hours (maybe exploring at night is more dangerous and more rewarding?) Regardless, it feels like there is a LOT of downtime for the player of the game. If that is an artistic choice, then feel free to ignore this suggestion, but in a game where the primary focus is watching the protagonist gain weight, too much down time might be something to avoid.

Second, it seems very difficult to get the protagonist to gain weight. It did happen for me, but maybe there need to be more events that encourage the character to eat? Or some adjustment in how that process works? The rate of gain is fairly realistic, and this issue might be addressed if there is less downtime, but even generating the conditions that lead to the character gaining weight seems difficult. I could barely get the energy above 80% in the first 3 days, for instance.

Third, and finally, I can’t currently tell if attributes other than weight are affected by the character’s actions. For instance, is stomach capacity increased if the character regularly overeats? Is metabolism affected? It may be that these changes are taking place, but it is difficult to determine it’s happening. Maybe it would be useful to add entries to the journal that let the player know when the character’s stats change. Of course, if it is too granular, then those will fill the log, but maybe add them when the character reaches certain thresholds, decreasing the frequency that updates occur as the game goes on (so that the player knows that they occur at the very beginning). And, if you haven’t added changing these stats as the game progresses, then I might peg that as my #3 item to work on, and move additional log entries to #4.

Anyway, really great start. I look forward to seeing where you go with it!

19

I agree that this game has potential and even having long periods of downtime for the characters is alright if the game is meant to be running in the background, but for a weight gain game it seems very difficult for the characters to actually gain any weight. I’ve let the game run for many in game days and couldn’t find a way to get the energy bar past 80%.

20

I think the key to actually gaining weight in the game is the dungeons - just sitting around at home won’t get energy past 80. But after a dungeon, your character always eats and then rests. Resting seems to make your character use no or almost no energy, so combined with just having eaten it’s the games only opportunity to actually gain weight as far as I’ve found.