I have been... incubating... an idea for a game in the past few months snd I wanted some input on how to make it more feasible.

The basic plan is that it's a web-based game where people are looking for facts online and have objectives, etc. It's be kind of like a "spy" type game except I don't want to have it be so easy that someone could just google a name or a place or a weapon and come up with the answer. I want it to be reasonably challenging.

Anyone have any suggestions for me? Constructive criticism is appreciated and other criticism is ignored.

I think that's all.

--Wolfman

You mean in the style of mrxak's "Get to X" games, but more about spies than randomness?

Well, you could have it be team-based, such as having different spy agencies competing against each other to complete an objective first, like finding the name of someone to kidnap or finding an enemy location for the military to strike. You could use either existing webpages and use information on them to lead spies on the right or wrong track, or you could make your own pages that spies need to find passwords to access. There are so many possibilities, depending on how involved you want the game to be.

No, this wouldn't be as structured as that. I'd send people an email that outlines the basic objective and they'd have 72 hours and anything they can find at their disposal.



Well, I was thinking about that too, but it would be around four years before I could author web pages (unless I take classes on my own, which I have no time to do) and any webpage that is just "out there" is too accessible. I want it to be at least some sort of a challenge for the "agents" involved.

Thanks for the suggestions, they're helping. Keep 'em coming, please!

If all you want to make is a simple password-protected webpage, a few hours with a $15 web-design book will do you fine.

... oh.

I'll look into that.

Sure. To get you started, here is a list of useful HTML codes:

http://www.web-source.net/html_codes_chart.htm


Here is a free HTML editor for Mac OSX:

http://tacosw.com/main.php

Wait, if you sign up, you get sent an email that says "assassinate John Q. Smith" and then you have to get a weapon, find where he lives, and murder him in his sleep? Is that legal?

(And since people mentioned it but provided no links, GT14, GT28... See you on irc.ambrosia.net #gt28 for all your help and hints needs)

If it's not, then I guess people need to stop driving around in jeeps and killing each other just to steal flags...

I just assumed that they were so famous that they needed no vulgar links.

How did you know it was me?

Awesome, thanks.

one small problem, though... I'm on a PC. Not a mac as much as I wish I were...

know of any free-ish wysiwyg website generators? that would be handy...

Fear not!

http://www.thefreecountry.com/webmaster/ht...s.shtml#wysiwyg

My personal fave (the link on the above site doesn't work for this one) is composer.

http://wp.netscape.com/communicator/composer/v4.0/index.html

Excellent! I thank you, Darth! These links will prove most useful.

Eeewww. Don't use a WYSIWYG. Just learn XHTML. It takes like 2 whole seconds, but it's totally worth it.

and where might one learn XHTML?

http://w3schools.com/xhtml/default.asp

http://w3schools.com/ is great for a lot of web stuff.

Ah. Thank you, mrxak. You win my official "Hell Yeah" badge!

Kay.

... I might get around to actually sending you one later...

Kay.

Okay, I got one. I'm going to try to upload it.

It's a bmp...

It's not as nice as anything Meowx can do, but it's a start.

Tried to post it as an img, didn't work.

To make an img, host the image on a free service like photobucket or flickr, then use the exact url with img tags.

i don't know if this has been done, or if it's really dumb or whatever, but i think an online mafia game would be awesome. a regular game can be played with just text, so you'd need to figure out a stylish way to graphic-atize a game like mafia. i don't know if i'm even going in the direction you want, just throwing it out there.

Mmm.... kind of, but not quite. In mafia, (if it's the same one I'm thinking of) you try to bluff your way out of getting lynched and at the same time kill the innocents and the detectives. (and yes, I think it has already been done). What I'm thinking of would be research based and totally controlled by the people participating. They would get the scenarios from me but how they approached the situation would be totally up to them.

...like "clue," or what?

That's closer. It's a bit like clue but you're searching for a way into a website with anything you can get your hands on and 72 hours to do it. Probably a lot harder than clue.