The test game is over, as of a few weeks ago.
We made it through 5 turns. After which I started to get burnt out running the game (I wasn't able to keep thinking up new and interesting events for the countries, and kind of just went with the flow), and about half the players had greatly decreased their activity. So the game kind of petered out.
Nevertheless, 5 turns was still 4 more than the 1 turn we made it through a few years ago when we tried playing by email. So the web app does seem to be a viable medium for playing worldsim, but it still takes players who are interested and a Game Master who can continuously make the game interesting.
When I started I didn't think too far ahead into the timeline, but in retrospect, I think I should have had some canned scenarios pre-thought-up for each country to bust out if a turn happened to be otherwise uneventful for them.
So in conclusion, the web app approach works, but make sure the Game Master is well prepared and has sufficient free time to manage the game, and that the players also stay active and involved, and you'll be well on your way to an interesting new international timeline.
The source code for the app can be found at:
https://bitbucket.org/seanrjohnson/worldsim
I've been meaning to include a few more admin tools to make setting up a turn easier for the Game Master. Also, I need to write a tutorial on how to even enter turn data (you can figure it out by looking at the parser code, but there should definitely be a tutorial so you don't have to...). Honestly though, until/unless I or someone else actually makes plans to run a game, I probably won't find time for these things, so if you want to run a game, let me know and I'll do what I can to make it as easy as possible for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment