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

The game "Cybernet" is a browser-based turn-based game with the recreation of the economy and the foundations of society. Its distinguishing 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 does not need to wait painfully long to recount the game situation. You just play when you have time to manage an agent.

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

And you can play here .

Success and failure of the project

One of the failures of the project is that I was left alone among the programmers - the rest simply disappeared :). True, the forum is supported not by me, but by one of the enthusiasts. But given the fact that I have some time for programming, this is not so scary.

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

But now I'm ready for an order of magnitude for more players. Further I will praise the game, although I understand that there are no friends on the taste and color. Therefore, give it a discount and express constructive criticism.

Game logic development

It’s already not so easy to write about the logic of the game in two paragraphs, so I suggest that you first read the documentation for the game . I’ll tell you about the strengths of the game, distinctive features that have no analogues.

Players can introduce new products and their manufacturing technology.

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

In the game "Cyberset" it seems to me that a revolutionary step has been taken - the player himself develops the technological lines. After that he quickly approves his innovations with a moderator (at the moment with me, but I hope someday there will be separate trusted players with special rights). After that, “the world is changing” - something that was difficult to do before, 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 carry out their actions asynchronously, but they still have equal starting opportunities

As you know, games are turn-based and in real time. Those that are turn-based 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 a whole day for the server to recount the game situation. And vice versa, if you are not present in the game, say a week (left for the Caribbean), then in the game you can easily go out of business.

It seems to me that here 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!) 6 game hours pass. And we achieve the asynchrony of the so-called "Bonus moves." Firstly, 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 has not indicated what action to perform in the scheduler, then it is considered that he simply skips the move. And if he missed 4 moves in a row, then he is given one bonus move, which he can use when he returns to the game.

Thus, the possibilities of the players are practically equalized - although of course the most diligent ones will be able to achieve more.

Players can enter additional agents and open companies

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

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

The only reason is that the quality of the product made by the agent depends on his skills, it makes sense to specialize the agent for a specific job, and buy the rest of the products on the market. But sometimes market interaction may not satisfy and you want to simultaneously manage the interaction of agents, and not interact with real, but often with fickle players. Then, interest in introducing additional agents may appear, but then they will have to be “torn”.

The opening of companies and employment contracts allows a slight improvement in the situation. Under an employment contract, any agent can be hired to do some work for the company. The company will provide raw materials, and the worker will produce some goods for the company 12 hours a day. But for a contract of a certain duration, the company will immediately pay a fee with a set of various goods. It is possible for players who do not want to trade in the market it makes sense to work for someone else's company (in the end, 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 artificial demand in the market. Yes, all economic models are somehow trying to portray consumer behavior. But this is a very artificial demand - like at a lower price they will buy more, and they will buy more of the best quality. Then interest arises to play in such games where there is a more interesting demand model. But with re-engineering, it becomes close to random, otherwise it is too primitive. Both that and another over 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 - only to other players. Therefore, a primitive gameplay - buy a more profitable product and collisions in the artificial market, it does not work here.

Yes, we came across that organizing a natural market is not easy. Especially without money, but by barter. In the natural market, the needs of agents drive supply and demand. The different specialization of agents here is of key importance. But calculating which product is better to produce and change to another is also not easy. Therefore, the game keeps production statistics and calculates intricate indices. All this should start the natural market.

Agents can be managed by bots.

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

And again, this is not possible in other games. Together with other features, the game becomes quite unique, but of course it will develop only with active players.

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