What the author smoked: add the old school to this crazy world of games

Hi, Habr. I will not repeat for the thousandth time that, as any of us always dreamed of writing a game. I am 37. I am a developer. Just the time to think. Arcade, simulator, RPG, shooter, web, desktop, mobile. It was not easy. At some point, I realized that I wanted to revive the direction of text quests, from which goosebumps ran in childhood. I want to share with you the game CMAN . This is a story about a developer who went to gemba for one day.

Under the cut you will find a description of the game, features, and also learn about prizes for top places.

CMAN - text quest about the developer in gemba

Short background about gemba

We often talk about our unique culture, part of which is gemba - an approach from the Japanese management practice of kaizen, where to make decisions it is necessary to come to the very place where the final product of the company is created. I will not tell you about the rest of the principles and values, read them in this post .

What does it mean? And what does the developer have to do with it? We believe that the developer should not be a screw performing tasks from above in the mechanism of a large system. It is important for us that everyone understands what value it brings to business, and therefore understand the business itself. Therefore, in our company, the idea of ​​gemba extends including to the IT team. So, if you are cutting a motivation system for a courier, you can go to any pizzeria and work as a courier to understand your user's pain. And then we smoothly move on to the idea of ​​the game.

CMAN idea

CMAN is an attempt to show the world our culture from the inside, to immerse everyone in the gemba world.

CMAN is a text quest about a developer who went to gemba for one day and became a courier in a pizzeria. Of course, the world is completely fictitious, so we decided not to limit ourselves to fantasy, which means that part of the quests to be completed is 18+.

At the beginning of the game, you need to choose one of four characters that differ in key characteristics (Strength, Charisma, Dexterity):

• Tramp . Able to do a bit of everything, but sometimes can not cope (Strength: 6. Dexterity: 6. Charisma: 6.)
• The athlete . It’s good to fight or lift something heavy with someone (Strength: 8. Dexterity: 4. Charisma: 6.)
• Handsome . Indispensable if you need to chat someone (Strength: 6. Dexterity: 4. Charisma: 8.)
• Sneaker . It drives perfectly, can go around traffic jams and keep up everywhere (Strength: 5. Dexterity: 8. Charisma: 5.)

The game consists of 3 rounds , after which you will see one of the 14 finals . In each round for the allotted time, it is necessary to manage to take all the orders taken around the city. For each delivered order you will receive money, and for each - a fine. Your goal is to earn as much money as possible. But remember, for every penalty, 5% will be deducted from the final account.

On the road, crazy situations and difficult choices are waiting for you, which are worth making based on the key characteristics of your character.

Other features

In addition to the main plot of the game, there are other mechanics:

• Rating players . Inside the game there is a rating among all players, which is formed on the basis of getting the maximum score for one game (i.e. 3 rounds). A place in the top ten ranking makes it possible to win prizes.
• PvP mode . This is a mode in which players fight among themselves and earn reputation points. But not so simple. To open it, you need to find a special item. There is also a boss in the game, which is quite difficult to defeat. In order to fight him in a duel you need to earn a lot of reputation in battles with other players.
• Game + (Game ++) . In the best traditions of recursion in CMAN, you will find the game inside the game, inside which there is a game +, inside which there is another game, and inside it is a game ++ and so on. The path to the game + opens the victory over the boss. The new game retains all the characteristics, and some can even be improved if you have previously done good deeds. Items and money in the game + can not be taken, you can carry only 2 items from those that you already have. In this game, you yourself will act as the boss.
• Karma . The game has a hidden characteristic - karma. For good deeds, it grows, and for bad deeds it decreases. Karma influences which version of the finale you get - good or not.
• Key items . In order not to reveal the whole intrigue, I will tell you only about one of the key objects of the game - a flasher. Steal it in the city hall building and drive along all roads without getting stuck in traffic jams. True, its use reduces karma, because at these moments everyone hates you.
• Cockroach Racing . In one of the storylines, you can at the closed night of the oligarchs and make bets on cockroach races. You can win big money (gaming, of course).
• Questions from other players . Want to “annoy” other players by making life harder for them? The game has a unique opportunity to make everyone answer your questions and thereby interfere with the quest.
• Communication with the HR . If you read our article about 250 , you probably remember that we decided to greatly expand the team. Therefore, we added communication with real HR from our team to the game. The player has a choice whether to write or not.

Also, the mechanics of achievements are sewn into the game. I will not reveal all the secrets, there are many more. Otherwise it will be uninteresting to play.

Prizes

Just yesterday, a two-week marathon started with prizes of varying severity.

Hardcore 1 degree

We are Dodo Pizza. It will be strange not to give pizza, right? We also thought so, so in the game you can find:

• a pizza promotional code as a gift for another pizza;
• promotional codes for the dodster as a gift upon delivery;
• 10 free pizzas for the top 10 players by the end of the marathon.

Hardcore 2 degrees

We have prepared prizes for the top ten players with a maximum rating by April 7, 23:59 . Each player from 10th to 4th place will receive a HUBSAN H001 NANO Q4 SE mini quadrocopter as a gift. Cool thing to fly in the office or at home.

3 degree hardcore

The players who won the first three places will have a difficult choice ...

Fulfill the dream:

- fill a tattoo in any studio in your city;
- jump with a parachute;
- get enough sleep in floating!

Or pick up a prize

- 2 tickets to any konfu Oleg Bunin until the end of 2019;
- smart robot Ozobot Evo;
- Das Keyboard Keyboard.

The principle is this: the player who won the first place selects the gift first, then the player chooses the second place and further.

Play CMAN

Once again, I share with you a link to the game . I will be glad to any comments. We also created a chat game where you can chat, and on April 8th we will announce the winners there.

PS There is an idea to write a series of articles - to tell the story of the creation of the lore (the game scenario takes more than 300 pages), to describe the implementation from a technical point of view. I suggest you vote on this topic.