It's Perdix

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How to steal a part of London

If you haven't already - go check out PART ONE and get excited about the prospect of web games again.  For the rest of you : read on.

I'm a Londoner, so, when I think of this new game I'm making, what I get excited about is the prospect of rubbing shoulders with Bill Sykes and Sherlock Holmes; Moriarty could be my adversary or my ally.  I could plot against Queen Victoria, or become as miserly as scrooge.  In this game, my knowledge of history will work for me; if I knew about the events on Cable Street - July 18th 1852 - then if I showed up at the right time I could experience those events.

But this game isn't going to be tied to London, or any location for that matter - it's powered by google maps, and so it's based wherever you are.  Want to take part in the american civil war?  Well, be in the right place at the right time and you will!  Did you enjoy Martin Scorsesee's 'Gangs of New York'?  Well, you'd better head to the five points if you want to join up with the Dead Rabbits...

London had a similar situation in what is now Seven Dials in Covent Garden - what used to be the location of a large slum - you may recognise it as the place that sinks into the sewage at the end of Oliver Twist.  So, how would I go about capturing Seven Dials and making it my own?

Well, first I'd have to go there.  There's a few great coffee places there, so even if I don't have my smartphone I can rock up with my laptop and point the browser to the game; it'll recognise my current location and center map to where I am.  If nobody has claimed the area, then I'll have the option to claim it myself - this can be done in several ways :

Brute Force If I already have some people willing to fight with me, then I could rock up and take the place by force - roughing up anyone who opposes me.  The local population might not appreciate this, though - particularly if I've developed a reputation as a brutal ruler as well as conqueror.

Buy it Out If I have a wad of cash, I could head to the Town Hall and buy the land that the buildings are on - this is a bit more sneaky, and will cost you a hefty sum - but at least half of the town won't hate you.

Run for Mayor So, you've done a few missions for the territory's residents; you've fought off a few thugs and you've found some missing children - they think you're the bees knees.  Now might be a good time to see if they'll just voluntarily vote for you to represent their needs and run their local community...

These are a few of the ways I've come up with so far - there will be more, and I want the player to be able to claim territory however they want so that they're not forced down one particular play-style.

Once claimed, an hour will pass to allow anyone to contest the claim - maybe the residents will rise up against you and fight for their land, maybe there'll be a rival bid for the land, or maybe another mayoral candidate will appear and you'll have to fight for the residents hearts and minds.  Each eventuality will have its own mini-game and its own challenges - this will not be the same problem with a different skin, but a series of unique, fun experiences.

If your claim succeeded - congrats!  The new territory is added to the map and labelled as yours for all to see.

And what about the buildings and people that came with it?  Well, they're going to need managing...

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Still cracking away on Victoria - the joys of queueing up HTML rendering events are the subjects of today’s video.

Oh, and btw, if any of you lot are illustrators - get in touch.  I’m gonna need some artists for this project.

Apologies for the audio - I forgot to connect my mic - and apologies for the messed-up colours; I’m trying to shift my colour-editing from after-effects to premiere and it’s taking some getting used-to...

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Playing with possible interactions for my in-development web-game (working title: Victoria).  I’m thinking of having people represented as collectable cards, but if each person (or ‘agent’) is going to have a history, a portrait, and a bunch of stats, then that’s a lot of information to store on one card.

The solution?  Don’t put it on one card!  The joy of working in a digital space is that you can play with the laws of physics a bit...

Pure CSS3 animations here, folks <3

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Where have all the Web-Games Gone?

In 2003 I was 13 years-old and leader of a local branch of the mafia.  On the side, I also maintained a small cavalry contingent for my liege - we started off small and insignificant but trained and later even overthrew our lord and started a kingdom of our own.  

I was a detective.  I was a knight.  I was a thief.

All without leaving the comfort of my browser.

I think it's safe to say that browser-based games were a staple of my childhood- not that I didn't play games that came on CD or that I didn't know how to torrent; it was just that it was so easy to share a link to the current game I was obsessing over, and then all my friends would be playing too; giving us something to talk about during our lunch-breaks.

I went back and played a few the other day and they really haven't changed all that much in the decade since I stopped playing them.  Why?  Was it because that this formula was the pinnacle of browser-based gaming?  Was it because this was the best that the browser could support?

Hell. No.

All grown up now - I'm a web developer, but my lust for gaming has not dissipated and now I'm working on a new browser-based game that will take full advantage of HTML5, CSS3, ES6, and all of the tasty features of the MEAN stack in a world of public APIs.  I'll be documenting its progress right here - plus putting some videos up on the ItsPerdix YouTube channel here if that's more your style.

But what is it?

This new game is an Empire-Management RPG set in the 1800s; you start the game as a nobody and, through making friends, allies, and followers, claim a part of the world for your own to look after and mould as you see fit.  Through HTML5 GeoLocation and the Google Maps API, you can claim the area around your current location (and all of the buildings and people in it) as part of your territory; if nobody contests you then it's all yours.

The Google Places API will calculate what buildings are in your territory - cafés, banks, shops etc - and what people occupy them based on their profession (ie. banker, security guard, cashier in a bank; chef, waiter, columnist in a restaurant), and add these to the territory.  Buildings will earn you money, and people can either be left to work, or to act as enforcers/soldiers in your new gang.

Why would you need soldiers?  Because you're not the only one playing.

Going to school and claiming the Science block?  Someone else who goes might want it too, and you're going to need to defend yourself.  Don't want to start a brawl in the streets?  Well, maybe you can make use of the not-so-trustworthy-looking characters you've recently gained and try a sneakier approach...

Want to train up some of your people?  Well, better log-in at the gym.   Want to give them an education?  They can be learning as you check-in at school. Want to pick up a pet for your avatar?  Head to a pet-store. Want to try and steal an ancient artefact?  Well, there's always that museum nearby...

What we're left with is a concoction of a game made up of influences from Swarm, Civilization, Europa Universalis, and Hearthstone.

Now.  What the fuck do we call it?

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Okay, so, here’s the reason behind my silence of late - I finally sunk my teeth into a project for reals, and it’s...well...it’s progressing quite nicely, thank you!  Here’s a quick introduction, but I’ve written out a series of more detailed posts, which I’ll queue up now and will submit periodically.

So, who likes browser games?

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What’s the most important currency there is?

Time.  Time is finite for all of us, and we spend most of it doing things we don’t want - what if there was a way to cut the time cost of the things we don’t want to do, and make more time for the stuff we do?

That’s where I come in...

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down but not out.

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Let’s Start on The Public Vote

Alrighty?

The circle turns, and we’re onto the public vote this week!  This is the one I’m probably the most excited about, because I love me some web technology.  If you’re into HTML5, Node.JS, CSS3, or just playing with some APIs with Javascript, then this will be a tasty treat for you.

Hell, even if you just dig politics then you’re going to dig this.

So, the public vote is a web-app that I’ll be making over the course of this YouTube series, where the general public will get to vote on bills passing through UK Parliament, and then compare that vote against the way that parliament actually voted.  In short : we’ll have a measurable figure to compare exactly just how representative our government actually is!

Plus I’m adding in another feature (that can be toggled on/off) which should even account for political apathy.  It’s all pretty fancy.  Watch the video, and all will be revealed.

And this week, we have a special offer of 200% more winks! God knows what that was about.  Must have been feeling twitchy this morning...

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Guess who forgot to post this here yesteday?  That’s right. Me.  Let’s look back on last week, shall we?

Oh, and want to know something cool?  This is also me testing out a feature where I get to be sneaky and connect with you peeps more than everyone else - because you’ll only be able to see this post on your dash.  The permalink page shouldn't render anything at all!  Don’t worry - I’ll end up using this for more interesting stuff than channel updates...

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Development Update

Hey peeps!

So, yesterday’s non-existent DD-MM-YYYY update finally showed up - sheesh, what a tardy prick, eh? 

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Channel Upload Schedule

Alrighty?

So, just to bring you tumblr folks up to speed, I've put together a schedule.  You can either 

1. Watch me talk about it here: Schedule

2. Take a peek on the blog here by hovering over the ‘today is...’ section. 3. Or take a peek at this wee picture I made up.  

Make sure to follow me on YouTube if you haven’t already - I'm planning on being hella regular with this...

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Retrospective Introduction

HELLO.

ItsPerdix is what I'm calling the collection of games and social software to reduce worldsuck that I’ll be spending the foreseeable future making.  I've introduced three projects so far: Equilibrium, The Public Vote, and Lawmaker.  You can watch me introduce each of them in the videos below: Equilibrium

The Public Vote

Lawmaker

If these sound like neat ideas, then feel free to follow me on YouTube, and if they sound really neat, then drop me a quid or two on Patreon - I’ll be releasing everything that I make for free, so the only way I'm going to be able to keep this going is with your support!

Be good, be sound, be safe, everyone.

Perdix out x

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Development Update

Hey peeps, and welcome to the first development update for Equilibrim!  For the majority of you that don’t follow me on YouTube, Equilbrium is a city-simulation game I’m making, in which you play as the hand-of-fate - trying to rescue its denizens through indirect means.

Basically, it’s the butterfly-effect in game form.  I talk about it in detail on my channel, so here’s a link to the introduction video.

So, today I livestreamed ~4hrs of development up on Twitch.  We’re going to be building this on Unity, so feel free to follow this blog for updates if you want to follow along.

Here’s how I got on :

Denizens navigate from point A to point B 

They walk faster on pavements

They stick to the pavements if it’s faster to do so

They avoid each other en route

If something unexpectedly blocks them en route then, as you can see, they are absolutely fucked:

This is where I’ve stopped for the day.  Until I can figure out how to get them to realise that this sodding great wall is in front of them, we’ve hit a roadblock (if you’ll excuse the pun).

If you have any idea why they’re doing this, then feel free to drop me a message here on tumblr, or be my saviour via email instead.

Until then, be good, be sound, be safe.

Perdix out!