Web ?Text? Based Game

[AnderRoo]

Hello, I'm looking for suggestions to go toward a game I plan on working on as a small hobby, I was thinking a genre close to a game I used to play years ago called "furry-paws" or a more widely known example such as mafia wars. Any suggestions will help, thanks in advance.

[Xaos]

If you're going to do a mafia style game, know that there are thousands of other mafia style games out there.

[AnderRoo]

If you're going to do a mafia style game, know that there are thousands of other mafia style games out there.

I don't plan on making a mafia style game, that was just an example for the genre I was aiming for.

[hallsofvallhalla]

There are also a thousand WOW games, Sci-fi games, tower defense, fantasy, alien, ect.. yet there can never be enough. Never base your game on the market, base it on what you want to build.

[AnderRoo]

There are also a thousand WOW games, Sci-fi games, tower defense, fantasy, alien, ect.. yet there can never be enough. Never base your game on the market, base it on what you want to build.

Although I agree with you, I do plan on making the game unique, we'll, unique in its own way sine there will always be similarities out there. I'm just looking for ideas to help start up the game.

[Jackolantern]

It depends on what type of mafia type game you are referring to. Some are essentially all server-side code, and are played-out through an interface that can exactly be called a website. These are almost always made with just PHP (although a bit of Javascript is rapidly becoming pretty much a requirement). Then there are some mafia and other type of browser games which are going further with the client-side code. These games often have interactive maps, real-time combat between players, and more animations in the browser. In that case, I would say to probably focus more on making a mostly single-page-app (or "SPA") with Node.js as the back-end, as node makes real-time features ridiculously easy, something PHP can't easily do. If your design converges closer to a traditional game, where there are tons of animations, character avatars moving around on the screen, etc., then you will probably want to go with an actual HTML5 engine, such as ImpactJS and work with Node.js on the server-side. Halls made a video tutorial series on this exact type of setup, but you would only want to go that way if your game fits the design style I mentioned above. Otherwise, Impact will add unnecessary complication.

I know that is a lot of info. My best suggestion is think up the kind of game you want to make, and then find the technology that will start you the closest for where you want to go. Otherwise, if you consider your technology choices first, they will begin to dictate your game design.