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Game Development.XCP Coins?

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CrimsonRoze

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Location: Göteborg, Sweden

Hi everyone. I'm a project leader/programmer by trade and as a hobby I have over the years made a bunch of game and game concepts and I'm now pondering the ideas of cryptocurrencies in relation to gaming.

Before I go further I'd like to blatantly link to random stuff I've done in the past:

Tactical Rogue: http://monsterbitar.se/~jonas/tactical_rogue.png Rogue Online: http://rogue-online.net/ Random Testing: http://monsterbitar.se/~jonas/SnakeJS3/snake.php (try pressing numbers 1-5) Universal Fighting System Card Database: http://search.ufs-cards.com

The projects listed above are all rather old and were made as a hobby while I was trying to get a job. I've since gotten a job and spent six years as a full-time programmer and project leader which sadly has put the game creation aspirations in the back seat. Furthermore I've grown up and had my first child which in turn makes me somewhat dependent on the job I have.

And here's where the cryptocurrencies come into play. I'm thinking of making a counterparty token for a new webbased game project that accepts bitcoin as payment for in-game stuff and automatically pays out the profit to those who hold the token. I would then use this token in several ways.

Partly I'd sell some of them like NICEPLUM, just to anyone who's interested in funding the start of the project. I'd also allocate some to various part of development that I feel might need external expertise, such as artwork and music.

I know that most artist shy away the moment they hear things like "You can get a share of the profits" but given that the cryptocurrency community is relatively small, and my extensive background in programming and game design as well as the fact that I would post a rather lengthy and explanatory game definition before starting any tokens I am hoping that there is artists who would like to help build the cryptocurrency economy, even if it means spending time on something that may or may not be fruitful in the end.

This entire idea, is merely a draft. If you fellas here know something I don't or have suggestions I'm eager to listen.

Posted on July 6, 2014 at 10:23 PM
Last Edited: July 6, 2014 at 10:25 PM

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• adam

  

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  Location: California, USA

  Hey man, Can you tell me what kind of game you plan to make? I have been interested in something like this for quite some time, but IMO the most important part is the game itself. People have started looking at freemium or f2p games as just vehicles for wasting time and generating play to win sales.

  I think if you paired an inventive indie type game with this model you would blow up like a rocket.

  Posted on July 7, 2014 at 7:45 AM
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• CrimsonRoze

  

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  The purpose of games is allowing one to get experience in a field of life that is either impossible, impractical or immoral otherwise. I'm not a fan of the pay2win game setups that's seems abundantly common in todays world and in the best case scenario payment should be for content provided.

  Unfortunately the gaming business as it is today is not very friendly to newcomers and sets very high bars in terms of the overall quality, most importantly from an artwork perspective.

  To answer you question about what game I'm interested in making I can only say that I very much enjoy playing roguelikes and puzzle games myself, and I need a good investment/reward mechanism that allows strategies that is not immidiatly obvious. (Invest in a strategy at one point in time, take time and effort to build the strategy, then get the rewards for executing it.)

  Two ideas that I have thought about recently I've documented drafts for but there's no crypto related to those ideas as of now: http://monsterbitar.se/~pernilla/games/concept/

  The only restriction I feel is valid when it comes to what games I'm willing to develop is that I personally need to be able to enjoy the game and that the game works well in the context of the web.

  Posted on July 7, 2014 at 8:53 AM
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• CrimsonRoze

  

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  I'm not sure if the concept documention is particulary useful to all who reads it so I'll try and sum up the two ideas in a way that relates to other games already available:

  Social Game is an expressive social game focused around community building and exploration, think MapleStory meets Lolo for the NES.

  The Expending World game is a an open-ended roguelike with community and structure buildings where combat has a focus on strategical management, rather than brute force. If you walk around in a big clunky metal suit and make alot of noise, you'll pull alot of aggro and you'll really need a good metal suit. If you walk around with only soft clothes coloured like forest and smelling like forest etc, then you could fight fewer enemies at a time.

  Also, a recurring theme in pretty much all gamedesign I've been thinking of late is that experience should not come from battle. it should always come from playing differently compared the characters history. (Repetetive grinding = less rewarding, Innovative/odd/wierd grinding = more rewarding).

  Posted on July 7, 2014 at 9:01 AM
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• adam

  

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  with outlets like http://humblebundle.com indieroyale.com steam greenlight, etc. I think you should take another look at the market :) This is an excellent time to build a small, focused, original game and get it out there.

  Lets talk about a specific usecase - A singleplayer procedurally generated roguelike.

  Off the top of my head, the token could be used in a multiplayer auction house. If the drops are random and items randomly generated, this should work.

  A more complicated implementation might attempt to make the "gold" or whatever that people find in-game is actually the same, and of a limited deflationary supply. This would require having games "claim their potential gold" when it starts up, what the player finds during the game they earn and what they don't is never sent to them.

  The concern would be that you would have a busy day after a few weeks and it would blow the numbers out of the water, resulting in each person getting less gold or the earlier people getting more gold and later people getting none (because you ran out, expecting fewer people)

  Level 1 could have a 1x multiplier for the gold found, 2 a 2x and so on.

  Posted on July 7, 2014 at 9:57 AM
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• CrimsonRoze

  

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  I am definately interested in having a token with a limited supply as the default in-game currency, even if only to see the interesting marketplaces for virtual time and items that would arise. I've already been down that rabbit hole when planning ideas like dynamical quest generation based on resource scarcity: Take for example a simple game which has wood, stone, iron and gold and you have a blacksmith selling basic items to the players. If this blacksmith has a current supply of the resources he uses to create the items players can buy, and only creates new items if his current items get sold, then he can in theory end up in a situation where his own resources gets depleted and he would then generate a quest to gather the resources he needs to create new items that re-stock the store.

  For the multiplayer auction house in a single-player roguelike I can see that it would work, but I don't think I would find it enjoyable personally. Mostly because you'd alienate other players and discard valuable social interactions by reducing them to "providers or random goods".

  Posted on July 7, 2014 at 11:58 AM
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• CrimsonRoze

  

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  One of the ideas I'm very fond of is a more realistic approach to "jobs", where the character, when logging out, uses his time to earn in-game money, thus incentivizing people to spend some time offline every now and then. If you assume this to be the main method of creating a token-supply and balance it so that it has a declining return based on amount of time spent offline per calendar day or other time frame then you would have the basis for casual gameplay.

  If one wants intense gameplay, that theory does not hold up, however.

  Posted on July 7, 2014 at 12:01 PM
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• sockman

  

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  I think placing diminishing returns on the effectiveness of non-casual gameplay is only relevant where the advantages some players get from sinking so much time into the game runs the risk of alienating the casual playerbase.

  Posted on July 11, 2014 at 9:36 PM
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• NexxusDrako

  

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  Location: Healesville, Australia

  Looking at this thread makes me very interested in the idea for this type game, and if it ever got to say, crypto-crowdfunding. I would put some BTC in, albeit probably only 0.005 or so, as I have little BTC to work with.

  Still, this is an interesting idea, and I would love to play a game like this.

  Posted on September 20, 2014 at 9:56 PM
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