Games in SL - What's fun?

Where is Haney asking about money trees? I wanna read that thread.

Oh, of course, Bump 'n Run! How could I forget. However, didn't that have some sort of scripting? I seem to remember the maze pieces having some sort of push script.

I sucked at that game.

*sore loser*

Eggy, LindenBall was a game that the Lindens invented. It was kind of like football (not American football). You had to run into the ball to gain control of it. Anyone couild bump into you, and they would then have control. You could click and throw it, either into a goal, or at another player. If no one caught it, it'd fall and anyone could run into it and have control of it. There were things around the field to make it more fun -- like a "pad" on the floor that made you run faster.

/me runs off to script Calvinball and then realizes that scripts are not sufficiently mutable to capture the subtlties of the game.

kickball

I have to wonder if by "first game" Haney means that crappy old beach ball everyone has... I suppose you could play a few ball games with it, or just toss it around, no scripting required

As my illustrious partner Hiro has already posted a full on SIM Combat ad, I'll do a thinly veiled ad pretending to be an interview!

Do you think that games will play a bigger role in SL's future?

Yes, especially when people start experimenting with fresh game ideas rather than trying to emulate established genres. I can understand why people are building FPSs and MMOs as they're fun and people want to know whether they can be done in SL, but, ultimately, there will always be better places to get your FPS and MMO kicks.

Where SL can excel is as a melting pot for new, experimental game ideas. It takes very little time to knock up a little game idea in LSL and you get networking, graphics, physics and an enthusiastic audience for free. People should be playing around with game ideas rather than struggling to produce mountains of content for an FPS or MMO. That's what we're trying to do with SIM Combat, it's a simple game without piles of content, but has lots of depth, is trying out new game design ideas and has received lots of great feedback.

What's in the way of seeing more people playing games?

In my experience the inability to build good interfaces. SIM Combat is quite a simple game, but with lots of depth. Despite its simplicity, its still difficult to make the game clear when IM, chat and dialogs are the only interface options. Quite a few people miss the depth and just think it's a game of chance and I think this has a lot to do with the interface. If innovative games and to prosper, they need to be able to define clear interfaces as they can't rely on people's past experiences with similar games.

Why aren't there more games that cost money to play.

People seem happy to buy objects, but not experiences. We've got round this by selling SIM Combat weapons rather than charging entrance money. People are happy to buy an object they can take home and we're happy as we get some money for the game.

Do we need a separate forum thread for games?

Yes please!

Just in case I haven't made myself clear: come and play SIM Combat!

SIM Combat is an innovative multi-player Melee combat game which emphasises Strategy and Interaction over twitch reflexes or character statistics.

SIM Combat sword fights can be played at the The Kill Club in Europa (106, 160) and The Snake Pit in Westport (17,22) at any time. Free weapons are available, so you can try the game for free.

I dunno.. I think there are quite a few games in SL already and there will be a lot more.

As for paying for games, I'd imagine most people don't want to pay to play a game each time. With some noteable exceptions which I'll get to in a sec...

A one-time payment for a copy of a simple game that you can play as often as you like I think is bearable in the SL market. Like if someone built a need board or puzzle game that you could play alone or with friends and was pretty much automated to run by itself.

As for pay to play, I think it's quite feasible actually. In the context of a tournament of course. Say someone develops a game -- anyone can pick it up and play on their own as much as they want for free. However, they can also pay a tournament fee to play in official tournaments that offer a nice purse for winning.

There's probably more room for innovation than we think -- we just have to get around the RL gaming stigmas and see what's possible in SL itself.

Cheers.

Darklife and Yahtzee!

Neo-Realms provides one of the best games (IMO) in SL. You earn xp points with every successful catch to raise the level of your fishing rod. You can earn reward points to redeem for prizes. Also about 2 to 3 times a week there are fishing tourneys, if you place in the top 3, you will win L$ and a primapon. What's a primapon? hehe go to Neo-Realms to find out. If you win first place you get a fishing trophy. Also, seperate cash prize for Best Catch.

There are over 30+ different prim fish you can catch and you get to keep them. I can't say enough about this game but it is very addicting and has a few more features than I have mentioned.

Huggerz,
MJ

I suppose I'd be slacking if I didnt mention BZ WATERPOLO, and subtly remind everyone that our league games are starting soon, and if anyone is interested in playing in the league or sponsoring a team that they should get in contact with me In-World, or just show up at BZ Beach (located in Lie) on Feb 9th at 9pm (earlier or later is ok if time is an issue).

Players will be paid to play in the league, win or lose (more if you win).

I love playing games in SL. Two of my favorite right now are Boggle and 4 in a Row. The creators did a great job bringing these two games over. I would love to see more thinking games such as these.

One game I wish we could have here, and I'm sure some clever scriptist could do it, would be some variation of Scrabble.

Oh, if anyone's interested, check the events for some Boggle and Connect 4, ahem, I mean 4 in a row tournaments.

I wonder if it's anything like Calvinball?

Here's a free hint.
You want more games in SL.
We want to code them.
You know one heck of a lot more than we do about SL's capabilities.
Put up some game ideas with a few pointers on how best to develop them, and we'll take care of the rest.

I did a SLoccer game at one point... perhaps I should put it out again. Basically, it was 400 meters high in the sky, so everyone could fly, but be on a level surface. It featured a physics enabled sphere as a ball which was 2 meters in diameter. Two teams of three of four each would fly around trying to get a ball into the hole at the ends of the field.

Silly fun!

-Flip

DarkLife! Medieval RPG for Secondlife


DarkLife is a roleplaying game built right into the world of Second Life. Players buy a backpack which holds the game code and then using weapons, armor, potions and magic they fight monsters, form teams and level up.

Speaking of games, sorry if this goes off topic, but has anyone ever tried reviewing any of them?

I mean non-biased reviews. I enjoy a good time as much as the next person and it would be nice to see a list out there somewhere that’s pretty easy to find to let you know if its worth doing or not.

*starts thinking if this is something he's going to just end up doing later when he gets too bored for his own good*

Brainiac Pong.

It's a giant-sized game of Pong. It's fantastic.

Go look at it in Brainiac HQ in Afton (you have to sit-teleport to it from the ground).

You can't miss the HQ, it's the big blue and purple and various other colored build in the sim made by someone with no texturing skills (I jest...he knows he has no texturing skills and I like to tease him about it.

This same person has also run games of Assasin, built a battlebot-like system and is working on more cool stuff.

The Vorago still lives, first and oldest hud/weapons system in the game. People seem to like it. Everybody says do events but I just don't have the time.

Terrain is still in my inventory. I just need land to put it out. People who have played this LOVE it but I just can't leave it out for any length of time.

And that btw is one of the biggest problems with game dev (aside from slow link messages and ghosting...)

Land. Sandboxes are good for working out isolated bugs, but not for large scale dev. You need dedicated space, and if you already own land, that can get expensive. SL is fun but I can't put the time in to market and manage to recoup the land fees. Basically I have time to dev and that's it. You can't just dev and go in SL, you have to engage people, set up events, figure out financing, market, and all the rest of it. I do all that in RL and find duplicating it in SL tedious.

Money requires a layer of additional effort. I used to charge for the Vorago, and made some money doing it. and my old Blackjack and HiLow machines did well, but meh I dunno overall I just don't like the whole notion of money and SL. It's a motivator but not one that appeals to me in my game life. I think most purely creative or driven sorts probably only deal with money as a necessary evil in RL; if they didn't have to they wouldn't, and since I don't have to in SL...I don't.

There is no such thing as a non-biased review
I've got a couple of SL game reviews up on Clickable Culture.
- Route 66 Demolition Derby (this one's from last May)
- Tringo

Also there is a recent review of SimCast at the Second Life Herald and a bunch of reviews for various old, new, and upcoming games at New World Notes.

we've been looking for someone to review in game games for the Second Life Herald and keep track of their develpment progress, but but good help is so hard to find... Especially a person that would do it for Lindens.

I've got way too much freetime on my hands, I could probebly do it. Wanta discuss it on SL sometime?

It's a pleasure to be working with Doc on SIM Combat.

I suppose I should answer these questions as well from my perspective, from my days with the Game Dev competition

Do you think that games will play a bigger role in SL's future?
Oh, absolutely. Just as we see Flash / Shockwave games littering the 'Net, this is just another genre that people will love to play around with. The fact that it has 3-D and physics makes what's possible much greater.

What's in the way of seeing more people playing games?
I think there's some critical hurdles in the SL architecture and performance to deal with. Better variable passing is a must. Less laggy physics is a must. 2-D Text objects / texturing is a must. Better keyboard controls is a must.

When something is popular, though, it spreads like a virus. *grins* Look at how many Mah Jong or Bingo boards litter SL... or gambling even. People are dying for games and so I think it's a matter of getting out reliable games.

The other issue is repeat playability. For example, current swordfighting systems are basically random, due to lag and difficulty of use. Sure, they're fun a few times, but to have something that can be played over and over, it needs to be both reliable and with the possibility for variety and expansion.

Why aren't there more games that cost money to play.
I personally don't know why. I think the way to go is to start with shareware, and as versions get big, to charge for them.

Perhaps part of it - many of us developers are happy to see our products enjoyed without charging. Although, I can say I have enjoyed using my revenues from katanas and Colt .45's on new computer parts and my monthly land fee.

So, the future?
I think the key is going to have to be doing proof-of-concept stuff, getting support, and bringing it forward in increments. That's how I've made my products, and that has brought me a reasonable amount of success.

That's how we're taking SIM Combat into fruition - we have a basic version that we feel will be a very robust base to allow us to do a great number of things. We foresee different versions, spinoffs, and more features on the current system. These can be implemented relatively fast, all the while people can still play the game.

--------- Gratuitious plug ------------

SIM Combat is an innovative multi-player Melee combat game which emphasises Strategy and Interaction over twitch reflexes or character statistics.

SIM Combat sword fights can be played at the The Kill Club in Europa (106, 160) and The Snake Pit in Westport (17,22) at any time. Free weapons are available, so you can try the game for free.

I know I'm late for the discussion but...

I'm always willing to give someone Castle Siege as long as they have enough land to host it.

Games, Games, Games!

Games are a great part of SL. And frankly, I wish I knew where all of them where and had a good list of them to go and try. Of course, pulling up popular places or searching for 'em just shows clubs and casinos

I would LOVE someone to make a page dedicated to SL interactive content and games.. and in there list them, review them, etc etc. It could be a wiki so folks can make sure the entries are up to date.

Lindens, sort it out!

As for types of games I think the variety is wonderful. Classic clones of PC games will always exist, and are a nice 'friendly' kind of game for people to try as they know what to expect and need little instruction, and strange, fringe and original games are also fantastic in SL because of the relatively short dev time and immediate feedback from players that you can get.

Games keep me playing