I'm currently making an online browser game with my friend. He's pretty good at programming, but there's still a lot of work to be done on the game and he has a lot of stuff on his plate (we're both in college). I was wondering if there's anyone who'd be interested in working with us.
So anyways, about the game:
It’s a browser based automatic turn-based strategy game with some RPG elements. In this game, players play as a "tactician" and manage multiple characters (each levels and changes classes individually), put them into formations, and battle them. It’s coded in PHP/MySQL, but battle will use C++. If you've heard of MyBrute, it's kind of like that but slightly more brain intensive and customizable.
Players play as a tactician that manages characters. These characters can be arranged into a 3x4 formation (with max of 7 characters) and fight other players. Characters level up and change classes independent of each other (there are a total of 123 classes). As characters change classes, they gain abilities that affect their neighbors; some classes may help their allies become stronger; others may be incredibly strong individually but detract from their allies. Characters only have 2 equipment slots, weapon and armor, but it's like this to prevent players from becoming too confused, since they'll be managing lots and lots of characters.
Here is some sample art I have for the basic classes:+ Show Spoiler +
If you're interested in the class trees, here they are. Characters start as Novices and can change into either a Swordsman, Trainee, or Spellcaster. The parenthesized numbers next to the name of the class denote the required level.
+ Show Spoiler +
If you'd like to take a look at what and how each class affects its neighbors, here's a spreadsheet of all the classes and their effects.
+ Show Spoiler +
To show what location the effects are present, I used a number system.
1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9
5 is the character, 2 would be directly in front of the character, and 8 would be directly behind the character.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2020953/iggly/class stats.xlsx
P.S. If you're interested in numbers, the second sheet of the spreadsheet shows some simple statistics on how each class fares stats-wise
1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9
5 is the character, 2 would be directly in front of the character, and 8 would be directly behind the character.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2020953/iggly/class stats.xlsx
P.S. If you're interested in numbers, the second sheet of the spreadsheet shows some simple statistics on how each class fares stats-wise
Also, some interesting example classes:
* Tyrant class:
Effect: -10% STR/INT/VIT to characters around it.
Character concept: The Tyant falls under the "selfish" archtype. It decreases the stats of those around it, but has above average attack while having no apparent weakness.
* Marauder class:
Effect: +2 strikes and +4 speed to the Marauder and those to either side of him for 1st 2 rounds of battle.
Character concept: The buffs the Marauder provides allows his neighbors to strike first and more often, but only at the beginning of each battle. The Marauder also has relatively high attack but low defense, essentially making him a glass cannon.
* Sorcerer class:
Effect: +60% Physical Defense to the character in front of the sorcerer and -50% Physical Defense behind the sorcerer.
Character concept: The Sorcerer gives defense to the characters in front of it while taking away defense to those behind it, which shows its mixing tendency. Players can take advantage of these effects by putting classes with very high physical defense in front of the sorcerer while putting classes that wouldn't really need physical defense anyways behind him.
The game currently is structured around simply fighting other players; in the future, I hope to implement several things: A "Player Versus Monster/Computer" function, Guilds for players to group up in, and territories for guilds to fight over. I've thought up of a good way for the latter two, but they're currently not being pursued since the basics of the game need to be programmed. Battle is fully automated for simplicity, so the structure of formations is extremely important.
Some other random things in the game:
* Characters have a specific affinity for an element. We are using the Chinese 5-element system (Water, Fire, Wood, Steel, Earth). Characters can deal extra or less damage based on its and its target's element; the affinity also gives small bonuses to make the character more "aligned" to that element, i.e. Fire affinity characters get +5% Attack and +1 speed.
* There are two ways to upgrade weapons: Refining and Imbuing. Refining adds simple stats (such as more attack for weapons and more defense for armor) while Imbues add special effects that have a range to keep players trying to get the "best" stats. This kinda unintentionally became similar to Diablo 2's crafting system, but since we don't have drop rates due to lack of PvM, it just costs money. Example: Acedia (Weapon Imbue): -80-40% Damage, +1-3 Strikes, +25-65 Critical, -10-20% Vit
This imbue seems to be pretty bad at first, but when applied to weapons with few strikes, the damage of the weapon could potentially double.
So yea, I'm looking for anyone who's interested enough in the game and wants to work on it with us.
At the moment, the following things need work. (Parentheses denote estimated hours needed by my friend)
* finish formations (10)
* rankings (10)
* battle system (20)
* finish battle code (40-60) [We mainly need help on this; it's just calculating damage]
* forums (5)
* users (registration, support, email) (20)
* fix placeholder layout (5)
If you feel anything is confusing about the game feel free to ask me questions, I'll do my best to clear up confusion. I left out some things (namely damage types, stats, substats, effects, and how battle progresses) which I feel aren't as relevant at the moment, but I'll be happy to talk about these if you're interested.
Thanks for reading!