Prior to its going I had started on two new projects based on original IP. They were on the back burner for the last couple of months while I worked on improving the games I already had. The huge hole in the site left by Blue Max has motivated me to attack these projects with new vigor.

Because these games are original one of the hurdles has been their lack of existing rules. Having complete and tested rules makes the process of writing code possible. I was going to say ‘easier’ there but really, without finalised rules coding is not just harder, it is impossible.

Rules on paper are much easier to tweak and change than rules tied up in code. One of my first priorities has been to come up with complete sets of rules that can be play tested with bits of cardboard, stand-in models, pens and paper. At the same time I know that eventually these games will be online so I can make rules that work for that medium from the outset.

So let me introduce the games

Momentum

Momentum is a game of fleet combat in space. Movement follows Newtonian physics (but not in an incredibly strict way) and players will have to balance how their ships divide their resources between thrust, weapons and shields.

The first draft of the rules is complete. All I have left to do is commit the ship designs to a form I can distribute. I am keen to get some play testing done, so if you think you are up for it drop me a line.

Juggernauts

Juggernauts is a game of giant mecha combat in a steampunk setting. Set in an alternate history where the War of the Worlds was not a fiction, the nations of Europe have taken inspiration, if not the technology, from the Martian tripods and built their own walking, fighting machines.

A friend and I developed Juggernauts as war game over a decade ago. Now I am updating them to be played on a hex grid with simultaneous movement. It seems to work well as one of the features of the game has always been that these massive machines are ponderous and difficult to manage.

A big advantage with this game is that it is a collaboration so there is someone to play-test with and in this case Marc, my partner in crime, is an excellent artist who can help with collateral for the game. The disadvantage is that it is a collaboration so for anything to happen we both have to find time in our hectic lives, and have that time mesh.

I thought I had an understanding with Phil from February 2010 that I could proceed developing an online version of his game.

Phil did not in fact give me his permission.

It took over a year for me to learn I had got it completely wrong.

Blue Max is no longer available on Hexcell Games.

A Little History

I started developing my version of Blue Max in late 2009. It got a quiet public release in late December of that year, only after I had unsuccessfully tried to contact Phil Hall by email. I always acknowledged that this was not my design and credited Phil in the about pages and provided a link to the Canvas Eagles site.

In February 2010 Phil contacted me through the site. It turns out that I had the wrong email address when I had tried to contact him previously. I explained my position and he explained that the YouPlay.it website had sole permission to do an online version of Blue Max and he would only let me go ahead if YouPlay.it were OK with it. In a follow-up email he informed me that he had spoken to YouPlay.it and they were fine with it. In his own words “I have no objections, so best of luck with it.”

Five hours later Phil sent me another email. He had legal advice that in order to protect his copyright he needed to stop more copies of Blue Max appearing online. So he asked me not to put it online.

Now here is the thing: I did not get this second email.

I only know of it and its timing because Phil forwarded me a copy of  the email replete with timestamp. Had I received it back then Hexcell’s version of Blue Max would have stopped development there and then. As it was both Phil and I left the discussion with completely different understandings about what would happen next.

More Recent History

On April 12 2011 I received an email from one of the site users informing me that my use of Blue Max was “illegal”. This was totally unexpected. I replied I had permission from Phil Hall to use Blue Max and asked him where he got the idea.

Shortly thereafter another user posted in the Hexcell Games forums a partial copy of a YouPlay.it forum post made by Phil. I went to YouPlay.it where I found several more posts by Phil.

This was the first I had heard of Phil not giving his permission to me to use Blue Max. I immediately emailed him to see if this was indeed true. He replied that it was, including a copy of the email I did not receive back in February 2010.

I removed Blue Max from the Hexcell site, even before I had written an extremely apologetic email to Phil.

You expect me to believe this?

Right, so you just happened to get the “Go” email and not the “Stop” email? That seems extremely convenient, don’t you think?

It does. And I have no excuse or explanation for how it happened other than: That’s how it happened.

I would understand if you think I am a jerk. Trust me – I feel like a jerk right now. In hindsight I can see that I did everything above board – seeking permission at the beginning, continuing on under the impression I had it and immediately pulling the game when I learned that I didn’t. But that does not stop the sickening feeling at the thought that somewhere, out there on the Internet, are people who now think I am a jerk. Or that Phil Hall, designer of a game I love, now thinks I am a jerk.

The Future

Blue Max is gone from the Hexcell site. Perhaps some time in the future Phil in his magnanimity might allow me to resurrect it. If he doesn’t I begrudge him nothing. Its his IP and he needs to defend it.

I am going to take a break from Hexcell Games for a while. Think about the lessons I have learned and the direction I want to take it. There will eventually be new games of my own design on the site. It is extremely doubtful any of them will feature WWI aerial combat.

Begin the commiserations and/or trolling now.

It is enjoyable if extremely light fare. It is the standard motley-group-of-cocky-newcomers-bond-and-come-good story with the Hollywood mandated love story layered on the top.

The flying sequences are gorgeous.

All the German planes shown in the film are red Fokker Dr.1s except for the really evil and unsporting German pilot who flies a black Fokker Dr.1. In the DVD extras the producers are quite upfront about their sacrificing historical accuracy to make an accessible film.

Bullets are accompanied by a black contrails of smoke to make obvious who is shooting at who, and just how close Jame Franco got to being shot. In a WW2 movie tracer fire fulfills that role, but here the movie makers had to come up with some other conceit. It does not really detract from the flying sequences, until it occurs to you that it just ain’t right, then you cannot help but notice it every time planes exchange fire. (I probably should not have mentioned it then, sorry.)

Overall: 6/10 – Enjoyable eye candy
Story: 5/10 – Inoffensive
Flying sequences: 7/10 – Great, except for bullet contrails…
Historical accuracy: 3/10 – There was a Lafayette Escadrille. Americans flew in it. They had lions for mascots.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. Following one of these links and making a purchase may result in me being compensated. You have been warned.

I have seen a lot of comments on the site being slow. Until recently I took this just to mean the site was slow processing turns. Sometimes it can be, and I am looking into that, but I now understand that is only one facet of the “slow” perception.

Most of the concerns is about players being slow to submit moves and game turns subsequently taking a long time. This is harder to address than code performance – I have to improve the performance of the players. So I have come up with a list of things to improve it.

Better “Next Game” function. Personally I use the “next game” link in the top right of of the game screen to go through all my games. I do not know how widely it is used – please tell me if you use it. The problem is it does not actually show you all your games – it misses out games that are waiting for you to make starting position selection. I believe it is the reason why otherwise active players neglect to start games. That link will be changed so you can actually see all your games in a smart manner – more than just listing all your games it has to show you which ones need attention.

Reduce the time it takes for a player to be marked inactive. Currently users get a warning after seven days of inactivity and are marked inactive after ten. Only when a user is marked inactive can they be replaced in a game. This now seems too long. Its long enough that while waiting for one inactive player in a game the other players can lose interest and become inactive themselves. I am also playing in at least one game where the other player is obviously using the warning emails as their weekly reminder to submit moves, making the game proceed at a week a turn.

I plan to reduce the time for a player to be marked inactive to three days with a 24 hour warning. That should be a better period for games to be idle before they are offered for pickup. At the same time I will give users a holiday option – it will allow them to extend the time they can be inactive on a one off basis. Holiday mode will be cancelled as soon as they next log in.

Add turn by turn email reminders to games. Deduce or Die! has this option already and it seems to work quite well. My games of DoD are moving faster than my games of Blue Max. In Blue Max I will add a per user per game option to be emailed when a new turn starts. Initially I will just do this for Campaign games as I have the records to attach the settings to, but I will look at extending it to stand alone games as well.

Give users more opportunities to get pilot berths. Blue Max campaigns are supposed to be special  - that was the idea behind putting a condition (pilot berths) on entering them. It was never about making money. Unfortunately the system has been too restrictive and users are cannot join the campaigns they want. Pilot berths are staying, but I am looking to introduce new ways to earn them, specifically by completing a certain number of stand alone games. Inviting new players to join the site might also give you pilot berths. Basically anything that shows you are an interested and active player should allow you to get into more campaigns.

Marketing for more players. The more players that are on the site the more responsive it should be. The more players submitting moves should mean that for any one player there will be more gaming to do in any one visit and the more games will be advanced.

The big stopping point for advertising is that the working budget for the site is $0, an amount that is exceeded on a monthly basis by the hosting costs.  I am considering a Board Game Geek, Facebook or AdWords campaign despite the costs. Better both economically and effectively would be for the players to promote the site to their friends, in their blogs and on their websites. If you like playing on the site please tell everyone you know who might also be interested.

New games on the back burner. While I am implementing all this I am putting the development on the new games I have lined up in the background. There will still be thinking about them but precious, precious coding time will go to making the games I already have the best they can be.

Do you have any thoughts on improving or promoting the site? Any thoughts on what I have discussed above? Share them in the comments or in the forum.

The store is powered by Printfection. They offered the most flexible shirt and website design options.

And as if by design Printfection is having a sale this week. Save 20% on all orders no minimums OR 25%on all orders with a subtotal of $50 or more! To get the discounts you need to enter the following coupon codes during the checkout process.

MarchMad20% for 20% off with no minimum purchase.

MarchMad25% for 25% off of an order of $50 or more.

Printfection’s Disclaimer: Please enter coupon code MarchMad20% or MarchMad25% before completing checkout. Discount is applied to the base price subtotal and does not include shipping, taxes, or additional charges. The maximum qualifying discount will AUTOMATICALLY be calculated by the website. Email us if you have questions. This offer may not be combined with other offers and only applies to your account. Coupons valid from 3/17/2011 to 3/21/2011 11:59 pm Mountain Time.

Right now there are two designs up for planes from Blue Max, the Fokker Dr.1 and the Bristol F.2B. The first because it is perhaps the most iconic of the planes, the later because someone asked about it in reply to my previous post about t-shirts.

Finally I have dropped the prices on pilot berths – nearly half the previous low price. I have also given you the option to buy more at a better price. Check out the Hexcell Store to get yourself into even more campaigns.

If anyone out there has a preference for the next plane(s) to go on a shirt let me know and I’ll put it up.

The player profile now shows some basic information about Blue Max. The number of games they are playing and have finished is shown and the number of turns they have submitted over the last thirty days. The number of moves they have made is dependent on the number of games they were playing at the time. The consistency with which they submit moves is probably a more important metric. For example at the time of writing I have submitted moves for Blue Max for 29 of the last 30 days.  That makes me a pretty reliable player.

The player profile is also slowly extending its reach into more parts of the site.

Last week Arts Cow had at-shirt sale and Friendless asked me if I was going to take the opportunity to make some Hexcell shirts. That idea burrowed into my mind like a meme maggot and I started looking at how I could do merchandise for the site.  Arts Cow has good prices and products (playing cards) but they do not allow you to set up a store. So I went looking other places that would take care of fulfilment.

I found CafePress and Printfection. They both do t-shirts and more. Now I am tossing up which would be better.

CafePress has more products types but their free store restricts me to having only one variation of each. So I can have one white t-shirt and one black t-shirt, but not two white t-shirts. CafePress does not allow much in the way of customising a store and there are some store features I do not want and cannot seem to turn off – I do not want a user newsletter managed through CafePress.

Printfection allows many designs using the same product and their store fronts are highly customizable. They do not offer as wide a range of products as CafePress and their back-end is much less intuitive.

Price-wise both of them come in at around the same price, though Printfection’s refusal to allow me to choose a currency is annoying.

Does anyone have experience with one or both of these providers and wants to share? Is anyone interested in Hexcell, Blue Max and Deduce or Die! t-shirts? Or should I just stop phutzing around and get on with development?

Chat in both Blue Max and Deduce or Die! now tell you what round comments were made. Unfortunately all chat messages made before this new system was implemented will be reported as having been made during ‘game setup’. Reporting the game turn a message was posted in should give players more context and make the chat more useful.

In the often ignored “My Friends” section of the site I am reworking the user profile. Click a user’s name on that page and popup detailing them opens.

Its a bit rudimentary for now but the plan is to add more data about a user’s activity on the site and have it available everywhere on the user’s name is displayed.  I am hoping it will make it clearer who are the active users on the site and make finding players to invite to games and campaigns easier.

I am using gravatars for player profile pictures. If you want to update your gravatar you can do so at gravatar.com. The process is very painless and you will be surprised the places they are used. If you frequent any blogs (like this one) then gravatars are used in the comments. You do leave comments, yes?

There are more improvements coming for the site. I am focusing on the top level of the site and Deduce or Die! – trying to make the whole process of getting into a game smoother. Let me know how I am doing and what you think should be fixed in the comments.

http://meepletown.com/2011/02/getting-your-board-game-fix-online/

I subscribe to a fair few board game sites and blogs trying to keep up with what is coming out and living vicariously through reviews done by people with far more game playing hours in their week than I have. The reviews on MeepleTown are some of the better ones I have seen. I’m subscribed.

I have been working on some improvements across Blue Max and Deduce or Die! but nothing will go live until I get back – I don’t want to risk introducing new problems just before I go away.

I have been spending my time slowly working on the new Steampunk game, trying not to be daunted by the amount of work it will take. I have only just realised I am wasting a lot of time getting things ‘right’ when I should just be getting them working (or some close approximation there to). At this stage I am not sure if I can even recognise ‘right’.

Leon, a new user to the site, has been filling my inbox with issues and suggestions for Deduce or Die! It is good to get the feedback, but I will confess right now I have been slack and done nothing with it yet.

Meanwhile

Apple’s steadfast refusal to allow Flash player on iOS seems to be pushing the development of HTML5 and associated open technologies.

Facebook recognises that a significant portion of users view the site through mobile browsers. It is investigating ways for application and game developers to be able to offer rich interactivity through a mobile interface. I guess the third of the human race playing Farmville* is too big an audience for them to contemplate loosing. HTML5 is Flash’s obvious successor. Facebook’s Cory Ondrejka has posted on their investigation into HTML5 gaming. In the article he discusses the speed of current browser rendering and mentions a bunch of JavaScript game engines: Impact, EaselJS, Crafty, and Diggy (all mentioned here so I can go back through them).

AppMobi offers an SDK for accessing iOS and Android phone features from HTML and JavaScript.

O’Rielly is coming out with a book on building iPhone apps with HTML, CSS and Javascript. It endorses Nitobi’s PhoneGap to give Javascript access to phone features.

All of which is an excuse for me to do ‘research’ on my iPod Touch rather than code…

Elsewhere Mozilla has announced the winners of its HTML5 Game-On competition. You should check them out.

* the proportion of the human race playing Farmville may be over-estimated. Do not use this figure in your school reports.