My Dream App - Andrew Wilson

Whoa, last!

2006-10-13T18:06:51Z

Hey, this is a new feeling! When the first round of voting opened for MDA, Desktop Wars was leading for quite some time. It’s now in dead last! Yikes!!

Semi-ironic that the “get stuff done” app and the “waste time” app seem to be on track to go out in the same round. ;)

The Dealio

2006-10-11T04:58:15Z

After my last post, the result was one judge ringing in with comments and useful technical advice and plenty of users also leaving great feedback.

So, the final result - what Desktop Wars would be:

A passive game played out on your desktop where you battle for domination. Domination would be a different goal depending on the mode, Last Man, Capture the Flag, Capture the Base, etc.

Each army would be largely self managing. In other words, there would be no direct click-and-move type of interaction. It’s not and never was intended to be Warcraft or C&C. Control would consist of general defensive/offensive type strategies and possibly, if we want to get fancy, voice commands. “Attack North!” or “Soldier! Get your butt moving!” … haha

Icons would not fight or actively do battle in any way shape or form. The icons would be used to provide various “stations”. Using the built-in Labels functionality, icons on the desktop could get a label. Each color of label would represent a function. (heal, speed, etc) When in battle, those icons would be badged to indicate that.

Also, “act of god” type events would take place using motion sensors in laptops to cause an earthquake or blowing into the microphone to cause a tornado to spawn or a storm.

When you win, you get to randomly delete files and folder from the losers machine. Hah! Just kidding of course.

Finally, details I’ve mentioned before still apply. Such as:

“The units should do stupid stuff on their own. (i’d love to see a trooper pull out a shovel, dig a hole, and tunnel to the other persons desktop or throw a rock to distract an enemy soldier, or whistle to a fellow soldier and team up as a pair for an attack)”

Calling out the Judges and Developers

2006-10-04T22:25:49Z

So after reading the latest round of comments from developers and judges, I feel inclined to put out a request for clarification.

Request 1:
I’m seeing a lot of “loved the original idea” sort of talk. I want to know what the original idea that you loved was. Comment here, let me know what it was that got Desktop Wars into the final 24 and what it is that has turned you off on it now.

Request 2:
I’ve always agreed this concept would be a bit tricky to pull off. But tell me what IS feasible. What sort of direction can I go to make this work as far as being doable by something less than an army of programmers. …no pun intended ;)

Next up, a new outline of Desktop Wars with the a combination of my original vision and what you the readers, judges, and developers provide here!

More fun stuff

2006-10-04T05:43:39Z

Voting for round 3 is almost here… Here’s some fun stuff to get more ideas and creativity flowing:

And here, for no real reason other than fun, is an animation of a very mini battle in action. :P

Last, but oh so far from least….

Yeehaw!!!

Desktop Wars - the original concept + more

2006-10-02T23:42:08Z

So, there has been much debate in the forums about the direction of Desktop Wars. The purpose of this post is to clear up some confusion about what I want/wanted in this thing.

What I Want

I want the war to be on my desktop….obviously so.
The icons do NOT do battle. (think of how impossible it would be to create animations for the bazillion different icons…)
The icons DO serve a purpose. Jury is still out on whether they should be just barriers, or go further into such things as turrets, healing stations, etc.
Desktop Wars is NOT something you have to watch and maintain micro management over.
Units can NOT be directly controlled and manipulated.
Units and your army CAN be given general direction. (go offensive, defensive, berserk, etc)
The battle should incorporate a lot of randomness. I don’t see this being something that requires people to hone strategies for, but rather something fun and amusing. You WILL lose sometimes.
It’s not supposed to be serious, but rather fun and even silly.
Battles should take a while. (preferably, an option to set the speed) “a while.
I shouldn’t have to waste a ton of time organizing and setting up my desktop (battlefield).
The units should do stupid stuff on their own. (i’d love to see a trooper pull out a shovel, dig a hole, and tunnel to the other persons desktop or throw a rock to distract an enemy soldier, or whistle to a fellow soldier and team up as a pair for an attack)

Anyhow, those are just a few random things that I thought up. The point here is that Desktop Wars definitely should retain the “desktop” part of the idea. Exactly how that takes place, on a live desktop or a faked desktop, well, the programmers will need to figure that out!

Another idea that would keep this thing more simple and yet still allow some fun features that have been discussed in the forums is icon badging. Icons could be labeled before a battle and then when a battle starts, they get a little badge (a red cross for healing, a lighting bolt for speedup station, etc) to indicate what they do.

Also, an option to scatter icons around the desktop restore things after a battle would be excellent.

This thing should be fun, amusing, and above all, time wasting without too much guilt! But it should never create a hassle or interruption to your ability to use your computer.

What do you think? Does this sound like a Desktop Wars you’d go for?

Mockups!

2006-09-26T21:40:47Z

Just a quick note to point those of you who aren’t forum regulars in the direction of this thread.

Pixel Sage has been helping me out with some excellent mockups and graphic work!

Oh yeah, you can almost feel the battle raging on your desktop now!

They like it, they really like it!

2006-09-22T18:21:02Z

They like it mom, they really like it!

Heh.

No really, my mom is actually all kinds of excited about this contest… and she’s _not_ a computer person. :) One of the cool things about MDA is bringing the two crowds together a bit!

So I’m totally blown away to be doing well in the voting! That puts the pressure on me to get this thing fleshed out into something really doable. I have spent a lot of time thinking through the whole thing and realize it’s a very open project. (see the judges comments on that also)

I have started trying to define the actual game play recently - it’s quite a challenge. I am no game or software designer, just a guy with an idea. So what I would really love is a talented graphic artist who would be willing to help out with some mockups. Anyone interested? I’m already antsy to play it!

Some Basic Concepts

2006-09-19T05:34:37Z

Over the past week I’ve been jotting down notes and trying to come up with some solid ideas on Desktop Wars. I’ve realized there is a lot to it… the following is my first draft of some of the basic concepts.

Multiplayer

In multiplayer mode, the game is played with another player on your network or over the internet. DW should use Bonjour for discovery of other players on your local network and use a central server to locate other opponents over the internet. Of course, manually specifying an address to locate another player is also allowed.

When an opponent is found, a challenge is issued. Each player will then be presented with a notification with the proposed game type and a thumbnail of the opponents desktop and the proposed game options:

Each player needs to choose either “Accept” or “Decline”. If the challenge is declined, an optional quick reason can be sent in response such as: “give me 5 mins” and an option to automatically renew the challenge after the specified time. The player could then arrange his desktop and be ready for the challenge.

After both parties have accepted the terms, simple battle options are selected, and the battle begins.

Basic Game Concepts and Options

The players will also be given the option to choose the battleground layout options. The two desktops can be arranged next to each other to create one larger canvas such as:

Or, the players can choose mirrored mode. In this mode, two adjacent sides are protected, the other two sides are open for exchange of battle. A unit sent out the left side of one desktop would attack coming from the left of the other desktop:

(yellow is protected, no units can exit or enter from these sides)

Game Types

1. Last Man
The goal of Last Man is to destroy all of your opponents army. (soldiers, vehicles, etc)

2. Capture the Flag
The goal of CTF is to obtain the flag from the opponents base and return it to your own base without being killed in the process.

3. Destroy the Base
The goal of Destroy the Base is to destroy your opponents base.

Battle Options

After the terms are accepted and before the battle starts, you specify the balance between how much you want to aggressively attack your opponent and how much you want to defend your territory. (offense vs. defense) This is also where you choose your “Base”. The base is the spawn/starting point for your army and the goal of some of the game types. Various other options would be chosen here too.

The Armies

In the initial version, I think two armies that look different, but are the same under the hood is the best plan. In future versions, this could be expanded to allow “races” with different abilities etc. But balancing those would be a pain….

The Battle

The battle commences with the army being deployed from the Base. Here is where some good AI takes over. The army needs to use the various icons and their types (more on that later) and begin advancing toward the enemy territory. After your units have left your screen, you’ll need to switch to Opponent View to check the progress.

Whiz! Pop! Bang! and KaBoom!!! … mayhem commences on your desktop with support and bonus help from your icon types and placement. Desktop Warring away your afternoon, yeehaw!

NOTES:
1. I am not sure how changes to the Desktop during the battle should be handled. I don’t think it’s technically feasible/possible to not allow them at all. Ideally there shouldn’t be any changes, but realistically, the idea is to let this war be fought without much interaction. e.g. You can continue surfing the net.. err, working… while the war is played out. Any changes that happen after the battle has started can possibly be given a special negative influence … or weakened influence?

2. When looking at a list of available hosts, the list should include a simple comparison rating. When starting DW and making yourself available for play, your current desktop will be saved and rated to find a suitable opponent. (a player with 3 icons on his desktop would not match up well against one with 30) Any two players can still choose to engage in combat regardless of their rating differences.

3. and a whole lot more that I’ll save for another post. :)

Woot! Finalist!

2006-09-06T05:09:31Z

Woot! a Finalist! With such a large volume of submissions it is an honor to be one of the 24 finalists. As in writing this post I am unaware as to who the others finalists are, so I can’t wait to see some of the other ideas that got chosen. It kind of reminds me of the “March Madness” basketball tourney each year, 5 rounds of elimination.

I’m glad to see this MyDreamApp idea received so well. I’ve been using Macs since around ‘94, and made my first web page around ‘97. The first computer I was started on was a Mac, and haven’t been able to get away from them since. (Two of my friends who swore against them years ago now own Macs, and love em!) I started getting into the Mac community when I made a few skins for MacAst. I currently have a iBook and an Intel iMac.

I’ve always thought that the desktop needed to be doing something. I enjoy casual games such as Warcraft, and the classic Tanks. So desktop + warcraft = Desktop Wars!

I’ve got some fresh ideas for Desktop Wars, and will keep you all posted here.

Much thanks to the MyDreamApp crew, and good luck to all!