Persistent Browser-Based Games Blog

A New Game Listing: PBBG Warp

Brought to you by the owner of TopWebGames and the person who first defined the term PBBG, here’s a new game listing specifically for PBBGs!Launched in early February 2008, PBBG Warp has all the usual features of most game listings, but also a few unique features. One such unique feature is the way the votes are counted. Votes aren’t ‘reset’ regularly, like in other game listings. Instead, all the votes made in the previous seven days are used to calculate your game listing’s score. Here’s an extract from the PBBG Warp website on the score calculation:

PBBG Warp ranks games by their “vote score”, which is displayed under listing links (in parentheses) and also on the listing pages. A vote score is calculated by summing the number of votes for a game in the past week, taking the square root, and truncating to an integer. For example, if a game receives 50 votes daily, or 350 per week, then its vote score is 18. Vote scores are refreshed daily.

By square rooting the vote score, the number will stay low, rather than having scores of over 10,000, like in some other game listings, making it easier to rank the games and get a good idea of the number of votes.

PBBG Warp has a very detailed form for game owners to complete, so that we can give as much detail about our game as we want. We can leave certain parts out, and add extra information. The website will also automatically get your pagerank, alexa rank, and links count every 10 days. If you want, you can even set up a page on your own server which will show some of your live game stats in XML format, and PBBG Warp will retrieve that information each hour, giving your game listing live updates.

Just as in TopWebGames, PBBG Warp also has an incentivization system set up. This system is a little different than other systems, in that you can set up your own success/failure messages on your server, and these messages are then retrieved by PBBG Warp and shown when a player votes.

If you are a game owner, don’t miss out on this chance to join a new and potentially huge game listing! Especially now, when the game listing is still fresh and your game has a nice chance at getting on the front page!

http://www.pbbgwarp.com/

Posted in PBBG General, PBBG News, PBBG Websites | Related Content | 1 Comment »

Another PBBG Community!

We all know ApexWebGaming and TopWebGames, right? They’re two of the bigger game listings which focus on PBBGs. However, both have their problems, such as delays in reviewing your game application, inactive communities, and so on.

Enter WGFriends. What is it? Here’s a little extract directly from their website:

WGFriends is a social network focused on the smaller games in the online world. So what kinds of games fit into this category, you ask?

• PBBGs (persistent browser-based games)
  PBBGs are driven by ever-advancing technologies in browser-centric gaming.
• MUDs/MUSHs/MU*s
  MUDs are the granddaddies of the modern MMO’s, and are still flourishing and growing in complexity and design.
• Play-by-Post (forum, e-mail, etc.) games
  PbP’s may or may not have an actual game “mechanics” system. By and large, they are purely role-played, and offer incredibly rich experiences.
• Even pen-and-paper type folks are welcome here!

WGFriends isn’t just a game listing, it’s a social network - for people like us. Yes, us PBBG players and developers. Apart from a game listing, it’s also got user groups, game-specific forums, reviews, user blogs, and more.

That’s not to say that the games listing is just a side feature. It’s got the features that are in other game listing sites, and I think it’s got a few extras too. So far my experience there has been great. I’ve found new games, met other PBBG players, and my game is near the top of the rankings

So, if you’re looking for a new place to hang out, and discuss PBBGs, go visit WGFriends!
http://www.wgfriends.com/

Posted in PBBG General, PBBG Websites | Related Content | 2 Comments »

My new game- Click PBBG!

I’ve recently created a new game called Click PBBG.

It’s a game with a simple concept, so it was very easy to code and the basics were done in a few days. The point of the game is to click a big button when you login, and then you will gain certain points in a random stat. The more you click, the longer you need to wait before you can click again.

I’m hoping this idea is new, and I hope to create a big game out of this :)  Click PBBG is currently entering its alpha phase, and is open to everybody!

Check it out: http://www.clickpbbg.com/

I will be adding a forum soon, so bugs can be reported and suggestions made. I haven’t included any screenshots since there are only a few pages in the game and you can register and begin playing immediately!

Posted in PBBG News, PBBG Websites | Related Content | 1 Comment »

Itamz Plx!

You know what I love when I play an RPG or any game where you need to collect/use items or money? Free stuff! I don’t know about you, but if I play a game and I get free stuff on occasion, I tend to play that game slightly longer than other games.

Maybe this could be a feature to implement the next time you create/update a game. Of course, you don’t need to give free stuff to players for no reason. You could make it a random event that they receive when browsing the site. It could be a reward for participating in an event. Even more items/money can be given out to the winner(s) of events. Give new players some starting items, and maybe one good item at random. Give them stuff if they vote for your game. And so on… (and on, and on, and on…)

If your game doesn’t have items or money, you could make a new currency, for example ‘tokens’. They could use these directly or trade them in for stuff (temporary benefits, or permanent). Also try to vary the types of prizes given out. This might also give you a reason to create more items to use/collect in the game.

There are plenty of ways to incorporate this idea to benefit you and your game, and plenty of ways to incorporate this idea without ruining your game economy. Think about it! After all, just admit it… You love free stuff, don’t you?

Posted in Game Ideas, Theory | Related Content | 2 Comments »

Getting votes for your game

I’m sure you’ve heard of TopWebGames,and maybe even TopRPGames! They’re popular places to visit to check out the latest and best PBBGs on the net!

Of course, if you own a game, you probably know about them. The top games on those websites probably get hundreds of new players just for being on their front pages. Don’t you wonder how you could be up there as well?

I picked these two game top sites to talk about because they both have a similar feature: incentives for voting. This is a great tool for game owners to make their players want to vote for them. Imagine if every time you voted for a game, you got some more money in the game, or you leveled up! This is possible at both TWG and TRG. When your game is added to the website, you can set up your game listing so that every time somebody visits your vote link, their server will ‘contact’ your server, allowing you to credit the voter.

Here’s a quote from TWG:

How it works:
1) Your page sends us a voter, along with his username.
2) When their vote is counted our script relays thier username back to your server.
3) Your server rewards the person appropriately.

As far as I know, ApexWebGaming doesn’t support this feature. However, here are some other ways to reward users:

• Reward users when they click on your vote link, regardless of whether they continue to vote or not.
• Set a ‘voting goal’ (eg., front page for the week, or reaching top 10 games), and if that goal was reached, reward everybody.
• A combination of the above two, where you only reward those who clicked on the link if the goal was achieved.

If you set this up on your website, remember to make sure that the same player account can’t receive their bonus multiple times if they somehow cheat the voting system. Also, if you are using incentives on a game listing site such as Apex, and they don’t directly support that feature, make sure you are not violating their Terms & Conditions!

Here are two links that could help you set up incentivized voting on TWG and TRG:
http://www.webgamedev.com/tutorials/reward_script_tutorial_for_topwebgames-t345.0.html
http://www.webgamedev.com/tutorials/reward_script_tutorial_for_toprpggames-t403.0.html

Posted in PBBG Coding, PBBG General, PBBG Websites | Related Content | 1 Comment »