Heroel - A... project?

[Cedric]

There seems to have been a database error.

I haxzord it.

 

[frm]

I haxzord it.

I'd hax0r my stats back again, but they'd just disappear.

@fdk defeated me in trying. Which is a shame, cause it shows how it can be done, so he could prevent it... but, now he can find out the exploits on his own.!

 

[fdk]

Hey @Cedric @frm @Daedalus @Cpvr & anyone else I've forgotten to tag who's posted here having tried the game - thank you!

This has been a bit dead for the past week or so, mainly due to me having problems fixing up my gym code and so the game not actually really being able to be played properly. I've finally managed to get some support in fixing up the code and the gym cooldowns are now working correctly - to celebrate this, as I'm sure @frm will really appreciate ( ) I'm resetting everyone's battle stats to the default 10 now... feel free to play around and see what you can do now.

I am going to be actively working on some development for the game over the Christmas break, so whilst it still looks ugly as hell and is in extremely basic state, you will hopefully at least start to see things have a little more consistency, and new features/pages being slowly released between now and early January. The hope is to get it in a good enough state to actually play for more than 5 minutes a time, at which point I'll work on some styling/theme for the game, then make plans for an open BETA for a while.

I think I mentioned previously that I have around 200 players waiting for this game, if I'm honest I'm just loath to involve them in development at this time as the game is currently really bad. I want it to be in a playable beta state before inviting them in, with the plan that the game will be monetized long-term - the players I have waiting for this game are all cash cows ready to spend $$$.

I appreciate all of your help in testing/development/ideas (please share any ideas if you have them!) and I will absolutely make provision for anyone who's been helping to have a healthy premium package added to their game account when the game eventually launches (however far into the future that may be)!

PS: Winning battles and searching for gold have been giving experience to players accounts for the past few days, although you might not be able to see this. Soon a levelling system will be implemented so you'll be able to level up and gain access to further game areas.

 

[frm]

I've finally managed to get some support in fixing up the code and the gym cooldowns are now working correctly

Just a tip: 30 minutes (regular) and 12 hours (super) is way too long of a cooldown period, unless it were per ability (strength, defense, speed, agility), as that is only 6 page views in 30 minutes. You want users on your game for longer than 30 minutes, as they could accomplish the gold/battle stuff in 30 minutes too. Time on screen would probably average out to about 15 minutes per day because of that limitation (perhaps 45 minutes for more dedicated users, over the span of an entire day).

I'd want them to be playing for 2+ consecutive hours or more, which is still possible with more features. But as for now, you have limited yourself to a very narrow window of keeping someone engaged and playing at one time. Not good if you want to eventually add ads as your average user time would be very low, a statistic that advertisers might want to know before selling some serious ad space.

I would recommend not doing 0.01% and 0.1% (a fixed number) and making it a range for both regular and super. This way, you can take the cooldown to 5 minutes/1 hour, and allow for training across all 4 abilities. Your page views and time on page will drastically increase with this simple implementation.

The hope is to get it in a good enough state to actually play for more than 5 minutes a time

The tip is an immediate fix for that.

the players I have waiting for this game are all cash cows ready to spend $$$.

I'd at first introduce skinning the character you decide to develop as money = an unfair advantage. Then, you could consider unique weapons, etc., but not unique enough that a non-paying member couldn't catch up with more gym time.

I will absolutely make provision for anyone who's been helping to have a healthy premium package added to their game account when the game eventually launches

Soon a levelling system will be implemented so you'll be able to level up and gain access to further game areas.

You hard-coded the gym (0.01/0.1%) into the game, and another idea here is to not hard-code this. I had levels in a database table that had the requirements necessary for each level so that I could easily modify experience, battle stats, etc., in order to advance to the next level without having to find the code where the level-up achievements are met and code it back in.

I could easily see level 2 was 50 experience, and could adjust that to 100 experience if it were too easy. Then, I added other things like number of battles won, which had to be hard-coded in to check if they could advance with what they have, but once that was in, leveling up was all determined based on statistics set in the database for each level so I wouldn't need to code in 100 levels, and could always add 101, 102, 103... levels without messing with the code.

 

[fdk]

A small update - I've finally managed to get some basic interactions with battle stats working in the battle system. I took the opportunity to learn a little CSS so I could style the battling pages just a little bit - I'll learn more of this later and work on updating other pages in the game to be consistent with some styling.

Here's a sneak peek of the new battle system in action!

If you want to come and have a play around, you can find the test environment at https://heroel.com/src/ - we'll be glad to have you! An email address is required for registration, but no confirmation is required, so feel free to enter any email address! Also, as I've said previously and in case anybody missed it - this is just a test environment, I'm developing on this environment so things will likely break frequently. Feel free to create multiple accounts and try and break things however you like! If you find any issues please post in this thread and I'll try to fix whatever I can with my limited skill, or get the advice I need to fix it.

 

[frm]

Add a "battle again" button so they can choose to finish them off if they want.

More page views as battles take place with consecutive hits/returns.

Perhaps add a 1-3 second timer on the button before it enables so that time on page doesn't drastically decrease.