Facebook Game Ideas?

[Aeronaut]

We’re thinking out loud about developing a FaceBook game. Can anybody outline the process of developing one?

We’ve begun a list of FF benefits to build the game’s points system around, but can always use more ideas and FB friends. Please get involved at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Focus-Fusion-Society/205597630257?v=app_2373072738&ref=mf#!/pages/Focus-Fusion-Society/205597630257?v=wall&ref=mf

Thanks in advance. 🙂

[Breakable]

First you probably should define it from player perspective : what is it there to play with.
Then define it from programmers perspective : how the game responds to player actions
The rest it just the implementation details…

[Aeronaut]

Breakable wrote: First you probably should define it from player perspective : what is it there to play with.
Then define it from programmers perspective : how the game responds to player actions
The rest it just the implementation details…

That makes sense. I’ve never looked into Farmville, Pillow Fights, or Mafia Wars, so I have no idea what those games are about. What types of resources do the players have, and how much strategy is involved?

[Breakable]

I play a little farm-ville. It is as dumb as it gets: You click everything you can. The only thing is to choose the crop and not to forget to come back harvest it before it spoils.
If you want to make something smarter, you should probably think about
http://fold.it/portal/

[Rezwan]

Breakable wrote: I play a little farm-ville. It is as dumb as it gets: You click everything you can.

The purpose of the game isn’t to do something smart, so much as give people hands on time with fusion. “Dumb” is fine, in this case. Easy and un-intimidating. The real purpose isn’t so much to “teach” people about fusion, but rather to get them to “touch” fusion. manhandle it, recklessly click away at it. Feel a sense of cavalier ownership. “Clicking” in that case is an apt metaphor. Click it, tag it, paint it fun colors, just make sure you have one (a fusion reactor) in your life.

If you want to make something smarter, you should probably think about
http://fold.it/portal/

Upscale games – great idea! A separate category, though. If you’re more inspired to develop a high end, thinking game, that’s great!

But the facebook approach isn’t about giving people difficult mental challenges. It’s about giving them excuses to poke each other with a pet rock painted to look like a fusion reactor : )

[Rezwan]

There’s a two tier effort here. Hard core, thoughtful fusion aficionados who actually have some knowledge on the subject – they have already sought out fusion sites, and tend to be aware of our existence. They also tend to be few in number.

Then, there are the masses. Their eyes glaze over when you talk about fusion. This is the crowd for whom we seek to supply a nice, accessible rubber fusion reactor room for them to bang around it.

We want a majority of people to have a warm relationship with fusion. That whole “social currency” thing.

And perhaps, secretly, some physicists will set up a fusionville so that, when they’re frustrated by a slowdown down at the lab, they can go online, and click a bit on their virtual and obliging reactor, and get things powered up.

[Rezwan]

Breakable wrote:
http://fold.it/portal/

Looked at it a bit more. That’s really cool! They actually want to use people to solve the problem directly:

Figuring out which of the many, many possible structures is the best one is regarded as one of the hardest problems in biology today and current methods take a lot of money and time, even for computers. Foldit attempts to predict the structure of a protein by taking advantage of humans’ puzzle-solving intuitions and having people play competitively to fold the best proteins.

Not sure how we could use people that way for fusion.

[Aeronaut]

Rezwan wrote:

http://fold.it/portal/

Looked at it a bit more. That’s really cool! They actually want to use people to solve the problem directly:

Figuring out which of the many, many possible structures is the best one is regarded as one of the hardest problems in biology today and current methods take a lot of money and time, even for computers. Foldit attempts to predict the structure of a protein by taking advantage of humans’ puzzle-solving intuitions and having people play competitively to fold the best proteins.

Not sure how we could use people that way for fusion.

Set each community up with a cutting edge fusion lab and prizes for ever higher electrical yields :coolsmile:

[Aeronaut]

Rezwan wrote:

I play a little farm-ville. It is as dumb as it gets: You click everything you can.

The purpose of the game isn’t to do something smart, so much as give people hands on time with fusion. “Dumb” is fine, in this case. Easy and un-intimidating. The real purpose isn’t so much to “teach” people about fusion, but rather to get them to “touch” fusion. manhandle it, recklessly click away at it. Feel a sense of cavalier ownership. “Clicking” in that case is an apt metaphor. Click it, tag it, paint it fun colors, just make sure you have one (a fusion reactor) in your life.

But the facebook approach isn’t about giving people difficult mental challenges. It’s about giving them excuses to poke each other with a pet rock painted to look like a fusion reactor : )

Yes, the Pet Rock was an incredible success in it’s day. Whoda thunk? Maybe set the game up where each player fends off the unenlightened special interests by clicking at least 20 times a day, preferably 50 or 100 or more. And reward cities and regions with a reactor for every 10,000 clicks or so that shows up on a global map where the forces of Darkness are pushed ever further into oblivion… fusion-powered regions would be green, fossil-fueled in red…

[Breakable]

Fusion wars idea sounds interesting, but probably will take more effort than developing the fusion itself. This is how I would imagine it from player perspective (a cross between RPG and SIM):
You start with a prototype reactor, a city run by fossil fuels and you goal is to make it fusion powered.
First you need to get money to build your first power plant.
You visit investors in banks/factories/offices then you must “figure out” what each investor wants,
by looking around and asking other people about them and chatting with them.
Getting a meeting would a quest. Then after you raise money you order to build your reactor (you can build a factory later) and get someone to agree to place it there.
Then you can start raising more money, or use the ones from electricity sold to build up the presence. Fight the saboteurs, lawyers, misguided hippies, and evil capitalists.
It is possible to make this more RPG or more SIM to simplify the implementation, but still the effort seems sizable. SIM might be more simple than RPG.

Regarding PET-ROCK-LIKE projects, I don’t see what possibly can the player perspective be in relation to focus-fusion.

[Aeronaut]

@ Breakable, your RPG/SIM game sounds too complex for a FB game, although I think it does accurately model the real life procedure.

The pet rock succeeded because it was so incredibly dumb. How do you sell a rock to anybody, let alone the masses? The red and green map is a fairly straight forward popularity contest. The question would then be how to reward individuals and groups for large numbers of clicks so they make it viral with little or no advertising.

[Breakable]

A simplification of Fusion wars that would have a chance at implementation and playability.
Players perspective:
It is a company simulator. You have no GUI to look around, just some screens with graphs and numbers.
Players see a window for:
market share,
popularity (people know about),
credibility (people that know believe in it),
amount of fusion FUD in the news,
reactors running and info (V1, V2, wear and tear, efficiency, sabotaged… etc)
technology development (v0, v1),
fusion labs information (rooster, status, work),
investors list and status for each (fearful, satisfied, greedy),
Events list (Germany bans fusion development to protect their renewable energy market),
In each window they can observe the information or make some actions (raise money, build reactor, release PR). And see what events happen in the charts or events window.

[Aeronaut]

Sounds ambitious for FB, imho. A simple popularity contest harnessing social approval but not requiring much thought could spread like wildfire through the school systems, and from there to families and workplaces. And a very small percentage just may go on to harness that organization to develop business plans around aneutronic fusion.

1. Can you find the fusion reactor that could end runaway energy prices? (Hint- it’s in Thomas Edison’s home state)
2. Can your city “build” enough to be visible from space?
3. Click here to raise your city’s visibility.
4. Click here for more info.

Step 4 and a few more tracking clicks under it monitor popularity among those who may be wondering how to get a real fusion reactor built in their region for a wide variety of business reasons.

[Breakable]

Something simple, implementable and easy to get addicted to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD69PAIqiYo
Here is the graphics:
http://imgur.com/o6HM7&gbXZZ;

[Aeronaut]

Killer concept! Yuh really think the animated button is all the game needs?

[Author]

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