In the middle of creating my second major webgame, SimDerby, I am finding the challenges to be much different than SimYard.  This time around, the balancing act is in creating a schedule of races that has a variation to it that matches as closely as possible the variation of horses.  If there are only three 2-year-olds in the game which can run at a mile and a quarter, then there shouldn’t be any of those races on the schedule, for example.

I’m finding that successfully mastering a task like this all comes down to having the right tools.  It all seems easy looking at it from the other site now that these tools have been built, but it was rough trying to figure out what they needed to look like before they were built.  They tell me which races are being canceled because there aren’t enough horses so I can remove them from the schedule.  They tell me a cross-section breakdown of horses which went a whole day without running in a single race so I know to schedule more races of those types.  They show me the schedule of races for each track and allow me to fill in the missing races with the types that I need.

Currently, there are seven tracks in the SimDerby universe.  Each of these tracks will have a race every five minutes and the schedule will be the same every day.  That’s over 2,000 races a day that need to be hand-crafted to match the balance of horses that can run, and there will probably be more tracks added.  This seems like a daunting task, but ultimately this schedule will be what horse breeders and owners interact with.  More importantly, computer horses running on this schedule will represent the claims pool that owners will choose from to begin breeding.

I expect these numbers to only grow.  It’s a good thing I have these great tools to help, because they sure do save time.  The schedule is one of the most important parts of the game, and it’s deserving of lots of attention.

A brand new online poker game will be coming soon to a browser near you.  Bluff This is in beta testing right now, and is an RPG poker game.  Your characters will start at level 1 and gain skills in reading, bluffing, and slow playing.  Money is distributed through Penny Ante games which will ensure value.

Bluff This will not allow you to play for real money.  It’s illegal in the United States, so that can’t be done.  Bluff This uses play money.  The real problem with that is that people will discard the value of play money because they can always just reload, so the poker game suffers.  This is not true on Bluff This.  Bluff This uses a Penny Ante game to distribute money.  In Penny Ante there is no blinds, only a $0.01 ante for each player.  If you have no money, you are given this $0.01 for free and placed all-in.  This is a fair system and means that losing all of your money pays a real penalty.  You have to wait until you win a hand at the Penny Ante table, and then make use of those winnings before you get ante’d out.  Once you graduate up to the next table, there will be real games going on.

In Bluff This, you gain experience points every time you show a hand at the end.  You also get additional experience points if you beat someone who shows their hand.  As you move up levels, you get skill which allow you to get reads on other players, or notice when other players are getting reads.  A tiny sweat drop appears on a player when they have a worse hand than you, or a plus sign when their hand is better.  A small eye appears when that player gets a read on another player.  Of course, your skills and attributes (instinct, game, awareness, poise) help prevent others from getting reads on you.  As you get skills, you also unlock additional skills, like being able to read if a player caught the river or flopped a set.

If you want to help Beta Test the game, point your browser to beta (dot) bluffthis (dot) com.  I do not want to link this online because I don’t want Google to crawl it just yet.  See you at the tables!

This was a great web-based RPG that I played a long time ago and was uber addicted to.  I forgot the domain name and had been searching for it for years.  Finally, I just went through every page of MPOGD manually until I recognized the name.  Uh oh, now I’m hooked again.

http://www.carnageblender.com/ (use this link to start with an extra $400)

There’s a tutorial to complete, and challenges for bonus money.  These will get you started.  Be warned, this game is addicting.  Fight against other players and use the XP to train your minions stats and buy skills.  Use the money you get to buy new weapons and equipment.  This is only the start.  As you keep getting stronger, you keep walking up the ladder, but how far does it go?  There are lots and lots of players on this site, which means endless opponents.

Give it a shot.  I highly recommend it.  It’s a great way to spend your 15 minute break because you only have so many battle allowances, and they take time to recharge.  You literally can’t spend all day playing it!  (is that a bonus?)

Gift Certificates for this unique fantasy baseball game are available for under $20.  Any fantasy baseball nut will enjoy playing this online game.  Would your friend make a great manager?  This is where he can test his skills against other fantasy managers.

http://www.simyard.com/gift/

The Gift Certificates come for $19.95 or $59.95 for a 3-month or 1-year membership.  Three months is enough time to try the site out and see if it’s right.  The year is perfect for the competitive player looking to build a franchise.  The Stadium Permit offered by these gift certificates allows you to have three teams and two stadiums.  This is required to pay players and join leagues.  This is a truly unique fantasy baseball simulator where you call the shots as the team owner.

Do you have a fantasy baseball group already that is looking for more of a challenge?  If you buy five three-month gift certificates, the sixth is free!  After playing SimYard for three months, your fantasy baseball group isn’t going to want to go back to traditional fantasy baseball.  This is perfect for the off-season!

This multiplayer side-scrolling racing game is lots of fun, and it’s all about being fast.  Level-specific instructions to get the best time are found within.  To begin, be sure you play this game on Kongregate, since you get the hat which earns you bonus experience.

http://www.kongregate.com/games/Jiggmin/platform-racing-2

Newbieland 2 (Rank 0)
Spend 46 on Jumping to just have enough jump to make it up the jump at the end.  Set Acceleration around 25 to give you as much Speed as possible.  If you miss the item, don’t stop for it.  It takes too long to slow down.  When you do the super jump, don’t wait until you turn yellow and flash.  As soon as you see the white glow, you have enough jump to make it over.  Run over the forwards arrows, and jump at the last minute before running over the backwards ones.  You should land once in the middle of them and jump immediately so you don’t slow down too much.  As you approach the up arrow wall, jump at the last moment before you hit the wall to start you with some vertical motion.

There are two horizontal bars made out of up arrows.  Keep pushing right arrow until you hit your head on one.  Then push left arrow to start moving around the bar.  Just before you fall upwards off the bar, stop pushing left arrow.  You have a tiny bit of momentum to push you off the bar.  When you start to fall upwards above the bar, quickly push right arrow to get on it.  Do this for both bars.  As you move right on the top bar, you will be bounced in the air by the arrows.  Do not jump.  You want to clear the tower and land as early as possible.

You will land on a long string of right arrows.  Land as early as possible so that you can have more time to pick up speed on the arrows.  The end of the strip are bars which will stop your momentum.  Ideally, your will time your jump to soar over all of them.  Until you get used to the timing, though, let yourself slam into the bar.  Jump up and immediately start pushing right to get as much distance as you can.  Hop on one of the bars and jump again to bring yourself into the corridor.

Remember that letting go of the right arrow key will kill your momentum completely.  It’s not immediate, but it’s quick.  Release the right arrow key when you’re under the breakable bricks.  Let yourself stop then jump to break a brick.  Jump again to head up.  Use the same technique to stop under the goal and hit it.

On Kongregate, a time of 1:30 or under on this level earns you a 5-point badge.

Mario Bros remix (Rank 1)
The first and second parts of this map are all about learning the map and timing the jumps.  It also depends a lot on the other players.  For the third part of the map, though, you should take the shortcut.  As soon as the ceiling changes from white to red and the blocks are breakable, stop on the question blocks and do a superjump.  Break a hole in the ceiling and jump up there.  Then, you’ll have a clear run to the end.  As soon as the ceiling ends, jump as far as you can.  You will land on a platform near the end.  Jump immediately onto the roof again.  Follow that to the pit and down to the end.

Have you ever heard of a game called Mafia?  It’s a game frequently played at parties where everyone is given a role as either a townie or a mafia.  The mafia knows who the other mafia are, but the townies have no idea.  During the day phase, all players vote to lynch a player.  During the night phase, the mafia decides which townie to kill.  The game ends when one side is all dead.

There is a version being played on IRC even now.  A game only takes about ten minutes to play, and goes rather quickly.  It’s a lot of fun.  There are a couple of variations on the game, and the IRC channel allows many of these.  There are also additional roles, like townies who are cops or doctors.  There is a very nice flash file that shows all the different roles available, and you should use this as a reference guide during the game.

http://mikeburnfire.sitesled.com/mscumB.swf

You can play this game on the IRC server irc.globalgamers.net in the #mafia channel.  If you don’t know how to get IRC, use mIRC for Windows available at http://www.mirc.co.uk.

SimYard runs on a webserver with eight cores.  The games themselves run as a PHP script on this machine.  Recently, the game hit the maximum speed because the PHP script was running as fast as it can and couldn’t keep up.  The solution was to make it multithreaded, and so the adventure begins.

The script used to work this way.  It would start up every hour and only run for an hour before shutting down.  It would start by loading all of the games that are in-progress.  Then it would process one at-bat for each of those games and look for new games to start.  Every at-bat was followed by saving the changed records to the database.  Anyone watching a game has an AJAX script which runs checking for new at-bats and refreshes when they are available.

This script wasn’t using up 1/8th of the CPU power on the webserver, though.  The time that the script was taking was split between actually calculating the results of the at-bat (which uses CPU) and saving the results to the database (which takes none on the webserver).  So I had a situation where the game was pegged out and couldn’t run faster, yet the server was only running at about 10-15% capacity.

After making a couple modifications to the way the data updates to ensure that these games could actually run multithreaded, I changed the way this logic works.  Now, the script starts every five minutes.  It runs for five minutes, starting by loading up any abandoned games which have not been active for at least five minutes.  Then, it enters the same loop where it looks for new games to start and runs them.  The difference is that once the five minutes are up, it stops adding new games.  It just continues to run the current games it has.  Once all those games are finished, the script exits.

This is working well.  It’s resulting in a return to the fast gaming before SimYard got busy.  And it’s much more scalable.

The newest baseball simulator on the web is getting better.  SimYard is undergoing improvements this month which will make the game deeper and the gameplay better.  If you haven’t checked out the best baseball simulator on the web, now is the time.

A new bidding system will be launched, allowing public bids to be made throughout the season on players.  Players who have expiring contracts will give “Buy Now” contract extensions to their current teams based on the public bids.  This will lead to a much more consistent salary for all of the players.

In addition, many of the players have been working to compile a wish list of features, and I plan to implement many of them.  In my opinion one of the biggest things that makes SimYard so worth playing is the fact that there’s an active administrator working on it full time.  Yes, this is my full time job.

So stop by SimYard.  It’s free to play pick-up games in the park, and you can even qualify for the postseason tournament.  If you want to take the team to the next level, you can get a Stadium Permit which allows you to have a farm system of three teams.  The bottom team can play pick-up games in the park while the other two join leagues and play scheduled games all month in their league with a postseason at the end.

It’s a lot of fun.  Come by SimYard today and start playing your franchise now!

Here’s a brief summary of how to get started on my fantasy baseball simulator: SimYard.

First, get an account and create a team.  You can play this team in the public fields to gain fans.  Be sure to use the Interact feature in the park to increase your team’s buzz and to find better players.

When you’re ready to move on, buy a Stadium Permit.  Make a second team and a stadium.  It’s probably too soon financially for you to support a third team and second stadium, so put that off for one more season.  Look for a league with a low salary cap and join it.  You can still make the third team, but don’t make a second stadium.  Remember to buy advertising for your stadium, and a starting stadium should hold roughly 2,000 people.  Set a budget so that you can pay off your loan in a couple of years.

Search for players to sign.  Sign the best players from your team because you can have an advantage being the home team.  Offer them slightly lower contracts than you would offer to other teams, but be sure to offer them a decent amount.  Sign a whole starting lineup and pitching rotation and bullpen.

Your second season, you’ll have one (or two) teams in the park and one in a league.  You should earn lots of revenue from the league which you will use to build a stadium for your second team and join a second league.  Be sure the two leagues have different salary caps, because you will put your best players on the higher salary cap league.  Sign more players to fill out two complete starting lineups, rotations, and bullpens.

Your third season, build some upgrades to your first stadium, which should be nearing capacity.  Sign better players.  You’re off and running in SimYard.

The fantasy baseball simulator, SimYard, opens up the 1901 season tomorrow night.  Now is your chance to get in and start playing Spring Training games.  Give your guys a little training boost before the new season.  SimYard is the next generation of fantasy baseball.