

Help me make this HTML5 game more addictive - peterbe
http://aroundtheworldgame.com/

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joeld42
First change I would suggest is to have some kind of avatar representing the
player on the screen. This allows players to identify more strongly with the
game.

Second, reward and punish. Add some kind of consequence, perhaps even a game-
over state. You can make this easy to avoid but it requires constant
attention. Reward. Coins are your "health" not exactly a reward since you need
them to continue playing, but add some random rewards (this is primarily where
the addiction mechanic comes from). Big, rare rewards make games addicting.

Going further, you might want to add a set-collecting mechanic. Try playing
"Ticket to Ride" and see if you could adapt some of those mechanics to your
game.

Finally, the interface is not very game-like. It doesn't look like a game.

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peterbe
Avatar? Could do, but it might feel weird since there are no other avatars to
interact with.

Here's an idea: You start out as an avatar of someone looking shabby and poor.
Like, broken shoes and dirty t-shirt. As you progress you start looking
smarter and smarter. Eventually you travel in a suit with a businessman
looking little hand-luggage. I'd have to get graphical to pull that off which
is not something I'm good at.

Yes, the interface needs to be improved. It's hard to make something cute
without Photoshop skills. I'd happily pay someone if I had the time to
organize and I knew the results would be decent.

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Osmose
Coins are the primary thing you spend time earning in this game, yet the
number and icon for them is tiny. They should be pumped up and thrown in my
face to let me know just how rich I am. (In general the interface isn't as
game-like as it could be, but that's hard to solve if you're not good at that
sort've stuff). Other indicators of how my standing is improving would be nice
too. Perhaps show a picture of the plane I'll be flying in before I fly away,
and upgrade it over time?

And when I do finally get a bunch of coins, I just spend it all to go
somewhere else and earn more coins. There's progression in the form of
traveling, but locations are differentiated enough for me to even notice.
Kingdom of Loathing is a good example of some things that might work: instead
of having a list of tasks, have me click on the map. Make me know exactly
where I am in the world.

I've suggested this before, but I still think adding clearly defined tiers of
travel will make good goals to drive the player. Tier 1 would be local jobs in
your town, tier 2 could be the county, tier 3 would be the state/province,
tier 4 would be countries, and tier 5 would end with you buying a flight to
the Moon. :D

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Zephyrial
I only clicked around the game for a few minutes, but I have two general
ideas: (partially borrowed from the Zynga Handbook of Doom, but you did ask
for addictive...)

* Don't have players start with zero coins; give us enough to start off and do something fun or cool (i.e. book one flight, get to a new city), and _then_ lead players into the game's job mechanic.

* It's a terribly silly (and transparent) game mechanic, but I _love_ games with Achivements / Medals / Awards. Either make them all available from the start or (a la many iPhone games) only "assign" three achivements at a time, each with a certain "star" value; get enough stars and you "level up", which comes with a hefty coin bonus. This way, once players have figured out the game's mechanics, they'll continue playing for achivements (and you can use achivements to encourage experimentation with other game features).

~~~
sunir
Give enough coins to do --almost-- three things so players are immediately
encouraged to earn a few more coins to do the next thing.

~~~
peterbe
Have you tried the tutorial? The purpose of it is to give you a preview of how
you earn so that you can do that yourself from there on.

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zhaozhou
1: It doesn't feel like I'm playing a game as much as I'm clicking through
menues. Make it more interactive, playful. Try to make the map a bigger part
of the game, maybe having a flight-icon above the actual airport, and have a
smaller "bubble" pop up with connecting flights, maybe try to display the
target airport on the map as well.

2: Try to get coins to be a bigger part of the UI then it is. Actually, as
joeld42 pointed out, the UI needs to be a tad more refined overall.

3: Achievements. Which you can share throughout the interwebs. Miles traveled
are an excellent point system, make sure players can't cheat their way to lots
of traveled miles, and use it to rank players.

4: If and where possible, add pictures to questions like BackPacker did.

Just my personal thoughts.

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ghalverson
Find a way to tie in some element of strategy. Think about how Empire Builder
works with regards to transporting goods or something alone those lines. I'm
just not really seeing the point in playing, other than it has unique feel,
but no point. Give me something to go after to win....conquer....

~~~
peterbe
Good point but... What? So far, the only skill is to know stuff and know it
quickly. I was thinking about somehow incorporating that you race against
other players somehow. Then, somehow you could use strategy to try to be smart
and swift or just hard working and active. Haven't come up with something
definitive yet.

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philipbroadway
I think we need something or someone to chase around the world. _edit_ not
Carmen Sandiego

~~~
peterbe
It's not a bad idea. It can be more than one item. For example, 5 sacred
jewels or something.

However, I want the game to be quite open-ended too and it's hard to explain a
goal like that.

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jensnockert
Seems like a 'clone' of
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpacker_%28series%29>, which was plenty
addictive when I was young. You should take a look at it.

~~~
peterbe
That's inspiration for this! I loved that game. I thought I'll try to
replicate some of that but add a web spin to it.

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peterbe
People who try it like and have fun. However, they don't seem to get hooked
and unable to stop.

Technically the game is shaping up nicely but it needs a gamer's psychology
brains to make it more fun and addictive.

Please help.

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columbo
It might be best to reverse the question: Who is your target market and why
should they find it addictive?

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peterbe
Target market: Everyone who enjoys wasting time on the interweb.

Why? Games become more fun if you manage to get yourself (emotionally and
time-wise) involved.

I'm aware that "addicted" has negative connotations; like a "drug addict".

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Terhorst
One thing I've found is that, if your target audience is everyone, your target
audience is really no one.

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peterbe
I admit. I haven't thought much about this. Because I'm weak on marketing I
have to use the product as my weapon by making it really good.

How about, the people who play Angry Birds as a target audience.

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peterbe
Having reached out like this, it turns out that a number of people have hit
bugs. I've received all tracebacks by email and will work on it this weekend.

Thanks for your patience!

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bazookaBen
any plans to go mobile?

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peterbe
I would love to build something with PhoneGap or something similar. Just
limited time. Building something like that would mean having to more or less
re-write the backend as a front-end data store.

In fact, there is a mobile responsive design thing at
<http://aroundtheworldgame.com/mobile/> which works OK in iphone/ipad but it's
far from perfect.

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bazookaBen
that's great news! drop me a line about potentially getting your game more
exposure. my startup connects html5 devs to large buyers.

~~~
peterbe
I've added it to marketJS. I hope I did it right. Great website by the way!

