How to make an online game!!

So finally MastishK is over.. and to make me proud, HR Strats was the most popular game in the mastishk portfolio inspite of being launched in stage II. :)

Moving ahead from here, i thought of maintaining my knowledge in some near physical form and thought of writing this article..

These are some of the steps which I beleive are important while making an online game..

1. Choose a concept that you want to be associated with. It could be something that you are very strong at or could be opposite also. But in both cases, atleast a fair idea is a must.

2. Do a lot of research on the subject and find details about the useless things also, coz its these useless things which if implemented give the feel of the real scenario!

3. Have a team of 2-3 persons for game conceptualization as it really helps when u sit together and brainstorm. That infact is a place where stupid looking ideas find a way to be implemented and get great appeal.

4.Keep on interacting with people who know this field as sparks for new ideas do generate here.

5. Understanding the one or two key things that the user wants to concentrate upon while playing the game helps you improve game performance.

6. Understanding what is not expected and to make it implementable is probably going to be a crowd puller!!

7. Try playing different types of games, both as standards softwares and also from your competitors. It proves to be the best way to innovate (read stealing and repackaging ideas). Also, do not play too many games from your competitors as your thinking gets narrowed down..

8. It is always better if you can think of some ways in which the game publicises itself among the participants. It could be the entire different nature of the game, could be the prize money or could be some features like we used in HR Strats like mailbox and networking.

9. One of the most important factor is to keep your game simple. The user ideally must not have to go through 5-10 pages of pdf to understand the game. the presentation has to be good(including screen design).

10. Minimize the number of clicks the user requires to take an action.

11. If the game requires some key resource(man, money, mrkt share etc etc) to be managed, provide a screen which give very clear picture of the status of that key resourse.

12. And lastly, having a coding expert on your team is an absolute must!!

Mastishk Mania...

So.. MastishK days are back... i love these days the most and i hate these days the most... Love them for the great feeling i get when mastishk goes online... and hate them for the HUGE effort that has to be put in to manage the show!!

I remeber last year.. when my game went online.. it was an economic game. Vox Populi.. though it was one of the most successful games we ever had... but i could manage only 2 hours of sleep in the first 4 days.

This time again i (we to be more correct).. are launching HR Strats.. a new dimention to mastishk coz its the first time we are having something directly on HR. The days of endless efforts are back.. long discussions.. sleepless nights... constant struggle... attempts to beat your own mind in terms of creativity... plus all the pressure that builds up as people expect you to put up a good show. We might say that the pressure should sort of decrease as the event matures.. but actually it keeps on increasing as all other b-schools also jump in.. so you have to constantly struggle to keep innovating and to hold your leadership position..

Now i want to write a lot more.. but cant afford to do so as like any good software project.. we are behind schedule...so time to go back to stage-I testing of HR Strats... :)

My first Blog!!

So finally.. after years of listening about other people's blogs.. i have also joined the rush for creating my own blog...


Lets see what all content i manage to put up!!!