I have been tasked to find a few low-bandwidth multiplayer games for a web portal site to be developed soon. Unfortunately, they don''t want to pay for much custom development in this area, so I need games that are pretty "out of the box". They want the games to encourage community building and be very "brandable" into the site (doesn''t have to be called their game, but must be launched and everything through their site). Are there any simple games that can be played by multiple players over the web out there and integrated into a website? Things like spades, backgammon, etc are fine. Just simple things. Even sites that have generic code bases of games. Like ASP, Java, or Shockwave components or development community stuff where people are improving each other''s work. I can finish something if it''s pretty far along, but we simply don''t have time to make something from scratch. Now, if anyone knows of nicer games that can be integrated into a site without a huge team of developers like they have at Zone or MPlayer, let me know about those too. Any info, or pointers in the right direction will be greatly appreciated. Tim

Using Shockwave and Flash you can create some pretty cool networked games. These can be played single player or multiplayer. If your willing to give up the branding and take an advertising view go to www.3dgroove.com and check out their offering. Pretty neat site and no I am not advocating the site, I just think it is a cool new technology for the web.

Kressilac

shameless plug comming up:

http://www.hexadome.net

Low bandwidth, re-brandable massive multiplayer on-line strategy (can''t think of more words) game !

check it out...

/NJ

Thanks, guys.

Hey, Niels. I took a look at your site and very briefly tried to play a game. I would be interested integrating your game once it is released. That''s a nice job so far on that game, much better than others I''ve seen like it. Have you come across any other games like yours in your travels? Actually even games not like yours. I''m wondering where Netscape and snap.com got their spades, backgammon, etc games. The more, the merrier for our site.

Thanks

Thanxx !

I have come across one other game like Hexadome.net, written as a marketing gimmic for NATO by a Danish multimedia house, but that''s about it:

http://www.clevermoves.net/clevermoves/

www.eyeone.com has a bunch of single-/two-player Java games.

/Niels

I was going to try out your game Niels, but I found the registration rather obtrusive, like do you really need my address, real name, and email address? I''m willing to give out my email, for alpha testing a game but won''t give out my real name and address information. Perhaps you might want to loosen the restrictions.

-ddn

Heh, I should do a shockwave version of Quaternion.

In the meantime... I know GT Interactive site licenses their web games... I forget the name of their site (Caf-Z or something) but I remember seeing some info about it on their contact page:

http://www.gtinteractive.com

Hope it helps -



Mason McCuskey
Spin Studios - home of Quaternion, 2000 GDC Indie Games Fest Finalist!
www.spin-studios.com

To respond to the anonymous poster...

We ask for the same information on Artifact. We don''t distribute the information to anyone else, but it''s very useful to have for silly things like password verification and keeping track of players who like to use multiple accounts on the game.

Nobody''s going to try and make money off the sale of a player emails. If they did, they''d lose a lot of players.

Just think of it as the game developers trying to protect themselves and keep everyone on the up-and-up.


DavidRM
Samu Games

As a matter of fact, we don''t really care if you fill en bogus e-mail, name or address - you just won''t be receiving any information, or prizes when that time comes. (Well, it IS annoying when you fill en bogus e-mails, because the occasional mails (2 so far, in 5 months) we send out bounce).

/Niels

http://spil.tv2.dk/marbleous

Marbleous, online multiplayer arcade game.

contact me at contact@ramosa.com if you like what you see.