Facebook game derived from Quinsta - suggestions?

[Silvanon]

To-do List:
* Add FBC purchase options scripts - DONE
* Do Grade full templates - STARTED
* Sell horse script - TESTING
* Do Gypsy Vanner full templates
* Add home areas to store
* Draw tack
* Train horse script - TESTING
* Ride/Drive horse script
* Draw more homes
* Draw more backgrounds
* Draw carts

===========================

Like the title says, I'm thinking of possibly making a facebook application game derived from Quinsta.  The name I've thought up for the game is "Little Horses," which is not currently taken as far as I could determine.  It would use the same artwork templates that Quinsta currently have, but with a premade image for each possible coloration.  (So, for example, if you get a tobiano, the shape of the tobiano marking is always the same.)  I'm also thinking to resize the templates down to only about 60% of their current size. 

Little Horses would allow people to breed horses using the same genetics system and personality system currently in place for Quinsta.

I'm thinking to allow users to place different backgrounds behind their horses that can be purchased with in-game money and/or Facebook Credits.  There could be ranch settings, nature settings, fantasy settings, etc.

I'm also thinking to include the same training system Quinsta has, with the various trainers and the various courses, with some courses being prerequisites for others.

I'm thinking to allow people to sell their horses to other plays and allow people to breed their horses to other player's horses.  Players would only be able to buy, sell and breed horses with their in-game Neighbors.

Players would have a limited number of horses they could have at one time (a certain number of stalls).  The number of slots would increase as the player's level increases.  For impatient players, additional slots could be purchased at any time with Facebook Credits.  Once a player's slots were full, they would not be able to breed or buy additional horses until they'd sold one of their current horses. 

Both experience and in-game money would be gained by interacting with your horses.  Ways to interact with horses would include cleaning stalls, feeding, watering, brushing and excersizing them.  Once a horse was trained to a sufficient level, and the necessary equipment was purchased, they could also be taken out riding or driving (carriage/cart, not car).  There would be "energy" bars for each of these with a certain daily limit for each.  Training would increase the related riding/driving bars somewhat.

Things that would cost in-game money would be buying horses, breeding horses, training horses, different backgrounds for the horses, and different equipment for the horses. 

======================

There are two main reasons I'm thinking of doing this.  The first and biggest is that we're in increasing financial distress and I need to figure out ways to make money from my talents to keep us afloat.  So I'm really hoping to have a fun game with things for sale for Facebook Credits that people would really want to buy.  The second is that I think Facebook could use a horse game that centers on breeding horses and uses realistic color  inheritance.  As far as I can tell, the closest thing currently is Horse Saga, and that's being taken down soon in favor of a more farmville-esque game that doesn't center on breeding.

So, if I do this I want to do my best to make it good.  I'm not going for a flash-based game, it would be PHP-based similar to Secundi.  Also I don't intend to replace Quinsta with this game - I would continue doing Quinsta here.  I would release new breeds in Little Horses after first introducing them here as Quinsta.

So, with all that in mind, what are your thoughts and suggestions for changes, features, ways to make the game good, and ways for me to make money off the game?

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Finally, the thing I haven't figured out yet and especially want ideas for - what are good ways to incorporate neighbor interaction into the game?

[Wildfilly94]

:O I would LOVE this!! <3 <3

That is pretty much all I can say. Your fantastic ideas on FB would just be amazing!!

As far as neighbor interaction; mabye you could visit your neighbors stalls and pet/feed/groom their quinsta for them?
You could get money/points or new breeds/color patterns/stalls unlocked for doing so?

[Willow]

o:

*dies*

This would be amazing.

I was going to suggest pretty much what Wildfilly said for interaction.
In an app on my phone, you can visit a neighbours farm and give their animals 'love', this boost's the indidual animal's happiness, and you also get a +1 'love point', a small amount of EXP and a small amount of cash.
It works, because it makes you want to visit the other players :3

But I'm sure people would catch on anyway!
Gawd I'd be all over this.
All over it.

[Wildfilly94]

Yeah, what Willow said!
All over this I would be *nods*
*Drools and stares at FB waiting for the game to appear* XD

[SkySong]

I second Wild and Willow on this. Most facebook games that I know of usually let you interact with neighbor's farms/whatever and get a small amount of experience from that. Neighbors can also send gifts, so perhaps implanting that would help? Perhaps have certain items you can only get by gifting would add some incentive for people playing together.

Also, how does that work - making a facebook game? It would be located on facebook, correct? Do they pay you depending on how many people play/are playing?

[Luv007]

Go for it, Silv!!

Your talents continue to amaze me.  Lol.  *applauds loudly*

[CutieePiee]

That's an amazing idea, Silv! I agree with everyone else to go for it!

Woooooo!

[Silvanon]

Thanks for the encouragement and suggestions, guys!

Skysong - The way Facebook applications work is that you host them on your own site and use special code to have the application interact with Facebook.  Facebook provides a "Canvas Page" on Facebook that pulls up your site and makes it look like the application is actually on Facebook.  They don't pay you anything for apps themselves, the only way to earn money from it is by selling stuff for Facebook Credits.  I've done a couple very simple quiz applications already, but this project will be far more ambitious.  Hopefully I'll be up to the challenge!

[SkySong]

Hm, it seems they should give you money for an app if it's popular. But at least it should pull something in, right? And if it's on facebook, then people outside of Secundi have a chance of interacting with it as well. Good luck, either way!

[Ravvana]

I think the idea sounds fantastic I was worried you would be taking Quinsta off Secundi when I first saw the idea, but as long as we have them here too, I say go for it! <3 I'd just be sad to lose the fully individual Quin, and the community/culture we have here for them.

I used to love Horse Saga when it was mainly a breeding game, but they lost me with the transition. I know a lot of other players were really disappointed with the change in focus, too, so hopefully they will come swarming to your new game.

I do hate FB games that require *so* much neighbor interaction, though, since not many of my friends play FB games. Games that require collecting lots of items from neighbors to complete quests, etc -- I always get immediately fed up and quit. I'd like neighbor interaction to be more of a bonus, ie. neighbors can visit and feed/pet the horses which gives them some kind of temporary boost/perk, you get something nice for interacting with other players' horses, you can send gifts to neighbors (although the gifts shouldn't be integral to enjoying the game).

Once the idea becomes realized, I would love to "friend" other Secundi members who want to start playing so we can enjoy it together

As an aside, Silv, your coding skills continue to confound me XD I had no idea that individuals could create FB games at all.

[Wildfilly94]

Yes, I think all of us on Facebook that joined the Secundi group should friend eachother and help eachother out, if this turns up on facebook in the future. :3 I have Willow and Luv, but no one else currently.

[SkySong]

There's a Secundi group? And yeah, if this turns up, it'd be great if all the Secundi folk could play together.

[Wildfilly94]

Yep! Just type in Secundi in the search bar, and I think that should take you to it.

[Neocridders]

I would love to play Little Horses! That would be so cool!
I think this is a great idea.

[springacres]

I would LOVE to see a game like this on Facebook!

[TheLeet]

Sounds fun

I don't know how likely you'd be to make any money from it. I suppose it depends on how many people buy stuff with fb credits. I hope it won't be too expensive to host it yourself?
You've probably already done the maths and worked out how many fb credit  things you'd have to sell every day.The one fb game I'm still playing seems to be increasingly selling premium items and nothing else but maybe they're just greedy XD

[Aralie]

This sounds awesome!

[Kadana Sorano]

I would play Quinsta on FB.  It sounds wonderful.  The only reason I have a FB account is to play games, and the horse games there are way too few.

For neighbors.. I would like to see a game that doesn't 'require' you to have xx amount of neighbors (usually in ever increasing numbers) in order for you to advance.  I don;t mean that there should be no neighbor interaction or incentives, gifts etc, I'm fine with those.  And breeding with neighbors would be fun.  I mean those games that give you a quest to have X amount of friends, and if you don't get them then the quest sets there forever.  Or games requiring you to have X amount of friends to pass certain game levels.

I wonder about the energy thing, would that be energy for the player, or for each individual Quin?  How much energy would there be, and how fast would it refill?  I'm really starting to get bored with the games that take half a day or so to refill energy so I can play again.  I've actually just started trying out new games, searching for non-energy/turn based ones to play.  So how long it takes to refill the energy bar's, will be a factor in how much I play the game.

The third thing, is I look for games that I can take extended breaks from, without anything bad happening while I am not playing.  If for example I take a weeks break form the game, and then came back, would my Quin be dead from starvation?  Or would my logging out of the game have kept them in a sort of stasis?  Or maybe there can be an option to set the game into "vacation" mode.  Nothing would progress at all, but the Quin wouldn't die either.

Those are the only things I can think of right now, but they are my biggest concerns/annoyances with the games I play currently. 

Oh, btw.. how do FB credits work?  I mean, I've bought game stuff with them before, but how does the game owner get money from FB credits?  This has always confused me, especially since I don't actually spend USD to buy the FB credits I spend.  I get them for filling out surveys and such. 

[Winged]

I would love to see this! Don't think i have any suggestions that haven't already been said. I agree that it would be good to have the friend part as a bonus, since not many of my friends play fb games. But i would try and persuade them xD
I've never actually used fb credits, since i've never liked a game enough to bother spending the money and i also don't have paypal yet. But i might spend credits on a quinsta game if i could, to support it

I never knew there was a fb Secundi group! I shall look for it.

[BabyKittenCandy]

Echoing what everyone else has already said Silv, your amazing and im sure you could do it!

I would certainly be interested in it, so long as we dont loose Quinsta from Secundi.  I have to agree with Kadana in that i get a bit annoyed with games that require an ever increasing number of neighbours to advance but I would certainly lobe to see it happen!

[LaneyAngel]

I'm with the others on the neighbours thing...

I think it would be a good idea to provide incentives for visiting neighbours, like maybe, you can go to a neighbours place, and you do 5 things (like you can on Farmville), whether its grooming, watering, feeding anothers horse.... or the like. And as a reward, you get one energy point and a small amount of cash... so if you have 10 neighbours, you go to 10 houses and for doing all the little chores, you can earn 10 energy instead of waiting for it to refill. BUT, if you NEED neighbours to move along in the game, like, you can't complete missions without having X number of neighbours, then I'd probably be annoyed as like a lotta people, my Facebook friends don't play games, so it gets arduous when you have to rely on friends to do stuff for you.

I would be definitely interested in playing it. And would be thrilled to be a beta tester for the game once you've got it scripted and incorporated into Facebook. Or I'd be happy to do beta testing before it even reaches Facebook.

The Quinsta that are here on Secundi, would we be able to start off the game with them, or would we start completely fresh with new ones.
And given that all markings would be the same so it can be done automatically, will it come to that here on Secundi as well, or will we still have individually coloured ones here on Secundi proper.

Aaaaand, would anybody here on Secundi ever be able to export some of our in game Secundi to here? Or would the two never meet or come together and act as two completely separate entities, individual and unique of each other?

[Silvanon]

I might eventually offer some sort of option to import your Quinsta to become Little Horses and/or visa versa, but generally speaking I intend to keep them separate.  I'm definitely not going to offer free-for-all importing/exporting.

I don't know how much people have noticed, but Quinsta do already have some "preset" markings - for example bay, dapple and dun.  I do however color them individually and I'll often mix up how much of the marking shows, etc.  And I haven't templated markings that tend to be highly individualistic, like tobiano, the overos, or appaloosa markings.  I intend to continue with the present system for Quinsta, while Little Horses will have everything templated with limited variation for a specific marking.

[LaneyAngel]

I think I'd only want to import something from Little Horses if I managed to breed something amazing that could fit into a project here on Secundi.

And of course, I imagine paying a fee would be fine.

[Ryuukokoro]

I only play one Facebook game, and that's only because my parents begged me to become their 'neighbor' lol. So I'm quite a novice when it comes to these sorts of games.

But I do really like in the game we play (Uh... I can't even remember the name right now, it's some sort of time travel picture hunt kind of game...) how the neighbor thing works. If you 'visit' your neighbor's page you get a bonus, and also get the option to 'hide' a present somewhere on the screen. Your neighbor can do the same for you.

Then when you sign into your accont, a window pops up that says 'so and so visited you and left you a gift!' and then you have to look for it (which gets challenging when you have a TON of stuff on your page) and finally you see there's a tiny icon of a present somewhere on your page and click on it to get the gift. It's fun! ^.^

Maybe you can do your neighbor system something like that. A gift giving option, but also interactive because you have to find where they hid it before you get it.

[springacres]

Ryuu, that sounds like Gardens of Time.   And personally I find the gift hiding thing to be one of the more frustrating aspects of that game lol!  But you're right, it is a fun concept.

[Ryuukokoro]

Aha, that IS it! Thanks spring!

Haha it's easy for me to find the gift because my screen is bare, I barely play. XD;; I imagine for big players with lots of stuff it would get frustrating! I just really like the idea of something interactive for you to do when your friends visit you.

[Silvanon]

Things are moving along!

I'm working at the moment on the layout for the game.  Here's what I've got at the moment:



(Click the image to see the full layout.  It's a little bigger than the forums want to show.)

The top section with the horse image and stats is the "main" area, where it'd show the store, the search, a horse's pedigree, or whatnot, depending on what links you click.  The "Horses" area shows your horses when you're working with your own stable, and shows friend's horses if you're visiting someone else's stable.

Have I forgotten anything or are there parts that particularly bug you?

Thanks for the feedback?

[Ravvana]

It looks great so far -- exciting to see progress! If you need guinea pigs once it becomes somewhat functional, let us know and I'm sure you'll have many volunteers <3

[Wildfilly94]

I love it!! And yes, I'll SO be a guinea pig for you

[Rosewood]

Looking good Silv!

[red_uni387]

oohhh shiny <3

[Kadana Sorano]

It looks great so far Silv!

[Silvanon]

Ok, there's basically nothing functional at the moment, but I need at least a few Facebook friends also on the app so I can start poking around with friend features.  If you're willing to help out, then

1. If we're not Friends on Facebook yet, please add me:  http://www.facebook.com/cami.mckune

2. Then please go to the app and approve its requested permissions:  http://apps.facebook.com/littlehorses/

At that point your game account will be set up with your name, level, and starting barn picture, and that's pretty much it.  XD  But I'm working hard and it's going to come along quickly, hopefully!

[Wildfilly94]

I added you <3

[PonyMama]

I sent a friend request My initials in Real Life are PM
and I have the cheshire cat as my Icon

[Silvanon]

Thanks guys!  I accepted the requests!   By the by, you don't have to wait for me to accept the request in order to sign up for the app - I just need some friends who are also on the app in order to see the results of the friends section I'm working on.  ^_^

[PonyMama]

Okay I am logged in, have added you as a friend and now clicked on your link and I get this message:

Oh dear, you're not logged into Facebook right now. Please log in so you can continue!

Facebook Login

I am clearly logged in to facebook, so I tried searching for little horses and can't find it.  So not too sure how to go about this now

[Silvanon]

PM - Hum, see what happens when you click the "Facebook Login" link?  Obviously I'll have to figure out why that's behaving that way, but for now see what that does.

[PonyMama]

Does nothing, that was the first thing I did before posting.

[Ravvana]

I have the exact same problem as PM. Clicking the link doesn't Seem to do anything.

[Silvanon]

Hum, ok, let me go poke at it.  (Hate it when sites I'm coding do something different for me than for everyone else, for no apparent reason.  )   I'll post again when I think I've got it working.  XD

[PonyMama]

that;s what asking for help is all about, you find the bugs
We are here to find them all for you

[Wildfilly94]

Mine shows the 'Internet cannot display this page' when I click 'play game'.

[PonyMama]

I am in!

[Silvanon]

PM - I've been poking around with various app settings, so I'm not sure if it's something I did or something you did.  Could you tell if you did anything that helped you get in?

[Ravvana]

I'm in too! It already looks great. And to your question, I did nothing; just tried the same thing after 15 minutes passed.

[PonyMama]

Yep I just went back after a bit of time and the page changed and allowed me to choose play game and now I am in

I did try a few times before that and had the same log in to facebook message, so you must have done something

[Silvanon]

XD  Apparently Facebook didn't want to let anyone play the game until I'd told them where my privacy policy and terms of service pages were located at.

[Ravvana]

Now I'm getting this message:

An error occurred during a connection to www.silvanon.com.

SSL received a record that exceeded the maximum permissible length.

(Error code: ssl_error_rx_record_too_long)

  The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified.
  Please contact the website owners to inform them of this problem. Alternatively, use the command found in the help menu to report this broken site.

[Silvanon]

Quick question Rav - are you on a normal http:// address, or a secure https:// page?