Positioning Xemerys (part II)

After some time I finally found the proper attributes to position Xemerys. While Xemerys can be many things I think one is most important: it brings the good old Gameplay back. The majority of the browser based games nowadays are very shallow and it seems that the race is for how to make the most simplistic (read: dumb) games with cuter and even cuter silly graphics.  The casual segment is the most targeted and developers seem to forget that there are people who still remember the good old games from the past and very few are trying to bring that golden age to the browser. This developer is one of them.

Xemerys’ strong point is its complex but intuitive GAMEPLAY. Xemerys is inspired from reality and from games like Civ or Caesar and it’s quite easy to understand it if you have above 5th grade reading skills. The funny part is that people very used to simplified games (ikariam, farmville, mafia etc) find it complicated because building a new facility is sooo unnatural as opposed to upgrading a building and hiring teams instead of single workers is once again very rare in the real world. And OMG you have to give your people  foods , clothes and other goods, healthcare and entertainment. And pollution is bad for your city, imagine that!  On the other hand some people think Xemerys is a tycoon game or an economic simulation and don’t understand that there’s something more than making gold *sigh*.

Let me say it (again): Xemerys is a city management strategy game. You rule a city and your city has to become the biggest with a high quality of life. You take decisions, you interact with other players, you have to make tough choices, you make or break friendships. Simple stuff, but here comes the twist: YOU are in charge for choosing the path to success, there is more than one way and every player has to find theirs. Yes, it really means that *gasp* you have to THINK before you take a decision and you can play bad and lose the game.  It also means that things change and your perfect strategy might not work as well as it did before and you have to CHANGE it.  You see, you have to actually PLAY the game as opposed of witnessing how the game plays itself while you’re just decorating your avatar, farm etc. And having the biggest army or empire (or city in this case) is not the ultimate strategy, just take the bad decisions and you’ll go down in no time.

If you love simplistic, repetitive games with cute graphics you have lots of junk to choose from, but if you are a fan of gameplay as the main feature, know that Xemerys is here for you!

Human Nature part 2

Yes, human nature showed its ugly head again and another jerk thought that it was fun to hex some players before he quit. But this one wanted to gloat on the chat first, feeling so powerful and invincible. Well, he’s banned now and I hope he won’t come back.

I really don’t know  why Xemerys reveals this ugly side of players who otherwise were very ok.  If they hate the game, be it, but why annoy the other players? I’m already wondering who’s next?

The Human Nature

A few days ago, I detected that a player had multiple accounts (3 of them).  My community liaison sent him an unofficial warning to keep only one account, since multi accounting is ground for banning. Well , that player (who played ok and wasn’t a troublemaker) activated vacation mode on the 3d account , then he sent all he had from the other cities to a friend of his. However, he thought it would be nice to attack some random players and he did so!  They were 2 lucky ones who received a full complement of spells for unsuccessfully living.

Now, why did he act this way? Why did he feel the urge to spoil the game for other players? Just because he was going to delete those 2 accounts? Because he got a warning instead of a quick ban? I’m amazed why some people who seem very nice, reveal themselves to be such assholes. I have no explanation for this behaviour, it just shows how fucked up human nature sometimes is. At least I’ve banned him on the spot for that, but who will be the next jerk?

Cool Feature

Xemerys got a cool new feature: Everyone, not only the players, can follow on Twitter (@XemerysDen) the discussions from the in-game chat called Merchant’s Den. If you are a player, now you don’t have to keep the chat open and if you are not a player you can see what people talk about in an online strategy game, without having to create an account.

How many games have this feature?

Positioning Xemerys

One of the joys of being indie is doing your very own marketing. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like marketing and I’ve read quite a lot about it, but the lack of time and budget means I can’t afford many mistakes.

I’m having a dilemma, while Xemerys is a strategy it is also a powerful tool for self-improvment, since it will reveal very easy your weak points and how adaptable you are when things don’t go the desired way. So I have 2 options:

1.I can position Xemerys as an economic strategy with deep gameplay for a mature audience tired of the current trend of “Let’s dumb down our games to make it more accessible to every teen or to grandma who just discovered casual gaming”. This is the easiest way for me as Xemerys puts emphases on the old-school gameplay rather than simplistic mechanics and flashy graphics. And right now, there isn’t much competition in this area.

2. I can concentrate on the educational value of Xemerys and also target non-gamers who usually don’t play games but are eager to improve themselves. Educational games are usually for kids so I should have an advantage in this area.

The most logical way would be to choose option 1 but here’s the situation: when I’ve launched Xemerys a few months ago , I’ve promoted it on such communities but got very unpromising results. The Caesar/sim city players said could not figure the game (what?! Xemerys is very much inspired from such classics) while the Civilization fans seem to hate anything which contains the word “online” ( I’m very curious how Civ Network will fare ) or “massive multiplayer” as a matter of fact. And many players of trendy strategies  (Travian, Ikariam etc) didn’t have the brainpower required to survive in Xemerys (oh and probably the lack of cute animations and “let’s build armies and pillage each other to borindeath”).

So perhaps people who like to improve themselves will find Xemerys not only useful but also a fun tool, the only problem is that many of them don’t like computer games.  Or they do play but only casual stuff and “strategy” is a taboo word…

Now, what  should I do? Choosing one option seems to discount the other (that’s why they are called “options” stupid!) and neither look very promising. What do you say: old-school strategy for mature gamers or educational strategy for anyone who want to improve their decision making ability?

Two new features of Xemerys

… I’m quite proud of.

Morph Industry – As simple as it sounds, you can transform an industry into another. Available only for raw materials industries for now, you can switch your unique resource much easy this way (premium feature btw).   The alternative is to demolish all your facilities (for free!!) and start building them again (it costs a little gold and LOTS of time, but again you don’t have to buy/spend premium points). As this moment, I don’t know any other browser based strategy which has this feature, premium or not.

Environmentalism Civic – Xemerys is inspired from real life and thus, pollution is present everywhere. Building parks helps, but it takes time to research the next  level and you don’t have much time. Local Warming, the lovely effect of too much pollution, can strike anytime (and it usually does) and the spells are just temporary solutions. Enter the new nature friendly civic which will reduce pollution and increase health and happiness. Of course you’ll have to research it first but, you’ll benefit from it forever (as long as you employ it). I can tell you for a fact that all the silverware producers are in love with this civic.

La vie en Vert Propaganda – When the civic is nature friendly, its propaganda is of course, about a green economy. More health, a bit of research boosting and a reduction of consumption (people are recycling more) will surely outweigh the small increase in industry upkeep.

“Hey Mike, these are 3 features not 2″. Well my friend, you might not know that every civic in Xemerys has its very own propaganda thus a new civic implies a new propaganda as well

I’m not an indie anymore

That’s it, I won’t call myself an indie developer! Not because goddess Fortuna blessed me with a big budget or with a job at an AAA game company, hell no! It’s because when talking about indie games, 90% are thinking casual desktop games or casual flash games and when talking about online games well… you are just a flash games developer. Even when you say it loud “MMO” it’s all about flash, right? Wrong! I don’t even know Flash… and I’m not the only one in this situation.

So, from now on I’m a Verys game developer.  Verys means “very small [budget/team]” so here you go… A new word to define small developers who DON’T make casual games.

All hail the new verys MMO developer!

P.S: Everyone who fits in this description is welcome to join our club, 1 year subscription is available for the  “omg it’s so cheap!” price of  $5 per hour.

Introducing Xemerys

A few month ago I launched the beta of “City States of Xemerys” or Xemerys (for anyone who likes short names). It’s quite a unique MMO strategy since it’s different than other browser based strategies (you know them very well) and has the added benefit of being an educational game and for grown-ups nevertheless. Say what?!

Yes, I’m a strong believer  that computers games (not all of them though) can help you improve yourself as a person. Some will train your reflexes (shooters or casual gaming) while other train your brain a little (puzzles, strategies). Even proper made RPGs can help you expand your universe a bit but this post is about Xemerys.  Being tired of same clones of “let’s build armies and attack each others” I thought I’ll make my own browser based strategy with a twist!

The twist is I wanted Xemerys to be a real strategy with plenty of options (unlike the usual ‘build biggest army” strategy which is the single optimum strategy in other games anyway) so that anyone can chose their own path. Not only that, but I want the game to help you explore yourself a bit. Life is about taking decisions and you do the same in Xemerys. But Xemerys is a chance to analyze your actions, especially when your strategy turns out to be a losing one.

Even better, you can witness your reactions when the environment (form weather, to  market conditions) changes. You can blame the game, other players or yourself. But blaming someone doesn’t help you much, does it? You still have a problem and you need to solve it, exactly like in real life.  The good news is in Xemerys you can test things and your real life won’t be ruined if you screw up.

You’ll meet different type of real people in Xemerys, some are helpful, some are nice, some are jerks, some are competitive, some are just craving for attention. You can test you social skills against them and you’ll have quite a few surprises along the way.

And I didn’t tell you about features you won’t find in other browser based strategies yet, but I’ll do now  Let’s see… you have your very own city to take care of and by city I really mean people, your subjects since you are a Lord or a Lady. They have needs like food, drinks, nice looking things but also they want to be happy and in good health. They are happy if you can provide them with required goods and services and they will be healthy if you have enough hospitals for everyone. Of course, like a good ruler you will provide them with everything while striving to have the biggest, richest and ..est city in Xemerys. Sounds easy, yes?

As we all know, practise is where the theory often fails so you’ll learn that, like in real life, there’s much more that meets the eye. You do have almost complete control, but they’re so many choices (and some times too few)! You can produce goods, you can trade them, you will be angered at pollution (which plays an important role in your city’s well being) you will research civics, you will combine civics, you will cast spells and spread propaganda and you will cooperate or compete with other players. And there’s no armies in the game, yet you can ruin someone else’s city. Isn’t life wonderful?

Xemerys is a fun game if you like a bit of managing challenge and a powerful tool if you want to explore the way you think and take decisions. Every action you make has consequences and  it depends on you if you learn something from your mistakes. And you can register for free!

Hello World

Right, the first post.

Initially I  didn’t think a blog was worth it, especially since I don’t have much time to write stuff. But after I’ve found a fellow developer with much of the same experience like me, I thought that perhaps sharing my journey and thoughts will help some poor soul who picked the path of indie. This is it for now!