About browser games

[{MSX}]

Hi! what do you think about browser games ? Things like Kings of Chaos, Neveron, and the like?

I think they could be good but are a bit too banal and repetitive..

Do you think it would be possible to do one in pascal/delphi ?

bye

[Traveler]

I've played Utopia for years. For those that don't know it, it's a strategy game where you have to build a strong and powerful province.
Players, may choose a role and race at the start and are then placed in a kingdom of 25 provinces. Together they strife to become the most powerful, biggest or most honorable kingdom on the island or even the entire world.

I'm not that familiar with other 'browser' games, but from what I have seen, Utopia may, with well over 100,000 players, be the most popular.
I think it is mostly due to the cooperative game play and of course the fact that you don't play against computers, but real people, with which you can talk to. Also, it is important to realize that graphics pay absolutely no role in this game. Everything is based on text. Your land, army, attacks, everything is displayed in numbers and text.

To answer your question whether it is possible to build something like that in delphi. Sure I think it is possible. Question is what do you want to recreate? (And I do not mean which type of game)

[TheLion]

Hi! what do you think about browser games ? Things like Kings of Chaos, Neveron, and the like?

I think they could be good but are a bit too banal and repetitive..

Do you think it would be possible to do one in pascal/delphi ?

bye

hehe, read Erikens interview with Athena and Spirit, they did a browsergame in Delphi!

I played a german browsergame for a long time, but I started to hate it after a while and got bored with it so I quit!

I also started writing one once in PHP+JavaScript+HTML+MySQL, I had some great ideas but decided it was too much work and it wouldn't make too much money anyways so I decided to stop working on it!

[cairnswm]

There are a few ways to write browser games (or applications in Delphi).

1. IntraWeb
2. CGI
3. DWS II

1. IntraWeb

Intraweb is a powerful RAD environemtn for creating web applications in Delphi. (Currently I am busy with a largish application at work using IntraWeb).

Intraweb applications are created just like normal Delphi Applications using a form designer and object pascal. These programs can be created as Stand Alone web servers, ISAPI or Apache DLLs. Also avaialbale in Kylix for Apache if done on windows would require a windows application server (with IIS if created as an ISAPI dll).

2. CGI

CGI programs are called out of web pages. Making a CGI application isn't all that difficult but once again would require a Windows Server. CGI applications do not have state and therefore require additional work to maintain the user state in the game.

CGI programs have the benefit that they are easier to maintain as they are removed from computer memeory when complete (an ISAPI dll remains in memory).

3. Delphi Web Script II

DWS is an ISAPI dll that is installed on a Windows IIS web server. The DWS dll interprets delphi commands allowing web programs to be written in Delphi the same way that an ASP program is written.




The biggest problem with all the options listed above is that they require full access to your web server. Most hosts will not allow you to install your own ISAPI dlls.

[Lightning]

You could make normal games for most browsers, for IE you have to compile as an ActiveX, check sulaco.co.za ActiveX demo, i modified the HTML page to force IE to ask for download/install automatically.
For other browsers wich support Netscape plugins you could use a plugin framework, check http://delphi.mozdev.org/
Making browser games is a nice ideea if you can use full hardware acceleration :toocool: