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[Inanimate]

For weapons and rooms, themes could work. And I may not have been clear enough on my ideas, but it won't feature any graphical output other than text. You will not see the map, that's left to your own imagination.

By tilesets, I meant what it was described as. You were perfectly clear. 

[Maqrkk]

Progress Report:
During the past two days I've done more testing with Player.IO. Think I'm about 95% there to fully understanding and finally starting it up.
Also been pondering some things gameplay-wise. Obviously with text-adventure, nothing is 'real-time', but with multiplayer, there has to be. Here's some examples and my current thoughts:

Event: Someone enters the room you're in.
Thoughts: I think part of the charm of text-adventure would be to keep this non real-time. For starters, it would give the player in the room a MAJOR advantage, because the other player has to LOOK or EXAMINE the room to find there is another player. But in the case where it's not real-time, the player who enters the room has the advantage, as they would most likely know someone else is in the room sooner. Leaning towards not real-time for this.

Event: You get killed.
Thoughts: Really unsure. It could work as real-time, that as soon as you're killed you get a message like "As you feel the bullet enter and exit your head, all can only think how much it sucks your opponent gained a point. A POINT!!". On the other hand, it could also work if you are being told by your next command, like this:
EXAMINE CUPBOARD
There is a gun in the cupboard.

** here you've been killed by someone **

TAKE GUN
I'd respawn first if I were you. Oh that's right, you died.

Don't know what would work best right now.

The lobby itself would mostly be real-time, with chatting. I don't think there will be any chatting during the game at this point. Or maybe the lobby will stay active during a game?

I'll start writing a text-input thingy first now. Should've done that already, really. I work so slow at times. /me sighs.

[LiquidAsh]

Thinking back to the MUDs I once played, I wasn't sure why you were hesitant about real-time actions in the game.  In fact I feel like I've even seen them in some single player text adventures, but can't think of a specific example... maybe the gnome working on different things in Lost Pig(?).

I do really like your delayed death message though.  And it would be a good way to prevent players from spamming eachother durring a game.  At first I thought this might make everyone feel a little slow in terms of being told about things that have changed around them.  I suspect it would actually make things more frantic as players constantly look around to watch their back.

I'm really looking forward to playing this one!

[Maqrkk]

I also like the delayed death message, I think it'd make it alot more hectic like you said, making the players paranoid, having them check LOOK constantly. I think I'll make final decisions during playtesting, see what works best.
Thanks by the way Feels good to make a game for an audience like this, that's a first for me. Makes me more excited to finish it too.

[Maqrkk]

Progress Report:
Finally started the actual creating of the game. I managed to get a funky oldschool looking text input bar pretty quickly. It will take care of most of the game on its own, the rest is communicating with the server and adding feedback text to an ever-growing (and clearable??) list of textfields. This will probably be scrollable, but I'm not sure (making it scrollable could destroy the oldschool feel, and the old lines are probably outdated by the time they reach the top).

Also, I've taken a rather drastic change from my previous programming, and am now working slightly structural. I've written down the commands that will be in the game, and focus on that list. This differs from my usual totally random approach, which hopefully will result in quicker and better programming.

So, I have some questions that I'd like opinions on.
1. Should the game start in the lobby with a default name (Guest427), or should it start in 'offline' mode, and you would need to type 'CONNECT ___', with the underscores being your desired nickname? I think the first option is more user friendly, in that they can start straight away, but I'm unsure.

2. Did I forget any commands for the lobby? I can only think of 3 at this time; JOIN [roomname], NICK [new name], and LIST [rooms|players].

3. Should there be chat during the game? If so, how would this work, considering mostly everything is non real-time. And you're probably focussed on playing anyway? Hmm..

All in all, I've had a terribly slow start, but I'm finally making some progress! Yay!

[dewdrr]

I was going to join this forum to participate in this competition by making this same thing(but in js).

My hat is off to you, and I am available for consulting

[Fluff]

1. Should the game start in the lobby with a default name (Guest427), or should it start in 'offline' mode, and you would need to type 'CONNECT ___', with the underscores being your desired nickname? I think the first option is more user friendly, in that they can start straight away, but I'm unsure.

I like the idea of choosing a name before you connect. This way you don't end up with a room full of Guests all trying to figure out how to change their name. You could start the game with a simple prompt, "What is your name?" And then connect when they hit enter.

Also, just brainstorming here, to distinguish between chatting and commands in the lobby, the commands could be following a slash like: /join and /nick.

2. Did I forget any commands for the lobby? I can only think of 3 at this time; JOIN [roomname], NICK [new name], and LIST [rooms|players].

Maybe: CREATE [roomname]?

3. Should there be chat during the game? If so, how would this work, considering mostly everything is non real-time. And you're probably focussed on playing anyway? Hmm..

I'm not sure about this one. On the one hand, it might be nice to chat while waiting for your turn. On the other hand, it might be kind of disruptive to be seeing real-time messages pop up when you're taking your turn.

You could think about in-game forms of communication:

SAY "I KNOW YOUR GUN IS OUT OF AMMO"

or

YELL "COME OUT AND GET ME"

If the opponent is too far away:

You hear a muffled yell from the north but can't make out the words.

Or you could just leave the in-game communication to simple verbs like MOCK JERRY or TAUNT JETHRO. Although players would have to be in the same room for this to really work.

Maybe, the chat could be in a separate window. Or somehow on the side?

All in all, I've had a terribly slow start, but I'm finally making some progress! Yay!

I'm excited about this project. There are a lot of ways to expand this idea too.

Traps? PLACE BOMB IN CUPBOARD

Alternate game modes? Objective based? First person to PARACHUTE off the ROOF with the BRIEFCASE wins? But you better be sure those aren't FORGED PAPERS first!

[Maqrkk]

I was going to join this forum to participate in this competition by making this same thing(but in js).

My hat is off to you, and I am available for consulting

What a coincidence :D And you are free to make your own if you wish ofcourse!

I like the idea of choosing a name before you connect. This way you don't end up with a room full of Guests all trying to figure out how to change their name. You could start the game with a simple prompt, "What is your name?" And then connect when they hit enter.

Also, just brainstorming here, to distinguish between chatting and commands in the lobby, the commands could be following a slash like: /join and /nick.

I think I prefer that way too. You start in offline mode and pick a name. If you try a name that's taken, it would notify you, but sign you in under your name followed with (2) or something, like Maqrkk(2) and Fluff(2).
As for the slash-commands, unsure. A different option would be to have the chat under a different command, like "CHAT HEY ALL" would say "HEY ALL" in the lobby.

Maybe: CREATE [roomname]?

I thought JOIN would create the room if it doesn't exist, but I guess a CREATE command should also be valid in this case. Now I need to decide what would happen if you create a room that already exists. Would you join it (if possible), or be told it already exists?

I'm not sure about this one. On the one hand, it might be nice to chat while waiting for your turn. On the other hand, it might be kind of disruptive to be seeing real-time messages pop up when you're taking your turn.

You could think about in-game forms of communication:

SAY "I KNOW YOUR GUN IS OUT OF AMMO"

or

YELL "COME OUT AND GET ME"

If the opponent is too far away:

You hear a muffled yell from the north but can't make out the words.

Or you could just leave the in-game communication to simple verbs like MOCK JERRY or TAUNT JETHRO. Although players would have to be in the same room for this to really work.

Maybe, the chat could be in a separate window. Or somehow on the side?

This comes back to the real-time vs. non real-time events. If the game is, what I currently think, 100% non real-time, then even the simple communication would be 'odd'. I guess a screen on the side would be the best option for this, but it may be distracting. I have to think about this some more..

I'm excited about this project. There are a lot of ways to expand this idea too.

Traps? PLACE BOMB IN CUPBOARD

Alternate game modes? Objective based? First person to PARACHUTE off the ROOF with the BRIEFCASE wins? But you better be sure those aren't FORGED PAPERS first!

Those are some crazy fun ideas :D And thanks, I hope not to disappoint

Thanks for the comments, they keep me motivated :D

[dewdrr]

I was going to join this forum to participate in this competition by making this same thing(but in js).

My hat is off to you, and I am available for consulting

What a coincidence :D And you are free to make your own if you wish ofcourse!

Our games would be far too similar... everything in this post is exactly what I intended to do. I'd rather just play yours when it's done!

[DrOctapu]

Are you still working on this?

[Maqrkk]

I was pretty sick this week, and therefore hardly able to do any work on this. Am starting to feel alot better, so expect some updates soon

[Maqrkk]

So when I started to feel better, I was struck with a second coming of the flu. Spent the whole week doing nothing but feeling crap. Now that the deadline is coming closer, I'll be extra motivated to finish this, I think. I've spent two weeks thinking stuff through, so updates should come rapidly.