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Showing posts with label Battle Forces Online. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Battle Forces Online. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 13

Enhancements to my Battle Forces Online

Battle Forces Online -(http://www.battleforcesonline.com)

I've put some time and effort into Battle Forces Online.

I gave the entire game a face lift. I bought a template from monsterTemplates.com, modified it a good bit and used that as a new front end. I really like it, but I'm still in need of a good name for this game.

Killed a few bugs, attacking was a bit glitchy. The admin panels had all kinds of problems. So I put some time in and fixed those.

Because I fixed the admin panels, I was able to easily modify the game, so I added a few more maps/levels. (There are now 13, the last being Devils Delight)

I added a few more characters.

Created an iGoogle gadget for the game. (read the Tutorial)





Created a map function that tracks who is where.

Started a one month turnament.

Put some google ads on the game.

All in all, I like the upgrade, waiting to see what users think, but traffic is picking up allready so I take that as a good sign.

Friday, March 14

Battle Forces Online: Bounce Rates and Visits

Battle Forces Online: Bounce Rates and Visits

Interesting .... Between Feb 15, 2008 and Mar 14, 2008.

Low Bounce Rates:
* freegames.au - 39 visits, 20% bounce rate
* internetgames.org - 1 visits (prev 7)
* onlinegamesinn.com - 10 visits (prev 19), 30% bounce rate
* pbbgblog - 42 visits, 40% bounce rate
* onrpg.com - 133 visits (prev 37), 27% bounce rate (prev 30%)
* forums.indiegamer.com - 13 visits (prev 97), 30% bounce rate (prev 62%)

Most Visits From
* onrpg.com - 133 visits (prev 37), 27% bounce rate (prev 30%)
* community.bbgamezone.com - 49 visits (prev 59), 35% bounce rate (prev 45%)
* forums.indiegamer.com - 13 visits (prev 97), 30% bounce rate (prev 62%)
* pbbgblog - 42 visits, 40% bounce rate

I know that this past month I have posted a lot of entries on pbbgblog.com....evidently they have been working. The bounce rate is a bit high but it seems worth while.

Mental Note: Check out onrpg.com, it may be worth while to post a few things over there as it seems, they have a great bounce rate for my visitors.

Tuesday, March 11

Code: Merge Gif Images to create one image

The following code will take an array of gif images and merge them into one and save the resulting image to file.

I use it to create a unit images on the fly. As users buy different equipment, the unit's look changes.


function mergeImages($imgPathArray, $dest)
{
$imgArray = array();
for($i=0;$i < sizeOf($imgPathArray);$i++)
{
array_push($imgArray, imageCreateFromGif($imgPathArray[$i]));
}

$src = $imgArray[0];
$background = ImageColorClosest($src, 0, 0, 0);

for($i=1;$i<sizeOf($imgArray);$i++)
{
//ImageColorTransparent($imgNew, $background);

ImageCopyMerge( $src ,
$imgArray[$i],
0, //dest x
0, //dest y
0, //src x
0, //src y
74,//width
100,//height
100 //alpha
);

imagedestroy($imgArray[$i]);
}

return ImageGif($src, $dest);
}





Usage:

$dest = "images/custImage.gif";
$imgPathArray = array("images/builder/blueBase.gif","images/builder/body.gif","images/builder/legs.gif");
array_push($imgPathArray, "images/builder/body.gif");
array_push($imgPathArray, "images/builder/legs.gif");
array_push($imgPathArray, "images/builder/sword.gif");
mergeImages($imgPathArray, $dest);

Notes and Caveats:

All of my gif images were the same size, 74 X 100.
They also have transparent backgrounds.
If your images are different sizes, just change the width and height lines.
Note: Your array must contain at least 2 images otherwise you get an error.

Thursday, March 6

Battle Forces Online - Upgrade Time

Battle Forces Online has gone through a revision.

New Features
  • Added Destinations - Inns, Gates and visiting spots
  • More boards to play
  • Fight Pits - Small maps that once clear earn you loot
  • Optimizations in the response time to action requests
  • You can now buy more Blades (units) and weapons
  • Healing Spell added for Mages
  • 2 New Blades added, Earth Mage and Fire Mage
  • More spells and items
  • No more random spawning, everyone enters the board at the same time.
  • Alter your party
StoryLine

The story line is a bit weak at the moment, but I wanted to build the ability to give each map a storyline.

Destinations
There are now a number of places you can visit on each board, these places allow you to heal up, buy stuff and chat with NPCs.

More Boards to Play
Currently the game consists of the following boards/maps
  • Awakening - All new users enter here, there are very few enemies. This board allows users to get used to moving and attacking.
  • Dark Forest - Central location, allows you to move around and fight other players. There is a forest theme to it.
  • Gorjin's Bridge - A control point, you're going to need to level up and have a party of 2 Blades to clear this map. There is a bridge theme to it.
  • Gorjin's Lair - This board was built to test a user. Try to get to the castle at the far end.
  • Small Fight Pit - Very small fight pit, good for users with low stats or low party counts.
  • Medium Fight Pit - A medium sized pit
  • Large Fight Pit - Lots of enemies, lots of space...bring your whole party!
Optimizations
Due to the nature of the engine, when you tell a Blade to move or attack, the request is routed to the server, the server then responds with an OK or Not OK. This was causing a delay to occur between when you clicked and when a Blade actually performed the action.

I made some optimizations to the server handling as well as providing a visual cue (The blades says OK and fades a bit) when you give an action command.

Spells
If a spell is not an attack spell, a mage will cast it upon all members of the party. So a heal spell will heal all members by 10 HP. You do not have to target a member to do this.

In addition to this some spells now have a duration, these spell affects will last for a certain length of time. For example: Magic Shield last for 2 min and gives all members in the party +5 defense.

New Blades
I took the old mage and re-named it to "Fire Mage", this mage can cast fire spells.

I created a new mage called "War Mage", this mage cast lighting spells.

I created a new mage called "Earth Mage", this mage cast healing and defensive spells.

Mages can be killed by any warrior pretty easily so protect them.

Spawning
The old system used to randomly place your Blade on a map. The new system has a spawning point and your entire party will spawn around this point every time you join a map.

Editing the Party
You can now edit how your party spawns, so if you want the mage in the back and the Lord in the front you can do this.

Additional editing features are coming.

In the Future

Some things I'd like to develop in the near future:

* Guilds
* Challenges

Friday, February 15

Battle Forces Online: Bounce Rates and Visits

Interesting .... Between Jan 15, 2008 and Feb 15, 2008.

Low Bounce Rates:
  • internetgames.org - 7 hits, 15% bounce rate
  • onlinegamesinn.com - 19 hits, 27% bounce rate
  • pbbblog.com - 7 hits, 29% bounce rate
  • onrpg.com - 37 hits, 30% bounce rate
  • forums.indiegamer.com - 97 hit, 62% bounce rate
Most Visits From

Wednesday, February 13

Conversions...

Why won't they Play my Game?

I've been researching how to convert users for my browser based game Battle Forces Online. Well the first thing I had to do was to deiced what a "conversion" meant. After much labor and hard thought (30 to 40 seconds) I came to the brilliant conclusion that there are 3 different things I want from players.

Players
I want players to hit my landing page and start playing the game. I consider a user who creates an account and adds a Blade to the battle field. I consider these my players.

Voters
In order to generate more players, I need players to vote on one or more listing sites. This seems to drive more users then any other action that I can do. This is a sort of secondary conversion as this can not be done by a user, but can be done by a player (person with an account).

Buyers
The hardest sell. There is/will be an upgrade feature which will allow players to purchase items within the game. A conversion would be getting a player to buy this item.

In my next post, I will follow up with how I can make modifications to my landing page to facilitate these conversions.

So How can I optimize the Landing Page

Large Images
Large images placed in the center of the page that contrast with the background draw the eye. Currently I have a large image that spans 75% of the landing page, I am going to restrucutre this to have the "Play Now" button in the middle of the page.

Contact Information
Potential players are much more comfortable when they know they can contact the developer or support team for the game. Since this is the case, I will add a send message form where users can send me a message and I get it via email.

Screenshots

Potential players love screenshots as do reviewers. I have screenshots on the page so I will keep them, however I must remember to not let them overshadow the "Play Now" button.

Registering
Registration should be as simple and as accessible as possible. I think I will add both a login and a register form to the entrance page.

Headline

Users will read the first headline on your page 90% of the time...what is mine?

Tracking
In order to test these changes, I plan on creating a folder called "Landing", I will then figure out which of the landing pages convert the best.

KISS
Keep it as simple as possible, classy but simple.

Interesting Items to Follow Up With:
  • How to convert players to payers


Tuesday, February 12

Battle Forces Online - Major Re-vision

Battle Forces Online has gone through a large change.

I decided to keep the "game" a bit simpler and see what happened. I'd like to outline what I am thinking at this point.

I wanted to address the fact that a lot of users would enter the game and not know what to do. In the old system, you had to deploy and setup an army, this allows you to join a battle in progress.

Players now join the game and see a map, which all players share. They then can add their own units (Blades) by starting a "New Adventure". I also added a Tutorial hopefully this will help.

Players have the ability to add as many of their Blades to the board as they would like. However, once added a Blade can not be removed from the board.

The goal of the game is pretty simple, as you gain more coins you can hire more Blades which allows you to further control the board.

Some things I'd like to develop in the near future:
  • Multiple Worlds
  • Ability to buy items for Blades
  • Guilds
  • Challenges
  • Towns

Wednesday, December 5

Battle Forces Online - Update

I made some modifications to Battle Forces Online:
  • Enhanced Unit Graphics
  • Added some animations
  • Added new Unit
  • Added in game chat
  • Fixed Table Bug
Enhanced Unit Graphics
I lost internet access one night so I had the time to do graphics. I redid both mages, I think they look a bit more professional. I also added a few animations for their spells.

Added New Units
I added a new unit, it's a "Spell Stone" which can cast either of the healing spells. I plan on adding a number of these stones in the future.

Fixed Table Bug
There was a bug that was causing people to join a table but not start a game, it was not happening very often. I killed it. (I hope)

Tuesday, November 27

First Day in the Advertising Park

As I said before, I setup my google adwords yesterday. Here's some interesting information on that effort:

Active Keywords

The following keywords were used, the cents represent how much I paid per click.

Date Keyword CPC Imp. Clicks CTR Avg CPC Cost Position
11/26/2007 free online multiplayer rpg games $0.10 122 4 3.28% $0.22 $0.87 3.4
11/26/2007 good strategy games $0.05 1 0 0.00% $0.00 $0.00 4
11/26/2007 play rpg games $0.05 149 4 2.68% $0.16 $0.66 4.1
11/26/2007 strategy game $0.10 518 9 1.74% $0.21 $1.89 3.6


"free online multiplayer rpg games" was interesting because I could not set it lower then $0.10 per click.

57% Came and Left

43% continued to play the game.

62% used Firefox

53% used IE

They visited 4.5 pages per visit. (There is about 6 pages total)

My Mistake with Google Adwords

I decided to try out google adwords and actually pay to get some visitors to the site. Here is a brief synopsis.

Setting Up

In case you have not tried this, in general the steps to setting up google ads is as follows
  • Create a google account
  • Create a "Campaign" ("Battle Forces Online")
  • Create an "Ad Group"
  • Create an "Ad" (see below)
  • Create Keywords
  • Set your keyword price
  • Set your google network price (this was my mistake)
  • Give Google some money, so they can give money to advertisers.

My Ads

I made two ads, they are both equally effective at this point.

Battle Forces Online
Tactical turn based strategy game
Fight, Battle and Play now
www.BattleForcesOnline.com

Online RPG
Tactical turn based strategy game
Fight, Battle and Play now
www.BattleForcesOnline.com

My Mistake

I did not realize or the default Cost per Click for the Google Network was set at .20. When I let my ads go live, I racked up about $50.00 in an hour. The good news is I got 70,000 impressions and 100+ visitors.

I have since turned off Google Ads, My goal today is to re-evaluate my keywords.

Caveat

Be aware of the fact that it takes about 3 hours for the results of your ads, (and how much money you spent) is updated in the Google Admin Control panel. This was part of my issue as well.

In your history log most of the refers from adwords will be labels as pagead2.googlesyndication.com

Monday, November 26

Flash or Javascript

This is a follow up post to "Flash or Javascript".

I'm happy to say the bugs that were causing the game to not work in Firefox were very minor.

I have fixed them and the game is now 100% compatible with IE and Firefox.

The problem occurred when I was using a custom attribute within an HTML tag. For example a tile has a div on it and the div has an attribute "isWalkable"

--div class="tile" id="tile_x_y" iswalkable="Y"--


I would use the following javascript to access and set this attribute:

if(document.getElementById("tile_x_y").isWalkable == "Y")
{
//....blah, blah, blah
document.getElementById("tile_x_y").isWalkable = "N";
}
I changed this to the following:

if(document.getElementById("tile_x_y").getAttribute("isWalkable") == "Y")
{
//....blah, blah, blah
document.getElementById("tile_x_y").setAttribute("isWalkable", "N");
}

I'm hoping that this works in Opera but at this point less then 1% of my users use that browser so I'm forgoing compatibility on it.

Saturday, November 24

Flash or Javascript

I made a conscious decision to develop in javascript and PHP. I personally do not enjoy working with Flash. I find the concept of building with a Timeline unusual.

In addition to this I wanted to build a game that could possibly have multiple front ends. To do this I made all the request and programming logic available through API or URL calls. (This is called REST-like architecture)

Unfortunately as of right now more then 50% of my visitors are using FireFox. And there is a bug causing the battle field not to work properly. SO I am paying the price.

I'll keep you updated on this.

Friday, November 23

BFO - Needs some AI

Big problem with the Battle Forces Online, in order to play someone else has to be online.

Kinda hard to get the game started with this in play. A fella suggested that I add some type of AI which will allow a player to play.

I wonder if there is some type of sub-game that I can create. One that will allow people to stay on line and play while watching for another player to get online.

This may be critical to getting the game to actually launch.

Marketing and Stats

So it's been a few days since I posted on the forums. I went on family vacation for Thanksgiving so I've not been able to stay on the game and help people play. (That was a bad timing issue on my part)

Anyway, the day of the post I got 100+ visitors, next day 35, and yesterday 15. This goes much as I expected as I figured that as time passed my posting would drop to the bottom of the forums.

My game allows a person to play as a Guest without registering, so it's hard for me to tell how many new players have signed up, however here are some stats:

Number of Players: 31
Number of Guests: 25
Humm, doesn't help a lot. Does it.

The other interesting items to note are that the following sites give me the most referrals:
48 - forums.indiegamer.com
14 - devmasters.net
14 - gianttip.com
12 - bbgamezone.com
12 - gameproducer.net

My next attempt at marketing will be to put the game on some list but first I have to push an update.

Wednesday, November 21

Marketing A Browser Based Game

So as I roll this new game out, battleforcesonline.com. I wanted to advertise it and try to drive some users to the game. After some research and head scratching below is my plan. I'll write an update in a few days about how it's working.

Referral Program
The number one item that I put into place to help with marketing is the ability to refer a friend. If you refer a friend and that friend plays the game a bit, you can get a free unit (game piece). I'll be interested in seeing if this helps with word of mouth.

Forum Postings
I feel like such a heel. I've gone to about 10 different forums and posting a request for beta users for the game. I felt like a spammer. In my defense I tried to post only in those threads designated for new games or advertisements.

To be honest I don't expect a lot of traffic from these posts.

Gaming Directories
I've posted the game to a number of gaming directories, it will be interesting to see which ones will prove to send the most traffic.

Stats
I should point out that I am using Google Analytics for my stats tracking.

Battle Forces Online - Released

I've been hard at work on a new game called Battle Forces Online. Here is the marketing blurb on it. I'll be posting more information about it in the coming days.

Battle Forces Online is a tactical turn based RPG game. You control a number of "Blades". You configure their starting setup. You battle other players in a multi-player heads up arena.

Free for all to play! How many can you gather under your command?

This is an isometric game in which you have 6 Blades / Units to start with. Wager and win more Blades from other players. There will be something at stake every single battle!

http://www.battleforcesonline.com

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