Ensemble, a collaborative multiplayer game project

[Jerorx]

Hi,

I'd like to present Ensemble, an experiment in crowd design, where players, developers and artists can collaborate to collectively design a browser-based multiplayer online game. This is a very experimental project to see what can emerge from pushing the collaborative aspect of a project to the max.

This project is collaborative in the sense that it is the community, and the community only, who decides how the game should evolve. Copied from the page of the game, here is a short description of the three main channels for this process:

1. Suggesting and voting for features. Anyone can make suggestions about a feature to add to the game (with a simple embedded form, without the need to login or anything, no friction). A list of the suggested features (located below the game canvas) allows to vote for or against each of them. On a regular basis, one of the top-ranked features of the moment is selected and implemented.
2. Making Pull Requests. Developers can choose to bypass this process, and directly implement themselves the changes they would like to see in the game. These changes can be submitted through Github pull requests. Pull requests are accepted unconditionally, provided they don’t contain anything inappropriate and work properly.
3. Submitting art. A form is provided to enable artists to send me artwork that they would like to see added to the game, such as sprites or animations. For these as well, submissions are accepted unconditionally.

For a more detailed description, as well as links to both the source code and the game itself, I refer you to the main page of the project.

At the moment, the "game" consists in moving colored dots around, and dropping white blocks that serve as obstacles. This is still very basic, as only a handful of features have been suggested and implemented yet. You are free to jump in and attempt to shape the evolution of the game!

In any case, this could be a valuable learning experience for those:
- Interested in learning more about Phaser by experimenting and contributing to an existing project
- Interested in learning how to make a multiplayer online game with Node.js and Socket.io

(This is why I posted it here and not in the "games showcase" or "Phaser" sections : the game itself is only one part of a bigger experience ;  and although the client is made using Phaser, the project involves other technologies of possible interest to a wider audience.)

Feedback if welcome of course.

Below, a screenshot of what the game looks like at the moment.

[mattstyles]

Sounds like a cool project, I've just got a small point, that you make at your site, regarding socket.io, you mention udp/tcp, JS can't use udp, closest is WebRTC, choosing a different lib might speed up comms but its not because of a udp/tcp thing.

Sounds like a really cool experiment though, hope you get plenty of uptake and churn out something good to play!

[Jerorx]

Yes good point. I have in mind for future projects to use node-webkit, where UDP-based communication becomes possible, but while we remain in the browser (as is the case with Ensemble), this is indeed not possible. I'll update the post.