An Inside Look At The City Plots “City Map”

I thought I would take some time off this nice afternoon and talk about my upcoming game codenamed City Plots. The idea for the game came from many sources. The goal was to take the best aspects of online strategy games, and make one perfect game.

Without wasting any more precious programming time, I would like to explain how a very crucial component of the game works. When you register for the game, you have to name your city. You are given a small parcel of land (100sq. units). In that land you can build buildings. Much like traditional rts’s, you can choose where these buildings are placed. Most online games like City Plots do not allow you to chose where to put the building. Many times you only build one of them and expand that one. The flaw here is that a real city doesn’t have one building that everyone lives on, unless… well I’m not going there.

Upon entering the buildings page, you will be presented with a map of your city. You can scroll around to view any area you have expanded into outside of your viewing threshold. The map shows pretty little icons for each building type. If you click in an empty square, you can build a new building (assuming you have the existing prerequisites). This type of game model allows for rapid creation of a city. You can build two buildings at once, but you have to have enough workers available to do the jobs. The more workers you have, the faster constructions goes.

What types of buildings will there be?

There are many types of buildings in City Plots. At first you start out with very primitive structures as your city is small. As you grow, there will be a need for various services. You will be able to accommodate these by meetings the prerequisites listed. After all, you can’t build a weapon shop without an ore mine.

The technical side

No to fear! This isn’t that hard to understand. To create a city for each user, and array of all possible units must be created. Instead of doing this by hand (which would take an awful long time that could be spend doing other non-productive things), I used a simple loop to create the array.

$blocks = array( array( array() ) );

$x = 4;
$y = -4;

while( $x > -5 )
{
$blocks[$x][$y] = $blocks[$x][$y]['blank'];

if( $y < 4 )
{
$y++;
}
else
{
$y = -4;
$x–;
}
}

That creates what I call a ‘blank slate’. The array is then stored safely in the database. What the script basically does it start at the uppermost x value (we do have to make a graph-like system) and go through all possible y values starting at the lowest. Once the y value reaches the largest value it can, the x value is then lowered one step. This process is continued until all values are generated. When the x value reaches it’s lower limit, the loop breaks and the array is ready for storage. A similar method is used when adding new rows, et cetera.

That’s pretty much it for now. Expect more to come on the inner workings of City Plots.

Account Registration For City Plots Begins

You can now create an account on City Plots (working title) as well as create your city. There isn’t anything to do yet. You can view the game’s change log to see exactly how the game is progressing. I would like to take this time to test the account management scripts for bugs that may appear. If you happen to find a bug, please let me know asap. Other feedback is also requested.

The game is located: http://cityplots.ojaisoft.com

New Game – City Plots

Overkill games and Ojaisoft would like to announce the new game City Plots (working title). City Plots is a post apocalyptic text strategy game. Users take control of one of the few surviving families; starting from scratch. Throughout much of the game, players will discover parts of a survivors journal; revealing his story, and how it became such a desolate place. Below is from the main page.

Since World War 6, there is no longer an America. Israel, Russia, Japan, and most of Central Europe united against us and destroyed what once was. Shortly after, in 2085, the world powers turned on each other and there was nothing left other then four years of a nuclear winter known as “The Cold September.” No nation remained. The survivors faced an unmarked world. This new generation was dubbed “The September Children.”

Our world as we know it has devolved to a primordial state where packs communicate with violence and fight for their lives. What pack will you join? What will you do to rule the world?

- Client.1

Beta sign-ups will start soon. If you would like to be part of the staff, inquire within.

New Game To Be Announced Soon

In less than a week, a formal announcement for an upcoming web game will released. Final details surrounding the aspect of the game are in development. In addition, a name has not been settled on.

Expect an announcement Saturday morning.

My New Year’s Resolutions

Well, it is now 2007 and I thought it would be cool to map out my goals for this year. So, for the amusement for everyone, I present the list:

• Finish OjaiCMS and ready it for distribution.
• Launch Marching Band!
• Transfer this blog over to the new site.
• Find an apartment to live in.
• Become more socially active.
• Get a job as a computer support person.
• Find “the one.”
• Produce a full length student film.
• Contribute more to Wikipedia.
• Stop going to digg.com so much.

Well, that’s not everything, but I don’t want to bore you any further. I would love to hear your new year’s resolutions!

Seeking Aspiring Musicians

Azavia and OjaiSoft have teamed up to roll out a great new service for anyone wanting to be heard. Wether you be a podcaster, comdian, rock band, or anything else audio-ized, we have just what you need to get out there. Due to the early developmental status of the service, we are not able to describe it fully, but rest assured it will be cool.

To say it simple: We need music to test the service with. We are looking for people who are willing to let us use their music royalty free, in exchange you will be heard by many, and be advertised on the site. If you are interested please call 1(805)633-1051 and leave a message. You can also email me at troy at ojaisoft dot com.

Marching Band! – The Worlds First Online Marching Band Simulator

I guess you can now say the cat is out of the bag. This is another part of the huge announcement I will be posting soon.

Registration has begun for Marching Band! Claim your account before someone else does for you. You will be able to login by the end of the week. Don’t worry about forgetting about the site, all members will be notified via email when the beta begins.

About the game

Marching Band! is the sole creation of Troy Whiteley (that’s me if you didn’t already know). It started as a joke many years back in high school marching band. Little did anyone know that this day would come when band geeks around the world can compete in one location. Marching Band! was built using the soon-to-be public release of OjaiCMS, a dynamic content management system capable of running multiple sites under one installation.

Once registered for the game, you will be asked to create your school. From there you must recruit, train, and compete with your team. More details about this to come…

Why Marching Band?

Let’s look at it this way: there are lots of high schools around the United States. In California alone, there are thousands of high schools (grades 9-12) [source]. Some of these schools do not have bands, but most do. If you do the math, there is an extremely high number of people who perform with a marching band. This means that there is a large number of people who could be interested in a marching band simulator.

It’s just a market that has sadly only been targeted by ma-pop t-shirt, cheap video production, unhealthy food folks. Why no one has made a full blown video game about it is beyond me. But I do plan on being the first.

So what are you waiting for? Go sign up now!

Help Wanted :: Graphic Artist

A graphic artist is needed for an upcoming project to be anounced later today or tomorrow. For more information, please call 805-633-1051 or message me:

aim: jark4life
gtalk: dawnerd@gmail.com (You may also email me here)
meebo: dawnerd

Project details cannot be publically released yet Yes, this is part of the biggy update.

OjaiSoft Live – OjaiCMS v2 Comming

I have been working hard the past few days on two projects of mine. The first being the OjaiSoft website, and the later being the second version of OjaiCMS.

The second version of OjaiCMS will contain a number of features that many content management systems are missing. I cannot go into much detail about the specifics due to the early stages of development. All I can say is that OjaiCMS is being re-written from ground up.

As for OjaiSoft.com, suggestions? I would like to make the site the best it can be, and I can do that better if I had some suggestions. In the mean time, check out the OjaiPost.

OjaiSoft.com back alive … kinda

I have gone out, searching for hosting, and have found some. I will put the site back online as soon as I can. Just wanted to give everyone a heads up.

I will also have a live demo of OjaiCMS running at http://ojaisoft.com/projects/ojaicms/

The current layout is for a site I am making for a client. It is the only current theme made for ojaicms. FreeFunGuides.com will also be the first officially ojaicms ran site.