As a follow-up to my original web game, The Great Cell Search, I wanted to create something that would be much longer, more involving, and take more puzzle solving to beat. What started out as a simple game evolved into a project that forced me to learn all sorts of PHP and Javascript techniques, as well as create an elaborate story to engulf players in. At the peak, the game had almost 8,000 hits per day, but that didn’t last, and the game only logged about 24,000 hits total. Maybe the game was too hard, or maybe I didn’t engage the right audience.
Some of the things that I learned along the way have been useful in other projects. Flat file databasing, which I used in ways that were quite unnesessary with the mail application, manifested itself in the very portfolio you are reading now. The Javascript that controlled the pop-up link at the start of the game also plays a key role in this new portfolio. I also learned a lot about passing variables between scripts, and a bit about how to save information from users.
It turns out making a good game is harder than it seems. I learned about how dangerous bugs can be. When I first implemented the ’numbers‘ program, it accidently returned the user to the G drive, giving them access to an area of the game earlier than I had intended them too. The average player also gave up a lot sooner than I thought. Maybe I was unable to spread word about the game to enough people to get the really hard-core puzzle people, or maybe the game was just a little bit too long to hold their interest until the end. Either way, next time the game will be even better.
No one has actually won Deception yet, but as soon as someone does, I will release the source code here for educational purposes. If you haven’t played yet, and you want to be the one to win it and get that source released, then play Deception
Update: In mid-May 2006, Deception had a massive resurgance in popularity. Fueled by a few forum posts, Deception's traffic soared from a few hits a day at best to over 85,000 page views before the end of the month. For the month, twoplustwoequalsfive.com logged over two and a half times the normal number of unique visitors. Still, noone was able to beat the game. A wiki group was created by players attempting to win, but despite being inches away, they have not yet completed the final few puzzles. Read more about this second burst of interest in my blog.