Create turn-based internet games
David Bolton takes inspiration from his past and explains what postal games are, and what’s needed to create and run one in the modern age.
OUR EXPERT
David Bolton worked for several years as a postal game developer back in the late ’80s for what was then the UK’s largest postal game company.
QUICK TIP
There’s an old saying that you should always validate your inputs. Even if you wrote the part of the website or mobile app that accepts orders, you should still validate them in your program that reads and processes them. It’s easy to make mistakes.
W e’re going to relive the heyday of the play-bymail craze by creating our own multiplayer browser-based game. In this two-part series, we’re looking at what you need to set up a game and providing an overview of the games processing. It’s only called postal because that’s how these games used to be run from the late ’70s until the mid-’90s, when the internet came along. No stamps are needed now! Here is a list of the steps involved in setting up and running a game:
1. A game is developed then advertised.
2. Players sign up.
3. When enough players have joined, the game begins. The website is updated with the initial positions.
4. Players receive their initial positions.
5. Each turn, players submit their orders through a website or mobile app.
6. Once an hour (or whatever time period) all the game orders are processed.
7. Results are generated and the website/mobile app is updated. 8. Loop back to step 4 until the game finishes.
Those steps in more detail…
The type of game is entirely up to you. Mafia-type games are very popular. Take a look at the PBBG subreddit (www.reddit.com/r/PBBG/). PBBG stands for persistent browser-based games. Any form of multiplayer situation, such as space combat, military strategy games, sport – for example, football leagues – and, of course, fantasy games involving castles, dungeons and dragons are popular. Judging by that PBBG subreddit, there seems to be a new Mafia game coming out every week.
WHAT IS PLAY-BY-MAIL (PBM)?
PBM is a form of commercial game playing that existed long before the web – from the ’70s through to 1995. Games were advertised in magazines and players wrote in and asked to join the waiting list. When it was ready, the game would begin and players would be sent multipage printouts. Some games used special postcards, where players could enter their orders – usually simple commands – then posted orders to the company before the deadline. Each turn cost typically between 50p and £1.00.
At the games company, the orders were typed in, a program run and the turn was processed. One of the longest running games, Quest (https://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Quest_(game)) was developed in 1989-1990 by the author while working at KJC Games and is still run today, with a major redesign in 2002. It was originally written in 40,000 lines of Turbo Pascal and took a year to develop. It was loosely based on the Ultima games, with up to 1,000 players whose parties of D&D-type characters travelled across a continent, went down dungeons and fought monsters and other parties.
Since the web appeared from 1995, games moved from postal to email and web, which saved postage and meant that turns could be done in hours, not days or weeks. The principle of submitting turns, having them processed and returned still works. Wikipedia (https://bit.ly/ lxf316wiki) lists a number of active play-by-mail games but it’s unlikely any are run by mail now!