Well I had not actually considered participating in this Byteball Steemit Use-A-Thon. I did participate in the one made in Simón Bolívar University, and seeing the results were OK (me and my partner got third place) and that I am short on bytes, I thought I'd give this a try, but seeing as I am doing this last-hour, the outcome may not be as expected; I am in, nonetheless.
Summary (Project Layout):
I had a dream some months ago; it involved a browser-only video-game, earnings from adverts for the page that hosted it in US dollars, and payouts made to users in crypto-currency. I had only just begun using Byteball back then, but from my current stand-point, BYTES could easily be such a crypto-currency.
Design of my own
Motivations:
Okay, I also have to mention I am a Protestant Christian, and the game that I originally thought of was basically an Age of Empires II "clone" with only one faction available to the player: Ancient Hebrews. Jews. Israelites. Israelis. The background aim is to spread the Word of God among gamers, to get them to know the story laid out in the Bible through an engaging and rewarding experience; it would include not too much skippable text, but abundant cutscenes and cinematics instead.
I've always been fascinated with the History of Israel; they are today a force to be reckoned-with militarily, but that was not always like that... Maybe for a short period of time (during the reigns of Kings David and Solomon), but other than that, they were easy pray for the big-players of the time: the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Romans.
In the game I have in mind (it can of course always be changed to something else, this being only the base-idea), which is basically a Historical Real-Time Strategy (RTS) game, there would be three chapters:
#1. Pharaohs of Egypt:
Jacob and Joseph find themselves vastly outmatched by the Egyptians. There is hunger on the land, and the resources are running short, but "if this is to be our end, then we will make it such and end!" The missions (maybe 3) are to run back-water outposts to supply the front-lines. Each one is relatively easy, but the Egyptian incursions threaten the base-camps every time. The war is ultimately lost, and the Hebrews are taken captive. This is all of course a fictional recount of the events, which actually had Joseph be sold into Egyptian slavery but eventually actually be made Governor! (There is room to play with this here, as one of the goals of the game is to spread the Word of God.)
#2. Babylon's Sins:
The times of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob are long passed, and even King David, praised by the Lord himself in the Bible, is really an ancient memory. Solomon's sins were great, his wives many and their human sacrifices to Moloch ugly, but those pale in the face of an even more sinister force: the Babylonians. The Great Whore is what the Bible calls these violent idolaters, and at the times of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel, great prophets and leaders of the Israelites, they were "ENEMIES AT THE GATES!" These prophets would speak on behalf of the Lord when needed, but would also lead their people against enemies such as these. The militias, led by the palace guards, are being gathered, and though Babylon already knocks on the door, they will stand and fight the invaders. Six missions would comprise this chapter, taking the player progressively from supply-camps to the front-lines. Sadly, the war is also lost this time, and Hebrews are taken prisoners, with the Four Great Prophets missing in action; their writings, though, talk about a much different "possibility"; to not fight the Babylonians, to surrender to them knowing they will all the same conquer, but keeping the promises of God very much alive in their hearts, like fire in a hearth...
#3. Caesars of Rome:
This would be the longest of all chapters, running 9 missions total. The player already knows how to handle himself, has learned the ins and outs of combat, and is ready to face the greatest threat yet to the Jews: the Romans. The imperial machinery of war is oiled and sharp like none other, but the Jews know the terrain ("Provinces" of Galilee and Judea), and their guerrilla tactics (employed by the "Zealots") have taken their toll on the overwhelmingly powerful Romans. Their supply lines have been progressively cut off, and the Governor atop the Antonia Fortress trembles; thus he calls for aid from Rome, which sends a massive fleet that is about to be docked at Caesarea, and then move inland towards Capernaum. The last mission can be built upon "In Utter Darkness", one of the 'prophecy' arc of missions from StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, as well as other similar experiences from the genre. The followers of Jesus know firsthand what is to happen here: Rome will vanquish and persevere. There is nothing to be done about it. The Temple at Jerusalem is ultimately destroyed and sacked, but the Scriptures live on, bringing hope, and the crystal-clear promise of Salvation onto the future...
Screenshot taken by me on play0ad.com
So, I know this is vague at most. I am sorry, but my main idea is to have a game centered on the Hebrews and their military conflicts through History... It could of course be anything else, it's just that I'd like it to be a tool to spread the Good News of Jesus' Gospel onto the gamers; I know I cannot accomplish it all simultaneously, so the game's script is open to debate, and especially to what the potential developers would like it to be. This would have to be an open-source project, much like the RTS 0 A.D. which of course brings us to the next logical step:
implementation -- Team of Devs
0 A.D. for instance is a game being built by a VOLUNTARY TEAM OF DEVELOPERS (upon a non-proprietary engine) out of loyalty, love of History and commitment to one another; I cannot currently ask that of any team that I could assemble, so I would either need to ask for help among Steemit or Byteball community members (especially those of you who already specialize in game development), or recur to other means, chiefly a website called ModDB where I've been fortunate enough to find amazing and awe-inspiring projects; I do not assume anyone there (or in similar modding portals) would be willing to jump into random projects, but still I could look around for possible leads of engineering and programming.
Screenshot taken by me on moddb.com
USE-CASE SCENARIO AND REAL-WORLD ADOPTION
Now, the use-case per se is not actually focused on the game's plot or game modding; the website that would host this video-game (something like "trialsofisrael.com" or "romereigns.net" or "play-babylonian.org") would slowly earn from adverts (I am not too savvy on this matter either, but Google Ads could be an option). The idea is for it to earn based on visits and traffic, and not be merely a faucet or a milk-cow for players of the game. This way it could stay relevant and not go broke because of payouts to gamers! But instead benefit from high demand and number of visits. It would of course also work as an advertising platform for Byteball's system, which needs such marketing direly.
Screenshot taken by me on ads.google.com
Last but not least, the MAIN REASON gamers would play this game: not just for the fun of it, not just to learn about biblical history (with the obvious theoretical exceptions, of course), but to earn small amounts of crypto-currency. Most millennials are already doing it, and even our fathers or grandfathers (who are the main web-based mini-game candidates for target audiences in my personal experience) would probably prefer to engage in RTS experiences (which are naturally mind-challenging and "healthy" to our brains), with a nice historical background, real learning on-the-go and on top of all, make a small profit from it! As I said, the website would become self-sustainable from adverts, and payouts could be made easily (without tangible issues). These would be grouped as follows:
- Completion of single-items inside the achievements menu: 1-5 MB
- Completion of missions and arcs of missions: 10-20 MB
- Beating the whole game and/or its expansions: 30-50 MB
- Answering correctly groups of 10-20 quiz questions: 5 MB
These amounts could be adjusted, and especially raised to promote the game's popularity. Additionally, replaying the game could bring some more earnings, but diminished each time (so as not to become a target of exploits). All in all, the idea is to reward those who play, learn their way around the game, and accomplish victories. It could even implement an achievement system like the one in place in StarCraft II's campaigns, including Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void; every one of the items generates a few MB for the gamers, and groups of achievements (chiefly completion of chapters or groups of missions) generate a bit more, maybe some dozens, like 20 or 30 MB. Moreover, finishing the whole story rewards even more, like 50-100 MB, and after that, even a quiz system could be made available, with the player being asked questions from the game's plot and biblical history:
- Who was Isaac's father? How about Jacob's father?
- How did Joseph come to be SOLD to the Egyptians?
- What was the name of the King of Israel at the time of the deportation to Babylon?
- How many years after the resurrection of Jesus did the Temple of Jerusalem STAND? So on and so forth...
Conclusions (And Beyond):
I'd like to close saying thanks so much for reading me, and with a little EXTRA: if the game does become a success, and a desired number of active users is reached, then 'expansion packs' could be a really interesting asset to look into; we could build 'virtually' a limitless number of missions and DLC's based on the History of Israel itself, or even the History of the World's Nations! In this same line of thought, Israel's many wars (during the Middle Ages against the Spaniards and the Arabs and especially in modern times) could constitute expansion packs, and Rome for instance could have a pack of it's own. The benefit of it all (from a developmental point-of-view) is that being web-based, the graphical interface would not need to be overly-expensive or time-consuming, and this could even signal the birth of a new breed of Byteball-branded video-games.
For any additional info, I can always be reached through Steemit, @dialsamai on Telegram or Twitter, or sancmair@gmail.com. My WhatsApp phone number is +584166186776, while my Discord handle is dialsamai#9097. I am also on Facebook, and @ diegomairena on Byteball's Slack server; invite link here. For the record, my current Byteball wallet address is this: LFUORYRT7YQY4SVLW476JVNXFUXAZXIX
@byteball.org @Punqtured @Tarmo888 @Slackjore