greens-io

A collaborative idle trivia game about software testing

Goals (for me)

• Build a starkly abstract, fun, and colaborative idle game
• Learn how to code and host an idle game

What is an idle game?

• First off, it is not an arcade game. It is more akin to a text adventure but without the text.
• Players click buttons that have overblown labels to increment an odometer to outlandish values.
• Extreme emphasis on gameplay mecahnics rather than graphics, sound, or story

What is greens-io?

• It is a very abstract devops simulation that counts the number of passing test runs.
• Multiple players work collaboratively by boosting each other's efforts. (How?)
• Sometimes colaboration is required. E.g., discussing quizes. E.g., one-click code reviews.
• The game takes 20 minutes to play. (* (/ (* 8 (- (* 5 52) 12)) 60.0) 0.6) = 19.84

Greens-io rules

• The goal is to reach the highest possible number of greens.
• Each game lasts exactly one year of game time, which is about 20 minutes of real time.
• Players start by clicking a "Poke around" button that causes one test run.
• Players press other buttons to build an automated test suite.
• Each test run generates some greens, which are a spendable resource.
• Players can spend greens and other resources unlock new game mechanics, e.g., automated test suites, CI, etc.
• Players discover that mechanics exist in a complex tree of prequisites and costs, and have whimsical labels.
• As real time advances, an in-game calendar advances until the end of one year.
• At the end of the game, each player is shown a summary of achievements.

UI and controls

• Use keyboard or mouse to click buttons and form widgets. Some widgets might be used in interesting ways.
• A log of daily activity is shown on the right.
• When some resource needs attention, it will sometimes display in red. (TODO)

Strategy

• Don't settle for incremental or linear progress.
• Always be looking for opportunities to make geometric or expoential progress.
• Watch out for bottlenecks and switch your focus to resolving them.
• Be responsive to teammates when their actions are blocked on your response.
• Specialize and coordinate. Communicate via a video conference or chat outside the game.

Joining and respawning

• Each player choose a nick
• TODO: support multiple games on the same server
• TODO: Leaderboard showing the best team scores