Thinking Meta
For a few years I have had an idea which I haven't really shared with anyone. While at uni we were encouraged to think differently about gaming, and the idea came from a thought session leaving traditional gaming behind.
Imagine a treasure hunt, where the clues for each item are online and the goal is to find QR Codes stuck around the place, scan them, and claim the points.
While I believe the idea is sound, I haven't had a decent way to create, test, produce or maintain the game until last night speaking with one of my good friends, who offered to do the leg work on the project.
Between now and registering a domain name for the project, a lot needs to happen. We have to finalise the parameters and rules of the game, think of a name, build a website and test it with a group of people.
The first thing for me will be the web development. The site needs to contain quite a bit of information;
- Entry page, information about the game
- Registration page (to be locked down until the game is released)
- Clues page (for registered users)
- Profile (to see your scans, and maybe basic information)
- Leader board (to keep the competition fierce)
- Admin pages
- Create a clue / code
- Landing pages for each code
- User Maintenance
Reworking the Juggernaught
Ever since high school I have had web hosting. Originally, it was through NearlyFreeSpeech until they changed all their pricing options, and started to jip me. Then, after some research, I found Arvixe.
They offered an excellent service, with the right sort of payment plans and comitments. They also offered a free Domain name. So, being a bit more mature than I was when I registered www.sodderinc.com (Patrice helped me pick it) I registered "www.andrewdor.com" - which is where I have resided ever since.
When I started the new hosting, I spent some time migrating the old sites across, however I never really did anything with the top-level domain. It was originally a portfolio in an attempt to get in to the game design industry. That failed spectacularly.
With the new lease of life I have given my Blog (over here at blog.andrewdor.com) I feel it might be time to try rebuilding and repurposing my "andrewdor.com" domain. What could it be? Who knows! Maybe a small advertisment for myself, or just links to my various other endeavours?
Anyway, I think I'm going to blog about my web design experiences here, and I can use the extra thinking time while writing to subconsciously tackle those tricky situations which always arise when cobbling together the magic that is the Internet. Amazing what you can do with a netbook, a wireless hotspot on your phone and some time on a train, isn't it?