British TV series that would make great play-by-post games

This is a follow on from my article “TV series and films that would make great PBEM games”, which has become the most popular on my blog and I only hope has inspired many people to create new PBEM games (or play-by-post games as I agreed I’d call them).

Inspiration can come from many places, why not take a concept of a pre-created world and run with it?

Doctor Who

Dr Who

First aired in 1963, Dr Who is the worlds longest running sci-fi TV show. The format of the show and the storylines can vary wildly, probably accounting for it’s long-running success. A new actor plays the Doctor almost every season, keeping the character fresh and different. The character of the Doctor remains throughout, although his travelling companions change often. This makes it very difficult to propose a play-by-post game based on this as the lead character is so strong, and a Play-by-post usually works best with an ensemble group of characters. So to create a play-by-post game set in the Doctor Who universe it would likely be set away from the Doctor himself, and focus on other characters.

The Doctor is the last of the Time-lords, a race of aliens who have the ability to control time. Although the series states that he is the last of the time-lords (following the great time war with the Daleks), it might be possible to mention many more time-lords which also escaped after the war which the Doctor doesn’t know about. Also over the years many other aliens have been mentioned, some friendly which could be used as main characters, but mostly monsters which your characters could meet on a daily basis and have to fight, or run away from, or thwart their deadly plans.

The Doctor travels in a time machine called the TARDIS, which is a small box with a cloaking device to disguise itself as something inconspicuous. The TARDIS is larger inside than on the outside. In the TV show we normally are only shown one room, but it has been mentioned that the TARDIS contains many rooms, and is actually the size of a city. For your play-by-post game your characters could have a TARDIS of their own, and this could be expanded much more, showing the vast inside and the rooms within it.

A typical story for your play-by-post game could have the TARDIS arrive at a location in space and time (options here are almost infinite as the TARDIS can travel anywhere in the universe and at any time period), your characters would react to their surroundings and either explore, or save some innocent people from a dangerous enemy.

Torchwood

Torchwood

This was a short-lived TV series based on the extremely long-running British sci-fi show Dr Who. When “Torchwood” was first mentioned in various episodes of Dr Who, it was a nefarious organisation which collects alien technology and uses for its own purpose. The TV series “Torchwood” depicted a more friendly Torchwood organisation, headed by Captain Jack Harkness. Captain Jack ran the Cardiff branch of the organisation (Torchwood 3) to investigate alien phenomenon and generally protect the world from baddies. At the end of the series however the Torchwood HQ in Cardiff was destroyed by a large explosion.

Other Torchwood bases do exist, and presumably are still operational. A play-by-post game based on Torchwood could exist in any of these other bases, using new characters which you can invent yourself. The style of storyline would be that an alien disturbance is going on, and your characters have to investigate it and solve it, or perhaps the Earth is under attack from an alien and you have to find it and defeat it. The Torchwood TV series had very interesting characters and dealt with a lot of adult or taboo subjects, as well as having a quirky sense of humour. It wouldn’t be hard to bring that across into your game.

Casualty

Casualty

This is a hospital drama very similar to the American show ER. It is based in the fictional “Holby City Hospital”. The story often goes as follows: Something terrible happens to members of the public, (or often to the members of the hospital themselves) and the Paramedics have to save them, sometimes risking their lives as they do so. The patients are brought back to the hospital, where doctors and nurses battle to save their lives, sometimes battling with internal politics. It wouldn’t be hard to recreate this in a play-by-post game, but there would have to be a lot of focus on character development as the story is mostly the same each time.

Red Dwarf

Red Dwarf

Red Dwarf is a comedy science fiction about characters travelling through space. The premise of the series is that Dave Lister (the main character) was placed in stasis for three million years onboard a spaceship he was stationed on (The Red Dwarf). When he was brought out of stasis, the entire crew had died and he was alone apart from a hologram of his bunk-mate, and a humanoid which had evolved from his pet cat. This is mostly a TV series about these characters, and additional characters they meet in later series, and how they deal with loneliness and having to survive in space. The world they inhabit is explained loosely over the eight TV series, and they do encounter baddies and monsters along the way.

Not too much explanation is ever given about the universe they inhabit, so making a play-by-post game of Red Dwarf would require a lot of thought into developing the universe yourself. It would be possible to play the characters described in the TV series, but this may lead to complications of who plays which characters, and also a limit of only five main characters.

As the universe is open to interpretation, this might be a good thing and allow you a lot of creative freedom to write it how you see fit. You could base your characters in any location in the galaxy, and also in any time period you wish. You could set your game in the time period before Lister was put into stasis, or the 3 million years afterwards in the bleak future.

Primeval

Primeval

This is a TV show about a team of people who investigate “anomalies” which are gateways into the distant past which spontaneously appear around Great Britain. These gateways allow prehistoric animals and dinosaurs to come through and cause havoc in the modern world. The team (operating out of their HQ called the Anomaly Research Centre or “Arc”) is dispatched to the scene of the anomaly where they have to either kill or capture the rampaging dinosaur, or coerce it back through the anomaly to the time period it came from.

Hyperdrive

Hyperdrive

This was a short-lived sci-fi comedy set on a British spaceship named the HMS Camden Lock. Although the series wasn’t very popular (and was too heavily compared to Red Dwarf), it introduced many very quirky and hilarious sci-fi concepts. The best way to describe Hyperdrive is a direct spoof of Star Trek the Next Generation, done in the style of The Office.

The characters from the series are extremely fun, but two-dimensional. There’s the idiotic Captain, an egotistical Security Officer, lazy crew, and a robot woman called Sandstrom who controls the ship. You might have a lot of fun using them, but this will be limiting.

Technology and equipment you might encounter and use might be the “dreamgate” allowing you to enter other character’s dreams, the “instradrunk” a tablet which gets you instantly drunk.
Aliens you might encounter might be the “Pasty lords from Cornish 5”, “Red Shiny Robot of Vortis”, the “Queppu” (a medievil race who desire everyone to constantly “marvel” at their civilisation ), the “Lallakkis” (who have the mental capacity of a 10 year old and make a song for every war they fight), the repulsive “Glish” (who have odd customs like rubbing their tentacles on each others faces as a greeting), and the extradimensional “Engulfers” (who swallow spaceships whole and excrete black holes).

A play-by-post game based on Hyperdrive would be a typical Star Trek scenario, with a Captain, First Officer, Security Officer etc, but without the constraints of technology. Ideal for members who like the format but want to be creative with it, and post about ridiculous but fun stories.

The Bill

The Bill

The Bill is a British cop show. A team of police constables and detectives have to solve crime and capture criminals. A very simple idea which could be turned into a play-by-post game with very few constraints. The format could be applied to any town in the UK (or any other country), where members would each have a character occupying a role in the hierarchy of the local Police force. The GM would lead the story, writing the actions of the criminals, and the members would have to investigate them, arrest them and question them.

Thunderbirds

Thunderbirds

A popular childrens TV series from the 1960’s using string puppets. This show had a lot of high-tech gadgets and spaceships all beautifully crafted in miniature, which for the time it was created was the height of special effects. The “Thunderbirds” is a name of the futuristic vehicles piloted by International Rescue, a team of (mostly) brothers who will rescue anyone in distress. International Rescue is based on Tracy Island, which disguises the launch bays for each of their high-tech Thunderbirds under houses and swimming pools to keep the location of their HQ a secret from other organisations who may wish to steal their technology.

A typical play-by-post game based on Thunderbirds could be set on Tracy Island, perhaps several years after the original. Your characters could play the original team members of International Rescue, or perhaps new members who have replaced the original (the originals might have perhaps retired by now). The story would be mission based, and each mission being to rescue some people from a dangerous situation, like a raging fire, or a collapsed building. International Rescue has a wide range of vehicles to cope with any situation, many have been shown already on the show, but you could always make your own.

An added complication would be an enemy for your members to fight whilst rescuing helpless civilians. The “Hood” was the enemy in the show, and by now he might have an entire army of people working for him. Also other rival corporations could make an entrance.

Why I’m not going to implement “personal messages”

For this article, I recorded an additional audio clip:

On many forums and websites, you can send a personal messages to other members. This saves a message in the website’s database ready for the other user to see when they next login. The user might not login straight away, and so the personal message could sit there for weeks and weeks until the user logs in to see the message. That is why they are normally sent out an email straight away, alerting the user and letting them know that they have to login to the website to see their personal message.

Facebook does this, when a member receives a personal message, they are immediately emailed with the content of the message. So the user checks their email, and sees the content of the personal message within their email. Then they have to login to the website to reply to the message.

What's wrong with email?

This process seems all a bit too cumbersome for me, all it seems like is that websites are duplicating the functionality of email, but still using email to alert people to the email!

I therefore think that adding a way to send and receive personal messages through the OngoingWorlds site is necessary. What I’ll do instead is allow users to send an email from the site which will be sent directly to the user’s email address. The user sending the message will see a form within the website, the same as if they were sending a personal message – but it would submit the email directly to the respondent’s email address.

Please let me know what you think about not adding in functionality for “Personal Messages”. Is it a feature that you wouldn’t miss? Or do you think I’m wrong/stupid to leave it out? Please comment below!

Help needed to test the OngoingWorlds website

Last week I launched the very first version of my website onto the internet. It’s definitely not ready to go public, and is currently in a hidden location on my server so that people don’t visit the site and think it’s a live site. I have put it live really just to test that the main site functionality works, and also to get some friends to test the site for anything that is broken which I might not have thought to check.

Making sure it’s usable

A nice big button to create a new game

As a full-time web developer, I’m really interested in things like web-accessibility and usability. I’ve just finished reading Dan Krug’s book “Don’t make me think” which explains that all websites should be dead easy for people to use, something I definitely believe in. Although this is common sense, it’s amazing how many websites exist out there which are really difficult to use.

Often these sites have been made by a developer who has assumed that everyone will understand the site because they understand the site. But actually they have never sat with their audience and watched them use the site.

So I want to make sure this site is dead easy.

Please help me test OngoingWorlds

I want to make sure this website is easy to use, and will be used. I’ve gotten a few requests from a few people offering to have a look at the site when it’s launched, but I could always use a few more points of opinion! So please if you’re interested just email me or comment below and I’ll be in touch with how you can help.

How you can help

1. I’ll send you the link to the site. Prepare to write some notes in an email to me.
2. Have a look at the homepage. Write down if you think it’s easy to understand what the site is about.
3. Try to join a game. Games will be listed on the homepage. Let me know if you think the experience is difficult or confusing.
4. Try to create your own game. Let me know if you think this process is difficult or easy. If you have any improvements please let me know.
5. Once you have created a game, make a character in that game.
6. Write a post in your game.

For now, that’s it! There is much more complicated functionality but lets get the basics sorted out first. If you find a problem, please let me know:

1. The error message you get.
2. What browser you are using (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari etc).
3. What time and date it happened.
4. What you were doing, or trying to do when it happened.

Thanks. I’m going to be making changes to the website over the next few weeks, and try and get it into the “Beta” version.

New Design

I’ve been working this weekend on a design for the OngoingWorlds website. I’m not a designer so this process was very difficult for me. I knew quite specifically what I wanted from the design, but implementing it in graphical form is difficult! I wanted a design which is:

• Simple
• Easy Navigation
• Reasonably Neutral (to suit members of all different tastes)
• Fun, but not childish

I had a look around at some cool sites for inspiration, and found it at http://cssremix.com/ which lists some really nice sites that have a really clear simple style. I found that I liked the textured grainy background which was on a few sites, and the beige neutral colours were perfect for what I wanted. I took a lot of influence from one site in particular, and tried to copy from it without totally ripping it off!

It was a little too plain and neutral at first, so I searched www.istockphoto.com for a cool graphic to use, and found a brilliant one of a monster eating a planet – which fits nicely with my “world” theme. The graphic adds a splash of colour and makes the page look fun.

Here’s the design I’ve come up with:

OngoingWorlds page design - "View Post" page

This design currently shows the “View Post” screen, allowing you to view a story post that you or someone else has posted.

The options on the left are all related to the game you’re currently in (the example game here is called “JMC Blue Dwarf”). The images and text in the subcontent on the right of the page are characters summaries, these link to the character’s full profile. These are showing up here because someone  has “tagged” them in this post (more tagging characters in posts in my previous article).

Please let me know what you think of the design, and if you can spot anything which you think won’t work, please let me know.

PBEM or Play-by-post

I’ve been questioning for a while what to call the games that people will run on the OngoingWorlds site, and have been disputing between calling them PBEM games, or play-by-post games.

I’ve recorded a short audio comment for this article:

What are people searching for?

As a website owner, I have to think about what people are typing into a search engine to try and find my site. So they would type in “PBEM” or “play-by-post”, often they would be more specific and want to find a “Startrek PBEM” or a “fantasy play-by-post”. It’s important that I get the wording correct on the OngoingWorlds website, so that it appears in the correct search results.

When Google and other search engines show you the results of your search query, they want to show you the most relevant websites. Which means that the wording I use on my website has to match up with the wording that people are expected to be searching for.

I’ve wondered for a while which is the most popular term for the type of game that OngoingWorlds allows you to play. Most people call them either PBEM games, or Play-by-post games.

I’ve done a simple comparison test by searching for these terms on Google.

Results for a Google search for "PBEM" and a search for "Play-by-post"

Google has returned 353,000 websites for the term “PBEM”, and a whopping “250,000,000” for the term “play-by-post”. This of course could contain the same website appearing twice in this list, and some inaccurate results, but the difference is clear. There are more websites mentioning the phrase “play-by-post”.

Conclusion

I’m going to change the terminology which I’m using, and use the phrase “play-by-post” to describe the types of games that you can create and play on OngoingWorlds.

Character tagging in posts on OngoingWorlds

OngoingWorlds is currently on my development server, awaiting to go live. There are a few features however which I haven’t yet implemented. These features are the cream of the cake however, and might not be added until after the site goes live. It’s taking long enough to get a basic version working as it is!

Sir Tony might be tagged in this post

Currently, when a user submits a post to OngoingWorlds it will create a post which will go into a thread of posts. All posts will be archived in a long list by date. Easy and simple.

Other members will be able to see that post, and read its contents. For example the post is about a character called Sir Tony who is riding on a horse to a castle. The post has been written with amazing love and care, the spelling is perfect and the grammar is amazing. But it’s still a page of plain text, and I want to jazz it up a bit with an image. Asking a player to submit an image every time they post is a bit unreasonable, as finding an appropriate image would take a long time, and might actually be impossible unless the user draws the image themselves, scans it and uploads it. Far too much work, but it’s not too much work to put an image of the character on the post.

In OngoingWorlds you’ll be able to “tag” a post just like you can tag users in a photo on Facebook. So in our example, the player tags their character Sir Tony in the post and his smiley face is shown to any other players who are reading that post.

A second player wants to reply to that post and interrupt Sir Tony on his way to the castle. The second player has a character called Grimlock, so s/he writes the post about Sir Tony and Grimlock meeting up and exchanging some dialogue. This player then tags Grimlock, and also tags Sir Tony because they are both mentioned in the post. All other players can see thumbnail images of both ‘Sir Tony’ and Grimlock on the post when they read it.

This is extremely simple, but it just shows at a glance which characters are used in the post, which provides a visual aid to memory. Also the images are links to the character’s full biography, allowing all players a quick link to the character’s biography without having to trawl through the Character list to find the character they’re interested in.

Mockup of the "New Post" page

I’ve not started on this functionality yet, as I don’t think it’s essential to go live with it. I might create it as a “phase 2” project. I want to make sure the site is successful before adding features that users might not want or use.

Age certification in a PBEM game

I’ve been running a PBEM since 2000 now, and this problem has cropped up a few times whenever someone has said a naughty word.

I want to allow people to write freely whatever they want, but I obviously don't want children seeing something disturbing

There’s no clear rating system of PBEM games, in terms of what language you can or can’t use, and how much explicit or sexual content you can use. Many PBEM games are public, and all are available to join without having to prove your age, which means young role-players can often stumble upon explicit content.

There are many methods of age verification, but most require some sort of trust on the user’s part. This is why you see sites with explicit content that just have a landing page with a date field, requiring you to specify your age before continuing, or at least if not that just ticking a box to confirm that you’re over the required age.

This is all very ambiguous in PBEM games. I’ve been using a Yahoo Group to run my PBEM game for years, which has no way to allow you to specify your age when you sign up. We do often have members who post with bad language, and honestly I don’t mind – freedom of speech and all that. But that’s because I’ve never been in trouble over it. I’m sure there are PBEM games around that have far worse explicit content that just an occasional swearword, which will allow children to join up.

I want to make something clear before  I go further. I’m well aware that children in primary school have probably heard swearwords that in films would need a 15+ certificate. My aim isn’t to stop kids from reading PBEM posts with swearwords in, or to stop them writing swearwords. Because this will happen, and I think freedom of speech should allow this to happen, if they want to.

I strongly believe in free speech

Users are very capable of lying about their age anyway, and so if they want to read or write explicit content in a PBEM, it will be quite easy for them to do so.

What I do want though is to allow PBEM games to provide a “recommended” age certificate for their game, so that when a user is signing up they can see the age rating, and know exactly what sort of content is expected of them. So if a member knows they have joined a PBEM suitable for family viewing, they know they shouldn’t start writing their character’s dialogue full of swearwords and explain in detail about the character’s sex acts with donkeys.

Putting this into Ongoing Worlds

So for Ongoing Worlds, when a member creates a new PBEM game, they will be asked to set a recommended age certificate for their game. This will force the GM to state the recommended age range of the audience for this game. Obviously this will not strictly stop youngsters signing up for a game that is meant for an older audience, in the same way that you can’t stop a young kid from watching a DVD of an older rating, but it will state the recommended audience that the content is intended for.

So what I have to decide next is which age classifications to use. Different certifications are used all over the world for films and TV shows. Computer games have their own different certifications too. So I have narrowed these down to the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) certificates:

Film classifications in the UK

And the MPAA (Motion Picture of America) classifications:

Film Classifications in the US

I’m personally fond of the BBFC logos. They’re obvious because they provide an age rating, and being British myself, I’m comfortable with them. I can’t ignore however that my audience might be mostly international and possibly American.

The certifications I currently plan to use:

• G = A general audience. This will be a PBEM which is for all the family. No naughty words, no sexual or violent content.

• PG = Obviously we can’t tell if a child is accompanied by a parent when visiting the website, so this is more about what the rating stands for in theory than what it actually means. A PG site will tolerate mild sexual innuendo and violence. And mild peril. I love mild peril.

• 15 = This PBEM will tolerate swearing, violence and quite a lot of sexual innuendo, but not the more extreme “adult” storylines.

• 18 = Anything goes, a PBEM here could have the most violent scenes you are able to write, blood, guts, gore, and any amount of sexual content that you wish to describe in your story.

These are just a guideline

Obviously these ratings are just a guideline. The owner of a game can select which best represents their game, and it’s up to them how they enforce the rating. The website won’t automatically check each post for bad language and automatically unsubscribe you – this will be up to the owner of the game, who has to power to ban you outright or give you another chance. Posts can be edited, so if someone does write a swearword in a game for kids, it can be edited or the post can be removed.

Ordering the games on the games page

So I’ve been working today on the “Games” page. This will be a page accessible to all users that lists all of the games on the site so far. This can be where users can browse, to see if a game interests them.

I’m displaying the game title, as well as a thumbnail of the profile image you can upload for the game. Other useful information I thought people would want to know initially is how many members the game has, and how many characters it has.
I also think what is most important is that a user can tell how long it has been since the last post, which is why I have included a link to the two most recent posts, and specified the dates they were posted. This way, a user will not try and subscribe to a game which hasn’t had a post in five years.

See the screenshot below (remember this is still in development and the colours/layout will change significantly when the site is launched!).

The "Games" page. This lists all PBEM/PBP games on the site

I also think the order of this list is important. I’m hoping that there will potentially be hundreds of games created on this website, and a lot of these games will become abandoned over time or come to a natural end. So I want to show the currently running games at the start of the list, so that users don’t have to scroll past these abandoned games. This annoys me about the way that EpicWords.com orders their campaign list. They do it alphabetically, so the first page has games listed which haven’t had an update for months, or years.

The campaign list on EpicWords.com is listed alphabetically, which means you have to scroll through many games which haven't been updated recently

I also want to give the user to option of what to browse for. They already have a search box, to search the games list for words that are interesting to them. But this does require them to know what they’re looking for. Most people will just be browsing for games that take their interest.

Each of the games will have a category, so “scifi”, “Fantasy”, “Modern” etc, so you will be able to display games of only these categories. This will be done via a drop down menu, select your category and then click “go”.

I wanted to ask this question, what other criteria would you like to be able to search by? I was going to add an option so that you can reorder the list alphabetically if you’d like, but is there much point? If this is a feature that you think would be useful, please let me know. Alternatively I could add in the ability to reorder the list by least popular first. Again, would this be useful at all?

TV series & films that would make great PBEM games

There are many PBEM games around, many set in their own fantasy worlds where the GM has done their own worldbuilding to create a world for their game, but there are many films and TV series which have already done the worldbuilding for you and provide a great setting for your PBEM game.

Star Wars

George Lucas has created a diverse fantasy world with spaceships and limitless types of aliens. It is popularly extended through many films, books and games. Creating a new scenario within this world would be easy, and because if it’s popularity you will have a large audience who are already familiar with the world.

Settings for this game could be a planet, a spaceship, or a group of people travelling the galaxy. There are also multiple time frames you can choose from when creating your game.

Star Trek

This is a rich science fiction universe described in all of the Star Trek series’. Each spinoff series has focussed on exploration so there are many locations already described, and it is not too hard to invent many more for new adventures.

The classic way to create a Star Trek PBEM is to think up a name for your ship, set up a goal (usually exploration of new alien worlds) and populate your ship with members as your crew. Because of Star Trek’s popularity, you will have a large audience already familiar with the world and technology within.

The TV series’ episodic format can be easily converted into a PBEM format – discover a planet, perform a mission, then leave to planet and go onto the next adventure. It can be tough for a GM to keep coming up with new worldbuilding ideas for new planets however.

Stargate

A rich universe explained in Stargate SG-1 and spinoffs. Stargate is set in our timeline which can make all characters easy to relate to. There are many locations you could set your PBEM in, but the classic format is a team going on missions through the Stargate.

 The TV series’ episodic format can be easily converted into a PBEM format. Go through the Stargate, perform a mission, and make it back through the Stargate. The diversity of the universe would allow for much more creative ideas however.

Firefly

This science fiction world is lo-tech and quite homely. The solar system where Firefly is set has many moons which aren’t named in the series or film, it would be easy to invent your own. Common themes are Western Cowboys and Chinese traditional, blend these in as flavours for a realistic Firefly experience.

The classic way to create a Firefly PBEM is to think up a name for your ship, find members to take the place of your crew, and invent missions where you visit one of the many planets and complete a “job” to get money. This could involve simple trading, or smuggling.

Lord of the Rings

A fantasy setting already popular with fans. The world has been described in great detail, no no new worldbuilding is necessary. The problem with this however is that it makes it hard to extend. Another problem is that in the books, the world goes through a constant change, so it has to be agreed by the GM which time period your PBEM game will be set.

Ghostbusters

Not an obvious choice for a PBEM game. The world is the same as ours, but with ghosts as a serious pest problem. A typical PBEM would be set about a ghost busting team in any city of the world, and missions would be to find and catch a ghost which is causing a disturbance. A simple concept which could be used for some good character building.

X-Files

This series was about two members of the FBI who investigated paranormal activity, if you ignore the complicated government conspiracy storyline in later series, there were many great stand-alone episodes.

A typical PBEM set in the X-Files universe would involve a branch of investigators (not necessarily FBI) based in any city of the world, who investigate paranormal activity. A typical mission would be to solve a mystery and close the case.

This PBEM would be best with few members rather than many.

ER

This hospital drama could be easily converted into a PBEM game using different characters. Set your PBEM in any hospital in the world and invite members to be doctors and nurses, who have to go through the dramas of bringing in patients, healing them, or going through the anguish of loosing them.

A Town called Eureka

This series has great potential for a PBEM game. The town of Eureka has many scientists who like to invent crazy technology which often threatens the lives of everyone else in the town. A typical Eureka PBEM would recreate the town of Eureka and allow the members to control characters who are either scientists working in Global Dynamics (the largest employer in the town), or scientists working at home on their own projects, or a deputy in the police force to keep everyone from destroying the world every adventure.

A typical mission would be that a piece of technology has malfunctioned and everyone is affected and needs to help fix it.

Jurassic Park

The Jurassic Park world is very much like ours but where dinosaurs have come back from extinction. In the films and books, the dinosaurs are restricted to a few islands in the Pacific ocean, but in your PBEM you could explain that they have escaped into other countries and have a team of characters who have to catch the dangerous dinosaurs.

Or maybe your group of characters have been sent to the islands to study and catalogue the different species of dinosaur, a typical mission would be to track a specific type of dinosaur and capture it with or without trouble happening.

What I look for in a PBEM website

I’m a relatively lazy person and I think everything should be easy. I’m a fan of Steve Krugs book titled “Don’t make me think”, about how websites should be so usable that the user should just be able to use a website without even thinking too hard.

Confusing navigation should be avoided

When I first visit a webpage I think it should communicate a lot of information straight away. As a web designer/developer I have to think about this problem daily. Creating a website without enough relevant content on the homepage will lead to a high percentage of your users navigating away instantly. They will only stay if they are “hooked” by the information and navigation items you provide.

A website should allow you to complete certain tasks that you want to do. For website about a PBEM site, I want to perform these tasks:

• Find out how this game is played
• Find out if the game is still running
• Find out how to join this game
• Find out how to contact the GM
• See the game’s posting archive

I think these are important for the following reasons:

Find out how this game is played

There are many types of text-based online role playing games, and these can be played in many different ways. Either by email, forum, or real-time chat. I want to know which type this game is. I don’t need a lengthy user guide explaining in great detail how to play, but I do need to know the basics.

Find out if the game is still running

A website could stay around for many years after the game is closed. I don’t want to waste time reading about this game and apply to join when it closed in 1999.

Find out how to join this game

Some PBEMs have different requirements. Some have a lengthy application form to fill in, some are more flexible. Some require lots of information about the character you intent to play, some allow you to decide this after joining. The joining process should be easy and not challenging.

Find out how to contact the GM

I might have some questions to ask the GM, like more information, or maybe I have special requirements. Or it’s just nice to have a chat to make sure that you’re going to be welcomed into this game. Details of how to contact the GM should be easy to find, either an email address or via a form on the website.

See the game’s posting archive

The easiest way to understand this PBEM is to see the previous posts that people have made. I want to see if the quality of the writing is high, or if the majority of posts are OOC’s and just unimportant chatter. Seeing game posts allows you to see how the game is played without having to trawl through a lengthy user guide.

Conclusion

Like all websites, a PBEM’s website should be easy to use. There are many things I haven’t even mentioned, like an eyecatching design that will grab the user’s attention. A good design of course is important, but only in a way to communicate something to your audience. A website should accommodate your existing users, but most importantly it should allow potential members to see what your game is about and convince them to join.

I want to use this information to create the perfect homepage in my Ongoing Worlds PBEM website. I want a default game homepage to communicate everything that the game is about.