I love a good satire, and I love a good incremental PHP tick-based game (you know, the classics like Dominion, A3, Hobowars, Neopets, Ogame, etc).
I've always wanted to build a game. I had thought about building a game of my own, but, I always worried I wasn't good enough to do that.
I've always viewed game design as a unique art form, especially these text/flat-image based games, as they aren't relying on flash to keep you hooked so much as the story and world they build, and I didn't think I could compare.
Almost two years ago, I was going through an emotional struggle and in the past it was escaping into video games that had helped me to get through challenging times. But, this time it was to no avail, video games didn't seem to grasp me the same way anymore. I struggled to find ones I enjoyed the same way, and while part of the challenge lay with me, I also realized that part of the challenge was the shell that many video games had become. Most games had become pay-2-win flashy apps that all had the same core. (Don't get me wrong, there are exceptions, but this dominated the marketplace).
Usually with my side projects, I find I become exhausted. I always want to build something people will love, I get launch anxiety worrying what people think, and I spend so much time trying to worry about promotion and monetization. But, when I was looking for the game I needed at the time something finally clicked. I realized that I didn't need to build a flashy game. I didn't need to build for anyone else. I was going to build a game based on the games I used to love playing, the communities that brought me joy when I was young, and the humor that I always found comfort in. I was going to build a game for me - and if along the way other people liked that great! Maybe it ends up only having 4 or 5 players, but, if they get the joy from the game that I was looking for then I'm thrilled.
So 2 years ago, I cashed out a lot of my savings account and my crypto, and I set about building a game. I started with an existing PHP game script (which was a mistake in retrospect as I had to entirely rebuild it in the end) and I spent nights and weekends outside of work improving my development skills. I hired a junior developer, and an amazing comic artist and we started building. I found myself learning so much but also being filled up by pouring myself into the creative process and bringing to life something that resembled the games that were so important to me growing up. Some people find themselves in their writing, and I got to find myself again in building out a game.
Now, as I mentioned BitBums is a satire. I believe that we as humans can laugh at anything, it's how we deal with the challenging times, and there is nothing better to laugh at than yourself and the communities you belong to. As someone who has been deeply involved in the crypto community since late 2012, I couldn't think of anything better to poke fun at than magic internet money! (Let's face it, its petty crazy and certainly filled with memes and tropes).
The game follows your character, a 'BitBum', who was previously a highly-paid San Francisco engineer. You left your job, cashed out your stock and sold your house at the height of the Bitcoin boom to buy more Bitcoin at the super reasonable price of $20,000 per coin. While the market tanked, your still a strong believer in the future of crypto and found a group of likeminded BitBums living in a make-shift city beneath an underpass. The BitBums of CryptoCity live in their cardboard community, using spare parts to build make-shift potato powered mining rigs, and run their entire society on a crypto called Bottlecaps. What you do in CryptoCity is really up to you, you can refine your skills at mining, use make shift weapons to fight your way to glory in the arena, start a gang and engage in turf wars to try and become the mayor, or become the best at Tiny Soldiers 30,000 the table top RPG that BitBums love so much.
While the game is littered with hilarious references to crypto, and will actually have a number of features that are blockchain related (such as being able to move items and accounts out via the blockchain) the entire game is not on a blockchain. There is no complicated MetaMask login or issues with sending delays, and the game is designed so that even someone who knows next to nothing about Bitcoin can pick up the game, play it and still find lots of laughs along the way.
I've published a detailed FAQ here: https://medium.com/@bitbums/bitbums-faq-45b31a194deb
And our full sneak peak blog post can be found here: https://medium.com/@bitbums/your-sneak-peak-of-bitbums-the-o...
Most of our writing keeps the strong satire tone, but, in sharing this journey with HN I wanted to take a moment to step back and discuss how the development journey impacted me, and encourage others that if they have a dream side project, dive on in, make mistakes and figure it out along the way. Your end product won't always be flashy, it may not be well received, and it likely won't be the next big thing - but, if you start truly building for yourself, you'll be happy with the outcome either way!
Thanks for taking the time to read!
If you are interested in following along with updates you can follow us on a social channel of your choice:
-Facebook: http://facebook.com/bitbums -Twitter: https://twitter.com/bitbums -Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/bitbums
Or on the mailing list sign-up found on https://bitbums.co/
I'm also happy to hear any feedback about the site and project so far!
