STEEMIT: STEEM: Game Development: Opening doors... discussion
So, I don't really do a lot of web development. In fact, I have very little interest in the web side of things. I do like making games. I'd love to interface some basic tie ins with steem accounts with some games. I even have a collectible card game type of idea though NOT quite that which I think could be pretty cool if tied in with steem.
Furthermore, I think it'd be really nice to be able to tie it into steem directly without requiring a server. Is there a way that we could make a simple application that simply reads our accounts and allows us to connect to it?
Right now the most plausible way I can think to do it would be to have my program speak with steemd and then simply scrape that for information.
I read about steemconnect and even v2. I have a few problems with this.
- I will code in Java (Javascript) if I must. Yet I'd prefer to convert it to C# using monodevelop or something like that. Why? I tend to develop in Unity and C# is without a question the best choice when working with Unity.
- I would like to make applications that can interact with steem and steemit WITHOUT having to setup a server running node.js or something like that.
- Worst case I could make my application capable of replying to one of my posts and it could scrape that post for details. I could embed the data I need in my replies.
- When developing if I have my preferences it is possible it will work on windows, linux, and possibly mac at a minimum. Depending upon how things work out it might be able to go on other platforms. One key to making that feasible is having what is needed built into the application itself and not requiring installing node.js, or configuring a specialized server. If I was making an MMO or something like that then installing these extra things makes sense. I'd like to make applications that tie into and use the steem blockchain, but require no server and thus are not crippled if that server ever goes down.
I may have to look into the scraping via HTTP to pull off what I'd like to do here. I am looking into steemconnect and other methods and those make sense for people that are coding web apps. I also am going to start looking into socket.io in C# and see what can be done.
Ultimately it might be nice to have some asset for unity that allows easy interfacing with the steem blockchain. If that is useable by game developers who use Unity then it might even be something that could be charged for.
My current idea is not this, but these are the features it'd need:
- Ability using steem or steem dollars to purchase a pack of cards which as with collectable card games would send a simple encrypted key to my app to let it know a pack was opened. It will randomly select from card selections based upon criteria and make a note on the blockchain of the new cards they have.
- Ability to use cards as entry fee into challenges, but allow the people to choose them. When a multiplayer game is completed the winner keeps those cards.
- Ability to sell cards to other players via steem/steem dollars, or if not that at least be able to trade them and update the information about cards.
Now I believe I could potentially do ALL of this by scraping via HTTP if I must.
I could take a reply and post encrypted data stating what cards and what quantity a player has, and make it so my code only considers posts from a specific account as legitimate. I'd then need to find and read the last reply for a specific player's account for this to work.
It seems like this would be pretty messy, but since it would be for older posts then it wouldn't really be a voting matter it would simply be a data storage matter.
The interesting thing would be making payment for the packs.
I'll tell you now the cards potentially will only be tokens that hopefully represent something much more visceral and interesting than simple cards.
I don't have this particular asset, but I have others like it... and watching this video gave me the idea. :)
So any discussion, and or suggestions would be welcome. This is actually something I am interested in playing around with.
EDIT: Here are some of the things I DO own and can use with my idea:
EDIT 2: I may play around with the game idea anyway. I'd sure like to tie it to steem and have another thing out there encouraging people to use it. I can make a game without steem, but it'd be nice if it was part of it. :)