INSERT INTO jayisgames (reviewer, game, description, analysis) VALUES ("FunnyMan", "mySQLgame",
"You may find it hard to believe, but mySQLgame is not an oxymoron, nor is it a specter for frightening small children. In fact, it doesn't even run on mySQL. So what is it? Fun.
While most games try to use all sorts of fancy concepts to make you forget that everything you see is just numbers in a computer, mySQLgame takes exactly the opposite approach. You play as a row in a database, and your objective is to fight the other rows to decrease their numbers and increase your own. If you've played any other browser-based MMO, you've already got the basic idea, the only difference is that in mySQLgame, what you see is more or less the same as what actually exists.
The basic gameplay goes something like this: Use scanning to see the surrounding area, then buy some attackers and send them off to attack a juicy nearby row, one with lots of money and fuel, but few attackers and defenders. If most of your attackers survive and bring back loot, great! If not, pick an easier target and try again. Keep going until you've got a decent pile of money, then buy some factories, defenders, and multipliers, in roughly that order. Don't let your attack multiplier get to 5 before you're ready to search farther afield for prey, because you'll lose the ability to attack targets with both multipliers still at 1.
With one exception, all the commands you have are SQL statements and, along with their cost, tell you exactly what will happen when you run them. If, like most people, you don't actually know SQL, don't worry. There's a help button by each command, and while a few of them don't actually have any help, you won't need those for a while anyway. You may, however, need a little help with vocabulary: \"decrement\" is programmer-speak for decrease, and similarly, \"increment\" means increase.",
"Analysis: If you've ever played a game with a boss key, your first impression might be that this game doesn't need one: It already looks like a spreadsheet. While for most games, this would be a bad thing, it fits perfectly with the atmosphere (so to speak) of mySQLgame. It's a numbers game, pure and simple, and by not pretending to be anything else, mySQLgame has managed to take the ubiquitous browser-based MMO and distill it down to the very essence of the genre.
That said, the interface isn't perfect. Even with the help, the learning curve is steep for anyone who doesn't know SQL, The current color choices for the log are also troublesome, making attack results difficult to read, especially when highlighted as new. On the other hand, the game is about a week old, so there's plenty of time for improvement.
The gameplay is simplistic, but definitely not simple. All those other rows out there belong to someone, and they probably won't take kindly to being attacked. On the other hand, even if you do get pounded down to 0, your most expensive assets (factories and multipliers) are invulnerable, so you'll be able to pick yourself right back up and seek revenge when they go offline. This also means that there's no need to feel bad about attacking your undefended neighbors; you're just harvesting their current crop of resources, and they'll probably do the same thing to you later on.
Even if you're not usually into browser-based MMOs, you might want to give mySQLgame a try. Most of them can't hold my interest for long, but mySQLgame is fast-paced, forgiving, and you'll feel like a pro in no time. By stripping out all the fluff, the fun was concentrated into a sleek and powerful package. Even if you only play for a few hours, you'll still enjoy every minute.
Play mySQLgame because the rest of us need more targets!");
# Update: We've disabled the normal popup so you can see the address bar. All logins go through Google, as you can see from the login URL, "https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?...". Sorry for the confusion.
If you haven't gone to the site yet, it asks you to log in using your gmail id and password. Log in using your gmail account? Are you kidding? Why on earth would I give my gmail id and password to a third party site? Why wouldn't they just create their own account system? I suppose it's possible they're not phishing...
[ mySQLgame is hosted by Google App Engine (which explains why it doesn't use mySQL, GAE comes with Google's own database, Big Table). Everything goes through www.google.com, mySQLgame just gets your email address, not your password. You can verify this yourself by looking at the address bar on the login page. Hadn't considered that the normal popup would hide the bar, my apologies. -FunnyMan ]
Gosh, thats confusing!
Looks like mySQLgame is temporarily out of service tonight.
[ Looks good from here, but if you're having trouble, try switching to a different shard. They all run separately, so problems on shard 1 shouldn't affect the others. -FunnyMan ]
If nothing else, I have to give it some props for hilarity value.
DROP TABLE "rows";--bye bye table
only for gmailers? = boring!?
that might be the reason you are waiting for 'targets'? no?
well whatever
Just played the game for half an hour, and this is fun!
Was a bit confused at first but then I noticed the "?"'s , and that helped :)
I managed to pillage from several other rows, before running out ouf fuel, Then I build som fuel_factories, money_factories and spend my remaining money on defenders to discourage other rows from attacking until I log in next time!
This is a great idea, and very nicely done! And its even more fun if you know SQL :)
Rune
Quite fun once you get the hang of it.
I was attacking in no time and am now working to get more powerful!
All the windows seem really small and cramped, which gives me a sense of claustrophobia and not-fun. Maybe my 1024x768 is just way out of date, but I don't enjoy having to scroll to read one sentence.
Also, I got bored after I attacked someone and it gave me a totally confusing answer as to what happened, and why I lost two of my attackers.
Funny concept. But very confusing at first. It's useful to know a bit SQL when you play this for sure, though with a bit of common sense, and just watching what happens to your numbers, you can figure quite a bit out as well.
Let's start with the fact that 'transfer' is NOT the way to attack. At my first attempt to attack, I ended up sharing 3 of my spare attackers to another row. Oops :)
Anyway, attacking is located under Units, and it works a bit like this:
Send more attackers than the target row has attackers+defenders, and they will bring back money and fuel. Send to few and you will lose all your attackers (just like the defending row will lose a bit as well). There is some luck involved as well.
At least that's what i made out of it so far. I didn't actually make a successful attack yet :)
I'm giving it a second chance after I held down control and changed the size of the text.
It's alright, but tedious waiting for money to increase. I suppose I need something else to do at the same time.
Oops:
"This Google App Engine application is temporarily over its serving quota. Please try again later."
Other than that, it's not bad for a brower-based MMO game. The start is relatively fast and active, compared to other strats. I kinda like how attacking is far less personal and much more normal, accepted, than in other strats.
Not that I'll be playing this for a long time - I find the persistent nature of these games highly annoying. Good for a short play, very unfun in the long run.
If you're interested in the exact mechanics of attacking, pull up the help for the attack command and scroll down to the bottom to see how it's calculated. Just remember that when a programmer writes "foo = ...", he means "Set foo equal to...", not "Foo is equal to...".
It's a fairly interesting read, and if you're willing to spend some time working out what it means, you can use it to calculate the best, worst, and average result of any given attack.
Just make sure you read the right numbers off of the scan. Garbage in, garbage out. Ended up attacking someone with a defense twice as strong as I expected. ><
This game seems pretty fun, actually. Message me if you like! :)
A brilliant game, although growth is rather quick. Starting for just a few attackers, you can attack someone who has left their account with the base 3 defenders and ensure gain. Using this, I quickly siphoned off a good few K cash off my neighbouring rows. From here on it is just a matter of waiting on the fuel to attack a larger row close by and reap the rewards. A very tactical game and the simple layout combined with SQL ties really allowed me to slip into this game with comfort. I can't wait to see this game progress and be updated.
Okay, I've given up now that I left it for an hour to collect gold, came back and it had all been stolen. YAWN.
My God! This is so much fun!
It's so abstract but once you get into it, there's no letting go!
My enthusiasm does have some bad sides though. I went on and got my attack multiplier up a bit too fast, which means I'm hogging up fuel to attack people who did the same :3
Really love this game, even though it looked so complicated to me.
Is there any kind of manual or guide for this? I dont see a 'transfer' option anywhere, to start with.....
FM, could you write GUI for it please so normal people can enjoy it too :)
Is there a JiG clique on shard one? If so, someone invite Vault :3
They need to make it easier for new players. I have a player with 1000's of dollars but who only has his multipliers at 4. He attacks me every 20 seconds or so. Sometimes waits a whole minute!
I can maybe spam 2-4 defenders before my cash is back at 0. He loses maybe 3 attackers and just does it again. Can't remotely upgrade factories or multipliers and he grows faster than I can make defenders.
Unless you get a good head start (meaning no one attacks you much), you're done. This guy just sucks resources from everyone around him. There needs to be a cooldown or something to protect new players.
It looks indeed a bit broken that you can break players around you to keep them from progressing even if you don't gain money from it. Just as defense.. so they can't get stronger.. indeed very unfair to new players. Maybe it would be a solution to always lose a (0..1) * 10% of your attackers when you attack, regardless of defensive strength? they could be 'lost in the sql sea while travelling'? :)
Ok I've been playing on JIG for quite awhile, but this game made me register to comment. At first it seems a bit overwhelming, but I taught myself how to read it in about 40 mins. Left it for the night, came back and gave my actions some thought and reaped a huge profit on all my attacks, anyone wanna add me to a clique I'm on shard 3, row 1824, Pantsu.
Welcome, Pantsu! ^_^
Thanks Jay!
Love this one. Honestly, I wish I'd thought of it!
Only problem is I'm pretty sure it's unsustainable- isn't it basically guaranteed to eventually result in one single player that outpowers all the others and can instantly drain all competitors?
The only thing keeping this from happening so far, it seems to me, is the fact that people sleep sometimes.
and yeah, starting position makes a HUGE difference. Under attack multiplier 5, your attacks are fuel-profitable at ranges under 10 (after you deplete the enemy defenses). if you start next to another newbie, or better yet, another abandoned newbie that has been accumulting resources for awhile, you can leech their stockpile while building your own forces VERY quickly.
If you start next to more than one such rows, I imagine it would be even more drastic.
before upgrading into a new "bracket", consider what your new range will be and what your new targets are. Do some scanning to figure out if it's worth it, or if you should continue to farm weaker targets until you can afford to make a large jump into higher brackets- or until an appropriate target shows up in range.
It's possible that one strategy may be to help one player nearby to develop, allowing them to increase their own production, and then leeching from them to boost you into the next bracket... Still considering the risk vs. reward there.
I'd like to join a clique on Shard 5. My (game) name is mrhthepie.
Also, Jamus, the multiplier thing stops one player from being able to overpower everyone (so noobs still have some space to grow and in turn allows slightly higher players to attack them) but it may prove unsustainable in the long run.
Well, I just started. And here are my stats: =D
Row ID:716, Name:MAIN, Owner:Ainegue (Treaty of 716)[SA], Money Factories:5, Money:1124, Fuel Factories:5, Fuel:683, Attackers:499, Attack Multipliers:3.0, Defenders:96, Defense Multipliers:3.0, Row Creators:0.
Currently trying to make peace with my neighbor row, Zatatustra of row 712. Woot!
Ah, let's see, I've had some success adding mySQL skills to my programming and other database skills today, I think I'll quit for the evening and go check out JIG . . . what!? Yeah that was yesterday, and I jumped right in and started playing. The timing coincidence was just funny. Where you get started makes a huge difference in gameplay, but you can start on a couple of shards at once, and alternate back and forth. Also, it looks like they have added a lot to the explanatory text since yesterday, it wasn't nearly as detailed when I looked at it before.
Okay, I've warmed to it, but I wish there was a little more to the game than just attacking other people. I started next to someone who decided they'd take out their frustrations on me, and it's kind of annoying.
Still, good game I suppose. I guess I just like a little more depth and less ownage from higher levels.
This game is great, but it does have some real flaws.
I started next to a sleeping row and drained all their resources in a minute. I let them regain money over hours, then depleted them again.
This was probably cruel, but it was also pathetically easy, and
There is no limit to the amount of attackers or defenders according to multiplier
so I could simply drain the row with tons of attackers without going past 5 in the attack multiplier.
This was probably starting to be terror for them. So I want to say sorry. My ID is 1163 on shard 2.
@Chaos Master
You're supposed to do that. Building cash via the money factories is incredibly slow, the only point to them is to get you started so you can begin raping your neighbors.
I guess money factories = grinding on a real MMO. They allow you to afford better weapons/armor to grind more quickly and therefore earn more cash per hour. Of course, just like in a real MMO, the quicker but riskier route is to just PK someone with tons of assets.
This reminds me an awful lot of Travian. That's not necessarily a good thing - Travian cost me more sleep than any other game (except Civilisation, of course).
This might be fun except for the row that is 10x my size next door that flattens me every time I get close to upgrade $ amounts.
I can spend an hour or two trying to build up enough to buy another factory and *pow* in one second it's all gone. My efforts are all for not.
So the only answer is to play when the fat rows are not online? Where's the fun in that?
I'd like to see some better balancing, possibly some punishment for attacking below your level, much like an RPG. If I attack someone with fewer factories and multipliers, I don't get full money returns.
Sigh.
I thought I was doing so well! I had over 10000 money, plenty of fuel, over 500 attackers and over 300 defenders, and I just came back after a day and BAM i've been robbed!!!! Suddenly I have nothing left, except for 4 defenders and a 100 money.
The problem is, at this point, I've already leached off of my closest neighbors, and they don't have any money left. I can't buy anything because, well, I don't have the money, and I can't attack without losing everything, because I can only send a few people at once because I don't have enough fuel! My only neighbor (ViciousChicken) with anything is a guy with 1000 defenders, and my attackers only killed about 5 of his attackers. So i'm basicly stuck here right now, hoping my money factories can save me before that evil chicken comes back to leach off of me!
I'm pretty much stuck here.
I got a fairly good starter location. The guy immediately next to me is the only really strong player within about twenty rows, and with my recent boom of defenders, we've reached an unspoken truce. even though he could still kill me (he has a x7 multiplier on attack), it would be a very toughly won battle. three thousand defenders and two thousand attackers manning my row. In two days, I've almost become the strongest in my area, though there are some fairly strong players a few dozen rows away. Conveniently, there are a lot of dead players nearby, all of who have quite a few fuel factories, so I'm set.
1870 on shard one if you wish to look me up.
@ Jurple
Yeah, that was my thought too. It seems to be like 1-dimensional Travian, but much more fast-paced with almost no "beginners protection". Also, combat has been boiled down to attackers vs. defenders without any actual specialization besides cost. The only extra protection this game provides is that your resource producers can't be destroyed.
I may have just started about 20 minutes ago, but I can see where this is going. Attacks being instantaneous, I could simply refresh and suddenly find all of my assets gone save for the multpliers and factories. I started near two people who had thousands of attackers and defenders, but I'm expecting them to attack me soon.
I'm not against this continuous/real-time nature of this game, as Travian also works that way, but it just doesn't seem to work here. Fast-paced and continuous games just don't seem to work out that well, from what I've seen from some speed servers on Travian.
This game is nice and all, but it really needs to either have more protection for weaker players or simply just move slower. It seems like anyone can wipe out someone of about 1/5 of their size regardless of their actual sizes.
Can you destroy money factories / fuel factories?
I'm all for a little bit of attacking and plundering, but this game really allows repetitive newbie wipe-outs from players that afford something around 4000 defenders and attackers, but choose not to upgrade further than a 4.0 attack/defense multiplier. Now, that's really not fair.
Right at this moment, I'm just sitting by the game, spending everything my factories produce on defenders, and hoping I won't be a target soon(as I have no money left). Not necessarily my idea of fun, but I'm thinking there must be something to this game, given that I'm still playing it after two days.
I'm row 316 on shard 5, by the way.
It was an empire! AN EMPIRE!
Ruined in one day. Rome wasn't built in a day, but it was sure burned in one.
I had oh so much. BAM! It was destroyed as half a dozen or so of other people destroyed my defences, leaving me cowering in ruins.
One day, they can watch their kingdom crumble, crash and burn. They can lie in ruins, starting from scratch. One day...
My advice? Build a massive defence, then raise your multiplier.
Sigh. I think I'll quit. I was doing pretty well, had gotten good multipliers (6 attack, 8 defense), and had even started another row. That extra row was really nice because I could bump it up to only 4 and 6, and be able to attack stuff that was off-limits to my old row. I had gotten attacked while away, so I was down to a combined 20K or so, but that wasn't so bad. So I went around and collected via the two rows enough to get up to 80K, and then realized I needed 120K for the row credit. I had just gotten enough transferred from my small row to the old row, and got switched over to the old row, when bam! I now had 70K. And dropping. I finally made a transaction to add 1000 defenders, and lost one more bundle, and was down to 4K. The funny thing is that I had like 4K defenders laying around, which at my estimation should cost something like 80K in money worth of attackers. There's not much of a pay-off there, so I figure the one row that was doing the attacking was just doing it for kicks, and by looking at the numbers must have had other rows to spare. I can understand trying to climb up in the world, but destroying stuff just because it's there irritates me. So I'll probably quit. I have two zombies on shard 5, 1722 (nice, but not huge), and 1748 (very productive). Also on shard 2, 148 has good production. Feel free to milk all of these. PS: Is there a way to fold up shop and remove my rows, or are they just going to be permanent zombies?
Super cool game! After a few hours I had level 10 factories, level 4 factors, 3000 defenses, 750 attackers, and farming everyone around me.
The point of the game is getting rows. He who has the most rows wins. So it's about saving up for more rows and putting them in strategic spots next to huge inactive factories.
Tips:
The further away it is, the more fuel it cost to attack, make it worth it.
Build up defense so others won't farm you.
Make sure you have huge defenses before going past level 4 multipliers and every 3rd after that where it cost less for big guys to farm you.
Wow, I just had a field day on shard 4. I'd started yesterday, built up to around 5/5 multipliers and a couple thousand attackers and defenders. Today I managed to find a perfect series of targets that let me plunder cash and buy more attackers for ever bigger targets; ended up taking the first row up to 23000 each of attackers and defenders at 8/8 multipliers, as well as enough cash to buy another row very close by and immediately pump it up to 4/4 multipliers with about 5k attackers and defenders, for farming all the low-multi folks lying around that my main can't hit anymore.
If any jiggers on S4 want to clique, message me!
cool game, i have a decent empire, 2 rows, but i acsedently gave 500 attackers to an enemy row, so atleast its a zombie.i am on shard 5,row 1283.
Wait, so is this game REALLY only for Gmailers? It says sign in OR go to another shard or host-thing.
I don't see why anyone would create another email account just for a game.. but it just seems so interesting.
Nah. If they really want people to play, they'll figure it out... Right?!?!
I've pushed myself up to five rows on Shard 4 (Trystero's the name there -- clique me, Valarauka!)
Things to keep in mind for defending yourself from the predators like me (because I cheerfully admit I am a siphon):
1. Load up on defenders. They cost half as much as attackers, and when you are attacked, you lose only 1/4 of your defenders per battle no matter how overmatched you are.
2. Bump your defense multiplier as soon as you can. It can be a maximum of 2 greater than your attack multiplier, so bump that too, but not as high.
3. Build money factories before fuel factories -- the money is needed to upgrade your multipliers and add units. Fuel is needed only when you decide to attack/expand.
4. When you get to the point of being ready to attack your neighbors, try to swipe the easy targets out from under the bigger guns near you. If you take away someone else's herd, you slow down his reprisals against you; and since you're not attacking him directly, he won't know for sure who did it.
The combination of a few hundred defenders and a Dx of 3.0 can be a deterrent to anybody who thinks about where to attack. You can't prevent some idiot from making a foolish raid, but it ought to give you some time to build.
A few thoughts on expansion:
1. Row insertion is very expensive, and it just gets moreso. I think five rows is the limit before I start having to upgrade out of the 4x attack multiplier and leaving the easy pickings behind.
2. Choose your new row wisely. I foolishly put my third row a great distance from my starting place, making it very expensive to transfer attackers, money and fuel to jump-start it. Also, where I went, there are fewer occupied rows, meaning fewer targets. (This also means I'm less likely to be attacked there, but it's hard to push it.) For my fourth and fifth rows, I focused more on daisy-chaining my rows, so now I have a disconnected empire with reasonable supply lines... and juicy targets around each row.
To previous comment:
Ok, I know what "Clique" is. can someone tell me where they have a small/large empire with 2-3 rows?
Because if I start on a new shard, I will need help to not get killed and to be able to drain resources from nearby rows ASAP in case I get raided by someone with like 50k attackers.
I can get attackers if I have money. Bfore I was raided I had something between 4k-6k attackers.
That's a lot of attackers.
loving it. Got games on the first three shards.
The first is not doing so well, being surrounded by big boys, but it is slowly building, finally got its second row. The other two both have five rows and one farms over a distance 150 rows. I just farmed a big player for almost 100000 money and fuel in one attack. Anyone know what the max number of rows per player is?
I had to register to leave a comment thanking you for posting this game. It's amazing.
Honestly, who doesn't have a Google Account yet?
Who is on the internet and has never used any of Google's services?
Just tried this expost, since having seen it in the best of 2008 votes.
Well the idea of offering a "sql" interface as game is a very nice idea, love that part. As someone who can understand SQL I found it funny looking through the statements trying to figure out what what is.
The game itself is IMHO not very well thought out. As someone posted here already, the only limit to the game is your limit not to be constantly online. Otherwise you are near to unbeatable. Just think about (as soon you have at least 10 money factories) to add 1 defender every 10 seconds when the money factories drop their money out. Nobody would be able to eat anything from you ever. Until you have so much defenders you can start to accumulate some serious money for big upgrades.
A thing I would suggest on this base would be a "general purpose browser multiplayer game" where people can write own graphical frontends for this. So for example to this mysqlgame, someone could write a theme for it. It be still be the same game, and all people with different themes might yet play together, the mechanics are the same on all. Would be a very funny mashup!
Actually money factories arent ONLY for grinding. they are for rebuilding as the inevitable player that is bigger than you crushes your army and drains all your money. the more money factories you have, the faster you can rebuild. yes you cant rebuild while they are online, but after they leave, you just go after targets to get money/fuel to restart the process... the only safe place is at the top... though that doesnt stop people below you from chipping away at you.
Where's my game where you play with UNIX commands?
Update