Yessir, I spawned yet another open-source hobby project. Here are the codes:

https://github.com/zerojuan/ForgeStory-Server

https://github.com/zerojuan/ForgeStory-Client

In terms of technology and innovation, this project is nothing special. There are a lot of other games like it, the concept isn’t new. I try to keep the code as easy to maintain as possible but that’s the norm. So why am I doing this? Well, why not?

I Have Nothing to Lose

Once I met a team of student developers who made an award winning game. I asked them about the future of the game, whether they want to share the codes or not, and they said, citing commercial and business reasons, no.

Are you planning to sell the game? Nope, it’s available to play on my website.

Am you using proprietary algorithms as the secret sauce on your business plan to world domination (ala Google)? Nope.

Is there something in your code that will directly lead to you losing anything? Umm, someone could use it to make a game exactly like mine and then pass it off as their own… Aaand? Can they steal design instincts? Or marketing? Do they have all the other skills you (or your team) have that made the game successful? Nope.

Then why aren’t your sharing your code?

The Philippines isn’t exactly a hotbed of game development right now. It’s a country where formal game education and training isn’t a big priority and we are only restricting ourselves by being selfish to one another.

And Have Stuff to Gain

As far as I know, the challenges in making persistent web games isn’t very documented. Trying to learn this stuff from scratch isn’t an enjoyable experience and most people are put off by it. I always believed that the web is the future of gaming and the more accessible we make it the easier that transition will be. By putting this very standard project in front of everybody I hope I’m inspiring more developers to try this social web gaming thing.

When you are open, other people tend to be open too. I’m not the best programmer. I only have a year of “professional game development experience”. There are a lot of things I don’t know. By making this opensource, I subject myself to other developer’s scrutiny. I’m hoping someone would declare my code crap then proceed to tell me why. Worst will be if no one cares about this project.

And as my hidden agenda: having a github account makes it easy for employers to evaluate my work. And people who interview me without bothering to check for my online projects, while not exactly a deal-breaker, is a bad sign.

Conclusion

Filipino game developers should really try sharing their magic tricks. No one will benefit from a community who keeps secrets from one another.

I know that there is a lot more to this open source thing than just pushing to a public code repository, but it’s a start.