My plan of action for this game is as follows:
Finish the bare-bones documentation. That’s the stuff I’ve been putting up here about objects, NPCs, events, etc.
Create a simple authoring tool. I’ll probably use REALbasic and SQLite to crank that out, but I’m also thinking about doing it with PHP and MySQL. Mainly because if I open it up to people later on, an online version will be much easier to manage than a desktop version.
Write a mini game. In order to test the AGM player, I need a game that does at least one of everything. I’ll probably outline a complete game and then just implement the beginning and end. That way later on I can build on what I started for the first full game.
Code the first AGM player. At this point I’m not sure whether it will be done online in PHP, desktop based with REALbasic, or an iPhone app using XCode. Since I don’t have the ability *today* to do the latter, I may have to go with one of the first two initially.
Test the mini game. As long as everything in the mini game works, I should be able to add more and more to that game and the player should handle it all.
After that’s done I’ll have to decide whether to get beta testers at that point or wait until the iPhone app is done. But even just writing that it makes me think going for what I can do *now* makes more sense, so that’s probably what will happen — do an online or desktop version first.
The other thing I’ll need to work on is the back-end server stuff. People need to be able to sign up as members and then I’ll keep track of which games they have permission to play. They should be able to play online, on their desktop, or on their iPhone without buying the games over again. I’ll probably look at some kind of scheme to make sure they’re only logged in from one device at a time.
And, of course, there needs to be some kind of “Achievement Leaderboard” so people can show how good they are. =:)