# Ok, its time. AJAX Games via Rails **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [June 21, 2006, 6:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ok-its-time-ajax-games-via-rails/64058 "2006-06-21T18:26:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![No\_Spam\_Please](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/67e7ee/32.png) [@No\_Spam\_Please](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/No_Spam_Please)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2006, 6:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ok-its-time-ajax-games-via-rails/64058/1 "2006-06-21T18:26:53Z")
A couple of years ago I was building an online multiplayer game doing the frontend in Flash MX 2004 and using Colin Moock’s Unity server ([moock\>\> unity](http://moock.org/unity/)) for the backend. This was to be along the lines of JungleWar and the Hidden and Dangerous mini games for those whom remember these: [http://moock.org/unity/showcase/screenshots/hiddenanddangerous.gif](http://moock.org/unity/showcase/screenshots/hiddenanddangerous.gif) [http://moock.org/unity/showcase/screenshots/junglewar.gif](http://moock.org/unity/showcase/screenshots/junglewar.gif) Strangely enough these games were VERY addictive and when launched they expected maybe at most 5000 people to have tried them. Well, 80,000+ people later everyone was surprised. Back to my efferts now. I had an entire game engine completed with the exception of some spit and polish in a few places. Then, I ran into my stumbling block. For you see I am not at all graphically talented and any game needs characters drawn, items, rooms, etc. I figured it would be easy enough to recruit a graphics person and offer 50% sharing of what eventually would be a low cost subscription (we are talking $3.95 per month or so or less) to the game(s). I’d handle the servers, coding, etc. They just needed to do the graphics. I had the first server setup and ready to go and began my recruiting for the graphics person to help me plug in real images into my placeholder images. No takers. Nada. Zip. So, the game got dropped. Time went on. Then AJAX began popping up everywhere and I have to admit the first thing that popped into my head was “I can do the same thing I was doing before, but without Flash, and with a server backend of my choice” - I’m not saying the Unity server is bad - its a very good server and Colin did a great job with it. I’ve seent he AJAX online Chess, battleship, etc. games now rolling out, but no one has done any RPG or war type games – and that would be fun to be one of the first to do something like that. I’ve got a lot of the game engine thought out and several proto-type engines built and tested (in .Net actually). I’ve pieced together a crude Javascript library and can essentially say the “guts” are there now. What I don’t have (again) is anyone whom knows graphics - and without that I’m dead in the water again. Heres what I think. I think an online multiplayer RPG can be done in RoR, AJAX, and run on at least Firefox and Internet Explorer. I think cheap hosting for the game can be found easily (Linode, Rimuhosting, VPSLand, etc.) to get started. The game will start small and grow. Obviously this type of game cannot compete with stuff like World of Warcraft and its not meant to. I don’t plan on allowing people to play for free other than a trial period because I don’t want to have to foot server bills, etc myself. I don’t expect to get rich either. I’m doing this because I think it would be fun. So what am I looking for? Graphics people, other RoR programmers, hybrid graphics/programmers, etc. Doesn’t matter where in the world you are to me. I cannot promise riches, glory or fame. (I do think though we’d have a good chance of getting digged and who knows what could happen!) Just a note of clarification, I mentioned some prototype work had been done in .NET - that is not my first choice for the backend. My first choice is using Rails, a Postgresql DB, and probably Litespeed and Mongrel. I’d like to be able to have it so that new server instances could be put online easy and quickly. I use an Apple iMac (Intel), so iChat is a preferred communications medium. Well, I’ve really just glossed over this but its long enough. If there actually is some serious takers on this, I’ll toss up a link where we can meet and greet online (perhaps a Campfire session) and talk a bit more. ---
**Author:** ![No\_Spam\_Please](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/67e7ee/32.png) [@No\_Spam\_Please](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/No_Spam_Please)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2006, 7:34pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ok-its-time-ajax-games-via-rails/64058/2 "2006-06-21T19:34:00Z")
Hi Mr. No Spam, I’m interested in chatting. I have a couple of rails-based game sites ( [smarkets.net](http://smarkets.net) & [trivionomy.com](http://trivionomy.com)). One of my next items was to build a multiplayer trivia tournament game as part of and using content from trivionomy. While I’m not much of a graphics guy, I’ve got a nice dedicated server that still has excess capacity. Maybe I can offer to host your games in exchange for some help on the multiplayer foundation? I’ve implemented a lot of ajax in my sites, but I’m unclear at the moment on how to update the dom in multiple browsers upon an event, like you would need to do in a multiplayer game or chat app. It might be easy, I’ve just never done it before. Steve [http://www.trivionomy.com](http://www.trivionomy.com) [http://www.smarkets.net](http://www.smarkets.net) ---
**Author:** ![No\_Spam\_Please](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/67e7ee/32.png) [@No\_Spam\_Please](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/No_Spam_Please)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2006, 8:33pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ok-its-time-ajax-games-via-rails/64058/3 "2006-06-21T20:33:32Z")
Classic based first person shooter with obvious AJAX potential: [http://www.abrahamjoffe.com.au/ben/canvascape/](http://www.abrahamjoffe.com.au/ben/canvascape/) ---
**Author:** ![No\_Spam\_Please](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/67e7ee/32.png) [@No\_Spam\_Please](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/No_Spam_Please)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2006, 8:44pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ok-its-time-ajax-games-via-rails/64058/4 "2006-06-22T20:44:25Z")
No Spam Please wrote: > coding, etc. They just needed to do the graphics. I had the first > server setup and ready to go and began my recruiting for the graphics > person to help me plug in real images into my placeholder images. No > takers. Nada. Zip. So, the game got dropped. …and apparently the graphics people are still hiding 🙂 You might want to try another forum. I’m not so sure true gamer type graphics people will be hanging out on the RoR forum. –\> Steve ---
**Author:** ![No\_Spam\_Please](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/67e7ee/32.png) [@No\_Spam\_Please](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/No_Spam_Please)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2006, 10:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ok-its-time-ajax-games-via-rails/64058/5 "2006-11-14T22:27:49Z")
Brez! !! wrote: > Classic based first person shooter with obvious AJAX > potential: > > [http://www.abrahamjoffe.com.au/ben/canvascape/](http://www.abrahamjoffe.com.au/ben/canvascape/) This is really cool, but only seems to work well in Firefox. When I try it in IE 6 its very, very slow. ---
**Author:** ![No\_Spam\_Please](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/67e7ee/32.png) [@No\_Spam\_Please](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/No_Spam_Please)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2006, 10:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ok-its-time-ajax-games-via-rails/64058/6 "2006-11-14T22:40:58Z")
Robere Houseman wrote: > This is really cool, but only seems to work well in Firefox. When I try > it in IE 6 its very, very slow. Scratch that, it seems to be fast enough on both IE and Firefox as long as you use the non-textured version.