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Merchant Commander: an online game in progress

Here’s a peek into my current game (Spirits of Gaia is on hold).

I put together this title screen from art I commissioned for an old project that never got started, but the game world is similar, so I used it here. I designed the logo. Probably a keeper.

Merchant Commander login/title screen

I’m using RedDwarf (Java) for the server and Flex 3 for the client.

The game is sort of playable, which is such a nice feeling. I haven’t had a playable project to work on for at least two years. Must… finish… or… die…!

I’ll pester anyone who will listen/read with more details later. :)

This entry was posted on Friday, May 21st, 2010 at 10:18 am and is filed under Projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Merchant Commander: an online game in progress”

  1. Jeff Says:
    June 4th, 2010 at 7:01 pm

    Do you have an active demo anywhere? What kind of game is Merchant Commander?

  2. jason Says:
    June 5th, 2010 at 11:21 am

    Hi Jeff,

    There’s no demo. It’s still in heavy development, but I’ll be releasing an alpha when it’s ready (couple months, I hope). I’ll be iterating heavily to complete it while trying to bootstrap revenue to support the effort.

    Merchant Commander is high seas trade and combat in a steampunk world.

    Thanks for taking an interest! :)

  3. Eli Says:
    June 11th, 2010 at 11:42 pm

    Hello sir,

    A friend of me are attempting to make a smallish (read: simple) flash mmo, using flash and RedDwarf. The issue here is … RedDwarf. I have a basic but workable knowledge of Java, but my understanding of server side processes is absolute fail.

    I run Mac, and my companion runs Win. We’re seriously at a loss here. As in, no idea how to even get started with RedDwarf. We cannot even get the supposed iconic ‘hello world’ tut to function. Complete standstill. Any light you might shed on the process would be more than likely paramount, and we’ll throw you in the credits of anything get finished… shoot, we’ll make you a functioning NPC or … something.

    Anyway – were pretty sure RedD is what we need, but baffled as to how it works or how to get started.

    Keep up the good work here, it’s always interesting.
    Thanks,
    Eli

  4. jason Says:
    June 12th, 2010 at 12:07 pm

    Hi Eli,

    RedDwarf is not easy to learn, straight-up fact. But the API is small, so there’s not that much to learn.

    I found that the majority of what I had to learn wasn’t so much RD related as just multiplayer programming. It’s a whole other beast from single player. I had no experience, but with long hours of intense study, I figured it out. Read, read again, read again, until you get it.

    I can’t offer much other than encouragement to dig in, and keep trying. Buy books, read online tutorials, read forums, study open source code. That’s what I did.

    Great resource still alive after Oracle nuked Project Darkstar: https://slipstream.dev.java.net/source/browse/slipstream/trunk/doc/slipstream.pdf?rev=49

    A few other resources survived that are linked on this page: http://geekspeak.creatrixgames.com/learning-resources-for-darkstar-newbies.html

    My learning project was a text MUD. It cuts out all the complexity and leaves you with pure gameplay and simple output. There’s a MUD written for Project Darkstar (RD’s precursor) that is open source. Study it.

    Just don’t give up. It feels like you’ll never learn it at first, but eventually it will start to fall into place.

    I wish I had enough time to write tutorials and stuff, because I really want to help, but I just don’t have any spare time right now.

    Best of luck, and thanks for reading my blog! :)

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