AuthorTopic: Ensemble, a collaborative multiplayer game project  (Read 1868 times)

Offline Jerorx

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 Hi,

I'd like to present Ensemble, an experiment in crowd design, where players, developers and artists can collaborate to collectively design a browser-based multiplayer online game. This is a very experimental project to see what can emerge from pushing the collaborative aspect of a project to the max.

This project is collaborative in the sense that it is the community, and the community only, who decides how the game should evolve. Copied from the page of the game, here is a short description of two of the main channels for this process, the most relevant ones for this community:
  • Suggesting and voting for features. Anyone can make suggestions about a feature to add to the game (with a simple embedded form, without the need to login or anything, no friction). A list of the suggested features (located below the game canvas) allows to vote for or against each of them. On a regular basis, one of the top-ranked features of the moment is selected and implemented.
  • Submitting art. A form is provided to enable artists to send artwork that they would like to see added to the game, such as sprites or animations. For these as well, submissions are accepted unconditionally.

For a more detailed description, as well as links to both the source code and the game itself, I refer you to the main page of the project.

At the moment, the "game" consists in moving colored dots around, and dropping white blocks that serve as obstacles. This is still very basic, as only a handful of features have been suggested and implemented yet. You are free to jump in and attempt to shape the evolution of the game!

The below picture shows the appearance of the game at the moment. Obviously there is plenty of room for improvement.


I'm sharing this here, as I think artists interested in game development might be interested in contributing to an ongoing project with their own art, and possibly experiment as well through this medium. Features suggestions are also welcome, especially from a different community than usual (artists rather than programmers).