Hello everyone. I am once again bored with the usual browser based games that help me pass time at work. And in that newly found free time born of boredom I got the idea to try to make my own.

Before we go on, a little about me. I am a EET graduate and know assembly, C/C++, html and web hosting, and various vendor specific languages.

No, I don't want a MMORPG...I read the sticky!... I don't want 3d or even anything that flashy. I just want to get some experience at a mundane starting point. I know I need a database, a GUI, and html. The problem is I have no experience with databases! I read the w3 tutorial of php, but I'm not sure if that is a decent solution. As for the GUI...I am guessing flash would be easy enough to implement. Though I have seen plenty of Javascript/Flash arguments to know that javascript would probably be just as good.

I know there is no one language to solve every problem, I am not looking for one. And please no java/flash arguments... Lets just get out some basics!

Generally, browsergames are built in PHP or Perl - although ASP.Net, Ruby on Rails, and Python/Django have also been used(and are starting to be used more).

I have been meaning to learn Perl... Thanks for bringing up some languages to look into! It will definately give me something to do before I get released from my cube.

Oh, and that link in your sig, http://buildingbrowsergames.com/, is very nice too!

Thanks - I tend to write most of the stuff on there, and the goal has been to walk people like you through how to build a browsergame(albeit, with a little bit more experience with their language of choice).

I'm actually sort of casting around for topics right now, so if there's anything specific you want me to research/explain, just shoot me a PM here or send an e-mail to buildingbrowsergames@gmail.com with the idea and I'll do my best to take a look.

What sort of game are you planning? Unless you are comfortable with graphic work too, or need a high level of interaction, I'd recommend using html/javascript for your gui. Flash can make some really great games, but to get the most of out it you either need to be part artist, or have an artist working with you, otherwise there isn't really any advantage to it. On the upshot, most of the data processing will be handled by your server application so adding flash elements, or changing the whole gui from html to flash at some point is not as hard as you might think.

girasquid: That is a really cool site to form. I wonder how many hits you get... I will let you know if I find anything I think a code snippet would be greatly needed for. Though I will be working on my games background and learning code before I really jump into stuff. If you site could use some basics, perhaps I will try to write something up for it.

mocker: I am planning a AdventureQuest/DragonQuest/Mechquest type game. Mostly PvE with the faint hope of PvP. Really my game is a d20 setting. I would like to make a browser game too though, and I already have the setting... I am pretty good at GIMP and started looking at Flash already, its not bad. Though knowing that I can go from HTML to flash later...totally starting out in HTML, thanks!

Thanks for the warm welcome too. I was kinda expecting a "well we have a search feature here..." or a "noob!" answer... so thanks.

I tend to stay wide away from perl. it has, as they say, the readability of assembly.
Php will do the trick just fine, with the added advantages that most webhosters support it, it is more easy to learn, there is good documentation and lots and lots of libraries available (think for example a template system...).

Notwithstanding the choice of frontend language, your database is going to be the most important part of any web based game you will make.
Learn SQL.

Finaly, if you plan to make a game world where things happen at regular intervals, you will need a way to run scheduled jobs (aka chron jobs)
Feel free to ask.

I agree with Trogdor on the SQL part of things - you'll save yourself a lot of headaches if you learn enough SQL to be able to use it effectively.

I tend to disagree on the readability point; just make sure you've got some good coding conventions - and stick to them.

I thought SQL was the database and PHP interacted with it. So SQL is the database and its own language to interact with it??

EDIT: NM, I did a google search and found the info.

This post has been edited by jamesb: 25 Jun, 2008 - 07:52 AM