WarCluster - Real-time Massive Multiplayer Online Space Strategy Arcade Browser Social Game for Twitter! ヘ(◕。◕ヘ)

Related links:

• The Golang backend repo:
• The javascript client repo:
• Amazingly strong NodeJS AI player with fuzzy logic (written at 2 day hackathon) here: https://github.com/lepovica/WarCluster-AI ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)
• The awesome UI designer @Denitsa that also made the art of the game: https://www.behance.net/gallery/26279733/War-Cluster
• The team behind this project: humans.txt

History of how we got here

long story short: We wanted to learn something new ♪┏(・o･)┛♪┗ ( ･o･) ┓♪, experiment with the unthinkable & foresee the unimaginable. So we decided to make a web-fuckin-browser MMO as a side-project... It must had breathtaking tactics, large scale strategizing, thoughtful meta gameplay & dangerously social diplomacy. This is how WarCluster was born as the first social game for twitter! It was greatly inspired by other games

Setting

It has 6 different races. Each race has it's own unique color.

Each color corresponds to unique twitter #hashtag used for race wide communication (eg. #WarClusterRed). There're only verbal alliences between players.

Winning

The game is time based. Each round is approximately 10 days. The player with the most controlled planets (i.e. biggest empire) at the end of the round is proclaimed winner and therefore Galactic Emperor (here's one of the Beta winners @valexiev)

Gameplay

Each player starts with a solar system consisting of 9 neutral planets. His home planet (the one with the asteroid belt) is impregnable. Typically each colonized planet has owner and generates for him army pilots per minute. The bigger the planet the more it generates.

At some point the army can grow bigger than the allowed population of the planet. So when the numbers get red bad things start to happen and army pilots are beginnig to die by the minute. Different sizes of planets have different population caps.

A player can send army pilots to attack, spy or support other planets depending on their verbal agreements with its owner. The spaceships travel slow so moves are carefully plotted. Imagine it as a real time game of Go :

• Upon attacking a player conquers a planet if his attacking army is > 1 than the other army. Everything is lost otherwise.
• Upon spying a player gets the number of the army on the targeted planet.
• Upon supporting a player is donating his army to the planet's owner.

A player should spend extra effort to pick his enemies wiser and his allies patiently. Plot twists are around every hour.

There're different kind of ships indicating the size of the army. From left (smallest army, no more than 500 pilots) to right (biggest army, more than 6000 pilots). This is used to understand what's the expected army power that's approaching you.