Thieves Tavern Beta
Its been a few months since I announced I was going to try to write a PHP based Mafia game and in that time I've learned a decent amount.
First off, if you want a project done, you can't be getting distracted. Since I've started Thieves Tavern I've also fallen in love with motorcycles and started gun smithing. Both of those have stolen major programming time away from this project. Its only through the weather being downright cold lately, and parts for the gun being on back order that I've had the time to get gung ho on this project again.
Secondly, when dealing with databases, its really easy to tailor the database so that the game works. In fact, that's the whole point of editing the database: To test this bit, or that bit... but not the overall product. Earlier this week I'd reached a point where I thought I could push my code live, and invite some friends to beta test it. I figured, at the time that clearing out my database would make stuff work better, get rid of all the random edge cases I'd built up along the way. Well, after clearing out the database, nothing worked. I couldn't start games, I couldn't chat, nada. This is when I learned that it doesn't get easier after removing test data, only harder. It took another two days of testing, clearing, testing some more, as well as cleaning up my code, before I got it back to the 'working' beta state. Thankfully, now I know its working as intended (minus the obvious beta bugs, of course).
So now its off to beta test Thieves Tavern. I'm kind of excited to be playing this, I had loads of fun while playing myself in local tests, and I can imagine it being even better taking out friends online. If you'd like to help test, get ahold of me (in real life, I'll ask for signups for a public beta later on) and I'll send you an invite.
(And in the 10 minutes it took to write this I already have a laundry list of fixes/stuff I just plumb forgot)
