This article has been written to help the newcomers to the text based game community, and hopefully it will guide you to the right path, which will help you gain success in the future.

Firstly, I am going to be talking about uniqueness. This is an important point because many new game owners come in to the community and go through the thinking process that if they copy features and layouts of games which have already obtained success then they will gain success as well. This is where they go wrong, it is important to note a user will like to play the original rather than the duplicate because of two specific reasons which I will give below:

1.     Think about it, if there is an Armani Jacket and someone offers you the choice between getting the duplicate and the original which one will you choose?

I would assume it to be the original because it gives you a better feeling, so here it is exactly the same, users want to play the original rather than a duplicate so think about uniqueness before you opt to copy a game.

2.    The second reason is, for a Web Developer copying a game, he/she might be able to copy certain parts of the website however it is very unlikely they will get a perfect copy. This is because each Web Developer has different coding styles so obviously it will be different.

If you haven’t remembered any of the above points then make sure you understand the following points. Once you decide to set off on the quest to make a successful text based game, then make sure you think of brand new fresh ideas to implement into your game, something to offer to the users which no other game has. Secondly, make sure you do not go off on the wrong track and steal ideas off any game makes yours absolutely unique to give your users a unique game play. If you manage to do this successfully, then you’re already on your way to making a successful text based game.

Secondly I want to talk about marketing strategies. I would think this is an important part in making your game successful because that is what is going to bring in all the users. Now there are a number of ways you can get your game out to the users but you will have to research and find which will work best for your genre of the game. I will mention some below, which you can start with but remember there is always more ways to advertise you’re game.

1.    Forums – Advertising your game via forums is a simple and free way of getting your game known to the public.
2.    It’s easy to gain players as well as create a wrong impression about your game via forums so
Remember to speak politely to members.
3.    Answer most if not all questions asked.
4.    Ok so you have chose a forum you want to start off with, but remember  to advertise on all the forums you can get your hand on, that way you will be advertising your game to a bigger audience increasing the chances of success.
5.    Last but not least make sure your post is interesting. Many game owners make this mistake so let’s get this clear, in your post make sure you give all possible details of the game and pick the ones you think will interest gamers. You could include some of the following details:

1.    Game domain
2.    What unique features have you got in your game?
3.    Why the user should play the game?
4.    What genre have you chosen for your game?
5.    What’s the storyline of the game?
6.    What features do you want to implement in the game in the future?
I know there are more, but this is just the basic outline of what kind of things you should include in your post.

Thirdly, I would like to talk about staff you choose for your game. It is important that you’re staff give a good impression of the game and they are people you can trust. I say this because I have seen many games fail because of either there staff deceiving them or swearing and being unfair to members therefore causing everyone to leave. Before choosing staff please consider and take in mind the following:

1.    You know them personally
2.    You have known them for more than 1month
3.    You trust them 100%
4.    They have had experience of being staff on other games
5.    They want to help your game become a success
6.    They can use perfect grammar
7.    They will not swear
8.    They will be fair to all

I know these are only some things to consider, though this will guide you on your way to choosing the perfect staff for the job.

Fourthly, I would like to talk about the genre you choose for your game. Now this is also vitally important so make sure you choose a genre which will fit the kind of game you want and the features you have in mind to implement on your website. It is also important to note everything is linked to the genre of the game because this is where newcomers go wrong. They choose a genre to the game about mafia and suddenly have some football features going on in the game. This is where you begin to lose your players because you portrayed a specific genre when you advertised to the suitable target audience joined and now you’re moving to something else.  My advice here would be pick a genre and stick to it and do everything according to it. Remember this because it’s the genre which pulls a specific audience towards your game and then they don’t want to get disappointed by it not being like your portrayed it.

My next point is going to be about regular updates. It is important that you provide your players with regular updates so they know you care about the game and they can look forward to something. If you don’t provide the users with regular updates then they will think that you don’t care about the game so you are probably going to be selling it off to another person in future and this is also a way to lose your players.

The next point to consider when you’re running a game is communication. It is important to make an active community who talk to each other because this will increase the amount of fun which is being generated in the game. Communication to the players is vital because thinking about it from a gamer’s point of view the users always want to be talking to the owner and providing ideas. This is where experience owners and newcomers go wrong because they don’t feel it’s necessary to communicate with players when it actually is.

In this paragraph I will be talking about the layout of the game. Whilst people think layout is just an attractive section to the game there is more to it than that. The layout is a part of the game which helps the user interact with the different features of the game and gives it a specific feeling. One thing which newcomers do wrong with layouts is just add one which they think looks good though it’s not user friendly and makes it harder to navigate to different parts of the game. Make sure the layout you pick is user friendly so the users don’t feel uneasy when moving from one page to another.

[Written by Redex]