Vying Games : Blog

On this day one year ago, Vying Games was released. It wasn't exactly the Vying Games you see before you today -- okay, it wasn't even close. At the time there were only two games (Othello and Connect6) and you couldn't play against other people, only the bots.

The March 29th release was not really announced anywhere. The site wasn't "done" in my mind (still isn't), and for a week or so games were played only by myself, my fiance, and a couple friends. Looking back through the database, it wasn't until April 6th that the first outside visitors played a few anonymous games. On April 13th and 15th I posted a couple blog entries to reddit and about 100 anonymous games were played against the bots.

On April 15th, 2pies was the first new user I didn't know personally. He/She only played 3 games and moved on. A few hours later William signed up for an account. William hasn't been active in quite a while, but he did a lot to help the site grow. He added a link to Vying Games in his signature on XKCD's forums. It's funny how big an effect such a small gesture can have. For a while I think more new users came to the site through his sig than through any of my efforts. Thanks William!

Five days after William signed up, chrisdesalvo and ROBdaROB joined. Both are still around and active. Thanks for sticking with the site through all the development and slow growth, guys!

I won't recount when every active player joined, or how much each player has done to help the site grow. Needless to say, the site wouldn't be where it is without players. In June you could start playing other people, but you couldn't chat until July. It's funny to think how primitive the site was for so long. Today I can't imagine playing someone, but not being able to wish them "gl". It's really since that point, that the site began to blossom.

The feedback and encouragement I received from the players has done so much for the site. It's around that time that I really moved from developing whatever game caught my eye, to developing (almost exclusively) games that were suggested by other players. I'm not sure Phutball, Footsteps, Ataxx, Nine Men's Morris, Three Musketeers, Pah-Tum, or Dots and Boxes would be here had players not directed my attention to them and pushed for their development. For that I'm grateful, these have become some of my favorite games. Some of these games I may not have even heard of otherwise!

Speaking of games, there have been about 92,000 games played in the first year. An extraordinary number! I never could have imagined that many games being played when I released the site a year ago.

Don't read too much into the above table. For one, release date has a major effect on the number of games played. For another, some games are more popular for bot-play which naturally leads to a greater number of games played. Some games are longer than others... it should be no surprise that a game like Footsteps which can be over in as few as 6 moves (3 bids per side), would rank first.

Also, the only games ever deleted from the server are abandoned anonymous games in which no moves have been played. During our server problems last week lots of games of Cephalopod were started, and I wouldn't be surprised if more than a few were abandoned and may be deleted in the future. However, it's certainly impressive that Cephalopod was so well received.

Lastly, I think, the latest game always benefits from being released on the latest (and hopefully best) version of the server software, as well as having access to a larger community of active players.

So, to wrap this up, it's been an awesome first year! (totally cool... rad even) I have to thank all the game designers for having created such wonderful games, the players for making the community what it is, all the software developers who have contributed through the excellent libraries and tools this server is built upon, my fiance for being so supportive, and all the players again. Thanks so much everyone, I'm looking forward to next year being even better!