BBGameZone Contest Winner: Wicked Dead

I managed to get in touch with Hypemaster
from the Browser-Based Game Zone forums to ask him a few questions about his entry in
the BBGZ 2010 PBBG competition. His entry,
Wicked Dead, was the winner of the contest with a 68 point lead over the
next entry. Here’s what he had to say:

Tell us a little about Wicked Dead.

Well, the game starts where life ends.

You are dead – and instead of going to heaven or hell, you’ve gone to a place called Wicked Dead. You are Wicked Dead! Here, you get a chance for a new life. You need to enter the gates and complete
objectives and battles. For every level you complete, a new one will open – but if you fail a level,
you’re bumped back 2 levels. The goal of the game is to complete level 100 – then you are given a new life!

In the levels you will need to do wicked stuff. If you die you die very painfully, but get reborn
and can improve your stats. Yeah, you read that right – you can only improve your stats by dying! So
deciding whether to complete a level or die is sometimes a hard decision.

Energy is your life-force – you need energy to enter a gate and complete the objective. No energy means no fun. You regain energy over time though, so don’t worry. You also have a stat called ‘pain’ – when you die, your pain goes up. If you have a pain rate higher than 90 you will be unable to access a gate because you are so scared and have so much pain that you can’t do anything (so don’t die too much!). Pain goes away over time.

One thing to remember while playing Wicked Dead: not everything is what it seems! There are many tricks in place, and you will also meet other people in the gates.

What gave you the initial idea for Wicked Dead?

I was playing a game with some friends and we were losing badly. I was
dying all the time and I thought, why don’t they make a game where death is
rewarding? And then I started with an idea to make a game which rewards
dying. My first idea was that you needed to try losing, the one who dies first
wins. When I read about the competition I started working on that idea and
then Wicked Dead was born. I changed it a bit, you get better when dying
and you sometimes need to win and sometimes need to lose. Also, luck
is something you will need. And lastly, I like to fool with people so thats also integrated into the game.

What language did you write Wicked Dead in? What are you hosting it on?

I used PHP, along with XHTML and MySQL for the database. I have a lot of experience with them,
so it was a logical choice. I’m using the same shared hosting provider I use for all of my sites.

What was something that went well during the contest? What was something
that didn’t?

Well the first 2 weeks went well, there is really nothing that went bad in
terms of programming. Only thing that took some time was balancing out the
stats and items. But thats something I always invest a lot of time in.

The thing that went bad was time! During the last two weeks of the contest, I almost
didn’t get time to work on the game! I even forgot to upload my last changes
before the competition ended. But it was no big deal – the basic idea was in place,
and the update only added pvp and more levels.

Do you have any plans for Wicked Dead, going into the future?

At the moment I dont have much time to work on it, but I’m working on it.
In the future more levels will be added and also a Minion minigame with
aura stones. There are only a few and people will fight for it with their
minions. Upgrading their base and creating minions or towers. The next gate
levels will get more complex, more paths to follow, more choices and more
tricks to fool people. I’m planning to make 100 levels, but at the moment there are only 18 ready to go – so there’s still a lot to do. I’m not planning to advertise it yet in
the near future, maybe somewhere in the summer. I first want more levels
ready. The problem is that I can’t make them as fast as people can play
them. And after all, I’m making it for fun.

Have you played Wicked Dead yet? What did you think of it? Let us know in the comments!