mySQLgame - multiplayer database manipulation game

August 21, 2008 12:03 PM

mySQLgame - multiplayer database manipulation game
SELECT from Rows, UPDATE your opponents' Rows to subtract from the money field, and occasionally even INSERT brand-new Rows in mySQLgame! It's the first multiplayer browser-based game to be completely transparent about just what it is you're accomplishing with your time. [probably not yet working in Internet Explorer, sry]

I'm not sure this counts as a "significant new creation" (I mostly just wanted to see how the kids are making websites these days) but hopefully web programmers and ogame aficionados / haters will get a kick out of it. It's just getting off the ground, so bug reports and gameplay suggestions are appreciated.

posted by jhc (9 comments total)

I know very little about MySQL but I'd like to learn. Would this be a good way to do it?
posted by Shepherd at 10:15 AM on August 22, 2008

Shepherd -- yes and no. The queries you see in the interface are real SELECT, INSERT, and UPDATE statements, which along with DELETE are the basic building blocks of database access -- reading from tables, inserting rows, updating their values, and removing rows, respectively. So this might teach you the basics of SQL statements.

On the other hand, basic SQL syntax is really, really straightforward, so five minutes with a tutorial would accomplish the same thing. The meat of relational database programming (which is the term for the thing you'd probably like to learn) has to do with the way that multiple tables interact -- how do you efficiently turn your data into a set of tables with links between them, so that each piece of data is only stored once? How do you efficiently fetch the set of data stored across multiple tables that you need to render a particular page? Once things get big, how do you optimize queries that are just taking too long?

That stuff isn't in mysqlgame at all -- in fact, a lot of the point was to show just how little is going on behind the scenes in this kind of game. None of it is too complicated either, though, so a little googling should get you started no problem. Good luck!
posted by jhc at 10:59 AM on August 22, 2008

Shepherd, try out GalaXQL. Seriously, it's a great intro that even after years of doing SQL can still teach me a few things about crazy outer join stuff I often forget.

It's a game and they use the stars in the sky as a metaphor for a database you can query and they give you little quizzes after each time you learn something new. It's really great.

I haven't played this mySQLgame, but it sounds like an awesome concept that is along the lines of GalaXQL, but for people that are farther along in their SQL knowledge.
posted by mathowie at 12:13 PM on August 22, 2008 [3 favorites]

Cool! Thanks, folks!
posted by Shepherd at 12:54 PM on August 22, 2008

This is amazing, there's nothing like going through a long day at work and relaxing with... SQL statements.
posted by bertrandom at 9:10 PM on August 22, 2008 [1 favorite]

This is fantastic. I'm still a little hazy as to how the combat calculations work, but this is fun!
posted by ChrisHartley at 7:14 PM on August 23, 2008

"Sign in with your Google account"

wtf??

I'm not going to give Google my cookie just to try your crappy game. What's that you say? It's not crappy? Well I guess I'll never find out...
posted by mr. strange at 2:25 PM on August 26, 2008

Just to complete the circle, this project is now on Metafilter itself.
posted by Nelson at 11:33 AM on August 28, 2008

Awesome fun on that guy - one kinda suggestion:
Looking for a likely attack victim takes a lot of clicking about the scan lists for people within certain ranges, with certain attack multipliers and defenders. Seeing as this is a mysql game, wouldn't forming SELECT statements on the rows make sense?
posted by clawtros at 1:49 PM on August 28, 2008