Building a board games website!
Welcome to the first post from FastMovingGames, a new online service that I’m developing for board gamers and board games players!
Wow! I’m amazed that I’ve even made it as far as getting this preview site up and running which has taken me probably 3 months of on and off work (amongst actually playing board games that is!)
So what’s it all about…? First a little bit of background….
I’m Dan, website developer by trade, board games player by addiction! Now I don’t mean I’m a pictionary or monopoly game player (although kudos if you do play these games as you’ve got to start somewhere!), I’m talking about strategic board games, abstracts, wargames, and tactical card games; games that players all over the world rate as the top ten board games; games like Puerto Rico, Caylus, Tichu, Axis and Allies, Runebound, and many more.
I’m a web entrepreneur, and outside of my day job building sites for other people here in Auckland, New Zealand, I’ve always had a passion for building websites that fit in with my hobbies - what better way to spend my time than building a website that’s about board games! Of course, as I mentioned before, I previously failed to divide my time successfully between actually building this site, and still trying to play as many board games as possible.
I first had the idea of building FastMovingGames as an online service for board gamers a good few years ago now, but never had the time and motivation to commit to what it needed. The initial vision was for the site to be an extensible online gaming engine, whereby I’d write some correspondence games and an online framework for playing these games to interact with your friends online. This would then allow other developers to plug-in to this framework and use the turn-based games engine to develop their own games and list them all in one place.
Well, I guess this is still a great idea thinking about it, but it all takes time, lots of time! This vision had a few prototype pages for some time. As the years passed (I checked when I registered fastmovinggames.com the other day and it was 2003….!), and I played more and more board games, I noticed the site’s development had stagnated.
Late last year I sat down and read a great online book written by the founders of the 37signals website, providers of some great Web 2.0 style online applications that have clean, simple interfaces, and simple solutions to people’s online needs.
This book single-handedly and successfully refocused my ideas for this board games website, and at the end of last year I frantically started scribbling down information about what board games players needed that other online resources like BoardGameGeek didn’t supply. I looked at the current state of the Internet, and the way websites are moving forward (which is at great speed), especially with the advent of Web 2.0 in all its marketing glory.
And so the current vision of FastMovingGames was born: an online service for board gamers and board games players, that will be a great complementary resource to BoardGameGeek once it’s up and running.
To give myself some breathing space whilst I start making headway into the website development, this preview site is here to serve a few important purposes:
- To provide initial information about the site and allow people to register to be kept informed of the release
- To start getting search engines understanding that FastMovingGames is a board games website (which is a challenge in itself!)
- And, to provide a journal giving an inside look at screenshots, the development process, and access to early previews to allow you, the hopefully final users, to help shape its development.
My intention is to keep this blog updated regularly (weekly) with progress about what’s going on with the site and the when it’s due to release - this should give me a great boost to my motivation in completing the remainder of the website. It’s often hard enough finding the time to dedicate to building this board games site in the first place, but having prospective users contributing, commenting (please do!), and helping out by telling their friends will be a massive motivational boost to providing this great new service for all board games players.
Okay, I understand I haven’t actually told you much about what the site is really going to be about, but hopefully, if you stay tuned to this blog (here’s the RSS feed for you to keep updated…), you’ll get a great insight into not only what the site is going to be about when it’s finally launched, but you will have understood, and helped shape its development to really help feel part of the overall FastMovingGames board games community.
So, all that remains is to say a big thanks for coming to the site, and reading this far, and I hope you’ll be staying with me to see this preview into a great online service that board gamers around the world with want to use regularly!
Please sign up on the front page (or at the top right of this page) so I can keep in touch with you about important updates and when we’re going to release (I promise not to send you spam - only site updates and notifications).
Thanks again for your support.
-Dan Khan
P.S. I’d appreciate any comments that you might have below.
Comments (8)
February 21st, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Sounds very exciting - I can’t wait to see what it’s all about and to be able to use the features. The site looks great so far.
-Flomsk
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:20 am
Neither can I and I’m not even married to you
February 25th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
There’s a few games listed on the top 10 games page as “a card game or boardgame”. They are all clearly boardgames and not card games
It would add a little credibility if this basic information was correct.
February 25th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Hi William,
Yes, you’re right! Until we launch proper, the games list is really there to help the search engines understand that this site is about board games (and card games!) so may contain a few inaccuracies in the content as the list is mostly generated automatically from our main games database.
The blog, however, is more useful to a human reader, as this gives a few more insights as to actually what’s it’s all about (to a degree!) and what’s happening behind the scenes.
Cheers,
-Dan
March 7th, 2008 at 7:14 am
Dan, It’s great to see so many people that have growing Interest in board games, I hope you can find time to go to Google video and search ,”Relapse” 2-player board game and see this,Learn now! in less than 4-minutes to learn, This board game is just starting to be launched by some of my donations..There are some masters of this game that are pretty good !!, nobody has set up Tournements yet…, Anyways Keep gaming ! and Enjoy! Jeff
March 7th, 2008 at 7:26 am
Hi Jeffrey,
I watched the video and looks like a great game - I can imagine this having great replayability. Hope to see the game getting out there and listed on the geek soon! Good luck with the launch. Dan.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:35 am
What will this site offer that Boardgamegeek.com does not?
April 30th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Hi Terry,
Thanks for your comment. For me, BGG is a great resource and wealth of information, and rightly so. FMG is something different, more a utility for gamers, and something that BGG doesn’t provide.
As my post says, this preview site is more a teaser until I’ve completed the development of the core engine and idea before I release the main concept out onto the web.
If you follow the blog postings I am slowly revealing more details about the main function of the site and screenshots over time.
I’m still hacking away at the core engine for now, but I’ve not seen anything like this for boardgamers yet, so appreciate your patience whilst I pull the rest of the site together.
I hope you’ll check back on the RSS or blog feed regularly to see what’s going on.
Thanks,
-Dan
Add Your Comment