Birth

First of all, let us express a warm welcome to this project and encourage you to read along these lines so you get an idea of what to expect from mPango.

Secondly, we must advice you that this project is still being planned and all work needs to be done. Few code has been submitted by our first committer. This means that there is still plenty of space to cover, and if you were considering joining an Open Source project of the same nature as mPango, you should consider that this is the best moment as you could become a key player in the project.

There are some ideas of what is to be done but, as we are in the initial phase, there is still lots of things to discuss and decisions to be made.

What we know: this project is an open source web based strategy game that will most like be turn based. We have all played games like Civilization, Sim City, Age of Empires, Star Craft and so on. All those games are initially thought to be a 1 player experience type of games, but the richness of the functionality in them makes them candidates for the type of game we want to develop in this project.

Web technologies enable thousands of humans to interact in various forms. This project will leverage those same technologies that are available nowadays to create the best multiplayer (or should we say massive player) interactive game possible. We have to be realistic about the scope of the project and the limitations that the very nature of an open source project have. This probably means that it will be a lost cause to have a state-of-the-art front end with 3D graphics and astonishing sound effects. It also means that multimedia goodies as well as other features only private funded projects might have will not be present for some time.

Nevertheless, we all know how fun it can be to play a Risk board game, Monopoly, Hotel or any other game on which strategy, luck, persistence and intelligence come into play with the clear objective to beat the rest of the players. And this means that as long as we can provide a functional simple to use game on which players can develop their strategies in a fun way, we can provide some value with the project.

Time is a limitation that everybody has to live with and in the beginning the time we use for the project will be a gift for the sake of it. If things go well and we are capable of having an stable version of the game, we are determined to launch a server so that end users can use it.