Thanks for the suggestions!
Maybe we can all brainstorm on this topic, because I’ve been thinking about the same thing some time ago.
I want to end up with not only a “make your own RPG”, but more with a “make and play RPG’s”.
I want to integrate most part of that into the RPG Playground software itself. This means that when you start RPG Playground, you can choose between:
- Start/continue to create your own RPG
- Play/continue playing an RPG that someone else created
It could also update you on news such as when your game received comments, likes, how many people played it etc.
Why I want this in the software and not only on the website is because I want to keep my options open to release a mobile app version, or a console version such as on XBox or Playstation or Nintendo Switch.
But as you can imagine, this is a lot of work (adding game pages, adding ways to comment on games, etc).
So for now, I have this quick, hack version on my WordPress site. When someone shares a game, I make a post of that, and so I get the comment section for free.
Last time, I looked into NodeBB, which is a modern forum software package. The cool thing is that I can also integrate this into RPG Playground itself in the future. It supports features such as question-answer, following users, liking or upvoting posts, etc.
So what I could do is start out with NodeBB on the website, have everything there set up (such as posting games, commenting on them, normal forum posts, likes of games, etc), and then as time goes by, slightly start integrating that into RPG Playground itself.
This would mean that I would have a basic version of NodeBB up and running on the website pretty fast, and can later take the time to integrate that into RPG Playground. This would mean that I can get to keep all data that is already available on NodeBB, and keep both website and application in sync.
At first, this could mean that when you share your game inside RPG Playground, a new forum post is created on NodeBB, and others can then comment on it.
I don’t know if this all makes any sense to you, but if you have further ideas on this topic, I would be glad to hear them.
Some time ago I created a document while brainstorming on this topic, so it might also be useful to get the idea of what is in my head: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b8P09SRp-OisvGe4QTJOtQVYr7Q7hpRsleQ41qZzeEs/edit?usp=sharing