Accelerant Character Generator
Managing a live action roleplaying game (LARP) has traditionally been a labor-intensive process. The players must contact a staff person every time they have a simple question or change, and the staff, who are generally volunteers, must devote substantial time to logistical work and player queries. The Character Generator was designed to address these problems.
The system has been in production for nine years. It is currently in use at three local games and was formerly used by four additional games during their entire campaigns. At any given time it supports about 300 players.
The system has greatly decreased the amount of management time that goes into the game and has improved player and staff satisfaction. The Character Generator was the first system of its kind in the Accelerant community and has set the standard for online LARP administration.
I am currently working on an open source PHP/MySQL version to make the system higher-performance and more affordable. The new version features a completely revamped user interface and leverages modern technologies such as AJAX.
I currently receive many more requests than I can actually support, and I'm hoping that many more games will be able to use the system once it is no longer constrained by my free time to grow and support it!
The screenshots at the right show my UI prototypes for the new version. Graphic design is not final, but most of the interaction design and JavaScript is complete. I plan to post a full prototype soon.
Responsibilities
- Developed entire system from concept to deployment.
- Came up with initial concept and worked with game owners and players to develop specifications and implement system.
- Performed all ColdFusion and database development.
- Wrote extensive ColdFusion and JavaScript logic to aid users in creating characters that conform to complex game system.
- Implemented settings that allow software to be easily customized for games using variations on the rules system.
- Implemented login and authentication system supporting 3-tiered access privileges.
- Integrated Paypal support to allow players to easily register and pay for events.
- Worked with team of players to perform extensive QA and user acceptance testing.
- Provided ongoing support and maintenance for 7 games, including periodic releases of new features and bug fixes.
Tools
- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe ColdFusion
- Adobe Dreamweaver
- JavaScript (including DHTML and DOM scripting)
- jQuery framework
- Microsoft Access
- Microsoft Visio
- Paypal shopping cart API
- PHP/MySQL (currently in development)
