Fun Ideas

Terran

Can anyone think of some ideas for newbies to PHP to attempt?

I'm returning to PHP from not having programmed in around a year and just as before, I can't think of anything to program!

I know this sounds lame and like I am lazy, but I'm not. I just can't think of what to do. If I had a good idea in mind, I'd be programming right now. Does anyone want to share their past project ideas or can anyone think of one right now? I'm just talking about basic PHP programs without MySQL or anything external.

Thanks.

planetsim

Why dont you do a search for project ideas. There are many posts like this why not read them, just because your lazy doesnt mean we have to think for you.

Terran

Originally posted by planetsim
Why dont you do a search for project ideas. There are many posts like this why not read them, just because your lazy doesnt mean we have to think for you.

You apparently didn't read my post.

I've tried searching but I usually get something way too advanced or way too simple.

:bemused:

planetsim

I did read your original post there was no mention of searching, or anything like that just that you couldnt think of an idea.

Well unfortunately we arent mind readers either, so if you give us an idea of where you think you are with programming we maybe able to help. But like I said in my previous post search the board this topic has come up before with many projects suggested

Installer

Something to get you started.

influensi

You could consider helping me with some minor parts of my project. 😃 Seriously, though, I would suggest writing a simple website with user registration and authentication using MySQL and cookies. I'm a newb with php and doing this helped me learn quite a bit. Or, like I said earlier, there's some small tasks that I was going to do such as making a player inventory or a profile page that might be fun to write.

Terran

Originally posted by influensi
You could consider helping me with some minor parts of my project. 😃 Seriously, though, I would suggest writing a simple website with user registration and authentication using MySQL and cookies. I'm a newb with php and doing this helped me learn quite a bit. Or, like I said earlier, there's some small tasks that I was going to do such as making a player inventory or a profile page that might be fun to write.

Hmm. Well I just made a program that stores full names, usernames, and some other attributes of people. I made a script to add entries to the database and to delete entries from the database... My first "real" database program I suppose.

I know nothing about cookies or sessions though. But I think I'd better off stick with PHP/MySQL right now until I get them both pounded into my head.

What exactly are you doing? What would it require of me?

influensi

I'm writing a sort of multiplayer game/simulation thingy. It will be tied in to my main site in that most of the game will be comprised of users playing little minigames to earn money which can be used to buy other, more complex games. Another point of this game would be its economy system, in which rich players could create businesses at which players could spend turns working in return for pay, provided by the employer. Businesses would produce items unique to that business which would be sold wholesale to middle-class players who opt to build shops. This market economy is split up into four different nations, each with a seperate fluctuating currency. Players could also buy stock in businesses and earn further profits. I plan to also create a sort of battle arena in one of the countries (which would be considered the most primitive one) where players can fight each other and gamble. Also, the actions of a player would be limited by his actual position in the world. If a shop-owner builds his shop in one city, items cannot be bought by players in other cities. This would further affect inflation in certain parts of the world. And just for fun, if two players are share the same coordinate, one can mug the other one in an attempt to steal the money he is currently carrying.

I seem to have rambled on a bit. The things you would probably do would be to code things like the player-owned business system, the inflation control, or player movement. Or even just parts of those things.

Terran

Originally posted by influensi
I'm writing a sort of multiplayer game/simulation thingy. It will be tied in to my main site in that most of the game will be comprised of users playing little minigames to earn money which can be used to buy other, more complex games. Another point of this game would be its economy system, in which rich players could create businesses at which players could spend turns working in return for pay, provided by the employer. Businesses would produce items unique to that business which would be sold wholesale to middle-class players who opt to build shops. This market economy is split up into four different nations, each with a seperate fluctuating currency. Players could also buy stock in businesses and earn further profits. I plan to also create a sort of battle arena in one of the countries (which would be considered the most primitive one) where players can fight each other and gamble. Also, the actions of a player would be limited by his actual position in the world. If a shop-owner builds his shop in one city, items cannot be bought by players in other cities. This would further affect inflation in certain parts of the world. And just for fun, if two players are share the same coordinate, one can mug the other one in an attempt to steal the money he is currently carrying.

I seem to have rambled on a bit. The things you would probably do would be to code things like the player-owned business system, the inflation control, or player movement. Or even just parts of those things.

Well I hope you don't mind me being a little slow at first because I am just learning MySQL. In PHP I'm a little faster because I have some programming experience and have worked with PHP itself longer than with PHP/MySQL.

How would we get started on this?

influensi

Actually, last night I began the project and completed the login/registration system with cookies and made a half-working inventory, as well as implementing a player turns increaser. I also wrote a header file that retrieves most of the player's stats from the MySQL server and puts them into php variables. The next step will probably be to write some functions for taking money in and out of the MySQL int for the player. This would be a simple task, just add or subtract the amount from what the player has and then update the MySQL list. You can take a shot at writing them for practice with functions, if you like. Post them here if you write them. The only things you should need to know are the $money variable, the world_users table, and the money parameter.

Terran

Originally posted by influensi
Actually, last night I began the project and completed the login/registration system with cookies and made a half-working inventory, as well as implementing a player turns increaser. I also wrote a header file that retrieves most of the player's stats from the MySQL server and puts them into php variables. The next step will probably be to write some functions for taking money in and out of the MySQL int for the player. This would be a simple task, just add or subtract the amount from what the player has and then update the MySQL list. You can take a shot at writing them for practice with functions, if you like. Post them here if you write them. The only things you should need to know are the $money variable, the world_users table, and the money parameter.

What is your convention for keeping track of players? For example, the function should probably take the ID of the player and the amount to add/subtract. Do you use ID numbers, usernames, etc...?

Example:

function addmoney($playerid,$amount){
//Get current money from database (or get it externally and pass it to the function)
//Addition/subtraction code here
//Add new value into the database
return;
}

influensi

Ah, yes... I felt like I was forgetting something. $uname is the name of the current logged in player. You could make up another variable to write a function for transfering money to another player's account with $otheruser.

Terran

Ok, for adding/subtracting money, could it be something like this:

<?php
function addmoney($uname,$amount){
	$query = @mysql_query("SELECT money FROM users WHERE username='$uname'");
	$error = "There was an error processing your request, please try again later";
	if(!$query){
		echo $error;
		exit();
	}

$row = @mysql_fetch_array($query);

$newamount = $row["money"] + $amount;

$query = "UPDATE users SET money='$newamount' WHERE username='$uname'";

if(!@mysql_query($query)){
	echo $error;
}
return;
}
?>

This is of course assuming that we are already connected to the proper database, the table name is "users", the username is "username", and the money is "money."

If I am way off, please forgive me. 🙁

influensi

Everything is perfect except for the table, which is actually world_users. Upon fixing that, it worked perfectly! This method could be used for adding, subtracting(with negatives), and transferring money. Excellent...

Something else you could do would be to code the user owned shop module-thingy. This is more advanced and requires knowledge of how items work in Aard. A user's or shop's inventory is represented by a string of numbers seperated by dashes. Each number is the ID of an item in the user's shop. By using the explode() method with - as the delimiter, you get an array of the items, which can then be displayed with a loop. Each item's description and actions associated with it can be viewed at item.php?id= and the item's id. The image of the item is at images/items/(id of the item).png. A user's shop should display the items in it (shopinv from the world_users table) and have each pop up a yes/no dialog for purchase. The price of the item (price from world_items table) would then be subtracted from the user's cash at hand (money) and added to the shop's till (shoptill from world_users). The obstacle here is removing items from the array of items and parsing it back into a string without nulls. I was lazy when I attempted this and instead coded the player inventory display.

For reference, here is that code:

<?php
include 'dbcnx.php';
include 'check_login.php';

if (!$logged_in) {
	echo '<p>You are not logged in, fool! Log in now!</p>';
	} else {
		$invlist = "";

	$sql = "SELECT inventory FROM world_users WHERE username = '".$uname."'";
	$inv = mysql_result(mysql_query($sql), 0);
	$inventory = explode("-", $inv);

	for ($i=0; $i < count($inventory); $i++) {
	$invlist .= "&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='javascript:window.Open('http://www.zifos.com/aard/item.php?id=$inventory[$i]','MyWindow','toolbar=no,menubar=no,scrollbars=yes,resizable=no,width=200,height=400')'><img src='images/items/$inventory[$i].png'></a>";
	}

	echo "<h1>Your Pockets Have in Them:</h1><br><br>";
	echo $invlist;
}
?>

At the top, dbcnx.php connects to my database, check_login.php contains all player variables, and aardfuncs.php contains functions. (Currently, only the addmoney.)

A problem I had with the inv.php was getting item descriptions to pop up. I will post this in the forum later, unless you know what I screwed up.

Terran

Ok a question I have... Is the string of numbers seperated by dashes stored in "shopinv" in the database? So if I were to select and pull that out of the DB, "shopinv" is just that string of numbers?

influensi

Yes, for shop inventories.