Konoro Kingdom – Conquer Game

Since the very beginning of Konoro Kingdom (January 2009), the interface has always been considered an afterthought besides actual game development. Konoro has never been designed from the ground up and everything you see now been added and tweaked over time. Both me and Lep have always agreed that my time is better spent on the actual game code: creating, changing and fixing in game features. I’ve always considered myself a jack of all trades in that I’m able to code backend, frontend and do photoshop work (let’s leave my Photoshop ability and design sense to your judgement!) As new features were coded and added, bits of interface were stapled on top of what we currently have to allow users to play with them. In a larger team everything would have been designed from day 1 and a set path would have been followed, but because there are only two of us… we’ve not been able to work that way (especially with Lep thinking up a new game concept every week!).

Every now and again, players suggest and even contribute graphical changes, such as the great weather icons and game backgrounds provided by Ianovi, fantastic unit icons and other pieces created by Andyy. When I include various graphical improvements provided by Panbubo and the players, the rest of the site starts to like its lacking something.
Recently panbubo provided me and Lep with a great concept of how the game would look with a canvas background, some colour changes and a logo change amongst other bits and pieces. The design was a great idea, Konoro has always had a solid white canvas since the start and nothing was ever created because I wasn’t able to create a nice enough canvas like panbubo had done. One thing I felt the design of panbubo’s was missing, was that it was still very much rectangular and after argueing with Lep all night, I began to think about how to improve it. Whenever I design something or look at a design… being a visual thinker I know that something isn’t right but I can’t quite explain what it may be missing. After showing the design from panbubo to a designer from work, he shown me what he could in 10 minutes of his lunch break and he created a great looking canvas which inspired me to work on the design, using the texture that panbubo supplied and odd pieces of stock art.
Right now (before the redesign) you’ll see that we have a mix of colours and this makes the game look a little tacky (in my opinion). The Konoro Kingdom logo, Buttons, Queue icons and table headers are turquoise. The village background, resource fields and map squares are sort of a greeny brown and then we have a mix of graphic style as well. The blob characters were made by a friend of mine (John Davey from Great Cat Design) which try to emulate a sort of concept/artistic style. Panbubo’s graphics seem to have quite a detailed, murky and dark feel to them, the graphics I had made are simplistic and this leaves everything looking inconsistent.

At the moment I’m working on the new design which I hope to have up fairly soon. The closest thing you’ll find is on Website Game which uses the same canvas. Hopefully when it’s done we’ll see a reduction in bouncing players who register then quit or view the site and then leave as they’ll feel that the game looks a little more interesting and is of higher quality. If we see a huge improvement I think Lep owes me a pint after he denied that graphics are meaningless in a game! We shall see I think it’s my round anyway…

Along with fixing bugs and adding additional features, one of the latest things you’ll notice in Konoro Kingdom is the changelog, located in the footer of the website.
This was requested by Lep and allows me, Lep and players to check out what goes on in terms of development. A changelog did exist on the forum but the problem was that it was a little hidden and it wasn’t possible to tell when something new had been changed or added.
If anything had broken and I hadn’t informed Lep of any sort of change, he was left unable to deal with queries on the forum. My favourite thing about the changelog is that it gives me a sense of achievement when I change, fix or add anything new to the game as it also increases the version number of the game slightly.

On top of the changelog I’ve also been working on a bit of SEO using various tips and tricks recommended by a good friend and colleuge Jorge Bravo-Pratscher.
You may have noticed odd bits of text changing on the website and extra portions added such as the blurb at the bottom of all pages and a page of content at Conquer Games. Right now its a little experimental but things are improving and I’m hoping for the silver bullet anytime soon! Another little SEO project is a phrase that might be a little tough to crack: Website Game. Recently I’ve bought a domain www.websitegame.net in hopes of hitting the people searching for the term Website Game. At website game you’ll get a sneak preview of a new look for Konoro, which I’m currently working on implementing and hope to have up soon!

Konoro Kingdom  is a FREE strategy website game where players explore, trade, raid, attack, settle and conquer settlements in a massive world of players. Build up your village, manage resources, train up an army and destroy opposing players and clans. Choose from one of three different races: Warriors, Barbarians and Magi. Each settlement consists of five plots of land which can consist of the following terrain types: Plains, Hills, Woods, Forest, Swamp, Marsh, Mountain, Lake, Desert, Fertile Plains, Crystal Lake, Ore Rich Mountains, Hardwood Forests.