Hi, I am Robert

General Introduce Yourself
#1

I’m a german software developer and I used to play a browser game called Skrupel between 2001 and 2008. It technically still exists because it’s open source (https://github.com/kantoks/skrupel) but it isn’t hosted anywhere anymore and nobody maintains it anymore either.

About a 9 months ago I decided that I’d try to recreate this old favorite of mine with new technology. The original was written in PHP (I believe this was the first big project of the original’s creator - the code is really bad ^^") and I recreated it with Spring Boot, Thymeleaf and Bootstrap. It is also open source (https://gitlab.com/robertbleyl/skrupel-tng) and went full live about a week ago: https://skrupeltng.de/

I also used to play other PBBGs like ogame or die ewigen (german ogame clone basically), but they never really caught on with me. I always liked the more small approach Skrupel took, and you had a galaxy map so you could see stuff which was cool :slight_smile:

To be honest I’m not much into browser games these days, but one of the reasons I started my project was to play some Skrupel again with humans :smiley: I played some during my playtesting against the AI I built but it’s obviously not the same - but the feeling was there at least :wink:

I hope you enjoy the game I made! Any feedback would be much appreciated!

Best regards,

Robert

2 Likes
#2

Welcome, @RobertBleyl!

Congrats on the recent launch. :smiley:

That’s awesome that you’re reviving one of your old favorites. You’ll find a few of us here working on similar projects. It’s hard to just let these things die, especially when you know how good the game can be. :slight_smile:

Skrupel TNG looks pretty great so far! My main feedback would be to show off some of the ingame screenshots, ideally on the home page. I didn’t think too much of the game at first glance, but after logging in I was really impressed. For example:

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Screen Shot 2019-11-11 at 12.40.46 PM.png1720×1392 252 KB

That looks super cool!

A little taste without having to sign up would go a long way. :smiley:

What’s next for the game now that you’ve launched?

1 Like
#3

Thank you for your feedback!
You can actually see what’s on my roadmap here: https://gitlab.com/robertbleyl/skrupel-tng/-/boards
The original also had a lot more factions which can still be found on github: https://github.com/topics/skrupel-rasse
The thing is: most of these factions are based on intellectual properties of popular sci-fi franchises and I just don’t want to get sued :smiley:
The two factions “Orion Conglomerate” and “Kuatoh” were created by the original’s creator (including the ship images) but all the other were based on stuff from Star Wars, Star Trek etc.
So I decided to change the names and images of the factions so my project is save. The faction “trodan empire” is based on the romulan empire and the “nightmare fleet” is based on the shadows (babylon 5). I created the ships in blender and made screenshots off of it, so this took me a long time ^^". But I’m kinda proud of how the nightmare fleet images turned out… :wink:
So besides these issues I linked there are a lot more factions to be “converted” - change the names, descriptions and images. This will take a while and anyone is welcome to join in in the effort as no programming is necessary what so ever - just coming up with names and creating cool images :smiley:

I think I will overthink my landingpage according to your feedback - right now it’s indeed rather slim. I think I can show some more screenshots now, and also some more ship images as they are free of copyright now :slight_smile:

Looking forward to more feedback! Have fun ^^

2 Likes
#4

Welcome, Robert!

It’s always great to see people with enough drive to take an inspiration all the way to completion, it’s definitely not a small feat. So for that alone, I applaud you!

Most of the developers around the community are just like you in many ways. You should check out our Discord channel! https://pbbg.chat

1 Like