A R C H I P E L A G O

The world of Archipelago is a vast sea filled with small, independent islands and a population of peaceful farmers, dragons, alacorns, griffins and the odd wizard specializing in entertainment and fertility magic. At least, that is how it has been for the last 900 years, and that is how it could have remained if the world had not had some very special inhabitants.

According to legend, the world is inhabited not only by mortal humans, dragons, alacorns and griffins, but also by five immortal valkyries. They spend most of their time sleeping, but once every 900 years they will wake up and, for reasons best known to themselves, start searching for the world's greatest warrior - and the way they do this is a bit special.

Whenever the valkyries wake from their centuries-long sleep, they will travel unseen around the world and "infect" several island rulers with an urge for conquest, then they will sit down and watch the war, which will last until all five "valkyrie islands" (islands now inhabited by the valkyries) have been captured by the same ruler - or until all affected rulers come to their senses.

As previously mentioned, it is now 900 years since the last war, and last night the valkyries struck again. This morning, as you (one of the peaceful island rulers) roused from your royal sleep and looked across the sea towards the islands at the horizon, you suddenly realized that you were regarding the distant summits with something more than the usual idle curiosity - that another war had started, and that you were one of the chosen conquerors...

Sounds exciting, doesn't it? Well, if you think so, drop me a line, and if I get enough lines I may start drawing a picture...

A bit of general drivel: Both Archipelago and It's A Dog's Life were originally conceived as Play By Mail games, and the obvious idea of converting to realtime online games would be a pretty big step at this point, so they'll probably remain at least turn based with a bit of wait between the turns for the duration. But I'm thinking about modernizing the interface a bit.
Okay, the interface of IADL is still undefined (I made a little faux output page once to show how I thought it might work, but can't find it), but the (old) Archipelago interface has a whole section of the rulebook devoted to it. Basically you get a couple of pages filled with more or less cryptic "codes" (for instance 12H shows the island has 12 humans on it) then after a lot of pondering and perhaps discussing stuff with other players you have met, you fill in a turnsheet with more or less cryptic orders such as K12:2GA:K9 [which means "On Kingdom (another word for island) 12, 2 Griffins (Airborne) move to (adjacent) Kingdom 9"] and send it to the moderator who then processes it with all the others and sends everyone updated printouts.
The idea for a possible new version is of course to create a web interface. Instead of wasting a bunch of dead trees, I (or whoever ends up running the game) would generate a bunch of HTML files, possibly with a bit of graphics (so for instance instead of 12H you would see the number next to a little stick figure - or maybe even 12 stick figures!). Each player's files would then either be emailed to the player or posted on the web in a password-protected location. Then after the usual pondering the player would use various web forms to enter orders. For example, at the bottom of the page for good ol' K12 there would be a bunch of links indicating different order types, and clicking on "Move" takes you to a form listing all movable forces at that island and their possible destinations. Then you just select what you want to move where (and how many of each) and hit the Submit button.
This would of course still require a server to process the forms and store the orders neatly in a safe place until retrieved by the moderator after deadline. And it would be a good idea to make it able to update the order pages depending on which orders have already been given. For instance, if you have ten dragons at an island and move or transfer six, then return to the move or transfer page(s) later, it should then inform you that you only have four movable dragons left, and perhaps offer an option to modify or cancel the old order.

Well, this is getting long. More later, perhaps. Stay tuned.