The word 'unique' is thrown around easily and often looses it's meaning. In this case, unique means a unique set of antecedents (see IWars History). As with all creators, we stand on the shoulders of those game inventors, developers, designers, programmers and artists who came before us. What makes Imperial Wars unique is that during this 'lifework', long design process I stood on a different set of shoulders then most of the other game designers.

Imperial Wars is looking for a champion. Through no fault of the game itself or the lack of demand for the game, Imperial Wars is not current available for play. Resources and time ran out at the end of development and detailing it here seems unnecessary. I remember the last GDC seminar I attended Gordon Walton (Playdom VP now) explained then that it was virtually impossible for a small, independent team to successfully bring a quality interactive online game to market. I’m thinking, ‘Jeez, Gordon, now you’re telling me ...’ :)

I think you will find that Imperial Wars is a rich, deeply immersive and intelligent game that I think is well-suited for an integrated Facebook environment. Please consider some of the advantages this game offers:

• Imperial Wars is a complete, exciting, ‘evergreen’ game, proven by thousands of players in hundreds of games. Archived games are available.
• It was originally designed to be a social game, though not a casual one, and is explicitly suited to an integrated Facebook/game server environment.
• The game/database server system is completely automated requiring minimal attention. Minimal server side hardware is needed to manage hundreds of simultaneous game universes.
• The gameplay is entirely player-created and requires little moderation. This game design philosophy resulted in zero user abuse incidences in game history.
• Game pace is determined by the players not the game. When the players indicate they are ready for the next move (or at a deadline if necessary) the server resolves the game, generally a matter of a couple of minutes. The meta game space arcs over the entire life cycle of a game universe, tying everything together.
• It has proven to be an extremely immersive game experience. There is a deep back story and a one-of-a-kind role-playing component that easily flows from game dynamics and character design.
• It is a unique game. It might initially appear that IWars is a science fiction 4X turn-based game. But just as we know an MMO is not a MUD text game with pictures, IWars is a dynamic space opera scenario built specifically for true interactive gaming.
• Due to resource and time limitations there are many unimplemented design features. Most of them are player-centric, and in a evolved social environment there are potentially many more. I have not detailed here.
• The IWars underlying database game structure is easily parsed to mobile game screens making it a relatively easy port to mobile devices of all kinds further widening game acceptance

The Imperial Wars servers are running and the game is available for demonstration. The website at http://imperialwars.com contains a lot of information about the game. The community forums (now locked) available from the site show player posts and fan fiction that speaks for itself.

I hope this proposal might interest you in looking further into Imperial Wars as a property that with a minimum of effort development could be completed and the game published. While this style and type of game would be a departure from current Facebook games I think it’s likely that the social environment has not yet fully matured as a game platform. Perhaps IWars could help push that envelope.

Thanks for your consideration.