[DevLog] New Age Cartel — Solo Dev Project & Public Beta Soon!
Hey all! 👋
For the past couple of months, I’ve been hard at work solo-developing New Age Cartel—a modern PBBG / text-MMO designed with a slick, responsive UI, deep player-driven economy systems, and custom artwork.
Core features are coming together, and Public Beta testing will be opening soon! 🎉
Feature Highlights:
Central Dashboard: Real-time character stats, profile tracking, syndicate status, and daily login rewards.
Tiered Operations & Missions: Scale up from petty street jobs to high-tier syndicate operations with custom atmospheric art.
PvP & Rivalries: Target lists, stat-driven combat calculations, player contracts, and live rival battles.
Underworld Training: Upgrade facilities from underground rings to private compounds to boost Strength, Guard, Agility, and Precision.
In-Game Stock Market: Dynamic market charts, corporate ticker tracking, and interactive investment portfolios.
What to Expect in the Beta
Looking for active feedback to polish things before the full release:
Balance & Economy: Testing progression pacing, combat formulas, and market balancing.
Multiplayer Systems: Testing group mechanics, territory battles, and community features under load.
QoL & Player Feedback: Ironing out UI flow, catching edge-case bugs, and taking feature requests.
If you enjoy modern browser games and text-based RPGs, keep an eye out for the testing link dropping soon. Would love to hear your initial thoughts or questions below!
I don’t know what the term “PBBG” means but is this game going to be like the old facebook games like Mafia Wars or Vampire Wars? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s some gameplay of Mafia Wars, it’s not the best video but it’s the only one I found that actually showed what jobs look like.
i wont say its exactly like mafia wars but its simlar and better than mafia wars and much deeper to keep players engaged and pbbg means Persistent Browser-Based Game you can check it out online to under what pbbg is to get more understanding
That’s cool, I’ve kind of been interested in playing games like this again. I know that some do still exist but I just haven’t gotten around to playing them.
No rush at all! Whenever you feel like diving back into these kinds of games, the door is open. Would be awesome to get some feedback from someone who appreciates the genre. and ill make sure to post the beta link when once its live
Since it’s Lemmy, might be a good idea to add an AI usage disclaimer, whether you use it or not, just explicitly mention it.
The post does definitely sound and smell very AI-ey.
Since it’s Lemmy, might be a good idea to add an AI usage disclaimer, whether you use it or not, just explicitly mention it.
thansk for the heads up i’ll make sure to add an ai usage discliamer next time
Is the “custom artwork” actually custom artwork and not like AI generated placeholders?
Because the UI from the screenshot looks very much like it was created entirely by Claude Code
Yes, AI tools were used to help build out the UI and art, but all the initial mockups and style direction came from me. in the future i would be changing lot of things
I mean you can’t sell this thing on the artwork if it was AI generated man.
I’m not going to lecture you on the ethics and merits of AI in game design but I will just say that from a personal standpoint, I can tell immediately that this looks like vibecoded slop. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Maybe you hand built all the games backend systems and just used AI for the UI or whatever, but with the absolute inundation of “Look what I made” projects that were made 100% by an AI and not the user, I would definitely echo what another user said and be upfront about how much of this was just AI generated because it sets appropriate expectations for your potential new users. And if you stick with it long term, consider commissioning some hand made art assets to make it stand out.
Good luck with your project though
well yes i acctually used ai for the frontend ui and i appricate the feedback on setting proper expectation upfront and will make that clear as im moving forward
I have a few questions regarding what it will look like to “do things” in the game. It seems likely that for stuff like Training it will be as simple as telling the browser ‘I want to train my Strength’ and then a timer pops up and when it’s done you go up a level. That’s all fine and good, but what about more complex activities like performing a heist or something? Will that also be timer-based? Will it be possible to lower the amount of time spent if my character meets a certain skill check? What if I’m like level 20, trying to do a level 15 job, and I bring along three level 2s to help, will that increase the likelihood of failure (and presumably prison time), just make the timer longer, or would the level 2s simply not be able to assist since they are well below level 15? Will the various operations have different specialized roles (point man, safe cracker, get away driver, etc) or will we all just be lumped together? Lastly, you said PvP combat will be stat-driven, so would that be EXCLUSIVELY number based a la Yugioh (my 2450 ATK point monster beats your 2200 ATK point monster, dealing you 250 points of DMG) or will there be any elements of RNG thrown in as well?
Sorry, that was a lot, but take that as a good sign! The game sounds mighty interesting and I’m anxious to see how it all plays out!
thanks for the questiosn first heist are cartel based so you have to perform heist with your cartel members , cartels are unlocked at lvl 15 so players dont need to worry about that and hesit are also time based depending on the risk tier for now i havent really implemeted deep features in teh heist as i would like to get players feedback first before implemeting what players might not like and as for the game it has 3 paths depending on your playstyle if you are a pvp main then their an enforcer path but it comes with some downside like you cant earn lot of cash like other paths so each path is built to suit a players playstyle but with the beta testing ill gather suggestions to improve the game more
