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In LocalPop, the spy moves across cities to evade capture, while the cops work together to track them down.
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LocalPop supports asynchronous online play, letting players join at their own pace. Teams of cops and the spy vote to decide the next move.
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The game uses an automated system for city connections, ensuring it’s fun, fast, and works on a spherical map.
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A custom algorithm generates unique city connections, creating a new and dynamic game board for each session.
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A multiplayer session in action: Two players strategize and participate in the same game, working together or against each.
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Your moves depend on the connections where you are. As the spy, you try to stay hidden, but some clues are revealed over time.
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Your moves depend on the connections where you are.
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The spy's view shows all the information (left), while the cops' view has some details hidden(right ).
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Updates from spy movements are posted as commments to engage players in discussions.
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Controls
Inspiration
The game is inspired from Scotland Yard which I have enjoyed playing for a long time. The game is based on incomplete information, deductive reasoning, teamwork, chance and strategy. In LocalPop the game has been reinterpreted on a globe with players moving around different cities.
What It Does
LocalPop is a multiplayer game where one player is the "spy" - moving across cities to avoid capture. The other players are "cops" working together to track down and catch the spy.
The game supports asynchronous online play, allowing a large number of players to join in at their own pace. Players are assigned to teams (spy, cop) and they vote towards the next move which will be played.
The game takes care of concealing and revealing relevant information based on team, player, current turn and round number.
Features
- Live posting updates to keep the engagement going.
Live posting game updates as comments
- An interactive globe to see the game state.
- Customized view based on player type.
How we built it
Game is built on similar fundamentals as the classic game. The 3D rendering is done using web libraries and data storage and synchronization uses the Reddit API. Cities are carefully selected to create interesting gameplays. The topology of the connections between the cities is done with a custom algorithm which can create new unique boards for each session.
Challenges we ran into
The graph structure that's used to generate the connections between places was a tricky bit. It had to look good, be fun to play, be performative and work on a sphere (instead of the classic rectangular board).
What's next for LocalPop
It's a fun game and one of the classics. Reddit is a nice platform to engage with this game. The game fundamentally is multiplayer and involves teamwork and collaboration in order to win. It'll be interesting to update this to allow customizations based on user preferences within each subreddit.
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