Introducing CountryEx

Published on 24^th October 2009 in Websites, tagged CountryEx.

As part of our final year at university, we each have to create a program and write our dissertation on it. My project is well under way and as I’ll be writing more about it over the coming months, I thought I’d introduce and explain it.

In short, I’ve chosen to create an online stock trading game. Called CountryEx, it has a key difference between it and the real stock market; instead of buying and selling shares in companies, players trade in shares of fictional countries. Although getting the website to function correctly is the main aim, I also intend to conduct a good amount of usability testing as I go along. I’ve never had the opportunity to do formal usability testing, so this will be a chance to apply all that I’ve learnt about it over the last couple of years.

CountryEx has two main components. The first is the fictional world which continuously runs in the background, creating an unpredictable and hopefully believable trading environment. I’ve already made good progress on this and should have it finished by next week.

On top of this will be the user interface and all the functionality which will allow people to trade in countries. Once I have a basic implementation of this and it’s possible to actually play the game, I’ll be opening it up for everyone to see. A multiplayer game like CountryEx doesn’t really work unless there are a fair number of people playing it, so expect to be encouraged to do so!

There’s also a certain amount of irony in me creating a game, having critiqued them for so long on Thunderbolt. Now I’ll get to see the other side of making interactive experiences and trying to make them enjoyable to play. It should be an interesting project and as often as possible, I’ll be sharing my progress here. Stay tuned!