Version 2 works brilliantly on tablets

One of the major issues which we're going to have to deal with in Version 2 is mobile support. Mobile browsing is getting bigger and we want to be a part of that. The problem is, we haven't had the time just yet to build our planned mobile interface and Android application.

Although we know how we're going to support mobile/cell phones, we wern't sure entirely how we were going to support tablets.

However, last night I was sat in bed watching TV when I decided to try visiting Version 2 of Gangster Nation on my tablet (I know that the way the current / Classic version of the game is coded doesn't work well on tablets). To my amazement, it worked brilliant! The tablet handled it fine. Chat was in the way, but in Version 2 this is a case of clicking an [X] on the embedded chat and it instantly disappears. In fact, it felt better using the game on my tablet than it did on my computer.

Here's what it looked like (pretty much the same) on my Android tab:

It was a simple case of scrolling up and down the menu or main area with my fingers, and clicking around as usual to do my crimes etc.

So after the reset, if you want to use Gangster Nation on your tablet, it will work fine - just remember to close the embedded chat.

We may well introduce a tablet specific version of the game in future but this is not going to be one of our priorities knowing that it works very well already on tablets.

Regarding mobile access: Version 2 unfortunately does not work great on mobiles (though it may work better if you close the embedded chat). We planned a mobile specific site to come with Version 2 but this will likely be delayed until after the opening. We do rate this as a high priority though and will ensure something is done as soon as possible. Following this, we will be looking at developing an Android app finally and maybe in future further apps for other platforms.

Edit: OK, the styling is slightly altered in the headers if you zoom into that screenshot. I think we can put up with that for now!

What can you spend 1 credit on?

1 Credit. It seems that everybody these days can find just one credit lying around, there's always a spare one somewhere. What do we do with 1 credit though? There isn't much you can do: sell the credit for a few hundred thousand dollars, hold onto it for another time or give it away to somebody desperately trying to turn single credits into a bag full of credits!

Here we go then, another small sneak peak at what is to come in Version 2. We have actually mentioned this before on our blog but the screenshots where since lost and I know that many have missed out on these.

In Version 2 there will likely be a few things which you can spend 1 single spare credit on upgrading to, one of them is our new colour scheme picker. It's nothing crazy, you can't change every single colour on the site - we decided to keep it really quick and simple. The main colour which dominates Gangster Nation is our blue colouring, so the colour picker will allow you to change this to a colour of your very own choice. Not just blocks of colours but any colour you like (although some won't work as well as others).

Version 2: The Prison

The Prison has always been a hot topic at Gangster Nation. In recent years, prison busting has been what can make or break an account. In Version 2 we have improved The Prison, along with busting, even further. In fact, we think that it's much better than the current prison - although you will have to wait until the new round to decide on this for yourself.

We've decided to try and outline some of the main changes to the prison in this blog post, so that you can get a feel for what we've been working on. First, lets look at what the problems are with the existing prison, in the current version of the game.

The Problems

• Players don't clearly know when they're in prison and when they're not in prison, especially when browsing non-blocked pages, such as the forums.
• Players are not actively told when they have left prison or have been busted out of prison by another player.
• It's quite difficult to judge which person to bust from prison, apart from the three basic levels of difficulty (which very a lot).
• At active times of the day, pretty much any player who goes into prison is busted straight out again.
• Prison busting is basically a clicking competition, who ever can click the fastest and as much as possible (whilst maintaining focus on which user is being clicked), is going to earn the most points.
• The above issue wouldn't be so bad except for it's completely unfair towards people using laptops, for example, where it's more difficult to move and click using the mouse pad than it is using an actual mouse.
• Due to the fast paced nature of prison, it's difficult to tell the difference between human behavior and computer (i.e. cheating) behaviour.
• Again, due to the fast paced nature of prison, players are often going in and out of prison. In the current prison, this results in the button which you must click to bust moving around a lot.
• Nobody cares who they bust, it's not a case of busting out those who are closer to you, it's just a case of busting out anyone.
• The current energy system is a tad confusing and doesn't give room for people who don't have lots of time on their hands to bust each time their energy refills (every 30 or 60 seconds).

So there are a lot of problems with the prison as it is in our eyes but we want to solve these issues and hopefully make everybody really happy with the new prison.

Tunes to help you rank to the top

Ok so over the weekend, we asked you guys to tell us your top tunes or songs to play whilst ranking on the best gangster game of all time.

The results are in, the votes have been counted! Today we are going to give you some of the best tracks to listen to whilst playing, chosen by the players themselves :)

We thought this would be quite fun and from the word "go", Shitler came in with a cracker: Eye Of The Tiger. Check out the music videos below or view the Youtube Playlist here. Remember, if you want to rank like a pro, you should be blasting these tunes - according to other players!

Help Desk: Frequently Asked Questions

Push the button - if you ever have a problem
or question (not in this list of course!)
contact us through "Game Help" at
the top of the game menu.

We don't actually get too many tickets through the help desk at Gangster Nation (unless something big has gone on in chat, the forums etc) and a lot of the tickets which we do receive are asking the same questions - sometimes the questions are a bit silly too. We're going to give you the answers to some of the most frequently asked help desk questions :)

Could you admin kill my character for me?

This one is a bit of an annoying question, usually asked by people who don't actually play the game and prefer to bother other players in chat etc. Whilst we technically could kill your character off, we're not going to. You have a suicide feature available and 100% of the people asking this question are asking it because they have already committed suicide recently and want us to basically override their timer. At the end of the day, the suicide rules are there for a reason and if we were to start admin killing people on request, we may as well not have any suicide timer. Next time you commit suicide, think about whether you're doing the right thing - also think about the username you choose before creating your new character.

Which week day would you like the game to reset on?

This is the big red reset button which I hit
to launch each new round of Gangster Nation
.... I wish!

As most of you know, we're looking to reset the game at around day 200 (it may be a bit later than this but not too long). We're not able to set a specific date right now due to ongoing developments with Version 2 which launches next round.

What we would like to know is which day you would like to have the reset on (i.e. Monday, Tuesday etc). We normally base this on the busiest day for the website historically, though players often disagree with our choice of day. As such, this time, we're looking to see which day you are most wanting a reset on.

Take part and vote below :) Please don't ask us when the exact date will be as we're not sure of this ourselves. Just pick the day of the week which is best for you, assuming it was your average week.

Which day of the week would you like the next reset to be on?

Update: The reset time will be, as usual, in the evening. From 6 - 8 PM game time most likely.

Top tips to success on Gangster Nation

Over the last few days, we asked you to tell us your top tips to success whilst playing Gangster Nation. Success could mean anything to each player - some are looking to rank up quickly, some are looking to simply survive, some are looking to gain kill points. Really though, these should all be aims (and more) for the really hardcore player. If you can do all of these things at once then that is when you become a pro player.

If you're new to the game, these tips may be invaluable to you. If you've played the game for some years, it may be nice to see how others play the game and adjust your play style accordingly.

Growing our browser game

We want to grow the
game further.

Growth. I think that the most interesting thing about browser gaming is how these games can easily scale to thousands of players with several hundred (or more) online at once. Browser games are also accessible by many people - you don't need a fast computer or a broadband internet connection like modern gaming - we can support people with the slowest connections out there.

Whilst Gangster Nation is a very fun game to play with our quite low player counts, wouldn't it be even better if we had even more players knocking around? We have a brilliant community here and for a few years we haven't seen it grow too much - this is primarily due to lack of effort on our part as well as not providing players with tools to help grow the game.

In Version 2, we want this to all change. There are various ways to tackle this but we think that the effort needs to come from both the players and ourselves. If we gave you the incentive to help spread the game, would you help us grow it?

Butchie's Black Market

The Black Market will sell all kinds of
crazy products which give your character
an individual boost.

We haven't really talked about Version 2 much. Most of you will know that "Version 2" is a new development of Gangster Nation, and we have of course mentioned that there will be new features. However, we haven't - until now - talked about any of the new features coming to the game or why we think that they are great!

So the first feature which we're going to blog about is the Black Market, which fits right into "The City" menu group (previously "City Life").

In summary, the Black Market is there to sell you all kinds of strange items. These items won't necessarily be realistic but will certainly bring a lot of fun to the game and give each character a unique edge. The unique edge to your character will depend how much money you want to spend and which items you choose to purchase. Each store will also be limited in the stock which they hold and, like the bullet store does now, re-stock every so often. This feature isn't fully developed yet but we are likely to have unique items in each location to make it more interesting.