I used to be a huge fan of browser-based RPG's. The one I played most was called, "Archmage," later reconstructed under the name, "The Reincarnation."

The interesting thing about this game, and its genre, was that there were no fancy graphics. It was based entirely in 1998 browser windows, displaying stats and text with some cool images sprinkled here and there.

I would say that this early genre was the foundation for games like Farmville. In both games, you manage, 'buildings' which grant you income/economy. You use that income to grow your city.

The main difference between Archmage and Farmville, however, is the amount of cooperation and competition involved. Farmville and subsequent games have no challenge. You work with others, and you grow your 'land,' but through an investment of time, not strategy.

Archmage on the other hand allowed users to compete with each other. Strategically, you had to manage your army, and economy correctly, or risk losing units or structures. You focused on gaining "land" to expand your territory, like Farmville, but it could be stolen from you in battle and you too, could expand by attacking others.

The other difference, and the main meat of this topic discussion, is that Archmage doesn't use a 'field' or placement grid for buildings. Your city was represented as a bunch of numbers, with gold regen(+ or -) mana, building count, etc. As is your army. When you attack, you don't do anything manually. You are presented with a report, and wit how much land/gold you gained and how many units died.

Is there a place for games like this still? Games that focus more on strategy and numbers than handholding and graphics?

I suppose the questions comes up, does implementing graphics/2d fields/grid take away from the strategy, or hamper the experience.

To start the discussion off, I would argue that, in a way, it does hamper the experience. If the gameplay requires constant building/rebuilding of structures (which archmage would), it would get annoying to have to manage placement of buildings that might vanish or be destroyed.

You could choose to visually show expansion by managing a dynamic image which changes with player power, but I think thats about as necessary as it would get.

This means that the main question is, would players be able to handle a game with no graphics? I think there is certainly a niche, but could that niche be expanded and grown?

Sheldon Cooper once said about the text-only RPG he was playing, "it uses the best GPU ever - imagination"

I'm a bit confused though, by "text-only" you still include some graphic illustrations right? just that in gameplay, all controls are minimal. Am I understanding correctly?

If it is, you might want to do some research on japan's currently android app market, for 2 reasons:

1) japan's 3 major phone companies only uses android. in other words most phone in japan runs android.

2) the top profitable games are all simple text base games with still 2D graphics.

one recent example of this popular genre is Final Fantasy Airbrone Brigade, free to play, android.

And then go check out GREE's game, the ones in japan and the new ones that just arrived US.

They are not doing well in the US market though. There are multiple theories of why Japan loves these simple games.

Some say its the gatchapon and slot machine nature, aka gambling addiction. Or some say its just the life style of general android users allow them to enjoy most from spending time and money on games like these, aka cultural matter.

However, I'm not suggesting you to target the japan market. I'm just showing some potential references, perhaps help you to imagine your finish product.

Nonetheless, in US market, collectible card games are still a decent market. If once awhile you feel like re-playing pokemon on a gameboy, you know what i mean.

Also if its text-oriented, perhaps the novel/fiction reading culture is where you may grow a whole new market.

Thanks for all the feedback so far. I think by your responses really show that this kind of genre can, not so much revive, since it hadn't died, but more so, be lifted back into the lime-light.

independent Its encouraging, because as an independent developer with no team to help pull off the heavy stuff - this genre is very doable for me, and it's true appeal is game design, not anything else.

Other comparisons on this revolve around things like fantasy football, or some of the artificial stock trading games to see how you would do. Which are typically just numbers, and strategy of changing things in it.

This was an interesting thought which I didn't quite put together. It is definitely similar in nature, and just realizing that is going to help when I continue working on my GDD.

I have a prototype up and running, and the great thing is, I just can't wait to start playing it.

As was mentioned, fancy graphics often outweigh good game design. Rits had a lot of good points involving what 'basic instincts' of game design really make a game addicting. In response to your question, yes, I think some degree of images is required to set the stage and feel of the game. Imagination is great, but the reason it works in books is due to the level of detail in the description. Can't really get that across on 1 or 2 lines of a mobile phone. However, it might be a good idea to allow a 'disable image' button for those at work. Back to the addicting items:

- Lotto system : Something randomized that, when 'won' gives the player a euphoric feeling

- Upgrades : For when randomization gets too unlucky. Players like to reach for and hit milestones. Points of no return where they can call it a day and feel good about their accomplishments

- Smug satisfaction : Feeling more powerful than others.

The prototype I have is still trying to fuse all these together...but its fun, and the challenges don't seem impossible.

Thanks for input so far.

This is an interesting idea, combine this with the voice to text input available on Android and maybe iOS too and you might have yourself a niche. Look into IF (Interacrtive Fiction) too, might be worthwhile to port a few of these to the mobiles and see how well they do. Most of them are released under liberal license so re-distributing them to mobiles should be ok..but you should verify this.