So, a long time ago (>25 years) I decided to learn web programming and make a game based on a dearly missed genre of [BBS door](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door_(bulletin_board_system) games - Trade Wars games (TW2002, Ultimate Universe, Galactic Warzone, Yankee Trader... the list goes on).
The result was BlackNova Traders. I created some hideous code in PHP3 with a MySQL backend. Looking at my original code now is akin to someone looking at poetry they wrote in high school - nostalgic and cringe inducing.
Now, I've learnt a few things over the years (one would hope) and I've decided to refresh the game concept. Using the latest PHP (as of this writing 8.4) and a lean framework and orm - I'm writing (hopefully) less hideous and cringe worth code as a RESTful API to serve as a back end to any game client.
I plan on writing a couple of basic clients - including a terminal interface style client - but I will publish the full API when done so that others can write their own clients (and yes, bots - but don't worry, that's gonna be okay, I have plans!) to suit their own needs.
Right now, this is a work in progress. Life, work, school (yes, I'm a "life-long learner" or possibly some sort of masochist) will get in the way at different points but I hope to make progress when I can. I also invite community contributions - which I reserve the right to include or not, as I see fit.