MESE-Next and MESE-Realtime

About MESE

MESE (Management and Economics Simulation Exercise) is a business simulator which students create virtual companies, sell products, and compete in their companies' MPI (MESE Performance Index). The simulation is period-based. In each period, a virtual company will receive their reports and do five decisions: Price of their products, production in the next period, marketing investment, capital investment, and R&D investment.

MESE was created in the 1980s. It was widely used by JA (Junior Achievement) in its course JA Economics to teach students knowledge of company management and economic environment. There is also a web-based MESE variant called JA Titan. Unfortunately, the use of MESE / JA Titan was discontinued in 2013.

MESE-Next

MESE-Next is a fan-made MESE variant. It is not a strict equivalent of MESE, but an online game based on a similar mathematical model to MESE. Players can sign up on a MESE-Next Server and compete with other players on the Internet. MESE-Next is created by hczhcz as a replacement of IMese (Internet-based MESE Platform).

Difference between MESE-Next and MESE

MESE-Next is web-based;
MESE-Next supports more than 8 players in the same game (32 players maximum by default);
MESE-Next supports more game settings;
MESE-Next provides 8p-feeling settings in any game;
Classic MESE have paper-based reports (for MESE-Next, the reports are web pages);
Classic MESE supports bots;
There are some slight differences in their mathematical model;

Difference between MESE-Next and JA Titan

MESE-Next is not a single website but a deployable web server;
MESE-Next supports higher maximum players, higher maximum periods, and more settings;
JA Titan supports pick-up games, and human-vs-bot games;

Difference between MESE-Next and IMese

MESE-Next does not need a MESE executable;
MESE-Next supports higher maximum players, and multiple games at the same time;
IMese supports encrypted connection;
IMese has a history analyzing and player ranking system (here is a standalone system);
IMese only runs under x86 Windows environment;

MESE-Realtime

MESE-Realtime provides a new way to play business simulation games. Compare with MESE-Next, it runs every second without waiting for players' submissions. The typical length of a game is about 10-20 minutes, and players could change their five decisions at any time.

The Workflow

MESE-Next Engine ---+--> MESE-Next Server ---+
                   /                          \
      Database ---+              Web Server ---+--> Web Browsers
                  |                            |
                  +--> MESE-Realtime Server ---+

Client Side Requirements

A browser that supports HTML5, CSS3, and ES5 features is required to run MESE-Next and MESE-Realtime. The web frontend is tested under recent versions of Firefox, Chromium, and Mobile Safari.

The web frontend supports:

Firefox 29+
Chrome & Chromium 20+
IE 10+
Safari 7+
Mobile Safari 7+

The web frontend probably works under:

Firefox 3.6+
Chrome & Chromium 4+
MS Edge
IE 8+
Safari 5+
Opera 11+
Mobile Safari 5+
Android Browser 4.1+

The web frontend would not support:

IE 7-
QQ (WeChat) Browser on Android (early versions)

Server Side Requirements

The server requires all of:

Node.js 5.10+
MongoDB 3.0.0+
Node.js packages: MongoDB, Express 4 & Compression, Socket.IO

MESE-Next requires:

MESE-Next Engine binary

Installation

The server itself does not need installation.

Before running the server, you may do the following steps:

Clone this repository or download it;
Install Node.js and MongoDB;
Install NPM (Node.js Package Manager);
Install required NPM packages: mongodb, express, compression and socket.io;
Make sure that MESE-Next Engine is in the same directory as MESE-Next Server's, and give it execution permission (chmod +x);
Edit config.js if you want to change some configurations;
Now, you could run main.js using Node.js.

License

This project is only distributed in GitHub and MESE China Group, and released without any warranty. This distribution is not under any public license. Commercial use and redistribution outside GitHub are not allowed without the author's permission. Please contact @hczhcz if you need a licensed version.

MESE-Next Engine

MESE-Next Engine in this repository is released without any warranty or copyright guarantee. Please use at your own risk.

hczhcz / mese-next