Keep it simple, stupid.
That's it. I wanted to make a very very simple game, one that you could potentially play (at least in essence) with bits of paper. What I came up with was a grid based game placing importance on the placement of pieces and the economy of use. It started with the premise of there being x number of enemy units on a grid and the player having to position a limited number of templates to fit over them all in one go.
There where three types of template. Each template when used would take two turns before they could be used again, the focus was not just on thoughtful placement, but also use. Planning ahead to decide when you would need a certain shape. I bolstered this out with a combo mechanic. To get maximum effect each template should be placed in the row/column as another. This added another dimension of choice. To place templates for maximum coverage or maximum effect.
I didn't plan a turn based strategy when I started. The game was mostly based around finding an alternative way of approaching a Match-3 concept of making changes on a fixed grid with a focus on placement. Something that players of Bejewelled and such can identify with and yet find different and refreshing from playing gem matching games.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
The Dark Side of Internet Communities
I know this doesn't sound like it's very related to games design (and well, it didn't start off that way) but bare with me a moment. I've just joined a new online community for creative writing, they seem like a cheery bunch that made me feel very welcome and things seem quite friendly there. I've made friend with some of the moderation staff and chat to them a bit on and off.
Recently I asked about some changes that where made to the forum and if it was worth saying anything about it or if I would be wasting my time. I did spend about two years administering for an online community myself so I know that generally moderators/admins already have enough on their plate without a small minority of users (and there is always one) kicking up a fuss because the changes made didn't perfectly suit them.
That's when it came out that the forum had gone through a bumpy change of management, people had been swept under the rug. Well not swept, but people who had already put a lot of work into a community would never be appreciated by the new people that arrived there. It's something I like to call the "Dark Side" of the online community, perhaps being a little over dramatic.
Behind nearly every community online there is at least one over stretched individual (or perhaps more) trying to build something out of their own blood sweat and tears. Usually for no money. The average user never really appreciates what they do. They perhaps get some token recognition for what they do, there are always member of the community out there complaining about how the forum isn't being run the way they like it. This causes tension, tension causes drama. Drama has a negative effect on the community, particularly non-core members.
How does this relate to games exactly? Well so many games now rely on an avid community to support them. If mutliplayer is one of the pillars that holds up your experience then it's important that it is inviting for new users. What I am trying to say is that building this community is a much more stressful and time consuming job than it would seem. On top of that the quality of the community is dependent on your ability to hide those stresses.
Or perhaps people should just learn to appreciate that there online experience is held up by a very patient and over pressured few...
Hah.
Recently I asked about some changes that where made to the forum and if it was worth saying anything about it or if I would be wasting my time. I did spend about two years administering for an online community myself so I know that generally moderators/admins already have enough on their plate without a small minority of users (and there is always one) kicking up a fuss because the changes made didn't perfectly suit them.
That's when it came out that the forum had gone through a bumpy change of management, people had been swept under the rug. Well not swept, but people who had already put a lot of work into a community would never be appreciated by the new people that arrived there. It's something I like to call the "Dark Side" of the online community, perhaps being a little over dramatic.
Behind nearly every community online there is at least one over stretched individual (or perhaps more) trying to build something out of their own blood sweat and tears. Usually for no money. The average user never really appreciates what they do. They perhaps get some token recognition for what they do, there are always member of the community out there complaining about how the forum isn't being run the way they like it. This causes tension, tension causes drama. Drama has a negative effect on the community, particularly non-core members.
How does this relate to games exactly? Well so many games now rely on an avid community to support them. If mutliplayer is one of the pillars that holds up your experience then it's important that it is inviting for new users. What I am trying to say is that building this community is a much more stressful and time consuming job than it would seem. On top of that the quality of the community is dependent on your ability to hide those stresses.
Or perhaps people should just learn to appreciate that there online experience is held up by a very patient and over pressured few...
Hah.
Friday, February 13, 2009
I love you *insert name here*
Today I picked up Chrono Trigger DS whilst I was out shopping. I don't usually buy games right after they where released, but my joy that Squenix had made it available in the UK and the sweetness of the limited edition soundtrack CD (It wasn't that good, it turns out, I've been spoiled by Atlus having much better limited edition stuff).
I have a rule, when it comes to playing RPG's. First play through I never change the character names. I guess it's a little sad, but I want to maximize the purity of the experience. Also it avoids nasty surprises where you find out there are certain characters you can't rename and end up with the epic RPG trio of "Yukari, Junpei and Duncan" which just seems strange. Seeing as this would be my second time around with Chrono Trigger, naturally I put in Titch for the main character name, after that everything got complicated. I wanted to name Lucca, the inventor character, after my friend Shanna only she didn't have a fixed nickname that matched mine (she just uses whichever character she happens to be idolising at the time, the lack of personality assertion depresses me).
The really interesting part though, was when I got to name my third character, the rebellious and spunky princess, I had so much trouble picking a name. This was because I would only name her after a friend who met three very specific requirements
1) They had personality in common.
2) There was some visual connection between them.
3) They had to be someone with 6 characters or less in their name.
I spent at least ten minutes sitting there and thinking about what to name a character. This is highly unlike me, for me gameplay is king and everything else comes second and third place. I've moved away from my CRPG playing roots in the past few years.
In this particular instance I think I was having trouble because I find the journey you take in Chrono Trigger to be a particularly intimate experience, as RPG's go. The silent protagonist, the simple but emotive themes and well written dialog make it easy to picture myself and my friends in the roles of the characters. If I put the wrong person in the wrong roll, there would be a break in immersion when I would notice something was out of character for the person I had cast in that roll.
There is a lot of focus in games these days for customizing the protagonist. Creating an avatar that looks like you; but nothing for those people who want to turn their game into something that resonates more with their real life. If you've played Earthbound, then you can tell how much that extra detail resonates with the player. In fact a friend of a friend who introduced me to Earthbound refused to play on my save game as I was in a silly mood and wrote "p0rn" as my favorite thing. He felt embarrassed casting "p0rn alpha" on his foes.
There are of course, loads of practical issues with giving the player free reign over what characters are like. Detailed storytelling and snappy dialog mean the writer has to know the characters they are writing for. Artists would argue that if the playable characters where all alterable, there would be no iconic character to associate with the game. Perhaps the player doesn't want to go to all the effort of setting it all up themselves, they paid for someone else to craft the experience after all. I never even tried Elder Scrolls because I couldn't be bothered with all the character customizing, which is an subject worthy of discussion all by itself.
However, it might be possible to let the player creatively mix and match their characters. Lets say there is a hypothetical plot driven game called I dunno 'X Quest'. For the sake of simplicity we will assume it already contains tools for robust main character design. There are perhaps seven characters essential to the game that appear in the players party and are nameable. Instead of giving them names, each character is represented by their chief personality aspects. The cynical one, the heroic one, the funny one. Each one has is a static instance in the story, so the writers knows that the rebellious but spunky princess character will be appearing in the scene, so they know what to write and you don't have a messy bunch of dialog trees going on. It also simplifies character generation for the player. They don't have to craft personalities, just play match the pairs.
Each character also has a default appearance attached to their personality aspect, but they are all build on the same character customization model that the player used to build their own avatar. Perhaps each character has a fixed item or two that associates with their persona. The bad ass mercenary character always has a giant sword and spiky hair, everything else is up to you though.
This sort of stuff is already happening in some current gen games. In City of Heroes you don't just design your Hero, you design a matching villain too. The player can create a rivalry that personally resonates with them more than a stock opponent designed by an art guy to look cool. There is a game now that generates content based on your MSN conversations to increase the personal connection between the player and the game.
It means a new approach to writing for games. A good writer usually knows everything about the characters they are writing about. Favorite colour, parents names, age, gender, future children. This model means drawing a big circle around the things in a character that have to be true all the time and leaving everything else an metamorphic blank for the player to mold to his fantasy. This has to be done in such a way that characters retain enough individual charm to hold a story together.
Perhaps it's all too much work to put into a game just to cater to picky people like me that don't want to have their female friends fall in love with them whilst saving the world because they didn't know that's what the writer decided. I think it's certainly something worth prototyping though. Playing a game is an intimate experience and if anything making it more so would heighten the emotional response from the player. Apparently that is what the current gen is all about when it isn't busy with high def graphics, right?
I have a rule, when it comes to playing RPG's. First play through I never change the character names. I guess it's a little sad, but I want to maximize the purity of the experience. Also it avoids nasty surprises where you find out there are certain characters you can't rename and end up with the epic RPG trio of "Yukari, Junpei and Duncan" which just seems strange. Seeing as this would be my second time around with Chrono Trigger, naturally I put in Titch for the main character name, after that everything got complicated. I wanted to name Lucca, the inventor character, after my friend Shanna only she didn't have a fixed nickname that matched mine (she just uses whichever character she happens to be idolising at the time, the lack of personality assertion depresses me).
The really interesting part though, was when I got to name my third character, the rebellious and spunky princess, I had so much trouble picking a name. This was because I would only name her after a friend who met three very specific requirements
1) They had personality in common.
2) There was some visual connection between them.
3) They had to be someone with 6 characters or less in their name.
I spent at least ten minutes sitting there and thinking about what to name a character. This is highly unlike me, for me gameplay is king and everything else comes second and third place. I've moved away from my CRPG playing roots in the past few years.
In this particular instance I think I was having trouble because I find the journey you take in Chrono Trigger to be a particularly intimate experience, as RPG's go. The silent protagonist, the simple but emotive themes and well written dialog make it easy to picture myself and my friends in the roles of the characters. If I put the wrong person in the wrong roll, there would be a break in immersion when I would notice something was out of character for the person I had cast in that roll.
There is a lot of focus in games these days for customizing the protagonist. Creating an avatar that looks like you; but nothing for those people who want to turn their game into something that resonates more with their real life. If you've played Earthbound, then you can tell how much that extra detail resonates with the player. In fact a friend of a friend who introduced me to Earthbound refused to play on my save game as I was in a silly mood and wrote "p0rn" as my favorite thing. He felt embarrassed casting "p0rn alpha" on his foes.
There are of course, loads of practical issues with giving the player free reign over what characters are like. Detailed storytelling and snappy dialog mean the writer has to know the characters they are writing for. Artists would argue that if the playable characters where all alterable, there would be no iconic character to associate with the game. Perhaps the player doesn't want to go to all the effort of setting it all up themselves, they paid for someone else to craft the experience after all. I never even tried Elder Scrolls because I couldn't be bothered with all the character customizing, which is an subject worthy of discussion all by itself.
However, it might be possible to let the player creatively mix and match their characters. Lets say there is a hypothetical plot driven game called I dunno 'X Quest'. For the sake of simplicity we will assume it already contains tools for robust main character design. There are perhaps seven characters essential to the game that appear in the players party and are nameable. Instead of giving them names, each character is represented by their chief personality aspects. The cynical one, the heroic one, the funny one. Each one has is a static instance in the story, so the writers knows that the rebellious but spunky princess character will be appearing in the scene, so they know what to write and you don't have a messy bunch of dialog trees going on. It also simplifies character generation for the player. They don't have to craft personalities, just play match the pairs.
Each character also has a default appearance attached to their personality aspect, but they are all build on the same character customization model that the player used to build their own avatar. Perhaps each character has a fixed item or two that associates with their persona. The bad ass mercenary character always has a giant sword and spiky hair, everything else is up to you though.
This sort of stuff is already happening in some current gen games. In City of Heroes you don't just design your Hero, you design a matching villain too. The player can create a rivalry that personally resonates with them more than a stock opponent designed by an art guy to look cool. There is a game now that generates content based on your MSN conversations to increase the personal connection between the player and the game.
It means a new approach to writing for games. A good writer usually knows everything about the characters they are writing about. Favorite colour, parents names, age, gender, future children. This model means drawing a big circle around the things in a character that have to be true all the time and leaving everything else an metamorphic blank for the player to mold to his fantasy. This has to be done in such a way that characters retain enough individual charm to hold a story together.
Perhaps it's all too much work to put into a game just to cater to picky people like me that don't want to have their female friends fall in love with them whilst saving the world because they didn't know that's what the writer decided. I think it's certainly something worth prototyping though. Playing a game is an intimate experience and if anything making it more so would heighten the emotional response from the player. Apparently that is what the current gen is all about when it isn't busy with high def graphics, right?
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Catering for Playstyles
Recently I've been playing Iji. A free 2D platform shooter/rpg for the PC. It's fairly unique in it's genre providing more detailed story and leveling system than your average 2D shooter. It's been in production for four years and the attention to detail really shows. From well thought out level designs to detailed backgrounds and some excellent dialog and voice work.
I'm waxing lyrical a bit about Iji, because I do like it a lot, but I'm about to lay into one of it's biggest shortfalls. Iji offers two different play styles. Whilst the choice between going in guns blazing and sneak pacifism isn't exactly new, Iji really shines when it comes to showing it's effects on the world and the character in lots of subtle detail. So much of the dialog and set pieces can change depending on how many enemies you killed. In particular one of my favorite touches is that Iji's voice 'barks' change. If you kill an enemy when you have been avoiding kills Iji will let out a forlorn and desperate "Sorry". Dispatching and tough enemy when you have been killing everything in your path and Iji scream "Die" in a desperate berserk fashion that eventually made me feel like she might just start pouncing on enemies and savagely beating them in the face without any input from me.
The problem is that the pacifism doesn't really mesh correctly with Iji's skills, even though some of them seem like they would be useful they turn out to be less used than when you are playing as a strait shooter. I'll just do a quick rundown
Jump - Moving around, avoiding enemy fire.
Duck - Avoiding enemy fire.
Kick - Get through shield doors. Knock back enemies, but at the risk of accidentally killing them
Hack - Get through security doors. Hack enemies to disable weapons but at risk of getting a kill.
Weapons - Certain ones have specific uses for reaching areas on the level and bosses.
Of those skills only one is fairly useless when playing in an aggressive way (Hack, as you need be behind an un-alert enemy to do it) where as nearly all of them have a fairly specific use in pacifism aside from jumping. It makes pacifism so much of a shallow gameplay experience because instead of the intense firefights mostly you jump past enemies and kick/hack down the occasional door you wouldn't have in an aggressive mode (although Kick gets just as much use in aggressive for enemies).
This is highlighted in a level where if you are playing pacifist the enemies will ally themselves with you as long as you don't touch/shoot them or break nearby doors. If there was only some kind of ability you could invest points in that would help you avoid enemies, like rolling, dodging, ceiling hanging or something, it wouldn't be the frustrating experience of waiting for an enemy to move and then jumping over his head. It was interesting being offered a different experience from the same game, but that experience wasn't nearly as fun as shooting everything that moves because there is lot less variety.
I think I find it extra frustrating as so much thought has been put into making the skills useful for both gameplay modes. Only one of the seven stats you can improve is almost exclusively useful to an aggressive play style. Everything else not only multiple use, but all the uses fit within the game logic. It's worth noting that pacifism is still fun, markedly more than in a lot of other games that offer it as a play option. It's worth doing all the jumping and ducking just to see all the differences it makes to the story.
The moral of this story is if you offer more than one emergent play style it's important to make sure that the players abilities support it throughout and not just in particular circumstance. Otherwise you risk the choice becoming a trade off between rewards and fun, rather than one of pure personal preference.
I'm waxing lyrical a bit about Iji, because I do like it a lot, but I'm about to lay into one of it's biggest shortfalls. Iji offers two different play styles. Whilst the choice between going in guns blazing and sneak pacifism isn't exactly new, Iji really shines when it comes to showing it's effects on the world and the character in lots of subtle detail. So much of the dialog and set pieces can change depending on how many enemies you killed. In particular one of my favorite touches is that Iji's voice 'barks' change. If you kill an enemy when you have been avoiding kills Iji will let out a forlorn and desperate "Sorry". Dispatching and tough enemy when you have been killing everything in your path and Iji scream "Die" in a desperate berserk fashion that eventually made me feel like she might just start pouncing on enemies and savagely beating them in the face without any input from me.
The problem is that the pacifism doesn't really mesh correctly with Iji's skills, even though some of them seem like they would be useful they turn out to be less used than when you are playing as a strait shooter. I'll just do a quick rundown
Jump - Moving around, avoiding enemy fire.
Duck - Avoiding enemy fire.
Kick - Get through shield doors. Knock back enemies, but at the risk of accidentally killing them
Hack - Get through security doors. Hack enemies to disable weapons but at risk of getting a kill.
Weapons - Certain ones have specific uses for reaching areas on the level and bosses.
Of those skills only one is fairly useless when playing in an aggressive way (Hack, as you need be behind an un-alert enemy to do it) where as nearly all of them have a fairly specific use in pacifism aside from jumping. It makes pacifism so much of a shallow gameplay experience because instead of the intense firefights mostly you jump past enemies and kick/hack down the occasional door you wouldn't have in an aggressive mode (although Kick gets just as much use in aggressive for enemies).
This is highlighted in a level where if you are playing pacifist the enemies will ally themselves with you as long as you don't touch/shoot them or break nearby doors. If there was only some kind of ability you could invest points in that would help you avoid enemies, like rolling, dodging, ceiling hanging or something, it wouldn't be the frustrating experience of waiting for an enemy to move and then jumping over his head. It was interesting being offered a different experience from the same game, but that experience wasn't nearly as fun as shooting everything that moves because there is lot less variety.
I think I find it extra frustrating as so much thought has been put into making the skills useful for both gameplay modes. Only one of the seven stats you can improve is almost exclusively useful to an aggressive play style. Everything else not only multiple use, but all the uses fit within the game logic. It's worth noting that pacifism is still fun, markedly more than in a lot of other games that offer it as a play option. It's worth doing all the jumping and ducking just to see all the differences it makes to the story.
The moral of this story is if you offer more than one emergent play style it's important to make sure that the players abilities support it throughout and not just in particular circumstance. Otherwise you risk the choice becoming a trade off between rewards and fun, rather than one of pure personal preference.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Sunken Garden
Working Title.
Sunken Garden is a 2D exploration game. The game revolves around rescuing people trapped in a giant pitch black garden underground. The player must light up a safe path to lead others to safety. It is intended to simulate a persistent world, the garden and rescued people continue to develop even when the player is not playing. Plants in the garden will evolve and grow, rescued characters will build up a village for the player to visit.
Or to sum it up in a few points:-
1. Light/Darkness Mechanic
2. Evolving Environment
3. Hazard evasion and path memorization.
Light and Darkness
All the areas in the Sunken Garden are pitch black. There are three sources of light for the player. Firstly they carry a flashlight which they point with the mouse. Secondly all areas built in by NPC's are lit, and cast light into neighboring rooms, creating a twilight in them where the player can partially see. Finally there are environmental fixtures which can emit or store light.
Evolving Environment
The game features two environments that develop over time, the garden and the npc village. The two environments will contrast heavily, the Garden is wild and chaotic and develops in a way which opposes the players actions. Although there will be ways of influencing the evolution of the garden it will start to fight back if the player attempts to be too heavy handed.
The second environment is the NPC town. This aids the player and can be tailored heavily by their actions. Although it will not be necessary to micromanage the town it will be an option for players who like to number crunch. Every town will develop it's own footprint based on a number of factors including the area it expands into. The nature of the NPC's the player brings and the choices the player makes in it's development. The players should feel the need to play the game to check on the development of their town.
Hazard Evasion and Path Memorization
The bulk of the gameplay is in exploring the Sunken Garden itself. The challenge is in identifying and avoiding the threats offered by the plants that grow their. Different plants react to different stimulus, such and movement, light and sound. It's up to the player to manipulate them so that not only they can pass but they can guide NPC's back past them too. As the game develops they will be given more tools in order to disarm plants and guide others around them.
Well thats the overview. More to come when I've done some more prototyping. Hopefully I'll cover some stuff about the different kinds of plants, NPC's, Tools and the world next time.
Sunken Garden is a 2D exploration game. The game revolves around rescuing people trapped in a giant pitch black garden underground. The player must light up a safe path to lead others to safety. It is intended to simulate a persistent world, the garden and rescued people continue to develop even when the player is not playing. Plants in the garden will evolve and grow, rescued characters will build up a village for the player to visit.
Or to sum it up in a few points:-
1. Light/Darkness Mechanic
2. Evolving Environment
3. Hazard evasion and path memorization.
Light and Darkness
All the areas in the Sunken Garden are pitch black. There are three sources of light for the player. Firstly they carry a flashlight which they point with the mouse. Secondly all areas built in by NPC's are lit, and cast light into neighboring rooms, creating a twilight in them where the player can partially see. Finally there are environmental fixtures which can emit or store light.
Evolving Environment
The game features two environments that develop over time, the garden and the npc village. The two environments will contrast heavily, the Garden is wild and chaotic and develops in a way which opposes the players actions. Although there will be ways of influencing the evolution of the garden it will start to fight back if the player attempts to be too heavy handed.
The second environment is the NPC town. This aids the player and can be tailored heavily by their actions. Although it will not be necessary to micromanage the town it will be an option for players who like to number crunch. Every town will develop it's own footprint based on a number of factors including the area it expands into. The nature of the NPC's the player brings and the choices the player makes in it's development. The players should feel the need to play the game to check on the development of their town.
Hazard Evasion and Path Memorization
The bulk of the gameplay is in exploring the Sunken Garden itself. The challenge is in identifying and avoiding the threats offered by the plants that grow their. Different plants react to different stimulus, such and movement, light and sound. It's up to the player to manipulate them so that not only they can pass but they can guide NPC's back past them too. As the game develops they will be given more tools in order to disarm plants and guide others around them.
Well thats the overview. More to come when I've done some more prototyping. Hopefully I'll cover some stuff about the different kinds of plants, NPC's, Tools and the world next time.
I hate doing first blog posts.
I've now had three and a half blogs under my belt and I still hate doing first page blog posts. They always start with a welcome title and a bit of background and end up winding on for way too long. I'll keep this short and sweet.
I'm a British Games Design post grad from Vancouver Film school. I spend most of my time making flash games in the hope that a real game development studio might notice my dedication to creating great gameplay experiences and hire me on as junior coffee boy, or whatever they haze new people as these days before they let them do real jobs like event scripting
I started this blog for two reasons. Firstly that I keep having thoughts about good blog articles I could be writing on game mechanics but never get around to, with a blog to upkeep regularly I might really do that. The second, and far more important reason is I'm starting work on my third big flash project. I thought a blog would be a good opportunity to share my design features and generally document what I'm up to.
I'm a British Games Design post grad from Vancouver Film school. I spend most of my time making flash games in the hope that a real game development studio might notice my dedication to creating great gameplay experiences and hire me on as junior coffee boy, or whatever they haze new people as these days before they let them do real jobs like event scripting
I started this blog for two reasons. Firstly that I keep having thoughts about good blog articles I could be writing on game mechanics but never get around to, with a blog to upkeep regularly I might really do that. The second, and far more important reason is I'm starting work on my third big flash project. I thought a blog would be a good opportunity to share my design features and generally document what I'm up to.
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