Less Talk More Rock...

Not sure exactly how much rock it is but here's how my game is going so far:



Credits:
Music is "Fallout 3 'The Fallout of Eli'" by Brynner Agassi, Mazedude from OverClocked ReMix (http://www.ocremix.org)
Everything Else: Me

Babylon 5 - A Lesson for Game Designers

In a break from talking about games I'm instead going to talk about my favourite science fiction show. I started watching Babylon 5 late at night on channel 4 when the show first aired, I can't remember a time or day of the week it used to air but I remember much of the show. I caught episodes here and there on Bravo when it was re-run years later. What sticks in my mind most from those early memories is Londo and G'Gar, their arguments with each other but yet the camaraderie between them both. I was young when I first watched it(about 8 or 9 I'd guess) so my memories from then aren't as clear as I wish they were, that's why earlier this year I started watching the series again.

To fill people in on the series; it was created by J Michael Straczynski(JMS) and first aired in 1993, it was set aboard a space station, Babylon 5, designed to bring peace to the galaxy by getting the major races to talk. Babylon 5 creates excellent characterisation and a real sense of diverse alien cultures. The show has massive plot arc's which spans from season 1 all the way through to season 5, although the majority of the action occurs in Season 4. By the time the end comes the viewer feels like they've been on a journey, that they've experienced part of this amazing universe. JMS recently spoke at new york comic con and hinted at a new series or movie for the 20th anniversary.

I saw the last episode tonight - all 5 seasons, 22 episodes each and 42 minutes an episode or about 2 working weeks in all. I won't say it was always brilliant, I won't even say it was always good but when it got things right it was perfect. "The Fall of Centauri Prime" towards the end of Season 5 is probably the highlight of the entire series for me. I think the reason why the episode appeals to me so much is because by this stage in the series I was heavily invested in Londo's character. In it he is broken, forced to make a decision that no one should have to make, its believable and genuine. I felt empathy for his situation, I questioned what I would do, how he would cope, what it would mean for his people, I genuinely cared. I cared more about Londo and the Centauri than I have ever cared for anyone or anything in a videogame. It's not that I believe games can't express such complex emotions, in fact I believe games should be a better medium for exactly this kind of scenario, purely because I would have some agency, some say in what happens. It will happen in a game someday, and soon I hope, the technology is there just not the will from the major studios it seems.

Now if you don't mind I've got a date with Costume Quest and Tim Schafer will be pissed if I miss it... interesting designer to bring up in this post perhaps!

Neptunes Pride - Galactic War in a Persistent Online World

Neptune's Pride is multiplayer strategy game set in a persistent online world, a single game will generally take in the region of 2-6 weeks. I played a game that lasted just over 2 weeks and finished at the end of last week so after taking some time to gather my thoughts I figured I'd share them. The game has a set of starting resources for each player: Economy, Industry and Science. Economy produces credits which in turn can be used to buy upgrades for your stars, Industry produces ships, although you'll need to pay for a super carrier to travel between worlds, and Science develops better, more powerful technologies. That's essentially the entire game- no ship classes, no population, no space stations.

In a confrontation a defender has initiative and +1 to their weapon skill which makes it difficult to defeat even weaker players who have stockpiled sleets at a few key worlds. The game removes much of what's expected from modern strategy games to provide a simple game that forces strategic thinking and player collaboration. Initially the game can be slow moving due to a lack of starting resources but factions seem to reach a critical mass after 3 or 4 days when they start having enough resources to test their neighbors and explore further from their space. After the first week players are at each others throats; forming alliances, attacking nearby stars and trading technologies.

In the game I played the map was a spiral galaxy with 8 players which was good and bad- it was perfectly balanced as everyone has the same relative positions, however this had the effect of creating an initial stalemate as no one was backed in a corner or had fewer resources than others. We had 2 players that were less active than the rest which was a big obstacle in the end due to the sheer amount of ships built up on their homeworlds. Myself and the blue player took the initial lead and vied for first place for most of the game, despite my larger fleets. In the end it was the two of us left but he was expanding at a faster rate, he almost had it won until I launched the attack shown below which he couldn't manage to repel. It took a day from launching the attach to winning, we were both quite closely matched so launching that attack allowed me to grab victory from the jaws of defeat. Overall the game allows for a lot of strategy given a simple set of rules, however it can feel slow at the start. Its a great game to play with your friends- especially when you wake up in the morning to find that you've been double crossed and you must now exact your revenge. A few of us agreed to play in a few weeks and a few more friends who had been following along with the game said they'd join in next time too which is a great sign of the game, I'm looking forward to it!

Blue Lacuna Presentation

Blue Lacuna: A Lighter Take on Interaction Fiction

Blue Lacuna is a work of Interactive Fiction(IF) created by Aaron A. Reed and is freely available at lacunatory.com. The game starts gently with a tutorial, using prompts and hints for the first chapter to allow beginners to get to grips with how the game works. The game places an early emphasis on decision making, initially you have to pick a gender for your character, a gender for your partner and finally must must chose to either make love or art. The text informs the player that they are a wayfarer, someone who must travel to new worlds and can never come back to one they have left and that when they hear a call to a new world it is irresistible. After a quick exploration of the starting house players must decide between answering the call to wayfare or staying with their partner. If the player chooses to go they are taken to the island where the game plays out, if they decide to stay they receive a stream of text scenarios requiring player input, however the player can say anything without affecting how this plays out. Eventually the game forces the player to leave this world and answer the call. At the end of the chapter the game asks the player if they want to play in story mode or puzzle mode, the differences between each is the complexity of the puzzles. After this the player arrives on an island and is presented with numerous puzzles to figure out. To play the game interactive nouns and verbs are displayed in blue and green text respectively to make it easy to pick out the action items within a 'room'.

Objectives – The game never poses an objective to the player but through exploration and contact with the sole NPC inhabitant of the island players gain an understanding of their objective. While the overall objective is obscured, the very act of exploring the world will be an objective for some players.

Rules – Players type context sensitive text commands and receive further information on an item or move to another 'room'. While objects that can be interacted with are normally highlighted it is possible to examine other items within the world. Actions can be carried out on the many items and there are a wide variety of verbs that the game will understand when typed within the right context.

Conflict – The main conflict within the game comes from the very nature of the puzzles and the mysteries presented to the players. The conflict comes from finding the solutions or hints to the solutions of these complex puzzles.

Outcome – The outcome of the game and many aspects of it can be altered or changed by the players input. Breaking your leg restricts certain actions, numerous puzzles interact with each other and how the other NPC on the island views you is affected by your actions. In comparison to linear story driven games such as Uncharted 2 this is a vastly different approach, made possible by the choice of a text only interface to the game.

Procedures – The game proceeds by using either nouns or verbs for objects or areas to explore or interact with. During conversation sections the player generally responds to the NPC but may sometimes lead the conversation.

Resources – The only resource within the game is information, to solve the puzzles the player has to explore different areas, the first puzzle requires players to explore and discover the island before they can figure out the solution. There is one item you can pick up but it is just a compass which changes the directions given from object based(Cabin, Forest) to directional based(North, West).

Boundaries – Play is limited to the rooms within the game world. Each room has a set amount of information or items that can be explored before moving on to other areas. You can return to an area later to try find more information if you think you missed something the first time round. A map of the game world is provided in the download.

Blue Lacuna is a difficult game to come to grips with for a player of my generation(SNES onwards) as I've always had the benefit of at least being able to see game worlds and choose what to interact with. Truth be told I came to it with a negative view, seeing interactive fiction as something that isn't really a game, from Blue Lacuna I realised that if you treat it as a game it will return the favour and provide rewarding and often enjoyable experiences. One of the most interesting aspects of this style of game is the branching story and player agency within the world, most objects I could interact with and I never got too frustrated at something that I couldn't interact with in the way I wanted to(Generally in the hopes of breaking the game or exploiting the system). Triple A titles can't manage to compete with a game like this in terms of gameplay outcomes and the repercussions from player actions, the amount of time to program it and to create the art assets required would be insane for the amount of gameplay created. This game leverages the power of your imagination to create vivid and interesting spaces within the game. Overall Blue Lacuna offers something different and very digestible to someone new to the genre and is worthy of its status as a game.

Games and the Real World

Dr Richard Bartle presented at GDC Online last week(Slides available here) where he discussed MUD(Multi-User Dungeon) ,the first virtual world, predating World of Warcraft by over 2 decades. In it Richard talks about how they created the physics of the world first and this allowed them to then know what would be possible within the game. They used the principle of mimicking reality whenever there was no reason to differ from expected norms. When talking about modern virtual worlds he had this to say:

Sadly, however, although the principle of mimicking reality was carried forward, the reason for it was not. This has inevitably led to its dilution.
Here are some modern phenomena that would Perplex the MUD
players of 20 to 30 years ago:

• If the goblin was carrying a sword, why was it hitting me with a stick?
• You can dye armour but not paint it? But you can paint the walls of your house? But not any other walls?
  
• I can build a snowman in a fire, and neither is affected?
• Why don’t those foul creatures come to assist their allies? I can see them, can they not see me? Does this axe have a silencer?

Now I don't play World of Warcraft but in most modern shooters you get shot 50 times and your avatar isn't visibly affected, you can place a grenade beside a wooden door and the grenade blows up with no damage to the door and you can jump up on a box but not on a pile of rubble that is the same height beside the box. These are simple things, that should at least be explored in games, in fairness Bad Company 2 has a lot of room for the player to interact with the physics of the world. Its something about modern games that's a bit disappointing, it seems like the worlds just got better looking since Quake and Doom and haven't advanced in terms of player interaction within the world.

Maybe Black Ops. will try some new things this November...

Board Game Testing

Earlier today our board game assignments underwent some rigorous testing. We each had a game and separated into groups of 3 so that we'd each get to play our games and the others in our group.

Alan went first in our group, his game involved a hex grid where you would colour in sides based on dice rolls in order to capture a hex, the winner was the player with the most hexes at the end. It worked well until the end when we were running out of hexes and our dice rolls were too high to continue. Alan won, with Basil coming second and myself a distant last place!

Basils game was next and involved strategically moving pieces of "mess" around an apartment for control of the board, if two pieces overlapped they would fight and the winner stayed on the board while the losing item was removed. I somehow managed to win this one but I think it was down to luck more so than skill as Basil cleared the way for me to play my last piece safely.

Lastly we played my game "8 Legged Warriors", its about using spiders to gain territory and wipe out the competition, the presentation on my previous post explains the rules. I was a bit worried starting out about how the game would scale as I had only playtested with 2 players over the weekend, luckily the 3 players worked really smoothly. I had been worried about a game breaker or exploit in the rules being found but I think its actually pretty well covered as theres not much room for someone to become over powered. I think for the game to be more fun the cards need to be more balanced in terms of their effect and quantities, it was the imbalance in some of the cards that threw up the only real issues but these weren't major and the game still worked well. The game takes on a visual style that I really enjoy seeing develop as the game continues, essentially the quantity of coloured tiles by each player hints at their overall power within the game. I think this happens because the player with the most spiders has the most resources to capture tiles. One slight issue I think is that larger stacks are as mobile and effective as smaller stacks so currently there's no incentive to to use smaller stacks. Having single spiders move 3 spaces, 2 spiders move 2 spaces and a stack of 3 move 1 space might be interesting but I'd worry about the effect of that on the playability of the game given that there are only 19 unique spaces on the board. Lots to think about but overall I'm calling this design a success!

For next week we're moving ahead with developing Basils game further, so it should be fun.

8 Legged Warriors

Boardgame Assignment So Far

I've spent WAY too much time on this so far, Friday was spent trying to force out a game for a theme that I wanted to use. I tried it as a boardgame, a card game, a tile game and any mix of those elements but I realised that I just couldn't do it, not within the guidelines for the assignment. So when Saturday rolled round and I was trying to force a game that wouldn't work I decided to scrap it, put it in a folder for half thought out ideas and try something different.

This time I focused on the mechanics, I thought about how I wanted players to interact, what I wanted to encourage and what I could do differently. The first prototype was a circular game board as shown below, pieces moved inwards and attached each other, cards could be played to provide advantages pieces could be stacked and divided as required, something about it felt good. There were still a lot of issues after the first playtest so I quickly changed some rules based on the feedback, used the same board and played again. It was more fun this time, the refinement of the rules had allowed more strategy to be used, more creativity in execution, moves I hadn't expected.


The game worked, but it was missing its theme, eventually something fit, it allowed the mechanics of the game to add to the fiction of the world. Another prototype followed this, I used the pieces from settlers of catan, the new shape of the hex was more natural for movement, I refined the rules some more and here I am now, working on a final prototype for class tomorrow, hopefully it all goes well!

Some More From Game Maker

I spent some more time today working on my Game Maker game, I really need to come up with a name for it and that's bugging me a bit at the minute. If anyone has any ideas for names I'd be interested to hear them.

I'll keep this post short and just show an updated image. Its puzzles tomorrow morning so I'll need an early night to have my brain someway functional in the morning. I did run into a few problems with using GML, I had over complicated some areas but managed to fix it easily enough after some hair pulling. I'm quite happy that I managed to get the station to shoot the payer and to stop once the player captured it. I think it needs a UI soon but for now I'll try get as much done as I can without it. From the screenshot below you'll see there's some issues with but I'll get to these with time. Anyway, here's how the game is looking so far:

Far Cry 2: Some More Thoughts

I've played some more Far Cry 2 over the last week or so and I've experienced the core gameplay at this stage and these are a few of my thoughts about the things that I liked/disliked:

• Immersion: Every aspect of the game is portrayed in first person view and the HUD tends to be minimal or context sensitive. There are no cutscenes and the player always has control. An aspect of this is that if you pick up older guns they can jam easier than newer guns and even if you're critically wounded you'll use a knife to pry a bullet from your flesh of pat down the flames around your body.
• Character: A major issue that I've found with the game so far is that the character is almost meaningless, I know nothing about my background or motivation within the game, this creates a big disconnect for me as I feel no empathy towards my avatar. One of the design goals for the game was player generated narrative but this has been a disappointment for me so far and I feel the design widely missed the mark in making the player feel invested in the outcome.
• Checkpoints: Not the save game type of checkpoints but rather the in game type where a group of NPC's with machine guns and a jeep shoot at you as you try to make your way across the map. This is becoming a deal breaker for me, every time I want to get somewhere theres generally plenty of NPC's to be dispatched along the way. I think a bribery system or less checkpoints might have been a better, even if less realistic, option. Another idea for this would be a territorial acquisition minigame where the player tries to capture as many checkpoints as they can to neutralize the NPC's and these NPC's wouldn't respawn after you drive away.
• Emergence: Every so often the game shows moments of pure brilliance, times when the player is given a set of tools and a goal and can use their own ingenuity to reach that goal. For example starting a bush fire can allow the player to flush the enemy out of a hiding spot and maybe eliminate a few as well.

Overall Far Cry 2 is a game with heaps of potential but it just seems too constrained, too confused about what exactly it is and what the point of it is to actually be engaging. I might put some more time into exploring the open world and maybe come back to it every now and then but I don't think this will be a game I finish quickly, at least not with Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light waiting to be installed!

5 Games in 5 Minutes

Designing and Playtesting

On Wednesday we had another Ludology class where we had some new constraints in the boardgames we were designing. One of which was that the game required at least 3 players which is a great way to change things up, for me it was a challenge compared to last week but eventually I came up with an idea that allowed for a scalable number of players. I had never considered this as a major factor but in fact the number of players has a big effect on the design of the game. For digital games I think it's an important to criteria to establish early in the process as certain games suit certain player numbers and the number of players will, I imagine, affect development time.

The game I made was called Around the World and it involved moving your piece around a circular board in order to get to the end of the game. A given card was required to move to the next tile and there were two special cards. In the playtest I think I had the card quantities completely wrong and a few rules needed tuning, the special cards were far too common and had abilities that required a very specific and rare set of events to be of use. As a group we decided not to develop my game and I think that was the right decision as Owens elemental card game has a lot of potential for a unique game. If I was to develop my game further it would be aimed at families using simple interactions and a more balanced deck. For now however I think I can do better so I'll not dwell on it.


The other games in the group were the elemental card game which we all felt had a lot of potential and decided to develop further. There was a cool game about flicking a ball over a ramp and into a ring which was good fun and very different to the standard boardgame. The final game was a cool mix of board/card game with some player embarrassment elements which was a cool way to implement some metagame features and was entertaining.

I think we'll be doing some puzzle stuff next week which I'm looking forward to as I wouldn't be very familiar with puzzles.