Wednesday, 22 October 2008

Don't include unsupported stuff. Don't hint at stuff that isn't there.

I just now completed Microbe Kombat. Spoilers ahead, insofar as this game could have spoilers.

This is a game similar to 'Feeding Frenzy' - avoid larger microbes and eat smaller ones. Red dots appear at regular intervals and whomever eats this - freind or foe - grows larger.

In the tutorial, the game mentions the 'extra abilities'. Most - stunning nearby enemies, being able to kill larger enemies or extra speed or size for a brief time - are obviously useful.

Two, however, seemed to have an interesting risk/reward system - splitting into 2 (diminishing your size whilst doing so) and exploding one microbe to destroy nearby enemies.

Suffice to say that I became increasingly disappointed that there never seemed to be a great time to use these abilities - I was eagerly awaiting some clever tactics to be necessiated, somehow involving multiplication of microbes and explosions.

If these abilities had never existed, I believe the game would have been improved. Rather than eagerly awaiting tactics that never appeared or hoping for challenges that never arose, I would have at least enjoyed what was there.

By their mere existence, these 'unsupported' mechanics simply draw attention to what's not in the game.

Sunday, 5 October 2008

Game Design Challenge: Make Monopoly Fun (other folks' entries)

Well, having read the entries by others, I was slightly surprised by a few things:

- only one player proposed a winning objective
- Many of the proposals changed the game beyond what I'd consider 'Monopoly'.
- Where numbers were asked for, folk didn't even make a stab at a starting value - just calling it 'a number'.

I was actually kinda worried that everyone would do the same as me but even within the tight constraints, there was little overlap. Maybe because folk think differently? Or maybe others felt more compelled to stray further away from a game they dislike (or just wanted to show how far outside the box they felt)?

In any case, I shouldn't have worried so much about my ideas being 'unoriginal'.

Also, I shouldn't have worried about getting numbers etc. correct and should have just gotten whatever I had thought of into an e-mail. Now I'll never know if I could have been an 'honourable mention' or even a winner.

I'll take a stab at this week's effort though. Got an idea, it may be shit, but I owe it to my future self to spend at least half an hour sketching something out (unless aliens attack or something).

Game Design Challenge: Make Monopoly Fun (a non-entry)

I actually found out about a 'Game Design Challenge' - to 'Make Monopoly Fun' last week, a day before the deadline. I came up with some ideas in the subsequent few hours, but then never actually typed anything up or sent anything in.

This is my attempt to at least get myself in the habit of typing stuff. Next time, I'll do this quickly and send in whatever I have, rather than trying to get it to be better (or waiting when I could have easily made the time there and then).

For the record - the post declaring the winning entries has already been posted, though I haven't read it.

Objectives:
These aspects of the game need to be changed:
* the game has a very large amount of luck involved
* games go on for a very long time
* once a player has lost the game, they have nothing to do while others play


Restrictions:
Only 3 new rules/rule changes

Thinking:

Ways to reduce length:
a - impose mandatory time limit (already an option in rulebook. Can feel 'artificial' and introduces 'meta-play')
b - introduce winning condition (as opposed to losing conditions)
c - begin game in mid-game
(e.g. hand out 'free properties' as suggested in rulebook's alternate rules. Or auction off a bunch of properties before the game begins - reducing luck slightly.)

Ways to reduce 'dead time' for losing player:
a - one loss is the 'ending condition' (as suggested in rulebook)
b - Give losing players some way to influence the game (can it still be interesting?)
c - have a 'winning condition' rather than losing condition

To increase application of skill:
- Introduce more reasons to NOT buy a property outright.

- Further necessiate trading, maybe by auctioning selected properties.

Currently, there are 3 major types of decisions to be made in Monopoly - whether to buy a property or not, trading and when to upgrade. The former is currently a non-decision. With the starting sum and our income from passing Go, it's practically always correct to buy whatever property we land on. Maybe introduce less money?

Decisions regarding private trading are where the heart and soul currently lie. When someone's able to collect a set without trading, the game is often won by them - even the first set, when fully upgraded, puts the unimproved rent of the blue set to shame. Maybe auctioning selected properties would help? But unless at least two of each set is auctioned off, we can't guarantee that no sets are collected through chance.

Auctioning off every single property before the game begins makes for an interesting game - though it doesn't 'feel' like Monopoly. It lacks any 'build up'. Also, it makes for a relatively long game.

Are there other ways to encourage trading? I think I need to remove the possibility of getting a set by fluke. Maybe just disallow buying properties without an auction?

Improving properties is a matter of risk assesment - upgrade as much as possible, whilst ensuring we remain 'afloat'. Seems fine.


Possible rule changes (numbers might change)

- Start with less money
- less money for passing go.
- no chance to buy properties outright. (Maybe formalise auctioning to give the player who's landed there a slight advantage?)
- winning condition - get £X?

Less starting money:
- reduces luck (by getting rid of the 'non-decision' involved with buying properties outright). If auctioning is compulsory, though, maybe this is nullified.
- increases luck (increasing effect of randomly landing on a bought unimproved property)
- I'll skip this.

Less money for passing Go:
- reduces luck (reducing advantage of high dice-rolls)
- might shorten game slightly, getting rid of 'slow deaths'
- would maybe lengthen game slightly and introduce a 'minimum length' for a game with a 'get £X' winning condition
- Maybe £100? Should be an amount that still feels like a 'reward' but is low enough to allow for a large 'minimum number of turns' before someone might have the winning amount of cash and isn't a significant factor in winning, compared to income from rent.
- Or maybe just 0? Advantages - simplicity, no memory issues. Disadvantages - folk can feel 'gypped' compared to old rules, though this will pass. - With no money 'entering the game', but money 'leaving the game' (due to tax, selling bought stuff) a winning target could become impossible.
- To increase rental income, maybe there should be 'dummy players', which just go round the board, giving players income from the bank. Could be complicate though and would need another new rule.

Sum should be > money lost each round so it can be a 'small' benefit, on average. Chance to land on tax place is about 2/7. 2/7 chance to lose £150 on average means £43 is lost on average, each turn. I think Jail loses £4 a turn on average. £50 might be fine, but this really needs to be played out.


No chance to buy properties outright:
- increases skill (increasing relevancy of auction-decisions and trading-decisions)
- If the required increase between bids is relatively high (e.g. 20%), then there could be some strategy in picking a value that others won't want to beat. Also, it'll ensure that auctions don't go on ridiculously long.
- Some people are bad at maths though. Maybe make it 10% so it's easier, whilst retaining some 'forced speed'?

Winning condition of 'get £X':
- reduces chance of 'deadtime'
- reduces length of game, killing the slow end-game
- The value should be high enough to ensure 'doing nothing and just collecting money from passing Go' is NEVER the best strategy but low enough so games don't go on too long and that the target is reachable.
- £2500?

Final Thing
Rule change 1 - Players collect £50 for passing Go.

Rule change 2 - When a player lands on a property, it is put up for auction. (The player who landed on it does NOT have a chance to buy it outright.)

Auctions proceed as follows - starting with the player who landed on the property and going left, each player calls out a bid. Bids must be AT LEAST 10% more and £5 more than the previous bid. Once every player has passed the bid, the last bid is successful and the player must buy the property for the bid value.

Players may not bid more than they can afford.

Rule change 3 - If a player is valued at £2500 or more at any time, they win. This includes cash on hand as well as the full value of existing houses, hotels and unmortgaged properties.

Thursday, 11 September 2008

Why I called myself a casual gamer

My first memory: My brothers put a cassette into a box. On a screen in front, horizontal lines appeared, flashing and scrolling. Eventually, this gave way to a white screen with black lines - my brothers were somehow controlling lines on the screen! This was a simple drawing toy on the Spectrum and I went on to enjoy the games I was allowed to play and saved up pocket money to buy one of my own.

My first console was a Megadrive, bought late in its life from a schoolfriend and I own every 'successful' console from NES to Gamecube, excluding xBox. Dreamcast and Gamecube were bought within 2 days of UK release (and GBA within a week of Japanese release).

I've stayed away from the current generation, though I'm interested in buying an xBox360 for Dead Rising, various xBox games and Braid and would love to get a Wii for Warioware and Super Mario Galaxy - which I successfully know next to nothing about - but money and time conspired against it. (Ironically, I currently spend too much time on certain flash games.)

I actually found Dead Rising's save system added significantly to my enjoyment of it (having played it for maybe 20 hours on a friend's console) yet I hate games that ask me to redo elements with no variation - a reason I stopped playing Resident Evil.

I admire brevity in games, but if I find one I love, I can find myself playing levels hundreds of times or replaying the game once every so often.

I desire simplicity of rules and controls, yet want the game to spin them into varied settings and if puzzles and other challenges remain simple for a long time, that bores me.

I prefer experience-orientated games rather than goal-orientated ones.

I've never been able to beat Street Fighter 2, but could beat Samba de Amigo on the secret 'Super Hard' mode, sometimes getting 100% hit rates.

Back when I was working at the cash'n'carry, I was willing to spend hundreds of pounds to fund my videogame entertainment.

I long to work within the games industry, yet when I answered Chris Bateman's questionnaire, I decided that I was 'casual'.

I believe that I want simpler, more immediate games. I can only thank those who choose to make their game shorter, rather than padding out the length - Luigi's Mansion and Pikmin seemed perfect to me, despite the slight backlash at the time.

Maybe it's a modern-day ADD-ish nature but I want a game to clearly tell me what it's about. I don't want to spend 3 hours immersing myself into a new world, only to find that I don't enjoy the mechanics. Let the start of the game clearly relay the ensuing experience.

Perhaps that's why I play so many flash games - they maintain simplicity of control and immediate feedback about what the game will be like. Brevity is the rule, rather than the exception, with many taking 20 minutes to complete.

I guess that's why I consider myself a casual player - I want simplicity, brevity and focused intent. Some quirkiness - to differentiate it from other experiences - is essential. To me, these seem to be things that 'hardcore' games are forgetting about, with sequels packing in new controls or features rather than refining those that exist (or even removing superfluous ones) whilst the industry as a whole tends towards iteration, tweaking existing ideas rather than risk time and money on previously unseen mechanics.

Lack of difficulty or a forgiving nature aren't strictly necessary - if I'm playing with novel mechanics and realise why I failed - with success remaining a definite possibility - I'm happy to fail 20 or more times before success. Cirplosion's final challenge and Unirally's Gold-medal stunt tracks are testament to that.

Simplicity, brevity and a clear focus on something new. Sorry for the lack of the 2nd in this post.

Sunday, 7 September 2008

Unnamed Fast Game.

The origin of this comes from indecision about who would play first in a 5-player card game. I vaguely remembered a game in which a 0 beats a 5 and any higher number beats a lower number, but my memory obviously had gaps. (Anyone have a clue what game I faintly remember?)

In the end, I took advantage of the confusion and declared myself the starting player. It didn't really matter, anyway.

But for future, I thought it'd be good to have a game that can establish these things more 'fairly'.

These were the meta-rules
1 - the game should have a definitive winner with any number of players
2 - it should take under 10 seconds to play and determine the winner.
3 - it should be simple to explain
4 - turn order should not exist or be irrelevant (if you needed to establish a turn order, we'd be back to square one!)
5 - toys should include nothing that needs to be carried - only language, our bodies and such. (Otherwise, rolling a die would have sufficed.)

These are the rules
- On the count of 3, everyone reveals a number of fingers. Thumbs don't count!

- If anyone has revealed a unique number, whomever revealed the lowest unique number wins.

- Otherwise, everyone who revealed less than the maximum number shown is eliminated and there is another round, only including people who showed the highest number.

Analysis

Entry into subsequent rounds has a goal opposite to the winning condition - this should avoid stalemates.

The game will break if you ever get to 2 remaining players. At this point, you can play Rock Paper Scissors. I didn't entirely meet the first objective, given the possibility of draws (requiring multiple rounds) and the break-down if you reach 2 players. I'd give myself 3/4 marks for that one.

Hypothetically, there could be infinite draws, but given the theoretically small chance of this, I'm giving myself 3/4 marks for the 2nd objective too.

Objectives 3, 4 and 5 are a complete success. 4.5/5 - good going! Still, this design is obviously not 'perfect' so tell me if you know a game (or can devise one) that meets these criteria more fully.

I've not actually played this, but am recording it here as I can't see any issues with it and don't know any other game that fills this niche. What does everyone else do when deciding player order between 3 or more players (other than roll a die)?

If you're having trouble deciding player-order for a game with over 2 players (or need to nominate a winner for any other reason) and don't have a die handy, give this a go.

I know I will.

More Analysis
If you consider the hypothetical numbers shown by everyone else, you can determine what should be the highest number you should show.

I think it's foolish to ever show more than:

(Math.ceil(number_of_players/2))-1

fingers.

(i.e. divide the number of players by 2, round up, then subtract one from that total.)

Wednesday, 13 August 2008

Games You Don't Think About #8: getting the audience to join in

Toys
Your voice.
An audience.
(recommended: Words of persuasion)
(optional: other musical instruments)

Scoring:
The volume of the audience during the chorus (or repeated sections).

Restrictions/Rules:
none I can think of

Time to play:
2-12 minutes (basically, slightly more than the length of the song)

Tips/clarifications:
tip1 - if the audience sings a section that you DO NOT (maybe echoing a portion or maybe a chorus that you shut up for)
tip2 - it can help to quickly reinforce the idea of crowd participation before your song. Some people aren't sure if it's OK.

Good points
Pleasure of pleasing others.
Different audiences make for different play experiences.
Audience can give surprising responses, necessiating quick thinking.

Negatives
How well this goes can depend heavily upon audience. A room full of musicians is nearly always more eager to join in.

Games You Don't Think About #7: Licking a knife

Toys
A sharp knife, covered in some tasty residue (e.g. tomoatoey bits).
Your tongue.

Winning Condition:
The blade appears clean and your tongue is not cut.

Restrictions/Rules:
Only your tongue

Time to play:
20 seconds

Tips/clarifications:
I recommend licking at a slight angle, to avoid accidents.

Good points
A feeling of slight rebellion.
Tasty goodness!
A slight feeling of danger.

Negatives
Chance of injury.
Soon becomes easy.