Death to Crafting Treadmills! Part 3

Since Psychochild pointed out that the terminology used in the title for this series of posts is erroneous, I am open to suggestions as to what to rename this. For the time being, I’ll keep the same title, to maintain continuity.

Inspiration hits you for 10,000 damage. You have died.

I’ve talked before about inspirations – occasions when a crafter gets the seed of an idea for a new item recipe. World of Warcraft has a couple of systems in place which have similar goals: Discoveries in Alchemy, and Research in Inscription.

Discoveries are relatively simple. While crafting any alchemical concoction, the character has a small chance of spontaneously learning a new recipe. It’s simple, and conjures that ‘Eureka!’ moment pretty well. The concept is that, while the player is levelling their skill or creating items for sale or consumption, they have a chance of gaining a new recipe.

 

Thoughts on RPG combat systems #1

I really like RPGs. I tend to favour JRPGs more than Western ones, because to a certain extent I am a completionist, and I tend to get too involved in the sidequests of western RPGs, which ends up diluting the experience of the main story line for me. I’m not saying that JRPGs are necessarily better, just that their more linear structure appeals to me more, in general.

 

Game Maker 7

Spent most of the night working through some tutorials in Game Maker 7, I now have a scrolling shooter with a ship that shoots and enemies that blow up. Will write something more meaningful tomorrow, still not completely recovered from our little ordeal earlier this week, but hopefully that will be remedied by tomorrow.

 

Casual and Core, Sitting in a Tree…

I discussed previously how I believe that asymmetrical co-op games could be the bridge that spans the gap between casual and core gamers. A game where the input of both players is different, and tailored to fit the gamestyle of each, but the results of which all work towards the same goal: the completion of the game. I already had a number of ideas on the subject, seeing the potential of such games as a core gamer and aspiring game designer:

 

Death to Crafting Treadmills! Part 2

The second part to Death to Crafting Treadmills! – again, minor editing, for format, spelling and grammar.

Death to Crafting Treadmills – Part II

Last time I delved into the many possibilities that item decay can bring to the crafting aspect of a game. This week we’ll look at the opposite end of the spectrum – the destruction of items.

Players are loathe to destroy items, that much can be gathered from the vehement arguments against item decay. Yet if the incentive is good enough, players can be convinced to destroy items. Two games come to mind, namely World of Warcraft and Horizons: Empire of Istaria.

 

Using An Interactive Montage As A Character Creation System.

Reid Kimball’s thoughts on using using the montage in games made me think of a character generation system for an RPG that takes the form of a series of mini-games, Wario Ware style, starting with the character at a very young age (choose a favourite toy) and gradually becoming older and making more meaningful decisions (choose from three different shirts to wear on the first day of school, choosing a hairstyle from a hairdresser’s catalog, a series of quick problems based on different subjects taught in school, a sports-flavored minigame).

After the montage is finished, a short summary can be given of the effects of each minigame on the character’s skills and stats, or they can be left hidden for the player to discover themselves. It would be more fun than rerolling random numbers over and over. Ideally, since the player must make their choice within a small time frame (5-10 seconds for each minigame), they would be encouraged to choose quickly, based on gut instinct, rather than overthinking each decision. The minigames in the montage could then be used as a form of light psychological profiling that would tailor the character to the player’s choices, and perhaps present the player with situations throughout the game based on these split-second choices.

The minigame montage could take the form of a series of decisions that create a branching tree-like structure with more decisions based on the choices made. Or it could be more like a personality test, with the results dictating the character’s affinities and possible romantic interests or dilemmas throughout the game.

It could start with a the character’s parents shopping at a baby goods store. They would be considering whether to buy the blue onesies or the pink ones (or the green or yellow ones!). Depending on the colour chosen, the character is male, or female (or randomly chosen but with something different in the case of green and yellow. Perhaps the green onesie decides the character’s gender randomly, but they tend to be a nurturing, growth-oriented person. The yellow one also requires random generation of gender, but the character is a more analytical, mental type of person). Depending on color chosen, the next minigame would show the character as a baby of the appropriate gender, and would show them in a playpen with an assortment of different toys, or crawling around under a christmas tree with a number of distinctly shaped gifts under it. The goal of this minigame is to choose a favourite toy. There would be some shaped  very concretely (a dinosaur or other animal, a toy sword, a doll) and maybe one or two with very generic (cubic box shape) which would be the surprise toy. Perhaps this minigame could show different relatives holding each present, and the choice of present also increases the character’s affection towards that relative and vice versa.

The main issue with an interactive montage would be to create context while at the same time maintaining the dynamism of the montage as a storytelling device. The player would need to be able to infer meaning from each ‘vignette’ presented in the montage and know what input is required from them in each case withing a relatively short window of opportunity. That is why the first thought that came into my head was Wario Ware, with it’s microgames and vivid imagery and single word instructions on how to play.

That’s just my take on it, though. It definitely seems like it would be a better way to deal with long periods of elapsed time with few major occurrences than just a black screen with “…10 years later…” on it. The other major advantage of a montage like this is that isolated major events occurring within the timeframe condensed into the montage could actually be played out as (slightly or greatly) more intricate interactive sequences, either within the montage itself or separated by individual montages.

The montage would go on, with each new minigame posing a different situation that the player must resolve by making a choice within a small window of time. The game would keep tabs on all choices made, and present new situations based on previous choices. At the end of the montage, the player would end up with a pretty well defined character (within certain parameters of varying meaningfulness within the game) with an established history that the player is familiar with in broad strokes, ready to embark on their adventure.

 

Random Game Idea #1: Battleground Titles And Other Rewards

So, as a new semi-regular feature, I want to discuss ideas I have about games. I know that ideas are a dime a dozen, but discussing ideas in a public forum is a good way of finding out if they are any good, short of implementing them in game. Since I don’t currently have the means to implement ideas in a game, I’ll discuss ideas I have here, hopefully I will get some feedback, and become better at formulating and polishing ideas.

This one is presented in the context of World of Warcraft, but there is no reason why any other game with organised, large-scale, opt-in PvP couldn’t implement something similar.

 

Casual or Core? A Matter of Investment

A number of different tidbits on the web this past week have had me thinking about the whole ‘casual vs hardcore’ debate. For one thing, I disagree that casual gaming is the death knell of hardcore gaming, for a number of reasons:

 

Hunting Wabbits

So I’ve just spend a good portion of my alloted time on WoW for the night chasing after various female NPCs in Dalaran, current mingling grounds of WoW. It wasn’t until a couple of minutes ago, after finding a female Tauren and Orc and chasing them around while waiting on the cooldown of my flower basket to run its course, that it struck me: I’ve spent the better part of an hour stalking female avatars in WoW, waiting for my chance to put bunny ears on their heads. I realise that part of the difficulty of the associated achievement lies in effectively finding and ‘tagging’ players of the opposite faction without being able to talk to them, but that lack of communication is also part of what made me feel not so comfortable with what I was doing. Following someone around town without talking to them, with the purpose of showering them with unwanted attention, doesn’t seem like a good thing to promote in-game. The fact that the players behind those avatars might have been women who, chances are, have had to deal with some form of sexual harrassment in real life as well, that just nails the lid on the coffin.

Ah, the weird things these games make us think of. ..

 

Braid

Braid was short and sweet. Some of the puzzles were almost frustrating, and there was one I couldn’t figure out for the life of me (the solution for it made perfect sense, once I knew what I was supposed to do, though). I’d definitely apply the word ‘gem’ to it: the graphics are beautiful, as is the music, and the gameplay mechanics are comfortable yet challenging for someone with experience with 2D platformers. Even for a beginner, the game is pretty forgiving, since there is no limit to the number of times you can fail and retry, and indeed, all you need to do to try again is rewind as far back as you need to to try again. That the gameplay mechanics fit the themes of the game’s story like a glove is a testament to Blow’s skill as a developer.

While I stayed away from gamefaqs.com the entire time – except for that one puzzle piece – I did go back shortly after finishing the game to see what I could find out about the story. Again, looking at it after reading someone else’s take on it, it makes perfect sense. Without the explanation, the story is intriguing, but not gripping – the gameplay carries most of the weight – but at the same time, I’m not sure how much my reactions to the game were tempered by the net commentary I’ve read about the game.

I’m still not certain whether I thought it was too short or not. I want to say no, because it definitely fell into that sweet spot where the gameplay was refreshing and entertaining throughout – no needless or sub-par filler – but a part of me wishes there had been a little more, which is always a good thing.

I don’t regret spending the money on it, since I’ve only barely just finished the game in two days, and haven’t explored any of the expanded content (speed runs, achievements, secret stuffs). It’s available on Steam now for $15 if you don’t already have it, and it’s still better value for money than going to watch a movie at the theater. Playing the game after reading about the game definitely has me looking forward to seeing what Jonathan Blow comes up with next. It might have even convinced me to be an early adopter.