LD24 Prototype

Musings from LD24 part III.

Friday, 11:06 PM.

I was still doubting my ability to create a compelling game experience from my color idea.  I knew dwelling on this doubt and uncertainty would only waste time, so, instead, I decided to prototype what I believed would be the primary mechanic  - two squares mating with each other.

First, I listed out everything I thought I'd need to implement in order to get this mechanic into a playable state:

• I need to be able to detect when the player square is interacting (colliding) with an NPC square.
• I need to be able to detect player keyboard input for movement and the "sex" command.
• I need to create a new character on screen after the "sex" command has been input.
• After this new character is created, I need to transfer player control from the currently controlled square to the new square.
• I need to perform some process so that characters who have already mated cannot mate again.

Next, I opened up Stencyl and started learning.

A few hours of tinkering later, this popped out:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/64097119/Stencyl/LD24%20First%20Prototype.swf

Move left and right with the arrow keys.  Jump with X.  Have sex with F.  You must be on top of an NPC square to have sex.

Cheers,

Danny

Down To Business

Musings from LD24 part II.

I decided to roll with the color idea I introduced in my last post.

I wanted my game to consist of a single, tall screen.  The initial game screen would contain only the player square and an NPC square.  Everything on screen, barring the two characters, would be a single, flat color.  Starting the game, the only thing the player would be able do is walk over to the NPC and mate with it.  Mating would produce a new character on screen that the player would immediately takes control of.  Along with the new character, every act of mating would cause new elements to appear in the environment.  Some of these elements would be purely aesthetic while others would serve as a means of helping the player explore more of the world that would exist off the top of the screen.  For instance, after the first act of mating, a series of platforms acting as a staircase would reveal themselves, encouraging the player to travel upwards off the screen in search of a mate for their new character.

The goal of this game was for players to explore the world.  Tasking myself with creating a world that players would genuinely enjoy existing in was daunting.

If you've played what I ended up crafting, you know the final product is far from this initial vision.  What happened?

That's a story for tomorrow (or the next day).

Cheers,

Danny

Brainstorming

Musings from LD24 Part I.

8 PM.

Evolution.

The first thing I did was make a list of things I think about when I think about evolution:

• Pokemon
• Spore
• The Evolution movie with David Duchovny
• (I drew a picture of a smily face with three eyes)
• Now --> better
• Neolithic Age
• Hunter-gatherers --> farmers
• Wolf --> dog
• Water --> land
• Metamorphosis
• Mutation
• Natural selection
• Genetic drift
• Simple --> more complex

My first idea came shortly after my last bullet point.  I wanted to make a game about the evolution of color vision in primates.  Weird.  Interesting.  I liked it.

I jumped into the Internet, and pulled out some research.

Evolution of color vision in primates
Primate Color Vision

Ability to perceive red and orange hues allows tree-dwelling primates to discern them from green.  This is particularly important for primates in the detection of red and orange fruit, as well as nutrient-rich new foliage, in which the red and orange carotenoids have not yet been masked by chlorophyl.

Another theory is that detecting skin flushing and thereby mood may have influenced the development of primate trichromate vision.

Taking this, I wanted to make a side-scrolling platform game about colors.  To start, the game world would consist of a single color.  As the player progressed, more and more colors would populate the world.  These colors would represent new obstacles, destinations, and points of interaction.  This was perfect for me because I could do colors without complex sprites or animations.  I was unsure how a player would unlock new colors for the world, however.  This lack of primary game mechanic put a pretty large hole in my idea and initial high.

Concurrently, I was playing with the idea of making a game about forming communities.  The Neolithic Age was a turning point in human civilization as that was when farming became a widespread practice.  With farming came large, settled communities of people.  This community building was a huge step in the evolutionary process to modern man.  I liked the big picture idea, but no interesting ideas for a game came to me from it.

All of this happened in the first 90 minutes.  Like I said yesterday, it'll take me a few days to recount my Ludum Dare experience in full.

Cheers,

Danny

Evolution

Here's my submission for Ludum Dare 24.

The theme was Evolution.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/64097119/Stencyl/LD24%20Submission.swf

Move left and right with the arrow keys.  Jump with X.  Have sex with F.

I learned a lot.  I'll be ruminating for the next few days.

Note: I didn't actually submit my game into the Ludum Dare competition.  I just used the competition's theme and deadline as a motivator.

Cheers,

Danny

Some Inspiration

http://www.doitmotherfucker.com/

Cheers,

Danny

Ludum Dare 24!!

I'm participating in Ludum Dare 24!!

What is Ludum Dare?  Here's some knowledge:

Ludum Dare is a regular accelerated game development Event.  Participants develop games from scratch in a weekend, based on a theme suggested by the community.

Ludum Dare was founded by Geoff Howland, and held its first competition in April 2002.  Since then the community has run more than 22 regular Events, several dozens of practice competitions, collectively creating many thousands of games in just a weekend each.

The events attract developers from all sides of the industry.  Students, hobbyists, industry professionals from many well respected game studios, as well as many independent game developers.

For many people, it can be difficult to find or make the time to create a game or prototype for yourself.  We're here to be your excuse.

My tools: Stencyl and Paintbrush (a Mac equivalent to Paint)

My plan: Tear down the theme to a mechanic or concept that can be conveyed with simple geometry.  Use a music track from my iTunes library without permission.  Learn Stencyl along the way.

T-minus 53 minutes.

Cheers,

Danny

Here's A Breathing Exercise

I found this while reading this.

Take a deep breath and hold it tight.  As you hold it tightly in your chest, imagine the tightness is shrinking you down into a bug.  You've held your breath so hard that you're an insect.  And all the other bugs saw you shrink and they loved the stunt.  They're clapping and rubbing their feelers together madly.  But you had an apple in your hand when you were big and it just caught up with you, crushed the whole crowd.  You're dead, too.  Now exhale.

Try it.  Right now.  You'll feel better.

Cheers,

Danny

Don't Be A Vidiot

From snow-draped forests filled with lunatics carrying paint guns, to convention centers filled with people wearing costumes and playing 'in character,' to schoolyards where kids pore over looseleaf binders containing MAGIC cards, to pudgy 40-something guys in glasses hunched over a sandtable where lead Napoleonic armies clash, to blaring arcades and smart- assed 20somethings with near-obscene online nicks, the sheer variety of game styles is staggering.

So how come you're working on another goddamn shooter?

If the universe of gaming if filled with so many diverse styles, why is computer gaming stuck in such a rut?

Let's see some imagination, guys.

This excerpt was from a rant Greg Costikyan gave at the 1998 Game Developers Conference.  1998!  The rant was titled Don't Be a Vidiot: What Computer Game Designers Can Learn From Non-Electronic Games.  What Greg said in 1998 remains true today.

We have a lot of work to do.  I think I can help.  Give me time.

Cheers,

Danny

Defused

If you haven't read yesterday's post, read now or forfeit the fun of deciphering a first-timer's attempt at writing riddles.

Riddle 1

The order of the wires: yellow, green, blue, orange

The riddle: "My primary focus is avoiding compliments."

Answer: yellow

This riddle centers around the color wheel and there are two (similar) thought processes to arrive at the correct solution.

First, the word "primary" is meant to suggest one of the three traditional subtractive primary colors (yellow, red, blue).  The phrase "avoiding compliments" is meant to suggest that the complimentary color that pairs with the color of interest is not present.  Only two primary colors exist here: yellow and blue.  Orange is blue's compliment, so the yellow wire is the correct wire.

The solution can also be found without realizing that the correct wire is a primary color.  Blue and orange are a complimentary color pair.  "Avoiding compliments" suggests that the wire we're looking for is not physically near the blue or orange wires.  The green wire is sitting next to the blue wire, so the yellow wire is the only possible answer.

Riddle 2

The order of the wires: blue, yellow, purple, red

The riddle: "I live in a well-known circle with all of my best primary and secondary friends.  Including myself, our circle numbers six.  Today, my neighbors are absent, and I seem to be the only one receiving any compliments."

Answer: yellow

The first two sentences suggest a color wheel consisting of only the primary and secondary colors.  Starting from yellow and traveling clockwise, this wheel would include the following colors: yellow, orange, red, purple, blue, green.  "... my neighbors are absent" suggests that the two colors that sandwich the color we're looking for as they exist on the color wheel are NOT present.  "... I seem to be the only one receiving any compliments." suggests that the color that forms a complimentary pair with the color we're looking for IS present.  With the six possible colors written out, it's easy to see that orange and green (yellow's neighbors) are absent while purple (yellow's compliment) is present.  Thus, the yellow wire is the correct wire.

Cheers,

Danny

It's Da Bomb!

This comes straight out of Challenges for Game Designers.

The challenge: You're designing a game based on the old TV show MacGyver, and part of the storyline in the game involves the main character diffusing a bomb.  Rather than making it a non-interactive cutscene, you've chosen to make it into a timed puzzle, where taking too long to solve the puzzle or solving it incorrectly results in the game being over.

Consider the different kinds of puzzles mentioned in this chapter, choose your favorite type, and create a working prototype puzzle.

First, the kinds of puzzles mentioned in the chapter: riddles, lateral thinking, spatial reasoning, pattern recognition, logic, exploration, and item use.

I found myself eyeing the riddles pretty aggressively.

Riddles are questions that have one right answer, but that answer is not obvious.  Typically, a riddle involves a play on words that requires the player to interpret it in a nonstandard way in order to solve it.

For fun, grab a stopwatch and see if you can solve each of these in a minute or less.  Read fast!

Riddle 1:

Before you sits a bomb and a handwritten note.  You're actually not sure if it's a bomb, but there's a mess of wires sticking out of an ominous looking metal case with a timer strapped to the top.  So, it's probably not a bad guess.  You are confident that the note is a real note however.  And what a befuddling note it is!  You've got 30 seconds left before the timer hits zero.  Still not entirely convinced what sits before you is capable of exploding, you feel compelled to be proactive.  Following the directions on the note and with no better ideas, you decide to cut one of the wires.

The wires sticking out of the case, connecting the case to the timer exist in the following order:

Yellow, Green, Blue, Orange.

Besides telling you that you must sever the correct wire to save yourself from painting the wall behind you, the note offers only a single line:

"My primary focus is avoiding compliments."

Riddle 2 (identical setup):

Before you sits a bomb and a handwritten note.  You're actually not sure if it's a bomb, but there's a mess of wires sticking out of an ominous looking metal case with a timer strapped to the top.  So, it's probably not a bad guess.  You are confident that the note is a real note however.  And what a befuddling note it is!  You've got 30 seconds left before the timer hits zero.  Still not entirely convinced what sits before you is capable of exploding, you feel compelled to be proactive.  Following the directions on the note and with no better ideas, you decide to cut one of the wires.

The wires sticking out of the case, connecting the case to the timer exist in the following order:

Blue, Yellow, Purple, Red.

Besides telling you that you must sever the correct wire to save your current dimensions, the note says the following:

"I live in a well-known circle with all of my best primary and secondary friends.  Including myself, our circle numbers six.  Today, my neighbors are absent, and I seem to be the only one receiving any compliments."

If you're looking for a hint, highlight between the vertical bars.

| The Color Wheel |

I'll post my solutions and reasoning tomorrow.

Author's note: It's Da Bomb! is the title of the challenge as printed in Challenges for Game Designers, and it's my favorite title ever!

Cheers,

Danny

Constraints

Freedom to work in the most logical and efficient way possible is the very opposite of gameplay.

Take golf.  The goal of golf is to land a ball in a cup in the ground.  The most logical and efficient way to achieve this goal is to pick up and carry the ball to the cup.  This isn't golf.  This isn't fun.  Golf is formed from the goal by adding constraints.  Constraints such as: A player may only move the ball by striking the ball with a club.  Add: A player's club swings for each hole will be counted and a handful of other constraints, and you end up with something that resembles golf as we know it.  Constraints, or rules, are integral to games.  I cannot think of a single game where the most efficient way to accomplish the goal is the recommended way.

Cheers,

Danny

My Apologies

While reading yesterday's post for typos, I realized the size of the text between and within published posts has not been consistent.  My apologies.  I'm pretty sure the problem exists because sometimes I type these things up in a text editor and then paste them into Blogger rather than typing directly into the Blogger interface.  I think Blogger has a hard time seeing this pasted text and cannot properly adjust its properties.  The text discrepancies are not overtly apparent, but I bet things will start to look funny if I ever change the default type.  I'll be more mindful of this going forward.

While I'm apologizing, sorry for how random my posts are.  Besides playing them, everything about games is new and exciting to me.  I write about what I learn, and right now I'm learning a lot from a ton of different resources.  Further down the line, my focus may narrow, but until that time, expect things to continue as they've been.

Cheers,

Danny

Back To School

Classes start on Monday.  I usually don't care much about school, but I'm pretty excited this time around.  Mostly, I'm looking forward to the huge amounts of free time the early part of a semester (usually) grants us students.  Coming off of a full-time job, this change in available free time can be welcomingly drastic.  Even while maintaining a part-time job, until midterms roll around, I usually have enough empty time on my hands to take two naps a day.  I can't promise anything, but this semester I'm going to attempt to turn some of that nap time into 'Danny is learning how to make games' time.  This semester also has me excited because two of my classes are actually about games!

Here's my schedule:

• Database management systems
• Advanced game programming
• Operating systems,
• Introduction to applied statistics for IS&T
• Game design as art
• Internship in computer science

Here's the course description for advanced game programming:

This course is intended for those with an interest in video game programming. This course introduces the advanced concepts of game programming including 3D programming, game networking, and development of a multiplayer, networked game by learning and using the XNA environment.

I read the introduction of the textbook for this class, and it looks like I'll be learning some C# and .NET.  I've never had any exposure to C# as a language or .NET as a framework, and I'm excited to learn something completely new that I'm not sure I'd ever peruse on my on time.

And game design as art:

This course will encompass theory and practice of game development, game creation as an art process, and an exploration of the work of artists who have created game based work. Areas of study during the course will include game design and mechanics, explorations of theory, narrative and storytelling with game paradigms, social and ethical concerns of gaming and gaming as cultural resistance.

I'm really excited about this one!  Even with the course description, I don't know what expect.  There's no required text, so sky's the limit I guess.  I'm really glad this course is offered through the art department rather than the CS department.  I haven't spent a whole lot of time around art majors during my university time, and am looking forward to different perspectives on games.

These two classes are obviously pretty darn relevant to what I've been documenting on this blog the past 40 or so days, so expect to hear some of my tales from the classroom.

If you're curious, here's where I go to school and here's where I take most of my classes.

Cheers,

Danny

Cadence

The challenge: Design a board-game adaptation of any video game.  This game should be playable without the player having to design anything!

My first idea was to turn Mario Kart into a board game.  Mario Kart lends itself perfectly to a race to the finish-style game, and most of the elements from the digital game could be directly ported to a physical game with little abstraction.  While not difficult to get a prototype up and running, I think creating a genuinely fun board game from Mario Kart would prove challenging, but I wanted to try something less obvious.

My second idea was to transform the battle and progression systems of Paper Mario into a card game.  I had a lot of ideas, but ultimately, I felt like my game design was  becoming too similar to a card game called Munchkin.  Because of the similarities, I decided not to pursue this idea.

For some reason, the next game the jumped on my brain was Amplitude.  If you derive any kind of joy from rhythm games, you need to track down a copy of Amplitude!

Amplitude is set in a future where street lanes represent musical instruments, and each lane is studded with copious amounts of music nodes.  In this future, people don't drive cars, they drive magic, music-generating vehicles.  These vehicles have the power (some argue the responsibility) to hit the music nodes as they hover over them.  Every hit node adds a beat or note to the song.  If a vehicle hits enough nodes in sequence on a single lane, that lane will jam all by itself for a while.  In Amplitude, the player is given control over one of these vehicles and is responsible for hitting the nodes.  The idea is for the player to hop between lanes, nail the patterns, get the music going, and keep as many elements of the song playing for as long as possible before the song and level ends.  Within each lane nodes can take one of three positions.  Buttons on the controller are mapped to these positions.  Blah, blah.

That's Amplitude.  It's awesome!

After reading about a bunch of alternate reality games in Reality Is Broken, I wanted to create a game that forced players to interact in a very direct manner.  I wanted to crate a social experience.  What I was looking to do, I didn't know how to do with a card or board game, so this design is a little out there.  I took some liberties with the challenge rules by not making a board game, but the idea beckoned.  Who am I to ignore?  The game is simple, requires little setup, and if it plays anything like it does in my head, there should be a lot of laughing.  You'll need a metronome, three or more friends, and enough space to wiggle your limbs about.

For those not in the know, a metronome is a device used by musicians to keep time.

It might look like this.

Or this.

In Cadence (My game has a name!), one player takes on the roll of the magic, music-generating, hovering vehicle while every other player (there really isn't an upper limit) takes on the roll of a lane.  The lane players stand in a row facing the vehicle player.  The goal of the game is for the vehicle player to simultaneously activate as many of the lane players as possible which in turn will create many layered rhythms.  It'll sound beautiful, I promise.

In order for the vehicle player to activate a lane player and get some music going, he/she must first choose a lane player to face off with.  The vehicle player can only face off with a single lane player at a time.  During a face off, the lane player performs some action that the vehicle player must mimic.  Before starting the game, players may place restrictions on the actions a lane player may do, but as far as I'm concerned, anything goes.  Actions can include dancing, singing, hugging a stranger, sprinting to a nearby tree, or even scaring a small child who got just a little too curious about the teenagers having fun in the park.  Whatever the lane player does, the vehicle player has to copy if he/she wants to activate that lane.

This game isn't played with any hard and fast rules, so the success or failure of the vehicle player's mimicry is determined by the lane player who initiated the action.  Upon failure, the vehicle player may attempt the action again or move on to an unactivated lane.  Once the vehicle player has completed the action, the lane player who owns that action starts clapping a pattern to the timing of the metronome.  Clapping continues for as long as the lane player deems appropriate (again, no hard and fast rules).  The vehicle player hops between lane players, mimics their actions, and by doing so, adds more clapping patterns to the mix.  Each lane player must clap a different pattern.

Lane players may also change the action they want mimicked every time the vehicle player comes to them for a face off.  This includes the scenario where the vehicle player attempts to copy the lane player, fails, moves on to a different lane, and then comes back to the original lane player for another go.

Again, the goal of the game is to create music from different clapping patterns.  The music gets more complex the more lanes get activated.  The game continues for as long as they players want to keep playing, or until one of the lane player wants to take a crack at being the futuristic, magic, music-generating, hovering vehicle.

I haven't had a chance to play Cadence yet outside of my head.  I know, I know.  90 percent of the battle is iteration.  But, as you can probably imagine, Cadence can be a tricky idea to sell.  When I do convince some friends to play, I promise I'll film it.

Cadence is a synonym for rhythm, so that's where the name comes from.  Also, to me, cadence sounds serene.  I like the dichotomy between what cadence sounds like and the craziness of the gameplay.

Cheers,

Danny

A Definition For Games

According to McGonigal (Reality Is Broken), every game, no matter the genre or technology, has four commonalities: a goal, rules, a feedback system, and voluntary participation.

The goal is the outcome a player works toward.  Goals imbue a player with a sense of purpose.

Rules serve as limitations to the player.  Given rules, a player is no longer allowed to achieve the goal in the most obvious ways.  These restrictions unleash creativity and foster strategic thinking.

Feedback informs the player how close he or she is to achieving the goal.  Feedback systems constantly remind the player that the goal is achievable and thus provide motivation.

Voluntary participation requires that all players accept the goal, the rules, and the feedback of the game.  This ensures common ground.  Voluntary participation also ensures that the potentially stressful work of playing games is not experienced as such by the player.

My highlighter did a lot of work on McGonigal's book, so expect a few more posts ruminating on her words.

Cheers,

Danny

How Games Can Change The World

I've been reading a book called Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World these past few days.  The subtitle of the book really says it all.  Jane McGonigal, author and game designer who specializes in alternate reality games, presents strong evidence that games are benefitting and have the potential to benefit people in ways I've never considered.  Games have already been made that helped concerned citizens oust corrupt politicians from office.  Games currently exist that allow gamers to fold proteins in ways that may one day prove to be the cure to cancer.  According to McGonigal, and she has me convinced, this is thinking small.  Games and gamers are powerful.  Their potential to change the world and better life as many currently live it is inspiring.

I'm enjoying the read.  McGonigal has encouraged me to rethink my understanding of what game are and who gamers are.  Creative gameplay can change the world, and I'm excited to be part of a movement that dreams, works, and creates at this scale.

Cheers,

Danny

John Milton Once Said...

For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them… unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye.

Beautiful.  I personally don't know anyone who would argue with John Milton here.  Books are invaluable to the individual, to the society, and to the population as a whole.  What the written word has informed, influenced, and inspired is incalculable.  I think the same can be said of games.  I know I'm not the first to think this.  I'm not even the first to connect games to John Milton's sentiment on books.  I think it's important that everyone see games in the same revolutionary light as they now see books.  The power of games to innovate, improve, and transform lives, like books, is incalculable.  In the end, I think it's inevitable that games will reach a higher status, but it can't hurt to try to expedite the process with a blog post.

Cheers,

Danny

Follow This!

TowerFall is an in-development indie game about towers and archery.  Its development is being documented on this Tumblr account.  It looks awesome!  The first post was only a month ago, so jump in now while there's still room on the ground floor!

One of the developers working on TowerFall is Alec Holowka (Aquaria, The Winnitron).

I wanted to mention Alec because his Infinite Ammo podcast has been my favorite podcast of the summer hands down.  Each episode features a conversation with a different all-star indie developer.  I'm not sure if Alec knows each of his guests on a personal level, but it certainly feels that way - every conversation feels like close friends talking about something they mutually love.  The episodes are long (one clocked in at almost three and a half hours!), but I've never been bored listening to them.  Highly recommended.

He hasn't posted a new episode since March, but here's the list of the guests featured on the 15 existing episodes to keep you busy:

• Adam Saltsman (Fathom, Canabalt, Flixel),
• Edmund McMillen (Super Meat Boy, The Binding of Isaac),
• Jeff Lindsay (Hacker Dojo, SuperHappyDevHouse),
• Chevy Ray (SkullPogo, Beacon),
• Kyle Pulver (Offspring Fling!, Snapshot),
• Matt Thorson (Give Up, Robot 2),
• Derek Yu (Aquaria, Spelunky, TIGSource),
• John Graham (Overgrowth, The Humble Indie Bundle),
• Andy Moore (SteamBirds, The Game Developer's Radio),
• Chris Van Yperen,
• Tom Grochowiak,
• Colin Northway (Fantastic Contraption, Incredipede),
• Steve Swink (Scale),
• Erin Robinson (Gravity Ghost), and
• Corey Nolan (Growing).

Look at all those links!  Stay busy my friends.

Cheers,

Danny

Dear Esther

My apologies for not posting this yesterday as promised.  I started writing late last night and felt my focus lacked a bit of that special stuff.  This post deserved to have me without a fuzzy head, so I postponed it.

What it is:

Dear Esther is a game about exploration.  You start on an island with no context as to who or where you are.  Almost immediately, the player is shown a blinking red light.  This light belongs to a radio tower, far into the distance and high up in the hills.  The goal is obvious but mysterious: get to the radio tower.  The player can walk and look around, nothing more.

What I like:

At specific points along the path to the radio tower, segments of narration get triggered.  This narration along with objects and symbols found in the environment (none of which can be interacted with) hint at a much larger story.  During my time with the game and for a handful of hours afterwards, I wracked my brain trying to make sense of the narrator's words.  After those hours passed, still uncertain, I came to the conclusion that what the game said is not important because Dear Esther's goal is not to tell a compelling story.

The goal of Dear Esther is to elicit a powerful and lasting emotional response from the player.  Absolutely every aspect of the game exists to serve this goal.  For me, these emotions were loneliness, sadness, and wonder.  These emotions found me almost immediately and stayed with me throughout my 90 minute journey.  The beautiful landscape, the dreamy music, the confusing symbols, the even more confusing narration.  Everything I encountered made be feel more lonely, more sad, and a greater sense of wonder.

I respect Dear Esther for having such strong focus.  Again, every aspect of the game lives to elicit a powerful emotional response from the player.

What I dislike:

At the end of the game, standing at the base of the radio tower, the game takes control away from the player.  At this point, there's no place left for the player to go but up.  Why take that away from him/her?

I don't feel like anything was gained by playing the game for me in its final seconds.  I'm confident however, had control not been taken from me, every emotion I felt at the game's conclusion would've been strengthened.  That's reason enough to let me be the one who climbs the tower.

Cheers,

Danny

Why Study Games?

Periodically, starting tomorrow, I'm going to dedicate posts to specific games.  These posts will be my attempt to analyze games critically.  If I think a game's neat, what about it makes it neat?  If I find a game frustrating, what would I change to alleviate that frustration?  I won't be reviewing games.  I don't want to talk about graphics or the length of the game or anything else that might appear on the back of a game box.  These posts will intentionally not be exhaustive.  I want to focus on the single best and worst elements of the games as I see them.  My hope is that some of the observations I make during these critiques will resurface and positively influence my own games during their development.

Why this is beneficial:

One piece of advice Ian Schreiber (of Game Design Concepts and Challenges for Game Designers) gives for generating new game ideas is play more games.

Play lots of games! But… play as a designer and not just a player. Don’t just play for enjoyment. Instead, play critically. Ask yourself what choices were made by the designer of the game, and why you think those choices were made, and whether or not they work.

In his article Formal Abstract Design Tools, Doug Church argues that having a consistent design vocabulary, or way of discussing games, is paramount for game design to truly evolve and progress.

So we need a design vocabulary, a set of tools underlying game design practice. There is no correct or official method to identify them. One easy way to start looking is to take a good game and describe concretely some of the things that work well. Then, from concrete examples of real game elements, we can attempt to abstract and formalize a few key aspects and maybe find ourselves a few tools.

The first game I want to poke, prod, open up, and take a look inside is Dear Esther.  Come back tomorrow to find out what secrets she shared.

Cheers,

Danny

Why The Name Change?

A few days ago, I decided to change the name of my blog from My Journey Into The Games Industry to My Journey Into Games.

By definition, an industry is the commercial production and sale of goods.  The games industry wears this definition on its sleeve by producing and selling games.  I don't mean for this to sound negative.  It's not.  I buy games frequently, and am thankful people dedicate their careers to making them.  I think it's fascinating how much money people spend on games each year.  Hint: it's a lot.  More than Hollywood a lot.

The more I've thought about it though, the more I've come to realize that my immediate goal is not to make a career out of games.  If my current adventures lead me to a job in the games industry, great.  But that's not my goal.  My goal right now is to learn how to make games and then make games.  That's it.  Hence the name change.

Cheers,

Danny

Stencyl

A little over a week ago I made a list of game making tools I wanted to learn.  I've made my decision!  I'm starting with a tool called Stencyl.  Check it out!

Stencyl is advertised as a "game studio in a box."  Coding is not required to make games with Stencyl.  Instead, Stencyl has a library of code blocks that users drag, drop, and snap together to create the desired behavior.

Here's how Stencyl won my heart:

• Using Stencyl, it's possible to distribute games on lots of platforms (iOS, Flash, Windows, Mac, and the Chrome Web Store) without any additional work on my part.
• StencylForge.  StencylForge is a service offered by the curators of Stencyl that allow users to share content with other Stencyl enthusiasts.  This content includes art assets, music, sound effects, and actor behaviors.  For me, right now, I want to focus on mastering the tool, not on creating content.
• This is still a question mark, but the Stencyl community looks like a promising one.
• Finally, Stencylpedia.  Stencylpedia is a collection of tutorials, advice, and best practices that boot users new to Stencyl onto the fast track to game development.

I haven't used the tool much yet, but I did spend about an hour going through the Crash Courses on Stencylpedia.  These crash courses held my hand and led me through the process of making two simple games.  Here are my results:

My First Stencyl Game!

(Arrow keys to move.  Space bar to jump.)

My Second Stencyl Game!

(Arrow keys to move.  Z to shoot.)

Not bad for an hour's work.

Cheers,

Danny

Courage

Here's my newest Twine story:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/64097119/Twine/Courage.html

I'm calling this project Courage.

Story statistics:

• 49108 characters
• 6955 words
• 47 passages
• 102 links

This story is much more personal than the last one I made.  It means something very specific to me, but I think it's something everyone can relate to.

I don't think the story can be understood after only one playthrough, so I encourage everyone to play multiple times.

Let me know what you think!

Cheers,

Danny

WWI Part IV

I spent more time writing about my WWI-themed game these past few days than I spent playtesting and iterating.  Moving forward, this isn't something I want to make a habit.  I enjoy documenting my progress on this blog and am beginning to understand the importance of writing as it relates to game design and development, but writing isn't as fun as making games.

I'm still not sure how fun or playable my game is (not enough playtesting!), but I am proud of the ways in which the game mechanics relate to the theme.  Before I started designing anything, I knew I wanted to make a game about life in the trenches during WWI.

The way shells fall on the battlefield represents the randomness of life and death in war times.

The way a soldier in the trenches can be replaced with a soldier from the deck with little consequence represents how the individual life of a soldier is undervalued.  It is not important who fights and dies so long as someone fights and dies.

An able-bodied soldier, even when directly on top of a wounded soldier, is incapable of identifying the wounded soldier's allegiance without deliberate investigation.  On all sides of war are people, and all people are destroyed by war equally.

After a set number of turns has elapsed, all wounded soldiers remaining on the battlefield perish.  At this point, nothing more can be gained by either side, yet shells continue to fall.  This represents how even after the fighting ends, war continues to destroy.  Soldiers carry what they saw and what they did with them forever.  For many, it becomes impossible to assimilate back into society after experiencing the horrors of war.

I like to think every mechanic listed was created for the reasons stated, but some of it might be bullshit with the help of hindsight.  It's hard to tell.

There is a lot of room here for further iteration.  For instance, I'd like to implement a mechanic that represents the lack of training young recruits frequently received.  This lack of training directly influenced their chances of survival.

Later.  Much later.  I'm tired of thinking about this game.

Cheers,

Danny

WWI Part III

If you haven't read parts I or II, none of these pictures will make sense.

Setup:

Separate the black and red cards.

Draw eight cards from each pile.

Shuffle these eight cards and lay out your battlefield.

Choose an origin point, x-axis, and y-axis for your battlefield.  Here, the origin is the space outlined, the x-axis runs along the upper edge of the battlefield, and the y-axis runs down the left edge.

Each player draws one card from their deck and places it in their trenches.  The areas representing the trenches are outlined.

First turn:

The black player moves his soldier from the trenches onto the battlefield.

The red player shuffles his soldier (3 of hearts) back into his deck and draws a new soldier.  This new soldier gets placed in the trenches and can do nothing further this turn.

Artillery shells fall at the end of every turn.  Two dice are rolled to determine where the shell lands on the battlefield.  This two represents the x-coordinate.

This six represents the y-coordinate.

The space outlined here is where the shell lands.  No able-bodied soldiers occupy that space, so the shell has no effect on gameplay.  Currently, only one soldier occupies the battlefield, so only one shell falls.  Four to five soldiers means two shells fall per turn.  Six to seven means three shells fall per turn.  And so on.

Second turn:

The black player picks up a wounded soldier with his seven of clubs and moves both of them back to his trenches.  The wounded soldier turned out to be a six of hearts.  Since the value of the wounded soldier (6) is less than or equal to the value of the soldier who did the rescuing (7) and the color of the wounded soldier is opposite that of the player, the rescued soldier gets placed in the infirmary.  Soldiers in the infirmary count toward the player's total number of soldiers at the end of the game, but cannot be sent back onto the battlefield to help rescue other wounded soldiers.

The red player moves his soldier from the trenches onto the battlefield.

X-coordinate of shell.

Y-coordinate of shell.

No able-bodied soldiers occupy that space, so the shell has no effect on gameplay.  Only one soldier occupies the battlefield, so only one shell falls.

Third turn:

The black player moves his soldier from the trenches onto the battlefield.

The red player picks up a wounded soldier with his king of diamonds and moves both of them back to his trenches.  The wounded soldier turned out to be a three of diamonds.  Since the value of the wounded soldier (3) is less than or equal to the value of the soldier who did the rescuing (K) and the color of the wounded soldier is the same as that of the player, the rescued soldier becomes able-bodied.  This soldier can be sent out onto the battlefield to help rescue other wounded soldiers.

X-coordinate of shell.

Y-coordinate of shell.

I forgot to take a picture of the battlefield here, but no able-bodied soldiers occupy the space where the shell has fallen.

Fourth turn:

The black player picks up a wounded soldier with his seven of clubs and moves both of them back to his trenches.  The wounded soldier turned out to be a jack of clubs.  Since the value of the wounded soldier (J) is greater than the value of the soldier who did the rescuing (7) and the color of the wounded soldier is the same as that of the player, the rescued soldier gets shuffled back into the black players deck.

From last turn, the red player now has two able-bodied soldiers to move.  For this turn, the red player stacks these two soldiers and moves them two spaces onto the battlefield.  The more soldiers a player has in a stack, the greater the range of movement for those soldiers.  Three soldiers in a stack means three spaces of movement for those soldiers.  Four soldiers in a stack means four spaces of movement.  And so on.

X-coordinate of shell.

Y-coordinate of shell.

No soldier is wounded by the shell.

Fifth turn:

The black player moves his soldier from the trenches onto the battlefield.

The red player picks up a wounded soldier and moves two spaces back to his trenches.  The value of the wounded soldier (9) is less than or equal to the value of the highest-valued soldier who did the rescuing (K).  The color of the wounded soldier is opposite that of the player, so the rescued soldier gets placed in the infirmary.

X-coordinate of shell.

Y-coordinate of shell.

No soldier is wounded by the shell.

Sixth turn:

The black player moves his soldier one space on the battlefield.

The red player moves both of his soldiers onto the battlefield.

X-coordinate.

Y-coordinate.

The red player's king of diamonds occupied the space where the shell hit.  The king becomes a wounded soldier.  This is signified by turning the king face down.  Now, the red player cannot do anything with the king unless he carries him off the battlefield.  It is also possible for the black player to carry this king off the battlefield.

I stopped taking pictures after this.  I hope this makes the rules of play clearer.  Maybe not.  I tried.

Cheers,

Danny