M64’s Games Blog

Hello there. Long time without posting. I have had some bad case of what can be called a designers block and this has lead to a blogger’s block. To put the long story short I have decided that the next logical step in the commundo development would be to design some games that could be used as starters and I got stuck while doing so. Anyway, I think I owe my readers an apology for the lack of updates as well as some insight into what is going on in my head and notebook. I also hope that resulting discussion could help me with some decisions.

Digression about settings

Before talking about the game desgins let’s make a small digression about the commundo universe. None has been selected yet, but there are three possibilities I am currently considering. One option is what TheAncientGoat has proposed once on the FGD forums – it is a sort of a mixed setting, mainly magical but with technological elements too. Its high level concept is that magic is an actual physical force/energy being harvested and stored in a form of a special substance. Second option, is me creating an universe of my own – it would probably be some sort of a historical (fiction) setting, as I think those are greatly underutilized in games. I also hope gathering informations about a specific time period would be easier than thinking out a complete new world by myself. Finally I have considered using an existing FOSS game setting – I have found the European post-apocalyptic world being constructed by the PARPG team to be pretty interesting. That option has the additional benefit that if I could talk mvBarracuda and other PARPG members into that form of cooperation between projects then we would have two games in a commundo right from the start.

Requirements

Let’s start with some requirements regarding the games. Because this is a first game in a commundo system it should meet several conditions:

• be relatively easy to program;
• not require a lot of artwork;
• artwork that it does require should be reusable in subsequent games;
• be dividable into episodes;
• familiarize the player with the shared world.

I have come up with three game ideas that meet those expectations in one way or another – other designs are certainly possible, but this is what first came to my mind.

Idea 1 – hazard

First idea was inspired by discussions here and on FGD forums about creating a mini game as a commundo starter and it is this idea that gave me the designers block. It has some obvious pros – mini games are relatively easy to program and compared with the mainstream titles do not require a lot of content. But there are several cons too. First of all the simplest mini games typically do not present any world to their players and if they do, they do it in a tongue in cheek manner (Puzzle Quest, Puzzle Pirates). Lack of seriousness is understandable considering that, for example, Tetris used in Puzzle Pirates to represent combat, does not physically resemble combat in any way and humor is the easiest way to help with that incoherence. Second problem is that artwork used by mini games is frequently quite specific to the game – cards or pawns may be useful for other mini games, but not that much for a shooter. On the other hand if we are going to have some cut-scenes or other type of narrative elements those would be reusable regardless of the genre. The last problem with mini games is that they may be difficult to divide into episodes. To get around these obstacles I have come up with several ideas:

• gameplay of the mini game should represent an actual gamble existing in the shared universe – that way there is no inconsistency between gameplay and what it represents; mind that a gamble does not have to be a classical card or board game – in a highly technical or magical setting the visualization can be quite free-form;
• for the episodes to make sense new gameplay elements should be constantly introduced – this can be done in several ways:
  • adding more and more rules in every episode – like in real life when someone is learning a new game he may ignore some more intricate rules in the beginning; this could be useful for a few first episodes that will effectively act as a tutorial;
  • adding “in house” rules that can be different for each episode and provide variations in the gameplay – asside from rules as such, this can also mean house specific cards, pawns or board modifications;
  • adding a possibility to cheat during the game, letting the player use different cheats in subsequent episodes or making him defend himself against cheats used by enemies – that way we build a meta game of cheating based upon the “official” game;
  • creating something like chess puzzles – complex gameplay situations that the player has to bring to a desired resolution;
• the protagonist is a gambler and a cardsharp – that way we explain why gambling plays such a big role in his/her life and we can show his history from the perspective of the games he/she has played;
• introductory cut-scenes (or cut-comics, or even cut-texts) can be used to present a story and a world vision to the player.

Ok, so this is the first idea. The problem with it that I have not mentioned is that I have never been a great card or chess player or had any interest in gambling and so I am quite clueless about how to design such a game. I also have some doubts about how much variation can be extracted from such a design to justify making it episodic.

Idea 2 – puzzlification

Second idea is to create a puzzle game that has a strong emphasis on level design and presents a bit abstracted physical activity. Best known games of that type would be Lemmings, Lost Vikings, Goblins or Commandos. Another big inspiration when considering this idea was the series of Deadly Rooms of Death (DROD) games by Caravel Games. DROD is a puzzlified hack’n’slash – it is played in turns, rules and AI are deterministic and it requires a lot of careful planning on the part of the player. What is important about DROD is that while the other examples may require significant amount of animations, DROD manages to create a compelling gameplay with very minimal assets – no animations, sprites made of rotated versions of a single image and so on. Surprisingly this looks much more acceptable then it could be expected, in large part thanks to the turn based gameplay. I think applying a similar puzzlification method to another game type, for example a stealth-based squad-level wargame like the Commandos, could be very interesting. The pros of such solution are that the player’s actions are much more physical and so gameplay easily lends itself to telling stories and presenting the game world. Also the division into episodes is quite straightforward. The coding and artistic effort required by such game would be higher than with idea 1, but also many of the in game assets could be reused in other games.

Idea 3 – strategy

As I have already mentioned in the previous section, the turn based gameplay of DROD greatly reduces the asset requirements. And if we are talking about turns then we have to mention strategies. In fact the idea of using turn based gameplay to reduce the asset requirements first came into my mind when I realised that such an otherwise technically advanced game like Panzer General 2 used virtually no animations at all, asside from a few generic explosions. And it is not only a case of PG2 – many modern turn based strategies even if they use animations, still offer the option of disabling them – advanced players prefer it that way, because it makes the gameplay faster and the presentation less distracting. This leads to a conclusion that a “hardcore” turn based strategic or tactical game could also be a viable option for a commundo starter. The biggest advantage of a strategic game as a commundo starter would be its great potential for world presentation. Strategic games are perfect for showing the geography, politics, history and other world features. I have noticed that a few well known universes started out as strategic games, like World of Warcraft and Warhammer – this is a strong indicator of the world-building potential of this genre. The big cons is that even if the content requirements are comparable to idea 2, this is still the most ambitious design, requiring significant amount of coding work including a serious AI system. An advantage is that most in-game assets could potentially be reused in other types of games. Also, in a similar way to idea 2, it is obvious how to divide the game into episodes. Last but not least, I like strategic games, so designing one would be quite fun for me.

Comparison

To conclude the post let’s do a little comparison of those three ideas. I have presented them in the order of complexity. Now what we get in exchange for that complexity is suitability for building and presenting a world. First idea is quite cumbersome at that, as the world vision is not being presented during gameplay and has to be delivered through cut-scenes. The second idea is significantly better as the player is supposed to see some world visualization. Finally the third idea has large amounts of world wisdom naturally embedded in the gameplay and so it is able to deliver a lot of it without boring the hell out of the player. Also starting with a game of a more strategic scope lends itself to the top-down approach to world building – for such a game it is important to know how far is village A from city B, but it is irrelevant whether a policeman in the said village is a moron.

Now there are certainly some other possibilities I have not mentioned or thought about, like an economic game in the OGame style, but from the three presented options the second and third sound most promising to me – I think the additional world presentation capabilities they offer are worth the extra effort they require. The third option – the strategy – is a bit scary to me because of the need to develop a sensible AI, which is something I would not even know where to begin. So, unless I gain a sudden insight into the strategic AI design or someone willing to do it for me, it might be better to stick with the safer second option. And with that half baked conclusion I end this post and as always ask you, my readers for comments.