Crunch and the Part-Time Indie: Five Tricks to Getting Your Game Done Without Self-Destructing

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 3, 2012

I don’t know when I was introduced to the concept of “crunch time” as a kid. Somewhere between stories like Tracy Kidder’s Soul of a New Machine and other tales of heroic efforts on the job, I came to see it as being the hallmark of the driven, passionate professional. Although in all those stories (or in the movie Gung Ho), it sounded kinda cool and … well, heroic.

Then I got to go through that experience myself.  Repeatedly. You know what? It ain’t so cool, except maybe in hindsight.

I mean, I don’t think Twisted Metal or Warhawk or really any of the games I’ve ever made could have happened – or at least not been as good – without the insane hours we put in to make them happen.  So I guess I’m glad we did what we did. But it was brutal. I remember at the beginning of October realizing that I’d almost literally missed the entire summer. I’d enjoyed few weekends, and no time off except for the fourth of July.  I’d arrived at work at dawn and left after dark every single night so I only saw the sunlight through the windows and on the lunchtime excursions down the street to grab food. All of us had shortened tempers, hygene occasionally slipped, and we lived under a constant level of near-exhaustion.

And that first time was probably the “best” crunch mode I’ve ever worked under, largely self-imposed rather than management-imposed. I’ve had far, far worse since then. I still think “crunch mode” is a valid tool for short sprints, but it’s no way to manage a game project. Or any other project. After 2-3 weeks, productivity sinks back down to pre-crunch levels, no matter how many hours they put in at the office. Seriously – crunch mode sucks, and there’s really not much cool or heroic about it. It’s just… something that has to happen, sometimes, and you do what you have to do. But it can seriously degrade your quality of life.

Now, arguably, being a part-time indie means kinda-sorta perma-crunch. The part-time indie is effectively working two jobs – their “day job” and their side business. Where does that fit in?

It’s different, though exhaustion and a diminishing of social life can still be consequences. Working 60+ hour weeks – 40 at the day job, 20 making games – may still be the order of the day, and I still don’t find it easy. It’s a context switch – I find that working two totally separate jobs for 60 hours is a little easier on the brain and body than doing a single job the same amount of time.  But I’m still not great at it.  If I was better and more disciplined, maybe Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon would have been completed a year earlier.

There are a few of tricks that have worked okay for me in the past. Once this day-job crunch is over, I’m going try to work on these a little harder in my own life to get back into the swing of things.

#1 – Establish a rhythm. The human body (and mind) are built to adapt to situations, but they can only adapt to things that are predictable. Establish a rhythm of life – eat, sleep, work, even play, and after a few weeks it will be a lot more comfortable. I know – I’m the kind of personality that balks at the idea of regimenting my life. But if I want to have the time to both make indie games *AND* enjoy the other important things in life – time with family, friends, and actually playing games – I have to do this.  This doesn’t mean the schedule can’t be flexible. But the exceptions can’t become the norm. You need to have a regular schedule that becomes a rhythm.

#2 – Make a task list, and review it at the beginning of your development session. I have a very difficult time switching gears from coding-and-testing to “management” or design. Task transitions can turn into speed-bumps in my productivity, and I’ll linger overlong on one task because I am unsure as to what I should do next. It’s much easier for me to make a “short list” of immediate tasks that need doing over the next day or three all at once – doing it all while I’m in a “management” frame of mine. Then I review this “short list” as my first task of the day / session, so I am reminded of everything I intend to accomplish from the get-go. I try to plan out tasks a couple of days in advance, so if I happen to get done more quickly than expected (which doesn’t happen often enough), I can just keep going rather than having to switch gears and pick new jobs from the master list.

#3 -Plan your distractions.  The Internet is one of the greatest tools ever invented for both improving and destroying productivity. Twitter and forums and blogs and instructional websites can be extremely motivational and educational (as I hope this particular blog can be), but they can be a distraction that completely destroys all hope of ever getting anything done. One thing I’ve done in the past which has proven pretty successful is to stick to  a plan for when I can spend some minutes checking email and Twitter, or play a quick game of Slay or something. Either at the completion of a task, or after a period of time (say one ten-minute break every hour). Otherwise, the browser’s only use is for reading reference manual pages, if necessary. That way I turn a potential distraction into a motivating tool.

#4 – Impose Deadlines. There was an old joke in the computer (and games) business that if it weren’t for trade shows, nothing would ever get done. Those looming, “big event” deadlines really do help with the motivation and focus on getting the critical parts done early.  It works for solo or small-team indies, too! Plan “events” to act as deadlines. What kind of events? Well, how about a weekly (or monthly) blog update? Or if you participate (or have organized one), how about an “indie night” where indies are presenting their works in progress? Or a “Screenshot Saturday” on Twitter? This should be something you should commit to and be held accountable (if only by your own team, friends, family, or whatever) for. It should hurt if you slip in some way. For this reason, keep them *reasonable* while still being aggressive.  You want to grow accustomed to success, not blowing deadlines because they are never possible.

#5 – Don’t sleight the day job. For me, the day job finances my indie thing. It pays for the necessities of life. That means it gets priority, as much as I’d rather be putting all my time into making Frayed Knights 2. But it’s also liberating, as I don’t depend on the game selling thousands upon thousands to keep the bank from foreclosing on my home.  Eventually, there may come a time when that relationship changes, but until then I always give priority to the job that pays the bills. ‘Cuz I’ve found the stress of unemployment outweighs the advantage of having more supposedly free time.

So that’s what works for me. Anybody have some additional suggestions to help keep part-time indie development from becoming a death-march style slog?

Filed Under: Biz, Production - Comments: 5 Comments to Read

Some Indies are Dickweeds

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 2, 2012

As I tried to explain earlier this week, there is a big difference between being inspired by a game and making something similar, and ripping it off “practically pixel for pixel.” It’s the difference between advancing the art (or industry), and cannibalizing it.

While I don’t know this guy or the context in which he gave this talk at a local indie meet-up, on the surface (and, most likely, below the surface), he comes off as a total dickweed. I’m embarrassed by the indies laughing and giving him minimal applause at him at this meet-up after he insults them all.

Okay, I’m a die-hard capitalist pig-dog and proud of it, but man – guys like this rub me the wrong way. Okay, maybe he’s actually a magnanimous guy who decided to portray himself as a villain to encourage fellow indies to step up their game and WORK HARDER to try and beat the crap out of him in the marketplace. If that’s the case, and I doubt it, then I’ll withdraw my dickweed comment.

Money’s not everything. If it was, we indies would probably be doing something else, and I personally would not be making old-school RPGs for a niche audience. But the best revenge would be to blow this guy away in the marketplace with good, original games. Eventually – and I’m seeing this happen sooner rather than later – people are going to get sick of the nickle-and-dime-you-to-death treadmill that is the Facebook game business. While it’s never going to go away – any more than any other of the business models for games have gone away – the bubble is going to burst. Just like it did for ‘casual’ games. And probably guys like Zynga are still going to be there, strong enough to weather the storm if they were smart about it, but nowhere near the powerhouse they are today. But guys like this? I dunno.

And then there’ll be the next big thing a few years from now.

Filed Under: Biz, Casual Games - Comments: 13 Comments to Read

Utah Indie Night – January 2012

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 1, 2012

The January Utah Indie Night was held on the very last night of January, 2012. The venue was new: the game development lab at Neumont University in South Jordan.

The first part of the meeting was taken up by long-time local game developer Les Pardew and others talking up the proposed Digital Media and Entertainment Act. It’s an interesting idea – basically a low-interest venture fund backed by state funds at very low risk (so no taxpayer burden) that can be accessed by companies and projects in the digital entertainment field (this is primarily film projects, but also applies to post-production, and games) that will be doing most of the work here in the state. The goal is to build the infrastructure and talent pool to grow these industries in this state. I’m not 100% sure how I feel about it, but I’m supportive of at least getting this bill out to the floor so it can be debated & reviewed. When a lobbyist is telling us how awesome it will be and how it will have a negligible impact on the state, as much as I’d like to believe him because it would be helpful to the industry, I still try to take what he says with a grain of salt. Or a small Siberian salt mine.

Les mentioned the “old timers” in the Utah Game Dev scene which, sadly, refers to me. I remember how it was in the mid 90′s, and Utah was looking like THE “up and coming” center for game development. Particularly with the closing of my former employer, that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. It doesn’t seem to be dying, really, and there are still a lot of active game studios (indie, independent, and satellites of larger publishers)  around here. But it isn’t growing either. I’d love to see things pick up more here, one way or another. One thing is for sure, though, and that is that the industry has changed a LOT since I started my career here.

The Utah showing for last weekend’s Global Game Jam was briefly discussed – we had something like 10-12 entries.  I haven’t hunted down a link to the local entrants, but we apparently had 10-12 projects submitted. Awesomeness!

After the (sadly, too long) presentation on the Digital Media and Entertainment Act, we got to the games. I was in a real gaming mood, I think. The Neumont University gaming lab has several very large wall-mounted TVs where we could plug in our demo systems. This was a lot of fun.  There’s nothing quite like playing games on a really huge screen.

I ended up spending way too much time hogging up Curtis Mirci‘s March to the Moon game, which I’ve played and enjoyed before.  It’s a goofy little action game with RPG elements, and I mean goofy. Programmer art, and completely over-the-top, and exactly the kind of fun I was looking for.  Good ol-fashioned shoot-em-upiness with absolutely no taking of itself seriously.

Link Realms  was also on display, as is often the case, and they keep making great improvements to the game. It’s definitely one of the better-looking indie games here or anywhere. They have a new video for this incredible “sandbox MMORPG” showing some of the newest (or upcoming) additions to the game – principally some PVP features:

I also played a turn-based tactics game temporarily called “Tank Commanders” (I think), and saw a few more promising titles. I didn’t take notes, so I don’t remember their names.  One student project was a platformer about a guy in search of pizza. I think it used the Unity 2D game tutorial dude as the main character, but the rest of the artwork really impressed me. Another was a platformer-puzzle based game for PC and iOS that looked like it took place aboard a moving train.  As usual, I spent about as much time talking with people there as I did playing.

Anyway, while the game dev lab at Neumont was a little crowded with the really nice turnout, I wouldn’t mind having it there again.

Filed Under: Utah Indie Game Night - Comments: 2 Comments to Read

A More Vile Form of Copying

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 31, 2012

There’s a form of copying that’s far more pernicious than piracy.

They say the key to creativity is hiding your sources. It’s mostly true. Even as Chris Crawford argued nearly 25 years ago, creativity and originality is a spectrum with one idealized end that lies only in theory. But the other extreme is all too real. It’s one thing to create games that are inspired by favorite titles. We make ‘em, we play ‘em, we even loudly request that “someone” create a modern remake / clone of these beloved games.  In general, that’s reasonable and acceptable to gamers and developers. Even encouraged. But there’s a fuzzy line that should not be crossed, and because it’s fuzzy developers and publishers usually try their best to stay well away from it.

But every schoolyard has a bully or two. And we’ve got ours.

I am not joking with indies when I quote Howard Aiken and tell them not to worry about anybody “stealing” their ideas (because, as Aiken says, if your idea is any good you’ll have to ram it down their throats). That’s usually true. Until an indie is successful at ramming it down people’s throats, that is… by generating tons of success, media buzz, or simply executing extremely well and grabbing attention from the industry.

At that point, unfortunately, it seems that small but scrappy indies become nothing but prey for the big publishers. We’ve seen it before with ‘Splosion Man and Capcom. And now it looks like we’re seeing it again with well-funded LOLApps:

Copycat Companies Might Not Lose Lawsuits, But They Should Lose Our Respect, Argues Kevin Dent

Or everybody’s favorite “bad guy” Facebook game king, Zynga:

Zynga’s Cloning Protection Racket

I would hope that indie companies would do their due diligence when dealing with these companies and refuse to do any business with them after this kind of crap. A publisher that pulls this kind of stunt should find itself left completely alone, with any third parties avoiding them like the plague that they are. As a creative industry, we should have zero tolerance for this kind of plagiarism, particularly amongst publishers whose business require a relationship of trust. If that trust is betrayed, that business should be at serious risk, and the publisher should become a cautionary tale for the rest of the industry.

The lesson to smaller, independent developers (“indie” or not): Be very, very careful dealing with publishers. Not paranoid – there are some great opportunities out there. Just be careful. And do your best to publicize the shameful, unethical behavior, and let players know that about the original games.

Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 9 Comments to Read

A Sirius Game

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 30, 2012

I wanted to do this last week, but with crunch-mode in full swing and some other high-stress demands on my time, I’m lucky to not have had to put the blog on hiatus.

Anyway, for now, I wanted to point out a little action / adventure game “with RPG elements” released by a friend of mine at Over Cloud 9 Games – “A Sirius Game.”

Tired of playing the good guy? How about playing a spoiled brat with revenge on his mind? This is how the story of Sirius begins. Disowned by his father, he underhandedly trades on his family name to get his initial contract, with an eye towards revenge. To be honest, I’ve only played a tiny bit of the game (it’s all I’ve had time for), so I don’t know how the story ends, but what I’ve played was cute and refreshingly original.

You can download the game at the following link:

A Sirius Game – Free Demo Download

And to order the full game:

A Sirius Game – Order the Full Game

Filed Under: Game Announcements - Comments: Read the First Comment

The Magic Game-Making Box

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 28, 2012

Okay, there’s a quote I love but I forget who said it – someone at Bioware I think. I thought I’d try to harness the power of the Internet to get the exact quote and who said it.

Basically, the quote goes something like this: If you were to build gamers a magical box that, with the push of a button, would create the perfect game for each gamer, uniquely tailored to their preferences and wishes, there would be a certain contingent of gamers who would go online and complain bitterly about the color of the box.

I expect most of you know all about that, though few (hopefully none) of you would actually fall into that contingent…

Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 9 Comments to Read

Why Indies Rock – Example #488

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 27, 2012

The Day Job has gone into full-on crunch mode, making the blogging thing difficult.  I apologize. I’m gonna do my best, but it’s going to be rough going for another couple of weeks.

So today I’m just going to pass along a link provided by Craig Stern, of Sinister Design (Telepath RPG) and IndieRPGs.com. He provided it as a “perfect example of why it’s worth supporting indie developers even when comparable games are available on GOG.” The developer in question is Almost Human, the game is the upcoming RPG that I, for one, am REALLY looking forward to, “The Legend of Grimrock.”

‘Nuff said, I think.

Filed Under: Indie Evangelism - Comments: 13 Comments to Read

Frayed Knights Takes Home the RPGWatch Indie Game of the Year Award!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 26, 2012

That loud “WOOT!” you just heard emanating from the Wasatch Mountains a little while ago? That was me.

Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon just won the Editor’s Choice Award at RPGWatch for Indie Game of the Year.

Read all about it here:

RPGWatch Game of the Year Awards 2011 – Best Indie RPG

I’ll let you read the whole thing.

While we came in fourth in the Reader’s Choice polling, the race was VERY close (all four of the top choices came within 5% of each other), and the other three titles were all on Steam and had about 100x the exposure of Frayed Knights. So I still feel pretty good about that, too.

So now what?

Well, I definitely have my sights set on winning these awards (and more) with the sequel. I don’t want to talk too much about that yet, because there are some plans that are still in flux. Not whether or not it will happen, but some of the changes that are being made to the game. I will say at this point Frayed Knights 2 is shaping up to be more of a true sequel than just a “part two.” There’ll be a lot of improvements to the game mechanics and interface side of things.

More importantly, though – this first game was really an experiment. By the time I was finishing up the last of the quests and plotlines, I felt like I was finally getting the hang of how to write a Frayed Knights game. I hope to take all of that experience and really apply it for the sequels. The stories may have a little bit more serious-ish drama mixed in with the comedic plot. If you’ve played the original through the end (or at least through the part where Shiela and Florentine play a major role), you know what I’m talking about.

On the Mac front, we’ve run into some technical and life-related issues that are delaying the release of Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon on that platform a bit, but things are still progressing. I’d originally hoped to release the Mac version by the end of this month. I’d originally intended to release the PC version before the end of 2009, too, so I’m notorious for missing my internal milestones like that. I don’t think we’ll be that far delayed on the Mac release, however. But at this time we don’t have an ETA. I am taking steps which I *hope* will make the Mac release of the sequels far, far easier and faster – ideally simultaneous with the PC release.

In the meantime, however, I’m gonna take a moment to look back. This was a long, hard journey, and it was made possible by the help and encouragement of friends and the community here. So here is a hearty thank-you to all of you here for the suggestions, feedback, beta testing, interest, promotion, words of encouragement, words of constructive criticism, contribution of ideas and even art assets (!!!) (including the Frayed Knights: TSOSD logo!), and a constant reminder of who I was writing this game for. You guys rock!

Filed Under: Frayed Knights - Comments: 14 Comments to Read

What Would You Update?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 25, 2012

In the spirit of the the TWO X-Com “re-envisionings” and the hope and horror that the reports on these games have inspired, I thought I’d push a little experiment today and see what the expert gamers of this site would do in a similar situation.

Let’s say you had the option to pick a classic game that’s at least ten years old, and have it remade. Any game, any publisher. It doesn’t need to be an RPG or adventure game, though I know most of us here have a liking for those genres. Assume a graphical overhaul and UI improvements are a given.

What game would you choose? What other changes would want to see made to the game? How should the designers make sure those changes stayed “true to the spirit” of the original? Or would you care?

Me? I’d be terrified about it, but I’m going to pick Ultima 7. Knowing full well that some folks will accuse me of heresy, what I’d like to see changed beyond upgraded technology and UI would be the combat system. Something more like “turn-based with pause” from the Infinity Engine games (Baldur’s Gate, etc)  with better AI and a slower pace so things like actually casting spells in combat would have a chance to succeed.  Since nobody ever seemed to feel that combat was really that good in the first place in Ultima 7, I don’t think that sort of thing would violate the spirit of the game, or the series.  I would also like to see stat-check style mechanics supplement (not entirely replace) the elements of the game that were more twitch-driven… dodging fireballs and that kind of thing. This way even those who prefer a more thoughtful pace in their RPGs wouldn’t get badly penalized for not playing it like a an NES game. And really, what made Ultima 7 work so well was the world and the story, not the RPG mechanics… which to me always felt a little half-baked.

Anyway, that’s my candidate, and what I’d change.

What about you?

Filed Under: Retro - Comments: 37 Comments to Read

Some More Classic D&D Trivia

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 24, 2012

Inspired this time by one of CRPG Addicts’ recent (and hopefully not last) posts about 1970s era CRPGs, I hunted down a few links about the really, really old-school dice-and-paper games.  I’ve written once about Original D&D Trivia, as seeing how the game has evolved and changed over the years is fascinating to me. How did RPGs come to be, anyway? Yes, I know how it happened, I was there to see some of it, but it’s the little details and stories that excite me.

I discovered a page collecting several quotes from one of the guys in many of the original campaigns. There’s plenty of fascinating trivia to be discovered here, including these little tidbits:

• The amount by which characters “scale” (mainly in terms of hit dice) came about directly from a combination of wargaming and favorite fantasy books. As the players decided they wanted classic fantasy heroes like Conan, Arigorn, and Elric in the game, they figured these guys ought to be much tougher than an average warrior. So they took the easiest approach and made these heroes equal to four regular warriors and could therefore sustain four times as many hits before dying. Then they added a new “level” – a Super-Hero – that was the equivalent of two heroes.  Then as they moved from wargaming (Chainmail) to what is now closer to an RPG campaign with Blackmoor, they thought of how a character might “grow” to be a hero… becoming the equivalent of two warriors, then three, then four, etc…

  And thus we have had the really massive low-level “jump” in power levels at low levels in D&D and D&D-inspired RPGs for decades.

• Players originally played both the good guys and the bad guys, with the person eventually called the “Dungeon Master” acting more as a neutral third party – referee and scenario builder. Eventually the “evil” players defected to the “good guy” side, leaving only Dave Arneson (the referee) to play all of the bad guys as well.
• The cleric class originated as nothing more than a counter to a player-character vampire who had gotten to be too powerful as they started giving him Hammer Film-style vampire powers when he leveled up.  That explains the Christian priest style archetype (also a la Hammer films) that they’ve tried for decades to generalize.

All good stuff. Why does it matter? Maybe it doesn’t. But I like knowing why things are the way they are (or were), especially as a designer who may want to check the underlying assumptions before he goes around changing things.

This was before my time (thankfully) so I only experienced an echo of it in the 1980s as played by other kids who had no other resources than the books and magazines. One thing that does strike me, which I’m trying to verify, is how much less the old-school games were about “hack-and-slash” than they are usually given credit for.   I think it is the computer-game imitations that really took the combat parts through the roof.  But looking through some of the very old OD&D and early AD&D modules of the era, there’s really a lot more emphasis on exploration and problem-solving.  Role-playing (according to the above-quoted player, Gronan) evolved naturally as an extension of these aspects of the game. But going through many of the old modules, the combat set-ups are often pretty boring (with some set-piece exceptions), and there are lots of “strange things” players have to figure out, and well-hidden treasures to find.

These are exactly the kinds of creative, interesting things that are more challenging to plug into a computer game, while the nuts-and-bolts of a cyclical, repeatable gameplay like combat are easy to do.

Filed Under: General - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

The CRPG Addict Hiatus – And Why Vintage RPGs Matter

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 23, 2012

Awww….

Bummer!

Hopefully it’ll be a short (or at least non-permanent) hiatus. I enjoyed many an old-school CRPG vicariously through his reports. I probably enjoyed them a good deal more through his articles than if I’d played them myself, in the case of many, many not-so-great games.  Even if this project is abandoned forever, it’s a treasure trove of recent play-through essays on more than five dozen vintage PC RPGs as it stands, which is freaking incredible.

I mean, seriously. He put in a minimum of six hours per game, and played many to completion, in the manner in which they appeared to be “intended to be played” – no spoilers, no walkthroughs, no backups or otherwise “cheating” (well, almost never).

These have been valuable insights for many reasons:

#1 – A modern perspective on vintage games: This is a guy who loves vintage RPGs, but loves modern games just as much, and thus has been able to look at these older titles without using too much of the rose-tinted lenses of nostalgia, and without disdain for anything less than cutting-edge technology.

#2 – His GIMLET rating system is unabashedly subjective, yet it manages to allow a comparison of games from different eras with each other. Most other systems tend to be far more biased towards newer games or (rarely) classic titles. I printed the article describing the rating criteria and posted it on the wall by my desk near the latter stages of Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon development, as I felt his points for his system were a valuable checklist of critical elements to make a great RPG.

#3 – These articles are a treasure trove of early RPG innovation and concepts that have been lost in the modern era. And admittedly, a few of ‘em probably deserve to remain lost, but that’s what happens with innovation. People always look at the successful fruits of innovation and creativity and forget about the less-successful stuff, and forget that most innovations aren’t really that great. Nevertheless, there are a lot of fascinating ideas and experiments out there that I feel were lost / forgotten for reasons other than its inherent worthiness, and could be dusted off and revisited by an enterprising indie today.

#4 – Likewise, it’s useful to see all the crap games that came out in this era. I guess I shouldn’t say “crap games,” because it seems only a few were genuine garbage. But it’s informative to see all the games that didn’t find their way into the top 10% or so “classics” that are typically remembered, and maybe get an inkling as to why they didn’t make it. In some cases, there are some real gems that apparently just didn’t have enough marketing push to succeed against their more popular brethren. In many other cases, it looks like they had plenty of potential but were hampered by one or more issues that really held the game back. Some were just poorly implemented but had some clever ideas. As a designer and developer, these are possibly more interesting to look at than the successful “classics.”

#5 – And from a broad view, it’s awesome to see what an incredible legacy there is for the genre – even restricting the subset to only those games made for DOS-based machines of the 1980s. The spectrum and quantity of titles is amazing. And in some ways, it does make me sad to see the genre as restricted as it stands in 2012, though the indies seem to be really getting it together to revive the tradition today.

Anyway, I hope this proves to be a short hiatus, as I really enjoyed getting my vicarious fix. But while my time is generally pretty tight (isn’t that true of most of us?), I do have plenty of my own vintage adventures to enjoy in the meantime!

Filed Under: General - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

Keeping an RPG Series Fresh

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 20, 2012

One summer day I was running a Call of Cthulhu adventure for some friends who were old hands at the game.  They’d played it a lot more than I had, but hadn’t played the module I was running.  They had new characters, as it was a one-off-game. And… well, we all noticed it right away. It felt stale. The Chaosium module adhered to formula, I guess, and everybody was playing their characters “ignorant” even though the players could immediately identify with the vaguest of hints who the “big bad” of the game would be centered around. The characters had been made with an eye towards the rules and style of the game, so the “best” characters were usually not those with the highest firearms skills, but strong Research scores.

Yeah, for those of you who unfamiliar with Call of Cthulhu, a lot of the game involves spending time in libraries or halls of records or interviewing old-timers. It’s generally a game about solving mysteries, but the mysteries usually resolve into some cult or another worshiping some horrible elder being and in turn having access to some dark magic and supernatural minions.

And that was the problem. As much as we loved the game (and still do…), it had gotten kind of stale. Too predictable.

This became a little bit of a problem with CRPGs as well. Especially RPG series. Which opens up a question – what part gets stale? The mechanics? The story? The “formula?” All of it? Many readers here can name some games series that really started getting that way (arguably, Wizardry started out that way). And in some ways, the entire genre suffered from this during the early 90′s (though I think a glut of low-quality products had more to do with it…)

How much needs to change? Is a CRPG using the same engine – or same game rules – for more than a sequel or two doomed to getting stale and boring?  Do you have to change everything to keep it fresh? At what point do you screw up the series so the fans no longer feel like they are playing the same game?

I’ve played several game systems where the mechanics of the game were fine (not perfect, but fine) for many, many campaigns.  The game didn’t need to change, only the story and characters. The mechanics formed a platform, a foundation, that didn’t need many changes to make an enjoyable game. Part of the reason we’ve still enjoyed Call of Cthulhu for so many years is that we started playing adventures that really departed from the traditional Lovecraft / Chaosium formula. So maybe it was more of a content problem than a case of game-system fatigue.

On the CRPG side, I think of Planescape: Torment.  While it used the same engine and rules system as the Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale series, it stood out as something very unique. Possibly too unique, as I understand sales of this critically acclaimed classic were never as good as either of its siblings.

This really isn’t limited to RPGs, or video games. TV series deal with the same issue. Viewers want “more of the same, only different.” Change too little, and viewers depart in boredom. Change too much, and viewers depart because it’s no longer the same series they enjoyed when they started watching. You can find parallels in almost all other media – music, books, movies, you name it.

With CRPGs, we have three axes to play with: The narrative axis, the “mechanics” axis (I’d call this the underlying rules system), and the presentation axis (user interface, graphics, sound, etc.). Is it okay to change things on one axis at a time? A little bit on all three? How much is too much, and how much is too little, to keep a game series “fresh” and interesting but still true to its core?

Filed Under: Game Development - Comments: 6 Comments to Read

Mining Super Metroid for Design Lessons

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 19, 2012

I never really played much Super Metroid. I didn’t own the correct hardware.  While at the time – before I got a job making games for consoles – I disdained consoles for PC games, but mainly I think it was because I didn’t have the money.

But Hugo Bille writes a fascinating article entitled, The Invisible Hand of Super Metroid, discussing all the things done very well in the design of this classic SNES game. There are lessons to be learned here that can be applied to any game – including RPGs. A lot of the discussion is how the designers took a basically linear design and used tricks to encourage particular paths and methods of play, but allowed alternative approaches while still making sure the player encountered the key events (though not necessarily in the “correct” order).

I read these kinds of essays and realize that I have a long way to go as a “game designer.” But it’s good stuff to fill your head with if you have aspirations as a game designer.

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 3 Comments to Read

Stop Piracy, But Protect Liberty

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 18, 2012

Okay, so today’s a big black-out day for Wikipedia and Google and stuff.  I’m not going to be doing anything like that. As you’ve probably heard, there are a couple of bills in the U.S. Congress that are supposedly out there to protect the rights of copyright holders, like me, against rampant piracy on the Internet.

Now, as you know if you’ve read this site for very long, I’m very much anti-piracy. I support legislation that makes it easier to enforce copyright law and protect guys like me, and every other person out there who produces media for others. It’s far too easy for people to rip off the intellectual property of others – AND MAKE BIG BUCKS DOING IT – without any serious fear of legal repercussion. This is strangling several industries, and it is the reason games are going more and more towards “online only,” or having key online components, and so forth.

That being said, I’m not in favor of these bills.

Why not? For these reasons the EFF has outlined. I see these bills as being more of a power-grab by government and big media corporations which will have a chilling effect on the entire Internet, not just the illegal activities taking place here.

Worse, when you have something like this that makes all kinds of otherwise decent, good behavior being made illegal (or punishable even without strictly being illegal), you can turn people thumbing their nose at the system into heroes – mini digital Robin Hoods. It’s happened before, and will happen again. That’s fine in the case of people performing otherwise legal activities turned criminal by what feels like a stupid and improper law. But the copyright infringers who rob from the poor or middle-class and give to everybody (because it somehow doesn’t “count” when they aren’t “really” stealing and it’s only “potential” sales)  do not deserve any kind of cultural approval.

And will they actually curb piracy? I don’t think they’ll stop it. Move it more underground, sure, which would be a good thing. But not at an acceptable cost.  I think the collateral damage from these bills is far too high. It’s otherwise law-abiding people and companies who will suffer the most, and it opens the door for a metric buttload of abuse. I can see big companies abusing it to cripple competitors, and political powers abusing it to silence opposition. We’ve seen it before, and we’ll see it again.

We need a better way. We need to solve the problems of the digital age as citizens – not just of our own countries but as a digital world – and we need to do it as adults and thinking human beings who are both consumers and producers. We need to protect the rights of artists, writers, programmers, musicians, and these days pretty much everybody else to their own creations. But we should not trade our liberty to do it. We need to draw the line against government and corporate overreach somewhere. In my opinion, this is a good place to make a stand.

Filed Under: Politics - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

Lousy Choices and Linear Dungeons

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 17, 2012

A year or so ago this illustration of FPS level design “evolution” over the last twenty years made the rounds, and struck a little bit of a nerve.  Yes, many folks agreed – particularly the old-school gamers who remember gaming from the last century – it’s gotten awfully simplistic.

But the maps don’t tell the whole story. The linearity was a little exaggerated, and the map complexity of the old Doom level (E1M5?) hid some inherent linearity of the design that only becomes apparent in gameplay, when you grab the appropriate keys in linear order to allow you access to the rest of the level. But it was an amusing way to make a point.

I’ve been thinking about this a little bit lately with respect to RPGs. In particular, the linear dungeons of Skyrim come to mind (since that’s the RPG I’m playing right now), which are extremely linear.

The comparison becomes pretty stark when you realize the Elder Scrolls games were directly inspired by Ultima Underworld, way back in the early 1990′s.  The dungeons of The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall could get insane in their procedurally-generated three-dimensional complexity.  To illustrate some differences in dungeon design in CRPGs over the last couple of decades:

Ultima Underworld (1992)

The Elder Scrolls:  Daggerfall (1996)

Dragon Age: Origins (2009)

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (2011)

I don’t know if I’d really call this a trend. But since Skyrim seems to have been one of the best-selling RPGs of all time, it’s worth noting (as I’m sure many publishers will follow suit).

I was reading on a blog that this is sort of the 4E Dungeons & Dragons (pen-and-paper)  style of dungeon as well – more of a linear arrangement of set-piece encounters. Having not really paid attention to the Fourth Edition adventures and supplements, this is only hearsay, but that seemed to be the “official” trend towards the end of 3.5′s run, too.

RPG level design is a funky thing – particularly with good ol’ traditional dungeons. The linear dungeons of Skyrim are awfully convenient, and in all honesty may be a trifle more “realistic” (does that ever matter?) than the sprawling dungeon complexes of many classic games. It’s easy to avoid getting lost in them – the map screen is usually only necessary to see if you missed a corner or closet somewhere where there may be some additional loot.

But they do rub me the wrong way a little. I like my big, sprawling dungeon complexes. And I do like to harp on having choices.  However, a choice between a door on the left or a door on the right – or whether you take the left or right branch in a corridor – is a lousy choice. Without some kind of knowledge about the difference between the two (or more) choices, it’s really no choice at all.

This wasn’t such a problem in the open-ended play of pen-and-paper games. Players could make choices blindly, but they could also use spells and skills to scout out the differences. Were there far more tracks going up and down the left-hand passage? Were there voices behind the south door when the thief listened to it? How about using “Wizard Eye” to check out exactly what’s happening down the hallway?  But in CRPGs, those options are rarely represented, and aside from saving and reloading, there’s often not much of a way to gain any background on which to make that kind of choice. In general I support the idea of removing those kinds of uninteresting choices in the name of “streamlining.”

The difference with some (not all, and not even “most”)  of the mid-to-late classic old-school RPGs was that the levels were not simply maps of isolated encounters.  They weren’t all actually linear designs separated by keys, nor were they just sprawling random encounters arranged randomly. Good level design had all the pieces of the level come together to tell a bigger story or form a larger puzzle. Maybe I’m just looking through +2 Goggles of Rose Tint,  but I seem to recall some levels of certain games (I’m specifically thinking Eye of the Beholder and Ultima Underworld series, but there were no doubt others) where this felt like it was the case.  While the first time you were presented with the choice of going left, right, or straight may have felt pretty meaningless, they all tied together somewhat both narratively (is that a word?) and mechanically.

But my memory is hazy and I may be applying coolness and wishful thinking where there really isn’t much there. If that’s the case… well, there should be!

I don’t hate linear dungeons, but I do think they are not the ultimate answer to the problem.

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 19 Comments to Read

RPGs, IGF, RTFM, KISS, and How Those Acronyms Can Be Used To Make a Better Game

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 16, 2012

I decided to enter the 2012 Independent Games Festival (IGF) in spite of my general feeling that the chance of Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon becoming a finalist was pretty small (over 560 entries this year!). It’s not that the game is unworthy – not at all.  While I’m obviously biased as the creator, I have some nice independent validation that Frayed Knights rocks for its intended audience.  It’s not perfect, and I’m definitely trying to broaden that market for the sequel, but for my first shot (or maybe the second, if you include the pilot) going into beloved old-school RPG territory, I’m quite happy with it.

That’s why I entered the IGF. It felt wrong not to let the game compete. The list of finalists came out last week,  and as expected, Frayed Knights was not among them. While I had no realistic expectations of that actually happening, I have to admit to being a little disappointed. But as I said, it didn’t seem to be an IGF type of game, and admitted as much when I made the submission, though folks on Twitter and at home asked me what I meant by that and I couldn’t really explain it.

Craig Stern of IndieRPGs.com explains why RPGs don’t play well to the IGF.

He’s guessing, of course, but it feels “right.” It also explains a lot about the winners of previous years. Quite simply, the format of the competition dictates which games will do well. This includes the makeup of the judges, the time period, the number of games, the categories, and so forth. While he goes through many more explanations, my own interpretation breaks it down into the following. Games that have the best chance of success in the IGF are:

• Short: Judges can play through a reasonable subset of everything the game has to offer in 15 to 30 minutes.
• Stand Out In Innovative Mechanics or Visuals: This is based on the offered categories.
• Simple: Judges don’t have time to mess with complicated explanations / manuals (no RTFMing here!). The simpler the mechanics are to understand, the better.
• Focused in Scope: Likewise, an extremely polished but limited game will do better than a game that has had to ‘spread out’ the quality over a much larger scope.
• Don’t Emphasize Narrative: Or rather, their narrative elements tend to be revealed visually. Often abstractly.

This explains things much better than my previous vague description: That IGF games were more “artsy-fartsy.” Though I still think that description often holds…

This isn’t really a “fault” of the IGF, and my personal feeling is that any “genre bias” on the part of the IGF is pretty minimal.  It’s simply the structure and reality of a competition, and any other competition would have its own problems. I have read of similar issues with things like the annual Interactive Fiction Competition: By it’s nature, it tends to reward shorter works rather than lengthier. That doesn’t preclude large-format IF titles from winning – they just face more headwind.

The rule with the IGF and similar competitions with limited windows in which judges have to play games is really “K.I.S.S.” This is alternately defined as, “Keep It Short & Simple,” “Keep It Simple, Stupid,” or many variations thereof. But this is something like the arcades of the 1980s – the games that do well are the ones that attract potential buyers from the get-go, are intuitive to play, offer a quick focused experience, and stand out from the competition.

And honestly? Aside from maybe adding an extra category (which would make the awards ceremony even longer), I don’t know if I’d like to see the IGF change to be more accommodating of indie RPGs. If anything – and I know I am treading into heretical territory amongst some old-school RPG purists here and sounding like I’m advocating the approach of modern mainstream RPGs – I think RPGs should look at some of the above criteria as virtues that they should try to embrace a little more.

Should RPGs be shorter? Mmm… maybe. Maybe not. But many could do better about getting to the meat of the game earlier. Simpler? I think simple games appeal to beginners much better, and the judges should be considered beginners. I don’t want every RPG to be a “beginner-level” title, however, and while making a game that appeals to both beginners and veterans to the genres sounds good on paper, doing it right will probably take not much less effort than creating two entirely separate games.

Should RPGs have better/more innovative visuals and/or mechanics? I think RPGs – even those emulating old-school titles – should try to innovate. Admittedly, with the exception of Frayed Knights‘ drama star system, most innovations in this area tend to be a lot lower-key. Maybe it’s something we need to just show off better?  As to better visual presentation… man, that’s a toughie, for exactly the reasons Craig outlined – the breadth of the games makes it impossible to just say, “Work harder at it!”  If a game has 1/20th of your scope and content, it stands to reason the same amount of effort and budget will make it look 20x better. That’s a losing battle from the get-go. But I think there may be some clever work-arounds.

No matter what, an indie RPG should stand out (in a good way) from not only its current indie competition, but any old-school titles that serve as inspiration. Because really – if I can play the original for $5.99 from GOG.COM, Gamer’s Gate, or Steam, why would I want to play your indie title that seems to be doing little more than aping the gameplay and style? The original is probably better. No, your indie title has to offer a unique experience and stand on its own in some way. I should want to play your game because it offers something I can’t get anywhere else. And dang it, the RPG field is so broad and ripe with possibility that really shouldn’t be too hard!

Should indie RPGs be more focused? I’m going to answer this by saying no, I don’t believe they all should, but yes, I’d like to see some more “focused” indie RPGs that really explore the depths of a more limited subset of the genre. There’s a risk of losing the essence of “RPG-ness” if a game does this, but I think this is ripe for indie exploration. What about a game that focuses principally on character creation? Or non-combat interactions? We’ve got some good ones already that focus more on combat and puzzle-solving in RPG style, but I think there’s more that can be done here.

Should indie RPGs de-emphasize narrative? Many already do. Look at the roguelikes. I do think indie RPG creators (and really, ALL game creators, regardless of genre of level of indie-ness) should consider other ways of creating and presenting the narrative. Yes, mainstream RPGs addicted to voice-acting and linear storytelling, this means you, too.

I don’t think “big” RPGs are ever going to do well in any competition structured like the IGF. But I do believe that indie RPG makers can take a few steps that might not only improve their chances, but may also improve the commercial success of their games. And I think if we keep thinking of RPGs in broad terms, there is still an incredibly broad field of untapped potential out there within the genre that is waiting to be explored and tinkered with by innovative game developers.

Get cracking!

Filed Under: Frayed Knights, Indie Evangelism - Comments: 3 Comments to Read



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