Indie RPG News, December 2010
Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 7, 2010
Welcome to the year-end indie RPG news for 2010!
Finding “news” on indie RPGs is a little like exploring a dungeon. Things may be hidden underground for a long time, so that by the time you discover them they may no longer be anything close to new. But they are still news to the explorers, right?
Well, it works for me, at least. You guys are used to my lame intros, right? Anyway, here’s what I’ve managed to drag up to the surface this time:
Labyrinthica
Labyrinthica (man, that’s a tricky one to spell) is a single-player melee combat action game with similarities to roguelikes. The opening story in the video leaves something to be desired, but the gameplay looks pretty fun:
Mark Leung: Revenge of the Bitch
I’d say this doesn’t sound like it qualifies for family-friendly fare. But this single-player RPG for Windows has you playing Mark Leung, “a selfish Communist and hapless Ginseng collector. He finds himself caught in a petty rivalry between two wacko religions — and haunted by his ex-girlfriend to boot. Help Mark as he battles cute, blood-spewing cats, unremorseful loltrolls and the gun-toting McFunny.”
It actually looks pretty impressive, if you don’t mind the style and humor.
Mark Leung: Revenge of the Bitch
Starpoint Gemini
RPGWatch has an interview with developer Little Green Men about their upcoming game that blends the starfaring of Elite-style games with an RPG system. You can check out the official website here:
Magical Diary
Hanako’s upcoming game is about attending a school for wizards and witches. While this may ring familiar with you if you happen to have followed an obscure series of books and movies, this RPG in Hanako’s usual manga-style promises to be different. In Magical Diary, you must learn spells, explore dungeons, and… get a date for the Prom. Yeah. I can tell right now that this one is going to be a guilty pleasure of mine. Besides the dungeon exploration image on the right, Hanako’s released some more screenshots from the game for our entertainment.
Stick RPG 2
A free flash RPG (plus a premium, cool “Director’s Cut” version), Stick RPG 2 was developed by a team that included Rampant Games’ regular community-member, Eedok. Congrats! The game is voluntarily rated “Mature,” so it is again not really family fare. Featuring special abilities like “socially awkward interpretive dancer” and “warped mind,” it’s obviously a very serious, hardcore sim / RPG.
Ella’s Hope
Ella’s Hope is a new(ish) casual jRPG-style game from Aldorlea Games and Eridani Games. In a town where an ancient stone once marked a portal where angels and mortals met, you play a young girl with a mysterious past. Ella’s Hope offers seven playable characters and about thirty hours of gameplay. Here’s a vid of the game opening:
You can download it and play it out here:
Dead State
Doublebear is offering merch. Which will help fund development of this hotly anticipated (at least by me) RPG taking place during a zombie apocalypse.
Frayed Knights
Alpha testing continues. Playability issues have taken first priority, and there have been a lot of ’em. Cosmetic issues (of which there are even more) have taken a secondary position. In theory, alpha’s supposed to be more about fixing issues than implementing anything new, but there have been a few things that have fallen through the cracks that have been newly implemented or overhauled over the last six weeks:
- Changing party order
- Equipment / inventory system simplification
- Trap system simplification & expansion (yes, we simplified & expanded at the same time. Less breadth, more depth.)
- Spell system updates (mainly balance-related issues, so far).
Plus there has been a lot of “Fleshing out” of less well-developed areas of the game, particularly when it became apparent that players were getting lost on what to do next, or where activities were becoming too repetitive.
Telepath RPG: Servants of God
Sinister Design has announced that reduced-price pre-orders of Telepath RPG: Servants of God will become available next week. So here’s your chance to get it for almost 20% off. In addition, you’ll be able to play the game-in-development early, and perhaps make your voice heard before everything is finalized.
That’s what I’ve got for now. Enjoy!
Filed Under: News - Comments: Read the First Comment
And the More Compelling Role-Playing Game Is…
Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 6, 2010
Over the last few days, I spent a some time playing a couple of CRPGs. I try and do that kind of thing. I call it “research,” which is my story and I’m sticking to it. It is kind of a tricky thing, these days, with all the work I’m doing on my own project. I have to consciously make an effort to play them, but then – if they are good – it takes a great deal of willpower to stop after only a little while. I don’t always succeed at either.
In both games, I got past the initial hump / prologue. While I enjoyed them both, I spent a good deal more time playing one of the two than I had intended. That whole willpower thing. The other was easy to put down. See if you can figure out which one sucked me into its world the most:
Candidate #1 is Dragon Age: Orgins
Candidate #2 is Might & Magic Book One: Secret of the Inner Sanctum
If you guessed #1, then there wouldn’t be much story here, would there?
Now I’m going to admit to a little bit of negative bias towards Dragon Age, particularly after their embarrassing “This is the New S**t” ads, and my early-adopter friends calling the game “soulless.” However, I was also interested in seeing what they claimed was a spiritual successor to the Baldur’s Gate series, and now that a year has passed and the hype has died down (and mainly because I could get it cheap, because… hey, I’m cheap), I gave it a test drive. I enjoyed it for three hours, was suitably impressed by the cinematic experience of the whole thing (and by how much the NPCs had to say), and felt confident that I’d get my money’s worth out of the game. Eventually.
But it didn’t really compel me to keep playing. Not like, say, Fallout 3 did (and I expect Fallout: New Vegas will, when I get around to it…)
It was on a whim that I loaded up Might & Magic 1 after that. I’d been going over the old manuals for the games (for legitimate research purposes), and while I have enjoyed some of the later games in the series, I’d never put much effort into the first one beyond putting together an initial party and kicking around Scorpigal a little. I’d put in maybe a grand total of two hours into the game, half of it just to create my party.
I figured I’d put another hour into it – totalling as much as I’d put into Dragon Age, and then make some kind of goofy post about how hard it was to recognize that both games were in the same genre.
But then something happened. My little party, it turns out, was on the cusp of being able to level up (and actually able to afford to do so – a big deal in the early stages of Might & Magic games). I crossed a threshold. My hour was up, and I dutifully quit the game, as I had Dragon Age.
But you know, the game takes only about one second to load up. And I can play it in windowed mode. It’s easily minimized. It is turn-based, so I can just leave it in the background or something while working. So… I thought that maybe it wouldn’t hurt to pop it open for a few quick forays deeper into the world.
The forays kept getting longer. I found myself repeatedly starting up the game for a “quick fix.” The world keeps opening up to me, and I started facing new monsters of unknown ability. And they’d drop equipment I’d occasionally have a use for (Cool, a +1 Flamberge!). And hey, look, third-level spells!
So three hours into the game, Might & Magic 1 kept sucking me back in for more. Dragon Age didn’t, though it seems very, uh, “nice.”
WHY?!?!?
I didn’t expect that, honestly. I mean, okay, I really enjoyed the later Might & Magic titles that I’ve played, but this was the primitive first try. The gameplay was unrefined, still in a nebulous transition between old borrowed D&D rules and its signature future system. And Dragon Age has all those things that I claim I want in a CRPG – tons of world detail, interesting NPCs, a reasonably deep character system (with more customization than you get in Might & Magic 1, for certain!), a solid story so far, lots of mystery… Seriously, the game (so far) is like a checklist of the things I say I want in an RPG. It even makes a big deal out of its Baldur’s Gate-style “real-time with pause” combat that can kinda-sorta work like turn-based combat.
The only answer I have right now is that with the twenty-four year old Might & Magic, I’m playing a game. One I’m familiar with on some levels, but in a new (to me) and exciting world. In Dragon Age, I’m playing through somebody else’s script. This doesn’t usually bug me very much – after all, I’m a fan of many jRPGs. And I can’t say it actually bugs me here, either. But when I noticed that all respawns and XP-gaining opportunities were used up about fifteen experience points shy of level three in the backstory sequence, and feeling an incredible sense of deju vu with the core gameplay (I’m not sure why I didn’t get that with Might & Magic – by rights, the mechanics should feel far more tired), the game just feels like the interactive equivalent of a “popcorn movie.” Enjoyable, but ultimately forgettable.
But Knights of the Old Republic felt the same way in the first few hours, but it ended up becoming a favorite (and not just because it was Star Wars and hearkened back to an era when Star Wars was cool). That was the last Bioware game I really loved. So there’s hope…
We’ll see what happens. Either way, I’m having fun. Just hopefully not so much fun I have to quit cold-turkey in order get my work done.
Filed Under: Design - Comments: 26 Comments to Read
Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie XI
Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 3, 2010
The eleventh (now annual) “Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie!” column by Earnest Adams is up at Gamasutra.com. This year’s Twinkie Denial Conditions include:
* Long, Boring, Unimaginative Boss Battles: Self-healing bosses warrant a special mention in this section.
* Save Points Before Long Non-Interactive Sections: Meaning if you die once you FINALLY regain control and can, you know, play again, you have to sit through the same crap and make-work transitions.
* Movies Without a Pause OR Replay Feature: If you weren’t paying rapt attention when it came up and told you how to win the game, you are SOL.
* Plot Inconsistency With Game Mechanics: The age-old “Why can’t we just use Phoenix Down to save Aeris?” problem
And more!
Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie XI at Gamasutra
Filed Under: Design - Comments: 10 Comments to Read
Expanding My Horizons – Traditional Game Expansions vs. DLC
Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 2, 2010
I think the first-ever commercial “expansion” I ever bought for a game was Wing Commander: The Secret Missions. Followed soon thereafter by The Secret Missions 2: Crusade. It was a novel concept that I was all too ready to get behind. I mean, when you really love a game, at the end you want more. Wing Commander was that game for me. I lost count of how many times I replayed that game, but I do know that around my third full play-through I won the highest medal the game had to offer.
And here were two expansions. Each seemed only a little shorter than the original campaign. Between them, I got to fight new enemy ships, fought “friendly” ships (captured by the Kilrathi), and the chance to fly the signature enemy ship, the Dralthi (AKA the “Flying Pancake”). But mainly, the feeling was that I got to enjoy a lot more game for half-price or less with each expansion.
The next expansions I played were either for Wing Commander 2 (Special Operations) or The Forge of Virtue for Ultima VII. Origin, again. I can’t say they truly pioneered the idea – I’m really not certain on the mainstream / commercial side of things, and I played non-commercial “expansions” or “modules” for games years earlier in games like Eamon. But for gamers like me who really loved the game and couldn’t get more of it, it made sense for the developers to assign a “skeleton crew” to expand the experience for us.
Then at one point (probably about 0.5 seconds after they decided to create an expansion in the first place), they hit upon the idea of re-releasing the game bundled with all of its expansions. Sometimes they might even throw in an extra new bonus or two, like a band’s “Best Of” album, for the gold / platinum / collector’s edition. New players, after hearing praise for the game for months (or years), could jump in on the bundle deal, and even some veteran players would re-purchase the game with all updates and patches pre-applied, and all the expansions in place.
That era’s not gone by a longshot, but the advent of downloadable content (DLC) sure has changed things a bit. Although DLC often still gets bundled up into a single expansion or deluxe edition (which I hope to see happen with Fallout: New Vegas on the PC), it does seem that the expansion concept has been cranked up to eleven. I have nothing against the theory, but I have found myself taking exception with the particulars that seem common:
#1 – It feels like we’re paying more to get less. The most famous example of this was the early “Horse Armor” DLC for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, but it hasn’t stopped there. Part of the problem is that very small transactions tend to have a higher overhead cost than bigger ones – a problem somewhat solved by consoles, which have you buy “points” in bulk.
#2 – The tiny bite-size of expansions themselves is some cause for concern. When they are that small, is it easy to “miss it?” because they are so narrow in focus? Will I have to replay my game to enjoy the expansion? With larger expansions, that’s rarely been a problem, as they historically tried to make sure there was something for everyone to enjoy at any point in the game. The plus side of this a la carte approach is that like buying individual songs instead of albums, you don’t have to pay for things you don’t want.
#3 – An excess of these “micro-expansions” makes things really confusing. I’m really glad I bought the “ultimate edition” of Dragon Age: Origins to enjoy all the expansions… otherwise, there’s a very good chance I would have bought none of them.
#4 – An even more dangerous problem is that some games have felt that they were “unfinished” without the additional expansions. The more games try to market the DLC from inside the game, the more they will feel that way. The perception is that they ripped off parts from the original game in order to sell them as extras. Like a car salesman saying, “Oh, did you want tires for you car TOO?” And while marketing the DLC from inside the game like that might be a more successful short-term approach, in the long term that eroded trust with the customer WILL hurt.
My apologies to those who have suffered me ranting on this in the past already.
I don’t think these are fundamental problems with DLC. At their heart, they are just expansions, and I’ve loved expansions. They are good for game-makers and for the players. I think the problems will eventually go away through plain ol’ Darwinism, but if I were to be so bold as to make some suggestions, as a customer:
#1 – For most games, be careful about overdoing it on the quantity of DLC. Players can do math. When they see that they’ll have to spend $200 to buy the “complete” game with all of the DLC, they’ll balk.
#2 – Offer free DLC. This is a good will gesture to players, first off. But besides that, free bonus DLC can be offered as extra incentive for buying other DLC. “Buy any one of these four content additions, and we’ll give you a free new dungeon to explore.” This may again go a long way to helping players feel like you aren’t just trying to nickel-and-dime them to death.
#3 – Be really, really careful about providing any premium content that apparently just “unlocks” parts of the game. To players like me, that means you are just charging extra for something we should have already received. Ditto for marketing DLC from inside the game. It’s not a flawed practice – Rock Band 3 seems to handle it pretty well – but it needs to be handled carefully so that the players don’t feel like they’ve been duped into buying an incomplete game.
#4 – Offer decent bundle deals, for crying out loud. Give players the option of buying new mecha for $3 a pop, or all twelve for $25. The bundle deals make a traditional-sized expansion. That can simplify the experience for gamers, AND increase the value-to-price ratio. And with the exception of the rabid fans who would have bought everything separately, the publishers will probably generate more revenue this way too, as players opt for a bigger purchase instead of a piecemeal approach.
#5 – Keep the prices down in general. Think about the value to the player. And don’t you DARE compare the cost of DLC to the price of going out to a movie. People are going to movies less because they are so friggin’ expensive as it is, but at least they go they get to be out of the house in some air-conditioned place with stadium seating and a big screen that can double as a social activity. Playing DLC at home is more like renting a video. I’m paying $16 a month for that, how about you? I guess the market will decide, but for me, paying $5 for 5 hours of quality additional gameplay would be a killer deal, but the same price for a new hat and boots would be ridiculous. When in doubt, err on the side of too cheap. More bang for the buck = repeat customers and a good attitude towards DLC in the long run.
Anyway, that’s my opinion, offered free of charge and no doubt worth every penny.
Filed Under: Biz, Mainstream Games - Comments: 10 Comments to Read
I Guess It Could Get Worse
Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 1, 2010
Out of sheer morbid curiosity, on two separate occasions I have tried to watch the Star Wars Holiday Special. I have yet to succeed. I don’t think I’ll ever be up for a third try.
But then, I remember as a child watching it air “live” on its single performance, I was incredibly disappointed and bored with it. Apparently, I did have some powers of discernment even when my age was in the single digits. But then, when something stinks that bad, it’s hard for anybody to fail to recognize it. Except for TV producers in the late 70’s, I guess.
At least it helps me to keep the prequel trilogy in perspective. There are depths of suck that even Jar-Jar himself did not plumb. At least, not yet.
It also helps me understand – to a degree – the paranoid levels of compliance IP holders sometimes demand of their licensees. (I’ve only personally ran into problems with that once, out of two licensed games I’ve been involved with). While they may take it to the extreme, the paranoia is not unjustified.
UPDATE: Corrine R. emailed me with this highly amusing article about the Star Wars Holiday Special:
“9 Reasons You Should Watch the Star Wars Holiday Special.”
I don’t think I’m convinced, quite, but it was a funny read. With parts of the show in bite-sized chunks, so you don’t have to wade through so much of it to see the debut of Boba Fett.
Filed Under: Geek Life - Comments: 5 Comments to Read
The Battle That Rages for Centuries – Or Feels Like It.
Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 30, 2010
I’m a fan of turn-based combat in RPGs. Not to the exclusion of real-time combat, but I love the little tactical mini-game of turn-based combat. I’m one of those people for whom the original X-Com might as well have been brought down from Mount Olympus itself by Promethius (in the hand that wasn’t holding a torch).
But even I have my limits. My number one complaint about Wizardry 8 – which was otherwise a stellar RPG that seemed written specifically for me – was the length of its combat. The seemingly interminable final battle in Persona 3 almost (but not quite) spoiled the game for me, especially as I failed so close to victory the first time and had to replay the whole thing – which took me well into the wee hours of the morning. Stupid save-points. And my love of the classic “Gold Box” games – and their signature tactical combat in the style of miniatures-based 1st edition Dungeons & Dragons games – is tempered somewhat by the memory of some really long, drawn-out fights against random encounters. Particularly in the first game, Pool of Radiance.
I think that when a lot of people think about turn-based combat, that’s what they think of: really long battles that play out very slowly.
I agree. Of course, we all have our own definitions of “slow.” For me, a ten-minute long battle against a very interesting boss in a turn-based RPG can all kinds of fun. I love that kind of deep, meaty battle. But even a three-minute long fight against a Generic Bandit Group for the tenth time this session can seem far too long.
So I’m not really sure how long “too long” really is, even for me. I don’t usually track the time I spend in turn-based RPGs fighting. If the battles are fun, the time passes quickly, and the only indication I have of their length is when I look at the clock and think, “That can’t be right,” because there’s no way two hours has passed. On the other hand, the boring ones feel like they take a century.
So battle duration is really kind of a subjective thing for me. All I do know is that it’s hard for any single fight to stay interesting to me after twenty minutes. No matter how awesome. But those big X-Com battles didn’t rarely felt like single fights.
Filed Under: Design - Comments: 18 Comments to Read
Just so you know it CAN be done…
Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 29, 2010
So this is kinda ancient, but I’m hoping I’m not the only one who hasn’t seen it:
Not only can the M249 be fired single-handedly, but dual-wielded as well.
Note that being able to move (or, apparently, even not stumble backwards), fight, or even hit anything beyond pure random chance while doing this doesn’t seem to be part of the question being answered here – only that it can be done.
I’m sure in D20 there could be a feat for that…
Filed Under: General - Comments: 11 Comments to Read
So Maybe You Can’t Sell a Million Turn-Based RPGs Anymore, But…
Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 26, 2010
I really do admire the CDProjekt guys, and their attitude overall towards RPGs, even though they are going even more action-oriented. I was going to come up with an awesome retort, though, to Tomasz Gop’s recent Eurogamer interview, where he explained their rationale. And amusingly ribs Mass Effect a little.
So I was gonna say something like the above title, and prove myself wrong by looking up Persona 4‘s numbers. I mean, surely, world-wide, this quirky, off-beat RPG with turn-based combat sold a million copies worldwide? Woops. Nope. Only 110,000 copies sold in North America – beneath expectations. It did substantially better in Japan, selling 300,000 copies. But still – that’s less than a half-million total copies.
Very few PC RPGs ever broke a million sales, and I think they’ve all been action-RPGs. The Witcher, Diablo I and II, Dungeon Lords (surprisingly), Dungeon Siege, etc. Gop also talks about their console direction, and makes the very straightforward point that it simply makes business sense. Although the PC sells smaller numbers, the profit margins are traditionally higher, and digital downloads push them higher still. But still… if you figure 100,000 sales is all you are going to make, that’s still a pretty small budget these days. Maybe enough for a dozen full-time people to work on the game for a couple of years.
So unless some genius figures out how to make AAA quality games for 1/10th of the price, or some surprise niche turn-based RPG comes out of left field and sells millions of units and changes everybody’s math, I don’t think holding one’s breath waiting for a revival of AAA-quality western-style turn-based RPGs is a wise move. Even the jRPGs are moving in the action-based direction.
So for those who like the more cerebral pace, it’s really going to have to come from the indies. That should come as a shock to nobody, right? The big question is, I suppose, is what’s possible now? Back in 1990, you could throw fifteen man-years at a game and get something like Ultima Underworld or Might & Magic 3: Isles of Terra, and have a reasonable expectation of breaking even. I think for indies today, it’s more like three.
On the plus side, we have digital distribution, alternative advertising methods, and much better tools and technology to work with. But on the downside, we’ve got major downward price pressure in spite of two decades of declining dollar value, plus a much more crowded playing field that makes it challenging to even give away a game at those levels.
It’s a challenge I’m glad to see the indies tackling. With higher-profile upcoming indie games like Avadon: The Black Fortress (Spiderweb), Age of Decadence (Iron Tower), Eschalon: Book 3 (Basilisk), and Dead State (Doublebear) – plus many others on the horizon – I think the near future is bright for those stalwarts who crave some western-style turn-based CRPG goodness. If there’s a chance of that style of game to make something of a resurgence and push the boundaries of what is commercially viable for what has now become a “niche” subgenre, this is a good one.
Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 16 Comments to Read
Thanksgiving Indie Deals
Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 25, 2010
Happy Thanksgiving, to those of you for whom this applies (which, by my last calculation, is only about half of you). For everyone else, Happy Thursday. Hope it’s a great one.
There are a whole bunch of discounts ‘n stuff going on right now with the usual portals (I just picked up an el cheapo copy of Alpha Protocol, myself – though it’ll still be downloading for several hours). But I wanted to point out a couple more opportunities.
Eschalon Black Friday Sale
If you buy Eschalon: Book 2 from Rampant Games – or any other direct affiliate, or directly from Basilisk Games – on Friday, November 26th, 2010 – you will get a FREE copy of Eschalon: Book 1. If you’ve been holding out starting on this series, now’s your big chance. Just be sure to buy it Friday (But I’m not exactly sure what time zone counts for the start and end of the promotion…)
ESCHALON: BOOK 2 – buy on Friday and get Book 1 for free!
Tycoon Games Bundle Sale
Until Monday, November 29th, you can get four visual-novel style games from Tycoon Games for the price of one. Heileen, Heileen 2, Summer Session, and Bionic Heart for only $19.99.
Enjoy!
Filed Under: Deals - Comments: Comments are off for this article
Frayed Knights: Searching for Trouble
Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 24, 2010
Not everything in Frayed Knights, the tongue-in-cheek indie RPG in development at Rampant Games, is immediately visible.
There are booby-traps designed to injure, impede, or kill the unwary adventurer. Monsters may set up an ambush, allowing them a free turn of surprise attacks on their victims. Many treasures are hidden behind loose stones or lost in the grass or buried away where they are unlikely to be discovered by accident. There are even a few secret doors tucked away.
In all cases but the hidden treasure, you can stumble across them by accident. If you manage to pass your cursor over a section of wall and see it turn interactive and labeled “Secret Door,” then bingo – you’ve found a secret door. And there’s always a chance you’ll discover the trap or ambush moments before falling prey to it if you blindly walk into it.
But if you suspect trouble (or hidden loot), maybe because of a cryptic riddle or comment from an NPC in town or telltale signs in the general vicinity suggesting a hidden something nearby, you can also search for it.
Searching isn’t free – it takes a turn. This means duration effects go closer to expiration, and that there’s a chance wandering monsters in the area might take note of you. So it’s not something you’ll want to do willy-nilly every few steps. But when the situation warrants it, you can be initiate a search via hotkey, or by clicking the magnifying glass in the command amulet in the lower right of the screen.
Searching gives you a chance of discovering anything hidden nearby. It uses the best skill of everyone in your party. Particularly valuable in the case of traps and ambushes, it allows you to discover them without setting them off. If you discover a trap, you’ll immediately be taken to the trap-disarm screen and given a chance to deal with it. If you discover an ambush, you trigger the combat immediately – but the would-be ambushers do not get a free surprise round to attack you with impunity. For secret doors – well, you are simply alerted that there is one nearby, so you can poke around a little more carefully.
Hidden treasures are another case. While you have to be very close to uncover the treasure itself, the skill works at a fairly long range, informing you of your relative proximity to something hidden. There’s a descriptive text, plus a number to give you a relative range. But it won’t give you a direction. You’ll have to play a little game of Hot-Cold to triangulate and find the stash you are looking for.
Filed Under: Frayed Knights - Comments: 8 Comments to Read
Show Me The Games!
Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 23, 2010
One day, I hope to have Frayed Knights as part of this… but I have to, you know, release it first and stuff.
So what’s going on with this? Fundamentally, it’s kind of an advertising cooperative amongst indies. Not really much more than that… but having a common place for people to find “real” indie games is convenient.
Filed Under: Indie Evangelism - Comments: 3 Comments to Read
When You Build a Giant Juggernaut Monster in a Dungeon…
Posted by Rampant Coyote on
… it’s good policy to make sure it can actually fit out the door.
I was playing the Temple of Elemental Evil a little more, and ran into the Juggernaut. A big temple statue water-god statue thingy. Maybe there was a better way to defeat it, but it was almost impossible to hit and could kill my characters in a single round in melee. However, the idiot priests of the evil water elemental whatever hadn’t actually made sure it could fit through the door. So after dispatching the priests and gargoyles with spells and ranged effects (or letting them come to me through the door), I fought this thing… which was almost impervious to spells, very hard to hit, and resistant to damage … by simply shooting it with about three hundred arrows, crossbow bolts, and sling stones.
It was long, slow, and boring, but it seemed the best way to take care of the problem to me.
It wasn’t really Troika’s fault – they were adapting an existing module as literally as they could. As far as I’m concerned, a DM running the original AD&D module should have allowed the same strategy to work back then. It’s just that on paper it’s harder to visualize that sort of thing sometimes. Or you can hand-wave and explain how a giant Rock Lobster can squeeze through the doorway…
Filed Under: Retro - Comments: 5 Comments to Read
Eight Tips to Help You Finish Your Indie Game
Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 22, 2010
A request for suggestions in the forums over the weekend reminded me of some advice I’ve often given to indies. Though, considering how long it has been since I have released a commercial indie game, I wonder how much of a hypocrite I am giving out any kind of recommendations. But hey, if nothing else, I can serve as a clearinghouse of third-person suggestions, right? None of these pieces of advice originated with me, but I do believe ’em (even if I don’t always follow them).
1. Keep It Simple
I’ve often said that indies really, really need to keep it simple. Particularly when first starting out. What “simple” means is deliberately left a little loose. What’s simple to an experienced, veteran game developer might be hopeless for a newbie. I caught a little bit of grief over my “game in a week” project because of this – because what was possible for me was far more complex than most beginners could achieve. The telling thing for me, however, was how little of my intended scope I was able to implement in that time.
But especially for a first-time project, keep it simple. Painfully so. Cut your design down to the smallest, purest levels of gameplay. Strip down your art requirements. Make something that you feel absolutely certain that you could finish in under a month with time to spare. With that, you’ve got a chance of being done inside of half a year. Because these things always take much, much longer than expected.
#2 – The Secret of Scheduling and Budgeting
I’ve frequently been asked, “How do you calculate the schedule for your game design?” Now, if I were the one to ask on a question like that, Frayed Knights would have shipped a year and a half ago. But really, what it really comes down to is establishing a baseline through a history of projects, and comparing your current project against it. If you have a new team put together, it’s going to be very hard to nail down a projected schedule in advance. This is especially true if it is a team of part-time indies volunteering their efforts for a stake in the final release. What are their capabilities? How fast can they develop? How motivated will they be when the initial honeymoon period has worn off and they are down in the trenches turning a proof-of-concept into a real, robust game?
Thus the advice of starting small and simple, above. That can serve as a baseline.
One almost universally employed trick is to do all you can to break the design down into a series of smaller tasks. They should be broad enough to encapsulate the entire game (and yes, no matter how hard you try, you’ll discover additional tasks at the end that were never considered), but small enough to be able to wrap your head around and complete in a reasonable, finite period of time. Say, a week. Maybe two, at the outside. If you find that each team member has a hundred tasks that should take one month each, you’ve probably uncovered a flaw in your project plan – namely, the scope of the project.
Assuming everyone has about 8-20 tasks that should “average” about a week to complete, measure the actual time to completion as the tasks get knocked down. If all your one-week tasks are taking three weeks and your two-week tasks are taking six weeks, you’ll know you underestimated task completion time by a factor of three. Now you have some data on which you can estimate project completion time. Then double it. ‘Cuz you’ve missed almost half the tasks that should be on your list.
#3 – Make It Playable as Fast as Possible
Get as much of the game integrated into an actual, playable game as quickly as possible. Even if 90% of the features and gameplay are missing. You need to be working with a functioning prototype as quickly as possible.
There are hundreds of good reasons for this, but the biggest one is that when your game transitions from being a “paper prototype” in a design document to a real, working prototype, it is going to evolve and change. The sooner that happens, and you discover all the holes and changes that need to be addressed, the faster and cheaper it will be for you in the long run. You don’t want to wait until the last minute to find out that all of your levels need to be re-done to include AI pathing data and a different collision system.
And the sooner your game is playable, the sooner you can find out what works, what doesn’t, and what you should focus on for the final product, the better the final product will be.
#4 – Develop a Cautious Relationship with Scope / Feature Creep
Inevitably, as your game goes from being a simple concept on paper to an actual, playable game, you will get a better idea of what’s fun, what’s not, what would make the game better, and (if you are good) what should be removed to make the game better.
Scope creep (AKA feature creep) happens naturally. And it is not, as some managers might say, always a bad thing. Making games is more art than science, and sometimes the most awesome, killer ideas that “make” a game are the ones that occur to the developers late in development.
Feature creep can be your biggest ally, but can also destroy you. If you tried to implement every good idea, you’d never finish your game. You need to respond aggressively to it – keep it if it’s got the potential to really kick the game into high gear, or use it to replace a weaker existing feature that should be dropped (ideally before you’ve spent much time on said weaker feature), or nip the idea in the bud.
Or use suggestion #7, below.
#5 – Be Able to Carry the Project on Your Back
There’s a tendency for many first-time indies to band together for a common project, each contributing to a shared vision of a dream game. Unfortunately, these collections of pooled effort almost always end badly, shortly after the first “key” member of the project drops out.
My general feeling is that unless the indie is running a full-time studio with real employees, every project should be scoped as if it was a “lone wolf” solo effort. There should be one person in charge, and that person should be the one most capable of carrying the project on his back – doing it all himself – if need be. This doesn’t mean he should do it all himself, only that – if all else failed – he could. And he should seriously be “in charge,” capable of replacing any person on the team – with his own efforts, contractors, or a new recruit.
Otherwise, you have a “weakest link” problem.
#6 – When In Doubt, Cut It Out
When you find that things are taking too long, especially when they are threatening to send the development process into limbo (I’ve been there many times, thanks…), there are several approaches you can take. Lots of project management tools you can choose from. At least, so I’m told. I only know of a few. You can search for bottle necks, re-assign tasks, bring in additional help, find out ways of automating routine tasks, etc.
Or – best of all, you can “scrub out” tasks. Simplify. Cut it out. Back when I was working on the original Twisted Metal game, we used to call the producer at SingleTrac, Scott Campbell, “Sargent Scrub.” He wore the nickname with pride, I think, because he was so quick to scrub lower-priority features and levels. The funny thing is, I can’t remember any of the undoubtedly cool-sounding features that were cut. In the end, the game was a success without them. He made the right call. It kept us on schedule, and allowed us to devote time to the more important parts of the game.
#7 – Save It For the Sequel
I’m sorry to tell you this, but in the end, your game will probably not be all that you dreamed it would be. Things won’t have worked out as you planned, the quality won’t be quite what you wanted, and there will be all kinds of features you really wanted to see in there. It will never be perfect.
Guess what? That’s what sequels are for. You can iterate forever in a vacuum, or you can get your game out the door, get feedback from your audience, and release a sequel that is better than your original game would have been after even ten years of development. Even if you have no current plans for a sequel, keep it open as a possibility so you can toss ideas in that mental file with less guilt.
#8 – Power Through the Valleys
In every project, you are going to hit peaks and valleys of productivity. The valleys follow the peaks naturally – after some awesome new additions to the game get implemented, you go through a patch where you have to debug, refine, optimize, and lay the foundation for the next big feature. It can sap morale, as so much effort goes into development with little to show for it.
I don’t know of any silver bullet to help with these times, other than to understand that they are a natural part of development, and don’t spell the “death” of a project unless you allow it to be so. Expect them, and be prepared to power through them.
One trick I used when developing Void War was to arrange my task list (of “mini-tasks”, usually ones that would only take an hour or so) into groups of “fun” tasks, painful tasks, and tasks for things that would enhance the playable game immediately. I’d then complete these tasks in groups of three. Powering through the painful tasks (like fixing a collision bug) and the not-so-fun tasks that would make obvious (morale-boosting) improvements to the final game would bring me closer to being able to work on a “fun” task again.
So there you go – eight tips to hopefully help you finish your indie game. Strangely enough, the closer I get to the finish line on mine, the more valuable I see these tips in helping me get there again, too.
Good luck, and have fun.
Filed Under: Game Development - Comments: 13 Comments to Read
Indie RPG News Tidbits…
Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 19, 2010
This isn’t going to be an exhaustive news update… just some interesting bits of value:
Deadly Sin and Deadly Sin 2
I just got a notification that these games have had their price reduced to a mere $9.95 each. I have no further details than that. I have not yet updated my affiliate pages for these games to reflect the price change (I’ll do that tonight), or how permanent the change will be… but if you are looking for cheap JRPG-style entertainment for the weekend, these are pretty decent.
Download Deadly Sin 2: Shining Faith
Din’s Curse: Demon War
The expansion for Din’s Curse has now been officially announced and named. Entitled “Din’s Curse: Demon War” it… well, I’ll just copy Steven’s press release, ‘cuz I’m lazy and pressed for time:
Dallas, Texas, November 18, 2010 – Soldak Entertainment today announced Din’s Curse: Demon War.
Din’s Curse: Demon War is the first expansion for the unique action RPG Din’s Curse. Din’s Curse is a single player and co-op multiplayer action RPG for Windows and Mac PCs with 141 class combinations (196 with the expansion), infinite number of dynamically generated towns, real consequences, and a dynamic, evolving world.
The demons of Aleria are furious! After the 4th Great War and necromancer Ciglio’s death, the undead horde has been causing utter chaos, attacking everything that moves… even demons. Demonkind were quite happy when Serina, a human city, was overrun, but that was before thousands of human zombies poured into Kraval, slaughtering the huge demon city. Thus began the Demon War. Demons of all kinds are fighting back. They’re hunting down and killing any undead they find. Oh, and they blame the humans for this entire mess. For spite, they razed Serina to the ground even though it was already deserted.
As a servant of the mighty Din, it’s your responsibility to safeguard humans from danger. This was a hard task before. Do you have what it takes to save humankind from the Demon War?
Din’s Curse: Demon War is scheduled to be released in the 4th quarter of 2010, however it will be released when it’s done. For more information about Din’s Curse head over to http://www.soldak.com/Dins-Curse/Overview.html
The Witcher 2
The Witcher was one of those weird indie-gone-mainstream kinds of stories. I believe it still counts. Especially since CDProjekt, the parent company (or sister-company?) of GOG.COM, announced this week that they are making the sequel available, DRM Free, on GOG.COM, and opened up pre-orders. Those who pre-order get a 10% discount and a whole bunch of freebies. Including a free game from a selection of GOG.COM’s RPGs. And just for pre-ordering (pay nothing now until the game’s release May 17th), you get some artwork, photos, and some bonus MP3 music tracks. Cool deal. You can check it out here:
Preorder The Witcher 2 at GOG.COM
Now they say this is a one-shot deal and they are NOT going to start offering a bunch of new games after this. So no need to come up with a new name for GOG to stand for…
And I guess I’ll have to finish the original game sometime between now and May 17th…
Driftmoon
Indie developer Instant Kingdom is now taking pre-orders for their upcoming indie RPG, Driftmoon. Pre-orders get early access to the game (as in, now). You can check it out here:
Instant Kingdom Official Website – Driftmoon Pre-order
From the press release:
Driftmoon is an adventure-oriented roleplaying game, with focus on storytelling, exploring and quests. In the beautiful world of Driftmoon there are always plenty of things to find and people to meet, and instead of fighting everything that moves, you can sometimes talk your way through. Driftmoon features a unique combination of adventuring, roleplaying and exploration elements with refreshing personal twists and surprises.
The preorder includes the current version of the game, access to regular alpha builds, and the final version of Driftmoon, when it is completed. Preorderers also receive the powerful editor of the game, equipped with rich possibilites to create their own game worlds.
This is a veteran indie developer, best known for their survival adventure game Notrium, so I wouldn’t be too worried about the game’s release.
So there’s some quick tidbits. Got more! Post ’em in the comments or in the forums!
Filed Under: General - Comments: 6 Comments to Read
The Tale of the Double Crossbow
Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 18, 2010
In the 1985 movie Ladyhawke, Captain Navarre (played by Rutger Hauer) had a nifty little weapon that was effectively two crossbows connected together – a double crossbow. I don’t think any such thing ever existed, historically, and I doubted its effectiveness. Now, I’ve fired a double-barreled rifle (with two triggers, even) – and even a double-barreled black-powder rifle – so the concept isn’t alien to me. But given the size and bulkiness of a crossbow, bolting two of them together to fire an extra shot like that didn’t seem to make much sense to me.
It sounded like a stupid weapon. Cool, but stupid.
(I should note that this seems to be a fundamentally different design from the Triple Crossbow in Ultima VI and VII, which instead propelled three bolts simultaneously.)
Anyway, we had thin pickings in fantasy movies in 1985. So while Ladyhawke wasn’t all that great of a movie, it still caught on amongst of medievalist / fantasy geeks. Including those of us who spent our weekends doing the medievalist thing, running around in armor beating on each other with padded sticks shaped like weapons. Suddenly, crossbows were the goal. And double-crossbows were doubly cool.
The problem was that out group – Dagorhir – had rules restricting the pull strength of all bows to 35 pounds or less for safety reasons. Our arrows had big foam-padded heads on them that weren’t the greatest in aerodynamic efficiency, and so were already reduced in range and effectiveness. The problem was that historically the smaller bow (or “prod”) size of the crossbow was compensated for by making it a much heavier pull. We didn’t have that option – bow or crossbow, we were limited to 35 pounds. So most Dagorhir crossbow experiments had an effective range of about fifteen feet. And that was for the few successful designs.
Richard, a guy in my unit, had one of the successful designs. And during that post-Ladyhawke summer, he made a double crossbow. Somehow he managed to get it approved in weapons inspection for one battle, and so he went out on his grand experiment, armed with a big shield, a double crossbow, several bolts, and a dagger.
I was with him on one particular engagement early in the day. I was a newbie, and died early, but I got a chance to watch him in action. He found himself surrounded by three enemies. He kept the crossbow concealed behind his shield. His opponents circled him warily, aware that he had a crossbow, but not knowing its true nature.
In these fluid combat situations, you have to constantly keep an eye out for incoming reinforcements on either side. It’s quite common for fighters to be so focused on the opponent in front of them that they become easy prey for anyone else coming from the side or behind. I’d like to think that’s how I bought it this time (I mean, come on… there were three of them!), but I honestly don’t remember. It’s been a long time.
Anyway, these guys were standing a little bit outside of melee range. Because it looked and felt like a melee fight. Richard was standing there (I think in his persona as the monk John David Sinister), with a shield up, crouched in a melee stance. One of them looked away to check the battlefield for any inbound enemies – normally a safe enough thing to do when standing ten feet away with two allies. If your opponent was wielding a melee weapon. If it had been an archer standing with a bow trained on him, he probably wouldn’t have let his guard down.
Unfortunately for him, that was exactly the situation. Richard raised the crossbow up so the bolt was barely over the top of his shield, and fired, hitting the warrior square in the chest. It took the guy a few moments to realize he’d just been fatally hit, and drop to the ground.
One of the surviving opponents had been waiting for just this opening. You see, normally an archer is most vulnerable right after they’ve fired an arrow. If you are close enough to attack them before they can reload, they are in trouble. So the second guy rushed in to attack, but the big ol’ shield meant he couldn’t go straight in for a quick kill. Richard stepped back, raised the crossbow a little higher over the top of the shield, and shot the guy in the head.
(Head shots are illegal in Dagorhir rules EXCEPT for missile attacks – thrown weapons and arrows – so it was legit. And an instant-kill.)
So now he’d killed two of three opponents with his double crossbow, as it had basically thrown them off their game. His third enemy? He mysteriously realized that an ally somewhere else on the battlefield needed his help, and ran off.
Okay, so maybe the idea wasn’t quite so stupid after all.
Filed Under: Geek Life - Comments: 9 Comments to Read
Monster Names in Frayed Knights
Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 17, 2010
Edward Maurina asked me about how I come up with monster names in Frayed Knights. He is on a tight schedule naming monsters, too, so I figured I’d answer sooner rather than later. Though his question did make me think: “How DO I name monsters in Frayed Knights?” While I’m done with all the monsters for the first act, the other two don’t have a full rogue’s gallery of bad guys yet. I’ll need some more.
I don’t any one process, but there are a few places I go for inspiration. But, Ed, I should warn you that monsters in Frayed Knights don’t stay on the serious side.
The conceit of Frayed Knights is that the world should feel like it was designed by a juvenile-minded, over-zealous and under-talented old-school dungeon master for his weekly pen-and-paper RPG. That’s not a big stretch – I’m writing what I know. 🙂 So the humor is not always overt, but I hope that it’s more in how earnestly over-the-top it seems. And that comes through in the monsters, too.
#1 – Traditional monsters
I do have some plain ol’ boring monsters in the game. Like ogres and trolls. Hmmm…. come to think of it, I’m probably gonna have to give them the ol’ descriptor treatment from #2 below, because they are too boring. Okay. Yet another change, coming up.
#2 – Traditional monsters, adjectivized.
I really don’t think “adjectivized” is a word. But then, neither are some of the descriptors I may be using.
When I was in sixth grade, a friend of mine started talking about the “Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker.” He’d heard the name of the bird. While the rest us normal humans would call it, “Some kind of woodpecker,” the more specific taxonomy struck us as hilarious. This was also a common trick to pad out names in games like D&D (particularly later in an edition’s run, when they are struggling for monster ideas themselves).
So the idea of all these zillions of variants running around the world with some kind of spotter’s guide classifying them all, written by adventurers who might be short on creativity or a sense of wonder, sounded like a good idea at the time.
So we have weed goblins. One NPC refers to “diamondback nagas” (referring to snake-women creatures). Juvenile Ceiling Lurkers (as opposed to Adult Ceiling Lurkers, or Floor Lurkers, or whatever…). Brittlebone Skeletons. Etc.
Sometimes the most straightforward descriptors work best. I have some mages that are “Whitelisted.” A local tyrant has outlawed all magic in his domain, except for those who serve him. Theoretically they are only using approved spells under the direct direction of the tyrant. The name isn’t particularly amusing, but it does help tell the story, and simply explain why there are magic users in a place where magic is outlawed.
#3 Adjectivized Monsters with a Thesaural Twist
There I go, making up words again. See? It’s easy! Even for a no-talent hack like me!
In doing #2, I usually try to avoid the really cool-sounding adjectives. Unless they sound amusing when mixed with the monster. A “Feral Goblin” is kinda mundane-sounding, but a “Feral Bunny” sounds pretty stupid, which is right up my alley.
But a lot of the descriptors come out kinda boring, anyway. So I do what any other juvenile-minded, overzealous, low-talent DM would do… I hit the thesaurus. And I grab a synonym for the word I’m looking for, ideally one that’s completely inappropriate, esoteric, or archaic.
#4 – Just Plain Goofy Variants
Gummi Golems. Pus Golems. Paper Mache Dragons. The idea of some absolutely insane variant or mutant is just kinda fun. So I threw them in.
#5 – Words Reminiscent of Other Words…
Pokmor Xang Cultists serve Pokmor Xang, the god of boils, blisters, and pimples. Yeah, I had fun with that one. And the name just sounds silly – the first reason – and it was reminiscent of the word “pockmarked” – a scarring condition that might follow the conditions represented by this god.
Then there’s the god, Nom. The rat-god. There’s an obvious lame joke there, with rats eating everything (“Nom, nom, nom…”), and it was fun to call his worshippers the Rats of Nom (playing on an old children’s book and movie that somehow got stuck in my head). But in-game they are actually called “Nom Rats.”
So there it is. I really don’t know if my monsters and names in this game are actually any good – but Mr. Maurina didn’t ask for good ideas. He just wanted ideas. I’m full of bad ones. 🙂
Filed Under: Design, Frayed Knights - Comments: 5 Comments to Read
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