Tales of the Rampant Coyote

Game Design: Suspended in Groundhog Day!

2010-02-08T05:10:00.000-08:00

I watched the movie Groundhog Day again... on, surprisingly, Groundhog Day. One of the Best Movies Ever, IMO.

I always thought the last line of the movie, "Let's live here! We'll rent to start." was kind of a weak punchline. But this time I got the "oh, DUH!" revelation. This guy has been living in this town for years. Possibly decades, by some of the implications in the film. Director Harold Ramis posits the opinion in the commentary that it was ten years, and later suggested it was probably more like 30 or 40 years. So how could he possibly go back to his old life?

Yeah, sometimes I'm kinda slow that way.

But anyway - I really brought it up to talk about time loops in games. It's apparently been used in games quite a bit. Some examples include the Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, and of course indie game Braid, where manipulating the flow of time is really what the game was about (it was billed at one point as "Groundhog Day" meets "Memento"). There's the Persona 3: FES expansion episode The Answer which takes place inside a one-day time loop. I was kind of disappointed that the time loop didn't play a larger role in the story and gameplay than it did. But it did end up being the big Maguffin plot device that brought the characters into battle against each other, as they took sides over an opportunity to rewrite history - to bring back their fallen friend but risk losing what he sacrificed himself to obtain.

But the game I really think of when I think of the time loops in Groundhog Day was a science fiction text adventure by Michael Berlyn, published by Infocom, called Suspended. It was supremely difficult, IMO. Which is probably why I never beat it. In Suspended, you are a character in cryogenic suspension who's brain has been used as a "living computer" for a central system that keeps a terraformed planet running smoothly and safely. An earthquake has caused a catastrophic failure at the facility, and you awake to full consciousness in communication with several robots who you need to use to repair the facility before too many turns (and too many people die).

If you fail, the population assumes you have gone crazy and are deliberately destroying the world (as, apparently, your predecessor did). They come to the facility and remove you from your suspension - killing you in the process.

Now, the major trick to the game was that each robot was very quirky, having major limitations and a unique ability. One robot always communicated via bizarre poetry about the flow of the electrical systems. Only one robot had visual sensors. Only one had audio sensors. The time limit meant you could not simply move the robots around in one group to get all the information at once to get a clear picture of what was going on and to do everything that needed to be done.

In many ways, the game required you to play it through to failure, many times, to get a better understanding of what was happening and what had to be done. Eventually - well, in theory, as I never got that far - the game would come down to careful management of your robots in some optimal fashion to fix the facility before the angry mob came to kill you. And you could then optimize further to get a better score, or to play at a higher difficulty.

It was a novel concept, and not one often repeated - at least to my knowledge. Maybe because it was so friggin' hard that people got frustrated just getting a handle on what they were supposed to do that they quit. But I think there are ideas there - from the early days of the hobby - which have merit and should be re-explored in modern (indie?) games.

First off - the time loop. Suspended didn't really have one, but as a player you felt like you were in one. The game was very short - it was supposed to be played over and over again until you got it right. What about incorporating that concept right into the game, so that you didn't exactly "lose" the game so much as progress to the next restart.

The other idea was that - in repeating the same scenario - you didn't really control just one character. You controlled several completely independent characters --- the robot. The "you" in Suspended was really a non-entity. You really played the robots - up until the point your frozen meat-suit got sacked. So what about a game of time-loops where you play not just one character trying to "get it right," but several characters, with their interactions compounding on each other. This could be done simultaneously across blocks of turns (which might be confusing), or switched between by player control (as in Suspended), or could be done sequentially - with the formerly player-controlled character becoming an AI-controlled NPC attempting to mimic the player's sequence of actions.

I say attempting to mimic, because the player's currently controlled character could totally change things up - like killing the former player-controlled character and changing that whole timeline.

From a story perspective, this could be a very fun place to explore, too. Do any of the characters have in-game memories of the previous "run?" Do all of them remember the previous runs? Do they know that each other remembers?

And - like my little "duh" moment above - what happens the Next Day? How are they changed? And what happens if there are no "do overs" the next day, but the consequences are almost as dire?

The possibilities seem to be delicious. AND - extra-special bonus - because the game would only simulate one event (say, one day) and a limited number of locations - it could very easily be done by an indie.

GameBanshee Game Of The Year Awards

2010-02-05T07:18:00.000-08:00

RPG site GameBanshee.com has posted its game-of-the-year awards for 2009. They tapped a few folks to help out this year, as this was a REALLY good year for RPG fans.

GameBanshee's 2009 Game of the Year Awards

If you have any bones to pick with the write-up on the indie RPG of the year, then take it out on me. They let me participate, as I don't have any skin in the game this year. But I think a lot of folks here will agree with the choice of the winner. It was the runner-up that was a real challenge. There were a TON of indie RPGs released last year, and many were very high quality. There were at least a half-dozen indie RPGs last year that might have won first or second place in previous years.

And it's only getting better! Or worse, if you are a developer eying the competition, as I am... Since 2007 or so, the "indie RPG" niche has really blossomed in terms of quantity AND quality of games. I wouldn't have believed it in 2004. But then, in 2004 "indie RPGs" largely meant "Roguelikes and Spiderweb Software." And now.... wow. Explosion.

I am thrilled to be involved with it in my tiny way.

My Computers Level Up!

2010-02-05T05:49:00.000-08:00

It doesn't seem all that long ago that my old, now defunct, gaming computer was a brand-new, top-of-the-line model built in part to play the then-new RPG Oblivion at full graphical settings. It had two SLI-linked NVidia 7600s (these were, combined, well over a third of the cost of the entire system), liquid cooling, AMD Dual-Core CPU, a "massive" 300 gig HD, and a lot of awesome.

I bought its replacement from the same place I purchased the original, ibuypower.com. This is my third system I've bought from them, and I won't say for sure it'll be my last. They are a budget gaming system shop - not the only one - but they are kind of the "devil you know." My new system - as an emergency replacement - was a bargain-priced $700 system that came with a 1 gig NVidia 9800GT, a 750 gig HD, Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E8500 (2x 3.16 gHz cores), plus the usual odds & ends. Including a mouse, keyboard, speakers + subwoofer, flash media reader-writer (apparently they picked 'em up on clearance and were adding them for something like $1 to systems), DVD R/W, etc. It's nowhere near the bleeding edge, but it runs rings around my old system. I blame, principally, the intel cores running about 30% faster than my old AMD dual-core machine.

After my wife's system had enjoyed an accident during shipping that broke the HD off the mounting rails and bounced it around inside the bay (needless to say, it didn't work anymore when it arrived), I went ahead and sprung for an improved packing option for this budget beast. I didn't want to have to wait for a replacement to anything. This packing option, from what I could tell, was simply one of those insta-pack bags that fill with foam over the main bay area opposite the motherboard, holding the other cards (all one of them, in my case) in place and cushioned. So they had about a 4x markup on the cost of those bags and a minute of a shipper's time to put it in there. Ah, well.

It may have helped keep the loose screw that was rattling around inside the case from flying out and damaging anything during transit. I was far more disappointed in finding that in my case. I guess QC doesn't shake the system to see if it rattles (probably a good thing), and heaven knows I have done that before when building a system. But it didn't fill me with warm fuzzies when I pulled the system out of the box.

Beyond that, however, the new computer seems to work fine. The only other pains I experienced were self-inflicted. I opted to use my old hard drive as the main HD. Lacking any extra mounting rails, I had to use the ones from the old system - which are a little too big. So now I can't close the side-panel on the system until I get new rails (or I get creative with a cutting device). Because the system was so sparse on the inside of the mid-tower, it was easy for me to plug in the second hard drive, and swap cables around to make the old one the default master.

Man, I remember when I had to change pins and plug in much uglier ribbon cables with a twist for the slave system to do this stuff - computers are definitely easier to work with on the inside now!

With that all done, the new system booted and with some adjustments and loading in of new drivers, it looked like my old system. I had to reactivate Windows, Symantec Anti-Virus, and a couple other pieces of software that balked at me changing all my underlying hardware. Unfortunately, one of the programs refused to reactivate due to server issues - Torsion, by Sickhead Games. It's an editing tool for Torque-based development. However, it still let me use it - with only a nag screen at the beginning - so it wasn't a crushing problem. (Update: Sickhead very quickly let me know that they are aware of the problem and are working on resolving it.)

I also had to remember how to set up the secondary hard drive, format it, and give it a drive letter under Windows XP. Yes, I'm still using XP. But a quick Google search refreshed my memory, and it's working great now --- with 720 gigs of space still free!

The new system doesn't have wireless, either... so I was forced (!) to plug actual cables in through my old switch. For my pain, I was rewarded with much faster Internet access, making me wonder why I didn't give up on the wireless-ness on the old system a long time ago.

So - except for the mounting-rail issue and Torsion's activation glitch, I seem to be good to go with the new system. Of COURSE I had to test it out, and I was quite pleased. Everything seemed to run faster. While I didn't notice a much faster frame rate in Left 4 Dead (it already ran very well on the old system), it definitely loaded faster. I blame the CPU.

And - major bonus - Fallout 3 runs on the new system! I never got far past the exit from the vault before, as I was dealing with crashes and hangs that often required a system reboot every 5-10 minutes. I had zero problems with the new system. So it feels like I have a new game to go with my new machine.

The joys of hardware upgrades weren't done there, however. A friend of mine recently upgraded the memory on his antique Dell laptop of the same era as mine. He gave me his old memory cards - which doubled the RAM on my laptop. A quick test (I didn't want to pull myself away from the new desktop) made me feel like I had an all new laptop. Apparently Windows, the anti-virus software, and the various drivers really, really want to combine forces to eat a half-gig of RAM all by themselves. Since that's all the memory the computer had to begin with, it made for a painful experience. Now, however, it is ripping along contentedly. Frayed Knights ran *GREAT* with the full gig of RAM. Previously "problem" zones loaded & lit very quickly. We're talking about about more than an order of magnitude improvement in load times.

The machine even seemed to boot faster. This makes me very happy.

So now I have two zippier computers to work with. Neither are souped-up gaming powerhouses, but they are plenty appropriate for my needs. For now, at least, geek life is good.

(UPDATE: Corrected the specs. It was late at night when I typed those --- apparently my brain had already logged off for the night).

Game Design - Pulp Fiction - and Games, Part 2

2010-02-04T06:10:00.000-08:00

Let's continue on with Lester Dent's pulp fiction formula and gaming. I want to make a few notes before moving forward:

a) I'm not advocating adherence to formula, ESPECIALLY not a formula created for a completely different medium. I'm more interested in understanding why the formula worked, and how some elements might be applied to help make more interesting stories in video games.

b) Dent's formula is intended for pulp-action thrillers, which share many similarities to most game stories, but definitely not all. It's an even looser fit for a comedic game like The Secret of Monkey Island (or Frayed Knights) - but the comparisons are probably still appropriate.

c) A great game and a great story are two different things - and often the goals of story and gameplay are at odds with each other. IMO, the best we can do is find a nice sweet spot somewhere in the vast field between them. But Dent's little formula is far from the only way to tell a good story, and it's certainly not a limiting factor in making a great game. We're digging for ideas here, not criticisms.

What Should Happen First

Dent next talks about what should happen in the first 1500 words. That's about... uh, six pages of text, and about nine minutes of reading time. We'll say ten minutes. The first ten minutes of a game are pretty critical, too. While I give RPGs and adventure games a little more leeway than I do, say, a FPS, the fact remains that if a game hasn't hooked me in within the first ten to twenty minutes, I probably won't play it long enough to enjoy the other 1490 minutes of fabulous story and gameplay it promises.

This also represented the first quarter of a 6,000 word pulp adventure story. So some of these ideas might be more appropriate for something to happen in the first, say, quarter of a game than in the first ten or twenty minutes.

But regardless, there are some valuable nuggets of advice to be mined here. So what advice does Lester Dent give to writers for the first ten minutes of his pulp action story? And do they apply to game stories, especially adventures and RPGs?

Introduce the Hero and Swat Him with Trouble

"First line, or as near thereto as possible, introduce the hero and swat him with a fistful of trouble. Hint at a mystery, a menace or a problem to be solved--something the hero has to cope with."

I don't know if there's a more appropriate tidbit of advice for games to steal. Nevermind that Dent ends sentences with a preposition (I do, too).

While some modern games (I'm looking at YOU, Final Fantasy XII!) might get a little too excited to show off their cool CGI opening sequences to get around to introducing the hero, that's not usually much of a problem.

The part about the menace is a bit more interesting. I don't know if this is usually done in the name of a gentle introduction or what, but too often the real trouble or menace or some other form of compelling need is doled out a little slowly, especially in RPGs. Instead, you find out about rats in Matilda's basement that need to get cleared out if you find the time...

The interesting thing here is that Dent seems to suggest that the hero and the conflict / menace / whatever be introduced almost simultaneously. This may not be the true menace of the overall storyline, but it should be a hint of it. In a variation I've found in some stories (and games), the hero may be completely unaware of the menace - but the audience (reader / player) is not. It's been made clear in an intro sequence or prologue or some sort of foreshadowing that Something Bad is on a collision course with the hero.

I think there are more good examples, at least among commercial CRPGs of the last decade or so, than bad ones. While the use of an amnesiac hero is unfortunately a bit trite on its own, Eschalon: Book 1 opens with a nice personal mystery of his own identity. In Fallout, the Vault Dweller is introduced pretty much simultaneously with the need to locate a replacement water chip. Aveyond starts with a battle between a demon warrior and a priestess, embroiling young Rhen in a rescue and world-shaking matters before she's even old enough to do much about it. Ultima VI starts with the protagonist - the Avatar - kidnapped by gargoyles and about to be made a sacrifice upon an altar before being rescued by old friends - pursued by gargoyles the whole time.

Jumping Into the Fray

"The hero pitches in to cope with his fistful of trouble. (He tries to fathom the mystery, defeat the menace, or solve the problem.)"

It SHOULD go without saying here, but the player (or at least the character) should have a chance to deal directly (but perhaps unknowingly) with the Looming Threat as quickly as possible.

Instead of, say, grinding for XP to take out rats first.

Of course, the player character at this point is probably not quite ready to impact the forces of unpleasantness in any noticeable fashion, but that's besides the point. A token victory, or simply obtaining a clue that can set the player character(s) on the path may be all that is needed.

Character introductions

"Introduce ALL the other characters as soon as possible. Bring them on in action."

Okay. I agree with the actual suggestion here, but not necessarily the timing. A long story deals in the characters over time, but having most of the principles introduced in the first quarter of the story is important. This includes the Big Bad - the "Foozle" as Scorpia used to call him. While he may not necessarily need a full-on on-screen introduction, but his presence should be noted.

Persona 3 (which unfortunately overdid the non-interactive or limited interaction sequences at the beginning of the game) handled this pretty well. By the time you get into your first fight, the player has been introduced to the protagonist; future team-mates Yukari Takeba (who appears ready to pull a gun on the protagonist when they first meet - though appearances can be deceiving), Mitsuru Kurijo, and Akihiko Sanada; the "chairman" Shuji Ikutsuki; and the mysterious boy with the annoying voice Pharos - who has two other incarnations throughout the game.

Physical Conflict

"Hero's endeavors land him in an actual physical conflict near the end of the first 1500 words."

Time for some combat. Or not. The point here is physical conflict... some action. It could be a chase scene, too. Or something action-y, even for a non-action medium like most adventure games. Something exciting.

In my opinion, the take-away here for computer games would be to kill the exposition early on and get to some good interactive action! Especially with fantasy and science-fiction RPGs, there's a tendency to ramble on and on with exposition in the early stages of the game. This comes with attempting to introduce the hero and plot in an unfamiliar world.

But while the exposition is necessary, it doesn't need to be in the form of a front-loaded data-dump. Star Wars opened with a battle with no explanation of who the good guys or bad guys were - the audience picked it up as they went along. Ditto with The Matrix - I had no clue what was going on in that opening Trinity sequence, but I loved what I saw and I was ready to learn more when Trinity made her escape through the telephone. Likewise, I was happy to run along battling guards and robots in Final Fantasy VII and only learn between quick fights who I was and why I was doing it.

A Plot Twist or Reversal

"Near the end of first 1500 words, there is a complete surprise twist in the plot development."

Should a 20+ hour story in a videogame have a plot twist this early into things?

I don't know. I will say that as a player, little surprises throughout the game that shake my expectations can help me retain interest. It doesn't always need to be some big M. Night Shyamalan shock like discovering what really happened to Darth Revan. But Dent provides a great example about the hero trying to rescue somebody named Eloise who can explain the secret behind the sinister events... only to find out that Eloise is a ring-tailed monkey.

This sounds much more satisfying and interesting twist than, "But our princess is in another castle!"

So - a twist in the first ten minutes? It might be early, but it may not always be too early... I'd suggest some good surprise or twist before the first hour mark is highly recommended. Hey - I was totally not expecting what happened to Rhen in Aveyond right after she rescued the princess... but that surprise was probably what hooked me on the game.

The First Few Minutes Checklist

"SO FAR: Does it have SUSPENSE?
Is there a MENACE to the hero?
Does everything happen logically?"

I think Dent's questions here are appropriate as-is in any game story in the first ten (or at least twenty) minutes. Interestingly, the first question applies to the player - is there a mystery to intrigue or at least interest him or her? The second question applies to the player's character - are they in some kind of personal danger - from a life-threatening pursuit to the danger of being sent to military school? And the third question is simply checking the integrity of the plot.

So what's your take so far? Can you think of other examples or applications? Is this even an interesting exercise? Does it make you look at any of your favorite games differently?

Time to Cast "Transmute Blog"

2010-02-03T06:06:00.000-08:00

As you may have deduced by the little toolbar on the top of the blog, Tales of the Rampant Coyote has been a blogger-based blog for the five-and-a-half years of its existence. And - may I add a tangent - HOLY CRAP how have I been doing this so long?

Anyway, I'm among the 0.5% of people using Blogger who used their FTP publishing system to publish the blog to my own website. It seemed like a clever idea at the time... they were part of Google and not going away anytime soon, I wouldn't have to worry about maintaining and updating my own software, they could worry about security issues, they maintain the database, backups, etc.

But - alas - Blogger has decided to cancel their support of FTP-based publishing. And to be honest --- at over 1700 posts, the blog has become a bit unruly for maintenance. After all, if I make a change to the page template, it has to update 1700 pages to make the changes. It's not a very scalable solution.

And so, not with a heavy heart but rather a heart stricken by minor panic, I have to decide what to do next.

Lest you fear, I have no intention of letting the blog go away. That's not even on the table. I have no idea why you folks subject yourselves to the torture of my endlessly verbose ruminations, but for some reason you do. It's not like I'm some kind of ivory-tower expert on my subjects... in general, you guys collectively know a lot more about what I'm writing about than I do. I learn from our discussions. This has been a great experience for me, and I selfishly want to continue it.

Unfortunately, I'm not nearly as web-savvy as I should be, nor am I up-to-speed on the latest blog solutions out there. Which is why I'm discussing this out loud here on the blog, in hopes that some of you who know much more about it than I might chime in with free advice.

Now, I could go ahead and create a new domain and go through Blogger's own web servers. I'm a little concerned about splitting up my domain like that. Originally, the whole point of the blog was to build up content and traffic for the "real" website, Rampant Games. Granted, over time, Tales of the Rampant Coyote has gained a life of its own. But still... I'm about the games.

Assuming I don't want to do a massive site relocation (although there's definitely the chance the URL might change), something like WordPress might fill the bill. I'm concerned about keeping that one updated, however - especially when the various widgets & so forth that I'd want to make / use might get in the way of easy updates.

I have looked at software like Drupal in the past, but I wasn't pleased with what I saw. It seemed like too much work, not enough flexibility.

It would be NICE to be able to tie the blog (and comments, and logins) directly with the Rampant Games Forums. That's PHP BB. There's usually an endless spam-battle going on there, but I'd love to see tighter integration.

As far as the current blog - I've got way too many links over the last five years to nuke the existing pages. So the current blog will stay, maybe with one last hurrah massive update to direct all the pages to the "new" blog. I may re-publish the "best of" pages with the new blog software over time (while leaving the old pages intact), although it'd be nice to magically migrate the whole thing over to the new system. And while I'm wishing, I'd also like a million dollars. And a pony.

Anyway- so while I'm in deep data-gathering mode, I thought I'd solicit opinions here. After all, you guys & gals are the people I'm writing for. Opinions / suggestions / bits of advice?

Game Design: Pulp Fiction - And Games, Part 1

2010-02-02T06:07:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, I came across an old article by Lester Dent (aka "Kenneth Robeson"), creator of the pulp action hero Doc Savage. His article was about how to write a 6000 word pulp story that will sell. Or would sell, if the era of the pulp magazine wasn't a half-century dead-and-buried.

Dent made no bones about calling his method a formula. Maybe we can simply call it "highly structured." But within this tight structure, there is not only plenty of room for creativity and craftsmanship... it is absolutely required. If anything, Dent's formula was simply a pattern to present novelty in a gripping but standardized manner.

As I was mulling over some of my favorite RPGs and adventure games, and distinguishing what made them become my favorites while others never quite pulled me in, I realized that they often shared a few traits in common with Dent's formulaic yarns. I doubt any game designer ever used Dent's formula and tried to adapt it to their games, but I think they had a similar handle on what makes a gripping story, and how to present it to the player quickly so that they are sucked into the game world quickly and feel compelled to see it through to the conclusion.

I wonder how one might apply something like Dent's pulp story formula to stories in computer games. Specifically RPGs and adventure games, as those are kinda house specialties here at Tales of the Rampant Coyote. Not that I'm advocating any kind of assembly-line approach to story-making for games. But - frankly - a lot of games (including many, many indie games) are weak in the story department. Or, rather, they may have good stories, but their presentation is weak. Speaking for myself here - I know I can use any crutch or cheat-sheet that I can find, so I'm really just thinking aloud here.

There's no good way to map a linear storytelling methodology to what should be a non-linear medium, but maybe some cool ideas could be borrowed here and applied to make a better game. Or at least a better game story. I'm going to break this out into a multi-part series simply because there's a lot to chew on.

On Making an Interesting Premise

I think that one of the cardinal sins of an RPG is to be generic. Once upon a time, the scarcity of similar games let them get away with it. But so many games - including indie games - serve up a big ol' rambling dish of backstory without anything to really set them apart. You are introduced as generic hero (or heroes) to play - perhaps of your own making - and then face some simple, generic quests to start out your experience and familiarize yourself with the game.

And all this time I, as a player, wonder why I should care. Why is this? Why can't games kick us in the pants right off the bat? It's not like it hasn't been done several times before in RPGs.

First of all - a good story needs an interesting foundation. The basic plot and setting on which everything else hangs.

Dent suggests four unique elements to form the foundation of the story. I doubt he intended these to be the only four, but they were what he worked with. Dent suggests 1) A unique murder method for the villain, 2) A unique item the villain is seeking, 3) A unique locale, and 4) Some kind of menace to hang over the hero like a cloud. Dent says having one of these elements is nice, two is better, and having three would be "swell."

Okay - so it's gimmicky. So what?

A Different Locale

In fantasy games and space opera, coming up with something truly 'different' can be challenging. Different is sort of the standard in this genre. And so we end up with a lot of games in meaningless variants of some fantasy world, with some war going on in the background between good and evil. Ho-hum.

But there are some good examples out there. In Knights of the Old Republic,you wake up in a space ship in the middle of a battle, set in the Star Wars universe in an era long before the movies! And how about Planescape: Torment? You don't get much more unique than that. Sure, it was a licensed setting (like Star Wars), but it wasn't something the average computer RPG player had experienced before. And in a genre where high fantasy and incredible magic is the rule, going more down-to-earth and realistic may actually be unique. I actually really enjoyed the medieval towns of Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption because of their verisimilitude. I've never studied what medieval Prague was like, but the heavy Catholic influence and realistic, historical touches made the fantastic elements really pop.

And I guess it should be mentioned that with RPGs in particular (Adventure Games typically don't seem to have this problem), simply breaking from a Tolkienesque fantasy world can be pretty unique in its own right. A game set in Tsarist Russia or steampunk Victorian England or some other alternate-historical location might not need much more to make it feel unique. Making it marketable is another question.

A Different Murder Method or Different Villain Objective

How about the murder thing, or the villain's sought-after item? This is surprisingly more challenging in a fantasy or SF world where anything is possible with little explanation. A wizard did it. Wizards can do anything! Well, a wizard, or an engineer remodulating the phase-coupling on the sensor dish array and routing it through the phaser banks. But if a game story writer resists the urge to hand-wave it away, it's still possible.

Take Ultima VII - The Black Gate. You start out with a strange, ritualistic killing to solve. The murder isn't really the focus of the story, but it (and murders like it) help drive the hunt for the killers, and the larger plot surrounding them. Adventure games, again, tend to do better here, as the solving of mysteries (in the form of puzzles) forms a stronger basis for the genre. And they aren't afraid to get a little more silly.

In fantastic or high-SF environments, the theft or pursuit of something moderately mundane can be exceptional. The gold, jewels, and magical Sword of Universal Annihilation get left behind, but poor Simple Simon was turned into a duck and his apple pie was stolen. The first of a rash of pie-thefts. That's interesting! Weird, but interesting.

A Menace Which is to Hang Over the Hero Like a Cloud

Dent doesn't elaborate on this, but I take this to mean some kind of looming, direct and personal threat to the hero. Not just a generic threat to the kingdom or world at large, but a personal danger to the hero himself or those with whom he (or she) is closest. Something that compels action.

There are plenty of decent examples of this. The Vault needs a replacement water chip in 150 days or it will fail. Sephiroth slays Aeris. Bastila is kidnapped and tortured to serve the Sith. Gabriel Knight suspects the recent apparently voodoo-related murders are linked to the nightmares that have plagued him all his life. The Avatar is used by the Guardian to find (and destroy) a threat to his evil plan. The Dark Savant personally begins hunting down the party. LeChuck is going to marry Elaine unless Guybrush does something!

This is so much more satisfying to me than a story with a threat that might as well be addressed, "to whom it may concern." If my custom party of adventurers don't make it to the end, anybody else could come in behind me and finish the job.

So there are some concrete examples of how a game's story might be made to help it stand out among the competition. And believe me, with so many indie RPGs coming out these days, there's plenty of competition. Next time I will talk a little more about Dent's story structure, and how more pieces of his "formula" might be applied by designers and story writers.

Global Game Jam - Utah - Pics From the Creative Crucible

2010-02-01T01:35:00.000-08:00

They had 48 hours to change the world...

This weekend was the 201 0 Global Game Jam. All around the world, video game heroes - the real ones, not the ones made of pixels - holed themselves up for 48 hours to create video games - start to finish. The tight time constraints meant the games would necessarily be small, focused, and likely experimental to take advantage of a very limited array of mechanics and content.

I did not participate. But I did drop by to distract the participants and get some pictures at about the 24-hour point. The teams were often surrounded by half-empty containers of food and energy drinks. They had that wild all-nighter look to them. They were, in some cases, looking a little bit on the stressed and harried side. As they were at the halfway mark, they were generally at a very irritating part in game development: Nothing was fully WORKING yet, the wild dreams of the early hours were getting battered in the realities of schedule, and everyone seemed to be chewing on their own difficulties and challenges while acutely aware of the ticking of the clock.

But they were all working their butts off to try and do something --- cool. To be part of something awesome. And to create something great. Many of the game jammers were professionals, but they all embodied the indie spirit, and were making games for the love of games. They had no funding, no expectation of reward - but they sacrificed an entire weekend to make a game.

Here are snapshots of a tiny moment from some (most? all?) of the teams in their efforts this weekend at the Salt Lake location.

The Dust Bunnies team was having to make some major changes to their design when I showed up. They were hashing out some hard choices of what to salvage and how.

Maid In Russia is an adventure-style game of cold-war era espionage. And here it is in development:

The two-man (well, it was supposed to be 3-man) team of Silent Raid - a top-down - uh, space-sneaker game. You are infiltrating space pirates. Which means you are like a space ninja disguised as a space pirate. Or something.

The team behind Treausure Raiders included familiar faces from both Utah Indie Night and my former employer. These guys were making the gutsy move of making their game for the XBox 360 via XNA.

The Maid Man (later renamed "Free Towels," I understand) team - including many NinjaBee folks - divvy up the sandwiches for the closest thing that would count for a lunch break. No real "break" involved.

Mike Nielsen (who also does music for Frayed Knights and Apocalypse Cow) works on designing a level for Maid Man / Free Towels.

The team of Ant Thieves. It's a game about being a thief. And an ant. I think.

Some folks - like the organizers - played games in a support role rather than making games. I was glad to see Magic: The Gathering remains popular.

How To Afford That $15 Indie Game

2010-01-29T10:25:00.000-08:00

Heh - for your amusement:

How To Afford That $15 Indie Game

Applies fairly well to the $12, $13, $18, $20, $24, and even $25 indie games as well...

Utah Indie Game Night - January 2010

2010-01-29T06:53:00.000-08:00

So we had another quarterly Indie Game Night, this time at ITT Technical Institute.

Indie Game Night = Pizza, soda, presentations, networking, and Lots of Games. Although the pizza isn't necessarily a constant. We've had a Mexican food bar and Panda Express in the past, too.

Okay - this time we actually had two presentations. The night opened with Ontario Britton of Peppergum Games offering a presentation entitled, "What the iPhone Market Means to Your Development." This was a very entertaining, humorous look at how to successfully market an iPhone game. His point was that in spite of all the bellyaching about how crowded the iPhone market is, it's still quite possible to release a new game into the market which does fabulously well (and he's been doing it - as Peppermill has largely turned into an iPhone marketing company).

He explained that there are three "pillars" to successful iPhone game deployment:

1. A good, well-executed app, targeted for the iPhone audience
2. Polish. Lots of polish. iPhone customers expect and demand it.
3. Marketing. Good marketing.

On the last point, he talked about having a viral component to your game, use of advertising (lack of surprise here: Banner ads and other standard paid advertising methods doesn't do much and leads to few direct sales, though its indirect impact may be better), the enormous value of having a popular website review your game, knowing your demographic (hint: most iPhone customers are NOT teenagers), making a game rapidly that matches the constantly changing desires of the market, and so forth.

After that, there was a formal Daz Links presentation. This is a joint project between Daz 3D and local tools studio Mogware to convert the high-resolution Daz 3D Models into game-ready (or nearly game-ready) real-time models. With morphing, lots of polygon decimation options, tons of models and clothing options from Daz 3D, texture-combining down to a single, properly UV-mapped texture, and so forth --- there's a lot of potential here for the tools. On Daz 3D's part, they are going to be making an announcement at GDC time for indie-friendly licensing options on their models for use with Daz Links. Previously, as I understand it, they could be used to create content (movies, renders) but could not be distributed themselves. While I don't think I'm at liberty to discuss it, I can confirm that based on their current plans (which may very well change over the next couple of months), the price will be quite reasonable for budget-conscious indies. As in, well in-line with the other off-the-shelf content in the indie price range.

I'm supposed to have lunch with Brian Howell of Daz 3D, and I may have some more details then.

After the presentation (and pizza!), we had the game presentations. I can't discuss this too much, because I was showing Frayed Knights. Yes, I did get at least one comment along the lines of, "You are still working on that? Didn't you show that ages ago?" Le sigh. I suck. And Mike Rubin and Herb Flower weren't there for me to point fingers at to spread the pain, either.

Curtis and Peter were there showing off Siphon Spirit. He gave me a CD-ROM with the installation on it so I can check it out as soon as I can. I haven't tried it yet, but I'll talk about it here when I do.

We had a discussion about --- well, I can say it's a discussion about how badly I've failed, but really it was about how indie games really need to stay simple. Start simple, get simpler. We have too many games that have expanded to the point of No Longer Capable of Being Finished in a Reasonable Time. It is a lesson I, for one, have to keep learning.

The other big point of discussion was about the Global Game Jam this weekend. We have several teams competing, starting tonight. I intend to drop in tomorrow if I can to be a short distraction for people, but I'm not signed up to participate. I'm kinda already moderately booked for the weekend, but I want to support those guys who are taking the weekend to Do Something Awesome.

UPDATE: Corrected the name for Peppergum Games.

Frayed Knights: Act 1 Not Quite Ready For Prime Time

2010-01-28T06:39:00.000-08:00

Of all the updates on the development of the indie RPG with a decidedly goofy mood, Frayed Knights, I have no doubt that this one will prove the latest one to date!

I have discovered that my old and creaky laptop is no longer quite up to snuff for full-on development of Frayed Knights. I think it may barely be able to play the game, but as the game chews up over 300 megs of RAM when the largest level is loaded, it doesn't leave much on an old 512-meg laptop overwhelmed by numerous OS updates, a virus scanner, and development tools. You know performance is gonna suck when, the third time you are transitioning between major areas, you get a warning that you are running low on paging room in virtual memory.

Guess I shouldn't have been running Pandora and checking my stocks in the background too, huh?

The loss of the desktop - and the unexpected business trip to Puerto Rico - definitely slowed development of Frayed Knights a bit this month, but we still made progress. My new desktop should arrive soonishly maybe (it's already a week late, but has apparently been built and is in QC), so that will help give development a kick in the pants. In the meantime, I have been working where I can, and decided last night to give the entire first act a "run-through." At least starting from the "morning after" the events of the pilot. I knew there were some gaping holes remaining in the first act, but it was past time to experience it as a whole - as a player. Some parts haven't been touched since July, so I'd forgotten a lot of what was done and what was still incomplete.

So I jumped in, starting with Benjamin trying to make up with the other Knights. It's a short little dialog - pretty much a transition from the the more restrictive action of the Pokmor Xang pseudo-tutorial to the main storyline and more open-ended gameplay of the full game. He rejoins the party, after a couple of wince-inducing typos, and the adventure is afoot! Woot!

Oh boy!

Oh, crap.

It was kind of a painful experience. Really. Testers keep asking when they get to test the next version - trust me, you don't WANT to test this one. The list of broken NPCs, broken quests, visual problems, missing text, and otherwise not-working things was pretty frickin' long. Act 1 is not "fully playable" at this point. Dang it. And I was already rolling right along to Act 2... (and Kevin is still working on content for Act 3).

Besides what isn't working or what's missing, there's the stand-in content. Stuff that technically works but is kinda butt-ugly (see above screenshot), and generic off-the-shelf creatures filling in for different kinds of monsters, and just plain ol' empty, boring rooms. Lots of work left to do there. I also realized that there is really not enough direction given to a player who might not be sure what to do next. I need to add significantly more dialog and explanatory text.

So that's the bad news. Is there good news?

Well, yeah. Kinda. If you squint hard, you can see a game playing out on the screen. Most of the pieces are in place for Act 1 now, finally. While not "fully playable," I was able to play for over an hour (and that's cheating to breeze through combats quickly) before a bug left the game kinda--- done (and missing Chloe). With a couple of glaring exception, the questions have mostly now gone from being "What needs to be created?" and "What needs to go here?", to "What do I need to fix?", "What do I need to replace with final content" and "How can I improve this part?" Oh, and the occasional, "WTF?" and "I coulda sworn I fixed this! How can it be broken again?!?!?!"

This means lists. I can work lists. It is long, tedious work, but measurable. We're also steaming ahead on Act 2. And Kevin, as mentioned before, is working on Act 3. Assuming my new desktop arrives soon (and in good condition), progress should be resuming previous speed (or faster, please) in short order.

But for now, to reduce my terror I am going to squint really hard...

New / Improved Game Engines Now Available

2010-01-27T06:50:00.000-08:00

Greg Squire just sent me this link last night to Enterbrain's new game development tool:

IG Maker

I haven't tried it, but it ends up as popular as Enterbrain's RPG Maker, we could see a flood of indie action games from this. It advertises that you can get a basic game of your chosen genre up and running with a simple wizard.

Well... cool. Yeah, we're going to see a flood of really horrible games from this. But emerging from all the primordial ooze of thrown-together crud I hope and expect to see some real gems emerge from designers who might otherwise never have been able to make use of their latent talents. That's the indie thing. Booyah.

In other news, I spent a little bit of time last night looking at Panda 3D. This little (and free!) 3D game engine - written for professionals and students - is really coming along nicely. In fact, it's looking good enough that I WOULD consider it a candidate for a future project... if one of the sample programs hadn't crashed unceremoniously on my laptop. Oops. Still - I think this engine has some very serious potential.

And finally, I note with some interest that the Ogre 3D crew unleashed a release candidate for Ogre 3D version 1.7.0 on New Year's Eve. Besides being a new, improved version of a very powerful (and now commercially proven) multi-platform 3D engine, it also marks the transition to their very generous MIT licensing.

Good times for indies!

Cruel and Unusual Punishment? No D&D!

2010-01-26T06:33:00.000-08:00

Go to jail, no playing Dungeons & Dragons for YOU!

Game Over: Inmate Can't Play Dungeons & Dragons

Okay - on the one hand, I can understand that jail time shouldn't be an all-expense-paid gaming vacation. Especially in this case, where we're talking about a convicted murderer. So if a justice system decides not to reward inmates with a chance to sling some D20s, that's their prerogative. Fine.

But the justification - saying that playing D&D promotes gang-related activity? Ummm.... okay. I'll give the justice system a sliver of the benefit of the doubt and acknowledge that maybe - MAYBE - they have actually observed the use of D&D in prison as a means to facilitate gang-related behavior. I don't have any familiarity with that environment, and really don't aspire to rectify that deficiency in my experience.

But really, my first impression that this is a silly, stupid, unjustified reaction based on leftover anti-D&D hysteria from the early 80s. And that's the part that really honks me off.

UPDATE: A law professor blog weighs in on the subject. And makes an amusing rebuttal to another comment about the potential criminal behavior caused by D&D.

"

Formula, Innovation, and Compromised Ideals

2010-01-25T08:20:00.000-08:00

One part of my desire to create indie RPGs (and indie games in general) has been to do something different. To break the mold, make games that push the comfort zone, do something different, cross arbitrary category boundaries imposed by marketers and journalists, shatter preconceived notions, and really expand the horizons of what games can be.

And then I find myself - and other indies - doing the same ol', same ol'.

This is not really an indictment. But it was bugging me a little a few weeks ago as I was implementing one of those "find the n-part key" quests. In this case, the key is a spell broken into three parts that must be joined together to form an arcane password that... well, you get the idea. What it really amounts to is, "Make sure the player has explored these three locations before letting them move on to the next part of the game."

It's lame. It's trite. It's overused. It may not be completely creatively bankrupt, but it's definitely in need of overdraft protection. But it works, dagnabbit! It's been disguised in many forms, but it comes down to a simple mechanic that's not too far removed from hunting the down the colored keys in Wolfenstein 3D to get to the exit.

A lot of folks (myself included) evangelize the indie game movement as this incredible revolution of innovation and ground-breaking ideas. And this has definitely been the case. Just this last year, there have been some amazing, innovative (and sometimes downright STRANGE) indie titles released that have even questioned the very definition of the term "game." The Path comes to mind.

But that doesn't mean indie games must be constantly running on the ragged edge of innovation. How much "new" does a game have to provide? And what constitutes "new"?

Ultimately - if a game is in any way commercially oriented - it has to be geared to appeal to the audience. That is what must drive innovation, not the other way around. And that is not a simple equation. Sure, players and critics alike claim they desire innovation - something new - but at what cost are they willing to obtain it?

Brian "Psychochild" Green recently wrote about the problems of innovation, and refers to it as a paradox - innovation comes at the expense of other things gamers value, such as high production values, polish, and "perfection" of core game mechanics. And innovation is risk. Almost by definition. If it ain't broke and you try and fix it, somebody's not going to be happy about it.

I don't know if that excuses me from falling back on tried-and-true formula. Or anybody else. It behooves any game designer to question their design choices. But I don't think that picking one's innovation battles and otherwise sticking with a foundation of familiarity for players is necessarily a compromise of one's ideals.

At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Coming Back to the Cold

2010-01-22T13:33:00.001-08:00

Well, my business trip to Ponce is now just about at an end. Everything is wrapped up on this end except the drive back to San Juan in a few hours and the flight back. I have gotten used to the heat and humidity, I confess. Knowing how cold and snowy and icky it is back in Utah has only made me enjoy the steamy weather even more.

My students (well, former students now - they all graduated) took me out to lunch today for a traditional modern Puerto Rican lunch at this tiny little restaurant which they pronounced like it should be spelled "cafeteria," but it was nothing like that. It was in the middle of a tightly-packed residential area, and the neighbors next door had chickens. My lunch was brown rice with beans, twice-fried green plantains (with fry sauce), fried pork, and a little lettuce with tomato. It was the best meal I've had in Ponce. By far. As they told me, "bad for the heart, but delicious."

I am really not much of a traveler, I'm afraid. I can't say I actually saw all that much of Ponce. It was a lot of work, and the time away from my family was hard. But --- the folks here have been awesome, and have made it a good visit. I'll miss the weather, the people, and the ocean. It's been a great visit, and I've met some new friends who I would like to see again.

But I'll be glad to be back home. There ain't no place like it...

Favorite Indie RPG of 2009?

2010-01-22T07:39:00.000-08:00

Okay folks - today's post is a simple one: What was your favorite indie RPG of 2009, and why?

There were a LOT of contenders. I know I'm missing some:

Avernum 6 (Mac)
Geneforge 5 (Windows)
Knights of the Chalice
Aveyond: Lord of Twilight
Aveyond: Gates of Night
Legie
Battle of the Millennium
Cute Knight Kingdom
The Three Musketeers
Aztaka
Eternal Eden 2
Telepath Psy Arena 2 (Not entirely certain it qualifies as an RPG, but WTH)
Science Girls
Asguaard
Millennium 2 - Take Me Higher
Laxius Force 2
Dawn's Light
Eternal Twilight
Deadly Sin
3 Stars of Destiny
Dark Souls
Dark Souls II
Dark Souls - Kara's Quest
Whisper of a Rose
Spirited Heart (Not sure I'd call this an RPG, but again - why not?)
Bionic Heart (ditto)
Pioneering: Episode One

Okay, yeah, RPG Maker titles do take up a disproportionately large segment of the list. And must we mention But even so - that's a pretty significant list!

Some, but not all, of these games can be found at Rampant Games. Just to see what you might have missed. I've been slow trying to keep up with them all. Quite frankly, I can't. Not physically possible, especially not with a goal to play them all to completion (and for some of the more open-ended games, that's not a possibility, either).

But dang, isn't that an awesome problem to have? 2010 is already poised to be an indie RPG bonanza. But - returning to the past before moving towards the future, I again ask:

Which indie RPGs of 2009 rocked the hardest? Why?

Outwars

2010-01-21T07:07:00.000-08:00

When I was at SingleTrac, Outwars was probably the single largest project we'd ever worked on. And it was PC only. We negotiated the deal with Microsoft - the idea was to make a game that was "two generations removed from Doom." Quake - undoubtedly the "next generation Doom" - was looming on the horizon but we weren't sure exactly when it would be released. We wanted to leapfrog it.

The project was also inspired by an offer to do the videogame based upon the upcoming movie adaptation of Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers. Ultimately, that deal didn't pan out (and I personally thought the movie sucked). And they never revealed to us (well, at least not to me) any of the details about that proposal, to keep us completely untainted. But the idea of doing a game about powered armor with massive vertical movement sounded kinda cool. As research, I re-read the book Starship Troopers, as well as John Steakley's outstanding book Armor.

So the game was about taking a team of soldiers in jetpack-enabled battle-armor and fighting aliens across four different "planets" - though one planet was actually the giant alien mothership. That was basically so we'd have four different environmental "themes."

While we were in development, Looking Glass Studios produced the very under-rated game Terra Nova, which scared the crap out of us briefly because we feared they'd made our game. As usually happens with these things, playing the game revealed that it wasn't actually all that similar. That happens a lot. You hear something about a soon-to-be-released competing game that at first sounds like they bugged your office and beat you to the punch with your own game. But then, upon release, you realize it's not even close.

Although, to be perfectly honest, Terra Nova (which I understood was kind of a flop, too) was closer to the game I wanted to make. While it wasn't ever going to take its place among my all-time favorites, it was more of the combat-jumpsuit-SIMULATOR that I'd had in mind. But I wasn't the guy in charge of the design of the game. One of my many sins was probably pushing the sim-like elements too hard into a game design that hadn't really called for it.

A third of the way into development, we experienced a pretty major rift within SingleTrac. It was a rift that was never healed. It partly came about because we were being sold to GT Interactive (which was, not long afterwards, absorbed by Infogrammes, which then became re-branded as Atari here in the U.S.). ALL of our senior people on our team - all of our leads, our producer, designer, etc - ended up away much of the time (meeting with lawyers, etc), and even when they were there they didn't quite have their head in the game. At least not our game. As one of the lowly peons, I was never quite sure what was going on there. I had (and still have) a lot of respect for those folks, and a dozen years later I bear them some sympathy for what was going on. But at the time, I was pretty annoyed.

During the final third of the project (which by this time, was plunging relentlessly into delayed and over-budget territory), management finally made official what had been going on unofficially for months - our senior people were gone, and the rest of us now had authority to add to our responsibility for making the game fun and getting it out. We did what we could.

But as the sale of our company was done, Outwars was in a strange limbo. As we owned the intellectual property rights on the game, our publisher no longer saw much value in it - it could no longer be turned into a franchise. And GT Interactive was annoyed that we were still contractually obligated to finish a game for their competitors. Both sides were pretty much of the opinion that we should just get the game out the door and meet contractual obligations. At least, that was my own take-away from it.

But while Outwars didn't meet with great marketplace acceptance or critical acclaim (one review called it a "Nightmare in a box"), I still feel some pride in the game. It was wildly ambitious for our company, sort of a mission-impossible thing... and we pulled it off. There were many decisions I wish we could have changed. And I will forever be apologizing for that final alien boss battle - it was (almost) all my fault, and I knew even less about game design than I do now.

Simulator in Ponce

2010-01-20T06:12:00.000-08:00

Ponce, Puerto Rico is weird, man.

I mean, instead of a stray cat or dog sniffing around your back porch, you get one of these guys. This sucker was pushing three feet long. He was staring longingly at the swimming pool for a few minutes before dropping down into the bushes.

And then there are the guard towers in the Wal-Mart parking lot. What's up with that? Well, okay, I get what's up with that. The presence of half-a-dozen security personnel patrolling the parking lot (and that's not including the security people manning all the exits) doesn't exactly fill me with a sense of security. But on the flip side, my car was undisturbed, so I really can't complain.

And then there this thing about hanging out at the beach in the middle of January, when it's 80 degrees outside... There's something very wrong about that. In a way that is oh, so right. Gotta admit, I'm not looking forward to returning to Utah's freezing weather.

And then there are all these people being pretty dang nice to me even when I don't speak their language. So I guess it's my kinda weird, and I'm enjoying my trip so far. But it's exhausting.

Today was something of a small madhouse that I was ostensibly responsible for managing and instructing. The simulator installation and first day of training was supposed to be tiny affair. It seemed like half the city of Ponce wanted to visit and get a chance to run our simulators. The picture doesn't capture half the people gathered around the desk and simulator just outside the frame.

We had several experienced crane operators there from the local unions, and they found that it didn't take much time at all to get used to the simulators and apply their real-world skills. This included teaching everybody else - which I was happy to let them do while I trained the crew on the instructor station in the back. Especially since they could instruct in Spanish, and most of our visitors didn't have a very strong command of English. And I ... uh... well, my Junior High Spanish seems a long time ago, indeed.

These guys - the professional crane operators - were blowing away my meager skills, in spite of me being one of the developers for over a year. That was gratifying in a lot of ways, because while I believed *in theory* that our systems provided a fairly accurate simulation of the real-world cranes, it was great seeing this demonstrated by these guys going to town on them this way.

One of the crane operators, at the end of the day, even took me up on my half-joking request to teach me to use my own simulator. I know the mechanics (I programmed a tiny bit of them), and I understand the physics - but this guy has been mastering them for much of his life, and knew how to have just the right touch and movement to make the physics do his bidding instead of fighting it. He didn't speak much English, I don't speak Spanish, but it was a cool lesson.

I get to do this for three more days - hopefully with a smaller group from here on out, since it's heavily "hands-on" training.

Wizardry Series - Sequel, Spin-Off, Start Over, or Stay Dead?

2010-01-19T07:22:00.000-08:00

Diehard Gamefan argues over whether or not the classic Wizardry RPG series ought to be revived or not.

Not that it has any bearing on whether that would even be an option. And yes, there is not an insignificant amount of discussion over how the series has been picked up by Japanese game developers and is now enjoying popularity there that we don't even get most of the imports of over here.

The consensus? Half the reviewers would like to see the series continue here in the west, half think it should remain dead. The rationale is the interesting part. Go over and check it out:

"Wizardry - Sequel, Spin-Off, Start Over, or Stay Dead?" at Diehard GameFAN

Me, personally? Oh, heck yeah, I'd love to see a Wizardry 9. The thing is, I pretty much skipped the middle games - I played the Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, and a little bit of the second one (Knight of Diamonds? ) waaaaaay back in the day. And then I played a little bit of the sixth game - Bane of the Cosmic Forge, but just after I started Wizardry 7 came out - Crusaders of the Dark Savant, and I totally gave up on the previous (borrowed) game while me characters were something like zeroth level. Never finished Wiz 7, either, though I have been intending to do so for YEARS. But I chronicled my expedition to victory in Wizardry 8 in quite some detail. The tedium of combat was the only serious blemish on what has become one of my favorite RPGs.

(And I think it's kinda cool how a game can become one of my favorites in spite of being a a half-decade past its prime).

The first game in the series was magical just on account of it being there, where it was, and offering so much in an era when computer games were new. It boldly forged new territory, and it was full of awesome.

Wizardry 8 was likewise full of awesome, but it faced another problem: It was born in an era where hardcore games of its kind could no longer find the mainstream audiences they needed to sustain their development. If the game can't be made for less than four million, and the aggressive sales plan only sees sales potential of three million... well, that's a problem. If there's no way around those two numbers, it clearly means no game.

And yes, I'm totally channeling my earlier blog post.

Bottom line: I would like to see games like Wizardry 8 somehow thrive in the modern era via indie-dom. And I'd like to see the series make a return to development in the west. And Brenda Brathwaite designing them, too. As long as I'm wishing...

Oh, and a hat tip to RPGWatch for the link.

Frayed Knights and 3D Worlds - More Trouble Than They Are Worth?

2010-01-19T04:59:00.000-08:00

I keep ranting about the same subject, I guess. I keep re-discovering how painfully slow even fairly simple level / interior creation can be. Even for a simple, low-detail RPG like Frayed Knights. I get really jealous of those tile-based games where an entire map can be put together in hours.

I've gained some speed and, I think, quality as I keep working on things (I'm kinda embarrassed about the Tower of Almost Certain Death now...). But it's still astonishing to have worked on a relatively small part of the map - wall piece by wall piece, basically - and then look at the clock and realize that over TWO HOURS have passed by, On a map I thought I could "whip out" in only six or eight hours, total. Yeah. Time to multiply my estimate by at least four.

And that's not including going back later to make that sucker look GOOD. For flexible definitions of good.

You think I'd learn.

I'm trying to imagine how, in my wildest dreams (which maybe aren't wild enough), this game could possibly turn enough of a profit to even earn minimum wage (and we'll go by minimum wage a couple years ago, not even the new minimum wage now) on the time I've put into it. Let alone the time my fellow team members have put into it. I would love to be surprised and have my world rocked, but in all likelihood - it ain't gonna happen.

We've tried a few things to speed things up - like creating more pre-made pieces - but so far it's just not given us the time and effort savings we hoped for.

There's a reason indie game development is a labor of love. And I really do have a lot of fun doing it. I just wish I could figure out how to get it done... faster.

Game Design: Books to Games...

2010-01-18T06:07:00.000-08:00

Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series would make some awesome movies. Just sayin'. I don't know who they'd get to play Miles - though if Peter Jackson can pull off ordinary people playing hobbits, I guess they could get someone semi-normal (in real life) to play hyperactive, genius, dwarf Miles Vorkosigan.

I brought three of Bujold's books to read while I'm in Puerto Rico. Two are finished now. I was gratified to learn that a new book in the series is scheduled to be released this year. I'm growing perilously close to the end. That happened last year with the Harry Dresden novels (which would also make great movies).

While Miles Vorkosigan's adventures would make great movies, they really make me wonder how they'd possibly translate to video games. To be honest, I really don't know. Some parts of the novels could be easily adapted to make vapid, straightforward action games (Space fleet maneuvers! Rescue actions with powered battle-armored Dendarii Mercenaries!) An adventure game might (barely) fit, as Miles is constantly solving puzzles. But it wouldn't do justice to the action of the series. Nor the amount of social interaction (and manipulation) in the books.

It's kind of an interesting thing to mentally gnaw at though. We always talk about adapting movies from books, or games from movies - but what about games from books? We don't see many direct adaptations of games from books - I remember the Shannara computer game and I still have the video game based on the Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series (both games came from long-gone Legend Entertainment). Never played the first one, but the second was actually pretty cool (I especially liked the trap-creation system). There have been a few others, particularly in the Infocom era (Shogun & Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy come to mind), though not so many in the last decade or so. Comic books, sure, but novels?

So - let's say you had a license to make an (indie) game of your favorite novel or series of books. How'd you do it? What would be the core gameplay? What would be your model?

Tales From the Table: Mr. Realism

2010-01-15T07:01:00.000-08:00

A story of dice & paper RPGing. Lessons to be applied to the computer-game variety are left as an exercise to the reader:

The "Dungeon Master" (we'll call him Derrick) bragged about he played strictly by the rules, and that players just couldn't handle his dungeon. We finally gave him a chance.

He demanded that we very carefully note every item we purchased in town, where it was located, and perform full encumbrance calculations. This wasn't a big deal at first. But then, after we entered the dungeon, he had people slam the door shut behind us and seal it shut. No saves, no checks, we were simply trapped inside. Ah, well, we figured --- it's all part of the game.

The first encounter was pretty typical, against a bunch of kobolds. Then a fight against four goblins left one member of our party at negative hit points, and our cleric had run out of healing spells. Derrick cackled when he told us how many days it would take for someone to recover those hit points naturally, and then asked us how much food and water we'd brought with us. Then he informed us that most people in his dungeon died of thirst. Oh, and what were we going to do for light sources? Especially since our source of Light spells was the guy at negative hit points.

Some of us decided to scout ahead. We found a pit with a rope leading down into it, about twenty feet deep. I said, "I sheath my sword, unsling my pack, and sling my shield over my shoulder. Then I climb down the rope."

Derrick howled with delight. "Since you are trying to climb down the rope one-handed, you fail, and fall twenty feet to take..." he rolled the dice and continued, "seven points of damage!"

That left me at one hit point remaining. "Um, what do you mean left handed?"

"You have a shield, right?"

"Right."

"You stupidly tried to climb down the rope while holding your shield."

"No, I didn't. I told you I slung my shield over my shoulder after removing my pack."

"I didn't hear it."

I asked the other players to back up my story. Two of them did. Nobody else was paying much attention to the game anymore.

"It doesn't matter," Derrick said, "I didn't hear it. So you tried to climb down with a shield in your hand, and fall."

"Don't I get some kind of roll? Intelligence roll not to do something stupid? Or a strength roll? My strength is 18/82..."

"Doesn't matter."

"Fine."

The session ended twenty minutes later. Strangely, nobody in the party felt the urge to continue the adventure in another session.

Guest Post: Game-In-A-Day Saves The Day

2010-01-14T06:47:00.000-08:00

Here's a guest post - Califer (Curtis) offers some insights into the failures - and successes - of an indie game developer:

Hi, my name is Curtis Mirci. I'm fairly new to the indie game scene and haven't actually put anything finished out yet. Within the next month or so (depending on when Jay posts this) I should have my first game out, Siphon Spirit.

My first game, Darkened Dreams, is a bit of a failure. You see, I wasn't even planning on making a game when I started. I just wanted to learn how to do something we learned in class. Instead of using the boring examples from the classroom I made different hero classes to play with. Then I gave them things to do, then added in different things to do and added in monsters and maps and all that.

As a result of my lack of planning, by the time that I was finished with the early main game I never wanted to touch it again. Adding in new maps was beyond a pain, and it was very easy for a small error to lock the player in a location they shouldn't be in, as some of my early players found out. After I cleaned out all the bugs and added a tower to showcase the rest of the monsters I locked it down. Mind, it's still pretty fun to play, there's just no real ending and the story doesn't really start.

That was Darkened Dreams. A while later, while I was working at Sensory Sweep (sat next to Jay - The Rampant Coyote - for a while) I showed the game to a few people. One of those people was Peter Anderson. He said he wanted to do some art for it and I thought that might be nice, but the thought of diving back into that code terrified me. So I decided to start over. I changed the language that I was writing in and decided to make a program that would help make the world. Our original plan was just to remake the original, but with graphics. As things kept going we kept adding more and more to it. Soon, instead of just being a game it was going to come with it's own game-maker so that players could make their own games with it. Needless to say, the game evolved well beyond our original ideas of what we were planning when we started.

Part of that is because this isn't Peter's first attempt to work with a programmer on an indie game. He took the safe route in assuming that the project would just vanish after a little while. Oddly enough, I'm kind of tenacious so I never gave up on it and we've got a lot done on it. It's just taken a LONG time to get there, and we've probably still got a long time left before it's finished. That can get pretty tiring, but we've decided to make another game, this time we'd make it short! We got together to make a Game-In-A-Day. A month later, it's not quite finished, but it is looking awesome. It's also not far from being finished at all. It's called Siphon Spirit.

So what is this post all about? Well, it is mainly a glance inside the life of an indie developer (average? not sure). But it's mostly a warning to anyone planning to make a game. As Peter told me the other day, "Well, we've learned a valuable lesson from working on these game. We are very very busy people." As indie developers that can only work on projects after the work day is done and still have a family to take care of we need to be careful to not only choose fun game concepts to work on but also to make sure that they are short enough that we will be able to finish them before we're old and grey.

In the case that you are interested in playing the original Darkened Dreams, it's available for free at http://www.cs.utah.edu/~mirci/DarkenedDreams/ If you are interested in learning more about Darkened Dreams 2 or Siphon Spirit, visit my blog at http://darkeneddreamsgame.blogspot.com/

-Califer

Avatar - Not the Ultima One

2010-01-13T08:30:00.000-08:00

We saw the movie Avatar Friday night. In 3D. If you are gonna see the movie --- well, you've probably seen it already. But see it in 3D.

This one was a glorious spectacle of CGI. They did such a fantastic job that the graphics were far more realistic and believable than the characters themselves, who were unfortunately pretty two-dimensional stereotypes telling a story with as much depth as a Saturday morning cartoon from the 1970s. Complete with heavy-handed preaching which isn't quite sure of itself.

Dune told the same story, but much better. It's pretty much what you saw if you mixed The Last Samurai, Dances With Wolves, and Fern Gully together.

But you know - sometimes you just have to say "what the hell" and roll with it. It is as breathtaking as the first time I watched Jurassic Park. And like Jurassic Park, it didn't really matter that the story was lame... it was all about the awesomeness of the T-Rex and the true stars of the movie, the velociraptors. But in Avatar, it's all about a lush glow-in-the-dark world pulled right out of a Final Fantasy game. Complete with flying dragon-things and battle mechs and big freaking airships bristling with guns and missiles.

So is this horribly hypocritical of me? If Avatar had been a low-budget indie movie would I have hated it? I don't know.

Off To Puerto Rico

2010-01-13T00:01:00.000-08:00

I'm off to Puerto Rico - on business. While the hotel in Ponce says it offers high-speed Internet, I'm not sure how much I'll be online over the next couple of weeks. So if I'm slow getting back to you in emails, the forums, or comments, that may be the reason.

I will probably find some time for blog posts - and I've got a bunch of 'em written and ready to go, though not all scheduled. Alas, only one guest post so far (Thanks Curtis!). I could use some more. So send 'em my way if you feel inspired.

Depths of Peril 50% Off - This Week Only

2010-01-12T05:35:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite indie RPGs of *all time* is now 50% off. That's $9.99. The game is WELL WORTH IT. You've heard me gush about it. I'll gush some more in a minute. But here's the links:

Buy Depths of Peril (Windows)

Buy Depths of Peril (Mac)

Okay, in case you haven't heard me gush about the game lately - here's the deal:

Depths of Peril! Take the basic gameplay of Diablo. Several classes, randomized maps, lots of skills, practically infinite equipment, and so forth. That's all cool. And if that's all it was, it would be a competent indie Diablo clone.

But Soldak Entertainment, which is (for the time being) basically one guy by the name of Steven Peeler, decided to use that as just the core of game - the launch-point, not the full design. This guy decided to go about two steps further than that.

First of all, and best of all, he made a dynamic, interactive world where your decisions mattered. Things happen in natural progression, and the world won't wait for you. What may begin as an uprising of monsters out in the forest may - if nobody takes care of it - gradually escalate until eventually a force of trained boss-mobs and their legions launch a full-scale assault on your town. An illness may evolve into a plague if you don't find the cure, and may wipe out several villagers (until they get resurrected - as for the adventurers, death isn't permanent) - including those shopkeepers and quest-givers that you needed.

Or you can complete these quests and reap the benefits.

This little innovation really helps make the world come alive. But there's more to it than that.

In the city of Jovik, you aren't the only adventurer in town. You are the leader of one of several "covenents" - basically bands or clans of adventurers. Each one has a goal of eventually rising to take control of the town. You can do this by a combination of diplomacy, enhancing your prestige through service to the town (mainly adventuring), and out-and-out warfare (either directly, o through manipulation). You may have to compete with the other covenants to recruit the best up-and-coming adventurers and outfit them (and your covenant house) with the best gear. You can even team up with allied covenants and share in the adventuring together.

Depths of Peril - to me - represents what cool stuff indies can do. Note that Depths of Peril isn't for everyone - mainly because the world is cool and everybody has different tastes. It is not even in the same neighborhood as a casual RPG, so it's probably not the best introductory fare. It's a hardcore game for RPG fans. And it's half off.

Get it while the gettin's good.