Dev Take Tuesday – Warming Up to Achievements

I have to admit that for a long time I found achievement systems pointless. To me the true achievement was beating the game, and the thought of playing the game repeatedly for the equivalent of a self-congratulatory pat on the back seemed tiresome. But I’ve done what many people (regrettably) might consider impossible: I changed my view. After returning to two of my favorite games, Civilization 6 and Starcraft 2, I noticed how the achievement system helped me have fun. And I learned it wasn’t simply about unlocking an icon in my Steam or Blizzard account, either.

I tend to fall into comfort zones as a player—both with the selection of games I play as well as my style of play. Once I got serious about game design, I realized I’d need to stretch myself a little or risk missing out on everything gaming has to offer. Still, even with new games I know that I zero in on one gameplay style and stick with it until it fails. That’s where achievements come in. Setting achievements can convince players to interact with the game in a new way, baiting them out of their comfort zone.

Some of my completed Steam achievements for Civ 6

Civ 6 offers around 150 achievements. Most of them are simple: winning a game with each distinct civilization, trying different paths to victory, and even playing on bigger or smaller maps. Some are more complex. One of my favorite Civ games ever involved a conscious effort to complete the “Loire Valley” achievement. Based off of the historically significant and vineyard-soaked valley of central France with the same name, the achievement challenges you to build five special chateaux buildings, unique to the French civilization, in a city that produces wine. I remember feeling remarkable pride in that game—not necessarily because of the achievement itself, but because of how beautiful the city looked. It felt just like the type of culturally-significant city that tourists would want to visit.

Starcraft's campaign bakes its achievements into the game itself, rather than abstracting the achievements into a space outside the game. After each completed mission, you can see if you completed any or all of three achievements. (You can find out the achievements before the end of the mission, but it takes a little bit of extra work.) Some achievements are easy to accidentally complete, but most require you to approach the mission in a completely different way. Additionally, one of the three achievements must also be completed in hard mode which provides a subtle push to try the game at a higher difficulty level.

I certainly haven’t become obsessive about “100-percenting” achievements. I doubt I ever will. But I do love how different achievement systems have encouraged me to get out of my comfort zone and try parts of the game I would normally pass right by. I think carefully considered achievements help game designers to nudge players toward unique gameplay styles they’d otherwise disregard, and I’m excited to mull over achievement options for Alkanaur as we get closer to release.

Dev Take Tuesday - Cuphead's Clouds

I’m going to complain about Cuphead in the next couple paragraphs: a tiny complaint that, yes, is tied to the game’s oft-discussed difficulty. But first, let me gush about StudioMDHR’s popular indie hit. It’s impossible to talk about the game without bringing up its unique and captivating art style. The early twentieth-century cartoon look and jazzy instrumental tracks truly set the game apart. My dad never plays video games (apart from the occasional game of Mario Kart or Madden) but will sit down and watch my brother and me play just because of the game’s visuals. However, Cuphead isn’t simply about spectacle—the game utilizes tight controls and uniquely challenging boss fight after boss fight to create a great gameplay experience.

Cuphead is fun but extremely taxing. If I’m being honest, it’s my brother who keeps us afloat in the game’s two-player mode. In the vast majority of cases, this difficulty seems “earned” by the designers. You might die several times as you figure out a boss’s attack patterns, but once you learn the patterns you feel ready to vanquish your increasingly vexing foe. These boss attacks almost always have their own tell that clues players into which attack they must prepare for. One particularly elegant tell I noticed was during a convoluted carnival battle where a dangerous roller coaster could be seen distantly in the background before it arrived on the main screen.

Gif found in this Polygon article

Most of the time, my brother and I knew that our failures were our fault—we were clumsy with the controls or not focused enough to see the boss’s tells. But then we lost to the dragon. And lost again. And probably lost around forty times? I lost count. And with the dragon, the failures were much more frustrating. Unsurprisingly, Cuphead’s dragon flies, which means players need to jump from cloud to cloud throughout the battle. Unfortunately, these clouds briskly scroll across the screen in random formations. I’m sure the design decision here was intended to prevent stagnant play patterns, but I personally feel that the randomness of the attacks is enough. When an unlucky combination of attacks leaves you stranded without a cloud to jump too, fault is attributed to misfortune instead of personal mistakes.

Overall, Cuphead is an incredible experience that I highly recommend. As someone who gravitates more towards slow-paced strategy games, it’s rare that a twitchy game like Cuphead captures my long-term interest. A large percentage of that interest comes from the way the game thoughtfully handles difficulty, which makes the few missteps—like Cuphead’s clouds—really stick out. 

Indie Illuminator - Find Me

Find Me is a puzzle platformer that appears to take some inspiration from somber but soulful games like Limbo. The game’s narrative centers on a shadow trying to reunite with her human counterpart. Because of her shadowy nature, the player character must (of course) avoid light while navigating the game world, and, based off of interviews, the full game would feature more light-related game mechanics (such as reflections) as well.

Image found on the game's Kickstarter page

Another fascinating detail about Find Me? The game’s developers are a group of young girls in middle school and high school. They developed the game’s prototype during a summer camp program called Girls Make Games. An international program with support from well-known industry partners like Intel, Xbox, and Playstation, Girls Make Games attempts to bridge the gender gap in game development. Girls attend workshops and game jams, receiving support and encouragement to pursue any of the many possible careers in game development.

The girls hope to use their crowdfunding cash to get professional help with their art and music and for support to finish their game. Right now they’re awfully close to their Kickstarter goal, but they only have five days left to fund their project. If you’re interested in Find Me’s puzzle platformer mechanics or simply want to support a program like Girls Make Games, take a quick look at their Kickstarter page and their rewards for backers.

Indie Illuminator – Raji: An Ancient Epic

A unique theme can pull an entire game together when all game elements carefully work toward that theme. I think Bloodborne, Bastion, and Darkest Dungeon are all excellent examples of games that utilized an uncommon but cohesive theme to really stand out. While glancing through Kickstarter I found a current indie project titled Raji: An Ancient Epic, and I can see how the game’s chosen thematic background helps the game to stick out and the various game elements to stick together.

Concept art for Raji found on their Kickstarter page

Raji is an action adventure game inspired by Hindu and Indonesian mythology and set in medieval Rajasthan—India’s largest state. The architecture and art design in general looks amazing, and I believe a great amount of enjoyment from the game will simply come from exploring the environment. The game’s current trailer doesn’t show off too many enemy designs at the moment, but the acidic, frog-like Tezabsuras seem particularly unique and menacing. Although not listed as an RPG, it does seem like the game will feature some progression elements as you choose which gods to draw your power from.

Unlike many of the other Kickstarter projects I’ve illuminated on this blog, this relatively large indie dev team comes with a lot of experience from past jobs at AAA studios like E.A. and Rockstar Games. While they are currently short of their funding goal, they still have over a month to reach it. Take a look at their Kickstarter page if you think Raji: An Ancient Epic might be the type of game—and theme—you’re looking for!

Dev Take Tuesday – Stranger Things and MAXimizing Player Choice

Warning! I will be discussing some spoilers for the recently released second season of Stranger Things. If you didn’t binge watch the nine episodes like my wife and I did, you might want to postpone reading this blog post until you finish the whole season.

As mentioned in the warning above, we watched the entire new season of Stranger Things in more or less one sitting. Needless to say, my wife and I are fans. Despite how much we both loved the second season and its new characters, my wife raised a valid gripe about the addition of the skateboard-riding, arcade-record-breaking Max: what’s her role on the team? She has an obvious role in the season’s narrative, breaking up the group dynamics and creating competition between Dustin and Lucas. But it’s unclear until partway through the last episode—when she’s able to drive a car despite her age—how she can help the band of kids fight against the horrors of the Upside Down.

Lucas, Dustin, Mike, and Max in Stranger Things Season 2 (screencap from show found here)

Personally, my concerns were mollified during that car-driving scene. Max was the “zoomer,” as she describes it in an earlier episode. But I think it was a valid question all the way up to that point. When Max was added to the team of demigorgon-defeating kids, viewers expected her to contribute to the team once the supernatural baddies returned. This expectation reminded me of a similar gripe I’ve heard from gamers about leveling in RPGs. When a character gains enough experience to level up in an RPG, the player can often choose a new ability for that character. Usually there is a pool of available abilities to choose from, each offering tantalizing new opportunities for that character to become more powerful and useful.

Various ability choices in the RPG Kingdoms of Amalur (screencap found here)

However, it’s not always clear in the moment which abilities will be useful. Maybe one of the new skills offered to the player says that you get better at hacking robot enemies. Seems cool, right? But if it turns out that not many robot enemies exist in the game, the player might end up with an ability that never ends up fulfilling the expectations he or she had for it. And that’s (obviously) disappointing. Some gamers, worried that they’ll end up making one of these disappointing choices, eschew personal choice entirely for internet guides whenever their character levels up.

I understand the connection might be a bit tenuous here, but my point is that both TV show viewers and RPG gamers have expectations when a new element is introduced to the equation. If a show writer adds a new character to a group of kids known for battling monstrous baddies, viewers will expect the new character to be useful to the group in some way. Likewise, if a game designer provides a new ability for a character, gamers will expect that ability to be useful—just like the other abilities the character already has. Offering a sub-par choice might open up roleplaying decisions for specific types of players, but if the drawbacks of that choice aren’t clear, many players will end up disappointed. Offering carefully balanced abilities every time a player levels up is a tricky task, but a worthwhile one for maximizing player choice and contentment.

Indie Illuminator - Summoners Fate

Usually, I have at least a couple projects I’d like to illuminate on any given Thursday. But today was unusual—I struggled to find any games or streamers to cover. So I hopped on Kickstarter’s games section and started to scroll. I was immediately intrigued by a video game called Summoners Fate that combines tactical combat and CCG (collectible card game) mechanics. To my surprise, I noticed the game’s developers also live in Salt Lake. Guess I picked the right Kickstarter to cover!

Gif found on the Summoners Fate Kickstarter page

Summoners Fate’s unique top-down perspective makes the game feel even more like the physical board and card games it emulates. Like our game Alkanaur, Summoners Fate incorporates both a strategic layer and a tactical layer in its gameplay. In the strategic layer players choose dungeons and manage resources, whereas the tactical layer focuses on snappy turn-based combat. One nice touch I appreciated as a game designer was the simple choice to make the game characters look up when it is their turn to move and attack. Additionally, the gameplay seems to be designed to allow for quick bursts of gameplay (useful for mobile) or in longer sessions.

The game’s developers, D20 Studios, plan to release Summoners Fate in 2018 on iOS, Android, PC and Mac. If you’re interested in the game, they are currently running a small Kickstarter project that is nearly 100% funded as I write this post. You can also catch a Q&A stream with the husband and wife development team tomorrow (November 3^rd) on Kickstarter if you want to know more about the game or the developers.

Indie Illuminator - Scarizard

Once again, I’d like to use this week’s Indie Illuminator post to highlight a wonderful Twitch streamer with a growing viewer count: Scarizard! If you play League of Legends, the name might sound familiar. Scarizard worked for several years with Riot Games and played a big role in communicating with players. He provided plenty of puns in the game’s frequent patch notes, while also participating in design and Q&A streams that gave players deeper insight into Riot’s gameplay decisions.

Image from Scarizard's Twitch page.

This past year, Scarizard left Riot to pursue some personal projects. One of those projects is “the Backlog.” Many gamers start to pile up a backlog of games, hoarding games because they’re on sale or sound interesting. Scarizard put together a list of 50 wildly distinct games that he was unable to play because of work and other constraints. And now he’s been playing those 50 games over the course of 2017 and streaming his progress through the backlog.

Some streamers tend to stick to one or two games, but other streamers—often called variety streamers—play a variety of games for their audience. If you’re looking for a talented variety streamer with a great sense of humor, a strong rapport with his chat audience, and a marvelous beard, Scarizard is definitely your man. He streams most days from around 12-9 PT if you want to check out his stream.

Dev Take Tuesday - Desolation Trail

What’s in a name? Sorry Romeo, but I’m going to have to disagree with you here. My wife and I went on a small outing this weekend to a nearby canyon and stumbled upon a trailhead marker titled “Desolation Trail.” The name certainly caught our attention. I doubt we would have picked that trail from a list of less intimidating names, but since we had some time we took a few minutes to explore the desolation ourselves.

Photo taken by Ryan Malavolta for UtahOutside.com

We met another couple descending from the trail. They explained how they’d avoided the trail for years because of negative things they’d heard about the trail: it was arduous, it was treacherous, it was ugly. About what you’d expect from a trail titled “desolation.” But, after finally checking it out for themselves, they discovered that it wasn’t any of those things. Intrigued, my wife and I followed the trail up. All we saw was sunshine and trees, and we discussed revisiting the trail on a future outing.

As developers, we might overlook how much naming we do. We often do a lot of “proper noun” naming of places and people, but on top of that we frequently need to name enemies, abilities, and game mechanics. It might be easy to simply use the first names that come to mind. (What’s in a name? A fireball by any other name would roast thy feet.) However, if the connotations and implications of a name contradict its purpose, your players might be confused or—like the hiking couple in the story above—avoid the “desolation” all together. As we decide on final names for all of our character abilities in Alkanaur, I’ll definitely have that trailhead marker on my mind.

Oh, and I’ll probably name an ability “desolation.” As long as the name fits.

Dev Take Tuesday - A Bit of Personality

I’m a huge fan of the rebooted XCOM games made by Firaxis. There’s only one series on Steam that I’ve logged more hours into: the Civilizations games (also made by Firaxis). XCOM 2 made a few key changes to the first game’s formula, but the emphasis on a squad of randomly generated soldiers remained largely the same. XCOM’s approach to teambuilding affords it certain benefits. While the characters you play provide little personality of their own, that also means they can act as a tabula rasa for you to inject your own stories into them as the game progresses. The expanded visual and audio customizations added in XCOM 2 build off of this “blank slate” idea.

The Chosen in XCOM 2: War of the Chosen (image from the game's Steam page)

I don’t think the first two XCOM games’ approach to characterization was wrong, but I do love one key change they made in XCOM 2’s huge DLC expansion: the Chosen. Now as you’re fighting the alien enemies, three powerful and unique alien hybrids will disrupt your carefully-laid plans. Each of the three Chosen—called the Assassin, the Hunter, and the Warlock—have highly specialized strengths and weaknesses as well as a unique personality. Those personalities shine in the tactical battles and a few cutscenes, and the Chosen also have voice lines while you plan and prepare in XCOM’s strategic layer. Perhaps taking a page out of Shadow of Mordor’s nemesis system, the Chosen’s constant needling and disruption helped me develop a pretty potent grudge against them. Especially the Assassin. Grr.

While I don’t think future XCOM titles will switch to only fleshed-out, pre-written story characters, I would be surprised if they didn’t at least include some fixed characters in their next game as well. By pumping in just a bit of personality, I found myself even more invested in the game. Much like Civilization 6’s “obnoxious Gandhis,” which I mentioned in another blog post, XCOM 2: War of the Chosen’s combination of game mechanics and dialogue breathes life into the enemy A.I. you compete against. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s about time I take out another one of the Chosen. Warlock, I’m coming for you.

Indie Illuminator - Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark

Today I’d like to illuminate another Kickstarter campaign. Much like our current project Alkanaur, Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark is an indie tactical RPG inspired by classics of the genre like Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre. One of the aspects of the game that sticks out right away is the unique hand-drawn sprites and environments.

Screenshots found here on the game's official site.

From what I’ve seen of the game so far, Fell Seal seems to follow the FFT path closely, with a similar experience system and a familiar dual-class progression structure. Some of the more unique features they have planned include the ability to change your non-essential characters’ appearance, as well as secret classes that the player can unlock.

Just as we plan to do with our own Kickstarter, Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark is currently offering a small, free demo of the game. So if you’re interested, I’d suggest checking out the demo. You can glimpse a tiny section of the story and get your hands dirty with two campaign missions. (Pro tip: Protect your mage and use him well.)

Design Deep Dive - So What's a Game Designer Anyway? (Part 2)

In yesterday’s blog post I explained how a good game designer is always looking for interesting questions to ask the player. When a game designer stays focused on the players, the game usually turns out better. I shared examples of games I made when I was younger to illustrate how games that don’t challenge players with interesting decisions get boring quickly. And finally I hastily hammered out some examples of the challenging questions that great games of various genres ask their players. But as I stated in part one of this Design Deep Dive, a designer is not only responsible for asking consumers interesting questions but also needs to have all the answers during development.

Game designer Liz England provides a helpful depiction of game design in her article called “The Door Problem.” I highly encourage you to read through it when you have some time—it’s not a long read. The super-condensed takeaway from this “Door Problem” is that even the most mundane element of a game—such as doors—actually requires a ton of answers and explanation during development. A game designer is there to solve these issues and move development forward.

Image found here on Wikipedia

In addition to keeping development running smoothly and quickly, a competent designer also keeps the game cohesive and coherent. Some of the “door problems” that Liz England mentions could likely be solved by the artists, programmers, or level designers as they encounter them. However, when one door problem is closed in such a way, a new door problem will very likely be opened up. Then you have revolving door problems—not good. With one person (or a design team in larger companies) answering all the design questions, the answers that make it into the game will all fit together better.

I’m not sure we’ll have many doors in Alkanaur, actually. But I thought I’d give you some examples of the kinds of answers I’d need to provide during our game’s development. For an equally mundane example, let’s talk about rocks.

•         Are there going to be rocks in this game?
•         How big can rocks be?
•         If we want big rocks, how will players see characters behind the rocks?
•         Can players interact with the rocks or are they simply visual details?
•         If the answer is both, how would we distinguish between rocks that can roll and rocks that can’t?
•         Can computer-controlled enemies “see” players behind rocks?
•         Can they fire ranged weapons or spells at players behind rocks?
•         How many rocks should be in any given level?
•         What happens if a player tries to target a rock with an attack?
•         If a character can tunnel underground, can they pop up in a space occupied by a rock?
•         If a character can fly, can they go over a space occupied by a rock?
•         What happens to a rock if a character uses an ability that alters terrain on that space, such as creating impassable walls or rivers?
•         Should our rocks blend in with the spaces they rest on, or should they “pop out” like our characters do?
•         Should characters get any type of bonus for being in a space adjacent to a rock?

As a tactics RPG, Alkanaur is a fairly complex game. But even the simplest games will still need a designer to step in and answer those questions. I think that’s part of the reason why I’ve always been drawn to game design in the first place. Design blends artistry and problem solving. I love posing fun challenges for players, and I also love the challenge of solving complex design issues in an elegant way. Hopefully these two blog posts cleared up any questions you might have about game design, but if you’re still puzzled or just want more info about game design feel free to reach out to me through our Facebook page or Twitter.

Design Deep Dive - So What's a Game Designer Anyway?

For the most part, I love telling people about my job as an indie game developer. It usually garners a lot of attention, and people seem genuinely curious about the details of my job. I also enjoy describing Alkanaur, and I’m (slowly) getting better at “pitching” the game to non-gamers. However, one thing is always tricky when people want more details about how I personally contribute to the project. From anecdotal experience, many people think any game development team is a bunch of programmers. Perhaps an artist or two. I make sure people know that on any small indie dev team everyone wears a lot of hats. I help with the art of Alkanaur, and I help with the programming. But my number one job is game design. Which begs the question: what is a game designer anyway?

Image found through GIPHY

To me, game design comes down to two things: questions for consumers and answers for development. 

I’ll try to tackle each of those topics in depth through a pair of back-to-back blog posts. So if you endure today's post, check back tomorrow for part two!

A good game asks its players compelling questions. I don’t mean Professor Oak asking you for your name at the beginning of Pokémon Blue (although I could certainly write a separate Design Deep Dive about that). By questions I mean choices offered to the player. Returning to our example, in Pokémon Blue the player makes an important and iconic choice early in the game—choosing from one of three starting pokémon with distinct strengths and weaknesses. (In case you’re wondering, I’m a bulbasaur guy through and through). Sid Meier, one of the more well-known designers in the video game industry, famously stated that “games are a series of interesting decisions.” That quote caused quite a stir in game development circles, perhaps because it can come across as overly reductive. But I think it’s a useful train of thought because it always brings the designer’s focus back to the consumer.

Image found on this Metro UK article

I end up doing a lot of user interface and user experience work in Alkanaur (again: our tiny team wears a lot of hats). To me it’s crystal clear that our game’s menus and controls should feel intuitive and comfortable for the user. But with games it seems easy to lose track of the player as you decide how the game works. Forgetting the player often leads to bad design decisions, and consequently a bad game. What are some examples of games that fail to ask the players compelling questions? Let’s eviscerate two games I developed before I could shave (let alone grow a beard as magnificent as this one).

Image found on my iPhone because it's a selfie.

First up is The Lost Reindeer. I think I was probably seven or eight when I made this one. It’s a classic-style board game played with dice and a homemade game board. Players take turns rolling dice and moving that many squares on a path (clumsily) drawn on the game board. Every once in a while a space will tell you to move forward or back based on some type of Christmas-related event. If the average person was tasked with quickly designing a game, they might come up with some variation on this theme. Similar games like Candyland or Chutes and Ladders have existed for decades, so this game tends to stick in the collective consciousness of Americans.

But what interesting decisions are offered to players in The Lost Reindeer? Are there any at all? The only real questions available are “should I participate in this game?” and “should I try and cheat?” Any one over the age of eight will quickly grow bored of such a game, because it does not challenge him or her tactically, strategically, or creatively. So why do games like Candyland or Chutes and Ladders endure? While neither game offers Sid Meier’s “series of interesting decisions,” they do offer a limited sense of progression and a simple example of cause and effect. When young children tested out Alkanaur at a convention, they enjoyed the demo because they could move a character and watch the AI-controlled enemies chase them. I think the love for Candyland (beyond its theme and visuals) comes from a similar place. You draw cards and watch your game piece “move” through the world.

My next fully-developed game fares slightly better when it comes to asking the player compelling questions. I made Beastmaker for a middle school shop class, and no matter how long I end up designing games I’ll always brag about getting an A on that project. My evaluation sheet showed 100% and a short comment from my somewhat gruff teacher: “I don’t know what the hell this is, but you obviously worked hard on it.” I co-created the collectible card game Beastmaker with a friend. It was based off of one of those short teasers at the end of a book for a series we never read. (I did some research for this article, and it looks like the series is called The Seventh Tower by Garth Nix, who also authored the fantastic Sabriel.) Thematically, the game is about combining several fantastical beasts into one powerful, conglomerate beast and then challenging another player’s chimeric beast with your own.

A glimpse of my hand-drawn Beastmaker cards (bonus appearance from the better game Star Wars Epic Duels)

The game is for two players and consists of two phases. First you draw cards and place beasts into various slots each turn. At the end of the first phase you tally up your final beast’s stats based on the cards in those slots. Then you alternate taking swings at one another with your beasts in the second phase. At first glance, the game does provide the player with some fun choices. During the first seven turns, the player decides where to allocate his or her beast cards. And in the second phase, the players choose from different “special attack” cards or rolling a pair of dice to perform a normal attack. However, as I covered in a previous blog post, generally the game offers only an illusion of choice.

Most cards were only good in one or maybe two slots, so really the player only needed to plop down a card in a slot that made sense. If no good beast/slot combinations were available then you just sighed and put the card down in a sub-optimal spot. And in the second phase, you didn’t have many choices either, since you usually played a special attack if you had it, and if not you just rolled the dice for a normal attack. Interestingly, some (not all) of Beastmaker’s issues could be fixed if the game were expanded. Card games that require deckbuilding “frontload” some of those compelling questions before gameplay even starts, because players need to choose which cards make it into their deck. As it stands, Beastmaker is a bit of fun to experience once, but lacks any sort of strategic depth. It fails to ask the player any good questions on repeated play-throughs.

So now that we covered some bad examples, what are some good questions to ask? Some video games ask the players interesting strategic questions, like Hearthstone or League of Legends. How do different combinations of cards or champions synergize with one another? How does my knowledge about the meta game—how other players play the game—affect my choices? Based off the current information I have, how should I plan out my future moves?

Other videogames ask tactical “in-the-moment” questions. Turn-based games like Alkanaur or The Banner Saga give players time to make the perfect tactical choice, while real-time games in popular series like Zelda, Dark Souls, or Halo force players to make several quick choices in succession, challenging their reflexes and mental library of game knowledge. Should I attack now or retreat? What is this specific enemy’s weakness? How can I maximize my current character’s strengths? Where should I explore next?

Finally, a growing number of video games ask players questions about themselves. Narrative-focused games such as The Walking Dead or Life is Strange challenge players to create their own guided stories, and those decisions often challenge a player’s personal value system. Which of these two arguing characters should I support? And why do I support them—is it for a desired outcome or because of my personal beliefs? How would I respond to a traumatic event such as this?

Some questions are more profound than others (Image found on Nerdist)

Of course, many of the best games—video or otherwise—blend many different types of questions into the gameplay. That’s certainly something we’re trying to accomplish in Alkanaur. In the next Design Deep Dive, I’ll discuss how game designers not only need to ask players compelling questions through their design decisions, but also answer an endless stream of development issues, big or small.

Dev Take Tuesday - Game Dev Glue

At the recommendation of a good friend—and seemingly the entirety of my Twitter feed—I finally started playing Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. I’m glad I did. I’ve yet to finish, but so far the game has been fun and challenging—not only mechanically, but narratively as well. As you boot up the game, some screen text informs you that professional therapists provided input during development, since the game features a protagonist suffering from mental illness. From the opening credits, this aspect of the game becomes clear. Your protagonist, a young woman named Senua, receives nearly constant input from various voices in her head.

Screen capture of my own play-through of Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

I strongly feel that those voices are a glue that holds the rest of the game together. The game does dazzle visually, but I think the alternating mechanics of melee combat and puzzle solving would fall a bit flat without the key representation of Senua’s psychosis through the competing voices in her—and consequently your—head. These voices, of course, fit the game’s narrative themes. But they also bond the narrative to the mechanics in elegant and intriguing ways. During the puzzle sequences, the voices occasionally provide helpful feedback, but more often than not distract with you doubt and deprecation. During combat the voices become a great assistance, giving you supernatural awareness and the chance to avoid strikes from any enemies behind you. Additionally, the voices replace a tutorial UI rather seamlessly, giving the character instructions in a fluid, conversational way. I’ve found myself both grateful and vexed at their constant chattering, and it’s obvious from the narrative that the dev team wanted to highlight this internal struggle.

Certainly Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice would be a solid game even without this one important design inclusion. But the voices show how one simple aspect of the design can really cement the video game into one cohesive piece of art. I believe it’s vital as a game developer to constantly search for anything that will help “glue” your narrative and mechanics together, especially if you want to cover a challenging topic in your game.

Dev Take Tuesday – Be a Star Baker

Can’t say I thought I’d ever get into a reality TV show again. Can’t say I’d expect that show to be about baking. But my wife and I just started the third season of the Great British Baking Show on Netflix. I’m not much of a baker specifically, but I do most of the cooking in our home. I know I’m overly cavalier when it comes to following the recipe, and one thing that has stuck out to me on the show is the need for balance between adherence to formulas and a creative touch.

Image from PBS via Collider

With cooking at an amateur level, I think you can get away with simply knowing some basic cooking principles and then putting stuff together that tastes good. But baking is more precise, more scientific. If you decide not to include the eggs this time around, you’re going to end up with a vastly different texture and taste. Still, on the Great British Baking Show the “star bakers” tend to be participants who find those little ingenious flourishes that wow the judges.

While some game developers do take my make-it-up-as-you-go approach to cooking, I think the best approach is usually the star baker technique. As a designer that means looking at what’s expected in the genre and fulfilling those expectations. That’s why (thoughtfully) playing games is imperative if you want to design them. Once you’ve learned how to follow the recipe, you can then add your own flourishes that will wow customers and critics. As someone who studied writing, I heard some iteration of “you need to know the rules before you can break them” in almost every creative writing course I took. I believe that’s solid advice for game design as well.

For Alkanaur, we’re aiming for that star baker tactic. From the early stages of design, I knew I wanted to make a tactics game that was faithful to the genre’s predecessors. In my opinion, there were three things our tactical RPG needed, no matter what: an empowering sense of progression, skillful use of positioning and abilities, and a robust class system that encouraged diversity. I’m excited for the creative flourishes we’ve added to Alkanaur, but I’m also excited to simply showcase how our small team can deliver the exact experience our audience is looking for when they hear the words “tactics RPG.”

Indie Illuminator - The Iron Oath

As someone who loves the painstakingly crafted pixel art animations of Duelyst, I was immediately drawn to the images I saw of the Iron Oath, a tactics game—like Alkanaur—that is currently in the early stages of development. While in the end I believe our games will play out quite differently due to distinct gameplay emphases, I think we share a lot of game design principles, and I’m eager to try the game once it comes out.

Image from the Iron Oath's Kickstarter page

Art is the first thing that stands out for Iron Oath. The handcrafted pixel art world is dark and gloomy, but the sprites, backgrounds, and animations are beautiful. As someone currently working on pixel art sprites for our game, let me tell you: it’s a lot of work. But the results are certainly worth it.

Image from the Iron Oath's Kickstarter page

As for gameplay, the Iron Oath’s turn-based combat takes place on a hex grid. The more compact terrain (from the images I’ve seen) make me think the combat might play out a bit like Darkest Dungeon, with less room to maneuver and plenty of close-quarters combat right away. I love the addition of traps and destructible environment that should allow players to make some clever moves. If you’re interested, head on over to their Kickstarter page. As I post this, they are at about two thirds of their crowdfunding goal with over a 1,000 backers. I’m confident they’ll reach their goal, and I’m looking forward to the game’s release in 2019.

Indie Illuminator – Discover Play Share

While we occasionally cover indie game favorites in this blog, today I’d love to highlight a dedicated indie game review site: Discover Play Share. The website’s tagline is “light, digestible (indie) game reviews,” and I think they execute that idea to perfection. I admire a well-organized but excruciatingly exhaustive review that extensively covers all the minutiae of a game. But I also love a simple, succinct review. That's exactly what Discover Play Share offers.

Screen cap from the Discover Play Share review section.

In each game review, you’ll generally find (quick-as-a) bullet-point lists of likes and dislikes, gameplay screenshots, a breakdown of cost and hours of amusement provided, as well as a “final word” section that provides a few insightful paragraphs on the game. At the end of the review, Discover Play Share offers a simple yes or no recommendation instead of a traditional 1-10 rating system. From what I’ve seen, most of the games reviewed are also recommended, so it’s probably a good idea to at least glance through the other parts of the review. And that’s exactly why their “light and digestible” format works so well—I think it encourages the reader to not simply rely on an inadequate numerical rating by keeping the rest of the review easy to scan through.

I also appreciate the unique, colorful layout of the website, and you can tell the designer built the site with mobile users in mind. If you have a moment, pull out your smart phone and check out the current reviews on Discover Play Share—you’ll likely find some sweet games you haven’t heard of, and who knows…you might just find one of my own reviews on there some day.

Dev Take Tuesday - Webs and Layers

Well-written characters, much like onions and ogres, have layers. When making characters for a book, film, or video game it’s easy to settle on one key motivation for that character. But a character with one or two extra layers of motivation really starts to come to life. I saw a great example of this recently in the latest reboot of everyone’s favorite neighborhood web-slinger, Spider-Man: Homecoming. The film does many things well, but it was villain Adrian Toomes (a.k.a. the Vulture) that stood out to me. Of course actor Michael Keaton deserves some of the praise for excelling in the role, but I think the Vulture was a great villain because the writers decided to add one additional layer.

Concept Art (Image found on Screen Rant)

The Vulture could easily have been a simple reboot of a previous Spider-Man movie villain: the Sandman. (I’ve also heard that villain-turned-hero Deadeye in Suicide Squad fits this bill.) Both characters talk about needing to make money for their family, and prompt some measure of sympathy from the audience as a result. While a desperate need for money is a reasonable motivation for villainy, that motivation lacks depth. It will work, and the audience will feel some sympathy, but the story likely won’t go anywhere new.

Fortunately, Spider-Man: Homecoming provides an extra layer to the Vulture. Yes, after striking out on a somewhat risky business venture, Adrian Toomes definitely needs to find a way to help provide for his family. But why not turn to a less dangerous and unpleasant job than making and selling deadly weapons to criminals? The Vulture explains that part of his motivation is fueled by his hatred for the government—they callously ruined him when they appropriated his alien salvage, and the consequence in his mind was to return that callousness. I’m sure in Adrian’s mind he’s a less idealistic Robin Hood, stealing from the heartless “big guy” to benefit others (as well as himself).

 I’m glad that Adrian’s antagonism went beyond one simple motivation. More than any other Marvel movie villain so far, the Vulture kept me thinking as I drove home from the movie theater. I think it’s important to note that these extra layers don’t always need to absolve the antagonist of any crimes—I think Adrian Toomes was a clear villain who showed little remorse for how his selfishness might affect the innocent. But his character complexity certainly added some oomph to the storytelling in Spider-Man: Homecoming, and it’s something I’ll keep in mind as I write villains in Alkanaur and any future games.

Indie Illuminator - Crashnauts

Some games make great thematic decisions, and others make great mechanical decisions. The best games do both. Locally-developed indie game Crashnauts, now available on Steam Early Access, seems to be a game built around one choice that is clever both thematically and mechanically: what if your respawn were another weapon in your arsenal?

Screenshot of Crashnauts (found on the official website)

Any shooter or arena game that isn’t a simple sudden death match will involve some sort of respawn. Most respawns just boringly drop you back into the game a few seconds after your death. But Crashnauts doesn’t drop you back on to the playing field—it hurtles you down to the playing field with crushing force. After dying, players get a targeting laser that lets them aim exactly where they’ll respawn. If they crash on top of another player, they get an instant kill.

If you enjoy fast-paced arena shooters like Quake or Unreal Tournament, or if you’ve spent way too much time (like me) playing arena fighting games such as Super Smash Brothers or Rivals of Aether, Crashnauts might be up your alley. The game is still growing in its Early Access mode, so you can check it out here if you want to add it to your Steam Wishlist or give it a try right away.

Fatespinner and the Illusion of Choice

I’m a big Hearthstone fan, and I’m excited for the digital card game’s next expansion, Knights of the Frozen Throne. With every expansion comes the exhilarating and antagonizing slow drip of released and/or leaked cards. It’s difficult and even foolhardy to try and determine any given card’s full impact before every card in the set is revealed, but that doesn’t stop many people—including me—from trying. One recently released card generated quite a bit of discussion: Fatespinner.

Fatespinner features a brand new take on the common “Deathrattle” game mechanic, which means that something happens when the summoned minion dies. In Fatespinner’s case, the player secretly chooses from one of two effects: making all minions—both you and your opponent’s—stronger or dealing damage to all minions in play. At first glance, this seems to offer a fun choice for whoever plays the minion as well as an intriguing guessing game for the opposing player. Sadly, I doubt that Fatespinner will live up to its promise.

One oft-mentioned aspect of game design is the idea of “illusion of choice.” As renowned designer Sid Meier famously stated, a game is a series of interesting decisions. If a player starts to realize that their choices don’t actually matter that much, the game loses some of its sparkle. The illusion of choice might be hollow narrative decisions that don’t actually affect the story in any way. Illusion of choice can also refer to “cinematic” game moments that remove most of the control of the player, leaving only a shell of actual interactivity. But Fatespinner reminded me of one important example of illusion of choice: when one decision is always (or nearly always) the correct choice.

When the player chooses the secret Deathrattle effect for Fatespinner, the decision really only relies on the current “board state,” the number of minions each player has. If the opponent has more minions they’ll choose to damage all minions, but if the player has more minions they will choose to strengthen all minions. In turn, most opponents will realize what the “secret” is right away because the binary decision requires extremely clear information visible to both players. This card could certainly invoke attempts at bluffing, but in practice I think the downside to a lost bluff is far too great in comparison to the benefit from making the more obvious correct choice.

I might be wrong. I hope I’m wrong. Regardless, I think it’s helpful as a designer to break down any intriguing decision in a game and examine if the choice offered is illusory in nature. If it is, I like to think about how the decision could be improved. I think that the idea of a secret Deathrattle is a wonderful game mechanic to add to Hearthstone, but I’d like to see future cards present choices that aren’t so symmetrically opposed (two decisions with completely opposite effects but in the same vein of gameplay). I believe those types of choices will make the game more interesting for both the player and the opponent. It’s also something I’ll make sure to keep in mind with any binary choices presented in our game, Alkanaur. 

Indie Illuminator – 2 Utah 4 U

Cheesy title? You bet. But I hope you’ll allow a groan-worthy title in exchange for two incredible indie illuminations in this week’s post. I’ll be attending Salt Lake Gaming Con next week as a spectator and gamer, but last year Robby and I had the opportunity to show off Alkanaur as developers. We exhibited our demo alongside several other fantastic indie dev teams in Utah, all belonging to a group called the Utah Games Guild.  I’d like to highlight two games from that group of Utah-based developers, both of which are on Steam and on sale as part of Steam’s annual summer shenanigans.

Screenshot found on We Need to Go Deeper's Steam page

The first game is We Need to Go Deeper by Deli Interactive LLC. Do you like Jules Verne? Do you love odd characters in odder outfits? Do you enjoy yelling at your friends as they fail to keep your submarine from sinking? If you do, I’d take a look at We Need to Go Deeper—currently in Early Access on Steam. The gameplay features cooperative play, procedurally-generated environments for replay value, and a fun, hand-drawn art style. 2-4 players frantically run from one task to another inside a submarine, using tools to fight off monstrous sea creatures and keep the submarine from sinking. My wife and I played a round together at last year’s SLGC and had a great time. You can pick it up for $6.49 right now with the current Steam sale.

Screenshot found on Legacy of the Elder Star's Steam page

The second game is Legacy of the Elder Star by Kickbomb Entertainment LLC. I was able to speak with both Kickbomb Entertainment’s lead designer and artist at length last summer, and they taught me a lot about the local indie games scene. But that wasn’t the first time I encountered Legacy of the Elder Star. I remember walking by a demo exhibition of this game two years ago and being blown away by the fun graphics and superb sound design. Legacy of the Elder Star is a fast-paced SHMUP (Shoot ‘em up) that features a unique, elegant control scheme: everything your character does is controlled by your mouse. If that interests you, checkout their Steam page where you can buy the game on sale until July 5^th for $2.49.

Dev Take Tuesday - Wonder Woman

My wife and I went to see Wonder Woman the week it came out, and we loved the film. I immediately knew I wanted to write a Dev Take post on the movie, but I wasn’t sure about what angle I’d go with. The more I reflect on the film, the more I’m drawn to that pivotal moment when Diana climbs out of the trench and enters No Man’s Land. The filmmakers didn’t hesitate to highlight this scene in multiple ways. (Note: I’ve only seen the movie once, so I apologize in advance if I got any details wrong.)

Image found on Entertainment Weekly

First, the film waits to incorporate Wonder Woman’s forceful, electric cello musical theme—first heard in the Batman vs Superman movie—until this moment, when Diana chooses to truly become Wonder Woman. Second, the lighting and color suddenly change as Diana lifts herself into No Man’s Land. She’s still surrounded by the muted, mostly grey color palette but the color of her uniform is bright, contrasting against the darkness and “moral grey” around her. Last, the narrative choice of her entering a place literally called “No Man’s Land” emphasizes a key theme of the movie: her outsider status as both a woman and a stranger to all of mankind.

Each of those decisions probably merits its own blog post, but the takeaway I ultimately garnered from all this is to do everything I can to boost the pivotal moments in my games and my games’ narratives. I’m sure it’s possible to oversell those moments, but I think it’s much easier to undersell them. As game designers we have a lot of tools at our disposal. We utilize many of the same tools as film, but we also add player interaction and game mechanics to our toolkit. In Alkanaur and any of my future games, I plan on using all those tools to ensure a powerful emotional response to the “No Man’s Land moments” in those games.

Indie Illuminator - Longsword Tabletop Tactics

I’ve likely put more hours into Heroscape than any other board game. And one of my favorite current hobbies—apart from game dev, of course—is painting miniatures.  Longsword Tabletop Tactics incorporates elements from both! You can check out the Kickstarter campaign here.

Gameplay gif found on Longsword's Kickstarter page

While our tactics game Alkanaur shares some design roots with Heroscape, the physical “miniatures” and hex-tiled battlegrounds of Longsword absolutely invoke that feeling of picking out a team from the available units in your collection and watching the battle unfold on the table. Each player summons units or casts spells turn by turn based on their available mana, and units move, use abilities, and attack based on a flexible action point system. Based on what I’ve seen in streams, it looks like units only have a few abilities each, but those abilities vary quite a bit.

Image found on Longsword's Kickstarter Page

Developer Zero Sum Games also includes a nifty unit-painting system that gives you a chance to adjust the hues of your armies and give them a more customized feel. It seems like a fun feature that adds to the collectible nature of the game. I’m excited to follow the development of Longsword and keep tabs on its progress. If you’re interested in the game, go ahead and check out their Kickstarter page to learn more about the game’s features, monetization strategies (they want to go free-to-play), and its crowdfunding backer rewards.

Dev Take Tuesday – Obnoxious Gandhis in Civ 6

Like many gamers, my gaming backlog is so long that I’ll likely never play them all. But recently I have been able to put many hours into one game I had my eye on since its release: Civ 6. The Civilization games are all about taking one small pre-Classical Era settlement and growing in technology, culture, and resources until you’re the top civilization in our current Information Age. You play against several other civilizations, each run by the A.I. and each with their own unique advantages, disadvantages, and tendencies. If you’ve heard anything about the Civilization series, you’ve probably heard about Civ’s greatest meme: Gandhi’s tendency to nuke everyone else out of existence.

Don't let that smile fool you. (Image found on PCGamesN)

What started as a programming error became a staple for every Civ game thereafter. Gandhi eschews war for most stages of the game, but gets nuke happy once the technology is available. As I’ve been playing Civ 6, I’ve seen a different take on this long-running joke in the franchise. In Civ 6, every civilization’s leader has one constant, visible personality quirk (called an agenda). Norway’s viking king Harald Hardrada, for example, loves other civilizations that have a strong navy. England’s Queen Victoria tries to settle on every continent. India’s Gandhi has a fairly unsurprising agenda: He rarely declares wars and generally befriends the more peaceful civilizations. But every leader also has a hidden agenda drawn from a pool of more universal tendencies, such as “explorers” or “money grubbers.” Gandhi was apparently weighted by the developers to get the “nuke happy” hidden agenda most of the time.

The result is a rather obnoxious Gandhi who gets mad at any war you start—no matter how just—but who also won’t hesitate to build up and utilize a nuclear arsenal. So what’s my game dev takeaway from the new approach to A.I. tendencies in Civ 6? I love it. One aspect of game development I didn’t consider before starting work on my first game is balancing fun design with work efficiency. A.I. coding gets tricky quick, but in a strategy game like Civ you really want to make sure the different factions feel unique. The relatively simple inclusion of two specific agendas per leader (one static and one random and hidden) allows the A.I. to have a personality that changes with each game and adds depth to the player’s strategic choices. We’re planning on a similar approach in Alkanaur. Enemies will have similar A.I. logic, but their roles on the battlefield (support, tank, assassin, etc.) will give them distinct “agendas.” We hope that those agendas will add variety and personality to the player’s enemies without adding an overabundance of work on our end.