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.