Addiction, Arrows, Space Battles

July 2nd, 2009 Zen

A brief update is about to happen. Brace yourselves.

I recently returned from a trip around the South Pacific, which I thought was quite cool until my holiday was trumped by the rest of Secret Lab. As many of you would agree, 23 nights on a boat with a crappy satellite Internet connection and a laptop with only Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe and The Matrix was a bit too much for me. I hugged my computer when I got back, and I’m not ashamed to admit that.

A few of you would know that I started playing World of Warcraft (again) just prior to my trip. This is still continuing, as it is one of a select few games that my fiance also enjoys. Addicted. In addition, I’m playing Team Fortress 2 again but this time with Spy as my favoured class. Some of the Spy unlockables have drastically improved my performance - so much so that I’m now doubling my previous kill/death ratio. I have been alternating Spy with Sniper, also using the new unlockables. I hit 11 kills, 3 dominations in one life using the bow - which is pretty impressive. Pinning people to walls with arrows is fun. There was a LAN at University only a day after I returned, during which I kicked off my Spy career - but was otherwise devoid of multiplayer games. We did manage to edge in a 6-player game of Twilight Imperium, in which I won (aren’t I great?), which took from 11pm ’til 5am.

Since I’ve returned, I’ve been watching the third season of Burn Notice (now up to episode 4) and Better off Ted (I don’t know what it’s up to, but I’ve watched 2). Dungeons and Dragons (4th Edition, you oldschool elitists) is going to run again soon, but this time with Aleena (my fiance) as the DM. I think I’ve been scaring her with my brutal pre-planned stun and flank tactics. I really enjoy 4th Edition - It really appeals to my tactical mind.

Getting a little slack with the blog lately. I blame you. All of you. If you’d send some damn comments my way I might post more. Clicking “mark all as spam” is just wrong. Wrong!

Posted in Board Games, News, PC Gaming, Pen and Paper | 2 Comments »

Bringing Home The Bacon: Victory In Strategy Games

May 25th, 2009 Zen

While on the topic of Twilight Imperium, a game much played by my friends recently, I got to thinking about victory.

I have to thank Mr Ford though, as through failing to achieve many objectives towards the game’s victory, it made me wonder why. In Twilight Imperium, at least, most of the objectives you have to complete in order to gain victory points are economic or technological - a facet of the game that doesn’t appeal to anyone. Some people just like to blow stuff up. In the interests of science, and because I like making lists, he’s a few motives for play and endgame objectives I can think of. Try to work out which one you like best.

• Conquest: Wipe out the other players. Very popular in computer games and best used in games that don’t last that long. It is a tug-of-war type game, in that players will push back and forth until one wins. Because players can be eliminated, its best not to use this in a game like Twilight Imperium unless you’re prepared to have players pack up, walk out the door and go home many hours before the game ends. One important aspect of the conquest objective is balancing your resources between warfare and development, using developed territory or technology to fuel your war machine. Players who fail to balance this could be left with a destroyed fleet and no income. This option is more commonly used in Real-Time Strategy games on computer and rarely in board games.

• Attrition: An alternative to conquest, wherein players just try to deal damage or take territory to gain victory. It doesn’t involve the complete elimination of any player, though it’s certainly not discounted as an option. This is the type of victory used in games like Defcon, and in the alternative objective deck provided with the Twilight Imperium expansion.

• Economic: Victory usually occurs after a player has amassed enough stuff. It is, in essence, a race to a victory point, with which one player can suddenly and unexpectedly emerge the victor. This can put emphasis on budget, management of purchases and the occasional aggressive action to get the job done. This is the type of objective I prefer, as I don’t like being forced into conflict if I can avoid it. The economic victory requires the player to leverage diplomacy in their favour, which can be hard against a heavy-handed conquest player. This is the option used in the base Twilight Imperium game and in games like Settlers of Catan.

• Build Up: Victory is achieved through establishing a certain level of infrastructure or technological advance, and appeals to the type of gamer who likes the economical victory. Similar to the economical victory, it is a race gametype. Unlike economical though, it requires the player to invest in something other than warfare, while still maintaining a formidable defense force - in case things go south. It requires a little more tactics than economical, as the money or gains are not immediately available for use in warfare whenever you need it. Therefore, players who like to build upwards are going to have a lot more invested in static defenses such as minefields, forts or cannons. This is partly used by Twilight Imperium in the base game.

• Precision Strike: Victory is gained by acquiring one particular location or thing, and is favoured by players who prefer underhanded tactics and negotiation. This type of strategy is frequently only available in games with alliances, or variations of them. This objective is definitely for people who like action, as it doesn’t require much investment in infrastructure or forces, but rather careful foreplanning, an opportunity - and luck. However, lack of power usually leads to fatal backlash from the person you backstabbed, and is frequently the downfall of the precision player. Additional planning can lead this sort of player to defend against a backlash, causing further damage to the intended target. The precision player needs to use threats more than any other negotiation, which doesn’t win you friends.

Posted in Board Games, Card Games, Console Gaming, Game Concepts, PC Gaming, Player Satisfaction | 1 Comment »

Platformers Have Platforms

May 14th, 2009 Zen

A little while ago, Andrew - lead artistic designer for Day of the Tiki (and in fact, most of Secret Lab’s projects) approached me on the Internet and asked how random platforms flying around a level could be made to fit the theme of Tiki Bar TV. Obviously, platforms with no hint of a mechanism controlling them can be explained by gypsy magic, but this felt a little tacky and cheap - and didn’t really explain why tiny pieces of what we can only assume to be driftwood had been enchanted in such a way so terribly convenient for Johnny Johnny.

Over the course of the conversation I realised, with delight, that finally my ideas didn’t really have to make sense anymore. Tiki Bar TV fits fantastically well with our surreal sense of reality. “How about,” I began, pressing enter and waiting a few seconds for dramatic effect. “Platforms,” I continued. I began a new line here as well. Dramatic effect was getting a little annoyed. “Carried by crabs,” I finished.

This was the first suggestion for making platforms more than magically enchanted slabs of wood, and it changed history forever my vision of the completed game. Ideas flew around about vertical traveling platforms and how they could be explained. Admittedly, my first suggestion was “flying crabs”, in response to which Andrew ingeniously coined the term “birds”.

Here it is: the first image of the Platform Crab.

Posted in Game Concepts, PC Gaming | 1 Comment »

Tiki Bar TV: Day Of The Tiki

April 29th, 2009 Zen

Yes, the news is in.

Secret Lab is working on the first official Tiki Bar TV computer-powered video game! Very exciting stuff. Also, if you read my blog and weren’t linked to it from Secret Lab (how?), check out their website. They make cool stuff.

So, what am I doing for Day Of The Tiki? Unlike all my comrades at Secret Lab, I have very little in the way of real skills. It appears, as no shock to anyone who knows me, that I have squandered the vast majority of my life playing games and not doing any work. It is in this capacity that I assist the team - my extensive experience with games. I provide the gameplay and puzzle ideas, although not exclusively (all of Secret Lab contributes).

I’m proud to be the member of the team who can convey a game idea by citing older, obscurerer games. I’m proud to be able to begin an explanation with “Who here has ever played A Boy And His Blob? Nobody? Well, in it…” or “What about Blackhawk? On the Snes? Anyone?”.

So that’s pretty much my involvement in a nutshell. If you like thinking about games when you’re not playing them, check out the Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2 blogs. They have some good articles.

Posted in News, PC Gaming | 1 Comment »

Suspicion, Distrust and Teamwork

April 20th, 2009 Zen

I tend to favour games with flimsy alliances and deadly tactical consequences. To explain, I like games that allow you backstab, and be vulnerable to the same. When I half-bake an idea for a board or card game in my head, I deliberately keep teamwork in mind.

Permanent alliances, or teams set out from the start, harbour a sense of security. You know who your friends are, you know where the enemy is - you build your tactics on numbers and probability alone. However, when you play a game in which you form alliances that can be broken, or you just don’t know who the enemy is, a human element of suspicion and distrust develops - which extends the game beyond simply knowing the rules and the best tactics. Note that these rules apply to certain fantastic electronic video computer games, in which Spy Checking can be a waste of time and ammunition.

In a card game idea that has been ongoing for some time now, I have toyed with the idea of players’ reliance on each other, even though there can be only one victor. It is my hope that players will begin the game with complete teamwork in mind, in order to complete their common objective, but as they get closer to the end, will begin playing against each other or, at the very least, leaving each other to die.

So, if you ever aspire to making a computer game or two, throw in some suspicion and distrust with your teamwork.

Posted in Board Games, Card Games, Game Concepts, PC Gaming | No Comments »

Jailbreak: The Reimplementation

March 31st, 2009 Zen

I got to talking with my good friend buddy Jon Manning yesterday about my previous blog post. Naturally, as we have before, we began talking about how much a mod would be properly implemented. Read the post below this one of you will remain baffled. The two keys to reimplimentation would be to enforce the line between unnecesary and neccesary killing of prisoners, and to give a proper objective to the prison wardens.

Determining the legitimacy of the kill could be based on an algorithm that combines all the circumstances of the kill into a single value, which is compared against a threshold. If the value is below the threshold, nearby players are asked to vote on the legitimacy of a kill. Determining a kill as unwarranted would result in a suitable punishment for the warden. The legitimacy value of the kill would increase in the following circumstances.

• Prisoner injuring a warden.
• Prisoner killing a warden.
• Prisoner swinging a knife within a certain distance of a warden.
• Prisoner holding a knife, facing a warden and moving within attacking distance of that warden.
• Prisoner holding a gun and aiming within a certain angle of a warden.
• Prisoner holding a gun for greater than a set amount of time.
• Prisoner holstering a gun for an excessive amount of time.
• Prisoner preparing a weapon attachment or switching firing modes.
• Prisoner priming a lethal grenade.
• Prisoner leaving containment area.
• Multiple prisoners surrounding a warden.

Note that these are situations that would raise the value, and not all would warrant an instant kill.

In terms of an objective for the wardens, it was agreed that the best solution was to provide an event that happens at a certain time in a certain location. Our example was a transport van arriving in the courtyard; The wardens would need to shepherd all prisoners to the courtyard and into the van. Of course, a minute or so after the van has arrived, all prisoners would be marked as disobedient for not jumping in the van and would be legitimate targets, thereby causing the round to end without excessive meandering.

The downside of this is that the prisoners have no incentive to get into the van. They lose if they comply, which will force a riot every single time. The best incentive is to offer a single point to those who comply, but two points for every prisoner who survives the round. This way, you have incentive for prisoners to give up when all is hopeless, but still reason to escape where possible.

Posted in Game Concepts, Game Mods, PC Gaming, Player Satisfaction | No Comments »

Self-Imposed Rules, Too Much To Ask?

March 30th, 2009 Zen

Everyone who has ever touched a computer game knows what Counter-Strike is. For those of you who haven’t touched a computer and are looking over your friend’s shoulder with a mixture of fear and curiosity, Counter-Strike is a team-based First Person Shooter that is played in rounds. Once you’re dead in a round, you need to wait for the next one. Your team wins the round by completing your set objective (or, in some cases, stopping the other team from achieving theirs) or eliminating the opposing team.

I have re-discovered a “mod” for this game that I used to play years ago. I say mod in parentheses because it’s just a set of custom maps designed to facilitate the rules, and a server that has the rules as the Message of the Day.

The game is called Jailbreak. The idea is, generally, that the Counter-Terrorists start with whatever guns they choose and the Terrorists start with only knives (you can’t carry any less) and spawn inside the jail cells. The Counter-Terrorists will have access to buttons and switches that open and close doors throughout the map, including the Terrorists’ cells (no pun intended). This is where the self-imposed limitations come in. For Terrorists, there are no rules. Find a weak wall, break out, kill who you can, steal the guns, rescue your team-mates and escape. For the Counter-Terrorists, there are rules.

• Every Counter-Terrorist must have a microphone. The server is set to ‘All-Speak’ which means everyone can hear everyone talking.
• Counter-Terrorists must warn Terrorists taking hostile or disobedient actions before killing or wounding a prisoner.
• Counter-Terrorists must give Terrorists an opportunity to disarm themselves.
• Counter-Terrorists may kill Terrorists who draw weapons and point them at Counter-Terrorists.

There are various smaller rules, but these are the core elements. It’s meant to be like a prison, and the Terrorists need to escape. Frequently, Counter-Terrorists will decide on a location to escort all the Terrorists to (such as, say, the courtyard outside) which usually involves taking them through a series of secure doors and making sure they have no guns. In general, escorting the Terrorists to another part of the level is a good way to encourage an escape attempt, thereby allowing Counter-Terrorists to kill within the rules. The game falls apart if even one Counter-Terrorist is a moron and shoots people.

Tactics I’ve seen used to best effect:

• A single prisoner zips back into a cell with a weak wall and waits. If the prison guards don’t count prisoners, they lead the rest on and forget about the lone prisoner, who could then break open the weak wall with his knife and run amok.
• A prisoner who spawns in a cell with a hidden pistol grabs it and remains in the middle of the prisoner mob being escorted to the courtyard, thereby hiding his holstered sidearm from view. Once outside, the prisoner with the pistol finds a dark corner and begins shooting prison guards on the walls, providing a distraction so that his team can boost each other over a low wall.
• A guard foolishly enters the room to retrieve a pistol that a prisoner has holstered. Once there, he moves out of line of sight of his fellow guards and is knife mobbed by the prisoners, who take his weapons and divide them up.
• A prisoner is caught outside of the containment area with a weapon, and is forced to drop it. The prison guard makes him back off around a corner, and upon following the prisoner, is shot by several hidden escapees.

I’m obsessed with this game mode, as long as the server is kept clean of rule-breakers.

Posted in Game Concepts, Game Mods, PC Gaming | No Comments »

Serious Macro: Starcraft II Easier For The Lazy Gamer

March 18th, 2009 Zen

I don’t know much about Starcraft II. To be honest, I wasn’t as much a fan of the original as everyone else was. For those of you who are as ignorant of the game as I am, and prefer some serious tactical macro as I might find in our epic “don’t attack before a whole hour is up” C&C Generals games, this post is for you.

I’m not saying you could become a pro with Starcraft 2 simply by using its improved control groups and attack orders, but you’ll do better than you did with the original, and here’s why.

• There are no terrain modifiers. Damage is not increased or decreased by where you are, which decreases confusion. However…
• Line of sight is blocked to higher levels. Get shot at from the upper ledge, and you can’t see them much less shoot back. Indirect artillery fire at that ledge would be needed.
• Various other LoS blockers allow ambushes, such as bushes, smoke, etc.
• Zerg can now tunnel and move around while burrowing. This means that not only can Zerg effectively ambush, but they can ambush from a point you thought was safe (If you favoured GLA in Generals, this is for you. And me. Watch out.)
• Unit types now do bonuses against certain other types of units. It’s about time (This was and still is my major complaint about former Blizzard strategies.)

And, while it may seem strange, these next and last two points in tandem are my favourite improvement.

• The tab key cycles between unit types in a selection (as per Company of Heroes.)
• Units with abilities will cast them smartly. If you have a selection of units and order an Area of Effect ability, only one will cast it. This saves you from wastage and lets you focus on the big picture (away with you, micro!)

All these abilities point to one thing. Starcraft II will be a real, albeit simplified, strategy game that will appeal even to those of us that disliked the original. Long live macro.

Posted in Game Concepts, PC Gaming | No Comments »

A Complaining-To-English Translation Guide For Valve Shooters

March 16th, 2009 Zen

Considering how many people I have seen online who whine constantly, I estimate that 70% of all players speak fluent Complainese, and have little knowledge of plain English. These players issue complicated statements, in which the subtle meanings are lost. Due to syntax errors in an English-speaker’s understanding of these players, I have decided to create a simple guide - a phrasebook, if you will - to help the few of us still acquainted with punctuation outside of Shift-1.

Complainese: “What a shit team” or “You guys all suck” or “Fail team”.  Translation: “I have played this game with teams that operate well together, and this is not one of them. However, rather than adapting my own tactics to suit the team, I continued doing what I usually do in the hopes that brute force would suffice, which it did not. In the future, every one of you should do something different in the hopes of all being as good as me.”

Complainese: “<Player> sucks” followed by “<Player> should have <performed tactic> at <specific time>”. Translation: “You should have performed my suggested tactic because all of my precisely calculated conditions were in effect. I find it unacceptable that you should have done anything that I wouldn’t have done were I in your position. This game would be so much better if played by dozens of clones of me.”

Complainese: “Damn closet campers” (Left4Dead). Translation: “I see that the opposing team has adopted a tactic the puts them in a highly defendable position, thereby rendering my attacks useless until they inevitably move on. I deem this to be unacceptable. The appropriate thing to do would be for this team to stand at a junction of corridors, allowing us multiple angles of attack, so that the playing fields be fair. In the event of a real zombie apocalypse, I expect that any survivors would do the same.”

Posted in Console Gaming, PC Gaming, Rant | No Comments »

Why You Should Never Read Game Guides

March 16th, 2009 Zen

I’ve recently become infatuated with Empire: Total War. I bought it three days ago and somehow I’ve played it for 22 hours already. To compare, I have played Team Fortress 2 for 72 hours and I’ve owned that for one and a half years. It is also one of my favouritiest games.

Today, in a bored moment, I asked myself “how can I improve my game?” and immediately dived for Google to find some game guides. Don’t do this. They will ruin your game. I found myself in a pit of exploits and bugs, surrounded not only by immersion-ruining tactics, but thirteen year olds asking for the “developer cheats”.

My eyes wandered to a short comment on the website telling me how to defeat an enemy in a naval battle with a single inferior ship using a shortcoming in the enemy AI. Why this person thought that any Total War fan could derive pleasure from winning in such a cheap way, I have no idea. But now that tactic is stuck in my brain - I can never get rid of it. The next time I find myself on the losing side of a naval engagement, it will cross my mind, and in the moment I consider using that tactic, all game immersion is lost.

These exploits range to other genres of games, too. Not even multiplayer games are exempt - there have been countless Team Fortress 2 guides on how to use small gaps in level design to snipe the other team before the round has started, or how to fall underneath the entire level and become a deadly landshark.

When I want to better my game, I don’t want to read about it online. Not anymore. The Internet has ruined my fun.

Posted in Console Gaming, Metagaming, PC Gaming, Player Satisfaction | No Comments »