Goals -- too daunting? Pile up too quickly and never solved, should have the feeling of being manageable and slowly solvable.
Settlers of Catan style trading mechanic? Trade 3 red or 3 blue etc for 1 of a color.
Puzzle mechanics -- too hard/unrewarding and too short? Maybe the puzzle should be closer to a crossword or sudoku in terms of difficulty to inspire casual players to at least get interested.
Discard memory (hand)? One way to get rid of stone glut would be to force players to discared some/most of their memory (hand) each turn. This would also be nice because it would give identity a second meaning/conflicting purpose -- i.e. as storage of certain qualities that you want to eventually be your goal. Additionally maybe goals should just be on the identity part -- you have all these stones floating around but the idea is you want your identity to look like xyz cause that's what really matters at the end of the day.
Signalling/Outward facing identity trading instead of getting? Maybe you trade each other whatever your outwarding facing identity is, making it more of a signal and also more interesting in terms of making yourself attractive. Also would be interesting if there were more stone types and some might be rarer than others.
Trending? To keep up with goals if trading is zero sum sometimes/most of the time, maybe players get an extra stone each turn. Instead of that stone being random, maybe it's based on trending (which is great in world focused purely on identity) which is to say the least owned stone becomes trending or the most owned stone becomes trending or even it's based on #hampshiregame #stonecolor mentions on twitter or something.
Identity board -- locked? Maybe instead of being able to change in and out freely, you have to discard and replace stones on the identity board. Maybe the identity board should feel like storage and the hand should feel like short-term memory, or interim storage for just that turn. In fact, maybe turns should be about trying desperately to get the stones you need so you can lock them into your identity before your memory disappears and is replaced. Maybe the identity board is larger for this purpose.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Feedback from Prototype 1
Ran prototype 1 at home this weekend with Mara, Frank and Hilary. Here's some of the feedback I got, written up.
Identity Stuff
-- Mix unknown and known layers of identity/gender somehow in a larger context.
-- How can the unknown parts affect your payouts?
-- How do you reveal/discover the code in an interesting way for casual and hardcore players alike? Maybe think ARG or puzzle game model, in a very lite way.
-- Identity changes require you to use resources from your pool -- you have to spend them on the identity somehow.
-- Your identity/outward parts of your identity fundamentally affects other players payouts/maybe identities in a really fundamental way. This is why players trade with you, and why players might trade with other players as well. Social signalling.
-- Your code also affects your starting resources and goal.
-- Your code is unique.
-- There should be a present and future tradeoff for having resources/not having resources to make putting resources into your gender/identity an interesting decision. Some sort of reason you would want money in the bank vs money in the pocket and vice versa.
-- The gender/identity board should be large enough that you can focus on *that* or you can focus on trading and each would give you different benefits.
Resources
-- More types of resources.
-- 1 crafted only resource (you can't start with it) that maybe has some kind of special effect.
Style
-- Name: Soma?
-- Performance art but also math problem.
-- Stronger/heavier typing and styling on everything is key. Key.
Identity Stuff
-- Mix unknown and known layers of identity/gender somehow in a larger context.
-- How can the unknown parts affect your payouts?
-- How do you reveal/discover the code in an interesting way for casual and hardcore players alike? Maybe think ARG or puzzle game model, in a very lite way.
-- Identity changes require you to use resources from your pool -- you have to spend them on the identity somehow.
-- Your identity/outward parts of your identity fundamentally affects other players payouts/maybe identities in a really fundamental way. This is why players trade with you, and why players might trade with other players as well. Social signalling.
-- Your code also affects your starting resources and goal.
-- Your code is unique.
-- There should be a present and future tradeoff for having resources/not having resources to make putting resources into your gender/identity an interesting decision. Some sort of reason you would want money in the bank vs money in the pocket and vice versa.
-- The gender/identity board should be large enough that you can focus on *that* or you can focus on trading and each would give you different benefits.
Resources
-- More types of resources.
-- 1 crafted only resource (you can't start with it) that maybe has some kind of special effect.
Style
-- Name: Soma?
-- Performance art but also math problem.
-- Stronger/heavier typing and styling on everything is key. Key.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
The Value of Games
A few quick thoughts on the value of games after reading a bit on the MOMA design exhibit about functionality vs meaning etc. :
Games are art and have meaning, sure. But I think for expressing traditional forms of "meaning in art" games are basically very inferior or at best slightly inferior to the traditional forms of art themselves. If all we're looking for in complex and powerful games is literature-style heavy duty themes and character development then games are always going to lose out to books or movies or fine arts. In my opinion, games have a different kind of meaning and are most interesting when aiming for a different kind of goal. Whereas many traditional forms of art are mostly about intentional meaning -- they have a message -- games are not about anything. Maybe really bad, simple games can have the same kind of meaning we often respect in traditional art, but any good game is going to be complex enough that it becomes many times more difficult, and virtually impossible, to insert meaning in the same way you can insert a theme into a novel. But why would you even want to? Traditional art often (although not always) makes statements, but games can ask questions, and they can ask questions in a way that no other medium can. Every game is a question. It's: I wonder what would happen if I created a system in which X is true. Or, I wonder what would happen if I modeled a system in the following way. In this way, the meaning is participatory as well -- it's only uncovered through the combined efforts of the designers and the players. And even though I think that's valuable in the abstract in a lot of ways, maybe the most obvious way to see value in it is when games model real world systems (and they do pretty often). Take Civ for example. Civ is more or less trying to find an architecture to model the entire world, but in Civ IV killing slaves early game to make your cities happier is a very strong strategy. Surely Sid Meier didn't intend that as a message or a theme to be uncovered in the game. But just because it wasn't intended doesn't make it worthless. It's actually a fascinating (and disturbing) insight. It's just one of the amazing things that you can uncover when you take a system and model in and then push it to its logical extreme. And games are the only artform that can do that, really. You wind them up and you let them loose, and no one knows what they're going to say.
The other thing that makes games valuable is much simpler. Becoming an expert is valuable in and of itself in my mind, but many people would disagree. However, I think it's definitely the case that becoming good at games teaches you how to learn skills -- how to become an expert. Because unlike many other things, they have immediate feedback and are heavily goal oriented -- two things that many actual skills lack. But when you go back to learn something that's "obviously" useful, if you approach it with a goal oriented mindset, look for challenges, and seek for immediate feedback -- i.e. devote yourself to something that experts on experts (yeah) call deliberate practice -- I think it really makes you better at becoming better.
Games are art and have meaning, sure. But I think for expressing traditional forms of "meaning in art" games are basically very inferior or at best slightly inferior to the traditional forms of art themselves. If all we're looking for in complex and powerful games is literature-style heavy duty themes and character development then games are always going to lose out to books or movies or fine arts. In my opinion, games have a different kind of meaning and are most interesting when aiming for a different kind of goal. Whereas many traditional forms of art are mostly about intentional meaning -- they have a message -- games are not about anything. Maybe really bad, simple games can have the same kind of meaning we often respect in traditional art, but any good game is going to be complex enough that it becomes many times more difficult, and virtually impossible, to insert meaning in the same way you can insert a theme into a novel. But why would you even want to? Traditional art often (although not always) makes statements, but games can ask questions, and they can ask questions in a way that no other medium can. Every game is a question. It's: I wonder what would happen if I created a system in which X is true. Or, I wonder what would happen if I modeled a system in the following way. In this way, the meaning is participatory as well -- it's only uncovered through the combined efforts of the designers and the players. And even though I think that's valuable in the abstract in a lot of ways, maybe the most obvious way to see value in it is when games model real world systems (and they do pretty often). Take Civ for example. Civ is more or less trying to find an architecture to model the entire world, but in Civ IV killing slaves early game to make your cities happier is a very strong strategy. Surely Sid Meier didn't intend that as a message or a theme to be uncovered in the game. But just because it wasn't intended doesn't make it worthless. It's actually a fascinating (and disturbing) insight. It's just one of the amazing things that you can uncover when you take a system and model in and then push it to its logical extreme. And games are the only artform that can do that, really. You wind them up and you let them loose, and no one knows what they're going to say.
The other thing that makes games valuable is much simpler. Becoming an expert is valuable in and of itself in my mind, but many people would disagree. However, I think it's definitely the case that becoming good at games teaches you how to learn skills -- how to become an expert. Because unlike many other things, they have immediate feedback and are heavily goal oriented -- two things that many actual skills lack. But when you go back to learn something that's "obviously" useful, if you approach it with a goal oriented mindset, look for challenges, and seek for immediate feedback -- i.e. devote yourself to something that experts on experts (yeah) call deliberate practice -- I think it really makes you better at becoming better.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Ideas
Non-Gameplay
The game is about identity and construction of the self. It's also about gender, in a way that I haven't figured out yet -- but for some reason I'm stuck on that idea, maybe because other people are stuck on that idea and the job of a game designer is to get people stuck on an idea. So it's about gender somehow, maybe in a way that's more tacked on. But here's how it's about identity: players are trying to align their self -- their constructed self and perceived self -- with who they "really" are. And that's kind of what people are doing in real life all the time. But who the hell are you really, if not your constructed self? I guess the answer to that is that people have certain innate things for seemingly no reason -- they want to do ballet or puppeteering, and it makes them happy to do those things in a way that is inexplicable, or is explicable only if you use words like "innate." But, as a person, I feel like you often don't even know what those things are until you try things. And you learn those things from other people as much as yourself. You learn what you want to believe in and what "clicks" with you -- and the you there is the you you, which makes sense to me for some reason.
Gameplay
So the idea is pretty basic, you're trying to align your identity and self and gender with what you understand to be your innate self. Except it's hard, because you don't know who you are innately, really. You have no way of knowing. So you do things -- actions, unions -- and you see how you feel about them. Most of all, you see how you feel about other people and you define yourself with them and help them to define themselves.
So add a Helix knock-off idea on top of this. There needs to be a juicy hook, because shit is always cooler when you have some sort of hook to grab people at the beginning and this game also needs another layer. Here's one idea: at the beginning of a game, you answer a short 6 or 7 question survey on sort of "core" issues, and that creates your "strand" or "code." Because it's what you do every day. You try to understand yourself and construct an identity that is sympatico with that understanding, but the only way to understand yourself is through the lens of your current constructed identity. You have to reverse-engineer your innate self through your constructed self and then construct a new self that is more aligned with your innate self.
Other gameplay ideas: players start out with all of one color. Players start out with two goals, and must discard one at 5 turns in. Players construct their own identity with three cards: red, blue, green, and use one to show like "when I would get a blue stone I instead get red/green."
The game is about identity and construction of the self. It's also about gender, in a way that I haven't figured out yet -- but for some reason I'm stuck on that idea, maybe because other people are stuck on that idea and the job of a game designer is to get people stuck on an idea. So it's about gender somehow, maybe in a way that's more tacked on. But here's how it's about identity: players are trying to align their self -- their constructed self and perceived self -- with who they "really" are. And that's kind of what people are doing in real life all the time. But who the hell are you really, if not your constructed self? I guess the answer to that is that people have certain innate things for seemingly no reason -- they want to do ballet or puppeteering, and it makes them happy to do those things in a way that is inexplicable, or is explicable only if you use words like "innate." But, as a person, I feel like you often don't even know what those things are until you try things. And you learn those things from other people as much as yourself. You learn what you want to believe in and what "clicks" with you -- and the you there is the you you, which makes sense to me for some reason.
Gameplay
So the idea is pretty basic, you're trying to align your identity and self and gender with what you understand to be your innate self. Except it's hard, because you don't know who you are innately, really. You have no way of knowing. So you do things -- actions, unions -- and you see how you feel about them. Most of all, you see how you feel about other people and you define yourself with them and help them to define themselves.
So add a Helix knock-off idea on top of this. There needs to be a juicy hook, because shit is always cooler when you have some sort of hook to grab people at the beginning and this game also needs another layer. Here's one idea: at the beginning of a game, you answer a short 6 or 7 question survey on sort of "core" issues, and that creates your "strand" or "code." Because it's what you do every day. You try to understand yourself and construct an identity that is sympatico with that understanding, but the only way to understand yourself is through the lens of your current constructed identity. You have to reverse-engineer your innate self through your constructed self and then construct a new self that is more aligned with your innate self.
Other gameplay ideas: players start out with all of one color. Players start out with two goals, and must discard one at 5 turns in. Players construct their own identity with three cards: red, blue, green, and use one to show like "when I would get a blue stone I instead get red/green."
Monday, November 7, 2011
Gender Game
As I research more gender theory stuff, here's a quick place to store the current idea/rules for my prototype game.
GENDER GAME
The gender game is a cooperative game about identity. It's set in a not-so-distant future in which all of humanity's major physical problems are all but solved. There's no more hunger or poverty, very little work that isn't automated, and manageable environmental problems. So humanity is obsessed with identity and personality -- it's all they have to do anymore really, and all they care about.
Players play people in this world. There are three types of resources -- red, green and blue pieces. These are the main currency in the game, you start out with them, you trade them to get more of them, and when you have enough of them (based on some other stuff) you win the game. Here's how it works, exactly:
There is one game master. In the large social game this would be like a central processing unit that people could come to any time once per day (turn). In this small version it's one person who knows the rules. The GM deals each other player a "strand" or "code", which is sort of future slang for DNA I guess, or something. A players' code is hidden from them for the entire game. This code decides what happens when players make unions, mentioned below.
Players take turns, going clockwise. When it is a players' turn they can make a union with one other player, which involves both of them putting down an equal number of stones of different colors. They then hand these stones into the GM, who gives them back more stones which are determined by their code. So, for example, players make a union with 2 red stones and one green and one blue stone. If one player has Code A and Code A is like:
Red: Blue and a Green
Blue: Red and a Green if there is one of each color in the union.
Green: Blue
Then that player would get 3 blues, 1 red and 2 greens.
And the other player would get the same, but for their code. In factm, maybe codes aren't predetermined but are determined by a bunch of random things that determine small logic sequences, and the possible logical actions are publically shown to players. Possibility?
This will have to be refined a bit so it's not too hard but not too easy to guess. Maybe a bit more complex than one to one. Maybe small logic gate type things.
The other part of it is identity. On their turn a player can change their identity to one of several publically displayed identities. This gives them some small bonus as well as providing them with a goal -- e.g. get 12 green stones or something.
(Their pieces aren't public to each other)
Also maybe a screw mechanic.
It's not really a competitive game, or a cooperative game. People who fulfill a goal win, and people who don't lose.
Problems: Switching goals too often might be a bad thing? Having goals be too transient?
Remember! More like an art project than awesome under the hood. Although ideally it's both.
GENDER GAME
The gender game is a cooperative game about identity. It's set in a not-so-distant future in which all of humanity's major physical problems are all but solved. There's no more hunger or poverty, very little work that isn't automated, and manageable environmental problems. So humanity is obsessed with identity and personality -- it's all they have to do anymore really, and all they care about.
Players play people in this world. There are three types of resources -- red, green and blue pieces. These are the main currency in the game, you start out with them, you trade them to get more of them, and when you have enough of them (based on some other stuff) you win the game. Here's how it works, exactly:
There is one game master. In the large social game this would be like a central processing unit that people could come to any time once per day (turn). In this small version it's one person who knows the rules. The GM deals each other player a "strand" or "code", which is sort of future slang for DNA I guess, or something. A players' code is hidden from them for the entire game. This code decides what happens when players make unions, mentioned below.
Players take turns, going clockwise. When it is a players' turn they can make a union with one other player, which involves both of them putting down an equal number of stones of different colors. They then hand these stones into the GM, who gives them back more stones which are determined by their code. So, for example, players make a union with 2 red stones and one green and one blue stone. If one player has Code A and Code A is like:
Red: Blue and a Green
Blue: Red and a Green if there is one of each color in the union.
Green: Blue
Then that player would get 3 blues, 1 red and 2 greens.
And the other player would get the same, but for their code. In factm, maybe codes aren't predetermined but are determined by a bunch of random things that determine small logic sequences, and the possible logical actions are publically shown to players. Possibility?
This will have to be refined a bit so it's not too hard but not too easy to guess. Maybe a bit more complex than one to one. Maybe small logic gate type things.
The other part of it is identity. On their turn a player can change their identity to one of several publically displayed identities. This gives them some small bonus as well as providing them with a goal -- e.g. get 12 green stones or something.
(Their pieces aren't public to each other)
Also maybe a screw mechanic.
It's not really a competitive game, or a cooperative game. People who fulfill a goal win, and people who don't lose.
Problems: Switching goals too often might be a bad thing? Having goals be too transient?
Remember! More like an art project than awesome under the hood. Although ideally it's both.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Idea - Drive
Physical, Social, Card-based, "real" game.
Drive
Drive is like Magic in the sense that it's a competitive, dueling card game where players compete with each other anywhere on campus. The difference is that the game is very short and simple and players have very little variation in their decks -- just variation in their strategies. Players start out the game with 14 cards, as follows:
4x.Car Cards -- numbered 1-4, these are generic car types
4x Maneuver Cards -- numbered 1-4, these are generic maneuvers.
1x Special Car -- this is one of 20 types of special cars, which have special effects and are real card models.
1x Special Maneuver -- same, but maneuver.
1x Challenge Card -- A card with the image of someone flashing their lights at someone else, or revving their engines or something
3x Trophy Cards -- pretty trophies.
Whenever a player sees another player he knows or thinks might play the game, the player can play his challenge card to challenge that player to a race. If the other player sees that card, he must race the challenging player (if he has time). The game works out kind of like LoTR confrontation, in the sense that the defending player begins by playing a car card, and then the challenging player plays a car card in response. Once both car cards are visible, both player secretly choose maneuver cards are reveal them at the same time. The added score of your car card + your maneuver card is your score for that round, and whoever has the highest score wins the round. Finally, whoever is first to 3/5 wins the race. Special cars and maneuvers have special effects.
When someone beats another player in a race, they can choose to do 1 of 3 things: take one of the loser's trophies, swap their special car for the loser's special car or swap their special maneuver for the loser's special maneuver
Pros
When someone
Drive
Drive is like Magic in the sense that it's a competitive, dueling card game where players compete with each other anywhere on campus. The difference is that the game is very short and simple and players have very little variation in their decks -- just variation in their strategies. Players start out the game with 14 cards, as follows:
4x.Car Cards -- numbered 1-4, these are generic car types
4x Maneuver Cards -- numbered 1-4, these are generic maneuvers.
1x Special Car -- this is one of 20 types of special cars, which have special effects and are real card models.
1x Special Maneuver -- same, but maneuver.
1x Challenge Card -- A card with the image of someone flashing their lights at someone else, or revving their engines or something
3x Trophy Cards -- pretty trophies.
Whenever a player sees another player he knows or thinks might play the game, the player can play his challenge card to challenge that player to a race. If the other player sees that card, he must race the challenging player (if he has time). The game works out kind of like LoTR confrontation, in the sense that the defending player begins by playing a car card, and then the challenging player plays a car card in response. Once both car cards are visible, both player secretly choose maneuver cards are reveal them at the same time. The added score of your car card + your maneuver card is your score for that round, and whoever has the highest score wins the round. Finally, whoever is first to 3/5 wins the race. Special cars and maneuvers have special effects.
When someone beats another player in a race, they can choose to do 1 of 3 things: take one of the loser's trophies, swap their special car for the loser's special car or swap their special maneuver for the loser's special maneuver
Pros
- Competitive but social
- Mimics a real world concept in a cool way
- I like the gameplay hook
- Maybe too simple
- Maybe too small
- Maybe too competitive.
When someone
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Idea - Acquistion
Social, Physical, Card-based, Web-based.
Acquisition
Every student who participates in acquistion gets a card at the beginning of a game, with a unique code and some combination of +$ and +pts. Players represent start-up corporations who are competing to become huge players in the corporate world. Players earn pts as their final victory condition and earn $$ to buy "assets." Assets then earn the player's corporation additional $$ or pts or some combination of the two.
Here's the twist: at any time, players can choose to merge with any other player's corporation. The mergining player enters the acquring player's unique corporation code (found on their card) into the merger screen and then the acquiring player accepts it. When corporations merge, they merge all of their assets and all of their innate $$ and pts generation, as well as all of their current $$ and pts. This team then becomes co-operative, meaning that you can win as a large merged corporation with any amount of shareholders (merged players), although the main corporation's player is always "CEO." However, the cost of merging is that it complicates decision making. Whenever a corporation wants to purchase an asset with their money or acquire a new corporation, they must have a 66% majority of their shareholders' vote yes for that decision to go through. So the idea is that as you become big you become cumbersome, and as you get smaller you get more dexterous and efficient but you have to have some level of merging to stand a chance against big corporations.
Pros
Acquisition
Every student who participates in acquistion gets a card at the beginning of a game, with a unique code and some combination of +$ and +pts. Players represent start-up corporations who are competing to become huge players in the corporate world. Players earn pts as their final victory condition and earn $$ to buy "assets." Assets then earn the player's corporation additional $$ or pts or some combination of the two.
Here's the twist: at any time, players can choose to merge with any other player's corporation. The mergining player enters the acquring player's unique corporation code (found on their card) into the merger screen and then the acquiring player accepts it. When corporations merge, they merge all of their assets and all of their innate $$ and pts generation, as well as all of their current $$ and pts. This team then becomes co-operative, meaning that you can win as a large merged corporation with any amount of shareholders (merged players), although the main corporation's player is always "CEO." However, the cost of merging is that it complicates decision making. Whenever a corporation wants to purchase an asset with their money or acquire a new corporation, they must have a 66% majority of their shareholders' vote yes for that decision to go through. So the idea is that as you become big you become cumbersome, and as you get smaller you get more dexterous and efficient but you have to have some level of merging to stand a chance against big corporations.
Pros
- I like how it simply + interestingly models a real world concept. Very Hampshire-y as well.
- Cool social interaction, cool basic idea.
- The physical aspect is very limited -- all you need to do is go and get someone's card code and they can just read it to you. Maybe if you flesh this one out it would need a stronger physical flavor/component?
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