[Callan S.]

Ages ago I made a small flash game that, without impinging on IP, was basically about fighting sranc.

It might not have blown socks off - I think the pacing probably wasn't fast enough, but at the time I was entranced by the D&D six second combat round - which is surprisingly slow in real life game play.

Now pretty much every feature, even a simple one like 'you can make bandages' takes about an hour to program. Or it does for me. I'd love to see some faster programmers doing something with the prince of nothing series (err, I mean the totally not the PON series, a completely different IP that only harkens to PON as much as is legally legit to do so!). And more complex features break down into multiple basic features, which means multiple hours. I'm saying this to basically destroy your hopes - so I can sift amongst their shards and find fragments I am capable of building into a game inside my lifetime!

Anyway, I bought construct 2, which is a HTML5 game language and I'd like to have another crack. Maybe pester one of the awesome artists of SA to borrow some artwork for it. Once again the game would have links to Scott's blog, citing it as an inspiration and links to here and links to any contributing artist, as it's part promotional of the novels.

Basically making this post as an open work space, to ping what I'm thinking of to see if it mixes with some kind of momentum out there amongst ye, or if I'm starting the snowball all by myself (and, maybe even ending it all by myself, if fates are poor). Feel free to post your shattered hopes for a game so I may pick amongst the shards, or I can shatter them for you : "I want GTA but in Earwa!!1!" "Well, fuck no, that's not gunna happen - but *picks up shard* maybe a more text based and basic graphic 2D game of running down sranc?". That sort of breaking of hopes and dreams! >

So jot down any ideas you have, if feel kind enough to give them, then I'll stamp them into shard! And maybe one day I'll get back to doing the text based multiplayer browser game - if I wrangle some free server space with a database. It'd be cool to do something like Urban Dead, but with sranc.

[Wilshire]

Hey, good luck again in your endeavours. Bakker mentioned on TPB that in the day of yesteryear, he had some attempts to turn TSA into a turn based or real-time strategy game. I think that sounded like a pretty good idea. Though, obviously, AAA quality games are not made by one person in his freetime . I hope you find people that can help you out.

[JRControl]

Depending on what you are after, you should look up Rimworld. The scenario system is coming out pretty soon and the game is pretty modable from what I recall. The Slog of Slogs type scenario always seemed to be the most potential one in terms of being interesting to play.

[Callan S.]

Rimworld seems interesting given it's drawing on dwarf fortress (not graphically, tho, obviously! > )

I always thought the sranc culling period was fantastic for gameplay and I even wonder if Scott used it during D&D (not sure if they'd have gotten to that time period though, back then). But a slog of slogs - it's very rogue like as well, isn't it? What if Kellhus had sent advance parties to scout, before Akka's expedition? Perhaps the pict, the one with an eye in his heart, was one of them - do you want to go mad with an eye in your heart, oh SA forum dwellers? Yes, yes, of course you do - but you see, that's the 'good ending'...

I would really like to code things myself because when you work with someones game engine, all the benefits of your labour go to them. I crafted some fine duke nukem 3d levels back in the day...all gone now, like tears in rain.

I'd like to hear some thoughts on viscerality of combat mechanics - I think we have a deep need, all the more so when living in peace, to prove a capacity to kill. Think of all the multiplayer first person shooters out there. At it's most benign it's an urge to be able to hold ground and proving a capacity to protect turf - at it's more indulgent, it's the hunger for conquest, masked by righteous indignation. Skill at playing really only ties in at the proof level and only to a certain degree. I'm thinking maybe a combat system based more on how much you want it, maybe. How much you'll discard everything else to make it come first.

[Wilshire]

How would you craft a combat system that requires sacrifice to succeed? Seems interesting, but likely overly complex.

[Callan S.]

I was thinking inner sacrifice - one example might be depicted as 'harden your will' but it's really 'loose your compassion'. I'm thinking buttons randonly appearing for a brief time with text describing these 'opportunities' that give large short terms bonuses and small permanent skill increases.

There are quite a lot of games out there that simply involve clicking A LOT to remove hit points from monsters to kill them (And example is  the game that drew my attention to the single developer idle game genre). So I figure some opportunity buttons with thematic sacrifices, though fairly straight forward, is (atleast in thematic terms) an improvement on that.

But that's the thing I always run into - a dry, cold, mechanistic world. Buttons to drain the soul for power might seem stark, but then again, why anything more?

[Wilshire]

Seems like a good idea. Are you thinking of another Idle game, or something more interactive?

[Callan S.]

or something more interactive?

What labor do you seek?

Nay, ye hew into the world on the sweeping scythe that is time - idle is thou torment, until ye consign thyself harrowing labor!

In the mean time enjoy the plethora of candified combat games! >

[Callan S.]

Although I was looking at bad dudes vs dragon ninja the other day

I didn't play it much when it was at the arcade but I remember it - the hilarious amount of ninjas you one punch KO and the tight and simple two platform system. I'm sure I could put together the rudiments of that (think sranc instead of ninja), but an entire game is the question. If I did I'd probably have it you earn points to upgrade so as to get through tougher, latter levels. Probably with an idle component as well.

[Wilshire]

Upgrades are always nice. Gotta have a reason to want to progress, right?

 Though I look at the relative success of a game like Adventure Capitalist and realize I have no idea what people do or don't want to in their games.

[Callan S.]

MOAR POWA!

I agree!

With adventure capitalist, I have to say I play a few idle games, but I tend to choose more toward down to earth ones - not a great deal more, but more so. In adventure capitalist you're making billions every few minutes - I play Money makers and eventually you're making millions over several hours. It's still pretty ridiculous, but merely ridiculously so rather than insanely so. The ways of making money in it seem more plausible to me, as well, even if exaggerated in their effectiveness.

[Wilshire]

I was interested in them for a short period of time but have subsequently realized that I like to do more thinking when I play games. Something with an element of strategery.

Though, if you think about it, many games can be described as elaborate idle games. Especially most strategy/4x/RTS games where you should be aiming to hit a stead-state of resource generation/consumption. You just throw in more moving pixels to change it from idle to rts.

[Callan S.]

I think the key element of idle games is empowering the player to choose if they interact. They do well if they don't interact, they generally increase their rate of doing well if they do interact. It's the fantasy of getting to choose whether you interact rather than having your nose forced to the grindstone or you get nothing (ie, normal life, lol!)

I'm not sure about thinking. I mean, call me jaded, but what is a game that makes you think? Is it just a work out for the brain? Is it, in player vs player, simply arm wrestling with brains instead of muscles? Is it an illusion that involving thinking must mean it is reaching something greater and I'd be enabling that illusion (or have to be under it myself)?

It's fair questions because it's like the star trek episode where Kirk finds his old childhood nemesis and they keep fist fighting - but it was the planet they were on that conjured the opponent after scanning Kirk's mind for what he wanted. Kirk wasn't fighting anything but a result of his own desire. So what is the desire involved?

To me, the main significant challenge of life to emulate doesn't take much intellect at all - and that's agriculture (possibly a game on immunological research is both a challenge of life and intellectual, but that content is waaaay over my head!). What does take intellect is taking the agricultural resources of the other guy (under whatever legitimising rational).

What exactly is a strategy game getting at?

[Wilshire]

[edit: also, by thinking, I generally mean problem solving]

Somewhat open world games like Fortresscraft: Evolved - build machines to accomplish x goal. The thinking is a matter mostly of logistics.

Heavily modded minecraft has the same feel - find resources, mine them en-mass, turn them into things that let you get other resources, on and on until you make the last thing. If you're familiar with MC mods, reactorcraft is about as complicated as things get on that front.

Factorio, again, is mostly logistics puzzles. Some logic-gate thinkineering thrown in there.

The Forest is a survival/horror game is another that requires some thinking through.

Civilization franchise and similar turn-based strategy game - plenty of thinking to do there. Goal is to beat all the other opponents.
RTS is similar to its turn-based counterpart, just faster paced, but typically less in-depth for that.

I don't spend much time, if any, playing PvP games except from time to time when madness and I play SC2 on 2v2. Though that's mostly a matter of memorizing build orders and keeping track of as many tasks as you can at once. Not so much problem solving, but still fun.

Even some RPGs which have some broader elements of choice can do the trick for me, though I haven't found one I really enjoyed in a while. I tend to play them as close to stealth games as I can. Finding a clever way to circumvent a challenge rather than just powerleveling until mashing attacked over and over is successful.

Even some online CCG games I can waste a few hours enjoying. And that's not to say I don't enjoy idle games here and there, but I generally like to play my games, rather than watch them be played for me - I don't watch Let's Play videos for that reason. I like some moderate problems to solve.



I'm not talking about figuring out Millennium Prize Problems for fun in my free time. Hell, there are plenty of online college level courses you can find if you're interested in learning something. I'm not. You'll also notice I didn't put down games such as Kerbal, which I believe is way beyond the amount of thinking/problem solving that I want to do for fun.

What exactly is a strategy game getting at?

Same thing every game is getting at, to win? I'm not sure I understand your question.

[Callan S.]

You don't necessarily need to think in order to win. So why include thinking?

I ask because programming games is the hards! It is even harder to build up some kind of structure that engages 'strategy' when I'm not even sure what that's for. For example, why eat icecream? Easy enough, it tastes nice - that's the feel of it. So why engage strategy - what is the feel of it?

Otherwise it's all shotgun blasts in the dark territory - fire off an attempt, hope it hits some feels in some people. Most likely will miss though, after having spent 20+ hours on it (the more complex, the more hours)

Edit: I should pause and say thanks for the feedback, Wilshire, so thanks for this! Do I really know what people want in a game either? Not really - and I'm not terribly good at just doing my own thing regardless of what people want. To me games are as much a communication as books are and talking past your audience misses the point of the medium so it's not just a matter of purely doing what I want. But it probably takes some prior conversation to get to the game creation conversation, so ty for the dialog

Also I saw that this game, though having little in gameplay and basically a story with only one or two branch choices, seemed to be popular : http://www.kongregate.com/games/Raius_/the-journey-home?haref=HP_FRB_the-journey-home

It could be I'm focusing too much on mechanics and can literally just 'story bomb' the thing, with a few relatively token game play parts.