Disappointment In the Demonweb Pits
Aside from glimpses of classmates with arcane rulebooks tucked under their arms, my first exposure to Dungeons & Dragons was at a local bookstore, and was principally in the form of a module (not that I knew what modules were at the time) called "Q1: The Queen of the Demonweb Pits." I had no idea what it was, but I was captivated by the cover, with art by Jim Roslof .

Well, okay. There was also a handful of original rulebooks from the "classic" edition of the game from several years earlier. Including one book I couldn't begin to comprehend which had an anatomically incorrect naked woman on the cover strapped to a stump. I made certain my dad never saw THAT book when I told him about this new game that I wanted to play. I'd already thumbed through the contents of that booklet, entitled "Eldritch Wizardry", and a booklet called the Greyhawk supplement, and neither gave me much clue how to play the game. There was stuff in them about lands and psionics and druids and stuff... nothing that I could get much clue about.

But the Demonweb Pits module... that was really the one that hooked me. It was shrink-wrapped, so I had no clue as to its contents (and, considering my lack of knowledge of the game, I'd have been just as clueless if I had). But the cover - and the painting on the back depicting a fighter in a web battling monstous red cat-sized spiders swarming him - filled me with promise of fantastic and thrilling adventures. Who were the intrepid heroes fighting - that spider-woman? Where were they? Could I be one of them?

The notes on the cover mentioned battling a demon queen on her own plane (whatever that meant), and notes on eight alternate worlds (Holy cow! They managed to stick eight different worlds to explore inside this little booklet? Amazing!). I would go home, after seeing that cover, and imagine what kind of thrilling possibilities lay within. In my minds eye, I juxtaposed the possibilities with another game I'd only seen but never played, the original text-game "Adventure" (AKA Original Adventure, or Colossal Cave Adventure). Yeah, the one with the dragon on the Persian rug. I was an impressionable pre-teen, what can I say?

On my twelth birthday, my parents got me the game, having no clue what an impact it would have on my life. As if my geekdom wasn't already secure with me reading books about space ships and how to construct your own transister radio. I finally got to play D&D with a couple of experienced players that very day, and find out what all the fuss was about. While it wasn't everything I'd dreamed and hoped for, it was pretty awesome stuff, and unlike any other game I had played.

Several months later, I was an experienced player, and had even tried my hand at running a game or two. One Saturday morning, one of my D&D-playing buddies called me up and said, "Hey, Jay, we're playing D&D today. Want to join us?" Well, of course. He continued. "We're playing this module... Queen of the Demonweb Pits. It says it is for characters level 10-14. You got any characters that level?"

"I have an 8th level thief."

"Well, make him 12th level, then, and bring him."

I'd gotten my thief to 8th level more-or-less legitimately (well, mainly "less," but it was valid by the loose standards of a bunch of junior-high-school kids), and I didn't feel like artificially inflating him to 50% higher than his current state of competence. So I countered, "How about I make a new character of 12th level. What do we need?"

My friend wasn't too sure. "How about I make a paladin," I offered. After all, paladins were holy warriors, sure to be of value against an evil demon queen!

I rolled up the character, and took my bike over to my friend's house. The rest of the group was already there. I didn't know two of the players, and they were dismayed to learn that I'd brought a paladin. Apparently, while the alignment on their character sheets was "good" (mainly - surprise - "Chaotic Good"), they were really worried about a goody-two-shoes Paladin coming in and messing up their fun and making them follow rules and stuff.

We played through a highly abbreviated version of the preceding module. The DM placed us in a drow city that was now in chaos, with fires burning and destruction everywhere. Presumably at least some of it had been caused by our little band of four adventurers. We found ourselves in possession of a strange silver egg, and received a message from some dignitaries who had sent us on this mission that the egg was the key to attack the demon goddess Lolth on her own plane of existence.

Cool!

We figured out how to make it work, and were transported to her demonic realm. We'd been playing for less than an hour, so I figured we were making good time.

The "Demonweb Pits" were this bizarre set of pathways set in an M.C. Escher-esque arrangement. The paths themselves were fashioned out of the souls of the damned, and if you looked hard enough, you could catch glimpses of faces in the walkway, silently screaming in eternal torment. The "walls" surrounding the pathway were simply thin curtains of fog, behind which the Maelstom shrieked, an endless storm of high winds around an infinitely large space of emptiness.

Not that I had a very good chance to see any of this. After an initial battle with demons, where my paladin with his holy avenger sword smote the evil opponents with glee and probably showed up the other adventurers a tiny bit, my companions decided to attack my poor paladin. They attacked him, bound him, castrated him, and tossed him into the Maelstrom. Mainly it was the work of the two players whom I had never met. My friend, fearing their wrath on his poor cleric, did nothing. The dungeon master (the "referee" who runs the game) simply shrugged and allowed it all to happen, his hands tied.

So my total time visiting this module I'd spent months dreaming about had been about 15 minutes, not including the hour preparation.

I said goodbye to my friend and the dungeon master, and decided to go back home. There wasn't much left for me to do.

Later, I called my friend to ask him how the rest of the adventure had gone. "We didn't last long after you'd left," he told me. "Those guys sucked. They kept arguing with each other, and our spells didn't work right. We got attacked by more demons, and we got our butts kicked."

Well, whadayaknow. I didn't remember seeing anything about "karma" on the packaging to the module, but apparently it was in there, too. But unfortunately, the promise of the module cover art was left - that day, at least - unfulfilled.

Fortunately the quality of gaming experience increased substantially as time went on and my fellow players matured. Though strangely I don't remember these two players ever invited to play with us again...


(Vaguely) related tripe-of-the-day:
* Spring and... D&D?
* Adult Dungeons & Dragons
* Original Dungeons & Dragons Trivia
* Teenagers and D&D


Read And Post Comments In the Forum

Labels: Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:00 AM (Permalink) links to this post

 
Now That's a Way To Say Thank You!
I wanted to point folks in the direction of this free game download from Battlezero.com: Trouble In CloudLand. I got an email from one of the developers saying that he was inspired to research Python and PyGame based upon my article in GameDev.net, "How To Build a Game In One Week From Scratch With No Budget."

Gotta say, they did a better job with it than I did :)

Anyway, this is a pretty simple but cure shooter with an interesting gameplay twist - you have to move towards the creature you are trying to shoot in order to shoot at it.

Congratulations on your game, Joshua and Jony! I hope this is the first of many!

Read or Post Comments In Our Forums

Labels: Free Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 11:43 PM (Permalink) links to this post

 
Apocalypse Cow: Stranger Than Fiction - The Effect of Cow Farts
I'm not making this up!

Are Cow Farts Really That Bad For The Environment?

Apparently, cow farts are responsible for 18% of the greenhouse gasses that cause global warming - more than all emissions from all forms of transportation COMBINED. Okay, so a pregnant cow going on a rampage can be dismissed as a fluke. But this... this is a clear sign of global conspiracy.

The Apocalypse Is Coming! Don't say I didn't warn you!


Hat Tip to "the other Jay" over at The Hobbit Hole for the latest sign of the apocalypse.


(Vaguely) related warnings that The End Is Near:
* Cow Trivia
* Pregnant Cow Rages Across Hanover
* Apocalypse Cow Goes Alpha (and yes, it's still there, though much better now)
.

Read Or Post Comments On The Forum

Labels: Apocalypse Cow

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 5:00 AM (Permalink) links to this post

 
Mike Rubin On In-Game Cinematics, Indie Style
For those with a somewhat more technical bent (and any of us working with the Torque Game Engine, and anyone interested in what indies are doing in the "Adventure Game" genre), Mike Rubin has an outstanding article on the trials and tribulations of working on in-game cinematic sequences for his upcoming 3D Interactive Fiction title, Vespers 3D.

Every time I read about the progress on this game, I get more and more excited for the final result.

Anyway, I've shamelessly swiped a screenshot to lure you over to the article to check it out.

Vespers 3D: Adventures In Cinematics

Enjoy!


(Vaguely) related evidence that I should take a vow of silence:
* Indie Interview: Mike Rubin
* Vespers 3D Progress
* Utah Indie Developer Night Report: Winter 2007


READ OR POST COMMENTS ON THE FORUM

Labels: Adventure Games, programming

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:50 AM (Permalink) links to this post

 
Eschalon Peek and Depths of Peril Tidbits
The indie RPG Eschalon: Book 1 has a sneak peek of the gameplay mechanics available at RPG Vault:

Eschalon: Book 1 Sneak Peek at RPG Vault

Principally, it describes a quest, and all the different ways the game will allow you to acquire entry into the quest location... unlike many games that require you to perform a very specific sequence of activities.

An excerpt:

Our main objective while developing Eschalon: Book I has been to create a world in which these kinds of options are always available to the player. We want the player to be an active participant of the game, and not just feel as though they are following a script from beginning to end, hoping that the random dice rolls are in their favor. The player should strategize how best to overcome a problem using the character they've created rather than just assume that an elite character is all it takes to be successful.

Also, Depths of Peril has a new page describing historic villains of their world.


(Vaguely) related semi-nonrandom bits:
* RPG Preview: Eschalon Book 1
* Indie RPG Roundtable
* Depths of Peril Preview
.

Labels: Indie Evangelism, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 9:00 AM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
More In-Game Maps Should Be Like This
Courtesy of JenaRey:

1. go to maps.google.com
2. click on "get directions"
3. type "New York, New York" in the first box (the "from" box)
4. type "London, England" in the second box (the "to" box) and hit the Get Directions button
5. scroll down to step #23-24
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:26 AM (Permalink) 6 comments links to this post

 
Utah Indie Night - Spring 2007
We had another awesome indie game developer night tonight at Wahoo Studios. Or at least I thought it was awesome. I was in my own little world most of the time. Again.

We had just under 30 people show up, lots of pizza and munchies, and several games making their showing. We had some guys (Mike and Victor) demonstrate their XNA game on the XBox. John Olsen demonstrated his completely revised, new-and-improved XNA version of Fish School. And one of our number did an emulator (I think?) in XNA (so you could play Nintendo games on the XBox, if you had their ROM image... how bizarre is that?) I cannot confirm or deny that one though... I could have heard wrong.

I got into a few good discussions with folks, got to grouse a bit about portals and Torque and stuff (yes, I grouse about it, even though I use it. The engine is crazy feature-rich for costing practically nothing, but it's still got its warts and frustration). And while I was at it, since I have just recently (like, this week) been assigned to working on the graphics pipeline on a Wii title we've got in late development, I was able to pick up some optimization tips from another full-time game programmer on Nintendo Wii graphics programming. How's that for the benefits of networking?

Mostly, I watched people play Apocalypse Cow. And took copious notes. Well, maybe not copious. But I was writing fervently while still trying to watch people play. There's something about watching someone play your game that just can't be reproduced any other way. Any time you have to explain something, or you have to answer a question, or you can see them doing something "wrong," (or at least something wrong that will lead them to having less fun), or see them get bored / frustrated, you've got an action item. AND you get some great verbal feedback on what they liked and didn't like that you wouldn't get if they had to take the time to write it out to you in a report.

So though I missed much of what was going on tonight, the night was a huge success for me!

Want to hear some of what I got on my list? Of course you don't! It reads like a grocery list. But in the spirit of my Frayed Knights discussions, I'm going to some of it with you anyway, because this is my blog and I can be dry if I want to.

* Upgrade Dialog: It's not clear to people that it allows you to buy stuff here. It looks more like a report of battle stats. Also, the cost for each upgrade should be labeled "cost"
* Upgrade Dialog: The upgrade buttons need to have a disabled state for things too expensive to upgrade, and need to appear brighter when highlighted.
* (Optional but cool) The artillery should have a speech bubble where they say something like, "Same Team, Same Team!" if you hit them
* Need to have a confirmation dialog appear when you quit the mission.
* Save / Load game information isn't updating after you save.
* Somehow the player is getting extra force fields or smart bombs out of nowhere.
* Typo in Tungsten's briefing for the Baron Cowfred Von Richthoofen mission
* The game needs to autosave every level.
* Upgrade Dialog: The reset button needs to be placed elsewhere, and not say "reset." People were accidentally hitting it instead of "Accept", or were afraid it would reset them to the previous MISSION.
*A notice should pop up when your helicopter is full
* The camera should center on the camera when it lands
* Better helicopter physics
* Scientists need to exit the secret labs more quickly
* The Old MacDonald's sign just teleports to the ground - it needs to have an animated fall.
* The briefing text should be a larger font (gee, it seems large enough to me on my 19" monitor... wonder why people were having problems on the little laptop).
* The game needs some good cow death screams
* The timer keeps counting down even after you die
* There shouldn't be a separate "Story" button and "New Game" button - a new game should always display the (skippable) story.
* Ran into a bug where the player suddenly had 2 forcefields, when they hadn't purchased any.
* Ran into a bug (using a cheat code) where Baron Cowfred Von Richthoofen became invulnerable.
* People laughed at the jokes, and the cow-balloons, and the cows on hang-gliders, and some of the briefing comments.
* The most important feedback of all - people kept playing. Eric Peterson came back and played it some more after checking out some of the other demos. This is a good thing!
* I also got some comments from other people who had seen my early-alpha last time about how much better it looks. And to a degree, I have you to thank for it! So, thanks!
* I had a key mapped to a special effect call, but I'd long gotten rid of the special effect and had left the call in. This was causing a crash when the key was hit accidentally.
* The bosses should generally escalate in power as they take more damage. I tend to keep their difficulty level pretty flat.

Man, I and I thought I was almost done with the programming tasks! There are more comments. I may not address all of these issues / problems. And some of the direct complaints and suggestions might not be at the root problem, but rather at other side effects or symptoms of the problem. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out Hanford Lemoore's recent article about this phenomenon, entitled "Don't Do What Your Users Say." But either way, this really tells me what people really noticed. In the first six levels. Great red-line analysis type stuff!

So there was my narrow view of the evening. Narrow, but completely worthwhile.


UPDATE: We got a picture! Thank you, Eric Hamilton. No, I'm not pictured.


(Vaguely) related Utah Indie Stuff
* Spring 2006 Utah Indie Night Report
* June 2005 Utah Indie Night Report
* Fall 2006 Utah Indie Night Report
* Summer 2006 Utah Indie Night Report
* Winter 2007 Utah Indie Night Report
.

Labels: Apocalypse Cow, Indie Evangelism

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 1:00 AM (Permalink) 5 comments links to this post

 
Can CRPGs Age Gracefully?
Martin posted an interesting question in the RPG Forum. It's made me think a bit. I'll refer you to the thread itself for his words. But it's the old retrogaming question with an RPG twist.

Is it possible to enjoy an older (meaning... technologically obsolete) computer RPG? He's not talking about one you've already played in the past (Scorpia's already weighed in on the question of replaying old favorites) - but maybe those old games sitting on the shelf that you keep telling yourself you are going to finish "someday." Even though it's been ... well, even though those games now require DOSBox to run.

I think the question largely has to do with the player. I mean, I'm a retrogamer. And an indie gamer. Old-school graphics don't scare me much. I mean, Aveyond, Fallout, and Avernum 4 all have nowhere near state-of-the-art graphics, but I have enjoyed all of them recently / currently. But maybe some people have a tough time conceiving of an ogre as a deadly (and entertaining) opponent unless it appears in full Oblivion-esque majesty with full shader effects, dynamic lighting, and voice acting.

One thing that does drive me nuts nowadays, however, is poor UI and control design. We've really learned a lot in the past two decades about designing an interface that doesn't blow chunks. Remember the old days of Ultima, when every single key on the keyboard was mapped to a command, and you had to figure out if (L)ooking at an object was sufficient, or maybe you should (I)nspect it? Or that you couldn't just use a lock, you had to (J)immy it? Or how about the early Wizardry games, where (I guess as a copy-protection technique) you had to type in the exact name of these nonsense-word spells? I think we learned some positive lessons from the advent of the game consoles here.

While protoyping the controls for Frayed Knights several weeks ago, I had this "awesome" idea to try to use Ultima Underworld's mouse control system. I thought, "Wow, you could do everything in that game with the mouse, none of this WASD nonsense! I wonder why nobody has done that ever since? I should try that!"

I tried it. It was horrible. I found it almost unplayable. Obviously, I'd done something wrong. So I booted up DOSBox, and played Ultima Underworld again. In fact, as I'd never finished Ultima Underworld 2: Labyrinth of Worlds, I wondered if I could get hooked all over again and finally finish the sequel, only 14 years after it's release. So off I went!

It was horrible.

Well, okay. After a little bit of effort I started to get used to it. Still bouncing into walls and falling off bridges and stuff, but I was at least generally going in the direction I intended to go. Apparently, once upon a time many years ago I managed to get proficient enough at it that I actually enjoyed it. But after twenty minutes, I wasn't finding it to be quite like riding a bicycle. I wasn't feeling particularly inspired to jump into UU2 and see what I'd been missing all these years.

I recall loading up Bloodstone: A Dwarven Tale - already an antique when I purchased it a massive discount in the early 90's- and being dismayed that character names were limited to five characters. Come on! Even the Apple and C-64 could do better than that, years earlier!

And there are similar gripes and irritations for many of these older games. Assuming I can even get them to run. Sure, graphics can be an issue - if they are BAD. Meaning, they do not perform their function of clearly presenting the player with the information about the state of the game he needs to play. But there are legions of players for whom NetHack is perfectly reasonable (if not particularly pretty) graphics.

There are some modern games with cool, semi-cutting-edge graphics that can't say that. Say, when you get attacked while your camera is stuck in some corner, so you can't actually look at and properly target your opponent.

One thing that has (traditionally) set RPGs apart from other types of games is their independence from graphics. They've typically lagged behind the cutting edge, substituting sheer scope and depth of the game worlds for the latest eye candy. At least, this was true up through and including Diablo 2 and Baldur's Gate 2. So many of the "retro" RPGs weren't even intended to be cutting edge for the era in which they were released. To some degree, I think this worked to their advantage - the artists were able to focus on simplicity, elegance, and functionality rather than making compromises to appease the technology gods of the latest bells and whistles (which have now long since become obsolete).

So what do you think? Have you tried playing an RPG recently that was more than 7 years old? Have you FINISHED an RPG that was more than 7 years old? Can you enjoy the a new, old game?

POST A COMMENT IN OUR FORUMS

Labels: Game Design, retro, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 9:00 AM (Permalink) links to this post

 
Quality vs. Scope
Jamie Fristrom has just posted an article on GameDevBlog that ought to be required reading for anybody starting out on a game development project (indie or otherwise):

Manager In A Strange Land: Quality Vs. Scope

He makes some very interesting points:

* We're familiar with the triangle of cost, quality, and speed ("You can have it fast, you can have it cheap, or you can have it be of good quality. The problem is you can only pick two of the three.") But when referring to games, there's also the scope dimension (arguably an aspect of quality). So you can have rapid development, inexpensive development, a high-quality game, or a big game. Pick two. He notes some "big" games that were dogs... and that the mega-hits that were both high quality and large scope *all* slipped schedule (impacting both time and cost).

* He suggests that one of the reasons we keep allowing scope-creep is that its much easier to estimate schedule for features rather than quality. We can easily estimate the time it would take to get feature X implemented (take your best guess, and then multiply by four, right?), but we're very poor at estimating the amount of time it will take to fix, polish, and perfect all those features. As a result, the features go in, the polish... not always.

* He stumbles across an interesting point: Scope can usually be worded as "more" of something, and quality can usually be worded as "less / fewer" of something (less crashes, fewer texture seams... basically fewer problems).

Anyway - it's a fascinating article. Worth checking out for developers!


NOTE: Comments / Discussion on this can be found on the forums:

COMMENTS ON QUALITY VS. SCOPE

Thanks, DGM, for getting that started!

Labels: productivity, programming

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:36 AM (Permalink) links to this post

 
The Apocalypse Begins: Pregnant Cow Rages across Hanover!
Go ahead.

Laugh about Apocalypse Cow. Laugh because it seems so very implausible. There's no way the cows would attack and take over the world, turning humans overnight into an endangered species, fighting for our very survival.

It's all just a game.

UNTIL IT ISN'T!

Watch the skies. And the pastures.

Labels: Apocalypse Cow

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 2:11 PM (Permalink) 4 comments links to this post

 
Frayed Knights Dev Diary: Prologue - Background and High Concept
As promised last week, here we go with the start of a development diary where I will be, week by week, sharing my experiences as an indie game designer biting off quite likely more than I can chew. I hope this will be something of an interactive, two-way process. I hope it will be entertaining and educational. And mostly, I hope I don't embarass myself too badly.

This first article is more of an introduction: What I am doing, and why I am doing it. It is part of the result of months of poking around with ideas, generating reams of notes, and further defining and clarifying the project. Once I get out of the design stage of discussion, I'll be talking more about real-time, "What I Did This Week" type stuff. (Mostly, this week, I've been putting the notes into the design document and working on Apocalypse Cow.)

Starting Out: Why An RPG?
Most of my game development career has been action games. What gives? Why am I stepping outside my comfort zone?

I discovered Dungeons & Dragons the same year I got hooked on arcade games, and the same year I got my first computer and learned to program. I think this is why, to me, computers and RPGs seem inextricably linked. But my poor computer, a 1K (yes, that's a kilobyte, kids, about the size of a 32 x 32 .jpg ) Sinclair Zx80, wasn't really powerful enough to run any program of consequence. I read with jealousy about the games available on that really popular, powerful computer --- the Apple II. I read about games with names like Wizardry, Ultima, Alikabeth, and Zork. But I couldn't play them. I could only read about them, and teach myself how to program.

When we got one of the first Commodore 64's off the assembly line, I was in heaven. 64K of RAM seemed almost unlimited. There were almost no games the first few months (not that I had any money to buy them, anyway), so I once again had only my imagination of what those games for other computers were like. But now I could write my own! As a fan of Dungeons & Dragons, one of my favorite tasks was simulating the experience of playing D&D on the computer, for those times when I couldn't get the gang of friends over for a real dice & paper game.

I succeeded - kinda. The games I made couldn't compare to games I later played like Ultima III (which totally blew my mind at the time), but to me, those little adventures and RPGs I cobbled together were masterpieces. I was hooked on game development.

How I DIDN'T Make RPGs
A couple of decades later, after years as a professional game programmer, I decided to strike off on my own and make my own games - without a publisher or board of directors or a marketing guy with a hot license in his hand telling me what game to make. I didn't start very goal-directed, and I had no concept of things like the indie game development community, or affordable 3D engines already available. So I started by tinkering.

My first project, right out of the chute, was a 3D MUD. That's right, a massively multiplayer RPG. I started from scratch, making my own 3D engine. I've included an old screenshot I was able to dredge up of it. Later, realizing I'd gotten in a little over my head, I changed projects. This 3D engine morphed into an awesomely fun multiplayer 3D space combat game called Void War. But while space combat games were among my favorite, I really envisioned Rampant Games as an indie RPG development house. Someday... soon! Or... not as soon as I'd like.

While working on another game project that I eventually cancelled (because it sucked), I couldn't keep away from making RPGs. On a dare, I did what I could to whip up a Temple of Apshai-esque RPG in only 40 hours of development time - using all free tools, with no budget, and without a 3D engine. My experience was chronicled in an article published in GameDev.Net called "How To Build a Game In a Week From Scratch With No Budget." I can't say I'm extremely proud of the resulting game (and I use the term "game" loosely), Hackenslash, other than the fact that it even exists given the constraints I worked under. I learned a lot from focusing my attention on a deliverable with a ridiculously short schedule, and a lot of people have told me that the article was valuable to them. So I call it a win.

I had another RPG I started work on - a modern-era horror RPG - but I had to put it back on the shelf because it was too ambitious on far too many levels. There was too much experimentation, and I still had too little experience working with my engine of choice, the Torque Game Engine. That, and there was the simple fact that I still had no experience creating a "real" RPG yet. I needed more time, more practice, and a simpler, "back to basics" RPG to cut my teeth on first before coming back to this one. But come back to it I will. I'm in love with the concept - it'll just take some time.

So I started up Apocalypse Cow as a quick and dirty "filler" project (which, of course, ballooned into something much larger) while I went back to the drawing board.

Back to the Drawing Board
After a couple of false starts, I had come back to looking at a blank page of RPG design. What now?

I started with two criteria:

#1 - It had to be something exciting that I wanted to play, and something that distinguishes itself from what's already out there (no clones or purely "me-too" efforts)

#2 - It had to be able to be created and completed fairly quickly. It couldn't be some big, sprawling, epic game with zillions of features.

The next thing I had to decide was what sort of technology the game would be based on. I wasn't going to go back and revisit the Void War engine. I considered Python and PyGame, like I used for Hackenslash, though I was a little more impressed with the capabilities of the Torque Game Builder (TGB) for its 2D capabilities. I even considered using RPG Maker, though at first blush it felt a little too limiting. Eventually, I settled on the Torque Game Engine - TGE - the original 3D game engine by GarageGames.

Why Torque?
Why did I choose Torque as the underlying game technology?

The short answer is that I'd already invested the money and the time into learning it. Go with what you know and feel comfortable with.

The longer answer was that it provides some key pieces:
* A decent terrain system
* Good interior rendering of CSG-style levels, completely integrated with terrain handling.
* Cross-platform support
* A mature engine, meaning reasonably robust with plenty of "free" features
* A pretty active and helpful community, as well as content packs I might be able to leverage into my game.
* A pretty decent built-in scripting engine
* Built-in UI creation & scripting tools - because an RPG would undoubtably be pretty UI-intensive.

While it wasn't apparent at the time, once I found out that I could combine TGE with the 2D game engine - TGB - things became even more clear. TGB could be used for all kinds of easy, scripted-out-of-the-box UI animations and and controls.

One of the interesting things about limiting your options with a decision like this is that it can actually make other decisions easier. Bearing in mind the second criterion, I simply asked myself, "What would be the simplest type of RPG to make using Torque?"

The answer was fairly obvious. Out of the box, TGE is geared for first-person-perspective games. I have always enjoyed first-person dungeon crawlers like the Elder Scrolls series, and Ultima Underworld. But I couldn't create something to compete with Oblivion. I don't have the time or budget. I needed to create my own niche (or borrow and extend an older one that nobody's really using right now) where I could be the big fish in the small pond.

Yes, I was already thinking marketing. I've been corrupted.

Back to Basics
I'm an old-school gamer. So I drew upon it. I thought back to games like Wizardry 7, the Bard's Tale series, the Gold Box AD&D games, and Eye of the Beholder II. Party-based RPGs. You don't get many of those anymore, particularly not with the first-person perspective. So - a party-based game with a true 3D first-person perspective.

It's been done semi-recently (Wizardry 8, Minions of Mirth), but I thought there was plenty of room to grow. There are a lot of stories to be told and fresh ideas to try with that kind of game, even after all this time. I think it can provide a fundamentally different experience from some of the more modern, mainstream titles on the market. As an example, a party-based dynamic could mean some interesting tactical combat options. That's one thing I love about MMO's and pen & paper RPGs - getting different characters with completely different skill sets working together as sort of a "combined forces" against common challenges.

So far, we have a party-based fantasy RPG with a first-person perspective.

Controversial Decisions
The next design decisions cascaded from this one.

First off, it is very hard to control multiple characters in a real-time RPG. So... why not go back to turn-based combat rounds? You could still wonder about freely in real-time, but when combat is joined (or any other timing-critical event), the game would resolve it in turn-based sequence. I'm cribbing from jRPGs (eastern RPGs, like the Final Fantasy series) on this idea - but it has proven to work.

Another problem: Perspective. Party-based means that in combat, to position everyone I'd need to break out into a third-person perspective to move everyone around. That can get ugly - a whole new subsystem that I'd need to add to the game. In what is sure to be another decision not universally embraced by players, I once again drew upon some older games: How about going with simple, abstract positioning? First Rank / Second Rank, etc., a la the Wizardry and Bard's Tale games? The party is always assumed to be facing the enemy.

Now that was REALLY old school. But abstract positioning has been used as recently as 2003 with Final Fantasy X-2, wasn't it (albeit with the third-person perspective)? The trick here - for me at least - is that I like interesting tactics. I hate combat systems that are nothing but "attack / attack / attack / cast spell / defend." But I have a few of ideas for tackling this problem head-on and keeping combat interesting.

By this point, I'm not even ready to commit the idea to paper yet, and I already know I've begun to alienate my potential audience with some of these decisions. Turn-based combat? Abstract combat positioning? First person perspective? And I'm just getting started!

Giving It Some Personality...
There are two things that stuck in my craw over what I had so far.

The first was the lack of the "hook." Gamers have explored HUNDREDS of generic dungeons over the last many years. Nuking dozens of generic evil Foozles to save many, many worlds. At this point, I didn't have a game concept. What I have is some bastardized bits of nostalgia. Some ideas to convert stock TGE into an RPG engine.

The second problem was that in the old party-based first-person games, I always thought the characters in the party were sorta... lifeless. They were just portraits in the UI that mutely followed your orders, bashing monsters and leveling up as required. If they had any personality, it's because you brought it with you.

Here's where one idea kinda blossomed and solved both problems at once. For me, at any rate.

Going For Laughs
I'm a huge fan of the comics Order of the Stick and Knights of the Dinner Table, and more recently the comic "DM of the Rings." I enjoyed the anime series "Louie the Rune Soldier" (or just "Rune Soldier"). These are all comic portrayals of RPGs specifically, and Tolkienesque fantasy worlds in general. While we're at it, I could also cite the card game Munchkin (a gaming geek favorite), and the pen-and-paper RPG Hackmaster (by the creators of Knights of the Dinner Table), the semi-parody of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons - but also a pretty fun game in its own right.

After all, the whole situation in most RPGs is pretty ridiculous once you think of it. There are all these DUNGEONS everywhere that serve no purpose but to be hotels for monsters. Said monsters tend to ignore the fact that life-and-death battles are occuring next door, content to hang out staring at each other until the adventurers come kicking their own door open. You've got entire towns of people who are too incompetent to live unless adventurers come to perform basic tasks for them.

In my opinion, there's plenty of comedy to be had with the hobby of RPGs. The more I thought about it, the more I thought I had some fun and entertaining things I could do with it.

However, it takes a lot more than just a bunch of corny little gags to pull something like this work. Good comedy has to be about something. The above comic examples began as simple jokes about genre and gaming, but they have all evolved into character-based stories. We keep reading not just because they poke good-natured fun at a hobby and genre we love, but because we've come to like the characters. We want to see how these specific characters deal with certain situations. We want to see what happens to them next, even if we (particularly in the case of DM of the Rings) have a really good idea of what will happen next in the overall storyline.

The Frayed Knights Are Born
So here's the part where a bunch of the old-school Western RPG fans will lose interest. In order to make it work, I felt that I needed to make the game about very specific characters, rather than trying to create a generic world, story, and comic elements that would somehow properly respond properly to whatever kind of character the player wanted to create.

This is especially tricky with a comedy, as many (most) players just "play themselves" in RPGs. I want to make jokes at the character's expense, but not at the player's expense. Really, that's why many humorous adventure games worked so well. Monkey Island wouldn't have been nearly as funny (in fact, might have been downright offensive) if it was about the player, and not about Guybrush Threepwood. And I'll let people who've played the recent Sam & Max adventure games (I've only played the old one from the early 90's) weigh in on how the "player characters" influence the humor of that game.

With this decision made, there were a lot of interesting options that opened up. First of all, if those little names and portraits in the UI had their own personalities, why not have them... well... chatter? Jokes, banter, commentaries, and asides while in the middle of combat? So long as it doesn't get too repetitive (the funniest joke doesn't usually get funnier in the retelling), it could work. What if these characters - while ultimately controlled and "played" by the player, can't resist adding in their own little bit of personality and flair into actions that they take?

The game's story is very specifically about THEM. As infuenced, directed, and portrayed by the man or woman behind the keyboard. Four (hopefully) likeable losers and misfits, who must somehow succeed where others far more competent than them have failed.

Now that I had much of my ungodly Frankenstein's Monster of a "high concept" together, I needed a working title. I kicked around a lot of ideas with friends, and got them to vote on what they thought was the best title.

Then I rejected it favor of one I personally preferred. "Frayed Knights."

Yeah. A couple of different puns there. Like a frayed knot. Or frayed as in afraid, which knights should never be. Yeah, I know, I totally crack myself up. I just liked the multiple meanings of the title. So how does it figure into the game? As explained in the design document:

Our unlikely band of heroes originally called themselves the "Battlefield Quartet." But everyone else calls them the “Frayed Knights” after an unfortunate incident with killer vampiric squirrels and a hemp golem, a tale which managed to circulate even after the four swore never to speak of the incident again. Unfortunately, it is the latter name that is doomed to stick.

So now you know the background and the key design decisions for Frayed Knights. Now I feel like I've thrown my hat over the fence, so I'm committed to making it happen. I guess we'll see if I've got the chops to pull this thing off.

All I can say is that it seemed like a good idea at the time...



Think the idea sucks? Got suggestions? Questions? Something to say? Post a comment here... or in the brand-new forum! Yeah, I know, I'm really asking for trouble now....


(Vaguely) related tales of saner days:
* You Can't Design Fun On Paper
* But Is It An RPG?
* Original Dungeons & Dragons Trivia
* The Dread Gazebo
.

Labels: Frayed Knights, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:30 AM (Permalink) 11 comments links to this post

 
We Got Forums!
Okay, it is with great fear and trepidation that I mention this, but...

We've got forums.

A few folks have asked for it - particularly as some of the great discussions we've had here didn't deserve to fade after the blog articles moved off the front page.

Hopefully the sound of crickets chirping over there won't get too deafening.

Right now, I'm still considering them to be very, very "beta." The number and nature of forums may change if / as usage evolves.

Let me know what you think!
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:00 AM (Permalink) 4 comments links to this post

 
Arcades Making a Comeback?
According to Ryan Cravens of Betson Enterprises (a major coin-op distributor), the arcades are clawing their way back to their glory days of the early-to-mid 90s (which, in my opinion, weren't as impressive as their glory days of the early-to-mid 80's, but who am I to argue with legions of Street Fighter fans?)

GamaSutra interviewed him about the future of U.S. Arcades, and Cravens was pretty positive about the outlook of the arcade. Although he cautions that we probably shouldn't don our Jordache jeans and Members Only jackets quite yet:

"The arcade is making a resurgence (now), and the number of games that are currently being sold is getting back to those (1990s) levels. However, these games are not going to the neighborhood arcades anymore.

The stand-alone arcades are going away, and they’re being replaced by large FECs (Family Entertainment Centers like Incredible Pizza), bowling centers (like Brunswick Zone, much more than just bowling lanes), movie theaters, indoor water parks and other multi-use entertainment centers for families. The arcades that are inside these beasts are often the size of the neighborhood arcades that we used to frequent as youngsters."

You can read the whole interview here:
Ryan Cravens On the Future of U.S. Arcades

Well, that'd be cool. I won't hold my breath, though. I mean, that'd be like... I dunno. Like PC gaming becoming popular again. Or the return of Commodore computers. Just ain't gonna happen.

Besides, those life-preserver-looking vests I used to wear back then really did look dorky. Hmm... I wonder if that's the real reason operators kept the arcades dimly lit...

Labels: Biz, retro

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:00 AM (Permalink) 2 comments links to this post

 
Indie RPG News
Some little tidbits from your friendly neighborhood garage game developers (note that's game developers figuratively running a studio out of their garage, not those working at / for GarageGames, not that there's anything wrong with that...)

* Planewalker Games has an article discussing the nuts and bolts of leveling up using their multiple-progression-path system described last week for The Broken Hourglass. In addition, Jason Compton wrote a Development Diary article for RPGWatch last week entitled, "The Dangers of What You Asked For." In it, he discusses the pitfalls of being an indie game producer.

* Soldak Entertainment has posted the first half of a new short story entitled, "Inheritance, Part I," taking place in the world of Depths of Peril. They've also added a section to the website describing the backgrounds of the "Historical Heroes" of the world.

* Jeff Vogel of Spiderweb Software has posted the long-awaited second part of his rant on why he now hates RPGs. It is entitled, coincidentally enough, "Why I Hate Fantasy RPGs - Part Two." Now, after reading the article, it really sounds to me that he's ranting against "filler" combat encounters. You will get those in any genre, not just RPGs. How many "filler" encounters have I waded through in First Person Shooters? Its just that they are so forgettable you don't think about them later when you are talking about the game, unless they were so common and repetitive they really ruined the game for you.

But talking specifically of RPGs, I've kinda weighed in on this subject before, and suggested one possible solution. And I'll probably make the exact same mistakes with the new game. What is interesting to me about this article is that it sounds like Jeff is making a commitment to stop the practice in his own games. He says, "speaking as a designer, this goes just as much for me, for all the times I've had failures of creativity in my designs. I've stopped putting up with it, and you should do the same."

* Crosscut Games has released a new version of the Runesword 2 Open-Source RPG and game engine. The game and engine are completely free, though I haven't looked at the licensing limitations for the RS2 engine yet. Crosscut is also developing a fast-playing RPG entitled, "Dungeon Delvers," which looks like it will be an interesting competitor for last year's Indie RPG of the Year, FastCrawl.

* Indie / Homebrew Games Coming to the PS3? Gamasutra is reporting on Phil Harrison's Q&A session on Slashdot, and notes his interest in allowing "homebrew" titles to be developed on Sony game consoles --- if they can still clamp down on piracy while doing this. Thus saith Harrison: “I fully support the notion of game development at home using powerful tools available to anyone. We were one of the first companies to recognize this in 1996 with Net Yaroze on PS one. It's a vital, crucial aspect of the future growth of our industry... If we can make certain aspects of PS3 open to the independent game development community, we will do our industry a service by providing opportunities for the next generation of creative and technical talent.” Of course, Microsoft has already gone there with XNA, so Sony may only be playing catch-up at this point. Now, this isn't news, just philosophical intention, but it is still interesting to hear. (And no, this isn't RPG-specific, but it was a fun bit of information).



(Vaguely) related randomness:
* Why Does Jeff Vogel Hate RPGs?
* Jeff Vogel Gives Innovation Another Chance, Plans Nethergate Remake
* Beyond the Gate: Jason Compton on the Making of "The Broken Hourglass"
* Depths of Peril Preview

.

Labels: Indie Evangelism, Indie RPG News, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:00 AM (Permalink) 4 comments links to this post

 
The RPG Commandments
This is an oldie but goodie from Warren Spector, written back in the day when computer RPGs were just "rising from the dead" in late '98 (the article is dated '99, but he talks about the hotly-anticipated Baldur's Gate not yet released, which came out at the end of '98).

Although he's talking about "recent" games that are now "classics" to us, many of the issues he cited still hold true today. Have we progressed so little in the last decade?

Remodeling RPGs for the New Millenium

In particular, Spector lists five "RPG Commandments." They are:

The RPG Commandments

1. Each player's path through the story must be unique. This doesn't mean a branching-tree structure with winning and losing paths but, rather, that players will have the freedom to decide how they'll overcome game obstacles. A world simulation must be deep enough so that each game problem is open to a variety of solution strategies, from the most thoughtful and low-key to the most obvious and violent. And the solution you choose to any given problem must have clear consequences, both immediate (killing a guard sets off an alarm, attracting more guards) and long-term (killing a guard may result in "wanted" posters being posted, causing civilians to fear you and be less cooperative).
   
   
2. Players must always have clear goals. Though free to stray from the storyline at will, players must know what they're supposed to be doing, minute to minute and, if appropriate, mission to mission. The fun of the game is in overcoming obstacles and solving problems; the fun is in how you solve a problem, not in guessing what problem you're supposed to solve.
   
   
3. The level of interactivity must be high, with NPCs about whom you really care and with a densely populated, object-rich world that looks and behaves like the real world (or, at least, a believable, internally consistent world of your own creation). A big, empty world is boring. Players must be free to explore a cool and instantly understandable world.
   
   
4. The central character must grow and change in ways that matter to players in an obvious and personal way. During the course of play, you'll become more powerful, acquire more items, and develop new skills, of course. However, you'll also make unique friends and enemies, accomplish tasks and missions differently, overhear different conversations, and see different events unfold. By game's end, each player must control an alter ego that is distinct from that of all other players.
   
   
5. The game must be about something more than killing things, solving puzzles, and maxing out a character's statistics. Remember all those hours you spent in school analyzing the underlying meaning of novels, poems, and movies? Guess what: RPGs lend themselves to the same kind of analysis. Games can and must have an impact on players. That impact may be the simple adrenaline rush of DIABLO, fleeting and soon forgotten (nothing wrong with that), or it may be the never-to-be-forgotten (and, in some cases, life-changing) experience of becoming the Avatar in ULTIMA IV. If all you're doing is throwing wave after wave of monsters at players so that they can kill lots of stuff so that they can increase some arbitrary statistics so that they can feel powerful, you're doing yourself, your players and your medium a disservice.

So whaddayathink? Did Spector get it right? Do the RPG Commandments still apply? Is a purely item-based game (no internal stats progression) still an RPG? Was Deus Ex an RPG? If you can't name your own character, is it still an RPG?


(Vaguely) related stuff slightly more interesting than a remedial calculus lecture:
* The Evolution of Computer RPGs
* RPG Combat Design
* But Is It An RPG?
* Innovation in RPGs
.

Labels: Game Design, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 9:00 AM (Permalink) 6 comments links to this post

 
Goodbye Dungeon and Dragon...
It was officially announced Thursday that Dragon magazine and Dungeon magazine - both of which have served the "Dice and Paper" RPG community (specifically Dungeons & Dragons players) for decades, were going to cease publication after their September issues - as soon as the license with Paizo Publishing is complete.

The first issue of "The Dragon" - before the name was abbreviated to "Dragon" - came out just over 30 years ago, in 1976. I have the first 250 issues on CD-ROM, though I rarely look at any of the issues beyond those from my "formative" geek years when I was new to the roleplaying.

From what I understand (reading the press release and talking to the owner of my FLGS - "Friendly Local Gaming Store" today), content that would previously have gone into these magazines will be appearing online. It is rumored that a quarterly journal may also be released which includes the content previously released online - but that may be only speculation or current plans. A lot may happen between now and August.

There's a bit of a retrospective at Wizards' site --- sort of an early wake for the magazines. The obvious reason for the retirement of these long-standing magazines is that online content has taken over. And it's probably a legitimate excuse. It's got to be hard to run a print periodical these days. But there are some elements of print that just don't translate well to digital. I still end up printing off some articles, just because it's easier for me to read. I'm such a luddite (he announces on his online blog).

Now, the last time I was a real fan of Dragon magazine was around six years ago, when third edition D&D was still pretty new and the issues were helping people come to grips with the new rules and use the flexibility of the system to make it their own. The issues reminded me a lot of the PREVIOUS time I had been a fan of the magazine, way back in the early 80's, where there were so many newcomers to the game and every issue was loaded with fresh ideas. More than anything else, the magazine helped remind me that there was a larger community of gamers out there beyond my own gaming group. Something "online" can do much better, admittedly. But online is much more ephemeral - print is a more tangible artifact (and a somewhat more durable record).

Dungeon, on the other hand, I was a more recent convert to. I've always been the kind of "game master" who likes to write his own adventures, but I've enjoyed building up a library of adventures that I could draw upon at a moment's notice. Not that it happens all that much anymore - but I have had weeks where I just did NOT have time to plan out an adventure, and pulling out a pre-fab module or Dungeon adventure and get it ready and customized in only 2-3 hours of prep time (or less) has been very handy in the past.

So it's not like it'll be a big change in my geeky grown-up-gamer lifestyle with these magazines gone. But it'll be weird not having them around on the shelf of my FLGS anymore.

Labels: Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 3:22 PM (Permalink) 4 comments links to this post

 
Frayed Knights Website Announcement
As a prelude to the game development diary announced Thursday, I'm officially announcing the name and website of the RPG-in-development.

The game's working (perhaps final) title is "Frayed Knights."

There's a tiny preliminary one-page website found here:

http://www.frayedknights.com

And... uh, yeah. I guess you can see that this is a hardcore dramatic RPG devoted to realism, with an unyielding commitment to serious exploration of theme, as well as a hard-hitting metaphor for the human condition. And stuff.

It feels a little strange (okay, a lot strange) to have these kinds of announcements so early. The website, I confess, is purely because I threw my hat into the ring on that game-in-a-year competition. The only real value of the web page right now is to provide a direct link to the dev diary. That'll change as things progress.

Labels: Frayed Knights, Game Announcements

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:00 AM (Permalink) 2 comments links to this post

 
The Sad Part Is, This Might Have Been Me...
I only know it wasn't because I never heard of the heating-pad idea...

http://www.overheardintheoffice.com/archives/003914.html
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 9:00 AM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
The Top Ten Graphic Adventures of All Time
According to IGN, in ascending order, these are the top ten graphic adventure games of all time.

#10: Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards
#9: Myst
#8: Police Quest II: The Vengeance
#7: Shadowgate
#6: Sam & Max Hit the Road
#5: Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
#4: King's Quest V: Absense Makes The Heart Go Yonder
#3: Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle
#2: The Longest Journey
#1: Grim Fandango

Aw, man. This makes me nostalgic for the early 90's. When Sierra was king of the hill, mainly for their adventure games, and LucasArts wasn't far behind.

Do I have a problem with this list? Hey, these lists are supposed to foster debate and discussion, right? And yeah. I do. Kinda. I can't believe the first Gabriel Knight game isn't on there somewhere. Since I never played Shadowgate, I don't care if that one gets bumped... :) I would also expect to see the first Alone in the Dark game to be on the list somewhere. Maybe it had too many action elements to be considered part of this august group for purists, but it was an adventure game. And it did have graphics!

And, I'm now sad to say, I never played the Longest Journey. I'm amazed it's in the second-place slot. In my heart, Monkey Island 2 is the second best graphic adventure game of all time.

Grim Fandango - I agree wholeheartedly with it being #1. This game just worked on so many levels. It was just amazing. For such weird characters (they were almost all skeletons), I sure found myself caring about them and their story. Alas, this game doesn't agree too well with modern operating systems, so few people can appreciate it now.

Check out the full article HERE.

Labels: Adventure Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:00 AM (Permalink) 8 comments links to this post

 
$10K Game-In-A-Year Contest Judging Criteria Posted: Time to Level Up!
Today, Dave of MyDreamRPG.com posted the judging criteria for the game-in-a-year contest.

Points started accruing at the beginning of the month, so if you were dragging your feet (like me), it's time to get cracking right away.

According to Dave, the purpose of this contest is, in part:

"to get ...languishing projects to pull together and move it forward. There might be dozens of people who have projects laying around for a couple years of various states, experiments, etc. A project begins in the imagination, and in that case some people may have 20 year leads. There is virtually no such thing as a fresh start here.

Many people have designs, art, and a dream. That puts everyone in the same boat. Furthermore, a year is a mighty long time and levels the playing field. There's also the matter that the contest is not judged by end product alone, but by the completion of lots of requirements along the way. Design documents, rosters, scheduling, blogs, website, updating designs when features change, beta testing, etc. This means that theoretically a 1 man team could nail every point along the way and take the lead. So many factors go into this that it's a level playing field and a larger team is going to be in trouble if it's not managed well."

I think I may do very poorly in several categories. :) I'm already shy some points. But hey, it's all good fun - with a chance of a $10,000 prize at the end. That's quite a bit more money than I've made on Void War so far... so it's a very worthwhile goal. And I do think it's an intriguing approach. Based on these criteria, ANYBODY has a chance at the prize - whether you are a solo newbie or a veteran team-of-six. The contest is about hitting your deadlines, being accountable in your procedure, and GETTING THAT GAME DONE.

Labels: Frayed Knights, Indie Evangelism, productivity

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 4:29 PM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
Public Display of Game-Making? See Everything You Didn't Want To See!
Game development out in public? Where... PEOPLE... can... see *gasp*? Shamefulness!

One of the things I learned immediately upon getting a job in the videogame industry in *cough*1994*cough* was how very paranoid it was. There were NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreements) to sign at interviews, any time you brought guests in, and any time two companies met together to discuss business. There was lots of legal butt-covering going on to make sure that we couldn't be sued by some kid claiming we "stole his idea" of ... say, having cars with guns. There are tons of reasons for keeping game development hidden behind a curtain, including the following (some of which even apply to indies).

Reasons To Stay In The Closet (With Game Development, I Mean...)
Protection of Ideas:
Now, as the old joke goes, it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you. And when you are talking major publishers and game companies, the level of mutual screwage going on even WITH the layers of protection really is astonishing. Oftentimes its in the "legal, but ethically ambiguous" territory - but it's there. In fact, I remember my team lead once reporting that the VP of marketing (I think) informed him that what we SHOULD be doing to make budget titles was to simply look at what Microsoft was doing, rip them off, and he'd package them in boxes that looked as close as he could legally