Tales of the Rampant Coyote

This Is Not A Complaint

2008-05-08T08:41:00.001-07:00

I went to a seminar a few weeks ago where they encouraged everyone - as a homework exercise - to not complain. At all. For a week. I guess it worked, because I've noticed I've had a much better attitude and things have been going better for me since then. Maybe it's all in my head, but it's worked so far.

So let me just say that getting back into crunch for a few days of 12+ hour days is not a complaint. It's - a particular challenge that leaves me with little time to do much else. I'm not too pleased about missing my daughter's band concert tonight, which is definitely losing me some daddy points. But - I'm in the critical path right now on a key deadline, I have to be all professional and stuff. That's important too. I'd say it's just the life of a game programmer, but I've worked non-game programming jobs that required the ol' crunch time slog, too.

Just not as much.

However, on the benefit side, they replaced the controls on our arcade console in the break room, so I can no longer blame the buttons for my dismal performance in Street Fighter II. Oh, wait, is that an upside?

And this should hopefully be a pretty short crunch, lasting less than a week. The Rampant Coyote's Rule of Crunch sez: The longer the crunch goes, the longer it's GONNA go, because performance drops SIGNIFICANTLY after a few days of serious overtime to the point where you might as well be working 40 hour weeks, and the more time people end up putting in just to break even.

Trash or Treasure

2008-05-07T11:03:00.000-07:00

Something that irritated me back when playing Wizardry 7 was how - as low-level characters, we'd fight enemies armed with advanced-technology shock rods and blunderbusses (is that a word? The plural of blunderbuss?), but there'd be no such weapons as loot when we finished them off. What a rip-off! I could USE a rod that would stun an opponent for several rounds, dang it! Instead I have only a few gold coins which I could use to buy... uh... one-half of another sword.

On the flip side, how many of us left common items litter the countryside in Diablo 2 or other games where monsters dropped common loot inadequate for our level? I remember ... was it the old D&D "Gold Box" games? ... making multiple trips to sell stacks of longswords and chain mail to build up the ol' party coffers. Not exactly exciting stuff, but that same equipment was perfect for me at low level, when my characters desperately needed those upgrades.

In some games, the loot value has been abstracted out to the point where animals just drop gold. Sure, it's horribly unrealistic, but isn't it more convenient than skinning the beast, selling its meat and hide on the open market, and then having that same amount of gold?

Well, maybe. But again - as a group of characters starting out, that actually can be part of the fun. Just as riding the boat in EverQuest once or twice was really kind of fun. Once or twice, it adds realism to the game. A few dozen times, it only adds tedium.

At a certain point in most CRPGs, treasure becomes trash.

So what's an RPG to do? Should loot be confined to level-appropriate items only? Should common monster gear be abstracted away into just a gold piece value? Should all loot remain realistic, requiring the player to perform all kinds of activities to convert them to something of actual value? Should a game use some kind of sliding scale based on player progress to determine what loot should remain and what should be abstracted?

Kieron Reviews Depths of Peril

2008-05-06T15:55:00.000-07:00

My favorite RPG of last year, Depths of Peril, gets some pen-time with Kieron Gillen at Games Radar. The introduction sums up many of my own feelings about the game:

"At the time of writing, Iron Lore, makers of Titan Quest, have just gone bust. A THQ Creative Director put the blame pretty firmly at the feet of software piracy. While it’s easy to sympathise - there’s nothing funny in hundreds of thousands of people playing a game for free while its makers run into financial difficulties - you can’t help but think if Iron Lore had actually displayed even a fraction of the imagination this indie action-RPG does, they’d still be here today. With Depths of Peril, the only element in the game that doesn’t display vision and quiet confidence is its somewhat underwhelming name."

What I like about the review is what I like about the game - while it's certainly flawed, its attempts to innovate the genre and provide an exciting "living world" covers a multitude of sins for me.

He goes on to further comment on the mechanics of the game in an editorial at Rock, Paper, Shotgun - without the word-limit demanded by the magazine that the review was originally intended for (~~and a big "d'oh!" for an indie RPG review getting bumped out of print...~~ CORRECTION: My misunderstanding, it did run in PCG UK Magazine):

"It’s an enormously dense game in terms of strategic decisions - which is the thing which would alienate some RPGers - quests exist to be solved or destroy you rather than just existing as a means to get XP, as in most games."

The note about it alienating some RPGers is an interesting one. And unfortunately, it hits right on the mark. That living, dynamic world, where your actions (or lack thereof) have a real meaning and impact on what's happening - is one of the most-requested features by RPG fans. At least, based on my very informal polls, it is. Unfortunately, as implemented in Depths of Peril - indeed, as far as I see it being implemented in any game - this means WORK and a lot of decision-making. And work is sort of the opposite of fun for many gamers.

Is there a happier medium in there somewhere that could be achieved? I don't doubt it. But I'm pretty thrilled with Depths of Peril for putting a stake in the ground and exploring what could be done.

Depths of Peril review at Games Radar

Rock, Paper, Shotgun commentary on the Depths of Peril Review

The Return of X-Com?

2008-05-06T08:27:00.000-07:00

Well, this is news to me: X-Comeback at Rock, Paper, Shotgun

So... what do you think a 2K Games version of X-Com will be like?

I personally predict a first-person shooter. Hopefully a squad-based first-person shooter. Real-time action, of course. And you know what? I don't think it will suck.

I remember when I got really hooked on Rainbow Six, and at one point came to the realization that the tension and "feel" of the game - my emotional state - wasn't so far removed from X-Com. The chance of getting drilled instantly as you turn a corner - never being entirely certain where a very deadly enemy may be positioned - planning your assault as you go trying to get the drop on your enemy... Man, it was plenty of fun.

And I could totally see that as an X-Com game.

I hope that they'll try to get away from the kitschy retro 50's feel that they adopted in X-Com: Apocalypse and that horrible space combat game I have almost forgotten, and embracing the feel of the first two games - which, I felt, was more X-Files, Aliens, and Project Blue Book than Plan 9 From Outer Space.

But yeah, I can see it. It could be very cool.

Buy GTA IV For Your Kid - Go To Jail

2008-05-05T06:27:00.000-07:00

At least in New Zealand, if you buy Grand Theft Auto IV for your kid because you personally don't feel it's any worse than what they are exposed to at school or on TV, you could potentially face three months in jail.

New Zealand: Illegal for Parents to Buy GTA IV for Kids

At least here in the U.S., no similar law has come close to passing Constitutional muster. And even in New Zealand, the law under which the Office of Film and Literature Classification has couched its opinion has never been enforced.

Ah, unenforced / unenforceable laws.

I find that, over the last couple of years, I've grown to realize that this kind of political backlash is inevitable against anything that becomes mainstream in the younger generation and threatens cultural change. What control the older generation has, it uses to lash out to preserve the status quo. Yes, even the same "baby boomer" generation that was so anti-establishment and revolutionary in the 60's and early 70's. My generation is starting to do the same, and the kids after us will probably have the same knee-jerk reactions against whatever comes next that changes THEIR children's and grand-children's world.

Well, gamers and game makers: Keep fighting the good fight. Time is on our side... the longer we can hold out and keep games free in the face of mounting opposition and stupid regulation determined to marginalize games as nothing but children's entertainment, the closer we get to victory.

Steamworks SDK Now Available

2008-05-02T08:08:00.000-07:00

Released yesterday... the Steamworks SDK.

While it's absolutely free for developers, I suspect that in the long run it's going to make Valve a hell of a lot of money. The whole "Windows Live" gaming thing ... the Windows equivalent of XBox Live... is pretty much stillborn. It looks like Steam is going to be the XBox Live for the PC. I give it less than five years before Valve becomes the "evil overlord" people complain about.

Anyway, the API includes calls to handle Stats & Achievements, Multiplayer authentication, matchmaking, anti-cheat, networking, community calls (to pull up things like the other player's clan, avatar, and so forth), integrated in-game voice communication, and everybody's favorite... DRM.

Steamworks SDK

Frayed Knights Pilot Release Aftermath

2008-05-01T06:42:00.000-07:00

I wasn't really trying to make a huge deal of the pilot - this was an experimental release to help gauge how we're doing while there's still time to make major corrections. Releasing anything like this to the public, and soliciting criticism, is not something I'd recommend for anyone who fears damage to their ego. Even when the really negative comments are in the minority, one sting wipes out ten praises. At least it does for me. But the purpose of the pilot and the survey is not to make the development team feel warm and fuzzy, but rather to give us an accurate picture of where we are and where we need to go. Like checking for directions at a gas station before committing to another 200 miles. It was to help us know what major and minor changes need to be made while there's still time to make them.

And the response in the last 24 hours to the release of the Frayed Knights Pilot has been incredible. I'm sitting with 80 survey responses so far, and climbing. The response so far has been overwhelmingly positive - better than I really expected, to be honest, as much as I daydream about making a game that absolutely everybody loves.

Better yet, almost everyone - especially those who offered strong approval of the game and it's overall style and flavor - has offered criticism of aspects that they feel need to be changed. Often extremely constructive criticism, with several paragraphs of recommendations and clear explanations of what they had trouble with and what they'd recommend to fix it. We're talking details worth their weight in gold.

I am - in a word - floored. But in a good way.

Hmm, I guess that was six words. My bad.

Thank you to everyone who has participated and continues to participate in the pilot and the survey.

We're gonna push forward with the full release stuff, but I suspect a "revised pilot" will be making its way out. Hey, FK testing crew, if you feel like signing on for another tour, I'll have need of your services again sooner than expected! For those who haven't received enough punishment...

I plan to continue the regular blogging on development as it continues. I started this thing as kind of an open-development thing, and I'm going to continue in that vein. While I have my own criticisms of game design failures and so forth, the neat thing about being a critic is that you can tear down the things you see without having to build anything of your own for other people to tear down. Doing this has exposed quite a few holes and issues of my own.

Moving forward, the most commonly mentioned issues with the game are these:

* UI - in a nutshell, there are too many button presses required to do something, especially in combat. As I kind of expected, spellcasting is still too cumbersome (I can say that it is FAR better than it used to be, for all the good that does...) People have more modern expectations for the UI, and I have to respond to it. A lot of the suggestions seem to mirror World of Warcraft's design, for some reason... go figger. Unfortunately, I don't know if the built-in Torque UI tools are up to the task, so I've got a lot of work on my hands...

* Movement Speed - this is a sensitive issue. People expect first-person-shooter speeds in first-person games. The "walking speed" in Frayed Knights is far faster than realistic - it's more like a real-world run speed. But people like to zip. Especially in the village or another safe place. I'd deliberately tried to slow things down to closer to Ultima Underworld speeds for Frayed Knights - a more deliberate "dungeon crawl" / exploration pace (at a good run speed, but still...) But it frustrates people. So I'm gonna have to come up with a happy medium.

* Randomness - there's too much randomness in the game, between the random encounters and the wildly varying difficulty of combat. People might mow down four groups of two cultists four times in a row, but then get clobbered by the fifth while at full health and endurance. And the random encounters - while usually paced reasonably, approached ridiculous "Final Fantasy" levels in some cases.

* Combat - not exciting enough. And not clear enough. The melee characters don't have enough options, and the effect of some of the spells is too subtle (due to randomness and lack of clear feedback) to really tell what makes a difference. And some of the balance is off, like endurance / resting. Some things we need to focus on include better / clearer options for the characters, easier target selection, feedback on the upcoming combat order (who is going to go next), and easier spellcasting.

* Feedback - just overall, there needs to be clearer feedback on what's going on in the game that the player can either control or react to. I knew this was a problem before releasing the pilot, but we lacked the time and resources to take care of it. But there needs to be better visual display of what's going on with all the little details in the game. There are a TON of details happening in the back-end number crunching, so much that even *I* don't know what's going on sometimes. That needs to be exposed, if it is important. And if it's not important - I should consider dropping it.

* The Music (And Sound)- I actually deliberately limited the music, partly because I thought the looping stuff was annoying, and partly because Torque was having some major bugs with streaming audio. People wanted more of it - the game is too quiet with this release. And in general, more sound effects are required.

* Movement Control Awkwardness - I tried (HARD) to make a game that was completely controllable with only a mouse. Either I botched it (and yeah, I probably did - even I don't play that way), or its simply not what most of my prospective audience wants. Straight WASD and mouselook (basic first-person-shooter controls) is high on the list of requirements, though it's going to make things weird for clicking on all the things on the screen when the mouse moves your vantage point instead. I'm probably going to settle on holding down the right mouse button to turn / look (or the "A" and "D" keys...) . Maybe I'll keep the old system around (with some refinements) as an option or something.

* Key Remapping - yeah, I know. I know. Everybody's got their favorite way of playing a game, and they want all games to conform. I'm the same way. This isn't a hard task, just a tedious and annoying one... but that's about 75% of making a game. It just kept getting bumped in priority.

* Character Creation / Customization - Character creation just isn't for this kind of game. It's a game about these four characters (and some NPCs). The customization comes with leveling, and I didn't have leveling included with the game. I'm not too worried about this, but I wanted to mention it here because it's clearly pretty key.

There are also lots of suggestions / issues that aren't as common, but they jibe strongly with my own feelings towards the game - or they just make sense - and I'll be addressing those as well. The above were just the most common issues.

Again - thank you to everyone who is participating in the pilot. While pleasing everyone isn't going to be possible for any game, the suggestions will help me to make a more enjoyable game. Assuming I'm up to the task...

Frayed Knights Now Available!

2008-04-30T01:47:00.000-07:00

A dainty elvin warrior with an inferiority complex and a hot temper.
A thrill-junky rogue who considers defying death the best alternative to boredom.
A cute but scatterbrained sorceress with destructive tendencies.
A tree-hugging nature-priest who wonders why everyone can't just get along.

Together, they are going to save a kingdom from destruction...

...if they don't kill each other first.

FRAYED KNIGHTS PILOT: The Temple of Pokmor Xang

Now Available!

I'm not sure what else to say. You folks who have been following the development of this game - well, half of you have been helping me test, and the other half probably know more about the game than you would if you'd already played it once. But the pilot episode of the indie RPG Frayed Knights is now available for download. This is a short "demo" adventure - a single quest which should probably take anywhere from a half hour to two hours to explore.

Now, the pilot episode is free - mostly. I do have one request. At the end of the game, you'll be taken to a survey page. Here, I ask what you think about the game. I'm going to use this valuable information for improving it with the next edition of Frayed Knights - the full version. I want to know what you think. I already know it's not perfect, but I need to know what comes out and strikes you as particularly good and particularly bad.

Let me know what you think. And I'm going to see if I can't sleep for a week... (I wish...)

And I apologize - as announced before, the pilot is Windows-only. A Mac version (and probably Linux) is planned for the full version, already in development.

Frayed Knights Website

UPDATE: Ed Maurina, author of The Game Programmer's Guide to Torque, has kindly made a mirror available if you are having trouble downloading it from the primary website:

Frayed Knights Pilot Mirror

Drama vs. Fun?

2008-04-29T08:30:00.000-07:00

It's kinda funny - when my job makes me work all through the night until nearly sunrise, I get very annoyed. But when I do it to myself - meh, it's just what has to be done. But after this weekend, I hope you can understand if I'm a little on the snarky side. I think I'm averaging four hours of sleep a night, which is pretty low even for ME.

Gareth Fouche, creator of the indie RPG Scars of War, posted recently about trying something similar to Frayed Knights' "drama star" system. The reaction was almost universally negative. Even when the system is presented entirely as a "bonus" on top of the regular saved-game system, it's seen as a detriment.

How dare you even consider NOT saving my entire game state! Well, except the bad stuff. I don't care about you forgetting about that.

And it goes back to the whole story versus gameplay thing. Again. A perfectly well-played game makes for a horribly boring story. Who would like hearing about the hero who always wins, always makes the best decisions, never falls for a trick, has no flaws, and rarely even suffers a setback (and then it's always because of things beyond his control)? A guy who is a lantern-jawed, cool hero who - when the chips are down - becomes a lantern-jawed, cool hero. The home basketball team that suffers win after win, until a caring coach figures out how to bring out their best and teach them about teamwork, so they can start... winning some more.

BOR-ING!

That makes for lousy stories. Yet when we play a game, we're out to win. That desire to win makes us unwilling to accept the intermediate defeats and the ups-and-downs that make a good story. So designers force them down our throats with non-interactive cut-scenes, making it clear to us that no, this twist of events that makes things more interesting is NOT in our control, so it's "safe" to accept it and move on....

Now, in practice --- at least so far, and for the imminent-release of the pilot for Frayed Knights, I can't say that my attempt to recruit the player to the storyteller side of things with the Drama Star system has been an unqualified success. I think it has a subtle effect on the game in that direction, which is good enough for me. It's been a pretty divisive topic in theory, yet in practice I don't know if the testers (hey guys, feel free to speak up to confirm or contradict this...) actually found it to be that big of a deal in either direction. I know the system still needs some tweaking, and it will undoubtedly play a much bigger deal in the full release than in the pilot (in practice, currently, you are likely to face the "boss" encounter with only barely three bronze stars - enough to rescue ONE character from incapacitation, but they will have only one hit point left and be likely to drop in the very next round unless the battle is nearly over...)

Maybe I am wimping out and I need to make the drama stars an even greater influence on the game. But as a gamer who tends to devote only "casual" time levels to playing games these days, I really don't want to use golden handcuffs on players to lock them to the game, or to give players with only 20 or 30 minutes to devote to a game per session a crippling limitation.

I remember - as Gareth points out - how frustrating it got in Diablo II trying to find that stupid portal before I quit for the day. It wasn't like you really lost any significant progress by quitting without finding the thing... all the experience points and treasure you gained was yours to keep, even if you ended up repeating a level or two. In fact, from a purely mechanical perspective, it was really a non-issue. But it exerted a powerful force on players... maddeningly frustrating on one level, but also introducing a level of tension that probably improved the game overall on another level.

But here's the big question: It's really about fun, not drama. Dramatic tension can definitely increase the fun... But there is also a point (well, a fuzzy-gray area) where story interferes with the fun. Where playing-the-game - to win - is far more enjoyable then putting up with all those dramatic peaks and valleys. Where do you draw the line?

Design A Minimalist RPG!

2008-04-28T08:06:00.000-07:00

Jamie Fristrom has an article about an old (but AWESOME) strategy game Slay. If you haven't played it, you should. In "Notes on Slay," he comments about the use of minimalism, depth vs. breadth, and how the simplicity and solid AI make Slay such an excellent game.

Slay is a 'conquer the world' strategy game with no randomness (except for the AI choices), and a handful of very simple but compelling rules, and really nice balance. I was introduced to it by Steve Taylor, a good friend (and former boss) from NinjaBee (hey, now you KNOW where he got his inspiration for the not-quite-so-minimalist Band of Bugs).

But being such an RPG geek, Jamie's article made me think of the computer role-playing game angle. What would a minimalist RPG be like? It's hard to answer, because the definition of RPG is really fuzzy.

One might be tempted to say NetHack or other roguelikes, but the only thing minimalist about NetHack is the graphics. From an underlying gameplay standpoint, Oblivion is minimalist by comparison. Diablo comes even closer to the that description, but it's also pretty far from the mark.

My own candidate might be the freeware Really Really Random RPG - which I personally think of as the "Really Really Abstract RPG." If so, it may underscore a problem with the concept of minimalism in RPG design. The minimalism of Slay is part of its appeal - it strips through all the trappings and accessories to reveal a really solid core of fun game mechanics. But RRRRPG's minimalism reveals pretty uninspiring mechanics. It'd be easy to shift the blame on RRRRPG's designer, but the game mechanics have been abstracted from countless commercially successful RPGs.

Maybe Slay just did a better job at the abstraction. Maybe the designer just pulled out the right mechanics and balanced and polished them to a fine sheen. I definitely feel that's part of the answer. And I also feel that - when you strip away things down to their bare minimum - RPGs themselves are strategy games at their mechanical heart. After all - they began life as wargames.

But I think a big part of the problem is simply that RPGs are very context-sensitive. While I don't believe an RPG really needs much of a "story" to be an RPG (after all, I consider NetHack and most roguelikes to be RPGs), I think it is that story - or at least "context" - that provides much of the entertainment value.

Still, it's an intriguing thought. I took something of a stab at it with Hackenslash once upon a time. So lets say we wanted to design a good (as in, fun) minimalist RPG. What key game mechanics would we have? What simple but powerful story could we weave into it? So what kind of things would you put in a minimalist RPG? You don't have to provide a complete design or anything - just what sorts of things would make a simple-yet-compelling RPG in your mind. And feel free to cite examples.

For convenience and posterity's sake, I've even made it a thread on the forums. Because I just love to give. :)

(Vaguely) related navel-gazing.
* Are Hybrid RPGs Just the Poor Man's RPGs?
* What Makes a Great RPG - The Story
* The Evolution of Computer RPGs
* But Is It An RPG?
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Frayed Knights Pilot: 48 Hours To Go

2008-04-27T07:54:00.001-07:00

It's almost 9 AM as I write this. I haven't slept yet. I've been working on the Frayed Knights pilot all night long.

I'm watching the upload bar slowly climb on beta 2... 75%... 76%.... 77%...

Someone's already posted a major bug in Beta 1 this morning that hasn't been fixed... so I guess Beta 2 isn't quite ready for a "release" yet. And some minor issues. I need to get some sleep. Go to church. Hopefully not at the same time. And then get cracking on it some more. I've got approximately 48 hours as of right now. Or less. A magazine in Germany needs it before close of business on Tuesday... what time zone are they in?

Yeesh. My brain is fried.

My private little victory is that I got the compass in. Was it worth the two hours I spent last night working on it? I hope so. It looks cool. I need more help text. Oh, and real documentation - or something resembling real documentation at this point. And I need to get the web survey up.

All in 48 or so hours.

Okay - the uploading is complete, and I'm notifying testers. And then... a short nap. If it's too short, it might be worse for me... less than 3 hours of sleep makes me groggier than I am without sleep at all.

Catch ya on the flip side!

Frayed Knights - Pilot Release Hours Away...

2008-04-25T14:45:00.005-07:00

More Tales from the development of Frayed Knights, the indie RPG of humor and high fantasy.

There really ain't much to tell. Not that this has ever stopped me before.

My drop-dead date is Tuesday. I need to get the file to a magazine on that date. I'm trying to get another beta out tomorrow-esque for the testers to hammer on. There's so much I wanted to get in for this release, but won't make it. But I think the game is fun, and will do a good job of what it's intended to do - solicit feedback, and gauge the reaction of players.

The automap is back in, and better than before. This was the biggest, most critical task I've been facing, one that I wanted to get in before Beta, but failed to pull off. Aside from that, and implementing a few very minor suggestions, I'm focused entirely on bug-fixes. Doors that don't work right. Scrolling on the party inventory that isn't functioning properly. Etc.

The biggest frustration at this stage of the game is that things are progressing excruciatingly slowly. I'll be very glad when this pilot release is done and we can go crazy again with content. I expect the game WILL metamorphize somewhat in its core code based on player feedback. However, my hope is - now that we have a semi-stable game, it'll be content city. Scripts, dialogs, maps, monsters, treasures, and character progression, baby!

Watch this space for the announcement of the public release.

Narrative of the Moment

2008-04-25T08:16:00.001-07:00

Corvus Elrod begins his "Narrative of the Moment" series on a new game today. This time, it's another of my all-time favorites, "X-Com: UFO Defense" (AKA UFO: Enemy Unknown in Europe). His contention is that the game compelled him not because of the strategy, but because of the narrative:

"What about this game provided such a compelling video game experience? So compelling that people playing it for the first time today still heap praise upon it? So compelling that it has been ranked as the #1 game of all time, beating out such such notable titles as Starcraft, Civilization IV and Fallout? So compelling that I, fifteen years after playing it for the first time, still have difficulty maintaining my objectivity when discussing its successes and failings?

"I believe, unsurprisingly I’m sure, that the answer is Story. While not typically approached as a storytelling game, I believe X-COM is exemplary in its creation of story and will spend several posts examining how assembles all of its narrative components into a super satisfactory whole."

You can check out the first part of the series here:

Narrative of the Moment Introduction: X-Com at Man Bytes Blog

And if you haven't read it all, be sure and read his previous Narrative of the Moment series on Ultima Underworld.

(Vaguely) related belaboring of blunted points:
* Game Moment #3: X-Com
* Guest Article - UFO: Extraterrestrials Do Over
* Quick Strategy Games
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*

No Indie Night For Me

2008-04-24T17:43:00.001-07:00

Blame it on the testers.

With the time until the public release measurable now in HOURS, I'm trying like crazy to whip Frayed Knights into shape, and the testing team has left me a mountain of jobs to do.

For which I really am grateful. I need all the help I can get.

But with the events of this week, I'm finding myself short on time. The Utah Indie Night is tonight, but I'm having to give it a miss - for the first time ever.

Bummer.

Time to hit the ol' dungeon again. Utah indies, have fun and enjoy the pizza!

A Real-Life Spy's Tale

2008-04-24T08:22:00.000-07:00

Last night I attended a talk by Mike Ramsdell, author of "A Train to Potevka," and former U.S. intelligence operative stationed in Russia during the height of the cold war. My wife has been reading his book and telling me about it. His talk last night focused less on his experiences as an intelligence agent and more on the experiences leading up to it, and his experiences following the publication of the book. And, considering the venue, it was also a discussion of faith.

He admitted that he decided to get into the intel business after seeing the James Bond movie, "From Russia With Love." He thought it sounded awfully exciting, especially for a small-town farm boy from Bear River, Utah. But he notes in the book, "In reality, intelligence work is extremely serious, tedious, and unglamorous; done by balding, pudgy, middle-aged men - and there are seldom any buxom women."

A couple of thoughts I had that might be applicable here:

First of all, his book was a big success, now in its eighth printing, and is now in the process of being made into a movie. As far as he's concerned, he's living the dream. But he quit working on the book for four months after being convinced by his brothers that nobody would be interested in reading his story. They convinced him it was a waste of time, and that he'd only embarrass himself. Fortunately, his wife forced him to get cracking on it some more, and get it done. His first printing was from a fly-by-night printer in Tennessee who was willing to print 100 copies for $1000. He figured they had 50 relatives and 50 friends they could send the book to as Christmas and birthday presents, so they finished it and got it done.

And the change it brought about in his life is nothing less than phenomenal. So maybe this is a lesson for frustrated indie game developers out there. No, the movie isn't being made by a major motion picture studio, and no, I don't think he's gotten rich off his book. But that wasn't the point. The guy was just thrilled at how his life turned out. He said if you'd shown him a crystal ball in his youth - as a Utah farm-boy - which showed how his life would turn out: from being a secret agent in Russia to a book author to scouting out locations in Eastern Europe with movie producers for film based on his life - he'd have bet anything against it.

Another point I considered, as the RPG fan: Why don't we have any "secret agent" computer RPGs? Not realistic ones, though there are some fun elements to be drawn from that, too. But we've got plenty of ripe territory for drama, action, and excitement in the post-cold-war era. For example, Alias is a hit show, in spite of its volatile quality, and even mixes some fantasy and science fiction elements with modern-era action and intrigue. The Bourne movie series have been big hits, and the most recent James Bond movie (Casino Royale) cleverly rebooted the entire series and ditched the lamer elements of the formula - to great success.

And in these shows, there is plenty of action and ... yes... combat! Apparently fighting terrorist cells and evil overlords-to-be allows agents the luxury to rack up a body count unthinkable in any other "modern era" genre outside of a straight-up war story. Which would allow less imaginative game designers plenty of combat to make players happy. And it's been addressed in pen & paper RPGs, from the elderly "Top Secret" RPG from TSR back in the glory days to the more recent Spycraft RPG.

Could this hit a nerve and be successful?

(UPDATE: Apparently, I missed Alpha Protocol's announcement last month. Last month was a blur of 80+ hour work-weeks anyway, I wasn't even sure what DAY it was half the time. But it sounds like I get my wish fulfilled this year. Sign me up! And for the PC version, thankyouverymuch, unless it's got that awful psychotic DRM issues...)

Vaguely related thinking too hard:
* Innovation in RPGs?
* RPG Design Seed Challenge
* The 16 Essential RPGs
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Bruce Everiss On Piracy

2008-04-23T08:27:00.000-07:00

I rant about software piracy (and it's equally evil opposite, DRM) a bit. But Bruce Everiss is even more passionate about the subject, having seen a company go from highly successful to failure all attributed to the rise of piracy.

Bruce On Piracy

According to him, the fading of non-MMO PC games in favor of consoles can be directly attributed to the ease of piracy in recent years. And his conclusion is even more grim, from my perspective: In the future, all PC games will be MMOs. Although he also note EA's foray into purely ad-based revenue.

Me? I personally hate these alternatives. I mean, yeah, I like some MMOs, and I play some Flash games that are subsidized by advertising. But if that's all there's going to be, in the future, I'm gonna hang up my mouse. Which is going to really suck, because a lot of my favorite genres are ones that only work well on the PC. And I still greatly prefer FPS titles on the PC over their console counterparts.

Now, I'm the kind of guy who doesn't watch a TV series until it's been out a year so I can watch it on DVD sans commercial interruptions. It saves me 20 minutes per hour-long episode (which is really only 40 minutes), and I'm happy to pay for that privilege of NOT dealing with commercials. I'm also the kind of guy who likes watching old movies and shows (including old black & white films), and enjoys playing older games. I don't want to be stuck playing nothing but the current dreck because the great games of yesteryear are no longer supported by their respective companies and don't have an MMO-style server up and running.

There has got to be a better solution than this!

(Vaguely) related dreck of my own manufacture:
* A Pirate Story
* The Real Cost of Piracy
* PC Game Publishers: Please Hurt Me Some More!
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D&D 4th Edition "Open" - But Only If You Close 3.5E

2008-04-22T06:00:00.000-07:00

Apparently, Wizards of the Coast has come to a conclusion regarding whether or not there will be anything resembling the much-celebrated "Open Gaming License" for 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons.

The response is still a little hazy, as nobody commenting on it has seen the actual contracts, but the key aspect that has a lot of nerd rage going on at the ENWorld forums is a requirement for anyone to use the new license that they forever forswear creating any content for the previous system (or any other "open gaming" system). In other words, you marry yourself to 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons, or you aren't invited to the party at all.

I guess that's one way of putting the genie back in the bottle. As reported by Clark Peterson of Necromancer Games (one of the attendees of the conference call), "I was told that specifically by Wizards of the Coast. In direct response to that direct question. The answer was, 'we dont want fence sitters. Companies have to choose.'" So unless there's a change at the last minute, there will be no dual-statted modules for both Pathfinder and Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. As restrictive as it sounds, for a few weeks third parties were worried that Wizards was going to revoke any sort of "open" third-party support, returning to the ol' 2nd edition days where third parties were cut off completely (AFAIK).

It's a pretty bold move, one that could only be made by Wizards throwing its considerable weight and best-known brand around within the admittedly small "industry." Wizards of the Coast is committed to doing away with the legacy game system (and competitive products that piggybacked on the OGL, like Castles & Crusades and Pathfinder). But I also see signs that they are not just trying to put a bullet in the head of an older system - they are actually trying to reinvent the entire industry.

Face it - the pen & paper roleplaying game industry is almost identical to its 1974 roots. Books are durable goods, and players only need so many books to play the game. Seriously - I have much-beloved copies of the 1st edition Monster Manual, Player's Handbook, and Dungeon Master's Guide, and I could very easily continue to play the game for years with nothing more than that. There are, in fact, a bunch of holdouts who are doing exactly that right now. Every book makes the players more and more independent of the company.

So as bookshelves get filled, purchases drop off. Players have more game books than they know what to do with, and aren't really interested in more. Wizards of the Coast has already solved - to a point - this problem for their collectible games, like Magic: The Gathering and D&D Miniatures. It sounds like they are applying a similar approach to D&D, making it a constantly-evolving game... and a game players must keep paying for, as new "core" books become an annual expense. And that's not even including their online initiative, which I expect to be a key element of their marketing and sales strategy.

Will it work? Does Wizards have the clout to hit the reset button this time? Does this strategy provide enough benefit to customers that they'll put up with greater dependence on the company under the new plan (assuming there is a new plan and I'm not just tilting at windmills)? And will third parties hitch their wagons to 4E, or will they throw their collective weight behind competing products, fracturing the small industry even further?

(Vaguely) related musings
* Pathfinder: The New Dungeons & Dragons 3.5?
* Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition Announced
* Disappointment In the Demonweb Pits
* Original Dungeons & Dragons Trivia
* Spring and... D&D?
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RIP Bob Bledsaw

2008-04-21T21:58:00.000-07:00

We lost Gary Gygax only a few weeks ago, and now another pioneer of roleplaying games has passed. Bob Bledsaw, founder of Judge's Guild, passed away this weekend.

Judge's Guild was the first "official" third-party RPG publisher. They received official sanction from TSR - for a while - to create a campaign world and numerous modules for D&D. Because, as Gygax and the others at TSR assumed, there was no money to be made in it. And - yeah, well, define "money." But still, it was a major part of the formative years of the hobby.

Bummer.

Frayed Knights: A Beta Odyssey

2008-04-21T08:19:00.000-07:00

Sitting on the sidewalk, watching water pour out from under the sidewalk and the lobby of one's place of business is (hopefully) one of those weird, once-in-a-lifetime experiences that really makes you wonder.

Like wondering, "Crap, am I gonna have a job to come back to?"

The answer is apparently yes, as it's back to business as usual this week (with perhaps a weekend or two of extra work thrown in for good measure). However, it almost gave me an extra day and a half to work on Frayed Knights. It would have, if I hadn't lost yet another video card one night. A few hours of the following day were devoted to discovering the problem, acquiring a new card, and installing it.

Total gain in dev time: About the same amount of time I lost the previous weekend due to the mandatory overtime.

Well, either way, I managed to get the beta out. We've got about a week to get cracking on it. There are a ton of additional features and improvements I want to make in the pilot already. And maybe I will. But our first concern is making sure it is fully playable and stable, and accomplishes the goals of a pilot episode - which is to solicit feedback.

Some changes that have gone in over the last week or so:
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* Bug: Zone exit to Ardin only works once (or doesn't work after load?)
* Fireball - Incindiary Crackleball added
* Fixed bug: Silas ignored party after Benjamin's confession
* Fixed Interactive Object dialog title width
* Fixed missing portrait for Benjamin when targeted after incapacitation
* Fireball wand for Chloe
* Fixed getting stuck inside door bug.
* Fixed autonomous dialogs
* Fixed load game at game-over
* Added Angry Flower spell
* Changed Silas and Hoss skins & portraits
* Added Fireball Wand Dialogs
* Added potion of recapacitation + recapacitation effects
* Added Frayed Knights website jump at end of game
* Enter Key and ESC key in all dialogs
* Prevented player from hopping the railing to talk to Silas and avoid talking to Florentine (although I'm really conflicted on that one... I may put it back in once I come up with some alternative dialogs with Florentine and Silas).

Times they are excitin'.

Expect a public release in 1 week.

The Lost Sequel to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Revealed!

2008-04-19T00:39:00.001-07:00

I know there's a few of us who fondly remember Infocom's text adventure, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, co-written by Douglas Adams himself. Andy Baio found himself with access to a treasure trove of information in the form of a a copy of Infocom's backup shared network drive from the time they were bought out.

Some of the information contained included a great deal about a sequel (originally, two sequels) to the classic and best-selling Hitchhiker's. Andy's blog also includes a (barely) playable copy of the prototype - which obviously never got very far. Unfortunately, more than information about the game, the documentation reveals a bit about the state of what was once the darling of the game business that had now gone past its prime, and was now struggling.

What's more interesting is that several of the people involved have now posted comments on the article, helping to clarify or give perspective to it. Some other influential folks (like Emily Short) from the current IF scene have also popped in. Controversy rages, particularly concerning the ethics of posting decades-old emails to the public.

But if you are curious, head on over and take a look:

Milliways: Infocom's Unreleased Sequel to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Hat tip to good ol' Rock, Paper, Shotgun for the link!

Frayed Knights - Pus Golem for D20

2008-04-18T08:15:00.000-07:00

And now for this week's update on Frayed Knights, the humorous independent RPG from Rampant Games. Here's one for the dice & paper gamers! Actually, at some point I'd like to turn the entire Temple of Pokmor Xang into a paper module, but for now, here's the Pus Golem!

Pus Golem Small Construct
Hit Dice: 2D10 +10 (21 hp)
Initiative: +1
Speed: 20 ft (4 squares)
Armor Class: 12 (+1 Dex, +1 Size)
Base Attack / Grapple: +3 / +1
Attack: Slam +3 melee (1d3+2 plus Festering Wound) or club +3 melee (1d6+2)
Full Attack: Slam +3 melee (1d3+2 plus Festering Wound) or club +3 melee (1d6+2)
Space / Reach: 5 ft. / 5 ft.
Special Attacks: Festering Wound
Special Qualities: Construct Traits
Saves: Fort +0, Ref +2, Will + 0
Abilities: Str 14, Dex 12, Con -, Int -, Wis 11, Cha 1
Skills: ---
Feats: ---
Environment: Any
Organization: Solitairy or Gang (2-6)
Challenge Rating: 2
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always Neutral
Advancement: 3-4 HD (Small), 5-8 HD (Medium)
Level Adjustment: ---

This disgusting, vaguely humanoid mass stands about four feet tall, possesses the color and oder of a festering, oozing wound, and has skin the consistency of congealed blood and pus. Its jaw hangs loosely from it's distorted skull-shaped head, and vein-like streaks of blood flow slowly in a sparse webwork around its quivering, misshapen body.

While the creation of a golem is more usually in the province of powerful arcane spellcasters, often constructed of hard, inorganic materials – clay, stone, and metals. However, certain sorcerers and priests have learned that shortcuts can be taken. Golems made of weaker, more flexible materials are easier to create, but correspondingly weaker and less useful. Golems made of materials formerly part of – or manufactured by – living bodies require even less magical effort to animate, as the remaining life energy within them can help power the spell. However, few but the most demented or vile spellcasters of society would stoop to such levels. Examples include flesh golems, constructed of several fresh corpses sewn together, and bone golems, constructed of the skeletal remnants of animals or even humans.

Then there are some less common but equally vile varieties of organic-matter golems, such as pus golems, snot golems, and the dreaded dung golem (of which only one has ever been reported in an apocryphal adventure account, but that one occurrence has haunted the nightmares of adventurers for decades).

The pus golems are particularly favored among priests of Pokmor Xang for a number of reasons. For one, few of such priests ever reach levels of divine power where they'd be capable of creating anything else. As servants of the god of boils, blisters, and pimples, they tend to have an ample supply of pus required for the creation of these monstrosities. And third, they are used to the smell.

Combat
Pus golems are more frequently employed as servants rather than combatants, but in combat they are fearful opponents, primarily due to the level of revulsion they cause in their opponents. Veterans of battle against these creatures claim the smell takes days to go away, though this has no in-game effect.

Festering Wound (Ex)
Wounds caused by the pus golem's slam attack become infected with a low-grade cocktail of whetever infections and diseases were the source of its raw material. As a result, all damage caused by the creature's slam attacks take twice as long to heal, or require 2 hit points of healing to cure 1 point of damage. Remove Disease eliminates all Festering Wound effects, though the damage remains and can be healed normally. A Heal spell instantly removes all Festering Wound effects and heals damage normally.

Oh, and while I think I'm violating the D20 license by not including the full license here as part of this post, Pokmor Xang and Frayed Knights are designated Product Identity and property of Rampant Games. Licenses and copyright notices for the D20 License and OGL license can be found here.

Frayed Knights Development Update:
Well, things have gotten really weird. The day job mandated some pretty hard-core hours last week, which cut into dev time a little bit - but then a water line broke yesterday and flooded the building, so I find myself with a couple days off to spend finishing the beta for Frayed Knights. I intend to get the beta out tomorrow (instead of today), and the public release will probably be out next weekend at some point. The game is getting a lot cleaner, but the testers are identifying a bunch of issues - many of them design and interface issues - which have taken up a lot of time to correct.

A lot of time this week was also spent cleaning up Ardin village and making it look nicer. This involved fixing a lot of models that were, for some reason, not reacting well to the fog. But here's how the village looks now:

In addition, some of the NPCs have gotten a facelift - particularly Ol' Hoss (who actually looks older now), and Silas. I'm throwing in new sound effects today, so the chests don't sound like opening doors. Wands are working, and I think I can get some scrolls working before the end of the day. Because I want to treat the beta as if it is a release candidate, I'm going to try and add nothing new to the beta between its release and the public release.

And once again - the final version of Frayed Knights may differ quite a bit from the pilot. This is my chance to get some major feedback on the game.

Black House in D20

2008-04-17T08:22:00.000-07:00

I have been reading "Black House" by Stephen King and Peter Straub. Well, listening to it on tape while driving. I recently finished chapter 19. Beezer and the Thunder Five against the hell hound.

With all of the RPG development and writing I have been doing, I guess it was inevitable. With the voice of the narrator going through each action of each member of the motorcycle game in sequence, I couldn't help myself. I immediately realized that he could have been going (almost) round-by-round combat in a D&D game. Well, a D20 modern game. It was step by step... you could almost hear the "players" of the five bikers rolling their will saves (only Sonny made his save... it sounded like Mouse and Kaiser Bill totally failed, and Doc and Beezer were only partially affected).

I figure the bikers probably hit the hellhound with at least 2 shots from a .357 and another from ... I can't remember now... the .38? So that's 3 hits for 2d6 damage each... or about 21 points of damage on the average. The average hellhound in D20 has 22 hit points of damage, so I can see why it ran off. Of course, this was no simple D20 Hell Hound, so it was probably a bit beefier with a very nasty disease / madness combo area affect attack (I don't know for sure, since I'm not done with the book). So it probably took over half damage before it fled. And maybe had damage resistance...

Woah. What am I saying?

It's funny that I haven't thought about a book in game terms since I was a kid. But I couldn't help but wonder if Peter Straub (or Stephen King) had been playing a little bit of D&D or something when they wrote that scene. It just fit too perfectly. Or at least, in my warped brain it did. Should I sign up for therapy or something, or has anything like this happened to you?

Oh, and incidentally, I really like the book so far...

Indie RPG News Roundup, March 16th

2008-04-16T08:14:00.001-07:00

News and rumors from the indie side of computer role-playing games:

Depths of Peril
My favorite RPG of 2007, Depths of Peril won the Best Overall Game 2008 Award from Bytten. Bytten writes:

"This is one of those rare gaming experiences that only come up once in a blue moon for me. Although the appeal of Depths may not have been as universal as some of the other games I have reviewed this year, I must say that it's just about everything that I need in an action/RPG.

"The jewel in the crown is the persistent and dynamic game world where every action has a consequence. But intelligent randomisation, huge boss fights, massive amounts of loot and collectibles, ease of modding, customisation of just about everything in the game, awesome in-game fiction - the list just goes on and on. Pure geek mana from heaven."

Besides this, Soldak has another short story up entitled, "Frozen Crystal."

Scars of War
The Blog of War is now going in full force, and includes some concept art for an Imarathi Mask and General Rheygar. But of particular interest to me is a discussion of the magic system in Scars of War. Gareth writes:

"So I looked at what I’d done with magic and felt shame. I’d done exactly the same thing as those lazy designers. I’d simply gone ahead and made a slightly more polished version of the what has come before. You distribute skill points into schools of magic which lets you buy spells from that school which you can then use to accomplish quests. Bog standard."

"Some people might be thinking `But that is mage gameplay, isn’t it?'. No. In the same way that being able to backstab enemies in combat is not the heart of what the thief experience is/should be about, neither is simply blowing crap up what playing a mage should be about. "

His solution goes pretty far out there, involving - among other things - visiting mystical realms. If this is pulled off, I'm going to personally be very excited.

Age of Decadence
RPGWatch continues the "Let's Play" series, continuing a visual walkthrough of the upcoming RPG Age of Decadence. If you want to get a good feel for how this game will play out, read this article and its predecessor.

Dream Diary (Yume Nikki)
I'm gonna have to refer you to the TIGSource and the Indie Games the Weblog post about this bizarre-but-cool-sounding freeware RPGMaker game. You play a young girl living in a small apartment with little to do but to sleep and explore the dream world.

Avernum V
There's a new version of Avernum V now available for both Mac and Windows. There is also a great interview up at RPG Vault discussing the game's development process and goals - a good read for aspiring indie RPG developers!

And that's all I have for now, folks! As always, please help keep me up-to-date with what's going on in the world of indie RPGs. I'm still hoping for a crazy-busy year like last year!

Moral Decisions and RPGs

2008-04-15T08:11:00.000-07:00

Last week, Rock Paper Shotgun had an outstanding piece on Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines entitled "Educating Heather." It's a very neat slice of the game - specifically, dealing with the optional subplot involving the ghoul, Heather. And even more specifically - the psychology and emotional reaction to this aspect of the game.

This was something I really, really liked about Bloodlines. They captured the setting, the "feel" of the license, perfectly. The setting and situation was just so immersive that you couldn't just "play yourself." You were thrust into a world of shades of dark gray, and you were made a blood-sucking creature of the night. Almost every character in the game "has it coming" in one way or another. And there were far nastier things out there that went bump in the night than you. It yanked you out of your comfort zone. And they filled it with disturbing and non-trivial moral decisions.

And they also filled it with lame first-person-shooter filler material, which sucked. But at least it let you beat a man to death with a severed arm. That's always a plus in a game.

You have the option of getting rid of Heather during the game. If you don't - she comes to a bad end. This was, in its way, more emotionally charged than the death of Alagnar in Ultima VII, or Aeris's death in Final FantasyVII, because you realize (too late) that it was preventable. Either way, she's out of the picture at a certain point in the game - so from a mechanics perspective it is a non-issue.

But the context is compelling. There's way more story there than "kill ten rats and bring me their tails for 1 gold piece."

Ultimately, it works because the game is about people. Very scary, often undead people, but still people. The puzzles and challenges aren't just about manipulating the environment, but manipulating people. And they did a good enough job on the characters and voice-acting that many players came to really care about them. Theresa and Jeanette, encountered early in the game as both play you against each other, stand out as two of the most interesting NPCs I've ever seen in a computer RPG. The ending of that particular plotline was not a big surprise to me, but it was still unforgettable.

Freakin' Malks.

We get used to thinking of RPGs in the oldest-old-school sense - the straightforward dungeon-crawling and nameless monster bashing. When you hear modern designers talking about evolution in RPGs, they usually talk about more realistic graphics and streamlining the interface and getting rid of all those "boring" numbers.

Bloodlines is perhaps not the best example to use as a counterpoint to convince the industry to change. After all, it was seriously flawed, and didn't sell well enough to save its creators from going under. But it seems to me that there is a ton of mileage you can get out of a single, compelling NPC - even if they don't speak of word of dialog. I mean, look at the Companion Cube!

(Vaguely) related jumbled thoughts:
* What Makes a Great RPG? The World
* What Makes a Great RPG? The Story
* Who Are the Best Game Villains?
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