Game Design Apprentice

Indie is Anarchy

[matrixbai]

[LD28 Postmortem] The Story of Your Life

The theme of Ludum Dare 28 is "You Only Get One", the first word pump into my head is YOLO. I know its literal meaning, You Only Live Once. Well, that's true, everyone only have one life, if not considering afterlife or something like that. So I made this text adventure game The Story of Your Life.

Ludum Dare Entry

How did I design it?

First I abstract human to five attributes

Mind

Body

Social Connections

Self-confidence

Property

In the game, all players' choices can affect above attributes, and some choices only appear when player's attributes satisfy the requirement. Mind and Body are random at born, Social Connections, Self-confidence and Property are connected with family.

There're 4 types of families in this game : Rich,* Middle-class*, Poor, Abandoned. Character got more attributes at born in better family, but like real world, player can't choose the family, which is decided by a spinning wheel. Not like the real world, the possibilities of each family is equal, so player can easily get different experience.

Property don't exist in the childhood period, and there're many differences among different families, for example

Rich family can buy luxury in childhood, and middle-class family only have this option in adulthood.

Better family get more choices, and get more attributes bonus. Poor families have more "Part-time Job" options and get nothing from it, but the same choice can benefit rich family kids a lot. The reason behind it is different goals, one for surviving and the other is for building themselves.

Abandoned kid has no social connections at born, for them, there're only two choices "Gangs" and "Do Sports" can get such attributes, and I add more "Gangs" options to this type.

Before entering adulthood, game provides players 4 career candidates based on the attributes. Some good career like scientist need high self-confidence, which is poor kids lacking of.

Adulthood is more boring than childhood, it's 3 times longer than childhood. Player receive paycheck every 10 turns. Many choices in this period need money, the choices player can't afford are not in the list.

At the end of this virtual life, game generate a short description based on the attributes at born and death. One gifted kid may died as a gangster and a kid born with silver spoon may have nothing in the end. All of these are determined by 3 factors Family, Luck and Choices, this is what I want to express in this game.

The Bad Design Factors

Feedback

I should admit that this game is a little…boring, the whole process is just pushing different buttons. It would be much better to give players some text feedback after they made the choice, I cut off this feature because the limitation of my English writing skill.

In the real world, it's difficult to quantify ourselves, so I made the decision that not exposing specific attribute numbers to players, which is a big mistake. I was making game, abstraction of real world. Without specific numbers feedback, players can't get a clear picture of what they're doing, it's really frustrating.

Interactive

I cut off family and special event features for lacking of time and energy.

There're only 4 options each turn, may confusing players. A better solution in my mind right now is listing all options with requirement, and only allow player choosing the qualified options, then players can choose what they want and know why some options can not be chosen.

Graphic

Graphic is more appealing than text, and bad text (ex. text in this game) can easily ruin the atmosphere and fun. Something like below can be visualized

Avatar

UI difference between childhood and adulthood

Iconify : careers, choices, etc.

After all, I'm very happy and getting lots of fun in this Ludum Dare. I believe I can make a better game next time.

P.S. There's an eastern egg in this game. In the adulthood of middle-class family, one option is Make Indie Game, guess what would be happened after you choose it.

[matrixbai]

The Mistake I Made in Black Hole Runner

Black Hole Runner is my Ludum Dare 27 entry, it's about black hole and time dilation. I found almost everyone complains the slow vertical movement, which is caused by time dilation. To me, the slow movement has its reason, that's just what I want, a slow motion effect. But why players don't like it and how can I improve it?

The biggest mistake I made is let players waiting. Games should keep players busy, from receiving information (visuals, audios, texts and emotions) to taking response, always let them having something to do. Even in the turn based game like Go, in opponent's turn, player have lots of brain work to do.

Yes, time dilation slow down spaceship's movement, we can't make it faster under this precondition, but we can give player more works. I found below possible solutions.

Adding a laser weapon to break the asteroids.

Pressing UP and DOWN to move a spaceship is so easy, increase the apm.

Adjust the speed of background music to the in game time speed, emphasize the dilation environment.

Adding fancy visual effect to attract players attention.

[matrixbai]

tk2dUIItem Auto Fit Script

This script automatically fit all tk2dUIItem colliders in current scene. Release the pain to click "Fit" button one by one.

using UnityEngine; using System.Collections; using UnityEditor; public class tk2dUIItemAutoFit :ScriptableObject { [MenuItem ("2D Toolkit/Custom/Auto Fit All UIItems")] private static void AutoFitAll() { Object[] uiItems = Resources.FindObjectsOfTypeAll(typeof(tk2dUIItem)); foreach (Object obj in uiItems) { tk2dUIItemBoundsHelper.FixColliderBounds((tk2dUIItem)obj); } } }

[matrixbai]

The Official Free & Open Source Unity3D Admob plugin for IOS and Android

One advantage of Unity3D is its large user group. Many 3rd party service providers will take this into consideration, even Google.

In the past, developers have 3 choices to integrate Admob into games :

Write your own plugin.

Find free plugins.

Buy a plugin.

Now, Google gave us a new option :

Google's official Unity3D Admob plugin.

I found this plugin by chance, and it turns out very useful. You can download it from Google Mobile Dev's Google Code page, I think that's the reason why not many people know it:-).

Following the step by step instruction in README I have tried the IOS plugin. Though I met some compiling and runtime errors, it worked at the end. Below are my tips :

Download the Google AdMob IOS SDK, and copy all files except the "Add-ons" folder into your Unity project folder "Assets/Plugins/IOS".

Add IOS development framework "StoreKit" "MessageUI" "AdSupport" in Xcode.

Add "-ObjC" to the Other Linker Flags of target build setting in Xcode.

You can find more details in Google Mobile Ads SDK Introduction page.

I'm sure the Android plugin should works as well, even better, because they all from the same company :-)

[matrixbai]

What do I do?

"What do you do?" When I met someone I don't know before, this question is asked every time. "I'm making video game." This is my typical answer. After they heard that, they would say you're a startuper. Me, startuper? That's really strange feeling, I never thought I'm some kind of startuper before. This is big problem, if I don't know what I'm doing exactly, I can't do it in right way. So, am I a startuper?

The answer is no. In Chinese, the startup is "创业", means create job opportunities. I don't work for others, that's true, but neither hire others work for me, which means I hardly create job positions. In my understanding, indie game developer more like writer, is one kind of self employment. I feel more comfortable treat myself as a indie game developer instead of a startuper. Next time when people asked the same question, I believe I have a better answer.

[matrixbai]

How to Design An Interesting Grinding

"All grinding are boring, I hate them." I heard someone said that when seeing the title.

What is grinding?

From Wikipedia, I got below definition

Grinding is a term used in video gaming to describe the process of engaging in repetitive tasks during video games.

See, there's no interesting nor boring stuff related, just a repeating process. Almost every game has more or less grinding, some games take it as their core design, whatich are not boring but very addictive, like Roguelike genre. Bad grinding design is boring, good grinding design is interesting, that's what I got after some research works, so how to make a good one?

Tool : PCG

Running games such as Temple Run, Tiny Wings and Jetpack Joyride are all based on grinding. There's something different each play with others, for example, the maze structure, background and electricity trap position. They all use Procedural Content Generation (PCG) technical to make sure not bored players by same level.

PGC is not the only way to provide unique experience, players' performance, abundant game contents and AI also can did the same thing. With good combination, them can make game very addictive, Roguelike games are some good examples.

Tool : Supplemental System

A player without a goal is like a ship without a rudder. The main reason we have supplemental system, such as Achievement System, Challenge System and Shop System, is setting a goal for players and driving them to approach it. Achievement reward players who devoted much time to game, challenge reward players who got skill and shop let them spending virtual currency to upgrade gadgets, just like the real life, but fairer, which can let you always get something if you keep playing.

Tool : Competition

To me, competition is a meta attribute of game, it exist between humans and human and computer. And for grinding design, ranking between players is a simple and effective way.

Making Games Based On Them

I'm sure there are many other ways to get an interesting grinding design, I only list the basic tools I know for now. Next months, we'll make some games based on grinding and try to ensure them interesting enough. After making them, I could came back to check whether my ideas are right or not.

[matrixbai]

Alien Family

In his childhood, poor Tommy were always waiting…

…waiting his alien family to come and pick him back home.

The sweet home.

"They'll come to me at 7 … at 9 … at 14 … at 16 …" But they never come.

Now Tommy is 35 and alone. He commutes between office and a place he called home everyday.

The alien family fantasy long gone away.

Until one day.

[matrixbai]

Covert Kingdom Postmortem : A Long Painful Journey

Covert Kingdom is the first game made by me and Karen. This game is a mix of Roguelike and Match 3, which in it player can explore dungeon and beat monsters with match 3 gameplay. Sounds interesting, isn't it?

The Origin of The Concept

Tile-matching genre has long history, Tetris maybe the first one. I still remember how popular of Tetris in my childhood, in that time most family I knew has a Shanzhai Game Boy which has only one game, Tetris. Why are people crazy for tile-matching? Maybe clear up something is one instinct of human being, well, at least when the work not making you tired. And yes, the simple rule is another reason, everybody can understand it very quickly. So that's no surprise to see every game market, from mobile to console, is saturated with all kinds of tile-matching games.

After my studies, I found them have some common characters, like swap-matching, falling-blocks, time pressure and pattern recognition. In most games, the pattern recognition is one dimension, recognizing the color or the shape or other point distinguish it from others. Shape and color are natural attributes of tile, I'm sure our brain will change mode when switch between color and shape recognition, so why not use both of them to make a game?

A Common Mistake of Beginners

Don't overdo it. I told myself thousands of times when I start building this game. Unfortunately, the power of this overdo swirl is too strong, I went directly into it.

I want to be a good game designer, right? Good game designer should design something creative, right? Only creative is not enough, the game should gave player endless fun, right? They are all correct, but I don't think someone's first game can made all of it. (OK, I know Phil Fish made it in his first game, but that's not a common case.)

I knew the first game should be small and be released as soon as possible. But after I started this project, these rules gone far away, I just keep adding new "interesting" things into it. The list is long, including random level, dungeon exploration, item system, boss, unlock container, bonus level, hidden secrets, lock picking, collectable equipment etc. I can't say the new RPG stuff are not interesting, they surely are good things only if I can made them together good enough. The sad fact is I can't.

The Life in Tar Pit

I dig a deep hole and fill it with tar, then jump into it with no hesitate, because I though the tar is some kind dark color honey. I don't want to describe the feeling here, I just want to say that's one of most painful lesson in my life. I'm lucky, getting out of it with Covert Kingdom, through which only has half of my design.

The Result and Future

As the first game from two green hand, Covert Kingdom is definitely good. As a game, except the inadequate detail polishing, it still has some interesting and creative points, which I'm proud of. The next step is polishing it as possible as we can. We'll focus on animation and sound effect. Beside Covert Kingdom, we also have some smaller projects, one thing is for sure, they'll keep small and been released as soon as possible.