#game-design

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[addierabbitson-blog]

Civilization V - Analysis

DETAILS OF GAME

Civilization V is the 5th game of a (currently) 6-game series which was released on Windows in September 2010, and later on OSX and Linux. The game was published by 2K Games, and developed by Firaxis Games. It is a turn-based strategy 4X game that allows you to build up an empire and win by taking over the rest of civilization.

THOUGHTS

I thought the game was very good in its aspects of balancing and making each and every mechanic in the game from moving units, capturing/allying cities, to upgrading technologies or policies very polished in terms of pacing. It is impressive to have so many features in a game and so many things to be mindful of all at the one time, yet keeping the player feel comfortable and not overwhelmed with information. They do this through making a lot of the processes which balance the game behind the scenes, making some features more simple and some more complicated - but only as much as it needs to be.

RESPONSE UPON RELEASE/COMMUNITY

There were many people in the gaming community that were aware of the Civilization series before the 5th game came out, but the release of this game was the high point in the series which gained the most attraction of any of the previous games made.

CORE LOOP

The core loop of Civilization V is:

Unit Orders → Purchase Units → Choose Production → Adopt Policy

MAIN MECHANICS

The main mechanics of Civilization V is giving unit actions, purchasing units, choosing production, and social policies.

Unit orders are the main point of actions in the game, each round you may be able to move any units that are currently not performing actions in order to build structures, attack other cities, create cities, and many other things. Some things that units can build are; roads, farms, factories, landmarks, or even cities can increase resource production.

Purchasing units is also a large part of the game in order to increase your army/production with many types of units. The main units in the game are; workers, settlers, religious units, trade units, great people, and many of the combat units.

Choosing your production in Civilization V is the procedure you use to increase the technology for your cities and attempt to be in front of other cities in terms of trade/culture/fire power which is the three ways you can achieve victory. Each chosen technology can help you assist with a current, or future option you think can help you win the game.

Social policies are helpful to increase the chance of you winning depending on which path you wish to take on the road to victory, there are some social policies that can favor the different ways of achieving a victory. You choose one option out of many in a skill tree-like menu which gives you better statistics depending on which strategy you wish to take.

INFLUENCES

The Civilization series has influenced many games, such as;

Endless Legend

Master of Orion: Conquer the Stars

Endless Space

CONCLUSION

What I took away from this game was that Civilization V was the best of the series so far, with a great and fun balance of all of the features/mechanics having some more simplistic than others, helping to make it one of the all time best turn-based games ever made. I think this is something I could use in the future for some of my games, to assist in creating a more enjoyable game without overwhelming the player.

[addierabbitson-blog]

Shadow of the Colossus Analysis

DETAILS OF GAME

The remake of Shadow of the Colossus was released on February 6, 2018 by Sony Interactive Entertainment, and developed by Bluepoint Games. The original game was released on PS2, but the remake was released on PS4. It is a single-player story based action-adventure.

THOUGHTS

I thought the ideas behind the making of this game was very unique and interesting. The motives behind the design of the movement, although not particularly popular, I thought was very intriguing. The fact that the movement is harder on purpose and feeling stranger is due to the reason that the character is a boy who is unsure of his physical maturity. This makes the combat mechanic difficult and increases the tension during a fight with a Colossus.

RESPONSE UPON RELEASE

Shadow of the Colossus was highly praised upon the release of the remake. People thought that the story and the game still held up even to today’s standards, the original game was less praised upon its release and steadily rose in player base - but the community loved the remake when it came out for PS4.

CORE LOOP

The core loop of Shadow of the Colossus is:

Get Instructions from Spirit → Kill Colossi → Gain power → Return to Spirit

MAIN MECHANICS

The main mechanics of Shadow of the Colossus is movement, combat, and climbing the Colossi.

The movement in this game is a very important aspect - as it crosses over with the climbing, but more importantly is used for avoiding getting hurt by the giant Colossi as they swing to kill you. Having your horse as a companion to help you get around is not only helpful mechanically for faster movement - but also creates a bond between the two characters in the story.

The combat is also crossing over with the climbing mechanic, as you need to climb on top of the Colossi to strike them in their weak spot - which is similar to some aspects of Zelda.

The climbing of the Colossi is a very unique main mechanic of this game, one which little games have explored - and one which is starting to inspire other games to explore. The climbing is difficult to achieve on purpose to create more of a sense of importance and tension, and to represent the character’s abilities as a young boy.

Most of the mechanics are both narrative inspired, and also to make the game feel better and more fun to play.

INFLUENCES

Shadow of the Colossus has influenced a few games in their themes or even mechanics such as;

Praey for the Gods

Lost Pisces

The Last Guardian

COMMUNITY

The community around Shadow of the Colossus is not particularly large, but is a very passionate community about the game. There are many people who have created various art pieces and even cosplay or videos to display their interest towards the game.

CONCLUSION

All in all, Shadow of the Colossus was a great game that achieved an amazing narrative through the use of mechanics and storytelling, which still holds up today if you were to go back and play the original.

[holywerewolftrash]

5 TIPS FOR INDIE GAME PRODUCER

5 TIPS FOR INDIE GAME PRODUCER

Always make prototype for your game: the idea is to keep pushing for a valid build. Do not hesitate to make any thing from your ideas. In many cases, working as a solo or with a miniature group shall be challenge for everyone since you might want to do everything with less effort but highly return. The chance of not only getting one game on store but also become successful is scarce.

Make it…

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'Core' is more than a game, it's also an impressive game design tool

‘Core’ is more than a game, it’s also an impressive game design tool

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The concept of Core — a game that allows you to create your own game modes and play/share them online — is not new. But its execution is really something impressive.

I was able to view a demo of Core via a video call on Friday with Manticore Games CEO Frederic Descamps and CCO Jordan Maynard, who spent about 45 minutes showing me tons of different ways people can use Coreto create some…

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[thegeneralsnotebook]

July Feature: Further Design Thoughts

Last month, in my Set 11 wishlist, I decided to go through some random ideas for new directions that the various colours in this game could go as we push on into another set and, at least in theory, another Block and another iteration of Core. Those ideas were mostly all spur-of-the-moment, thrown together without any thought for if they would work together properly if they were all packaged together. For the most part, it was a long list of things that I’ve sometimes thought the game could do to have, organized loosely by colour. I intended that to be the end of it, and presumed that come July another topic would catch my attention, as has always happened so far as I’ve written these articles.

But it turned out that inspiration was a more capricious patron than that, and indeed throughout July I found myself still thinking of card and mechanic design, elaborating on some of the earlier thoughts and in general refining the rough ideas into something more solid and better integrated. So this month’s article really should be thought of as Part 2 to June’s. This isn’t really a “Set 11 wishlist” anymore, just further thoughts on new directions for the colours and the beginnings of an organization for it all. Indeed, there will also be just a couple of concrete card designs in here as well, mostly the ones that nicely encapsulate some of the ideas that I want the cards to pursue. Anyone who knows me won’t be surprised that for the most part I jumped on URs for actual designs. I’ve always gravitated towards unique and novel designs, and it’s in the higher rarities that we really get to stretch on what a card is allowed to do. They won’t look super nice, as I didn’t have the time or skill to make them pretty, but it’s the text that counts, after all.

Just as with last month’s post, none of these ideas should be taken with any measure of authority. But again, as before, I welcome feedback and suggestions for how the ideas could be improved moving forward. On the off chance that any of this does give some inspiration to any Enterplay folks that happen to find it, I’d like it to be as polished as can be.

Blue

Rather than the randomness of June, let’s get back to tackling the colours in the order people are most comfortable with. The general principle I worked with in June was to give the colour something new to be one of its cores, and while I had a couple of ideas there, none of them were really any good. Instead, I’ve decided to circle back on one of the colour’s existing principles: frightening stuff. 

In the past, Blue’s frighten has been used as a soft removal option to augment aggressive decks, and only lightly for proper control. I would want to circle back the other way, and offer the possibility for true Blue control, based on ideas similar to what was experimented with back in AD. I don’t have a clear idea of how this is going to work yet, but it’s one option.

Another idea I’ve considered is to give Blue some synergy with frightening its own Friends and dealing with that. For example, a really simple yet interesting design would be a 4-Power Friend that costs 2 but says: “This card enters play frightened.” On its face, that’s just a 4-for-4, but sometimes, like if your opponent has a Desert Road for example, it can be a lot better.

Similarly, I think it would be nice to give Blue something even more concrete that makes frightening its own Friends not such a bad thing. Here’s the first full card proposal for this month:

A card like this I would imagine as pushing a completely new brand of Blue farming, one with some Friends, because you really don’t care about your Villains frightening your board. You can just farm them anyway. 

Orange

For Orange, last month I said that I wanted to stick with a focus on +1 Power counters for a kind of Orange aggro. Decks like this are already pushing at the fringes of the meta, so there’s less need to go overboard in helping out this archetype. Still, I think that there’s plenty of room left to explore here. For example, let’s keep the card train rolling with just one thought:

This would be a really interesting card, at least to my way of thinking, as when first played it isn’t all that good, and it does require some work to get to a good spot. But with just a couple of counters, suddenly you’re in a really good place. Plus, there’s something to be said for the certainty of knowing what your flips are going to be beforehand. This is just one example of the strange places that further exploring Power counters can take us.

As a secondary note, since Yellow is going to be exploring -1 Power counters as its way of getting into control, it only makes sense to put a little bit of tech against it in Orange. One possibility was an Event that removes all “Power counters” (plus or minus) from a Friend, and it makes a fair amount of sense to throw that in Orange.

Pink

Unlike many of the other colours, Pink was one that didn’t furnish a whole lot of inspiration for me as I went through the month. I was thinking about retiring Friends to fuel effects in June, but didn’t really get any further than that. Instead, I found myself resurrecting a really old idea, one from all of the way back before the game even released.

I’m talking about the beta set, and specifically I’m talking about Turn Action abilities, which showed up a little bit in that original group of cards. From what I can tell, these were essentially built to give the player a richer set of “Base Actions” as opposed to the usual 1 to draw, 2 to move, 2 to rally, 1 to play a Troublemaker, etc. Naturally, today we wouldn’t phrase such a thing as a “Turn Action”, we would just use a Main Phase activated ability, but the general idea stuck with me, and I wondered if it might be possible to make Pink a colour of generally expanded options.

Like 1) How about a card that was just “When you would draw a card, you may draw the bottom card of your deck instead of the top one”? Simple, not always better, just more options. 2) “Pay (1) to look at the top two cards of your deck and put one of them into your hand.” That one is a strict upgrade of Pay 1 to draw, and likely would go on a Purple-Pink multicolour, but still it’s an idea. Finally, here’s a potentially dangerous one: “Immediate: Retire a Friend.” The devil of it is I can’t figure out if that’s super broken, allowing you to dodge faceoffs forever and boosting all of your take-control effects, or actually just fine, since it does require you to get rid of your Friends with little strategic benefit. But at least it’s a more extreme option to throw out there.

Purple

I have a lot of fun ideas for Purple, and they all hinge on two basic principles, one that I laid out last month, and one new one. Last month I said it would be great to push Purple into aggro, specifically using Events. This month I decided that I wanted to give the colour more emphasis on planning ahead, making preparations in an early turn for a sweeping big turn later. Those work pretty well together, and in theory could take the colour in some really interesting directions.

The first thing to think about was how to give Purple aggro a boost via the usual Purple way (AT advantage) without just breaking Mistmane. I want to push Purple’s AT just a touch more, but require the colour to make some sacrifices to get there. And the answer seemed pretty straightforward, though it did involve borrowing some text from Blue. This would likely be on a Resource: 

Cost: 3, Req: 4 Purple, “At the start of your turn, lose all action tokens that weren’t gained this turn. <P> Gain (2) at the start of your turn.”

Naturally, we do our best to make sure that this can’t be played in the super-early game, and the built-in OEG effect stops it from being useful either for combo or for other AT-banking decks. In theory, this should only support aggro that wants to spend all of that extra AT every turn.

Finally, here’s a fun card idea, a small reference to an old UR from Canterlot Nights that I’ve always thought was pretty cool:

“It” there being the top card of your deck, of course. Like I said, planning ahead and aggro built on chains of Events can indeed work together just fine.

White

Like I said in June, White has to go back to basics, and while I emphasized at the time that the biggest, most important thing was getting a good Mane lined up, that was strangely enough the one area where I had no ideas this month. I did at least hammer out a fine principle to work with, though. What, after all, is the most basic White idea there ever was? It’s hats. A fine archetype that I personally think could use a little more time in the Sun. And that probably does start with a Mane, like Dressmaker, that subtly pushes a hat deck right from the get-go.

I did have some thoughts for a secondary theme of the colour, though, and that was for a sort of “purge”-type deck, where we benefit from taking the abilities away from our own stuff. In this sort of paradigm, White could get a lot of aggressively-costed Friends with negative drawbacks on their text, which indeed is a minor principle of the colour already, dating back to Prim Hemline and filly Coloratura, for example. And here’s one more idea along those lines, and a highly flavourful one at that:

(See, he’ll only accept the finest Accessories. Which, by the way, means that in Harmony Dressed Up and Clipped Wings both don’t work.) 

Yellow

As I mentioned up above when talking about Orange, Yellow I want to take toward control, and to do that I want to focus on minus Power. This can come both from being more aggressive on the keywords and abilities that the colour already has, and from implementing -1 Power counters as a thing that Yellow can do. The great thing about counters, of course, is that they give Yellow a form of hard removal while staying firmly on flavour. And sure, it isn’t even really hard removal, as just like with frightening, the card can be flickered and back to normal in no time. Though unlike frightening, there is no basic 2 AT way to undo the damage. Unfortunately I don’t have any concrete card proposals based on the idea yet, but there are at least some avenues to explore.

Number 1 is, as mentioned a couple of months ago, to double down on Calming. Maybe make a card that actually is Calming Infinity, to see how well that works. Number 2 is to think about the impact that -1 Power counters can have on a board. The same way that White can benefit from having characters with Power higher than their printed Power, Yellow can key off of cards with Power lower than their printed Power. There’s at least a lot of potential to explore here, even if my inspiration in July was lacking somewhat.

Conclusion

In the future, time will tell if I continue to put thoughts and effort into these ideas or not. I never can tell when inspiration is going to strike, and equally I never can tell if it will be about this topic or something entirely different. But at least here are some more ideas for people to chew on. What say you? Is everything here just totally busted? Or are there some salvageable ideas floating in the debris? As always, comments and feedback are welcome and encouraged.

[misssteilheit]

Game-Design by me. How do you like the cat “Robin”? Unfortunately the messages are in german, but I think you can get the meaning behind it nevertheless.