Lore in Board Games

The second expansion of the third Race For The Galaxy arc recently showed up on my radar.
I started thinking about lore and stories in board games.
Some games tap into the rich lore of big IPs such as Star Wars, the Call of Cthulhu or Song of Ice and Fire.
Some games are a one time experience of pushing tokens across a board.
There aren't too many games that explore deeper story lines the way RftG attempts to do, and I'm not sure how well it succeeds in the attempts, with most of the gameplay revolving around combos of icons.

Legacy and campaign games offer more interesting examples, with storytelling done through changing the board and player abilities, leading to emotionally investing in the game.

I'd like to create a game with it's own unique lore, that will come through during gameplay.

Puppet Alien Avatars

Inspired mainly by Star Control and to a lesser degree Star Wars as well as Vangers, I've begun imagining creating a space opera game in which you interact with aliens through screens (similar to Star Trek as well, as to how ship captains would interact through view screens.)
The real difference would be in how each alien would be represented in a completely different technique - humans might be live action actors, while a friendly species might be portrayed like the Yip Yip Martians from Sesame Street, while an evil alien might be a hand marionette in the style of Barnaby Dixon, while others yet might be made of clay or other animation techniques, maybe even old school 8 bit graphics or more modern and familiar techniques.

Could be cool to have different freelancers work on different races, and see what they produce with loose briefs, then try to create the actual spaceship game objects in a similar visual language.

Also have some thoughts on the actual game itself, and combat in a truly 3D environment, ships slowly maneuvering to bring their guns to bear in similar fashion to naval tactics in the age of sail. Have I written about that before? I've had the idea for a while.

Slow E-Sport

As far as I know, all current and past e-sports have been fast paced.

Whether it is a run and gun shooter, a vehicle based shooter or real time strategy, fast reaction times are important, even if there can be a lot of strategy in choosing weapons or when to activate abilities.

I'm not very good at such games, so I've had a few ideas of slower paced games. I think they main concern is making it as exciting to watch as it would be for the players. People do watch chess tournaments, but even those have timers.

Time limits could be much shorter in a game, and still provide plenty of time to react and make tactical decisions, but that would depend on game mechanics.

Waifu Collection

Waifu collection

- Meaningful choices city building: Choosing certain buildings will block others from being built. i.e. good vs. evil; technology vs. magic.

- Strategic combat involving units unlocked from city building choices. Possibly squad based tactics

- "Splinters" to build other cities

- Trading of characters, limited to basic form

-One resource for real money, helpful in many ways, but not pay to win

-Quick playing sessions, so squad might be out. Puzzle? Battle Ogre?

-Mini games, such as fishing, for collection and resources

Shred: The Deck Building Game

Let's blow the dust off this little corner of the net and share some thoughts.

I am still floating ideas about my action programming deck building game. In a recent epiphany I realized I could use the fact I have a specific series of cards, corresponding to player choice.

This series of cards could be used as a new way of expanding the deck, making me think of mastering tricks and unlocking them, which lead to the theme of skateboarding (or snowboarding, bmx, inline skates, or any similar Extreme sport)

Basically the top level idea is that each player sets a number of cards down. Each player then flips a card, performs the action printed on the card, and passes to the next player. If a move is successful, a player continues on to the next card. If the player fails his move by ending in the wrong place (i.e. on a ramp instead of a rail) crashes into another player, or is crashed into, he wipes his sequence of cards and becomes a static obstacle until the next round.

At the end of a round, players look at their sequence of cards, and may purchase a new card fitting the pattern they created, or part of it (i.e. if a player played a straight, a straight and a right turn, he may add a deck to his card that requires two straights in a row.)

Cards would come in several stages, ranging from easy moves with smaller benefits, to more difficult maneuvers that offer greater rewards for a player who pulls them off.

I can think of a few options for an end game: one might be to add an 'ultimate' type trick to a deck and land it successfully. Another might involves a final round where the player who racks the most points on a single run (with each card in the series he plays have a numerical value towards that end) wins the game.

More to think about: Specific cards, and potential powers. Adding a counter to denote special abilities unlocked, especially for adding cards to a trick. Throwing unique player abilities into the mix.

Tailoring for platforms

I've had a few stray thoughts about games over the past week.
Claiming to want to make a AAA Mobile games is stupid.

If we look at budgets and earning, I just don't see a company investing as much to develop an IP on mobile on the same level as GTA V or Destiny, would be hard to get a return an investment as well - would mobile gamers pay console prices? Subscription based payment? Enough spending on microtransactions from whales? I know I wouldn't

Other areas would also lack. Graphics might come closer to claiming the same FPS or polygon counts, but you are still talking about a much smaller screen.

Would areas such as AI, storytelling or multiplayer support offer similar experiences as the big budget titles.

Controls will be different, and I think that trying to emulate a gaming pad on a touch screen is a lazy solution and a drawback on most games.

I think most people will agree that developing for specific platforms gives the best result.

That last thought reminded me of the other game related thought I had this week: facebook games are all the same.

Well, sort of. They come in several categories, all of which have a lot of samey games within them. The one I'm think about in particular is the strategy games: they all have base building, in all of them you have time counters for various resources, and they all have a real time element where you attack other players or NPCs. I guess they are still profitable enough to spew out, but I abandoned such games and have stayed away.

I think this platform could use some fresh new ideas tailored specifically to it.

One last thing - I've started entertaining the idea of getting a master's in game design from a South Korean University. I don't know which ones have good programs, what my chances are or if it will finally land me a job. I do like the fact there is a full ride scholarship including studying the language for a year and that it will give me a chance to revisit the country.

There's more pressure from my parents to just find a job, which is a breeding ground for these wild ideas, time will tell if this will take root.
Casual Connect Tel Aviv is next week, maybe I'll gain new insight there - I'll be volunteering, attending session, networking at parties, and hopefully collect some good swag. :)

Plenty of Ammo

2 Weeks since I've been back from Cologne, Germany, after my 4th GDC Eu / Gamescom.

Managed to get a spot as a Conference Associate again, and it was a blast seeing my friends and making new ones. Went on swag runs, took advantage of free food at parties, expanded my network, and yes, even played some games.

Brought a few games with me this year. Bought Orleans for myself and enjoying losing, Tier Auf Tier for my brother/nephew and even got a free game for free - Gremlins inc.

The conferences were a little disappointing. Most GDC sessions didn't seem that interesting, The games I was most excited about had exclusive videos rather than hands-on gameplay, and I didn't have my friend Alex to get me inside places.

I know I'm going to have a lot of inspiration and ideas from what I did experience, so maybe this blog will see the frequency of posts go up.

Having gained some insight on what makes League of Legends such an exciting e-sport, the first thing that comes to my mind is the lack of turn based entries for professional gaming.

The idea I'm currently mulling over is an arcade flight sim, with timed turns that play simultaneously, with challenges coming from choosing an aircraft and weapons to suit the play style, then carefully maneuvering the aircraft into the correct position, and predicting where the enemy might end up during his turn,

Who knows if something like that would be appealing enough to be as popular as Star Craft or LOL, even if I do make it, but that's the way it goes.