alamantus:

TL;DR: I just released SKATER+, a tabletop RPG for playing as a skateboarder doing sick tricks to prove that you’re a Skater Legend!

Hey there! It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything on here, and I’m sorry about that! I’ve been pretty busy with work and doing non-GameDev stuff. In fact, the only thing close to game development that I’ve been doing is making a tabletop role playing game system called GUTS+, which is a far cry from what I used to post about on here!

About a month ago, I saw this frankly really cool modern Tech Deck copycat setup at a mall nearby:

I shared that picture and someone said it would be the perfect setup for a skate park themed TTRPG setting, and from that moment on, I couldn’t get the thought out of my head!

Fast forward to this week, where I heard about and joined the #RPGenesis 2019 game jam to make a 5000+ word tabletop role playing game just for fun. One of the options was to build a hack of an existing RPG, so I decided to jump in with a hack of GUTS+ using the skate park setting that’s been rattling around in my brain. I get going, the process becomes easy because I just keep having so many ideas, and then I’m actually able to playtest it with some people from my Dungeons and Dragons group! They had fun, I had fun, and long story short, I was able to finish writing the 5000+ words in time!

The result: SKATER+!

You and your crew are skaters taking on either each other or an opposing gang of skaters to do the sickest tricks and show everyone who rules the skate park.

Do you have what it takes to be a skater legend?

The game does require someone to be game master and at least 1 player, but it’s free to download, and it’s best if you print at least Appendix 1 and 2 as gameplay resources!

If you like fun tabletop RPGs and you have good memories of the old Tony Hawk Pro Skater games, then this will scratch a nice itch for you!

TL;DR: I just released SKATER+, a tabletop RPG for playing as a skateboarder doing sick tricks to prove that you’re a Skater Legend!

Hey there! It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything on here, and I’m sorry about that! I’ve been pretty busy with work and doing non-GameDev stuff. In fact, the only thing close to game development that I’ve been doing is making a tabletop role playing game system called GUTS+, which is a far cry from what I used to post about on here!

About a month ago, I saw this frankly really cool modern Tech Deck copycat setup at a mall nearby:

I shared that picture and someone said it would be the perfect setup for a skate park themed TTRPG setting, and from that moment on, I couldn’t get the thought out of my head!

Fast forward to this week, where I heard about and joined the #RPGenesis 2019 game jam to make a 5000+ word tabletop role playing game just for fun. One of the options was to build a hack of an existing RPG, so I decided to jump in with a hack of GUTS+ using the skate park setting that’s been rattling around in my brain. I get going, the process becomes easy because I just keep having so many ideas, and then I’m actually able to playtest it with some people from my Dungeons and Dragons group! They had fun, I had fun, and long story short, I was able to finish writing the 5000+ words in time!

The result: SKATER+!

You and your crew are skaters taking on either each other or an opposing gang of skaters to do the sickest tricks and show everyone who rules the skate park.

Do you have what it takes to be a skater legend?

The game does require someone to be game master and at least 1 player, but it’s free to download, and it’s best if you print at least Appendix 1 and 2 as gameplay resources!

If you like fun tabletop RPGs and you have good memories of the old Tony Hawk Pro Skater games, then this will scratch a nice itch for you!

What happened

thewakingcloak:

Since the beginning of this year, I haven’t really been able to make anything. Sure, I’ve dabbled here and there, drawn a few pixels, edited the draft of the story for writers group, but I’ve had to force myself to do all these things. Even the thought of working on something harder made my brain shut down. I was terrified to make anything.

In other words, I burned out. It was a combination of NaNoWriMo, perfectionist expectations, general exhaustion, impostor syndrome, and family health issues (everyone is fine, by the way). It sucked having the desire to be creative but feeling just completely dried up. I wanted to sit down and work on enemy AI, but couldn’t bring myself to even try. It wouldn’t even be that hard; I have the framework and everything. But I couldn’t do it.

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A few weeks ago, I grabbed the audiobook of The Neverending Story on a whim. It’s a favorite of mine, though it’d been many years since I last read it. If you’re not familiar with the book, it’s pretty different from the movie–the movie follows the first half of the book, but then goes off in a different direction for the end (and there were awful movie sequels that were only vaguely connected to the book).

The second half of The Neverending Story is very strange, and a lot of people don’t like it. The pacing slows way, way down, and the adventure gets even more surreal and weird. I love it. The protagonist grows in a fascinating way–learning who he is, learning what his deepest desires are. In order to do that, he has to make wishes.

His first wishes are to be strong, handsome, impressive, and adored by the masses. But over time, these wishes change him for the worst, and he literally begins to forget who he is. And in the end, he finds these aren’t things he really, truly wanted. He only thought he wanted them, but they ended up hurting him.

While reading about this character discovering what he actually wanted, actually needed, a knot inside me sort of… untied. My own path hasn’t been one-to-one with that of the protagonist of The Neverending Story, but the combination of rereading one of my favorite books and seeing him go through a similar creative journey affected me in a really healing way. It made me think about making stuff and why I do it and what healthy motivations look like.

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This post won’t have anything new from me, quite simply because I don’t have anything new that’s shareable at the moment. But I still want to share something!

First, if I can be honest with you: it’s hard to see other people making Zelda-like games faster and better than I can. A few were published on the Switch, making me feel like I missed my window because I’m too slow.

I try to ignore that jealous part of me whenever it rears its ugly head, but it’s still there. It’s jealousy rooted in fear, and that’s not healthy. There’s more than enough room for other people to make games (yes, even if they end up better than mine!), and so–maybe for my own health more than anything–I’d like to share some of these wonderful people making wonderful Zelda-like games with you. Please go check them out! :)

• t3nshi’s working on The Steamhaven Chronicles, a Minish Cap-esque take on the Zelda formula
• dicey’s making Tunic, which you might have seen at E3 and has an adorable fox!
• naemo is working on Desecrated Light, which has one of the most gorgeous pixel art styles I’ve seen
• Nathanael Weiss made Songbringer, which looks super cool, and it’s already out!
• Juice is working on Mistiqa, and I’m always impressed by how quickly he makes progress and how much varied gameplay he has
• Fervir is creating Elysis, which has a really fluid-looking item/combat system
• ITTA’s jammin’ on Itta’s Gun, which is probably more of a Hyper Light Drifter-like game than a Zelda-like, but close enough
• Aloft Studio is creating Hazelnut Bastille, which is very LttP-ish and has a crazy variety of items!

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What now?

From this point on, I’m going to make more of an effort to just make the game as I can. I won’t force myself to make every #screenshotsaturday and #indiedevhour (that didn’t work anyway). I’m going to give up expectations for follower count, likes, favorites, retweets, reblogs, freaking out trying to calculate the most effective time to post, all that stuff, because in the end, that stuff doesn’t matter. Not really. I’m not making a game to validate my worth as a person. I’m making a game because I want to, and I’d like to share it with whomever else wants to play. I think a game made with that angle will be a much truer, purer experience rather than one made by driving myself crazy trying to be perfect.

This is the reason it’s a hobby and not my job. I can take my time. I can work on the parts that I want to work on even if it doesn’t make “good business sense.” Not that I’m going to run away from difficult problems that pop up! But I’m not going to rush after success and validation. I don’t need to be admired by the masses. I just want to make a game, so that’s what I’m gonna do. And I’m gonna do it in a healthy (probably meandering) way because that really appeals to me. That’s how I started, and I wish I hadn’t forgotten that for so long.

Thanks to all of you who are here for the ride. :) I’m grateful that you see something in The Waking Cloak! I’m back in the saddle and very much enjoying it.

I feel this post at a very deep level, and I really appreciate you for writing it, @thewakingcloak! I’m glad you were able to reorient yourself and remember what you want to do—I hope you’re able to keep it up and that you’re able to finish your game!

(Source: thewakingcloak)

Solo Board Game Draft 5 Playtest

It’s been a long while since I did any real work on game development, and the small amount of game development I’ve been doing for the past year has been on physical games. I’ve had an updated version of the board game that I’ve been developing for a couple months, and I finally sat down to play it by myself today. While it still needs a bit of polish, I’m happy to announce that it didn’t suck to play like the previous versions have!

I applied some of the ideas I had after playing back in March, and I feel like it’s so close! Beyond shifting to a sci-fi theme, I expanded on the exploration element by making the board itself have exploration benefits. Now, the landmarks on the board are flipped over at the start of the game and when you land on them, you get a reward for discovering it.

The pacing of the game is improved in that there is now a hard 30-turn maximum. The treasure itself takes a back seat until the end of the game, where you only have 10 turns before the treasure is lost. This makes the rest of the game more about gathering the money and resources you need quickly enough to collect the special resources needed to collect the treasure once its location is revealed. This also enables players to decide whether they even want to try going for the treasure or if they simply want to try to trade their way to victory.

I played a 2-player game, and I found that gambling, shops, and even scrap collection was not really used at all. But I still believe they will be beneficial elements with 3+ players or with players who want to try different strategies. I did decrease the cost of setting up a shop from 10 to 5 Muns and increased the amount of scrap rewarded to shops from 1 Scrap per Mun paid by another player to 3 Scrap per resource purchased to make them more attractive to players. I think that this will make them much more useful and competitive when more players are going to different planets.

The other thing I’m going to try is to decrease the amounts that Relics (the treasures) are worth from 30, 35, or 40 to 15, 20, or 25. That way, they’ll give whoever collects it an edge, but it will still be possible to win by doing nothing but trading resources. I think counting up the score at the end of the game will be more exciting this way unless there’s a really clear winner.

I’m hoping to playtest it again with a friend either this week or next, so I’ll hopefully have more notes soon! Much sooner than last time, at least I hope. And next time I’ll remember to take some pictures of my prototype so you can see what it looks like!

Better Difficulty Modes

thewakingcloak:

Difficulty in games is a pretty hotly-contested subject.

The most recent hullabaloo came about from this article on a “skip boss” button. Many are vehemently against the idea. Others loved it. A few fell somewhere in the middle. My opinion? It depends on the game. A “skip boss” button itself might not be a good idea, but maybe an optional invincibility mode is (Nintendo games used to offer an invincibility star if you died too many times, or there’s the old school godmode cheat). Ideally, this is tied to bonus points, or score, or achievements, or unlockables–but I digress.

Here’s what I want: better difficulty options for all kinds of players. We can have our cake and eat it too, if we just spend some time thinking.

First things first: not all games need difficulty options. For some games, difficulty is integral to the experience. Dark Souls is a common example: its core gameplay loop is built entirely around its difficulty, and the experience would unravel if it was too easy. 

But I’d argue most games aren’t built around difficulty.

Enter difficulty options

The standard approach is a decision between some variation of Easy/Normal/Hard at the beginning of the game. Normal might be the developer-intended way to play the game, Easy is for those who want to relax after a hard day’s work, or for little kids, or for those who want to experience a story, or for those who just aren’t very good at games (and that’s ok, by the way). Hard is for those who want an extra challenge and maybe extra achievements or unlockable secrets.

But we need better difficulty settings, because there’s a problem with Easy/Normal/Hard: it’s an uninformed choice.

Uninformed choice is a bad choice

In other words, when you ask the player if they want to play on hard mode, what does that mean? More HP to enemies? More complex AI? (ha, right) Cheating AI? Fewer powerups? More XP needed to level up? You don’t know until you actually play the game, and sometimes even then you aren’t sure. The player has to guess what they’re getting themselves into.

This isn’t good choice.

Sure, you might know you generally prefer Easy mode, and for most games that offer these options, it ends up working out. But we can do better!

Informed difficulty settings

First, let’s tell the player what’s going on. Some games explain what different difficulty modes mean. This is a much better version of Easy/Normal/Hard. For example, Shadow Warrior 2:

If you’re going the traditional Easy/Normal/Hard route, add these descriptions. Inform your players’ choices. Tell them they’ll take 50% less damage and get more healing items. I enjoy the personal touch here, reiterating that Easy Mode is a perfectly valid way to play.

(Another good example of this is Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition. Check it out! Even though I usually like a challenge, I’m unashamedly playing on Easy because AD&D 2 is freakin’ brutal.)

This is a good choice, because players now have an understanding of what they’re getting themselves into. But guess what? We can do even better–we can give the player control!

The ideal: custom difficulty settings!

Keep Tourist, Easy, Normal, and Hard modes, but also display a list of more granular difficulty options beneath–these granular options can get highlighted and switched on when a particular difficulty mode is selected. The player can choose one of the basic options, or create a Custom difficulty–perhaps even save custom difficulty profiles if there are a lot of settings.

The mockup below isn’t perfect (I got tired of placing each individual letter), but it’ll give you a general idea. Also these are not options for The Waking Cloak (though some of them might be).

Some things I might change even here: I didn’t highlight which individual settings get counted as Easy/Normal/Hard as they were selected. And I’d like to add a better description for what each option does, especially for players who’ve never played the game before. I also considered some kind of indicator for whether a setting counted as very easy, easy, normal, hard, or very hard, like a colored underline–green for easy, red for hard. There’s more, but the mockup should at least give you the idea. 

Ideas for custom difficulty settings

• Story/Tourist mode - just wander around and experience the story. No fighting.
• Save types - player can save wherever they want, only at designated save points, or ironman (only one “suspend” save file, deleted on death).
• Dungeon guide - a glowing “critical path” to guide players through dungeons. If you have this option on, you can still turn the guide on/off.
• Skip boss button - display the skip boss button to optionally allow players to avoid them.
• Enemy amount - fewer, normal, lots. Ideally on the “more enemies” settings, you’d have different types of enemies that force the player to think more critically
• Enemy speed - movement, attacks, etc. Test those reflexes! This is a more meaningful, fun way to increase difficulty than just giving enemies more health. Bullet sponges aren’t fun.
• Enemy strength - Also much more meaningful than bullet sponges. You can even have an instakill option.
• Enemy health - some people like bullet sponges. More power to them. You can even have different options, like regenerating health.
• Passive enemies - enemies are all still there, but they don’t attack you. Good for little kids or those who don’t like violence.
• Healing hearts/potions - turn your ability to heal on or off. Want the harrowing feeling of no healing items out in the field? Go for it!
• Survival Mode - you need food/drink/shelter to survive. Also? Diseases! Fallout 4 and Skyrim are adding these modes, and I approve!
• Nuzlocke Challenge Mode - specifically for monster collection RPGs!
  

The main thing to keep in mind is that not everything will work in every game. Design difficulty settings around particular mechanics in your game. As we’ll see later, a driving game might have options that ignore hydroplaning to make things easier or manual shifting to make things more difficult. A stick shift mode wouldn’t work in The Waking Cloak, nor would survival mode make sense in a racing game.

Ok, so what’s the catch?

More settings means more testing. More options means more development time and more work. You need to decide which variables to expose. You need to program the game so that these variables can be exposed in the first place. You’ll need to spend more time considering completely different play styles.

You also want to be very careful to not lead players down the path of least resistance against their will. This is the thing I have against fast travel. Some people like it, and that’s fine. But to people like me, who enjoy the journey of walking around and exploring, it’s more like a temptation. From experience, I know I’ll enjoy the journey more, but once I start fast traveling, I always fast travel, and the game becomes a lot more shallow to me.

(There’s another principle of game design around fast travel–make walking around more interesting and varied. But that’s another discussion for another time.)

You don’t want to overwhelm the player with options. Analysis paralysis is a thing. Try to only reveal the options that are most meaningful to the player and the game’s mechanics. Walking the fine line between too few and too many options might be difficult.

Examples!

This isn’t a new concept. Plenty of games have implemented granular difficulty settings.

Way of the Passive Fist - four sliders allow you to choose your difficulty. This is nice and granular, allowing for all kinds of tweaks.

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Darkest Dungeon - from Mark Brown’s tweet. I like that this explains that you’ll be changing the experience. Notice how the difficulty settings are linked very closely to game mechanics, like monster corpses or enemy crits.

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Forza Horizon 3 - the description is nice, because that makes your choice even more informed. I also like that it’s clear that you get bonuses for harder settings. Again, notice how difficulty settings are linked to game mechanics, such as steering, ABS, and tire wear.

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Invisible, Inc. - I’ve heard good things about the difficulty setting here! Once again, difficulty settings are linked to game mechanics. One review stated that choosing custom settings was letting the player try out game design, and I agree.

Further reading:

• Check out this accessibility site with even more!
• Assassin’s Creed announces “Tourist Mode”
• A polarizing argument for a “Skip Boss Fight” button and 
• One of the bigger indie devs speaks up in favor of the “skip boss” button, and discussion follows
  

Got more games with good difficulty settings? Got more ideas? Comment or reblog ‘em!