For the past two years or so, I've been playing a mobile game called Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes. While it had its annoyances (heavily pushing in-app purchases, making the free-to-play [F2P] a long slog, requiring you to unlock characters after weeks or months of effort, then more weeks and months to level them up, etc.), it scratched an itch I've had since I was a kid.
Growing up just barely on the good side of the poverty line, I never had many Star Wars action figures. The few that I did have were like gold to me. I loved Star Wars. Still do. And looking at the back of those figure cards, or through the Sears Holiday Catalogue (remember those?) made me wish that I had so many more.
Well, this game definitely scratches the itch of the would-be figure collector I was as a kid. And yeah, I could be spending money on the actual figures now. But I'm too old to play with them (maybe?). And neither of my boys ever got into playing with action figures. They have a lot of my (and my brothers') old figures, but never played with them much. So I didn't have that excuse. And my wife wouldn't be too happy if I was filling up our apartment with unused toys, making it look like every cringe "nerd" channel on YouTube.
So I found this game to be a pretty good substitute to that. I was happily going about part of my day grinding for characters, or gear, or completing challenges in the game. Building up my Mando squad. My Rebel squad. My Empire squad. Slowly, little by little, putting some effort into improving the Jedi squad. Pretty much ignoring the sequel trilogy characters as much as possible.
But this week, the game went through a big update. Before, there was one game mode that had a F2P and P2P (pay-to-play) track. It wasn't the main part of the game. F2P was slow, but you could still make progress without handing over tons of money to EA every month. The new update makes the main game a distinction between F2P and P2P. And that looks like it will slow down that slow grind even more. It will be hard to gather the ridiculously varied types of resources and in-game currencies that are needed to unlock and improve characters.
So, today I uninstalled the game.
Am I going to miss it? Maybe for a while. I had quit the game last year after playing for a few months. Then I downloaded it again and was really enjoying having it back. But I think this time, I'm done for good.
Subscription-based gaming is not something I think I'll ever be interested in.
Yesterday, a couple of things happened that proved serendipitous. Flynn, my older boy, has been trying to get a game development group started within the local independent (mostly expat) artist scene, a group called Liquid Arts. Some of you may remember the GoFundMe he made that I promoted a while back. Well, that failed. And yesterday he refunded the few backers that he got. But he's got an idea to start the Liquid Arts game design group working on board games, and if he has some success there, try again with the computer game design ideas.
I explained this, and the Liquid Arts group, to one of my friends, who was a backer. And it got me thinking about some of the simple board games my best friend and I designed back in elementary and middle school. One or two of the ideas we had may be worth re-developing.
Also, my younger boy Steven has been playing a lot of the GBA version of GTA on our Super Console X emulator lately, but yesterday he wanted to play some Gauntlet II with me. Which we did. And while playing, he was wondering about more modern versions of Gauntlet. I told him that there were a couple of 3D games during the PS1/PS2 era, Gauntlet Legends (for PS1, which I had), and Gauntlet Dark Legacy (for PS2, which I never had). He got me to look them up and see if we could acquire them for emulation.
Our box doesn't have (and apparently isn't a good enough processor to handle) PS2 emulation, but I found Gauntlet Legends, and also the arcade (MAME) version of Dark Legacy last night.
Anyway, ideas converged, and I started thinking about whether the way Gauntlet rates character abilities might work as the basis for a fantasy RPG. I found this pretty quickly. And yeah, with a few tweaks, and the addition of some mechanics for outside combat activities, it could work. Or, it could be merged with something to make a tabletop skirmish type wargame. Something probably more simple than my ideas to use 4E just for tabletop skirmish games.
For a while now, I've been interested in what D&D would be like if Chainmail combat were used. But I've had too many irons in the gaming fire to start up a campaign using the Platemail 27th Edition rules or something of my own devising.
My thinking, as I was laying in bed last night not falling asleep, and this morning in the shower, were to maybe merge Gauntlet style character ratings with Chainmail man-to-man/fantasy combat (and the Dungeon! board game) 2d6 style combat. Maybe throw in something like the Classic D&D Turn Undead table for a resolution mechanic for non-combat tasks if needed.
Gauntlet ratings (taken from the original version) could be translated to:
Speed (how many spaces you can move per turn)
Armor (how much damage is reduced by your armor)
Attack Power (how easily you hit when you attack, melee)
Attack Strength (how many hits you inflict on a successful melee attack)
Attack Speed (how many melee attacks you can make on your turn)
Shot Power (how easily you hit when you attack, ranged)
Shot Strength (how many hits you inflict on a successful ranged attack)
Shot Speed (how many ranged attacks you can make on your turn)
Magic Power (how easy it is to successfully cast a spell)
Magic Strength (how powerful are the effects of the spells you cast)
The above Speed, Armor, and Strength ratings would all be set numbers. The Power ratings would be modifiers to 2d6 rolls. The Strength ratings might have a few levels with variation, such as:
Lvl 1: 1 hit
Lvl 2: 1-2 hits (roll d6, 1-4=1 hit, 5-6=2 hits)
Lvl 3: 2 hits
Lvl 4: 2-3 hits (roll d6, 1-4=2 hits, 5-6=3 hits)
Lvl 5: 3 hits
For the Attack/Shot Speed, I'd probably look to AD&D attack progression:
Lvl 1: 1 attack per round
Lvl 2: 3/2 attacks per round
Lvl 3: 2 attacks per round
Lvl 4: 5/2 attacks per round
Lvl 5: 3 attacks per round
Of course, one thing to consider would be that Gauntlet characters have hundreds or thousands of hit points, and can kill hundreds or thousands of opponents on each level (and with emulation, adding a "quarter" for more health is as easy as pushing the Select button on the game pad). Monsters do large numbers of hits compared to PCs, and armor reduces that damage. That's something that would need to be changed. If this were an RPG, it would probably be more difficult to scale it correctly. But for a tabletop skirmish game, it might work out alright.
A variation of this system may also work for one of those old games from my youth that I mentioned above. The game was probably the best (and most complex) game that Todd and I made as kids. We made a map of our home town. Since the home town is tiny, it was a fairly accurate map, as we had every actual house, store, and church on it, minus a few people's sheds and whatnot. The game was an alien invasion game. We over-complicated it by having just about every type of alien from UFO lore that we could think of, plus a few from sci-fi movies (little green men, Men-in-Black, Grays, Critters, robots, etc.). In the original, the aliens had the goal of planting bombs in buildings, while the heroes (us) had to raid buildings for tools/supplies/weapons (all on cards) to fight off the aliens and prevent the bombings.
It was a tough game, as we made way too many aliens, and we played them ruthlessly.
I was thinking as well that this might be an idea to revive. Instead of bombing the town, though, maybe it would be an abduction game. And it could be played either cooperatively (like our original game) or competitively, with one or more players as the Heroes and one or more players as the Aliens.
Again, I'm wondering if a 2d6 style mechanic like my Gauntlet idea above might be fun for this. Originally, I think we had just a regular d6 mechanic. It's been a LONG time, and Todd had our only copy of the game.
So, it looks like this year I may be experimenting with some table top board/tactical game designs in addition to RPG stuff.
This is not a typical post for the blog, and it's not about RPGs, but it is about gaming and building the gamer community.
Last week, I was away for a few days at an academic conference (my presentation went over time but better than anticipated, with lots of interesting questions from the audience after). While I was in Daejeon, my sons realized that my older boy's computer isn't quite good enough to suit the ambitions he has to create his own free-to-play yet high quality airplane simulator. So, they decided to start a GoFundMe!
Here's the link. You can listen to Flynn & Steven explaining why they're doing this in their video, and read the description for even more details.
Why am I posting it here? Well, obviously, I'm hoping some of my readers may be interested in airplane simulators, and/or interested in helping support the next generation of game designers. They've got an ambitious project, but they aren't asking for a crazy amount of money. Their goal is $5000 which they'll use to upgrade Flynn's computer and then spend a bit to pay for some assistance with coding and 3D modeling so they don't have to do it all themselves.
It's not an RPG, but they are hoping to make an open world style game, where people can role play as pilots of commercial, cargo, private, military, and eventually historical aircraft. And if they manage to pull this off, they've also got ideas for more open world style games, possibly fantasy or sci fi themed, which would probably be of more interest to my blog audience. But I still bet there are plenty of aircraft aficionados reading this.
So, if you've got a few minutes, please click on the link and check out their pitch, and if you feel interested, pitch in a few dollars! Thanks!
This is an idea that's been knocking around in my head for a while, but playing some emulated games with Steven (my 8 year old) this evening* reminded me about it.
Video games used to have difficulty levels that you could choose before you started the game. I'm sure there are still a few games that use them, but one reason I don't play a lot of video games anymore is that they seem to be designed to either give you "an experience" or else they want you to subscribe/pay lots of microtransactions, so either they are too easy (experience or subscription) or too hard (microtransactions), with no choice. But back in the day, we had this.
So, here are my very subjective and probably wrong estimations of which version of D&D is at which difficulty level. This assumes a few things. One, it's difficulty for the players to play the game, not for the DM to run the game. Two, it assumes you're running things more or less by the book, at least as far as assumptions for things like encounters, healing, goals of play, and the like are concerned. If you play 4E in an "old school style" then that's outside of what I'm talking about here. I'm considering a group that plays 4E (or whatever edition) as the designers intended it to be played. Three, let's leave supplements out of the equation for now, they just complicate things. So no Skills & Powers, no Greyhawk/Blackmoor, no Unearthed Arcana, no Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. Just the core rule books.
And I'll reiterate -- this is just my feeling about it. Feel free to tell me how wrong I am down in the comments. But the next time you start up a campaign, consider selecting the rule set that fits the challenge level you wish to give the players.
I'm Too Young to Die (Very Easy Mode)
4th Edition D&D This is about as easy as it gets for the players. It's designed so that you would have to go out of your way to create a "suboptimal" character. The play assumptions are two to three easy fights then a tougher but still winnable "boss" fight as an adventure. Magic items are fairly easy to acquire, and you're not expected to have to do much more than ride the railroad from set piece battle to set piece battle, with a few "skill challenges" here and there to spice things up.
5th Edition D&D A bit more challenging than 4E, but still a lot easier than most other editions. It's possible to create a suboptimal character, but the rules tend to be a bit more forgiving with character creation. Advancement is very fast at low levels. Healing is ridiculously easy. And again, the adventures seem to be mostly an assumption of a few easy fights leading up to the boss battle. If players just go along and make sure to rest often, and the DM only places recommended encounter difficulties, it's not too hard at all.
Hey, Not Too Rough (Easy Mode)
2nd Edition AD&D The rules and systems for play, including character creation and character advancement, can lead to challenges for the players. You might get stuck with a suboptimal character through dice rolls as much as through character choice. But, the big mitigating factor of this edition is the design goal that players play "heroes" and go on epic narrative adventures. So while death is very much possible from the way the rules are written, the DM advice suggests that this be mulliganed or nerfed to serve the ends of the story.
Hurt Me Plenty (Normal Mode)
BX or BECMI D&D I'm lumping these two together because while BECMI incorporates a lot more complexity of play at the high levels (not to mention Immortals level play being a completely different and more challenging game), at the earliest levels, play is pretty much the same in them. Character creation by the book can be a challenge (roll 3d6 down the line), but ability score bonuses are more generous than in the AD&D line. There aren't many choices to make at character creation, either. Adventure design assumptions are that encounters are not balanced, and it's up to the players to know when to push on for more and when to quit. But there are also rules that make treasure pretty generous, which speeds up advancement if the characters do survive.
3rd Edition D&D This edition has a lot of the design assumptions of the later editions. Character creation is generous with abilities and ways to optimize the character, but the complexity of the "exception-based rules" design, with all the skill points and feat choices and whatnot make it more of a burden to play than other editions. The adventure design assumptions are not quite so forgiving, but still, healing is fairly easy to get, magic items are easily purchased, and it's pretty easy to get around the "save or die" type effects. If the rules weren't so complex and fiddly, this would be in an easier tier.
Ultra-Violence (Hard Mode)
Original D&D It all started here, and it wasn't easy! Characters were randomly generated and didn't have a lot of "powers" to rely on. Monster encounters can easily be with overpowering odds. There's an assumption of thinking your way through encounters, rather than just hacking and slashing. You're dead at 0 hit points, and healing is not easy to come by. The incompleteness of the rules (remember, this is assuming the base rules only, not the supplements) may also up the difficulty a bit, as the DM will need to make a lot of guesses as to what's an appropriate challenge, and players will have to have their wits about them to survive.
1st Edition AD&D This edition has a good mix of difficulty in character optimization (it's got generous die rolling for ability scores but stingy bonuses for high scores, race/class combo restrictions, ability score restrictions, level caps for demi-humans, etc.) and difficulty in adventure assumptions. Monsters are challenging. Tricks, traps, and whatnot are expected, and can really mess you up. Sure, there are lots of opportunities to find powerful magic items, but the most powerful have serious drawbacks. And the level of detail in the rules give the DM all sorts of ways to make things difficult or more challenging for the players.
Nightmare (Extra Hard Mode)
Holmes D&D Rolling 3d6 down the line for stats and rolling your hit points randomly and you can only go up to 3rd level, but the book expects you might run into all sorts of dragons, vampires, purple worms, and the like? Yeah, this is the most challenging version if you play it straight.
*We have a Super Console X, an Android TV box with EmuElec, Retroarch, and about 30 systems emulated, with thousands of games. Tonight, we played some Twisted Metal on PS1 and Gauntlet 4 Quest Mode on Sega Genesis.
On my way to work this morning, I dropped the boys off down town where they could catch a bus to their school. And we were talking about our weekend plans, which include playing d6 WEG Star Wars on Sunday. Somehow, we got on the topic of WotC's planned new virtual tabletop.
I told the boys that while the video that WotC released announcing One D&D and the new VTT looked really cool, it was probably just a money trap full of restricted content and premium dungeon terrain and in-app purchases for fairly standard monsters or character designs. It would also probably be a huge time sink for DMs who wanted to make homebrew dungeons, at least if they wanted their homebrew dungeons to look as cool as the ones WotC will be selling to them, that is.
Both boys seem curious to check it out. The ability to zoom in and out of character view vs overhead view in a system running off of
They both play(ed) Minecraft, Roblox, and recently Garry's Mod, and the creative/edit it yourself nature of those game platforms are as appealing to them as the actual game play. It gives them aspirations of maybe designing their own games someday. So for them, the idea of spending hours working on a cool dungeon design doesn't sound so bad to them as it does to me.
Neither of the boys seem too keen on paying for a lot of premium content, though. For Christmas a couple years ago we got them "Robux" (Roblox's meta-game currency), and they quickly realized how easy it was to waste good money on things that seemed cool one day (skins, game-passes, etc.) only to get quickly bored with it the next.
So the idea of either paying a subscription or lots of in-app purchases in order to create cool dungeons in One D&D's virtual platform doesn't excite them. They could create the dungeons in one of the above mentioned games for free if they wanted to. Or they could copy their old man and do it the old fashioned way, with pencil and graph paper and imagination!
This is just an anecdotal piece of evidence. I can't claim that my boys are typical of WotC's planned future audience. But if they are even somewhat typical, I don't see WotC's plans for a revenue churning behemoth coming to fruition. There are too many good enough virtual tabletops already, and I have a feeling that the novelty of using Unreal Engine 5 won't last long. Most people play video games instead of tabletop games because they want to game NOW, not spend hours creating the game space to game later. People who play table top RPGs will quickly realize that the video game nature of WotC's VTT makes it pale in comparison to their imaginations.
Or at least, that's what I think. I could well be wrong. But this family, at least, probably won't do more than check it out for the novelty effect, then continue doing what we're doing now as far as gaming goes!
I mentioned this in my post the other day, and figured I'd write a dedicated post about it.
A few weeks ago, I was checking out the NES Classic console - a mini emulation box shaped like the good old 8-bit NES. And of course that led me to similar machines for SEGA Genesis, SNES, PSX, etc. If you don't know, these come with an emulator program and pre-loaded with a selection of the "most popular" games for that system.
Well, I've been playing emulated games for decades now, so that's nothing new to me. But the idea of having an emulation box like this with proper controllers (the touch screen emulator on my phone is less than ideal for games where that tactile sensation helps game play).
And I came across ads for the Super Console X. It's an emulation box -- actually a smart TV box preloaded with EmuElec and lots of ROMS for a wide variety of systems, including arcade and old PC games, in addition to most home consoles. This thing even has a few systems I'd never even heard of, or had only heard of in passing and forgotten, at least.
Yeah, of course I bought it. It was around $100, and takes up a lot less space than five or six of the officially licensed ones would. Is it legal? I'm sure it's not. I doubt the company is paying anything to any of the companies that made all these old games. And while I'm not opposed to giving these companies some more of my money, like I said, this is just a lot cheaper and more practical. And my wife was on board with it, so that's a plus. I'm pretty sure she would have said "No" to me shelling out close to $500 for all of the individual licensed devices...and they wouldn't have had all the games I'd want to play, as well.
Is it nice? Well, it's not perfect. But so far, we've been having a lot of fun with it.
Here are the boys playing some Mario Cart.
One of my old favorites was Tenchu for the PSX, which did NOT come pre-loaded, but thanks to the internet, I got Tenchu and Tenchu 2 and loaded them on. There was a third PSX Tenchu game in Japan called Shinobi Hyaku Gaisen which was made of 100 fan-created levels which I had back in the day, but I couldn't find an ISO of that one.
I did have one or two issues with it so far. Gauntlet and Gauntlet II for MAME don't work. I need to replace the ROMs, I think. A YouTube tutorial mentioned changing the video resolution for different systems to get a better picture, but when I tried adjusting that, it messed up the screen. I managed to fix that. There may be an issue with game saves, which would make replaying RPGs like the old Gold Box D&D games (yes, they're on it) impossible. But for more casual games, like most old arcade, Atari or NES era games, or things like Mario Cart or Street Fighter II, we're good to go!
In the last three weeks or so, the boys and I have watched Episodes 4, 7, 8, and 9. [Plus Ender's Game -- which while watching, my six year old, upon seeing Col. Graff, commented, "He looks like Han Solo!" and he was right!]
Also, the boys have been heavily into Star Wars themed games on ROBLOX. Yesterday, asking me about various SW games on computer, I mentioned that I used to play Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds a lot. And I still have the disks. So at their urging we loaded it up and I showed it to them.
Needless to say, they loved it and wanted to play it, too. In fact, they wanted to play it together. So I found it for sale on GOG.com for $2 per copy, and got us each one. And this morning we played together.
I set it up for all three of us to be allied against three Easy mode NPCs. My 6-year-old really enjoyed it at first, just tooling around and experimenting with building stuff and controlling his workers. My 12-year-old was busy building up his forces, but not advancing his Tech level, and when the NPCs got up to Level 3 and attacked, he was at a loss. 6yo got frustrated and rage quit (but came back a little later after he'd calmed down, and I'd sent all my forces to rescue his base).
In the end, we won thanks to my superior hovertank/droideka/bounty hunter with some air support strategy.
12yo spend some time this afternoon with the tutorial mode and was full of questions about strategy and tactics all evening. 6yo watched the tutorial play, and should probably do it too, with some adult supervision and guidance.
We still need to watch Episode 1, and then Rogue 1 and Solo.
I'm nearly through Season 2 of the Clone Wars on my lunch break viewing. In fact, I'll probably wrap it tomorrow (Monday) and go on to Season 3. Will rewatch select portions of it with the boys later. Not because there's anything in it I think they shouldn't see, just because it's the kind of show where you don't have to watch the whole thing.
Anyway, as can be seen, Star Wars fever is strong in this household. [And my boys have a healthy critical eye to J.J.'s work as it compares to that of Favreau/Filoni.]
I've known for a while that the old TSR Gold Box DOS game Pool of Radiance was available for play online. I finally checked it out last night, and played around with it a bit more today.
I played it, and the first of the Dragonlance Gold Box games in college. Back then, we just messed around with it, except for one friend who really got into it and played through all three Dragonlance games (there were three, IIRC).
I remember having fun with the character creation and customization more than anything. Yes, it looks so primitive by today's standards. Even by the standards of 1988 (when the first game was published) I think it looks a bit blah. But I was thrilled that I could remake my own D&D characters in the game. Of course, we quickly realized that you could just max out each character's stats, and why not? The game is tough enough as it is.
Playing it now, I'm finding my way back into it, but there are a few things I'm probably missing by not checking out the manual. Like I once combat starts, monsters can lose morale and flee or surrender, but there's no way for my characters to do that that I can see. I haven't tried moving "off the board" yet, maybe that would do it.
And I'm thinking of restarting. I realized that a party of six Half-Elf Fighter/Cleric/Magic-Users might be optimal. Slow advancement, but lots of cure light wounds and sleep spells. Maybe one Fighter/Magic-User/Thief, because I'll probably need a thief later on.
After our end of semester faculty dinner, I went with three of my coworkers to play a VR FPS game called Battle Arena.
You get an Oculus Rift type headset, two pistols, and a circle to stand on. You teleport around the arena by aiming a gun at a platform and holding the trigger down for a second or two. You shoot by pointing the gun and shooting. Better weapons occasionally spawn in certain squares.
Other than the fact that teleporting from space to space is the only way to move (and options are limited), it's a lot like Quake or a similar FPS game (yes, I'm probably dating myself using Quake as my frame-of-reference game here...I don't play many video games anymore).
There were a few technical difficulties. My headset kept slipping, which made the screen blurry and I had to adjust with one hand (so stop shooting/moving). One of the other guys had trouble entering the game, so the second time the operator had to stop us and restart it so he could get in. Despite that, we played two games and had a lot of fun.
I ended up getting second place in the first match, third place in the second. Not bad for my first time playing, I think. The coworker whose idea it was to go there won both times, as he's played it quite a bit. When my son gets back to Korea, I want to take him there. I think he'll dig it.
There was another cooperative zombie killing game, but it was only a 2 player game and since there were 4 of us we didn't play it. Maybe next time.
And I can't wait for the fantasy adventure VR/AR games that are sure to come out in the near future! A cooperative dungeon crawl game with swords and wands of fireballs would be a lot of fun!
This
is the first interview I've ever done for What a Horrible Night to
Have a Curse..., and it's with an old friend from my days in Japan,
Tanya Short. She is the creative director of a new video game design
company, Kitfox Games, and their new game Shattered Planet, a sci-fi
Rogue-like, is now available for free download for your smart phone
or tablet.
Tanya
and I met about ten years ago, and we played together in a Trinity
campaign run by her S.O. Brent. Later, Brent and Tanya played in a
short Classic D&D game that I ran just as I was getting back into old
school games and away from the d20 system, before they left Japan.
I'm
happy to help her spread the word about her new game – and I'm a
bit envious of all of you who can download it and start playing it
today. It's not yet available for East Asian markets, and I'm way
too lazy to figure out how to root my smart phone in order to
download it now. :D Anyway, on to the interview.
Interview
with Tanya Short of Kitfox Games
Tanya
X. Short is a professional game designer who worked on MMOs such as
Age
of Conan
and The
Secret World
before making the leap to indie. She founded Kitfox Games
(http://www.kitfoxgames.com)
with 3 other devs in Montreal, Canada, acting as their Creative
Director. She’s lived in four countries and has a cat that sits at
the breakfast table.
LG:What
is your gaming background?
TS:
There was a huge age gap between my brothers and I, so most of my
gaming was done solo. My first love was Bubble
Bobble
on the NES, or on road trips, Link’s
Awakening.
As a teen, living in an extremely rural area, I got really into
online games as part of my social life – I literally spent 12 hours
at a time role-playing in MUDs (textual virtual worlds). Although
EverQuest
was available by then, I preferred the imaginativeness of text, and
even spent a year or two after college volunteering as a community
manager for a commercial MUD. From there, I guess it was natural I’d
get into designing MMOs!
LG:
How did you get into game development?
TS:
I am one of the few who went to school for it! I went to an extremely
practical master’s degree program called the Guildhall, which is a
satellite campus of Southern Methodist University in Texas. It’s
staffed by industry veterans and has (or had, at the time) an
extremely high hiring rate, because they really focus on what you
need to get hired – a good portfolio, team experience, and finished
projects. My first offers to join the industry were from ArenaNet,
Big Huge Games, and Funcom, in Norway. I accepted the Funcom position
because… well, who turns down a job in Norway? Not me!
LG:
What sort of work were you doing
for thebig
MMO companies like Age of Conan and TheSecret
World?
TS:
I started out as an A.I. Designer, which is their word for ‘scripter’
– creating enemy behaviours, boss fights and such using their
light-weight, high-level programming tools. But I was so enthusiastic
and opinionated about social features and guild structures, I ended
up creating a whole feature from scratch, which is pretty unusual
after a game’s launch! I pitched and lead the strike team
developing the Guild Renown feature, which is basically guild
levelling (before World of Warcraft did theirs!). On The Secret
World, I did various design stuff basically, working mostly
independently… various missions, puzzles, improvements to the hub
cities, etc. I was the designer who pulled together the “Dreaming
One” levels, which are these surreal experiences in ice caves, in a
dreamscape. It wasn’t my vision (that was all Ragnar Tornquist),
but I filled in all of the detail and gameplay. I also made the
Albion Theatre, and all the vendors in the cities – my favorite, of
course, being the taco vendor ghoul in London.
LG:
How has your table-top gaming experience shaped or influenced your
computer game designs?
TS:
I have a serious love of the political. Keeping secrets is a unique
pleasure that most video games don’t incorporate, but which I
highly value. Most of my favorite tabletop characters had a Big
Secret they were keeping from the party. They never ended up getting
found out, but it still added layers of meaning and drama to every
moment of play! And although it’s not quite a tabletop game,
Werewolf
remains one of my favorites, despite its deep flaws – nothing can
replace the joy of innocently lying to your friends.
LG:
Tell us about one of your most memorable tabletop RPG characters.
Who was she (he) and what game system was it? What were his/her
goals? What made that PC so memorable?
TS:
My favorite character was probably Kaena. She was a fun-loving bard
on the surface! But she secretly ran a spy network, working for a
cult that was trying to revive an old, dead god. So every time the
party found any treasure, she’d refuse to sell it (making up just
about any excuse) until she had done a complete lore check on it
and/or checked with her secret contacts. The rest of the party
thought she was just a hoarder or a collector of some kind… and
they never learned differently since the game ended before her true
intentions were revealed! I’ll just always remember having five
secret notes queued up to give the GM every time we went back to
town!
LG:
How did Kitfox Games form?
TS:
Here in Montreal, there’s an incubator/accelerator program called
Execution Labs, where indie teams can come and get training in
business development and marketing, plus they’ll pay you while you
make whatever game you want! So when I heard about an opening there,
I looked around and put together a team with other local indies!
LG:
Introduce your compatriots at Kitfox Games – Who are they and how
did you all meet?
TS:
No matter what I say, you’ll never understand how awesome they are
to work with! :D
Xin
Ran Liu is a traditional concept artist with amazing digital painting
skills, but who also makes his own little game projects on the side
in GameMaker. He does just about everything art-related in our games.
Mike
Ditchburn is our lead programmer. He makes TONS of game prototypes,
like just about every day, and owns over 300 board games.
Jongwoo
Kim is our gameplay programmer, and he actually was trained as a game
designer, so he has good intuitions on that side, too.
We
all met at a local indie meet-up group here in Montreal, but we
didn’t really know each other very well until we started working
together. We weren’t even sure it was all going to work out until
we did the Indie Speed Run game jam together last October… but the
results were pretty cool, and we were finalists! You can play the
results here: kitfoxgames.com/Jams/Sculptorgeist.html
Now we’re like siblings. :)
LG:
What has been thebiggest
challenge for Kitfox Games as a small start up?
TS:
Getting our name out there is a huge challenge! We’re nobodies! We
are planning on having a crowdfunding campaign for Moon
Hunters (our next game)
this summer, but it’s terrifying because, you know, we’re not
Chris Avellone or Tim Schafer. We’re just 4 devs trying to make
awesome games, and we have to convince people not only to try our
games, but trust that we’re worth giving money to! So we’re
working hard trying to earn that trust, which is why we decided to
make the mobile version of Shattered
Planet free to play –
to get more people to try the game.
LG:
Tell us about Shattered Planet - what are its selling points?
TS:
As a clone of a space captain, it’s your job to explore a deadly
alien planet that’s different every time. It’s a solid little
game – easy to pick up, but with surprising amounts of strategy,
once you start trying to optimise. Over and over, the reviews we get
from critics and players compliment our artist Xin’s hand-painted
art style, as well as the quirky writing (by yours truly). I don’t
mean to brag! It’s just that between your snarky alien assistant,
over a hundred items, and dozens of little choose-your-own adventure
type events, there’s plenty of room for sci-fi jokes, references,
and general silliness.
From the Kitfox Games website
LG:
Why did you decide to make it as a Rogue-like instead of another
style of game?
TS:
It was an accident! We actually initially set out to make a game
about exploring. We were trying to recapture that feeling of endless
potential from the early turns of Sid Meier’s Civilisation.
So we made a few different prototypes, and our favorite ended up
being styled as an RPG… and we realised a few weeks later that we
had accidentally re-invented the rogue-like.
LG:
Most Rogue-likes are fantasy
themed. Was it hard to implement thegame
style with a sci fi setting?
TS:
Not at all! It took a bit of courage, since we looked at the market
and competitors and didn’t see anything like it, but once you make
the mental shift, it’s easy. There’s a reason sci-fi and fantasy
go together so well – they are both really about humans embarking
on grand adventures, sometimes with monsters in the way.
LG:
What is thenumber
one reason I should download and play Shattered Planet right now?
TS:
Well, for one, it’s free! You can go download it and try for
yourself! And if you enjoy it but wish it were a premium purchase…
well, look for it on Steam in late June!
Also from the Kitfox Games website
LG:
What's in store for Kitfox Games in thefuture?
Well,
we’re probably always going to create infinite procedural games,
and with the amazing talent of our artist Xin
(http://www.xinranliu.com),
each game should be more gorgeous than the last. We already have more
plans on the back-burner, with hopes to release Moon
Hunters (http://www.moonhuntersgame.com/)
to Steam Early Access by Christmas. If you want to keep track of what
we’re up to, you can join our mailing list: http://eepurl.com/EbbjT
LG:
Many of my readers are part
of theDIY
centered Old School Renaissance, creating and self-publishing
tabletop RPG material. Do you have an advice for readers who
might be thinking of getting into computer/video game design?
TS:
It’s both easier and harder than you think! Start small – as
small as humanly possible -- but plan on everything taking quite a
bit longer to complete than you first think. But there are literally
DOZENS of free tools out there that are surprisingly powerful. Those
of you who are writerly should definitely check out Twine, which is a
free choose-your-own-adventure type tool that you can pick up and
figure out in 10 minutes or so!
And
this is more of a psychological trick than a game development
technique, but remember not to tell anyone what you’re working on
until after you’ve completed what you want to tell them! If
you “pre-brag”, excitedly telling someone what you will
do, you’re less likely to go through with it than if you wait until
after you actually have something to brag about!
LG:
Finally, on a personal note, any idea when Shattered Planet will
release in South Korea? ;)
TS:
Haha! Well, we were looking out for potential Asian partners for
proper localisation and publishing, but … we might give up on that
and release sometime this summer! Thanks for the poke!
LG:
Thanks for your time, Tanya! I'm really looking forward to playing
Shattered Planet. Hopefully some of my readers will enjoy it as
well.
Last night, I finally got off my butt (it only took a 4 day weekend to do it) and ran a game of Retro Phaze, the free OSR game designed to emulate early computer/console RPGs of the 80's.
I have a dungeon inspired by the dungeons in the Wizardry games. A big square with lots of twisty hallways and every bit of space filled. As per the Retro Phaze rules, a few areas have set encounters (bosses, if you will), while most of the map is empty and relies on random encounters. Which almost made for some oddities when the players were actually scouting and listening at doors and such like in standard D&D...almost. Somehow, I managed to cover it fairly well.
Game play is dead simple. Everything hinges on one of four mechanics - a 2d6 roll with modifiers vs. target number (roll high, used for attack rolls and saves), roll 1d6 (roll low, as in X in 6 chance, used for skill/ability checks), and either roll X keep Y (as in roll 4d6, keep the best 3), or roll X lose Y (as in roll 2d6, lose the highest roll). The first is a good thing when rolling damage, attacks, or resistance (saving throws). The second is good when rolling skill checks, bad for just about everything else.
I had quite a few random charts prepared, one of which I completely forgot to use (random item drops after defeating monsters). Also monsters based on ones from various games, instead of the stock d20 SRD type list in the rules. Even without all that extra prep, the game probably would have gone well. At minimum you need a map of an area, one or two planned encounters/treasures as goals to pursue, and a random encounter chart for the area.
Character generation is also fairly simple. Definitely a plus. We ended up with a group of an Elf Fighter, Elf Rogue, Human Wizard and Hob Wizard. All but the Elf Rogue (Jeremy) were from a set of pre-gens I worked up.
My one complaint is that for actual play, the rule book is not organized especially well. Necessary charts are scattered throughout the book, and not always where you might think to look for them. An appendix with all the charts reproduced (like I did with Flying Swordsmen, although I did miss one or two) would be nice. I guess I'll have to make something like that by myself before I run the game again.
And I will run this game again. Dean, Jeremy, Alexei and Justin were my players, and they all seemed to have fun. Now, the question is, do I continue with the Wizardry dungeon, or work on that Castlevania game?
So, after last month's non-D&D whoop-dee-do, I've been messing around with the free 8-bit/16-bit crpg inspired Retro Phaze.
I started out, as I blogged a while back, with the intention of making some small adventures and pre-made PCs for pick-up games. And I'm working on that, maybe going a bit overboard even with a Wizardry inspired dungeon. Retro Phaze makes it dirt simple, since like in a video game, most encounters are random and pretty much exist only as a means to level up your characters and give you gold to spend on better weapons/equipment.
One of the things I dislike about 3E and 4E style gaming is just that, but in Retro Phaze it's so darn simple that I think it will work. Character stats are simple. Monster stats are simpler. Dungeons and wilderness can be as simple or complex as you like. Pretty much all you need are some maps, random tables for monster encounters, and a few "boss" monsters and special treasures or quest items that serve as goals of play.
Well, it didn't take me long to turn from converting Wizardry, Faxanadu, Legend of Zelda and Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrior for the Americans) monsters into RePh stats before I started thinking of Castlevania.
I once upon a time foolishly started working on a CV setting for 3E. But 3E stat bloat killed it quick. With Retro Phaze, though, I may just be able to pull it off. Spell-casters get either White or Black magic, and there are only 4 spells per level of each type, mostly combat oriented. The game is designed for throwing bad guys at the players and letting them beat them to a pulp (or run screaming from the big ones), and they level quickly.
All I really need is a map of Transylvania with a few towns, crypts, haunted mansions and such, plus Castlevania itself mapped out (and I could probably just use some maps from the actual games for that) with appropriate random encounter lists for each, and a few key quest items and quest givers.
I'll probably try out my Wizardry inspired dungeon first just to get a taste of how the game actually plays before diving full steam into a game which I don't have the time to really run anyway. But if I start working on it now, little by little, I will have it ready to run when I finally have time to run games again.
16 Which RPG besides D&D
has the best magic system? Give details.
First off, I really do
like the Vancian system. It works well. It's simple. It gives the
player options and choices that they need to make.
Also, as I've said before,
I haven't played any fantasy games that aren't D&D derived. So I
don't have a lot of experience with other magic systems, except in
passing (or in video games). Lots of CRPGs use a spell point system
well, and games like Retro Phaze look like they should work well at
translating that to the table top.
This game (free, get it here!) emulates 8-bit CRPGs like the early Final Fantasy/Dragon Warrior/Ultima games. It has a list of spells that you learn as you go up in level, and you also gain spell points each level. Pay the cost to cast any spell you know, just like in the console games. Yet another game I'd love to try out some day.
Also, in Chanbara I'm
developing a non-Vancian system that I hope works out well. I don't
want to say it's “best” yet, as it really needs to be put through
the paces.
As I mentioned last week, here are the dragon-beasts that your characters could ride around on in the Golden Axe video game series (the Chicken Leg one is under the dungeon chicken post).
Dragon Mount
Armor Class: 4 (16)
Hit Dice: 5+2*
Move: 90 (30)
Attacks: 1 breath or 1 bite
Damage: 3d6 or 1d8
No. Appearing: 1d6 (1d4)
Save As: Fighter 3
Morale: 8
Treasure Type: A
Alignment: Neutral
XP: 400
Dragon Mounts are two-legged, wingless beasts related to dragons that are often trained to serve as mounts to warriors from monstrous tribes or barbaric humans. Each may use a breath weapon for 3d6 damage (which may be a 20' long, 10' across at the far end cone, a 30' long, 5' wide cone, or a 10' cube cloud) which deals 3d6 damage. Anyone in the area of effect may Save vs. Breath for half damage. The dragon mount's breath may be that of any standard dragon (cold, acid, chlorine, lightning, fire), regardless of the color of the dragon mount. On their own, dragon mounts may bite (1-4 on d6) or breathe (5-6 on d6) in combat each round. When directed by a rider, they attack as the rider desires, but no more than one breath every two rounds.
So a little while back I asked all you readers for some help, telling me what wuxia books, movies, video games, etc. you found inspirational, or at least cool. I did this for inclusion in Flying Swordsmen RPG as a sort of "Appendix N" for the game. I may have presented myself as less knowledgeable than I am in that post, in order to elicit more responses. A lot of you recommended films that are already on the list. Still, I did get some new ones, and I'll be trying to locate and watch them before this game goes to print.
And without further ado, here is the list:
Appendix I: Inspirational Media
Books, Fiction:
Cha, Louis (Jin Yong) The Book and the Sword, The Deer and the Cauldron, Heaven Sword & Dragon Sabre, etc.
Gu Long The Eleventh Son
Luo Guangzhou Three Kingdoms
Shi Nai'an Outlaws of the Marsh (also known as The Water Margin)
Wu Cheng'en Journey to the West (also known as Monkey)
Tony Wong/Jademan Comics The Blood Sword, Oriental Heroes, etc.
Books, Non-Fiction:
J.A.G. Roberts A Concise History of China
Charles D. Benn China's Golden Age: Everyday Life in the Tang Dynasty
Film and Television:
The Legend of Fong Sai Yuk (1993)
Swordsman Trilogy (1990, 1992, 1993)
Dragon Gate Inn (1992)
A Touch of Zen (1971)
Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
Hero (2002)
House of Flying Daggers (2004)
A Chinese Ghost Story (1987)
Mr. Vampire (1985)
Drunken Master (1978)
The Bride with White Hair (1993)
Encounters of the Spooky Kind (1980)
Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983)
Legend of the Liquid Sword (1993)
Ashes of Time (1994)
Enter the Dragon (1973)
A variety of adaptations of Journey to the West and Three Kingdoms for both film and television.
Games:
Dynasty Warriors series (Koei)
Jade Empire (Bioware)
Thanks to everyone who contributed. If anyone else has something to suggest, or I left something out that you think needs to be there, please let me know. There's always room for more.
So there's that story that floats around the internet, about a second hand copy of a DMG that had penciled in the margins of the wandering monster tables, "Dungeon Chicken." I'm likely getting the story wrong, but I'm too lazy to go look it up. I'd bet the story's kicking around somewhere on Jeff's Gameblog (UPDATE: here). Pretty sure that's where I first read about it.
Dungeon Chickens are 4' tall versions of the normal animal who have adapted to living in caverns, ruins, and underground labyrinths. Their coloration is the same as normal chickens. They have 90' infravision.
Fire Breathing Dungeon Chicken
Armor Class: 6 (14)
Hit Dice: 3+1*
Move: 30 (10), Fly 30 (10)
Attacks: 1 peck or breath
Damage: 1d8 or 3d6
No. Appearing: 1d6 (0)
Save As: Fighter 2
Morale: 7
Treasure Type: S
Alignment: Neutral
XP: 75
Fire Breathing Dungeon Chickens are similar to normal Dungeon Chickens, except they are always red in color. Once per day, a Fire Breathing Dungeon Chicken can shoot a cone of fire 20' long and 10' wide at the far end. All those within the blast take damage (save vs. breath weapons for half damage).
Chicken Leg (Chicken Dragon)
Armor Class: 4 (16)
Hit Dice: 5+2
Move: 60 (20)
Attacks: 1 tail or 1 bite
Damage: 3d6 or 1d8
No. Appearing: 1d6 (1d4)
Save As: Fighter 3
Morale: 8
Treasure Type: A
Alignment: Neutral
XP: 225
Chicken Legs look like a cross between a featherless chicken and a small dragon. They have round pink bodies atop a pair of chicken legs, a powerful serpentine barbed tail, and a bird-like beak. They usually attack with a tail sweep, but have been known to bite. Chicken Legs can be trained and are used as mounts by certain barbarian and humanoid tribes.
As I mentioned the other day, we found statues of this monster at a Buddhist convent last Sunday, and I have conveniently statted up the monster for my Flying Swordsmen RPG project. Here it is:
Pi Hsi (Turtle-Dragon)
AC: 22
HD: 8
Move: 90 swim 180
Att: 2 claws, 1 bite (+3)
Dmg: 1d8/1d8/2d8
NA: 1d6
Save: F8
Mle: 9
Int: 14
Stunts: M 1d12, F 1d8
Pi Hsi are large (15' long) dragon-like creatures with turtle shells over their bodies, and dragon heads, feet, and tails. They live in rivers and lakes, which they protect. The take orders from Shui Long (Water Dragons), and sometimes serve as guardians to them. In addition, Pi Hsi are scholars, and collect ancient chronicles, poetry, or volumes of lore in their lairs. They have no special supernatural powers, but are known for their great strength.
For simple conversion to D&D, just ignore the Stunts line. In Dragon Fist/Flying Swordmen, you don't get automatic stat bonuses for high ability scores. Instead, you get a stunt die, and have to select which one you will use each round. The Pi Hsi above has an extra d12 that it can use as a Strength bonus, or a d8 Constitution bonus. In other words, each round it can choose to get either a +d12 to hit and damage rolls, or d8 temporary hit points.
So to do a more complicated conversion that fits its actual abilities in DF/FS, I'd suggest adding a few hit dice and doubling its claw and bite damage.
Greg Christopher mentioned training my son to ride turtles. I was thinking more along the lines of dragon riding. You never know when you might run into one of these:
After a brief absence, Shinobi Sunday returns to WaHNtHaC (and as an aside, I think I need to name a PC or NPC Wahnthac in the future).
Today, I'm talking about one of the best games ever released for the NES, Ninja Gaiden! I also wax pedantic. You've been warned.
It was also one of the hardest games of its era, and the NES was well known for having tough games.
The blue guy in the screenshot above, for those who don't know, is Ryu Hayabusa, the ninja protagonist of this game series. He's on a mission to take out some evil cultists who want to summon a demon and end the world. Pretty standard fare for a ninja in the 1980's, apparently.
Back then, I had no idea I'd ever learn Japanese, let alone live there for a decade. Looking back now, I can only smile at the way we mangled the Japanese in the game.
We called the game, writing it phonetically the way we pronounced it, "Ninja Gay-dun" The actual pronunciation is phonetically "Ninja Guy-den" The poor protagonist we mispronounced (not knowing any better, of course) as Rye-you Hay-a-byoo-sa. Ryu is pronounced r'you, but with a sort of rolling 'r' that's sort of between an r, l, and d. Takes some getting used to when learning Japanese. Hayabusa is 'ha-ya-boo-sa.'
More interesting to the rest of you than my mispronunciations and feeble attempts to teach the proper way over a written blog, would likely be my assumption that the Ryu Hayabusa of Ninja Gaiden (whose father is Ken Hayabusa) was somehow related to the Ryu and Ken of the Street Fighter games.
No, there's no connection. Ninja Gaiden games are from Tecmo, Street Fighter is from Capcom. Ryu just means dragon, so it's a popular name for video game characters. Hayabusa means falcon, if anyone's wondering.
I haven't had a chance to play the new 3D versions of the games for the X-Box and PS3. Maybe some day. I hear they're also pretty difficult, which is refreshing. So many of the recent 'revival' games of classic NES games really make them too easy (Castlevania, Metal Gear, I'm looking at you).
The old NES games were tough, sorta like Old School D&D. You had lots of lives and continues in those games, because you NEEDED them. Now you just get save points all over the place so you can pretend that you never had to die as you played through the game.
