Quote: Original post by Wavinator
Just a quick question about Puzzle Pirates: What was your drive to solve the puzzles? Did that game have any sort of economic pressure, or did you just wander from puzzle to puzzle?

There was economic pressure. You could buy weapons which would give you a different edge in the main competitive puzzle played. However the amount of money earned was either very little compared to expenses or the time it took to earn it was too long. Either way I played the game for several days and never got enough money to buy a new weapon. You wandered from puzzle to puzzle on the ship in order to make the ship run smoothly. It was a very good concept for a game, but something about it didn’t work for me. Of course I was never a huge fan of bejeweled and Tetris.

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You know, if I can pull this game off, I swear there will be some Thermodynamics statue somewhere in the game! [lol] Dude, thanks for a great example! It suggests gameplay in a way that I didn't quite see.

Just let me be a play tester for you and all scores are settled.[grin] I think that as far as gameplay goes I had the easier job. I just came up with a good story, you have to work it to be a game. I don’t envy you for that task. I tried to keep game mode on as I envisioned the story, but even I realize that some of the things I wrote about are highly unrealistic to be in a game anytime soon (at least in a convincing sense.)

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Specific characters that keep doing stuff like this are a GREAT way of creating emotional investment. I also like the E-bay style timed bidding as yet another minigame to round this out, which I've been thinking of applying across the board.

I always liked the EV:Nova game partly because the characters you interact with are interesting and sometimes have interesting plot twists.

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Great, this suggests some interesting depth. But can you see continuously doing this, or would the gameplay need to radically vary?

I'm thinking this needs to scale in some direction. Maybe it's longer, more tricky environmental puzzles? Or maybe it's more challenging minigames, the lower you go? Or maybe more threats from the outside world?

I think there should be a combination of challenges to make the minigames more interesting. The outside world threats could easily be caused by your gaining fame. Think about how often people play RTS games now. Or fps. Or whatever. When it is their category that they like they can play it for hours. Of course most single player games have some sort of level progression. There is enough of that out there that I won’t insult your intelligence and explain it.

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If it were possible to implement different modes just like this, do you think each would have to give a different payoff?

Let's assume you have 3 minigame types: Two are 2D, one being a kind of "rotate pieces" powerflow puzzle, another the nanobots puzzle; the third uses the game's engine to simulate flying a small nanoprobe through the wires, riding powerflows and "attacking" powerspots.

Now, you buy the tool that matches the minigame you want to play. But what if you like playing them all? It would be a waste for you to buy all three.

I would say that you can only play one type of game at a time (maybe a high-level tech would allow you to switch mid mission.) Your type would end up being a class basically. You could switch by training to be another but you could only use the new method on your next mission then. I wouldn’t even have items be what allows you to play a certain type of game (except those high-level switchers). The goal of any mode would be to complete the mission. I think all types could have their advantages and disadvantages.

I think it would be extremely difficult to do a good job balancing all styles of play so good players of each type had the same chance of winning a mission.

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Espionage, subterfuge and sabotage. LOVE it!

I also like that there's some clue that you get that makes this so. I'm going to have to think of ways to improve clue dropping, I really like that aspect.

Like I said before, it is easier to write than to program something like that.

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Cool. How would you represent disengaging but still monitoring progress? Would you use some sort of status bar, like in Dynasty Warriors, which has a marker that drifts from one side to the other to tell who is winning?

Sounds good to me. It would then be possible to start multiple fixes at the same time, and only intervene when necessary. I like the idea, run with it.

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The evidence thing really intrigues me. In this example you just killed someone, but they're not marked as an enemey.

Programmatically speaking, I'm trying to figure out how this might work. If you find illegal material in a system do you simply match it with someone? There needs to be some sort of fingerprinting mechanism, because you're not going to be able to program "circumstantial evidence."

I see nano as carrying some sort of fingerprint that uniquely identifies it to a person. This would be needed so the nano would not attack its owner. In fact it would make sense if it had a sliver of the owners DNA on it. If you match the finger print to the owner, you can incriminate them. If you find a person carrying substantial amounts of nano without their fingerprint on it, it is considered an even more heinous crime.

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Bravo! You've made ME want to play this! [lol] (Now all I have to do is adapt this gameplay to being a starship engineer, where there are no Leechers, and you'll be able to get into some really cool careers... but that's another post.)

Thanks, I take that as a real compliment. I only wrote something that I felt would be interesting to me. Judging by your recent cornucopia of posts and replies, I get the feeling you are either very interested in your game right now or you are much less interested in something else. For me to make you more interested in your own game means I did something right!

I look forward towards your game being worked on.

Hey Wavinator;

Just a note that I had a thought about your nanotech. While you are characterizing (either by utility or plot-intent) the nanobots, bear in mind you'll need a "bionans" or a nanobot that is environmentally programmed, such as an algae creating nano or similar env maintenance or creation nanos. Things like toxicwasteeating bots, breatable air maintenance nanos, these are all going to be relevant, logical and important nanos to have in your schema of the true future nanoenvironment. Think about it, today we have nanotech that is learning to teach itself and replicate itself, these are the lower level BIOS (if you will) of the higher order more abstracted OS level functions of the nanoOS of the future (which I believe was discussed in your 'what is 2105 going to look like" thread.)

Adventuredesign

Quote:Original post by fastlane69
- The world is geographically more segmented, wasteland-ish. Vast tracks of deadly nano-spore are held at bay by technology, but are still deadly.

Hmmm... actually, you know I've been thinking of doing something like mobile tracts of rogue nano. It spoils a later game surprise to do this, because I have in mind other types of deadly regions. But it could work.

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- the world remains incredibly high tech, thus leading to cities growing up (and into space) rather than out...resembles (high-tech) termite mounds.

Yes, this is more of what I saw (it makes for a really interesting world, even if not perfectly logical).

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- Society is no longer like today; people take distinct "insect" roles:

But I have problems here. Not just because "hivemind" has been overused, but because reducing us to insects kills the human spirit, which in turn kills the storyworld for many people (hardcore male gamers are fine, but not the rest of the potential audience).

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- Designers are top of the good chain and live like a Queen Bee or the leader of the Pride. They coordinate others efforts, but are themselves usually physically weak and unable to design or leech anything.

I see you're setting up a dependency between upper and lower folks, but I don't think it needs to be so precise. Corporate / religious / political leaders naturally need others because their skillsets are in leadership.

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They are broken down by 3 Kingdoms, each representing their material source: metalvore (uses metals as raw material), vegetarian (uses vegetation as raw material) or carnivore (uses animals as raw material). They can work alone or collaborate to make even more complex objects.

Is this for the sake of variety and strategy?

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- Leechers are parasites, not unlike mosquitoes and leechs themselves. They are pure nano-spawn and their nano-ravaged bodies are in constant need for repair and upgrade at the expense of very selective resources. An old leech can look exactly human, but posses almost magical nano-buffs.

Now THIS I really like. Hadn't thought about it, but what if the consequences of leeching were that you had to smuggle a lot of strange stuff, and you're own body was the best smuggling pouch. It makes sense that the nano could be camoflagued in your own system, sort of like dormant virii.

Add to this a huge variety of weird nano, some of it self-aware, and you've got a recipe for a walking contagion.

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- Society could be organized with the engineers and the leechers on two different battle fields.
...

Okay, I think this would be cool if this were the entire focus of the game, as opposed to a way to survive & make money. I don't like war as a continuous gameplay solution, though, because it's both overused and also pessimistic. It requires a constant threat, which can never be defeated (otherwise the game would become boring or end).

But as a standalone game, I think it would rock because there are two types of strategy, subversive and overt combat.

It does give me ideas, though, for set piece environments you could encounter, though: Societies where these high-tech termite mounds are at war, and where leechers have some social status as infiltrators and combatants.

In the more peaceful environments, leechers would have to be criminals, or there would be no challenge / danger.

Quote:Original post by Thermodynamics
There was economic pressure. You could buy weapons which would give you a different edge in the main competitive puzzle played. However the amount of money earned was either very little compared to expenses or the time it took to earn it was too long. Either way I played the game for several days and never got enough money to buy a new weapon. You wandered from puzzle to puzzle on the ship in order to make the ship run smoothly. It was a very good concept for a game, but something about it didn’t work for me. Of course I was never a huge fan of bejeweled and Tetris.

Thanks, I have to take care here. I've been thinking that a lot of content can come from minigames (a bit like MarioWorld, I've heard); but the parts have to fit in with the whole, which it doesn't sound like they did here.

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Just let me be a play tester for you and all scores are settled.[grin]

Deal!

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I think there should be a combination of challenges to make the minigames more interesting. The outside world threats could easily be caused by your gaining fame. Think about how often people play RTS games now. Or fps. Or whatever. When it is their category that they like they can play it for hours.

Okay, imagining that fame controls outside threats that come looking for you, that leaves leaves minigame speed / difficulty and maybe some sort of environmental sequencing strategy (like hitting node A and playing a minigame there, before B, has a different cost than hitting B and then going to A).

I don't have a gut feel for this, though, meaning it would be vital to proto & play before going any further.

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I would say that you can only play one type of game at a time (maybe a high-level tech would allow you to switch mid mission.)

What loss do you as a player (or the game, for that matter) experience if the focus is on tools that give the minigames? That is, imagining that you buy 3 tools and three sets of resources, then approach a challenge: I see you either being wedded to one type of minigame (remember these are not meant to be standalone, play for hours games) and wanting lots of variety; or being open to trying multiple types and into the whole resource strategy that drives them.

So you'd go in, navigate the environment and deal with threats, play the games briefly (maybe 2 - 5 minutes per node), return to base, equip and repeat. The minigame access nodes would change, as would the tradeoffs for accessing them in one order or another; the ambient threats would change, requiring combat / stealth or trade (negotiation) strategy; your fame would rise, giving way to more complex jobs and aggressive competition, etc.

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I think it would be extremely difficult to do a good job balancing all styles of play so good players of each type had the same chance of winning a mission.

Yes, by far I think this is the single easiest area to screw up.

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Cool. How would you represent disengaging but still monitoring progress? Would you use some sort of status bar, like in Dynasty Warriors, which has a marker that drifts from one side to the other to tell who is winning?

Sounds good to me. It would then be possible to start multiple fixes at the same time, and only intervene when necessary. I like the idea, run with it.

Just a side thought: There are some games like Harvest Moon and The Sims which have a sort of meditative balancing experience. You get sucked into taking care of multiple factors, each of which has a kind of slow pace, but the sum of which can either be frenetic (that's good or bad, depending) or slowly addictive (again, good or bad).

You could be running around, for example, touching about a dozen nodes. You start one, play the game, finish. You're part is done, but you've started a process that'll need 2 minutes of uninterrupted time. Then you start another. By the third, node 1 has run into a problem. You rush over to fix it, then try to get 4 started before 3 finishes (or 3 will have to be restarted).

It's like the kind of harried nursing you have to do to get an RTS base on its feet. The types of jobs could control the level of this.

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I see nano as carrying some sort of fingerprint that uniquely identifies it to a person. This would be needed so the nano would not attack its owner. In fact it would make sense if it had a sliver of the owners DNA on it. If you match the finger print to the owner, you can incriminate them. If you find a person carrying substantial amounts of nano without their fingerprint on it, it is considered an even more heinous crime.

DNA? That could work. I like a combo of this and IFF processor blocks in your body, with transponder codes (maybe that's the DNA). This gives leechers emergency self-sabotage items that burn things out of their bloodstream, like a spy sabotaging incriminating equipment.

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I look forward towards your game being worked on.

As my schedule clears, so do I. Thanks again!

Quote:Original post by adventuredesign
While you are characterizing (either by utility or plot-intent) the nanobots, bear in mind you'll need a "bionans" or a nanobot that is environmentally programmed, such as an algae creating nano or similar env maintenance or creation nanos. Things like toxicwasteeating bots, breatable air maintenance nanos, these are all going to be relevant, logical and important nanos to have in your schema of the true future nanoenvironment. Think about it, today we have nanotech that is learning to teach itself and replicate itself, these are the lower level BIOS (if you will) of the higher order more abstracted OS level functions of the nanoOS of the future (which I believe was discussed in your 'what is 2105 going to look like" thread.)

Thanks, great point. In fact, there are a lot of possibilities with biotech that I'm not exactly tapping just yet. Biotech leads into lots of different wooly directions just on its own, but even more so when combined with nanotech (even overlapping, in theory).

What's nice is that you can create a flood of different nanotech items that cover a variety of categories, with more multifunctional nano being more expensive. This gives you a contant money sink and streamlines detail as you scale in capability.