Magic the Gathering: Commander Hybrid Mana Rules Proposal Changes

It took me a long time to think about the idea of hybrid mana in commander, because there are so many points that are valid against it. But I will say right off the top, that I am FOR the change, but after much thought, realize that it would require a rewrite of the color identity rules in commander.

So to begin, commander has a ruleset for color identity that says if a card is a color, or has a mana pip of a color on it, then that is the cards color identity. Now this does not count color words (such as Protection from Blue does not make the card a blue color identity), and it does not count rules explanation (the thing in parenthesis on the card explaining the rule).

And here is where we come across an issue with color identity that I already experience with casual players in commander, that people use as an argument against hybrid mana: Color words make players think that a card is that color identity when that is not the case. Especially true since you have white cards that can make blue tokens, etc. So the color rules are already confusing enough for that.

The rules text exclusion also causes some confusion for people, such as for rules explanations for extort.

Complexity of the rules aren't really an issue in this case. The game is complicated. People will learn.

Next is intuition of color identity. Color identity occurs in multiple locations on a card. One is using color words: This card is all colors, This card is Red. This fills in the confusion stated earlier with casuals. Not only that, the Devoid mechanic makes a card colorless for the purpose of things like Pyroblast, but not for color identity.

Next is the mana symbols on the casting cost of the card. This one is the easiest to understand and the one where hybrid mana is having its conversation on. This also includes the mana pips on the card text. If we just took the proposed hybrid rules change and only focused on this, then yes, the proposal would work with no issues. But there are more rules to color identity which causes issue with ONLY changing this rule.

Then there are color pip identifiers on the type line (such as on the back side of Archangel Avacyn, Avacyn the Purifier) and the border of the card. This one is huge because the card itself has NOTHING else saying that it is Red, other than the pip and the border of the backside. When I was first playing commander, I didn't understand why I couldn't put this in a mono-white deck. The pips are all white, and there's nothing on the front side making the card not mono-white. But this kind of card issue also has to be addressed with the hybrid mana changes. You cannot do one and then the other.

Because there's also more types of borders and colors identities, such as the border of the card, which sometimes is colorless or gold. 

Gold ain't no magic color I ever heard of.

So a change would need to be made to color identity in commander, in a way that can make sense. But not matter what you do, the rules will be complicated, but it already is. Would it be more or less complicated in any way that would matter? I don't know. But it would for sure be different. So I came up with a rules change, that I would be happy with, and I'm putting it out into the aether of the internet.

Proposal

We leave the current rules of color identity for identifying the colors a commander can provide (including hybrid mana counting as both), but only look at the mana cost of the spell and the mana cost on the card text for color identity, and not on color pips in the type line, or border/color of the card, with hybrid mana being an OR in this case and not an AND. 

This means that cards like Archangel Avacyn//Avacyn the Purifier is a Boros commander but can be in a mono-white deck in the 99. This means hybrid commanders are all colors in their mana symbols, but can participate in mono-color decks.

Addendum

Also, dual lands are weird in commander. The logic is that I can't run a forest in a Boros deck, but technically the Forest mana symbol is in the rules and not actually on the card (an animated forest does not lose its ability if Deadpool chooses it). So shouldn't it NOT have a green color identity? And I can run an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in my Boros deck. So, the whole thing is really.... complicated.

 

You can run Kormus Bell, Urborg tomb of Yawgmoth and Elesh Norn as your commander in a mono-white deck as mass land destruction, but Hybrid mana is what makes commander rules complicated? I don't think so.

Everytime Pathfinder seems to have a cool idea, they scare themselves out of doing something cool with it

    Pathfinder design is designed to make things take actions, take longer, and take time. Every action is met with a consequence. Every reward is limited, and difficult to abuse. Every decision is mitigated, limited edition, and useless unless perfect. It also seems to want to "realistically" spend your time, by making some unrealistic demands of your time.

    Which comes across my latest learning block of character building. Which is Talismans. Talismans in PF2e are single use, items that attach to specific gear and have special boosts to your different skill rolls and attacks. Its like a little safety vest in some cases, or like a glow stick. You get the effect, it gets used up right away or it lasts for a short burst (usually a single fight or event) and then you need to not only put a new one on, you have to take equal time taking the old one off, or else the whole thing becomes muted.

    There are so many other ways to run this to make it more fun, more valuable to players and without even needing to let it be abused. Thing is, that what I'm about to say, can be done for 10 extra minutes and more in game gold. Just let a player spend 10 minutes "recharging" the thing. Maybe as some sort of "focus" procedure, maybe not. Either way, it allows you to pick one up, and just keep using it. It gives great value to the Talisman archetypes and classes, and makes getting two a day that become inert at night much more valuable and not feel like a waste of a feature.

    I consistently feel like Pathfinder 2 is afraid of power. Its afraid of ease of use. It consistently asks me as a player, to suffer for my fun. And that makes it hard to want to build or play the game. Which is hard to feel, when so many GOOD ideas are included alongside these terrible wastes of energy and time. So much good design and effort is paired up so poorly. 

    And I know they have Runes for things that are a much more permanent effect, but this temporary effect didn't have to be a money sink and time sink all in one that also means that the feats for getting them also feel like so much less, when the feat also only gives you talismans of half your level, which is fine at level 2 and way less powerful at higher levels.

    Suddenly though, it makes sense why at level 16 they are willing to let you have... 6 free half level talismans per day for free....which is 600gp for free per day. Or you can also spend 1800gp to get one, that ... helps you confuse a monster that grabs you, once. Maybe for 1 round or less, maybe for 1 minute. That's not bad, but maybe its because Pathfinder 2e actually has a plan on how to give you money, and pays you well, and doesn't have the same issues with money spending that D&D5e has.

    Maybe that's the key. Because they plan for you to have money to spend, so that you can have a stack of 5 1800gp single use talismans. This is why I want to learn more, because its obvious the design is there for a reason. In 5e this is terrible design. But in a game that plans around your gold income as a metric for the functionality of items, maybe that is a lesson to learn. So what is your income like in Pathfinder vs D&D? Does anyone look into that at all?

Trying to Learn Pathfinder 2e

    Over the last few years, as I've been working on Anarchy Realms, I've tried learning several other TTRPGs. I don't want to be talking out my ass about things and then not have experienced different games. But all TTRPGs come with a difficulty to establish. As in, the group is already mid campaign in a D&D 5e game. There already are other groups doing that game (but they are mostly full and play on the same days as your game). There are barriers, and limitations to trying out a game.

    So  when I started learning Pathfinder 2e, I started with online videos. And my goodness are the PF2e creators passionate about their game! Look at this cool thing! This is an awesome thing! Rank this! Talk about that! Mix and match here!

    D&D 5e content creators are always, "Hasbro has doomed the game! WotC is using AI for everything including the DM, which is you! You are now AI!" etc, etc, etc. So there's a lot of attraction TO pathfinder in that way. Not only that, there are certain slices of the game where they REALLY show how much love they put into the game. With design ideas and detailed expansion of concepts.

    But as I learned more, and the more I looked into the math, the more .... worried I got. But hey, I haven't played the game yet, and some of these ideas, rock really hard when used in 5e. So I'm gonna borrow column A and B, leave C and just maybe come back later for the D. Anyways, that is to say, I took what felt good and I experimented. I experimented with a 10 over to critically hit system, but in 5e it ... over power and over guarantees certain things. I tried the Doom condition as a curse (that both high level fear applies and just existing near a powerful elite monster can create). I even converted backgrounds into a ersatz archetype system.

    In the end, some things worked, and somethings didn't but it made me want to explore Pathfinder 2e even more. So, as I started to get ready to do character creation in Anarchy Realms, where some of the steps felt similar to how I had read the character creation for PF2e was, I decided to go to Pathbuilder, and build a character.

    Now this was my first deep dive, and making a level 1 character is EASY, FUN, and consistently gave me results I was excited to explore. But then I made the mistake of trying to plan the character. I tried to level up. And that's where all my glittery eyed optimism for Pathfinder started to fall apart. When I started to actually dig and brush away the sand of this beautiful dinosaur bone, I realized that what I was coming across was coprolite.

    So, first of all, the class that caught my eye was the Thaumaturge. In the end its not perfectly what I wanted, but it was super close to perfect (to be fair, there's no single class in d&d that is perfectly what I want, but between the broadness of d&d and multiclassing, I can usually get the character done).

    So first things first. I build characters to be a pun, reference or joke. For example, making an Orc Pirate Sea Druid for a forest campaign. Too niche? How about designing a Wild Magic Sorcerer named Kows M Waldo (Chaos Emerald) who uses Chaos Control to create wild magic surges. The game is taken seriously. The actions are done to be included with the group. But the character is designed to be a joke. If I go for funny, I'll end up with serious.

     So I read through some things, and I saw that the Thaumaturge had the ability to fly on their implement, and use a whip and bell and I could choose to play a Minotaur (love Minotaurs). So here I am designing flying bullshit and I get feats (skill feats, general feats, class feats etc) all the time! So many decisions! But, with few exceptions, the decisions don't feel good. Not only that, but without reading the books and referencing things, its hard to see that a decision I'm planning at level 1 or 2 or 6 suddenly locks me out of something. How I have to pick what will be a legendary skill for me, even if my design wants both. But that's fine, cause I believe that a game is a series of interesting decisions, and so planning this level up, is itself a game, and part of the game.

     But that's the thing. Most of the time, my decisions weren't interesting. And if I didn't get Acrobatics, or reach Master in a skill on time, I don't get to actually do some of the interesting things there are. Furthermore, so many skills are so limited, that they are boring. Then you start getting your class feats, but not all the class feats are fun, but some feel "essential" to how the class to work. But then you don't get them all, so you start adding archetypes to find that hole your character is missing, but that also gets complicated between all the options. But again, they aren't "good" options. They are slanted this way and that, compared to the other option. So, I can't just pick what I want. Sometimes, I have multi level gaps of useless feats, that don't do anything, may never come up, or should have just been a thing, cause why is this minor feature a feat?

    While in D&D5e, once I level up a class, all the necessary features get added, and my decision is in feats and multiclassing. So I have to decide if getting my ability score up is worth not getting some feats, and in many cases, with the all feats now having an ability score improvement with them, the decision is often easier to pick the feats. As for multiclassing, because of how the game gives you all your class features at level up, you can easily split focus and even plan around good cut off points.

    Pathfinder player choices are instead leaning more towards gritty realism, incremental improvements, and quirky funny choices, that aren't quirky or funny. Every increment and edge helps because the game is designed to keep you at a 50% hit rate (if you don't upgrade your stuff, upgrading and magic items are vital to pf2e).  Magic items in d&d5e are all, boosts and fun. You don't NEED them for a build to work, or to have fun.

    I kept not having fun after the first level of making characters in Pathfinder 2e. But this experiment is still ongoing. I just wanted to get some of my thoughts out there.

Game Companies: Don't do Micro-Expansions, instead do shareable DLC!

The Evolution of DLC:
From Traditional to Shareable

Introduction

To begin, let us understand what a micro-expansion, aka micro-DLC, actually is. Micro-expansions are a subcategory of micro-transactions. In many cases, a micro-expansion, much like a larger game expansion or DLC, asks that every person buys it to gain access to it. This can include a wide variety of game aspects, such as dungeons, battlegrounds, areas or zones, and even other typical micro-transaction staples such as characters, classes and aesthetics.

The issues with micro-expansions are similar to the issues with micro-transactions when looked through the lens of what social damage it does to players in a game. This includes pay-to-win concerns from players who cannot participate in the dungeon to get loot from it, and therefore it is similar to a loot-box in the resulting benefits for the person who bought it. It fragments the player base, meaning less people can potentially play together. It becomes what the game design leans into, so that money can be excised from the player base instead of earned. All of these leads to upset players, who may stop playing because they cannot find the fun in the game anymore.

Which is where my proposal comes in: If you sell DLC for single access dungeons, then allow the person who bought it so share that access with anyone in their group. It gives access to the content to people who cannot afford to buy the DLC, and yes for some people even that $2.99 can be too much, and it helps with the problem of fragmenting player bases. If you have a free vs monthly/battle pass model, you can even give one free dungeon to those who buy a battle pass, and that way those in guilds could cover all the seasonal content by working together on what free dungeon they pick.

The Problem with Traditional DLCs

So why did companies leave making traditional DLCs, large patches of content that often times feels like a sequel within the same game engine. The player base often looked forward to such expansions every two to three years. People would renew accounts, start preparing for the expansion, and often play through the game quickly and drop their subscriptions again after a few months. Even though many players would continue to leave subscriptions on while not playing or even would actually continue to play after these rushes, the growing amount of players and the need to adjust to the size of the rushes meant that companies would have to invest in extra servers that they would end up no longer needing or would need to continue to operate after it was no longer profitable to their margins.

Producers have been seeking out how to diversify their monetization so that they do not have to be stuck in one model. Producers have pushed Developers to decrease the space between one expansion and the next, which begins asking players to pay for a new expansion every year.

There are benefits to faster smaller DLCs for developers as well. It helps keep player engagement up, since the space between DLCs is smaller, and therefore people who only play for new content stay subscribed longer. It has less risk of being wrong in a design choice, as in making a mistake in design did not waste multiple years development time and money, and is instead less impactful to the bottom-line.

This all leads to the current state of games, which are Battle Passes over the traditional monthly subscription. Battle Passes offer rewards over the top of the free to play model. They reward players coming back to the game daily, and therefore generate player engagement. They often allow you to earn in game currency or other rewards for playing and doing daily check ins. This model often sells other micro-transactions, but allow you to earn the next battle pass, or at least earn more value based on in game currency than normal in game currency purchases would.

This all leads to the new problem games are heading towards, which is, selling where you can play. Lands to explore, arenas to fight in, dungeons to delve, are all being sold piecemeal and are not being included in the purchase of the subscription or battle pass. These micro-DLCs are going to magnify the issue of traditional DLCs in that you will start to see hyperfragmentation of the player base. Leading to a point that someone could buy the DLC, and have no one to play it with.

My Proposal: One DLC for the Whole Party

The idea is simple: If you want to sell a dungeon individually to people, allow them to share it with their group. The idea behind this is similar to Dungeons and Dragons having a DM who usually has all the books and the players join and get to participate and use the book content without having to buy the book themselves. Most of the people who would take advantage of this would not have bought the DLC themselves, and the player gets to enjoy what they purchased without worrying that no one else bought the DLC. Because the benefits are higher for those who do spend the money, and the loss of monetization to the company is minimal, since most people taking advantage of this would not have made the purchase, there is little worry of missing out for the company.

You could even give out a free dungeon for taking up a battle pass or paying a subscription. That way with this model, players can coordinate with their guilds or friend group to cover their bases. It increases the desire for people who play in groups to join guilds or invite friends.

The issue of dungeons being glorified loot boxes can also be resolved this way. Usually selling a dungeon is like selling a loot box, but you have to play through it first. This allows a reason for players to want to run the dungeon with the player who bought it. Sharing the dungeon could also increase their drop rate of materials or non-equipment goals. It makes sharing worth it, and makes purchasing the DLC worth it as well.

Developers can target people who do not have the micro-DLC in other ways, to help build monetization. Playing in a shared dungeon can lead to earning points to purchasing the dungeon for free, and therefore cascade dungeon runs out across the population. As people earn the dungeon, the dungeon sharing rewards naturally decline, incentivizing recruitment of outside players, "Come on! You can play for free and I can share the dungeon with you!" as free advertising. Not to mention that such models are viewed so favorably with players that it fosters an extremely positive view of the company.

Actual Real World examples of not using Shareable Content DLC

One of the major content companies using shareable DLC is actually tabletop gaming. Even in a digital space, places like Roll20 ask only that one member of an adventure of the DLC to be able to share it with others for that adventure.

Companies focused on short term monetary gains over the life long monetization of their product are moving away from that into the realm of individual micro-transactions and micro-DLC. Wizards of the Coast and by extension Hasbro is looking to follow Blizzard into the hellpit of micro-DLC to nickle and dime every player out of money, despite making billions of dollars already, and having HAD one of the most profitable games in their respective market.

And the same way that Blizzard Activision has lost its ability to earn trust in their player base to the tune of being bought out by other companies and having their entire team disbanded for failure of the executives, so too does Wizards of the Coast have the specter of doom looming over their future business model.

Already evidence has shown that people left WoW for FF14, and people have migrated from D&D to Pathfinder, with 4 more major D&D-a-likes coming out that address the issues with the game, and have the promise of freedom of creation to 3rd party makers.

Conclusion

So often companies start off with passion about their games. They make games in service of gamers. In turn those gamers create huge buzz and talk about the game that it reaches the general zeitgeist. Gamers grow up and become content creators: artists, writers, directors, producers. They make content for people, which references these games in sacred terms, and popularizes them.

Then the companies abandon the gamers, and target the average consumer. The average consumer, not having time to game all day, loves the shortcuts and purchases they can make with real dollars to shortcut their advancement so they can enjoy the game. Which is exactly where micro-transactions have value to those casual gamers.

This abandons future gamers, people who would love that original game experience like their parents had had 15 years earlier, but who now cannot enter the game without micro-transactions. They abandon the game, and suddenly future revenue drops as the casual gamers pay-to-win themselves out of content and migrate to another game.

Mitigating that migration, requires treating your game as if people could leave it at any time. If you realize that you do not have perfect control of people's desire for your game, then you have to design it in a way that it engages them. Things that remove people's ability to engage, can be managed with sharing. You can strive for engagement with rewards for sharing, and create natural endings to it so that in the end, you have received enough engagement from all those participating in your game, and those who pay to play, have enough people to play with.

Mana Resource Concept

Why mana? I've asked this question before.

I started thinking, what if we did mana like how magic does. During a fight we build a type of mana, and then, we can cast spells, and let that mana type come back. The idea was kinda working like a more complicated version of energy building from Champions Online.

So as a thought experiment, I figured, lets look at Magic the Gathering. There's an MMO being made of it, and so I thought, what if I were designing that game? How would I make planeswalkers work?

Magic has different types of mana: White, Blue, Black, Red, Green, Colorless and Generic. Generic is paid with any kind of mana, while the other colors and colorless requires a specific mana type. But in MtG, mana is locked behind the land mechanic. Each turn you get to play a land, and that might mean that if you do not have a land in hand you would not gain mana that turn. The game also has mana ramp spells. Spells that allow additional lands to be put into play, and therefore the player trades a turn now, for greater mana faster the following turn.

In an MMO, you don't have turns. So you have a few choices, slow paced fighting, or fast paced movement and spell casting. This affects how complicated you can have a mana building mechanic. I think I'd have players pick a color first. Maybe ask them questions that would tie them to philosophies of a color, and probably tie some things to other choices (similar to how Guild Wars 2 does it).

So this version we could do something very similar to energy builders, but I think maybe a combination of other resource managements would be more interesting. For example, let's start with a Red Planeswalker. The Red walker would see some monsters out in the wild to kill, and so they would start by gathering mana.

Gather Resource: Mountain
Ability: 1 second, channel, add 1 Mountain resource (max x).

Lightning Strike
Ability: Use 1 Red Mana and 1 Generic Mana, deal 3 damage to a creature.

Pass Turn:
Ability: Takes Abilities off Cool down.

So when a fight starts, the player Gathers Resource, then Passes Turn. This resets their available mana, lets them add another resource, and resets their spells.

So why would a player not just always reset? Maybe the spell choices are a bit randomized.

Maybe there is a cooldown rotation (a time spent before they can cast spells, like an untap second). Maybe everyone in the fight has to pass before abilities reset (this would be a bad idea, could cause griefing other players in a party). Maybe, if the player Passes too many turns, they run out of draws and "lose".

Makes me think a bit of MegaMan.exe chip system.

I think each walker could be given a resource gathering attack. Something representative of their Color and Land type. They have to hit an enemy with it, to add a resource, which are like Death Knight runes. You generate mana of the type you want, up to a certain amount, and then spend them on your spells.

Passing the turn, resets what spells you can cast, but allows for you to generate another Land rune. While not doing so, generates generic mana that can be used to cast the spells as well.

We could also gate end of turn to a time limit.

This feels like it would be a slower, more methodical game type.

I feel like I should explore this idea more later. For right now, it feels like there is a conflict in player desire to ramp into powerful spells and having some sort of negative for not casting spells or using abilities.

Thinking Out Loud - Level Design

The way I design a level is usually by creating an interesting shape first. I then think about what that shape makes difficult, and add challenges based on that. I usually go too far at this point. Then I go through the whole thing and test it and scale back what I call "the asshole coefficient" of the design.

Depending on the kind of level you are making and the intended difficulty the coefficient can require entirely changing a portion of the shape of a level or the challenges that are in that portion. Finally I test again.

This is when I feel the level is ready for outside testing. I'll ask a coworker to test it real quick, mostly looking for fun vs asshole sections. If a section stands out as being too frustrating, or too easy, I tweak those areas.

This is usually what I would submit to approval and mass testing.

Sometimes, I have trouble picturing a new shape that would be interesting, so I revisit things I've done before and I ask, "are there new challenges I can put here that would change how this plays?" But this is very rare, and a last resort option.

Don't be a Game Designer

Game design is not an easy position to get into in the games industry. Depending on the game, it might be a more math intensive job than  you are prepared to do. It is often done by the president of a small company, or by a singular person on a small team.

A large company will need a very specialized designer. And junior jobs are highly contested and difficult to get into.

Instead of going to school for game design. Go to school for computer science. Learn statistics, and learn excel (google spreadsheets). Know how to take data and analyze it. Learn how to figure out percent chances of complicated randomness. Be a mathematician.

Practice drawing every day. Practice with a mouse using shapes with google draw. Take a drawing class. Learn how to do pixel art. Learn how to do line shading. Learn how to do simple 3D modeling. Do that instead of going to school for game design.

Learn how to program. Learn how to create a prototype. Create practical prototypes of game ideas when its faster than programming something. Watch youtube videos like Mark Brown's gamemaker's toolkit. Do that instead of going to school for game design.

Then go to school for anything. Anything at all. I still suggest computer science. But if you're more art oriented you can attend a technical school for that. Even history is fine. Just don't go for game design. Have insanely good grades. You do not want a C average. Also go to a really good school.

After all this, you can have a very good chance of being hired for a game design position. But you'll find what most people who get a game design degree learn: if you want to be a game designer, you have to do it yourself. Being an indie is the way up. At which point you're going to want to learn about business and advertising.

You have to do it yourself. A game design degree won't get you there. It might help you with some of these tools, but it won't be extensive enough in any field. You're going to have to learn a lot of this on your own. I suggest going to learn the things that are hard for you to learn. And self study the rest.

Changing This Week in Pangoria Posts

Well, I tried it, but I think how I was tackling these posts was incorrect. Implementation of it would do better for me to come in daily, and save it as a draft until the end of the week. The last two weeks have been kind of crazy, with a lot of paperwork and responsibility required from me to get things done.

Aside from that, I have been working on a site for the sole purpose of being a single location to request work from me (link coming soon). I also put up my game for sale on windows (sale is a loose term in that you can pay what you want, including getting it for free).

I won't be doing a TWIP for the last two weeks, but I'll get started again this week, for next week's post.

Chrome Store Manifest

1. {
2. "app": {
3. "launch": {
4. "local_path": "TetrahedronTwister.html"
5. }
6. },
7. "icons": { "16": "logo16.png",
8. "128": "logo128.png" },
9. "manifest_version": 2,
10. "minimum_chrome_version": "23",
11. "name": "Name of Your App or Game Here",
12. "offline_enabled": true,
13. "permissions": [ "storage" ],
14. "version": "1.0.3"
15. }

 So here's an example of what the manifest will look like. You'll save it as manifest.json and its just a simple text file.  So what do we have going here?

Declare what to open:

1  {
2     "app": {
3        "launch": {
4           "local_path": "NameOfYourWebUsually____index.html"
5        }
6     },

or if you want one of those "desktop" looking apps:

1  {
2     "app": {
3        "background": {
4           "scripts": "main.js"
5        }
6     },

main.js:

1. /**
2. * Listens for the app launching then creates the window
3. *
4. * @see http://developer.chrome.com/trunk/apps/app.runtime.html
5. * @see http://developer.chrome.com/trunk/apps/app.window.html
6. */
7. chrome.app.runtime.onLaunched.addListener(function() {
8. // Center window on screen.
9. var screenWidth = screen.availWidth;
10. var screenHeight = screen.availHeight;
11. var width = 1280; //Size of your game's screen resolution's width, add space for ads
12. var height = 720; //Size of your game's screen resolution's height, add space for ads
13. chrome.app.window.create('NameOfYourWebUsually____index.html', {
14. bounds: {
15. width: width,
16. height: height,
17. left: Math.round((screenWidth-width)/2),
18. top: Math.round((screenHeight-height)/2)
19. }
20. });
21. });

Next is the icons. This is simply letting it know the name of the png files you are using. Make two of them. One will be 16x16 and the other will be 128x128. Keep manifest version and chrome version as is unless you need a newer version of chrome. Manifest needs to be 2 to use the main.js example. Name is as self explanatory as possible.

Offline enabled doesn't need to be there if you are pointing to a page on your server, but if you are submitting the whole thing to the app store to be stored on their servers, then you do this so that the game will download to their computer and they won't have to connect online to play the game unless it does connection tests etc.

Permissions has a long list on their website, but I used "storage" for the ability to save in the future.

Finally version is your current version and should be updated each and every time.

What I learned about releasing my first game for FREE

I released my first officially done game (not counting school work and games I made for friends) to the Chrome Web Store on January 27th. The game was meant to be a variant on a Rubik's Cube style puzzle game that I played on the Atari as a child, called Atari Cube. I used that game as quick inspiration when I created the game in Perlenspiel for class over a year ago.

I liked the game so much, and I felt the scope of it was small enough, that I decided to tackle it as my first game. This turned out to be an good choice, and I made rapid progress in getting the game set up. I hit a snag for about 6 months though, when I couldn't figure out how to get a system to work and between my job and real life, I was unable to focus enough to really give it a try.

So I thought of solutions, and eventually I did some flow charts in pen and paper while on the bus between work and home. These flow charts eventually led me to writing out pseudo-code for the system. After working on it, I finally had it figured out, and in one week, I had it implemented and was running full bore into finishing the rest of the game.

Two weeks after solving the system, I had almost everything ready, and I felt confident enough to set myself with a release date for the game. Before deciding that though, I did a "link only" upload of the game on Chrome as a test. I figured even if it was "released" 2 weeks earlier, I'd just not advertise it, and finish the other bits of it before I started doing so. With all this in mind, the journey led to some insights that I didn't have before releasing the game on Chrome.

The Bad

1) Not everyone has Chrome installed

Friends and Coworkers who did not already use Chrome would promise to install and end up not following through. Too many steps to getting to the game can severely limit your prospects. Though some did, overall I'd say most did not even bother.

2) There's extra work involved to get the game on Chrome that has nothing to do with the game

This means setting up 3 different sized banners, two different sized icons and creating a manifest. You are also encouraged to do a link to a youtube video as well as screenshots. This wasn't the worst possible thing, but I wasn't ready for it, and you kinda need some of it to get your stuff set up.

Banners (or "Tiles") are 440x280, 920x680 and 1400x560. Icons are 64x64 and 128x128. Screenshots are 1280x800! All these weird and different sizes! At least I know to think about what the main eye draw for the game should be.

3) Selling the game requires an external service

I haven't set this up yet, but I'm going to have to figure it out for my first game that I put up for sale. For now, because of how unclear the Chrome store was about setting things up, I skipped this to give myself more time for research.

4) Protecting yourself with an LLC can get expensive (especially if you hire out for extra services)

Went to Legal Zoom and I will tell you, that if you are like me, and want to reduce the amount of effort you have to put into the legal/business side of things, then the cost goes up from $99 to over $400 with some yearly recurring costs further down the line! Either that or do it yourself and risk messing something up or pay for it.

5) Tutorials are hard

Getting the game to set up a separate tutorial ended up with me rewriting a ton of code. Not only that, but guiding without handholding is very difficult to pull off elegantly. 

The Good

1) Pushing new updates is easy

Actually, Chrome will autoupdate everyone's download, but it does take some time for it to distribute. Take that with a grain of salt, upload a day early and announce two days later for safety (So update Saturday to announce for Monday, though people should notice by Sunday depending when you updated on Saturday)

2) Chrome has a way of making the game look like a "native app"

Though I was unable to set this up on this pass (it requires pointing to a .js file to begin with and pointing to an html file at first will negate your ability to do this.

3) HTML5 can easily have ads added to it (though I haven't done that yet)

If you don't take the native app road, you end up with the game inside a webpage. You can left it left aligned, and depending on the size of the game, you can easily set up some ads around the game by going into the html file and adding in the correct codes.

4) Though exit doesn't work,  you can link to your websites

I replaced the exit button on my game with a link to my twitter. You can link to your shopify webpage, or any other things you want.

5) I can finish a game

This is by far the most important thing I learned. All these things has convinced me to move on to my second game, and doing certain release things "right" (the way I want them done). Thankfully I won't have to pay another $5 for Chrome, and I'll be ready to upload the manifest correctly the first time to get the results I want.

I'll be posting more info on the manifest on the next post, coming soon.

Tetrahedron Twister - Coming soon to Google Chrome Store!

So this is a pre-launch announcement of the game I've been developing since graduating Full Sail University in June 2013. Now you might have heard some things about this game before. So that I can reach the broadest audience on a first pass, it will be getting released on the Google Chrome store.

Some things that I'm trying to resolve as I finish ironing out the last bit of the game settings based on Beta feedback: How to sell the game, how to best implement a color-blind mode, how to best implement some sort of leaderboard.

So if anyone has experience with Game Maker, or selling things in the Chrome App store, please let me know. Game is slated to come out Monday January 27th, 2014.

What defines a role-playing game?

Role-playing: To assume or act out a particular role. To assume or represent in a drama; act out.

Assume: Suppose to be the case, without proof.

Game: For me, a game is about organization of play, with a definitive end. Where play is an abstraction of life.

When looking up the definition of role-playing, I saw that they used the word assume quite a bit, and decided to include that definition as well. This makes the definition of role-playing much clearer, as it means that you are taking a role and making assumptions about it: The role of a boss, of a teacher, or of a level 12 paladin.

"As a boss, I suppose I would sit like this, and I would talk like this. I suppose I would go and check on the employees about X, Y and Z."

"As a teacher, I would get the students attention. I'll wait until they are quiet then I'll start the lecture on multiplication."

"Okay, my 12th level Paladin is going to Turn Undead this turn."

So a role-playing game is the organization of playing a role, where there is an end goal to be reached (storyline, dungeon, etc). That role is formalized in the rules of the game.

Perhaps this view is too broad, because now, many adventure games, and action adventure games can fall into this category.

Tony Hawk Pro Skater is a role-playing game. You role-play a skater at a competition with a time limit. What lines will the skater choose? What tricks will they do? You suppose that a kick-flip would be what they would choose to do here? Then that's what they do.

There is no assumption of turn based, fantasy, equipment, stats or experience. But Tony Hawk Pro Skater doesn't "feel" like a role-playing game.

The Last of Us is also a role-playing game. Most games with a story are role-playing games. You take on the role of the hero (whether specifically, such as Mario from Mario Bros, or generically, as in World of Warcraft, where your created character is now the hero).

Now this definition is pretty broad, which is why we add modifiers to it, Action RPG, MMORPG, Turn-Based RPG, Tabletop RPG.

But, if all these games are RPGs and so many games we have played fall into the category of this definition of RPG, then what does RPG elements mean in a video game? Why do we refer to Experience gain and levels and stats as RPG elements?

This has to do with the origin of the Role-playing genre. Dungeons and Dragons was the first game to be known as a role-playing game. It sprouted from the war game Chainmail, and it changed the focus from controlling armies to controlling individual characters. The rules involved in Dungeons and Dragons, the very mechanics of the game, is what lead to the concept of RPGs having stats and character growth.

So does this mean that we need to change our definition of Role-playing games to specifically include these game mechanics? If we do, then some tabletop RPGs may very well cease being RPGs and will revert to just being games in which you role-play.

Instead I think we need to better define what it means to role-play as far as games and video games go. I don't have an answer for this, since really, this should be a public conscience kind of thing.

For example, if we say that video games with role-playing are games where a player makes in character non-mechanics decisions, then many story focused adventure games should be considered RPGs (Telltale's The Walking Dead for example), where games where the only decisions are game mechanics based (Naughty Dog's Last of Us). Yet, Walking Dead is an adventure game with some action in it, and Last of Us is an action adventure game with some RPG elements in it (pills allow you to power up, essentially counting as a form of experience gain), or elements that modify game play by increased character ability and not necessarily player ability (health gain, less weapon sway).

So, with RPG elements being mechanics that originate from RPG games (leveling system for example), but having those mechanics not be the definition of an RPG, means that aside from the confusion, we can simply agree to this, continue to use it as we currently do, and not worry too much more about it.

It's good to talk about these things, as heuristics are important to simplifying conversations and allowing us to reach a goal of understanding each other faster.

If you agree or disagree, please respond below.

Tetrahedron Twister - Now in Browser!

This is the prototype I linked earlier. Finally figured out how to put it in here.

Current Project - Tetrahedron Twister

So I put up a link to my prototype a while back, Tetrahedron Twister. Well, proof of concept is more like it. Thing is, that it was pretty broken. Couldn't play more than one game without freaking out and what not.

Thing is, I wrote it in javascript using the perlenspiel framework. What I'm working on from here is to take that, and move it to Game Maker. The move is a bit harder, because I'm having to learn how Game Maker works while doing work, school work and other projects. So the going is a bit slow, but I'm making progress.

The key here is that I couldn't take the code, or even some of the concepts, because they work slightly differently. Those are the things that are slowing me down a bit.  Not to mention I'm trying to brainstorm ways to improve on the coding.

The other thing I need to get info on is what will I do to sell it. Do I need to form an LLC? What does that take? The business aspect of it, feels daunting to be tackling alone.

Once I get the game to alpha, I'll look into doing more things with it. I'll keep things up to date here.

Tetrahedron Twister

Well, here's an upload of a game I made for last month's class.

Its buggy, but I'm really proud of it. I'm using it as a prototype of what I can do, perhaps in game maker.

goo.gl/MXiCu

The concept (since the tutorial was slapdashed together) is for the player to make each side of a tetrahedron have the same color, by picking up one color tile at a time.

Please post any reviews or comments below. Thank you.

Weaving

I created a toy project for school. I wanted to share it, as a way of having it up online. Its a perlenspiel project.

Perlenspiel is a java coded environment, that allows for the manipulation of "beads" or little squares on the screen. The designer can control the size of the grid, the border thickness of the beads, the color of the beads, glyphs that show up on the beads, etc etc.

This folder share I'm doing includes the perlenspiel code as well as my own code. I'm very proud of this. Now unfortunately, none of my online "sites" allow for ftp set ups like my old Geocities website did. This means that I'd have to create a wordpress blog to really have this "posted". Considering that I'd also like to share my other work (including my flash inventory example), I may have to switch to word press, or create a wordpress blog specifically for my projects. I'll update as it happens.

If anyone has experience with word press please let me know.

Anyways, the toy is a "weaving" toy. You set up a pattern, click weave and it goes up one. I coded it so that I could change the number of rows and columns to fit my mood.

This week I'm working on a puzzle game for the class, also in perlenspiel. I'll share it when I'm done and its been turned in.

Note to other Full Sail students, code is checked, and it is possible for teachers to find out if you copy pasted code. There are things for that. Most of them much more advanced than this online one.

MMO concept: Mechanized World

I've been thinking of what kind of setting and player customizations I would want in an MMO.  I feel that when thinking of a game, the story should come first, and then you can build the mechanics around the story. Even if all you have of the story is a single phrase.

"Mechanized world, where three factions have splintered to control the world."

The idea is that you would create the society first and split it from there. I'd split it as Renegades, Enforcement and Scientists.

Players choose a faction, which determines parts and style available to make their avatar. The avatar would be a modifiable robot. The game would not have any leveling up. Everyone would begin with standard gear. New gear that is found would have positives and negatives balancing each other out, i.e.: this laser is more powerful, but causes you to overheat.

As you customize your avatar and decide on his weapons, armor etc., you would also have macros designed to cause special effects with your weapons. These programs would be part of the gameplay (concept is still being worked on, I might reveal more later).

The question becomes, what are you willing to sacrifice to function a certain way? I'm not sure how big this game would get, but I can see flaws already in here.

But, are the things that I see just things that really don't work, or are they things that are so different from the current MMO or RPG models, that I don't know how to work with them?

Other things come to mind, such as showing that someone is improving (I mean, with equal negatives, it is assumed that you are just as functional as a neutral person), or giving a sense of progression (with a game designed for everyone to be able to play right from the start, how do you show progress?).

These are answers for a different time, for now, lets think of what combat systems would give us the most options of giving negatives to the player so that we can give them more benefits. I immediately thought of a skill based combat system, where you could allow for targeted attacks be giving up some power, or give your attacks more aggro by increasing the base damage.  By having your attacks require scaling for damage, you would negate the aggro, but require more stat manipulation to get the attack's damage up. There is a great deal that can be done here, and not much more unless we design some stats to track.

Finally, we can attach an element system to this (perhaps a modified Chaos system). All these interesting game decisions came from a story idea, and I think it makes for the most interesting design decisions. Have I mentioned crafting yet? No, but you could easily see how getting parts from defeated machines would work out (especially when using Chaos as the element system). So there you go. The beginnings of a game.

Revised Scene Flow

Taking from previous attempts to use storytelling analysis in the context of a game, I think most people have begun to realize that due to the dynamic state of a game, the analysis must not only be viewed on different levels, but in a different way completely.

We still have two basic breakdowns, which can be viewed as Design (Goal, Conflict, End State) and Play (Reaction, Analysis, Decision). These can be further broken down in that Goals generated by Decisions, and that Conflict and End States affect Reaction and Analysis. Finally, Reaction and Analysis affect the Decision, and Goals affect the Conflict and End State (prevention of the goal).

These can still be viewed on several levels, from Macro gameplay levels all the way down to moment-to-moment gameplay and even into the Metagame and Design levels (if a game is a living beta such as an MMO or any e-sports level pvp game). Decisions on one level can affect others as well.

Design is usually the domain of the game Designer. They set up the goal for the game and the level. The create the conflict and the End States. As a gamer gains control of this part of the game, they enter a more sandbox experience.

Play on the other hand, is usually in the domain of the Gamer. In this case it is mostly in their mind. As design encroaches on these aspects of gameplay the game becomes more linear. The player loses their autonomy, and can at times remove the game aspect of a game.

I believe that this is the better way of handling this analysis in a game. I'll take a few posts practicing it, and I encourage others to try as well (please link back to this post if you do so). If anyone has any suggestions about this, please leave a comment, or send an e-mail. Thank you.

Q&A of Scene Flow Analysis

I received a question on this, so I'd like to address them here in this post. Lets just get to it shall we (questions remain anonymous)?

1. Does Scene Analysis allow an interpretation of a player's action determining how much his future actions become guided?

Yes. At the decision point, a new goal is usually set. In a game where exploration is sandbox (take Batman: Arkham City for example), choices that alter the landscape can suddenly limit exploration possibilities (or expand it more). It really does depend on the game, and it depends on how decisions alter the Goal. Many games allow for resetting of such situations where a player limits their possible decisions to not allowing progress (at which point the decision to reset opens up more possible choices which they will consider during the Dilemma section).

Though the Action (Goal, Conflict, Disaster) and Reaction (Reflection, Dilemma, Decision) can be processed separately in games, they still form a six step loop that is shared by the system and the gamer. The fact is, that Scene Analysis works on several levels at once in game analysis. There is a level Goal, an area Goal, and even a moment to moment Goal. Decisions at the area level can affect the moment to moment Goals (flooding a room which then allows you to swim up to a ledge for example).

I think I should rework the wording to better fit into game analysis. Anyone have any suggestions?

Using Scene Flow in Video Games

A good, well flowing story scene usually contains six steps (you can break this mold, just like everything else, but since we are using these six steps, bare with me): Goal, Conflict, Disaster, Reaction, Dilemma, Decision. The point of these is to clearly point the protagonist at something, watch them fail, then watch them do something about that failure.

In a well written story, that doing something amounts to a new goal in which they no go towards. Even if the disaster does not full impede them, it still prevents them from reaching the goal. An example of conflict that is resolved but does not lead to the goal, is Mario stomping on a goomba. Though it resolved the conflict of what was happening then, it does not exactly get him to the end of the level. The game doesn't end at that resolution.

In a story, you would see the hero stop the bad guy from killing someone, but the bad guy would get away. So lets go into each step as it relates to passive story telling mediums.

1. Goal - The protagonist, or POV character in the scene (if you are doing a scene with the bad guy POV), wants something. This is what they are trying to accomplish in the scene
2. Conflict - This is something that is preventing the goal from occurring. The POV character is being stopped by this conflict, either self, person or environment, etc.
3. Disaster - This is the point where the character fails the goal. This should continue until they get to the end, at which point disaster is flipped. This does not equate to character death, but it should cause the current goal to no longer be viable.
4. Reaction - This is where the story flips from being about external factors and focuses in on the POV character. What does the Disaster mean to them and their Goal?
5. Dilemma - With the Goal no inaccessible, what are the choices presented to the POV character.
6. Decision - This is where the POV character decides on a choice presented in the Dilemma. They should choose the least bad choice of what to do next (in a comedy they would choose the worst choice).

Now, I'll go through these and break them down in parts and moments of a game. Lets try Mario 64. Don't forget, it may not have every aspect of this, and some of it (especially, the last 3, tend to be internalized with the player).

1. Goal - At the start of a level, Mario is presented with the goal, get to the star.
2. Conflict - The environment and enemies are stopping Mario from getting to his goal. This is not a disaster yet, because the goal is still within reach.
3. Disaster - This does not exist in the case of a Mario 64 level. It does occur though on the level of the player attempting to get through a portion of the level.
4. Reaction - This is the player's feelings at failing to get through a challenge.
5. Dilemma - These are the options that the player has after failing to reach the goal (in cases are catastrophic disasters, this may be restart from a previous save).
6. Decision - Again this is usually put on the player, they decide to keep playing, try their new tactic, or quit.

A good game level, will allow for these six steps to repeat enough times before the character has failed enough to make the goal something to cheer about, but not so many times, that the goal ceases to be viable.

Breaking the steps in half, reveals that the first three steps tend to be external, while the final three steps tend to be internal. This is true in both scenes and in gameplay. Switching back and forth between these moments is what allows the consumer (movie goer, reader, gamer) to keep interested in the product.

Applying this into an MMO scene, we can see where people have issues with quests and missions in MMOs. A scene in this case will be the quest. The issue with quests is that the Disaster has occurred already. The actual event that is happening for the player is that someone else has reacted to the disaster, experienced a dilemma, and found that asking the player for help is the best decision.

All of the internal player stuff is being done by the NPC. The decision of what to do about something is out of the player's hand. They are not making a decision about how to solve the disaster, instead, they are living out an NPC's decision. The only control the player has is rejecting the decision, which means that no quest, therefore no scene occurs.

To change this, The Old Republic tried making the player part of the decision making process. This works sometimes (Commando quest where the guy asks to kill the pirate instead of rescuing him). At these moments, the game succeeds in fixing bad questing.

Yet this step is not without constant and ever present failures. Quite often the game's dialogue options lead to no changes at all in what is going to happen as far as the decision goes. The issue continues to be that the more choices that are presented to the player as valid for progressing their story (not the game's story, but the player character's story of adventuring), the more time and energy and resources that get lost, and eventually the smaller the game will feel (though each play through would allow for countless choices, how far you could follow them would continue to diminish due to how expansive the choices would have to be).

So how can games allow for players to make the decision on how to deal with a disaster? One way would be more ambiguous quest directions. That means, that instead of killing 8 boars, the quest should be to thin their numbers in the forest. Then provide different ways for the player to interact with the boars.

They could kill them, trap them and sell them to a farmer or lead them away. The key is to allow the player to experience those internal steps: Reaction, Dilemma and Decision.

Scene info taken from Randy Ingermanson's website.