DarrellHardy.com

This Eight is Super, These Games are Hungry

As a rule, I don’t do reviews on this blog. I figure that since negative reviews are a lot more entertaining to read and write, I’d probably just end up churning out churlish snark, which (a) isn’t really fair to the media creators, and (b) gets a little old for the readers. So really, I’m not being lazy by avoiding reviews. I’m doing everyone a favor. You’re all welcome!

I do, however, provide recommendations. If I play, read, see, or hear something cool, I’ll pass it along. (So my Shark post was actually a recommendation to go read some good REH Conan, not a review of the book. Honest.)

This week, I’d like to recommend the movie Super 8. It sets out to capture of the feel of a 1980s Spielberg movie, and does so beautifully. The kids are great protagonists on par with those from The Goonies, E.T., or Stand By Me. The alien gives the movie the same sense of creepy wonder you get from Poltergeist or Close Encounters. And the dialog was authentic, funny, and very well performed.

I would also like to recommend Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I’ve been hearing about this book (and its two sequels) for a while now, but finally got a chance to read it, via audiobook CD, while driving around the country with my wife. If you haven’t heard of it, the gist of the book is this: in the crappy future, kids are forced to fight to the death for the entertainment of their evil overlords. Our hero is one of those kids.

The book is smart. The author does a great job of seamlessly integrating just enough exposition to keep you going, while holding back enough to keep you curious. She also makes her characters smart. More than once, when the book provided a problem and my wife or I thought of a clever, not-so-obvious solution (like gamers often do), within a page, the characters had thought of it too. Like I said, smart.

How about you? See any good movies lately? Read any good books?

RIP Buddy, the Minecraft Dog

I like dogs. Not enough to own one (when they breed one that uses a litterbox, I’ll consider it), but I love the idea of the faithful, shaggy-haired companion who greets me with a joyful bark, plays with the kids in the backyard, and protects the house by shooting bees out of its mouth.

So I was pleased to hear when Notch added dogs to Minecraft. Okay, not dogs exactly. They’re wolves, but if you feed one of them bones (which you get from killing skeletons, of course), there’s a chance it becomes domesticated. Hearts appear above its head, and a red collar appears around its neck.

It’s a wolf with a collar. That barks when it sees you. That, my friends, is a dog.

I was tickled when I domesticated my first wolf. He followed me around, and I fed him pork. He kept me company while I worked on my bridge over the river project – though that might have been because he couldn’t navigate the stairs to get down. I began to regard the creature as “he” and definitely a dog. I didn’t name him, but whenever I talked to him (don’t judge me!), I referred to him as “buddy.” So I guess that was his name.

The bridge was finally done. I strode down the far side onto the newly-claimed island, Buddy at my side, and despaired at how thickly forested it was. A skeleton or zombie could spend all day in the shade of all those trees, and a creeper could be lurking around any one of the dozens of trunks. I pulled out my axe with a sigh and got to work, but the sun was setting and I really just wanted to be finished.

And then I remembered the flint and steel in my inventory. Why chop down a forest when you can burn it down?

Foosh! The first tree went up. Foosh! Foosh! Two more. I smiled at the thought of watching the forest burn through the night: me and my dog, safe on the bridge, the virtual heat from the flames on our faces as the fire licks up at the sky.

“Come on, Buddy,” I said to the computer screen as I looked around for my red-collared companion.

I didn’t see him, but did hear his yelp of pain.

Was he… No… He’s not…

But he was. On fire. Standing under the burning trees, his fur in flames, yelping and whining as his hit points burned away.

I considered trying to put the fire out. But hitting him (which is how you put fires out) would only hurt him further. Could I shove him into the water? Maybe. But there were trees between here and the river, burning trees, and –

Buddy gave one last yelp, then vanished in a puff of smoke.

“Stupid dog,” I muttered.

I put up a sign at the foot of the bridge, dedicating it as a memorial to a dog too stupid to not go into the fire.

I think I’m done domesticating Minecraft wolves for now. It’s a great mechanic, but I just can’t take the drama.

Feedback and Fun

Over the long Memorial Day weekend, I was blessed with an opportunity to hang out with relatives I don’t often see, visit a bunch of touristy hot spots with them, and relax in a sizable hotel pool.

In preparation for said pool time, we picked up a $3 “jumbo beach ball” from the K-Mart across the street. I didn’t realize just how “jumbo” it truly was until my brother-in-law huffed and puffed himself into a light-headed stupor inflating the thing. The ball was large enough to comfortably fit three kindergartners inside it (though I don’t know how you’d get them through the air hole), and was by far the biggest toy in the hotel pool.

When you’ve got a toy that big, you can’t just keep it for yourself. If it takes up as much space in the pool as any three swimmers, you’ve got to share it with the rest of the pool people. And so we turned half the pool into an impromptu game of “hit the ball towards someone,” and everyone who played enjoyed it.

Was it a proper game, with victory conditions and everything? No, of course not. But was it fun? Yes, yes it was.

As a game designer, I often obsess over fun. A game can be clever, interesting, or even challenging without actually being fun.

Leaving the pool, I wondered what it was about hitting the ball around with a bunch of strangers that made it so much fun. I realized it was the surprising feedback.

Feedback is Tasty!

I’d hit the ball towards some watery tourist. Would he hit it back? If so, would he smack it up in the air like a volleyball? Or skim it across the water at my nephew? No, it didn’t matter for the sake of winning the game, but how I would react was based on how this stranger would react. But I was doing something, and waiting for the feedback without knowing exactly what it would be. And that moment of feedback — when the stranger grabbed the ball and tossed it playfully to the deep end — that was fun.

This reminded me of some (okay, most) Facebook games I’ve played in which I note the simple joy with which I click some object. Click! Boom! A shower of coins! An explosion! Angels sing! And sometimes, a rare object appears that helps me complete a collection.

It’s a simple sound and light show, yes. I get that. And yet… God help me, it’s fun to click the thing. There’s feedback, and occasionally a surprise. It’s like popping bubble wrap in my browser.

In tabletop games, you can get the same simple joy just from drawing a card. There’s a pleasant tactile feedback from the action, and hey — surprise! — you’ve got some new card to affect your strategies.

Moments of feedback and surprise are moments of fun.

So if you want your game to be fun, it should be stuffed full of these moments, right? Not necessarily.

Until it Turns Bland

These kinds of cheap thrills suffer from diminishing returns. The more you have, the less fun they are. They wear out; you get bored.

Tossing the beach ball around was fun for maybe an hour. I wouldn’t want to do it all day. Playing “click the thing” on Facebook is okay for the three minutes it takes to use up all my energy, but I wouldn’t buy the game for Xbox. And drawing cards is great, but actually playing them is better.

Moments of fun are important, but you can’t build a game out of them. They simply don’t engage the player at a deep enough level. They work best in small doses, such as when introducing a new player to the game, or when rewarding a experienced player for deeper engagement (“Thanks for taking your turn. Here, have a card from the Action Deck. It smells like chocolate.”).

Find the moments of feedback and fun in your game. Capitalize on them. But make sure there’s more to the game than just those moments, or risk boring your players with empty bubble wrap.

The Victorious Condition of your Victory Conditions

Pop quiz, hot shot! What do you call a tabletop game without victory conditions? (Wait for all the smart alecs in the back of the room to shout, “A LARP!” and “my marriage!”) Those are all very entertaining answers, but the one I’m looking for is… a toy.

Toys are great. But without rules for victory, they aren’t games. They’re just… well, toys. And a finely-crafted victory condition can separate a good game from a great one.

Victory conditions must be clear.

Gain 20 victory points. Destroy your opponent’s 20 health. Empty your hand of cards. Be the first to get all your monkeys out of the flaming wreckage.

Some games require multiple victory conditions. Most don’t. If testing shows that you need to add a rule saying “You lose if you run out of cards” or “You win if your monkeys are the only ones unburned,” that’s fine — but start simple. The same thing goes for overly complicated victory conditions (“You win by have the most coconuts at the end of turn 7, or the largest ape at the beginning of the round, or by catching the Gold Snitch”). Only make it complicated if you have to — and even then, see if there’s something else you can simplify instead.

A path to victory must be obvious.

When I choose the Plumber at the beginning of the round, I get a victory point — and need 20 to win. If I attack with my creature and you can’t block, I inflict its damage — and need to inflict 20 to win. When I roll a die, that’s how many spaces I can move my monkey towards safety.

The trick is to make the path obvious, but easy for players to barricade. I can choose the Carpenter, who kills the Plumber. I can play a creature to block your attacker. I can move my monkey so you have no choice but to move yours into the oil slick back into the flames. A game should look simple to win, but not actually be that simple.

There must be multiple paths to victory.

This is different than having multiple victory conditions. I might have a dozen ways of getting victory points, but the single victory condition remains: get 20 to win. This also goes hand-in-hand with the obvious path to victory; the obvious path is usually not the most efficient one, but it’s the easiest to recognize and understand. It gets you into the game. Once you’re playing, you’ll see the other paths and understand how they might be better — but by that point, you’re actually playing the game, and haven’t been scared off by arcane rules of victory

And so on…

I didn’t think I had so much to say on the tiny little subject of victory conditions. Who knew? But have I said it all? Surely not! Jump into the comments and let me know your favorite victory conditions, or the ones that you hate, or any tips you have for their creation. And remember:

Don’t let your monkey go up in flames!

Leaves and Grass and Chainsaw Gas

Saturday morning, a terrible storm swept through my front yard, ripping limbs from trees and leaving the ground carpeted with twigs and leaves. Meteorologists didn’t notice the storm, but I named it myself: Darrell with a Chainsaw.

Like most of my home improvement projects, it started as something small and simple, but quickly snowballed into an all-day marathon of sweat and frustration. This one start with the lawn care guy I hired to aerate the place mentioning the true reason our front lawn looks like a mass grave for the Mud People.

“It’s these trees,” he said. “They’re not letting enough sun in.”

You mean the burning orb that reduces all grass to a withered yellow zombie husk?

“Yeah. Grass needs four hours a day of it.”

I paid the man and realized, as he strode off onto the horizon like a cowboy whose work here is done, that I’d prefer zombie grass to no grass at all. To the branch cutters! But when those weren’t cutting it any more (ha HA!) I knew I needed the big guns.

We’ve been blessed with neighbors who are well-stocked in manly power tools. They’ve been blessed with a neighbor who will borrow those tools, and therefore help justify the expense of purchasing them in the first place. (“See, honey? That’s the third time Darrell’s borrowed my electric nail-puller. Totally worth the $200 I paid for it.”)

I popped next door to borrow a cup of chainsaw. It was electric, but still gave off a satisfying roar that made me want to say, “Groovy,” in my best Ash voice.

I’m not sure how long I spent hacking at the trees in my yard. Once the chainsaw flow got going, hours passed like minutes, and tree bark fell like rain. It was glorious.

…and then the blade was too dull to use any more, the flow was broken, and I realized all the clean-up work ahead of me. Weariness settled in. Weariness and anger.

“Curse you, lawn guy!” I yelled, shaking the chainsaw to the sky. “Curse you and your zombie grass!”

Virulent Stories

I’ve been thinking again about player stories in video games. No, not the soaring epics crafted by the masters at Bioware and Valve, but the funky little stories that players tell about their own, specific experiences while playing games. As I’ve said before, these stories have value; these stories help sell games — but only if enough people learn the stories. And the key to that is (as much as I hate to use the word) virality.

Minecraft got a huge surge of popularity right out of the gate from YouTube videos. Ditto for Just Cause 2. StarCraft 2 has filled vast swathes of YouTube (and Korean TV stations) with game replays.

Anything on YouTube can easily go viral. How easy is it for players of your game to get their stories online there?

Free Realms was the first MMO I know of that made it a matter of one or two clicks to record your play session and post it on YouTube. Why don’t all the MMOs do this? If I have a good story, I want to easily share it with my friends. And if they can easily share it with their friends… well, the odds of someone new coming to check out your game go up quite a bit.

I’ve seen some attempts at using social media like this, but they are crude, pitiful things. When I see a Facebook post saying “Joe Samplename just got the Eat All the Kittens Achievement in KittenNomNom 3!” I’m less curious about Joe’s game than I am amused thinking that Joe called in sick and just got busted by PSN. The same goes for cheesy tweets proclaiming your levels or achievements to the world.

These aren’t player stories. This is just spam.

What I’d like to see is something like in The Sims. In that game, the system automatically takes screenshots during dramatic moments (births, deaths, weddings, more deaths, the other deaths, okay this isn’t funny anymore where’s the pool ladder? deaths) and lets you label them like pics in a photo album. (“Photo Albums,” children, are how the Old Ones used to store images. It’s like Flickr, but in a hard-bound book.)

Again, not all video games are about player stories, and that’s fine. But for those that are, I’d encourage the developers to consider how the players will record and pass along those stories. Stories sell games. The best stories go viral, and can sell lots of games. Let’s make it easier for that to happen.

The Shark

As part of my proud geek heritage, I’m a fan of Conan (the barbarian, not the late-night talk show dude. He’s cool too, but I can’t claim him as part of my sub-culture. Sorry). I’m not a obsessive fan, but I’ve read a number of Robert E. Howard’s Conan tales, and appreciate (and have been inspired by) the pure pulpy goodness found therein. I’ve also read enough to know that the true fans despise the post-Howard Conan tales penned by Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp.

So I felt a twinge of apprehension — and yes, even guilt — when I picked up an old but serviceable paperback copy of Conan of the Isles written by these two. But it was 50 cents and I was in the mood for some sword and sorcery. How bad could it be?

Picture this:

Conan the barbarian, wearing a glass diving helmet and oxygen tank, walking across the ocean floor, fighting a giant octopus… when suddenly, a giant shark appears and saves him by attacking the eight-legged freak!

What next? Dinosaurs? Robots? Well, I’ve not finished the book yet (And I will finish it, no matter how silly it gets. It’s my curse.) so maybe I’ll discover that it ends in a battle between a T. Rex and Voltron, but after Underwater Fight Club, I won’t be surprised by much.

I love me some pulp fantasy. But after this, when it comes to Conan, I’m sticking to Howard.

Embracing Limitations

As a game designer, I’m afraid of the blank page. The white expanse glares at me, daring me to soil it with my half-baked ideas. I can feel it silently judging me, like Mr. Wilby from third grade, glaring at me over his glasses, his lips pursed, his head slowly shaking. When you’re free to create anything, it’s hard to know where to start.

Luckily, no page is truly blank. There are always limitations. Even if you don’t see them — even if they’re self-imposed — there are walls surrounding your game design. Every defining feature about the game adds one of these walls. Know the walls. Love them. Become like ivy, and use them as a framework and foundation.

It’s true that most designers rarely have to face the horror of the blank page. We’re usually handed a rough idea, complete with plenty of limitations thank you very much, and a hard deadline circled on the calendar with fire.

But if you’re working on an independent game pitch, or trying to develop something based on a property rather than a platform, you might find yourself gazing across the ivory expanse and feel like you’re adrift on a sea of possibilities. If that’s the case, let me throw you a life vest made of bullet points.

Is your game a book? Then you’re restricted to what books are, and must consider page count, format, art quantity, ancillary game bits (dice, beads, etc.).
Board Game? You’ve got a much larger box to think inside (pun intended) with cards and tokens and boards, but here, your biggest constraint is price point. Even without knowing the actual costs of manufacturing, you can look at games in your price range to figure out how many components you can stuff into the game. Then consider how many cards you have in the deck, how many square inches of card, and how big your board must be.
Video games appear to have an infinite box. It could be anything from Bejeweled to World of Warcraft — which is why it’s so important to identify and embrace your limitations. Who is your player? Is he buying your game in a box? Downloading it? Playing it in a browser? What’s his skill level, and how long is each play session? Is he actually a she? (Video games also have tons of technical limitations which you’ll need to consider, but by first narrowing the scope through design, you know whether to fret about framerates, server bandwidth, or a mad genius AI.)

Of course, rules were made to be broken, walls to be broken, and limitations to be exceeded. Once you’ve defined the borders of your project, you can always design beyond them (assuming they weren’t put in place by management). But before you can officially break the rules, you need know what those rules are — even if you’re just making them up yourself.

Time Enough for Fun

I made the comment on Facebook that, for a guy without a job, I sure haven’t been playing much World of Warcraft.

That was three weeks ago. I still haven’t loaded the WoW client. I simply don’t have the time.

I’m not complaining. Far from it. I consider myself blessed to have enough colleagues, contacts, and creativity to keep me too busy with paying work to have any time left over for grinding my way through Azeroth. And yet…

On a certain professional level, I should be playing more games (video and otherwise). I’m seriously considering setting aside 30 minutes a day to simply play. But if playing games is just another bullet on my eternal to-do list, will it still be fun? Or does it become drudgery, such that while I’m playing through Portal 2, I’ll be thinking, “Man, I wish I was outside pulling weeds.”

Guess we’ll find out. I’ll let you know.

At War with the Birds

I made an amazing discovery last week. When a bird wants to destroy a structure, it does not, in fact, launch itself with a giant slingshot. Instead, it attaches itself to the wall and unleashes a torrent of beak-based pounding (BAMBAMBAMBAM!) until it bores a hole clear through it. Then it laughs, a sadistic twinkle in its beady little eye.

As I mentioned on Twitter, our house is under attack from a woodpecker. In the half-day it took to realize that the hammering noise was not the construction from next door, but in fact Satan’s own feathery minion, the beast had drilled a hole 3 inches in diameter through the wooden siding. It was a declaration of war.

According the ever-reliable Internet, this specific vandal was a Northern Flicker, a type of bird that doesn’t like loud noises or reflective surfaces. So my temporary plan was to hang a shiny, plate-like wind chime over the hole.

The next morning, he knocked it down and went back to work.

Next, we filled the hole (and the space behind it) with foam gap-filler. It was only stage 1 of Operation: Plug It Up, but I still gave a groan of anger and frustration when Woody reappeared and started banging on the foam. Stage 2 of that operation was filling the remainder of the hole with a vinyl-based concrete-patcher. Even the most persistent Flicker will think twice after banging his beak into a wall of concrete.

But if there’s a little space right next to the concrete… BAMBAMBAMBAM!

So now there’s a makeshift mobile hanging in the wind near the hole. It’s a shiny, noisy pie tin, twisting in the slightest breeze. The wall has been silent this morning, and I’m praying that we’ve won the war (for this year at least).

Because killing Flickers without a permit is illegal. And I don’t want to go to jail.