Drafting Pokemon #02: Move Tutor

Pokemon Origins

Last time, on Drafting Pokemon... I defined the scope of the project of creating a Pokemon drafting card game. After knowing that I'm going to include all of the first 151 pokemon as a part of this game, that has already easily defined the card pool for the most important card type: 151 pokemon cards. This leaves the second-most-important card type to figure out: pokemon moves. Let's TM28 in.

Thinking Many Moves Ahead

I already established that later-generation moves are O.K. to include in this game. Actually, it's necessary, since the first generation move pool sucked for creating balanced gameplay, with the case-in-point being Psychic pokemon's weakness of Bug and Ghost not having to fear any actually-good Bug or Ghost moves being used on them. 

So, because of this allowance of a move like Shadow Ball being included in this game, this opens the door to a whole bunch of moves to select from. But where do we begin? Let's start with some questions that first come to my mind.

• How many move cards should I include in the card pool?
• What is the minimum number of pokemon that should be able to learn a move in order for that move to be included in the card pool?
• How many move cards should a player be able to draft?
• Physical Attack/Defense and Special Attack/Defense or just Attack (with HP, of course)?
• What elements of pokemon battle gameplay are not being included?
• What moves will pretty much never be used?

Two Pidgeys, One Geodude

Some of the answers to these earlier questions as well as other ones can be found or at least honed in on when we bring up something that Josh Jelin, a peer, suggested to me: have pre-defined moves printed on the pokemon card. He used an example of having Pikachu have the stronger move which could be evolved to stack its move with Raichu, which has the weaker move but better stats. This simple solution is fantastic because this solves or at least helps multiple problems:

• How do we make unevolved pokemon matter?
• How do we include the signature moves of pokemon like Hitmonlee's Hi Jump Kick?
• What's the best way to minimize the number of choices to make when drafting moves?

How do we make unevolved pokemon matter?

I was thinking of at least one solution for how to make a Machop matter in a card pool that includes Blastoise and friends, especially when Machamp is one of those friends. But it wasn't an elegant solution which led me to think about whether or not I should even include unevolved pokemon - including Pikachu. Which means a Pokemon card game without Pikachu in it, which feels super weird but something that can be done if it was for the sake of a better game.

However, if Vulpix has Fire Blast printed on it while Ninetales has a lesser move printed on it, then that means Vulpix can still be a force to be reckoned with while Ninetales has to deal with having drafted other move cards to improve its more-impressive-than-Vulpix stats. OR, if you draft both Vulpix and Ninetales, then you're able to utilize Fire Blast on a Ninetales, and things just got amazing.

Also, now we don't have to worry about there being only Gengar to represent Ghosts and Dragonite to represent Dragons. You can also draft Gastlies, Haunters, Dratinis, and Dragonairs.

Pokemon anime

How do we include the signature moves of pokemon like Hitmonlee's Hi Jump Kick?

There are some pokemon moves that are iconic. But some of those moves are only found on a couple pokemon or even just one of them (otherwise known as a signature move). How do we include these famous moves without creating super-narrow cards that are duds most of the time they're drafted? Ah, printing the move on the card itself! With this, Hitmonchan can still enjoy its super-sweet Mach Punch.

Note: This Bulbapedia page of signature moves is pretty sweet and useful.

What's the best way to minimize the number of choices to make when drafting moves?

A Pokemon team is six pokemon. Each pokemon can know four moves. Together, that's twenty-four moves. That's a lot of moves to have drafted. And, like in Magic: The Gathering, some of the moves you draft you won't end up using due to any of several reasons - like being stuck with useless choices at the end of a draft round or choosing to draft some water moves when you find out at the end of the draft that you're not actually using any Water pokemon on your team and are only using one or two of those drafted water moves after all.

Printing moves on pokemon cards means they already come pre-loaded with moves that you don't need to worry about drafting. If each pokemon already knows one move already, then that at least lessens the number of moves needed across your team to 18, at most. If you have evolved pokemon, it's even less.

Eighteen move cards is much more manageable of the number of choices to narrow down on from your total number of drafted cards (though, still a lot, it feels like). This benefit is probably the most important one in terms of creating a game that's fun to play.

Show Me Your Moves

How many moves should I include in the card pool?

When I refer to the "card pool," I mean all of the possible cards that can show up in this drafting card game. For the pokemon card pool, this number is 151. Then, from there, for a single drafting session, maybe about a third will be pulled from this card pool (we'll settle on an actual number after finding out results from playtesting).

For moves, we don't have a set number. It's good that you can't count on every pokemon to show up in any one particular draft session. The same should apply to moves. But how many moves should we draw from?

Well, that depends on the X number of cards being drawn from this card pool of number Y that we are trying to figure out. And the X number of cards being drawn depends on the maximum number of moves your whole team needs, which seems to be 18 moves right now (one move per pokemon on your team, each of which wasn't evolved). And if there are always an N number of moves that are unused after drafting, then that would, together with 18 used moves, be a Z percentage of cards that get used from those X number of cards being drawn from the card pool of Y number of cards.

Whew. 

Whatever all those numbers turn out becoming, I want the X number drawn to not be 100 percent of card pool number Y, since that means you can always count on Ice Beam showing up in SOMEONE'S hands. I also don't want X to be 50 percent of Y, since that means your decision-making comes down to a coin flip when you're thinking, "Is it possible Thunderbolt was in in this draft?" Because I don't know what this magic number between 50 and 100 percent should be, I'll start off with 75%, then have playtesting results show me whether I should go higher or lower.

X = 0.75 * Y

Z = (18 * N * 4) * X, where N is the number of unused cards we need to figure out and '4' being the number of players

Figuring out N number of unused cards is tough. This depends on the next section's question.

We'll come back to this, but let's just throw a number out there for now to see what a calculation looks like: 50% unused cards.

Z = 18 used cards * 0.5

Z = 36 cards per player

36 * 4 players = 144 cards = X

144 = 0.75 * Y

Y = 192 total moves in the card pool

Well, holy shit. That seems like a lot of moves to decide on. Let's hope that 50% unused cards is actually too high for the sake of amount of work. ;) But if I gotta do 192 moves, then I gotta do it. We'll cross that bridge when we get there.

Source: https://generationmillenniale.wordpress.com/2014/07/10/charizard/

What is the minimum number of pokemon that should be able to learn a move in order for that move to be included in the card pool?

As mentioned previously, a signature move of a pokemon, like Twineedle for Beedrill, will be useless to draft 99% of the time. There obviously has to be more than one pokemon that should be able to learn any one particular move card available in the draft, but what's that minimum number? I'm not sure. If I were more well-versed in mathematics, I might be able to crunch a number. But because I'm not, I'm going to have to find out more along the way, perhaps leaning on playtesting results to find out.

I know that Tackle is one of the most well-known moves. So somewhere between that number as our "100%" and one, which is only Beedrill knowing Twineedle, is the number we want. 

Until I know more, I'm going to lean toward picking moves that are known by as many pokemon as possible. It FEELS like there isn't a danger of having too many moves known by too many pokemon. If anything, it might be the opposite, which will be its own challenge to address.

How many move cards should a player be able to draft?

As addressed earlier, to be determined based on the ideal percentage of cards that go unused after drafting and using up to 18 move cards.

Physical Attack/Defense and Special Attack/Defense or just Attack?

There are some moves that care about the physical or special versions of an attack or defense stat. Because of this, we need to know what kind of stats a pokemon is going to have in order to weed out our move choices.

At this time, I'm still not sure whether we're going physical and special distinctions. I want the depth of gameplay but am scared that, for a card game, there's too much calculation that'd end up happening. Let's write it out for the move Thundershock:

Damage = ((Special Attack Power + ThundershockPower) * Weakness/Resistance/Immunity) - Special Defense

vs

Damage = (Attack Power + Thundershock) * Weakness/Resistance/Immunity

(The reason why there's no defense calculated here is because, since there's no distinctions of types of defense, the defense just gets already summed with the defending pokemon's HP stat.)

Let's try doing "real" numbers now.

Damage = ((5 + 4) * 2) - 7

Damage = 11, against a 20 HP pokemon, leaving 9 HP left

vs

Damage = (5 + 4) * 2

Damage = 18, against a 27 HP pokemon, leaving 9 HP left

Is the former too much to do, especially when you need to look at your pokemon's stat, their pokemon's two stats of the applicable defense and HP?

With the worry of too much calculation going on with the former, I worry that doing a conversion/adaptation of current stats for the latter will come with its own challenges.

A reminder that, while the original pokemon games didn't feature physical and special distinctions for attack and defense, it had a high Special stat to be applied for both offense and defense. I don't like that at all. I don't want a pokemon with the highest Special stat to be strictly better than all other pokemon with lower Special stats when not factoring in type effectiveness (looking at you, Mewtwo).

This direction is still something I don't know which I'll go in. I know that fellow Magic design enthusiast Mad Olaf is warm to the idea of simplifying to Attack, HP, and Speed. I'll continue to keep this in mind.

Source: http://lparchive.org/Pokemon-Yellow/Update%2032/

What elements of pokemon battle gameplay are not being included?

By this, I mean things like Low Kick caring about the weight of a pokemon. Pokemon weight is rarely a factor for pokemon moves. And caring about this means printing the weight on every single pokemon card. It'd be better to cut this.

Another thing is weather conditions. When it's raining, water moves get better. When Sunny Day is used, fire moves are better. In this case, these weather conditions also enhance Thunder and Solar Beam, which I think is pretty cool. And there are pokemon abilities (if we end up doing pokemon abilities) that key off of weather conditions. I like when there's synergy like this. For this reason, I WANT to include weather conditions, but if this means there's too much complication for this to be worth it, then I'll cut weather conditions.

Then there's things like whether a move makes contact for those abilities that care about contact. I think "making contact" is also an unnecessary added element. I don't think there's enough excitement around contact to be worth its inclusion.

There might be other elements I'm not mentioning here as well, but it's something I'll consider the ramifications of for each battle gameplay element I come across when choosing moves.

What moves will pretty much never be used?

I'm looking at you, Leer and Growl. Some stat-raising moves like Dragon Dance are awesome. But some suck. And there are other moves, like Scratch, that may pale in comparison to other moves available. When including a certain power level of moves, I'll be sure to keep in mind whether a move is just so outclassed in every way compared to other moves that it shouldn't be included at all.

You don't include Shock in the same set as Lightning Bolt.

Move Along

So, here's my current next steps:

1. Figure out which signature moves will go on each pokemon
2. Figure out which moves most pokemon of each type will want to and be able to learn (Thunderbolt on an Electric type)
3. Include non-signature moves on pokemon that would not create redundancy (or at least lessen it) with actual drafted moves (having Thunderbolt be a drafted card and also as a move on Magnemite and Voltorb)
4. Put a move on each of enough pokemon cards (inclusive of every type) to be able to simulate a draft (stats not needed right now)
5. Finish creation of moves to be at least 144 (enough for the guesstimated 50% of moves drafted are used on your pokemon for a full set of four moves each)
6. Playtest enough drafts (no battles) to get the data to be able to determine the right number of moves that need to be included in a draft and whether the number of applicable moves turns out to be a big problem

Thanks for making the move to read this post. As always, feedback in the form of comments on this post or on via other communication / social media platforms are welcome. =)

Source: http://www.psypokes.com/bw/tutors.php

Drafting Pokemon #01: Silph Scope

Pokemon Origins

This year, I'm participating in National Game Design Month - or, NaGa DeMon, for short - like I've tried to succeed at before but didn't. I'm already a day late, so let's get to it.

Goal: Make a Pokemon drafting card game and playtest it with other people at least one time before November is over.

I'm aware I'm using an existing IP and whatever stigma and/or limitations comes with that. I'm unabashedly doing so because completing this project will achieve a game design goal I've never met: finish making a game. I love drafting in tabletop games, I love Pokemon, and I've had a fierce passion for this marriage of a game to become reality for months now. Let's make it happen before the fire goes out.

Scope

There are so many aspects of Pokemon, but keeping the scope of the game small is important for success. I'm focusing on: Pokemon battles. Getting gym badges, evolving pokemon with Fire Stones, and hatching eggs need not apply.

So, the following are a set of rules I've defined for what to include in this game, and I'll be going over the reasons for each:

• Four-player drafting
• Original 151 pokemon only
• Later-generation moves allowed
• Traditional 1-on-1 pokemon battles only
• No pokemon or moves with Dark or Steel types
• No EVs, IVs, or pokemon natures
• No held items or bag items
• No tracking PP
• MAYBE no pokemon that have an evolved form
• MAYBE no pokemon abilities
• MAYBE no distinction between Physical and Special

"Yeah, but what will it be like?"

The beginning part of this game will be drafting pokemon and battle moves that those pokemon will use. After the drafting is done, players each choose which pokemon to form a team with and which moves will go on which pokemon. The final phase is battling 1-on-1 with one of the players, simulating the feel of battling on the handheld Pokemon games.

Pokemon Adventures

Four-Player Drafting

While I would normally like to allow for a flexible number of players for drafting like in other card games, I think allowing for that flexibility will increase complexity in design work, thus making the scope of this project larger. To keep things simple, we'll keep the number low.

Two players is too few for that drafting dynamic. Three players creates an awkward situation of having a player, when the drafting and "deck construction" is all done, wait for two other players to finish up battling before being able to play. Four players is just right - you can have two concurrent battles and each player has up to three opponents to play against.

Original 151 Pokemon Only

Pokemon currently has over seven hundred unique monsters to choose from. If each pokemon were a card, this is more than enough choices to choose from to include in the drafting card pool. I have to draw a line in the sand somewhere, and I think choosing to include only the first generation of pokemon is a solid move.

When folks are drafting this game, I want them to know for sure what kind of pokemon to expect. If I decided to include select pokemon from various games, I wouldn't want them unsure of whether or not Scizor was included in the drafting card pool since players might be planning ahead with their draft picks for rounding out their pokemon team. Providing a list of all the pokemon that were hand-selected adds some extra logistics that I don't want. It's easiest to say, "Original 151 pokemon is included."

Also, with the release of Pokemon GO and the type of audience I expect will be playing my game, the first generation is even more of a strong choice since they'd resonate most with the players.

Later-Generation Moves Allowed

Even though we're sticking with the original generation of pokemon as the pool of pokemon to choose from, newer moves from later generations will be included. Not all of them, but I see including some of them as necessary.

In Pokemon, there's a gameplay element of having pokemon types and each of those types have strengths and weaknesses when pitted against other types. The thing is, though, the moves that were present in Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue weren't really fleshed out that well to create a good balance of power.

One of Psychic's weaknesses is Bug, and Pin Missile was the best Bug move to use against Psychic, of which Jolteon, a non-Bug pokemon, was the best choice when attempting to take advantage of a super-effective attack - and it doesn't even do as much damage as Jolteon using an Electric attack instead!

The same goes for available Ghost moves to use against Psychic. As an example, Shadow Ball has been a boon in being able to have a great super-effective option against Psychic pokemon.

So, with the restriction of 151 pokemon only, we'll pick and choose moves that will balance out the gameplay with what pokemon types are available among pokemon.

Pokemon anime

Traditional 1-on-1 Pokemon Battles Only

Trying for any other kind of pokemon battle will just increase the complexity of this project for both creating it and for playing it. That's a bad thing. That is all.

No Pokemon or Moves with Dark or Steel Types

This might be a controversial decision, but because I'm deciding to only use the original generation of pokemon, no exceptions, then that means there are NO Dark pokemon available. Sure, we can have Dark moves, but it's potentially a feel-bad when you're drafting Dark moves and realize that you can never achieve the most damage with those moves using a Dark-type pokemon. Yes, this means one less weakness for the notoriously-powerful Psychic type, but that's where the designing comes into play to work with these restrictions.

With removing Dark and Steel types, this does mean that Magnemite will be a pure Electric type and that the move Bite will be a Normal type, like it used it be, instead of the Dark type it was changed into.

No EVs, IVs, or Pokemon Natures

Each individual pokemon on a battling team has a lot of complexity to it. There are stats, but there are actually these hidden values tied to these stats that affect them. And then there's the pokemon nature that yet tilt these stats more. When doing Pokemon battles, caring about this part is NOT capturing the essence of what makes Pokemon battling so much fun. 

Simplifying here is important. The pokemon's stats will be what it says they are on the card.

No Held Items or Bag Items

When participating in Pokemon tournaments, the rules already disallow for using items from your Bag (i.e. using a Super Potion on a Pokemon). As such, the same will be reflected for this card game.

However, a wonderful extra thing a pokemon can have going for it is having a held item. In the regular game, I think this is a great deepening of the gameplay for expanding the possibilities of types of pokemon teams. But, in this game, held items would be a third type of card to draft as well as add extra complexity (while can be good) that isn't needed. If we stripped away held items, we still have a functioning game. So, away with this.

No Tracking PP

Moves in the handheld Pokemon games have a limited number of uses, otherwise known as Power Points, or PP. Including this aspect wouldn't actually add to the fun of battling, would be a burden track logistically, and almost never is significant when actually battling.

Pokemon anime

MAYBE No Pokemon that Have an Evolved Form

What I mean by this is that Raichu would be in the game but Pikachu wouldn't be. I know - a Pokemon game without Pikachu in it. That's cray, right? So cray.

But, really, including a Grimer when there's Muk also available in the drafting sets a precedent for why it should matter that you have the Grimer. I want each game piece to matter. Which I could make matter if, say, you get an "evolutionary bonus" if you drafted both Grimer and Muk, and you can simply stack them and get a better Muk than if you had just drafted Muk by itself.

A reason to NOT disclude pokemon is so that players who have favorite pokemon can enjoy playing with them. Squirtles are awesome, and not seeing one in the draft ever can be a downer.

So... we'll SEE!

MAYBE No Pokemon Abilities

All right, so what I mean by "ability" is this extra gameplay element that a pokemon can have besides its stats and moves. For example, Gengar can know Levitate, which makes it immune to Ground-type moves used against it.

The concern I have is that some abilities trigger out-of-time with choosing moves. Some abilities have timing that are outside of the moment when you are looking through your choices of whether to switch pokemon or use one of your current pokemon's moves. 

Including them can add that exciting extra piece of information on a pokemon card drafting. Currently, if you drafted a pokemon, you might see information for its stats and its strengths and weaknesses (the moves it can learn is actually handled on each individual move card). It seems boring, so a pokemon ability printed on there, it might be more exciting to consider pokemon cards.

There's even an opportunity to have build-around abilities, like Hitmonchan's Iron Fist, which makes you want to draft all the moves that PUNCH!

Pokemon Emerald

MAYBE No Distinction Between Physical and Special

If I included all the stats a pokemon has now, it'd be:

• HP
• Attack
• Defense
• Special Attack
• Special Defense
• Speed

If I removed the distinction between physical and special, it'd look something like:

• HP
• Attack
• Speed

The second one is great for lessening complexity of the game, but it may be lessening the complexity TOO much. Snorlax, for example, would have high HP and Attack and low Speed. There's not much opportunity to finding a weakness here. You just gotta hit hard with a Fighting-type move.

Another drawback is that there might be a lot of work reconfiguring existing Pokemon's stats to look correct. Alakazam is a glass cannon that hits hard with Special Attack, but it might be too weird to take advantage of its high Attack to do a hard hit like Mega Punch.

The original Pokemon games had:

• HP
• Attack
• Defense
• Speed
• Special

In this case, both Special Attack and Special Defense are applied in the Special stat. This doesn't really work for Exeggutor who has a high Special Attack but low Special Defense currently.

In the end, I think I'll go with how the stats are now. I just hope that this doesn't cause board complexity and decision paralysis when drafting and playing in battles. We'll see how it goes.

Pokemon official art

That's a TM35

With the stage set with the above limitations, I can get started on the design. As more of the game is defined and more design choices made, these rules may evolve over time to fit the needs of the game or to debunk anything I had assumed before would be a bad or good thing.

Thanks for following, and if you have any feedback, feel free to leave a comment on the social media platform or comment section of your choice.

Death by Naga Demon

"It's curtains for you, Bradley Rose. Gently... wafting... curtains." - Captain Hammer ...sort of.

I died. Fought as I did throughout the month of November to succeed at completing a game for National Game Design Month; I did not manage to have a completed game, let alone have it played at least once, before December. However, as I've stated before, this is all right. I currently have zero games that I've created to show for my game design aspirations within my portfolio. NaGa DeMon, though, jump-started my designing to a point where I have a card game that I can't help but to fully complete. Without this, I might still be at ground zero with nothing. I may have failed at this arbitrary competition that encourages game design, but I succeeded at getting something valuable out of it.

Now that I don't have the constraints of the NaGa DeMon deadline anymore, I can... set a new deadline for myself! Because I know me, and I don't do what I should do if I don't have a deadline. I'll just end up procrastinating on finishing designing my card game, as much as I would love to have it done. And I need to tell YOU guys my new deadline, so that I would be held accountable. And here it is: finish designing a playable prototype before the year 2013 rolls around.

Sure, it's true what Shigeru Miyamoto said, "A delayed game is eventually good. A bad game is bad forever."

This is true of any game or project. There's a certain amount of work that needs to be done for a game to be at that point where you can stop and leave it alone and be finished. People estimate the time it would take folks to complete the full amount of work and set a deadline. Sometimes, though, 100% work wouldn't be finished by the deadline. You then have a choice - delay the game to finish putting in the amount of work needed to make a great game, or make your game worse by cutting features/content or diminishing quality or certain things.

What you don't do is justify your procrastination by reciting Shigeru's quote. Because that's not what he means. You have to keep on designing. As long as you're doing that, then damn the estimated deadlines if you want your game to fully blossom into the beautiful game you want it to be (though, like with artists, I hear you can get to a point where you're infinitely tweaking and tuning your game, and you just have to tell yourself to walk away and move on to your next work).

Let's back up a bit. During the last week of November, when I was fervently attempting to finish my card game and have it played once by my friends, I truly believed that I was able to make it. ...Until it got to a certain point in time where it seemed impossible. That's when something awesome happened. 

My friend would come out of his room at the apartment I was staying over at for a few days and ask me, "Don't you have a card game to finish?" Whenever I would stray and get caught up in being distracted by social media and subsequent links to interesting things, he would find me doing this and say, "Get back to work." He also actually contributed one card design that's awesome for my game: the Honeycomb Shield.

This friend would keep insisting that I can do it, even though I didn't think I could. And I would respond, "Dammit." Because if he believed I could, then not going back to work was giving up.

When it was just one day left and a seemingly-insurmountable amount of work needed to be done, I would announce to another friend that I had to throw in the towel. I wasn't going to make it. And he said, "Yeah, I kinda new that." Oh did this really get my goat. I was impassioned to prove him wrong. That I can be great and defeat the NaGa DeMon. 

Of course, these could just be tactics that don't necessarily reflect how they feel about me in designing my card game. But they do the job in pushing me in the right direction. I'm glad I had the support while I was agonizing over some part of the game, oftentimes insignificant parts of the game like how an item is named or how the concept of a monster is with no impact on actual gameplay (I really need to learn to just move quickly and rapidly develop on the foundation of the game first and only apply polish and such after the game is designed. I'm aware of myself doing this, but I'm stubborn and focus on these unimportant things anyway because I want to because it just doesn't "feel right" or isn't yet "perfect"). 

We all need support and encouragement when pursuing our dreams and other sorts of endeavors. A third friend of mine just gave away his decks and box of the Vanguard CCG to me when we weren't playing it anymore during that short month or so because he wanted to support my card game development (and these can be used as material for sleeving up prototypes or just as inspiration).

As of today, I am currently happily designing items with a Zelda-like feel for my card game. I wouldn't be at the point where I am without National Game Design Month, my ambition to create games, and the support from my friends and the community. Thanks, you guys.

Fearing the Naga Demon

As I was vacuuming my home during the last week of November in preparation for my leave to Washington state for my cousin's wedding, my mind wandered to my National Game Design Month card game. Specifically, I thought about how I was walking to the train station the day after Thanksgiving in the dead of the night down a path I had never taken before. It was cold and dark, and the path included streets with no streetlights at all. During this walk, I experienced feelings of dread and became frightened.

The town I live in isn't the most stellar. From what I can see, there's just a bunch of old homes without any hustle and bustle like in city of San Francisco. This one time on the bus toward home, I had an altercation with another passenger which resulted in him, in a subtle manner, threatening me by stating, "Do you know where you are?" He meant Pittsburg, CA; which might be implying that crime happens a bit more than usual, perhaps in the manner of street violence.

This illustrates why I was scared to walk in the dark during the night with no lights. Violence does happen. So, I stayed alert and frequently looked behind me. I turned on my flashlight app on my phone to illuminate the area around me. Sort of like a torch. ...And that's when I realized I was experiencing exactly the same situation I wanted to evoke in my card game. Brilliant!

I recalled all this while vacuuming until I came to a corner of the carpet. ...and a jet black spider appeared in the area I was going to vacuum. Upon seeing it, I stumbled backward, saying, "Jeez!" ...Wait. I experienced yet another situation where I was scared! I smiled to myself while I was still reeling from being surprised by the spider.

This is what I've noted from my fear during both of these moments:

• Fear of the unknown: Not being able to see anything in the dark meant I had no idea what to expect to walk into.
• Fear of death: Getting hurt or dying was a possibility and heightened my fear.
• Fear of scary-looking things: Spiders usually are harmless, but people still get freaked out by them because they look so scary. Just like with centipedes and other things that don't look so fuzzy-wuzzy and have a different number of arms and legs.

The first two point wouldn't apply to the card game since the very nature of playing games allows for safe surprises. So, I combined it with the second - not knowing whether you're going to get hurt or die. And that's detrimental toward your efforts to winning.

So, how did I implement this? Well, if I'm going to make things dark, I was going to have to put out the torch. The game has a main mechanic of passing around a torch to players to pass initiative. I decided to make the torch a double-faced card where one side shows a lit torch while the other side has an unlit torch.

But what did this do to the game? Well, that was easy - normally, you can see which monsters you're currently facing. So, if the torch is put out, you have face-down monsters instead. This provided a problem with you decision-making since you could be choosing to engage with a monster that is too difficult for you to handle - and everyone else blindly chose and ended up not choosing the same as you. Owie.

However, what would cause the torch to be put out? The "levels" in my game has variation, and I decided to include one setting that would take care of putting the fire out - underwater. When you're underwater, it can be scary to face some deadly creatures of the sea. Worse would be if you can't even see them due to your torch not being able to light underwater.

The third point above about scary-looking things made me want to decide on choosing monsters that people are normally afraid of. I chose to include animals such as bees, rats, and wolves. I also have supernatural monsters with ghosts, zombies, and the kraken. These kinds of monsters help contribute toward that overall feel of the game and reminds the player that they're trying to be brave.

Well, as I write this, tomorrow is the last day to have my card game completed with at least one playtest done to have "won" NaGa DeMon. There's a high probability I won't succeed - but that's O.K. I'm heading to Washington and will be surrounded by family members on the day before the wedding, which happens to be tomorrow, the last day of NaGa DeMon. So, hey - it could happen. Time to apply finishing touches while on the plane!

Braving the Naga Demon

I did it. I finally did it. You know the card game I'm designing for National Game Design Month? Well, I'm getting a huge sigh of relief now because ...I have decided on a theme! (Heh, I'm FAR from being done creating it.)

Yes, my NaGa DeMon card game is quite late in its development comparative to how many days I actually have left in the month. But I'm O.K. with that. I mean, the fight's not over, yet. But even if I fail to make a game by the end of November; the greatest thing I will get out of this is that I'm going to actually have an original game I can call my own. I'll go from 0 games in my portfolio to 1. My heart will swell.

I did spend a truly vast amount of time agonizing over possible themes for my card game, but it was all worth it. I was riding the BART train (the San Francisco Bay Area metro train within California of the United States), looking out the window, letting my thoughts flow, when I suddenly had a "Eureka!" moment.

Since my game's mechanics are based on the prisoner's dilemma situation, there would be simultaneous secret decisions made by each player. But when you reveal each of these decisions at the same time, which ones get resolved first? Is there a first, second, third, and fourth player? But we can't have the same player always be first each round. So, we'd have to pass around the "initiative." (Vs. System, a Trading Card Game, had something called "initiative" that players took turns controlling for the simultaneous turns built into the game system.) But what would make sense flavorwise to portray this?

"Passing around the initiative" made me think of the phrase, "pass the torch." And just like that, everything clicked. I took that as a literal passing of the torch, as in the players each take turns holding the group's single torch. Which led to needing a reason for a torch - darkness. Exploring a dark cave, for example. Or a dungeon like in a lot of role-playing and/or roguelike games. There's a game called "Torchlight" for goodness' sake! And which of the themes was I considering that most closely matches this? The Zelda-like one with "being the most brave" as a goal!

This theme of "braving against the darkness" is a jackpot of resonance. Everybody has experienced the dark. And everybody has been AFRAID of the dark: the unknown lying in the shadows, the monsters under the bed or behind your closet, walking alone after dark, creeping around an empty house by yourself interpreting any noise as something alarming. Anything could pop out and become illuminated by your torch. This makes it that much scarier - you don't know what you're going to face. This theme is perfect, and everybody can relate to it.

A spontaneous sketch: my attempt at a unisex avatar while depicting the general feel of the game.

Caves are inherently dark. And finding your way out via a torch makes a lot of sense - we've seen this before. Also, when you get lost in a dark cave, it also makes sense that you don't know exactly when you're going to make it out. This fact is important since the game has a variable ending - you don't know when it's going to end (this is something that aids the functionality of this series of prisoner's dilemma situations within the mechanics of the game).

Another important thing about this discovery with having a torch is that I also have an answer for how monsters will attack. The one holding the torch will have his or her action resolve first before all the players, but this benefit would be balanced by the fact that the monsters would choose to attack the player with the torch first (mind you, I'm not simply letting a gang-up of monsters happen. I'm mindfully designing around the fact that the person with the torch is going to be in the worst position during the round of monsters attacking). The person with the torch is emitting flame and light and draws attention - naturally!

Having the torch mechanic not only solves two problems (order of resolving players actions and deciding how monsters will attack) but also helps provide strategic depth to the game. When you're secretly choosing your action from among your hand of possible actions (these are drawn from your deck, meaning the possible actions will vary, being dependent upon your draw), that Hide card becomes possibly much better than that Attack card in your hand if you're the one holding the torch that round.

Lastly, I want to note that the game's setting won't be strictly adhered to being in a cave. As you travel through, encountering monsters, you'll also encounter cards that will either be a game-ender (rare) or a path toward the next area, which can have a variety of flavors - a dark forest, an eerie lake, a ghost town/mansion, a foggy field, etc. I'll do more exploration on this - but this game definitely isn't focused on taking place in a cave. The DARKNESS is what matters most.

I've found my theme, and I LOVE it. I am completely satisfied with the chosen theme and am no longer stressed by this part of the game-making. Now that I have both my mechanical and thematic sketches in places, I can let each of them build off each other as I continue the game design of my NaGa DeMon card game!

Defeating My Inner Naga Demon

"I'm not going to let my life suck," I said to myself as I scrambled out from under five layers of blankets. After my cozy session of re-watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind followed by reading the comic by The Oatmeal about creating content for the web, I turned on my house's heater for the first time this season.

What did turning on my heater have to do with not letting me have a sucky life? Was I really that dramatic? Nay! I was thinking a series of "this will lead to that which will lead to..." thoughts! It went something like this:

• That was an inspirational comic I just read!
• In fact, it relates to how I'm currently behind in designing my card game at the moment.
• I'm behind in creating my game because I just stare at the computer sometimes for periods at a time or distract myself with social media and interesting YouTube videos.
• I sit there in front of my computer consuming content instead of creating some of my own because, often, my hands are tucked underneath my legs.
• My hands are underneath or tucked in-between my legs because I'm cold.
• I'm cold because I don't have my house heater on.
• If I don't turn my heater on, I'm probably going to keep doing this perpetually.
• If I keep not creating, I'm not going to have an original game by the end of November.
• Not having a game I can call my very own means I'll have regret and be sad.
• Me living with regret and sadness would suck. Thus, a sucky life.
• So... I must turn on that heater!

I recalled how my decision to purchase a box of hot chocolate packets was fantastic. Sure, I could just live off of water. My body would be taken care of but my soul wouldn't. So I made sure to treat my soul. And then, sure enough, my happiness points increased, and it made doing whatever I was doing that much more awesome. And that helps when you're trying to do productive things!

Anyway, I was recalling my hot chocolate experience and applying it to myself in regards to my situation with my home's heater. Sure, I could survive and make do with always wearing a sweater around the house and using tons of blankets. But, since I wasn't completely comfortable, I was hindered from creating! After turning on the heater, I'm already blazing through and typing out this blog post about how I'm blazing through and typing out this blog post about... and so on and so forth. =P My sweater is off, and I'm super comfortable!

All right, I'm comfortable. Now what? I work on the card game I'm designing for National Game Design Month (NaGa DeMon)!

Last time, I brainstormed a ton of different themes I could use for the mechanical sketch of my game's design. I discovered something, though - I could keep coming up with all sorts of themes to apply to my card game, but I'm going to come up with a bunch of crap. Some are good, but there would be a bunch of unfiltered nonsense as well. While brainstorming, I wasn't focusing on what would make for an exciting theme for players. I was just coming up with ones that fit the criteria I listed out.

This is part of knowing your audience. When you're creating content for whatever medium it is you're creating content for, whether you're a writer, game designer, comedian, etc.; you gotta know the consumers. I'm making a game that anyone that is interested in board games would want to play. A theme of being eaters of ice cream in an ice cream factory isn't really interesting, even if it does fit as a theme. But being a zombie IS interesting, for example (except the theme as a whole has been severely played out).

So I learned that I would need to come up with not just a theme that fits but one that is compelling. A lot of the themes I brainstormed during my previous post I threw out. I eventually settled on these themes:

• a party of rogues on a dungeon quest trying to get the most treasure
• zombies trying to eat the most brains
• pirates voyaging to different islands trying to get the most booty
• pandas trying to eat the most food
• kids trying to have the most fun toys out of everybody
• a group of adventurers trying to be the most brave

As you can see, most of the ideas I have fall under one of two things that players would want to have the feeling of when trying to acquire the most of something: food and wealth. The prisoner's dilemma mechanics with the goal of trying to get the most of something easily led itself to tangible goods like num-nums and treasured goods.

The only one that stands out from the list above is trying to be the most brave. Bravery as a desirable goal appealed to me because of The Legend of Zelda. Zelda had been on my mind because of this Kickstarter. And acquiring bravery was DIFFERENT.

Having the most courage as the goal in the game wasn't the usual "slay goblins and dragons, get gold and loot, yay!" thing. I want my game to stand out. I want to be refreshingly original. And that's what this theme is delivering. But it's more difficult to convey. Bravery is an abstract concept and not a physical thing that people will instantly get when they're trying to learn and understand my game.

But whatever I do, my game will suck. It's gotta suck because it is my first game. Somehow, someway, it's not going to be as impressive as whatever I would like it to be in my own head. While I was in college, somebody once said that the first ten games I make will suck. So it's better to get them out of the way as soon as possible so that you can get to making the good stuff. In that case, and because the game mechanics and not the game theme is the focal point of the project: I might as well choose a theme that is most resonant with the player, originality be damned!

For deciding factors, I decided on tangibility, what theme has its components that most easily fits the mechanics, and what lends itself to some compelling content. And this led me to cutting the possible themes down to this:

• a party of rogues in a dungeon trying to get the most treasure
• pirates voyaging to different islands trying to get the most booty
• kids trying to have the most fun toys out of everybody

I cut zombies because it's boring to deal with different kinds of humans. What you want to see are a bunch of different zombies - but you're the zombie! And you have to be the zombie because the game's mechanics need you to be trying to eat the most brains. It's not quite the same if you flip it around when the human goal is trying to survive the longest or kill the most zombies or something.

Having a party of rogues is funny. And it's fitting of the mechanics because everyone is doing things that a rogue does - trying to get the most money, even by stealing, and killing monsters while sometimes backstabbing others. 

Pirates naturally seek out treasures and is a better flavor fit than rogues since more people get what pirates are all about. The different islands correspond with the possibility of going through different themed decks - in this case, it'd be different island decks. 

The thing that's throwing me for a loop is whether or not I want to push dirty innuendo of "getting the most booty." I could change it to "getting the most treasures," but it's not quite as in-theme as "booty." Oy vey.

Young children can sometime want to hoard all the toys for themselves. Or, at least, have the best toys. Having a "get the most fun toys" theme would let you channel your inner child-like desires of toy-hoarding.

Now that I've got a few themes picked out based around amassing tangible wealth, I can just leave my possible themes on the table for now and continue forward with fleshing out the rest of the game's mechanics. But that's a topic for another day.

Pst. Would you rather quest through dungeons (rogues), sail the seas (pirates), or get as many toys as you can?

31 Flavors of Naga Demon

This is my second post regarding NaGa DeMon - National Game Design Month. Participating in this means that my card game project must be created with all of its necessary pieces entirely within the month of November and then played at least once. So far, I've decided my card game will have mechanical elements that emulate the prisoner's dilemma situation. Currently, I still haven't yet decided on a theme, despite the helpful feedback I've received from fellow NaGa DeMon Hunters.

As I said in my last post, while it's very normal and possible to design games without a theme (just look at all the card games that use a standard deck of playing cards), having that flavor established early on can help further game designing which in turn can help influence the theme and so on and so forth.

So, right now, I'm going to focus on cranking out some theme ideas. To help me in this process, I've decided to theme this blog post with a title referencing Baskin-Robbins' "31 Flavors." So thematic. So productive. I'm going to force myself to come up with thirty-one different themes right now as I write this. I've only got a few swimming around in my brain, so I'm excited to see what I come up with! 

This is what I really should be doing at this stage. No second-thoughts and such during the brainstorming process! Just let it all flow out of my mind and put it all down. Only until after the brainstorming is finished must I begin to think critically about the theme possibilities.

But before I begin, I will first define the game mechanics that must be described within the context of each of these themes. Here they are:

• The scenario - This has to be a situation that the players are involved in such as a high school rally, a fantasy dungeon quest, or a series of therapy sessions.
• The players - The players have to be somebody or something that's doing all this simultaneous cooperating and competing. Who are they?
• The "loot" - The players will be trying to be collecting the most of ...something. In Mario, this would be coins. Zelda has rupees. Note that this doesn't have to be gold or jewels nor does it need to be a tangible object. Also, the verb (player's action) associated with this "loot" doesn't have to be "collect." In summary, they need to be [VERB]-ing [SOMETHING].
• The "health" - I want to add a layer of complexity to this game that makes this more than just an iterated prisoner's dilemma. As such, the "monsters" can hurt the player's "health." This "health" may influence the player's decision-making. Anyway, what is this "health" within the context of the theme?
• The game-ender - The game, mechanically, will end at an indeterminate time. But what is the flavor that causes this scenario the players are in to end? This quality of the game seems to not be as important to define but would definitely enhance the game that much more if defined.
• The encounter-able "things" - The players, within the scenario, will encounter ...stuff. Within the context of a typical swords & sorcery fantasy adventure, this would be monsters, treasure, traps, puzzles, etc. There's going to be bad stuff and good stuff and a lot of these things will yield the "loot" mentioned above.

So, here we go! Oh, and for the themes I list, I won't repeat ones that were already suggested to me, like an treasure hunting theme escaping from a crumbling temple due to a stolen idol (Indiana Jones). Anyway, 31 themes:

1. Blood-sucking Vampires - The players are vampires trying to suck the most blood before the sun rises. Vampires have a physical health (yet can never truly die, of course) and face humans and animals of various types.
2. Meat-eating Werewolves - ...This may or may not be cheating, and this may remind you of Twilight, and maybe it's because I've got Magic: The Gathering's Innistrad / Halloween on my mind due to building my cube: The players are werewolves trying to eat as much meat before the full moon disappears. Werewolves have physical health (but are superbly resilient) and face humans and animals of various types.
3. Brain-eating Zombies - Oh, boy, another horror theme: The players are zombies trying to eat the most brains before the military nukes them all. Zombies' "health" is represented through their body parts. Losing body parts doesn't impact your abilities - it's just a flavorful representation. Losing all of them, though, causes you to need to re-attach your body parts, which costs you. You fight against humans, mostly.
4. Booty-Plundering Sexy Pirates - I apologize in advance for this one: The players are sexy pirates trying to "plunder" the most "booty" before the voyage ends ...or whatever. Since the core mechanic of plundering booty is already a sex euphemism, the rest of the game will also play into this by using thematic pirate things and terms. Like a nice-looking (treasure) chest (it's like this stuff writes itself!) The players' have libido they must not let "get too low." ...Again, I'm sorry!
5. Rising-in-Fame Musicians - The players are musicians/bands gaining fame and trying to become the most famous before they all die or go to jail or become too old to play anymore. Etc., etc. During cooperations, this can be seen as playing at a show together. The players have gigs/private shows/entertain fans/etc. Their "health" can be inspiration, motivation to rock, soberness/cleanliness until they eventually hit a low place and lose some fame as a cost to getting back on their feet again.
6. Book-Reading Library Nerds - The players are book nerds trying to read the most books before library closes. Library patrons and various library-specific objects would be your encounters and your "health" is drowsiness or eye-weariness or something.
7. Laughter-Inducing Comedians - The players are stand-up comedians trying to get the most laughs by telling jokes, performing skits, etc. before the end of the show. Their "health" would be how funny they are. Or their originality.
8. Pizza-Eating Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - I'm gonna go ahead and cheat with an IP idea: the players are the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles trying to eat the most pizza before Shredder shows up. The turtles can fight together or solo Shredder's minions in the meantime that Shredder hasn't shown up. What I don't get is why there would be so much pizza being carried by the bad ninjas - stealing them? *shrugs*
9. Competitive Space Bounty Hunters - The players are space bounty hunters trying to collect the most bounty earnings before ....something space-related happens. Some bounties are tough to hunt down and might be best to require cooperation!
10. Doughnut-Eating Cops - The players are cops trying to eat the most doughnuts before their shift is up. They encounter criminals of all sorts, and getting tired/injured requires them to recover by eating some of their own hard-earned doughnuts.
11. Stealing-from-Homes Robbers - The players are robbers trying to steal the most wealth from households before everyone wakes up in the morning. The robbers can work together for more difficult places to break and enter and/or wealths to acquire (like laser-guarded diamonds). Sneakiness can be health, and having zero sneakiness means you need to hide until you gain your sneakiness advantage again.
12. Competitive Fisherman - The players are fisherman trying to fish the most fish before the end of the day. Fish, fish, fish. Some "fish" are ridiculously heavy and may require more than one fisherman to fish up, like, say, a SHARK or KILLER WHALE?! Players encounter all sorts of fish. Players have bait to look out for.
13. Orgasm-Seeking Orgy Participants - This is just straight-up X-rated, as opposed to the innuendo-ridden pirate one above: the players are humans (!) in an orgy trying to get the most orgasms/sexual satisfaction before the end of the night. The "monsters" are sexual partners, cooperation with other players end up being those threesomes and whatnot, and the "treasure" cards are stuff like sex toys or sex machines. Health is stamina or libido.
14. Jehovah's Witnesses Sharing the Good News - And now for possibly offensive, but it fits so well with the unknown-when-it-will-happen game-ender: The player's are Jehovah's Witnesses trying to spread the good news to as many people as they can before Armageddon occurs. You can witness to people not already in the truth and even do so cooperatively. Their "health" is how much they're deviating away from Jehovah. Getting down to zero "health" means they must have a shepherding call, so they can be brought back closer to Jehovah.
15. Fun-Seeking Carnival Attendees - The players are attending a carnival and they try to have the most fun before the end of the day. They'll ride rollercoasters, play carnival games, etc. Their "health" is their excitement or fatigue - sometime they need to sit down and have a bite to eat or something!
16. Money-Making Food Chain Companies - The players are food chain companies trying to sell the most food  to climb to the top of the food chain (ahahah... hah. ...hah) before the economy goes bad. Meeting demand in various areas may take more than one food chain (player) to fulfill whereas others are perfectly fine with just one food chain. Your health is your food supply. Sometimes food shortages happen.
17. High School Kids Striving for Popularity - The players are "the popular kids" in high school trying to become the MOST popular before the end of the school year. Encounters would be students, teachers, various school events like clubs and rallies. "Health" is your confidence/arrogance or something.
18. Cross-Country Car Racers - The players are each racing in cars across the country trying to get the furthest before... hmm. Before Armageddon happens? I dunno. "Health" is running out of gas. And cooperation is... yeesh, this theme needs a lot of work. I'll take it, though!
19. Competitive Christmas Decorators - The players are trying to decorate their Christmas trees with the most decorations before Christmas comes! "Health" is their Christmas spirit. They'll encounter carolers, santa, and other Christmas-y things. Cooperation is kind of a stretch, though, since they each have their own trees to decorate. Perhaps they're just putting up decorations in general?
20. Competitively-Studious Students - The players are trying to study to gain the most knowledge before finals yet need to possibly share books! They must fight their own sleepiness or face the consequences of a short nap (health mechanic). 
21. Head-Collecting Fantasy Heroes - The players are trying to slay monsters and collect the most monster heads before heading back to their kingdom to be awarded the title of "Hero of all of everything ever" or something. Players may end up cooperating against more-difficult monsters
22. Affectionate Romantics in a Love ...Pentagon? - The players are all trying to show the most affection for their shared romantic interest before the romantic interest ultimately decides to enter into a relationship with one of them. Various encounters would involve different romantic gestures. Some are gifts (treasure) that earn you some easy affection as opposed to candlelight dinners, etc. Your passion is your "health."
23. People-Scaring Ghosts - The players are ghosts trying to scare the most people in a haunted mansion or something before dawn comes. Your “health” is your “presence” or how frightening/haunting you are.
24. Follower-Gaining Twitter Users - Twitter users trying to get the most followers before "something happens." Various tweets containing humor, links to articles, or links to blog posts would occur. You'll have some kind of Twitter "tenacity."
25. Competitive NaGa DeMon Game Designers - Game designers trying to design the most fun game before NaGa DeMon is over. You can work on game mechanics by yourself or cooperate in conversations for truly innovative ideas. Inspiration/creativity is your "health."
26. Taxi Drivers Making Money - The players are taxi cab drivers trying to make the most money by the end of the day. Some passengers will require a greater distance and might require a couple cabs yet will yield a lot of  money (cooperation). Your "health" is your gas? Hmm. That means you're always losing health. Sleepiness? Willpower?
27. Competitively-Fabulous Mall Shoppers - The players are going out shopping, and they're trying to have the most fabulous clothing before it's time to go home. When shoppers cooperate, they'll have to receive less fabulous-ness since they both bought the same thing. "Health" is fatigue.
28. Competitive Ice Cream Eaters - The players are in an ice cream factory after it's closed for the night, and they must try to eat the most ice cream before it opens again. Going after the same ice creams will mean less ice cream for each player. "Health" is how close you are to a brain freeze.
29. Pot Smokers Getting High - The players are all trying to smoke pot to get the most high before the party later on tonight. You can choose to go to various sources for weed, whether it's the next-door neighbor or that pot dealer you know. "Health" is how much you're coughing. Sometimes, you'll need to cough a bit too much, which costs you your "high-ness."
30. People-Saving Firefighters - Firefighters trying to get the most gratitude (or be the most heroic) from saving people from a building on fire before the building is completely evacuated. Sometimes, you'll need to cooperate to help carry out heavy people, but they'll REALLY gracious and will award more gratitude whereas easy ones like children give little gratitude. Pets and such are easy but don't give ANY gratitude. "Health" is your bravery/courage.
31. Vandals Competitively Causing Damage - The players are vandalizing anarchists trying to cause the most damage to the city during the night. There's all sorts of acts of vandalism you can attempt, but some are really hard to do without cooperation. Your "health" is how discreet you are.

Whew! That took longer than I thought. Well, some of these are just not doable like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles one. Well, I could still do it, anyway; but that specific one doesn't even have a strong flavor, and I won't be able to go very far with this project without getting into trouble or something. I'd rather have an original theme.

While writing this, I was trying not to censor myself and just let the ideas flow, so a few of these I won't actually consider, like the Jehovah's Witness one since that might be offensive (trivializes the religion, etc.) and it's not the best theme for players to get excited about. A lot more people would rather pretend to be blood-sucking vampires than Jehovah's Witnesses, I surmise.

So, now that I've written this list out, I'm going to need to decide. I could swap around some of the different parts of themes and mash them up for a better theme, too. For example, ice-cream eating firefighters. O.K., maybe the ice cream can melt, so you put the fires out? ...Bad example, but you get what I mean. 

Perhaps you can help! Which of the above themes do you like most? Or perhaps you have a different idea? Thanks in advance! Let me know by leaving a comment on this post or tweeting at me: @bradleyrose

The Naga Demon Dilemma

For about a week now, I have had tabs in my internet browser open for Wikipedia articles including "Prisoner's dilemma," "Unscrupulous diner's dilemma," "Peace war game," and "Nash equilibrium." Why? Because of NaGa DeMon - National Game Design Month. NaGa DeMon is where you create a game along with all the necessary pieces and play it at least once all within the month of November. This month is going to be the month where I design my very first original game.

Yes, for those participating in NaGa DeMon like I am, I know that research could (preferably) have been done before November started. During the latter half of October, however, I was focusing my efforts on building a Magic: The Gathering cube and designing Magic cards for the set pitches contest for the Goblin Artisans 2012 set project. But excuses, excuses; right? Anyway...

So, a week has gone by, and the percentage of my game I have completed by now amounts to about diddly-squat. This is what I've decided on so far: it's a card game, and the mechanics will have elements of the prisoner's dilemma. Why a card game? Because, like The Joker, I adore card games. And they're easier to make than a lot of other games. Why the prisoner's dilemma? Because I've been fascinated with it, especially since when The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords implemented it.

The prisoner's dilemma is a situation where two players are given the same set of choices that they will each make secretly from each other: cooperate or betray. There are four outcomes with two players with varying degrees of rewards. The best thing that can happen is one player betrays while the other cooperates. The worst thing is when you get betrayed while you cooperated. So why would you ever cooperate? Because the second-to-best thing is when you both cooperate. The second-to-worst thing is when you both betray each other. If you both keep betraying each other, you're both getting some bad rewards. So, then you both cooperate to get better rewards. But then somebody can get selfish and reap the best rewards and betray. Dilemma!

The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords implemented this by making collecting rupees a competition. The players must both cooperate to traverse the dungeon, defeat the monsters, and solve the puzzles. At the same time, there are treasure chests and rupees lying around alongside these important and dangerous obstacles that require teamwork. Players have the ability to mess with the other players, even being able to go so far as to throw other players into a bottomless pit.

So, let's say you just enter a room with this boss monster and some treasure chests lying around. The boss monster starts attacking the players, threatening the welfare of everyone. Three of the four players immediately start working together to fight the monster. The fourth player, however, decided that the other players will probably fight the monster, and three would be more than enough to keep the monster distracted. So, the fourth player sneaks over to the treasure chests and starts collecting rupees, helping them gain the lead in the rupee competition. The rest of the players are doing all the work while you're making out like a bandit!

In another scenario, EVERYONE gets this mindset of desiring to get to the treasure chests first before dealing with the monster. So all four players starts heading over there - but nobody is taking care of the monster. Then the monster attacks and hurts everybody. Sad times for all. But, hey, you might have been able to sneak one treasure chest or something. ...But if you ALL WORKED TOGETHER and beat the monster first, you could have still gotten one treasure chest or something but without all that damage you endured just now.

However, Four Swords doesn't just work like the prisoner's dilemma - it works like an iterated prisoner's dilemma. This is different in that there are multiple times where you must make the decision to cooperate or betray. And you have memory of all the outcomes and decisions made by the players from previous prisoner's dilemma situations. Knowing what has happened before can alter your decision in the next prisoner's dilemma. This is great. But then there's a problem.

The problem with the iterated prisoner's dilemma is that when there is a known finite number of times the prisoner's dilemma will be played out, this will usually influence the behavior of the players to betray during the last known round of the prisoner's dilemma - because there will be no consequence to their actions afterward. But since you know that betrayal will happen during the last round, you might as well gain the upper hand and betray during the second-to-last round. And then it goes on and so forth like this until you've determined that the best decision is to relentlessly betray right from the beginning.

So, what is needed is an unknown number of rounds of the prisoner's dilemma. How do you do that? Well, a deck of cards is great for randomizing things in an order that you do not know. However, simply using a deck of cards with events in it with a "game-ending" event inside of it won't be enough. Because you'll know how likely it is when the game will end the closer and closer you get to the end of the deck of cards containing the game-ender.

One solution is to have a deck of cards with randomized encounters along with that one card you'd want to POSSIBLY end the game. This one card would actually be random itself in whether you continue the game or end the game there. When you get a "continue card," you reshuffle this deck of encounters along with all previous encounters and include a new special event card that may, again, end the game or continue the game. Or you could use a new deck. Doesn't matter. Just as long as the randomizer of encounters does not reveal a good approximation of when the game will end.

Within the context of a "medieval high fantasy" theme (I don't want to use such a played-out theme, but I may end up ultimately using it), you may use a Dungeon Deck full of monsters and treasures and a single special card that determines whether you continue to the next area (shuffle up the deck again with a new special card) or you've found the dungeon exit. Of course, you can always associate boss monster events, etc. to these special event cards.

You can control the randomness of the special outcomes in the game by parsing the deck into multiple sections like what is done in Pandemic. In Pandemic, there are special Epidemic cards. In a regular game, there are four of them in the deck. However, during the set-up of the game, the deck is divided into four separate piles with a randomized Epidemic in each pile. Then the deck's four piles are stacked on top of one another. What this does is create four separate "stages," where, within each stage, you'll experience an Epidemic sometime. This way, you KNOW that the game will not suddenly throw three Epidemics at you three turns in a row and the game quickly ends from there. If you find an Epidemic card during your first turn, then you know you've got quite a few cards to go before you experience another one.

I think I need to determine just how long I want the game to last and then design the game in a way that the game will end within the general timeframe that I want it to end. This can be fine since knowing how much time you've got in the beginning before the game will end isn't as detrimental as knowing how much time you've got in the game left.

In terms of theme, this is what I've been banging my head against a wall over for the past few days. I just can't come up with one satisfying enough and whose flavor can accommodate the mechanics of the game. Having the theme determined from the beginning along with the mechanics of your game is a huge boon, if not vital, when you're designing the game. This is because design can influence the game's theme while the game's theme can influence the design. Design and theme play off of each other and reinforces one another. Perhaps that "finding love while riding a train" theme influences the design to contain some "crying baby" content or random large groups popping up to take all the seats.

I've got the general idea of how the game's pieces will be played out: you'll be revealing cards from the top of the Dungeon Deck (I'll be calling it this for the purposes of this article and perhaps even myself until I settle on a different them or a better name) that may contain monsters, treasure, or that special event card. These will be laid out face up for everyone to see to represent what's currently available to engage with. Then the players will, with their hand of "action cards," decide what they will engage with. This decision will be simultaneous (simultaneous turns) yet secret. What you can engage with will be one of the revealed cards (in a four-player game, I'm guessing having three cards revealed at a time would be best), another player, or yourself. When you engage with another player, you'll be putting them at a disadvantage. When you engage with yourself, you'll give yourself some kind of benefit. It still wouldn't be as good as engaging with the laid-out cards but it's at least a safe bet. Perhaps you'll hide or heal yourself (healing yourself would then force players to not always engage with themselves since the benefits of engaging with yourself every turn would have diminishing retunrs).

...so this is where I'm at. I've got some project planning to do, so I can make sure I keep on track, but I'll figure that out soon enough. Right now, as I write this, it's past midnight, I'm tired, and it's my nana's birthday later on today. Gotta snooze!