Political Gaming

So I've just finished watching the latest Episode of Geek & Sundry's Tabletop - The Resistance. This is definitely a game that I'm going to be looking to pick up soon as its something that I know I'll enjoy. Now that I've started this blog, I'm always looking for subjects to write about so I thought I'd write a post about Social or Political Gaming.

So when it comes to tabletop gaming, there are those games which are purely strategical (such as Ticket to Ride, Flux and Pandemic) and then there are those games where the winner of the game isn't decided by your skill at the game, but your skill with your fellow players.

I'm a big fan of political games, even though I'm not the best of them. My number one reference for this is an old favourite for a lot people... Munchkin. Now I've played way too many games to count when it comes to Munchkin and I've lost most of them. This isn't because I'm bad at Munchkin, in fact I'm actually pretty smart at working out how to win. No, the reason I lose most of my munchkin games is because of the group I play with. Bel is almost always there along with an assortment from our group of friends (Tom, Nat, Chris B, Hollie, Jon, Chris L and occasionals Adam, Ian and Amy).

The group dynamics don't ever play in my favour with my friends Bel rarely gets picked on because people either "like" or "fear" her (with the exception of Jon who claims to be immune to the Bel-factor). Nat is Bel's best friend and so people worry about picking on her for fear of reprisal. However I am the acceptable punching bag of the group. Its almost cool to pick on me, and honestly I can usually take the flak pretty well. In fact the only way I ever win in political games is to divert the heat on Chris L (who makes himself a target by... just being him).

Every group is different and that's what makes the games so interesting. The dynamic of any of these games depends on how well you know the people around you. Little alliances form, friendly rivalries are born and each gaming night is different from the last.

So when we get The Resistance I'm sure we'll be in for a great night of double guessing, accusations and most importantly fun...

Till next time...

League of Legends

When thinking about what I'd like to talk about on here, one thing I was sure I would talk about along the way was League of Legends. Now for anyone who's not a gamer, or who doesn't know what League of Legends is, I'll start with a quick run down.

League of Legends is a free-to-play online multiplayer PC Game. The term given to the genre in which the game fits is MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) or DOTA-Style (Named after Defense of the Ancients, the first game in the genre). In the game, you play the role of a "Champion", a hero picked from a roster of over 100 different characters. Each character has their own set of 4 unique abilities as well as a basic attack.

In its most common gameplay mode, you join a team of 4 other players in a match against an opposing set of 5 players. The goal of the game is to help an ever spawning group of computer controlled "minion" make their way from your base (or Nexus) to the opposing team's Nexus. There are three routes the minions take (known as the lanes - top, middle and bottom). Along these lanes are powerful Towers that attempt to destroy the oncoming horde (and any players stupid enough to dive past them). Once you've destroyed the towers in a particular lane you can push into their base for victory.

The game is strategically rich with huge variations in how the games plays depending on things like champion composition and overall team cohesiveness. On top of this, there are regular content updates, with a new champion being released every 2-3 weeks.

I've been playing League of Legends on a fairly regular basis now for over 3 years. That's much longer than I've ever played any other game before. So why do I keep coming back to it? Well, part of it because as I said, there is a huge amount of variety in the game, and always something fresh. Each game you play is different from every other game you've played.

Another factor in my enjoyment of this game is its existence as an eSport (electronic sport). League of Legends is one of the major titles that are making a big impression on the world of eSports, with thousands of viewers for even small scale events. The season two world championships last year had over half a million people watching it at its peak. There are matches streamed live multiple times each week so there's always new exciting content to watch. Seeing what professional players do only helps to spur on your own game experience, trying to replicate what you've seen you're favourite pro do this week.

But on top of this, League of Legends is most fun to me because you don't have to be good at the game to enjoy it. I'm not a bad player by any means, and I understand the concepts and strategies behind the game better than a lot of people do. However, my mechanical skill lets me down and is probably the reason why I'd never look to pursue a career as a Pro player. What I really enjoy about League is that I can jump into a game, spend 20-40 minutes of enjoyable game player that's different to each game that's come before it, and not worry about having to achieve "the most optimal" or "the best" play.

I'll have much more to say on League over the course of this blog as I start to look more in depth into topics (especially the one on Random Number Generators). Stay tuned.

Till next time...

Leaving it to chance

This post stems from a conversation I had with my sister Bel the other day. We were discussing a session of World of Darkness (pen & paper) that we'd both been part of this weekend.

Firstly, Bel is pretty new to Pen & Paper roleplaying. In fact the session in question was only her second time. However, Bel is not new to roleplay, having run a Harry Potter roleplay site (along with me at times) for over 10 years. The site was an entirely story driven experience with no game mechanics. Each "player" took the role of one wizarding character and made all the decisions that character would make in the collaborative story. There were only 3 golden rules to follow:-

1 - No godmoding. Simply put you had to be realistic within the realm of the scenario. No being awesome at everything all the time. It makes for dull stories.

2 - No puppetting. You control your own actions and not those of others. You can for example say you cast a spell at someone but it was up to them to say whether it hit or if they dodged etc.

3 - No Centre of Universing (CoU). Your character isn't the be all and end all of the story. Give others a fair chance to take part and always be considerate.

The community that the site established got to grips with these and produced a wide variety of different stories with hundreds of different characters.

So back to this weekend. When I was discussing the session with Bel I wanted to know what she did and didn't like. She did like the idea that she could literally roleplay whatever she wanted her character to do. But what didn't she like? Dice rolls.

Now Bel isn't anti-dice in general. She loves board games of all varieties. We regularly play things like Elder Sign that are entirely dice based. No, what she didn't like about dice in Pen & Papers was leaving important rolls down to chance. The first P&P we did was based on walking dead where Bel played a gifted archer. When trying to shoot an arrow at a stationary target under no pressure, she missed, because the dice said so.

Okay this could have been explained away by a sudden gust of wind or that the bowstring broke, but her complaint was that it wasn't very realistic and didn't make for good story. She suggested she'd like to play a system where she got to decide whether she was sucessful or not. To most D&D fans this would seem crazy. Why would you ever choose to miss? Bel's point was that it would be to make good story.

I haven't seen all the pen and paper systems out there but there are very few I've seen that have diceless options. So the idea of coming up with a system that allowed trusting players to come develop the story they saw fit to was definitely intriguing. I'm a big fan of dice in these games, I like an element of randomness to keep things in check but I guess different people like different things in this case.

I'll write more on this in another post later. In the meantime I plan to have a think about how a good diceless Pen & Paper might work.

Till next time...

Nostalgia

I'm currently on the train down to London with my sister (Bel) and her boyfriend (Chris, yes same as me) and we have our mobile devices on hand to keep us entertained for hour and half journey. So what's our choice of game to play?

Me and Chris start of with a Bluetooth game of Ticket to Ride, a mobile adaptation of the classic board game. It's not a bad representation although I find a lot of appeal of that game is placing the physical trains down on the board and the obligatory train noises that go with it. Card management is however much simpler!

Bel however opts to find something new to play, or I guess something... Old. "Dizzy, Prince of the Yolkfolk" is her choice. Both me and Bel used to play Dizzy on the Amiga we had as kids. It has very special memories for us and it got me thinking about Nostalgia and how it adds to a game.

The new iPad version of Dizzy is very similar to it older counterpart. They've updated some of the references so that instead of a Walkman you pick up an MP3 player, but essentially the game is just a prettier version of the twenty something game.

However getting nostalgia into a game doesn't just mean rehashing and old idea. I recently saw a first look at a game called Stardrive. It's a 4X space game (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate) and it very much reminds me of Masters of Orion 2, which was a very big game from my early gaming days. While the game is as good as any other modern 4X, it has some nice little nods to MoO2 in some of its races and even the design a race mechanic (allowing you to design your own race based on certain positive or negative traits).

There is however a downside to Nostalgia. If you don't get the references then its simply lost on you. Worst still, if the references are an important part of the game then it can actually put people who don't "get it" off the game entirely. Careful balance is definitely in order.

Even if your not directly referencing a game, learning from what has gone before you is always a good idea. Copying verbatim is generally not the best plan, but the idea a spiritual sequel to older games certainly has a lot of appeal to many gamers, me included.

Till next time...

Introduction

Welcome to my blog!

If your here it's because I've pestered you to check it out, because you're interested in game design in general or you've accidentally stumbled upon the random blog of a crazy guy. When I say "game design" I mean the loose collection of ideas floating around in my head that are formed into game ideas. Let's start at the beginning.

"My name's Chris and I'm a gamer."
There, I said it. Much like the stigma of being an alcoholic people look down at those who "waste their lives" playing games. I've always played games and always enjoyed it. I like to play and I like to win. I don't always manage to win and I'm certainly not the best at gaming either. But I definitely get invested in a game. I love playing new games, trying things out, understanding something new and trying to "get good" at them. Also, when I say gaming, I'm not just talking about computer games, I'm talking everything from PC to console, board games to pen & papers.

I'll try just about any game, some I enjoy more than others, but generally I'll play anything if it has depth. Though when it comes down to it I have two favourite types: RPGs and Card Games (mainly trading/collectible ones).

Oh something else to mention, I'm a programmer... Kinda important I know. I love planning and thinking and making things work. I'll write a post on it soon but in short programming is more about working out what to code than how to code it.

So where does this take us to?
I like games, I like making stuff. So this blog is going to just be my rambling thoughts on Game Design and maybe a few ideas on what I'd do if I was ever to make a game. I'm hoping to update this fairly regularly with whatever is on my mind. Some topics that I'd definitely like to cover in upcoming posts are:-

• What is fun? What's Anti-fun?
• The curse of RNG (Random Number Generation)
• Casual Gaming vs Hardcore Gaming

So if any of this interests you, check back in from time to time. I appreciate any feedback as I'm a big believer is collaborative design. Different people have different ideas, and that's what makes game design fun and challenging.

Til next time...