Back to the Drawing Board (Room)

Where It All Began
Ever since I began my paper prototype for my Intro to Game Studies class, I've been kind of obsessed with the game I have been designing (and - to be honest - a bunch of others I've thought of since). What started as a fairly bare-bones concept has started to come together into what I think is a pretty cool concept, one which borrows from a bit blackjack, rock-paper-scissors, and my own wacky D&D homebrew campaign setting, Yurth, where things are a lot like they are in the real world, just with fantasy races and strange magic. I knew fairly quickly that I wanted to use my evolving Yurth setting in a variety of games, and I have been hoping that people would find it equally humorous and compelling. So far, the reaction has been good.

A handful of people are probably familiar with the previous iteration of my game, Wizards of Wealthiness (a name which I have since re-purposed for a larger project for later), which I've been playtesting with friends, family, and classmates. Working out the early kinks, I got the game to a fairly stable and playable state, though some of the intricacies of the rules can still be a hangup for new players. The combo system is a bit more complicated than something that can use just icons and numbers, since different classes of card create different effects when played together or with their own 'suit.' Still, I feel like, overall, the game is just like any other retail card game - a bit confusing or overwhelming at first, but it becomes much more intuitive after just a short amount of play. This has been true of my playtests so far, at least.

People have enjoyed the theme and have actually asked to know more about the game world, which is great for me since I want to create a lot of content for this setting. Writing quotes, making character names, and adding bits of flavor throughout the game have been very satisfying and enjoyable experiences, Likewise, designing art has been fun. I decided to continue with the pixelated style I have been using since starting work on Space Investigator, because it seemed attainable and pixel art projects are viable today, given the plethora of tabletop and video games utilizing this old school aesthetic. My idea-mill has been churning out ideas, and now my little card game has a new face . . .

Punching clocks and battling years of oppression by the so-called "civilized" races

Revamping the Game
During a game of D&D a friend made passing mention of the idea of 'spokesgoblins' for characters in a fantasy-theme satire of real world corporate culture. The name really stuck with me, and I've been working on my home campaign setting of Yurth ever since with these fellows in mind. The brand of D&D I tend to play has a heavy focus on recasting traditional concepts of good and evil, 'civilized' and 'uncivilized,' and so on. I find the image of a goblin in a top hat and tux, working hard to rise up in a world that systematic oppresses his kind, compelling (and perhaps timely). So, shortly after I finished my paper prototype, I thought - after some light prodding by a couple friends who liked the idea - "Hey, I can reflavored this and the theme will be even better!" So, the first phase of Spokegoblins (and about the 4th phase of my original card game design) began.

I have a solid base, since I did plenty of conceptualizing and playtesting of the original prototype. The things I really need to do are to simplify the rules as much as possible (without sacrificing the fun and interesting parts of the game), continue to balance the system and the card combos, and create art assets and card, component, and box design materials. I'm leaning towards a lot of greens and golds for the box and primary cards, and some themed art for the cards that represent other fantasy races. I'm also in the process of rewriting all the rules material and flavor text, to bring it all in-line with the new core idea of golbins fighting over a job within their Magical Corporation - and avoiding being disintergated by their ruthless wizard bosses.

My wife, Chelsea, is helping me with some of the art, mostly with adding detail to make the initial assets I create 'pop' more. I have a lot of ideas for the main artistic concepts, but I'm still new to this and not very well versed in perspective or shading. The art combines concepts from the D&D cosmology with modern corporate culture - every Board Member has a logo, for example, and the cards including (hopefully) funny, anachronistic quotes from the personalties of the game world. Because I'm so heavily inspired by old school games and tons of pop culture, my designs tend to be filled with homages to various media, though not always in easily-identifiable ways. For example, the dwarven Board Member is Hilda Hammerfall, based on Swedish power metal band Hammerfall, while the human, Bob Johnson, is a very subtle reference from Mystery Science Theater 3000. It is funny for me, if nothing else.

Sample art from the elven, halfling, demonic, and angelic Board Member cards

If I have time, I also want to create some unique characters that players will take on the role of, each of which will have special powers and their own art. This is ending up being a bigger endeavor that I expected, however, and this leg of the project might have to wait until another iteration, or expansion. I am currently on my 8th overall rewrite of the rules and game effects, and I still want to playtest a lot more to iron everything out. I've gotten great suggestions and learned quite a bit about the game from watching people play and playing it myself. I'm happy with Spokesgoblins so far, and I think the changes make it a viable retail game, if I can work out the kinks and create a cogent art style. Time will tell.

GO-ing with the Flow

How Did I Get Here?
Frankly, I never intended to try Pokemon GO (I figure my friends have put in enough time for me) but I suppose I should have suspected that as a student of game design, I was going to have to see what this craze was all about. When I was given a class assignment to play the game and write about it, I decided to go into the game armed only with what I knew from talking to people about it. So here I am, to tell you my thoughts and reactions to the first (and most likely, only) hour and a half of Pokemon GO I played.

For starters, my phone won't even run the app, so I had to borrow my wife, Chelsea's, phone to complete this assignment. Because of this, I decided to create a female avatar that was more or less modeled after her. Picking a name was kind of a hassle - I'd say the first 10 or so options I tried were taken (seriously guys, why not have a feature that tells you that BEFORE you have to go through the whole submit button thing?) Finally I was able to come up with something that worked - SleepyStarz, because my wife sleeps a lot, and I like stars. Flawless logic.

A (tired) star is born

My Life as a Poke-Trainer

I selected Charmander as my starting Pokemon because I used to have the original Pokemon Red, and also dragons are rad. Then I made my first real catch from the comfort of my own home, but of course it wasn't long before I had to break out and walk around to find the little buggers (funny aside though - I literally just loaded up the game while writing this, then a Meowth appeared within my reach, and as I was catching it my cat jumped into the camera's view - that was kind of awesome.) I decided to take the game on a little walk to get a coffee. 

I live right on the border of Oakland in Piedmont, so I walked down Grand Avenue towards the Coffee Mill, a favorite spot of Chelsea and mine. I didn't have much luck on the way, but as I appropriated the trendy area near the historic Grand Lake Theater, I was able to grab a few more Pocket Monsters, including a Krabby, which prompted a few tasteless jokes on my part that I won't repeat here. I also saw the landmark feature for the first time, as a little icon on the GPS map showed me a cool stained glass window in a shop across the street from the Coffee Mill. I didn't have much luck finding Pokemon on my first trip, though, partly because I wasn't too apt to be walking around in broad daylight with my nose buried in my (wife's) phone. I needed a better environment.

I decided my best bet was to take a nighttime walk through Piedmont (a quiet town with very empty streets after dark) so Chelsea and I strolled through the chilly evening air to hunt - er, catch - Pokemon. As we walked down our street, I snagged a couple critters (including a Mankey, which I was fair stoked about, as a primatology enthusiast) and had some luck as we ascend the steep street on our journey into upper Piedmont. Using the GPS map, I saw that there was a Pokemon Gym at the elementary schools in the center of town, but I was only level 3, so not high enough to fight at the gym.

We continued our walk, catching Pokemon as we went, and my level was slowly creeping up, I hit level 4 as we passed a few active Pokestops at the various businesses in the center of town. We'd already passed the school with the gym, but as we wound our way through the park I got some lucky catches, and finally made it to level 5. I joined Team Mystic (since  they seemed to alight best with what I'd think Chelsea would want and I was using her phone) and we decided to wind back to the school and check out the gym battles. I had no point of reference, and no idea how to battle. The gym contained a sporty yellow dude called Alakazam. "How hard can it be?" I wondered.

My Pokemon are represented by the guy in the black trunks

What Am I Supposed to be DOING?

I lost - badly - to Alakazam. Twice. Before taking Pokemon GO for my walk, I talked to my friend Jorge, who has been playing the game for a while. He basically told me to fight in a battle I had to rapidly push the screen. I tried that, and Alakazam wiped out 12 of my Pokemon (6 in each battle). It was kind of disheartening. At this point, Chelsea's phone battery was dying, so rather than keep collecting the little monsters, I quit the app and we made our way home.

After the Meowth I caught while writing this, I ended with 17 Pokemon in my Pokedex. Catching them is fairly easy, but I still have no point of reference about how the game is really supposed to be played. There aren't really any tutorials or much in the way of helpful menus. Jorge basically said that part of the game is interacting with the community online or asking your friends how to play. I wanted to see how much I could figure out on my own, but having seen the gym battles, I know that - if I was going to play again, which I probably will not - I would need to watch some examples online and read up on doing battles.

Jorge also told me about some of the upgrades and the resources in the game, but I had a bit of trouble following. To my mind, the game has an uneven amount of depth for a system that is relatively basic. The turn based battles of the original Pokemon for Game Boy made sense to me intuitively, as someone who is well versed in similar combay systems like those in older Final Fantasy games and Dragon Warrior/Quest. For Pokemon GO, on the other hand, I kind of relied on word-of-mouth to know what was going on, but this was clearly a limiting factor. This is actually a decent implementation for a game that ostensibly is designed to make people more active and social. Crowd-sourcing information about mechanics is a fine approach, in my mind. People love Pokemon and are certainly using those resources.

For me, there simply isn't enough interest in the source material to be keep my interest. I picked up the basic stuff just because I am culturally literate enough to have known about Pokemon GO and had talked to friends about how it works before. I knew I had to walk around to find Pokemon, and I figured out the 'flick your Pokeball at the Pokemon and hope to catch them" thing, but the rest of the game seems to require either a lot of trial-and-error, or a level of commitment to the game that I simply am not motivated enough to dedicate to. There is a really good chance that if, someone made a similar game where you wander around and fight D&D monsters, I would be instantly on-board (and now I'm giving myself an idea). I feel like interest in this kind of game is likely primarily predetermined by one's existing interest in the series.

So, it seems that my future interactions with Pokemon will continue to be contained exclusively within Honest Trailers, and their great lists of Pokemon names.

Gah put it out put it out!

Click here if you don't mind dirty jokes

I made a game!

If you have been following along with me, you know I recently began work on a prototype for a side-scrolling adventure game - along with my partner, Soneer - for our ART108 class at SJSU. After our initial phase of concept building and content creation, we have a playable prototype with 2 levels which you can play with the link here.

Space Investigator

a game by

Soneer Sainion (programmer, producer)

&

Jamieson Mockel (artist, designer)

with Creative Comments music by Tanner Helland - http://www.tannerhelland.com/

The creation of Space Investigator has been a fun process, getting to collaborate on a project that I was initially worried that I would be unable to contribute much to. In my last post, I discuss my journey in becoming something akin to an artist and creating the game world with Soneer, my programming whiz partner and co-conspirator in SPACE CRIME THRILLERS! We've spent a few weeks fine-tuning the game and making the best possible version, and now I am here to walk you through it.

Designing and Playing Space Investigator

In Space Investigator, you take on the role of Buzz Asimov, a detective in a spacesuit and duster who has arrived on the moon colony to solve a series of murders. When you load up the game, you will be treated to a haunting melody from Tanner Helland's Creative Commons collection called "Deeper." We selected it because it just has this great, spacey and mysterious vibe. I created the other sound effects using sfxr, an awesome program you can grab here - seriously go check it out if you want to make game sound effects or just mess around with virtual dials.

Yon control Buzz using the arrow keys left and right. Space bar jumps, E is used to interaction with sentient creatures and objects, and Z shoots the gun once you find it. You must scale platforms by jumping onto them, and collect items along the way to complete various tasks.

In level 1, you start out near a wounded alien and Buzz will provide a quick prompt about solving the crime. You can talk to the wounded alien, but alas! He does not speak a language you recognize. Look around the screen and you will see some items sitting on platforms - these are your objectives for level one. There is a translator card that allows you to talk to the alien, a health kit to heal his wounds, and a keycard needed to leave the area. Buzz's rocket boots help him jump around on the moon's zero-G atmosphere, but beware! The jumps can be treacherous, and the roiling purple ooze will steal any items Buzz has collected and send him back to the beginning!

If you manage to help the alien out, he will give you a clue that will be a big help in level 2, but I'll avoid spoilers and let you figure that out as you progress through the game. Needless to say, there are some riddles to solve, and if you apprehend the wrong perpetrator then it is game over, and you'll start back at the beginning of level 1! Pay attention to the clues you receive, and leave no stone unturned.

Current Issues

The game has come a long way, but still has a few things that need to be addressed:

• Misprint in the title screen - but I have already submitted a new splash screen to Soneer, complete with Star Trek-esque italics text!
• The ground blocks might be disportionately detailed when compared to other art assests, so some new tiles might need to be made
• Some of the jumps are a bit tight, with low ceilings. This is especially true in level 2 and may lead to frustrating restarts from falling into ooze
• One possible fix here is to allow the character to keep his collected items after falling in the ooze
• Some unused art assets to round out the game, including a translator device and different colors for translator cards
• We've gotten feedback that the hazardous ooze might not look immediately hazardous, so warning signs might be implemented
• Players want more narrative, including backstory for Buzz and more dialogue to explain what is going on in the story (we have concepts for this but could not include everything for this build due to time constraints)
• The aliens in level 2 are a bit small and might need to be upscaled
• There is a glitch that has been an issue from the first build where Buzz ocassionally gets 'stuck' on tiles and kind of floats in place - this happens much more rarely now but can still occur at seemingly random times
• The red guard alien on level 2 needs to be animated to give it some personality

Parting Shots - What Could Be

I've enjoyed being part of the Space Investigator team. We conceptualized something that blends 2D platforming with an adventure game dynamic, and I think we have a nice groundwork for it. There is a lot of potential to pull from adventure games, such as including an inventory, allowing the player to move between different areas to solve particular parts of the crime, and fleshing out the story in an interesting way, with plot twists and intrigue. Of course we'd need to balance the platforming aspects with the usual feature of the less-brutal adventure games of not really being able to lose complete (if you grew up with King's Quest you know the danger of crossing a bridge too many times).

I'd want to borrow more from the adventure genre to create a fun and humorous experience without losing what makes platformers fun, and that would require a very delicate hand, since the two styles - adventure and 2D platforming - have fairly different core mechanics. Games like Psychonauts have shown that platforming and adventure can play nice, and Dex is a cool example of this in a side-scroller, but I'd like to create something that could be played more episodically, in shorter bursts, with some Mario-like challenges - scaling but never punishing - but also some puzzles that require close reading and deduction skills to get through.

At this point I feel like I'd need to sit down and write a script, then design lots of characters to meet while someone else creates good platforming levels to plug the bits into. The charm of the game would be in the at direction and the writing, but without solid stage design, we'd never hold the audience long enough to want to experience the whole thing. I think it would be a fun project, but perhaps a bit out of my depth at the current juncture. Still, Space Investigator has - in my opinion -  lot of potential, and we've gotten some really great feedback that has inspired me to think of ways to make the experience even better.

For now though, I'll leave you with some cut/currently unused art assets.

A translator device, which can have translation cards slotted in it to understand aliens

An alien in a button down shirt and tie

A door inspired by Mega Man

A teleportation device

A possible stage design, with moving platforms

Thanks for reading. Keep gaming on!