D.I.Y. Game Mechanics by Introversion

Beyond brilliant! I am so fascinated by what the people over at Introversion are doing. One thing had struck me as ingenious; they are creating a system where you can build your own complex gadgets out of simple things. The basics of this is simple: create objects in the world that do one task (perhaps two) such as a wire that transmits a signal of 1 if on and 0 if off, and other objects that respond to signals , such as bomb detonating when it receives a signal of 1 and stays off when receiving a signal of 0. Things can get more intricate when you throw in time delays, motion sensors, and laser trip lines creating dynamic environments where saboteurs actually have to look at what wire they are cutting rather than holding the action button for 8 seconds.

Imagine the things you can make with some simple tools. Lets throw in some neat examples, so what can you make with, wires, sliding door, a motion sensor, a few trip lines, an explosive, a keypad, a gun-turret, pressure pads, some time delays, and an alarm... it almost seems like an electricians play ground...or explosives expert. If you were playing against another player, you can set up elaborate defense systems or traps and the other player will have to do some undercover recon to take note of all your defenses and to see how to bypass them. With a system like this , custom downloadable content is foreseeable and perhaps in some sort of MMO universe it could even be a class of some sorts that builds templates and sells them for mega credits depending on how useful it is.

I don't know why we haven't seen this in games as simple as it is. Half Life 2 did try this with some of their force shields and ....... force shields, and as trivial as it was - using the gravity gun to pull the plug - it still brought a different side of gameplay us gamers haven't seen and we felt proud knowing we "figured" out how to turn off the .. shields . 

This is such a great design and I plan on using a derivation of this in future games.

Social Network Games : New Grounds For Experimental Gaming

If you are part of one of the biggest social networks , eg. Facebook, Myspace, then you might have noticed a new wave of game showing up and a bunch of your friends playing them. These new games offer twists on great game designs and are unique each in their own ways. Playfish  has been one of the biggest influences out there , having most of their games on the top of the charts on Facebook. So why are these games catching the attention of millions?

For one, it's how they are designed. Their are two types of social networking games, those that are just games to have fun with friends and others that the point is to add friends to your app game. The latter usually has a big "INVITE FRIENDS" button on the main page imporing you to click on it. Games like this are usually not as entertaining because they usually force you to get people to play so that your experience is more enjoyable telling you things like "invite one more peron and you can buy the ROCKET LAUNCHER FROM HELL!!!! RAWR RAWR!" and it really ruins the fun because you end up saying your friends "look you don't need to even play, just join up and thats it." 

This is deplorable... but it is a great marketing scam. These games are called Viral. The point is to spread and get people to eventually click the micro-transaction button so they can get fake money in the game. We'll that's actually how all social network games make their money but when that's the focus it waters down gameplay to null. So the other option is to actually use the network as a testing ground to the infinite possible game designs. MAKE an actual game that people would play rather than some crappy, cookie-cutter spreadsheet game that has been the case for a while now. 

The network is there and people are willing to play; it's like a Game Designers dream! The risk is so small that games can be pumped out as fast as you can make them and the quality does not have to be AAA so to speak. People recognize that graphics are gonna be sub bar and try to make the best of what you have created. Games can be expirmental now that the risk is so low and designers can go nuts and just make far out designs where they could have otherwise on a bigger title. Publishers are out of the picture and it goes straight to the costumer. And if you need to survey your audience, just ask. You have a tool which allows millions of users to be at your questioning and that kind of service is invaluable. 

I see a future of wacky far out games that will call attention to many users proving that games can reach out to all audiences. This new environment will nurture experimental growth for designers and hopefully we'll see some more original games.

Voltron! The Multiplayer Game... how would it work?

Paul Dostal posted a curious topic on the Inside EA Linked In group forum. He posted 

How would you design a game to handle a combining robot, in the style of the combining robots from Transformers, Power Rangers, etc.?

I'm curious about how this issue could be handled, seeing as I've always been a fan of robots and co-op games since I was a child. I always loved watching as the Constructicons would combine to form Devestator or the Dinozords would combine to form the Megazord or even better, the Mighty Orbots combining into Mighty Orbot, but this brings up an interesting dilemma in game design: Who the heck gets to control the robot?!

For those who've never watched Transformers, Power Rangers, Mighty Orbots or other similar shows, I'll give you a brief rundown of what happens. Enemy Robot/Monster/Asteroid appears in town, and the heroes each have or are a robot of some sort that can combine into a single powerful robot that has far superior power and usually defeats the enemy in a single attack, (totally disappointing the kids who were hoping for an epic battle, but lets not bring up too many sad memories) and then they separate and go home. Of course, in some cases, the battles do last a while and can sometimes be pretty exciting. I'm looking for designing for the latter, where the players get some satisfaction of defeating the enemy.

Let's assume that this is an online/lan game so each player has his/her own view of the game. So, you've got the task of taking a 5-part robot, and splitting the gameplay elements between each player who controls each part. I've chosen a 5-part robot because that is the most common combining style I'm aware of, but I've seen some shows with 10 or more parts. 4 of the robots transform into a limb, while the fifth into a head and torso. Now, you combine into your giant robot and are about to battle the enemy monster, so who gets to drive?

There are a couple of ways I see to take care of this, each with drawbacks and advantages.

1) One person takes full control of the robot: The main advantage to this is that there's no splitting of gameplay between players, so the person controlling the robot gets the satisfaction of beating the badguy while the others watch. The disadvantage is that only one person actually plays this part of the game while the others watch. Sure they can comment, or give suggestions, but who wants to watch someone win the game you're playing without some real help from you. You can always rotate pilots though if you wanted, perhaps having 2 combining modes, 1 where you are a limb, the other where you are a torso. I'm not sure I'd enjoy this too much.

2) 1 person controls the walking, 1 person controls the fists, 1 person controls the weapons, remaining 2 keep the power up. This gives everyone a task to do, and an interesting approach to teamwork. 1 person controls the legs, so he/she controls if the robot moves anywhere, and if it jumps or flies around. The next person controls the fists, so if the enemy is nearby, they get to do any punching or swordplay that happens to occur. Another person controls the ranged weapons of the robot, so if the robot has a gun or laser cannons in his chest or some other form of ranged weapon, he'd be in charge of that. Finally the remaining 2 might have a puzzle pirates type role where they have to play mini-games to keep the robot powered or armed. They would all need voice-chat I'd imagine, and someone would have to be in charge of what actions to take. The main advantage I see to this approach is the emphasis on teamwork and communications to maximize the potential of the robots powers. The disadvantage I see is if someone on the team doesn't co-operate then chances are that the team will lose the game.

I think any combining robot games would have to emphasize teamwork and communication skills over solitary ones. Any thoughts?

This is what i had to say:

On #1 - If one person were to command the robot, it would be a total bummer on the rest of the team since they do not get to participate in the action.

On #2 - This is more complicated and needs to be balanced well. For a five part unit I was thinking.

Pilot:
One guy is the robots movement from a 3rd person perspective over the shoulder style, this includes legs and arm motion and jumping and boosters and all things motion. If this was like a fighting robot game then he would execute the combat moves and combos or what not.

Left Shoulder Turret:
One guy is in a turret first person view that is sort of like a ball socket and can rotate 180-270 degrees to from the front to back defending the robot from rear attacks and frontal attacks; perhaps an army of tiny infantry or tanks harass the player while they fight the BIG main guy. The drawback is that he can only defend part of the front, part of the left and part of the back.

Right Shoulder Turret:
Same as the left shoulder turret but on the right. These two are the main defenders for the robot.

Intel / Commander / Tactician:
This guy basically has a view of the battlefield and can have pivotal 3rd person view of the robot. His task is to delegate targets of interest or importance since the main guy cannot view behind him and the two shoulder mounts are frantically defending in all directions. This way there is a person who isn't going nuts fighting and can calmly direct the flow of the battle field. He can set targets for individual parts such as left arm on the tank turret and pilot to the main base and the other players would see on their screen where they should shoot (in case of indirect fire and firing while moving) kind of like in Tribes 2 when they had the laser pointer or in Freelancer moving target reticule.

Engineer:
Someone needs to keep track of the health and status of all the gadgets the robot has. This guy basically has an overview of all the tech in robot and how they are keeping up. He has a main "ENERGY" bar he can distribute throughout the robot, and depending on what needs to be done he can pump it full of energy to make a bonus damage with high critical hit chance, or redirect everything to shields while they make a retreat to safer ground. He also has a side task for repairing the robot so he sends out little flying droids to pick up scraps that will be used to repair the robot. The commander player would also help point out large stock piles of scraps so to direct the droids.

Overall i think this could work out well. But definitely needs constant communication with all members. Perhaps if not all 5 members are available, the AI could take over or a player would take on more than one role. More balancing would be required for different number of team members. But I do enjoy where you went with this and It could possibly make for a great team vs team experience. I can picture two massive robots fighting in a DOTA-esque environment where tons of enemies are thrown at you and you must take out the other players robot, or base , or whatever. This could even work for a space robot game or spaceship game. Very interesting idea!

probably should start sketching concepts and gameplay mechanics. haha!