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Old Games Journalism at its best

May 6th, 2006 by Troy Goodfellow · Uncategorized

Now that E3 is around the corner, we can expect a lot more bloggish criticism of how the game media does its job. And where E3 is concerned, there are a lot of valid issues. The coverage is often shallow, focused on glitzy presentations and chasing the same two or three stories.

These reports will blend into a call for greater analysis of games – some want more business stories, some want developer interviews, some want cultural critique and others want more personal insights about game culture from a gamer perspective (so-called New Games Journalism).

Me? I’d be happy to read an article like this once a month (hat tip to Bruce Geryk). Chris Farrell plays a lot of boardgames and has a lot of opinions on them. But his articles aren’t just the typical good/bad stuff you find on most blogs (including my own from time to time). And this article on card deck size and what it tells you about game design has one brilliant insight that too many game critics ignore.

Many game design decisions have nothing to do with game design.

Finding that a wide range of games from the same publisher have decks of the exact same size, Farrell writes:

I would consider it a monumental coincidence if all 10 of these games, from two-player single-deck games to two-player individual-deck games to multi-player games, covering conflicts from the Reformation to the Cold War, with game lengths running from 3 to 20 turns, all just happened to have worked out such that they really required 110 cards to work properly. I find it far more likely that the designers were told, “you’ve got 110 cards to work with on the press sheet”, and they used all these slots up by picking their 110 favorite events from the period and figuring out how to express them in game terms.

This type of observation has major consequences for the utility of certain cards, player learning curves and information management. Too many cards that do too little can make a game drag out too long or stick one player with an underpowered hand. On the obverse side, what ideas are unexplored because of a hard limit on deck size.

See how easy it is? Only it can’t be that easy, since this sort of obvious insight can be applied to computer game criticism but often isn’t. And I’m as guilty as the next guy/gal – my commentary on the level of this single piece is few and far between. This could not have been a difficult item for Farrell to write, but sometimes I think that this basic design analysis gets lost in writers’ efforts to make things look more complicated than they really are.

Most of Farrell’s blog is good, and is useful even if you don’t play boardgames. His design comments are top notch and have given me things to look for in computer strategy games.

So maybe we don’t need a revolution in gaming criticism; we just need more people to focus on the games themselves at a very basic level.

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Developer Interview: Jim McNally

May 5th, 2006 by Troy Goodfellow · Ancients, Indie Games, Interview

Longbow Digital Arts is a Toronto based developer best known for its arcade games, especially the very addictive Breakout clone DX-Ball. So what do you do next? You make a strategy game based in Ancient Greece, that’s what. Obvious, no?

Jim McNally answered a few questions about Hegemony.
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Longbow Digital Arts has focused, to this point, on arcade and light action games. Hegemony looks like a modern historical strategy game. Has this been a difficult adjustment?

I’ve always wanted to do more historically based games, so most of the adjustments have been with scaling up and developing our new game engine. The transition has been helped by consolidating development in-house and making a number of arcade games to hone our skills. In essence, the arcade games were stepping stones rather than a passion.

Ancient history has been pretty well trod in computer games, and some would say exhausted by titans like Age of Empires and Rome: Total War. What will set Hegemony apart?

I don’t think that ancient history has been exhausted. At the risk of oversimplifying, my take is that action games, utilize ancient history as a skin, the best example is God of War, while mainstream RTS games have their harvest, build, zerg-rush and destroy, then repeat on a new map, formulas. Although these formula RTS games are very popular and successful they still have a tendency to grossly caricature any historical time period they encompass. On the other hand, the more historically researched wargames tend to be niche, and often use outdated 2D technology engines as extensions of proven board-game concepts, or use a simplified strategy-map with battles fought on more detailed battle-maps (e.g. Rome: Total War). There’s still plenty of room for innovation and historical interpretation.

Now assuming that ancient history hasn’t been exhausted, Hegemony sets itself apart by having all gameplay on one big continuous, satellite based, 3D map with a movement and supply system that focuses strategic and empire building decisions as the logical extensions of local geography.

Philip’s wars in Greece often play second fiddle to the better known and better documented wars of his son, Alexander. What are the challenges and opportunities this presents?

I started out researching Alexander then discovered that his father Philip had created the army and built the Kingdom from which Alexander launched his campaign. Philip took over a defeated kingdom, on the verge of being destroyed and assimilated by its neighbors. This makes Philip an ideal subject for a rags-to-riches wargame.

A lot of people find hoplite warfare boring. It’s just pushing and poking with sharp sticks. What is the appeal of this type of battle to a developer?

There’s a lot more to the era than simple hoplite style battles. First you have the somewhat autonomous Greek City-States in a constant state of war. Then you have Philip introducing the Macedonian Phalanx as the core of his battleline. Add in the development of torsion catapults and more aggressive siege techniques, plus Philip’s use of cavalry to aggressively pursue defeated enemies after battle, and you have the basis of logistics, combined arms battles and siege-craft. A less flashy but extremely significant evolution during the 4th century BCE was the increasing importance of light infantry Peltasts for reconnaissance in force and raids. Add merchant shipping, battle fleets of triremes and plenty of piracy based from the numerous island City-States of the Aegean, and as developers, we have plenty to work with. Researching around the origins of modern western civilization is an added bonus.

One screenshot shows a zoomed out view of a mountain pass and a minimap. This implies some sort of strategic overlay. Can you say a bit about the strategy side?

The minimap is always present as an aid to navigating and jump-moving on the game-map. Other than the awe effect, the more zoomed-out view will have map overlay information labels to aid in play.

Philip had a plan to invade Persia, and was setting the stage when he was murdered. Will the player have this opportunity?

Yes, one of the requirements to be declared Hegemon of Greece is for Philip to capture 10 cities of the Persian Empire and control them for 2 years. The Persian Empire controls 35 cities in the game, from the Asian side of the Bosphorus and Hellespont southward to cities such as Cnidus and Helicarnassus and Sardis. The player will be able to take them all, although a sizable Persian army supported by a Phoenician fleet, will enter the fray.

Hegemony has not gotten a lot of advance press, even on sites dedicated to this sort of game. Has it been difficult to get the word of mouth going?

Other than the initial announcement and presentation at the Toronto chapter of the IDGA, we haven’t tried to get any publicity or word of mouth going, and have been pleasantly surprised by the interest that has been expressed.

As it takes time away from development, we’ve been holding off updating screenshots and videos until we’re into full beta-testing.

Has being an independent developer with no history in the strategy arena made it harder to find publishers and distributors?

Although a number of smaller publishers have expressed interest, we haven’t been actively looking for a publisher. We run our own servers, store and credit-card processing, so we’re in a good position to self-publish over the internet. Plus, to facilitate downloads, our new game engine has been designed to be compact and we expect the release download to be in the 80-100meg range.

We’d ultimately like to have a “bricks and mortar” publisher as well, especially for localized versions overseas. This is where proving ourselves first, becomes important to getting the “right” deal for LDA.

To more specifically answer your question, yes, it is much more difficult to find a publisher, and under the circumstances, prior to having a playable, near-finished game to show, we’d likely be wasting our time trying.

Hegemony will be moving into its next beta phase soon. Do you have a release window in mind?

Our release window should be sometime in the fall.

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Preserving the Computer Canon

May 3rd, 2006 by Troy Goodfellow · Uncategorized

If you don’t read Game Politics, you should. Though Kotaku and Joystiq get more hits, Game Politics has become my most important source for information on how government and its citizens respond to gaming as a hobby or culture.

Today’s find is a newbyte on the Library of Congress’s push to preserve dying forms of digital information. Given the focus on the site, GP’s exaggerated focus on the single mention of “video games” in the LoC strategy summary is natural. It does raise an interesting question, though.

If we leave aside the technical emphasis of the LoC project (i.e., keeping old media forms legible and rescuing data from obsolete disks), what do you preserve, and why?

This is quite a different question from the Desert Island Disks question that Computer Games Magazine asks. Ye olde “What games do you take with you to a deserted island?” query is aimed at the individual gamer, and so largely depends on individual tastes. If the island has an internet connection, answers change dramatically.

But if the question is “Which games do you preserve for posterity?” the issue takes a completely different turn. Civilization IV is a much better game than the original Civilization but the original is one most likely to be preserved because of its seminal importance in the evolution of the strategy genre. Similarly, SimCity would be included in any list where Caesar III would likely not.

In its role as curator of America’s creative culture, the Library of Congress also maintains the National Film Registry, a list of movies considered central to the development of American society and the film art. There are now 425 protected movies, including material of historical interest like McKinley’s inauguration and the Zapruder film. So some of this stuff isn’t even entertaining.

What would a computer gaming canon look like? What types of technical and stylistic achievements should be noted for future generations?

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Sex and the single (or married) gamer

May 2nd, 2006 by Troy Goodfellow · Uncategorized

My occasional indie contribution to Computer Games Magazine continues in this month’s June issue. My Alt.Games column covers Space Station Sim, Disaffected and Game Biz.

The issue’s main feature covers sex in the computer gaming industry and I highly recommend. Though certainly a titillating subject, the two part story itself by Damon Brown and Lara Crigger (neither of whose work I am familiar with) is a nice sequel to an earlier CGM feature on retro-gaming.

It also comes at a coincidental moment in gaming journalism. This month’s Computer Gaming World covers the same issue but different ground as does this week’s Escapist. Why the sudden obsession with sex? Given the lead times required for getting this sort of stuff edited and published, something may have been going through the rarified editorial air. But features take a while to put together (one reason I am sort of holding off till the summer to assemble a feature) plus The Escapist makes its issue themes available to the public months ahead. So it’s not like a single issue made editors jump up and say that early May is the best month for this sort of thing.

In any case, this is an issue that will continue to pop up for as long as mature people play games. Sex is really a non-issue in strategy games – Cleopatra Spears notwithstanding.

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H.G. Wells and Game Design

April 26th, 2006 by Troy Goodfellow · Gamer's Bookshelf

Greg Costikyan’s article on the history of board and strategy gaming provoked me to return to H.G. Wells’ Little Wars.

Actually, the full title is Little Wars: A Game for Boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys’ games and books. Note that we already have the quaint idea that these sorts of games are for boys and men. In the book, Wells makes reference to a female acquaintance and doesn’t miss the opportunity to refer to her as a “daring ornament of her sex”.

The Gutenberg version omits the pictures that accompany the text in the book, so his description of a game he completed (an early After Action Report) is missing some clarifying images. But for the most part you can get a good idea of the game from his account and an even better idea of Wells’ high hopes for the game.

First, there is little shame in Wells about a bunch of adults running around with tin soldiers. The minutiae of the rules and measurements clearly takes this out of the realm of simple play, and would probably be a challenge for even the cleverer sort of boys, let alone masculine girls. Wells emphasizes standardization in the size of soldiers, something that most children would not care much about in a game of this sort, I figure.

Second, there is no denying the middle class nature of the game. Only in the “Upstairs, Downstairs” world of Edwardian England could one conceive of gentlemen crawling on the floor large enough to measure troop movements in feet. Wells proposes a lawn version of his game, as well. Wells speaks of spending an afternoon and evening on a single session – this is the purview of those who can afford to spend the time.

But there is so much recognizeable in Wells’ efforts to modify his game that he well earns the title of Father of Wargaming. There were certainly Kriegspiels before; Wells refers to them. But those are for training the soldiers. Wells seeks amusement – the thrill of battle without actually having to die. Wells is an idealist positing that his game is a great substitute for war.

Look at Wells’ emphasis on the historicity of rules. Unhappy that solo soldiers were encouraged to charge bodies of men, Wells developed rules that mandated that greatly outnumbered troops would become prisoners instead of Sergeant York. Guns can be captured in similar circumstance. He suggests alternate rules that would cover rifled weapons and shrapnel. Even the idea of moving beyond piled encyclopedias to miniature houses is based on the recognition that it just didn’t feel right.

Wells also tries to implement fog of war rules, by suggesting that troops be moved in unmarked boxes until an opponent gets in range to see what is in the box. The suggestion is not perfect, of course; you will always see the box. But the idea of an amateur game with minimal refereeing trying to provide the necessity for scouting is a brilliant step.

In Little Wars, Wells admitted that he had not tried all the variants he mentions. And, as simple as the rules are, I still can’t fathom how this sort of thing gets worked out in the absence of an umpire, who would have to know the rules. As adult as Wells portrays the activity to be, even the eccentric English probably thought that this was a little peculiar.

Still, anyone interested in game design should probably check out Little Wars. It’s an early twentieth century design document that shows how a great author tried to make a game for grown-ups.

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Must Read Article

April 25th, 2006 by Troy Goodfellow · Uncategorized

All strategy and wargamers should read Greg Costikyan’s contribution to this week’s Escapist. It’s a great little summary of the evolution of board and paper games, including strategy and wargames. I don’t as eagerly endorse the conclusions he draws for the computer gaming industry, but his account of the history of gaming is full of juicy nuggets.

Like, did you know that wargamers were the first to use the term “gamers” as reference to their community? I didn’t.

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