Tidbits

There's a bacteria that can cause freezing to break open the leaves of plants and infect. Necrotic cryogenic pathogens anyone? Definitely using that as an environmental hazard for my game now.

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Terrible but hilarious game idea:

Deck builder. Theme? John Norman's GOR.

Not saying I'd make this. But a) it'd probably sell and b) it'd be controversial as hell.

Happy Easter

A long time ago, a team of heroes hunted down and fought a Necromancer, known for raising the dead. They finally captured him and performed the ritual to end his evil powers, ending in stabbing him with a blessed spear while he hung disconnected from the earth.

Unfortunately, they pulled an Ash and screwed up the words. Three days later the Necromancer rose as a Lich and (according to some records) moved to a new continent to recruit an even greater army.

And that's the New Testament in a nutshell, folks. It's a D&D campaign in disguise!

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If your card game ends after 3 turns or less, you're doing it wrong. The fun is from the playing. Broken quick kill decks are the antithesis of a good game. It's on the designer to make sure that doesn't happen.

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Video game concept: bishounen bullet hell focusing on guys in executive attire.

Name: Black Sock Shooter.

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GMing tip: the more fun you put into the game through your own storytelling, the more fun you'll receive from your players.

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I want to design an ARG where you're stronger when you work alone than in a team.

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Idea for a video game: the more buttons you press frantically, the more awesome things get. Being increasingly random when you hit the buttons is rewarded.

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Something I like in my stories and games: in a conflict between magic and science, science should win. Generally by dispelling the mysticism and secrets that magic relies on. Victory where the scientist has a better grasp of the basic concepts than the sorcerer.

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That feeling when you spend over an hour making a support character for an RPG and instead get thrown into PvP against someone 7 levels above you.

Whatever the feeling is, it's not enjoyment.

Monopoly Multiverse

Take different themed Monopoly boards (original is Earth 0). Overlay them at either Free Parking, Go to Jail, or Jail/Just Visiting.

Players may choose to move onto a different board when they come to the intersection.

Players start at the GO of any board they want to use the pieces of.

You can go to any Jail. Instant warp.

Number of players: Number of boards times 8. Hit triple digits (13 or more boards) for amazing times.

Try to have players start at different boards so there aren't large dead zones.

Blind variant:

Sets of boards are distributed in different rooms. Players move rooms when they go to a different cluster. They can choose to survey or build. This creates a "fog of war" effect - you don't know how much players in other clusters have versus you unless you go looking.

This requires a GM to track what's connected to what, as well as to keep income from different property flowing to the right person from across dimensions.

What Kind of Dystopia?

"What kind of dystopia is it?"

"Think tumblr, but fascist."

"So...regular tumblr, basically."

Libraries in the Apocalypse

Video game idea: managing a library in a post apocalyptic setting. Determine what to trade for what books, based on community interest, so you can keep the library going and encourage patrons to help defend it.

There would be no money system, only bartering. You survive by allowing people access to knowledge in exchange for things. You can also trade those things to others who have books in order to get them. However, if you trade for a book that's so-so, you may not have enough for a real gem that comes to you later.

there are also raiders who want to steal what you have (not the books, your trading goods). If you're popular with your patrons and have been keeping up on fresh books they want to read, they'll help defend you. If you haven't been listening to them, they won't do as much.

Different segments of the population want different types of books and each segment will have different pluses and minuses when it comes to what they give for access and what they do for you when they're happy.

Minimal graphics - it's mostly text based. Easily doable on an 8-bit style. No real moving art or action sprites. Trickiest part would be balancing the different equations and play strategies. Identifying the minimum viable product would also be interesting.

Shepherding Game

Game concept: A mother shepherding her children across a wartorn nation.

Done in the style of original Oregon Trail.

When that kid dies of dysentery, you are going to cry SO MUCH.

Steampunk Psychology

Back in early 2013, I came up with the idea for using Victorian era psychology as a basis for steampunk game mechanics. The idea made it all the way to a 100-page formatted manuscript before it was rebuffed by the intended publishers. Among the critiques, that it "didn't feel like steampunk" and "it was too out there."

Turns out I was beaten to this concept by Felix Gilman, author of "The Half-Made World." The main protagonist of his 2010 steampunk novel? A psychologist. On one hand, I'm disappointed (though not surprised) that another writer thought of this first. On the other hand, I am elated to discover that my concept really does have strong merit, to the point where a very excellent piece of steampunk fiction employs it as a central piece. He also goes in a different direction than I did, so I'm not ripping him off.

Winning an argument, even 4 years later, is satisfying.

(For the record, my work on steampunk psychology is currently being polished for release by another game company. I never let a good idea die, even if I have to go elsewhere to find people smart enough to see the value.)

Game Design Reflections

Some small notes I wrote to myself as I was developing games some time ago.

Creativity and follow through. Those are two key traits of successful creators. I like associating with people who have both and I get frustrated around those who have the former, but not the latter. The ground is strewn with the remains of wonderful projects that never saw the light of day because creative people couldn't get their act together. It's also a very good idea not to allow that type to be in charge - nothing will ever be completed.

Part of the steampunk experience that game needs to capture correctly is "class." Part of the veneer of the Victorian era was a certain high brow feeling to it. For a video game, that means interesting visuals. For a table-top RPG, that means words. Vocabulary is exceptionally important to create the right atmosphere. If you're trying to paint a 10-dollar scene with nickel words, it creates cognitive dissonance.

That feeling when you come up with a much cooler name for something than you originally had.

On race design: I like to take a page from TF2 and make sure each race has a different silhouette than the others. That is, seeing nothing but their outline, you can identify them. Too many humanoids gets repetitive. I think most players appreciate when developers put extra work into making really original races to play as rather than "generic orc #64289."

Don't create a "combat system" (an RPG mainly for fighting). Pathfinder and D&D do that already and are much more popular. Go for the people tired of combat after combat and want something else to bite into.

I am tempted to call explosives in my game "Badda Booms." I'm not going to, but the temptation is SO STRONG.

Crafting systems and how to implement them. You can go for realism and have it be slow, or you can go a more flashy, anime route. I haven't seen the latter done (and I think it'll be cool), so that's how my game will go with it. Super engineering indistinguishable from magic. All of the cool factor while still being rooted in scientific laws.

The benefit of creating a game on your own is also the downside: all the mistakes are yours. And it's up to you to fix it.

One benefit of creating a game of my own is the only mistakes in design will be mine. If prior experience is any indicator, that will be a welcome decrease in uncorrected errors. I have had so many experiences with spotting mistakes, pointing them out, and then being ignored only to end up proven right in the end. It was a running gag eventually where we'd tally up how often a suggestion made months or a year prior and rejected offhand would later turn out to have been the optimal solution all along. Now I just have to be sure to take my own advice.

How Do High IQ's Think?

The response to this question at Quora spoke to me pretty deeply. Mainly in how it mirrors so much of my own personal experiences with others. I've extracted the most relevant portions below:

"When I ask a question, I receive condescension from my peers, and literally watch them gloat over them 'knowing something' I don't. When I have an answer, it is weighed less than anyone else's. When I have a suggestion, it is resisted always until or unless circumstances obviate it's acquirement...

"I see solutions everywhere. I also see people highly resistant to change even when they agree with the solution.

"I see fraudulence everywhere. I see people who are deeply, deeply in love with a façade they project which brings them power in some aspect...

"I see hopelessness everywhere. I see people clinging so violently to a hope (either an opinion or an idea) which brings their life into relevance, that even broaching another possibility is perceived as an attempt to invalidate their entire worth as a human being.

"I see totalitarianism everywhere. I see people so wildly bent upon demanding others accept and even celebrate whatever they do in the name of tolerance, that even only tolerating it is seen as bigoted hatred worthy of being intolerant towards...

"I see the purposeful invention of conflict. I see people individually and en masse actually seeking aspects of others with which to choose to take offence, then creating a massive smear campaign to besmirch the very character of a person based upon a perceived slight...

"Socially….exceedingly lonely and have been my entire life. Virtually always misunderstood, virtually always see through the façade I'm presented with from someone else….and virtually always borne out as correct over time."

Her line about having an answer and it being weighted less? Been there. Resisted suggestions? Yes. Same with being borne out as correct over time.

One example of this from my past: my hobby of game development. Those reactions over and over again are why I started to pursue my own game development work rather than continue under others: they were simply too slow to see the fixes that had to be done to the problems.

Starting with another company was good for acquiring basic skills in the field. I certainly wouldn't be as good at writing games today if I hadn't cut my teeth on other games first. But after a while the tedium of pointing out flaws, proposing solutions, and then being entirely ignored by those above me grew too much.

Now that I have a game that (mostly) conforms to the solutions I created, I've been proven correct: my approach was the better one and I am the better game designer for it. I learned what I could, but rapidly outpaced and out grew those who started ahead of me in the learning curve.

As I continue to dedicate my time into it, I don't see my growth slowing down. I am always seeing ways to improve - approaches those I used to seek answers from remain clueless of.

Combat and Non-Combat

Good lesson for RPG designers: if your game is combat-only focused, there is a cap on how many people will be interested. Mostly because Pathfinder and D&D are combat focused and - guess what - they are more popular than you will be. That means you have to appeal to non-combat players to have any chance of sustainability.

From day 1, you need to think of how non-combat actions will be balanced. Design so that a non-fighting build is just as viable and interesting as the typical warrior or barbarian. If someone doesn't have a chance to talk their way out of a bad situation, or convince the other person to join them, you need to rethink your game system.

Dystopia Brainstorm

An old post I made back in 2015:

"I want to create a dystopia. But I'm not sure what kind. Cyberpunk mega-Corp is boring and too overdone from the 80's and 90's, so that's out. There's failed scientifically planned utopia, hedonistic gilded cage, authoritarian nightmare, psychologically manipulative shadow cabal...

"I'm trying to think of one that isn't done a lot."

 We ended up settling on "What if Tumblr ran a country." It makes people cringe every time we say it.

Tidbits

There is a certain joy that comes from being able to level up a character for a table-top RPG.