Author: Scott

Last week was a busy one for me over at Escapist Magazine. Not only did my latest game get published, but my first feature column for the site did as well. I’m pleased with both (thought admittedly more excited about the game).

Now available to play is You Have to Lock the Entry!, my Wikipedia-themed card game. It’s a riff on the free encyclopedia’s “edit wars,” and the act of locking down controversial articles. It’s one of my favorite games so far — not just in designing, but in playing as well. Surprisingly, the internet makes for good non-digital game inspiration…

Also up is my feature article, Simplified Systems: Why 2008 May be the Year of the Board Games. I had a little help on this one, with input from Eric Zimmerman, Brenda Brathwaite, and Frank Lantz (Frank’s comments on the topic sadly got cut due to length; sorry, Frank).

Busy month. It feels like I just returned from France, and in two days I’m moving to San Francisco (that’s right, potential employers, moving to San Francisco). In between those major transitions, I completed two non-digital games and a pretty nifty Off the Grid. It’s probably why I haven’t started packing yet.

First up is Gygaxian, developed in response to Brenda Brathwaite’s challenge to design a game in memory of the late Gary Gygax. It’s an inverted game of Dungeons & Dragons, with multiple Dungeon Masters (here called GGs) battling for narratorial control.

May’s Escapist game (which actually went up a week early) is myNo, a fun, fast-paced dice game I promised myself I’d work on as a break from headier designs like Gygaxian and Petrol Panic. I’ve been using a lot of dice in my designs lately. Maybe next month I’ll do something a bit different.

Over at Joystiq, my latest Off the Grid column deals with Hasbro’s limited-edition Risk: Black Ops, which is ten times hotter than the commercial re-release of the title coming this Fall. As I write this, only five copies of the game are up for auction on eBay, and each is going for over $400. That has to send a pretty strong message to Hasbro re: the demand for the game.

I figured it out! All by myself!

If you’re confused, then you need to go play You Have to Burn the Rope. And read about it here and here. And watch a teaser trailer here. It’s a simple, super-short platforming game with one boss, and the secret to beating him is not-so-subtly embedded in the game’s title.

The indie gaming community has lovingly embraced this quirky flash game, and it’s even caught the attention of the mainstream gaming press, who liken the experience to 2007’s Portal (another game which I thoroughly approve of).

The developer created the game as a reaction to titles that are too long and too difficult, hence its simple premise and abbreviated play-time. But despite its tongue-in-cheek simplicity, You Have to Burn the Rope wins over gamers in the end, due largely to the stunningly uneven ratio of reward to challenge.

After burning the titular rope and defeating the Grinning Colossus, the game plays out its credits, coupled with a catchy tune clearly inspired by Portal‘s “Still Alive.” The song is obviously derivative, and a bit repetitive, but the community ate it up, declaring it as the perfect end to the perfect game, with varying levels of sarcasm and seriousness.

Of course, the reason the ending is deemed so satisfying is that it’s rather significantly awesome, relative to the length of the game. In fact, the ending song is as long (if not longer) than a standard gameplay session of You Have to Burn the Rope, meaning that players spend just as much time accomplishing the entertainingly simple task as they do reveling in it.

Regardless of this unbalance (and its affect on the critical reception of the game), I still love Rope. It says everything I believe in about the direction games should go in. Shorter, sweeter, funnier. More rewarding, less difficult, more rope.

It’s time to get your vote on, because area/code’s Sharkrunners has been nominated for a Webby Award in the Games category!

Sharkrunners is a real-time, browser-based game developed for Discovery Channel’s Shark Week. Players take on the roles of daring shark researchers, and take their crews out on the open seas to risk life and life in the pursuit of great white sharks. In their browsers, players set their courses across the water, and are alerted via text message when their crew has spotted a shark. It’s cross-media in a very area/code way, and the game has a tension to it that makes the time-sensitive experience of tracking and observing sharks surprisingly potent.

I worked on Sharkrunners last summer while interning at area/code, composing a lot of the in-game copy, as well as QA-testing the title. The area/code crew deserves a lot of props for the work they did on this game. Show them some love by casting your vote.

As if that wasn’t cool enough on its own, The Escapist was also nominated for a Webby, in the “Games-Related” category. Congrats go out to all the nominees (but especially the ones I work/have worked for).

I’ve been publishing non-digital games over at The Escapist since July of last year, and I thought it might be time to address the republication rights of those games.

My contract with The Escapist is not tailored to games, but rather is the same general contract offered to other freelance writers on the site. Because of this, The Escapist publishes my work under a 90-day, exclusive first-publication agreement, after which point the republication rights revert to me, the author/designer.

In other words, my Escapist games can be formally re-published as proper games, provided the actual publication occurs outside of the 90-day exclusivity period. Game publishers interested in working with any of my titles should feel free to contact me at my whole name with no spaces ÄT gmail DØT com.

Not all the features are conducive to proper publication, but games like Petrol Panic and 9am class definitely have that “star” potential.

I’m a bit behind on blogging these days, for a variety of good reasons. Most of them excuses.

Last month over at the Escapist I published Petrol Panic, a board game that I consider one of my best works to date. It took two full months of testing, balancing, and hair-pulling to get right. I’m still not convinced it’s perfect, but I’m utterly satisfied with the end product as is.

Interestingly, Petrol Panic taught me the importance of economic theory in game design, particularly in game balancing. A few design problems I encountered were solved with the help of a friendly economics major, who was able to approach certain number issues methodically, rather than chaotically. I tip my hat to him.

I return to the United States two weeks from tomorrow. I’ve been living in France for the past six months, so I expect some degree of reverse culture-shock, as well as a bit of sadness. In April I’ll be moving out to San Francisco. More on that when I know more about that.

Just as a heads-up for anyone trying to get in contact with me: I’ll be away this week from the 18th of February to the 22nd. Oddly enough, I won’t be at the Game Developers Conference, despite it being the exact same days.

For those curious, I’ll be in Vienna Austria, pretty much out of reach. I’ll be back in contact on Saturday, the 23rd. Looking forward to hearing about all the GDC wackiness that will ensue in my absence.

The soundtrack may be abysmal, and the graphics incredibly outdated, but Nintendo’s F-Zero X on the N64 is still, in my mind, one of the greatest single-player racing experiences on any console. The reason? It’s just simple mathematics.

Like a lot of racing games, the Grand Prix mode of F-Zero X determines ranking with a point system. At the end of every race, each racer is awarded with a number of points depending on what place they finished. First place is awarded 100 points, second-place 93, all the way down to thirtieth place, which is awarded a meager 15 points.

Over the six tracks in each Grand Prix cup, the points earned from each race are tallied, and this is how overall ranking is determined. In of itself, the point system is simplistic, but effective. A player doesn’t necessarily have to rank first place in every race to claim first place overall. In fact, a player can have one or two lousy races and still manage to earn a medal, provided the other racers also performed inconsistently.

Of course, relying on computerized racers to mess up isn’t the best way to win, and this is where F-Zero X stands out. Building upon the damage meter from the first F-Zero game on Super NES, F-Zero X introduced a battle system, where players could perform side-swipes or spin attacks mid-race to knock opponents off the track, or total their vehicles entirely.

And the number of points awarded to a racer who is eliminated from a race? Zero.

You see, F-Zero X wasn’t just about racing; it was also about offing the competition. When gunning for first-place overall, sometimes the best strategy is to eliminate the current leader, causing his score to plummet. Second-place racer closing in on your lead? Wipe him out in the next race, and secure your point advantage over your opponents.

F-Zero X didn’t just make this style of gameplay possible; it made it easy. Arrows indicated the vehicle in third, second and first place, as well as marking your “rival,” the racer directly ahead of or behind you in overall ranking. The thirty vehicles populating each course are also each uniquely designed, and easily identifiable. Even while racing through a cork-screw track at break-neck speeds, spotting the Wild Goose or Deep Claw was never difficult. Racing alongside to attack, however, and doing so without pitching yourself off the course, was certainly never easy, either.

The Gamecube sequel to this title, F-Zero GX, should have built upon this offensive form of gameplay. Unfortunately, the track designs were needlessly busy and overcomplicated, making it all too easy for players to fall to their deaths if they weren’t careful. With this subtle change in game design, it became too difficult to target and eliminate opponents, let alone stay alive and still finish in the top three.

It may just be that F-Zero X is one of those once-in-a-lifetime games, with just the right gameplay elements intermingled to produce a near-perfect experience. With the portable versions of the series building upon the SNES-style gameplay, and nary a hint of a Wii version on the horizon, we might never see another F-Zero game as polygonally-perfect as F-Zero X.

Oh well, at least it’s on the Virtual Console for us to replay into oblivion.

This month’s Escapist game is called Petrol Panic, and it’s not finished.

The trouble is, designing board games is a difficult process, and designing good ones is even harder. For this month’s game to work, a number of variables, constants, and formulas need to be balanced. How much should gas cost? How much money do players start with? How big is the game board? There’s a right formula to be found; I just need some help finding it.

It’s my hope that readers, designers, and good samaritans will join in the discussion, and help me figure out the finer points of gameplay. A big reason for my attempting this method of design is the potential to create a board game built from user-contributed content. It’s a lofty goal, though, and I might not have the clout to pull it off. Still, I’m definitely open to even the smallest suggestions.

As long as you’re checking out Petrol Panic, you may as well take a gander at Fictionless, last month’s Escapist game. Petrol Panic is actually an attempt to make a fiction-full version of this game. Clearly, that’s easier said than done.