Games & I

This post relates back to my 2016 retrospective. I’d advise reading this first.

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A question that has particular been on my mind is – how do I approach my aspirations in a way that is both fulfilling & ethical, yet realistic? How do I do this whilst holding to my own values?

Like the questions I had before, I don’t have a clear answer for this. To be fair, this post isn’t about looking for an answer but rather the affect this question had on me in regards to a major aspiration of mine.

You see, in 2016 a part of me gave up on my dream of making games. These are my reasons:

• Having knowledge that the world is more screwed then I thought, my wish to make games, & the kind of games I wanted to make, feel comparatively trivial & unimportant (that was a truly sad thought for me). A part of me feels obliged to help the world get truly better in some way. I’m still not sure how I can help but I don’t think providing another form of escapism is the way.

• I had reached a point where just thinking about making games brought about feelings of frustration, self-disappointment, & apathy. I’d tried many approaches that all lead to similar results, each one not able to account for my own shortcomings.

• I have an awful habit of stating I’ll do something & not actually doing it for whatever reason. I’ve become really sick of being that kind of guy. I’ve become hesitant to say I’ll do anything, unless I seem to be already doing it.

• I’ve known for a long time that its difficult to get into the games industry, & that surviving or even making a living from it is even more difficult. Hell, I know how difficult it can be just to try & make one game, I’ve been trying to do it alone since graduating in 2013. I admit the task has only become more daunting over time.

• I like games, but I’ve become disgusted with the mainstream games industry. Cultural toxicity aside, it’s market driven nature has become more apparent to me. Any regard for experimentation, artistic expression, & the effects of the medium is seemingly relegated to indies, small studios, & critics, since everyone else is comfortable with games “just being games”. I feel like this point alone is worthy of it’s own post (I know, more to write about!).

November Life Update – Cutting Back

Hello, I know it’s December now but this update is about things that happened last month. Besides, I might end up doing one more update before the end of the year.

It feels like I’ve delayed this update too much so there’s a fair amount of things I want to cover & try to recall.

Quick summary for those with little time:

• Been thinking about my dreams & if I can ethically justify them in the context of the world at large (something I’ll delve into on a separate post).

• I’ve had two sets of random guests stay over at my flat briefly. I’ll be talking about the first pair (the second largely kept to themselves).

• Cancelled my D&D campaign.

• I’ve taken a different approach to my game projects, & now I’ve found myself actually sticking to a project for once (yay!).

• I also finally got around to getting most of these questions up in front of my house.

September Life Update – Game Time

Hello, I thought I’d end up writing about the uncertainty of my job as my contract ended yesterday, but now I have good news. For those who haven’t kept up with my work situation, or forgot, I’d advise reading July & August before reading the next part.

My boss has presented his case about the future & value of my team (& my own role) to his own boss &, from what I can tell, he has no problem with me going part-time. Now we’re just waiting for those above him to approve. This could take a while since apparently there’s a backlog of matters they must see to first.

In the meantime, he has given me a 3 month extension on a part-time basis. I haven’t received any actual paperwork for this yet, but it’s agreed between us that my standard days for the rest of this year starting next week are Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday; with days changing to suit the needs of the team as they arise.

So yep, it’s kinda official now – I’m no longer working full-time. Yeays!!

August Life Update – Not Quite Yet?

Hello, I actually wrote this out in a single afternoon.

This month I’ve become more weary of working full-time & was looking forward to a change in situation, but this last week has been kinda weird for me in an oddly ironic way.

My contract was set to end this coming week & it occurred to me that I hadn’t taken any leave since April. I’d asked about the leave I’d accumulated & was advised to simply sit on it for now. The policy is I’d be paid out for any annual leave I haven’t taken, but this wasn’t the case for sick leave. I’d been advised to simply use it since I hadn’t actually taken any sick days. My plan was to use it to make this current weekend extra long & go visit my parents + dogs in Te Anau again.

Well, this past week my body decided now was the time of the year to be sick.

July Life Update – Changes for the Better

Hello, I’m going to try & make this concise since there’s a lot I want to bring up.

A quick overview for those low on time:

• Work – my old boss returned & changes are happening + temp contract ending next month. I also made an offer with him; if he wants to keep me.

• D&D – need to actually put into action the campaign I’ve been planning all this time (yes I’m terrible  😛 ). May keep my word of posting about it next time.

• Health – taking action to cut down & change my diet. Going dairy-free & reducing sugar intake.

• Return to Game Dev – I made a simulation demo in Unity based on an old assignment & I have more assignments I’m planning on re-imagining.

Decided to DM

Hello

I don’t have anything planned for this week so I’ll keep this short. This is partially because it’s the Easter weekend but more because I spontaneously said I’d be the Dungeon Master for my flat last weekend. Since then I’ve been brainstorming almost constantly about what the campaign would be & I had a practice session on Friday.

Thoughts on a Combat System

Hello, I have another in-progress system I want to share. This is for the combat aspect of the storytelling RPG idea I mentioned last time.

It is a turn-based system that takes place on a grid battlefield, separate from the world map. I wanted to come up with something where movement & positioning were highly important; something that played like Chess. I also wanted to avoid hit dice rolls but still allow the opportunity to avoid an attack, so I’ve included a reaction aspect to it.

Thoughts on a Conversation System

Hello, I’ve been playing around with an old idea for a randomly generated storytelling RPG; I probably won’t be able to implement it for a good while but it’s still fun to think about it. One thing I don’t want it to be is a pure hack’n slash game (though I won’t stop the player from choosing to play this way). I want it to be viable to play as a silver tongue pacifist & for conversing with people & monsters to be as engaging as fighting them.

This is something very few games seem to try. The majority of the time you’re dealing with dialogue trees, persuasion checks, &/or picking the right line to get a better outcome. This can be good for dealing with explicit lines of dialogue, but it doesn’t make for a very engaging system & I sometimes find myself just button mashing the skip option on replays (an infamous example is visiting a Pokemon Centre).

The only games I can think of doing something different are The Sims & Undertale. Both of these games don’t feature explicit dialogue choices but rather more generic actions, like “tell a joke”, “compliment”, or “flex your muscles”. I feel this allows the player to better personalize the experience by letting them fill in the empty spaces whilst giving them more agency over their own character; rather than deciding which line best matches their persona.

It’s based on this approach that I’d like to do my conversation system. The system I have so far is incomplete but I feel it’s worth sharing.

Succeeding at Prototypes

Hello, thanks to a suggestion from Remelic on the last post I’ve tried prototyping with a smaller board this time (13×13 spaces) & it worked. It was pretty cool finally getting to do this. It was kind of like being a kid again, except I took notes of what I was doing.

The prototype had these aspects:

• A player critter
• About 20 resources of one type – you need these to lay an egg (I really need to think of some other uses for resources).
• About five each of three kinds of critters: a charger, a shooter, & a ‘rail shooter’ that charges up per shot – the odd critter respawns in a area out of sight of the player.
• About 20? impassable ‘solid rock’ spaces.
• About 10 ‘hazard’ spaces that damage all adjacent spaces when hit (I imagine these to be clumps of sap or gelatinous acid).
• ‘Earth’ spaces which filled up almost all the rest of the board. These can be dug out.

All of these were randomly scattered on the board except for the player, I don’t want them starting near a critter.

Failing at Prototyping

Hi, it’s been a while since I did something about a game project. I confess I haven’t really been working on anything in over month; the break/moving made me very lazy :P. But now I have some things I’d like to try out.

Yesterday I wanted to try creating a couple of prototypes but just trying to get one idea setup somehow took all afternoon & I still wasn’t able to play it :(. I did this using components from boardgames I have & anything else that works.

First I should explain what the idea was that took so long. You play as an ‘alien critter’ in a randomized subterranean world inhabited by other critters. Gameplay would comprise of skittering & digging your way through the world, eating resources, & fight various types of critters, each with their abilities you can earn by eating enough of them. Every critter has a single hit point, including you, & you’ll need to lay eggs to respawn when you die. Depending on how well I make this, I may include other features like growing resources in crops & spawning allies via eggs.