Technologies come and go on the Internet and I like to think I only sign up for technologies which I can actually think of a use for, rather than just what everyone else is using.
For example, with Twitter, I wanted to use it to post updates on the development on Frozen Kangaroo. I often found that I had made progress in its development and wanted to keep a record of this, but it was not nearly enough for a blog post. In that sense, Twitter was ideal.
However, today I found another use for it. I can't work out if Twitter is actually any good at this, or whether this is basically what forums have been doing for ages. Basically, there is now a #gamedesign tag where frequent discussions about different game design topics take place. Its been going for a few weeks now, but I only really got involved today (discussing professinal gaming as a public sport, after I watched some of the Star Craft final live). It was then I realised how fantastic it was.
I think the reason it is good is because it forces people to express short points, which means it is easy to keep up with it, instead of having to read pages of text, as is often the case at Gamedev.net. Also, Tweetdeck does live updating, meaning you don't have to keep using F5. As a result, any games designers or wannabe games designers, if you are looking for an excuse to join Twitter, here it is.
(Oh, and make sure to follow me @thk123)
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Go with the Flow is Audiosurf...
A while back I posted a game idea I had for a rhythm based platformer called Go with the Flow. The basic premise was that it would be a platformer that went at such as speed you had to use the rhythm of the music to predict what you had to do. A raise in pitch would signify a jump and a lower would require you to dive. Whilst I tried to implement it in Flash, timing the level creation proved near impossible and my work in to byte interpretation of a song (where the program would look at the binary version of the song and calculate whether the sound was a raise in pitch or not) was not making sufficent progress to use
I posted the thougths to Gamedev.net and while I did get some game suggestions, no one suggested a game I later found out about (reading an unrelated blog post) called Audiosurf. If, like me, you haven't heard of the game, you control a little ship and must collect things to the rhytm of the music.
While it isn't a platformer, and you don't really use the music to know where to go, it captured the essence of what I was trying to explain with Go with the Flow. I also realise that this basic concept is also in Guitaur Hero. It is simply a more involving way of listetning to music. It is like tapping your fingers to the tune, but slightly more interesting.
Anyway, just a short post today, just wanted to have a go at all of you for not reccomending it to me.
I posted the thougths to Gamedev.net and while I did get some game suggestions, no one suggested a game I later found out about (reading an unrelated blog post) called Audiosurf. If, like me, you haven't heard of the game, you control a little ship and must collect things to the rhytm of the music.
While it isn't a platformer, and you don't really use the music to know where to go, it captured the essence of what I was trying to explain with Go with the Flow. I also realise that this basic concept is also in Guitaur Hero. It is simply a more involving way of listetning to music. It is like tapping your fingers to the tune, but slightly more interesting.
Anyway, just a short post today, just wanted to have a go at all of you for not reccomending it to me.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Driving Games: Change we need
Apologies for lack of posting recently, my exams are over, so I really have no excuse.
Racing games, in my opinion, are no longer designed. While racing games aren't my favourite genre, I certainly enjoy them. For me, however, I believe the game play is beginning to get stale. Obviously the racing component is essentially right; it's the rest which I have a problem with. In this post I hope to explain exactly what I have a problem with and what I think can be done to fix this.
When new racing games are released, the major focus is the physics engine that can realistically model the cars. This seems to be almost exclusively what is demonstrated. Now don't get me wrong, of all the genres, racing is the one where the physics engines are most important. And it is important, as I discussed in my post about excessive graphical focus on Veteran Gamer, it increases the tension within the race, making it much more enjoyable.
However, there is more to a game than one aspect. And a genre needs change, not just improvement. Every racing game follows the same basic plan. Loads of realistic cars, extensive realistic modding for said cars, hundreds of realistic tracks and a realistic physics engine. With the exception of Mario Kart, all racing games seem to target the realistic market.
On top of that, the game play does not change. You race, you earn money to buy cars, you do more races. You fail a race, you retry. The game is always linear but without a story. I don't think racing games need a story, but if it doesn't have a story, why is it so linear?
One of the things I would like to see is a more believable world with a fixed calendar of events. Obviously you wouldn't have to wait months to play the game, but if you loose a race, you might have to wait a game year to play in that race again instead of instantly retrying until you succeed. Make individual failures acceptable and you should make the game less frustrating.
One of my favourite off-track racing experiences was in some formula one racing game on the PS1, where you had to qualify for a tournament and you were given 12 game hours to do so. In that time, you had to get a qualifying time, fix any damage done to your car whilst doing this and do any upgrades/changes you wanted. This made the game feel more real and made the race more tense as you had already invested a considerable amount of time and effort in to it.
At the moment, racing games lack interesting decisions, you race as well as you can in every race, if you fail, you just restart. There is no reason to do anything else. If however you had a calendar, you may have to choose between two tournaments (with different rewards, one might come with more money, the other with more prestige or a rare cup).
And that is just an example. There are surely many ways to mix up the game play so it is not all the same. Take, for example, Burnout: Paradise, where you had an open world to explore.
Another thing that seemingly all racing games do (Mario Kart excepted) is use super-realistic cars. While the real world is often a very good source to base your game ideas on, it certainly shouldn't be the sole source in a whole genre. The world lacks variety (there is, after all, only one). However, if you delve in to the fictional, your options are limitless.
But even sudo-realistic universe could be significantly better in game play terms. In real life, cars are made to be as good as possible at everything. In a fictional, albeit similar universe, this could be impossible and instead cars have to be highly specialised or or below average in all areas. This would make choosing and tuning a car not so much a matter of finding the best, but the one best suited to the race ahead.
However, I am not optimistic we will see this any time soon. As I've already said, good physics are important in a racing game and these are still expensive to create. This means that indie developers who want to try something new can't choose this genre (or else fail on the racing part, which is more important, no matter how I try to argue this). Publishers will not want to invest in other areas of the game that they cannot so easily demonstrated, particularly if it means cuts to the physics development or their own profits.
Thoughts and opinions welcome. Have I missed the point, are racing games fine?
Racing games, in my opinion, are no longer designed. While racing games aren't my favourite genre, I certainly enjoy them. For me, however, I believe the game play is beginning to get stale. Obviously the racing component is essentially right; it's the rest which I have a problem with. In this post I hope to explain exactly what I have a problem with and what I think can be done to fix this.
When new racing games are released, the major focus is the physics engine that can realistically model the cars. This seems to be almost exclusively what is demonstrated. Now don't get me wrong, of all the genres, racing is the one where the physics engines are most important. And it is important, as I discussed in my post about excessive graphical focus on Veteran Gamer, it increases the tension within the race, making it much more enjoyable.
However, there is more to a game than one aspect. And a genre needs change, not just improvement. Every racing game follows the same basic plan. Loads of realistic cars, extensive realistic modding for said cars, hundreds of realistic tracks and a realistic physics engine. With the exception of Mario Kart, all racing games seem to target the realistic market.
On top of that, the game play does not change. You race, you earn money to buy cars, you do more races. You fail a race, you retry. The game is always linear but without a story. I don't think racing games need a story, but if it doesn't have a story, why is it so linear?
One of the things I would like to see is a more believable world with a fixed calendar of events. Obviously you wouldn't have to wait months to play the game, but if you loose a race, you might have to wait a game year to play in that race again instead of instantly retrying until you succeed. Make individual failures acceptable and you should make the game less frustrating.
One of my favourite off-track racing experiences was in some formula one racing game on the PS1, where you had to qualify for a tournament and you were given 12 game hours to do so. In that time, you had to get a qualifying time, fix any damage done to your car whilst doing this and do any upgrades/changes you wanted. This made the game feel more real and made the race more tense as you had already invested a considerable amount of time and effort in to it.
At the moment, racing games lack interesting decisions, you race as well as you can in every race, if you fail, you just restart. There is no reason to do anything else. If however you had a calendar, you may have to choose between two tournaments (with different rewards, one might come with more money, the other with more prestige or a rare cup).
And that is just an example. There are surely many ways to mix up the game play so it is not all the same. Take, for example, Burnout: Paradise, where you had an open world to explore.
Another thing that seemingly all racing games do (Mario Kart excepted) is use super-realistic cars. While the real world is often a very good source to base your game ideas on, it certainly shouldn't be the sole source in a whole genre. The world lacks variety (there is, after all, only one). However, if you delve in to the fictional, your options are limitless.
But even sudo-realistic universe could be significantly better in game play terms. In real life, cars are made to be as good as possible at everything. In a fictional, albeit similar universe, this could be impossible and instead cars have to be highly specialised or or below average in all areas. This would make choosing and tuning a car not so much a matter of finding the best, but the one best suited to the race ahead.
However, I am not optimistic we will see this any time soon. As I've already said, good physics are important in a racing game and these are still expensive to create. This means that indie developers who want to try something new can't choose this genre (or else fail on the racing part, which is more important, no matter how I try to argue this). Publishers will not want to invest in other areas of the game that they cannot so easily demonstrated, particularly if it means cuts to the physics development or their own profits.
Thoughts and opinions welcome. Have I missed the point, are racing games fine?
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Posting hiatus
Well you will have probably noticed posts seems to have dried up. To avoid the situation which happened last year on my other blog I am posting an official hiatus notice. Due to exams, posting on this blog, (and my game news site) will halt. Posting will resume on June 15th with a post about the resource model in Frozen Kangaroo.
In the mean time, I will leave you with some links.
I am really enjoying the Three Moves Ahead podcast from Flash of Steel. If you want a taster of what the podcast is like, my favourite one was about symettry and asymettry in games. The podcast is well worth a subscribe because it combines genuinely interesting discussion about games design with some funny personalities. Better yet, it doesn't just focus on the latest game release.
Finally, an odd link. I am linking to this site primarily so that it can be found by Google. It is a website I designed (email me @ thekileyenator@gmail.com if you fancy one for yourself) and so I need Google to index it. However, if you are looking for plants in your work place, and you are based the home counties, this is the site to go to - Renaissance Plants
In the mean time, I will leave you with some links.
I am really enjoying the Three Moves Ahead podcast from Flash of Steel. If you want a taster of what the podcast is like, my favourite one was about symettry and asymettry in games. The podcast is well worth a subscribe because it combines genuinely interesting discussion about games design with some funny personalities. Better yet, it doesn't just focus on the latest game release.
Finally, an odd link. I am linking to this site primarily so that it can be found by Google. It is a website I designed (email me @ thekileyenator@gmail.com if you fancy one for yourself) and so I need Google to index it. However, if you are looking for plants in your work place, and you are based the home counties, this is the site to go to - Renaissance Plants
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Frozen Kangaroo Concept: Nuclear Weapons
In a series of posts I intend to explain the more detailed elements of Frozen Kangaroo, the real time strategy game that I am working on. You can read an executive summary here. I hope to make it so that the posts only rely on things explained before them. However, please excuse me if my posts either digress to explain some concept, or don't make any sense because of no digression. If you have any questions, leave a comment (if it is an old post, I would recommend posting it on a newer post) or email me @ thekileyenator@gmail.com
As with the real Cold War, nuclear weapons will play an important part in Frozen Kangaroo. Not only do they add a devastating weapon to your arsenal, they can be used as a diplomatic bartering tool and even a direct path to victory.
Types of Nuclear Missiles
There are three types of nuclear missile in this game, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. They are: long, medium and short range nuclear missiles, or ICBM, err normal, and tactical nukes. Sadly, Blogger doesn't support tables, so I will have to explain it in paragraphs.
The long range nuke has, as you might expect, the longest range. Indeed, it can shoot anywhere on the map, including the proxy nation's colony cities (Will explain this in a later post, but they are basically where the civilians live. Each proxy nation has an associated colony city which contains millions of civilians who have been moved to keep them out of the way of the war). These missiles also inflict the most damage. Sadly, the pay off is in cost and speed. Cost is fairly self explanatory, but the effect of speed I will explain in a moment.
The medium range missile can reach most of the map, but cannot reach the proxy nations colony cities. Damage is similarly weakened, although it is still very powerful. However, it is faster and cheaper.
Finally the short range missile, which can only fire in provinces within a 4 province radius (subject to testing), and deals far less damage, particularly to buildings. It is, however, significantly faster and cheaper.
Missile Launchers
To fire these missiles you have three options; fixed, mobile and submarines. Fixed missile launchers can be constructed by your builder units. They can fire any of the above missiles.
The mobile missile launchers are a trainable unit. They can be moved about on the map, but need to be "deployed" before they can fire. These can only fire medium and short missiles.
Finally, the submarine is a normal unit. It can carry two small nuclear missiles with it. Further nukes must be collected from a port. However, it does not need to set up. Also, as they are water based, they can quickly manoeuvre very close to key enemy provinces and threaten them before they have a chance to respond.
With the exception of the sub (which needs to take its nukes with it) the launchers can only store one nuke at a time. Further nukes must be stored in a silo and then transported to the launcher. These silos come with stationary launchers, so you don't have to constantly arrange the transport of nukes. Trucks carrying nukes can also be "parked" in to either of the launchers, allowing all the connected nukes to be fired.
However, if you wish to use a mobile nuclear launcher to target deep within the enemies territory, you will have to advance it with a truck carrying a nuclear missile. It may also be wise to accompany the truck and the launcher with some form of defence, as neither have any attack capabilities.
The Nuclear Missile Management Screen
So how does speed factor in to all of this? Well, nuclear missiles aren't instantaneous. When you fire a nuke, your opponent is immediately alerted to this development and are taken directly to their nuclear missile management screen. On this screen, for each of the provinces there is a count down till the missile will hit... if its been targeted. The opponent, however, does not know which province has been targeted and so all provinces will have a countdown clock running. I hope to make this quite a tense screen to be on, with flashing red lights, constantly ticking clocks and maybe even a siren!
What can you do with this information? Well, each one of your provinces can be sent into "bunker mode". This significantly reduces the damage done by any potential nuclear strike. However, going into and coming out of bunker mode takes time. During this time (and the time in bunker mode) all buildings production queues halt, units stop moving and you can't enter the province.
You must then decide which provinces to put into bunker mode. Obviously, the opponent is more likely to target high value provinces, but if one of them is producing something very important, does the nuclear missile pose a big enough threat to warrant halting production.
This is also where the speed of the nukes comes into play. A short range nuclear missile gives the player virtually no time to react, let alone put any of their provinces in to nuclear bunker mode.
The other important thing with nuclear weapons that I want to cover in this post is retaliation fire. When a nuclear missile is sent your way, you have the option to hit a big red button marked FIRE. Prior to any nuclear strike, preferably during a quite period of the game, you can target your nuclear missiles at specific provinces. Then, whenever you hit the red button, they all simultaneously fire at these predetermined locations. This means that if the opponent launches a huge, devastating barrage of missiles at you, you can retaliate before they even hit.
From the nuclear screen, you can set up retaliation fire, deploy provinces in to bunker mode and watch the approach of oncoming nukes with suitably tense flashing red lights.
Nuclear missiles are clearly a very powerful weapon. However, they come with a severe cost. Using nuclear missiles is highly frowned upon by proxy nations and their colonies. As I explained in my post about the proxy nations, firing nuclear missiles, particularly in a province associated with them, has a strong negative impact on your relations. If you fire at their colony city, that will make them sworn enemies to you, and will strongly effect everyone's opinion of you.
I will be explaining this is more detail, but nukes are, in some ways, more useful when not fired. You can use them in diplomacy to threaten your enemy or "persuade" other proxy nations to join you, lest they fall foul to your rain of terror. Also, as I said earlier, you can use them to win. Although I will be covering ways to win more fully, if you manage to significantly out-build your opponent on nuclear missiles, you can force them in to surrender.
For my next Frozen Kangaroo concept I hope to be covering either the resources or diplomacy (including how you can use nuclear missiles in diplomacy - I never said it was friendly diplomacy).
As with the real Cold War, nuclear weapons will play an important part in Frozen Kangaroo. Not only do they add a devastating weapon to your arsenal, they can be used as a diplomatic bartering tool and even a direct path to victory.
Types of Nuclear Missiles
There are three types of nuclear missile in this game, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. They are: long, medium and short range nuclear missiles, or ICBM, err normal, and tactical nukes. Sadly, Blogger doesn't support tables, so I will have to explain it in paragraphs.
The long range nuke has, as you might expect, the longest range. Indeed, it can shoot anywhere on the map, including the proxy nation's colony cities (Will explain this in a later post, but they are basically where the civilians live. Each proxy nation has an associated colony city which contains millions of civilians who have been moved to keep them out of the way of the war). These missiles also inflict the most damage. Sadly, the pay off is in cost and speed. Cost is fairly self explanatory, but the effect of speed I will explain in a moment.
The medium range missile can reach most of the map, but cannot reach the proxy nations colony cities. Damage is similarly weakened, although it is still very powerful. However, it is faster and cheaper.
Finally the short range missile, which can only fire in provinces within a 4 province radius (subject to testing), and deals far less damage, particularly to buildings. It is, however, significantly faster and cheaper.
Missile Launchers
To fire these missiles you have three options; fixed, mobile and submarines. Fixed missile launchers can be constructed by your builder units. They can fire any of the above missiles.
The mobile missile launchers are a trainable unit. They can be moved about on the map, but need to be "deployed" before they can fire. These can only fire medium and short missiles.
Finally, the submarine is a normal unit. It can carry two small nuclear missiles with it. Further nukes must be collected from a port. However, it does not need to set up. Also, as they are water based, they can quickly manoeuvre very close to key enemy provinces and threaten them before they have a chance to respond.
With the exception of the sub (which needs to take its nukes with it) the launchers can only store one nuke at a time. Further nukes must be stored in a silo and then transported to the launcher. These silos come with stationary launchers, so you don't have to constantly arrange the transport of nukes. Trucks carrying nukes can also be "parked" in to either of the launchers, allowing all the connected nukes to be fired.
However, if you wish to use a mobile nuclear launcher to target deep within the enemies territory, you will have to advance it with a truck carrying a nuclear missile. It may also be wise to accompany the truck and the launcher with some form of defence, as neither have any attack capabilities.
The Nuclear Missile Management Screen
So how does speed factor in to all of this? Well, nuclear missiles aren't instantaneous. When you fire a nuke, your opponent is immediately alerted to this development and are taken directly to their nuclear missile management screen. On this screen, for each of the provinces there is a count down till the missile will hit... if its been targeted. The opponent, however, does not know which province has been targeted and so all provinces will have a countdown clock running. I hope to make this quite a tense screen to be on, with flashing red lights, constantly ticking clocks and maybe even a siren!
What can you do with this information? Well, each one of your provinces can be sent into "bunker mode". This significantly reduces the damage done by any potential nuclear strike. However, going into and coming out of bunker mode takes time. During this time (and the time in bunker mode) all buildings production queues halt, units stop moving and you can't enter the province.
You must then decide which provinces to put into bunker mode. Obviously, the opponent is more likely to target high value provinces, but if one of them is producing something very important, does the nuclear missile pose a big enough threat to warrant halting production.
This is also where the speed of the nukes comes into play. A short range nuclear missile gives the player virtually no time to react, let alone put any of their provinces in to nuclear bunker mode.
The other important thing with nuclear weapons that I want to cover in this post is retaliation fire. When a nuclear missile is sent your way, you have the option to hit a big red button marked FIRE. Prior to any nuclear strike, preferably during a quite period of the game, you can target your nuclear missiles at specific provinces. Then, whenever you hit the red button, they all simultaneously fire at these predetermined locations. This means that if the opponent launches a huge, devastating barrage of missiles at you, you can retaliate before they even hit.
From the nuclear screen, you can set up retaliation fire, deploy provinces in to bunker mode and watch the approach of oncoming nukes with suitably tense flashing red lights.
Nuclear missiles are clearly a very powerful weapon. However, they come with a severe cost. Using nuclear missiles is highly frowned upon by proxy nations and their colonies. As I explained in my post about the proxy nations, firing nuclear missiles, particularly in a province associated with them, has a strong negative impact on your relations. If you fire at their colony city, that will make them sworn enemies to you, and will strongly effect everyone's opinion of you.
I will be explaining this is more detail, but nukes are, in some ways, more useful when not fired. You can use them in diplomacy to threaten your enemy or "persuade" other proxy nations to join you, lest they fall foul to your rain of terror. Also, as I said earlier, you can use them to win. Although I will be covering ways to win more fully, if you manage to significantly out-build your opponent on nuclear missiles, you can force them in to surrender.
For my next Frozen Kangaroo concept I hope to be covering either the resources or diplomacy (including how you can use nuclear missiles in diplomacy - I never said it was friendly diplomacy).
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Blender fun and a quick update
I have recently been using Blender. Here is my image that I created this afternoon. I was trying out a few things (transparency, multiple light sources and actually finishing an image). No, it isn't a hint as to any future project, it's just a ray gun of some sort.Also, I found out how to make really quick games in Blender. I had always thought you needed to use Python and so didn't bother, I have enough to learn as it is!
However, what you can do is use the very simple "Behaviour Editor". While I haven't produced anything meaningful, indeed anything even resembling a game, it does some very cool stuff out of the box. Namely, it has a physics engine complete with rotation, bouncing and friction. Hooking up keyboard input is easy and you can quickly get to grips with the basics.
In the way of Frozen Kangaroo, the real time strategy game that Botworks is currently making (read the articles linked on the right under Frozen Kangaroo Concepts for an overview), progress has been made, but not huge progress. My exams are coming up, and so a lot of my time is devoted to revision etc. However, my laptop should be turning up within the next 2-5 working days. When that happens, I will hopefully be able to spend much more time working on it.
Probably the most signifcant improvement I have made is the terrain engine. Before, each province had an asocitated image file which had all the terrain features in it. However, I have now moved the actual features off the image and in to a seperate file. When I want to place down a clump of trees, I now create a new TerrainFeature, giving it width, height and type of terrain. The engine takes that, tiles the correct image the set number of times, adding some random spacing to give it that natural feeling. It also can be queried to see whether a unit is within it. This will allow for easy checking to allow for speed modification.
It also means it will be easier to update map designs without having to
a) go in to the image file and edit that and
b) recode it to hit test different areas of the map for movement modification (in the original, if I wanted units to slow down when travesering a ceartain type of terrain, I would have to manually set where the terrain was going to be and enter how much I wanted the unit to slow down by).
Finally, there may be a hiatus of posts during my exam period. Hopefully I will get one or two more posts in before, but if I don't, posting will resume on the 11th of June.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Context to the battles
I was listening to Troy Goodfellow's (Flash of Steel) podcast 3 Moves Ahead today (episode 3) and they were discussing Empire: Total War. E:TW was highly criticised by Tom Chick, one of the contributors to the podcast, in his Crispy Gamer review.
What interested me about their discussion was "do the tactical real time battles need the strategic layer". Putting aside the debate of whether the strategy layer is actually good (you can read my other blog, Veteran Gamer, for this type of thing.), I will be looking at whether it is needed and what alternatives exist.
Is it needed?
What does the strategy layer offer? If you assume, for the moment, that the strategy layer is not fun enough to play on its own, why include it? In the case of Total War games, the most impressive element of the game is clearly the real time tactical battles. That is what makes up the adverts and that's where the development money went. So surely people view the campaign as just getting in the way. However, people insist on playing it.
The reason is they give the battles context. This is an example of the strange phenomena of games. People needs rewards. This is completely bizarre when viewed with a purely logical mindset. Gamers play games to have fun (or to escape or whatever), that is the real reward. However, players need something in game too. Achievements are another example. Your gamer score counts for nothing, and yet people insist on playing the game again to get all the achievements. Why do they need the excuse, if they are enjoying the game enough, why can't they just play it again?
I'm not a psychologist, so my answer is simply that humans are illogical and, as game designers, you must cater to this.
Context provides this reward. What is the point of winning the battle on its own, where is the reward? However, if your battle contributes to winning the war, then suddenly it is worth while. Yes, this is ridiculous, what does winning the war grant you; nothing. But it doesn't matter any where near as much, as you don't finish the campaign half as often as you do a mission.
A possible explanation for this need of context is that it helps immersion. In real life, there are no isolated fights, there must be some external purpose, no matter how basic.
Alternatives
OK, so context is needed, but what if you want all of your game to be fun. What alternatives exist to the campaign mode found in Empire and the like? Well obviously you have the traditional linear mission mode. Now sometimes, I think it is very easy to be snob like in your favourite genre. Recently, Resident Evil 5 came out. A lot of people lashed out at the controls. Immediately, Resi fans struck back with "this is how it has always been, you just can't HANDLE the controls". Just because this is how it has always been does not mean it isn't time for change.
I make no such judgements over RTS fanatics, I have played enough to consider myself, at least partly, amongst them. I also freely admit that I don't normally bother with linear campaign missions.
I think part of the attraction with these spiralling campaigns is they make an emergent story line (the best kind of story, in my opinion, when it comes to games). Also, I think with linear missions, some of the immersion, i.e. the point of not just playing the real time element, is lost. You can only win, if you lose, you restart, you will only advance in a set way and you cannot deviate from this. It isn't helped that the stories are usually predictable and unimaginative.
One campaign I did like was Dawn of War 2. I think this excellently combined the two methodologies. It keeps the linear missions, which means you are very rarely distracted from the heart of the game, but keeps a strong sense of context. The whole campaign just feels more real than other real time strategies, including Dawn of War 1 (ignoring Dark Crusade and after, they suffered from a different problem entirely). The use of optional missions which provide optional benefits creates the reward system and interesting decisions for the player. As does war gear and levelling up your troops. True, there is a scripted series of events and you can't lose. The difference is, it feels like you have some control over the story and, because it is the same units with the same names, you get an emergent story that feels unique to you. Does your scout squad get annoyed they are often viewed as cowards? Do you try and balance which units get deployed so they don't get upset?
The campaign is excellent for a number of other reasons which I detailed in my review of the game. However, the key thing is, it doesn't distract from the meat of the game, it just gives the missions context and reward.
Overall, I don't think the campaign mode needs to be as complicated as Dawn of War (and believe me, that isn't complicated) All it needs to do is provide you with a believable back story before you begin the mission, and a reason to finish it other than pure advancement. Other great things include continuity between missions and interesting decisions that don't take hours to have visible effects. It is a real time game, and if your decisions don't have an immediate and obvious impact, then they become a drag and just taking you away from what you want to do. In some ways, I think this is where TW games fail. A turn can take as long as a turn in Civ. In Civ, that's what you want, in TW, it is taking you away from that.
What interested me about their discussion was "do the tactical real time battles need the strategic layer". Putting aside the debate of whether the strategy layer is actually good (you can read my other blog, Veteran Gamer, for this type of thing.), I will be looking at whether it is needed and what alternatives exist.
Is it needed?
What does the strategy layer offer? If you assume, for the moment, that the strategy layer is not fun enough to play on its own, why include it? In the case of Total War games, the most impressive element of the game is clearly the real time tactical battles. That is what makes up the adverts and that's where the development money went. So surely people view the campaign as just getting in the way. However, people insist on playing it.
The reason is they give the battles context. This is an example of the strange phenomena of games. People needs rewards. This is completely bizarre when viewed with a purely logical mindset. Gamers play games to have fun (or to escape or whatever), that is the real reward. However, players need something in game too. Achievements are another example. Your gamer score counts for nothing, and yet people insist on playing the game again to get all the achievements. Why do they need the excuse, if they are enjoying the game enough, why can't they just play it again?
I'm not a psychologist, so my answer is simply that humans are illogical and, as game designers, you must cater to this.
Context provides this reward. What is the point of winning the battle on its own, where is the reward? However, if your battle contributes to winning the war, then suddenly it is worth while. Yes, this is ridiculous, what does winning the war grant you; nothing. But it doesn't matter any where near as much, as you don't finish the campaign half as often as you do a mission.
A possible explanation for this need of context is that it helps immersion. In real life, there are no isolated fights, there must be some external purpose, no matter how basic.
Alternatives
OK, so context is needed, but what if you want all of your game to be fun. What alternatives exist to the campaign mode found in Empire and the like? Well obviously you have the traditional linear mission mode. Now sometimes, I think it is very easy to be snob like in your favourite genre. Recently, Resident Evil 5 came out. A lot of people lashed out at the controls. Immediately, Resi fans struck back with "this is how it has always been, you just can't HANDLE the controls". Just because this is how it has always been does not mean it isn't time for change.
I make no such judgements over RTS fanatics, I have played enough to consider myself, at least partly, amongst them. I also freely admit that I don't normally bother with linear campaign missions.
I think part of the attraction with these spiralling campaigns is they make an emergent story line (the best kind of story, in my opinion, when it comes to games). Also, I think with linear missions, some of the immersion, i.e. the point of not just playing the real time element, is lost. You can only win, if you lose, you restart, you will only advance in a set way and you cannot deviate from this. It isn't helped that the stories are usually predictable and unimaginative.
One campaign I did like was Dawn of War 2. I think this excellently combined the two methodologies. It keeps the linear missions, which means you are very rarely distracted from the heart of the game, but keeps a strong sense of context. The whole campaign just feels more real than other real time strategies, including Dawn of War 1 (ignoring Dark Crusade and after, they suffered from a different problem entirely). The use of optional missions which provide optional benefits creates the reward system and interesting decisions for the player. As does war gear and levelling up your troops. True, there is a scripted series of events and you can't lose. The difference is, it feels like you have some control over the story and, because it is the same units with the same names, you get an emergent story that feels unique to you. Does your scout squad get annoyed they are often viewed as cowards? Do you try and balance which units get deployed so they don't get upset?
The campaign is excellent for a number of other reasons which I detailed in my review of the game. However, the key thing is, it doesn't distract from the meat of the game, it just gives the missions context and reward.
Overall, I don't think the campaign mode needs to be as complicated as Dawn of War (and believe me, that isn't complicated) All it needs to do is provide you with a believable back story before you begin the mission, and a reason to finish it other than pure advancement. Other great things include continuity between missions and interesting decisions that don't take hours to have visible effects. It is a real time game, and if your decisions don't have an immediate and obvious impact, then they become a drag and just taking you away from what you want to do. In some ways, I think this is where TW games fail. A turn can take as long as a turn in Civ. In Civ, that's what you want, in TW, it is taking you away from that.
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