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Counter-Productivity – How Not to Finish a Project

October 8, 2008

“Writer’s Block” is an ancient curse of writers in every medium and genre. You have a deadline and something you want to write, but somehow the words just won’t come. Well, writer’s block isn’t just for writers anymore. Now anyone in any profession can find ways to zone out, get distracted, and avoid doing useful work. Here are a few of my favorites.

www2 – Wasting aWay on the Web (Win With Wikipedia)

Research! You can never do too much research. And there’s so much information to be had on the Web. Here’s how “research for procrastinators” works. I used to do this with the New Columbia Encyclopedia; now Wikipedia lets you do the same job even better. First, you think of a topic that might be related to what you’re writing, then do a Wikipedia search. You find lots of information and citations, and more importantly many details that don’t at first seem relevant, but do seem Highly Interesting. That of course mandates that you look up each of the related topics in turn. Sometimes a key word will just pop into your head, so you need to look that up as well. Hours later, you might or might not have completed the original research, but your head will be filled with Fascinating Facts you can share with your Friends.

Of course, Wikipedia is but the beginning. There’s a whole World Wide Web full of wondrous and worthwhile wisdom out there. One must keep up with the latest news – There could be inspiration in any of those stories about Obama, McCain, Biden, and Palin. Or about Britney. Or the baseball playoffs. Then there are the blogs – Everyone has an opinion, and some of them are Really Inspirational. Web comics – After all, humor is very important to writing and gaming. Besides, some of them – such as Penny Arcade, GU Comics, and Ctrl+Alt+Delete – are Really Relevant Resources on trends in the gaming industry. Oh, and while you’re at it, check out Looking for Group, because you never know when an orphanage might attack you.

What did people do before Google and Wikipedia? Why, they read books and magazines. Fortunately, you can still do that. Amazon.com has several million books. Several of them are undoubtedly of interest, or maybe even useful, to your work. Why not spend some time browsing their catalog and reading user reviews of a few thousand books. Once you find a few that are clearly critical to your research, go ahead and order them. Of course, there’s no sense working on your project until the books arrive and you have a chance to study them.

ggg2 – Good Going, Got a Game, Got to Go

Well, since we’re best known as game designers, and this is nominally a blog about games, it’s clearly essential that we do even more research… by playing games. Now the small-minded might think this purpose best served by spending a short time each with a lot of different games of varying types. But we know that the only way to truly understand the strengths and limitations of a game is by playing each game thoroughly for endless hours. After all, World of Warcraft is really designed around all the players reaching the maximum level and attempting the raid dungeons over and over. Can anyone who hasn’t wiped on Nightbane or Lady Vashj or Archimonde repeatedly truly be said to have experienced all WoW has to offer? We think not. It is, of course, purely a coincidence that we keep researching the same games and that those just happen to be our favorites.

Corey pursues his valuable continuing game research in bridge, Travian, and World of Warcraft. Those are good for about 10-15 hours a day, so who has time for new games?

Oh, then there’s online poker. How ya gonna get rich if you don’t play? Online poker is great, because you can play it at home, at the office, or in the middle of a meeting with clients. They surely want to hear your bad beat stories! Discipline is very important in poker. You need to fold lots of hands. How better to ensure that than to play while you’re in the middle of doing something else?

Eat, Drink, and Procrastinate for Tomorrow We Diet

There is an ancient saying – “Life is uncertain, so eat dessert first.” Well, maybe not quite so ancient, but the thought has undoubtedly been there since before recorded history. Having thought of the line, I of course had to Google it; two sites attribute it to Ernestine Ulmer, American writer, in 1925. Anyway, having run out of ideas for this blog, I of course ran to the refrigerator. A pear, a chunk of cheddar cheese, and a bowl of Peace Cereal’s “Mango Passion” later, inspiration smote me and this section was born. Never let it be said that we don’t practice what we preach! Real time research, that’s the ticket. Unfortunately, sufficient procrastination through gustation can lead to bloated bellies and thighzable thighs. So can sitting at your desk for hours on end reading, writing, programming, or playing games, so…

Get out there and exercise! Yes, that’s very important. Go bowling, take a walk in the woods, play with the dogs, and pump some iron. All of these things make you stronger, healthier, and most importantly, get you away from whatever tasks you’re avoiding. Besides improving blood flow to the brain, those minutes or hours of physical activity might just give you a chance to find that vital inspiration you’ve been missing. Incidentally, it is clear that testosterone poisoning is an important contributor to stupidity in the male of the species. Therefore, testosterone levels must be controlled through frequent horizontal exercises upon a soft surface to maximize brain activity. More research is required on whether women benefit equally from the exercise… much more research performed as often as possible.

Procrastination Process Chart

"Since some people are more visual than word-oriented, we thought we’d better illustrate our ideas with a flowchart of how not to complete a project. The other choice would have been to write another section or two. Since we ran out of ideas, the flowchart seemed more useful (to our purpose of getting this blog out tonight).

Show Me the Gold – Game Economics 101

October 1, 2008

One of the biggest Black Swan events in history has been the meltdown in the financial sector. Triggered by risking lending practices, unemployment , real estate inflation, and overextended insurance policies (the “Credit Default Swap ” insurance market), the United States is currently undergoing its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of 1929-1933.

Games have their own forms of economic disasters. As with combat systems, game developers need to walk a narrow tightrope between giving players too much and not giving them enough. Inflation in gold, equipment, and character abilities is inevitable in a long-running game (either a game series or a massively multiplayer game). Careful designers put a lot of time and effort into balancing game economics so that the game is as fun as possible for most players for as long as possible. This can be done by restricting aspects of the economy, reducing restrictions in other areas to keep things balanced, or by providing bread and circuses so the players are distracted from economic issues.

How to Kill a D&D Campaign

Two of my early Dungeons & Dragons campaigns come to mind when I think about game imbalance. In one game, the beginning dungeon master tried to foreshadow the ultimate battle of the first few months of the game. Unfortunately, players tend to focus on the here and now, so we immediately went after an opponent that should have easily destroyed us. Unwilling to have the campaign end in its first week, the DM had an NPC lend us some powerful magic weapons. Using them, we easily won, nabbed the treasure, and found ourselves equipped with magic that should have come much later in the game. After that immediate gratification, the rest of the game was an anticlimax and soon ended.

In a game that I ran, I had a “Deck of Many Things” as a treasure at the end of the first major dungeon. One player pulled a card that jumped her character 5 experience levels, so we had a party of 2nd and 3rd level adventures with a 6th level Cleric. I could handle it these days, but at the time, I found myself completely unable to balance the fights. Anything that would be a challenge for the Cleric would inevitably kill the rest of the party. The campaign went on for a few more sessions, but then died out because I couldn’t keep it balanced.

Whoever Said That Making Sequels Is Easy?

The Wizardry computer game series ran into this problem. Following the typical RPG trope, players started out as very weak beginning adventurers. They gained spells, abilities, and magic items as the game progressed until they were demigod level by the end of the game. Wizardry 2: The Knight of Diamonds allowed players to import their Wizardry 1 characters and continue the game. While KoD was still a very fun game, there was much less room for variety in the game because the player characters started out at a very high level of power. Unable to keep that going, the authors set Wizardry 3: The Legacy of Llylgamyn a generation later, so that players created new characters and began again as beginning adventurers. Wizardry 4 had a nice twist – You play as the evil Werdna, trapped by the goody-goody adventures from Wizardry 1, and have to escape from your own dungeon … starting again as a weak character with few powers.

Dungeon Master had similar problems when they created a sequel that continued where the first game left off. Lori and I loved Dungeonmaster on the Atari ST and spent many hours exploring it. We barely got past the first section of Dungeon Master 2 – It was just too difficult and stressful to be fun.

We kept these lessons in mind when we planned the Quest for Glory series. We intentionally masked the limits of the skill system by putting skills on a 0-100 scale. We figured that players would assume it was a percentile system and that 100 was the highest possible. However, we knew that we would be setting the limit to 200 in the second game, 300 in the 3rd game, and so on. Instead of letting the player wield godlike power by the end of the first game, we gave him a few abilities that would be equivalent to 1st, 2nd, or perhaps 3rd level spells in D&D. That left plenty of room for improvement in the later games.

Despite that, we still had issues with inflation. We had to balance the combat and puzzles so that a player who started in the second game had a character comparable to that of a player who imported her character from the first game. We tried to keep the game fun and challenging for all character skill levels, encouraging the player to practice skills, but not absolutely requiring it. There were flaws in this process. I think that by the 3rd game in the series, many players found it boring to repeatedly throw rocks until they had a high enough throwing skill to win a spear throwing contest, and so on. We relaxed the “practice makes perfect” requirement in the last two games to try to cut down on the tedium. Of course, in doing so, we also reduced the challenge for players who really wanted tough fights.

Oh Yeah, About That Gold

You might find it strange that I’m deeply into a post on economics and so far haven’t even mentioned money. While gold and silver are the most obvious economic systems in games, there are really multiple economies at work. I’ve mentioned character skills. There is also learning curve inflation – where a player gets so good at the game it stops being challenging – character abilities, equipment, pun tolerance, combat and experience points, and several other reward and challenge systems. If any reward comes to easily, it loses its value to the player. If it becomes too difficult, players become frustrated and might stop trying to get the reward.

In the original Bard’s Tale, no character class had a healing spell until (if I remember correctly) level 3. It was also possible to meet very dangerous enemies with your level 1 party, and it was difficult to earn silver. As a result, almost all of the characters’ money was spent on healing and resurrection spells at the temple. Most players ended up “cheating” by creating mule characters, adding them to the party, transferring all their money, then deleting the characters. Players had to work around the game system because the economy was too stingy.

World of Warcraft and similar massively-multiplayer games probably have the hardest time with inflation and balancing the budget. WoW has been running for over 4 years now, and many of the players have become jaded; it’s difficult to find any reward system that will keep them playing the game. Blizzard has relaxed many of the rules that originally created a tight economy because they know that long-time players don’t want to put in as much work for rewards that will soon be superseded. (Oh, and I learned how to spell “supersede” a long time ago in a Superboy comic book. Lana Lang became suspicious of a Clark Kent impersonator because he mistakenly spelled it “supercede”. Never let it be said that reading comic books is a waste of time - at least not all the time!) Dungeons that used to require long and arduous “attunements” before characters could enter them were opened to all players. This has allowed a lot of players in “second tier” guilds to experience content that they would otherwise never see (see The Burning Crusade paragraph below).

Blizzard initially made a number of good decisions to keep their economies balanced. Rewards for slaying monsters and completing quests were scaled throughout the game, so that each level of player tended to have just a little less money than they needed to buy everything they wanted. Blizzard also restricted magic items by giving them a minimum level for use and “soul binding” them – Once a character has equipped a magic item, it can no longer be traded to other characters. More powerful items are “bind on pickup”, which means that only the character who first picks up the item can ever equip it. These decisions meant that a player with a rich level 60 character couldn’t create a new character and have it instantly become much more powerful than its level.

WoW also keeps players involved by holding special events, often tied to seasonal or “real world” events. During the Olympic Games in China, participants in the battlegrounds became “competitors” and earned special tabards. Winning a battleground gave players a chance to win a “Spirit of Competition”, a Chinese Dragon pet that had no game purpose except to look cool. Other “critter pets” include the Invisible Wolpertinger, a jackalope-like creature that you can supposedly only see when you’re drunk, the Baby Murloc that was only made available to attendees of the first live BlizzCon convention, and many others. The rarer ones are highly prized; some are sold for hundreds of real dollars on eBay.

Black Swans Invade a World of Orcs

There was at least one “Black Swan” phenomenon in WoW that might have been obvious to Blizzard, but caught me totally by surprise. Prior to the release of The Burning Crusade expansion, characters were “capped” at level 60. Unlike in Everquest, where the maximum level was a goal attained by few, a high percentage of World of Warcraft players got to level 60 with their characters. In order to keep them active and interested, Blizzard provided a large amount of content designed specifically for level 60 characters. This included the three major “raid dungeons” – The Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, and Naxxramas – that required guilds to put together well-balanced teams of 40 players at a time to have any chance of success. Most of the big World of Warcraft guilds were structured entirely around the raid dungeons.

The Burning Crusade changed that dynamic entirely. Players who had spent a year or more at level 60 raiding the dungeons or fighting against other Level 60 players in battlegrounds now found themselves doing quests and exploring 5-player dungeons again. In order to encourage players to buy the expansion and try out the new Outlands content, Blizzard greatly increased the availability of gold and the power level of magical weapons and armor in the new environment. Instead of the level 60 raid dungeons gradually becoming phased out, they were all abandoned the day TBC launched. With 20-20 hindsight, we can see that much the same thing will happen with all of the level 70 dungeons after Wrath of the Lich King launches. A few guilds may visit one or two of them for nostalgia, but they will soon be entirely abandoned as players focus on reaching level 80, exploring the new dungeons, and find more powerful items than they could get from the level 70 dungeons.

Overnight, the big raid guilds splintered. Nobody had any interest in struggling for hours in a level 60 raid dungeon to have a small chance of winning an item only slightly (if at all) better than what they could find in a 5-man dungeon in Outland. Some guilds set up teams of 5 players to work together to “beat” the dungeon content and get “attunements” to the new level 70 raid dungeons and heroic-mode dungeons. Many of the guilds collapsed, because the 40-man raid dynamic was what had provided the social environment that held them together. Others survived by emphasizing role-playing or by working together to make sure that everyone in the guild could find fellow adventurers when they needed them. The entire gameplay for most of the players altered.

As time goes by and players lose interest in doing the same things over and over, Blizzard has gradually relaxed some of its anti-inflationary policies. They increased the rate at which lower level characters gain experience so that they will all become level 70 faster. Blizzard reduced the requirements for “heroic dungeons” so that more players could experience them. They removed the attunement requirements from the most challenging endgame raid dungeons. They introduced daily quests for fast acquisition of gold and reputation. In Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard is introducing “Bind to Player” items. These can be passed down to other characters owned by the same player, but not to other players. All of these moves increase monetary and character inflation in the game. They are designed to provide a more level playing ground for the Level 80 characters that expect everyone to create. That lets Blizzard focus their energy on creating new Level 70-80 content without alienating all the lower-level players.

My characters all have enough gold now. But it’s awfully hard to find companions for lower-level dungeons and adventuring these days. While I miss that type of play, it’s a lot like what’s happened over the years in my D&D games. Try as we might, it’s impossible to recapture the magic and excitement of being a new player with a new character in a new type of game. A life-and-death battle against Orcs would be an annoyance rather than excitement today. Corey’s first DM’s were of the “killer DM” variety; average life span for a character was maybe 3-4 weeks. We’ve long since moved past that into the “characters don’t die unless they’re unlucky and the player screws up” stage; we care about our dozens of characters too much to want any of them to suffer a permanent death.

The Bird’s-Eye View

How do you balance a multiplayer game? Step 1 is to make good initial decisions. Always be aware of the dangers of a runaway economy and build balances and restrictions into the game. Step 2 is to create simulators. Set up test cases for characters of various levels (or skill development for a non-level-based game) and earned or purchased equipment. Run simulations of combats and other quest activities with them to see if the better-equipped characters are overwhelmingly powerful. If so, make adjustments. Step 3 is to put the systems into the hands of beta test players and play testers. Separate them into groups and present different rules to each group. Then keep the ones that are most successful. Finally, pay attention to your players once the game goes live. Gamemasters and community managers can observe the players to see if they’re having fun and where they’re getting frustrated. If there’s too much money in the economy, find things they can spend it on that give them marginal improvements. If there isn’t enough, introduce new quests or other activities that make it easier to earn money. If all else fails, release an expansion.

More than anything else, game balance is what makes or breaks a computer game. Creating and maintaining well-balanced economic systems for gold, equipment, character skills, tension vs. reward, and other aspects of games is essential to creating games that last. Keeping a game balanced while half the players are trying to find ways to unbalance it is one the most challenging tasks faced by game designers and developers. As Julia Ecklar wrote in her song Crane Dance, “Balance is to understand the crane while it’s in flight.” Cranes and black swans – Look at game economies from a bird’s eye view. You'd be bird brained not to.

The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2007) discusses rare, unpredictable, and catastrophic events that – after the fact – people say, “Oh, it was obvious that was going to happen.” The current government intervention into the U.S. banking system definitely qualifies as a Black Swan.

Unemployment statistics understate the real issue, since they do not generally include “discouraged workers” who have given up on trying to find work. As unemployment has grown, people have been unable to make their mortgage payments. That’s what is really meant by “high-risk” mortgages – Lending to people who lose their jobs.

The CDS, or Credit Default Swap, is a new type of financial instrument within the last 10-15 years. Companies insure lenders against customers who default on loans. The problem with CDS’s is that they are based on averages. That leaves the insurers (such as AIG) unprepared for catastrophic Black Swan levels of default. The current CDS market is estimated at $55,000,000,000,000 – that’s $55 TRILLION. CDS’s allowed a lot of lenders to overextend themselves with risky loans because they were insured. That didn’t help when the insurers couldn’t cover the losses.

This article was written by Corey and illustrated by Lori. Mojo is Lori's Troll Beastmaster in the World of Warcraft game who is the proud owner of a baby Murloc.

"Christmas in September"

September 24, 2008

Corey is in a little bit of a panic. We're helping put together the local "Christmas in the Mountains" celebration and Corey volunteered to design a "treasure hunt" game for it. As of last Tuesday, he didn't have it ready yet.

"So what?" asked someone at the last committee meeting, "Christmas is still three months away!" Well, game developers quickly learn that, in the game industry, Christmas is really in September (or even July or August, but most assuredly NOT in December).

Backwards Teach You to Work, We Shall

All game development projects use a "backwards calendar". We want people to buy our games for their friends, family, and themselves to use as presents. In the U.S., the biggest Christmas shopping weekend is the one immediately following Thanksgiving - the 4th Thursday in November. This year it's November 27, which also happens to be Corey's birthday. That won't happen again until 2014.

Oh yeah... the backwards calendar. So, games had better be on the shelves by the last weekend in November or they will miss the most important Christmas sale weekend. Before they can go on the shelves, they need to be shipped. Since the game companies want to make a profit, they prefer to ship their games by slow freight, not overnight airmail. So we back up another 2-3 weeks or so to early November.

Before a game can be shipped, it has to be manufactured. This is a complex process that frequently involves multiple vendors - printers, box manufacturers, disk duplicators, and so on. When the first disks come back from the duplicator, they'd better be tested; you'd be surprised how often someone screws up and the disks are unplayable, have the wrong software version, the wrong labels, or some other product launch killing error. When this happens, the only option is to stop the duplication, find the error, fix it, and get the disks duplicated again. Similar problems can happen in the other phases of manufacturing. Anyway, that takes us back to mid-October.

The Quality Assurance (Sisyphean?) Nightmare

Game developers are incredibly brilliant, you know, so they just design their games, create some code, art, and music, and send them out for duplication... NOT! Corey was incredibly proud of the careful effort that went into developing Castle of Dr. Brain and was confident that it would pass through Quality Assurance with very few errors. Then he got the first pass of bug reports, a stack of bugs (one per page) almost 2 inches thick. Chagrined, he mentioned to the QA lead that he thought they'd turned in a clean game. The response was, "You did. Come look at this." On the top of a filing cabinet in the QA department was a stack of bug reports almost 4 feet high; those were the as-yet unresolved bugs for another Sierra game being developed at the same time. So we need to back up at least another 3-6 weeks for quality assurance and fixing all the problems the expert (and sadistic) game testers find. That's early to mid September.

So September is a time of euphoria! After anywhere from 6 months to 5 years of work, the game is finally done. QA hasn't seen the "final" completed version yet, and all is right with the world. Of course, that means that in July and August, everyone on the team was working 60 hours a week to have a prayer of getting all the game features done by September. By September, everyone is exhausted, and the last thing they want to hear is that crunch time has barely begun. Much more work will be required to fix all the glitches, balance issues, and outright errors that the master QA'ers will soon uncover.

For Now It is Christmas Time

Interestingly, Christmas in the Mountains has similar issues. Lori sent publicity releases to travel magazines months ago so that we can be in their November/December calendars. Posters, advertising flyers, and the treasure hunt clues have to be printed and distributed. Merchants have to be contacted to see who wants to participate in the treasure hunt. Clues have to be customized to the participating merchants, so some really fun ones might never be used. We have to train volunteers to give appropriate hints to people who get stuck. And we'll have to be prepared to handle last-minute emergencies, such as a popular merchant running out of clue sheets or simply losing the whole packet. Even a small game for a few thousand players (or 5 or 6 close friends, for that matter) takes a lot of time, effort, imagination, and preparation to prepare.

Fortunately, we have infinite free time to work on this. It isn't as though we're writing a weekly blog, creating an online school for heroes, working on an interactive fiction game, rehearsing carols (another Christmas in September activity), raiding Mount Hyjal and the Black Temple, and trying to pay bills and otherwise run our lives. Oh wait, maybe we are doing all those things! If one of them comes in a little late, please forgive us; at least you'll know why.

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Joyous Noel, Happy Solstice, Kwanzaa Greetings, and Happy Holidays to you all - It's Christmas in September!

Ahoy, Me Hearties!

Well, shiver me timbers, me buckos, it be that time o' year. Official Talk Like a Pirate Day be Friday, the 19th of September. Ye doesna want ta be a lubber, does ye? Avast, ye scurvy dogs!

"Ye be wantin' the whole scuzzy tale? That ye can find on International Talk Like a Pirate Day. You can even learn the ten best pickup lines to use on buxom wenches on TLPD (Such as "Pardon me, but would ya mind if fired me cannon through your porthole?").

When ye be ready ta start talkin' the talk and walkin' the walk, ye might larn a bit aboard this ship.

Pirate Lore (or Pirate Lori)

"There be a bit o' pirate in all of us. Some of our most memorable D&D adventures involved the pirate ship "The Lion Rampant" and its intrepid - or at least unusual - crew. Cap'n o' the Rampant was Buccaneer Brucie, a foppish, presumed gay paragon played by Lori. The first time she rolled into gaming session dressed ta the nines as Buccaneer Brucie - scarves, flintlock, cutlass, powdered white wig, tricorner hat, and all - there were several seconds of awed silence afore the gale force laughter hit us all.

Corey was less impressive as the Dead Pirate Rogers. Despite never having watched Mr. Roger's Neighorhood, Corey soon learned that a fuzzy sweater was apparently required armor for the role. Dead Pirate was a Dwarf, and First Mate to Cap'n Brucie. Of course, Dwarves aren't yer usual sort o' pirates.

Rogers was actually King Rockhard Ironstaff, deposed leader of the Dwarven kingdom of Moronia. Bein' not a altogether bad pirate, Rogers composed this song (to the tune of the Disneyland Pirates of the Caribbean theme song (this happened long before the films):

Yo ho, yo ho, privateers we be!
We plunder, we pillage,
We ravage the village,
But always by letters of marque --
Because we're not pirates, but privateers,
We don't do this for a lark!
Yo ho, yo ho, privateers we be!

Also memorable in the ship's crew was Ferdiad, the sadistic ship's surgeon. His favorite "cure" for all ills was Doctor Death's Salve, a concoction so caustic that many preferred to die of their wounds rather than be cured with the Salve. (There was the time that the mischievous Hobbit substituted Dr. Death's salve for bear grease, but we won't go there...)

The jolly ship's crew had an actual treasure hunt in character on our ranch in the middle of the night by lantern light. Unfortunately, the character who had the map was a Hoka (a species of intelligent bear-like creatures from a high gravity planet in stories by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson). The Hoka, being a bear of little brains, started happily leading the party off in entirely the wrong direction. We'd marched half-way across the ranch before someone thought to actually look at the map.

The adventures of the Lion Rampant were chaotic and silly, but rollicking good fun.

Look Behind You! It's a Three-Headed Monkey!

Despite having authored multiple best-selling "adventure games," we've never played them very much. LucasArt's "The Secret of Monkey Island" was the notable exception. We loved the humor, the mostly non-frustrating puzzles, the graphic style, the music, the setting, the story. It went on a short list of computer games that both of us loved to play along with Rogue, Dungeonmaster, and Wizardry.

Note the timing on game releases - Hero's Quest shipped in 1989, The Secret of Monkey Island and Quest for Glory 2: Trial by Fire in 1990, and Monkey Island 2: Le Chuck's Revenge in 1991. We talked to Ron Gilbert - lead designer of the first two Monkey Island games - at the Computer Game Developers' Conference, and he admitted to being influenced by Hero's Quest, just as we were by his games.

Secret of Monkey Island had the most fun combat system we've ever seen in a game. Instead of slashes and thrusts, Guybrush Threepwood and his opponents hurled deadly (at least to the ego) insults at each other. Each insult could be parried by an appropriate witty repartee. Of course, you had to practice your dueling skills to hone your wit to a razor edge.

The story also held together really well, including some great foreshadowing. Early in the game, Guybrush is trying to be recognized as a pirate. Asked if he has any special talents, he says, "Well, I can hold my breath for ten minutes." This turns out to be important later in the game. and those patient players who held out for the full ten minutes got to see an Easter Egg of sorts.

Dead Men Tell No Tales

Whenever we visited Disneyland, we tended to make a beeline to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. The imagineers did a fantastic job with the setting. Combining Pirates with the Blue Bayou restaurant was a stroke of genius, as each contributes to the atmosphere of the other. The food at the Blue Bayou was also probably the best the park had to offer. As fond of pirate stories like Treasure Island, The Muppet's Treasure Island, and The Princess Bride, the Pirates of the Caribbean ride made us shiver with delight.

So we looked forward to the Pirates of the Caribbean film with a mixture of anticipation and fear. Would they manage to capture the essence of the ride, or turn out a commercialized travesty? To our delight, the movie was fantastic. Johnny Depp played Cap'n Jack Sparrow in the spitting image of Buccaneer Brucie (well, aside from the dreadlocks, beard, noticeable lack of purple, white wig, high heels, etc. - it's all about the attitude), and the writers managed to walk that narrow plank between humor and a dramatic story absolutely perfectly. We were already Johnny Depp fans, and Pirates solidified his standing as one of the great character actors of all time. Although the movie did undermine one of the basic premises of Piratedom - "Dead Men tell no Tales". Then again, most of the pirates in the movie were Undead Men.

So, be ye a landlubber or a true pirate? Ye'll get ta show yer true colors this Friday and on International Talk Like a Pirate Day every year. Scupper us with a marlinspike if we not be speakin' the plain truth. and speakin' it like pirates!

Brucie's Flag, the "Hello Sailor" and the singing Meep pirates were from our first "TLPD" on Transolar years ago. The coin is a bronze casting from the mold of the coins used in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie. The Monkey Island cover is from our original game box. The portrait at the beginning of the article is of the notorious Meeps, Capn Redbeard and Molly (a Meep thinly disguised as a parrot).

Rock, Scissors, and Paper Tiger

You’ve all played Rock, Scissors, Paper, right? It’s a two-player game in which both players simultaneously reveal a fist (rock), open hand (paper), or two fingers (scissors). Rock breaks scissors, paper wraps rock, scissors cut paper. If both players make the same choice, it’s a tie and they try again.

Did you know that there’s a professional Rock, Scissors, Paper tour? Actually, we’re not sure there really is one, but there are international tournaments and two different events each year that bill themselves as the World Championship of Rock, Scissors, Paper. “Professional” RSP players call it Roshambo. It sounds more mysterious, and it’s a little shorter.

Rockin’ the Night Away

On its surface, Roshambo seems like a totally random game. If you programmed two computers to play each other, and one always chose randomly, it wouldn’t matter what the other one chose. In the long run, they will tie. In real life, the game gets interesting because the players try to psych each other out. You either predict the move your opponent will make or use psychological tactics to get him to make the move you want. The game rules are evenly balanced, but players’ minds are not.

Perry Friedman, a Roshambo World Champion and Tiltboy, once gave me a few tips on the game. New players rarely pick Rock as their first move – It feels unnatural to start with a closed fist and keep it that way – so Scissors is a strong first move against an amateur. Of course, he might have told me that just so that I would pick Rock first next time we played so he could be ready to counter it with Paper. Sneakiness is an important attribute for a Roshambo champion.

One Rule to Rule Them All?

We keep reading books and articles on game design that basically say, “All games are variations on Rock, Scissors, Paper.” Everyone nods their heads sagely at such an obvious truth, then works on their latest RSP game mechanic. The only problem with this is that the “rule” isn’t true and lazy application of it leads to bad game design.

The idea is as simple as RSP. Create some variation in the game by creating several different types of units, then balance them so that every unit has its Nemesis. If artillery is strong against cavalry, then make it vulnerable to infantry. If a Wizard easily defeats a Warrior because armor doesn’t stop his spells, then let a Rogue sneak up behind the Wizard and kill him before he can react. This is much more interesting than giving everyone the same strengths and weaknesses.

The concept is simple and obvious… but it’s a little too simple. If all conflict was determined by numbers and formulae, then an RSP model might work fine… and make a really boring game.

Black-and-White Logic in a Multi-Colored World

The problem with “Roshambo rules all” is that the real world is fuzzy, not binary. Bart Kosko, in his book Fuzzy Thinking, talks about the philosophy of fuzzy logic. Kosko claims that fuzzy set theory does a better job of describing the real world than do traditional mathematical models. When we talk about “tall people,” we don’t mean that everyone over six feet tall is “tall” and everyone else is “not tall.” There are degrees of tallness. In traditional Aristotelian logic, everything is either part of a set or not part of it. Fuzzy logic is designed to solve problems that are best described by “partial membership” in sets.

Roshambo has no grayness. There are only three possible actions, and the results of each pair of actions are clearly defined. Great games have many more factors and no black-and-white answers. The excitement comes from uncertainty and the idea that “on any given day, anyone can win.” A combat (or competition) is decided not only by the game rules, but by the relative skill of the players and other factors such as equipment, environmental conditions, and the actions of other players and “monsters.”

World of Warcraft combat is fun because it is unpredictable. There is a Roshambo bias for who “should” win in an otherwise equal encounter, but it’s just an edge, not a guarantee. And that’s pretty much true in every great game. There has to be room for player skill to make a difference. If the game is totally symmetrical, then there is no reason for a player to choose a particular type of unit and the game might as well be simulated on a computer rather than played.

Of course, if the game is too asymmetrical, everybody will choose the strongest units and the game developers might as well have left out the rest. This is why game balance is one of the hardest aspects of game design to master. A seemingly minor tweak can result in some players becoming far too powerful or others becoming hopelessly weak. As characters or units become more powerful and complicated, achieving game balance becomes a tremendously difficult job.

A Hit-Driven Business

Coin flips, Roshambo, and dice rolling in Dungeons & Dragons all have something in common – They have black-and-white rules for who wins. The best game designs hit the sweet spot between such deterministic rules and total chaos. Players tend to see patterns where there are none, and often assume randomness where a game is actually deterministic. This leads to what I think of as the “probability fallacy.”

Is a coin flip actually a 50-50 proposition? Only before you flip the coin. Once the coin falls, the result is known and is either 100% heads or 100% tails. The same applies to most game puzzle situations. Something that is a 75% probability really means that 75% of the players succeed 100% and the other 25% fail… or resort to restoring saved games until they “win.” Role-playing games get around this by repetition – If there is a 25% chance the player will get a particular item on killing a monster, he just has to kill dozens or hundreds of them to find the 10 or 20 items required for a quest. This can get more than a little boring and repetitious, but at least it gives players an extra reason for killing those monsters.

How about the actual combat? Dungeons & Dragons and its spiritual descendants have you roll two dice. The first role determines if you hit, the second how much damage you deal. There are some problems with this approach, especially in an online multiplayer game. When you shoot at a moving target in Quake, do you hit it? It might look like a very obvious hit on one player’s screen and an equally obvious miss on the other.

A Warm, Fuzzy Feeling

A better fuzzy logic approach would be to apply a series of fuzzy rules to the combat – What sort of attack are you making? What kinds of defenses does your opponent have in play? How far apart are you? How much movement is involved? How good are your stats and equipment, and how strong are the opponent’s? A fuzzy combat system would combine the results of all the rules and come out with an appropriately-averaged result. This might be that you graze your opponent for a minor wound, or that you get in a solid hit, or that you miss entirely. The actual amount of damage would take all factors into account instead of being a random dice roll.

Obviously this isn’t a good system for a paper role-playing game where the players have to make all those calculations. But computers happen to be good at doing a lot of things fast. Why should our video games be tied to restrictions inherited from paper gaming?

Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness featured a fuzzy logic combat system. We think it was one of the most successful approaches in the series. Players could choose to fight as in an arcade game, or they could set a “combat style” and have the computer take actions according to that style. All of the “monsters” had individual fighting styles of their own. We think this made combat pretty interesting and helped players with poor arcade skills be able to enjoy the game.

We’d like to see more games use a fuzzy logic approach to conflict resolution. It isn’t much harder to program than traditional logic and it solves a lot of problems (such as the effect of lag) that have proven very difficult to solve with binary logic. Most importantly, a fuzzy logic system is much easier to balance because the reasoning can be recorded and observed. In effect, a well-designed fuzzy system can tell the developer or player why it made each decision.

So what will it be? Thinly disguised games of Rock, Scissors, Paper in which the game systems are transparent, boring, and can be manipulated by the players? Or tear up that paper tiger and create rich, complex game systems that use the power of fuzzy sets to balance themselves? Truly great games favor the skilled player, but leave enough room for a lucky, less-skilled player to compete and have a fair chance of winning occasionally.

September 4, 2008

Star Trek: The Final Frontier

Lori’s friend Susan sent her an article from her local paper about the closing of the Star Trek Experience at the Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas. This was a exhibition and simulator ride based mostly around Star Trek: The Next Generation. Given that the show has been off the air for fourteen years, it really isn’t a surprise that they finally shut it down.

And yet, it’s sad.

These were the Voyages of the Star Ship Enterprise

Her 5-year mission was extended several times – The original show, The Next Generation, Voyager, and Enterprise. Each series had its own unique flavor, but they all stretched our imaginations and made us wonder about “what is out there” beyond the limits of our solar system.

We don’t consider ourselves to be Trekkies, although our lives have been heavily influenced by Star Trek. As children, we watched the original series with Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock. (Lori, of course, had a crush on Spock at the time.) Corey still remembers sitting on a couch with his family watching the season previews and how excited they were about the upcoming Star Trek show. Corey’s father helped run his father’s corner store in New York City and read every issue of Astounding Stories, If, Galaxy, and other pulp science fiction magazines. Corey grew up in a living room filled with books and magazines, many of them science fiction and fantasy.

The Prime Directive

Although the Enterprise crew seemed to forget it occasionally – when to do so was convenient to a story line – all starship crews were required to follow the Prime Directive. They were not to interfere with other civilizations, nor even to reveal the existence of the Federation or star ships to pre-spacefaring worlds. Wikipedia quotes it as:

"No identification of self or mission. No interference with the social development of said planet. No references to space or the fact that there are other worlds or civilizations."

Of course, they proceeded to break the rules right and left, all in the name of the Greater Good. Sort of like the concept of the Quest for Glory Paladin who must decide between the laws and justice.

The Star Trek series took on issues of war and authoritarianism, of personal heroism and working for peace. It was set in a world with no borders and no race or sex barriers – no limits. Then there was the overall message of hope – we will make it to the future, and the stars will be ours to explore.

Those were pretty good lessons to grow up with.

To Seek Out New Life and New Civilizations

Quest for Glory owes much to Star Trek. Yes, there’s the USS ‘Exitprise’ in the Magic Shop of Shapeir. On the hero’s way in to Shapeir, the magic carpet almost gets hit by the starship going into warp drive. But there’s much more than that below the surface.

Star Trek was always about going to new lands and new civilizations. The crew’s missions were all about bringing peace to war-torn worlds and creating a better future. Uhura, the Warrior and Adventure Guildmaster in ‘Trial by Fire’ and in ‘Wages of War’ was named after the character in Star Trek for a reason. In Swahili, the word uhuru means freedom. (We learned this from a Star Trek filk song!) We wanted the player to set people free from fear and evil. We wanted the players to feel like true heroes.

To Boldly Go where no one has Gone Before

We have seen the Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas several times. We ate at Quark’s Bar and Restaurant and talked to Klingons and Ferrangi there. We even got an Evil Tribble from it. This was a battery powered tribble that would wiggle and purr when we first got it… but little did we know its true nature. After a while, it would turn itself on at odd times and give low, growling noises and it wouldn’t shut itself down. I think we locked it away in a chest somewhere. Perhaps by now it has escaped and plotted to take over the world with the Evil Meep… but that’s another story.

We have a garland beside the kitchen with a string of lights and Star Trek ornaments. Our favorite drinking mug has a Klingon Bird of Prey. Lori even has a pressed coin with the Bird of Prey symbol on it from the Experience in her purse. She isn’t quite sure where she can spend that, but she’s well prepared for the Klingon Invasion. She even has a Klingon font on her computer, since you never know when you may have to answer an ultimatum from an invading alien species.

We’ve even played Klingon characters in D&D. Well, technically they’re Uruks, but the DM based them on Klingons, and they’re pretty much indistinguishable personality-wise.

We're still not Trekkies. Er... by some definition. Even if we have gone to a Star Trek convention or two. And Grok Spock.

All Good Things...

Anyway, we’re sad that the Star Trek Experience has gone away. It’s sad that all of the Star Trek TV series have come and gone. Then again, they all seem dated and hokey in today’s world. They had their final voyage, and it’s time to let them sail away.

But the Legacy of Star Trek will live on.

Live long and Prosper. Q’plah!

August 27, 2008

'Trial by Fire' Reborn

Two days ago, AGDInteractive released the full-color, completely re coded version of Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire. After eight years of development, they have a right to celebrate right now. They got to experience all the wonders of the 'Endless Sisyphean Nightmare Warren' and they didn't even get paid to do so! This was a labor of love, and they offer it free to everyone who wants to experience or remember this classic Adventure-Role-playing game.

Once upon a time many, many moons ago, when we were young and innocent, Corey and I designed and developed Trial by Fire for Sierra On-Line. Fresh with the success of "So You Want to Be a Hero," we were ready to take our players to a new world of role-playing. We wanted to created a fantasy game based on the Arabian Nights tales. It would have all of the tropes and archetypes of the Persian stories and a strong elemental theme of Summer and fire. We subtitled it, "Trial by Fire." We had no idea the name would be prophetic.

Fast-forward ten years. A group of Sierra adventure game fans calling themselves the "Anonymous Game Developers" decided that perhaps they could do what Sierra had chosen not to do. They decided to use an open-source adventure game development system to recreate a few of the classic 16-color Sierra games – starting with King's Quest 1 and 2 – with 256-color VGA graphics. Quest for Glory 2: Trial by Fire was next on their list and they started in on the project with great energy in 2001. After several iterations and a long journey through the Sisyphean nightmare warren of game development, AGDI has now (August 2008) released the finished product. You can read more about the history of QG2 VGA on the AGDI web site.

Amazingly, the AGDI team was able to get a limited license from Sierra allowing them to distribute the game with its original name and characters as long as they give it away free and nobody distributes it for a profit. Knowing how much work went into the Quest for Glory 1 VGA conversion, our hats are off to this incredible team for creating QG2 VGA as a labor of love. Incidentally, we had no say on the license, since Sierra/Vivendi owns all the rights to our games, but we are fully behind the AGDI team and the QG2 VGA project.

So how is the game? Well, actually, it's so new, we haven't played much of it yet. Corey has spent a few hours trying out the thief and fighter characters. The 256-color graphics are beautiful, although you will find them much different from today's 3D graphics environments. The game play seems very faithful to the original with several new features. AGDI adapted the menu and point-and-click systems from Quest for Glory 3 to give Trial by Fire much the same feel. They also give you a choice of a fully menu-based conversation system, the original parsed system (type in the keyword about which you want to ask), or a hybrid system that allows both options. I really like the hybrid system as it allows me to skip directly to a particular topic without having to follow the menus.

I found inventory use a little cumbersome at first, although that's probably mostly because I didn't remember how we did in in Quest for Glory 3! You use the hidden menu to access your inventory and select an item. The right mouse button toggles between possible actions (walk, use or attack, talk, or the chosen inventory item), then clicking the left button on a person or object tries to apply that action.

Compared to today's no-brain interface (right-click on something to do whatever the game designer or programmer decided you should do with that person or object), it takes more thought and more time to take an action, but it also really opens up the user's choices. If you're lazy, you probably won't like it. Playing QG2 VGA reminded me that adventure games used to be much more complex and difficult than today's games.

By the way, Save your game early and often! Corey didn't and was pretty embarrassed when he died in his first combat and had no saved game to which to restore. There does not appear to be an automatic save feature in QG2 VGA, as there almost certainly was none in the original version. So far, Corey has been unable to defeat any enemy in combat. He managed to get a brigand down to 50% of his health before the main character succumbed. A serious arcade gamer might have an easier time with the combat, but this could be a problem in an adventure RPG. Perhaps AGDI will release a patch later with an "easy mode" combat option for gamers who were already mature when QG2 first appeared.

Not only did ADGI include many of the fun Easter Eggs of the game like the Silly clown option with Harpo Marx running down the alleyways, but they brought back the Saurus Repair Shop that had to be cut from the release version of the game because it wouldn't fit on the disk. I'm told they even added an Easter Egg or two. That just goes to show how much care and 'professionalism beyond the call of duty' ADGI has - they really went out of their way to add to the fun of the game.

Our recommendation: Visit AGDI's web site and download your free copy of Quest for Glory 2: Trial by Fire. Make sure you read the included documentation before you start the game so that you'll have an easier time with the interface and combat than Corey managed. Then let us and AGDI both know how you like the game… and if you love it, write to Vivendi and request they release a new edition of the rest of the Quest for Glory series. For some reason we can't quite comprehend, Vivendi has rereleased King's Quest, Space Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry, but has not repackaged the Quest for Glory series.

Two huge thumbs-up to AGDI for a fabulous piece of (an incredible amount of) work, the brand new Quest for Glory 2: Trial by Fire VGA remake!

The Heroes and the Carpet illustrations were based off the original sketches from the Trial by Fire manual drawn by Ernie Chan.

August 21, 2008

Fear and Loathing in the Game Development Industry

A recent article in Game Developer magazine (August 2008 edition, page 34) had us saying, "Yes! Tell it like it is!". Actually, the article was a standard "What went right and what went wrong" article about developing an adventure game. It was the sidebar by Penny Arcade co-creator Jerry "Tycho" Holkins that really caught our attention:

"If we had known what we were getting into, we would never have done it. Game development is an endless Sisyphean nightmare warren of terrible nightmares. We wish we could go back in time, to our first meeting with Hothead, and shake our past selves, crying out: "Run, fools! Run for your very lives! Game development is a nightmare warren," et cetera. We would spend a lot of time driving home this nightmare warren concept." - Tycho

[Incidentally, we view Penny Arcade almost every day. Check out their unique blend of sardonic humor as they discuss the ins and outs of Games and the Game Industry.

We often have starry-eyed young game players come up to us and ask, "What does it take to become a Game Designer, O Great Ones?" (although they usually don't phrase it quite that way). This is much like a son, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, asking, "What did you do in the Clone Wars, Daddy?" We put our arm on their shoulders (ok, Corey does that... Lori's too short), smile condescendingly, and say, "Son, it takes Moxie. Moxie, hard work, and luck." Then we pat them on the back and send them on their way with such sage advice as "Study Hard", "Get Good Grades", and "May the Force Be with You".

What we don't say to those innocent dreamers is that game development takes all the sweat from more work than you ever thought you were capable of doing. It takes the blood from opening up your creative heart and watching it all spill out upon the cutting room floor. It takes the tears of frustration and agony as you try to deal with impossible people doing impossible tasks under impossible deadlines. It also takes selling your soul to the Devil.

We don't say it because:

1. We don't like scaring people
2. We'd like to play their games someday
3. We get a kickback from the Devil for every soul we get to sign on the dotted line

"There are a few things we wish we had known beforehand. First, not to make video games – but we covered that..." - Tycho

Why is game development so hard? We start out with a set of vague concepts about the game style and features, then spend months or years creating art and music, prototyping then refining the code, and gradually putting it all together. I can tell you that we were in total despair over a few of our games just three months before shipment because they felt bland and lifeless. Then the music and sound effects were added, and suddenly the games took on life. Still, even after a year or three of work, we're never really sure we've created a great game until the fans come back and tell us we managed it.

The Horror! The Horror!

You might have heard horror stories about months-long crunch periods of 60 and 70 hour weeks to complete a game. The situation is industry-wide; almost all game companies have similar horrible overtime periods. But you may wonder why. I know we have at times... usually when we are in the middle of pulling an all-nighter.

What it all comes down to is that game development is an inherently chaotic process. We are trying to create an experience that has a certain feel and flavor, but our tools have no built-in intelligence. We have to draw every pixel, write every word of dialogue, and program every interaction. We create shortcuts for some of this, such as art tools that let us draw a polygon and apply a texture to it, object-oriented programming tools that let us specify a class of behavior for certain types of objects, and so on… but in the end, almost everything needs to be hand-tweaked, tested and retested for play balance, and finally reluctantly released to the playing public.

"... coming in as people who ordinarily just buy entertainment software, we didn't understand that a project doesn't actually look like anything until the very end. We had resigned ourselves to the fact that our game would be about grey blocks stumbling around a featureless world." - Tycho

On the rare occasions when we get ahead of schedule, we use the extra time – and more – to add more features or to further tune the game play. Then, inevitably, many of the bugs and play balance problems show up only when we think the game is finished in the final phases of testing. This is of course because our characters are nothing but "grey blocks" for most of the development phase – The testers can't really put a game through its paces until it's almost finished.

No Pain - No Game?

Is it possible to create a great game without pain? In short, "no." The pain can be reduced, and the overtime spread out a little, but a game produced strictly "by the book" on schedule is almost always a boring, flat-feeling game. That's because game development is all about passion and chaos and "endless Sisyphean nightmare warrens."

So, our advice to all you wannabe Game Designers really should be "don't give in the the Dark Side of the Force." But since no one ever takes that advice, don't worry. We know a dandy lawyer who will be happy to write you up a Game Development contract. Don't be too concerned if he asks you to sign it in blood. In triplicate.

Have fun!!!!!

August 13, 2008

"Modern Lessons from Classic Games"
Part Three: Dungeons & Dragons

"We were playing a game." "No game." – Joel Rosenberg, The Sleeping Dragon, 1982.

Dungeons & Dragons™ is the most important game introduced in the last 50 years. Without it, the landscapes of both live and computer gaming would look totally different. It's certainly been influential to us. Our games wouldn't exist at all without the influence of Dungeons and Dragons. There's a very good chance Corey would still be designing productivity software if we had never discovered Dungeons and Dragons. Lori would still be a schoolteacher, and we'd never have met each other.

World of Warcraft would not exist with Dungeons and Dragons. Nor would Everquest, Ultima Online, Zork, any other text or graphic adventure video game, nor thousands of others. I don't think we could say that about any other modern game. Exaggeration? I don't think so.

What Makes Dungeons and Dragons Different?

How is Dungeons and Dragons different from playing Cops & Robbers, or Knights & Knaves, or from Lord of the Rings? Dungeons and Dragons has rules and structure. Characters have specific abilities and restrictions. A player can't say "I leap over the 50 foot chasm" and expect it to work… unless they know how to fly. They might be able to say, "I cast a Fireball," if there character happens to know the Fireball spell and has one ready. So a Dungeons and Dragons character can do a lot of things the player can't do in real life and can't do thing just because they make a good story.

Another critical aspect of Dungeons and Dragons is the concept of experience levels and experience points (XP). These have been adopted by most current role-playing games. We used a different system in Quest for Glory – individual skills and talents that improved with practice – but that really is just a variation on the XP theme. For all practical purposes, Dungeons and Dragons invented the idea of playing a single character with skills that improve over the course of many sessions of playing that same character. Since then, almost every role-playing game has been built around that concept. That's pretty revolutionary!

Storytelling and D & D

But Dungeons and Dragons isn't just about the rules. It's also about playing a game where storytelling is as important as the game mechanics. A couple of Corey's Bard characters come to mind. Each of them wrote a song about one of their adventures. In one case, our low-level party took on a much more powerful creature with the help of some magic. It could have been just another hack-and-slash moment, but the Bard immortalized it in song as "The Slaying of the Remorhaz" (giving himself a starring role, of course). Similarly, Carolan wrote a song, "You Can't Keep Carolan Down," about her adventures. Turning the gaming into a story has helped us remember that campaign many years later.

What makes Dungeons and Dragons so memorable? It's the characters, the story, and the interaction between the players. We brush aside the boring parts, "Um, let's see. I get +1 to hit from 16 Strength. Oh, wait, that's damage, not to hit…" We remember matching wits with a Master Vampire, organizing a village to stand up against an ancient Red Dragon... or making a deal with the Dragon to stop attacking the village. We remember joining together to face an enemy that would have totally destroyed any one of us alone. This is the stuff of great storytelling made all the richer because we are participating in the story and helping to write it.

More than a Game

Dungeons & Dragons is the "more than a game" that helped us to write our own life story. How about you? Have you been influenced by Dungeons and Dragons or other "paper role-playing" games? How did it change your life? Or do you think I've exaggerated its importance, and there would still be lots of fun computer and video games if Dungeons and Dragons had never existed? We want to hear from you.

August 5, 2008

"Modern Lessons from Classic Games"
Part Two: Bridge

Yes, we all love games. It's just that we don't always try to figure out why we love a particular amusement, and more importantly, what made it so interesting. In this series, we take a look at some of our favorites and try to figure out what we can learn from their design.

Bridge – Playing With a Full Deck

Corey was a chess nut until his second year of College. At that point, he realized he couldn't keep up with young players who had much more time and willingness to study openings. After a couple of years of computer games, Corey was introduced to bridge and has been playing it ever since.

What's to Love About Bridge?

Two things epitomize the appeal of bridge – partnerships and duplicate play. Bridge can be played for money and makes a great skill-based cash game with an element of luck. But amateur play for master points is far more popular, which helps keep the cost of play low. This is much different from Poker, a "money management game resolved by cards," which is almost pointless without having real money at stake. Bridge involves deep thought, partnership communication within the very limited vocabulary of the game, and imagination to cope with the opponents' unknown hands. It also has a subtle learning curve in that a beginner will sometimes get lucky against an expert, but knowledge and practice pay off in the long run.

Another advantage of bridge is that the playing equipment is readily available, fits in a shirt pocket, and is very inexpensive. In duplicate bridge, each pair plays the same hands as their opponents, removing most of the "luck of the deal" aspect from the game. That brings skill and good judgment to the top.

What's Not to Love About Bridge?

Rubber bridge requires exactly four players. A team game needs an even multiple of eight players to avoid having players sit out. Duplicate bridge usually requires at least 16 players, and is more fun with 32 or more. That's a lot of players to get together in one place at one time, and without careful planning, there's a good chance that 1-3 players won't get to play at all or will have to sit out at some point.

Online play helps with this – In a large online bridge club, you can usually find a partner and opponents fairly quickly. However, if you end up with an incompatible partner – either a bad player, one who doesn't know your bidding system, or one with bad manners – bridge can be excruciating and you may be stuck with that partner for four or eight hours. It is also very hard to prevent cheating at bridge because of the hidden cards. Online, a pair could be sitting next to each other or talking on the phone or instant messaging. Even in live play, subtle differences in timing, arrangement of cards, or even of the scorekeeping pencils, can give one pair an unfair advantage over their opponents.

What Can We Learn from Bridge?

A game shared trumps a game played alone. It doesn't take gambling to make a card game fun. Nor does it take a huge number of different cards. Like chess, bridge thrives on elegance and simplicity. Random starting positions make every hand different, so no two bridge deals are quite alike. Deal duplication reduces the element of luck so that players benefit from practice and skill. Duplication also lets players discuss deals after the game – Often the post mortem is as fun as the tournament. Corey used to say that Bridge and Dungeons & Dragons were the only two games he knew in which players spent more time talking about the games afterwards than they spent actually playing them. The enjoyment doesn't end when the game is over.

July 31, 2008

"Modern Lessons from Classic Games"
Part One: Chess

Let's face it – We get a little compulsive when it comes to gaming. Of course, some games are more compelling than others. Here are a few of our favorite card and board games, past and present, and some of the game design lessons we've learned from them.

Chess - The Classic Board Game

Why has this simple board game survived for thousands of years and remained popular today? Everything is out in plain sight, there are only 6 types of pieces, and the board is a boring 2-dimensional checkerboard of black and white squares. If we proposed a game like this to a publisher today, we'd get laughed out of the building.

What's to Love About Chess?

That very simplicity is a virtue. You can learn all of the rules in an hour and start playing immediately, yet there are deep strategies that take months or years to acquire. Chess only needs two players, so it's easy to find a game. The equipment is inexpensive and durable. The best player tends to win (or at least hold the game to a draw), but a less-experienced player always has the chance to come up with a strong winning combination. There are strong national and international chess federations to rate players, hold tournaments, and help players find opponents.

What's Not to Love About Chess?

Especially in tournaments, a single chess game can take hours to play. In fact, a typical open chess tournament consists of 5 or 6 games. One big mistake in any game can result in a loss that takes you out of contention.

This has been partially solved by use of the chess clock. In a tournament game, it prevents one player from agonizing for hours while his opponent suffers. There are also speed chess games in which each player only has 10 – or 5 or 2 – minutes in which to make all her moves. Speed Chess is a very exciting variant in which both players are likely to make mistakes. Chess also requires a lot of memorization, particularly of opening sequences, to play well. It's "open" nature (no hidden information) has resulted in exhaustive analysis of opening sequences, which detracts from the creative aspect of that part of the game.

What Can We Learn from Chess?

Games don't have to be complicated to be fun. Clear rules and a small number of possible "moves" that interact to allow deep strategy can make great games. It also helps that chess is a 2-player game. That makes it easy to find a single opponent and gives a "dueling" quality to a chess game. Chess also benefits from great publicity and online play ability due to the simplicity of the rules and game transcripts. When Electronic Arts first started out, their catch-phrase was "Simple, Hot, and Deep." That describes Chess perfectly.

July 17, 2008

The Reverse Interview - Computer Gaming in the Ukraine

We were recently interviewed by Allan Karmine for a Ukrainian gaming magazine, "My Gaming Computer." He asked some very thoughtful questions as well as telling us something of the state of gaming in the Ukraine. The interview was mainly about our Quest for Glory series. We are always pleased and surprised to be interviewed about our "antique" gaming series – Quest for Glory development ran from mid-1988 until late 1998. (We intended the games to be played forever, but alas, the modern computers just can't handle them.) This time, though, we turned the tables around and asked Alan some questions about gaming in the Ukraine.

When our games were released in the 90's, no U.S. games were legally available in the Ukraine, let alone translated into Russian, but that didn't stop the gamers! Here are some of the things we learned about Ukrainian gaming:

Corey: Was there much difficulty playing games in English?

Allan: Even vice versa! My studies of English were sped up and greatly nourished by Sierra games and mostly Quest for Glory series, since I had it in rounds over and over again, from creating a greenish Hero in forests of Spielburg to disappearance in Borgov castle …. After that, I almost never played a translated game. When first English books appeared in rare foreign bookstores, I started reading them, and now I buy DVDs with English soundtrack... But base was formed many years ago, with QFG being my first serious practice of written English. For which I thank you.

Corey: I don't think Sierra ever translated any of our games into any Slavic or Cyrillic languages. I know there were trade restrictions on selling modern computers through the "iron curtain" and I think on software as well. It's amazing that any sort of a fan community was able to develop there under those conditions.

Allan: Well, it all began with the Perestroika in 1985 and unleashed a mighty wave with fall of Union in 1991. American culture (if it's possible to call a bunch of popular comedies and action movies that way) flowed here unstoppable river. Ukraine, as well as other ex-soviet states, had a base for education and learning a lot of information. Many different communities that study foreign cultures or sub-cultures formed since then and they never stop appearing again. Computer gaming was one of those. Since real life was too dirty, risky or even dangerous, people clung to games as a different way of thinking, and escape from truth they had to face each days.

Corey comment: Something that has always amused me is the idea that fantasy writers "just make up stories" and that there is no need for realism in a fantasy. We've always felt the opposite, that to be believable a great fantasy story has to draw from real world archetypes and backgrounds, and that it has to be as real as possible outside of a few fantasy tweaks. Quest for Glory was no exception – We did countless hours of research into geography, history, and mythology before writing one line of dialogue or descriptive text. One thing that really struck us about Mr. Karmine's comments was that across thousands of miles and a huge language gap, he "got" what we were trying to express. Here are some of his comments on the individual Quest for Glory game settings.

Allan: Before setting up an interview, I'd like to thank you for what you have done for us. That emotional blast, the thrilling storyline that reached deep into soul. Particularly, I am amazed that you replicated Baba Yaga's hut and even set up burning skulls! Which comes not in every folk-tale of her. Thank you for Shadows of Darkness, wish it were longer and deeper. I have studied every corner of forest, and first time playing spend two in-game month walking around Mordavia so it became real to me.

Trial by Fire was a spiritual revelation to me. I have read some of 1001 Nights by that time so many things were recognizable... But the whole atmosphere of becoming a professional Hero - was something new. I took it serious then, and I take it so now - about learning Honor and accomplishing deeds and practicing with commander Uhura, er, simply Uhura, each day, and throwing fireballs all around the alleys watching over shoulder so that no one would notice. See, not just a storyline, but freedom inside the setting. As well as pretty roleplay system where you actually raise what you trained for hours of real life. And these secret ways were the best. Like, you can have all stats you want, but you can only become real Hero if you are a Paladin and you see more to the world than before, and see how much is yet to be done. Only by becoming a Wizard you step in contact with Faeries (pity that side-walk was short). And, let's talk of romance of being a Thief and reaching some places unnoticed. I disgust common stealing, people should work for their bread - but I'd wish there were more missions like sneaking up the Khaveen's place or balancing on a rope under Ad Avis spells. When dexterity and flexibility and open-mindedness and insight and compassion take place - that's where happens Quest for Glory.

Corey and Lori: And that sums up what the School for Heroes is all about. We are trying to create a real environment on the Web where people (including us) can learn more about heroism and making a difference. Mostly it's about fun, but there's also a very important core of Doing What Is Right. We are adding to the fantasy lore of Silmaria and building a world, but we hope that we are also helping to create heroes in our own real world.

July 10, 2008

School Daze

I suppose that it's a bit of an exaggeration to call this the "Class of the Titans," but the Golden School is that "he who has the gold runs the school." So we'll class-ify ourselves as above average, and school ourselves to get back to the subject at hand - the Making of the "School for Heroes."

Over the past few weeks, Lori has been working feverishly on creating www.TheSchoolForHeroes.com web site. She's using the "grunge look" so that there is a lot of background detail behind everything on the page. Besides looking cool, this will give us the opportunity to sneak some hidden puzzles into the site. Meanwhile, Corey is creating an interactive "What kind of hero are you?" quiz to help our players/members decide on the character classes that best fit them for the school.

"Character class" is an old role-playing term, but it has a double-meaning when we're talking about a school for heroes. The game characters will be assigned to a "class" such as Warrior, Wizard, or Paladin, then will take classes in that subject. Instead of just puzzles, we'll have class assignments. Of course, the classes and assignments are all about fun, not busy-work!

Did you ever have one special teacher who really made you enjoy a class in school? That teacher probably gave you unusual assignments that really made you think about the subject material. One of Corey's favorite teachers was Mr. Cross, an 8th grade math teacher. One day, when he saw that Corey was a little bored with the standard material, Mr. Cross asked him to stay a few minutes after class. Pulling out a College workbook on probability theory, he told Corey, "You might find this interesting." A lifelong fascination with probability and chance began that day. By the way, Corey highly recommends "Lady Luck" by Warren Weaver if you're interested in the subject.

Lori had a great high school English teacher, Mrs. Eades. This was the first time Lori really felt special in a class. Mrs. Eades went out of her way to encourage the talented students and make the class fun for them. Lori was inspired to continue studies in creative writing in College and to become a schoolteacher. Without Mrs. Eades's encouragement, Lori might never have become a professional game writer.

The School for Heroes is full of special teachers for exceptional students. Everyone has the chance to show that they are heroes inside, and the teachers recognize and encourage this. They will go out of their way to make all of the classes fun, to create unique and challenging assignments, and to mold their students into true heroes. Have you done your Wizard homework lately? One of your assignments might be to search the school for hidden messages that can only be revealed by use of the Sense Magic spell you learned in the last class session. Of course it gets even more fun when you discover that not all of the secret messages out there were placed by your teacher. There are many secrets to discover in the School for Heroes.

So that's what The School for Heroes is all about – a place where the true heroes live, laugh, love, and learn in an exciting, challenging, and above all fun environment. We hope to see you there with the other great heroes! We'll be sure to send you to the head of the class.

July 4, 2008

Playing With Fire

Well, it's Independence Day, more commonly known as the Fourth of July, here in the United States. It's a time for fireworks and fun, hot dogs and burgers on buns, and terrible puns on the blog. We hope you'll get a char-ge out of this and that we haven't made ashes of our shelves.

When you're hot, you're hot, and we're really fired up about this hot topic. So here's a warm welcome to you all - we're here to fan the flames of fandom for our Interactive Fiction.

Unfortunately, just last week, our hot dog, Zeus, was barking up a storm – a thunderstorm. It seems his namesake was tossing lightning and thunderbolts all around us. Where there's smoke, there's fire, and it was "Fire on the Mountain" "Smoke on the Water," and "Dust in the Wind." It was a hot time in the old town that night.

Corey of course sought to chill out in the World of Warcraft. The hot event there is the Midsummer Festival, where feeding fire spirits and throwing torches helped to light up the Summer skies. It certainly sparked his interest for a while.

Meanwhile Lori was filled with a burning desire to blaze some trails with new artwork for the upcoming School for Heroes web site. She designed blazons (coats of arms) for the four – or is it five? ;-) – classes in the hero school. Only the mages get to play with fire, but Corey thinks all the designs are cool. Lori has also been burning the midnight oil creating other hot stuff for the Hero School site.

First, of course, we have to survive the baptism by fire that's involved in learning a new game system, designing five games in one, and building a community on TheSchoolForHeroes.com web site. We're already burning the candle at both ends making the game sizzle. It will take a lot of slow cooking to make the game sparkle before we're ready to burn the final disks.

On a lighter note, have a happy Fourth of July, and hopefully when it comes to our game – you're fired. (Up, that is…) Just don't flame us or rake us over the hot Coles.

June 23, 2008

"Interactive Fiction 2.0 – School As You've Never Seen It Before"

One of the big buzz-phrases these days has been "Web 2.0". According to Wikipedia, "Web 2.0 is a term describing the trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users." It's all about involving users in the Web site experience, letting each person enhance the experience for others (and for themselves).

We think the time has now come for "IF 2.0." School for Heroes will be more than just an interactive story or an adventure game. We want to build an ongoing relationship and community experience between the players and with us. To accomplish this, we are creating a School for Heroes community web site in parallel with developing the IF adventure.

What will you find on the S4H network? We'll have forums where you can discuss game strategies, learn secrets, and role-play with other "students". We'll have articles on heroism in real life. You'll find maps, hints, and news about upcoming games and extensions to the School for Heroes game. And, of course, Lori and Corey will patrol regularly to answer your questions and participate in the role-playing and discussions.

Why are we doing all this? We've never been satisfied to turn out "just a game." Every one of our games "plays" on multiple levels including the story, the game play, expressing our life philosophies, and maybe even teaching something. For us, creating each game is a rite of passage into a new way of expressing and sharing ourselves. We also hope that when you find a home in the School for Heroes, you'll want your friends to share in the experience too. With you spreading the word, everyone benefits – We get to keep making games, you get to keep having new games and Web content to play, and we all grow by doing things together?

Sound idyllic? Maybe a little naïve and unrealistic? Well, that's the brave new world of Interactive Fiction 2.0, Corey and Lori Cole style. Let's see if we can all make it real together!

June 12, 2008

The Pursuit of Happiness

Corey's father shared an interesting article with us a few days ago. A researcher (University of Illinois psychology professor Ed Diener) determined that there is a definite correlation between happiness, education, and wealth, but only up to a point (say 8 or 9 on a 1-10 scale). People who rated themselves as "blissful" (10 out of 10 happiness) tended to be less wealthy and less well-educated than those who just considered themselves "happy".

One can only speculate on the reasons. Dr. Diener's guess was that truly blissful people have no reason to strive. They have everything they want and see no reason to look for more. Looking at it the other way, people who strive for and accomplish challenging goals get a lot of satisfaction out of that. It makes them happy, but not blissful.

We've been very happy the last few years playing World of Warcraft and other games, gardening, making photographic art, and enjoying the Sierra foothills. Creating a computer game is a lot of work and sometimes very stressful, but it's satisfying. At the end of each phase of the project, we know we've accomplished something that has artistic merit and that may make other people happy. After all, happiness shared is far more fun.

Things that made us happy this week:

• After six months of rehearsals, we sang with our local choral group in two concerts based on The Wizard of Oz, The Wiz, and Wicked. We love singing, and it was fun to see all that work come together in a couple of fun performances.
• Corey had a breakout night in his bowling league – games of 254, 207, 201, and 183 – beating his opponent in all but the 3rd game. For you non-bowlers, 300 is a perfect game and 200 is a very good score for most people. It's been years since I last broke 250. Feeling in control (and enjoying some luck) in an inherently chaotic sport is very satisfying.
• Lori went up into the hills and found a beautiful field of flowers full of butterflies. As she was photographing the flowers, one of the butterflies decided to land on it and pose for her. The world was at peace and nature put on a show for her.
• We completed an interview that will be translated into Russian for a Ukrainian magazine. Our Strange Horizons interview also went live. It makes us happy to know that our work of 10, 15, and 20 years ago still influences people and makes them want more. It also makes us want to do more games.
• We worked out some critical design issues for School for Heroes. We now know the story line for the Magic User and Paladin characters and have a lot of ideas for how the Thief and Warrior scenarios will play out.

Note how many of the things that made us happy fall in the "accomplishment" or "striving" category. If we didn't risk bowling poorly or showed up at a concert without spending months rehearsing the songs, we couldn't have had those happy moments. Even in World of Warcraft, the biggest excitement comes from defeating a tough raid boss when everyone in a 25-person group acts in concert to accomplish the goal.

We always strive to do our best. We want to make the most involving and entertaining Interactive Fiction game you've ever played. That will make us truly happy.

Blog for May