Hey guys, what’s up? A lot of things have happened down here. Please welcome Miyoko, an artist, to our group! It hasn’t been long since she’s joined, but she’s been a big help already. All our games are slowly making progress with Lady Luck planned for an end of year release. Speaking of that, Rei’s done some nice concept art of lead girl Julie!
It’s been an eventful week here at TTG! In a little less than six days, the demo for That’s the Way the Cookie Crumbles has been downloaded over 150 times! If you haven’t downloaded the game already, help us break two hundred and give the game a try! We’re also still seeking feedback, so tell us what you think! We have a pretty forum available for you, and I spent forever trying to make it work properly, so please make me feel good about adding it and post there!
Since we seem to be doing pretty well for a group that’s just getting started, we’ve decided to do a support drive to help get us on our feet! From now to Monday, July 30, we’ll be giving out special gifts for those of you who send us a donation. Please click here to see our support page and give something!
1) For sending us any amount of money, you’ll receive a Story and Art Gift! We’ll write a short story about one or more of our characters from our games, and then add a related drawing! We’ll even email you first asking you if there’s anything in particular you’d like to see! (The stuff doesn’t necessarily have to be related to TWCC, if you’re more interested in our other games.) Once the art and story are finished, we’ll email it to you! It will be yours to do whatever you want with, and no one else will ever see it. (Unless you let them, which is okay!) This gift will even be available after the support drive is over, so don’t fret if you’re too low on cash this month.
2) For sending us three dollars or more, you’ll receive a Sponsorship Gift! Your name (or your screen name, if you prefer) will be listed in the final version of That’s the Way the Cookie Crumbles as a sponsor. In addition, we’ll also use your first name (or a name you really like, if you don’t want your own first name attached) as the name of a random customer that visits Elise’s bakery. It’s not quite the Chris Houlihan room, but still, you get your name in the credits and you get to be a character! (If you’re worried that your name will be attached to a crummy customer, I promise to randomize the names for the customers on each playthrough, so your name will end up being connected to every customer at some point.) This gift will only be available until July 30!
3) If the total amount of money we get by July 30 is $100 or greater, we’ll give everyone, even non-donators a surprise! Maybe even two!
Remember, while the Story and Art Gift will be available for the foreseeable future, the Sponsorship Gift will only last until July 30! So please give soon!
So, game design. It’s kinda my job. I’ve read the second lesson in Game Design Concepts, this one with a focus on what it means to be a designer and a bit on how to plan out designs. As with last time, my thoughts are below.
“Game designers are artists.” I’m clearly not the kind of artist that Reikun and Viridi are, but I guess I am in the sense that I create things. There was a TED talk a while ago (I haven’t watched any of those in forever) describing the three body parts necessary to creating good art: the hand, the head, and the heart. Translated from metaphor, that would be the skill to put everything in place, the intelligence to know how to proceed, and the passion to give what you create power. I have a decent bit of programming skill, a random assortment of knowledge that isn’t particularly focused on game design, and a passion blotted with ennui and fear of failure. I’ll have to improve in all three areas before these games can be good, I suppose.
“Game designers are architects.” I should probably learn how to make a proper design doc. And maybe play Dwarf Fortress and Minecraft more to get a proper understanding of architecture, even if it isn’t quite what Ian meant.
“Game designers are party hosts.” I’m not good at throwing parties, but what a lot of parties don’t (intentionally) have is conflict. You aren’t supposed to beat the crap out of your friends and then go home like nothing happened. I suppose games are a party that have to be carefully planned so that the bruises aren’t too bad by the end of it.
“Game designers are research scientists.” This was one of the things I wanted to be when I finished college. I wonder if I can actually get a paper on this published, and put that statistics class to some kind of use.
“Game designers are gods.” Being a game master for TRPGs has taught me this well. Of course, the best gods are the ones that don’t railroad their followers.
“Game designers are lawyers.” So I’m more the god from the first fifteen chapters of Leviticus, huh? On that note, lawyers tend to throw annoying parties, don’t they?
“Game designers are educators.” Educator was one of the other things I wanted to be when I finished college. Of course, a good educator teaches things that are applicable to lots of different things. When a player finishes my games, what should they take away?
When I saw game design described using the scientific method, I admit I got giddy. As I mentioned above, I wanted to be a scientist. This may not be the most useful way to do science, but it’s something. I suppose the rapid iteration and prototyping stuff is game design’s version of a repeatable experiment. What happens when I get a question about my game’s design that can’t be answered by the scientific method, though? Is that part of the game ‘not even wrong’?
I wonder if the group as a whole needs to be trying iterative design more. I’m kinda doing this with Ibuki, but for the most part I was kinda focused on the technical aspects of seeing if things worked more than I was thinking about how fun it all was. The danger of this is that our games might get pretty complex, which the article warns about as it means taking longer per iteration. (Although I’m guessing the trick is to iterate the core over and over, then add one part at a time and see how it responds, and if it causes a need for a change in an old part. I guess I’ll find out eventually.)
I played my bridges game from last time. It was terrible, all luck with only two players. I decided to change the rules so that the game was cooperative: everyone works together to create bridges. It’s a bit more unique and takes some thought rather than just rolling a die. It’s still terrible, but a few more iterations and I’ll see what happens.
Today I finally got around to reading the first lesson in Ian Schrieber’s Game Design Concepts. I figured I should post my thoughts here as I read through the lessons, so I can actually have something going with this blog. (Everyone else is stuck in the hell of AP/Finals week, while I am busy being a NEET, so…)
So, what is a game? Eh, to be honest I’m not that interested in this question. Usually I tend to ponder what the true nature of something is, but for whatever reason, I can’t bring myself to really care to have a working definition of ‘game’. I guess it helps free me from having to obsess about whether I’m really making games with the visual novels I’m working on, or if I ought to just accept the whole ‘reading’ and ‘main character’ language instead of the ‘playing’ and ‘player character’ paradigm. Really, as long as there’s some kind of choice…
Is Three to Fifteen different from Tic-tac-toe? I’d say yes, if the game board isn’t set up in a magic square, but just as a list of numbers 1 through 9. It’s possible that the players imagine it as a magic square in their heads, but they can be imagining two different placements of the numbers, thus the game takes on a new element where the players have to think about what each other is thinking.
Let’s make a game! Well, I’m already working on two games right now. But I did follow the instructions and ended up making two board games. The first game has players rolling a d6 for themselves, and a d4 to move a monster around the board. The monster eats any player it shares a square with, and the last player uneaten wins. The second game, which I like a lot better, has players building bridges between the spaces of the game, allowing themselves to go faster, but also potentially letting players behind them use the bridge they just made to go faster too. They both have the four elements that the games are required to have: a path, an objective, rules, and conflict.
Thinking about those four elements and applying them to the TTG games, I think both TWCC and Ibuki have those elements. TWCC has a path (bake bread, hang out with boys, repeat), an objective (make money, seduce boys), rules (plan out your baking in certain ways, and be careful with what you say to the boy you like), and conflict (the potential for failure). Ibuki has a path (track down witches, kill witches, repeat), an objective (kill witches, other things I can’t reveal yet), rules (a battle system) and conflict (fighting witches and the possibility of death). So, I guess we’re on track to make games. I suppose the next lesson will help me determine if we’re making good games. See you then!
I used to hate fanfiction. I also used to hate shipping. Then I watched Madoka and fell in love with RedXBlue, so I guess I’ve become less snobby about fanwank over the past year. I decided to make a fangame for Madoka Magica because I felt like I could offer a new way to explore the universe it set out in its show. Because the world is so well-defined and crafted, I was able to create my own story and characters that I would be able to control, rather than fighting around with premade characters and worrying about derailment. I don’t know if I’ll ever do fanworks again, and I definitely do want to make completely original stuff, but I’m not nearly as opposed to the possibility as I was before.
…now that I think about it, I wrote tons of fanfiction when I was five. I guess I’m not too different from then, huh?
One of my major goals in planning out Ibuki Magica is to make sure that your actions have major effects throughout the game. The most obvious ones will be the wishes you’ll have Ibuki make, as these will affect the outcome of the story as well as Ibuki’s abilities and actions. I decided to break Madoka canon and allow a Puella Magi to make multiple wishes, as I didn’t want a single, major, game-changing event happening at the start of the game. Plus, for the RPG parts, allowing multiple wishes at different parts of the game is basically this game’s version of a class upgrade.
The choices you make, even small ones, can affect Ibuki’s personality. The more you have her be mindful of what she says, the more likely you’ll be able to make her do the same in another situation. Similarly, the less Ibuki is wild or cruel, the less often you’ll be given the options to act in those manners. I want your influences to make Ibuki’s choices to flow as if she had a distinct personality, rather than creating another bipolar video game character who will happily go from super-friendly to dastardly and back, with everything evening out in the end, somehow.
The allies Ibuki makes may not be under your direct control, but how you have Ibuki interact with them will affect their personalities too. The way you treat a character will change how they treat Ibuki, and possibly other characters too. You may find yourself walking a thin line, trying to find the right things to say that will please everyone, and sometimes that will not be possible. You’ll have to decide who and what you value more in different situations.
Remember the last post I made, where I mentioned traits that affect how characters make actions in battle? Those same traits are the ones that affect the personalities of the characters in the VN parts of the game. It’s less essential than the wishes you make, but even the tiny choices you make will impact everything in their own small way. (If you want to be an RPG munchkin, I suppose you could just try to promote specific personality traits in the girls you want. But that might screw you over in the long run, hehehe.)
I’ve been going through a lot of rewrites of the battle system for Ibuki Magica, trying to work out exactly what I want it to feel like, and to make something unique and matches the nature of the rest of the game. I figure I should give an update on where I’ve been and where I’m at now.
Originally, the new battle system was going to have 14 different skills, in seven sets of two. You’d choose an attack that selected one of those skill sets for the attacker, and another for the defender. Then there’d be some random number picked for each set and whoever had the higher number won or something confusing. I have simplified and streamlined it, and hopefully created something unique while not confusing the hell out of the players.
Every character has a set of three offensive ability scores, and three defensive ability scores. Each of these abilities reflects how a magical girl or witch can use their magical powers. Each offensive ability you use will rely on one of each of these: one offensive ability for the attacker, and a defensive ability for the target. The success of your attack will be affected by how much higher or lower your attack score is compared to your opponent’s defense score. Part of the strategy in combat will be working out which defensive abilities your enemies are worst at, and trying to use attacks that target those abilities. Of course, the attacks most likely to be successful might not be the most useful in a certain situation, so figuring out how to make your best abilities more likely to hit is important too.
In addition to the six abilities mentioned above, each character will have a set of traits that will affect different actions. These traits will reflect personality and fighting style more than they will raw fighting ability, and augment the power of certain attacks. For example, the courage trait would impact an attack that’s incredibly risky and daring, while the mindfulness trait might make it easier to analyze and defend against wild onslaughts. While a character’s ability scores will mostly be determined by the nature of their wish and how they fight, traits can be increased both by actions in battle and choices made outside of it.
I’m still working out a lot of this, like the exact number and type of traits, how the defensive abilities will work without overlapping (I want a good reason for why magical shields won’t protect you if you fail to dodge out of the way or something), and how to display different actions. Right now I have actions separated into ‘attacks’, ‘magic’, and ‘tactics’, but I’m not sure how accurate those are. I’m also still debating how to handle health, and protecting one’s soul gem. Thankfully, I’m a lot more satisfied with this current system is working overall compared to what I previously had. I hope to have another tech demo out soon for everyone to play with, and I hope you all look forward to it!
Happy Walpurgisnacht! Today is a day when witches gather and do witchy stuff. Like throw buildings around and taunt middle school girls. To celebrate, I’ve decided to spend the week posting things for Ibuki Magica. First thing: My official goal for the game’s final release will be one year from this day. If I somehow manage to complete the game before that, I’ll be happy to release early, but this game is probably going to be complex enough to take a full year to complete (especially when I’m working on TWCC right now too. ^^)
Second thing: I have some concept art! This first piece is your first taste of Ibuki in her Magical Girl uniform, plus a shot of Ichiko for size comparison.
Here’s some strange, kinda cute, hopefully not too annoying creature that likes to grant girls wishes. This piece was drawn by Untramen and Lonely Akki.
This art is all subject to change, as it is concept art! But it is a start, and has made me excited for this game. I hope it does that a little bit for you too.
It finally happened: We have our own domain! After about a week of awkwardly guessing at how to make WordPress do what I want (and failing at most of it), we’ve finished creating this site you see before you. While there are still a lot of rough edges, we figure the site is at least usable now, and we are still planning on adding improvements to the layout as we get the hang of page templates and stuff like that. If you notice anything odd that ought to be fixed/changed, let us know! It might be a while before we get to them though, as we’ve just spent a week on this site and really want to go back to making games.
Speaking of games, we have two for you to play right now: My Beautiful AI, a game about love, progress, and existentialism, and …Wait, What Did I Just Read?, a collaborative game that is about vagueness and imagination. We’re also getting demos ready for two games: That’s the Way the Cookie Crumbles, which is about bishies, baking, and more bishies, and Ibuki Magica, which is about ripoffs exciting new ways to create a story in an already existing universe. We hope to have demos for both of these released in a month!
If you want to see what we’re up to beyond our development blog, we have a nice forum and chat room for you guys to visit, and we also have a Twitter account set up at @twinturtlegames which you can follow. (Hopefully this post will be published to Twitter, I will be very sad if it doesn’t.)
Get excited!