All posts by Mister Adequate

The Android's an Amateur Developer (Ideas), The Android's Universe in a Jar (Sim)

In which Mister Adequate works for videogames!

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A sentiment I’m sure many other gamers share is the belief that we could do it better. “If only I were in charge” we think “the latest installment of X would not have been so casual and dire!” Well, I’ve been bouncing around a videogame idea in my head for some time now, and I’m thinking that when I finish my current novel – not too far off now – I’m going to switch away from writing and begin learning how I might make this thing. I thought I would throw the idea out there to see if anyone has any ideas they might like to add to it, or general comments! Anything welcome!

My working name for this thing is An Ancient Evil Has Awoken. The twist is that said ancient evil is you – the objective of the game is to use your malevolent powers to wipe out the human race, evolving from newly-awoken small-timer to Eldritch Abomination. My design document at the moment proposes three main avenues of attack; the inducement of natural disasters, the use of psychic abilities to mess with human’s minds, and finally the use of supernatural events like Biblical plagues or creating zombies or things like that.

I envision the game to play as something between a cross of Pandemic and Populous. You would acquire your resource – tentatively called Terror – through things you do, as well as a slow trickle from the natural disasters (As in actual natural ones) and expend it on causing more death and mayhem. The world would be divided into a number of zones, and as the humans begin to grow aware that things are not right, they would develop more effective defenses against you and eventually could find a way to either destroy you, or to save themselves some other way. Of course the idea of a malevolent god out to destroy humanity is going to be a bit scarier than just bad things happening, so you’ve got a major decision to make; are you overt, increasing terror but making humans more able to resist you, or covert, which gives you a much more constrained ‘budget’ but lets you work in relative peace.

It should be possible though to do things in a variety of ways, and the player should fundamentally feel they are in control of how they are destroying the world. Ideally you would be able to cause an obscene amount of global mayhem without ever doing anything overtly recognizable as supernatural or weird. An economic crash here, a war there, and in the end you can just step in to finish off the survivors.

Pretty much a game where you play as this guy, yeah

What say you, fellow malevolent omnicidal lunatics? Any ideas, thoughts, comments?

The Android's Party Cannon (Holidays and gifts), The Android's Sandbox (Sandbox/Open World)

Roundup time!

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Just a quick post with a few miscellaneous gaming items that you folks may be interested in, because Pike and I are busy being sickening!

But not too quick!

First, Crusader Kings 2 was released today. It is, of course, a Paradox game, with all that entails. But this is certainly the best release candidate I’ve ever seen from them, for any game; it runs smoothly on my machine (Not Pike’s old rig though! Pity her, she needs to upgrade!) and the bugs aren’t breaking the thing in half. It does need some polish but most of that is reasonable stuff like adding more events, traits, and so on.

Second, the new version of Dwarf Fortress was just released today as well! Obviously with a game this complex and such a small coding team (i.e. one guy) this is one that is likely to be pretty buggy while he patches it up, but if you’ve been keeping track of the things he has been adding this, like any DF update, is going to be a glorious thing indeed.

Third, we’re getting pretty close to the next release of Project Zomboid as well! They’ve got a countdown running and it’s down to six or so items left, so there should hopefully be a release within the next couple of weeks. They’re not telling us what these items are though so it could be six huge week-long projects, or six tiny tweaks and we’ll have it tomorrow morning! Who knows?

The Android's Liberal Arts Degree (Meta/Critical)

Hey jerkface! You have the face of a jerk!

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I’ve just got a hold of Soul Calibur V a couple of days ago and after a little getting used to it I went online. I’m not yet very good at it, but I’ve got enough instinct left from the extraordinary amount of time I put into Soul Blade, SC I, and SC II that I can still kick some of these young whippersnappers’ butts.

The thing is that when I come up against someone with, say, a Win-Loss score of 3 – 16 I really feel bad about beating them. Obviously that one insane Yoshimitsu player with like a 90% win ratio over 300 matches, I had no issue about trying to beat the crap out of him. But when it’s someone who just doesn’t seem to be so good at the game I can’t help but feel a twinge of guilt as I turn their braincase into mush. I just find myself imagining them sitting there, losing yet again – who are they? Is it someone’s dad who was urged to get one of these new-fangled consoles? Is it some kid who is not yet coordinated enough to carry on? The weird thing is I don’t have this issue in face-to-face gaming. I’ve beaten the absolute crap out of small children without a second’s hesitation or remorse when we’re in the same room. And of course if it’s a team game, like a WoW battleground or a game of Team Fortress 2, I don’t have any issues about bringing my A game.

What if I'm fighting someone vidya impaired?!

Pike will no doubt mock me for this, as she insists I should be as merciless, as vicious, and as absolutely stone-hearted as possible whilst playing games. Nevertheless sometimes I just feel like a jerkface, even though of course everyone there is there by choice and it would be more insulting not to do my best. But do any of you out there have these similar twinges of guilt and worry, where you can’t help but imagine the person on the other side of the screen and how sad they must be to, yet again, be getting pounded into dust?

The Android's Bunker (Strategy), The Android's Casting Magic Missile (RPG)

A Spouse Derided

So it’s time for another Paradox post! I’m sorry, but they keep doing stuff and seeing as they’re one of my favorite developers (Against my better judgment!) I’m going to have to keep writing about them!

Today I got around to downloading the Crusader Kings 2 demo that was released recently and gave it a whirl. And I have to say, yet again, Pox are really knocking it out of the park of late. I’ve played CK1 a little but could never really get into it very well – not so here. I was riveted to my bloodline’s fortunes! I found a wife, then we had children, then we had twins! She was a good wife. Then I had to decide, for example, who the children were schooled under. I also really pissed off the Bishop because I removed him from my Cabinet, but some gold sorted that out. A corrupt man of the cloth?! Who’d have thought!

After repeated attempts to marry my son to my neighbor’s daughter I got fed up of his constant rejections and decided to just acquire her lands (He had died by this point) by force. I sent one of my cabinet out to forge claims, and after a few years he had done so! A war later and voila, my territory had doubled. I gave it to my second son, because I had changed to a succession law whereby my first son gets EVERYTHING, which understandably upset the rest of them. Especially wee Brebinn, my first-born. She was not happy. Not at all.

Sadly the game does not have immortal Pony princesses, nor can you banish anyone to the moon. Should be able to send them to Scotland though, I suppose.

And then the time limit ran out and that was that. But I think, despite a couple of bugs (Some of the events don’t seem to be properly written, especially) that I’ll be picked this one up in a couple of days when it comes out, because I clearly don’t yet have enough Paradox Sperg Games!

In technical terms Pox have carried on their wizardry from A House Divided. This thing runs incredibly quickly and smoothly, as well as looking gorgeous. Definitely give the demo a try if grand strategy games are your kind of thing! And if they’re not, well, this blog must bore the crap out of you!

The Android's Bunker (Strategy), The Android's Favorites

A House Divided

Yesterday the latest offering from Paradox Interactive was released, the expansion for Victoria II known as A House Divided. As you may surmise from the name, the expansion’s centerpiece is the American Civil War (As a Brit all I can say is we had our Civil War before it was cool). So let’s get this out of the way immediately; the Civil War scenario entails a new starting date, which seems to be reasonably well put together, and just about nothing else. If you win as the CSA, there’s nothing much that makes them a unique nation. There are no events to, for example, remove the USA’s cores on your territory. So every few years they will take another swing at reabsorbing you.

It is strange that the expansion’s centerpiece would be its weakest element, but there it is. The scenario is anemic and underdeveloped, and doesn’t really add a great deal that you wouldn’t have in the normal starting point of 1836.

On the other hand, “Loads of Small but Great Improvements” wouldn’t make for a very snappy expansion title, now would it? But that’s what it contains. I played an entire game yesterday as Persia and it was the most fun I’ve had with Vicky 2 by a fair way. The new elements work extremely well. The new method for modernizing countries that don’t start out that way seems very arduous at first, but soon reveals itself to be a very well-judged mechanic that is a lot more involving than the previous system. Similarly the new way you generate Casus Belli before you’re allowed to declare war (most of the time) was something I was very wary of, but in practice it’s a really clever mechanic that not only helps you feel involved, but becomes something rather tense as you hope you manufacture a war goal without being detected. It also helps keep the AI on a sensible path. Their need to make CBs means they seem to be acting rather more sensibly than they did beforehand, which is good!

The economic changes are similarly positive, or at least they seem to be, because Vicky 2 is rather hard to wrap your head around in that regard. Money is definitely scarcer, and you need to make decisions about what you are funding and how much. No more can some podunk middle-rank power field a first-class army, navy, and civil service all at once!

The Persian Empire shall again rule!

The one other negative thing is China, or more properly China and the new Substates system. See, in vanilla Vicky 2 China was something you really wanted to get into your Sphere of Influence. They were huge in every way, and getting first dibs on their market was immense, it would single-handedly keep you on top in industrial terms. To counter this we’ve got the new Substates system, where China is divided into six or seven different entities who are locked together as unbreakable satellites. Ahistoric nonsense. And it’s not like the 19th century was a time of unconstrained positivity for China! Where is the Taiping Rebellion for example? It’s a lazy and strange way to work around the problem. That said, using the substates system for, perhaps, the Confederacy, might be a very interesting way of doing things!

So overall I would say that if you only care about the American Civil War, this expansion probably won’t prove to be very interesting. However, every other aspect of the expansion is pretty much golden, and I highly recommend you get a hold of it if you’re a Vicky 2 player! Oh, and it runs far more smoothly and never really seemed to slow down for me.

The Android Collects Random Objects (Adventure), The Android's Deranged Killing Spree (Action), The Android's Favorites, The Android's Sandbox (Sandbox/Open World)

Boss Fight of the Year

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Having finally bothered to set aside some time to play through Batman: Arkham City, I have to say it’s a fantastic game whose story (Or rather the last fifth of the story) is a little bit of a letdown, but that doesn’t bother me because holy. Christ. This game has one of the best boss fights I can ever remember enjoying.

Also dat voice HNNNNNGGGGGG

The fight with Mister Freeze is superb. It is brilliant. It is genius. I’m almost tempted to leave it there because saying almost anything could begin to spoil things, but that would make for a rather short blog post so I’ll take that risk. The core of the fight is that Freeze’s suit is a giant-ass super-awesome thing that even Batman can’t damage directly, because if he tries Freeze will just shoot him with his ice gun or something. (I want an ice gun.)

So you need to figure out how to attack him. Only here’s the thing; everything you do he will adapt to. You cannot use a single tactic more than once, because he will sabotage anything you could use to repeat it. This is not a gimmick or anything, it is brilliantly executed and it genuinely felt like I was in a battle of wits to try and figure out new tactics to try against him, whilst he was hunting me down and I was trying to avoid him. It took me several goes to win the fight, and I did not mind one bit. In fact I loved every second of it. It is, for my money, a quintessential example of how to stage a boss fight. He is entirely unique in the game, requires a wide array of Batman’s abilities, and engages the player completely. Every other developer should take notes on how this whole thing is conceived and formulated.

So I’d like to throw the question out there to y’all about this topic. What are some bosses you’ve found particularly enjoyable and engaging in your gaming?

The Android Collects Random Objects (Adventure), The Android's Sandbox (Sandbox/Open World)

100%

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Last night I completed Batman: Arkham City. But this post isn’t about the game itself, but the little statistic of how much of the game you have completed. Because mine is nowhere near 100% even though I’ve seen the ending!

BAC is of course one of those many games where completion of the main quest/storyline in no way means you’ve actually completed the game. Indeed, this is one of the most striking examples of that I’ve seen in a long time; I think I’m at about 40% completed now. There is an absolutely enormous wealth of things to do, from collectables to challenges to side missions. And of course I have varying degrees of enthusiasm for these. The side missions and challenges are pretty much great fun and I imagine I’ll do many if not all of them as I continue to play; the collectables (Specifically the Riddler trophies) rather less so. I have always found collectables to be a very boring and tedious way of extending gameplay. I can’t really bring to mind any games where it has been done well, except perhaps Final Fantasy X because the collectables there (movie spheres) show Auron, Jecht, and Braska.

Hnnnggg Auron

I’ve very rarely 100%’d any games actually. Partly because I’ve got a small core of games I play a lot that aren’t really open to that as a concept; sure you can WC as Haiti on Very Hard but there’s always another campaign to fight in Darkest Hour, you know? And open-world games generally just annoy me with their hidden collectables and so I end up running over innocents or whatever instead!

What about you? Are there games out there you can say you’ve completed 100% of, explored every last nook and cranny, done every sidequest, found every hidden room and item, reached level 99 with every character, whatever it might be? Or are you like me, and more prone to put a game down well before that point?

The Android's Liberal Arts Degree (Meta/Critical)

The Android’s Closet Opposes SOPA/PIPA

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As you’re no doubt aware by now, many sites around the Internet today are engaged in a protest against the SOPA and PIPA bills currently within the labyrinthine depths of the US Congress. Though we can do no more than add our voice to this overwhelming, global cry of outrage, that is what we are now doing.

Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect Intellectual Property Act would fall desperately short of their stated objectives – the darker side of the Internet is notoriously resilient and difficult to control, after all – but it would give corporations enormous powers to target any and everything they see as a threat to their profit margins. As writers Pike and myself are obviously sympathetic to the notion of being able to protect and control what one produces – but we also wouldn’t start suing preteens for sharing our books. This bill, like so many other efforts to control something as vast, free, and amazing as the Internet, is not going to help stop piracy – what it will do is create an unprecedented tool for the violation of the rights to free speech, to privacy, to free congregation, and threatens to erase one of the Internet’s most central and precious functions, which is the lack of borders and ability to talk to anyone else on Earth regardless of all considerations except their literal, physical access to the Internet.

It was acceptable back in 1518, maybe!

This very blog could easily be at risk. That is how insane these bills are. We are writing about what are copyrighted materials, nevermind when we use a picture from MLP:FIM or embed a YouTube video which contains a few seconds of a copyrighted song. Though we both love writing this blog there are far more severe ramifications – still, the fact that a fairly dinky little blog that mostly talks about strategy videogames and posts fanart of My Little Pony could be endangered shows just how obscenely far-reaching and wide-ranging these two bills are. So if you love the Internet, whether it’s watching cats being silly, reading about how I most recently got foiled by Pike, using Google or Wikipedia, or anything else you can imagine, please consider taking the time to write to your representative asking them to oppose these dangerous, unconstitutional pieces of legislation.

And remember, America is not the first or only country considering laws like this, and the US as the motherland of the Internet makes many foreign sites entirely vulnerable to these laws anyway. If you are not American, like me, it’s still something to be worried about. And the beauty of the Internet is that we can all contribute to the debate and help raise awareness even if we can’t take formal action like voting in an American election.

The Android's Bunker (Strategy)

Don’t you love when a plan comes together

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My dear co-blogger and better half Pike and myself are currently playing a game of Civilization IV. It’s a tech race game, no wars or anything, and she very definitively has the advantage, she has more cities than more, better land, more tech, and more than double my score.

Clearly I need to do something to catch up. So why – in a game with no barbarians – did I build the Great Wall, a wonder whose primary purpose is to stop barbarians getting inside your borders? The secondary purpose, of course! Espionage. See, the Great Wall is one of the few wonders in the game which contributes to the creation of Great Spies, who don’t immediately seem as useful as say a Great Scientist (Who can one-shot a tech) or a Great Engineer (Who can one-shot a wonder), but who really massively boost your espionage. And that’s my plan here. She won’t be able to keep up with my espionage income once I get a GS or two, and then I shall be able to quite merrily run around her obscenely large Russian empire causing all sorts of trouble, like sabotaging buildings, stealing tech, and poisoning her cities.

Rarity only helps put paid to that dreadful Russian fashion, of course.

It shall be glorious. I have no idea whether she remembers that the Great Wall helps with spies, but I sincerely hope not because things are going to get trolly very soon. Also as long as she doesn’t read this post before one gets born. That would be unfortunate. Hubristic, even! But a risk I shall take for our beloved readers, as I leave you with this question;

Do you have any examples of games where you’ve come up with some cunning plan? Perhaps one that does not at first glance seem at all rational? How did they work out for you?

~~

IMPORTANT EDITORS’ NOTE FROM PIKE: Although I didn’t see this post until some time later, I saw what he was up to on the espionage graph and cranked my own espionage up to 80%, effectively foiling his plan. Yeah, it was pretty great.

The Android's Bunker (Strategy), The Android's Liberal Arts Degree (Meta/Critical), The Android's Universe in a Jar (Sim)

Is Losing Fun?

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It’s the motto of Dwarf Fortress: Losing is Fun. And it’s one you need to take to heart with that game, because until you get the hang of it (And even after you do) you’re going to lose, a lot. But that’s not quite what I’m aiming at here. In conventional games you may often die a lot as well, but you’ll come back at the last checkpoint or save and carry on.

What I am thinking of, however, is something fairly unique to strategy gaming, which is to say, losses that don’t end the game, but rather that are just a part of the game, a thing you endure, carry on from, and ultimately recover from.

But does that happen? See, in a ‘regular’ game like, say, Halo, when you die you just come back from it. You try again. You succeed, or not, and that’s that. In a game like DF you may lose a lot of work, but in these cases the loss is indeed part of the fun. It comes about because of a silly mistake, or because of hubris, or because you just got bored and wanted to watch the world burn. But in a strategy game losses are different.

Decisions, decisions

In the real world of course no country is in permanent ascendance. Not even Rome enjoyed uninterrupted growth, and Rome eventually fell, as all powers do. So a strategy game must surely account for this as well. Yet in my experience, when you lose a city in Civilization or are forced to cede provinces in Europa Universalis III, it doesn’t feel good. It does’t feel like it’s part of the proper flow of the game. In a strategy game you do expect to be in permanent ascendance, and to not be is irritating and may well turn one off playing. I recall reading an interview with Sid Meier years ago where he said his original intention with Civ had been for your civ to go through periods of contraction and decline, but he found it was far from enjoyable to have it work like that.

Partly I think this is a case of momentum. In a strategy game, when you gain something, that something goes towards helping your empire grow. Overextension and the like are rarely simulated, and almost never simulated well, and in fact when that is attempted (As in the Magna Mundi mod for EU3) it often comes off as very arbitrary and pointlessly constricting.

How about you? Am I alone here, or do others feel the same and dislike accepting losses? Are there examples of games which do this well, and don’t make it feel arbitrary or unfair?