Short version: The third of 20 game design pitches, written in response to a list that my friends threw together in an effort to stymie me. This week, the theme is “poaching pears!”.

Executive Summary

Whoops! No executive summary here this week. Instead I thought it’d be interesting to talk through how I ended up with the game design that we’ll get to at the end.

Starting with the Concept

The theme this week is “poaching pears”. My first game idea is some kind of casual action game where there is a bunch of pears protected by a monster of some kind. Maybe it’s an angry farmer and he is trying to stop you. You have a spear which you control with the mouse and you try to spear pears while he tries to block you. You are arrested by the police for murder if you spear the farmer. In other words, a shooting gallery.

This feels like cheating to me (every theme ever in time can be turned into some kind of reflex based aiming game) so I discard it. If we’re going to have a game based around a theme, let’s actually use the theme, right kids?

There are two words in play. “Poaching” gives the conflict of the game (someone wants something they aren’t meant to have), so the key is “pears”. The orchard from the first stab is a good idea, but instead of letting it fade as a setting, it would be cool if it was more integral. Our game will be about two things: On one hand, we’ll be stealing pears from our enemies, on the other hand we’ll be have our own orchard that we must protect.

The Game Type

The next big question is what kind of game this will be. I’ve already written up a casual multiplayer game and a kind of god strategy game, so those are out of the running. Because of the pears/orchard thing (unless we were making American McGee’s Pears!) I think that we need to keep the game somewhat light-hearted. One area of gaming that’s generally lacking in the lightheartedness is First Person Shooters such as Counter-Strike or Doom. The highly excellent Team Fortress 2 is a notable exception but it’s still totally soaked in blood.

I considered making the game a kind of first person action game that was about racing around a map, breaking in to an orchard, stealing pears and running back to your own side while also stunning (no killing) the other players. The game would feel a lot like capture the flag and would allow for intense sessions of fruit stealing action. The problem is that the online team.based vs. mode FPS market is pretty saturated with titles and the people who like them best are adrenaline junkies for whom ultra-violence is a huge part of the appeal. Our game is already quirky enough just for being about pear thievery, we don’t need to add another hurdle to the track.

One area where quirky light-hearted concepts are very popular with audiences is family-based board games. So that’s what kind of game this is going to be.

Board Games!

When you decide on a family board game, a lot of decisions are made for you.

• It probably needs to be turn based
• It needs to support at least 2 players (and should probably support 2-x players)
• It should be easy to set up
• Each game should be relatively quick to play (30mins-1 hour)
• The mechanics should be relatively easy (small numbers, simple arithmetic, information is easily recorded)
• Each turn should be relatively short, or there should be something for players to do.

Our game is going to be turn based and will support 2-4 players. There will be three phases to the game 1) setting up your defences, 2) playing the game and 3) scoring.

Scoring will be dead easy: whoever ends with the most ripe pears in their shed, wins!.

For set-up, I haven’t sorted out the details yet, so we’ll gloss over it in the pitch, but the core idea is that there will a no-mans land between orchards and then each orchard will belong to a player. There will be a set of pieces that must be placed in your orchard area, things like the shed, some trees and some fences. Players can decide how to set up their orchards in the hopes of making defence easier or harder. The nice thing about this is that it auto balances because if a player makes it harder to navigate their area, then the enemy will have trouble getting in to steal but they will have trouble getting in to deposit their loot. Forcing players to eat their own cooking is a good way to give players freedom to customize while dampening the likelihood of the game being over before it starts.

For playing the game, we need to decide whether this is the kind of game where there is one player, one unit (like Snakes n’ Ladders) or one player, many units (like Risk). I decided to go with many units, allowing the player to spread their attention between attack and defence. Next we have to decide whether the units will be all the same (like Checkers) or whether there will be different type (like Chess). I decided to go with multiple types. Unlike chess, we’ll limit ourselves to three.

Three is a good number because it allows us to create a cyclical relationship between the units. A beats B which beats C which beats A. This relationship has the combined benefits of being easy to remember and leading to some pretty deep gameplay. It encourages a lot manoeuvring and feints (”If I bring A forwards, he’ll send his B in, so I need to clear the path with my C, except that his A is nearby…). Little did you know that Paper Rock Scissors was actually a source of deep strategy!

In our game, we can have this relationship by having Runners, Guards and Brawlers.

Runners will move faster than the other two, allowing them to avoid almost any conflict. Guards will be the slowest movers, but will make up for that with a ranged attack where they can lob rocks at the others. Runners will be especially vulnerable to rocks being as they are lightly armoured. Brawlers on the other hand will have armour that protects them from the worst of the damage, giving them time to close the distance and get in some punches.

This is a pitch, so we’ll gloss over what happens when, say, a runner meets a runner and we’ll gloss over how damage is tracked. We do know that the answer to both of these questions should be very simple and easily tracked as there will be a lot of different units (probably 9 per side) in play. Units will probably have only 2-3 damage states (Fine, Wounded, Dead) and we’ll need a way to tell the difference between Runner A and Runner B (could be colour coding, having distinct models for each one or having space to place damage markers).

We want to keep the game moving quickly so we’ll limit the number of moves that a player can make in a turn to 3. With 9 units per side players must make tough decisions every turn. Interesting decisions are the core of a good strategy game. A move will consist of moving the unit and then attacking with it if there are targets in range. I haven’t decided if the combat should be resolved by dice rolls or should ‘just work’. Dice rolls add randomness to the game which it helpful for balancing out differences in player skill (the more that is left to chance, the less player skill matters; Craps is utterly skill-free while in Chess you have no one to blame but yourself). This can be a huge benefit in a family games where we can expect a broad range of ability on the part of the players. Dice are also exciting. Every time there is a die roll, you get a mini moment of suspense and relief. On the other hand, games with no dice are super-elegant. We’re making a family board game here, so die rolls to resolve combat are probably the way to go. We can use our Paper Rock Scissors scheme as a guide for modifying the rolls (i.e. Runners are +1 against Brawlers).

The Pitch

I think I’ll skip the pitch entirely this week, I’d just be repackaging the stuff I just finished explaining and this has gotten pretty long. Overall, as this is a family game we’d want to emphasize the fun factor, the simplicity of learning and the depth of strategy and replay value. We’d probably also want to spend some time talking about the actual physical product: what would the pieces feel like to hold, how would we decorate the board, how is it all assembled?

I really love board games. Unlike computer games. which come with a powerful calculator to do a lot of complex math in the background and with the ability to track a nearly infinite number of pieces if you want, board games constrain you to the limits of human computation and memory. This forces you into the creation of elegant rulesets and focusing on the most important parts of the gameplay at the expense of all else.

Plus, there’s a lot to be said for crowding around a tabletop with drinks and chips, shouting at your friends while they betray you with tiny pieces of plastic and cardboard.

Short version: The second of 20 game design pitches, written in response to a list that my friends threw together in an effort to stymie me. This week, the theme is “growin’ dudes”.

Brave New Clone - Executive Summary

A lot of people worried that the advent of cloning would bring about a terrible social upheaval, as people made more perfect babies. Stronger muscles, faster brains perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect teeth. What would this new master race of designer humans make of their frail creators? They needn’t have worried. Why make perfect people, when you can make perfect employees?

Brave New Clone (BNC) puts the player in charge of the HR department of a large multinational called DollyCorp. At DollyCorp, human resources is a cradle to grave kind of thing and the main function of the HR department is to grow and educate the future workers, while seeing to the spiritual well being of the current crop. Meanwhile, the corporation as a whole must respond to the constant pressure of the marketplace, not to mention attacks by the competition. Part business tycoon game, part The Sims part science lab, BNC is sure to please the more cerebral player in a tense test of their planning and nurturing skills.

Unique Selling Points

• Make your own clones! Use the latest in high tech genetics to customize your workforce.
• Nurture your flock. The needs of business are many and stringent. Prepare your clones for their future careers.
• Plan for the future! The more you can anticipate the needs of your business, the better you can prepare your clones and the less you’ll need to *shudder* hire outsiders.
• Dominate the world of commerce! Whether it’s making widgets or acting in feelies, together your clones form a team that can make you so much money!

Setting

BNC is riped straight from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. With the advent of genetic engineering, society has discovered how to make people who will be content with their lot in life. Society is rigidly divided into five castes — Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon (with each caste further split into Plus and Minus members). All members of society are trained to be good consumers in order to keep the economy strong and are expected to be involved socially; spending time alone is discouraged. Companies have found that the most efficient way to manage their workforce is to grow them themselves. The player controls one such cloning farm (or should I say “cloning firm”?).

Though there is only one world government, there is plenty of conflict in the intra-firm arena. In this era of hyper consumerism and hyper-capitalism, the player holds the keys to the future, in their crop of carefully grown children.

Gameplay

BNC is at its heart a software toy. Similar to games such as Sim City and Creatures hidden under the hood of its cutesy exterior is a robust economics and genetic simulator. Wrapped up in a fantasy package, the player is encouraged to fool around with both aspects of the game, delving as deep into one or the other as they see fit.

Cloning

The cloning aspect is fundamentally an artificial life simulator. Given goals set by the scenario or the player, they must carefully grow, birth and then care for groups of clone children. Getting the mixtures for the initial conception is only the beginning and a lot can happen between fertilization and the little clone’s first job. Activities in the cloning gameplay include:

• Mixing genetics, customizing your children’s features and personalities.
• Ensuring adequate mixes of drugs and nutrients in the vats.
• Creating and maintaining the play gardens.
• Balancing education, bumping children up and down into plus and minus categories as needed, teaching about sex games and preparing them for their future roles in society.
• Giving out Soma.

Of course at all times, an eye must be kept on the bottom line. Over or underproducing the right mix of Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons can lead to great financial losses for the company. And of course, budges are always limited and lower than you’d like them to be.

Human Resources

Shepherding your flock of clones is fun and all, but in the end, one must bow to the needs and pressures of glorious industry. Without a successful and profitable enterprise there can be no budget for the cloning gardens.

Managing the business is a whole other task, requiring cunning, guile and a great deal of foresight. It takes time for little clone workers to grow to an age where they can begin working at the firm and the face of industry shifts over time. The prudent manager plans ahead, ordering the right numbers of Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons, looking ahead by 12 years. In the event of a miscalculation, clones can be hired from other companies (at considerable cost) or if all goes well, perhaps some surplus human resources can be sold off to others.

Truly, the future is bright in this Brave New World.

Some Notes

First off, I’m not entirely happy with this game design. I think that the core idea is good: a software simulator set in the world of Brave New World where the player must actually manage the system that John the Savage hates so much in the novel. Making it about one of the most troubling parts of the society, the breeding of people to intentionally be (varying levels of) dumb and compliant really drives sections of the book home. Turning people into Sims-like toys on an industrial scale is so awesomely fascinating and revolting that it can’t help but be emotionally powerful.

The first problem comes from that strength. For this to work, for players to come face to face with the insanity, you need to get them to agree to come along with you in the first place. So you have to sneak up on them. I think that the best way to do this would be to start them off with a relatively small group of clones that they care for, over time, giving them more and more of the tools and broadening the scope until they are managing armies of clones on an industrial level. But here the second risk. Once you get people to buy into the premise and play the game, how do you turn it around and confront them with what they’ve agreed to do? Players are likely to cry foul. It would be like playing Pac Man and suddenly on level 15 Pac Man gets diabetes. Punishing players for doing what you told them to do is generally a terrible idea.

I’m also not happy with how the business sim part merges in to the cloning part. In my head, the idea of a game where you are rewarded for exercising extreme foresight is a cool mechanic and one that’s not often used in games (most games live on the reflexes to tactics edge of the scale instead of the strategy to long term planning edge). Slow growing people and attempting to anticipate industrial needs that will come 12-18 years in the future is a tough and challenging problem. Actually, it’s probably an impossible problem, which is part of why we DON’T have breeding programs and definitely why we shouldn’t be teaching grade six kids to use specific productivity software instead of teaching them to think.

I like the idea of creating a simulation game that allows players to explore for themselves the themes and consequences of the world created by Huxley and similar works of art. Imagine a 1984 game. But the other half of the problem is that these are dystopias. They aren’t meant to work!

How would you make a game out of Brave New World/?

A little while ago, I sent out this challenge to my friends: “Inspired by Kate Beaton. I’m not so much with the comics. But I will write for you a short game design pitch for the first 20 concepts that you throw at me.”

Every now and then, I’m putting together a pitch based on the concepts. Will there be executive summaries and lists of unique selling points? Oh yes, there will! Then after the excitement has died down, I write up some notes about what I was thinking.

PANTS! Executive Summary

PANTS! is a fast paced web-based casual game in the spirit of Burger Time or Diner Dash. Set in a garment factory, the player takes control of a team of pants makers, in a desperate dash to make the most, best, pants in the shortest amount of time. With a unique team-play coop mode and well as nail biting head-to-head pants making, PANTS! is sure to bring players back to the table for just one more stitch, again and again.

Unique Selling Points

• Fast paced pants making action!
• Unique team-based actions invites players to bring their friends!
• Mouse-based pants interaction asks players to balance speed with accuracy
• Fashion theme appeals to wide range of demographics and casual players

Setting

PANTS! is set in a garment factory (but the nice kind). Run by uFash a boutique company that specializes in “custom one of a kind fashions at factory prices”, the factory requires an ever changing inventory of pants, always up to date with the fashions of the minute. As a result, the designs are in constant flux with the only constant being the NEED FOR MORE PANTS. The player plays the shift leader of a team of pants makers. The team consists of a Cutter, a Stitcher, a Detailer and a Folder. Together, these workers must make pants that pass quality inspection, while also keeping the pants making to a brisk pace in order to earn the highest wages possible (teams are paid per pair of pants).

Gameplay

The core game loop of PANTS! is the act of making a pair of pants. The 4 NPC workers sit at a long table, left to right. Fabric arrives on the left side of the screen. The Cutter cuts it into the assigned pattern and passes it to the Stitcher who sews the pieces together before passing it to the Detailer who ads labels, fashionable rips, etc. before passing it to the Folder who folds and packages the garment. Left to their own devices, these workers will work at a certain speed, happily making pants but not necessarily as efficiently as they could. Maybe the stitcher is much slower at sewing than the cutter is at cutting, resulting in a pile of unsewn pieces of cloth. Maybe it’s the Detailer that’s taking too long to add rivets. And definitely, everyone could be working faster (the bums)! This is where the player comes in.

Coaching

At any time, the player can step in and take over for an especially slow workmate to show them how it’s done. This opens up one of 4 mini-games (one for each task). The player plays the mini game for a set period of time (10-30 seconds) and then depending on how well they do, their lazy subordinate will receive a boost in efficiency, which over time will drain away until they return to lazy equilibrium.

By jumping between mini-games, the players can keep cajoling each of the workers towards their peak efficiency. The more you coach an individual worker, the slower their efficiency creeps back down. Playing the mini-games well and choosing which mini-game to focus on will be the key to keeping the production lines humming.

The Mini-Games

Cutting

The player’s mouse becomes a pair of scissors and, as quickly as possible, they must trace the outline of the garment pieces, according to the displayed design. Points are awarded for both speed and accuracy, with bonuses for the number of cuts required to make the pieces. Later levels require increasingly complex patterns.

Sewing

Using the mouse button to start and stop the machine, the player uses the mouse to turn and rotates the pieces of cloth to stitch them together in the right way. Points are awarded for both speed and accuracy, with bonuses for never stopping the sewing machine. Later levels require increasingly complex patterns.

Detailing

Given a desired final pattern and several boxes of tags, rives, sequins and whatnot the player must quickly recreate the look by affixing the right things in the right places. Points are awarded for both speed and accuracy, with bonuses for never having to remove a placed piece. Later levels require increasingly complex patterns.

Folding

Folding plays out as a kind of rhythm action game, where the player clicks on the right parts of the pants in the right order to fold them properly, then place them in the box and seal it properly. Points are awarded for both speed and accuracy, with bonuses for never having to remove a placed piece. Later levels require increasingly complex packaging for an ever more sophisticated clientele.

Managing the Line

Even if each of the workers is running at 100% efficiency, there is plenty more for the player to do. New design patterns are constantly streaming in, different ones with different degrees of difficulty for each task. By swapping them forwards and backwards on the queue, the player can smooth out the bottlenecks. Too many easy-cut hard-sews in a row will result in a big pileup of pieces of fabric, but this can be easily handled by pushing a few hard-to-cut patterns to the front of the queue.

In addition the workers also suffer from fatigue. By swapping them with fresh workers you can keep the assembly line running at peak efficiency. Careful though, new workers while they are more fresh are also less trained. So they’ll need more coaching at first, and bringing on new hires ain’t cheap! So choose carefully (but quickly!).

Multi-player

Perhaps the killer app of PANTS! co-op multi-player allows more than one person to team up on the same shift. Teams of 1-5 (called ’shifts’) compete head to head against other shifts for prestige and prizes on the PANTS! website. With 1-3 players on a team, jobs will shift and change depending on the moment to moment needs of the assembly line. With a full complement of 5, everyone can buckle down and focus on specializing on his or her favourite mini-game with the 5th player managing the queue.

The PANTS! website encourages community by allowing players to form sub-divisions of uFash made of up groups of players who team up against the others. sub-divisions can customize their group’s logo and other information about their web page, participate in tournaments and other larger events and of course, compete for the annual prize of top uFash pants makers.

PANTS! players can unlock achievements and awards form reaching milestones in the game such as 100% efficiency on an assembly line or logging 10 hours of sewing or any other aspects of the game, encouraging bragging rights and repeat visits.

Some Notes

Ever since Lucy tried to handle life in the Candy Factory assembly lines have been inherently hilarious to the people who don’t have to work on them. After match-3 games like Bejeweled or spacial games like Tetris time management games are one of the most popular casual games genres. So for PANTS! this was a pretty natural choice.

Compared to the core gaming market, the casual gaming market is dominated by women who tend to be in their 30’s and 40’s, a far cry from the traditional core gaming marker of males 18-35. As a result, game makers for the casual scene look for topics that stray from the traditional violence, explosions and car crashes that make up a lot of the core market. Again, PANTS! shines in this area.

The most unique thing about the PANTS! pitch is the multi-player co-op mode. Most casual games don’t have anything like this (they are straight up single player games) but I think that there is definitely room for a community for people who wanted some light player interaction. Puzzle Pirates which is a massively multi-player casual online game is quite successful and working along the same lines though PANTS! has more in common with games like Halo 3, Battlefield 2142 or Team Fortress 2 in that the games are quick one-off competitions with match-making and leaderboards.

The idea for multi-player, which I think may be the best part, came by accident out of my desire to have an assembly line game where you played more than one part of the line. When I started writing the pitch it didn’t exist yet and it wasn’t until I’d worked out the consequences of letting players jump in and out of roles (couldn’t more than one person do this?) that I decided to include it.

I really like the coaching mechanic. Time management games are all about deciding where to throw your attention at any given moment, and by offering the player a perpetual choice between playing one mini-game or another or just managing the assembly line at a macro level, there is a lot of potential depth in the game.