Tic toc, Batman; tic toc (toe?).

Ahh, Tic-Tac-Toe. My friend; my enemy. The times and places I've played you while waiting for important things to happen is so vast... Jack Astors', on a napkin, with my brother... Good times; good times, indeed.
                - Me, the blogger

This week we were tasked with doing a little -chikka chikka- REMIXING. We were asked to remix two games: Tic-Tac-Toe and a game we had created previously. As I'm sure we all know, Tic-Tac-Toe is played by one person assuming the role of X's and the other O's. Players play on a 4x4 grid and take turns placing their respective symbol on one of the spots. The first person to get three in a row in any direction (including diagonal) wins. If neither player achieves this, it is a tie. Our objective was to add another rule to this game and make it challenging/fun for players of all ages while adding some form of random element. I quickly came up with a concept - some sort of tile rearranging system that dictates who can place their symbol down. This could be done with either two players or four players, although the four player board would need a bigger matrix of play.

2 player board.

4 player board

But a name was still needed: TicXTax. Perfect. To add the random element, I then included a deck of cards. There are two types of cards: Board cards and Player cards. Each Board card has a number and a sub-number. The deck is shuffled and then cards are played face down on the board. Each player then draws three cards. If a player has a card with a matching combo and sub-combo for any combo on the board, then the player pay put their card there. (e.g. if Player 1 has a 3-1 card and Player 2 has a 3-4 card and there is a 3(1-5-4), then both players may use that space). If a player is unable to go, then they pick up a card. The first player to three in a row wins. On the 4 player board, the first to 5 in a row wins.

Board cards.

Player cards.

RULES:
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Set-up:

• Shuffle both the decks of cards. Place the board cards one-by-one onto the board, turning each face-up as you do.
• Each player then draw's three cards.

 Play:

•  Players take turns placing matching cards on the board. The first to 3 cards in a row wins. If neither player succeeds, its a tie.

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After playing the game a couple times, I found that the game become more tolerable than regular Tic-Tac-Toe (I lied, its not that fun. When its come down to Tic-Tac-Toe, save yourself). The only problem was when it came down to neither of us being able to draw a card that we needed to play to win; the card would either already be played elsewhere or just at the bottom of the deck. Regardless, this is a nuisance that helps keep that "random" element of the game.

 After finishing that hot track, I started working on the next. I decided to remix the game H.A.C.K.E.R.S., created by myself, James Creavalle and Divakar Dev (see my blog post about it here.)

In H.A.C.K.E.R.S., each player tries to over take the others by collecting power bits and overtaking other player's nodes. The random element of the game that I've added is a random number generator from 1-9 or a spinner. This spinner would replace the flat rate of acquiring bits that players used to get each turn. Players would collect their respective role and then continue play as normal.

RULES:
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Set-up: Each player chooses a Faction to represent in the war by choosing a colour of bead. Factions then roll to see who goes first or play Rock, Paper, Scissors. Players chose a starting node based on turn order. Each node is assigned 10 bits of power. Players then decide how many turns the game will run for. At the end of the last turn, the player with the most nodes wins.

Play: Each node runs on bits. Players accumulate bits at the beginning of each turn by either spinning a spinner or using a random number generator from 1-10. Players amass bits based on what they roll with a boost based on how many nodes they own, according to the following chart:

• ·         3 nodes = +2
• ·         6 nodes = +4
• ·         9 nodes = +5
• ·         12 nodes = +7

After capturing 12 nodes, you gain +1 for every 2 more captured nodes. The collected bits are then distributed to each node based on the players choosing. Nodes are indicated by placing the small blue beads on the node you control.

There are 3 phases per turn: Transfer, Boost and Hack. During the Transfer phase, players can transfer power to any nodes that they are connected to. When a bit is sent, it is subtracted from the current total as well, (e.g. if node A has 12 bits and sends 4, node A will have 8 bits after). Players may only transfer bits once per turn. Nodes can only hold 30 bits max. 

In the Boost phase, players may sacrifice bits to set up Firewalls. Firewalls make you harder to hack during the Hacking phase and disappear on your next turn. To indicate a Firewall has been placed, select a bead colour for “Firewalls” and place it on your node. Firewalls are powered up based on the following:

• ·         Firewall Lvl 1 (costs 5 bits): reflects 2 bits of damage
• ·         Firewall Lvl 2 (costs 7 bits): reflects 3 bits of damage
• ·         Firewall Lvl 3 (costs 9 bits): reflects 4 bits of damage
• ·         Firewall Lvl 4 (costs 12 bits): reflects 5 bits of damage

During the Hacking phase, players may sacrifice bits to attack other players. When sacrificing, players must leave at least 10 bits in the node to sustain their capture of it. Players may only attack once. To attack, players select any node they are connected to. Players may then attack that node with any other nodes they own that are connected to it. The defender then decides how many bits to use to defend. If the defender uses more bits than the attacker, the difference is dealt in damage to the attacker; e.g. if the attacker sends out 10 and the defender defends with 15, the attacker loses 5 bits on their node(s).

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 The game played basically the same with the now added annoyance of gaining less when you may have needed a higher roll to survive. Again, this (although maybe not the greatest addition) still remixes the game while keeping the random element in place.  

Superstarrrrrrrr.

Art games - games that break the mold of what we consider games. There's a heavy link to the word "weird" and art games, since most aren't out there to be played like games. Some take it to extremes, leaving the player to figuring everything out (The marriage), while some simply adopt the title of "art game" through stylizing the in-game visuals and changing how the controller is used (Katamari Damacy).

Well... yeah, I guess you could argue that this is pretty extreme.

Above image taken from http://www.little-players.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/katamaridamacy.jpg

No matter how its approached, art games are always far from the norm. Rather than allow for an enjoyable experience, art games focus on invoking feelings within the player(s). This isn't to say that art games can't be fun - its just that fun isn't a mandatory component of art games. Like art itself; the games are subjective. What one person thinks the is the core meaning of the game will most likely vary from an-others perspective. In the end, though, as long as something is felt or some internal feeling is dwelt upon, an art game has done it's job.

Our project this week was to convert van Gogh's painting The starry night into an art game. With such a broad area to work with, it took us a while to finally decide on what kind of game it was and how it was played. We started out by first looking up some information on the actual painting itself. We found out that the painting was done just before the time that van Gogh's mind was starting to leave him and that he painted it from memory as opposed to actually looking at it. With this in mind, we then looked at the painting and talked about how we felt/what feelings we thought of when we looked at it.

That tower makes me think of Pokemon: The Movie 3.
Above image taken from the Prototype #2 Assignment PDF.

The common feelings/themes that came up the most were ones like cold and lonely. The word "alone" was used quite frequently too. Wanting to add more flavor to the game, we finalized it by merging the feelings and some facts about the picture and decided that our art game would instill feelings of cold, loneliness while touching on memories. And what better way to feel cold and alone then losing your memories? Thus, Starry Nightmares came into being. In Starry Nightmares, the player (for there is only one) goes around in a circle lined with card tiles. There are also four special card tiles in which a player writes a different memory on each. Each time the player lands on a card tile, the tile is discarded. The game ends when a player removes either all the neutral tiles or all of the four special tiles.

RULES:
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No. of Players:  1

Materials required:

·         Dice

·         20 tiled circular board

·         16 “memory-fragment” cards

·         4 blank “key-memory” cards

·         Writing utensils for the “key-frame” cards

Rules:

·         The player must write down four personal “key-memories” on the empty cards and then shuffle the four cards with the rest of the “memory-fragment” cards.

·         The cards are then placed face down individually on the tiles.

·         The player then rolls the die and then moves the according number of tiles on the board

·         Any memory cards on a tile that the player lands on are to be flipped and read. The player must then “relive” that memory in their heads. The respective card is then removed from the game and the tile it was on is considered “empty”

·         If a player lands on an empty tile, he/she must advance to the next “non-empty” tile.

·         The game ends either when there are no more “key-memory” cards on the board but there remains at least one “memory-fragment” card or when there are no more “memory-fragment” cards but at least one “key-memory” card. In the first case the player “loses” and slips into insanity and in the latter, the player gets to leave with his/her mind intact.

Twenty tiled circle as the board with 20 “memory-fragment” cards corresponding to each tile. These cards are randomly placed face down on the tiles. Every time a player lands on a tile the corresponding card is removed from the game and the tile is considered “empty” for the remainder of the game. If a player lands on an empty tile he/she must advance to the next non-empty tile.

4 of the 20 cards are “key memories” that the player writes down on the blank cards. If all four key memories are lost then the player loses and slips into insanity. If the player manages to get rid of all 16 “memory-fragment” cards and still has at least one key memory card left on the board, he/she gets to stop playing the game and leave with his/her mind intact.

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So what does it all mean? Well, you (the player) are trapped within your own mind. As you wander your mind endlessly, you slowly start to lose your sanity as well as your memories. In the end, you escape by losing all your "useless" memories or by losing all your "true" memories. This isn't intentional, however, and is merely the way it must be. The player doesn't know they are losing memories while looking for an exit, and when they wake up, they still won't know, since they can not remember.

In the end, I felt that this went pretty well for my first attempt at an art game. However, since it was more forced due to it being a school project, I'm not sure whether it was a true success. In the creation of art is usually done to express something to people. With this in mind, it makes sense to draw the parallels to art games. I'd have to say that my favourite part was being so unrestrained in terms of what we could do with the game. Yeah, you can do this in regular game design, but not to the full extent. No matter what you add in a regular game, you still need to ask yourself things like, "Is this fun?" or, "Would I play this?" No matter what you add in, it still needs to be playable and fair (if fair is what you're going for). But I digress... I shall take my leave with a question. Art games: more art than games, or more games than art?

Friar's rice.

This week in Game Design, we had to make modifications to a game that goes by the title of Lair's Dice. This is a game that uses a bunch of dice as lives/betting tools (it feels like a weird mix of poker and Yahtzee to me) and whomever has at least one or more dice at the end is the victor. This is accomplished by guessing how many of a certain number is face up on ALL dice - including the ones your opponent is hiding. When a player makes a call, the next call must be higher then the previous one in terms of quantity, e.g. if Player 1 guesses there are two threes face up, then (should the next player wish to disagree with that statement) the next player must make a call of more - something like four fives, for example. All of this will be re-explained below in the rule excerpt from our game.

This time, however, we weren't tasked with creating a new game. As stated above, all we had to do was create one rule that broke what we call the "positive feedback loop." A positive feedback loop is something that the game gives to players who win. For example, when a you successfully win a hand by either bluffing or outwitting your opponent, you make them lose a dice. This is positive feedback for you and the game "loops" itself by playing the next hand. So, I created a rule that disrupts this loop on purpose - something that I don't believe is usually done, but that was the challenge, so that's what I tried to do.

It took me a while to wrap my head around the idea of abusing a player on purpose for doing well in a game, especially one which used card/dice elements (I say cards, cause that's sort of what I think of the dice as... I dunno, the poker thing again). Eventually, I came up with the idea of making the winning player unable to look at their hand on the next turn; essentially hindering someone who may have done a commendable job and breaking that positive feedback loop. To keep it from getting broken, however I included the fact that it could only be used once.

We were also asked how we thought this would affect our game loop before we even played.
The game will most likely be played out the same way, with players neglecting how much the blinding will affect them in the long run. I imagine the best use for this particular rule is when someone is on the verge of losing (e.g. on their last life/die). I say that because that's how I would use the rule - let a player with only one dice left win and then blind them the next turn, making it nearly impossible for them to guess.

When we actually implemented it and tried it out, things went different then expected. Turns out this tool can be a deal breaker, provided the player keeps it until striking someone out. Some people blindly throw it out as a counter to others moves – as well as using it for revenge. 

I'm thankful I didn't have to really create anything this time, with midterms coming up, I needed the chance to catch up on studying. Video games. Cause, y'know, that's what I do.

I am play these.
Above image taken from http://www.trmk.org/forums/showthread.php/25292-Fallout-%281-2-3-and-New-Vegas%29/page5.

Liar's Dice

Above image taken from http://www.everythingevergreen.com/liars-dice.html

In the rules below, you'll also see the rules that my team has included, as well as the rules for regular Liar's Dice.

RULES: 
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The game is made for 2 or more players.  Suggested ages 12+

Each player has a cup and 5 dice (the cup can easily be replaced by using your hands). Players will roll the dice in the cups and hide what they rolled from the other players. The first player will make a guess about how many of a die facing there are. i.e. 3 fours or 2 fives.

The next player will have 3 decisions to make:

LYING: They can call their bluff by saying they are lying meaning there are less of the number that they guessed then there are between the players. i.e. if they say 4 twos and there are 3 or less between all the players then they are lying. If they are wrong and there are more or equal to the number they guessed they lose a die. i.e. if there are 6 twos.

CORRECT: The player can instead decide that the player is spot on meaning if there are exactly the number they guessed then every other player loses a die. i.e. if they said 4 twos and there are exactly 4 twos between all players they are correct. If there are not exactly as many as they guessed then they lose a die instead.

GUESS: The player can make their own guess if they think the player is correct but not exactly correct. When they make their guess their number of faces must be higher than the previous guess. i.e. if the player before them guessed 3 sixes then they must guess 4 or more of any facing such as 4 fives.

After one of the players choose lying or correct then the players reveal their rolls and determine if the player is right or wrong in their accusation. After that is decided the players roll again and the game continues with the next person starting the round off. After all but one player loses all of their dice then the game ends with the person with dice being the winner.

Our rule changes:

Bobby Muir: Players start off with 5 life counters. When a player would normally lose a die they instead lose a life counter.

Divakar Dev: If a player correctly calls a bluff he cannot look at his hand for the next turn.

James Creavalle: If a player improperly calls a bluff, they lose a life point.

Cole Bonvarlez: Each player is given a penny.  At any time when it is their turn, they can choose to trade in their penny to make the leading player show their dice to the rest of the table.

Vincent Marchesano: Once per game, (after a player wins a round) you can make the winning player unable to look at their hand on the upcoming turn. This move can only be done once and is indicated by some form of coin counter (the recommended coin is a dime). After a player uses their dime, the move cannot be used again.

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