Make Games for Yourself?

This is the first post in what will probably be a series of posts about a game I have been working on for the last couple of weeks. For any game designer game ideas always come faster than they can handle them. My problem is that the newest idea always seems like the best. My solid older ideas may be supplanted by newer shinier ones, and I'll never just stick with one and finish it. This idea, however, is an older one that keeps pushing the shiney new ones aside.

I am a tutor at the University of Michigan in Flint. I only tutor one subject; logic. Formal logic is a subject I am fascinated by not only as a student, and a computer scientist, but also as a game designer. It has so many applications to the things I am interested in, but the thing that keeps me coming back semester after semester is that it is like a game.

Propositional logic proofs (see the link!) are like sudoku or crossword puzzles to me. I enjoy "solving" them and helping other people figure out how to solve them. In the back of my mind, I've always thought that logical proofs could somehow make a good game, but I never went beyond the spark of an idea until recently.

Here's the game in a nutshell.

Components:

• Deck of 52 cards with Propositions on them ( P->Q, R v S, etc.)
• A dozen 6 sided dice for each player. 6 of the dice have letters P, Q, R, S, T, and a blank side. The other six have logical connectors [ v , -> , ~ , ( , & , = ]
• A smaller deck of cards for each player with each of the rules of inference on one side, and special rules on the back.

The Rules are (were) pretty straightforward. Draw some cards, put a card in play for everyone including yourself to use, and try and use the rest of your cards to prove another statement of your choosing. Any inference rules you use to make new propositions you form with the dice in front of you and you can use those to prove more stuff and get more points.

I ran through the game by myself a few times to make sure it worked and everything seemed to work out just fine. Only minor tweaks were needed before I thought I had a nice design. I just needed my buddy Toby to playtest with me to make sure it was ok.

Everything was most certainly not ok. The game didn't get past Toby's first turn because the level of complexity was such that no one who hadn't taken a semester of formal logic wouldn't even be able to understand what to do. I thought for sure my handy reference cards for the inference rules would be enough, but I had severely overestimated the time it takes to soak this stuff in. I had made an educational game that didn't teach anything but frustration. It was a total disaster of mental masturbation and lack of foresight.

I had made a game in which you use the rules you have learned rather than making a game where you learn the rules you will use. I got the whole thing backwards. So now it is back to the drawing board.

The plan from here on out is to have a progression through the game. I'll be adding a game board with two sides. One for beginning players and one for advanced players. You start off on one space on the board and that space will give you very simple instructions about what you need to do to advance to the next level. The game rules will unfold as you play and hopefully the level of complexity will melt into the playing of the game. On the back side of the game board, it will be assumed you're familiar with all the inference rules and it will be lot more difficult.

So now I've learned a very important lesson in game design. You can't always just make games for yourself, because sometimes you'll want someone else to play with.

Battlestar Galactica Play by Email Game part 1

I recently started running a play by email game of the Battlestar Galactica board game. I saw a lot of people running games on the penny arcade forums and thought it would be fun to run my own. I have owned the game for a few months now, and since I bought it have only had enough time to get together and play it a handful of times with my friends. I thought a Play by email game would be a perfect way to get some light gaming in and actually get some use out of my 50 dollar board game.

Light gaming? Maybe for the first 3 turns, but as you can see in the turn summary below, problems started early for the human fleet. There were cylons coming out of their ears. The entire first half of the game was plauged by cylon attacks and problems. The humans had to jump early to avoid massive amounts of civilian ship damage.

Now the game is well into the Sleeper Agent phase, and the game has turned to all out conspiracy. I never knew my friends could be so deceptive. I am impressed by their cunning and ability to lie through their teeth to each other.

I can't say much more about the game, because we are still in the middle of the whole thing and I don't want to give any secrets away to the players, but below is a turn by turn account of what is going on so far, minus all the intrigue (sorry!).

Turn 1 - Admiral Saul Tigh launches two vipers to counter the cylon threat, and sends a scout to nearby systems to look for water. The scout is successful and the Galactica is resupplied with food and water.

Turn 2 - Tom Zarek consolidates power by recruiting some engineers. Meanwhile the Jump Computer experiences minor difficulties. [Crisis: Jump Computer Failure]

Turn 3 - Helo, stranded on Caprica, must escape the radioactive Cylon infested wasteland. Admiral Tigh sends a rescue mission [Crisis: Rescue Mission] but Helo returns in critical medical condition

Turn 4 - Cheif launches 2 more vipers in preparation for the oncoming cylon raiding party [Crisis: Cylon Raiding Party].

Turn 5 - Boomer moves to weapons control and fires the Galactica's missiles at a basestar. Meanwhile, a full scale resistance is thwarted [Crisis: Resistance]

Turn 6 - Roslin gathers her favors in the military and has a cylon heavy raider destroyed. Luckily no civilians were harmed. Meanwhile, accusations fly on the Galactica [Crisis: Guilt by Collusion]

Turn 7 - Admiral Saul Tigh jumps the fleet to deep space to escape the cylon threat. [Crisis: Water Shortage]

Turn 8 - Zarek goes to the Galactica and visits the Research Lab. [Crisis: The Olympic Harrier] Meanwhile, a civilian ship is on a collision course with the galactica.

Turn 9 - Helo gets out of the sickbay, and goes immediately to the research lab. [Crisis: Water Shortage]

Turn 10 - The Chief goes to the research lab. There's a party in research! [Crisis: Crash Landing]

Turn 11 - Boomer launches a scout, but it is lost in deep space never to return! Meanwhile, the leadership decides to inform the public about the cylon threat. [Crisis: Informing the Public]

Turn 12 - Roslin uses her presidential power to gain favor with the council while the fleet notices a glitch in the network computers. [Crisis: Network Computers]

Turn 12 - Roslin uses her presidential power to gain favor with the council while the fleet notices a glitch in the network computers. [Crisis: Network Computers]

Turn 13 - Tigh is revealed as the cylon sympathizer and is sent to the brig, but the humans soon forgive him and let him out. Meanwhile, the Admiral throws the President in the Brig under suspicion.

Turn 14 - Zarek issues an executive order to break Roslin out of the brig. A water shortage threatens the fleets food reserves. [Crisis: Water Shortage]

Turn 15 - Admiral Helo goes to the research lab in search of technological answers to the fleets problems. The fleet puts the prisoners on a work program so they may earn their freedom [Crisis: Prison Labor]

You Will Go to the Moon!

When I was a wee lad I had this book lying around the house.

You Will Go to the Moon




You WILL go to the Moon. The whole book was about a kid's vacation to a Soviet / US Space Station and to the moon. The book spoke very matter-of-factly about how all of these things most definitely WOULD happen to me. I grew up with this idea in my head that I could visit the Moon just like Disneyland or Europe. I didn't question this notion for a long time. There were old videos of people on the moon already. These were old videos. They MUST be able to send me to the moon now if they were able to send those guys there all those many years ago. It only made sense.

In my reality, the Moon was a place you could visit whenever you wanted to. You can only imagine my disappointment as I slowly figured out that not only couldn't I go to the moon without being a skilled astronaut, but they weren't even doing moon missions anymore. No one could go to the Moon at all!

"What a crock of shit!" I thought to myself, until I read this.

"NASA plans to build outpost on the moon"

It looks like my reality will soon become reality!

All i can think is "It's about friggin time!"

Anamanaguchi releases new album: Dawn Metropolis

http://www.dawnmetropolis.com/

I have been waiting for this one for a long time. Anamanaguchi (8-bit chiptune punk rock band from New York) has just released their newest album "Dawn Metropolis" and it is every bit as bloopy and rock and roll as their first EP, Power Supply. You can listen to the album for free at dawnmetropolis.com