A Designer Guide to App Development

A great read about just what thought should go into iPhone development.

The Appifesto

The 7 card shuffle

Its friday, and that means it is time for another big long update of progression! What a crazy week in the world of my Public Speaking class, the copious amounts of busy work was a minor set back, but luckily I enter the weekend with everything cleaned off my plate except this (well and Mass Effect 2).

So let's talk about the card system today.

As the game is a game of nation growth and expansion through time (much like civ) you start in the earliest of the stone ages and move into the bright utopian world of tomorrow. For reference, the era's go Stone Age -> Bronze Age -> Iron Age -> Classical Age -> Industrial Age -> Atomic Age -> Information Age -> Quantum Age (thanks ExtraNoise for the original ages). As I took a look at how I wanted the player to move through the game, I came up with a neat idea: why not make it seem like a card game (ala Magic)? Once I had that idea in my head, the rest of the mechanics began to flow like I had opened the flood gates to my mind.

This is what I typed up for myself so I had an idea to follow:

Cards are the main control mechanism for the game; everything must be drawn and then played through cards. But they are not all instantaneous; some items require a certain number of turns to implement. Think of cards as “game changing” decisions, the options available are semi-random; yet tie into decisions that you make changing what shows up. 

Cards work in “Decks”, where each technology age is a new deck. This ties in with the tech research with unlocks new “card packs” that gives you more options. You also have government specific cards that affect your nation as well.

Deck 1 (stone age) Cards: These are general cards; they are common and available from the start. Present are things like settlement cards, basic infrastructure (huts, farms, sharp sticks, and simple agriculture). Cards in this deck set the tone for how your nation moves forward so you are able to also have a lot of basic moral/civic/military choices that push to towards hope or fear style tribal government. 

Deck 2 (bronze age) Cards:  Settlement cards, more advanced infrastructure (mills, buildings, barracks, larger farms, settlement walls). Government cards should be pushing player into feudal age governments by end of deck. 

Deck 3 (iron age) Cards: Settlement cards, more advanced infrastructure (castles, dirt roads, black smiths). Complex political infrastructure cards, actual nations beginning to form. 

Deck 4 (classical age) Cards: Settlement cards, Cultural infrastructure cards in full swing (education, arts, etc), more advanced infrastructure (cobble roads, buildings, etc) trade and civilization improvements. Governments begin to hit centralized. 

Deck 5 (industrial age) Cards: Settlement cards, Electricity and other civic innovations, gravel roads, city formations. Advanced civic concepts (decentralized government facilities, etc), Railways and other forms of mass transportation. 

Deck 6 (atomic age) Cards: Settlement Cards, Large city improvements, asphalt roads available along with mass transportation, power and telecommunications, freeways, ability to begin nuclear research! Governments emerge into modern styles. 

Deck 7 (information age) Cards: settlement cards, mass communications, underground transportation, wireless compatibility, mass electronics. Space constructions begin. 

Deck 8 (quantum age) Cards: Settlement cards, wide spread space networks, governments begin to transition to utopian.

From that I created the basic run down of bullet points to flesh out the idea:

• Each "Age" is represented by a base "deck of cards". 
• Each deck (currently) has 25 cards in it.
• These cards are how you grow and control and grow your nation.
• When your nation evolves into the next Age, the current base deck is scrapped in favor of the new one. This means you cannot go back and get old cards.
• As you progress through technology research, different techs each have "booster packs" of a few cards which are added to your main deck.
• Same for governments, whatever government your nation has adopted adds in its own booster pack.
• The cards are split into 6 main types: Civic, Expansion, Military, Infrastructure, Financial, and Reward.
• Cards also have a response rating, which acts similar to the light side/dark side meter from Knights of the Old Republic. They can fall into: Fear, Minor Fear, Neutral, Minor Hope, Hope. This affects how your government forms around your actions, along with what potential technologies you have access to (some only are available to hope, some only to fear).
• You can hold Seven (7) cards at one time in your hand, you can keep these cards for as long as you want.
• You can also discard a card if you do not want it (for instance, you are playing to a hope side and get a strong fear based card).
• You can also trade cards to other nations once trade has opened up.
• Some cards are "one time" cards that effect overall nation states, and some can be drawn and used multiple different times on military tokens, cities, or other "smaller scale" subjects.

Currently I only have the Stone Age base deck complete (which you can see below), as I spent a majority of the time hammering out the base mechanics for such an important key aspect of the game. Hopefully I can finish another deck this weekend (with the help of some key collaborators), and then the rest as quickly as possible.

Click to Enlarge

I also spent some time coming up with a rough mockup of how the card viewer/selection will look and work with gestures in game:

Click to Enlarge

Click to Enlarge

Governments 101: 92% complete

Note: Thanks to my co-conspirator Dane Hill for helping me through this.

So I thought I should start with the ground work for any nation building game: Governments!

I cant show everything yet for two reasons, I'd hate to spoil it and not everything can be finished until I hammer out cards and tech (which is coming up next).

To begin the process, we have to look back to November 2009. I was sitting down in the living room of Mike Barta, genius and IE 4 dev, as he helped me hash out ideas for what directions I should take for the project. He had some really awesome unique ideas which I think have taken on a neat role in how the games narrative plays out.

The general concept is a progression through governments in an organic way. I was then able to break things into five vague government breakthroughs and came up with this guide:

tribal -> feudal -> centralized -> modern -> utopian

Using these five archetypes I then broke each down into HOPE and FEAR. That way depending on how one plays the game and makes decisions, it will begin to steer you down one path or the other. It also allows one to make the transition from hope to fear, although that is easier said than done.

Using DropBox, I quickly sent off an invitation to Dane and he was instantly able to see, access, and make changes in real time to help me work and conceptualize everything. Thank goodness for technology. Together doing some research, scouring wikipedia for references, and generally banging out heads against our respective walls, we came up with our ten primary governments for use in the game.

Click to Enlarge

Once we had that down we knew the next step was to come up with descriptions of exactly what each government means in terms of the world. With that in mind I set out writing rough paragraphs that explain each government to include into the final game.

Note: These are still early drafts and subject to radical changes. I am not completely happy with any of them.

Hunter Gatherer:
Brought together by their common will to survive, these early nations relied on cooperation to survive harsh conditions. Loose ideas of government and power are masked mainly by their early and primitive concepts of the world.

Chiefdom:
Ruled by fear, chiefdoms are a centralized society overseen by a chief. Characterized mainly by inequality and centralized authority, citizens outside of the ruling class of this government live humbled, hard lives of labor. With a strong lineage, a single family can rule these nations for generations upon generations.

Theocracy:
With a government that recognizes their god (or deity) as the nations supreme ruler, theocracies generally accept a personal incarnation or religious representative as their leader. Theocracies always have a state religion and administrative doings always fall to the will of religion.

Autocracy:
In an autocratic government, the ruling figure is granted complete and unlimited power. This power tends to lend itself to a disconnect between the ruler and the people, which can create internal strife among the government. Most autocrats depend on their close set of nobles, military, and priesthood to operate efficiently.

Republic:
As a nation without a monarch, republics offer the people of the nation at least some say in the proceedings of the government. With a president as the head of state, nations tend to focus on ideals such as civic virtue, rule of law, and mixed government. However, this importance on civic virtues means that individual liberties are often overlooked.

Fascism:
As a single party state, Fascist governments believe that the vast majority of the public are unfit and unsuited to govern itself. Associated with strong nationalism and heroism, these nations pride themselves on striving to recreate a golden era for their nation by any means necessary.

Democracy:
Democracy thrives under the basic concepts of equality and freedom. In these nations all citizens are equal before the law, have equal access to power, and enjoy legitimized freedoms. By using “majority rule”, democratic nations strive to create the best possibly nation for their citizens.

Totalitarianism:
Generally associated with dictatorships, totalitarian nations maintain their absolute power over citizens through all-embracing ideology, propaganda, and total control over all aspects of life. These nations are known for their widespread use of mass surveillance and state terrorism.

Sociocracy:
Sociocratic nations have evolved past rule by “demos” to create a system of decision making by consent. The government has formed autonomous circle organizations that are able to work independently of one another effectively leading their nation.

Noocracy:
As the aristocracy of the wise, Noocratic nations rely of the appointed wise to rule. This hive mind controls all aspects of the nation, providing its citizens with the optimal solution to any conflicts. This has lead to an almost “big brother” situation for the citizens of any these nations.

As I worked out exactly what the governments meant, Dane began work on the relationship matrix. This is the bible for how governments react to one another. Once he had a rough pass down he sent it along to me to go over it, make adjustments, and all around finalize how I felt they should work.

Click to Enlarge

Of course here you can see that I already have plans for hidden governments, which wouldn't be hidden if I announced them so I pixelated the one viewable to keep the suspense.

So what is left to do for governments? Well, I still need to give people a reason to want to advance governments, and I am working on a series of pros/cons that affect gameplay based on government. I am also working on the threshold matrix which will be the guideline for when/how a nation adopts any given government structure. Unfortunately these have to be back burnered for a bit as I cannot continue them until I have more of the game mechanic struct finalized. After I finish Tech progression and Cards (my next project, expect it done next week) I will return and finish governments.

Until next time!

The times (they are a changin')

Pardon my dust,  as I get more into my project I feel I need to have a more legit website, so I have overhauled the blog to look a little more professional. You can thank the NFL playoffs for that.

Now back to the grind!

Nailing it down: Creating a final feature spec

Well that was a crippling sickness I just encountered out of the blue. One day I have a sore throat, the next I am full on attacked by a sinus infection.

However, first things first, if I want to ever finish this I need to create a finalized feature spec. As much fun as it would be to go all Duke Nukem Forever and spend the next 12 years adding and reinventing and adding some more, I actually would like this project to finish sometime this decade.

I was recently told by a much wiser ex-Microsoft developer recently that for a project you have to plan for Version 5 or 6, and then radically scale back when it comes time to get to work, and so with that in mind, I have begun categorizing my feature list into two camps: Must Haves and Want to Haves.

I do this so that I can keep my core feature set - the things that I MUST include in my game if I wish to present the vision, and then the optional stuff - things that sure are neat ideas, but outside of the scope for a v1 edition. That way, I can still keep the list by my side and implement little extras as time permits as well as have ideas for future revisions, DLC, and or (demand permitting) the sequel.

So what exactly do I NEED to have?

Lets break it down:

NEEDS

• Single player skirmish: Duh, I need to have a single player version to the game, even though it will be rather simplistic "skirmish" mode, where you just play against computer players.
• Decent, capable AI (artificial intelligence): Since the single player game relies solely on fighting against a number of computer players, it is important that they provide challenges. A minimum requirement of difficulties would be very easy, easy, normal, hard, and very hard/unfair.
• Multiplayer: This is honestly where I think the bread and butter of the series lies, in its multiplayer. The minimum requirement would be a turn based multiplayer, where you set the turn limit before the game starts (anywhere from say 10 minutes to 24 hours) and then you play using push notification. Turn priority is determined by random at the beginning of each turn and can be viewed at any time for strategic purposes and all you have to do is submit your turn before the time limit expires. Push notification would be used to announce when the new turn begins AND gives warnings you can set on how many minutes remain before you are "skipped" over.
• In-depth multiplayer chat system: This is tied directly to multiplayer in terms of importance, there needs to be both instant messaging chat as well as a PM system due to the nature of the times between turns. In a game so based around diplomacy, information, and alliances/treaties, it is imperative it is easy, quick, and useful to chat to other players.
• Fully envisioned game map of the world: I have to have a game map! In a perfect world (aka the one I am shooting for) I hope to have a full replication of the entire world, in which you can then scale down to "mini" maps if you don't want the space. For instance you could just do Europe and Africa, or the Americas, or Asia, or Australia and surrounding islands. This allows for a variety of "maps" while still being just one single deal.
• News Wire: I will dedicate a more thorough post detailing this concept, but at a high level overview, this is how you begin each turn, and also how you deal with fog-of-war and general dissemination of information so you are kept up to date on happenings around the game world. This is a critical innovation into the play mechanics and you will see why in a few weeks.
• Logistics: This needs to be implemented in some rudimentary format. Logistics is the great equalizer in this game. It balances giant nations from being able to just steamroll over the rest of the group without thought once they get that elusive "higher tech" like can happen in games such as Civ IV. People need to be tide to imaginary resource daisy chains that limit their rate of expansion as they grow, or it will negatively hurt their nation. This can be as rudimentary as a px/in ratio where so far away equates to needing X. This of course still needs to be fleshed out and turned into a working model. 
• Card System: This is the bread and butter of the play mechanics, this is how you buy, play, improve, and generally interact with the game.
• Battle System: Well there needs to be a way to wage war in a game built around conquest. Most of this will be automated but I need to come up with a way to implement it.
• Morale: Morale is the semi-tangible aspect of the game showing the willingness of your nations citizens to listen to you. For example: if you create a peaceful nation and then go war happy you will have riots and revolts crippling your infrastructure.
• Technology trees: This is what allows you to guide your nation into developing certain cards to fit your play style.

STRONGLY WANTS

• AI "personalities": Think the N64 game Perfect Dark's "Bots". I would love to be able to include different personalities that you could choose from, perhaps you wish to add warmongering dictator bots or a bunch of pacifist nations to change up traditional "balanced" gameplay.
• Multiplayer Bots: Fairly Straight Forward. Just the single player AI that works with... get this... multiplayer.
• Easter Eggs/Cheats: This hopefully wont be too hard to include and can add a lot of hidden fun. Perhaps if you type your leaders name as something it gives you a lot of starting cash.  Just stuff like that.
• Actors: A strong addition to the aspect of morale, though ultimately very time consuming to develop, actors would be "born" randomly into cities and have their own agendas, which they then try and implement. This makes you react and have to deal with them before things grow out of control and bring the nation to a stand still.
• Social Impact: Mostly stuck here simply because I cannot come up with a viable way to represent it, thus leaving it in limbo. I have been wracking my brain trying to come up with a way to implement things seen in social games such as facebook's farmville where you are tied to, and sometimes responsible, for helping out with people with their game. It is the hardest area to come up with something fair and balanced, but it could revolutionize the genre if you could make one player responsible for aspects of another players in a "double blind" situation. 
• Clouds: A little addition to the map, but It would be really neat to have transparent clouds floating around above the map with shadows cast upon the ground. Completely superficial, but its the little touches that add POP to the world.
• 3D game map: File this under strongly want  but almost certainly a future revision. Basically something that looks like THIS. That way you can see the geography of the world as you look around the map. This would help "tie" in logistics modifiers such as mountains, water bodies, and other terrains.

FUTURE REVISIONS

• Single Player "Stories": In addition to skirmish mode, it would be nice to include scenarios or stories that you have to play out. These modes could range from historically referenced to insane, quirky, and off the wall (alien invasions perhaps) to extend the life of the game and give the user more choices in how they want to play. This requires a massive amount of creation, balancing, and writing to create stories however so it is unrealistic that this could make a V.1 release.
• Custom game maps: Similar idea to the map builder in say, the Civilization series, why limit the game to just what the world looks like currently, perhaps the user wants to live in a world filled with a hundred tiny islands. Use of sliders could help forge a randomized world for people to play on, again shaking things up and allowing the user to play how they want. Unfortunately this is a large undertaking is will need to be pushed to future revisions of the game.
• Expanded game concepts: Many of these concepts will have to be very "bare bones" for V.1 (such as morale, social interaction, card systems, logistics, and everything else) which I would love to flesh out into more feature rich variations for further revisions.

Sickness in Seattle

Just a quick update to keep me going.

I have been hard at work on reaching milestone numero uno and hopefully it will be finalized and posted in the next day or so.

That said I hit a massive wall due to coming down with a terrible sinus infection that medicine is now only beginning to cure. It was a minor set back, but this just means I will have to work twice as hard to catch back up.

My head is down in the trenches going full steam on this.

Thanks to my wonderful friends Amoxicillin and Hydrocodone!

Telling the story: Developing your own Rhetoric

In my initial research into just what has to go into the structure of game design, I was pointed in the direction of Ian Bogost, Author of Persuasive Games and Unit Operations. In Persuasive Games, Bogost really pushes the idea that you have the obligation as a game developer to tell a story. What the story is, however, is up to you to decide; Be it be a political, advertising, or educational. Games, being interactive and of immediate gratification in nature, present a unique opportunity to both support and create change in social and cultural thinking.


So, just what was going to be MY rhetoric that I want to present to the end user?


After taking a critical look at the "turn based genre", with games such as Civ IV being my main area of focus, I found three key areas I wanted to explore a new and unique rhetoric:


"TIME"
Even in the CIV series, time plays a critical role. You grow over time, yet there has never been a representation that has carried "weight" in the game world. I hope to change this by actually showing the importance of time and relationships presented by time, such as logistics and information. One early example of this theory is the removal of a traditional fog of war. Instead of the standard "blacked out" areas beyond of your area of view, you may have a general knowledge of what is there, only since information takes time to travel, this leads to delayed map representation for your nation.


"MANAGEMENT" 
I feel like this is a key departure from the so called "norm" of the turn based genre, and somewhere I can easily turn the standard idea on its head. Most games have developed a concept of a “god” complex. Every game can essentially be boiled down to the same concept of the player having an omni-control over every aspect of your “sphere of influence” allowing you complete and total micromanagement. You can see this in everything from Civilization to Black and White to even RTS games like Starcraft or Command and Conquer. 


The experiment I wish to explore is why cant one just create the illusion of complete control? As a companion concept (and possibly fitting as a subrole to representation of time) I want to present the user to the idea of the removal of complete control, creating a reactionary style of gameplay. No ruler has the time, bandwidth, or desire to manage every aspect of a nation and so the player will be forced to instead implement general over-reaching policy and guidelines to help grow and lead a nation. I will spend amply time explaining this in depth later on when I discuss gameplay mechanics.


"SOCIAL"
As I mentioned in my previous post, the social aspect is important to not only to the platform, but currently to games in general. With games like Farmville on Facebook drawing in millions of players a day, it is easy to see people wish to play something with a sense of community interaction. I have some unique theories (again to be discussed in depth in a subsequent post) which have never been done before, yet create an awareness that even though you may be playing a multiplayer game against only so many people, you feel like your decisions carry weight to the game universe.


Using this newly formed rhetoric for the turn based gameplay, I hope to be able to create something new, innovative, and perhaps just a smidgen educational.


Now I just have to finalize the feature set...

Looking ahead: Things to do.

With 24 hours under my belt, it is time to look through my past quarter of theory building and research to come up with a game plan for the next three months.

So far I have already established a lengthy set of boundaries and rules to ground my game theory and "universe" so to speak, and it has provided me a strong foundation to jump out towards the abyss.

Here are the 5 core rules I laid out:

• Quick to Play: Being an iPhone centered concept, I wanted things to play out quickly. 5-10 minute play sessions are the "sweet spot" for the platform, and as such I don't want anything that become to cumbersome and time consuming.
• Social interaction: The iPhone is that, a PHONE, you have to have interaction. I felt that a multiplayer or some way to interact and communicate with friends and foes is a key feature to keep track of on such an inherently social platform.
• Follow the Rhetoric: I must stick to the rhetoric I created for my game theory. This in itself deserves a subsequent entry to its own.
• Innovation: The game needs to do something new or different. It needs a "hook", or who will take the chance to spend time playing the game?
• Fun: The game just has to be fun, that is the MOST important thing, and if you fail here, the entire project has failed.

I did this for the simple reason that I didn't wish to lose focus of my end goals. With my production crew consisting of "me, myself, and I", I really need to keep a laser rocket focus to be able to keep things moving along at a brisk pace.

Through CHID 491 in Autumn Quarter, I was able to do all the needed research and theory crafting so that I would be able to dive into the production side of the project. Unfortunately, this means I now need a check list for milestones to reach over the next 77 days.

My goal is to hopefully hit AT LEAST one milestone per week, allowing for some margin of error in terms of scope for a given goal.

Important milestones:

• Nail down final feature spec
• Create Government relationship matrix
• Create Ethnicity matrix
• Develop card system and resulting tech trees (civil, science, military)
• Develop language relations
• Scripting of text for immediate localization into French, Spanish, and German
• Develop war simulation and military control
• Invent Morale System (creation of city "sway", riot thresholds, and revolution points)
• Flesh out Logistics
• Creation of full world map
• Create final art direction
• UI development/proof of concept
• Card art
• Additional art assets
• UX reviews
• RAD prototyping

2010

2010: another year begins. People make resolutions, turn over a new leaf, and generally try and improve themselves for a short period of time and falling back into their hectic, day to day lifestyle they have developed over the years.

With this new decade and horizon ahead of me I enter my final quarter at the University of Washington undergrad program. That means I am now 100% in full swing for my Senior Thesis. This ridiculous task I have placed upon myself is the creation from beginning to end of a video game for the iPhone platform.

From the beginning I know I am doomed to fail, it is near impossible to do this single handedly create a game of depth in such a short amount of time (10 weeks!). Luckily I happen to have a wonderful support staff, i.e. friends, to help me in the many facets involved.

Everyone needs to start somewhere, and so mine begins with the creation of Moon Unit Productions. This brand new and cutting edge development house (of one) is devoted to creating a new rhetoric of critical thinking in the world of game development, pushing innovation.

Think of this as a Developers Diary. Over the next 77 days, I will be detailing every production decision I make and the reasoning behind it. I will cover my successes, my failures, and post all concept/production art, along with critical looks into the games I am currently playing.

And so it begins.