Bellwether Games interviews Randy!

by Randy

Hey, all!

I just wanted to let everyone know about some upcoming projects by the Growing Up Gamers crew. Bellwether Games, publishers of Drop Site, did an interview with me about some game design work I'm doing (some with my wife Angie and Julian of Cool Factor 5). We discuss Princess of the Hill as well as some other projects in the works. Drop by and check it out! Here's the link:

Interview with Randy

A big thanks to Dennis of Bellwether Games for giving me this opportunity!

The Workshop: Princess of the Hill, Part Three!

by Randy

The creative gears are a-grindin' for the folks at Growing up Gamers! Angie and I are teaming up with our friend Julian of Cool Factor 5 on a big soon-to-be-revealed and super awesome fun project. 5-year old Katie just recruited programming talent to code her very own video game (yes, I am being serious... that girl has ambition!). Our two-year old son Jack is the only one not working on a game design, as far as I can tell... wait, scratch that... when I said that out loud he replied "No, I has a game project too! I own project" and its apparently involving a "beetle with a camera" (?). So in the midst of this, I decided to brush off Princess of the Hill and share the fun stuff I have simmering on the back burner. Since the original post, I have received a fair amount of feedback, both in comments and in drawings from my daughter. Since then, I have done a little more concept art and started working on the basic mechanics of attacking opponents.

So I have decided that there will be equipment to be used. Equipment will be findable on the board (unsure of exactly what that looks like...). Not quite so extensive as what Katie recommended, but it'll be there. First up, we have Crowns. Crowns are symbols of authority, and each princess will have one at most. Each is unique and will most likely add to an attack value, allow changing attack cards or give a draw bonus. Here are a couple examples:

The Crown of Assorted Errands: Fit for a Princess who likes to soften up opponents from afar first, this Crown allows a Princess to make a Strike attack at range.

The Crown of Irony: This Crown was into rulership before rulership was cool, as the hipster Princess wearing this will. This Crown grants a +1 bonus to Drag attacks, as the one who wears this will certainly be a drag to hang around with.

Next we have Scepters. Scepters are representative of a ruler's power, and the ones here are no different. Each Scepter is unique and will usually add to attack power and/or allow the Princess to keep her attack card instead of discarding at the end of the attack phase. Examples:

Scepterchucks, yo!: Scepterchucks... do they need further introduction? The joke may... it's a reference to 8-bit Theater. I haven't decided the exact effect of these, but I expect both keeping Strike cards played and granting +1 Strike.

Louisville Scepter: When you absolutely gotta knock a princess out of the park, the Louisville Scepter is a good, solid choice. This one will grant a +2 Push.

Additionally, there will be Scepter and Crown combinations called Regalia. WHen you have both pieces of the set, you will get a bonus. To make things simple, it will most likely just increase your draw valued by one, in addition to the individual effects of each item. These will most likely not be the only items, but we'll see.

To counteract equipment, I'm thinking that some attack cards will have a Steal effect upon the resolution of the attack: some will steal on a success, and some will steal on a failure. Just to mix it up a little.

Now on to mechanics. As stated in the original post, there will be three types of attack cards: Push, Drag and Strike. Drag beats Push; Push beats Strike; Strike beats Drag. Strike is the easiest to resolve: the player will discard cards equal to the value of the attack. Push is also pretty straightforward, both conceptually and in effect. Here is a diagram of Push:

Note the numbers; this will be where the defender ends up after a successful attack by the attacker.

Drag is a little more complex. I looked over the board and imagined what a Drag in a fight would look like. Basically, you grab the person, spin and let them careen to their fate. Here is what I see this looking like:

So that is a basic representation of combat. The examples I gave do not have other Princesses around that could be hit, nor Unicorn Poop to slip on, nor anything like a brick wall to suddenly arrest movement. We're not taking uphill/downhill into effect, either, nor are we worrying about facing (though the pieces in the examples have their front arcs marked. I'll get all that figured out in a rules mockup soon. Sound fun? I hope so!

Okay, that's it. Anyone have any ideas to share? Quirky equipment ideas? I'd love to hear 'em!

Challenge Update!

By Angie

Playing the Game

Ok folks, confession time. Remember a while back when I wrote about Chore Wars and implementing games into real life tasks… well, here’s our story. We signed up for an account and then got completely overwhelmed by the variety of options and trying to balance the quests and rewards. Loved the principle, but felt like we needed a complex spreadsheet to set up the game and figure out how much things should be worth and what it would all mean for us. The default list of quests didn’t really apply to the things we wanted to do, and after a couple of hour-long discussions about it we ended up doing… nothing. Hmm.

Now What?

Despite our epic fail with Chore Wars, I was still intrigued by the idea. I kept thinking “How can I add just a touch of fun and motivation to make all these household tasks a bit more tolerable??”  I’ve been reading this amazing book called Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World written by my real life hero Jane McGonigal (more about her inspiring work in a future post!). Anyhow, in this book she discusses how games make us happier, inspire us, and can evoke a powerful sense of optimism and personal triumph. Meanwhile, I’m drudging through my day getting defeated by never-ending mountains of laundry and the wake of destruction my toddler creates as he moves through the house. There’s got to be a better way…

A New Quest

My character!

Enter Epic Win. Epic Win is a to-do list app for the iPhone/iPad. It’s simple and elegant and EXACTLY what I needed. You pick a character, enter some to-do’s, and you’re off on a grand adventure. When you enter a task, you select which attribute it will be associated with; strength for physical jobs, stamina for jobs that require some endurance, intellect for brain work, social for things dealing with people, and spirit for things that increase your well-being or help out someone else. You also select how much experience it will be worth, ranging from 50-300 points. You can easily do things like set tasks for specific days, set alarms, and have them repeat when desired. The whole interface is slick and simple. As you go through your day you can log your completed quests by holding down the exp symbol, and you get a satisfying quick animation and sound effect. In addition, your character levels up and gains stats based upon the attribute associated with the quests you complete. Complete a lot of manual tasks and your avatar will gain strength, homework and paying bills and your character will gain intellect. Completing quests also moves you along a map, gains you some gold, and can result in a piece of random loot when you get to certain places on the map.

What's this all about?

Today's to-do list.. what's left of it!

The reason this works for me is that it helps me to organize my goals, and feel a small (but important) sense of accomplishment and achievement when I finish something. I’m curious what the next “prize” will be, and feel proud that my intellect has gone up because I finished all my homework. I find myself doing “just one more” little job around the house to see if I can level up. Since it’s just my own personal game, I don’t have to worry if things are balanced or fair. If I feel like taking out the trash at the end of the day is a feat of epic strength worth 300 exp, then so be it. It’s a simple way for me to incentivize the little things in my life. I like looking over my “beaten quests” for the day and realizing how much I accomplished rather than looking around seeing how much there still is to do. I’ve managed to make time for playing guitar simply because it was on the list as a quest and therefore seemed important enough to do. Randy started playing Epic Win too and has been spotted doing push-ups and extra chores just to get a little more experience points before bed. We’re focusing more on things that are important for our well-being, and having some fun doing it. It basically boils down to a stylish to-do list, but for me it gave a much needed dash of flair and fantasy to the hum-drum tasks of ordinary life.

Your Move!

We found something that works for us, did you? We’d love to hear if you gave any thought to the challenge, and how you fared. Any game ideas or cool programs/apps/stories? Leave us some comments!!

Let's have some fun!

by Angie

Games are fun. Sometime in life you have to do things that are not inherently so fun. Here’s an idea: let’s take an aspect of our lives that we HAVE to do, but aren’t excited about and see if we can make it into a game. I do this with my kids all the time; we turn tasks like gathering dirty clothes, picking up toys, and getting dressed into fun little games that get them excited, motivated, or just playful about these activities as opposed to uncooperative, sullen, or grumpy. Games do that... they engage us, reward us, and generally make things more fun.

I was insprired to write about this when I recently came across an explanation of an online game that was designed specifically to make real-world tasks more appealing. Chore Wars is an interesting-looking multiplayer chore management game.  We haven't played it yet, but from what I can tell it's a game world in which you take on specific real life household tasks to gain experience and level up your in-game character. This can be used to make undesirable jobs exciting and motivate yourself (or kids, or whoever) to actually clear out the cobwebs in the corner of the ceiling…literally. You can pretend you are facing off against a giant spider hoard while swinging the broom, and then log the exp afterwards. Or if you are more of the competitive type, you can show up your roommate by gaining more exp and gold than her! Or offer prizes to motivate a spouse to accomplish the items on the honey-do list that have been hanging out for waaaay too long. The idea is to have fun, receive recogntion for the hard work you do, and reward yourself for a job well done.

We’re getting ready to launch a Chore Wars account for our household because.. why not? We have to clean up after our whirlwind children (and ourselves!), so why not add elements of motivation, reward, and fun to the equation? After we try it out we'll let you know what we think... and if Chore Wars sounds fun, give it a try and tell us how it worked (or didn't work) for you! If Chore Wars doesn't get you excited, there are lots of other ways you can incorporate playing a game into your daily routine. It doesn’t have to involve complicated rules or computer programs or bits to be effective. Fun, fun, fun is the main point here.

So here’s my challenge to you… come up with (or discover) a game you can play with your family, friends, coworkers, roommates, or by yourself that makes some aspect of your life a little more enjoyable, and post what you did in the comments to inspire others! Let’s get a big group-think on and see if we can’t find small ways (or big ones) to turn those frowns upside down!

Katie's Ideas on Princess of the Hill

by Randy & Katie

Hello, everybody! After I explained my game idea for Princess of the Hill to Katie and showed her some of the concept art I've whipped up she had some ideas for me. Here is what she said to me... enjoy!

Katie: "It's a four player game of princess battlers. That's the name! Call it 'Princess Battlers'! They fight with paint scrapers. They're really strong princesses."

Randy: "How should the game be played?"

Katie: "I'm still thinking about that. Every player has two scrapers. They have to knock all the other princesses off the hill. "

Randy: "Okay, anything else?"

Katie: "Yeah... they should have hundreds of pants, hundreds of shirts, hundreds of everything."

Then Katie was inspired to draw some pictures. Katie saw me drawing this one:

And then she followed up with these of her own:

The game board:

Accessories:

Well, that's what Katie has to share. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did!

The Workshop: Princess of the Hill!

by Randy

I've decided that I'm going to go in a different direction for this post: I'm going to make a game. Now, it won't be finished at the end of the post, of course. But I expect that this will be a series of posts, hopefully culminating in a playable game! The idea is to share the process that I'm using and get feedback. I have not yet completed a game, so here's to hoping this is my first!

So, the concept: a hex-based tactical combat/area control game. The idea is to bank as many points as you can, doing this by maintaining control of the central hex on the board. Other players (at least one more, probably more) are trying to do the same. You will play cards to do everything in the game, I'm thinking. The game play will be focused on getting your token on the space and staying there, and moving others' pieces around the board (or at least off the space).

I even have a theme: Princess of the Hill! A knock-down, drag-out brawl  between the kingdom's elite offspring. I'll mock up some more pictures soon... that helps me get into the mindset more. I haven't decided whether they're going to be kids or adults.  I feel good about the theme and believe a fun theme is going to help get the creative juices flowing.

So here we go....

Hexes. My idea was a central hex with three or four concentric rings. I think this would be a good representation of our hill. Player tokens will be hexes, as well. As a matter of fact, I think that facing will be relevant, so front vs. back will have a game effect. The idea is that the player controlling the central hex will be in a more precarious place.

Combat. Combat should be simple and fun. Perhaps a rock-paper-scissors style resolution, similar to Yomi. My moves will be Push, Drag or Strike. So, Push beats Strike beats Drag beats Push. We'll get back to resolving same vs. same later... or maybe it just means discarding and choosing again. We'll see. Additionally, there will be special moves. I'm thinking Feint, Suckerpunch, Charge. Maybe also values for attack types. I'm thinking successful Push or Drags will move the defender farther or closer to the Attacker, respectively, and Strike will do damage to hand cards, as in discarding as "damage", but without player elimination. Since the combat is the central part of this game, we're going need to make this tight and refined.

Movement is a necessity, too. I'm considering paying for movement, or perhaps for movement beyond the standard allotment. Payment would be in hand cards (not special movement cards or something), if that gets figured in. I like the idea of being able to rush, but that this would result in you being a little weakened from the effort. With this added, and damage being applied to hand cards, this makes the ebb and flow of the hand size directly correlate to energy of the character.

Speaking of hand size, players need to get cards. My thought on this is that while on the top, you draw one per turn. Each successive ring adds one to your draw value. Without cards, it's tougher to fight and hold onto the prize. Also adds the consideration of stepping down to "rest" and regain a hand.

Scoring... we need a way to win. My thought is that if you end your turn on the middle hex, you can bank one hand card as a victory point. On the middle hex, you're only drawing one per round so you won't be holding it too long, assuming other players are attacking.

The full idea is this: I want to make a game with a fun theme (check!). I want it to be tactical, with somewhat of a resource-management element. I also what it, despite its theme, to be playable as a serious area-control game with serious tactical considerations. I'm of the opinion that my idea here is workable, and that I can bang this into working game. That being said, anyone have any advice to offer? I'm hoping to make this a work-in-progress type thing and spread it over several blog posts. I'll continue to work on this and share my ideas. That way, we can all learn about game design together!