Dark Spire Design

In my last post, I talked about building the open source console, the idea being to promote a standardized game format and an open source OS.  The company doing this would fund itself though licensing of a standard iconography and design that allows consumers to instantly recognize a game or piece of hardware for the platform.  If setting up all that (no easy feat for sure) is phase 1, then what’s next?  Assuming the hypothetical open gaming company can make it that far, the next step is getting those manufacturers and game makers on-board for this crazy idea, and supporting them with further options. Continue Reading »

Can’t sleep, so I thought I’d share the idea rattling around in my head.  Is it possible to make and profit from an open source gaming console?  Not only do I think it is, I’m shocked it hasn’t been done yet.  Maybe it is being done and I’m just missing something.  Assuming this isn’t being worked on though, I’ve got some idea of how to go about it. Continue Reading »

Esteemed game and graphic designer Daniel Solis has been talking about the interesting idea of replacing the magic items in D&D with nothing but consumables, which sounds like a pretty neat idea to me.  I mentioned (through Twitter) that it reminded me of Final Fantasy 8’s Draw system, and he asked for elaboration.  Feeling like 140 characters would not suffice, I bring it here.

So the Draw magic system in FF8 isn’t really all that big of a thing.  Most people probably remember the game more for Junctioning (where you would attach your Guardian Forces, the FF8 summons, and spells to your character in order to raise their stats).  To get magic in the game, you had to use a special ability called Draw on the monsters.  Doing so would net you a random amount of cards.  You could also use Draw Points, kind of like ley lines I guess, to draw additional spells, or refine old items down to base components which could be made into cards.

So all magic in the game was inventoried as cards.  I think that’s a neat implication for a tabletop game.  Instead of spells, cards.  Instead of magic items, cards.  Maybe they attach to the weapons and armor like those spirit talismans in anime, and you get a few uses out of them before the little scroll crumbles and you have to stick another on to get more flaming sword or +2 armor.  If each card had a different effect depending on what it attached to, or if it was cast directly, then you have an interesting resource management game going on in figuring out how best to use your limited stock of magic.

Somewhere on or above Blue Waste (I never got clear whether it was planetside or not), Michel the retired mercenary runs a bar. Morgan likes to drink here, good place to erase bad memories, though today he’s meeting with his favorite Babylonian sales woman. The jolly old ship Charon is in port as well, leaving the crew with some free time to grab drinks or whatever. (Yes, we actually started in a freakin’ tavern, because Michel owns one and it was a convenient place. You give the players freedom to set-up the story like they want and we end up in a bar.) Continue Reading »

I haven’t run a game in about a month and a half. Depression got me down, and maybe I just needed a rest. Well, nothing like a fresh new game to peak up interest. So it was that I called the crew together for a Day of Game to try out Diaspora. Plans were made, people were organized, it was looking to be our biggest game in a while. Of course, these things don’t always work out and one player pulled out at the last minute and another had car trouble which stalled the game until much later than I had wanted, but still we got together round the dining room table to try out FATE for the first time.There’s an audio of this as well, but I haven’t converted it from Audacity project into mp3 yet, and I’m unsure on the quality. Assuming it’s not complete crap (or completely embarrassing to me ), I may append that audio log as a reference for the AP. Continue Reading »

Just updated DSD.com to the newest version of WordPress and finally installed Askimet spam filtering.  Things should be much nicer around here now.

Over at my number-one hangout, RPG.net, someone asked an interesting question: “Should you be able to resell your game PDFs?” The discussion has your typical bouts of back and forth on the issue, my response ended up being a little dramatically long. I thought it would make a good post for this site, so here you go.

The problem is that digital media really is new: it’s not a product, nor is it a service. If it were a product, it would be tangible and limited. It’s like a product, in that it is a unit, but there really is not physical object and there is no limit to how many copies you can make without repercussion to the product. The certificate idea posted earlier attempts to rectify the “non-physical” aspect, making it a true product. DRM attempts to make it a limited resource, like most physical goods are. Neither idea works out too well, history shows. Continue Reading »

It’s a fun consequence of game design that when you get into a mood to do some theorizing, you rapidly find several theories that seem to circle a point in your own mind. That hurricane of ideas generates into a renewed view of the object of your analysis. The case under examination: Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix. *breath*

So recently I was blabbing away about Skill Atoms, and Danc even saw fit to set me straight on a few points. In the meanwhile, I’ve been finally reading Playing to Win over at David Sirlin’s site. When you get into competetive Street Fighter, Sirlin is kind of Sun Tzu of fighting games. Since he’s also the designer who rebalanced HD Remix, one has to think his insights might be helpful. So here’s what happens when you combine this stuff. Continue Reading »

I found my way to an article by Dan Cook (The Chemistry of Game Design) where he discusses something called a Skill Atom. (Danc, funny enough, is the guy who made the free sprites I’m using in Armada.) The article is a good read, but I find myself questioning a lot of the ideas. That’s probably a good thing, ideas need to be questioned.

I think my biggest problem is that Skill Atoms seem like a clever way to modeling the verbs used in a game, but the analysis doesn’t go deep enough into “how does knowing this make my game fun.” It misses too many ideas that the model simply thinks of as “red herrings.” To use an economics metaphor, it doesn’t internalize the externalities and those can make a big difference. Continue Reading »

Today I did something I haven’t done on my own before: set up an SVN repository.  It’s part of my continuing efforts to 1) get the most out of my webspace (which includes the hosting of this blog) and 2) to get some programming done.

So Armada is now up and happily safe in source control.  This also means I can work on my game from the desktop or the laptop, which is very convenient for me.

On the game itself, work continues at a slow but solid progression.  I got a working window today with properly cleared buffers, so my canvas is set.  That’s great news, since I mostly have the hard-but-uninteresting foundation code done and can soon move into getting the game logic written.  It’s also really nice to see the fruits of labor start to show through.

Next time, I’ll try to post up some more detailed design on the how game will play and some shots of the sprites I’m using in the game right now.