Hey all,
Happy New Year and whatnot. First off, I've been thinking about artwork a bit lately. I read a review once, I think on The Forge, saying that it was sometimes better if the game designer did some of his own artwork, because it tends to be more creative, imaginative, and exactly the image he has in his head. So, on that note, I've been starting work on drawing. I feel like I really need to get better about technique, though I often sometimes feel like my imagination is lacking. Overall I'm planning on mostly doing Spirit World drawings, and thus am trying to make them look, well, surreal. I've done about 20 or so character sketches, maybe half of them are good enough that they could be fixed up and used. I've been playing around with character proportions a lot, amongst other things.
Simplification: So, originally this game included what were basically 3 non-combat stats: Intelligence, Spirit, and Save (which had originally been three different kinds of saves). After a recent post on BGDF, I started thinking I'd be better off eliminating Intelligence (since it hit me that this is a stat that you have to initiate using, and during playtests, I think I'm the only person I've ever seen use it). Then it hit me that really I could combine Spirit and Save. I don't know, before they were both made to represent similar things. A problem I'd been having is that it seemed like either you would desperately need them, or else (more often) that they'd never come up. As a result, it was usually not worth it to try to boost your Save and Spirit. If I combine them however, I think there is a much greater chance that the new stat (which I think will just be Spirit) will come up on a regular enough basis to at least sometimes be worth boosting.
Simon
“In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.” – Antoine de Saint-Expuéry
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Monday, December 21, 2009
Calibration
It's funny, you come up with a big fancy tool like a genetic algorithm, and half-way into analyzing the data you start getting confused about the output. I mean, it's obvious that if you run a simulation, and one ability wins 90% of games, that you have a problem. However, it's getting harder to quantify when something is really so good it's problematic. For example, what results would you expect if one ability had a 5% advantage over all other abilities? A 3% advantage? A 4% disadvantage?
i've taken to running what basically amount to calibration simulations to try to figure this out. Basically, instead of having a battle be long and confusing, I just simplify it as each person has a 50% chance of winning, plus or minus what they get from an ability, and pick a random number. I then run the algorithm with this as the fight routine, and see what the results are. One interesting thing I found: If one ability has a 5% advantage, you'll notice it under most detection methods. If one ability has a 10% advantage, and 3 other abilities have 5% advantages, you won't notice the 5% advantages.
The other thing I'm working on right now is somewhat of an equalizing algorithm. Basically, you run a genetic algorithm, and look at the results. If one ability is obviously stronger, you reduce it's power. If one is obviously weaker, you increase it's power. Then, repeat like 40 times, until hopefully you approach a steady state. I've tried it twice, and last time got results that can't be right. I am realizing that I didn't have a good measurement for "stronger" or "weaker," so right now am running a calibration to try to figure that out.
Blah, too much about computer simulations recently. Anyways, my hope is to try to get something reasonable by the time I go home for Xmas, so that I can playtest it with friends over the holiday. We'll see if that happens. If nothing else I might just abandon the GA simulation and switch to a straight out, each ability fights each other ability 10 000 times, and sees who wins the most.
Simon
“My main operating principal: Don’t take any shit from the zeitgeist.” – George Carlin
i've taken to running what basically amount to calibration simulations to try to figure this out. Basically, instead of having a battle be long and confusing, I just simplify it as each person has a 50% chance of winning, plus or minus what they get from an ability, and pick a random number. I then run the algorithm with this as the fight routine, and see what the results are. One interesting thing I found: If one ability has a 5% advantage, you'll notice it under most detection methods. If one ability has a 10% advantage, and 3 other abilities have 5% advantages, you won't notice the 5% advantages.
The other thing I'm working on right now is somewhat of an equalizing algorithm. Basically, you run a genetic algorithm, and look at the results. If one ability is obviously stronger, you reduce it's power. If one is obviously weaker, you increase it's power. Then, repeat like 40 times, until hopefully you approach a steady state. I've tried it twice, and last time got results that can't be right. I am realizing that I didn't have a good measurement for "stronger" or "weaker," so right now am running a calibration to try to figure that out.
Blah, too much about computer simulations recently. Anyways, my hope is to try to get something reasonable by the time I go home for Xmas, so that I can playtest it with friends over the holiday. We'll see if that happens. If nothing else I might just abandon the GA simulation and switch to a straight out, each ability fights each other ability 10 000 times, and sees who wins the most.
Simon
“My main operating principal: Don’t take any shit from the zeitgeist.” – George Carlin
Thursday, December 17, 2009
More thoughts on points...
A thing I always wondered about: is it worth considering a psychological value when adding up points? Let's say you have a ogre, with a massive club. That is much scarier than a healer who regeneration and heavy armor. However, what if they are evenly matched? I sometimes wonder if the ogre with a massive club should be worth more, just because everyone is going to freak out when they see it. Does that make sense?
I guess to tie it a little more to my game: whenever I did playtesting, it was rare that anyone would give their character a boost to statistics. Everyone preferred something more sexy, like a special attack. However, I'm finding that often, the special abilities have been weaker than the statistics. The problem is, I slightly worry that if I weaken the stats so they do actually match evenly, then even fewer people will pick them. I mean, I guess that shouldn't be my concern, my concern should be what is actually even, and rather than leave a game ready to be unbalanced (as soon as a player really crunches the numbers).
Simon
“Your grandchildren will likely find it incredible - or even sinful - that you burned up a gallon of gasoline to fetch a pack of cigarettes!” – Paul MacCready, Jr.
I guess to tie it a little more to my game: whenever I did playtesting, it was rare that anyone would give their character a boost to statistics. Everyone preferred something more sexy, like a special attack. However, I'm finding that often, the special abilities have been weaker than the statistics. The problem is, I slightly worry that if I weaken the stats so they do actually match evenly, then even fewer people will pick them. I mean, I guess that shouldn't be my concern, my concern should be what is actually even, and rather than leave a game ready to be unbalanced (as soon as a player really crunches the numbers).
Simon
“Your grandchildren will likely find it incredible - or even sinful - that you burned up a gallon of gasoline to fetch a pack of cigarettes!” – Paul MacCready, Jr.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Exciting news and a new thought
First, the exciting news: I have been programming a genetic algorithm to test the relative strengths of each ability. Basically, a genetic algorithm is a computer simulation based on natural selection. In this, we start out with a population of 1000 random characters. Each one battles everyone else. If someone dies, they are replaced with a clone of the winner. After every 500 battles, we shuffle things up and do it again. I've been doing this sort of piece-wise, adding one or two abilities into the simulation each day. Anyways, the problem I was having was that almost always, I'd run the simulation, and a single pair of abilities would pop up as the best (such as "Power of the Fist" combined with "Greatweapon"). Then, after adding my 19th ability, I ran the simulation, and got major oscillations. Basically, there were about 8 or 10 abilities which would in pairs begin to skyrocket, until they had almost become the only ability, and then would suddenly decline, and a different set of 2 or 3 abilities would start to skyrocket, and so on. The basic meaning of this is that there is no best combination of abilities, and that even if a few appear to be good, they can often be beaten by the right pair. Some abilities didn't really get used much. I might try to tweak things, although to be honest, I worry about this less for two reasons. First, most of the weaker abilities are not well modeled in this simulation (such as archery weapons, or healing powers), and have non-combat uses. Second, if you have 10 abilities that are strong and 2 that are weak, effectively that means you have 10 abilities that you would choose from. If you have 2 that are strong and 10 that are weak, you really only have 2 to chose from.
Second, the new thought on my game: My game takes place in two world. The paradigm has always gone like this: in the real world, people are slow and tough; in the spirit world, people are fast and frail. This often leads to games where people really charge in in the spirit world, and sometimes nothing happens in the real world. What if I mixed the paradigms, and made spirit world people both faster and more robust. My thought is this: now, you can rush in and fight in the spirit world, but often before you have finished, things are already happening in the real world. I don't know, it's a thought. I'll test it out and see what people think.
Simon
“Looking back, I think it was more difficult to see what the problems were than to solve them.” – Darwin
Second, the new thought on my game: My game takes place in two world. The paradigm has always gone like this: in the real world, people are slow and tough; in the spirit world, people are fast and frail. This often leads to games where people really charge in in the spirit world, and sometimes nothing happens in the real world. What if I mixed the paradigms, and made spirit world people both faster and more robust. My thought is this: now, you can rush in and fight in the spirit world, but often before you have finished, things are already happening in the real world. I don't know, it's a thought. I'll test it out and see what people think.
Simon
“Looking back, I think it was more difficult to see what the problems were than to solve them.” – Darwin
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Too long
Hey all,
Boy, grad school starts, and suddenly free time vanishes. I've been getting back into this recently. I had about a month where it really felt like I did almost nothing but work, then I had this eye of the hurricane kind of week where the planets aligned and I didn't have anything to do. I actually spent a Sunday sitting around bored, thinking to myself, "Okay, I used to have hobbies, what were they?" It's gotten me back into this.
I've rethought my back-story. It's a bit complicated. I wrote the whole thing up in detail and it was just over 3 pages. Basically, there is a fight over who becomes the next king after the old king dies. Balthazar basically wins by being the worst of any of the princes. However, because he is so terrible, there is an uprising. During the uprising (in part because of a failed assassination), Balthazar becomes paranoid of traitors, and creates a series of forced labor prison islands to lock up political prisoners, and anyone he suspects isn't 100% loyal. Eventually, he locks up all of the wizards in the kingdom, and forces them to study magic and produce things he can use to battle uprising. As time goes by, the wizards teach the other prisoners how to use magic, and everyone revolts, and takes back the island. Rather than try to reclaim the island, Balthazar basically curses it (long story, will probably explain later). All hell breaks loose, and basically former prison gangs reform in a fight for survival, all waiting until they can escape the island (when it becomes winter, the seas will freeze, until then it would be too cold and dangerous to swim).
I've gone back to computer simulations. A new thing I'm doing is testing what happens if characters have multiple abilities, using genetic algorithms. It's kind of surprising, abilities that didn't seem too strong before really come out when you can link it with another ability. It leaves me with that old question: how similar do abilities need to be, before that can be within an acceptable level of closeness? There are some real issues, for example, take regeneration. This ability allows characters to heal some number of hit points every turn, whether or not they are in combat. The question then becomes: should it usually lose to someone with a greatweapon (since that is a combat-only ability)? How much of an advantage should a person with a greatweapon have? Is there a way to account for this?
Also, it's kind of funny: these computer algorithms take quite a long time to program, and then it really feels like you can get most of what you want to know by running them once or twice. It feels, I don't know, almost anti-climactic. You write your programs under the idea of, "Gee, let's see, what can I do so that one simulation will give me all the information I need," and then when you finally run it, you're left with this feeling of, "This took me a couple hours to program. I should really run it more than just once." Funny how life works.
Simon
“Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.” – Thomas Jefferson
Boy, grad school starts, and suddenly free time vanishes. I've been getting back into this recently. I had about a month where it really felt like I did almost nothing but work, then I had this eye of the hurricane kind of week where the planets aligned and I didn't have anything to do. I actually spent a Sunday sitting around bored, thinking to myself, "Okay, I used to have hobbies, what were they?" It's gotten me back into this.
I've rethought my back-story. It's a bit complicated. I wrote the whole thing up in detail and it was just over 3 pages. Basically, there is a fight over who becomes the next king after the old king dies. Balthazar basically wins by being the worst of any of the princes. However, because he is so terrible, there is an uprising. During the uprising (in part because of a failed assassination), Balthazar becomes paranoid of traitors, and creates a series of forced labor prison islands to lock up political prisoners, and anyone he suspects isn't 100% loyal. Eventually, he locks up all of the wizards in the kingdom, and forces them to study magic and produce things he can use to battle uprising. As time goes by, the wizards teach the other prisoners how to use magic, and everyone revolts, and takes back the island. Rather than try to reclaim the island, Balthazar basically curses it (long story, will probably explain later). All hell breaks loose, and basically former prison gangs reform in a fight for survival, all waiting until they can escape the island (when it becomes winter, the seas will freeze, until then it would be too cold and dangerous to swim).
I've gone back to computer simulations. A new thing I'm doing is testing what happens if characters have multiple abilities, using genetic algorithms. It's kind of surprising, abilities that didn't seem too strong before really come out when you can link it with another ability. It leaves me with that old question: how similar do abilities need to be, before that can be within an acceptable level of closeness? There are some real issues, for example, take regeneration. This ability allows characters to heal some number of hit points every turn, whether or not they are in combat. The question then becomes: should it usually lose to someone with a greatweapon (since that is a combat-only ability)? How much of an advantage should a person with a greatweapon have? Is there a way to account for this?
Also, it's kind of funny: these computer algorithms take quite a long time to program, and then it really feels like you can get most of what you want to know by running them once or twice. It feels, I don't know, almost anti-climactic. You write your programs under the idea of, "Gee, let's see, what can I do so that one simulation will give me all the information I need," and then when you finally run it, you're left with this feeling of, "This took me a couple hours to program. I should really run it more than just once." Funny how life works.
Simon
“Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.” – Thomas Jefferson
Friday, August 14, 2009
Story, edits, and rules
I just got back from like a 3 week Greyhound trip, and then a couple days after arriving home moved to Tucson for grad school, which starts in a week. So, life has been a tad crazy lately. That said, conversations with one of the friends I visited, and too much time on the bus have given me a lot of new ideas.
First, perhaps the biggest: changing the story. During my visit I saw a good friend who’s a bit of a history buff (certainly more than me). He read my backstory, and was able to pick apart a number of weak elements in the theme. Also, after he read it, he said it reminded him a lot of the Soviet Gulag system, and recommended some books to read on that subject. The little I’ve read so far, it sounds kind of perfect. So, I see a somewhat major change coming soon, maybe. There is a good chance though that the owner of the island will be modeled somewhat after Stalin. Isn’t plagiarizing from history so great? You get such amazing off-the-wall stories, and no one owns them. Not just that, but you are actually thought highly of if you steal history’s ideas. I had another friend make this funny comment about how people who read the game will say, “Hey, he’s smart for knowing this about history, and I’m smart for also knowing this about history. This is great!”
I also have some ideas for shortening the textbook. I’m not sure if they will simplify or complicate the rules, basically I will spell out categories for things that were already de-facto categories. I guess the best example of this: it’s possible to do something in this game called storing spells, basically where you prepare them to be used once. Because they are a little obscure, I didn’t make note of them in the original rules. However, looking over it again, I have 4 abilities that use them, so I decided that rather than explain the rules individually in 4 places, I would explain it once in the rules. I don’t know whether that make it more or less complicated, since now everyone has to see those rules. I don’t know, maybe I’ll talk to my old roommate, he seems to be good at finding the simplest way of explaining things.
Other than that, I did a really thorough edit. Why does it take so many tries to make something sound right?
Lastly, I had a friend suggest, if I am hoping to run simulations, that I should just program them in C++. I used to know how to write C++ code, I’m a bit rusty at this point. This should be a good review.
First, perhaps the biggest: changing the story. During my visit I saw a good friend who’s a bit of a history buff (certainly more than me). He read my backstory, and was able to pick apart a number of weak elements in the theme. Also, after he read it, he said it reminded him a lot of the Soviet Gulag system, and recommended some books to read on that subject. The little I’ve read so far, it sounds kind of perfect. So, I see a somewhat major change coming soon, maybe. There is a good chance though that the owner of the island will be modeled somewhat after Stalin. Isn’t plagiarizing from history so great? You get such amazing off-the-wall stories, and no one owns them. Not just that, but you are actually thought highly of if you steal history’s ideas. I had another friend make this funny comment about how people who read the game will say, “Hey, he’s smart for knowing this about history, and I’m smart for also knowing this about history. This is great!”
I also have some ideas for shortening the textbook. I’m not sure if they will simplify or complicate the rules, basically I will spell out categories for things that were already de-facto categories. I guess the best example of this: it’s possible to do something in this game called storing spells, basically where you prepare them to be used once. Because they are a little obscure, I didn’t make note of them in the original rules. However, looking over it again, I have 4 abilities that use them, so I decided that rather than explain the rules individually in 4 places, I would explain it once in the rules. I don’t know whether that make it more or less complicated, since now everyone has to see those rules. I don’t know, maybe I’ll talk to my old roommate, he seems to be good at finding the simplest way of explaining things.
Other than that, I did a really thorough edit. Why does it take so many tries to make something sound right?
Lastly, I had a friend suggest, if I am hoping to run simulations, that I should just program them in C++. I used to know how to write C++ code, I’m a bit rusty at this point. This should be a good review.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
New Approach
After my last two posts, I was talking to my roommate. I think this was his suggestion, if not a direct descendent of his suggestion, but he said to just try playtesting it myself. For some reason this hadn't occurred to me, but it made perfect sense. What I am doing now is just that: I'm making groups of characters with a single ability battle each other.
I decided that, because the game is going to so rarely be about one-on-one, to test a 3-on-3 game. For all of my examples, I have had three characters with bows ('archers') fighting three characters with some kind of stat increase ('soldiers'). Basically, the characters would march forward as the archers were shooting them. I recorded how much damage they took before getting into melee, and then the end result of combat.
So far, my predictions have been mostly true. If a party has a high dodge, they dominate. If the have a high armor, they still win with some casualties. If they have an extra attack, it ends in a draw.
I wish I had thought of this before (and can't really believe I didn't). I see this as kind of the gaming equivalent of a lab experiment: everything is done under perfectly controlled (and closed) settings, and you can test one thing really well. What I'm going to start doing is testing how well different attacks fare against each other. For example, next I'll have a crossbow and see what happens, then I'll start using special attacks like "Life Drain," or even summon powers, and seeing who wins.
This has left me with two frustrations: First, this is something that I could do much faster if my computer was working better. Really I could just put all of the parameters in, then run it 1000 times, and see how often the soldiers beat the archers (instead of, "Yeah, I played 2 or 3 games, they seemed to go like this"). Maybe it's worth seeing if I could get Python working or something. Second, I discovered this magical development tactic two days before I move out of my current house and three days before I take a trip across the country. :( Oh well...
I decided that, because the game is going to so rarely be about one-on-one, to test a 3-on-3 game. For all of my examples, I have had three characters with bows ('archers') fighting three characters with some kind of stat increase ('soldiers'). Basically, the characters would march forward as the archers were shooting them. I recorded how much damage they took before getting into melee, and then the end result of combat.
So far, my predictions have been mostly true. If a party has a high dodge, they dominate. If the have a high armor, they still win with some casualties. If they have an extra attack, it ends in a draw.
I wish I had thought of this before (and can't really believe I didn't). I see this as kind of the gaming equivalent of a lab experiment: everything is done under perfectly controlled (and closed) settings, and you can test one thing really well. What I'm going to start doing is testing how well different attacks fare against each other. For example, next I'll have a crossbow and see what happens, then I'll start using special attacks like "Life Drain," or even summon powers, and seeing who wins.
This has left me with two frustrations: First, this is something that I could do much faster if my computer was working better. Really I could just put all of the parameters in, then run it 1000 times, and see how often the soldiers beat the archers (instead of, "Yeah, I played 2 or 3 games, they seemed to go like this"). Maybe it's worth seeing if I could get Python working or something. Second, I discovered this magical development tactic two days before I move out of my current house and three days before I take a trip across the country. :( Oh well...
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