Score your day - more current version

 

It got a bit bigger.

Score your day - current version

Remember Score Your Day? Probably not.

Anyway, this is my current method for daily scoring. Just in case anyone wants to play along.

The Adventure Zone fan art - "You're Going To Be Amazing"

It's not often that I make fan art, but I felt like I had to pay homage to The Adventure Zone (Balance Arc) and this is how I chose to do it. It's probably the most emotionally affecting story that I've engaged with in recent memory and I enjoyed it very much.

Dragon's Dogma plot structure

As part of the early stages of my PhD research, I've been studying branching narratives and trying to come up with a consistent system for diagramming them. This image represents my current solution, and this approach seems to work for any game that I've tried so far, including tabletop RPGs.

I'm currently only looking at the structure of how the branching narrative functions, rather than any actual story content. The goal is to be able to disassemble and reassemble these structures, to fit the current status of the story. It's early days yet.

Here's a sort of key for the diagram:

I'm still here

I've been struggling, settling into my new life in Cornwall. It's frustrating because the PhD is basically a dream opportunity for me but I feel like I'm blowing it. But that's depression, I guess.

I knew it was going to be hard, living alone in a new place, making sure I socialise, trying to find new friends, adjusting to a new occupation, trying to ensure I stay on top of normal-person-things like fitness, hygiene and other responsibilities. But it feels like, however much I try to prepare, things are always so much harder to deal with than I imagined. And I end up feeling more and more like a failure. And then I realise that it's the depression making it worse (though there's always that part of me that believes that it's actually just me being lazy or not good enough).

So anyway, I am here. And I'm working as hard as I seem to be able to, even though I'm pretty sure that it's not currently hard enough. I'm now well enough to write about it, so I'm hoping that things are turning around. I feel like I'm going to have some interesting things to write about and share through my research - I'm looking forward to those days.

Thinky ChéBo

I am now a PhD student at the wonderful Falmouth University. More specifically, at their fantastic Games Academy. So this is where I'll mostly be for the next three or four years, at least.

The subject of my studentship is "Developing New Approaches to Branching Narratives in Computer Games", with my pitch revolving around bringing the way video game stories are handled closer to those of pen-and-paper roleplaying games, via a sort of virtual gamemaster. I could write more about it but I've been doing a lot of that recently and I'm sure my initial ideas are going to change drastically once my research begins properly.

My head's still spinning from the big change in lifestyle and moving and so on. It took a lot of hard work to get here but I'm pretty hopeful for the future. And, for the first time, I'm making my living via video games, which was basically my dream. I've also begun a little teaching-style work so it will be very interesting to see where that takes me. All-in-all, a positive change but tinged with sadness while I must mostly live away from my partner for at least a few years.

Thoughts on Dark Souls - The Board Game (Lost in Translation)

I recently played Dark Souls - The Board Game and had some thoughts that I wanted to share. While I’m not saying that it's a bad game, I do think it’s a bad translation of the video games into a board game. In particular, there’s major friction between the video games’ emphasis on skill-based gameplay and the board game’s emphasis on luck-based gameplay. I know that the video games include some reliance on luck and the board game includes some reliance on skill but their balances are massively different.

Most noticeably, I found the character progression to be very unsatisfying in a way that goes against the feel of the video games. The souls (currency) that you earn in the board game (at a frustratingly slow rate, I found) can be used to progress your character in one of two ways. You can either level up your stats (strength, dexterity, intelligence and faith) or buy new item cards from a deck. Both of these options have major flaws, in my opinion:

Apps for Mental Health

I'd like to take the time to share some recommendations for a few free apps for smartphones (I'm on Android but hopefully they are on iPhones too) that I feel help me to manage my own mental health. To give you a little context, I suffer with depression and anxiety and have been taking medication for it (on and off but mostly on) for a few years. I know that there are often stories going around about how smartphones and social media can be bad for mental health but I certainly feel like my phone is one of the biggest factors in helping me stay on top of things and it definitely has a positive impact on my mental health (when used correctly). And so, on to the list:

Daylio

Probably the most useful and effective of the apps that I use is Daylio. It works like a sort of micro-journal for moods and activities so allows me to inject small doses of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) into my day-to-day activities. At any time during the day, I open the app and record my mood (on a scale), what activities I've been up to recently (via selecting from user-defined icons) and a short statement about how I'm feeling and why (if I wish). The app then provides insights into mood and activity patterns, including charting mood over days, months and years and showing which activities are linked to which moods. This grants me a great insight into my behavioural patterns and allows me to improve my emotional intelligence. Even just the fact that I'm taking a little time to assess and analyse my moods and activities each day is a great help - it keeps me mindful and present. I highly recommend doing something similar.

Habitica

Combining a habit tracker, recurring tasks and a to-do list with some light game elements, Habitica is a great way to gamify (make a game of) your important tasks. Checking off your daily tasks, completing to-dos and fulfilling good habits rewards you with items and fake currency that you can use to improve the little character that represents you. Conversely, missing tasks and partaking in bad habits causes injury to your character. Once you've been using it for a while, you unlock more items, level up your character and unlock skills that you can use in the game for certain benefits. Importantly, you also gain the ability to form a group with other users and combine your efforts to resolve quests together. This group accountability can help push you to achieve your goals and not let your team down. I really like having access to this method of tracking my achievements and the little extra rewards (though not real) that I get for accomplishing my goals give me an extra reason to be productive.

Zombies! Run

To follow the theme of gamifying things that I should be doing anyway, Zombies! Run is the way that I make myself get outside and run or walk more. It is similar to other run trackers (Endomondo/Runtastic) in that it maps where you go and how fast you go there and all that. On top of that, there are some light game and story elements. Over a series of episodes (one run at a time), a post apocalyptic zombie survival story is presented to you purely through audio while you are out running. It frames your runs as reconnaissance and supply missions for a colony of survivors (including optional zombie chase segments, to boost your speed) with other characters speaking to you directly. Between runs, you can use the supplies that you found in a simple management game of upgrading your settlement. Again, having that extra level of rewards and progression encourages me to do these positive things more frequently. Whether it's because I want to improve my fitness or find out what happens next in the story, the runs are just as good for me.

Down Dog

Allowing me to quickly set up custom yoga practices (read: short and low-level, for now) with spoken instructions and photo guides, Down Dog really helps make yoga accessible to me. The benefits of exercise with regards to mental health are well-known and yoga also improves flexibility and includes a sort of meditative element which I think helps with mindfulness and stress-management. I really struggle with commitment to classes and motivation though, so being able to quickly get into an activity when I can muster the energy or will is very important to me. This app really helps me in that respect. It also doesn't cost anything (unlike classes), so that's good too.

And that is the end of my list. I didn't want to throw too much information at you so I stuck to the apps that I feel help me the most and tried to give some insight as to why so that you can get an idea of whether they might be good for you too. If you have any questions or would like to discuss anything I mentioned here or mental health in general, please don't hesitate to get in touch. I'm happy to talk about my experiences, especially if it might benefit others or help with understanding.

Misrepresentation?

I've recently been witness to a discussion about whether or not somebody (specifically, a heterosexual, cisgendered white man) should give a presentation about the representation (in a particular medium) of a social group (a minority) that they are not a part of. Some members of the given social group were wary of having a privileged person speaking on their behalf with no inside knowledge of the issues that they've faced, stating that a member of said group should be giving a presentation instead (or that the presenter's talk should be on another subject). Others were supportive of the presenter, stating that he is knowledgeable about the medium in question, has spent years researching this particular topic (including speaking with many people from said social group) and would approach it with care and consideration. It may be important to note that the presenter was invited to give a talk on any subject he wanted - he chose the representation of said social group in said medium - he wasn't invited in the place of somebody from that group.

This has troubled me. I am of the opinion that anybody should be able to give a presentation on any subject, so long as it is well-researched, considerate and useful. But I am not part of the social group mentioned above, so maybe my opinion is invalid. I certainly don't want to offend anybody.

Talky ChéBo

Hello! I just recently started working in a call centre. Nothing to do with games. Got to pay this bills, you know?

Since graduating, things have been pretty hectic. I've been applying for games industry jobs and a few doctorate programmes. There've been a few interviews, a bit of getting through to the later rounds, a small amount of positive feedback, a chunk of "we're sorry, but you didn't get through this time" and a lot of not receiving any response. It got to the point where I had to take a decent-paying, non-games job just to stay afloat. I'm not giving up on the games industry, this just means that I can only focus on it during my time off work.

In terms of personal productivity, I've had a lot of stuff on the go. Largely, I've been working on the early phases of some new projects so there're a lot of scribbles in my notepads and bits of paper floating around the house. Some of it has made it into the early coding phases, so hopefully I'll have some new prototypes and things coming through in the nearish future.

I'm also putting together a plan for developing and improving my portfolio and presence as a solo developer/gamesperson. While I don't have as much time for it as I used to, I'm hoping to make the most of what I do have and set progress goals to improve my output.

Ultra JankenSquad Forever playtest

We had a pretty good playtest of Ultra JankenSquad Forever at the lovely Cardiff BRAWL's All Day Roleplaying event yesterday.

JankenSquad (for short) is my anime-inspired, Rock-Paper-Scissors RPG system. It makes for an easy, fun and quick game with a lot of player power. The emphasis is definitely on the roleplaying rather than any complex rules simulation. That's fairly obvious though, given the simplicity of the R-P-S system. Having each of the three choices represent an approach to a situation, rather than a specific action or skill, gives the players a huge amount of freedom, which they seemed to enjoy. It does mean the GM has to be on top of everything and represent NPC and environment challenges fairly.

One issue is that it can be a bit easy for players to overcome challenges, given that they always have at least a one in three chance of beating the GM in a check. This isn't necessarily so bad, though, as long as the story is moving along fine and the players are having fun. The GM could always require several successes to resolve a problem or something like that. Also, it can sometimes be fairly obvious what the "correct" approach to a situation is (for example, Guile/Paper would always seem to be the right approach to a stealthy situation). This can be overcome by everyone bearing in mind that each of the three approaches can be applied to any situation. In the stealth example Resolve/Rock can represent careful, slow movement, Guile/Paper can represent outmanoeuvring/outwitting the enemy and Aggression/Scissors can represent dashing from cover to cover.

I've been thinking about writing up the rules and making them available online as a PDF or something. Maybe I'll sell a deluxe edition with pretty pictures for a modest fee. I'll add this to my list of projects to do.

MA = Done!

Whoa. I handed in my dissertation last week so my MA is effectively done. I just need to wait for the marks and stuff, but that just feels like a formality. So now it's time to start applying for game design jobs with more vigour. Maybe I applied to work with you and you're checking out my blog. If so, hello! Play my games!

On that, my dissertation is a game design. Specifically, Contractual Hero: A Talky RPG. Both the prototype/ludic sketch that I just linked to and the design document. Feel free to have a look at and play around with them, if you're interested. Contractual Hero is a fantasy RPG with a Tactical Discussion System at its core, offering versatile and rewarding social "combat".

I'm proud of how Contractual Hero came out. While the prototype seems fairly small, I put a lot of effort into it and I reckon it hit my design goals near-perfectly.

How to Make Your Own RPGs - my Cardiff Anime & Gaming Con presentation

As I mentioned before, I was due to give a talk, titled How to Make Your Own RPGs, at Cardiff Anime & Gaming Con on the weekend. I did! To be honest, it didn't go amazingly well. I think there were only maybe six people actually listening to me. There were a couple of issues - one was that my talk was immediately after the big cosplay masquerade (one of the con highlights), so there was a huge crowd just outside the room shouting in celebration and so on, the other was that this convention only recently added "games" as something they're about and the crowd weren't particularly interested in playing RPGs, let alone learning how to make them. However, the people who were listening seemed very engaged and one attendee approached me afterwards to tell me that she really enjoyed my talk. That was lovely.

The lack of interest in games at the convention also impacted my planned running of the RPG that I designed especially for the event. I was scheduled to run six sessions, but there was only enough interest for one. It's a shame because I'm pretty proud of the design of Ultra JankenSquad Forever. Though I still think the name is pretty dumb.

You can download the powerpoint of my presentation from here, if you like.

Cardiff Anime & Gaming Con 2015 - I'll be there, will you?

Hi everyone! I'll be at Cardiff Anime & Gaming Con this weekend. I'm going to be giving a talk about how to design role playing games on Sunday at 16:00 and I'll be running a new RPG, designed specifically for this event, throughout Saturday and Sunday. My new game is anime-inspired and is called something dumb like Ultra JankenSquad Forever. Come and play with us.

Indie Haven article on Us and the portrayal of chronic fatigue

Oh wow, you lot. A lovely person called Joe Parlock over at Indie Haven wrote a lovely article about my game prototype, Us. The article covers how the feels that Us is an effective illustration of the effects of chronic fatigue (a symptom of Multiple Sclerosis, featured in the game, and also Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which the author has). I would love it if you would go and read it. It's very well-written and you might learn something about how some people deal with some of the difficult parts of their lives.

The article made me feel pretty emotional. I'm super-glad that Us has been appreciated in a way that it was designed to, that another chronic fatigue sufferer feels that it is a meaningful illustration of their symptom and that it helped somebody else to feel a bit better for a while. That's why I do this. This quote in particular makes me feel real good:

It’s these dilemmas which people with disabilities face every day, and seeing it put into game form was really, really nice. It was weirdly validating to see other people have similar decisions to make as me: do I play a game or spend time with others to cheer myself up, even if I know that means I won’t have the energy to clean up or do some work later on in the day? Seeing these questions posed so blatantly in the game let me know it’s not just me who feels it, which was great.

The conversation map - tactical discussion system

Last time I briefly covered how the Stance you take can affect the tactical discussion system of Talky RPG (groan). This time I'll briefly cover the work-in-progress conversation map, which represents the topics of discussion that your character is covering with their partner/opponent.

The conversation topics are represented using a grid that the speech bubble icon (representing where you currently are in your discussion) moves through. As it encounters different topics/tiles, they affect the player and computer characters in various ways: they may gain or lose Stress, the computer character may lose Patience, the player may gain the information they require and so on.

The core gameplay consists of the player trying to influence the conversation so that it benefits them - usually by collecting the information they need (represented by exclamation points). They can do this using a variety of skills (partly dictated by their stance), guiding the conversation towards and away from tiles as they see fit.

The computer-controlled participant will also guide the conversation as much as they are able. Part of the player's job is to take into account the ways in which the computer will influence the path and take this into account, even subtly altering the computer's moves using their skills.

It was fun to get into coding a (pretty rudimentary) AI system for the opponent. Each turn, the computer analyses nearby tiles and chooses where it wants to go, steering the conversation in that direction if it is able.

This update took a bit longer than expected because I was laid up with shingles for about a week and a half. Don't get shingles. It's unpleasant.

Take a stance - tactical discussion system information

The tactical discussion system in Project Talky RPG (sigh) allows the player to choose a stance for the main character, representing how they say what they say (what they say is represented in the conversation map, which I'll cover later). The above pictures show Neutral, Aggressive, Witty, Closed and Stressed stances.

Neutral stance confers no special bonuses or penalties and has no extra impact on Control (representing who is in control of the conversation).
Aggressive stance causes Stress to both parties and takes Control away from an opponent in a Witty stance.
Witty stance recovers Stress for both parties and takes Control from a Closed opponent.
Closed stance reduces Stress gain for its user and takes Control from an Aggressive opponent.
Stressed stance is not really a choice - a character is forced into this stance when their Stress is too high. It severely limits their options for contributing to a discussion, but wears off quickly.

Each stance will also favour certain tactical approaches and some skills will only be available in a particular stance. For example, Aggressive will give bonuses to forcing the conversation down a certain path where Witty will help with tricking an opponent into talking about something that they wouldn't normally.

My current project, Talky RPG (ugh)

Here is the main character from the game that I'm working on for my dissertation. Currently, it's codenamed "Talky RPG" but I'll definitely give it a better name before the end.

It is a fantasy RPG, complete with many fantasy tropes (and parodies of them), but the player must solve problems without resorting to violence. The game features a tactical discussion system in which the player can attempt to influence other characters in a social (rather than physically violent) way.

In time, I'll post more updates.

Brewing up an anime-inspired RPG system for Cardiff Anime & Gaming Con

These are a couple of character concepts for something I'm currently calling Ultra JankenSquad Forever. It's an anime-inspired role playing game system based around rock-paper-scissors (rather than dice and whatnot, for checks). They represent two character archetypes - Reckless Inventor and Grizzled Old-Timer. I'm making this system to run at Cardiff Anime & Gaming Con, where I will also be giving a talk on Making your own RPGs! Why not click that link and join me there?

My first dollar!

I earned my first dollar as a game designer! I think this is pretty momentous. Like when business people keep the first dollar that they made.

This is all because I moved my games over to itch.io. Within a week of doing so, The Factory was featured in PC Gamer's free games of the week. It was the week of 30th May, but that page has now been overwritten. There's a copy of it HERE.

The PC Gamer feature scored The Factory a LOT more views than it would have received. It even led to one lovely person choosing to pay $1.00 for it, which I greatly appreciate. Thank you, you lovely itch.io user!

PS - I just noticed that The Factory was also featured on Ambushed Gamer's Free Fly Friday on 26th June. At the top! Hooray!