Download it!
Ngh, coloring takes FOREVER, and I've learned all I'm going to from creating this game. Instead of spending the next few days finishing the coloration, I'm going to release the game as it is.
This game is not a complete game by any stretch of the imagination. I created this game to test a few theories, and it has done so. Not entirely successfully, but as much as it is going to without a complete rewrite.
So, without further ado, you can download Crowd of Three here. (<3 megs, should run on any Windows machine, lemme know if it doesn't.)
If you download and play this game, it would be appreciated if you tell me what you think, keeping the roughness in mind. I don't really care whether it's complimentary or not. Just post it here. I'm especially interested in your reaction to the social AI.
It's rough. Many of the portraits are unfinished. You can't choose your player: it's random. There's no real "victory" condition or story. It's just a game of something very vaguely related to strip poker, although there is no real "stripping" and absolutely no "poker". The game is pretty easy to figure out on your own, so you don't have to read any further: just remember that the little red token is what you click on to roll. And clicking on other characters allows you to talk with them (so long as nobody is currently in a conversation) or trade with them (if it is your turn).
The program is a game and a fun little social AI. I was trying to make the AI as simple as possible, but that turned out to be a mistake. I'll be re-testing a different approach with my next game.
In this game, you are trying to roll threes. Each round is twice around the table. Each time you roll your dice, you toss a chip into the pot. If you don't roll any threes, you lose your score and the next person plays. If you roll three threes, you get two bonus points.
If you pass, you can give three dice to a person of your choice, to increase them from the default of ten. I say that, but I mean: your character gives them to a character of her choice. Similarly, trades are also automatically handled by your character. So the game plays very differently depending on who you end up playing as.
While the game is being played, the characters chat and (under the right situations) trade with each other. The chatting engine is a bit primitive: as I said, I wanted to see how simple I could go. The answer is "not this simple", but at least it exists.
People develop friendships and rivalries, but it is hard to see. The teamwork is not transparent enough, something I will be fixing in the next (entirely unrelated) game.
Here's an explanation of why I chose strip poker: Why Strip Poker? For a more detailed analysis of what I learned, try: What did I learn?
Please note: although this game has no nudity, it isn't really suitable for children. It does have mannequin nudity, adult situations, and some rather extensive (if simplistic) swearing. Also, I have put in a host of silly stereotypes which, I suppose, might offend the more self-righteous people out there.
If the occasional lack of portrait coloring makes you angry, feel free to color the portraits and send them to me (along with a statement that says I can use them). If they are decent, I will gladly package them in and re-release.
Speaking of re-releases, if I get a huge outpouring of joy over this game, I will not only be stunned, I think about rebuilding it. Or, at least, putting in some sound effects and a background.
This game is not a complete game by any stretch of the imagination. I created this game to test a few theories, and it has done so. Not entirely successfully, but as much as it is going to without a complete rewrite.
So, without further ado, you can download Crowd of Three here. (<3 megs, should run on any Windows machine, lemme know if it doesn't.)
If you download and play this game, it would be appreciated if you tell me what you think, keeping the roughness in mind. I don't really care whether it's complimentary or not. Just post it here. I'm especially interested in your reaction to the social AI.
It's rough. Many of the portraits are unfinished. You can't choose your player: it's random. There's no real "victory" condition or story. It's just a game of something very vaguely related to strip poker, although there is no real "stripping" and absolutely no "poker". The game is pretty easy to figure out on your own, so you don't have to read any further: just remember that the little red token is what you click on to roll. And clicking on other characters allows you to talk with them (so long as nobody is currently in a conversation) or trade with them (if it is your turn).
The program is a game and a fun little social AI. I was trying to make the AI as simple as possible, but that turned out to be a mistake. I'll be re-testing a different approach with my next game.
In this game, you are trying to roll threes. Each round is twice around the table. Each time you roll your dice, you toss a chip into the pot. If you don't roll any threes, you lose your score and the next person plays. If you roll three threes, you get two bonus points.
If you pass, you can give three dice to a person of your choice, to increase them from the default of ten. I say that, but I mean: your character gives them to a character of her choice. Similarly, trades are also automatically handled by your character. So the game plays very differently depending on who you end up playing as.
While the game is being played, the characters chat and (under the right situations) trade with each other. The chatting engine is a bit primitive: as I said, I wanted to see how simple I could go. The answer is "not this simple", but at least it exists.
People develop friendships and rivalries, but it is hard to see. The teamwork is not transparent enough, something I will be fixing in the next (entirely unrelated) game.
Here's an explanation of why I chose strip poker: Why Strip Poker? For a more detailed analysis of what I learned, try: What did I learn?
Please note: although this game has no nudity, it isn't really suitable for children. It does have mannequin nudity, adult situations, and some rather extensive (if simplistic) swearing. Also, I have put in a host of silly stereotypes which, I suppose, might offend the more self-righteous people out there.
If the occasional lack of portrait coloring makes you angry, feel free to color the portraits and send them to me (along with a statement that says I can use them). If they are decent, I will gladly package them in and re-release.
Speaking of re-releases, if I get a huge outpouring of joy over this game, I will not only be stunned, I think about rebuilding it. Or, at least, putting in some sound effects and a background.
posted by Craig Perko at 12:26 PM
4 Comments:
I like where you went with this, the topical effect of having a bunch of chicks playing poker allows you to get away with less complexity than if it were a game about friends playing real poker, which is where I figured you were going originally.
Some of the text was really funny, and I actually enjoyed some of the non-sensical recombinations.
Bubblegum: Robot, I think you're so confident because you're calm.
Robot: I think you're wrong.
Bubblegum: You're wrong!
Ect.
If you had a proper inference engine like you planned for HMH, this sort of meta-referentiality in conversations would be more formally composed, I suspect, but since you don't you can get bits of dialogue that overlap in seemingly redundant ways. Fortunately, its charming.
I like the idea of doing game set in a dream for you next project.
Heres an idea you can sell and support yourself with:
Virtual Beer Pong.
You get a physics simulation with some simple verbs regarding arc and spin, and sell that thing over Xbox Live Arcade, and millions of idiot college kids will download it so they can play each other at parties (drinking intermittedly) without the hassle of setting-up and cleaning.
BUT
If you get a social game working for a single player mode, thats what would really synch the app between weekends.
You could make SO much money off this idea, and it might actually be an interesting experiment.
If I was going to do such a simplistic game as that, I would do it for mobile platforms.
But the universe of "beer pong" is too simplistic to allow for a wide range of emotions, so it wouldn't serve as a good test bed. I need more test beds.
Anyhow, I'm glad the simplistic engine was not too terrible in your opinion. I think I could do better, now - but I'm taking a break from dialogue for the next few weeks.
A bit more playtesting has proved very illuminating to me. I think you have a fun game here, but there are three main issues:
- The goal isn't totally clear, its assumed that you want to get everyone else naked, but the game isn't balanced to build a feedback loop to this effect, and seems to meander
- The social verbs need to be more explicit, the only clear verb is to roll or not, and while clicking portraits can effect trades ect. I felt like I didn't have control over some of the offers. There was one point where I was offered a deal I really wanted to take, but my clicking effected nothing and I was forced to watch dialogue bounce around until a worse deal was made.
- The social dynamics are unbalanced, this is understable since the game is at Alpha, and largely unplaytested. After not being able to make a moderately impactful good deal, which would have made for tight gameplay, I happened to get another player to give me all of her chips without any recompense, this is a radically unbalanced.
I think a bit more work on this would really sharpen up the dynamics. Gotta follow through Perko, maybe even sell it for a few bucks through Manifesto. The gameplay is definetly there.
I'm not at all sure I want my first game to be so dangerously close to porn, Patrick. :P
I have lots of other ideas. I want to test my social algorithms, then release games with the polished final product - not some half-assed marginal thing.
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