Vertex Dispenser: progress!

I've started doing some bits and pieces on Vertex Dispenser again, after having done nothing on it for several months. I'm going to finish it, dammit! I've actually fixed some of the problems in the network code, which is awesome (but it still crashes sometimes, more to do there) and I've done some work on the campaign - mostly trying to get the difficulty right, but in the process I've also made some of the level designs a bit weirder and scattered more shiny particle effects around:


I think it's an improvement. Possibly I have just gone mad.

Dominion

I've played Dominion quite a few times in the last couple of days, and have been pleased to find that it's actually a good game. I had played it twice previously, and formed a quite low opinion of it despite wanting to like it because of the cool deck-building mechanic.

Most of the reason for my false impression is because I had gotten quite the wrong idea about the "Attack cards". Each time you play, you select ten card types to have available to be bought, giving variety between games. For my first game, the guy teaching me chose not to include any attack cards (actions that cause a negative effect for other players) because I hadn't played before. From this I got the idea that attack cards were like takeovers in Race for the Galaxy - an minor additional aspect giving some negative interaction between players, but with there still being a complete game without them. In my second game, the only attack card in play was the Bureaucrat (place a Silver card on top of your deck from the supply, and each other player places a scoring card on top of their deck from their hand). Scoring cards are dead weight during the game, only providing points at the end, so being forced to draw one twice slows you down very slightly. There was also the Moat (protects from attack cards if in your hand). My opponents bought lots of Bureaucrats and Moats, and there was a lot of attacking and blocking going on that didn't seem to make any difference as I won the game by quite a margin because I bought scoring cards instead. Thus I gained the impression that attack cards had no significant effect even when you did choose to play with them.

Without attack cards (and a couple of other cards like the Council Room, which lets other players draw a card while you draw four), the only interactions between players in the game are: 1) the cards of each type can run out (not very significant) and 2) the game ends when three types of cards run out OR when the 6-point scoring cards run out (very significant, but not very deep). So the strategic options basically come down to "build a powerful card combo that will get you lots of points once it gets going" or "try to end the game quickly with more points before someone's combo gets going". There is complexity in figuring out how best to do these with the cards available and the cards you draw each turn, but it doesn't depend on what the other players have, just on when they score points or end the game.

However, it turns out that with more attack cards there is quite a bit of depth in terms of how you build your deck to protect against them, and conversely in whether opponents decks are sufficiently vulnerable to them to be worthwhile. The Thief, for example, examines the top two cards of each opponent's deck and destroys any treasure cards found, stealing one of them. If an opponent has Thieves, you can protect yourself by not having many treasure cards for them to hit, instead relying on actions like the Market to provide buying power. (And conversely, if someone has used the Chapel to thin their deck and increase their chances of drawing treasure, then the Thief also becomes a more reliable choice for you.) Discovering this corrects another false impression I'd received from my second game - when choosing which cards to have, someone had said something to the effect of "you can't have attack cards without the Moat", which is ridiculously naïve - there is plenty of subterfuge you can do to defend without a blunt wall to hide behind. (In fact, I disagree entirely with choosing the cards available, and believe the correct way to select them is randomly.)

The UI still seems very very poor after playing RFTG, but this is starting to become invisible now that I know most of the cards (though I have yet to master the bizarre "alphabetical ordering" system used in the box layout). And the problem of someone having already won quite a while before the game actually finishes seems to be diminishing, from playing with a group of people of similar skill level above some minimum threshold. Overall I am satisfied.

Random stuff

Just screens of a few random things I've been messing around with:

Hyperabuse Monolith

A second game on the S.C.U.M. theme. This is a game about harassing people in the street. Again, the visuals are where I want them to be, but the gameplay isn't quite. It's more like a "proper game" though, has a score and everything!
(my best is 16130, but higher should certainly be possible.)

Hyperabuse Monolith



If videogames were rock music (a much better metaphor than movies), then this a fairly dull quiet track 2/3 of the way through the album (I'm not selling it very well, am I?).
I quite like that idea; an album of games.

edit (24/06/10): new version, incorporating some suggestions and fixing a bug; also, scoring is now different by an order of magnitude, so scores mentioned previously will sound absurd.

edit (26/06/10): new version, mostly the same as the previous, just improving depth-buffery problems but not fixing them completely because I'm lazy.

Warstorm

Several of my friends have started playing a game called Warstorm on facebook, and I've been getting lots of messages about them giving each other hunters and mages. I decided to try the game today. My impressions have not been very positive.

It's a CCG about fantasy armies battling each other. The battles themselves seem to be completely non-interactive. Your cards are drawn in random order, and after being in your hand for a number of time steps (the 'cost' of the card) they enter play. No decisions are made during battle. So basically, the entire game is about deckbuilding. This is (like Dominion) a game designed to attract ex-Magic players who get nostalgic about deckbuilding, regardless of depth. But it's combined with the money-sink of actual CCGs (you can get new cards by investing time, but the cards that cost real money on are strictly better) and the social addiction of Farmville. A charming mix. Plus the UI is laggy and the game has more fun than the player. I don't recommend it.

(It's a pity, because the mechanic of having a card's cost be the number of turns it takes to enter play after drawing it is quite elegant.. unfortunately what it elegantly achieves is nil interaction!)

Babeltron 2010

Another game. Really it's basically just an elaborate word-processor though.

Babeltron 2010

I'm not completely satisfied with the mechanics, but I think there's something there. I am quite satisfied with the visual aesthetic.











This was made as part of the Games Collective's pageant on the theme of the S.C.U.M. Manifesto. I don't think it's a very good use of the theme, maybe I'll do something else as well.

Brog Blogs about Brog Grog Jog Blog

On Andy's blog, he has blogged about I, Brog. I (Brog) am now blogging on my blog about his blog about I, Brog.

Irregularity Bog Sog

There was a big frog, he was sitting in a bog, he was climbing on a log, he was gnawing on a dog, he was a NONALOG FROG.

A Nonalog Frog.

There was a big goat, he was swimming in a moat, he wore a novercoat, he nibbled on an oat, he was a NOVERCOAT GOAT.

A Novercoat Goat.

That is my song for today.