The Fundamental Question and Minigame Ensembles
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Kaj Sotala
Sep 22, 2013, 5:00:38 AM9/22/13
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(tl;dr: some general theorizing about a particular game design pattern, with the vague suggestion that it might be useful for this project. I'm mostly just thinking out aloud.)
Game design: thinking about what I'm grandiosely calling the "minigame ensemble design pattern" (this might already have an established name that I'm ignorant about?), in which a game is put together from a number of small games that are more or less simple by themselves, but a player needs skill to figure out the way they interact with each other.
I first started thinking this after watching Yahtzee's XCOM review, where he comments how well the tactical and strategical layers of the game fit together - in the tactical layer, you keep thinking about the materials you need to recover for building cool stuff in the strategic layer, and in the strategic layer you keep thinking about how you'll get to use all that new cool stuff once you get back to the tactical level. In the original XCOM, the strategic layer was even more of a stand-alone game, and one of the developers commented that the way the game was really composed of multiple minigames was what it made hard to debug and balance. Arguably, the strategic layer having less depth actually makes the new XCOM better - in the old one, the strategic level was sufficiently fun by itself that going on tactical missions actually felt like an annoyance at times. In the new game, you don't get that, since the tactical missions are more clearly the heart of the game, and it seems more like a unified whole.
Another good example of this is the (excellent) board game Spartacus: A Game of Blood and Treachery. This game essentially has three games in one. First, there is an intrigue phase, where you are dealt cards that you can use to sabotage others or improve your own position. Then there is an auction phase, where you bid for assets that might be useful for you. Then there is the gladiator battle phase, which has a quick miniature combat for a few of the players, while the other players are kept involved in the outcome of the battle by letting them place bids on the outcome of the match. Even though the transitions between the phases are pretty obvious, the game never stops feeling unified, as all the phases influence each other. The two resources that tie them together the most strongly are influence, which is used for winning the game and for playing Intrigue actions, and gold. Gold is used for pretty much everything, especially since it's the only resource that can be transferred between players at any time, and bribing the other players happens all the time. There are other resources too, but these two bind the phases together the most strongly.
Of course, whether or not something is a "minigame ensemble" is a question of degree. To some extent *any* strategy game with a complex ruleset (as opposed to something like Chess or Go) is a minigame ensemble. For instance, the Civilization games could be thought to have a city management component, a warfare component, a diplomacy component, et cetera. The components are just so deeply integrated with each other that one doesn't think of them as separate. The extent to which a game can be called a minigame ensemble, I would say, depends on the extent to which each of the components can be thought to work as an encapsulated unit that could in principle be played independently of the others.
Anyway, coming up with a rigorous definition of the concept isn't as interesting as thinking about how it could be used. This kind of an approach might be useful for my thesis edugame about belief networks and social drama - the character's belief network would be the main thing that tied everything together, with there then being different minigames relating to discovering different pieces of information and taking advantage of what you knew, and other characters reacting to your decisions and thus causing changes in the network....
Game design: thinking about what I'm grandiosely calling the "minigame ensemble design pattern" (this might already have an established name that I'm ignorant about?), in which a game is put together from a number of small games that are more or less simple by themselves, but a player needs skill to figure out the way they interact with each other.
I first started thinking this after watching Yahtzee's XCOM review, where he comments how well the tactical and strategical layers of the game fit together - in the tactical layer, you keep thinking about the materials you need to recover for building cool stuff in the strategic layer, and in the strategic layer you keep thinking about how you'll get to use all that new cool stuff once you get back to the tactical level. In the original XCOM, the strategic layer was even more of a stand-alone game, and one of the developers commented that the way the game was really composed of multiple minigames was what it made hard to debug and balance. Arguably, the strategic layer having less depth actually makes the new XCOM better - in the old one, the strategic level was sufficiently fun by itself that going on tactical missions actually felt like an annoyance at times. In the new game, you don't get that, since the tactical missions are more clearly the heart of the game, and it seems more like a unified whole.
Another good example of this is the (excellent) board game Spartacus: A Game of Blood and Treachery. This game essentially has three games in one. First, there is an intrigue phase, where you are dealt cards that you can use to sabotage others or improve your own position. Then there is an auction phase, where you bid for assets that might be useful for you. Then there is the gladiator battle phase, which has a quick miniature combat for a few of the players, while the other players are kept involved in the outcome of the battle by letting them place bids on the outcome of the match. Even though the transitions between the phases are pretty obvious, the game never stops feeling unified, as all the phases influence each other. The two resources that tie them together the most strongly are influence, which is used for winning the game and for playing Intrigue actions, and gold. Gold is used for pretty much everything, especially since it's the only resource that can be transferred between players at any time, and bribing the other players happens all the time. There are other resources too, but these two bind the phases together the most strongly.
Of course, whether or not something is a "minigame ensemble" is a question of degree. To some extent *any* strategy game with a complex ruleset (as opposed to something like Chess or Go) is a minigame ensemble. For instance, the Civilization games could be thought to have a city management component, a warfare component, a diplomacy component, et cetera. The components are just so deeply integrated with each other that one doesn't think of them as separate. The extent to which a game can be called a minigame ensemble, I would say, depends on the extent to which each of the components can be thought to work as an encapsulated unit that could in principle be played independently of the others.
Anyway, coming up with a rigorous definition of the concept isn't as interesting as thinking about how it could be used. This kind of an approach might be useful for my thesis edugame about belief networks and social drama - the character's belief network would be the main thing that tied everything together, with there then being different minigames relating to discovering different pieces of information and taking advantage of what you knew, and other characters reacting to your decisions and thus causing changes in the network....
Desrtopa
Sep 22, 2013, 2:23:50 PM9/22/13
to the-fundamen...@googlegroups.com
This is just some preliminary input on the idea, but I could see the game having a character profiling component, where you put together files on what kind of person you think each of your contacts and informants is, which allows you to put together the relationship between what they say and do, and what information they really have. For instance, a character might be an exaggerator, who, once convinced of an idea, will make up more extravagant evidence for a claim than really exists, or they might be reticent and unwilling to open up to you, so that the fact that they don't tell you they've seen anything isn't strong evidence that they haven't seen something.
I think there should probably be other investigative elements aside from interrogating people, but this could give us something to start with.
I think there should probably be other investigative elements aside from interrogating people, but this could give us something to start with.
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