Dagda's Workroom

Oh man, this is fantastic.

noreply@blogger.com (Dagda (Brooks Harrel)) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 09:39:00 +0000

Tom Francis, game journalist extraordinaire and fledgling indie game dev, has been working on Gunpoint for a while now; I've had a chance to play the beta, it's definitely something special. He already put out a call for artist volunteers, and got some amazing results (as you can see).

A couple days back he put out a similar query for any interested composers, including a gameplay video people could pair their tentative soundtracks too. And once again, he's getting a pile of great responses- check out the comments on this page and hear it for yourself.

I'm just floored by how much good ambient music enhances this game's atmosphere. It's really something.

Paratopian City (Part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Dagda (Brooks Harrel)) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 04:17:00 +0000

"Paratopian." Neither uptopia nor dystopia; something beyond the bounds of what you'd ever see in a "normal" society.

(8:15:22 PM) Dagda: Gotham's not really a representative sample anymore, but I'm still after that interesting "metanormals & normals who've adapted" dynamic.
(8:15:53 PM) Dagda: The city tends to have its own way of doing things, on every level.
(8:15:56 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Yeah, I like the idea of it
(8:16:04 PM) Dagda: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGyVZRHZ2ow is another inspiration here
(8:16:44 PM) Dagda: (I have very little interest in actually playing that game, but HNNNGH that concept and aesthetic are amazing)
(8:16:53 PM) Sylvia Viridian: That is very pretty
(8:17:51 PM) Dagda: Final Fantasy, plus Kingdom Hearts, plus modern day upper-class urban society, plus the mafia? V Yes.
(8:17:58 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Oh, yes
(8:18:07 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Very, very shiny
(8:18:32 PM) Dagda: Gonna actually get into the next bit, feel free to keep watching & read later
(8:18:44 PM) Sylvia Viridian: oh, okay
(8:19:15 PM) Dagda: Basically, I'm thinking that for every protagonist/PC who's a paranormal being, there'll be 2 humans.
(8:21:21 PM) Dagda: One of whom is just skilled- skills meaning all the sorts of things we see Jason Bourne get up to. The ability to break in & infiltrate urban environments, fight with guns or martial arts, escape & evasion, taking on & subverting institutions. . .and awesome chase sequences, natch.
(8:22:28 PM) Dagda: The other one? Well, they're human, but honestly it's a stretch to call them "normal"
(8:23:53 PM) Dagda: A paranormal person can't teach a human to use magic. But some humans are. . .sensitive to a particular class of supernatural being.
(8:25:39 PM) Dagda: Sustained exposure can trigger physiological changes, giving someone one of several "conditions" based on which type of beign they're sensitive too. Their paranormal natures rub off on us, but in a more grounded sci-fi way.
(8:25:55 PM) Sylvia Viridian: I see~ Interesting
(8:26:58 PM) Dagda: An inspiration that comes in here is an anime called Canaan, which is pretty amazing for about 2-3 episodes (and then runs out of steam)
(8:27:49 PM) Dagda: It has several characters who have abnormal nervous systems, giving them a sort of savant-esque synesthesia with a side order of bullet time
(8:28:59 PM) Dagda: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o06weVt9j0 <-Best example occurs at about 19 minutes in
(8:29:34 PM) Sylvia Viridian: /watches (8:31:11 PM) Sylvia Viridian: I see, cool
(8:31:39 PM) Dagda: So yeah, ripping that off
(8:33:02 PM) Dagda: Will probably have the reflexes and synesthesia perception be two separate things, but hey
(8:35:14 PM) Dagda: Other options would be someone who's empathic to a degree that's clearly ESP (i.e. they feel what someone else is feeling even though they're in another room or something), or someone who can do adrenaline-fuled, mother-lifts-minivan-off-kid feats of strength almost at will (regardless of the terrible strain it puts on their bodies).
(8:35:54 PM) Dagda: All things you can theoretically imagine as being within the realm of human potential
(8:35:59 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Yeah
(8:36:48 PM) Dagda: So yeah. There's about one other key thing I've figured out that I should mention.
(8:40:36 PM) Dagda: The Gotham Central-inspired police, the ones that "have their own way of doing things", that have their share of corruption and abuse but by & large are made up of decent, pragmatic human beings? The ones who go out and walk/drive their beats, keep the peace, know the guys on the street corner by name? There are limits to their authority.
(8:41:36 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Oh, that sounds ominous
(8:45:10 PM) Dagda: The border guard, the ones in the helicopters and gunboats- originally a PMC that was contracted in the 70s, reports directly to the federal authority? They're active in the city, too. They're the ones in black helmets who do immigration raids, break up protests & riots (& claim they were riots either way), and do their best to hunt down the players (who are either part of the underworld or deal with it enough that they could wind up in serious trouble)
(8:45:21 PM) Dagda: This is that Mirror's Edge influence coming in.
(8:45:30 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Gotcha
(8:45:55 PM) Sylvia Viridian: So the cops are decent guys, but there's also military type forces
(8:46:18 PM) Dagda: More or less.
(8:46:40 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Who are much less nice and understanding about the whole supernatural deal
(8:48:04 PM) Dagda: The peacekeepers are the equivalent of cops who'll go out and ask prostitutes if they recognize a woman who turned up dead. They know this stuff goes on and if someone's being blatant/stupid they'll do something about it, but it's the status quo.
(8:48:51 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Makes sense
(8:48:53 PM) Dagda: The enforcers, they're not exactly military- but they carry guns and will use them, no question on that.
(8:49:03 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Yeah
(8:49:30 PM) Dagda: They're "The Man", not to mention "La Migra".
(8:50:20 PM) Dagda: No engagement with the community, just a force that's not to be reckoned with. (Since if there's any reckoning going on they're the ones who're carrying it out)
(8:50:31 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Of course
(8:51:00 PM) Dagda: Now, 95% of them have no chance of matching the speed of a character with moderate parkour-type skills.
(8:51:17 PM) Dagda: (Which I'm thinking will be a significant portion of them)
(8:51:28 PM) Sylvia Viridian: It'd be a necessary survival skill
(8:51:31 PM) Sylvia Viridian: and also really really cool (8:51:53 PM) Dagda: Exactly!
(8:52:30 PM) Dagda: But they're still a serious threat, for one key reason: Coordination.
(8:52:54 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Right. Outrunning an individual doesn't mean as much when they have comms
(8:56:14 PM) Dagda: When you're being chased by enforcers, somewhere out there is a dispatcher- one of the ones with live access to every security camera in the city. And their career is going to be set back or forwards a good two years based on whether or not you get caught.
(8:56:32 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Aha.
(8:57:14 PM) Dagda: You had better believe they're going to throw everything they possibly can at you, on-duty or no.
(8:57:23 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Yes, indeed
(8:59:00 PM) Dagda: You're able to build up a good lead on your pursuers, cutting down one particular back alley and managing to get up over the edge of the rooftop right before the first of them rounds the corner.
(9:01:46 PM) Dagda: And then the maintenance doors on 3 different neighboring rooftops are kicked down simultaneously, and snipers are dashing out to take aim. The dispatcher's voice yells orders at you from the Public Announcement system, telling you you're dead if you so much as move a muscle.
(9:02:16 PM) Dagda: Looking back, that was the point where things really got interesting :P
(9:02:21 PM) Sylvia Viridian: lol
(9:02:23 PM) Sylvia Viridian: I like it!
(9:05:54 PM) Dagda: Since that delay gave the gang lord's men (the ones you'd been fighting in the first place, until the enforcers took notice) chance to catch up, and everything descended into chaos from there.

Image was done by this artist on pixiv.

Paratopian City (Part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Dagda (Brooks Harrel)) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 04:09:00 +0000

Work and classes keep me busy as usual- I've been one of Applecare's senior-tier agents since the end of last year. Some big game design efforts that'll have to wait for another time, but I wanted to share this one while it was fresh.

(7:25:15 PM) Dagda: Been brainstorming a new setting, actually- yesterday and today, it's coming together nicely. Think I could bounce it off you?
(7:25:22 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Sure
(7:25:30 PM) Dagda: Awesome, was hoping to get your input
(7:25:46 PM) Dagda: Are you familiar with any of the Abhorsen books, by Garth Nix?
(7:26:04 PM) Sylvia Viridian: I am not, unfortunately
(7:26:09 PM) Dagda: No worries
(7:26:29 PM) Sylvia Viridian: I am familiar with some of his Keys to the Kingdom books, but not the Abhorsen ones
(7:27:23 PM) Dagda: Main relevant thing is that Abhorsen's setting had two countries that shared a border.
(7:28:22 PM) Dagda: It was something of a gothic fantasy story, main characters are necromancers whose arts are used to *counter* undead raised by other, irresponsible necromancers.
(7:28:36 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Oh, interesting
(7:28:44 PM) Dagda: But the other country is actually a secular, rational nation alot like 1920s britain.
(7:29:23 PM) Dagda: Most people there are highly skeptical about magic being real, and remain that way for a bit in the instances where they see it firsthand.
(7:30:15 PM) Dagda: This setting is. . .half that, half District B13 (or Mirror's Edge, if you prefer)
(7:30:38 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Ooh
(7:31:16 PM) Dagda: You have a particular region where supernatural stuff goes on. In this case were talking a large island or two of the coast of a larger landmass, a la great britain
(7:33:24 PM) Dagda: That's not the setting, though, the stories never directly show what it's like there. The setting is a massive modern-day city that's right across the English Channel-equivalent.
(7:36:11 PM) Dagda: See, the goverment for this nation takes great pains to keep the supernatural region contained. Helicopters and patrolling gunboats serve as a border guard, concentrated on the channel but also covering the islands as a whole.
(7:37:58 PM) Dagda: They downplay the paranormal side of things to the public, dismissing the old tales of bogeymen coming ashore to terrorize families in the night as a bunch of quaint rumors and superstitions (which, to be fair, is mostly true)
(7:39:16 PM) Dagda: But for both political and pragmatic reasons, they go to great lengths not to let anyone in (without clearance) or any*thing* out.
(7:41:15 PM) Dagda: Knowingly harboring or failing to report any supernatural being, artifact, anything of the sort is a serious crime.
(7:41:32 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Of course
(7:41:49 PM) Dagda: In theory, this particular harbor city is no exception.
(7:43:15 PM) Dagda: In practice, there are hundreds of illegal border crossings each year. Within the borders of this city, as long as you don't do anything obviously paranormal in public you're relatively safe.
(7:43:25 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Oh, fun
(7:44:19 PM) Dagda: Mind you, the people from this region might have different skin/eye/hair color but they're still flesh and blood the same as anyone.
(7:44:49 PM) Dagda: The supernatural elements are seen in the effects they can have on people (and sometimes the world in general) around them.
(7:45:02 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Like what?
(7:46:12 PM) Dagda: Someone who's utterly, fascinatingly beautiful- but looks pretty darn plain if you're looking at them in a photograph or via security camera.
(7:46:27 PM) Sylvia Viridian: I see
(7:47:16 PM) Dagda: Or someone who can move around as though their body (and whatever they're carrying) weighed less, a la Spring-Heeled Jack
(7:47:31 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Sounds neat~
(7:47:50 PM) Dagda: Or telekinesis
(7:48:04 PM) Dagda: Of a relatively raw and uncontrolled variety
(7:53:02 PM) Dagda: The scene at 1:30 in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDcxuiFLA64 being an extreme example
(7:54:12 PM) Sylvia Viridian: /watches
(7:55:03 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Whoa. Cool.
(7:55:47 PM) Dagda: It's a neat set of movies- not something I'd objectively argue as great, but I'm a fan
(7:56:09 PM) Sylvia Viridian: I like the animation
(7:56:32 PM) Dagda: Yeah, it's very well done. Consistently, too, doesn't just spike in the fight scenes
(7:56:46 PM) Dagda: As for her attacker, in the red jacket- that's a nice tie-in to another key thing about this setting
(7:57:41 PM) Dagda: What started me on this concept was reading some recent Batman comics, and thinking about how much I like the better-written portrayals of Gotham city.
(7:58:49 PM) Dagda: And how I could keep alot of that while removing the superhero thing from the equation.
(7:59:12 PM) Sylvia Viridian: I see.
(7:59:38 PM) Dagda: Specifically, keeping things like the police department- there was a great comic series called Gotham P.D., police procedural format but in Gotham city.
(7:59:53 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Oh, that sounds fun
(8:00:14 PM) Dagda: It was, I'm sure I could track down a DL for the scans if you wanted.
(8:00:24 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Sure
(8:00:56 PM) Dagda: To rs.4chan.org I go!
(8:01:03 PM) Dagda: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=kco7igqj
(8:01:12 PM) Sylvia Viridian: That was fast
(8:01:20 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Awesome
(8:04:08 PM) Dagda: Anyway, part of what I really liked was this idea of a city that had these metahuman elements going on in it, good and ill, and had adapted accordingly.
(8:04:44 PM) Sylvia Viridian: I do like that idea. Sort of similar to one I've been working with myself, anyway
(8:05:01 PM) Dagda: Oh? Interesting
(8:05:20 PM) Dagda: This is a good point to pause for a bit- would you be up for sharing your concept?
(8:05:36 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Basically, an urban fantasy setting ten years after the masquerade broke
(8:05:46 PM) Dagda: Ahaha nice
(8:05:52 PM) Sylvia Viridian: The FBI has a Magical Crimes Unit
(8:06:03 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Atlantis - where the elves live - has its own seat in the UN
(8:06:10 PM) Dagda: Nice
(8:06:12 PM) Sylvia Viridian: That kind of thing
(8:06:40 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Most magical species are actually still under the masquerade
(8:06:48 PM) Dagda: Huh
(8:06:58 PM) Sylvia Viridian: it's just elves and mages - who are humans with elven blood - that are out and about
(8:07:01 PM) Dagda: So there's a twist that this is just the tip of the iceberg
(8:07:03 PM) Dagda: Interesting
(8:07:09 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Yeah
(8:08:01 PM) Dagda: Kind of a different bent, but that has something else occur to me
(8:08:32 PM) Dagda: That in my setting, maybe yours too, the full extent of what paranormal things could actually do would almost be ambiguous
(8:09:38 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Magic as almost a force unto itself, one that can be tapped into but never fully defined
(8:10:11 PM) Dagda: You'd have rumors about power to bring cities crashing down, and then the truth of some scared migrant family whose middle-aged grandpa can throw you out a window in a pinch but that's it.
(8:11:00 PM) Sylvia Viridian: I see. But who knows - *someone* out there might have that much power
(8:11:08 PM) Sylvia Viridian: And there would be people seeking those that did
(8:11:15 PM) Dagda: Yep on both counts
(8:12:38 PM) Dagda: And then you get a fight scene like in that youtube vid, with some scared, desperate half-crazed prodigy cuts loose with no restraint. And an awful lot of load-bearing walls are getting wrecked.
(8:13:25 PM) Dagda: And what do you know, it's starting to seem like a building might come tumbling down after all.
(8:13:37 PM) Sylvia Viridian: Yuup

Art by Kweli

Re: "Which Bite Wins"

noreply@blogger.com (Dagda (Brooks Harrel)) — Fri, 20 May 2011 05:17:00 +0000

Hmm.

It all depends on precisely which variety of each monster is being used. So let's start with the fundamentals.

PART 1: CONTRIVED BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS
Zombies are caused by an actual virus, spread via bodily fluids. One explanation I always liked, from a few incarnations of Resident Evil, was that it was a combination of a destructive ebola strain (which would kill people too fast to actually spread) and a failed viral vector which stimulated cell growth & activity (they wanted supersoldiers, instead of mutated bodybuilders with lots and lots of cancer).

Vampirism is a disease, bloodborne microorganisms (think malaria) that alter your bodily chemistry to make you sociopathic, alert, unnaturally strong, oversensitive to light, in need of blood, etc.

Werewolves. . .hmm. Let's say that werewolves are a hereditary genetic thing- because genetic traits aren't always just recessive or dominant. There are disorders that run in a family but have little clear pattern, because the potential is there in the genes but other factors are needed to push you over the brink. Like your diet, or high levels of stress. High levels of stress. . .from being bitten by a werewolf.

Uh, and it has to be a werewolf because there's also a biochemical factor that's induced by a werewolf's saliva. (Werewolf french kisses will thus also induce a transformation, but they almost never do that to someone)

PART 2: INITIAL INFECTION
If we assume each of these transformations' initial effect happens over the effect of 5 minutes, what happens when they're combined? Here's where I really start throwing out bullcrap (instead of rigorously looking up concepts like "viral vectors" on wikipedia, for like 5 whole minutes, and *then* using them in my bullcrap).

The zombie virus is spreading throughout your bloodstream, altering the behavior of your body's cells so that they work 80-hour weeks with little oversight or direction. The effects would not be obvious right away- the subject would be feverish and delirious, with the viral vectors needing longer periods of time to reach the central nervous system.

The werewolf stimuli simultaneously triggers a change in the subject's. . .uh. . .he grows hair and stuff, ok? Look, this just getting ridicu{TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES, PLEASE STAND BY}

Ahem. The werewolf stimuli simultaneously triggers its own change in the subject's biological functions, activating the latent potential behaviors of his organs. His body starts to reconfigure itself, with the viral zombie interference hindering the development in some cases and amplifying it in others.

The increase in pulse rate and vital activities would give the bloodborne vampire microorganisms a boost, letting them take effect quickly and with more potency. So while the subject begins having difficulty distinguishing reality from his imagination (the zombie virus' initial delirium), and having all kinds of predatory carnivore impulses, he's also becoming more alert, obsessive-compulsive, and sociopathically cunning.

PART 3: THE TRANSFORMATION
Soon the delirium will fade as the zombie virus reaches the brain, and the higher thought processes turn to empty static. But where a normal brain would thus be left in a constant state of dazed distraction and simple agitation, this brain has different kinds of things going on under the hood. Predatory impulses to hunt and prowl, to lurk and carefully monitor the surroundings, to lunge forward and attack your prey with terrible ferocity.

Physically, the subject's skin becomes pale and lifeless before it can grow much hair, and his terrified babbling quickly gives way to guttural groans and animal growls. The scientists high five one another as the subject flexes ineffectively against the restraints, concluding that they have basically produced a zombie with sharp teeth that snarls alot.

They aren't realizing how there are changes that are only just beginning in the subject's muscles. That they've started growing to fulfill their latent potential, AND have been told by viral vectors to work overtime, AND are being treated to a special biochemical cocktail courtesy of bloodborne symbiotic microorganisms. Meaning that in a few days the subject will become twice as strong. . .three times over. (That's right- EXPONENTIALLY stronger)

And because there's nothing else left for a zombie to feel; because it fuels everything the wolf has evolved to accomplish; because it defines the vampire by its all-consuming addiction: the subject will be driven by an unstoppable hunger for living human beings.

Howzat?

The Sins of Experience Points

noreply@blogger.com (Dagda (Brooks Harrel)) — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 00:48:00 +0000

This post on Ben Garney's blog led me into two interesting discussions, one in the comments for that post and the other on Google Buzz. Both seemed worth reposting here.

Dagda:
I have no problem believing that social games can be good/great, while still having viral and monetization elements that’re only minor detriments to the experience.

I can also easily believe many social game devs are passionate about what they do, innovative, and excited to be reaching out to a broader audience. That you and your colleagues/competitors are smart people (likely smarter than me), ones who’re seeking to use your powers for good.

I’m just not sure, on a case by case basis, that this is what’s actually happening. That the games you see as a Good Thing are adding something to the lives of those who play it, rather than just taking something away.

More precisely, what disturbs me is that the impression that so many social games seem to focus on providing is an artificial sense of accomplishment. Yes, Diablo and Torchlight also have this as their primary “gameplay”; frankly, I despise both of them. It reminds me of the japanese “dating sim” genre- sometimes those games provide fascinating stories and engaging gameplay that centers around interacting with well-realized NPCs. But many others are primarily meant as an artificial substitute for a relationship with an actual human being.

Put differently: My untested suspicion is that most social games are like mental junk food. I’m not about to call a bag of cheetos “evil”. But if both the people making cheetos and the people consuming them didn’t see a difference between their chosen food product and some fresh fruits and vegetables, would you start to feel concerned?

Ben Garney:
So, your metaphor is that traditional games (let’s say Civ 5, Madden, and Braid for example) are wholesome and filling, while social games are junk food?

Dagda:
Precisely, except that I’d insert a “many” in before “social games”. Nothing says they have to be that way, and I’m heartened that you’re seeing a trend towards deeper gameplay.

A more on-target way to put it might be that incentive systems (gold, leveling up) are like sugar and salt. A potent way to enhance a substantive core product, but make them the core and you’re left with something of a much shallower value. Is Farmville a game? Is a candy cane food?

Ben Garney:
That brings us to the core of the issue. I agree – most social games are really light on the gameplay. But that doesn’t makes them evil – it’s just a sign of an immature market. Little kids will take sweets over a fine steak dinner. But as they grow up and their palates mature, they begin to appreciate the finer things in life. We will see the same in the social space.

Of course, some people prefer candy canes to steak their whole life. I think some gamers come from a place where they are used to fine steak and can’t understand why anyone is interested in McDonalds.

----- And from Google Buzz:

Brooks Harrel - I wound up making the longer version of this comment on the blog itself, but: The thing about social games that worries me is when their design's primary goal is to provide an artificial sense of accomplishment. 'Games' like that, I see as mental junk food: Hardly "evil", but you'll still be worried if the manufacturers and consumers viewed it as no different from eating fresh fruits and vegetables.

(To be fair, a better analogue for a normal videogame would be a burger from a family restaurant. Not the healthiest choice, but it has actual nutritious value rather than just flavor, grease, and the ability to fill up your stomach.)

Daniel Cook - I look at our beloved RPGs and one of the primary design goals is to 'provide an artificial sense of accomplishment'. It is an old technique. I'm willing to make the judgement that current social games and traditional games have about the same inherent value if we can look past the happy glow of past memories.

One thing I like about social games is the idea that they are...social. Whether the current crop accomplish that or not is besides the point. They offer a chance to ask the question "How do we make our games more social? How do we build relationships with games?" And that is 100% awesome.

Brooks Harrel - Actually, I can't stand playing Diablo 2 or Torchlight either, because those are also games that try to make artificial accomplishments the "meat" of the gameplay. Meanwhile, I have no problem with the cash system in Steambirds Survival- because your incentive system is being used to enhance gameplay that'd be worthwhile in and of itself, and your "rewards" provide new varieties of challenges, rather than over powering the core gameplay.

Food analogies always serve me well when explaining my thoughts on games, so I'll fall back on the one I touched on above: In my mind, games are to food as incentives (gold, exp) are to sugar and salt. They serve to enhance the substance of the product, but the value they add is relatively shallow. Junk food- stuff a health-minded parent would refer to as "pure sugar/salt"- is hardly going to kill you, but you'll likely be better off if you consume it in moderation. And it hardly deserves the label of "food".

At any rate, I'll readily agree that social games are by no means inherently bad- another 100% awesome thing about them is the way they're advancing the field in terms of accessible (open and simple) design.

Casey Monroe - I was a big fan of Diablo 2, so I'm curious about your thoughts on that. What specifically would you say is the "meat" of gameplay there? It's been a little while, but I don't think any of my accomplishments in Diablo 2 felt "artificial"—they all seemed to flow naturally from the mechanics of the game.

Brooks Harrel - Mmm. It's been nearly a decade since I touched that game, so I don't trust my memory enough to stand by any in-depth critique; the following is all written with Torchlight in mind first and foremost.

I'll try to quickly and clearly define terms here. My definition for "game" is an interesting challenge you learn to overcome. When I talk about the "meat" of the gameplay, I'm talking about the deepest challenges- the ones with the most layers of mastery for your brain (and not your virtual avatar) to attain, whether it's on a high-concept level (crunching numbers in your head, mulling over which dialog option to choose while the game waits) or an instinctive one (recognizing an enemy, identifying which attack their behavior indicates they're about to make, and reflexively hitting the right button for making the right counter-move).

Torchlight doesn't have much meat. There's the long-term logistical challenge of amassing power, which in practice means basic inventory management (is Weapon A > Weapon B?), choosing the right build options (is Skill A > B, C and D?), and developing a thorough pack-rat's awareness so as not to miss any loot. And there's the short-term challenge of the combat- avoiding attacks, aiming your own attacks, using special abilities and consumables in the right time/place/fashion, adjusting your playstyle (i.e. basic tactics) to take better advantage of your character build. In practice, virtually all of these aspects have the depth of a kiddie pool. Meanwhile, Resident Evil 4 took all those same game elements and created one of the deepest single-player game experiences ever.

I call Torchlight "junk food" because it makes heavy use of artificial incentives not just as a slot-machine payoff (i.e. "skinner box" mechanism), but as an artificial substitute for mastery- like how fast-food burgers inject meat flavoring into thin slices of freeze-dried meat and paint grill marks on the patty. Like real mastery, you can dispatch once-fearsome enemies with ease and pull of amazing stunts- but how much of that is because of you, instead of your virtual avatar? (Put differently: how much can be lost due to a corrupt save file?)

As the consumer, you get a direct payoff (good flavor/good game flow) and tangible evidence of your accomplishment (full stomach/powerful character). But those aren't the only things that matter about food, nor the only things that matter about games.

P.S: For a specific examination & critique of Diablo 2's design, I advise checking out http://www.actionbutton.net/?p=518

Casey Monroe - Hmm...I'm not going to say I disagree with you, I think what you're describing is an indictment of the entire RPG genre though. It can be fairly said that I'm not significantly better at playing Mass Effect 2 or Final Fantasy at the end of the game experience than I am at the beginning. My character improves and becomes more powerful, but I don't become a significantly better player--or at least, that's not the focus.

I understand that this kind of game is not for everyone, to be sure. But for comparison, I adored Diablo 2 and found Resident Evil off-putting. Is that because I prefer junk food to healthy food? I'm not sure that's true.

Brooks Harrel - I'm condemning one of the core features of the RPG genre- or at least arguing we treat it less like a food group and more like salt, i.e. something to add flavor to the "real" game experience. Of course, "genre" in this context is just a standardized game design formula, one which has seen a distressingly low level of innovation. Resident Evil 4 (not to be confused with its survival-horror predecessors), Mass Effect 2, and Devil Survivor are all welcome exceptions to this trend, producing jaw-droppingly good results by holding themselves to a higher standard in terms of deep gameplay.

As for Diablo 2 vs. your experience with Resident Evil: If I have a choice between McDonalds and a family-owned mexican restaurant that makes all their stuff by hand from fresh ingredients, I'm likely to choose McDonalds. It's not as healthy, but I'm no gourmet and don't usually like mexican food. The important thing is to be aware that something is junk food and consume it accordingly.

Casey Monroe - To be honest, I didnt find ME2's gameplay to be exceptionally deep. Same with Diablo 2. I don't think it follows, however, that the game itself is correspondingly less deep. I think that the depth in games merely comes from other sources--sources like story, pacing, etc. These forms of depth are not unique to games, but are nonetheless valid.

Brooks Harrel - I think I was still using "game" in the "interesting challenge" sense, not the "video game" sense.

But taking your point on its own: Oh yes, I agree wholeheartedly. I'll take plenty of games to task for falling short in that area as well. An action-heavy fps can have a moving, branching-paths story; a plot-heavy RPG can have great gameplay. But your audience won't call you out if you fall short in those aspects, because the precedents set by your predecessors left a very low bar. (Wait- are you saying Diablo 2's true depth was in its narrative?)

It occurs to me that I've actually got more to offer on some of these discussion points than just talk. http://bit.ly/f79qsI is a core gameplay test build for a "scrolling shooter". The idea was to have a central part of the gameplay be the RPG mechanics that had the most gameplay "meat" to them, mainly loadout choices that noticeably affected the way you play.

Apple Farmer 3000!

noreply@blogger.com (Dagda (Brooks Harrel)) — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 08:45:00 +0000

I wound up with an great team for the 2011 Global Game Jam; you can enjoy fruits of our labors here. For now I'll just repost the description I wrote there, lest this post blossom into a constant string of terrible puns.

The game is a hotseat 2-player game with three factions: The organic apple farmer, the genetically modified apple farmer and the viral blackberries. It's designed so that play the game entirely by clicking on map tiles to perform context-sensitive actions.

-Each tile has numbers showing the rounds left until the lease expires (on the left) and the crop yields a profit (on the right). When the lease is down to 0, you’ll get the option to renew it.
-An apple crop on a tile with Fertility 10 makes 100% of the maximum profit ($20). On a tile with Fertility 5, the profit would be 50% of the maximum ($10).

-It costs $8 to lease a tile for 10 turns, $5 to clear plants from a tile you own, and $5 to plant a crop. Organic crops take 5 rounds to yield a profit; GMO crops only need 4.
-On the other hand, GMO crops deplete the soil twice as quickly. They also can’t be planted next to any non-GMO plant, not even diagonally. Better plan accordingly...

-Beware blackberries! They’re a bigger problem for the GMO farmer (since he can’t plant crops next to them), but if you let them grow out of control both sides will regret it.
-Harvesting a crop depletes that tile’s Fertility. Rain improves the Fertility of any empty tile by 1. Blackberries only grow after rainfall. . .at first.

-If an Organic crop is immediately downwind of a GMO crop, cross-pollination occurs; the Organic crop is replaced with a fresh GMO crop, under the Organic player’s control.
-Cross-pollination never happens diagonally. GMO crops behave the same no matter who owns them, so an Organic farmer might want to clear his GMO crop before it infects its neighbors.

The Stalker games are doing something right. (Part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Dagda (Brooks Harrel)) — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 04:44:00 +0000

The first thing Stalker does is teach you to be a coward.

There's no deliberate instruction involved- it's a lesson you learn naturally, which makes it ten times as effective. The tutorials are the pack of wild dogs who maul you because you tried to shoot them, the anomalies that reward your curiosity with poison and radiation, the handful of men that kill you five times over despite the quicksave which puts you in a perfect ambush position.

With uncharacteristic speed, your subconscious gets the message: this is not a world that was tailor-made for your pleasure. The gun in your hand was not placed there by God, so that you could accomplish a mission He has laid out for you. The dangers you see are not elements of a meticulously arranged shooting gallery- they are dangers pure and simple, under no kind of obligation to compensate you for the hardships they incur.

Ten minutes into Call of Pripyat, I found my first camp. A young man squatting by the campfire referred me to the boss, who I found on the other side of a nearby cargo container. My gamer instincts relaxed as I entered familiar territory: An NPC I interacted with via a conversation tree, ready to dispense basic exposition at the press of a button.

As I asked him about the availabled missions in the area, our conversation was cut short by the sound of a shotgun blast- the dialogue box literally closed while I was still reading his answer. While I blinked in confusion, the man turned away and took cover up against the wall. Drawing his gun, he started moving back towards the campfire. I saved the game and followed him. The bandits who had just killed the guy at the campfire shot us both dead in seconds.

I loaded the game. He advanced towards the campfire. I backed away and watched as the bandits shot him dead again. When I moved closer, they saw me and muttered warnings; I holstered my gun, and they went on their way.

The two corpses at my feet were a sad thing, but I didn't really feel guilty. After all, I didn't know these guys; we were just talking. I was just relieved those bandits hadn't cared about me.

I didn't want any trouble.

And the crowd goes wild!

noreply@blogger.com (Dagda (Brooks Harrel)) — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 19:58:00 +0000

I don't get nearly as many chances to stretch my game-writing muscles as I'd like. One exception was last May, during a conversation with a fellow designer who was working on a warcraft 3 arena map. The setting was described as a sort of fantasy roman empire, and each of the 15 characters had some interesting backstory (which I've included below for context. Among his intended features was a neat crowd element:

The crowd gets in on the action! The dynamic crowd will cheer, boo, chant, or roar its support based on player actions, providing a variety of special effects. For example, there are killstreak rewards (somewhat like, say, Call of Duty uses, but don't expect to see helicopters ;))

(3:43:19 PM) Dagda: It's interesting, I like the allusions to the culture/background society
(3:43:28 PM) OneWinged4ngel: Go on?
(3:43:50 PM) OneWinged4ngel: Don't just tell me "it's good." Everyone tells me that about everything I make. It's not terribly helpful feedback :(
(3:44:41 PM) Dagda: Just that all their descriptions imply that their stories tie into a larger context- with the player's imagination being free to fill in the blanks.
(3:45:39 PM) Dagda: This isn't just random archetypes, all of them have ties to a larger world
(3:46:59 PM) Dagda: It'd be interesting to have the crowd shout character-specific things via text, though I'm not sure where you'd have it appear.
(3:50:02 PM) Dagda: The Abomination, for example. Cheer: "Great ___, it's hideous!" Boo: "Inhuman creature! Someone put it down!" Roar: "What a terror!" Chant: "Eat their brains!"
(3:51:03 PM) Dagda: Gives you a sense of how your character looks in the eyes of Rulaan's masses.
(3:51:46 PM) OneWinged4ngel: That's a good idea. I shall implement it.
(3:52:01 PM) OneWinged4ngel: Come up with more lines for them to say for other characters though.
(3:52:03 PM) OneWinged4ngel: >_>
AND SO I DID. Just to reiterate, the descriptions below aren't my ideas- I just came up with the crowd reactions.

The Missionary: An evangelistic priest and explorer from a faraway, previously unknown land who had set out on a mission to spread the gospel of his monotheistic sun god to the world. Upon arriving in Rulaan, the Missionary's compelling faith formed the seeds of a revolution against the established belief system, and he was imprisoned as an enemy of the state. Now, he is forced to fight against his will in the arena. In battle, in addition to sword and shield, he wields the wrath of God itself, calling down fire from the heavens.
Cheer: "It's that foreigner!" Boo: "Give up on your false god!" Roar: "Unbelievable!" Chant: "Prea-cher!"

The Heretic: A corrupt former high priest of the Order revealed and imprisoned for committing atrocities against his fellow Rulaani, the Heretic is a master of the dark arts who bargains with the masters of the underworld for power over death. He knows the secrets of blood magic, offering of his own flesh and soul to gain dominion over the damned. Ironically, he finds that in bonds he has been freed to go about his work; few comprehend his methods, and where once he had to operate in secret, the arena presents him with a plethora of living sacrifices.
Cheer: "Foul traitor!" Boo: "A quick death's too good for him!" Roar: "Such power!" Chant: "Wipe them out!"

The Witch: A pagan practitioner of the Old Ways, the Witch is in tune with the mind of nature and the sacred feminine, and is a master of herbalism, wards, charms, and hexes. The old ways are no longer observed in Rulaan, however, and since the rise of a new organized religion, the Order, the last practitioners of witchcraft are hunted down and imprisoned. Like all prisoners, however, they too are given the opportunity to participate in the blood sport.
Cheer: "Country girl! You don't stand a chance!" Boo: "There's no place for your kind, not anymore!" Roar : "Damn, she's a tricky one!" Chant: "Witch!"

The Abomination: Amongst the exotic monsters captured from the far corners of the earth to be put on display in the arena, the Abomination is the most unique and frightening. Captured from the deepest depths of the underdark, this nightmarish psychic Abomination employs staggering psychic powers to subdue his victims, break their minds, and finally consume their brains.
Cheer: "Great ___, it's hideous!" Boo: "Inhuman creature! Someone put it down!" Roar: "What a terror!" Chant: "Eat their brains!"

The Warlock: A centurion among Rulaan's warrior mages with a penchant for cruelty, the Warlock is a master of vicious evocation magics, able to call fire from the earth, lightning from the sky, frost from the air, or even tear paths through the fabric of reality. Already wealthy and powerful, she fights in the arena for simple sport and bloodlust.
"Centurion! Show them what we're made of!" Boo: "Fraud! This can't be our lady!" Roar: "Truly the finest of our warrior-mages!" Chant: "Rulaan!"

The Knight: A lovestruck former Rulaani nobleman whose forbidden passions have cost him his title, disgraced his lineage, ostracized him from his family, and landed the Knight in prison with only one hope of freedom to reunite himself with his love: becoming the champion of the arena.
Cheer: "There he is, a lord no longer!" Boo: "An utter disgrace!" Roar: "Truly, he fights for her!" Chant: "Fight on!"

The Hero: Once a celebrated war hero of the northern dwarves, the keepers of the ancient secrets of the Way Gates, the Hero was defeated and captured in a heroic last stand, which some saw as the moment that ended a long war with expansionist Rulaan. Now, he is a prisoner of war, forced to fight in the arena for the amusement of his captors in order to stay alive from day to day, wielding the power of his mystical heritage and secrets of dwarven craft.
Cheer: "Pathetic dwarf!" Boo: "This is the best his people could offer?" Roar: "Astounding!" Chant: "Hold the line!"

The Gladiator: A thrillseeking Rulaani freeman who fights in the arena for his own personal glory, fame, and profit, the Gladiator is a returning champion of the arena who hasn't let age dull his skills. The Gladiator is a master fighter with his axe and gladiator's net, and knows how to play to the crowd.
Cheer: "He returns once more!" Boo: "Old man should just retire!" Roar: "What skill!" Chant: "Champion!"

The Savage: A proud warrior of one of the many relatively primitive tribes of ogres scatterred around the western edge of the expanding Rulaani empire made victims of genocide, the Savage was captured and hauled off to be goggled at by audiences in the arena. Channeling his fearsome sorrow and rage on those he is forced to fight, the Savage wields a towering stone axe like a wrecking ball with sharp edges, trampling foes with his sheer size and strength.
Cheer: "What a beast!" Boo: "Who gave that animal an axe?" Roar: "He's unstoppable!" Chant: "O-gre!"

The Amazon: The overextended expansionist Rulaan is plagued by barbarian raids from far corners of the empire, and perhaps the most infamous of these raiders are the Amazon women from the southern reaches. A savage warrior woman captured in such a barbarian raid on Rulaan and put on display in the arena, the Amazon is a swift huntress with a vicious killer instinct.
Cheer: "It's a wild woman!" Boo: "Come on, fight like a man!" Roar: "She's amazing!" Chant: "Amazon!"

The Madman: A relentlessly clever inventor and a homicidal maniac to boot, the Madman defines the line of genius meeting insanity. After using his technological expertise to disintegrate one of the wonders of the world, the authorities stepped up their efforts and finally managed to capture the rampaging goblin. Now imprisoned, the Madman gleefully turns over his pioneering doomsday machines to the Rulaani army in return for an endless supply of live test subjects in the arena.
Cheer: "The goblin! Who knows what he'll do!" " Boo: "Deranged lunatic!" Roar: "He's a madman, but he's OUR madman!" Cheer: "Genius!"

The Outlaw: A daring brigand and expert marksman who terrorized the roads of Rulaan, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Even now that the law has finally caught up with her, the Outlaw does not intend to give up her mission of redistribution of wealth and is planning a daring escape with the help of her allies who still walk free. Until then, however, she must survive the carnage of the arena.
Cheer: "And they said she couldn't be caught!" Boo: "Time for her tale to end!" Roar: "A true legend after all!" Chant: "Freedom!"

The Assassin: A hired killer who once stalked the upper echelons of the Rulaani courts, being wrapped up in so many intrigues came back to bite the Assassin when one of her employers betrayed her, and she was caught in the act. Now, her mastery of the deadly arts serve her well in fighting for her freedom in the fighting pits of the arena.
Cheer: "Nowhere to hide now!" (And yes, they're badly mistaken) Boo: "This is no battle!" Roar: "A deadly foe!" Chant: "Kill!"

The Wanderer: The Wanderer is a traveler from far, exotic lands on a journey to become the world's strongest warrior, testing his skills against those of the greatest fighters from across the world and learning from every encounter with a new style. Now that he has arrived in Rulaan, he seeks to once more bathe his blades and challenge his skills in the Colosseum.
Cheer: "He'll see what the Arena has in store!" Boo: "Get out of the ring!" Roar: "Never seen anything like it!" Chant: "Warrior!"

The Gambler: A devious Rulaani lord with a compulsion for betting on arena matches who, after finding himself mired in debts, finally decided that the best way to rig the game was to enter himself! The Gambler is a master of Chaos Magic, wielding unstable arcane powers focused through cards inscribed with runes and sutras. And yes, he charges up the cards with explosive energy and throws them at people like Gambit from X-Men.
Cheer: "His luck's run out!" Boo: "Nothing but cheap tricks!" Roar: "Fortune's favorite, indeed!" Chant: "Against the odds!"

Court de Capitate: New Playtest Cards

noreply@blogger.com (Dagda (Brooks Harrel)) — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 08:02:00 +0000

So here's my bright idea for making this game available to all of you: Business cards!

All you need is eight sheets of business cards, size 2x3.5 inches; in my experience you can find decent ones for less than $5 at any office supply store or big retail outlet. Print this document onto those pages, and you'll have all 80 cards needed to play a the game! I do suggest scrounging up a d10 for each player, but a pencil and scratch paper can fill the same role just fine.

I'd wanted to share this ages ago, but my perfectionism and urge to tinker have been getting the better of me in the rare moments where I had time & energy to spare for this game. On the plus side, I can say with confidence that this delay has resulted in a better and more playable game (though there's still plenty more I can do to improve it!). Now I just need to finish an update to the manual. To bad I'm terrible at writing those. Maybe I'll just record myself the next time I explain the rules to someone in person?

Influence Map: Complete Version

noreply@blogger.com (Dagda (Brooks Harrel)) — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 07:20:00 +0000

Finished! Got to say, this was a fun bit of navel-gazing.

Really, the hardest thing was separating "stuff I like" from "stuff that I find myself drawing on." For example, I really dig Metroid Prime, but it hardly informs my own work- I don't make first person adventure games, at least not so far.

Edit: I've been asked a couple questions about this, so I thought I'd elaborate some here. The material on the left side of the image is what I draw on (so far as I can tell) when coming up with fictional ideas and concepts- a random character, the background for a world, the fluff premise for a game. The material on the right side is the stuff that's influenced & advanced how I think about game mechanics of all sorts. Pretty much everything on here comes highly recommended, feel free to ask if you want more details on something.

Influence Map: Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Dagda (Brooks Harrel)) — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 04:55:00 +0000

Here's the rough for the second half. If anyone can guess one of the unrevealed items, I'll give them a game-as in, I'll design one for you.

Influence Map: Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Dagda (Brooks Harrel)) — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 06:19:00 +0000

I've been taking a stab at doing this in the spare moments between calls at my job. This image is the first half, give or take.

Brainstorming: One Hell of a love story

noreply@blogger.com (Dagda (Brooks Harrel)) — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 03:44:00 +0000

(10:27:25 PM) Dagda: You know that massive image collection I've got?
(10:28:29 PM) Dagda: 7k character portraits, and just as much other stuff?
(10:28:53 PM) Dr Nurse: Yes?
(10:29:43 PM) Dagda: Basically, I have it all on the ipod, with the slideshow set to shuffle. So I open up the "Portraits" gallery, and declare that the next pic that comes up will be the protagonist.
(10:39:08 PM) Dr Nurse: Holy shit, no dude, I could play that game forever
(10:39:18 PM) Dagda: Same
(10:40:14 PM) Dagda: Here, let's do it now! You declare the character's role, I'll grab the result & give you the web gallery link.
(10:40:25 PM) Dr Nurse: :-D YES!
(10:41:02 PM) Dagda: (Or you can declare something like "this is his weapon of choice" and I'll go raid the Equipment gallery instead, for example.)
(10:41:15 PM) Dr Nurse: Right!
(10:41:19 PM) Dr Nurse: Okay, then... setting.
(10:41:39 PM) Dagda: http://picasaweb.google.com/brooks.dagdamor/Scenes3#5143661690248142114
(10:42:35 PM) Dagda: HELL ITSELF
(10:42:43 PM) Dr Nurse: Damn, I was hoping for more scenery but YES. THE WAR IN HELL.
(10:42:46 PM) Dagda: We appear to be off to an excellent start
(10:42:51 PM) Dr Nurse: WONDERFUL.
(10:42:52 PM) Dr Nurse: Hero?
(10:43:11 PM) Dagda: http://picasaweb.google.com/brooks.dagdamon/Portraits702#5283513631152882466
(10:43:14 PM) Dagda: Huh!
(10:43:36 PM) Dagda: Some kinda elric/samurai guy? This one gives us alot of flexibilty.
(10:43:56 PM) Dr Nurse: ...Wow we are off to a great start. A lost soul in the middle of a war in hell itself.
(10:44:14 PM) Dagda: How about love interest?
(10:44:24 PM) Dr Nurse: Oh! Yes! This could be interesting.
(10:44:27 PM) Dagda: Take advantage of the androgynous protagonist
(10:44:35 PM) Dr Nurse: Totally!
(10:44:44 PM) Dagda: http://picasaweb.google.com/brooks.dagdamon/Portraits702#5283537642721245634
(10:44:51 PM) Dagda: Hmm
(10:45:11 PM) Dagda: Well, she's got the right attitude for a war in hell
(10:45:36 PM) Dagda: (right attitude being yelling angrily while hitting something)
(10:45:54 PM) Dr Nurse: Well, this is easy. Apparently this war in hell is asian themed or some shit. Maybe it's a Dante's Inferno (the shitty game i mean) situation. He went into the depths of hell itself to fetch a lost love...
(10:45:59 PM) Dr Nurse: and she's a little busy kicking ass in a war.
(10:46:34 PM) Dagda: Less "I have come for you my darling" and more "Honey maybe it's time you took a break, dinner's almost ready"
(10:46:58 PM) Dagda: Hmm
(10:47:50 PM) Dagda: Maybe you've got the Doom-esque "gate to hell opens" scenario, and an order of monks sends people in to desperately try & find a way to close it.
(10:49:14 PM) Dagda: And this lost soul- who happens to be a badass swordsman, hence him not being devoured decades ago- is immediately drawn to her (which is a good thing, since she really needs help. Not many visitor aids in hell)
(10:52:10 PM) Dagda: I find myself envisioning a blend of action-movie and "my love interest is damned" dark romance.
(10:52:31 PM) Dr Nurse: I LIKE IT.
(10:52:37 PM) Dr Nurse: So hey, Villain time. Make it happen.
(10:52:47 PM) Dagda: Hmm
(10:53:26 PM) Dagda: Do I go to Portraits (i.e. people) or creatures (i.e. inhumanoid monsters)?
(10:53:44 PM) Dr Nurse: Hey, do both and see what we can come up with
(10:53:49 PM) Dr Nurse: this IS hell after all
(10:54:03 PM) Dagda: http://picasaweb.google.com/brooks.dagdamor/Creatures2#5239703957979077474
(10:54:31 PM) Dagda: First reaction is :/
(10:54:51 PM) Dagda: Second reaction: SHIT YES INFERNAL WARGOLEM ON WHEELS
(10:55:01 PM) Dr Nurse: I WAS ABOUT TO SAY THE SAME THING.
(10:55:05 PM) Dr Nurse: IT'S A MECH. IN HELL. AWESOME.
(10:55:06 PM) Dagda: A little generous interpetation voila!
(10:55:41 PM) Dagda: . . .Oooh!
(10:55:49 PM) Dagda: Person result: http://picasaweb.google.com/brooks.dagdamon/Portraits10#5283564672277980530
(10:56:18 PM) Dagda: Whaddaya say we have our reason for the hellgate opening in the first place?
(10:56:49 PM) Dr Nurse: I think so. A vengeful warrior dude trying to claw his way out of hell and, barring that, bringing everyone else into hell with him?
(10:58:13 PM) Dagda: HELL ITSELF CANNOT HOLD ME BACK
(10:58:35 PM) Dr Nurse: THE GATES ARE OPENED AND IT WILL SPILL INTO THE MORTAL WORLD
(10:58:37 PM) Dagda: Oooh! Oooh!
(11:00:07 PM) Dagda: So I'm thinking, maybe mortals- those badass enough to actually hold onto their souls while in hell- can actually use the metaphysical advantage their soul gives them to start bringing demons under their will?
(11:00:21 PM) Dagda: A sort of charisma that comes from them having free will?
(11:00:34 PM) Dr Nurse: OH YES! So we get the MegaTen element of monster recruitment?
(11:01:45 PM) Dagda: I was thinking this as an explanation for the warrior guy being a villain- but then I realized this could mean our love interest has to learn to do the same over the course of the story!
(11:02:36 PM) Dagda: i.e. stare down the mob of fiends and say "No, YOU get on your knees and beg for mercy"
(11:02:56 PM) Dagda: And then crack heads until they get the idea
(11:03:09 PM) Dr Nurse: YES! This mortal girl has to learn how to be a lord of hell to fight a lord of hell.
(11:04:27 PM) Dagda: And her love interest guy has to rebuild his sense of self, through her, enough to give her the crash course.
(11:04:48 PM) Dagda: OH! Just thought of a viable ending!
(11:05:18 PM) Dr Nurse: Oh?
(11:06:18 PM) Dagda: The whole "dark" part of the romance setup comes from the giant This Will Not End Well factor, right?
(11:06:42 PM) Dr Nurse: Right!
(11:08:36 PM) Dagda: She's on a suicide mission, even if she beats this guy there's very little chance of her being able to escape afterwards. And he's a lost soul, fighting alongside her guarantees that he's attracting too much attention to measure his lifespan in more than hours.
(11:10:37 PM) Dagda: And even if they weren't up against such staggering odds amounts of ass, the best could hope for would be to win her a way out and wave a sad goodbye. Heck, maybe he repeatedly tries to persuade her to cut & run with that very goal in mind.
(11:12:43 PM) Dagda: Then comes the climactic battle against this villain (and his wargolem!). Let's say that there's this big soul-devouring sacrificial altar thingy, maybe with big barbed spikes to impale your victims on.
(11:13:08 PM) Dagda: Or some similar device.
(11:13:12 PM) Dr Nurse: Right!
(11:14:43 PM) Dagda: And say that our final battle ends with this lost soul attempting a Taking You With Me sacrifice, expending his essence enough to physically tackle the villain into the devour-your-soul-o-matic.
(11:16:11 PM) Dagda: Villain soul is devoured! Bloodied, lifeless body crashes to the floor, whites of his eyes showing.
(11:18:06 PM) Dagda: Same soul-devouring forces rip at our lost soul. . .only for it to become clear that they're pawing ineffectively at him. WIth this last act, he's officially become to pure for hell to have any power over him.
(11:19:37 PM) Dr Nurse: OHHHHH
(11:20:09 PM) Dagda: but he's still spent to much of himself, his spiritual form's integrity is comrpomised. He's drifting away, presumably to heaven. She's watching him with this tearful smile, in such rough shape that she can't even stand, demons and/or a still-functional wargolem battering down a nearby door & seconds a way from crushing her to a pulp.
(11:20:36 PM) Dr Nurse: So we still get a badend?!
(11:22:10 PM) Dagda: He's completely not okay with this ending, she's completely okay with it. This way one of them gets out of hell, and it's the one who never had any hope in the first place.
(11:23:30 PM) Dagda: We hear screaming no & struggling to force himself to stay in more and more heartfelt fashions, but after one final, determined, fading cry he's gone.
(11:24:26 PM) Dr Nurse: D:
(11:24:37 PM) Dagda: She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, turns to watch the berserk war golem break free of the door/whatever they trapped it in mid-fight and barrel down towards her.
(11:25:59 PM) Dagda: AND THEN HE SLICES OFF ITS ARM. "HE" MEANING THE LOST SOUL, IN THE BODY OF THE VILLAIN
(11:27:07 PM) Dagda: An intact mortal body, with a freshly empty place where its soul used to be.
(11:27:27 PM) Dagda: TWIST GOOD END
(11:27:39 PM) Dr Nurse: THE BEST END.
(11:27:46 PM) Dr Nurse: I LOVE TWIST GOOD ENDS.
(11:27:50 PM) Dr Nurse: YOU NEVER SEE THOSE ENOUGH.
(11:27:55 PM) Dr Nurse: "OH SHIT THINGS LOOK BLEAK"
(11:28:00 PM) Dr Nurse: "SURPRISE NIGGA NO THEY AIN'T
(11:29:56 PM) Dagda: So.
(11:30:12 PM) Dagda: We need to do this on a regular basis, methinks.
(11:30:19 PM) Dr Nurse: This is the best game.

I Live!

noreply@blogger.com (Dagda (Brooks Harrel)) — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 23:49:00 +0000

Boy, it sure is nice to come back from PAX and take a much-needed rest. Or so I assume, since I for one had to immediately dive into a 45-hour work week. I'd like to say I've now made it to the weekend and can finally get started on all the follow-ups I wanted to do. But the truth is that I'm writing this on my lunch break, because my one day off was yesterday. That day was spent getting some much-needed extra rest, catching up on a boatload of household chores & errands, participating in an experimental game of Dawn of Worlds (more on that in another post) and determinedly attempting to improve the playtest cards for Court d'Capitate (or deCapitate, or duCapitate; I'm try to make a final decision there too).

That last item wound up being my main playtest/demo focus for PAX- I spent half a day trying to figure out how I could import info from a google spreadsheet into a card template automatically, then threw up my hands and put the whole thing together manually. $5.50 at Target got me 25 sheets of 2x5 perforated business card paper, enough to print 3 complete 80-card sets (and for you to print a copy now and have enough left for the eventual stage 2 tests, where I add cards for Events and your own secret identities). There are a few quick changes I want to make to their format to help make the mechanics clearer, and a bunch of little playtest tweaks I keep stopping to add in, but I HEREBY SWEAR that I ON THIS VERY NIGHT (Edit: Yeahhowaboutno, I wound up spending the better part of three hours walking home after missing the last bus and have another early-morning shift, we're pushing this deadline back 24 hours) I will:

A-Somehow make the time to meet my self-imposed perfectionist standards,

OR

B-Deal with it, i.e. recognize that the cards are fully functional and format's all placeholder anyway, and release them along with a bare-bones version of the revised rules.

PAX was fantastic, by the way. I met a bunch of great people, ran alot of productive playtests (i.e. the type where you run into a buttload of things to improve on but the core game proves itself as solid), got to play a bunch of interesting hobby games with mechanics I'd been wanting to check out. . .I'd love to talk more about it, but I need to actually follow up with all those people first :P.

For now, I'll just say that the two best games I discovered at PAX were both tabletop games- Ascension and the Marvel Superhero Squad TCG. Both are simple card games (to the point where many cards only have a name, 1-2 numbers and a type symbol) that take a core element of the formula and twist it around in brilliant, elegant ways that make them truly fun to pick up and play. Check them out!

PAX Tabletop Playtests

noreply@blogger.com (Dagda (Brooks Harrel)) — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:53:00 +0000

Here's the games I intend to run playtests/demonstrations for: Court d'Capitate, Mass Effect RPG, and Trigger Discipline. Rules-lite Divers games will also be a possibility, depending on what people tell me.

If you're at PAX and you're interested in participating, e-mail me! Also feel free to contact me if you're just interested in meeting in person; I'm always willing to help out with things like campaign ideas and so on.

So I'm going to PAX!

noreply@blogger.com (Dagda (Brooks Harrel)) — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 04:54:00 +0000

I've been on a tight budget for a while, and hadn't planned on attending any conventions. But last friday an opportunity came knocking (as illustrated above), and these last several months of overtime have earned me both the disposable income and the time off I needed to attend.

This means. . .several things.

First, PLAYTESTS! At each of the three conventions I've gone to, I've wound up spontaneously doing tests & demonstrations for one of my games; mainly Trigger Discipline, since these were all anime-oriented cons. This time, I've got plenty of different games I could take for a spin; Court deCapitate and Trigger Discipline are both ready for some more test runs, and there's an embarrassing number of other options I could have playable by friday- Divers, Mass Effect, Avatar. . .

Mind you, I'm not sure just how many of those I'll be able to get shipshape. So I'll take requests. If you'll be attending PAX, and would be interested in trying out one of my game ideas yourself? Let me know via the comments and I'll do my best to have it ready. And of course, even if you're not inclined to try a game or two I'd still love to meet you guys in person. Send me an e-mail and I'll give you my phone number.

Of course, one of my other priorities here is going to be the blog itself. This site is supposed to be a portfolio of sorts, and I've been unearthing alot of old documents as of late while reorganizing my hard drive- piles of various campaign ideas & brainstorm transcripts. It's high time I started sharing some of those. . .

Court d'Capitate: Beta playtest rules

noreply@blogger.com (Dagda (Brooks Harrel)) — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Oh right, you guys still need the rules for how to *play* this thing, don't you?.

Fine, here you go.

I've been striving to crank this document out in my spare moments, which are still fairly scarce; let's just say that my last 2-week paycheck had 96 hours on it. You can thank a couple different folks I ran into IRL I ran into last week for providing the motivation; turns out they've actually been hoping to see more of this. (Seriously, it gets hard to keep making these things in a feedback vacuum. Those of you who do make those thoughtful comments are helping more than you could know.)

It's been a little surprising to realize just how bad I am at doing manuals. I have no problem explaining my games when I demonstrate them to someone in person, but when the time comes to lay out all that info in the form of a text document I tend to gloss over lots of vital details. Attempting to buckle down and lay everything out step by step produces instructions that, as someone said about an early draft of Trigger Discipline, "read like a legal document". Hopefully I've been able to put a little more natural voice into this one.

Can you tell this another one of those sleep-deprived posts? If not, you will soon.

I've gotta balance this part of the game first, but I can tell you now how those Mastermind cards will work. You each who you're playing as from several random draws, but your identity is kept secret for as long as you like. Revealing your identity grants you the benefits of your character (such as larger hand sizes, cheaper turn point costs, conditional bonuses, that kind of thing) but also makes you a target- you now have a Luck and Paranoia score, and can be targeted just like any of your Pawns. On the plus side, your hand becomes the scheme cards you're carrying, so you can reveal ones with defensive abilities.

What makes this interesting is that lots of Event cards involve characters which may or may not be one of the Masterminds a player drew for this game. If the next round's event card involves a speech by Prince Albert, and gives Prince Albert's stats as well as a fat style bonus if someone manages to whack him, and you're playing Prince Albert (and don't want anyone to know). . .well. Things are about to get interesting.

Divers vs. Inception

noreply@blogger.com (Dagda (Brooks Harrel)) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 04:20:00 +0000

I went into Inception with a "baseless hunch" about what seeing it would be like for me, one that turned out about 80% correct. Among the expected factors: It's got a ton of parallels to Divers (enough that it'll probably be the biggest "so it's like ___" reaction I get for the project from now on, quite a feat when Divers has parallels to EVERYTHING). It gave me plenty of ideas for antagonists. It's got my mind racing enough that I'll be up all night and should definitely harness this energy towards somethings productive (like this blog plost).

The two big exceptions:

-It didn't give me many ideas about the environments for Divers. The film was too well-grounded for that.
-By having such a thoroughly explored internal logic, Inception provides a reference that helps me better understand my own ideas.

There's a few clear realizations this has currently produced. . .
Where Inception is about the subconscious and our imaginations, Divers is about our intuition and feelings.
The internal logic of the Depths (in Divers) doesn't produce a world where things having match events that could happen in 'reality'; it produces a world where everything 'feels' right. Punching through concrete with your bare hands? Clearly couldn't happen in the real world, but show it to us in a movie or comic and we readily nod along.

Instead of being semiconsciously built from our imaginations, the depths in Divers are formed through the experiences we have- from our feelings, if "feeling" is a label you give to the process of experiencing something.

Inception's world is an increasingly hostile environment that forces you to "lay low", fueling adventures similar to heist movies. Divers' world is an increasingly symbolic/fantastical/significant environment; it fuels adventures where you discover more about the world around you as you fight to better it.
I feel like I've had one element of a personal agenda with Divers, one conscious moral I built into the world's themes. It's simple: Everyone can have qualities that make them worth respecting. Any random person- a surly blue-collar worker in his early 50s, an anxiety-prone housewife, an incoherent bum on the bus- can turn out to have extraordinary depths to them, sides of their character whose virtues would never see the light of day in almost any other premise involving decent action sequences. :P

Mind you, there's a corollary: Anyone can and will have terrible, pathetic failings. Anyone can be force for ill through the Depths, be it through ignorance, denial, or pain too great to bear. That includes the same people who're worthy of respect. That includes you.

Idea: Provide a world for users to fill with secrets.

noreply@blogger.com (Dagda (Brooks Harrel)) — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:02:00 +0000

Just an open brainstorm as to how you might implement this. For a tabletop RPG, it seems like you could use a wiki-like approach to build a campaign setting full of intrigue and hidden motives; the person handling the meat of the setting serves as the admin, with others stepping up to suggest various motives/intentions/goings-on for everything from shopkeeps to nobles to the beggars in a given alley. The big design question is how you'd handle this in some kind of video game.

The approach I'd envision there is making a moderately expansive 3D world, with several different wilderness environments, some small and large towns, etc. It'd hopefully be done well enough that it'd be moderately interesting and beautiful, something you might enjoy running around in with no particular direction; at the same time, it'd all be within the bounds of normality (albeit with the landscape distilled a little, so that you've got more fancy waterfalls and so on). But you'd also provide a set of tools that users could use to modify or add to the world, providing various assets but also letting you make your own.

I can open up this toolset, go in, and add something like a small grove in the middle of a forest or a strange rock formation. I can also go much further than that, adding things like a hidden valley containing ancient ruins or an underground cave system. Other options could include things like giving a seemingly generic building a working door and an interior, and a creature creator that lets you give them all kinds of different behaviors (i.e. your little stick-man will always stay far away unless the player stands still for at least 10 seconds while the moon is full). There'd be a moderator panel I can check in with; they'd offer feedback and be the ones who'd incorporate the altered region into the world. (These moderators *could* act as quality control, but I think their main priorities would be to avoid having one user's additions conflict with another's (i.e. they'd inform you that there's already something going on with that cliff face, and suggest several similar areas to implement your idea instead) and maintain a couple of general guidelines (secrets shouldn't be obvious from a distance, though subtler clues are fine). Players should feel free to give their contributions all kind of unique quirks- winding trails of sky-blue flowers that lead to hidden cave entrances, inscriptions on walls that tell fragments of a story. . .

Games as art- yea or nay?

noreply@blogger.com (Dagda (Brooks Harrel)) — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 09:35:00 +0000

I usually consider art to be abstract self-expression- having something to say. Working off that idea, it's safe to say that almost anything can be art once you're fluent in it.

That being said, I make games, and I know I personally am no artist- the label I do use is /craftsman/. It doesn't really matter whether the core premise is my own or someone else's; my focus is on running with that concept and implementing it in the best way possible.

Ask me anything

How do you make a game about love?

noreply@blogger.com (Dagda (Brooks Harrel)) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:07:00 +0000

Another question that someone else posed and I attempted to answer. What came to mind for me was cases where a player decides, of their own volition, to keep an NPC safe when they could easily have let them die instead (and the GM/game designer likely expected them to), and the amazing dedication they can show when pursuing this self-determined goal (as opposed to the utter frustration people feel towards escort missions).

I'd frame it as a subversion, similar to fathom. You could do a 2-D side-scrolling action game with a B-movie feel, reminiscent of Metal Slug. The level opens with a shot of a diner, then monsters burst in and start wreaking havoc. Pan left (with "GO!" flashing several times, big enough to fill the screen) and we see your character emerging from the bathroom, with an exclamation point appearing over their heads as they see said havoc spill into view. A bouncing arrow points out a shotgun to the left, so you grab that and then use it (along with a jumping kick attack) to fight your way out of the diner and down the hill to an oversized boss. Except that when the boss dies, the music just stops. We see the character walk offscreen back towards the diner, cutting back to the back hallway where we first started playing. He walks over to the body of one of those background NPCs from the intro, and shows some kind of grief- whatever body language and gestures prove the most expressive for the character model. Fade to black.

If you play the game again, you'll likely notice that the woman in question dies *after* you gain control of the character, in what looked like a scripted event. And if your first action is to run to the right and attack the monster with your difficult-but-functional kick attack (which the game doesn't tell you about for another 20 seconds, so you don't know about it your first time through), instead of grabbing the shotgun first, you can actually save that character, and continue to defend them as you fight through the rest of the level. They'll die if any monster gets to them, making it very difficult to make it through to the end of the game without them dying; but it's still possible.

Perhaps you'd actually expand on the gameplay- every section of the game sees the woman doing something else while you fight the monsters, changing how you play during that section. She'd interact with elements of the apparently-static background, demonstrating alot of resourcefulness and ingenuity (though not any combat prowess). It's important to note that her efforts to help herself and you never make the game easier; they just create another slim window of opportunity for you to keep the two of you alive a little longer, and by extension give the game experience noticeable variety.

I'm not doing this because I have any love for the "damsel in distress" option, I'm doing it to deliberately remove outside incentives- where there's no rational reason to shoulder all this hardship except that you care about what happens to this person, damn it. And when you stick with that approach, you wind up getting alot more out of a life that used to be much more effortless and predictable.

What's the best way a game can tell a story?

noreply@blogger.com (Dagda (Brooks Harrel)) — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 21:21:00 +0000

Someone raised the question in a discussion I had a while back. This was my response:

I think it's important to consider what stories are, underneath all the different ways we tell them (all the mediums, plot structures, et cetera). I could bring up Robert McKee here, but instead I'll lift a quote from this piece:

OUR FRIENDS. THE PENGUINS, THINK THAT WE, THEREFORE, ARE EMPLOYED TO COMMUNICATE *INFORMATION* — AND, SO, AT TIMES, IT SEEMS TO US.

BUT NOTE:THE AUDIENCE WILL NOT TUNE IN TO WATCH INFORMATION. YOU WOULDN’T, I WOULDN’T. NO ONE WOULD OR WILL. THE AUDIENCE WILL ONLY TUNE IN AND STAY TUNED TO WATCH DRAMA.

QUESTION:WHAT IS DRAMA? DRAMA, AGAIN, IS THE QUEST OF THE HERO TO OVERCOME THOSE THINGS WHICH PREVENT HIM FROM ACHIEVING A SPECIFIC, *ACUTE* GOAL.

SO: WE, THE WRITERS, MUST ASK OURSELVES *OF EVERY SCENE* THESE THREE QUESTIONS.

1) WHO WANTS WHAT?
2) WHAT HAPPENS IF HER DON’T GET IT?
3) WHY NOW?

During a good story, the protagonist is trying to overcome challenges in order to pursue their goal.
During a good game, the player is trying to overcome interesting challenges.
I suspect there may be some potential synergies here. :P

Let me shift from theory to the pragmatic end of the spectrum. The most powerful storytelling trick I've noticed in games so far has cropped up in these isolated moments in a number of different games. Some examples from video games:
-In Metal Gear Solid 3, standing there as you wait to pull the trigger of a gun- one that's pointed at a person you love more than anyone else in the world.
-In Modern Warfare 2's conclusion, staggering up to a crashed helicopter and its injured pilot, a knife in your hand.
-In The Darkness, watching a movie with your girlfriend on the couch, knowing you can press a button at any time to get up and leave.
-In Assassin's Creed, using your one available action during conversations (walking around within a 20' by 20' area) to pace in circles, turn your back on someone and walk away, etc.

Moments like these stand head and shoulders above the rest of the game experience in terms of having the story be engaging and meaningful to the player. It took some reflection, but I think I've figured out why. The thing all these moments share is that the narrative that's playing out contains a variable which has been given dramatic significance by the game, but is now determined by the player. If Solid Snake stands paralyzed while the minutes drag on until he finally pulls that trigger, that's a different story (in a dramatic/significant way) from the narrative where he hesitates for all of a second. While that moment lasted, the player had a degree of genuine control over the narrative while it was unfolding. Psychologically, they went from an audience member (albeit one who gets to walk around the set and sometimes give an order in the director's place) to one of the actors on the stage.

And as a bonus, the narrative has gone from being a mass-produced experience to one that only this player has had, something that can be very important to people.

Any of that make sense?

What I've been up to, take 2:

noreply@blogger.com (Dagda (Brooks Harrel)) — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 14:34:00 +0000

This.

"Oh my god, it's like 1945 on steroids."

"Wow pretty good. I liked the speed and control and level progression."

"Nice. This is much harder [than a previous build], forces you to cope and change strategy every minute."

"I gotta say this game is tough, and I'm totally okay with that."

I was never in any hurry to get into computer game design, because you can spend so much more time working on the implementation rather than the design itself. I underestimated the siren call the 132 design process would have for me.

Milestone 1 for this game has been to put together a loadout that allows for potent playstyle customization, as the emergent result of small number of choices. This is basically a test for some of my own ideas about how to have the substantive mechanics seen in the "rpg" video game genre, without resorting to artificial reward cycles to keep the player involved. The standard here was (and is) a moderately balanced set of choices that all mattered, so that changing any one of those options has a noticeable effect on the "smart" way to play the game.

This build's aimed at milestone #2: Fun core gameplay. The standard here is for the basic, underlying mechanics to be fun enough (in and of themselves) to make for a passable endless mode. To this end, I've temporarily taken out the options to choose your loadouts; instead, it cycles to a new random arrangement once every 20 seconds.

Feedback and reactions are always welcome. If nothing else, let me know what you think about the different weapons and what sort of scores you can get.

K, let's see. What's been going on with me. . .

noreply@blogger.com (Dagda (Brooks Harrel)) — Sat, 29 May 2010 02:03:00 +0000

A dangerous game.

In no particular order: I've got about 4 largely-complete posts that have sat in the drafts folder for about a month. Blogspot dates posts based on when I started writing them, so when I go back and finish them off it'll retroactively make this hiatus seem to have only been half as long. So I'll do another quick blog post tipping people off then.

I have a new full-time job after half a year of bank account-draining underemployment, which is great; it also eats up a ton of time, what with hour+ commutes both ways and having to adjust my sleep schedule to get up before 5 AM. (This post is being written right before I crash for the night, so pardon the rambling. Then again, since it kinda helps me avoid the habits that slow my writing speed to a miserable crawl, you might do well to expect alot more fatigued posts in the future.)

I have a nearly-finished site touch-up, most of which was already implemented a week ago. The big thing remaining is to test a bit of custom html, a "highlight reel" sidebar item that displays excerpts (randomly, chosen each time you load a page) from some of the better posts on this site. That's not really content, though.

I've also been figuring out a couple other kinds of scripting. During my spare moments on the job yesterday and today (breaks and the spare time while I wait for other class members to finish training modules) I've used google spreadsheets to make a 35-question test/survey related to Divers. You can take it as yourself or in-character; it'll give you your base ability scores, gauge your personality's relative strengths and weaknesses, and outline your supernatural combat capabilities. It helps that the above is actually just the same thing stated three different ways.
Scripting feat #3? Well, I bit the bullet, crossed the threshold, mixed the metaphors and started making an actual computer game using Game Maker, which has turned out to be an unexpectedly potent tool. (Yes, I messed around with Unity around the start of the year. That doesn't count, for reasons I'm to tired to come up with atm.) This first game of mine's a scrolling shooter- playable alpha, gotta churn out some more sophisticated enemy types to fully implement the first draft of the core gameplay. Graphics-wise, I've deliberately restricted myself to this sprite sheet, plus whatever I can make by hand using the built-in sprite editor:

The game itself- the mechanics and such- is probably closest to a classic title known as Raptor, though that's more of a jumping-off point. The other aspect of the central gameplay is something the scrolling shooter genre's never really seen, as far as I know; you might label it as "rpg elements", but it's more like an upgrade system minus all the fundamental things that label would lead you to expect. Really, the whole game is a test/demonstration for my ideas as to how developers could circumvent the inherent design issue I mentally refer to as The Diablo Problem.

Also, I've been reading a boatload of Tim Rogers & Co. I started printing out the text of the articles to take notes and read on the way to work, double-sided in 9-point font; these days I've got an actual binder. If you fancy yourself a real game designer, start reading these guys. The piece on Super Mario Bros 3 alone contained more novel, thought-provoking ruminations on game design than virtually any attempt I've seen to create educational material on the topic.

Now sleep. Back later. Can answer any questions then.

Post-Apocalyptic Bogeymen

noreply@blogger.com (Dagda (Brooks Harrel)) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 11:48:00 +0000

A fellow on /tg/ was trying to come up with some monsters for a post-apocalyptic horror game. My first question for him was simple: Do you want the kind of monsters you blow fleshy chunks out of with guns and plenty of ammo, or the kind that stalk you through the shadows like surreal nightmares? He was after the latter, and had actually been considering having the creatures be intangible (though they'd still have a high body count). Here's what I suggested.

The monsters *are* entities that, objectively, exist- at any given moment, two people looking at one of these creatures will be observing the same thing (heck, if you've got a working camera you could take a picture of them, though any situation where you'd have a decent shot isn't going to be one with a good chance of you getting out alive). They're sentient, and certainly intelligent to some degree. But they also seem to exist almost entirely in our own minds- for the most part, they can barely affect the physical world. The one exception is us- one swipe of a claw and you'll be bleeding profusely beneath undamaged clothes. And while they'll often toy with a victim like a cat toys with its prey, they'll throw people around like rag dolls once they're agitated enough.

Getting into "things the players don't know at first" territory:
-They quickly lose the ability (or possibly the inclination) to affect someone who's dead. In fact, they quickly lose interest in doing much of anything after one victim dies. . .well, most of the time. And that's not gonna stop other victims from bleeding to death shortly after.
-Interestingly, they'll also pay little attention to someone who isn't conscious- or at least, they won't start paying attention. Their focus waxes much quicker than it wanes. One end result of this would be children waking up to see the bloody remains of a mother who never made a sound, rather than crying out and thus waking them up.
-Whether it's correlation or causation, their attacks do less damage to someone who manages not to panic. This doesn't mean not feeling fear- that only happens if you're dense and naive, and it doesn't protect you- it means feeling intense fear and resisting it enough that it doesn't affect your actions. Some elders (and there aren't many out there) advise people to stand and face a beast rather than trying to escape- not because that makes it less inclined to attack, but because that way there's a chance your injuries won't be lethal. Of course, alot of that hinges on there being someone else at the scene who's freaking out more than you.
-The creatures are fairly territorial. Each seems to have its own quirks, abilities, form and general personality (though these evolve over time)- residents typical tell stories about it and call it by a nickname. Personally, I'd use the monster in the '9' short film (and likely the monsters in the feature film version, haven't seen it) as a reference:

Also, it'd be interesting (i.e. really damn creepy) if they could imitate human behaviors-i.e. this twisted nightmare thing occasionally makes some casual nonverbal gesture you'd see a person make in conversation, or whispers something under its breath when before now it only made guttural, inhuman howls.

Perhaps it's not an imitation, and they're spirits of the dead who retain trace amounts of their old selves.

Or maybe those trace amounts come from their latest victims.