Plans for the New Year.

2
1 year ago
by Azrael in , ,

We have plenty of things on deck for 2011. While I can’t give you a ton of details, as some of this is still in the staging phase…I can tell you…

Emerald Kingdom will be going into a closed, followed by an open beta. Do not ask us for a date. One thing I have learned is that giving dates is always a bad idea. Right now, StoryTeller is talking to the server, and world development has taken somewhat of a primary seat.

We will be incorporating our art studio as a separate entity. Test Room Thirty Seven. While TRTS will be primarily doing work for Double Cluepon, we also recognize there are a lot of underground game developers who could use professional art services, without having to pay several thousand dollars. I have been tightening up the business model for TRTS, and plan to get it incorporated soon. What does this mean for the underground/indie game developers in Chicago? It could wind up meaning quite a bit actually. Our goal is to provide economical and sliding scale artwork for game developers who can’t draw. One of the things I learned early on, from speaking to other developers (as well as our own) is that some of them would have been making their own games sooner if they could draw, or had access to an artist. Many more would use an art studio, or an artist if it was not stupidly priced. We see a market here. But more than that, we see a community waiting here.

I am personally working on a project to pull indie/underground game development under a more inclusive umbrella. One of the things we have discovered here at Double Cluepon is the rather fragmented indie/underground scene, here in Chicago. We have a number of little groups. That’s okay. But there is no representation, no cohesive underground/indie movement. Like Seattle was for Grunge, Chicago could be for indie games. Chicago is the spot where many game greats were founded. Midway, Williams, Bungie…Some of this has faltered. To that end, I have been speaking with a number of other indie developers, and want to speak to more. Between myself, and some core people we are looking to start some kind of a non profit indie trade group or union. Between folks here at Double Cluepon, and friends of ours in indie games…we think we have a winner here. Please note: we are not looking to form a clique or club. We want an honest to goodness indie non profit. Some of the points I and others have talked about are:

  • To promote and foster underground and indie game development within the Chicago area, without undue influence: We want indies to be able to experiment, explore and create new stuff. There is plenty of time for cookie cutter stuff later.
  • To help indie gamers market themselves to broader markets: We have noted a lot of good indie game devs should definitely have more exposure than they do. One person can have a hard time, however…a group might have a better go.
  • To help indie gamers put together, and assemble tools needed to monetize their efforts: This is a biggie. One thing we have identified, and need to do more work on is helping indie gamers make money from their efforts. One developer we spoke to had serious issues attaching prices to his games. Because ultimately it can be hard to figure out what it’s worth to others, versus what it’s worth to you.
  • To promote connections between artists, sound and music artists, and developers in order to promote better quality indie games: What good is a community if you cannot network with others?
  • To provide a basic infrastructure for all members. (legal, web, protection, representation): This is something so crucial, and yet overlooked. While Tim Langdell has been pushed back, there are always 50 more to take his place. One person facing an idiotic lawsuit is one thing. Facing a whole community is another. Another thing is, simply helping developers get organized, learning how to manage basic business paperwork. How to incorporate, how to LLC, how to set themselves up so they don’t get overwhelmed later on. we think there should be more organized indies, not less. Additionally, Making the industry “safe” for newcomers will help foster its growth.
  • Create an organization with a repeatable model: what we do here should be repeatable in NYC, or LA, or Dallas…or even in places as small as O’Fallon Illinois, or St. Charles, MO. Our organization model should definitely be open source. We should be promoting indies elsewhere, starting with right here. Don’t smack me for the cliche but…it fits: We need to act locally and think globally. If we can make this a successful and independent effort, we need to make sure others can do the same elsewhere.

That said: if you’re an indie game developer in Chicago, and want to know more about this, and perhaps get involved you should email Azrael. ( AT doublecluepon.com ) We definitely want to talk about this idea more. We need more ideas, and we need more eyeballs on this.

In closing, we are ready and waiting for 2011 to come along. We can’t wait.

Holiday Party Super Happy Success!

1
1 year ago
by Azrael in

The 2010 Double Cluepon holiday party was a success. A great time was had by all! We want to thank everyone who came and rocked out with us.

Some highlights:

Jocelyn got run over by a freight train of absinthe.
Uriel Hates Pictures but loves Cider!
Azrael, while ticked off that the bartender was a no show, had a lot of fun doling out the booze.
Tandem on booze has very strange attractions.
Raguel brought the absinthe, and was driving the train that ran over Jocelyn.
Samael went around the bend twice during the night!
Leliel managed to avoid holding down the floor this time around.
Sandalphon impressed us with her whipcream top shot skills. She is also quite the beer maven!
Fianna ponied up for the first time since New Years!

We did however, miss our soldier Nova! Hopefully by this time next year, she will be with us. =)

We were also joined by Dylan and his lovely girlfriend. Dylan is a great writer!

1236910483647

Too good to pass up…

3
1 year ago
by Azrael in ,

The beeb’s Panorama ran a show about games being addicting…

*yawn*

Good intentions often pave the way to hell. It’s easy to blame companies for all of your ills. But the bottom line is this: we here at Double Cluepon love games. The “omg game companies have to be stopped because little johnny is addicted, and he wants to shoot up a school” stuff has to stop. It just does. If you don’t want to parent your child, do not have children. If you do not want to take responsibility for your actions, okay…but then you simply must accept the direct consequences of your actions. That’s reality. Blaming someone or something else falls into the Kindergarten behavior matrix. Stop it. kthnxbai.

TL;DR for Gamers:

I am Azrael, and I am here to ask you a question: Is a man or woman not entitled to the game of his own choice?
No, says the reporter in Panorama. You will get addicted.
No, says the lawyer in Florida. You will shoot up a school.
No, says the Mom who does not parent her child. I think the government should parent my child for me.
I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose…personal responsibility!
A concept where a person accepts that they are responsible for themselves, without the need for someone else to tell them what is good and bad for them.
Where the parent pays attention to what their children are doing, and actually parents them instead of asking a government to do that for them.
Where the game developer was free to create what they want, without worrying about being sued by someone looking for a settlement.
With a teaspoon of clue, personal responsibility can be your policy too!

Quick Update: Some Fixes.

0
1 year ago
by Azrael in

I had to remove the “earn mojo” tab on the side. It was interfering with the theme and js/ajax we use.

I have also removed any and all topsy trackbacks. I had not noticed that their trackback links supplied hover ads. They do not pay us.

A tale of attributes and marks

2
1 year ago
by Azrael in

The problem with a lot of MMORPG’s is that within a month or six, there are recipes for how to build this type, or that type. Where is the fun in that? We here consider the discovery of this or that in relation to character development to be a challenge, and part of the game itself. There is absolutely no benefit to being able to simply follow a recipe for building your character. There is another big thing at play here: experimentation. One of the things I actually like about testing abilities is doing so with others. Experimentation with skills, attributes and abilities with friends is always fun.

So, what are we doing with the character system in Emerald Kingdom? A number of fun things. Let me break out a few things here:

  • No numeric stats: This one is easy. Public facing numerics are, in our opinion, bad. They lead to recipes, but more than that, they lead to stat whoring. We don’t like stat whoring. It annoys us. In place of client facing numerics, we will simply move the numbers to the back end, and used named attributes. There are other games which do this, so we are not exactly breaking a mold here.
  • Your attributes and stats are not static: they can go up, they can go down. Same with skills. There will be no class locking in Emerald Kingdom. Mainly because, we don’t feel you should have to start over if you are unhappy. This, along with static and numeric stats that can’t be changed amounts to punching the player.
  • Plug in attributes: we are working on a system where you can combine the usual and basic six attributes (STR, DEX, INT, VIT, CHA, LUK) into different permutations. Originally, we started with a table like this:
STR

DEX

 DEX

STR

 CHA

STR

 LUK

STR

 INT

STR

 VIT

STR
STR

CHA

 DEX

CHA

 CHA

DEX

 LUK

CHA

 INT

CHA

 VIT

CHA
STR

LUK

 DEX

LUK

 CHA

LUK

 LUK

DEX

 INT

LUK

 VIT

LUK
STR

INT

 DEX

INT

 CHA

INT

 LUK

INT

 INT

DEX

 VIT

INT
STR

VIT

 DEX

VIT

 CHA

VIT

 LUK

VIT

 INT

VIT

 VIT

DEX

But then, someone (Amesha) pointed out something crucial…

“Unless you plan to weight one stat in each pair more than the other (which I didn’t think you were) those would be a duplicate combination. To put it another way, is 1 + 2 is the same as 2 + 1?”

Great point. We let that sit for awhile, to think about it. We came up with another wonderful table at that point, (this time with some ideas for the names of the stats):

STR DEX CHA LUK INT VIT
STR NULL Power Magnetism Appearance Resoluteness Vigor
DEX NULL NULL Artistry Aptitude Cleverness Quickness
CHA NULL — NULL Glamor Charm Serendipity
LUK NULL — — NULL Guile Presence
INT NULL — — — NULL Verve
VIT NULL — — — — NULL

But then, as we were getting StoryTeller to connect to the main server, I made mention of the whole 1+2 = or != to 2+1 argument. To which someone pointed out: using a system where STR+DEX does something different than DEX+STR would make for an awesome discovery moment for a player. Especially because there are no numerics visible to the player. It provides for an “oh wow” moment. Another made a comment that, until this is play tested we have no real way of knowing.

I think, however…this is how I am going to lean in terms of Attributes. So, we will probably wind up with a table that looks like:

STR DEX CHA LUK INT VIT
STR NULL Power Magnetism Appearance Resoluteness Vigor
DEX Named NULL Artistry Aptitude Cleverness Quickness
CHA Named Named NULL Glamor Charm Serendipity
LUK Named Named Named NULL Guile Presence
INT Named Named Named Named NULL Verve
VIT Named Named Named Named Named NULL

Of course, we will need to come up with some more names for attribute permutations. Another thing we will have to think about is, which stat wins in a permutation? Backend wise, if STR has a weighted average score higher than DEX, how does that work not only for STR+DEX, but how does that affect DEX+STR? Something we need to carefully think about. But in the end this will give us a great spread for the Mark system.

For every major NPC (In the world of Emerald Kingdom, these are called “Sprites”, not to be confused with the term “sprite” or gamesprite”), there is a mark that can be attained. Confusia can mark a player with “The mark of curiousity”, Beatrice has the “Mark of Beatrice”, etc. These will act as attainable buffs for attributes and skills. This is important, because it allows for a great deal of flexibility. Marks will have other subtle effects as well, in terms of how people or other NPC’s view you in the world. People will percieve you differently based on whether you have been marked by say, Colleda as opposed to Taranis.

The Attribute and Skill system is still in the design phase, to be sure. But we have some pretty nifty ideas we want to play with here. Balancing it will be a big thing on the to-do list. But, overall…we believe it’s going to allow for maximum customization, without the need for a really complex interface to do so.

Now to come up with some more names for that table…

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