Meeting with Professionals

Between our last class session and now, I had the opportunity to visit with Joe Bourrie over at the EA Salt Lake studios and discuss our Insanity game concept. We also shared some words about the "light game," in the event that the idea is pursued in the future

General Feedback

• Adding features does not make a game fun. The gameplay must already be fun, and additional features can accentuate why it's enjoyable on top of the base design.
• When deciding how many features to add to a student game, it's best to assume about half your team has the potential to not hold their weight during the creation process. Though a bit harsh, and may not end up being the case, it will mean being prepared instead of falling apart if there are teamwork problems while building.
• Working in threes or fives for game balance is recommended
• Paper-Rock-Scissors: All unit types have a strength and a weakness against another type, creating a circular system of power. Simple to implement, and recommended for student game development.
• W-B-Bl-R-G: The magic system, where when places into a star the two opposites of one unit type are its "enemies" and the two types immediately next to it are its "allies", allowing every type to have strengths or bonuses accordingly. A more complex, but highly effective system.
• To avoid excessive snowballing, additions such as "superpowers" should run on timers instead of being success-based, so as to give the losing team a hope at turning their success around.

Insanity

• Core mechanics are spawning/moving units, dominating areas, and getting bonuses for your work.
• "Territories" refer to small sections within the lobe that require individual capture to eventually become a full lobe domination. "Lobes" refer to large sections of the brain, the capture of which provide bonuses to your team.
• Ask the question, is a movable spawn rally point necessary?
• Try to avoid "Age of Empires" repeats, where you forget or ignore your troops while being distracted by other gameplay, and are then surprised that your army is larger than expected.
• Consider not having a movable point, and setting limits on how many units can be present at the rally area, encouraging players to return to direct the units more often.
• This would also force them to utilize the same control scheme they're told to use across the entire board.
• It was suggested that we avoid actual attack animations between units for simplicity's sake. The option has been discussed to not have real "fighting" happen, but either be more like a numbers game (the more units, the more influence is shared on a territory until it's converted) or perhaps from a distance the "insanity/sanity" of the units are just felt by their sheer presence.
• Using these parameters, the first option would make the units' statistics less valuable, unless we changed their build to be more based around factors such as speed or influence.
• The second option is compatible with our build because units could still suffer "damage" but make animation easier, and possibly more interesting, by having weird things happen individually.
• To some degree, every option will be altered by the number of units present.
• When zoomed at most/best directional size, you should be able to see your territory, all surrounding territories and perhaps at least a tiny portion of territories beyond that.
• The touchscreen offers 854 x 480 pixels in which to allot our map and units.
• Full territories might then occupy about a fifth of the screen, around 100-200 pixels depending on the direction the phone is held, with units occupying 32-50 pixels at their largest dimension. Eight units seems to be the highest number, staggering their positions up and down, to reasonably fill a territory without losing details to a messy horde-like group.
• Instead of being restrained to selecting 1/2, 1/3, all, etc. units, perhaps we should leave that part of the selection tool out of the control scheme entirely. After you choose which kind of units you want to move, you click the territory to where they should travel, they begin walking in a slight line for the duration of time your finger is held down on the map. 
• Using our "teleportation" system, once one, five, six, however many units you wanted to move over have begun their teleportation animation, you would let up your finger to cease control.
• This requires more user attention/micromanaging, which Joe seemed to prefer rather than fear.
• By the same rules, players are also less restricted on choosing how many units they want to transfer to different locations, potentially avoiding frustration if they only want to bring over a specific number.
• The interface would be even more simple with the removal of additional button options.
• Don't let the game's complexity overwhelm the team. With only two months at our disposal, choosing the most fun features, perfecting them, and then adding on with our other ideas is the best strategy.
  

One Thousand Points of Light

• The touch-play concept reminded him of the highly successful Tiny Wings, where just twenty to thirty seconds if trying out the controls results in the player picking up the gameplay and getting a literal "feel" for how to perform well in the game.
• Suggested that if powerups are added, that they might include light-changing effects, such as a bubble that when hit alters the color of light shining through. This would mean strategic planning could result in all of your light streams having the desired bonus, regardless of the original color.
• However, do not be afraid of minimal, clean gameplay. Reference again to the top, where the gameplay itself must be fun, and a lack of fun cannot be "fixed" by masking it under additional features. Simple is good, and if it's the most fun in the pure form, don't be afraid to embrace it.
• Seemed more intrinsic to have the player use two fingers and push outward on the panel to adjust the size/frequency of the broken light streams, instead of moving up and down to adjust that speed.
• Has the potential to be a very easy, exciting and innovative game. Only playing it would tell for sure.