Catacomb Conundrum

[Fenrir]

I have a dungeon going downward. Every floor of the dungeon is explored by clicking a button. The floor is fully explored when the button has been clicked 20 times. Every time the button is clicked, there is a chance that the player's character will encounter something. When the player encounters something, he is given options, and all of these options may cost him health points or yield him health points based on chance. They may also yield rewards that make future encounters more likely to yield positive results, or they may also yield penalties that make future encounters more likely to yield negative results. Encounters may also add to the player's overall score.

The thing is: I'm not so sure how to go about balancing all this and adding encounters to the database. I figure the chance of a "baseline" player character dying on a particular floor should be in direct proportion to the average amount of points a player's score can be expect to increase after a level has been completely explored. I also figure that the average rewards and penalties a player gains on one level should not increase a character's chances of surviving the next level beyond the player's chances of surviving the current dungeon level without those rewards and penalties. In effect, the average chance of a character surviving a level remains constant.

I'm just a little daunted by this, since I need to add the encounters to the database, the chances of a particular option yielding positive or negative results, and what the severity of those results are. Since options can lead to new encounters and new options, I'm left trying to come up with a systematic way of going about this.

[Bear]

Either this is a very abstract game, or you have described it in very abstract terms.  It is difficult to know what question you want an answer to.  You may have better results if you ask a less abstract question.

If I understand you correctly:  you want a series of encounters on each level which, if taken maximal advantage of, involve X% chance of death or failure and Y% gain in abilities/resources, such that the chances of death or failure in the series of encounters on the *next* level, given the Y% gain in abilities/resources, is still approximately X%. 

Now, your question is how to find and present such series of encounters?

There are a lot of ways to attempt to figure this out with math, but mathematical methods will always involve assumptions and are likely to ignore exploitable synergies that your players will find. 

So, my recommendation is to arrange stuff according to your best judgment, playtest it yourself, change things based on playtesting, then let other people playtest it while you observe them, then change things based on playtesting, then release it and wait for further required "balance tweeks" to become obviously necessary while developing new content.

If it's simple enough that figuring it out with math is easier or shorter than figuring it out with playtesting, I think your game probably needs more depth and interaction between effects.

Bear
 

[Fenrir]

It is a rather abstract game at this point, but you understood correctly and gave me the sort of answer I was looking for. Thanks.

Hopefully for more clarity: It's a text-based browser game written in PHP, hence the current level of abstraction. The strategic part will be trade of these abilities and resources with other players. I'm hoping player-to-player trade will carry the day until more depth can be implemented.

[jim]

Actually, that reminds me of the old BBS Door Game, Legend of the Red Dragon. My mom was pissed when she got the phone bill that month. I'd be interested to see where you go with that, Fenrir.

[Fenrir]

I just conducted a preliminary investigation into "Legend of the Red Dragon" . Interesting, especially considering that marriage plays a major role in Catacombs of Blood (my aforementioned BBG). A less abstract, walkable world is planned for when I'm more comfortable with Javascript... Thanks for mentioning this, as I believe you've sparked some much-needed creative thought. Now let's see what monstrous wolves can do...

[jim]

I'm glad that my brain farts are of some use. I think in some ways the actual gameplay of LoRD can be equated to newer browser games like Kingdom of Loathing, but something about the earnestness and competitiveness of LoRD made it deadly serious and very engaging. (When you killed the red dragon, you got special bonuses and lawmaking abilities for the next round. Maybe you were King?)

In general, it was just fun to go out on a controlled grindquest that only let you play for a certain amount of time per day.

You had maybe 15 turns, most of which went by quickly. 80% of the time, they were random encounters with monsters. These encounters took less than a minute once you got used to them. 20% of the time, they were unusual events, either special shops, fairy riddles, OOD monsters, special quests, or something of that nature.

There were also once-daily things - that's where the Bard and the Barmaid came in, or prayer at the local grove, you get the idea.

You could also bribe the barkeep to sneak into another player's room at the inn and attack them. One of the fun things was that all of the exciting events for a day were reported in the next day's news. It gave a sense of community, kind of.

I think in designing a game like this, your sense of style and dramatic flair will be of paramount importance. Prose will be key. Fortunately, *knows you have a penchant for that.*

[Fenrir]

Fenrir's many large teeth creep out from behind thin black lips as a smile grows on his face.

I may write plenty, but a wolf can't trip and call it practicing the waltz, so we'll see how I do.

One of my concerns about the way Catacombs of Blood works is the fact that you aren't in command of a single character. You are in charge of an entire family that works toward their common goals together. The thing I'm not sure about is: will the fact that you're not one single character spoil the atmosphere and erode the sense of community? You'll still have your username attached to your account, but I thought that the roleplaying "vibe" might be negatively impacted by the fact that you're a group of people that, if the dungeon doesn't claim them, aging will, so you're a constantly changing group. I was considering putting the player in control of only a single "heir", and everyone else serves some abstracted ancillary role. I'm liking that plan for two reasons: the one just given, and the fact that I don't feel like implementing a "enter dungeon as a group" option. The great wolf smirks sheepishly.

EDIT:
Now in the process of making the website's forms look and feel more like a DOS console. I hope that doesn't confuse too many people.

[Bear]

You can make the forum easier on the eyes if you go for a gray-on-black text instead of white-on-black.  It'll still look white, but the edges of the letters won't crawl when people are trying to read them.

[Fenrir]

I meant "forms", but it's understandable that you thought otherwise since I didn't really explain what I meant by that. Apologies. What you said is still applicable, as the whole web page is "white-on-black", and I didn't know that "white-on-black" would bother the players.



The little red caret thingy blinks. "Olaf encountered a goblin." will be replaced with better prose when I get to that.

Fenrir suddenly looks uncomfortable.

Uh... I know it's probably all manner of underwhelming at this point, but it's a work in progress.

[Bear]

Okay.  I still think that a gray-on-black would still be better than a white-on-black look though.

There's a pretty popular tabletop game called "Munchkin" that has a similarly abstracted dungeon.  Basically, when it's your turn you kick a door.  You see what kind of monster is there (by drawing randomly) and then (before the fight) you can ask one or more of the other players for help.  If you (or the set of you) can defeat the monster, then you get (or split) the experience and treasure.  The kicker is that the other players (usually the ones you don't invite to help and share the loot) can,  just before the fight, throw in additional modifiers like " radioactive ... " or " ... and its mate" or "spell-casting ..." or "giant ..." etc, which modify the creature you're fighting. These can force you (and the other people you've roped into this fight, if any) to spend more resources than you wanted to, or force you to run away (thereby foregoing experience and treasure).

Munchkin strategy is all about knowing when you need help, figuring out which of the other players can help you and how much, keeping track of which of the other players are dangerously close to winning, and sabotaging them while avoiding being sabotaged yourself.  It's a fun, and funny, game.

Anyway, I thought of it when I saw your abstracted display. I recommend it as a good example of game design.

[Etinarg]

Uh... I know it's probably all manner of underwhelming at this point, but it's a work in progress.

Not really. I like how you lifted the game idea to a very abstract level and still kept the essential ideas. I want to try such too, some day, but I have too many things going already. Just saying, this project looks very interesting to me. Not underwhelming at all. Rather like alchemist tried to extract the essence of something, you try to extract the essence of dungeon exploration.

[Fenrir]

Fenrir smirks.

I appreciate the vote of confidence, Hajo, but let's not fool ourselves. Catacombs of Blood doesn't look like this because I'm an good game designer; it looks like this because I'm a novice web developer. I'm a little unsure of where I'm going to go with this game at this point, but I'll keep at it and see what I can manage.

[Etinarg]

I didn't really mean the looks.

Every floor of the dungeon is explored by clicking a button. The floor is fully explored when the button has been clicked 20 times. Every time the button is clicked, there is a chance that the player's character will encounter something.

It's rather been this. You left most of the things away, and dug down to the core. The idea of exploring. No walking, no map display, but still - you allow the player explore the dungeon step by step. Encounters that are found by walking around in other games are here condensed and reachable with a mouse click.

To me this looks like an interesting process. Not so much the result, or how it looks, but the process of stripping a game idea - dungeon exploration - from all the un-needed, and trying to find the things which are needed, to still make it "dungeon exploration".

[Fenrir]

I understood what you meant; "look" meaning its primitive design. What I mean is that the game is the way it is due to my limitations, rather than a design philosophy.

[Etinarg]

I can't draw animated humans or animals. So I have big problems making combat scenes for games with graphical display. In one project I felt preytty stuck due to that. Then I decided to do the same as you, skip the detailed graphics there and only go with a tabular display ... somewhere I should have a sketch ...

http://www.funkelwerk.de/data/dugoma/panels/combat_preview.png

You found a solution that works with your skillset. For a game developer this is something important I think. To be aware what one can do, and then tailor the game idea so that it becomes doable with ones skills.

I'm pretty sure you can make an interesting game out of your idea. Online trading is also something that many players will enjoy. And you can detail the encounters further, so that the players stay entertained. On this abstract level, such should be even easier than if you'd go with a more graphical/realistic presentation.

Eventually you can even add a bit of interactive storytelling. You once posted roguelike stories, so maybe that would be something to match your talents. Plenty of options