My current thoughts today on a few gaming topics

I'm taking simple aim at apps and games, but the concepts and ideas are similar for how to support and implement a backend for any game I make.  Goodbye yellow brick road sounds like its playing, yah, odd, but appropriate, and then what do I write about?  This cloud thing, hmm, could it lead to VR games supported?  Gamers won't want to move around, would physically exhaust themselves playing and games would need to be easier.  Games need to be easier with VR.  You are going to have your hardcores who can keep up and then the rest of us who would quickly burn out, so ah, that means a decision on core audience. 

Why appeal to all gamers when you can appeal to a group of most likely players?  A niche for everything in games, create the content, the game, then look for who to play, because games I think are a limited subset of experience and the public on the internet so vast they will consume anything and everything and come back asking for more.  This unfortunately allows scammers and hacks (as in writing hacks) to thrive but more together developers to have an audience for their work whatever that work is.  And the time to roll out is short and fast paced. 

VR then should have an audience and a roll out.  Similar to Google finding small 3 line ads are advertising success someone may find something that works in VR.  Almost anything can get an audience and interested people to go about consuming whatever content there is.  Meaningful content may be hard to come by but some of the stuff that passes for meaning is trite, trivial, and unfulfilling.  There may be a chance for serious developers to create something meaningful with VR.  There are probably as many layers of meaning for a game as there are for a book, movie or other work of art.  To create a game that is a serious work of art. 

That leads me to ask a question, what is a meaningful game?  There is a book I picked up recently on game design. I was intending to sell it but now might make a pass through to see if I can create something with the book's rulesets.  The meaning of things may derive from value and the emotions provoked and invoked and evoked by something.  With games the emotion evoked is that of winning however defined and a player winning.  In winning getting an edge up in competitive play, player versus player, or overcoming an environment in player versus environment play, is the goal.  And the feelings that go with playing a game are the end all be all of a game or the players wont play.  If the game is fun and evokes enough of an emotional connection however that goes I would consider that game a success.  

That then leads me to ask what does an exponential mindset applied to gaming look like?  Most games are an incremental piece by piece moves and countermoves. Mostly aheads, because players need progress to know how they are doing in the game environment.  Exponentials worked into a game would make a game that has the number markers of the game spiraling up on some stats and way far down on others.  Exponential growth versus exponential decay.  A game needs exponential growths for a sense of progress.  Keeping up with the numbers might include players accumulate enough numbers, then move into a different representation of the numbers.  That leads to symbols replacing numbers to show progress.  Players accumulate enough numbers.  Go to an exponential progress and step into the accumulation of symbols tuned similar to numbers but different in that they represent much larger amounts.  Now for many games, the accumulation is represented by items and item sets.  To go past numerical representations into other symbol representations can act as a sort of gate to higher level play.  Where some other level of math representations could find play such as vector math, algebraic topography, geometric complications, econometrics and so on, on up.  

 

Would it be possible to design an exponential game that relies on complex mathematics and would it find an audience and take them from algebra to calculus and beyond without taxing the play to the point of unplayability.  What does the audience look like when calculus concepts are made accessible and key to winning a game?     

And a key being, anyone can play, be lead along in progress and be changed by the game and find meaning to the game?  

So with those random ideas thrown together, I hope there is something to generate some more thought and even a game or two at the end. 

Casual games vs RPG

There's casual games vs rpg's and casual games are the toss offs with deep internal play of a player's mind.  Much like poker the skills and game play in casual goes deep off surface simplicity.  Casual games are simple but at another level they are deep.  rpg's make no such bones and are an outright blizzard of progression bars.  You know where you're at by game bars in rpgs.   Casual games are not like that.  Sure they have progressions but no real recognition you've reached another level than you are scoring more points and tic off a whole level complete.  The background mental in a casual game is complex and deep but the play itself remains the same and simple.  The rpg goes on mobs, mob challenges and story challenges.  Sure there are story lines but ultimately they involve a mob.  d&d online did a good job of mixing mostly rpg with some puzzle elements.  The d&d online puzzles are super simple compared to casual games. 

Casual games puzzles take the form of complex patterns from the gameplay order of playflow.  The order of playflow in a casual game, comes and goes quick. you'll know within seconds if the pattern of click/tap you picked was the right one.  In rpgs the flow is just as fast but more simple, arm up, beat mob, done, next.  The complexity of rpgs comes from stories told by encountering the mobs there and story obstacles.  The complexity of rpg's is also in choice and acquisition of equipment to take on ever greater levels of the rpg.  Different forms of progression of casual and rpg, but very different ways of getting to the complex part of the game. 

Now World of Warcraft went and simplified something that was already simple.  They turned rpg into casual.  Now Im not sure what they've been up to over at Blizzard lately other than Overwatch.  Overwatch's competitive play idea is interesting as it would allow for more pro gamers.  The fantasy first person shooter impression I have of Overwatch so far holds some interest for rpg'ers from the fantasy setting.  For the non-twitch players rpg's remain enjoyable and challenging.  But to make money at them requires some effort as Entropia Universe is about the only place traditional rpg'ers can make a buck that comes back out of the game. 

Entropia Universe gets into a casual games and rpg games complexity with the idea of eco, and the many, many formulas, equations, and complexity of deep gameplay. 

I see maybe that the meta-aspects of these games is where the appeal is.  That a beginning player can dive in, play and get somewhere to be entertained.  Then the deeper into the play a player gets new complexities emerge and a player can play and be entertained by those aspects.  By having a game that reacts to meta-concepts and can be played outright while the meta gives the game much of its popularity and entertainment value.  Similar to how the same words mean different things to different people and even in the same person's line of thought a word can change meaning. So it is that the same game with the same game play means different things to different people and even within the same person's mind from play session to play session.  

What I love doing? Is it gaming and games? I think so
and books, comparison/contrast, backwards/forwards, up/down, here/there, truth/lies
and where does it all go? meta/non-meta, losing myself, finding myself.  I keep busy being born with new things/old things and dying the same.
Always looking, seeking, in motion with something somewhere, ahead.

For instance I see a lot of best selling gaming as focused on combat which is fine.
The games not focused on combat are the social games of social media which are an endless pit of app time wasters.  They are on the level of minesweeper and tic tac toe
Then there are word games which my wife is into atm.  The word games take gaming tic tac toe and move it up a notch.
From where I am now there are games that fit my mood, temperament and challenge level at the time.
For complexity the game is Entropia.  For light play time fillers, the word games and Facebook games engage me.  Engaging content without being sold something is the lure of many RPGs.  Facebook games, and app games on phones cannot say that.  Most of the app games are riddled with ads.  I guess that;s fine if you're an app developer, publisher, and/or distributor.  Does all gaming need to have ads to make them viable?
I see ads as necessary to keep some games developed and emerging.  Many more games are no longer stand alone fun.
Someone is trying to make a buck off them and collect some revenue somehow someway.
Can that be the impetus behind every game?  I see many games as works of artistic expression.  Money gets layered in either as an afterthought or original intent.  As long as a game gets made for me, it's all good.

The free trade server of Norrath,  From the description it seems more geared for subscribers and to please them,  The people who actually pay money to play.  Being able to trade almost all items is cool.  That is a big deal because whenever there are more opportunities open up to trade the ingame economies get better and that adds to fun.  People like looting and trading multitudes of items.

Now then the idea may be to combine extensive trading with app games.  A game geared to nothing but trading.  Farmville did a good job of being casual with trade elements.  What if there were a way to create trade and nothing but trade?  Groups of resources acquired through the game, then traded among players.

As for consideration of how to go about creating games the idea occurred to me to use bitcoin as the game's base currency.  Because bitcoin is such an odd form of transfer, a game based around it would need certain parameters established and brought into the game.  Such a game would be subject to the price changes of bitcoin.  As it takes considerable effort to turn bitcoin into dollars it seems such a game should have no problems keeping the money in the games' ecosystem.
Further bitcoin allows that if the money's not there, its not there.  No stack overflow errors and hyperinflation.  I believe such a game would be subject to hyperinflation if there were a hole in the game logic.  However it could be wrangled so that doesn't happen.  Such a game would need to be air-tight on how it doles out loot, stars, rewards of one sort or another and the transfer between players of the bitcoin loot.  Could Facebook or other social media be tied in to bitcoin rewards and trade?

This also brings me to are there games on Instagram?  A way to layer in picture games seems the first obvious path to take.  Then also with the picture game of Instagram layer in some bitcoin.  Doling out rewards in bitcoin still seems a problem because who decides how much and where the money goes?

I think for a developer to risk whatever they are going to risk and cap how much money can be doled out is one restrictive parameter to keep the game in check.  After each try does promising bitcoin for successfully navigating a game mean there is a liability to pay?  It seems that to promise bitcoin does not create any liability.  The promisee just wouldn't pay.  So that then creates a trust issue for a game and whether that developer will pay up or abscond with the money.  The developer who jets with the money of course is going to lose customers and have no one playing the game.  The developer who pays up fairly and regularly would have a successful game.  I dont think it would take much to create
such a game based with current technologies.  This is a synopsis of my current thoughts on gaming today.