f13.net

   I have been thinking of ways to turn brainstorming into a sort of competition.  Something like a mix between the GDC game design challenge and a drinking game. This is what I came up with.

   Essentially what the players will do is design a game.  The design process will be split up into five rounds, in each round each player designs a portion of the game.  Each round the ideas are voted on by everyone (not just the players) and the winner of each round determines what that aspect of the game will look like.  From then on the players must design for the game that's already taking shape.

   This sounds a little confusing but it's really simple.  Let's say that in the first round you suggest a fighting game with cats, but another player who suggests a puzzle game based on traffic patterns wins the vote.  Then in the second round you have to make up the gameplay for a game based on traffic patterns, not your game.  So you describe a mechanic “where the purpose of the game is to create congestion by...” and your idea is selected as the winner of that round.  Then each round from then on all the players must work with your suggestion as the basis for that round's design.

   1)  Round one consists of the general theme of the game.  In one paragraph or less describe the essence of the game.  This is the easiest round of play but it sets the tone for the rest of the game.  The submissions in this round can range from "an MMO based on William Shakespeare's line ‘all the world’s a stage’.  In the game players are rewarded points for their ability to role-play" to something as simple as, "a firefighting game."  Think of this is the front cover of the game’s box art, or how somebody might describe the game if they forgot the name.

   2)  Round two describes the general gameplay.  In one page or less describe the major aspects of gameplay.  If it's a puzzle game how does the puzzle work?  If it's a fighting game is it a 2-D, or 3-D, bloody, or tame?  If it's an FPS what weapons are there?  Etc. This would also be a good time to differentiate your game from every other game in the genre.

   3-5) Round three through five are voted on depending on the results of rounds one and two.  I have come up with a couple categories but others could be suggested.

A)  Multiplayer / MMO gameplay.
     This is F13 after all.
B)  Gameplay specifics.
     Getting down to brass tacks about how the game actually works
C)  Teh shiny.
     Describe the game's art style and how it adds to gameplay
D)  Make it for the wii.
     Include motion control in gameplay.
E)  With a twist.
     Add an unexpected twist to the gameplay.
F)  FIGHT!
     Combat systems.
G)  Story.
     Turn pong into a Shakespearean tragedy.
H)  World design.
     Describe the world and map all the levels that the gameplay travels through.

   The rules are simple, you have to play every round, only one submission per round, and you have to abide by the results of earlier rounds.  If you're not going to be able to deal with your first idea not winning, don't play.  (For the drinking game rules it's quite simple everyone who doesn't win the round drinks)

   The timeline I am thinking about is one week for each round, with one week for voting in between each round.  It's a bit of a slow place but we all have other things to do with our time so I think slow and steady makes more sense.  (The drinking game is much more fast-paced and should only last an hour or so)

   So there it is.  Is there anyone interested in trying this game here?  I think the coolest outcome would be a pros versus joes mixed group; our friendly neighborhood devs versus the local F13 riffraff.

Not sure I follow the whole idea yet, but I'm up for it I guess :)

I like games.

Tough to achieve. Most devs, except for Zepp, tend not to come in here, or if they do, they don't say anything about it. If they were to steal an idea from the board, they'd be in massive, massive deep shit. I don't mean taking a "suggestion" from a thread in MMOG Discussion, but rather, a new idea completely developed in this forum. It's just not kosher. It's one of the reasons this forum is segregated like the politics board. To protect people. Which is to say, I don't want to see that situation happen.

  You have too high an opinion of us; no one is going to steal shit from us.  And I really don't see any pros divulging their companies’ new secret game designs to win a dry-drinking game on the internet.  But just to put your mind at ease how bout we say:

  The game design that's developed, and all suggestions submitted but not included, are no one's property and no player(s) may lay claim to any profits from sale of the game except in cases where they have added to the design/production of the game outside these forums.

  IE if someone makes the game using the ideas put forth, you're not going to get a dime unless you help program it or something. I mean shit, that goes for anything anyone posts on F13, the game dev forum or otherwise. In the end the point of this little game isn’t to create a real game, it’s just to exercise the brain a bit. So devs ask your lawyers if you can come out and play for a bit. If not, at least come around to vote.

  So now that Schild has scared all the devs out of the room I’ll have to ask again (that is unless Schild wants to draw up a proper EULA for everyone on the forums to sign before we continue).  With what you now know, does anyone want to play?

Lets design game where players have fun. Here, now I'm privy to profits from any fun games that developed after this date.

As to my entry - Game is about forum drama. Its a PvP title where you engage in asshatery and acting out your inner nerd rage fantasies. Players get to choose from many classes, such as Troll, Ranter, Lawyer or Red Name and engage in captivating group combat with exciting class-specific moves like 'rattle the ban stick', 'threaten lawsuit' or 'post a chart'.

I vote for forum drama game, too, and I'm waiting for round 2 cause I have a few ideas about the specifics of it. 

It involves starting out with a pre-determined list of one-liners which you must carefully apply as responses to various posts, and you get forum-xp for doing so.  And if your one-liner gets someone all pissed off and they reply to it, you gain a forum-level, allowing you to design your own 255-character-limit one-liner to add to your repertoire.  At forum-level 20 you also get colors, and at forum-level 40 you get font sizes.  At forum-level 60 you get to add 1 picture to your repertoire, and at forum-level 80 you get the ability to type in one rant per month.  And finally, at forum-level 100 you can post a front-page rant.

Costs per post are TBD at this point, although they'll probably be in tune with what other games of this type charge.

EDIT:  thinking of this, I'm getting more and more excited.  Let's implement this, I wanna grind the Politics forum.

I'd play. I think I have some great ideas that I'd like to flesh out and see what other people think about them. This might be the opportunity to get some feedback and constructive criticism on my ideas.


I don't remember how to code shit though, considering I've been out of OOP for eight years. *shrug*

If you don't get anyone else to play, I'd be happy to do it through PM :o

I'd join.  It sounds like it could be fun to me, as long as we're not taking it too seriously.

LET'S PLAY GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR

You haven't heard my ideas yet.  I'll be keeping my awesomeness to myself for now.  Anyway, isn't this how Geist and Horizons were designed?

I think making it a week long per session is too slow. I think 1 day per 'round' would be a more realistic time gap. Posting in a round could be optional. Or something like first X posts in a round get put into a voting poll that way there would be no time limit.

Why don't we just start the game?


 :-D

Alright the game will start on monday. I'll make a thread for everyone's submitions only.  If you want to color commentate we can do a seperate forum for that I just dont want chatter between submitions making it hard to sort out peoples submitions.  only one post per player, but ninja edits are acceptable till the deadline.  Krakrock is right a week is a little too long but shit, I got things to do with my life, so submitions will be taken through wednesday and we'll have the vote on thursday through friday. I'll declare the winner of that round saturday morning, then (since no one reads these damn forums on the weekend) subs will be accepted staring on monday again. If the game goes faster I'll try to keep up by bumping up the deadlines though.

Does it --have-- to include motion control? Also, if it is for the Wii, it has to have no patches ever. Doesn't that constitute problems with the MMO variety?

  After the first two rounds there will be a vote for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th rounds which will be chosen from that long list.  So each game will only have 3 of the options, say round 3 is option F, round 4 is E,  and round 5 is H. so in the case you pointed out if we vote for the "adapt for Wii" challenge for round 3 we might not have the MMOG challenge for rounds 4 or 5.  Having said all that your point is kind of moot since you could still make it for the Wii and have multiplayer even if it doesn’t have massive or even simple online connectivity.

Interesting, it's just like an actual "design by committee", where instead of making a name for ourselves and getting promotions we largely don't deserve we get bragging rights.

I'll play, I think your original week timeline was better then a day because my job often calls for me to travel and I'm afriad there will be times where I won't be able to respond in a day.  Three days, as a compromise?

I think I might try this - it should be interesting.

What sort of time frame are we looking at?

I suggest posting these deadlines in the threads for the rounds as well as here, since people aren't going to go picking through this thread to find them.

You should also link to this thread from the first post of each round's thread, and tell people to post questions here.

(Just helpful suggestions for reducing noise in the round threads.  I'll even be helpful and move posts that aren't submissions into this thread.)

(edit: fuck it, I'll be extra helpful and add the info myself.)

(edit: and clean up some of that atrocious spelling while I'm at it.   :evil:)

Thanks sam.

hey, what happened to sinij's sub?

Wasn't me.   :?

Should I feel privileged to be be discriminated against?

I have thrown the gauntlet.  Rawr.

(Also, sinij, you should resubmit your idea if you can remember it.  I'm guessing that it got eaten by a forum glitch or something, since if a mod had deleted it he'd have spoken up by now.)

I have decided to enter this contest of madmen and deviants.

Let the smack-talking begin.

I like how the two people who posted right after me sound like they're just ripping off parts of my submission.   :angryfist:  (Although I'm sure that wasn't the intent.)

Fucking hell, I didn't read your concept, now I have to change mine.

I figured.  That makes it even funnier.   :-D

I take offense to that.  I clearly stole mine from Chrono Cross.

Mine is the result of a bacon-jalepeno quesadilla. Where they forgot the jalepeno part. So it was really just bacon and flour.

I have decided to not change my idea for I am too lazy and like my game's title way too much.

Battle of the pussy games!

Dude, your idea blows.

It would add fun game play aspect if you could get into nervous eating in order to try to calm your feel of guilt.

I can't wait to hear more about these meat-based adventures.

 :cry:

got sent out to a client (will be there again next two weeks), today is first day I have any time to work on this, and it's obviously too late.  sorry for not participating.

Mmm, Mmm, nothing is more tasty than cat souls.

Um...how many people are even reading the original description of the game?

Inexplicably blessed with the ability to travel freely through time (Quantum Leap style but within your own body) during the hours leading up to the accident

Not years, not days, not minutes - hours.

Four responses don't even follow the game outline. That's kinda funny.  :roll:

 I wish our submissions got more responses from others though. I like Nonentity's idea somewhat, it reminds me of a game called "The Journeyman Project" which I immensely enjoyed. And I think Sinij's post would be cool with Schlid's idea. I'd play it :D

Nice spot, where's your idea??

Let the voters decide.

*shrug* I think you need to stay within the confines of the game description. That's just my opinion though.


And I posted an idea, so no snarkiness toward me :)

Your entire fourth star is jacked from me. Boo.

The description is pretty nebulous. I don't know if I'm inside it or not. I fleshed out the background story more in mine because it creates an idea of who the enemies are or could be and creates somewhat of a framework for the gameplay.

Edit: Stop replying in the game thread you wankers.

Apparently, cmlancas is the only one who knows how cats normally behave.

Sorry :(

I'll put you in the credits. I did totally steal the one-item-at-a-time thing, but it's a convenient and logical way of a puzzle limitation.

(http://img482.imageshack.us/img482/6664/miltondantemk3.jpg)


O RLY?

That's not what I said. I simply said that I stayed within the confines of the game description. I am trying to be respectful of others ideas while posting my opinion. I don't want a silly pvp forum war.

I suppose past events could have an effect on the <insert hours here>. I just chose not to see it that way.

That was in regards to your 'idea' getting 'jacked' by bhodi comment.

Meh. I'm waiting to post last. It's what Blizzard would do.

He clearly admitted that he swiped it from me in the next post. How was I wrong?

Your 'idea' wasn't original and I would equate this with a brainstorming session where people build on other peoples ideas.

Yes.

I agree that we're functionally brainstorming now. What does that do to the vote at the end?

Nothing, I'd say.  Each person will add their own bit of polish or whatever to the idea.  If a bunch of people end up posting essentially the same idea, you vote for whoever's variant you like best.  We're not awarding prizes to the "winner", so it doesn't really matter whose post the idea started in and whose the "best" finished form ended up in.

Where was Schlid's submission? He said he was waiting until last to post. ><

I guess that means his was a submition by example, how to be a pussy.  :rimshot:

He pulled another Al Gore. Sitting out the second round.

I thought it ended the next night. Ironic how I can read the rules one day and not the next.

Is this thread dead or what? I really want to expand on this Casanova game I have in mind. It's Bully meets Leisure Suit Larry. And by that I mean a small scale GTA clone with heavy adventure elements. Goal is to bag the 10 hottest women in 18th century Venice. It would have only basic combat...I'd rather have players be scored through stealth/deception/and escape. Like Assassin's Creed, but with fake mustaches. Have some of the same building hopping mechanics like that game too, except make it funny. "Hijinks"... Like a Charlie Chaplin movie or something. Lots of tripping and falling in gondolas.

If I can stab people in the face at will (especially the women I just banged) I'm totally on board for this.
American Psycho+Assassin's Creed+Hijinks? Yes please!

This shall be a family friendly title. Bangin' and hijinks only. Sorry!

Jack Thompson may not be pleased, but I think it'd work.

Granted, I tend to keep sex out of games.  Two vices with different mechanisms, never the twain shall they meet.  Except they have.  But were they better games for it?  Not really (http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/921130.asp?q=singles).

Still, the idea works for the sheer hijinx and pratfall value.  Sneaking past the guards in order to please sex-starved noblemans' trophy wives?  But of course, it is Casanova's duty!

Forgot to mention that it wouldn't be x-rated. Just Leisure Suit Larry levels for that kind of thing. Still geared towards a mature crowd, but nothing racy. The gameplay would be in the seduction and escape. And Casanova would resemble one of the Musketeers or Jack Sparrow at best.

[edit] He was funny looking guy anyways. Kind of resembled Jon Lovitz

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a0/Casanova_ritratto.jpg/431px-Casanova_ritratto.jpg)