Intriguing mechanics (and oh, so sorry!)

Posted by screamingcat on September 22, 2009

This post comes after a long silence from us… the bad part of being a duo is that while everything is shared fun, creativity and thoughts, our burden is double too: work, stress and much more.

But to great dismay of our detractors and haters (if we ever had any), we’re back!

So, what we’re going to talk about?

BC: “Mechanics, you fool. You’ve written that in the post title!”

Oh, Right. Then…

When I think about intrigue in RL, I can observe two macro-situations:

1. When the intriguer prepares a plan of actions, and it unfolds onto an off-guard victim. That happens in lies, ambushes, financial trading, and scams in general;


2. Having a chance, the intriguer must do something quickly to take advantage of this situation: carpe diem; this is true even if the intriguer is in a bad situation and could improve his situation or even turn the tide!

In this manner, every lie or plan could be defined as one of these actions, which could also be chained.

Example: a married man wants to meet his lover, and plans (intrigue type 1) some lies to tell to his wife, books a table in a restaurant and calls his lover. Things go well until at the restaurant he meets his wife, and he needs to pull together a believable lie for not being beaten by her on the spot (intrigue type 2). To manage to keep at bay his wife, he needs to come up with something to make up with her (intrigue type 2).

I could shorten them with the terms plan and blow (even if this one doesn’t convince me much).

The blow is pretty straight: you make it or not. Maybe you are very succesful, or your failure isn’t a total failure, but I feel that this one is a unit.

I can hardly say the same about the plan: plans require preparation, risk assessment, resource collection, pulling the threads together and, finally, action.

Having come this far, I could list the parts as:

1. Planning (including risk assessment)


2. Preparation (including resource collection)


3. Carrying Out (including corrections on the fly)

With thess in mind, we could proceed to design the resolution mechanism… but we need still another important element: resources.

BC: “I think I’ll take it up from here! But not now. I want to let this stew a bit.”

Premise Soup and much knife-throwing.

Posted by screamingcat on September 21, 2009

Ok, so…now we’re going to cut up our ingredients, put some spice on them and cook them. With my secret ingredient. Uhm, what? Do you wanna know what the heck is it?

I choose some elements or themes and emphasize them. That is my little secret.

Let’s evaluate the elements so far, and how I need to cut and spice them up.

Ideology: three players, three very different ideologies… this will surely need some emphasis.

Intrigue: this should be splitted in sub-elements, before it can be analyzed, such as:

• Power Struggle: characters compete against each other and PNGs to gain influence on the society.


• Relationships: allies, and people to exploit.


• Treachery!: Loads of it! Assassinations! Double-dealing! Traitors!

End of the Known World: players don’t know really much, but the world is going to end.

Now I’m going to do something that I usually dislike… I’m setting my viewpoint from the bottom of the game, from the end.

We have an abrupt end of the known world; this must be triggered by something, and since I don’t like fixed game turns that much, it should happen when some condition is reached.

We decide that the trigger will be Entropy. Entropy defines when the endgame condition is reached; every now and then its value is checked. Maybe the Entropy value is measured in tokens, fixed numbers, or dice.

After almost no discussion, we choose dice.

Entropy is, in simple words, the amount of uncertainty in a given system. Players could add up some of these dice in the resolution of conflicts to improve their chance of a positive outcome… but this will come at a price.*

SC: First, even if the conflict was won, the situation will be spiced up with a little twist, by something the character is uncomfortable about, or a very unlikely event.

BC: I’d say that the unlikely event is in favour of the character, and the downside is an “Entropy discharge”, that is, something dying, in the broader sense.

Then, these dice are going into the “End Pool”, every dice adding up to the Endgame trigger.

Ideology is where the Premise comes forth: How important is your Ideology to you? What would you do to support it?

Players are encouraged to explore their characters into a set of stereotyped beliefs, doctrines and prohibitions. The setting defines the guidelines, but only the players can choose where and when to cross the line.

*Yes, this is our personal take on the beautiful Madness mechanics from Don’t Rest Your Head.

In the next post: Intriguing mechanics.

What do these things taste of?

Posted by screamingcat on September 16, 2009

Ingredient: Fleur-De-Lis

Related thoughts: Nobility. Renaissance style. The symbol of purity of blood and heritage, the dominance of honor, courage. Enlightened men, born to rule mankind.

Ingredient: Dividers

Related thoughts: Engineers. Freemasonry. The symbol of intellectual achievement, the dominance of reason. Enlightened men, born to guide mankind.

Ingredient: Seagull

Related thoughts: Sailors. Pirates. The symbol of the sea, as untamable force of nature, the dominance of matter. Enlightened men, born to lead mankind.

Hm. I think we can already see where we’re going. Let’s give a shot at the last ingredient…

Ingredient: Star

Related thoughts: Space. Spaceships. Aliens! INTERSTELLAR EMPIRES!

- Screaming Cat: OMG THIS IS DUNE!

- Banshee Cat: Hrm. Yes. Let’s look at Dune and see why we’re trying to make a Dune game.

- SC: Because Dune has A LOT of Intrigue. And etiquette. And nobility. A baroque setting with fantastic creatures. A scarce resource far more precious than oil. And a beaten population, waitng for its Messiah.

- BC: Yeah. It pretty much can’t get better than that.

- SC: So we’re set on Space Opera, but let’s try to move away from Dune.

- BC: Hm. Let me think on that over a quick coffee.

[some hours later]

- BC: Hey! What if the star was actually a dying star? Close to supernova?

- SC: A humanity facing disaster, divided in three ideologies.

- BC: Spirit, Reason and Nature. Three ideologies. Three players (Yes, I crave the Cerberus Award).

- SC: I have a badass idea for the Dying Star. Let’s design it at the center of the game board, and dice will –

- BC: Hold it! This post is about Ingredients, not Cooking.

- SC: Ok then. ‘Til next.

In the next post: Premise Soup and much knife-throwing.

Cats in the Kitchen

Posted by screamingcat on September 15, 2009

Ok. So. Game Chef 2009 Blog!

I’m more a game designer than a blogger, and if you consider that I’ve given my first attempt at game designing in june, you will figure just how bad I am at blogging.

But hey! I’m here to give it a shot!

My name is Giulia Barbano, somewhere known as Giullina. I shall be the Banshee Cat here. My companion through this adventure is Luca Ricci, well known on the web as LucaRicci (yeah, I know). His sobriquet shall be Screaming Cat.

Together we wrote Dreams of a Flying Lady, for The BPG Aeromachine Challenge.

What we learned from the contest was that we still have a lot to learn and that we have huge fun working together, so:

Our idea is to dive in the contest and go on for the whole year.

We’ll poke our heads around almost every day until we’re satisfied.

We’ll try to work with as many ingredients as possible and aim at some awards – even though we already know that there will be no chance whatsoever to get the Brevity Award.

So, that’s about it!

In the next post: slicing and dicing ingredients.