Now then, on to the title. About six weeks ago I got pestered by one of the Mochiads people regarding their "make a batman game" contest. I saw the contest but hadn't pitched a game design because I had a couple of questions regarding licensing of the winning entries. Once they allayed my fears that they I wouldn't be selling off any IP or rights to my own stuff, I pitched a game that'd been rattling around in my brainpan for a little while.
And it was a puzzle game. With explosions. But I thought it had a little more to it than that. I gave a hard look to Meltdown and Pop Pies with an eye towards what makes those games more popular than my other puzzles. And in both cases, it came down to that lizard-brain gratification you get from getting something REALLY right. In Pop Pies, it's that really bigass explosion of 30 or 40 pies.
And incidentially that's one of the reasons I made the explosions sequential things in Pop Pies 2. If you make a really big explosion in PP2, not only do you see a lot more sploding, it goes on for a lot longer. Some people don't like the longer explosions, but most prefer the giant gratifying RATTA TAT TAT you get from blowing up half the board in one shot.And it's similar in Meltdown. The gratifying part of Meltdown is setting up the board just right so that when you touch off one big atom, it sets off that big chain reaction that blows up the whole board. When the smoke clears, the board is empty and you're well ahead in points and particles. Happy happy!
It's what Jesse Schell referred to as "the ice cream" in one of his talks at GDC Austin. When he was designing games for the cool-but-didn't-catch-on Disney Quest interactive theme parks, one of the design decisions was "how much ice cream do we give 'em?" when playing a game. When you're playing Super Pirate Battle, how far should a newbie player be able to get?
And that's a valid question, especially with the Disney Quest video games because the majority of people playing the games will be playing 'em for the first and possibly only time, contrasted with the Mortal Kombat machine at your local pizza place that's available at a thousand other locations and can be played dozens of times.
Should novice players be able to get all the way to the level-boss?
The decision from above came down as "Give 'em the ice cream and the sprinkles and the whipped cream!", translated as "give the first-time players the broadest experience we can give 'em". This decision did make the games awfully gratifying (as I can attest when myself and Shelly and two other friends destroyed the evil "boss" pirate ship in a room-size four-player pirate game), but it hurt replayability pretty badly. Unless I bring along some new players next time I visit, I'm not going to be waiting in line to play the pirate game again.
Back to the lizard-brain gratification or the ice cream or whatever. There's an event where you just know you did everything right and the game rewards you for it. And Pop Pies and Meltdown have that in the form of a big noisy "SHKLABOOM" that's all the validation you need that you're a master of the game.
And I'd been toying with making more of that for Meltdown. Rather than a random Meltdown where you sometimes blow up the whole danged board and you sometimes limp to a half-blowed-up board, what about a puzzle-based Meltdown where you HAVE to wipe out the whole board with one shot? Similar, but not exact, stuff had been done before. And this Batman thing was happening. So I mocked up some screenshots with the Batman-themed clipart and backgrounds they provided and pitched it to the Batman overloads.
And it didn't win.
Not exactly sure why. Maybe the concept was too deep. Maybe the pitch was too thin. Maybe I misjudged the kitschy retro-feel that they were going after with the cartoon. Maybe explosions just aren't done in games anymore (as I can attest from a licensed "Marvin The Martian" cellphone game I wrote a buncha years ago where we BEGGED to make the objective "Destroy the Earth", but were reduced to "Fix your communications dish"). Maybe puzzles just aren't "twitchy" enough for the Batman cartoon audience.
Feel free to post your own theories in the comments.
I might still end up making it, sans-Batman of course. Only problem I see is that progressive puzzle games don't lend themselves well to scoring. And scoring is the basis for challenging. And challenges are the wind beneath the wings of a million facebook-friends playing your game. And that's where the money is. Some of my canned puzzle-games like Duck Tiles just don't get many facebook eyeballs because there's not a good challenge motive. "Hey I just beat level 14 in Duck Tiles" just doesn't have the same one-upmanship potential as "I just scored 12,000 in Pop Pies 2, thus proving that I am superior to you".
Here's the design. Not sure how seriously the licensing overlords are gonna take that whole "entries become the property of. . ." bit. It didn't win, so I can't much see the harm in it.
Also that little "portfolio" bit at the end was a bit of "convince us that you can actually make the game that you envision". The winning games are gonna make up the backbone of a Batman-themed game portal, so they did want actual working games at the end.
Batman's Warehouse Wallop
In a sequel-of-sorts to my chain-reaction puzzle game "Meltdown"
http://www.mochiads.com/games/meltdown/
Batman must destroy the enemy warehouses/labs/hideouts by placing assets (most, but not all of which are explosive) on the board so that they'll all be destroyed with one shot from the batarang.
To muck up the works, some of your friends (or innocent bystanders or lab techs) are trapped in the warehouse/lab/hideout, so you have to place the assets carefully so as not to hurt them. If you fail to achieve your objective of destroying the destroy-ables without injuring the bystanders, you'll have to start the level over. And you have a finite number of tries before the game is over.
Unlike the original Meltdown, the puzzles will not be random but will be human-designed and will get progressively more difficult. In addition to the game itself, there will be a simple level editor (reachable from the main menu) so people can try their hand at building their own challenges.
Also unlike Meltdown, you won't be wiping out a board with several shots. You need to place items and shots cleverly so that you can clear the board with a single wallop from the batarang.
Finally, the assets will change throughout the game. Starting with simple barrels that explode and send shrapnel in six directions, you'll encounter shields that toggle on and off when hit, tanks of poisonous gas that must be avoided at all costs, and the like.
I envision about 20-25 hand-built levels in the finished game, and they'll grow in difficulty from quite simple at first to nigh-impossible near the end.
Also, new assets will appear as levels grow more difficult. For example, tanks of gas might not appear until level four. Toggle-shields in level nine, etc.
Here's the start of a fairly easy level. The items currently on the board are fixed and immovable. The assets in the corner can be dragged to the board to get it in a form so that you can achieve your objective with one shot.
Now I have the barrels placed, along with the rock to protect Blue Beetle from injury. I fling Batman's batarang at a barrel to explode it, sending flaming barrel-bits in six directions to destroy the other barrels.
Finally, here's a shot of the completed level. The barrels are reduced to smoke. Blue Beetle is safe behind the rock. Your objectives are accomplished, and you can move on to the next level!
My portfolio of currently-available Flash games is at:
http://www.thecodezone.com/playnshare.php
In addition, I have literally dozens of pre-Flash puzzle, arcade, and card games that I've written since the early 90's.
http://www.thecodezone.com/games/retro.php
