The Quixotic Engineer

These past few weeks I’ve been fighting a pitched interstellar war against fellow game bloggers Matthew Burns, Ben Abraham and Michel McBride-Charpentier. Early in the game I had a long-standing alliance with Ben, and we peacefully teamed-up to take out our red neighbour “Dr Dinosaur”. I sold weapon technology to Matthew in his distant campaign against Michel, who was the winning player at the time. As I rallied my troops on my Eastern border to confront the next enemy, Ben and Matthew launched a treacherous surprise attack on my unprotected plank. I’m making a last stand on four planets now, while Ben and Matthew turn on each other for complete control of the galaxy.

Neptune’s Pride is a browser-based multiplayer strategy game that falls somewhere between Galactic Civilizations and Risk. Eight empires fight to be first to conquer half of the galaxy’s ~180 stars. While the game ostensibly progresses in real-time, moving a fleet from one planet to another takes about 16 hours (before speed upgrades) and your economy only produces funds once a day. Thus players only need to check the game a few times a day, a style sometimes referred to as “sporadic play”.

What’s even more interesting about Neptune’s Pride is the high level of strategic abstraction, closer to a board game than a video game. There is only one type of fighter ship and one currency. Planets can be developed for economy, industry or science. Science slowly improves fleet weapons, speed, range or scanning. The diplomatic options are equally stark: players can message each other (privately or publicly) and send resources/technology. This means that there are no game mechanics governing alliances, trades, borders, etc. Interstellar relations are therefore forged on trust, cunning and strategic treachery. Playing with friends adds an extra dimension of political deviousness: are they going to check Neptune’s Pride before going to bed, or can I launch a sneak attack overnight?

While my performance in the last match was nothing to brag about, I feel I’ve mastered Neptune’s Pride sufficiently to impart some wisdom to new players.

Firstly, understand how the combat system works. There are no random elements or dice rolls in Neptune’s Pride. The defender always strikes first, and kills a number of enemy ships equal to their weapon tech level plus one. The attacker then kills a number of enemy ships equal to their natural weapon tech. This goes back and forth until one side runs out of ships. There’s therefore no need to guess the outcome of a battle; you can compute the results beforehand, and only commit if the outcome is favourable.

Remember that the defender has a double bonus: first strike and extra weapon damage. Use this to your advantage! Try to leave a one ship garrison on every planet you own. If the enemy tries to land there, they’ll lose 5+ ships and you’ll only lose one. This kind of attrition can really slow a raiding party.

The four technology upgrades are not equal in worth. Namely, the range upgrade isn’t very good. Early in the game it can be handy to throw a level or two into range in order to reach outlying stars or save travel time by cutting across diagonals. You might assume that later on it would also be handy to blitzkrieg your way behind enemy lines. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. If the enemy can see your fleet, he or she can also see its destination. Your opponent will have plenty of time to organize their defences for your arrival. Your upgrade time is better spent on weapons, speed and occasionally scanning.

On the topic of science upgrades, I learned the hard way that it isn’t worth being the tech leader. At the height of my empire, I had invested in 5 more scientific research facilities than any other player. However, I only had a negligible advantage in terms of fleet technology. The reason was that other players were more pro-actively trading technologies. They were therefore upgrading their fleets at a fraction of the cost and nullifying my advantage. It’s simply more strategic to barter, even at the risk of arming your enemies.

Those are all the strategic revelations that I managed to gleam from my one and a half games of Neptune’s Pride (you might also learn a thing or two from Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s play diary). If you’re interested in giving the game a go yourself, I highly recommend dragging a friend or two along for the match. I’ll be sure to put out a call on Twitter for the next campaign!

No Fun Games is proud to present Pax Britannica, a one-button real-time strategy game we made for the GAMMA4 design competition. Our team includes designers/programmers Henk Boom, Renaud Bédard and me, artist Daniel Burton and composer Ben Abraham. Unfortunately we were not selected and will not be showing off our game at GDC. However, we had a great time making the game and I’m glad we finally get to release it to the public!

Windows Download

Mac Download

Linux Download

The game was designed for 1-4 Xbox 360 controllers hooked up to a PC (the keyboard controls are A-F-H-L). Holding down the button spins the needle on the radial menu in the middle of the player’s factory ship. The needle will only travel as far as the player’s current resources allow. Releasing the button creates a ship that corresponds to the quadrant that the needle is pointing at: fighter, bomber, frigate, or a factory ship upgrade. Ships you spawn fight automatically using the latest in artificial aquatelligence technology. The player who keeps their factory ship alive wins!

We had been hoping to fix a few things for an official release, but the game has been “out there” on TIGSource for a few weeks now. In fact, we’re thrilled by all the positive feedback we’ve gotten! Pax Britannica has been picked up by the Indie Games Weblog, Bytejacker, PlayThisThing, and GayGamer. Furthermore, Darius Kazemi made this awesome video review:

Enjoy the game, and please leave your feedback and suggestions in the comments below.

Over the holidays I had the pleasure of talking to game bloggers Alex Raymond and Denis Farr on Michael Abbott’s Brainy Gamer Podcast. In this episode we discussed our personal favourite games of 2009, as well as which titles we’re looking forward to next year. I picked the most mainstream possible game as my favourite, surely destroying my indie cred. As always, I’m thrilled and honoured to be a guest on one of my favourite podcasts!

You can listen to it here:

• Download the podcast directly [mp3]
• Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes
• Subscribe to the podcast feed

Since I somehow neglected to mention it here, I also had a terrific conversation with Corvus Elrod and Deirdra Kiai as part of the Brainy Gamer “Summer of Confabs” a few months ago. In it we discussed sexist game marketing, Orson Scott Card’s involvement with Shadow Complex, and some of our favourite indie games of the year. Do give it a listen if you haven’t already!

Happy new year everyone! You’ll have to excuse another decade retrospective in list form; we won’t get to do this again for ten years, after all. Here’s my perspective on the 00′s in video games, using the only honest metric I know: games that I personally enjoyed.

2000

The autumn years of the Nintendo 64 and Playstation brought us some real gems. Perfect Dark, Rare’s successor to GoldenEye, forced us all to buy 4 MB of extra RAM in order to enjoy four player deathmatch with an abominable framerate. The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask was destined to be the black sheep of the series, but it has found significant critical appreciation with age. We clicked and looted our way through the hellscape of Diablo 2 (including the long-teased “cow level”). Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 found broad appeal outside of skater culture for its deeply challenging trick chaining system, establishing a fan base that would justify dozens of sequels.

2001

This year saw the release of Grand Theft Auto 3, a game that spawned the 3D sandbox genre. A decade later, countless imitators are still iterating on its innovative core concept. Halo: Combat Evolved was the “killer app” for Microsoft’s new Xbox, and revealed the potential of first person shooter games on consoles. Two personal favourites were also released that year: Final Fantasy X, one of the finest in the series, and Super Smash Bros. Melee, a game I played continuously for roughly seven years.

2002

The highlight of this year was Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, a century-spanning horror masterpiece. Most memorably, the game quantified sanity and played frightening tricks on the player as it depleted. Warcraft III introduced RPG elements to the strategy genre and spawned the incredibly successful mod / subgenre Defense of the Ancients. Timesplitters 2 was a tremendous multiplayer game, and one of the few of the era that supported four player spliscreen. Finally, Metroid Prime brought Samus into three dimensions while the maintaining the series’ trademark atmospheric loneliness.

2003

There were several great games released this year, but first in my heart is The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. With gorgeous cell-shaded graphics, distinctive character and enemy design, beautiful music and sound, and a gigantic oceanic world to explore, it’s my personal favourite of the series¹. Meanwhile, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time introduced time-manipulation to Jordan Mechner’s beloved platformer, Beyond Good & Evil became a cult classic for its beautiful world and memorable characters, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic showed us that Luke should have definitely gone to the dark side (they have sassy robots).

2004

Valved defined this year with two pieces of software: Half-Life 2, which showed the storytelling potential of first-person shooters, and Steam, the groundbreaking digital distribution platform. Idiosyncratic Japanese designers Keita Takahashi and Hideo Kojima released Katamari Damacy and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater respectively. The former is a delightful game that defies classification, the latter is the most focused and tight entry in the series to date. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was remarkably ambitious, introducing a gigantic world map spanning three cities, farmland, mountains and desert. What it lost in focus, it recovered in remarkable scale and variety.

2005

With the next generation right around the corner, this year was defined by late era console games. Developers finally had the knowledge and experience to take full advantage of the hardware, and they did so to great effect. Resident Evil 4 surprised everyone by reinventing the third person shooter, and is one of the finest action games of the decade. Double Fine Productions, founded by former LucasArts designer Tim Schafer, released their hilarious debut title Psychonauts. Punk developer Suda51 made his Western debut with Killer7, a game that noone understands but many people enjoy. Finally, the mournful Shadow of the Colossus gave many of us our first inkling of what this whole “games as art” idea was all about.

2006

The beautiful ink painting-inspired Okami was one of the first titles to be declared the Playstation 2′s swan song; the console would continue to see excellent new releases into 2008. Gears of War build on Resident Evil 4‘s over-the-shoulder camera, added exemplary cover mechanics and became the must-have shooter of the next generation. Meanwhile, Nintendo found incredible success with the Wii. The console included the surprisingly fun tech demo Wii Sports, a game destined to be a perennial at family get-togethers. Finally, the long-awaited RPG Mother 3 was released in Japan; it would receive an unofficial translation by dedicated fans two years later.

2007

“Fall 2007″ has become a synonym among gamers for “a large number of great games released in a very short amount of time”. Bioshock introduced us to the underwater objectivist paradise of Rapture, which featured remarkable storytelling in every inch of its rich world. Portal was an instant classic with its innovative puzzle mechanics and terrific dark humour. Team Fortress 2 showed the refinement of a decade of development, and Valve admirably continues to support it with free content. Call of Duty 4 : Modern Warfare succeeded with a thrilling campaign and addictive multiplayer meta-game. Finally, Harmonix’s Rock Band brought the peripheral-based music game trend to its logical conclusion. These five tremendous games (and many more) were released between August and November!

2008

It was the year of indie, as World of Goo, Castle Crashers and Braid led the charge for independent games to be taken seriously in the mainstream. Suda51 released No More Heroes for the Wii, a title that was more palatable to the average gamer without sacrificing his trademark eccentric style. Sins of a Solar Empire married real time and 4X strategy with unprecedented galactic scale; I’ve been something of an evangelist for this game ever since. Clint Hocking’s Far Cry 2 became the benchmark for first-person immersion and open-world shooters. Grand Theft Auto 4 was met with exultant praise on arrival, then promptly forgotten about. On more sober recollection, it’s generally agreed that the living breathing city of Liberty City was the game’s real star.

2009

It’s difficult to take a long view on this most recent year, especially since I’m still playing through half of this year’s strong contenders². Here’s what I’ve been enjoying so far: ThatGameCompany’s Flower showed that art games can be beautiful, accessible and rather zen. Chilean studio ACE Team introduced us to the mad world of Zeno Clash, a first-person brawler with a unique punk fantasy aesthetic. Demon’s Souls introduced innovative asynchronous multiplayer mechanics, but will surely be remembered more for its crushing difficulty and tremendous atmosphere. Batman: Arkham Asylum was certainly the superhero simulator of the decade. Having successfully iterated and refined the meta-game formula, Modern Warfare 2 has been my multiplayer mainstay over the holidays.

My favourite passtime has changed a lot in the last decade. I look forward to seeing what the next ten years have in store.

¹ Michael Abbott can back me up on this one.
² I still haven’t played Uncharted 2 and Brütal Legend!

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was a something of a sleeper hit for me. I had enjoyed the previous entries in the series, but only as World War 2 simulators with little lasting appeal. If it hadn’t been bundled economically with Assassin’s Creed¹ at the time, I doubt I would have even bothered to check it out. It was therefore a complete surprise when Modern Warfare delivered a one-two punch: an exciting campaign with some truly memorable set-pieces and an addictive MMORPG-inspired multiplayer. I was absolutely floored, and have been an Infinity Ward adherent ever since.

Modern Warfare introduced an innovative multiplayer metagame: collecting experience persistently as you play, unlocking new guns and perks as you increased in level. Completing difficult gameplay challenges earned an experience bonus, while weapon-specific challenges unlocked useful attachments. Perks allowed the player to enhance their avatar with increased speed, greater damage, more ammunition, etc. These RPG-like mechanics gave players long term goals to pursue between matches, while the extensive customization allowed players to explore the endless permutations of combat style. Modern Warfare was the most popular game in Xbox Live for several months, and it’s easy to see why.

Modern Warfare 2 was released last month, the third game in recent years to be labelled “the largest entertainment launch ever”². The critical discussion centered around the controversial “No Russian” level, where the player takes on the role of an undercover agent during an airport massacre. I think Mitch Krpata said it best; the level is “meaningless except in its capacity to shock”, and compares poorly to the AC-130 sequence from the first game that was “chilling in its clinical detachment”. While the recycled sequences are beginning to wear thin, the overall campaign was still excellent and very exciting.

However, like Michael Abbott’s students, I’m much more interested in talking about Modern Warfare 2‘s multiplayer, whose improvements deserve unconditional praise. Infinity Ward managed to simultaneously inject a cornucopia of new content while refining and perfecting existing systems. The result is game that supports a wide variety of play styles, and has a lot to offer both veterans and newcomers. I’d like to examine the small refinements Infinity Ward introduced to accomplish this.

One of the most obvious improvements is the deemphasis of frag grenades, a source of many frustrating deaths. The first Modern Warfare had a level 41 perk that tripled the number of grenades a player would spawn with. This perk became ubiquitous in multiplayer, as grenade spamming was an incredibly effective strategy. Players could haphazardly launch a barrage skyward to pick up a kill or two (particularly on small maps like “Wet Work”). In Modern Warfare 2, the grenade slot is renamed “equipment”, and players can only hold one grenade at a time. Furthermore, the range and damage of these grenades has been reduced. This quashes grenade spamming tactics and encourages players to explore other options for that slot (such as a Blast Shield or Tactical Insertion).

Another noticeable improvement is the addition of new secondary weapon types. In the first game, a pistol was the only sidearm option (unless you used the “Overkill” perk to spawn with two primary weapons). This made it difficult to justify choosing a sniper rifle or shotgun, as it left you extremely vulnerable in medium range confrontations. Modern Warfare 2 moved shotguns to the secondary weapon slot and introduced new machine pistols and rocket launchers. Improving the quality and variety of secondary weapons allows players to be more experimental with their primary weapon choice. For instance, submachine gun users can equip a Thumper to clear out rooms, while snipers can compete at medium range with a TMP machine pistol. Overall, this makes the multiplayer class customization much more creative and personal.

On the topic of secondary weapons, the addition of lock-on rocket launchers provides a crucial counter-balance to the new killstreak rewards. While it was ostensibly possible to take down an attack helicopter with an RPG in Modern Warfare, it was extremely challenging to properly line up the shot. Thus, Infinity Ward introduced a number of launchers that sacrifice free-fire kills for the ability to lock on airborne targets. This gives a losing team some relief against helicopters and harriers, and even allows players to take out the other team’s UAV reconnaissance. To justify their high skill requirements, more advanced killstreaks (AC-130, Pave Low) are equipped with flares that can divert a limited number of seeker rockets. These mechanics add an interesting layer of strategy to the killstreak arms race.

While killstreak rewards provide positive feedback for the winning team, Modern Warfare is already highly skewed towards very strong players. Thus the addition of deathstreak rewards gives the losing team a fighting chance and makes the game much friendly for new players. Players who have died several times in a row can spawn with more health, drop a live grenade when they die, or make a last stand with their primary weapon. “Copycat”, the most interesting deathstreak reward, allows players to copy the loadout of the player who killed them, effectively giving new players early access to the more advanced weapons and perks. The introduction of this negative feedback system has a stabilizing effect on the game, and generally reduces the frustration of losing.

Finally, Modern Warfare 2 carefully rebalances and synthesizes the weaker perks³. This is accomplished in part by the addition of pro versions of each perk that are unlocked by completing specific challenges. These advanced perks provide a small secondary benefit, usually of little consequence, to the perk’s main function. For instance, the first game had a perk called “Dead Silence” that muffled the sound of that player’s footsteps. While theoretically useful for stealthy players, in practice it was easily outclassed by every other perk in that tier. In the sequel, silent footsteps became a secondary effect of the pro version of “Ninja” (invisibility to heartbeat sensors). Overall, the perk system has been rebalanced such that there are many useful options in each tier, greatly increasing the number of interesting loadout permutations.

While these changes may seem minor, they have a dramatic effect on the balance and flow of Modern Warfare 2‘s multiplayer. They greatly reduce the number of capricious deaths, somewhat levelling the playing field for new players. More importantly, the greater variety of weapons and perks allow players to capitalize on the spectrum of play styles that Modern Warfare 2 supports. Infinity Ward has skillfully iterated on their past success and created a multiplayer game that is superior in every way.

¹ Ironically, I thought Assassin’s Creed was rather underwhelming.
² Halo 3 was the “biggest launch ever” in 2007, Grand Theft Auto 4 in 2008.
³ However, I have no idea how SitRep got through playtesting. It’s useless.