Author: Rich Snider

Designing Biomes 5.0

Posted on by Rich Snider

Biomes 5.0 contains five core game mechanics: discovery, resources, quests and fragments, upgrading base camp, and the danger level and danger deck. Each of these mechanics relates to an aspect of the macro-loop or micro-loop as well as an aspect of the essential experience. For reference: the macro loop is explore, quest, and escape; the micro-loop is gather resources, build, and make progress on the macro-loop; and the essential experience is discovery, exploration, danger, and teamwork. In this blog we will look at each of these five core mechanics in turn and how each relates to the gameplay loops and the essential experience.

Discovery

Biomes 5.0 features discovery in two flavors: exploration and excavation. Exploration allows players to discover new tiles and grow the known biome. Excavation on any tile allows players to discover artifacts which are special cards with special abilities that give players advantages. Both mechanics satisfy the exploration portion of the macro-loop and excavation also satisfies the build portion of the micro-loop. Unsurprisingly, both mechanics also satisfy the discovery and exploration portions of the essential experience.

Resources

As discussed in the last blog, Biomes 5.0 introduces the new supporting mechanics of cards. In particular, card collecting and team deck building. Most of the cards collected are resource cards which come in three types: food, lumber, and metal. Players begin the game with a small amount of each resource and can grow the amount of each resource by building, or harvesting, additional resources from resource tiles. These mechanics of collecting resources and building on resource tiles satisfy the gather resources and building portions of the micro-loop respectively. As the resources are shared as players build a team deck the mechanic also satisfies the teamwork portion of the essential experience.

Quests and Fragments

Quests remain a central part of Biomes but have a different flavor in 5.0. Instead of being self-contained tasks as they were in 4.0 the quests of 5.0 each integrate with the other game mechanics in unique ways. For example, the fountain quest has players sacrificing excavated artifacts to gain a fragment thereby integrating that quest with the exploration and building portions of the macro and micro loops. Each completed quest rewards players with a fragment which players can use to upgrade their base. Questing directly satisfies the questing portion of the macro-loop but also contributes to all the other aspects of the macro and micro loops through the design of each quest. Quests also often require teamwork and thus satisfy the teamwork portion of the essential experience.

Upgrading Base Camp

Once players collect a fragment from a completed quest they can upgrade the base camp. The base can be upgraded three times and each upgrade costs 1 fragment and a large number of resources. After the third upgrade the exit is revealed and the players can attempt to escape. Additionally, each upgrade of the base gives players new advantages in the game such as having more resource draws or actions per turn. Upgrading the base camp satisfies the questing and escaping portions of the macro-loop by providing a relation between them. Upgrading the base also satisfies the teamwork portion of the essential experience as teammates usually need to coordinate in order to gather enough resources to perform the upgrade.

Danger Level and Deck

The danger deck and danger level are the new danger mechanics in Biomes 5.0. The danger deck features cards with special abilities, similar to artifacts, that make the game more challenging for players. The danger level is a gauge on the current danger in the biome and manifests as increases in the number of danger cards to be drawn, the cost to move around the biome, and the cost of other primary actions. The danger level critically provides a clear definition of when players lose the game which is when the danger level gets too high. These danger mechanics directly satisfy the danger portion of the essential experience. The danger deck also interacts with all facets of the macro and micro loops through the effects of the cards.

Wrap-up

Through these five core mechanics all of the aspects of the macro-loop, micro-loop, and essential experience are incorporated into Biomes 5.0. These mechanics also make up the majority of the rules of Biomes 5.0. This is significant because Biomes 4.0 had a significant weakness in that it had too many rules, many more than Biomes 5.0 has. In the next blog we will take a look at some of the playtests of Biomes 5.0, see how the macro and micro loops are performing, and discuss some of the lessons that have been learned through the playtests.

Biomes – Supporting Mechanics

Posted on by Rich Snider

In the last blog we looked at the high-level re-imagining of Biomes. Biomes was no longer the game I was trying to design so I reoriented my work around the essential experience. This resulted in a new macro-loop and micro-loop of gameplay. Once again, I decided the easiest way to prototype these loops was to design a new set of board game rules to test out these loops. Last time I said that we would look at how these two loops were expressed through the mechanics of Biomes 5.0. However, before we can get to that we must first take a look at what a supporting mechanic is, understand that discovery is a supporting mechanic, and take a look at the new supporting mechanic of cards.

Supporting Mechanics

What is a supporting mechanic? I am defining a supporting mechanic as a game mechanic which has little to no value in and of itself but gains value in the presence of other mechanics. Consider an inventory management system such as the one in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. In this mechanic players can rearrange their inventory to carry more items. The mechanic is interesting because gives players a way to interact with their inventory. But if the player is simply moving around blank items, say cans of coffee or rocks, they do not care to interact with that mechanic. Only when the player has something of value to store, such as guns and ammo, does the mechanic have any value. In fact, it is the value of what is being stored that gives value to the inventory mechanic. Therefore, a supporting mechanic is a mechanic that is likely boring or useless by itself but becomes fun and useful in the presence of other mechanics which it supports.

Discovery is a Supporting Mechanic

The playtests of Biomes 4.0 – 4.3 revealed two important lessons regarding discovery in Biomes. The first lesson is that discovery is a supporting mechanic. Discovery in general, and exploration in particular, provide players with little direct value. When players explore a tile with nothing on it, or if every tile is the same, then the exploration has no value. Only when the tiles are mechanically different by giving players opportunities to perform other actions does the exploration have any value. Therefore, discovery is an inherently supporting mechanic.

This leads into the second lesson: the quests in Biomes 4.0 – 4.3 did not synergize with discovery. Since Biomes is about discovery, the primary mechanic needs to synergize with and reinforce discovery. This means the primary mechanic should include discovery and/or encourage discovery in some way. In Biomes 4.0 quests were the primary mechanic of the game, giving value to all of the other mechanics in the game. However, the way the quests were designed did not synergize with or encourage discovery. This was evidenced by the fact that discovery ceased, both of exploring new tiles and searching for secrets, once all of the quests had been found. In order for Biomes 5.0 to succeed in delivering on the essential experience of discovery either quests, or another primary mechanic, will need to synergize with discovery.

Adding a new Supporting Mechanic – Cards

Assuming that the primary mechanic is designed to synergize with discovery we can still do more to reinforce discovery in Biomes. In particular, we can add another supporting mechanic that supports discovery. Doing this essentially elevates the importance of discovery and gives it more value to players. This is where the two gameplay loops begin to come into play. The micro-loop is about resource gathering, building, and exploring/questing/escaping. This structure already supports discovery. In this case, exploration is supported by the mechanics of resource gathering and building. The goal then becomes how to best design the gameplay mechanics of resource gathering, and perhaps building, to support discovery mechanically in addition to structurally.

Rather than reinventing the wheel I decided to consult other cooperative games such as Shadows Over Camelot, Battlestar Galactica, and Pandemic to find a strong supporting mechanic. What do all of these games have in common? They all feature cards which players draw each turn. These cards take on two flavors in each game, cards which help the player by giving them tools to win and cards which hurt the players by making the game harder to win.

In these games I observed that the cards were a supporting mechanic. The drawing of cards did not have value without the quests of Shadows, the skill checks of Battlestar, or the cities of Pandemic. With these observations in mind I decided that cards could be a great supporting mechanic for discovery. In particular, resource gathering via card collection could be the supporting mechanic I was seeking. As an added benefit I could also use cards as the basis of a new danger system for Biomes.

Next Time

Now that we have looked at the supporting mechanics of Biomes we are ready to take a look at the individual mechanics of the game. In the next blog we will take a look at several game mechanics and how they relate to and simulate the two core gameplay loops of the new Biomes.

Biomes Re-imagined

Posted on by Rich Snider

Biomes, the board game, has been re-imagined largely from the ground up. The mechanics that make up the core of Biomes are still intact, especially the exploration mechanic, but most of the mechanics of the old Biomes are gone. The game no longer features secrets, enemy camps, cool downs, injury, battles, stealing, and other mechanics. Instead, Biomes features deck building as a new core mechanic along with the cooperative and exploration threads that are at the core of Biomes. In this blog we will take a high-level view of why these changes were made, the root of the new mechanics, and the new gameplay loop(s) of Biomes.

Why so much change?

I took a break from working on Biomes for about 2 weeks after I played prototype 4.3. This time was immensely helpful for me to reorient my thoughts to what I wanted Biomes to be. When I returned to Biomes I attempted to play it as a single player experience, with some tweaks. I quickly came to realize that lost its soul. Biomes was no longer about discovery or exploration but about questing.

To explain this we need to revisit the essential experience: discovery, exploration, danger, and teamwork. Biomes 4.0-4.3 delivered on teamwork and somewhat on danger but did not deliver on discovery and exploration at all. In these prototypes discovery became a chore to be completed on the way to winning. Discovery and exploration are meant to be the central experience of Biomes, not a chore. Thus, Biomes needed to be re-imagined by returning to that foundation of discovery and exploration.

The Foundation of Biomes

To begin my re-imagining I returned to my original concept of what I wanted to create. I wanted to create a video game about discovery and exploration of a biome. Not really a biome but an artificially constructed underground world kind of like the Truman Show bubble but with a natural landscape instead of a man-made one. In this game players would control a tribe of people, perhaps like the god games Black & White, From Dust, and Godus. These people would venture into a new biome (for lack of a better name) on their way to their ultimate, to be determined, destination. In each biome they would explore the terrain, discover its secrets, combat the danger they encountered, and continue onto the next biome. From this original concept you can see the essential experience. There is a biome with secrets to discover, terrain to explore, danger to combat, and a tribe or team to work with.

Gameplay Loop

In order to translate the experience into gameplay mechanics I decided to begin by working on the core gameplay loop. The gameplay loop would need to emphasize the elements of the essential experience, especially discovery. I ultimately decided to create two gameplay loops: a macro and a micro gameplay loop.

The macro-loop describes the goals the player will have as they play each level. In this loop the player does 3 things. First, they explore/discover the terrain of the biome. Secondly, they quest/discover the the secrets of the level. Finally, they attempt to escape into the next biome. This macro-loop contains the first two elements of the essential experience, discovery and exploration. By making discovery and exploration goals in the macro-loop the players will directly interact with and experience these foundational aspects of Biomes.

The micro-loop describes the tasks the players will complete as they play the game. In the micro-loop players gather resources, build units/structures, and explore/quest/escape. The first two parts of the micro-loop, gathering resources and building, both encourage teamwork by expanding the tribe in some way. The third part of the micro-loop is the current macro-loop goal thereby tying the two loops together.

The close reader will note that danger is not represented in either the macro or micro loop. Instead, danger is an orthogonal mechanic that tries to disrupt the player as they complete these loops.

Closing Remarks

At this point I want to note the influence of 4X strategy games. In 4X gameplay players “eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate” (WikiPedia). In Biomes players will certainly explore and will do some amount of expanding and exploiting, hopefully in unique ways. Exterminating would certainly help in providing danger to the player thereby completing the 4th X, but exterminating is not currently considered a core mechanic and thus may not be included.

With the gameplay loops drafted it is time to build a prototype and playtest these loops. In the next blog we will examine the mechanics of Biomes 5.0, how each of them contributes to the gameplay loops, and how danger is incorporated into the prototype.

Biomes – 4.3 Results

Posted on by Rich Snider

Prototype 4.3 was a quick iteration to further simplify the rules of 4.2. While these changes improved upon the gameplay of Biomes, they served to underscore a fundamental weakness that must be addressed.

biomes_4.3

Changes

The changes for 4.3 were essentially a continuation of the changes in 4.2 revolving around simplifying the rules while making discovery and exploration more attractive.

1. Carry capacity simplified – Players can carry 4 secrets, secrets no longer have individual weights.
2. Secret collection removed from discovery – Players still look at the secrets when discovering a tile but may not collect them. You can only collect secrets from a tile by searching it.
3. Buffs apply on the next turn
4. Rearranged rule-book
5. Player battle bonus reduced to +1 – In 4.2 players got +2 to their battle roll for each player involved. This was too strong and thus was reduced to +1 in 4.3.

These changes generally identified pain points from the 4.2 playtest and addressed them with an appropriate change. In 4.2 players were confused by the carry capacity rules and ended up ignoring the rules altogether. For 4.3 the carry capacity rules were simplified to be a hand limit. Secret collection during discovery (tile reveal) was confusing and thus removed. Players encountered complex corner cases with adding/removing buffs on the same turn which were addressed by making buffs activate on the next turn. Finally, the rule book was difficult to navigate so I rearranged the ordering to reflect what players looked for and how other board games arranged their rules.

Results

3 players
1 hour and 30 minutes of gameplay
11 rounds
27 of 35 tiles discovered
3 of 3 minor quests won, won game

Prototype 4.3 improved upon the experience of 4.2 by further simplifying the gameplay incrementally. In particular, players had several fewer pain points in 4.3 than 4.2 with more left to be resolved. These incremental changes have helped to improve the experience of Biomes but also served to underscore that there is a more fundamental weakness that needs to be resolved.

Fundamental Weakness

The truth is, Biomes is no longer about discovery. Instead, the current version of Biomes is about questing. Questing is a fine core mechanic for a game but it is not the core mechanic of the game I am trying to make. If we revisit the essential experience we see discovery and exploration listed first with no mention of questing at all. Discovery is to be the core mechanic of Biomes, not questing. Therefore, Biomes is not providing the essential experience it is intended to provide and the time has come for some radical changes to reorient to that essential experience.

Conclusion

Biomes 4.3 was an incremental improvement over 4.2 which served to underscore a fundamental weakness. That weakness is that Biomes is currently about questing and not about discovery as the prime importance in the essential experience. As a result, Biomes has strayed too far and must be reoriented at a deeper level to deliver upon that essential experience.

Biomes – 4.2 Results

Posted on by Rich Snider

In this blog we will take a look at the changes that were made for prototype 4.2, discuss how each of the weaknesses from 4.1 were addressed, and review the results of the 4.2 playtest.

biomes_4.2

Changes

The changes for 4.2 were about iterating on the weaknesses of 4.1 while maintaining its strengths. In particular, the changes had to do with reducing the number of rules, incentivizing discovery, and incentivizing exploration. 4.2 included the following changes:

1. Removal of traps
2. Combined discovery and exploration – When a player discovers a new tile they roll for the number of secrets and then get to look at those secrets before collecting them or placing them on the board.
3. Picking up secrets is free with discovery and exploration
4. Battle rules consolidated – Players roll a die for their side and a die for the enemy side, then add modifiers, the largest value wins the battle.
5. Stealing rules consolidated – Players roll a die to determine if 0, 1, or 2 secrets are stolen.
6. Enemy camps combined – All enemy camps attempt to steal secrets from the nearest player camp but deal damage if there are no secrets to steal.
7. War results simplified – Winning a war destroys the enemy camp and the ally camp becomes a player camp.
8. Roaming gang no longer a quest – The roaming gang is in all games, beginning on a cool-down of 10, and goes on cool-down if subdued by the players.
9. Factory removed, one included with the main camp
10. Renamed exploration, discovery, and pickup – Exploration was renamed to discovery, discovery was renamed to search, and pickup was renamed to collect.

Discussion

Two of the critical weaknesses of 4.1 were that players avoided discovery and were discouraged from exploring. Basically, players had too much risk for the reward of discovering new secrets. This in turn made exploring new tiles a waste of time. Changes 1 through 3 were about reducing the risk and increasing the rewards of discovery thereby providing incentive for players to discover and explore. Traps were removed from the game in order to reduce the risk of discovery. With the main source of risk removed, discovery and exploration were then combined to provide more reward when exploring. Finally, the risk was further reduced by including the free pickup of secrets with exploration and discovery.

The other key weakness of 4.1 was that it had too many rules. Changes 4 through 9 each targeted a particular system of the game which players struggled to understand and simplified the rules of that system. For example, the rules of battle have been consolidated into one system that can be used in multiple situations; this replaces different battle systems for different situations. Change 10 adjusts the terminology of the game to reflect how players naturally speak about the game. I consider this a simplification of the rules because it reduces the cognitive load on players.

Results

The changes for prototype 4.2 resulted in a more fun and engaging game for players. A few quick statistics about 4.2:

4 players
2 hours of gameplay
14 rounds
37 of 44 tiles discovered
4 of 4 minor quests won, won game

Discovery and exploration had much more reward for players and much less risk. This is most evidenced by the number of buffs that players accumulated. In 4.1 each player ended the game with 1 buff, but in 4.2 each player had the maximum of 3 buffs and some players switched out buffs during the game. Players also used many more supplies, kits, and other secrets to give them advantages throughout the game. These behaviors indicate that the risk and reward of exploration and discovery were in a much better place for 4.2 than 4.1 because players had access to more secrets. However, many secrets were still underwhelming meaning that players had little reason and/or desire to discover and explore once all of the quests had been discovered.

The rules of 4.2 were much more accessible than before. Players engaged with new strategies, such as switching between active quests, to help them win the game. With these simplified rules came easier accessibility to rules which were still too complex. Chief among these were the rules around carry capacity which were simply ignored for most of the game. Other problematic rules include secret collection, cool-downs, the roaming gang, buffs, player camps, and one-off secrets.

Conclusion

The changes for 4.2 significantly improved upon the weaknesses of 4.1. Players learned the rules and engaged with them at a deeper level which revealed more rules that needed to be simplified. Discovery and exploration had a stronger balance of risk and reward but many secrets were still too underwhelming to be worth using. 4.3 will further improve upon the progress made in these areas. In the next blog we will take a look at the changes for prototype 4.3 and the results of playtesting them.

Biomes – 4.1 Strengths and Weaknesses

Posted on by Rich Snider

The playtest of Biomes 4.1 revealed that the game had three key strengths and three key weaknesses.

Strength 1: Quests provided focus

A good game is a focused experience. Players need to know what they can and should be doing to win the game. In 4.0, 4.01, and now 4.1 players have engaged with quests to make concrete progress and win the game. Quests focus players around what they can and should be spending their resources on to win the game. For example, in 4.1 the Tug of War quest was discovered and shortly became 1 round away from being lost. Players immediately changed their strategy to spend the resources required to ensure the quest would be won. This is the kind of focus that quests were intended to bring to Biomes. Quests will be a key strength of Biomes going forward.

Weakness 1: Too many rules

Prototype 4.1 of Biomes had too many rules. This was evidenced by the difficulty players had in learning and remembering all of the rules of the game. In particular, many of the systems in 4.1 had multiple rules with the same result. For example, in prototype 4.1 enemy killer tribes, enemy stealer tribes, and the dragon each had unique rules with the same result of stealing secrets. This would be a poor design decision for a finalized game but works well for prototyping to test out and compare multiple rules sets in fewer prototypes. That said, future prototypes will need to ensure players can engage with the rules by simplifying the rules that do exist and limiting the number of systems being experimented on.

Strength 2: End-game had challenge

With 4.1 the end-game goals were rewritten to provide more challenge to players. The basic theory of game design in effect here is the theory of game flow. Game flow says that, to keep players engaged, you need the right amount of challenge to their skills. Too much challenge and players get frustrated, too little and they become bored. Previous iterations of Biomes had boring end-games because players had nothing new to challenge them once they collected all of the keys. 4.1 addressed this directly by challenging players with a dragon to slay before it destroyed them. The result was a much more engaging and fun end-game for players to overcome.

Weakness 2: Discovery avoided

Players avoided discovering new secrets in 4.1 and the reason for this was two-fold. Firstly, secrets were optional and weak which meant discovering one was a waste of an action. Secondly, discovery was dangerous due to the possibility of finding a trap. In terms of risk and reward, the risk was too high and the reward was too low. When keys were mixed in with the other secrets discovery was a high-risk and high-reward mechanic, it was satisfying. But when the keys were moved to the quests the risk of discovery was not proportionally reduced. To resolve this the risk and reward of discovery will need to be re-balanced and the secrets will need to be strengthened and made more integral to the game.

Strength 3: Players engaged in teamwork

Prototype 4.1 resulted in a lot of teamwork. Players worked together to find the Fountain of Prosperity, win the Tug of War quest, collect all of the shields, and defeat the dragon. As a part of the essential experience this is very encouraging. However, teamwork seemed to be the salient strategy of the game. Players of 4.01 used both teamwork and divide-and-conquer to achieve victory, which made that prototype feel more balanced strategically. Going forward I will need to keep an eye on what kinds of strategies players use to win and which strategies they avoid. Ultimately, Biomes should have multiple strategies available, viable, and encouraged to give players meaningful choices.

Weakness 3: Exploration discouraged

Discovery and exploration are intended to be the leading experiences of Biomes. In 4.1, exploration was useful for finding all of the quests but became useless shortly afterwards. Even more, players were discouraged from exploring because they avoided discovering the secrets on the tiles. Players do not need to explore every tile but players should always have a reason to explore a new tile. Exploration will need to be adjusted in future prototypes to provide more incentive especially once all of the quests have been found.

Conclusion

These strengths and weaknesses will provide direction for the next prototypes of Biomes. Next time we will take a look at the changes for prototype 4.2 and how each of these strengths and weaknesses are addressed.

Biomes – Prototype 4.1

Posted on by Rich Snider

Last time we laid out the essential experience of Biomes. In this blog we will take a look the changes for prototype 4.1 in preparation for looking at how 4.1 stacks up at delivering on the essential experience of Biomes.

biomes_4.1

Changes

Prototype 4.1 largely addressed the goals discussed in a previous blog. In particular, 4.1 was an attempt to improve upon the end-game of Biomes and the secrets of the game. The following changes were made for prototype 4.1:

1. Reworked questing – In 4.1 players complete several minor quests to obtain shields (previously called keys) which aid in overcoming the major quest.
2. Captured -> Traps – The captured secret, now called a trap, simply injures players and does not move them to an enemy camp.
3. Factories – Built from factory kits and allows players to produce a new kit of their choice after a cool-down.
4. Ferries – Built from ferry kits and allows players to cross over lakes when built.
5. New secrets – A total of 6 buffs, 2 packs, 6 kits, and 5 one-offs available to players.
6. Re-balanced secret counts
7. Printable secrets pages
8. Icons for each secret in the rules

Discussion

All of the previous prototypes of Biomes had the weakness that the end-game did little to challenge players. Once players collected enough keys they could simply find the exit and leave. Prototype 3.3 introduced the mechanic of enemies going berserk once the exit was found. This helped, but was not sufficiently challenging for players. 4.1 addresses this by adding a distinct challenge that players needed to overcome to escape. That challenge is a new major quest in which players must slay the dragon before it either kills them or their main camp. This change also allows all of the other quests to interact with the major quest by granting shields to help players resist the damage of the dragon.

The changes to 4.1 are also about providing players with new secrets to help them win. Factories produce kits on a regular basis, 6 unique buffs give players varying strengths, and 5 one-off secrets give players the abilities they need to make a significant impact just when they need it. One of the glaring weaknesses of 4.01 was the strength of the captured secret, which could remove a player from the game for 4-5 rounds. With 4.1, captured secrets are replaced by traps. Traps simply injure players instead of holding them hostage. As a result, fewer players should be left out of the game allowing players to be more engaged and have more fun.

Conclusion

These changes resulted in three key strengths and three key weaknesses for prototype 4.1. During the next blog we will examine each of these strengths and weaknesses and how they can be improved upon for prototype 4.2. In particular, we will examine how these strengths and weaknesses stack up against the essential experience of Biomes.

Biomes – The Essential Experience

Posted on by Rich Snider

The goals for 4.0, and now 4.1, have been established in a previous blog. These goals will be our our measuring line for success of future prototypes. We also need a plumb line to tell us if we are on the right track overall. If the game being created is the game envisioned or if it is straying from that vision. To do this, we need to establish the Essential Experience of Biomes.

What is an Essential Experience?

I am taking the concept and definition of the Essential Experience from Jesse Schell’s book The Art of Game Design. When creating a game, one is not really creating a game, but an experience which is experienced by playing a game. The experience is what a player will remember, how they defeated the dragon or working with their teammates. When creating a game, one needs to ask:

What experience do I want to create?
What experience am I creating?
How can I make the experience I am creating more like the one I want to create?

The word essential means: when distilled to its most basic roots, what is the experience really all about? It is like trying to describe your experience at the coffee shop in a short phrase. A phrase that you can share, meditate on, and understand deeply. The Essential Experience of a game will evolve with the game, to clarify what is really essential about the experience. But it should generally contain the same core tenants at the end as when it began.

The Essential Experience of Biomes

The Essential Experience of Biomes began as this: “exploration and discovery.” That is it, I wanted to make a game about exploration and discovery. After iterating on the idea, and prototyping a couple of versions, the Essential Experience became more crystallized: “Discovering amazing things while traveling through biomes and overcoming danger by working together”. This experience has four principles: discovery, exploration (travel), danger, and teamwork. These are the core principles of what make Biomes the game I am trying to make, and not someone else’s game. Lets take a look at what each of these means:

Discovery

Games allow players to discover and interact with amazing places in new ways, ways they could not in real life. The experience of Biomes should be about this discovery. This means two things. Firstly, the player (not someone or something else) discovers, finds, and interacts with something amazing. Secondly, players should feel the pleasure of seeing something new and exciting. This feels like the awe of seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time, or the floating mountains of Pandora in the movie Avatar. I want Biomes to have this feeling, this experience, as a part of its core. The player needs something to discover and that thing needs to be amazing.

Exploration (or Travel)

Biomes is about exploration; more specifically, about travelling. Ultimately, Biomes will be a video game about exploring through a series of Biomes and discovering the amazing things therein. Biomes is also about exploring the biome the players are currently in. So exploration is both the high level gameplay across many levels and the low level gameplay within a level. This means the experience of moving around the map, and between levels, will need to be satisfying and not simply a means to an end.

Danger

Every good game has something to challenge a player. In Biomes that is danger. Something is trying to kill the players, or at least prevent them from achieving some goal. Therefore, the danger must be overcome. This danger should grow over the course of a level, or match, and over the course of the game overall when considered as a video game. Players will also need tools to interact with, and overcome, this danger.

Teamwork

The idea of working as a team is the final core aspect of Biomes. The player should feel like they are a part of a team. For the board game, this means that players need to work together to complete objectives. For the video game, Biomes is not intended to be a multiplayer game. Therefore, the player will need to feel as if they are a part of something larger, a part of this tribe or group of people that are exploring these biomes. In both cases, the player should not be able to do everything alone. The player should be dependent upon another for some of what they need to win.

Ordering of the Principles

These four principles are ordered. This means that, while all are important, they are not equally important. In particular:

Discovery > Exploration > Danger > Teamwork

When designing, testing, and reviewing a prototype these principles, and their ordering, will have a significant impact on what the next prototype will be. For example, if teamwork is strong in a particular prototype, but that strength is at the cost of exploration, then adjustments will need to be made to return exploration as more central than teamwork.

Conclusion

Discovery, exploration, danger, and teamwork; these are the guiding principles of Biomes. They are also in that particular order of importance. They will be what influences the goals of a given prototype and will determine where the game will go overall. These principles will evolve over time. They will all be clarified and some may change drastically. But for now, Biomes is about discovery, exploration, danger, and teamwork.

Biomes – Prototype 4.0 goals

Posted on by Rich Snider

Previously we explored three revealing use-cases of prototype 4.01. This time we will take a look at what the goals were going into 4.0 from 3.3, how 4.0 stacks up in terms of these goals, and the revised goals going forward.

Goal 1: Move the acquisition of keys to quests in a satisfying way

The first goal of 4.0 was to clarify the goals of the game by adding quests to the game. In particular, to make the acquisition of keys more interesting and with unique rules. Previously, keys were acquired by randomly finding them around the board which created a lack of focus. The risk/reward of being captured vs finding a key was strong, but players could not reliably make progress towards completing the game by finding keys. Quests remedy this by providing concrete pathways for obtaining keys.

The transition to quests worked very well. Quests help to focus players and clarify how to win the game. Currently, not all quests are required to be completed. As a result, one quest was left to the wayside in the 4.01 playtest. Ideally, players would be encouraged or required to complete all quests in a fun and engaging way. Although one playtest does not prove or disprove the effectiveness of a mechanic, I am very hopeful and excited for the future of quests as the mechanic players use to make concrete progress through the game.

Goal 2: Simplify setup by reducing power of mechanics and allowing randomness to provide balance

There are three facets to this second goal: simplify the setup, reduce the power of the mechanics, and leverage randomness for balance. All three of these serve to reduce the complexity of the game and thereby make the game easier to play. Easier in this context does not mean that players will win more often, but that there will be fewer barriers to players understanding and interacting with the game rules. As a result, players will be able to spend more thought on their strategies and less on how to run the game.

Prototype 4.0 simplifies the setup of the game and leverages randomness in new ways to provide balance, but does not have a net reduction in power for any mechanics. In fact, some mechanics became stronger with 4.0. Instead of reducing the power of any mechanics, the power was redistributed in ways that allowed randomness to be leveraged for balance. For example, keys were moved from the board secrets to quests allowing the board secrets to be randomized instead of stacked. The result was a game that was easier to setup and play.

Perhaps this goal should have been to “reduce the complexity of running the game” which was achieved by simplifying the setup, redistributing the power of mechanics, and leveraging randomness. However, for posterity, I am leaving the goal as it was originally written.

Goal 3: More actions/secrets to provide concrete progress than those that provide an opposition to entropy

Concrete progress is anything that allows players to make a concrete step towards winning the game. Entropy is the “gradual decline into disorder” (Google). In Biomes, entropy is manifest as the forces that are trying to defeat the players, such as the enemy camps. The goal is not the elimination of entropy, as entropy provides challenge. Rather, this goal is about balancing the actions and secrets that allow you to make progress with those that allow you to fight entropy. This goal is also about clarifying which actions and secrets are for making progress and which are for fighting entropy.

With 4.0, many actions and secrets were clarified in purpose, but not all were addressed. Quests included concrete pathways for winning or losing a key, providing clarity on what actions and secrets make progress towards keys. The rules around buffs were expanded to provide new and clearer pathways for how players can use buffs either for making progress or fighting entropy. For example, one player used the extra sight and ease of passage buffs to become the explorer for the team to find the quests we needed to complete the game. However, secrets such as kits were not changed and still need work to be clarified and accessible. This will be an ongoing goal to ensure that all actions and secrets allow players to make progress and/or fight entropy either directly or when used in conjunction with other actions and secrets.

New Goals

Going forwards into 4.1 the goals will need to be adjusted to clarify the goals of 4.0 and address the weaknesses of 4.0 in meaningful ways. Here are the goals for 4.1:

1. Continue to provide focus and concrete goals through quests.

2. Improve upon the end-game goals to provide more challenge and satisfaction to winning.

3. Clarify and balance the actions and secrets such that they all allow players to make concrete progress and/or fight entropy.

4. Update and balance the injury mechanics to be more satisfying as a punishment rather than boring.

5. Balance the game length to the number of players.

6. Balance the complexity of the game as needed.

These goals exist to highlight the areas of the game that currently need the most attention. This is an ever changing list as new prototypes are created and tested. It is likely that not all of these goals will be achieved, or even meaningfully improved, in the next prototype. It is also likely that some goals will be removed and others added with future iterations.

Biomes – Revealing Use Cases from 4.01

Posted on by Rich Snider

Last time we looked at a few statistics from Biomes 4.01 and what adjustments can be made as a result. This time, we will look at three revealing use cases that occurred in 4.01 and what strengths and weaknesses they reveal about the game.

Case 1: Captured and Injured

Firstly, one player was captured twice during the course of the game, almost back-to-back. This meant that they spent 8 of the rounds of the game unable to move or do any other productive actions. This did not impede our ability to win, but it did prevent the captured player from participating and having fun. This served to illustrate a clear pain point in the game.

It seems the mechanic of being “captured” by an enemy camp may no longer provide enough interesting counter-play. For players to be able to respond while the player is captured, but not yet injured, they would have to respond immediately to have enough actions to rescue their companion. Even then, immediate response may not be enough. However, the injury mechanic being a cool-down was certainly a positive change. It allowed injured players the ability to respond to their own injury and gave them tools to reduce their time left injured.

The risk of losing some turns is still intriguing, but it is clear that the current rules are unbalanced. In particular, the captured + injured time is too long, there is not enough viable counter-play to being captured, and there are opportunities to improve the tools players have while they are injured. These are three key areas in which the captured and injury mechanics can be improved.

Case 2: What should we do next?

The second use case occurred when we were unsure about what to do. In previous games we would encounter this problem and we would ask “how do we get more keys.” The common answer was to explore and discover in an unguided fashion, hoping to find a key or some other interesting secret to do something with. This time the answer was “find a new quest by exploring, then complete it for a key.”

This new response was much more focused. In particular, it reveals that the quests provide clarity about how to win the game. The quests have specific rules about how each one progresses, either towards success or failure. This allows players to assess each quest, decide how to allocate resources, and make tangible progress towards winning the game. These are strong attributes which the game should to continue to have and to grow in.

Case 3: End Game Goals

In the final use case we had achieved enough keys to escape and win the game, had not yet found the exit, and had a remaining quest to either work on or ignore. We asked ourselves “what should we do?” The answer was to “explore to find the exit, then escape and win the game.” This focus was great; however, there was this unfinished objective on the board which would give us nothing we needed to win. Moreover, I, as the designer and a player, wanted to complete this final quest to see all the game had to offer.

This served to underscore a divide within myself and in the game. The desire to explore and discover as the core mechanic of the game was at odds with the desire to win. This indicates to me that the end goals of the game were, at best, unbalanced and, at worst, at odds with the core mechanics and experience of the game. Thus, the end-game is a clear area for improvement in the next prototype. In particular, how can the end-game be improved to underscore and further encourage the core game play of exploration and discovery?