Monday, December 19, 2016

Day 41: FotLC through the 113 lenses from The Art of Game Design

Day 41 - Lens 64: The Lens of Juiciness
Juicy interfaces are fun the moment you pick them up. To maximize juiciness, ask yourself these questions:

Is my interface giving the player continuous feedback for their actions? If not, why not?
Yes and no... The player gets good constant feedback about a lot of things in the game. Their position, the position of other players, the position and power of peoples bases, the number of citizens left in the city. Some information is hidden on purpose, the number of warriors in a tribe, the number of warriors committed to a challenge. But then there is the control of territories. It is not clear from a glance who controls what territory. You can tell by looking at the number of bases on the territory, but that info won't be the actual end state when and if someone takes the city.

To some degree that end game info is unknowable but it's also not clear that it's the most important thing about predicting the 'winner' at the end of the game. I don't know if I 'should' change it... but it's certainly unclear.

Is second-order motion created by the actions of the player?  Is this motion powerful and interesting?
Well, players certainly react to each other and those reactions effect how the player can interact with the game. Those reactions are sometimes strategic and sometimes social. The strategic reactions might be predictable enough to let a player use them to change the game in ways they want. The social reactions are harder, but a lot of the game is trying to manipulate those reactions to your favor.

The mechanic of picking up and putting down paths probably creates the most second order motion.

Juicy systems reward the player many ways at once. When I give the player a reward, how many ways am I simultaneously rewarding them? Can I find more ways?
Rewards in a challenge are often at least doubled. Players get warriors and an alliance token when they ally, as well as the goodwill of the player they ally with, and the credibility seeing an alliance gives them with the other players.

Winning a betrayal rewards with removing a enemy control point, and gaining one of their own, and allowing a change of position.

Recruiting increases your warriors and directly applied that power to your bases.

I don't feel like there is over all a very strong or distinct reward system in the game, mostly maybe it is a system of advantages and disadvantages... the game in some ways is less about progression and more about strategic situation.

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