Talking about my new mobile game DOMINAEDRO

Last week my new game, DOMINAEDRO, landed at the App Store. The game is a strategic puzzle that mixes dominoes and tic-tac-toe. It’s is an abstract battle between two players that uses pieces of domino as weapons.

The game, originally, was analogic and was launched as an independent title in the beginning of this year. After lots of positive reviews from Brazilian (and even European) sites I decided to transform the analogic version into a digital game.

The game is very simple and I will share the main idea of the rules below. The game’s grid is arranged with nine numbers randomly selected by the system. In a decreasing order: the highest number will be allocated in the center, intermediate values will be around the highest one, and lower values will be on the corners.



Your starting hand has 3 domino pieces. The player with the lowest sum of numbers in a single piece starts the game. On your turn, you must try to put a single piece in the grid respecting the following rules:

1) A number in a domino can only touch a piece with the same number, or lower, in the grid.
2) Like in a domino game, pieces connected on the grid must have the same numbers.
3) Every time you choose a piece, the system will point out the spaces allowed for allocating on the table.



You earn points by dominating a sum on the grid. For that, you should be the player with the highest sum of numbers around a value. In case of a tie, the sum of the second values of dominoes sets the winner. In case of a tie in both sides of the dominoes, the winner will be the player with more pieces.

The game ends when you cannot allocate more pieces on the grid. Each piece not allocated is worth -1 point. Values of the grid that were not completely surrounded by pieces are scored normally.

If a player has dominated all values in a row, column or diagonal, they win 4 extra points for each line. The player with the most points wins the game. Check a short video demo with the game mechanics below:



You can download DOMINAEDRO for free. Click here for more information. I’m waiting for your suggestions, critics and improvements.

Go gamers!

The awesome experience of DEVICE 6

The end of 2013 brought a great ludic surprise to my iPhone: DEVICE 6, a very different game from publisher Simogo Games.

As described on the game’s official website, DEVICE 6 is a “surreal thriller in which the written word is your map, as well as your narrator. DEVICE 6 plays with the conventions of games and literature, entwines story with geography and blends puzzle and novella, to draw players into an intriguing mystery of technology and neuroscience”.



Check the game trailer below:



The gameplay is a creative combination of scrolling screens with puzzle solving. As the player scrolls down the screen, texts and images arise, creating the experience of the gaming narrative. One important detail: the player can go back and forward in the maze of words as a map. So let’s check the gameplay in the video below to understand this feature:



This game reflects clearly the idea proposed by Aarseth (1997, p.1-2) of ergodic literature. As the author says, ergodic literature is derived from “the Greek words ergon, meaning ‘work’, and hodos, meaning ‘path’. In ergodic literature, nontrivial effort is required to allow the reader to traverse the text. If ergodic literature is to make sense as a concept, there must also be nonergodic literature, where the effort to traverse the text is trivial, with no extranoematic responsibilities placed on the reader except (for example) eye movement and the periodic or arbitrary turning of pages”.

DEVICE 6 creates a perfect balance between many cultural elements. It’s a unique experience to play and study. Go ahead, download the game and have fun.

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Reference:

AARSETH, Espen. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. The Johns Hopkins University Press: Maryland, 1997.

TÍZ

Today I’ll talk a little bit about a recent independent work. I’m a researcher/teacher in a communication university from Brazil but also a game designer. I recently started a partnership with my friend Rafael Verri to develop mobile games, and I would like to talk about our first project: TÍZ, a game for iPhone.



TÍZ (“ten” in Hungarian) is a dice rolling puzzle with ten sided dice (D10). It’s a very simple game with very intuitive interface. In TÍZ, the player can play alone versus the computer or versus a friend. The goal is to arrange the dice in lines on the board to create sequences. A sequence without connection between the numbers (like 2, 5, 9) is worth 1 point, an ordely sequence (like 5, 6, 7) is worth 3 points and, finally, a sequence with equal numbers (like 7, 7, 7) is worth 6 points. The player who gets 18 points first wins the game.

The video below is the game tutorial where it explains the mechanics and dynamics of TÍZ.



I was responsible for the game design and creation of aesthetics. The original version of TÍZ is an analogic board game with real dice and the whole idea started with a simple prototype -- my attention was focused on the core mechanic.

As Fullerton says (2008, p.188) the core gameplay mechanism, or “core mechanic” can be defined as the actions that a player repeats most often while striving to achieve the game’s overall goal. Fullerton (2008, p.189 and 190) also stresses the importance of creating prototypes to see the “soul” of the game.

The core mechanic was the starting point of the project, but we have some additional features that complete the whole game. I want to highlight some important details about the creative process of TÍZ:

1.The internal logic of creating lines with three dice and a sequence of numbers came from tic-tac-toe, Sudoku and poker.

2.The score was created from the logic of triangular numbers (click here to learn more). This resource is very helpful and lots of games use this idea for scoring.

3.The layout was designed based on minimal abstract arts from the artist Josef Albers (link here).

4. The balance of the game was made with many playtests. I insist that this is a very important part of the creative process. (check this previous post about this subject here). It’s necessary to have multiple views on the gaming dynamics to detect errors.

There's no secret or mystery. We need to play and study a lot of games to create new ludic experiences.

Download TÍZ now! Go gamers!

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Reference:

FULLERTON, Tracy; SWAIN, Christopher; HOFFMAN, Steven. Game design workshop: a playcentric approach to creating innovative games. Burlington: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2008.

The experience of YEAR WALK

Year Walk (2013) is a weird game. Better yet, Year Walk is a weird ludic experience.

The game is the fourth project developed by Simogo, the publisher that was responsible for launching the wonderful Beat Sneak Bandit in 2012. Year Walk is a double screen mobile interface: you can play the game on your iPad and there’s a free app for iPhone called “Year Walk Companion” (a kind of illustrated guide for the wandering monsters of the story). Both are enjoyable in their own way, but together they create an experience that is greater than the sum of its parts.



The narrative of the game is about an old Swedish folklore legend and the gameplay is a first person adventure about glimpses and visions of the future with a very unique touch screen interaction. Year Walk tries to create an aura of supernatural feelings where you need to solve cryptic puzzles, touch and listen in search to foresee the future, and finally discover if your loved one will love you back (!). But wait, it’s not a beautiful saga with a happy ending. As I said in the begging, it’s weird (and freaky).

Check the trailer below to understand the atmosphere of the game:



And why talking about this game? Year Walk is a good example of how such a strong narrative/story can complement the idea of gameplay. The game design and gameplay are very important in this case, but the narrative is the core of the ludic experience.

As Richard Dansky says (2007, p.2), in the context of game development, story is often confused with design. The story is what happens, the flow of the game that can be separated from the game mechanics and retold as a narrative. To complement this idea, the author says (p.5) that on the most basic level, narrative strings together the events of the game, providing a framework and what can alternately be called a justification, a reason, or an excuse for the gameplay encounters.

As its best, narrative pulls the player forward through the experience.

Now on to your opinion.

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Reference:

BATEMAN, Chris (editor). Game Writing: narrative skills for videogames. Boston: Thomson, 2007.