tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10912174427099511372024-03-13T00:16:22.565-07:00Blog of TreasonAct of Treason is social game of deception and intrigue for 5 to 10 players.Act of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1091217442709951137.post-76912894155868510292018-10-13T01:32:00.002-07:002019-01-05T17:42:54.678-08:00Act of Treason: Direct To Your Door!I have the tendency to pontificate. So, allow me to get right to the point.<br />
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<b>I’ll be releasing Act of Treason for open play testing.</b><br />
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You read that right. I’ll be releasing Act of Treason for open testing. As many of you know, I’ve been developing Act of Treason for over 5 years now. I am very confident of how solid Act of Treason is, so why open play testing?<br />
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<b>Why?</b><br />
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<li><b>Additional Marketing:</b> Marketing has always been a large hurdle for me and for Act of Treason. Everything else has been polished and tucked away. It is my last and only hurdle - hence the open playtesting. I figure it’s a great way to get the game out there, and get some marketing going. If people like it, it will spread organically.</li>
<li><b>For The Fans:</b> I have a lot of pride in Act of Treason, and I wanted to see it through to the end. Over the years, my interest in becoming a game designer has waned somewhat. I still want to make games, but I cannot dedicate as much time to it as I would like. It doesn’t help that getting Act of Treason across the line has been so difficult. I’m not complaining, it is what it is. I would never want to lock Act of Treason away from the world. Act of Treason has already cost me thousands in time and money. Some of that is my own doing - again, not complaining. It is what it is. I’d just as soon release Act of Treason and make no money than not release it at all. This is a thank you to all of those who were fans of the game, and who waited for it so patiently, and so eagerly, for so long. Thank you. I hope it was worth the wait.</li>
<li><b>Feedback:</b> While it will be unlikely that I’ll be making any sweeping changes, it will be great to get feedback on the game, and potentially improve it further still from where it sits currently. Every little bit helps, so feel free to share your thoughts. To that end I will provide feedback forms as well as an email address for feedback. All feedback will be reviewed and potentially incorporated into the official Kickstarter release.</li>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An example Printout</td></tr>
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<b>When?</b><br />
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I’ve managed to overshoot timeline estimates in the past. Things crop up that I cannot control, and I have to adjust my schedule accordingly. So I am reluctant to post a firm date. However, I will aim for the first week of December. It would be great to get it out to you all before the Christmas and New Years holidays, giving you ample time to prepare a game to play over the holidays with family and friends. </div>
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I’ll be removing the art, tweaking some of the rules and images used in the rules and on the cards. In addition I’ll need to make sure everything is set on the website, mailing list, and with Gamecrafter, in order for a smooth transition into a public trial. It’s a bit of work, but I imagine I should be able to get it done in time.</div>
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<b>Where?</b><br />
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You’ll be able to get the game in two core ways:<br />
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<li><b>Print and Play:</b> Sign up to the mailing list and you’ll get a link to download the Act of Treason print and play PDF. I’ve had to remove all card art from the game, as I do not have permission to use it for this purpose. The print and play will be roughly 20 A4 pages + rulebook. It includes standard Magic: The Gathering sized cards, which can easily be sleeved, and a few larger printouts to make up the board, which had to be cut up into sections in order to fit onto A4. This trial edition, once released, will be available indefinitely.</li>
<li><strike><b>Gamecrafter:</b> I don’t like excluding those who might not have access to a printer. For those who may be willing to pay a little extra for the convenience of not having to cut up 20 pages worth of cards, I have decided to offer a printed trial edition of Act of Treason for a limited time. It is essentially the same as the print and play, but professionally printed and delivered to your door for your convenience. How much will this service cost? Don’t know yet, but I’m not trying to profit from this, and I don't want to charge people retail prices for what is effectively a trail copy. I will seek to make the cost as cheap as possible, but bear in mind that a large part of the cost will be determined by The GameCrafter, which is the service I'll be using.</strike><br />Edit (2018/01/06): I would love to offer this service, but after some research it's sadly not viable as an option. However I am happy to offer a copy to reviewers for the purpose of evaluating. If this is you, you can contact me <a href="http://www.playaot.com/email">here</a>.</li>
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I think that about raps it up. I look forward to the coming months, and to your feedback.<br />
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Cheers,<br />
Tyson<br />
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Act of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1091217442709951137.post-87923154587888958782018-04-22T21:30:00.004-07:002018-05-06T01:05:31.035-07:00TDS 2: Playerunknown's Battlegrounds<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><br /></b><b>Game Design Case Study: </b><br />
<b>Playerunknown’s Battleground</b><br />
<b>Part one</b><br />
<i>By Tyson Bennett, creator of <a href="http://www.playaot.com/">Act of Treason</a></i><br />
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<b>PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS</b> (aka PUBG) is a last-man-standing shooter. Players must locate weapons and supplies in a large map and fight to the death to be the lone survivor. Rounds often start with 90+ players and only stop when one player or one team is the victor.<br />
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I wanted to cover this game as it went somewhat viral in popularity, and I believe this has to do with the fact that it is a great game mechanically speaking. You might not play PUBG, but there is a wealth of game development and game theory knowledge to be acquired from looking into this game. The setup and premise of the game allow for very tactical, intense and engaging play, which makes for a solid competitive experience. Winning in PUBG is highly rewarding and is dependent on both macro tactical play as well as micro gun play - This sets it apart from many other competitive shooters.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitXyogviGXF0DYNAld32UPEYBaJ5GDRpCzr_kMKZZCZ2a9rWh-LM05xVc-D7uMZWQs8ZVhrDf_yApPJHRbIdg2MmxmifdIgZITI35hLcQD5K_kh3RlFiSHwwjv8rKotfvGkUSvigJp41E/s1600/PUBG_steam.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="452" data-original-width="357" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitXyogviGXF0DYNAld32UPEYBaJ5GDRpCzr_kMKZZCZ2a9rWh-LM05xVc-D7uMZWQs8ZVhrDf_yApPJHRbIdg2MmxmifdIgZITI35hLcQD5K_kh3RlFiSHwwjv8rKotfvGkUSvigJp41E/s1600/PUBG_steam.png" /></a></div>
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While PUBG has many great qualities, it also has some flaws. As of the 28th of December PUBG sits at a low 57% recommended on Steam. Metacritic is similar with only 38% positive user reviews. These ratings shouldn’t be taken as representative of how good PUBG is. PUBG is actually a very popular game and has many players all over the world. I imagine a more realistic rating would be somewhere in the >80% region. I think the artificially low rating that we see is caused by two primary drivers:<br />
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1) The developer has managed to piss off the community by going back on promises and generally not listening to the complaints and grievances of the players.<br />
2) There are a fair few negative things that get in the way of enjoying the game that are not related to the core game mechanics, such as hackers, bugs, poor graphical performance & netcode that leaves a bit to be desired.<br />
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These two things are likely to influence outspoken and negative reviews, and may curb the number of positive reviews. No one likes paying top dollar for a game they can’t play - or can’t play without erroneous things like bugs getting in the way of the fun. It only serves to piss players off further if they feel like they are not being listened to. PUBG certainly has done well enough considering the reviews overall, and has managed to develop a large following, in spite of it lacking in some polish.<br />
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Let’s dive deep into what makes PUBG so popular. The things it does well, and the things it does not so well, and the general strategies and mechanics of the game.<br />
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<b>What makes PUBG fun?</b></div>
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I talked about how one might quantify what makes a game fun in my article <a href="http://blog.playaot.com/2017/12/the-dominant-strategy-01-what-makes.html">"What makes games fun?"</a> This is a good place to start for us here. The fact that you’re dropped onto a big island with 100 other people and it’s a fight to the death - last man standing - is a strong indicator that PUBG is going to be <b>highly competitive</b>. PUBG is a game of intense competition and I would argue it is the backbone of the game. The developers have done a fairly good job of making sure the competitive element within the game is fully capitalized on. Hackers are the main thing that gets in the way of this, but we will cover that later in the article. Maybe hackers get in the way enough that it turns some people off of the game - I wouldn't be surprised.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">blue striped bar represents a somewhat more optional node</td></tr>
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<i><u>Quick Note:</u> When we talk about what makes PUBG fun, we’re not trying to describe exactly what everyone experiences when playing PUBG, nor are we trying to rank how fun the game is. This is just a rough guide for what general factors and attributes of PUBG might make it fun for someone to play. ie: someone who enjoys more competitive gaming is more likely to enjoy PUBG.</i></div>
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I’ll be drawing a lot of comparisons to Counter Strike (aka CS) and some to Fortnite. That’s not to say either game is better. That’s up for you to decide. At the end of the day, it’s personal preference. I’ll only be talking about their differences and some observations as to why someone might enjoy one game over the other.</div>
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<b>Social:</b> Playerunknowns Battleground manages to draw in quite a social element with its ability for squad play, in either a duo, three man or four man squad. While in a team, there is plenty of "off-peak" time looting and running around. This is the perfect opportunity to shoot the shit with your friends or strike up a conversation with randos. Compare this to some other games where you’re too focused on playing, or the game is so intense for the entire duration that it's hard to focus on social interaction. Conversation can often end up as either difficult or comes at the expense of performance within the game. The downtime with looting in PUBG offers ample chance to chat! This facilitates social interaction quite nicely and its where some of the fun of PUBG can stem from. Admittedly, this downtime spent looting can be a detriment for solo play as there is less to do and no one to socialize with. PUBG can be less enjoyable when playing in solo.<br />
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Added to this, the content of PUBG can offer some rather interesting subject matter for your conversations. There is a lot to discuss in terms of tactics, and quite often funny situations crop up in the game.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some situations are just ripe for a good laugh with mates</td></tr>
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PUBG also makes for a great game to play tactically as a cohesive unit - using team tactics to achieve victory rather than relying purely on individual player skill alone. You have the option to play with two, three or four players. This scaling allows you to play as you like, and doesn't force you to play with randoms. This flexible squad based matchmaking gives you the flexibility to hone your team skills with people whom are interested in playing to win - allowing you to focus on improving, both as a cohesive team. Being able to work as a team - have each others backs and provide accurate calls can be a large part of the fun of this game, and are rewarding in there own right.<br />
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Ultimately, PUBG does well to capitalise on the social interaction between its players. It is a well suited game to play online with friends, and this ultimately ends up boosting its appeal.</div>
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<b>Problem Solving: </b>This is one area where PUBG does just a little better than some of the other FPS games in the market in my opinion. Let's take CS as an comparison. The tactical choices in CS are clear and laid out as there only a few variables and the meta is well known. In CS you start each round in the same place. You decide where you want to go to, and you buy the equipment you want out of a limited range of optimum items. It is all rather boilerplate. Large macro calls about what to do are not needed as much in a game like CS. Now, with that said, there is clearly still some amount of making calls and strategic thinking involved. I'll I'm saying is with so many known factors and limited variables, there is naturally limited scope in the strategies that need to be implemented on the fly.</div>
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Now let's compare this to PUBG where there are many more variables to contend with. From the start of every game you begin in a plane which has a randomized flight path. How the game goes is entirely up to you. Do you go for a location with good loot knowing it’s likely to be highly contested, or do you aim for an out of the way location to loot in safety? Do you try to land in a place in the hopes of getting a vehicle so you can immediately relocate, or do you try land somewhere central to increase your chances of getting into the circle safely? Do you fight, or is it more beneficial for you to run? All of these questions can't easily answered without knowing more about the situation - and that is what makes PUBG a interesting strategic game.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhILuXvKB8b2pMcsSUd5LGzXrc5X5BhyKtzogomF6BwYHW8Spct3OtbymgOhjq4a3PrPYfB3GTuAfGvo7nEsN4O4SItbEOYFnr7Tv8aO6MW3wZ-eqB4Gw0tahlMpKj2UTx1DWZjWj0uNtw/s1600/578080_screenshots_20180408211454_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhILuXvKB8b2pMcsSUd5LGzXrc5X5BhyKtzogomF6BwYHW8Spct3OtbymgOhjq4a3PrPYfB3GTuAfGvo7nEsN4O4SItbEOYFnr7Tv8aO6MW3wZ-eqB4Gw0tahlMpKj2UTx1DWZjWj0uNtw/s400/578080_screenshots_20180408211454_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clearly the optimum parking strategy</td></tr>
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In PUBG, you’ll have to adapt to the situation at hand, and the answers are not always clear cut. Do you engage with that enemy you spotted and risk giving away your position, or do you leave it to gain a position, or loot advantage elsewhere? Do you head to the falling loot crate to try get better weapons and armor, or will that just get you killed? Do you spend the extra 20 or so seconds you need to swap out your AKM to an M416 on that dead dudes corpse? Or do you choose to not take the risk of looting to avoid getting shot and instead keep with the current ammo you have salvaged?</div>
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PUBG is filled with tough decisions like this all the way through. CS has tough decisions too, however they typically have more 'known quantities' with more fixed variables. Again, neither one is necessarily better. They are just different. It's arguable that tactical decision making has a greater impact on your chances of winning in PUBG moreso than CS. As a natural consequence of this, gunplay takes the forefront in CS as the main decider of victory. In PUBG, I think tactical decisions such as when to move, where to position, and when to attack, can be more vital to success.</div>
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<b>Competition & Mastery:</b> As talked about before, this is PUBGs bread and butter. The developers have done a good job at making the game fair and balanced, which is very important for a game that relies on competition and mastery for its fun. Choices are balanced and there is a strong incentive to improve ones skill in this game. Winning is very difficult, and thus highly rewarding when you do win.<br />
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Having 90+ players in each game could add to the appeal. Assuming you're an average player, you'd expect to win roughly 1% of the time based on the number of players alone. This makes it highly rewarding for when you do win. If you've won a game, you'll know what I'm talking about when I say the euphoria you feel after winning an intense match. If you were to lower the number of players, it would make for a shorter game, with less investment, and less reward for winning. Both a smaller player count and a larger one have their merits, however, what is worth noting is that the larger player count of PUBG makes for a rather unique experience that isn't really covered by many other games at the moment. This alone is of benefit to the games appeal, as it is a unique and new experience for the player.<br />
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I won’t expand on this point much further as this will be touched on later within this article in other points.</div>
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<b>Discovery:</b> There is a bit to discover in PUBG in terms of all the items and the maps. Both maps are massive with a lot of ground to cover and places to explore. Added to this, there are many vehicles, guns, and rare weapon drops to discover. While it's a fun little aside, it’s not the main meat of the game.<br />
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The map is likely the strongest aspect of discovery within the game, as the maps are huge, and even slight variations of terrain, weapon, playing zone, and foe, can make for a situation that feels quite different each time. For example even within the same town I am discovering new ways to use the terrain to gain a tactical advantage. There are also locations that I have never visited, or have only visited once.</div>
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<b>Story, Progress and Creativity:</b> PUBG offers little for any of these mostly because it doesn’t need to. While players to have the option to swap up their clothing, this is pretty low key and doesn’t have any major effect in-game other than a small bit of camouflage if you’re wearing the appropriate clothing for the terrain/lighting. It’s nice to have the customization, but I doubt PUBG is gaining or losing many sales because of it.<br />
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Unlocking clothing could count towards the progress element of the game. A player could be incentivised more to play if they are wanting to collect all the items of clothing & skins. It is also interesting to note that it is another source of revenue for the company, which may be one reason why they are focusing on it as much as they are. The time would be better spent on fixing other aspects of the game such as the hacking, but that might also be less profitable - who can say?</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_bwy-7tcYjkSAQQorCXNrgC5lY5bYKnQsEjWcZwL09pPaDjJWzB134eABq-08HnuLCRVnMQEsFeI3UMc4UmguI1kxNhwOALEajiHpDWjtk7DInGjimRRiHg_SsMPsR9pTXG0oZaZnsG4/s1600/download.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_bwy-7tcYjkSAQQorCXNrgC5lY5bYKnQsEjWcZwL09pPaDjJWzB134eABq-08HnuLCRVnMQEsFeI3UMc4UmguI1kxNhwOALEajiHpDWjtk7DInGjimRRiHg_SsMPsR9pTXG0oZaZnsG4/s400/download.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Don't judge me</td></tr>
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<div>
Thankfully there is no progression in terms of upgrades, powers, perks, or new guns to unlock which was a very good decision by the PUBG developers. Adding any levelup component in an online multiplayer PvP game would create an uneven playing field which would dampen the games ability to be as strong as a competitive game. As it stands , two players are only differentiated by their personal skill level - and quite frankly I love this about the game. It's the players mastery of the game & their tactics that's the deciding factor in determining victory. Nothing else (except maybe a healthy pinch of luck). When it comes down to it, the better man/lady (/or perhaps the better hacker) wins.</div>
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<div>
<div>
<b>Overall:</b> PUBG is a very good competitive game that rewards players for both great macro tactical play (map positioning, choosing when to fight, etc) and micro play (gunplay, reactions, aiming, etc). The developers didn't waste their time adding unnecessary aspects to the game that would take away from the competitive element. The setup and nature of PUBG allows it to better tap into social interaction as well as problem solving when compared to some other First Person Shooters. Most importantly, PUBG is highly rewarding and highly competitive. All of these elements go quite some way to explaining why PUBG is so popular and what makes it such a good game mechanically speaking.<br />
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<div>
<b><u>Some Negatives</u></b></div>
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<b><u><br /></u></b></div>
<div>
I’m sorry to say that most of the negatives we are about to cover are not to do with the actual mechanics or the balance of the game. Which is very sad for me to say as a game designer as now I don’t get to comment on the game mechanics as much. The game mechanics themselves are actually pretty good in PUBG, it’s just the other stuff that gets in the way! I would hate to be <b>strictly</b> a game designer on a project such as this, because my job would be mostly irrelevant at this stage - and yet I would still see so much potential for improvement! It would be frustrating to say the least.<br />
<br />
There are far bigger issues with the game that aren’t related to the game mechanics that should be addressed. These issues stop the game from being as good as it can be and get in between the player and the fun of the game.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
<b>The Hackers & Teamers:</b> Cheaters will always be an issue with many games but it is of particularly high importance for competitive games. With PUBG being such a strongly competitive game, hackers and cheating becomes quite an important issue. Why? Because the last thing anyone wants to do is spend 30 minutes playing a game, looting, waiting, spying, camping, killing, to have a victory ripped away from them dishonestly at the end. I myself have had at least 3 victories ripped away by all but 'confirmed' hackers. I am a living witness as to how annoying it can be! </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Do you reckon' it's coincidence?</td></tr>
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<div>
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There is very little agency given to the player to combat this hacker onslaught. Furthermore, the effort the developers are putting into fixing this issue is not easily seen. This makes it seem like the developers aren’t doing much to fix this issue. I have read that over 1.5 million hackers have been banned in PUBG. While that is a huge number, and it sounds like a great effort, this number on its own means nothing. It may only represent a fraction of the hacker base. How many of these are repeat offenders? All we have to go off of is our subjective experience when playing the game. Many people I talk to have had run in's with hackers in PUBG. I think the developers could take a smarter approach with this.</div>
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<div>
In fact in doing a little research into this it seems that the developers have put in very little effort into even the most basic of ‘hacks’, as demonstrated here (<a href="https://youtu.be/mIznMSTj-1c">https://youtu.be/mIznMSTj-1c</a>) (published on 27 Sep 2017). There seems to be very little anti-cheat in place, which is unfortunate as cheating is a huge dampener on the player experience. Writing the code so that it is more resistant to macros, or so that it doesn't provide as much benefit should be very possible. I’m sure there is a huge range of hacking and cheating that is going on that is not being policed.</div>
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<div>
<div>
The recent update with the killcam did help somewhat as players can get a better handle on if they have encountered a hacker. Unfortunately the only thing this does is at best provide for slightly more accurate player reporting. The developers still need to investigate and act on each instance of cheating. If a hacker is left up to a week doing blatant hacks, and then banned, they can just purchase the game an hour or two afterwards and get right back to playing again. I imagine the game could monitored in real time and accurate predictions could be made on all users based on several points of data, such as location, name, accuracy, monitoring player mouse movements, large jumps in player performance, number of reports, applications running, etc, etc. This data could be used to generate accurate reports on who may be potential hackers, and it could be done real time. It just seems that this data isn't being collected and acted upon.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Games like League of Legends took an interesting approach in using a community based moderation system called "The Tribunal". It gave players rewards for helping to moderate their own community. Now I’m not saying such a system is flawless, there are advantages and disadvantages to anything like this. Ultimately it all comes down to the implementation. Riot Games (the developer of League of Legends) could be seen taking a stand against the ‘toxic’ players within the community. It was a very visible stance to be taking. Riot Games could actually be seen to be doing something, and this gave the players some comfort. Players of PUBG have no such comfort. It looks like nothing is happening for the most part.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I would be cautious to suggest anything as a solution without trying it first. But with that said, it would benefit the game greatly to have something done. In my opinion, some possible solutions would be:</div>
</div>
<div>
<ol>
<li><b>Providing a less rigid system that lets players point out cheaters. </b>This means letting players report before they die, and being able to report any player they can see/name. This allows for richer data collection, making finding and dealing with hackers a much easier task if you have skilled people to collate the data.</li>
<li><b>Rewarding players who point out obvious Teamers and Hackers. </b>This could easily be done with a small reward on login that says "We have successfully identified 3 hackers based on your reports. Your reward is 120 BP". This encourages accurate reporting as well as improving the visibility of something being done.</li>
<li><b>Region-lock players</b> (<a href="https://steamcommunity.com/games/578080/announcements/detail/1653258341515442673">this may be happening</a>). This may help to contain hackers to a certain problem region if such a problematic region exists. Either way there are additional benefits to actioning this point, such as removing language barriers on an intently team focused game. Also, helping to stop issues with laggy players and generally improving the responsiveness and play experience of the players.</li>
<li><b>Improving the visibility that something is being done.</b> This is done as a consequence of doing points 2 & 3, and to a lesser extent, point 1.</li>
</ol>
<div>
<div>
I’m not saying any of this is easy. Naturally there can be quite the legal implication from banning a players account, and invalidating their purchase. But for the health of the player experience it is very important to put a lot of time and effort into it. I would argue this is the weakest part of PUBG at current, and it's ruining the play experience. By not tackling hackers, the developers will hemorrhage players, and may actually encourage more hackers who will operate under the rationale of: "I'm clearly very unlikely to be caught as everyone else is getting away with it, and everyone else is doing it, so I'm leveling the playing field." By their lack of quality action, Blue Hole is not just letting the problem remain unchecked, they may actually be letting it get progressively worse.</div>
<div>
<br />
In regards to the BP reward for players who successfully report, an understandable critique would be that it might encourage over reporting in order to capitalise on the BP reward. It should be made clear to the players that doing frivolous reports will result in either their reports getting ignored, account suspension, or a ban from the game entirely. This could easily be done by looking at the reported generated by the user and looking at the total report count over the games played, and the report accuracy. It should be easy to separate out users who typically give strong reports to those who give weak or false reports.<br />
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<div>
This is an issue of great importance for the enjoyable and playability of the game. If the developers are seen to be doing nothing it will only encourage more players to engage in the practice, whilst serving to piss off the existing playerbase.</div>
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<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
<b>Bugs, laggy servers and bad framerate performance: </b>There isn’t much for me to say on this because these issues are all rather technical, but these are all things that could use some tweeks. Polish and QoL (quality of life) improvements are important in any good game - but things like the net code and lag are of even greater significance in a game such PUBG as they impact the competitive aspect of the game.<br />
<br />
Having a win stripped away from you because of a spot of lag, or a glitch, or performance issues would be infuriating, and might influence a gamers choice to play PUBG regularly.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
These issues need a little more elbow grease by the developers. I understand they can’t fix this overnight, but they need to work on this over time if they are genuinely interested in improving their game. It's clear that the developers are still focused on improving the game. It just seems that their efforts are focused in the wrong areas at current.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKiDOnVUwlz2ljiUapKvYxYfvmIeNMC5gqS_a3ZSsCuKD_ToEc78h6kPXx1VFOe_WTkQg6uCEdpLNzU7jwpp3SIfrGiUp65XhYn2dvi6f1EeiJq9al9yeqFh4hvzJ9bqxOOP_j_f7_-c8/s1600/578080_screenshots_20171109232128_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKiDOnVUwlz2ljiUapKvYxYfvmIeNMC5gqS_a3ZSsCuKD_ToEc78h6kPXx1VFOe_WTkQg6uCEdpLNzU7jwpp3SIfrGiUp65XhYn2dvi6f1EeiJq9al9yeqFh4hvzJ9bqxOOP_j_f7_-c8/s400/578080_screenshots_20171109232128_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This may, or may not, be a bug in progress</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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</div>
<div>
<b>Melee weapons: </b>This is a small issue in PUBG, but as a lover of anything melee, it irks me more than it should. Actually landing a hit with a melee weapon is very difficult in PUBG due to how the collision detection and netcode interacts. If a player steps away from you, you’ll only start accelerating after them once your foe has already accelerated and left. This interaction can leave you outside of melee reach while you chase after them. Which feels ridiculous as you were touching your foe not moments before. This effectively renders melee weapons exceedingly difficult to use and forces you to use strange tactics in order to keep your speed up and preventing yourself from colliding with character models at the wrong time - effectively counteracting the bad coding by behaving in ways that are not intuitive.<br />
<br />
Added to this, the range on melee weapons seems short - this is also counter intuitive. PUBG might benefit from a "lunge" mechanic similar to other games like COD (Call of Duty). I'm not saying it should act the same, or be an instant kill. But a subtle "lock on effect" or even just a boost forward, would be enough to give melee weapons to actually make them viable early game.<br />
<br />
A disorientation effect, or weapon stability debuff is also an option, although I would want to do extensive testing before it is applied. This gives a melee attacker a little bit of respite for landing their first hit, and means that the contest of melee weapon versus ranged is a little more even at extremely close quarters.<br />
<br />
Needless to say, I think this interaction could definitely use improvement! Perhaps a tweak to either the netcode, player collision, or the melee weapons is in order so that melee engagements don’t feel so clunky. Obviously melee weapons should still be slightly weaker overall compared to sidearms and other ballistic weapons. But a small boost to the QoL of melee weapons would bring them up from where they are, which is basically a novelty item. With all that said, melee weapons are such a small part of the game that this could be left unfixed without too much detriment - but it would be nice.<br />
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<b><u><br /></u></b>
<b><u>Balance</u></b></div>
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<div>
Balance is a important topic for many games, and PUBG is no exception. Games are all about choices. Good choices mean fair and valid options, and with PUBG being primarily a competitive game, this is of even greater importance. Balance is something that PUBG gets pretty good. PUBG is fairly resistant to imbalance since all players start in the same situation and have access to the same resources. No one is at an advantage or disadvantage. Some of the weapons are imbalanced, sure, but fortunately none are so imbalanced to the point of being broken or useless (apart from the exception of melee weapons, that are barely better than the players fists). The inferior weapons, such as the crossbow, still have a legitimate use in the beginning of the game. The superior weapons are not overpowered enough to be broken, and come from loot crates that all players have access too and can be risky to seek out. It is quite possible for a K98 to take out a AWP. It's just a little tougher.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I will say that there is of course an element of luck within the game, with the most impactful being where the circle randomly chooses to close in on - especially at games end. Where things like items, cars and loot crates spawn is a close second. Being a little influenced by luck isn’t necessarily a bad thing. PUBG seems to strike an okay balance between skill and luck - except at games end where you can sometimes be all but handed victory on a silver platter by a lucky circle spawn for you, and an unlucky one for your opponent. Perhaps a better mechanic is for the circle to collapse inwards in a more predictable pattern near the games end?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Something interesting to note is how team size affects the effective health of vehicles. As you might imagine, when playing in solo matches, a vehicle may have too much health to take down by yourself. However, when playing with a squad, your damage potential is up to 4 times greater against a single target, and a vehicles health may actually be too low to sustain fire from an opposing team. This means the best tactics can actually vary quite a bit depending on the squad size, with vehicles being more viable in the late stages of a solo match, as opposed to a four man match. An easy solution could be to have unique "armored" variants of vehicles, that only show up in games squad matches. These vehicles could have increased health to make them more hardy. Added to this, perhaps the UAZ could be limited to duo + squad sizes. But again, this could just be something that is interesting to note, rather than something that needs fixing.<br />
<br />
With all that said, nothing is hugely broken or out of place in PUBG apart from maybe grenade spamming and the circle mechanics, which I will discuss as their own points later in part two.<br />
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<div>
<b><u><br /></u></b>
<b><u>Weapons</u></b></div>
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<div>
I’ll be talking about the weapons of PUBG because they are an integral part of any shooter.<br />
<br />
When you look at the weapons of CS, only a handful out of all of the available weapons for purchase see much play within the game. There is a good reason for this. Game theory and dominant strategy dictates that players will pick the best known option available to them, <b>for a given situation,</b> in order to improve their odds of wining. While an AK might be the best weapon at a medium range, it is not the best weapon at a short or long range. Added to this, it is not the most price efficient weapon. Because of this, the network of viable weapons in a game of CS is fairly broad, but still, only a 1/3rd of the 34 weapons see any great deal of playtime. While it isn't a bad thing to have so many options when it comes to weapons, it also doesn't add much to the game. It is typical for a CS player to never even buy 1/2 of the available weapons over the course of several games. I have always thought that a competitive shooter game doesn't need more than 6 or so weapons. Games like Halo and Unreal Tournament are a fairly good example of limited weapons within a game. You simply don't have to have many weapons to have a great game.<br />
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PUBG is interesting an case in that you do not have much control over what weapons you come across. Thus all weapons are typically viable at one point or another. Early game, if you encounter a double-barreled shotgun, and you perceive it as the weakest weapon, then that's too bad, because it is still your optimal weapon as of right now until you get something better. Unlike most other competitive shooters, PUBG would likely benefit from having additional weapons to choose from. The looting element really does make PUBG a different experience to most common shooters, and forces the player to be more adaptive to the situation as it unfolds to them. A game like <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/646570/Slay_the_Spire/">Slay The Spire</a> is a great example of how you can add a lot of value to your game by forcing the player to adapt to any given situation. Slay The Spire is a game almost entirely devoted to giving the player a situation to react to, and then a choice.<br />
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Players can only carry two primary weapons at a time. All weapons have situational advantages and disadvantages that can be quite nicely categorized into their effective ranges. Close, medium, and far. Since you can only use one weapon at once, it often pays to carry two weapons that are ideal for two different effective ranges, enabling you to be most effective at two out of three range categories. let's break down the weapons into their various qualities and ranges. </div>
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<br />
While not perfect, this nice little table does help to highlight where some weapons shine.<br />
<br />
An interesting side note is the S686, which is a highly risky weapon to use in close quarters. It is very unforgiving weapon if you miss. However it is exceptionally powerful if you hit. Making it a high risk, high reward weapon. Most of the other weapons on this list do not have as interesting a risk vs reward profile.<br />
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Many players opt for a weapon from the medium range category and a weapon from long range category, such as a AKM and a SKS. However, another popular variant is to opt for a weapon from the short range category, as well as a weapon from the medium or long range category, such as a Vector and a AKM, or a UMP9 and a Mini 14. It might be obvious to say - but it is rare to see players using two weapons of the same category. This is because there is no tactical advantage to having two weapons that fulfill the same effective range. There would literally be no advantage to swapping to your secondary weapon. However, if you have a UMP9 and a SKS, then you have an advantage to swapping to the UMP when you explore the close quarters of a house.<br />
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You'll notice that all these variants try to give the player the best "bang for their buck" in terms of optimum weaponry for any given range. Yet you will always be missing a weapon that is effective for one of the three range categories. This means that if you encounter a Vector user in close quarters while you only have a M416 and a SKS, then you'll be at a disadvantage. Choosing your terrain to match your weapons, as well as your weapons to match your terrain, is an important factor to winning in PUBG.<br />
<br />
I think the case can be made for a lot of different weapon loadouts, and this is really good game design. Playing with the same weapons every single time would get boring after a while, and having to adapt to the situation at hand and use a variety of weaponry keeps the experience lively.<br />
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This makes for a very interesting challenge for the players as they loot up and find better gear. You just don't know what you're going to come across next. You need to both plan for the now, as well as the potential of what you'll come across in the future.<br />
<br />
Until next time.<br />
<br />
Cheers,<br />
Tyson<br />
Creator of <a href="http://www.playaot.com/">Act of Treaon</a><br />
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Act of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1091217442709951137.post-13285331667015981522018-04-15T17:23:00.000-07:002018-04-14T21:39:57.143-07:00Development Diary #10 - Back on the Path<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
Hi All,<br />
<br />
Sorry for the hiatus. I was away on a spontaneous 4 week break. I was doing some housesitting and taking some time to get a couple of things sorted. Either way it was really great to collate my thoughts before I dived back into some more Act of Treason.<br />
<br />
As many of you know, Act of Treason was up on Kickstarter recently. I've put up a short article: <a href="http://blog.playaot.com/2018/04/what-i-learned-from-kickstarter.html">What I learned from Kickstarter</a> here on the Blog. It's a pretty good read for any aspiring game designers or entrepreneurs if I do say so myself. Hopefully you can learn from my mistakes and gain a little bit of insight into that side of things.<br />
<br />
Before I launched Act of Treason on Kickstarter I had said:<br />
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<i><span style="color: #666666;">"I hope Act of Treason is successful, but if it were to fail anywhere along the road to funding, I can almost guarantee it will be due to a lack of strong marketing" - Tyson, <a href="http://blog.playaot.com/2018/02/myself-and-future-projects.html">Myself and future projects</a></span></i></div>
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I've been asking people and researching how best to market Act of Treason, but <b>there's no silver bullet here. </b>I think I just need to be patient and slowly crank out content - building support where I can. We will get there in the end. It may just take a while. An added complication is that I work full time and have a fair amount going on outside of work, so time is a rather limited commodity that I'm working with. I'm not saying any of this as an excuse or to gain sympathy. I'm just honestly laying out how I think it is.<br />
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A big part of why I find marketing so tough is because it is somewhat antithetical to who I am and what I like to do. I am very much a lone wolf type of character. I would self describe as quiet, reserved & analytical. I deliberately move away from the lime light. I enjoy designing and creating. I love Act of Treason a great deal, but I also dislike marketing a great deal.<br />
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I think the best way to progress from here is to stick to my strengths. This means I'll be doing things that might not seem related to Act of Treason from time to time. This likely means more focus on Dominant Strategy posts - this could also mean I spend a bit of time to work on other projects that will drum up interest in its own right. This isn't me turning away from Act of Treason - I honestly do think this might be the best path forward. Me taking on the these other tasks will drive interest back into Act of Treason in the long term. It's kind of the only way I see me being able to move forward. I ask for your patience and support - I'm doing the best that I can. This is a road now that I've be walking on for over 5 years. I'm already well accustomed to just how long and difficult this journey is. I'm not here to put out something that I'm not going to be proud to stand behind. I'm not here for a cash grab, or a quick buck. I'm doing my best to deliver a product that I will be proud of and that will stand the test of time.<br />
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I want to thank you all for your support so far - It has been really great to see! <a href="http://www.playaot.com/notify">The Mailing List</a> subscriber count has been moving up each day! Thank you for your follows, your support, and getting the word out! Every little bit helps!<br />
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I'll be spending a lot of time on Dominant Strategy posts in the coming months. In addition I'll see if I can queue up some play through of gaming groups playing Act of Treason from start to finish to showcase on the website and on the next Kickstarter Campaign. If you're interested in playing or reviewing Act of Treason or you know someone who can showcase it on their website, blog, or channel, don't hesitate to <a href="http://www.playaot.com/contact">get in touch</a>.<br />
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Until next time,<br />
TysonAct of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1091217442709951137.post-80062715091800114172018-04-13T16:50:00.003-07:002018-04-13T18:30:48.620-07:00What I learned from Kickstarter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>What I learned from Kickstarter</b><br />
<i>By Tyson Bennett</i><br />
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As many of you know, Act of Treason went live on Kickstarter recently (early Feb) and did not perform as well as I had expected. It's unfortunate, but it gives me a chance to learn, develop and improve. There are a number of reasons for this and I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on what happened here. Hopefully you can gain some insight from my thoughts and observations.<br />
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I've ordered this list, the biggest fumbles are at the top:<br />
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<ol>
<li style="padding-bottom: 20px;"><b>1,000 followers, but in the wrong places: </b>I had 1,000 followers as my initial audience. This 1,000 was spread across Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, the Act of Treason mailing list, etc. The conversion rates were quite low for most of these. I peg that to 1) a lack of engagement from me and a long span of time between their acquisition and when the Kickstarter launched. 2) announcements and posts can be very easy to miss on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, where a great deal of my followers resided. And 3) A follow doesn't necessarily mean "I am interested in your product and I want to buy". Sometimes it can just be a follow back, or a "I like what you posted". It's a weaker link to your product when compared to say an email subscribe. All these together culminated in a low hit rate and less pledges than expected. Email signups did perform the best, but it was also the method where I had the least followers. In hindsight, I would focus purely on the Act of Treason <a href="http://www.playaot.com/notify">Mailing List</a> as my method for gauging the level of expected pledges. I would also consider periodically sending out important updates to that mailing list to get a rough feel for engagement and opens. If only 1% of your audience opens your email, then that's a fairly good estimation of the number of engaged subscribers you have. You can work out from your Kickstarter budgeting how many engaged subscribers you need to have a successful campaign and there you go, roughly accurate forecasting. </li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 20px;"><b>Length of the campaign:</b> My initial research suggested that many Kickstarter campaigners choose to babysit their project full time. This helps them to get the most out of it and gives them the time and resources to respond to all queries, tweak the marketing campaign, add more details & create art assets, and so on. Added to this, I had read that campaigns up to 14 days perform better than those of 30 or 60 days. This is believed to be due to the shorter length of time creating a "urgency", where people are more likely to act on it sooner, rather then plan to act on it later - but then forgetting about it. This is not my full time job, and so I decided on a 14 day campaign with me taking the time off of work to check on the campaign. In hindsight, if you're a small publisher, only one day off is needed - the day of the launch. You use launch day to blast out on all of your social media channels and inform friends and family. This gives your project a good head start. Afterwards, you can just monitor it a couple of hours each day. If you've done you're due diligence, then things should be ticking along nicely, and you shouldn't have to do any major course corrections. If you're a small or first time publisher, you'll likely have a much smaller, manageable audience - full time monitoring is unlikely to be required. In hindsight I would aim for 30 to 90 days, especially as a new publisher.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 20px;"><b>Advertising was ineffective: </b>I made the mistake of thinking that I could use advertising to bridge any gap between my funding and my Kickstarter goal. This can only work under rare circumstances. It is possible to pump marketing with cash in order to get conversions if, and only if, there is already a large following. In the case of no initial following then there's nothing to build off of. A lot of what drives pledge conversion is confidence - am I confident that what I'm going to buy is going to provide me with value? In the case of a Kickstarter Project that's thriving, a great deal of confidence is given to the visitor simply through the fact that there are so many others who have been willing to pledge. A visitor thinks "Wow, all of these people have seen value in this - there must be something here" (subconsciously probably). I think it's similar to walking down the street, looking for a restaurant. If you see an empty restaurant nestled in among a sea of bustling restaurants one might ask "Why are their no customers?" It could be the service is bad, the food is terrible, the food takes too long to arrive, or all of these things, or none of them. But it doesn't inspire confidence,<b> </b>and so you typically don't take the risk. After all, there surely is a reason right?.. Right? The mere fact that the restaurant has no clientele scares off any potential customers. It's a vicious cycle, and well known in restaurant owner circles. How to get over this "hump" is an art of itself, and a very important aspect of running a successful restaurant. It could be the best restaurant ever, but if there are no people willing to go there it hardly matters. <b>P</b><b>eople use popularity as a barometer for success</b><i>. </i>It's a form of efficiency and outsourcing in decision making. It would be a rather tiresome affair to go to each restaurant and try their meals. Outsourcing this kind of decision to popularity is something we humans do all the time - it makes for an easy, and typically somewhat adequate decision. Put simply, advertising may have gotten a few clicks, but those clicks were unlikely to turn into pledges because the Act of Treason Kickstarter page was "an empty restaurant". Advertising is going to be almost entirely ineffective unless you can get enough pledges so that the Kickstarter page inspires confidence to the passerby, so to speak. All in all, what this means is that you can use advertising to add fuel to the fire - but you can't use it to start the fire! Lesson learned!</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 20px;"><b>Timing:</b> I launched my campaign on a Friday. Not ideal. Initially I thought that it wouldn't make a difference, but you get a period of about 24 to 48 hours to show up as "New to Kickstarter", as well as on other sites that have a "new to Kickstarter" embed on their webpage. This is prime traffic, and best of all it's free. Ultimately, the best time to launch is when Kickstarter and other affiliate sites are getting the most traffic. Jamie Stegmair has some <a href="http://stonemaiergames.com/kickstarter-lesson-9-timing-and-length/">good info on this</a>. He suggests avoiding Monday's and Fridays' and to launch mid morning. I was planning my launch strategy on what worked best for me so that I could babysit the campaign - not what would drive the most traffic. In hindsight, I think it's best to have it set up solid from day one so that it doesn't need babysitting, and then squeeze every last drop out of the launch timing unless it's absolutely not possible to do that.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 20px;"><b>More detail: </b>People were still unsure about some aspects of the Act of Treason, such as the Court and Quest cards. There was plenty of details on the game, but a few blanks here and there for some of my more observant visitors. Thankfully, this is an easy fix. In the future I can include some more detail. Simple additions such as showcasing some of the Court and Quest cards, as well as having a rules video and a play through video are great additions. These additions to the Kickstarter page are definitely planned for the next Kickstarter run.</li>
<li style="padding-bottom: 20px;"><b>Comparison to The Resistance:</b> This comparison was made in comment sections here and there and in some questions directed to me. It's a little annoying to have your creation compared to something else like this - and not just because I'm not a big fan of The Resistance. Don't get me wrong, it is fine game and I understand why people enjoy it. But Act of Treason isn't like The Resistance in my humble opinion - and I didn't design it to be like The Resistance. I totally get it, it's a popular game, and it's of the same genre. To the uninformed it's a completely natural first question to ask - "How are these two things different?" Act of Treason is much more of a hybrid of both Mafia and Battlestar Galactica, incidentally the two games I played most before starting my work on Act of Treason. I think doing a direct compare and contrast between Act of Treason will be beneficial as it will help people with the question of "How is this different to The Resistance", and help them to get up to speed really quickly on Act of Treason and why it is different. I will write a blog post going in depth on the specific differences between these two games as well as an analysis of the game theory of Avalon. This can then be included on my FAQ for the next Kickstarter. I may do a blog post about some in depth strategy on Avalon / Mafia, and why I can't really get into these games as much.</li>
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In summary, Kickstarter chewed me up and spit me out - I had no clue what to expect. It's one of those classic situations where <b>you don't know what you don't know. </b>Which is perhaps my one of my favorite sayings right now. That and: <b>Sometimes you've got to look the fool so you can become the master.</b> Both quotes are amazing and I think they really help to spell out that you have to be willing to try and fail if you want to succeed - everyone looks foolish when they start out at something new. That's just life. I'm just glad I can pick myself up, dust myself off, and give it another crack.<br />
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That about raps it up. I'll be putting up a Dominant Strategy article very soon as well as a Developers Diary, going over what I've been up to and my next steps.<br />
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Until next time,<br />
Tyson</div>
Act of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1091217442709951137.post-15915929404888451812018-02-11T15:44:00.001-08:002018-02-11T20:50:47.176-08:00Act of Treason Design Journal - Part 3<br />
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<b>Why aren’t there more Examinations in the game?</b><br />
I’ve deliberately put many opportunities to gain Examination Blocking and few opportunities for players to examine other players in Act of Treason for very good reason. If too much information is given out as to the loyalty of the players then the mystery and tension of the game is stripped away. Players can narrow down the suspects and simply make a plan to win, eliminating those they need to - there is no more unknown - The fun gets sucked right out of the game almost instantly and the game becomes an accounting exercise to wrap up an who wins.<br />
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If you know too much, then Act of Treason is no longer a game of intrigue and deception, and the whole point of the game is lost. I’ve witnessed this effect many times during my early playtests, and because of this, I’d rather have too few examinations than too many. You need to keep the suspense of who is who right up until the very end of the game for the maximum fun.<br />
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As it currently stands. Act of Treason has a good balance. You won't get too many examinations to reveal too much, and it's highly likely you'll get one or two - enough to encourage suspicion, interaction, and added conflict.<br />
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<b>Why are there lots of ways to get Examination Blocks?</b><br />
Sort of the inverse question to the one above. Examination Blocks gives both the Heir and Traitors the ability to pick up these cards without being too suspicious - after all if there are so many it's tough to avoid them... right? This makes getting an Examination Block less suspicious.<br />
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Added to this, you don't want the game flooded with Examinations, as noted above. Players will have to adapt their examinations to the blocks that are currently in play - It just makes getting clear information that much more tricky, which is a plus. In my opinion, there definitely isn’t too many examination blocks. I’ve never seen full saturation of Examination Blocking - there’s always been at least one person at the table who can still be examined by the end of the game.<br />
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Depending on your loyalty, the trick is trying to get an examination block as inconspicuously as possible! At the very least you may want to try to stop others from getting them, or use the opportunity to throw suspicion on them if they do!<br />
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<b>Why do players gain Examination Blocking if they Examine?</b><br />
'Chaining' examinations is a very powerful strategy that has been used in previous editions of Act of Treason. What is 'chaining'? It’s when player A examines player B and then Player B examines Player C. By 'chaining' examinations in this manner you gain an extremely strong sense of who is who, to the point of sometimes actually knowing for certain. A can’t be lying unless C is on their team, and so forth, The larger the chain, the stronger the information. This is very bad for he game as mentioned in 'Why aren’t there more Examinations in the game?' The fun gets sucked right out if you know too much!<br />
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As an added negative, this gives examinations so much power that players were incentivised to get Examinations at any cost. Worse still, the strategy was only dominant for the loyals, and yet the Traitors would be forced to go along with it or risk exposing themselves as a Traitor! This created a terrible dominant strategy that removed all meaningful choices from the game and replaced them with "buying Examinations so that you can chain them".<br />
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Examination chaining was removed from the game early on. Now, Examinations are both scarce and they can never really be proven to be correct because 'chaining' has been removed. This keeps the mystery of the game going. In the current iteration of the game, players who examine others or who get examined gain examination blocking - this is what prevents examination chaining. I trailed this in a few games a while back and have never regretted my decision to add it to the game. This is a very good mechanic to have because it keeps distrust and intrigue going, and if anything it adds to it!<br />
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<b>Why does the Steward get to reward a Court card if the Quest passes?</b><br />
The Court is where players can go to purchase cards that give them additional powers and effects. A Court card must be purchased buy spending Knowledge. Since Knowledge is used to pass Quests, players will be lowering the chance of the passing the Quest that round, and potentially subsequent rounds.<br />
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This has mostly been covered in parts 1 and 2, but simply put, the Court is restricted to put a limit to the amount of damage that players can do when acquiring cards from court - knowledge spent on court card can't be used to pass Quests for instance. Likewise, allowing the Steward to reward any left over cards in Court is a nice free bonus that rewards players as a group for not just buying cards outright.<br />
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Without these mechanics in play, new players have a strong tendency to purchase cards without knowing why it’s the wrong time to buy, or what it means. Then some new players may blame the game rather than realise the fault was with them. With these mechanics in place as well as the tips in the rulebook, players are more likely to build up the understanding that buying without solid reason is the reason for their downfall, not the game or anything else.<br />
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<b>Why are the Quests ordered?</b><br />
This is highly related to the point above, and why it is recommended that advanced players play with the Quests unordered and randomised.<br />
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For beginning players, playing with ordered Quests is somewhat like playing with training wheels. In blind playtesting some players would leap into tactics that were quite destructive without realizing. This could lead to them blaming the game for their actions, not realizing that they were "playing the game wrong". Now as a designer I don't believe players can play a game wrong, so I needed to provide a clearer incentive and push for players to play in such a way I covered this before with the social contract as discussed before.<br />
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I've found that using ordered Quests help to keep the kingdom nice and controlled in the early game, with some of the more dangerous cards coming out near the end game to help facilitate conflict. This guides players into the the social contract and tactics that keep the game on course. When the Quests are unordered, players will have to organise themselves to ensure that they stay on track and that Quest and the Court cards aren't misused by the other players.<br />
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<b>Why do you have a Deception Phase?</b><br />
I've played a lot of games both with and without a Deception Phase, and with many different groups. The consensus is that including the deception phase is more fun and allows for more tactics with your Traitor friend. That said you don't have to include it as stated in the rule book. Optional rules exist that allow you to play without it. In fact for the five player game it's mandatory that you play without it. Both ways of playing are equally viable, and in my opinion.<br />
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<b>Why do you not reveal Loyalties after a player dies?</b><br />
This keeps the suspense of the game going until the very end of the game. As discussed above, revealing too much can take away the suspense, and locking down a players loyalty after they die so that they cannot be examined adds yet another factor into if killing them is a good idea.<br />
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<b>Tune in next time for the following:</b></div>
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Why is the Quest phase before the Action Phase?</div>
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Why do you discard down to 4 Knowledge cards each round?</div>
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Why is the cost of Court cards variable?</div>
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Why is there a Town Watch?</div>
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Are the Court cards balanced?</div>
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It seems way too tough for the Traitors/Loyals to win Tribute/the game?</div>
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Why do you not reveal Loyalties after a player dies?</div>
<br />Act of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1091217442709951137.post-13123322313789443272018-02-08T16:53:00.001-08:002018-02-15T16:51:20.168-08:00Development Diary #9 - Less than 24 Hours to goHey Y’all,<br />
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Under 24 hours to go until Act of Treason launches on Kickstarter. It all just feels so surreal.<br />
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<b>The Update</b><br />
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Let me take you through some of what I’ve been up:<br />
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<li>Updating the Act of Treason website (playaot.com) and prepping it for the Kickstarter launch. It’s mostly new art assets and concept images, but the biggest update was adding the rules for Act of Treason, which are all sitting online now at <a href="http://www.playaot.com/rules">www.playaot.com/rules</a>.</li>
<li>Created a press release, and sent it around to various bloggers and board game related news sites.</li>
<li>Act of Treason is now up on <a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/246162">Board Game Geek</a>. If you've played it, feel free to create an account and post up your review.</li>
<li>The Kickstarter page has seen a ton of work and is looking very swish now. I’ve included a mixture of text and what I’ve been calling “long tiles”, which are basically just images. I call them long tiles because they are tiled down the page and are typically quite long. A fair bit of work went into Photoshop to make sure they all look good and they covered all the needed information.</li>
<li>I created my own company called Saffron Entertainment. It doesn’t have an identity of itself yet, or website, or anything really - right now it’s basically a holding company for Act of Treason, but it will be getting its own unique personality & all the frills sometime after the KS launch.</li>
<li>Prepared some blog posts to come out before and during the campaign. A recent one went up for those who are interested in learning more about me and my future projects. You can read it <a href="http://blog.playaot.com/2018/02/myself-and-future-projects.html">here</a>. Also, expect posts to come up soon for both The Dominant Strategy as well as parts 3 and 4 of the Design Journal.</li>
<li>I created an Act of Treason video with some basic animation for the KS page. It's embedded below. It took me roughly three days out of a planned two. First was getting the VO right, cutting out the background noise proved both necessary and more difficult than I had anticipated. That was most of Day 1. Days 2 and 3 where on the visuals, first half and second half respectively. I had most planned out ahead of time, but winged a couple of parts when I arrived at them. I think it’s important to stay adaptable for situations like that - you can sometimes stumble upon an easier and/or better solution if you stay flexible and open to it.</li>
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<b>Personal Stuff</b><br />
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So about two weeks ago, windows decided to push updates on me really hard, and so I decided to go ahead with them. The next thing after I boot back into windows - my screens are glitching out and artifacting, flashing gray for a frame or two. Thanks Windows update! I trouble shoot to try resolve it via updates etc, but it keeps happening. The graphics card is the likely culprit - Gigabyte GTX980Ti for the tech nerds out there who are interested. So I decided to take my graphics card out and clean it. That's when I notice that it's boiling hot. I'm beginning to suspect overheating.<br />
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Sure enough I clean the card to remove the dust and then when I plug it back in I find out the fans either aren't spinning, or are making weird noises when they do spin. Sure enough, shortly after plugging in the card the fan falls off and I'm getting the artifacts again. I jam a large fan next to the case for a while until I can get my hands on a replacement - it actually worked too! No more artifacts while I had that setup. The culprit fan must have not been spinning for a while, or something came loose with it? Who knows. All I know is that I'm down one boss graphics card. RIP.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUbbTyPy3s2KZ8Sa2rqD0D2jsqLCfpdRMnI-Bj68PxRh-d6vPxplVK1KkE2XISp7xupeI5fR2g004aaEflnD_7nM2Qn16cfsxxVMxLL1K9EdTVJ6gw2I1QBY6jEYO-XQPa60xnhmSiBIw/s1600/112.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="579" data-original-width="696" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUbbTyPy3s2KZ8Sa2rqD0D2jsqLCfpdRMnI-Bj68PxRh-d6vPxplVK1KkE2XISp7xupeI5fR2g004aaEflnD_7nM2Qn16cfsxxVMxLL1K9EdTVJ6gw2I1QBY6jEYO-XQPa60xnhmSiBIw/s320/112.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My makeshift cooling setup</td></tr>
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Now I'm running my brothers old card, about the same power as an Xbox360 gfx card. While I wait for gigabyte to examine the card under warranty. The timing is just great as you might imagine. Right as the Kickstarter campaign is about to begin. Oh well, could be worse. I mean I could have had my hard drive fail with all my Act of Treason stuff. Instead I just had my hard drive fail with all my old movies and TV shows. Yes, you read that right - one of my hard drives failed like a few days ago! Afterwards I Immediately rushed and backed up my entire Act of Treason folder. At least I can still work and all my files are alright. That's the main thing. It is genuinely painful to work on some of my files now however. Even slightly large Google Docs documents are laggy at times!<br />
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<b>Okay Google</b><br />
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So when I first started prepping Act of Treason for Kickstarter, I knew I wanted to have a website dedicated to Act of Treason. One of the things that really got stuck in my craw was that my website wasn’t appearing on google unless you typed in something very specific like “Act of Treason board game” - even then I don't think it was top of the page. Back then, typing in just “Act of Treason” had my website on page 5 or something, which might as well been tantamount to it not existing.<br />
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I’m proud to announce that when I typed “Act of Treason” into google today I got the following:<br />
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-a7d01c7d-77b1-13dc-796f-b83dabc1804e"><span style="font-family: "nunito"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-a7d01c7d-77b1-6c19-86a4-d6943e326f9e"><span style="font-family: "nunito"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="323" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/ZnYWm2Q7JO-yzMjZUljV2YdXJBAbBA9L6UoBhucm8iyBIvyk3g6Zvpaml6CVZjKf34XRIXvl2oXt61SgWh9QA60gTQlgQjgQF1KYR8lxzGHmjkzStyc7-M-OMwmvB52C-vQDHoVM" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="400" /></span></span></div>
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3rd result, not bad! And when I type in “Act of Treason board game” the results are even better still! It just feels good to make progress on something like that, especially when it has mostly resolved itself.<br />
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<b>Learning From Mistakes</b><br />
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I was going through the Kickstarter, typing up the "Risks and challenges" section. For the unfamiliar, this is an area that sits at the bottom of your Kickstarter page. It is for the project creator to explain: <i>"The risks and challenges that come with completing your project, and how the project creator is qualified to overcome them."</i><br />
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A rather important section for some projects and for backers too. It helps set the stage for what could go wrong and should be used by the creator to honestly reflect on where they could become stuck, which allows the backers to make a informed decision about the level of risk they are willing to take on.<br />
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In typing up that section, it made me realize something: It’s all about trust.<br />
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Trust is a huge part of any business interaction. If you don’t trust whom you’re dealing with, it’s unlikely that you’ll give them any money in exchange for a good or service. Why? Because you can’t be sure of the level of quality you’ll get, or that you’ll get the product or service you asked for. Heck, you could potentially not get the product or service at all. Any number of things can go wrong in a business situation, and not having trust and confidence in whom you’re conducting business with means that you might not get the outcome you want. Trust means you're confident that you'll come out okay, even when things go wrong.<br />
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Now, with all that in mind, I need to come clean about something that has been buging me.<br />
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-a7d01c7d-77b6-6e6e-613e-715fdf3c13d3"><span style="font-family: "nunito"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/WXKfQ2RQY0FobxOVGEB2GmYeSzOicPseY_W3wXOolsjauN6u6xbbWvGZ_VvFCigBqrI-KI584jMk0l0prlF3vyzjYpjtosQDzTq3rzwcpcOEu1NQjq8m2XgIC2aRNuLMtC3YSzsl" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" /></span></span><br />
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This was not a great promotion I ran. I’m going to peg this one up to me not being so great at marketing - but even then I should have known better! Some of the things I mention in my post when I first revealed this are just straight up wishful thinking. It just wasn’t very grounded of me. I’m going to unpack it a little here for you so you can learn from my mistake. </div>
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Let's start with the reward of this promotion - doubling the marketing and art budgets. My rationale at the time makes some sense:</div>
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<span style="color: #999999;"><i>“I wanted a reward that didn't detract from the product and divert attention or effort elsewhere. I also wanted a reward that all backers could enjoy. A reward that would be fair to all backers. This reward is in line with my main concern - making the best game possible.”</i></span></div>
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While I stand by this rationale, the biggest issue with the reward is that it’s vague, and not very tangible or salable. What does "double the budget" actually mean? Having values such as an increase of $4,000 for both would have been much clearer and more transparent. But even then, that’s not a very salable reward. No one is going to get excited when you tell them that they should sign up to a mailing list because they then get to increase the numbers on somebody's else budget.<br />
<br />
A better reward would be in line with all the rationale I laid out above, while at the same time being more tangible, salable and clear. I would give you an example, but if I could do that I would have run a better promotion in the first place. Something like adding a new card or two into the game kind of works, but that comes with it's own cost. I for one am very dubious of any Kickstarter game when they do this - offer to increase the components or mechanics of the game as a stretch goal or bonus. I wonder, "why am I not getting the most complete/best product when the idea is already out there and tested?", and "Doesn't adding/removing that component upset the balance of the game?" Both fair questions.<br />
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Another smaller mistake, but a mistake none the less, is that I should have taken a different tact with the x3 mailing list “rule” worked into this promotion. I should have only applied a 1 for 1 across all social media accounts, OR only included the mailing list in the promotion. Having mailing list sign ups count for x3 followers is a confusing and convoluted message.<br />
<br />
In marketing, I think you should treat everything that you do like you’re playing Chinese whispers - if it can be miscommunicated, it probably will. You should always aim for the clearest and most impactful message you can as this has the greatest distance - a convoluted message won’t travel very far. This is one reason that memes have the spread that they do. They are a short snappy highly shareable idea or message that provides some level of value - The messages you give out to the public should be almost like memes. Clear, short, snappy and valuable. If you can do that, then the message will share itself. In hindsight I should have gone with email signups only for a clearer message.<br />
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But by far the biggest error I made was the amount of followers needed for the promotion to be successful. 4,000!? Are you serious? In my defense, I figured that if they were to all be email sign ups which is what I was pushing for the real number is ~1,333. Added to this I already had quite a few signups which made the number of signups I needed less still. But having such a large number as the goal would have made me look like I was living in a dream world - and let's be honest, in some sense I was.<br />
<br />
I did see an increase in the email signups at the start of the promotion. I want to thank my supporters for that, but I’m sure it’s much less than it would be had I included a sensible goal, focused purely on e-mail signups, and had a much clearer, salable, and tangible reward for hitting the goal. My bad.<br />
<br />
As it turns out, after doing some more calculations and juggling the budget, you’ll be getting some of this reward for free anyway. I really want to see the final product have great art, even at the lowest possible funding goal. So the minimum Art budget for Act of Treason has been tweaked to just under double of what it was to ensure this. The marketing playbook has also had some rework to allow for easy scaling. I might not be doing more marketing spending, but I most certainly will if the advertising has good hit and conversion rates.<br />
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Please don’t make the same mistakes I did - focus on simplicity & clarity. Run your ideas past someone first who will be willing to challenge you.</div>
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That about covers it. I look forward to the post Kickstarter blog write up where I can break down what went right (or what went wrong).</div>
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See you on the other side.</div>
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Cheers,</div>
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Tyson</div>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCDIYvFmgW8">Music of the Week</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/ActOfTreason/">Facebook</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/actoftreason">Twitter</a></div>
Act of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1091217442709951137.post-24276445366016412572018-02-07T21:27:00.001-08:002018-02-08T06:13:20.386-08:00Myself and Future ProjectsHi all,<br />
<br />
<span>This is a space for me to shed some light on who I am, and some of the things I'm working on</span>. I know that some of you will be interested in this information, and I think when using a service like Kickstarter, it's quite important.<br />
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When you choose to back a project on Kickstarter, you're not just giving money for the product (although, that is a big part of what you're doing). Your pledge has the potential to help encourage and finance future creative endeavors too! As such, It's always a good thing to know a bit about who you're backing, and I'm more than happy to share.<br />
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<b>A Little About Me:</b><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>I've wanted to be a game designer since I was young. I love game theory and design and I believe my love of these topics stem from my logical and analytical personality. Understanding games in their totality appeals to me. I believe games can be a abstract representation of life - for example - playing team sports exposes us to fierce competition and how to handle it. It also teaches us cooperative team play, and how to work towards a common goal. These are both universal life skills.</span><br />
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<span>I consider myself a creative and discerning individual. I am interested in philosophy, Truth, innovation and efficiency. My favorite movies are The Thing and The Hateful Eight. My favorite TV shows are Curb Your Enthusiasm and It's Always Sunny. My favorite pastimes are playing games, designing games, lifting weights, debates, and movies. In that order.</span><br />
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<span>I am somewhat introverted, and prefer listening over talking (unless it's a topic like games or game design, in which case I can talk for hours and hours). Marketing and putting myself out there has never been my forte. It has been one of the roadblocks that has held me back on Act of Treason for so long. I hope Act of Treason is successful, but if it were to fail anywhere along the road to funding, I can almost guarantee it will be due to a lack of strong marketing.</span><br />
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<span>I have squandered a number of my younger adult years as I was trying to find my place in the world, and my goal in life. For those who are in a similar predicament I can only suggest that you work towards aiming for <i>something.</i> The "what" is less important than the pursuit. Your goals and aspirations will change over time anyway, and working towards something will help you to understand if you want to continue down that path, alter your course slightly, or if the path no longer interests you. The words of Jordan B Peterson have helped me greatly and I strongly suggest <a href="https://youtu.be/YFANYt52m1g">listening</a> to him on this topic.</span><br />
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<b>Act of Treason:</b><br />
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<span>It took me over 6 years to get Act of Treason to this point. My goal from the beginning was to create the best social deduction game that I could and hit all my design objectives. After a long 6 year journey, I am confident in my self a</span>ssessment that I have attained this goal. Because of this, Act of Treason will have a great deal of support from myself after the Kickstarter. I will continue to promote and market Act of Treason as long as I'm seeing positive reviews and demand for it. Depending on the success of AoT, there will likely be an expansion.<br />
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<span>I often get asked if the game would work well online or on the computer. Since Act of Treason is a predominantly social game, I feel it could work online, but that the best application of it would potentially be in VR, where players can get a bit more sense of their interactions with the other players. All of this is up in the air at the moment of course, but the main theme I want to express here is that I am definitely keen to keep going with Act of Treason after the Kickstarter is done.</span><br />
<span><br /></span><span>I have little interest or inspiration for any other board games at this time. Act of Treason will likely be my first and last board game. But don't be alarmed, I have other great projects you may be interested in.</span><br />
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<b>Blood and Guts </b>(Working Title):<br />
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<span>This will be the next major project I work on. It will be a vaguely Dungeons & Dragons inspired Pen and Paper Role Playing game. Set in a grim fantasy world with Lovecraftian elements. </span>The theme/genre I'm aiming for is horror-heroic. Your character will be powerful, but at the same time the world is a brutal and threatening place, even for a hero.<br />
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I've always struggled to enjoy PnPRPG's. There's a lot of things I love about them, but at the same time there's quite a few things that can get in the way of the fun for me. For example, being restricted to certain character types and limited character choices, or having to deal with vast oceans of imbalance between one character and another. Even the imbalances within the same character options can be too much at times, and can ruin the experience for me.<br />
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<span>Some of my design goals for this project are as follows:</span><br />
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<li>Brutal and swift combat - A focus on rapid conflict resolution. No more combats that drag on.</li>
<li>Narrative focused - Mechanics encourage a rich and conflict filled narrative that don't detract from the story.</li>
<li>Balance and polish - A focus on balance and streamlining the game to only the most necessary of complexity. A highly polished presentation, and a game with all the quality of life improvements it can get.</li>
<li>Embrace the unknown - Magic and the occult is shrouded in mystery in BnG. Mechanics and incentives will be in place to help ensure that some aspects of the world stay this way. True horror and excitement comes from the unknown. Blood and Guts plans to fully capitalize on this fact.</li>
<li>Rewarding resourcefulness - BnG will emphasize barter, scavenging, and adaptation. No more getting to choose the best equipment from a list, or picking the optimum abilities. Blood and Guts is about making tough choices with what you have. Making the most of any given situation!</li>
<li>One step forwards, two steps back - You don't have an interesting narrative without conflict. BnG will have deliberate mechanics to really push you and your companions to your limits.</li>
<li>Risk and reward - This will be a central mechanic. Do you take the safer option for a skill check? Or do push your luck and increase your chance of success, while at the same time increase your chance of a critical failure? </li>
<li>All rules will be officially available online in an easy to access, mobile friendly HTML format. A offline rulebook will be offered on completion of the ruleset.</li>
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As I develop this game no doubt there might be some drift in these goals, but I think this captures the essence of what I'm going for.<br />
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I'm still drafting the rules, but play tests will be starting soon.<br />
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<b><span>The Dominant Strategy:</span></b><br />
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<span>These are my articles that sit on this blog that cover all things game theory and game design related. I’ve loved the topic of game theory and design for a long time, and I’ve loved games for longer still. I’m glad that I can finally have a voice in this space, discussing what makes games good, and what makes games bad. I won’t be able to stick with a schedule for it, and my posts will likely be infrequent, but I will be writing articles when I can.</span><br />
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<span>Each post will be considered a living document and will be subject to review and updating. </span>There are a number of core articles I plan to tackle. Rather than quantity of posts, I will be aiming for quality, with sufficient critique, and self-reflection. There are also a number of games I want to use as examples to highlight both some of the best and worst parts of games so that we may hopefully learn from them.<br />
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<span>You can read my existing articles on the Dominant Strategy <a href="http://blog.playaot.com/search/label/The%20Dominant%20Strategy">here</a>.</span>Act of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1091217442709951137.post-34677798979678724422017-12-28T14:15:00.001-08:002018-02-12T02:41:57.569-08:00Development Diary #8Hey Y'all,<br />
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Merry Christmas and I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season!<br />
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Only 43 days until Act of Treason is up on Kickstarter! I'm currently rushing, making sure all the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed. This week I'll be talking about the most recent Act of Treason review by Unfiltered Gamer, the website update, social media, and other sundry miscellaneous thingys.<br />
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<b>Unfiltered Gamer - Act of Treason Review</b><br />
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I'll start with the most awesome news - Unfiltered Gamer has reviewed Act of Treason, and from the sounds of it they really liked it! For those of you who don't know Unfiltered Gamer is an independent 3rd party board game reviewer. They often review games that are going up on Kickstarter to help people get to know if the game is for them. Overall I loved the review and I'm very happy with it. You can watch it below.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZIPpCjUdeq0/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZIPpCjUdeq0?feature=player_embedded" width="420"></iframe></div>
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In addition, Unfiltered Gamer will be doing a live play of Act of Treason on Wednesday the 17th of January PST. This is the best opportunity to check it out and see what AoT is all about before the launch date ! You can watch the livestream at the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/URandG">Unfiltered Gamers Facebook Page</a>. Be sure to sign up so that you get notified when it's on!<br />
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<b>Website Update</b><br />
<b><br /></b>With the new video from Unfiltered Gamer I wanted to slap on an update to the Act of Treason website. I've added the following:<br />
<ul>
<li>Featured the Unfiltered Gamer review on the front page as well as on the feedback page.</li>
<li>Revealed more rules for Act of Treason in the <a href="http://www.playaot.com/rules">Rules section</a>.</li>
<li>A few other small tweaks and Quality of Life improvements here and there.</li>
</ul>
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<b>Social Media Promotion</b><br />
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I just wanted to say a <b>big</b> thank you to everyone who is signing up to the <a href="http://playaot.com/kickstarter">Kickstarter mailing list</a>. I've already seen a notable increase to the number of subscribers there. It has more than doubled since the 8th of November, which I'm pretty ecstatic about, which brings us to a solid ~700 followers. We're well on our way folks!<br />
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As some of you may know where currently running a promotion whereby if we get enough followers before the Kickstarter launch date on the 10th of Feb we'll be boosting the art/marketing budget. I think 4,000 followers may have been a bit high in hindsight, but it's still very much possible! If we can make a sizable dent in it then I'll definitely consider giving a small bonus as a reward even if we don't hit the 4k goal.<br />
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I'll be working hard to make sure that we try to collectively hit the 4k goal! I want to be able to make the best product possible and 4k would make for a very stable foundation indeed.<br />
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If you know any podcasters or 3rd party reviewers who might be interested in covering Act of Treason to help get the word out please do let me know in the comments or you can <a href="http://www.playaot.com/email">contact me directly</a>.<br />
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<b>Miscellaneous</b><br />
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I'm not sure if I've shared it yet, but here is the final prototype all boxed up. The art is subject to change, and the components might be altered a bit, but at this stage the mechanics are all pretty much locked down.<br />
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That's Emilien Rotivals artwork featured on the back an front of the box. Great artist, you can find more of his work over at <a href="http://theartysquid.com/">theartysquid.com</a>.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Frontside of Box</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Backside of Box</td></tr>
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For those of you who may have missed it, the first article of The Dominant Strategy is up. It's called 'What Makes Games Fun?' In it I explore the various reasons why we enjoy games and give some color to how a game designer might use this information to inform your design choices. If you're interested in game design, feel free to give it a read <a href="http://blog.playaot.com/2017/12/the-dominant-strategy-01-what-makes.html">here</a>.<br />
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I think that about covers it for this week.<br />
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Cheers,<br />
Tyson<br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roGmGWOOcTA">Music of the week</a><br />
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Act of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1091217442709951137.post-76698993103920372502017-12-13T02:27:00.003-08:002018-02-24T19:17:51.791-08:00The Dominant Strategy: What makes games fun<i>Disclaimer: I have no formal training in game design and this article is my opinion. I always welcome any well reasoned, thoughtful critiques.</i><br />
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<b>What makes games fun?</b><br />
<i> By Tyson Bennett</i><br />
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Understanding what makes games fun is a very important part of making great games.<br />
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If you don’t understand what makes your game fun, then you won’t know how to adjust your game in order to improve it. You won’t know what to prioritise when tweaking mechanics and what to alter in order to maximize your design goals. You must have an understanding of what you have and what you are working towards.<br />
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If you don’t understand why your game is fun then you’ll be firing blind when it comes to trying to fix it.<br />
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<b>What "is" Fun?</b><br />
<br />
Before we get into the meat of the article I need to talk about what "Fun" means. Why? Because games are <b>not always fun all the time</b>. Some of the best games can be downright stressful or infuriating at times – take League of Legends, or Playerunknowns Battlegrounds (aka PUBG) or a really difficult game like Spelunky or Faster Than Light. Engaging yes. Enjoyable? ... It's not always apparent to the outside observer. A person playing one of these games will seem totally engrossed. Sometimes stressed. Can you really call that fun? Maybe if you're using a certain definition - but we don't want any ambiguity here - we want a term that accurately describes what it is that we should want in our games, and what we want to work towards.<br />
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Perhaps a better term for describing what we want to work towards is <b>Engagement</b>? You'll notice that games almost always totally engross the player. The players are focused on what they are doing - it has their attention.<br />
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However, there are some games that you can play and be quite detached, enjoying a movie or a TV show at the same time. For example, grinding for loot in Diablo III or Warframe. Sometimes you'll be engaged when playing these games. Sometimes playing these games is far more passive. What's interesting here is that, while you're grinding for loot, the game is less engaging and less enjoyable.<br />
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So, now we can have games that aren't engaging and aren't enjoyable at some points... and yet still might be enticing enough that someone will want to play it? Why!? Well, because there is progress to be made in the game, and that progress is in itself <b>Rewarding</b>. Not only this, but the grind allows them to access content later in the game that would be <b>Enjoyable </b>and <b>Engaging</b>. The player is trudging through the more boring parts so that they can unlock the better parts. These unlocks are a big part of the attraction for some games, and just giving all the unlocks to the player for free ruins the fun of some of these games and significantly lowers the replayability.<br />
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So we can see that <b>Engagement</b>, <b>Enjoyment </b>and <b>Reward </b>are all really good metrics in determining how much enjoyment you're having with a game and how likely it is that you'll keep playing it, or return to it later.<br />
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If we make "fun" our design goal then we need to make clear what we mean by that, or we may mistakenly prioritize the wrong goals. What we are trying to aim for is to maximize Reward, Engagement, and Enjoyment of the player. And while this is a fairly robust definition, it likely doesn't cover all of the smaller various ways in which we find games fun!<br />
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Okay. Now that we have that out of the way and we understand what we need to maximize in our games... let's take an even deeper look into what makes games "Fun".<br />
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<b>Why are games "Fun"?</b><br />
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Well, there are a few nebulous categories that can help us to understand where fun comes from.<br />
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<ul>
<li>Creativity</li>
<li>Progress</li>
<li>Discovery</li>
<li>Story</li>
<li>Competition</li>
<li>Mastery</li>
<li>Problem Solving</li>
<li>Social</li>
</ul>
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These are just a list of things that people find enjoyable, or rewarding, or engaging - nothing groundbreaking really. <b>The groundbreaking part comes from understanding which of these are tapped into by your game - and then using that information to tweak your game as you design it to better take advantage of what people enjoy.</b><br />
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Whether you know it or not, this is what you're doing when you're tweaking the mechanics of your game. You're trying to better tap into the pleasure nodes in people's brains, to make the game more enjoyable, rewarding and engaging for them.<br />
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I will call each of these categories ‘Nodes’. These nodes are by no means strict in their definition, nor is this list of nodes definitive; this is why I used the term 'nebulous categories' before. The above is merely a guide to help us understand where "Fun" might be derived from so that we may better cater our game to the enjoyment of the players.<br />
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<b>What are each of these Nodes?</b></div>
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First let’s examine what each one of these Nodes is - what they mean and some examples.<br />
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Something interesting to note is that if you don't hit any nodes, then there is almost no incentive to play the game as it would have nothing that we enjoy - for that is the purpose of the roadmap, to map out what we enjoy in games! By logical deduction there can only be two errors, either the roadmap doesn't include what people find enjoyable in your game, or your game isn't enjoyable!<br />
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<ul>
<li><b>Creativity </b>is just what you expect, so there isn’t much to say here. Creativity is being able to create something, not just having to follow a beaten path, or use existing tools for a set preordained purpose. You get to create something your way, your style. Some notable examples of games that tap into creativity: Minecraft, The Sims, Factorio, Sim City. This Node kinda ties to problem solving - after all, if there's more than one way to get to the solution, then there is an element of creativity. Balance in games helps to facilitate creativity - if choices aren't balanced for the players, then players are less likely to make creative choices, and are more likely to make overpowered choices that will improve their chances of winning. Thus it also follows that the less competitive a game is, the better it caters towards creativity.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b>Progress </b>is about achieving something, completing something, fulfilling a goal, leveling up a character, unlocking achievements, etc, etc. The Progress Node often goes hand in hand with the Discovery node as making progress often unlocks some new content within the game. Great examples of games that are high in progress are RPGs such as Diablo III, World Of Warcraft or Warframe. Progress in such games would be grinding for better gear or leveling up a new character to max level. Games heavy in grind or that have a ton of things to unlock are heavy in the Progress Node. Pong is a great example of a game with no Progress. There is nothing to unlock or achieve! In pong, you start with everything. Lots of games include a progress component because it's easy to do - but that doesn't always make the game better! For example, Adding unlockable perks to a game like PUBG might make the game have more for the progress node, but it would also lower the Competitive node as the game becomes less fair and balanced. Since the competitive node is the backbone of PUBG, it is highly likely that adding a account level up system or unlockable perks would be a negative to the play experience and draw important resources away from other valuable parts of the game that would yield better results.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b>Discovery </b>is uncovering something new and experiencing new content. Almost all games tap into this to some degree - after all, every single game is new to the player until they have played it. Once explored the Discovery Node loses its luster as you can only discover things once. Discovery ties in nicely with the Progress and Story Nodes as they all are likely to be joined together somewhat. Games with a lot of unique content to explore are heavy in the Discovery Node but games like spelunky tap into it too, by offering content to discover behind difficult but rewarding challenges. As mentioned examples are far reaching, but include: Half-life, F.E.A.R, Factorio, Spelunky, Metroid, The Walking Dead, Neverwinter Nights, etc. It may be better to talk about what games don't tap as much into the Discovery node. Notable games that tap minimally into Discovery include: Pong, Playerunknowns Battlegrounds, Killing Floor 2, etc. Games that can be described as “what you see is what you get” are prime contenders for low Discovery. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b>Story </b>or Narrative is the least “game” node out of all of them - after all, you can't play a narrative - but I have included it for completeness as it does contribute to what makes a game "fun". This Node is self explanatory. Story is typically a narrative that progresses throughout the game. Story is often tied to Progress and Discovery. A couple of Notable examples of games heavy in the Story Node are The Walking Dead and the Half-Life series. The story can be enjoyable in its own right, thus boosting the games appeal, or even completely dominating it. Story can also sit in the background and be safely ignored, such is the case of games like Spelunky, or PUBG.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b>Competition </b>mostly refers to the want to win and to dominate. A lot of games heavily utilize this node, and some almost ignore it entirely. Multiplayer PvP Games like Counter-strike, StarCraft II and PUBG being prime examples of games that capitalize heavily on this node, while some games like The Sims and The Walking dead safely ignore it. Single player games against AI or a tough objective also count as utilizing the Competition node. Cuphead, Spelunky, and FTL (Faster Than Light) all tap into our desire to challenge ourselves and to dominate a challenge.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b>Social </b>refers to the enjoyment that stems from interaction with other humans. You can build a game that heavily relies on social interaction such as Keep Calm and Nobody Explodes. Or you can simply have a game that allows you to socialize while you play. PUBG, for example, allows you to interact with either friends or randoms online whilst playing, giving you plenty of opportunity and subject matter to banter over as you loot and kill your way to that elusive chicken dinner (in PUBG, a win is called a chicken dinner). Enjoyment can be derived from this social experience and yet it can be completely detached from the mechanics of the game. In other words, the game can simply facilitate social interaction instead of tying it into the mechanics of the game and how it plays. The social interaction is its own fun thing, but as a game designer you will have the option to use it in the mechanics of your game, and thus it pays to consider it.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b>Problem Solving </b>describes our want to solve puzzles and fix problems. It ties in to the competitive node as well as the progress node. Why? Because solving a problem is hard, rewarding and often results in us making progress. It doesn't just have to be puzzles however. Problem solving covers general strategy as well - any difficult decisions that require at least some consideration. eg: Choosing if you should loot a nearby corpse in PUBG and risk getting shot. PUBG is actually a great example of a first person shooter that has better tapped into the Problem Solving Node over its predecessors. Games like Factorio, Space Chem, and Battle Brothers are all great examples of games that scratch that problem solving itch quite nicely.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b>Mastery </b>is a node that almost didn't make the cut. It's a node that is highly similar to Competition and Progress in many ways. You could call this node competitive progress or progress of self. It describes wanting to get better and master the game, and the rewarding feeling that comes from this personal improvement. People are going to be more incentivized to master a game that is good, fair and balanced. Mastery will almost never be a Node that brings a new player in unless the player is highly motivated by being the best at games and is looking for that exact experience. Mastery is more likely to be a Node that convinces an intermediate, or an advanced player to stick around after the discovery node has started to wear off.</li>
</ul>
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You'll also notice I've tried to group each of these nodes under the three groupings of Challenge, Exploration, and Expression. Theses are quite lose groupings but, at a fairly broad level it does assist with breaking down what makes a game fun. Does the game offer the user a challenge? Does it allow for exploration? Does it allow for expression? If you answered yes to one or more of those, there is a good chance the game will be fun as long as it is at least somewhat balanced, and playable.<br />
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<b>Why do we enjoy these Nodes?</b><br />
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Lets have a quick chat about these Nodes above, because I have an interesting theory about them.<br />
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I believe we enjoy these nodes as they served a primal purpose back long ago as we were developing as a species. I believe all of the nodes stem from our base survival instincts.<br />
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When hunting for food there is an element of challenge and problem solving involved - tracking, hunting, and killing. Besting your animal opponent, without getting yourself hurt, or taking too long, or wasting too many resources.<br />
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There is an element in creativity when devising traps. New ways to hunt. New ways to farm. New ways to cook. New ways to convey information. Art allows us to convey information and express ourselves.<br />
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Naturally there is competition, which stems not only from hunting, but from the male dominance instinct. We want to dominate our peers and come out top of the pack. This also explains why competitive games have far more male players. We enjoy winning, and being the best of our group. We like training ourselves to be better, so that we can improve.<br />
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Socializing is important, not just to improve your chances of finding a mate, but also allows for better co-operation. You need to be able to foster trust and a cohesive bond among your peers, which greatly improves the chances of survival.<br />
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Progression helps to reward us when we succeed and create. Building a well, or a hut is rewarding, and a form of progression that is useful. We feel great reward from accomplishment.<br />
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I wouldn't be surprised at all if we get a kick out of all these things because they helped us to survive. Those who enjoyed these types of activities were more likely to partake in those activities and thus were more likely to survive.<br />
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We enjoy games because in some way or form, games imitate life, albeit in a much more abstract way. We can learn from games.<br />
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What is life but the world's most complex game?<br />
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<b>But what about things like art & balance?</b><br />
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A quick note regarding graphics/art, balance, and polish.<br />
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No doubt that graphics and art pay an important point to what makes a game great. A nice looking game will always be more appealing than a game that looks like trash warmed up.<br />
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No doubt that balance improves a game, making for a better set of choices and fairness. A well balanced game will always be more engaging than a game which is broken in terms of balance.<br />
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No doubt that QoL (Quality of Life) improvements and polish serve to make a better game. A game that has been thoroughly polished with all the performance enhancements, options and bells & whistles will always be better than one without.<br />
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All of these improve how great a game is. No doubt - but none of these change what the game fundamentally is.<br />
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What we are specifically addressing in this article, is "Why" games are fun. This helps to give us direction, in terms of mechanically and fundamentally altering the game.<br />
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Every game can improve their graphics or art, their balance, and their polish. We want to transcend that, at least at the moment, because it doesn't pertain to the topic of this article. We are specifically addressing the why different games are fun, and not how to improve on a game.<br />
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I will cover art, balance, and polish in a later articles of The Dominant Strategy.<br />
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<b>Node Creep</b><br />
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Is it important to maximize as many of these nodes as possible?<br />
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<b>The short answer is:</b> No. Simply put, we want to maximize the "fun" of the game while staying True to your design goals. The Nodes tell us where the fun is coming from, not how to make the game more fun. Maximum fun might mean focusing on only one, two or three nodes and maxing them out as much as possible - it pays to remember that some of the nodes conflict and you likely have scarcity of resources. Trying to focus a few core nodes is likely better than trying to hit all of them.<br />
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<b>The long answer:</b> It really depends what you're trying to do. Hitting as many nodes as possible can be used to try and squeak in some extra fun into a game and to appeal to a larger player base. It depends what your goal is - making the best game possible, or appealing to as many people as possible.<br />
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Some of the very early games had very narrow focus when it came to the nodes. Take Pong. It was strictly a game of competition, with virtually no other Nodes of enjoyment.<br />
<br />
Mario Brothers was also quite narrow. It offered very little in terms of story, creativity, etc. It did offer some discovery, and some competition.<br />
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In the early days, lots of games only focused on one or two nodes. This was done because there was a lack of resources to commit to the game. larger scale games actually have enough content to hit more nodes. I don't think games with a progressing story was a common thing until sometime around NES or super NES.<br />
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Now we have games like Warframe. They offer Story though most of it is optional and easy to skip, Creativity in terms of character customization and loadout, Plenty of progress in terms of things to unlock. Quite a lot to discover in terms of content, mission types, etc. There is PvP, as well as PvE, and so there is both Competition and a degree of Mastery. There isn't a lot of problem solving, but there can be some in terms of using loadouts to beat missions. There is also a lot of social interaction if you choose to play online with your mates or join up to a clan. Fortnite is also a similar example of a modern game that hits a lot of nodes.<br />
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The trend of modern games has been to blend together a lot of the aspects of various different genres of games to create a hybrid of sorts - they basically hit as many nodes as possible by doing this. Now this can make for a fun game. The issue is that they can end up being a jack of all trades, master of none. These games are trying to make themselves more fun by appealing to a greater variety of things people enjoy. Oh, you like unlocking things? Enjoy these loot crates. Oh you like leveling up? Here's 20 perks you can unlock, etc, etc.<br />
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I'm not saying you can't make a fun game like that - clearly you can. What I am saying is that it might not be the "best" approach. Time is better spent taking the funnest parts of your game, and clearing every last possible thing that gets in the way of you enjoying that node. This is a very different approach to trying to hit every single node.<br />
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Think about when you want to play a game, you're usually looking to tap into one or two of the Nodes. I wanna play something with a sweet story. I wanna have an intense PvP match. I want to do some creative gaming and build a cool base. Rarely do players have the urge to satisfy all their Nodes at once - so why do developers make games that try to do that?<br />
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Ultimately some of these modern games are trying to tap into as many nodes as possible to make their game more fun, instead of focusing on perfecting the most important nodes needed to actually maximize the enjoyment of the game.<br />
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<b>In closing</b><br />
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Thank you for reading. I was planning on going through some examples, but this article has already stretched out to a massive 3,200+ words, and has taken me WAY to long to type up, think through, and check. I'll be covering some applications of this theory in later articles of The Dominant Strategy.<br />
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Next time I’ll look at PUBG as a case study and we’ll be examining why it is so popular, what Nodes it taps into, and some general game theory.<br />
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See you then!<br />
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Cheers,<br />
Tyson<br />
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Act of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1091217442709951137.post-85926305056467983812017-11-28T16:09:00.000-08:002017-11-28T16:09:28.703-08:00Act of Treason Design Journal - Part 2To see Part 1: <a href="http://blog.playaot.com/2017/11/act-of-treason-design-journal-part-1.html">Design Journal Part 1</a><br />
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<i>Note: I think the most useful application of this document is as an example, to assist in making your own Design Journal for your own game. There are many benefits to making a 'Design Journal' as described in Part One. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>While this document does give some impression of what it would be like to play Act of Treason, this is not the purpose of this document. I'll have 3rd party reviewers for that purpose - their reviews are coming soon. The most accurate impression of Act of Treason comes from playing the game yourself.</i><br />
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<b>Why 5 to 10 players?</b><br />
5 is the minimum number of players required to play Act of Treason, while 10 is the maximum. 5 to 8 is a good player range in my opinion, with 6 or 7 being the best.<br />
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With 9 or 10 players, the game becomes a little harder to manage, and takes a little longer to play. The game still works of course, but playing a nine or ten player game with all new players is a tad difficult, as new players add additional chaos and length to the game. The player limit stops at 10 for this reason. I think the game would become too unruly, especially for new players, if the player count was 11 or more. And lowering it to 8 or 9 players would cheat experienced groups that wish to play with more people, and can do so comfortably.<br />
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Lowering the minimum number of players would be good, but is difficult without warping how Act of Treason currently works. Even if it could be done, Act of Treason is a social game and doesn't suit well to so few players. With only 4 players, there is not much room for social interaction and figuring out who is who. For these two reasons, Act of Treason is just not well suited for less than 5 players.<br />
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While a minimum of 5 players might be difficult for some groups to pull together, the player count can be seen as a great opportunity to meet new people. Socializing is often easier if you have a catalyst to help facilitate conversation. Act of Treason would make a great catalyst, as it provides an opportunity to socialize via the game as well as just casual conversation - swapping back and forth between the two as the game progresses. It would make me happy knowing that people were running games of Act of Treason at their local game stores around the world and using Act of Treason to meet new people.<br />
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Not only that, but playing Act of Treason with a batch of experienced players who you don't know that well is my favorite way to play. This is because the dynamic at the table changes with the players, much like how the social dynamic changes when you have different people in a room. This can provide you with a whole new play experience. Playing with new players adds another level of unexpected outcomes that you may have to navigate - a new landscape that you need to explore if you want to win.<br />
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<b>How does the game usually play?</b><br />
Each game will start off slow with the players organizing the group and focusing on passing Quests for the most part. This early stage of the game is mostly about gathering evidence on who is who based on their actions. It's giving the players an opportunity to set themselves up for mid and late game. As the Kingdom Strength drops, so will the players suspicions rise. Players will be eyeing each other up and taking note of every action and word. As we near the late game, Players will use their evidence gathered and their suspicions to weaken potential threats while securing the positions of themselves and their so-called "allies". Assassinations tend to hold out until the last round or two where many players will likely die in a bloodbath - a last ditch attempt to root out the Traitors. The Loyals attacking the suspected Traitors, while the Traitors try to influence the carnage so that they are not in the firing line, and perhaps taking a pot shot or two of their own if it doesn't increase suspicion against them! All the while Traitors will be keeping an eye out for the Heir. They may need to make a last ditch attack on the Heir if it comes down to it!<br />
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Note that the Traitors can win if Kingdom Strength hits '0'. This rarely happens as Loyals will try to win by killing those they suspect before this will happen. The Loyals can win by completing 5 Quests successfully. This rarely happens as the Traitors will place negative cards into Tribute to try ensure this does not happen. This is why most games always end assassinations.<br />
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Experienced players tend to play differently when compared to new players. It's exceptionally difficult to describe all the tiny things that goes into the difference between these two sets of players. However, One of the biggest differences is that experienced players develop a 'social contract', of what's good for the group. With familiarity of the game the players develop an understanding of how all players should act for the good of the realm, and deviating from this raises suspicion. New players cannot capitalise on this, as they don't know what good for the realm entails. New Players will often try act in self interest as there is no penalty from their peers in doing so. One of the toughest things with designing Act of Treason was to correct for this so that the mechanics encouraged the development of a social contract early, and didn't penalize the players too heavily for not having a social contract among the group. This was done by limiting the total available court cards on player count, Adjusting the cost of the Court cards to acquire based on Kingdom Strength, Rewarding players for leaving cards in court, and lastly, having ordered quests (optional) that reinforce the social contract in the early game. Each one of these small tweaks helps to encourage players to be more invested in what players are doing - or these tweaks act as 'caps' so that players can't screw up things for their team too much.<br />
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New players tend to focus on themselves and acquiring personal power - this masks the traitors who would be smart to also make use of this tactic. New Loyal players do not yet know what is best for the realm, and thus do not make any demands of the group. It was interesting to try and fix this mechanically - to smooth out the learning curve for new players and to assist in them realizing where they may be going wrong. Loyals have a better chance of winning in an experienced group because of the social contract. This is one reason why the rulebook has tips on how to play - Unfortunately, one cannot just add in a social contract as part of the rules - at least not without some costly negatives. This would effectively null out many of the interesting strategies as it would override player choice. For example, If you couldn't buy Court cards early on in the game, then no social contract would be needed. Nothing would be learned or could be used as evidence to draw suspicion when a player capitalizes on this opportunity, as there is no opportunity there - no need to make a choice.<br />
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The game has been balanced with this in mind, so that even with an experienced group playing optimally, the Traitors should have enough room to work with so that they have a good chance to win. And this chance of winning improves with good tactics and skill. In a group with all new players, the Traitors should have a much easier time.<br />
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<b>Why is there a Steward?</b><br />
The Steward ensures that turn order is fair and balanced, with little to no luck involved.<br />
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<ul>
<li>Player turn order is decided upon by the Steward. </li>
<li>The choice of a new Steward is determined by the old steward, but can be heavily influenced by the group. </li>
<li>Making an 'untrustworthy' choice for the next Steward will potentially hurt your trustworthiness and standing among the group.</li>
</ul>
Because of the above, even though the Steward picks the next Steward, it is better considered as a group decision. Thus, "the group" (who may or may not be influenced by traitors) picks the individual who will decide turn order.<br />
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Turn order has a significant effect in Act of Treason. Essentially deciding who can attack first. Attacking first is a big advantage in Act of Treason. Because of this, turn order cannot be randomized as this would mean the victor is decided by random chance rather than player skill and choice. As you can see, the concept of a Steward or something similar becomes almost a requisite in a game like Act of Treason, where Player turn order is so critical to winning.<br />
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I personally dislike games where arbitrary turn order, or seating position can have an effect on your chances of winning. I've managed to mitigate this by having a Steward who picks turn order. There is no randomization, there are no ties. All is fair - and determined in a very social way.<br />
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<b>Is the Steward Role too powerful?</b><br />
In my opinion the Steward is only as powerful as the knowledge that each team controls, and it can easily be misused. Either team can successfully use or misuse the Steward role. Each individual can subvert or lie to the Steward about what they will do. If giving the Steward role to the other team loses the game it for your team, then you deserve to lose. If giving the Turn to a player who turns around and stabs you in the back loses it for your team, you deserve to lose.<br />
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Yes the Steward role is powerful, but it is easy to misuse power and lose just as easy as it is to use it and win. For this reason, I do not think it is overpowered. Anyone can whisper in your ear and have you harm your own team.<br />
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The real power is in being able to correctly figure out who to trust and not trust. Or persuading others to trust you. Once you have that, you don't need a Steward Role. In fact if you were the most trusted player at the table, the Steward Role is mostly useless to you. Players will protect you and kill those who try to attack you.<br />
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My conclusion is that, yes, the Steward Role is powerful - but not by itself - it is certainly not overpowered to the point of imbalance.<br />
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<b>Are the Quest effects necessary? Can Quest effects cheat players out of a win?</b><br />
Quest cards have an effect that come into play as soon as they are picked as the Active Quest. The Quest effects give for a changing landscape that the players must adapt to. There are some positives and negatives to this, but I took Act of Treason in this direction as it creates for a more interesting strategic game in my opinion. The cost is that there is a slight increase in complexity.<br />
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Quests can provide some powerful effects at times, however, they are known well in advance. As such there isn't luck involved. A Quest that allows the first assassination of the round to be unblockable is known in advance, and can be accounted for. If you suspect a player suspects you are the Heir, you can take actions to prevent them actioning this Quest Effect.<br />
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I wouldn't say that a Quest effect can cheat you out of a win, only that it can provide the opportunity for a win/loss if you let it.<br />
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<b>What stops the Steward Role from 'bouncing' between two players?</b><br />
There is no rule against this as this should be self correcting.<br />
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Early game this is inconsequential and a fix would only serve to add more rules without significant benefit. Late game, this can be a balanced and valid strategy.<br />
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Most players dislike it when two players pass the Steward back and forth early game. The bouncers aren’t buying themselves any favors as this usually results in some animosity towards them. These bouncers are likely hobbling themselves for late game when they will have to rely on their teammates to win.<br />
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Furthermore, only the Traitors know who are on their team in the early game. What benefit is it to bounce the Steward back and forth when you cannot be sure of who you can trust?<br />
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Needless to say that 'Steward bouncing' is not a great strategy, and the Steward usually gets passed to other players in time.<br />
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Lastly, while this could be corrected for in the rules, this would restrict player choice. Perhaps a situation could arise where only two players are seen as most trustworthy early game, and this decision is echoed by the group. eg: during the first Quest, two players put in a hefty four knowledge cards each, and this wins the Quest for the group. In this example, should the two players be allowed to pass the Steward back and forth? I certainly think so.<br />
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Ultimately, Act of Treason is about group dynamics. I don't want to restrict how the group interacts unless it can't be helped.<br />
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<b>Tune in next time for the following:</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Why aren’t there more Examinations in the game?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Why are there lots of ways to get Examination Blocks?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Why do players gain Examination Blocking if they Examine?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Why does the Steward get to reward a Court card if the Quest passes?</div>
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Why are the Quests ordered?</div>
Act of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1091217442709951137.post-82617412393565070022017-11-11T23:46:00.000-08:002017-11-11T23:46:56.148-08:00Development Diary #7 - 10th of FebHey Y'all,<br />
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Today I am excited to announce that on <b>Saturday 12pm on the 10th of Feb</b> <b>Act of Treason is planned to launch on Kickstarter</b> ( Friday, 9th,11:00 am GMT).<br />
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To aid in a successful launch I will be running a promotion leading up to the release date. As previously mentioned I've been toying with bonus "Social Media" stretch goals to help spread awareness of Act of Treason before the Kickstarter goes live. After much deliberation I have landed on going ahead with this plan, and aiming for 4,000 followers which should be an obtainable goal. That should be enough to help me to secure funding for Act of Treason.</div>
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4,000 may seem like a lot to some of you. I have laid out my rationale below which I help explains where I'm coming from. I'm trying to choose a number that will yield a successful Kickstarter - nothing more.<br />
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To reward all of us for hitting 4,000 followers, I will personally turn my pockets inside out and lay down <b>*double*</b> of the budgeted money for both the Art of the final product as well as the Marketing during the Kickstarter campaign. This helps me and it helps you. I get to make a more beautiful product that I can be prouder than a gushing parent over - and you can have a nicer, better looking game that you can love playing with your friends. We all win!<br />
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Note that there are additional art budget increases in the kickstarter stretch goals as well. So even if we don't hit this goal, there is still plenty of opportunity to fund even better kick ass art for Act of Treason.<br />
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It wasn't easy to come up with that reward. I wanted a reward that didn't detract from the product and divert attention or effort elsewhere. I also wanted a reward that all backers could enjoy. A reward that would be fair to all backers. This reward is in line with my main concern - making the best game possible.<br />
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It's easy to just say doubled - what does that actually mean? Well, for the Art, the current baseline budget is ~$5,000 USD. Which is roughly break even when hitting the Kickstarter funding goal. This will double to ~$10,000 USD if we hit 4,000 followers! Marketing during the kick starter is currently set to $2,000 USD. Naturally this will increase to ~$4,000 USD. Keep in mind, marketing doesn't just help me! More marketing means more pledges and more pledges means hitting stretch goals. It means even more budget. It means economies of scale. It means negotiation power, etc. Ultimately, this all leads to an even better product for you!<br />
<br />
So, How'd I settle on 4,000? Well previously on the blog I've floated the figure of 1,000 eyes on, within the first 24 hours. Or even better 1,000 pledges within the first 24 hours. I have been assured by others and my own research that this is a good step in the right direction, and will definitely help to reach a successful kickstarter campaign.<br />
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In order to reach 1,000 I figure that we'll need more than 1,000 followers. The conversion rate for each social media account I have isn't likely going to be 100%. I imagine that for twitter I'll have a very low conversion rate of say 10%, and for the <a href="http://playaot.com/newsletter" target="_blank">email list</a> I will expect something along the line of 70%. Because of this I definitely need more than 1,000 followers across all social media if I want 1,000 pledges within the first 24 hours.<br />
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Also to note, nothing stops people from signing up to more than one social media channel - which is fine. However, what this translates to is an even lower conversion rate for each social media channel. For example, the same follower could be spread across 4 different media channels, but would only result in one sale. Because of this I would imagine that 4,000 is at least the bare minimum needed to get that delicious 1,000 within the first 24 hours. If anything 4,000 could be too low - but I want to set an obtainable goal for you all that incentivises both you and me to make this project a success!<br />
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Note there will be some foot traffic from Kickstarter as well as marketing traffic from my advertisements. So naturally we will get a few bonus pledges that won't come directly from followers, but the more we get in the first 24 hours increases our chances of hitting that glorious front page and getting that prime spot on that Pareto distribution.<br />
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4,000 Followers just seems like a good start to me. Who knows, if we happen to hit 4,000 quick enough I can always offer another bonus reward!<br />
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Here is our progress so far:<br />
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It's looking pretty nice so far, but we only have three months to hit that 4,000 follower goal!<br />
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Now, as alluded to above, I believe the email signups are a much stronger indicator of interest than the other social media follows. Because of this I have offered a very nice x3 bonus for <b>*all*</b> email signups - the strongest indicator to buy of all the social media. After all, an email signup is someone who has taken the time to sign up either using a link on the blog or from the website - they aren't just looking for a follow back.<br />
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This is reflected on the graph above, so the actual number of email signups is around ~25 at the moment, this gets boosted to ~75. If you wish to help me out, <a href="http://playaot.com/newsletter">you know what to do</a>.<br />
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Thank you to all of those who have followed the journey so far and I hope to open my arms and invite many more of you in the coming weeks!<br />
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The Part One of the Design Journal was quite well received, which I am humbled by. I'm glad to see people enjoyed reading through it and hopefully they gained insight from it. In the pipeline is part 2 of the Design Journal and I will be also running a series called The Dominant Strategy, where I will be talking about all aspects of game design, game theory, and game analysis. This is inspired a little bit from the <a href="https://stonemaiergames.com/" target="_blank">stonemaier blogs</a> which discusses all things related to Kickstarter. A fantastic resource which I hope anyone looking into releasing a game on Kickstarter checks out - A ton of great info there! Well I want to do a similar thing, but for Game Design! The first article of The Dominant Strategy will be "What makes games fun", and I can't wait to share it with you!<br />
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Both part two of the Design Journal and Article one of The Dominant Strategy will be posted up in the next week or two.<br />
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Until next time squad fam.<br />
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Papa bless,<br />
Tyson<br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NacHRonI_w" target="_blank">Music of the Week</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/ActOfTreason/">Facebook</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/actoftreason">Twitter</a> | <a href="https://gab.ai/ActOfTreason">Gab</a>Act of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1091217442709951137.post-31039919969331899282017-11-01T02:50:00.000-07:002018-02-24T14:06:55.187-08:00Act of Treason Design Journal - Part 1Hey Y'all,<br />
<br />
During the creation of Act of Treason I typed up a document. A Design Journal, intended to show publishers the rationale behind the game mechanics of Act of Treason. If a publisher ever wanted to make changes to Act of Treason, I had to be able to back up my position. The document served as a nice reminder to myself for the reasons behind some of my choices. What I could and couldn't afford to change and why.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4Fb-kOeu5LwSgcASISMs_qP1y3z5u1lf87hJpA-DwQO5sMYYp0LI9nrBYOEca2DUMYjIXPDUx8um7wdgFf0863aIouV3710Ym1-Cno09F4Ab-eD3NfzxtxYlTV1PXvXhYnxCpDjgzs_0/s1600/DesignJournal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1086" data-original-width="963" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4Fb-kOeu5LwSgcASISMs_qP1y3z5u1lf87hJpA-DwQO5sMYYp0LI9nrBYOEca2DUMYjIXPDUx8um7wdgFf0863aIouV3710Ym1-Cno09F4Ab-eD3NfzxtxYlTV1PXvXhYnxCpDjgzs_0/s320/DesignJournal.jpg" width="283" /></a></div>
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In the interest of helping future designers I'm happy to share this document This reads as an FAQ, trying to answer questions designers or publishers may have for me - which I think is the best way to lay out something like this. it's a good way to sort through the creative process and to map out the choices you've made.<br />
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As a designer, if you have robust rationale behind each question you are asked, then that's a good place to start! If you don't then you seriously need to consider a redesign, or at least be prepared for it not to work when putting it to the test. If something just works and you can't explain it - that just means you need to work harder to find out what the reason is! There is a reason for everything! If something is broken you need to find out why! If something is working there is great benefit to knowing why! Everything has a reason, so you should be able to make a document just like this one - but for your game, or any other game worth their salt for that matter. You should be able to explain the <b>why.</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">There was quite a bit of text from the design document so I've broken it up into four parts which I'll be releasing as I feel like it over the coming weeks. </span><span 12pt="" font-size:="" style="font-size: 12pt;">I've tweaked it a bit and added some parts to keep it up to date. Unfortunately the first part is a bit less juicy in terms of design than the others, but hopefully clues you into my frame of mind as I was designing Act of Treason.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Act of Treason Design Journal</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>by Tyson Bennett</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span><span><b>Synopsis:</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This document gives </span>an overall view on the mechanics and design choices behind Act of Treason.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Design Goals:</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The idea for Act of Treason came about after I played similar games such as Mafia, Werewolf, The Resistance, and especially Battlestar Galactica. Having played these games, I noted several improvements could be made on this genre of game - the most important improvement, is that there could be much more in-depth social play where persuasion, deduction and deception are important and highly rewarded - players would win or lose based on their social skills and wit alone. I do not think that games currently in the genre capitalize as much on this as possible and I wanted to make a game that did.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I feel like Act of Treason has hit these design goals - Act of Treason should be easy to understand, and yet challenging to master. It should offer a slight increase in complexity when compared to existing games in the genre, but offer much more depth when it comes to the strategy and the tactics one can take in order to win.</span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: inherit;">What are some Similar Games and where does Act of Treason differ?</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">As mentioned, Act of Treason was inspired by Mafia, Werewolf and The Resistance. When creating Act of Treason my goal was to design a game that mitigated the "flaws" of these games whilst building on what makes these games fun – the social interaction. I feel that Act of Treason has accomplished this goal, allowing players more tactics and meaningful choices when it comes to social interaction and deception.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">To name a few improvements:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">• Players have multiple avenues of influence, through individual actions, tribute, and, most importantly, social interactions. If a player is eliminated, it will be likely due to their actions, and not luck (although luck can play a small role). This is in contrast to say Mafia, where players have very little influence on the game and luck can take a major role. Players can vote in Mafia to try change the outcome, but that's about it for most players. Act of Treason has taken steps to ensure that players have a high degree of influence on the game, and that the influence never fully outs them as a Traitor, a Loyal or an Heir. I've seen amazing tricks to deceive others. One example is faking to be the Heir (while loyal) to provoke a Traitor to attack and expose themselves. Or you can fake being the Heir (as a Traitor) to prevent being eliminated by loyals. Another example is dropping an additional card into Tribute and then lying about it afterwards to throw off suspicion that it could be you who caused Tribute to fail. There are lots of viable strategies in Act of Treason!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">• Game length gives you the time to investigate and allows you to build up a case based on historical actions, and other historical evidence. Contrast this to say One Night Werewolf where players are given almost no time to investigate, but more importantly, almost no historical actions or evidence to go off of. The most noticeable difference here comes down to the skill vs. luck between these two games. Act of Treason allows you to tap much more into skill because it allows for this increased game length to acquire evidence and position yourself for late game.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">• Game length in Act of Treason also gives the advantage of slowly building tension, a great example of this is in the modern video game called Playerunknowns Battleground (PUBG). Games of PUBG last up to 30 minutes with a map that reduces in size as players are eliminated. Because of the time and effort investment as well as the increasing of intensity, the end of a game can be extremely intense and rewarding. This is akin to what happens in Act of Treason. As the game runs on, players become more emotionally invested in the outcome - there is a lot of time and effort invested and still so much potential for change. Like pubg, the investment, time and tension often leads to a very exciting finish. Because of the nature of Act of Treason, play times can vary a bit. A short game can be caused by the Traitors or the Heir making a mistake. A longer game is almost always caused by players partaking in longer engaging talks - trying their best to persuade, trick or deceive. Longer doesn't typically mean bad in Act of Treason, and conversely a long game has players fully engaged and invested in the outcome which is a good thing. In other words some of the best games of Act of Treason can be the longest.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">• Mechanics are put in place to help ensure that players are eliminated at roughly the same time in Act of Treason, near the games end. This is to ensure that players do not have to sit out for a long period of time. Contrast this to say Mafia, where a players are eliminated early based on very little or no evidence, or The Resistance where while there are no 'eliminations' players can be excluded for many rounds at a time, pseudo-eliminating them.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">What do I consider the weakest points of Act of Treason to be?</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">• The upper player limit is a bit on the high side with 5 players needed at minimum. While this doesn't adversely affect play and is great for big groups, it does mean it can be tricky to get a game together for some people. It seems to be the nature of the beast for Act of Treason, and I have been unable to find a suitable solution for lowering the player count below 5.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">• Act of Treason is a bit more complex when compared to some of its predecessors such as Mafia or Werewolf. Again, this is unfortunately the nature of the beast. I set out to make Act of Treason a more socially tactical game - and in order to do that it was very likely the complexity would increase. I'm proud to say that I have taken considerable steps to reducing the complexity so it is no more complex than it needs to be. I imagine that most boardgamers would be able to take on the challenge of Act of Treason (there are certainly more complex boardgames on the market). However more casual gamers or younger gamers may struggle with their first few games - but they can certainly learn it with persistence!</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Why is there an Heir?</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Heir is arguably one of the most important mechanics in the game. Act of Treason isn't the same when there isn’t a Heir. I briefly toyed with variants that didn't use an 'Heir' mechanic and they failed, quite spectacularly. The main reason to have an Heir is so the Loyals don't want to kill anyone - One side needs to fear needless killing while the other side needs to profit from it. This is one of the dynamics of Traitor vs Loyals + Heir in a nutshell - The loyals don't want to kill needlessly in case they hit the Heir and lose. Without the Heir, the game turns into a bloodbath.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Furthermore, Traitors and Loyals both have reason to pretend to be the Heir, and the Heir has reason to pretend to be a Loyal. This means that all 3 types of characters have cause to act similarly or act as another, and that makes it difficult to identify a player’s loyalty by their actions alone. This allows the great acts of deception and intrigue that we see in Act of Treason during game play.</span></div>
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This all happens because there is an Heir. As you can see, the Heir is a character that is at the very core of Act of Treason.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Why is there Player Elimination?</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It could be said that <i>The Resistance</i> or <i>Avalon</i> doesn't have player elimination, but I would say that it kind of does. If a player is excluded from the rest of the game (by being removed from checks) because they are a suspected Traitor, then this almost like they are eliminated. They are not actually eliminated, but they might as well be - the effect is the same.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Act of Treason seeks to correct this by holding off on eliminations until the end of the game, where you won't have to wait long before the game is over and you can start another. While eliminations can occur early, this are rare, and it does come with a cost - another player will have to trade their life and Tribute becomes harder to pass which speeds up how quickly Kingdom Strength is lost. The chance of being eliminated early and having to sit out for a long time is very low.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I often tell my playtesters that killing players triggers the games end. It’s all downhill after that. This is how it's designed, and this is how the game plays out </span>very often<span style="font-family: inherit;">.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tune in next time for the following:</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Why 5 to 10 players?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">How does the game usually play?</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Why is there a Steward?</span></span><br />
<span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Is the Steward Role too powerful?</span></span><br />
<span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What stops the Steward Role from 'bouncing' between two players?</span></span></div>
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Act of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1091217442709951137.post-67129734272003782342017-10-29T01:02:00.000-07:002017-10-29T01:14:24.531-07:00Development Diary #6<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Hey Y'all,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Sorry for the delays on these posts. Life, as always, gets in the way.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Act of Treason has been progressing nicely, and we are nearing the end game. 3rd party reviewers are almost all lined up. The biggest two things on my plate are Marketing/Promotion and the Kickstarter page.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWTVGS1CoEdPmXNo-mBMdjf1VduI_Z9NkZsn8A3CBCMrWKuhztr558TdcmOS7zy2Gk7T9jJODmyIXdE0gpnrD-0k3p18oC9jwVMX5-Hqx0dWvnbkgXZyJGYuDClNvBRqKpGWJKfqCuuWM/s1600/Capture99.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="252" data-original-width="468" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWTVGS1CoEdPmXNo-mBMdjf1VduI_Z9NkZsn8A3CBCMrWKuhztr558TdcmOS7zy2Gk7T9jJODmyIXdE0gpnrD-0k3p18oC9jwVMX5-Hqx0dWvnbkgXZyJGYuDClNvBRqKpGWJKfqCuuWM/s320/Capture99.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">We really need to try hit 1,000+ followers before launch day (which will be revealed very soon). In order to help us hit the goal, I'll be looking to up my social media presence, release more videos, and increase my spending on advertising. Hopefully the holidays will allow me to make some great progress in this arena.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I am also toying with ideas for an additional social media goal that will apply to the Kickstarter. eg: if we hit 2,000 followers before launch day, then I'll unlock a stretch goal for free, or something to that effect. So stay tuned for updates to that! It's looking very likely I'll do something on that front!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">I've also done some work on making a placeholder box for the prototypes, see below. Note that this isn't the final as with all of the game assets you've seen so far. It's just nice to have a box that I can hand to people to review, instead of a blank cardboard box.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5eqK_MVMF5AlLj-FP3XBih58Mrvog0i1a6xwn8p814UBW1KmTgyqzdZ_UqOktXCjasbbpmbmOBXFpO-9N2AgZfDswroW7qR3sgDLtpPne15XxWC3ta4rHZealsom4UrFUtlCEyONWRuQ/s1600/BoxShowcase.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Placeholder Box Art" border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="1600" height="147" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5eqK_MVMF5AlLj-FP3XBih58Mrvog0i1a6xwn8p814UBW1KmTgyqzdZ_UqOktXCjasbbpmbmOBXFpO-9N2AgZfDswroW7qR3sgDLtpPne15XxWC3ta4rHZealsom4UrFUtlCEyONWRuQ/s400/BoxShowcase.jpg" title="Placeholder Box Art" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcMbfhSOKaUEzeG4WYt6PQ5izk3lxk4ARCeTg0s_bUiMpx2Y7ZuOhLhApEOSlDyxkvzz-3EFeb-u4E5bud3myZAnmYUPXbjfQVZJ5-nza3Nip5luW6r3F9qZBFr-i3xNUdakMd8ZTbrJs/s1600/BoxShowcase1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="809" data-original-width="1182" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcMbfhSOKaUEzeG4WYt6PQ5izk3lxk4ARCeTg0s_bUiMpx2Y7ZuOhLhApEOSlDyxkvzz-3EFeb-u4E5bud3myZAnmYUPXbjfQVZJ5-nza3Nip5luW6r3F9qZBFr-i3xNUdakMd8ZTbrJs/s320/BoxShowcase1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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That does it for this week, I have scheduled a blog post for later in the week regarding a certain "Act of Treason Design Journal" that you may be interested in checking out, especially if you are interested in game design.<br />
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Until next time my dudes.<br />
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Cheers,<br />
Tyson<br />
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/ActOfTreason">Facebook</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/ActofTreason">Twitter</a> | <a href="http://www.playaot.com/youtube">YouTube</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB8Ci7X5HUU">Music of the week</a>Act of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1091217442709951137.post-22899334507397889542017-09-06T01:04:00.000-07:002017-09-06T01:04:24.908-07:00Development Diary #5Hi all,<br />
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It's been a while. A lot to cover off since the last update.<br />
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For a start I've been in hospital with a collapsed lung (spontaneous pneumothorax) - just felt a spike of pain and shortness of breath on my way into work a few weeks ago. It was kinda scary at the time. Spent roughly 5 days split over two visits getting it sorted. There was also the strong possibility that I would need surgery, but after further review this is not happening (phew!).<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggP1L744tLfBEJYEnJqgj06bDWHK48Ct6efClNY9Ff5XYYfP_WOQvRYla8ZxLj_4jGfQhK2yuqZB14dYuo3GVhyphenhyphenfY4DNAsa7oS8MWHpCHzSOIzhKwHnN5nDIwcJv5PBAlcrXxVLi7LqR0h/s1600/pneumothorax+x+ray.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggP1L744tLfBEJYEnJqgj06bDWHK48Ct6efClNY9Ff5XYYfP_WOQvRYla8ZxLj_4jGfQhK2yuqZB14dYuo3GVhyphenhyphenfY4DNAsa7oS8MWHpCHzSOIzhKwHnN5nDIwcJv5PBAlcrXxVLi7LqR0h/s1600/pneumothorax+x+ray.png" data-original-height="925" data-original-width="946" height="312" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">x-ray of a collapsed lung!</td></tr>
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The final prototype has arrived and it's looking glorious! I've been prepping the game for blind playtesting - I have a group all set and ready to go. A prototype is on rout to them as we speak. I'm very much looking forward to hearing how they get on. I'm looking into getting more blind playtests set up too. As much as I'd love to jump into third party reviews, I need to make sure all the blind playtests go smoothly.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid-LGGmxnxH4F2KLERzY_BFOWxQ8kCICqXP4JdmVmDdgS3FHkQ6bMKY3YqIRQAOgc7VIUiMeWEdQS-ltviEjrDr3ia8R1S0tWnKxmT2xrSP4YmbtT0GgHWIpy9AM3-sp67kULRx6-ayUo/s1600/GameSnap.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="989" data-original-width="1600" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid-LGGmxnxH4F2KLERzY_BFOWxQ8kCICqXP4JdmVmDdgS3FHkQ6bMKY3YqIRQAOgc7VIUiMeWEdQS-ltviEjrDr3ia8R1S0tWnKxmT2xrSP4YmbtT0GgHWIpy9AM3-sp67kULRx6-ayUo/s400/GameSnap.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Prototype looking very shwifty if you ask me</td></tr>
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There was a great update that I put through on the website recently as well. It was mostly quality of life stuff, and should hopefully get more people pointed through to either the email forum or the twitter page. Which was a major goal of the update - trying to land more conversions to the Kickstarter hype lists buy improving the user experience and clarity of message for the 'purchase' page. The Email list and Twitter page will be the core ways I'll be tracking 'hype'. Not that the other social media isn't important! It's just negligible at this stage in comparison to the others.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDcLqx5mypo0-kBtZW-DaEa4DZjmTxUqcPyQlXUxWkN1vyuUFNqzrJY2gir_BILpv0O_TiDnqz-VvFJZbo4wkpv5XrWyfOi6O2GNpvvj8KliK2Z0N71F53fHjE1m9NCU3Urf2uU5OHTco/s1600/Capture5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1069" data-original-width="817" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDcLqx5mypo0-kBtZW-DaEa4DZjmTxUqcPyQlXUxWkN1vyuUFNqzrJY2gir_BILpv0O_TiDnqz-VvFJZbo4wkpv5XrWyfOi6O2GNpvvj8KliK2Z0N71F53fHjE1m9NCU3Urf2uU5OHTco/s400/Capture5.JPG" width="305" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You can't tell me that that doesn't look amazing</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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My main efforts right now are getting the word out and marketing - Blind playtests and 3rd party playtests are a bit of a "set it and forget it" kind of deal, but I'm actively tracking tracking the ones I have ongoing. Honestly, my traditional advertising has been working the best so far it seems, but that's mostly due to me not being a "Social Media" kind of dude. It just doesn't come naturally to me (heck it barely comes along as a learned behaviour).<br />
<br />
I'll also research around to see what's my best approach for advertising - It's one of those things that I've researched in the past, but since it's not my forte I'm in definite need of a refresher - <a href="http://stonemaiergames.com/">stonemaiergames.com</a> actually seems like an amazing avenue for this. The guy behind it seems like a bit of a genius when it comes to marketing and running a successful Kickstarter. I'll definitely be spending some time this weekend going through their countless articles and using the insights to fine tune my approach.<br />
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Oh, and I almost forgot - A very cool update is that I've put more rules for public consumption on the official Act of Treason page! Feel free to check them out and stay updated on our social media so you can see when I publish the next batch of rules.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhplvD-k3k1DppxogSYQGdIR61MYns-0wJ4rYtZQgf0LWMemC3vnq9TH42N9hoOMuJXGZKqf9tH089g1RBHS44B4acbkqoGPDIWLn13i6H2drVA8uSLUpaba4LY_0FD52XvfN681k4B5pA/s1600/Capture7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1259" data-original-width="1187" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhplvD-k3k1DppxogSYQGdIR61MYns-0wJ4rYtZQgf0LWMemC3vnq9TH42N9hoOMuJXGZKqf9tH089g1RBHS44B4acbkqoGPDIWLn13i6H2drVA8uSLUpaba4LY_0FD52XvfN681k4B5pA/s400/Capture7.JPG" width="376" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Read the rules update at www.playaot.com</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Until next time friends.<br />
<br />
Cheers,<br />
Tyson<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/actoftreason">Facebook</a> | <a href="http://www.twitter.com/actoftreason">Twitter </a>| <a href="http://www.playaot.com/youtube">YouTube</a>Act of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1091217442709951137.post-19067387495417965142017-06-14T02:10:00.001-07:002017-06-14T02:10:35.046-07:00Development Diary #4Hi all,<br />
<br />
Sorry for the bit of a hiatus since my last post. There are a few reasons for this which I've detailed below. Nevertheless things are still getting done and I'm very proud of how things are turning out - Rules are really coming along and everything is lining up for blind playtesting - I'm sure that when everything is done and dusted we will have a fantastic looking product with streamlined mechanics that Loyals and Traitors alike will really enjoy.<br />
<br />
I've been quite unwell as of late. I managed to get sick *twice* with a nasty throat bug since last blog post. I've been feeling better at times... feeling much worse at other times. I think some of this has to do with exercise, but I'm beginning to suspect that it's been mostly diet related. I'll be starting up a food diary and tracking what I eat and how I feel each day to see if I can isolate if it is certain types of food that are the cause. Feeling tired, low energy, bloated, among other things. I don't wanna whine, but it's something I need to work proactively towards. I'll also be trying to cut out as much sugar as I dare to. I'll let you know how I progress and if I notice any major differences - who knows, it might help someone out.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRlbzNsxw-_T3z4t1DvyvMgk9gGxJCfNWUX2QOpUBglMPJhm4iPHQ-o7GalQrheJGJr6D2ksavz5br38BbYqqcJm_X7kIx7Mj3UPRW7BW80CUM8v1d0h-Mwals331bWS_0oxzUgCysw0M/s1600/hardatwork.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRlbzNsxw-_T3z4t1DvyvMgk9gGxJCfNWUX2QOpUBglMPJhm4iPHQ-o7GalQrheJGJr6D2ksavz5br38BbYqqcJm_X7kIx7Mj3UPRW7BW80CUM8v1d0h-Mwals331bWS_0oxzUgCysw0M/s400/hardatwork.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Example of me working hard on Act of Treason</td></tr>
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Those of you who follow the blog, you'll know that marketing isn't my forte. I'm trying my best to figure out what works and what doesn't. Twitter seems to be *the* number one place for people who are interested in upcoming Kickstarter projects like board games and so forth. I don't actually don't like Twitter for a number of reasons, the main one being that they seem to be quite political, often silencing people wherever possible who disagree with their companies political stance and views. Google and Facebook are just as culpable here. Since I'm a strong proponent for free speech that kinda rubs me the wrong way. Even though I'm not the biggest fan of Twitter, most of my followers seem to be coming from there. As much as I dislike Twitter I will focus my efforts to gaining followers on Twitter and staying in with the followers (other than this blog of course). So please make sure you follow me on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/actoftreason">Twitter</a> to stay up to date with any major developments. Naturally I will also be echoing out the other important updates over my other social medias listed <a href="http://www.playaot.com/contact">here</a>.<br />
<br />
One message I need to remember to push is how Act of Treason is going to be a great game for those who love that social deduction styled games like mafia and werewolf but are looking for even more opportunity and ability to deceive, bluff, persuade. I think that's the strongest part of Act of Treason. Act of Treason was designed specifically to allow players to flex their social deduction and prowess as much as possible, And that's purely because that's exactly the game I wanted to play! I got tired of playing games like Mafia and Battle Star Galactica where the opportunities for social deduction are limited. Playing Act of Treason is very humbling. Just when you think you've got a handle on how to play well, someone will show you that you can still be fooled and maybe you don't know everything you think you do. It's not an easy thing to fit all this into a soundbite however. "Act of Teason - Betray your friends, Deceive a Kingdom." It's close isn't it? it's certainly the best I've heard so far.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs-sKIr0_YLhMdy12sEY-AnL48qSsq05yu37AgOzK-bmO5vs7NMELG6KvEplCQmVFFMiQFOtMP2XpcnPyuyla4L_xnFXJmGtebcfCC3BZpoBJYiEAPf05DObZfLo_zD7vFpSqyMIW0TAU/s1600/rulebookexample.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="900" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs-sKIr0_YLhMdy12sEY-AnL48qSsq05yu37AgOzK-bmO5vs7NMELG6KvEplCQmVFFMiQFOtMP2XpcnPyuyla4L_xnFXJmGtebcfCC3BZpoBJYiEAPf05DObZfLo_zD7vFpSqyMIW0TAU/s400/rulebookexample.png" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Example draft of the rules</td></tr>
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I've been fixing up all the assets so that they are as close as they can be to the final product. This helps as the less changes I have to make, the less something will go wrong in the drift from the prototype to the final revision. I always try to follow the adage "Train how you play". I think that is fantastic advice that is applicable in so many parts of life - and definitely applicable here. The Act of Treason Prototype is close to the final product in everything other than the final art. It should just be a matter of 'dragging and dropping' in the new artwork to make the game look as nice as possible. Everything else is already in place. Part of revising the assets involved me getting the Rulebook as close to the final as possible with the layout, diagrams and references in place - this is actually a major task surprisingly, and I don't doubt that blind playtesting will reveal even more changes that I need to fit into the rulebook to help smooth out any sore points. I've just been working on the rulebook all of today, it's surprising how the tiniest of details can help to smooth out the explanation for new players. I look forward to having the best rule book possible, as well having the rules online, and in a video, at <a href="http://www.playaot.com/">www.playaot.com</a>.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqBGmDQB14sP2hBwGJg84ce4pRoKiptLq0otp-ZdcjvecyEd2ovCgTmklfd9gKAF8Bs7KoY8gdRVMjF1Mq2Ol6p13ENqh3c3HcayzT-22RTCVjXHa0KQftqCz7yVPuXoORxrrC3bt2sP0/s1600/rulesweb.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="833" data-original-width="1090" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqBGmDQB14sP2hBwGJg84ce4pRoKiptLq0otp-ZdcjvecyEd2ovCgTmklfd9gKAF8Bs7KoY8gdRVMjF1Mq2Ol6p13ENqh3c3HcayzT-22RTCVjXHa0KQftqCz7yVPuXoORxrrC3bt2sP0/s400/rulesweb.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Example of the online rules</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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We are getting very close to the Kickstarter. Once I get the Rulebook checked a couple more times by third parties, and I get my prototype from Game Crafter delivered and checked, then I'll be ready for blind playtesting! After that it's third party and then right onto the kickstarter! Very close folks! I can see the horizon and It's looking glorious!<br />
<br />
I also want to give a shout out to <a href="https://twitter.com/garphillgames">Shem Phillips</a> (@garphillgames on twitter) who I met at Boardgames By The Bay, a local board game convention in my area. He has given me some great advice on how to progress towards the Kickstarter. Feel free to check out the awesome games he has made <a href="http://garphill.com/">here</a>. I also found out about the <a href="http://gameartisans.nz/">Game Artisans NZ Facebook Group</a> at the same convention, which will be a great resource for me going forwards.<br />
<br />
I've not forgotten about some of the other topics I promised to cover in previous posts. I'll be doing a big recap over some of them closer to the Kickstarter - or after. It will depend on the topic. But that's plenty for this week.<br />
<br />
Cheers all,<br />
Tyson<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/ActOfTreason">Facebook</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/ActofTreason">Twitter</a> | <a href="http://www.playaot.com/youtube">YouTube</a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2H8VEEerZM">Music of the week</a>Act of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1091217442709951137.post-4717740304851048802017-03-22T00:54:00.002-07:002017-03-22T00:54:48.779-07:00Development Diary #3Hi all,<br />
<br />
Just wanted to keep you informed of a few updates that have been going on behind the scenes. I'll try do it quickfire, as there is a lot to cover.<br />
<br />
For a start, I've been trying to fix up the website and the google search a bit. This has been more time consuming than I would have liked. The thing is that AoT, Act of Treason, playaot, are all not showing near the top of the google search page. As you might imagine this is a serious issue. This will WRECK my online visibility. I'm still trying to find out what happened and why it isn't showing up. I'm currently working through guides on how to correct this, but unfortunately the cause isn't clear. All I know is that if I do everything to secure the SOE for my site fortifying my position on the list as best I can, which can only be beneficial. It's painful, but like most painful things, it's worth doing. So I'm doing it.<br />
<br />
For the website, the main thing I've fixed is the video link, that would take the user out of the website and to the YT channel. This may seem minor, but is it very unprofessional and a disconnect to the reader if they are navigated away from the site like that. We should be keeping the user there as long as they need to start soaking in the information there, and to hopefully convert them into a patron of our excellent product. Keep an eye out for our next video, it will be coming soon!<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4ElzqRx3HtPpieL4EvQJvgdAnL0PPuP3wwRGEmiJGSm-KX7NOV8tw3TGpuTkaO_mIXQBoKXlf4twUf4j5VX7nSVYmextzK18197OF_t1m9ai_75zyJ5LZYSh_ViQIDGUtvtfmPzJTxRY/s1600/scrap1.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4ElzqRx3HtPpieL4EvQJvgdAnL0PPuP3wwRGEmiJGSm-KX7NOV8tw3TGpuTkaO_mIXQBoKXlf4twUf4j5VX7nSVYmextzK18197OF_t1m9ai_75zyJ5LZYSh_ViQIDGUtvtfmPzJTxRY/s400/scrap1.PNG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">How the video appears now</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Ultimately, I'll be doing more beatification of the site and the product as I feel that it should at the very least lead into more shares. People will be more inclined to share a link to something of high quality. Almost all shares come from a space of "Hey this looks awesome, I saw it and thought I would share it with you because you might think it's awesome too". This is where being 'good' or 'alright' doesn't really cut it. Having a great product is one thing. But <i>demonstrating </i>that the product is great - totally different story.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU96T3zpBbWeThyphenhyphenVysZhiGanpVsjld97RG1Xp1RlL8e1XR8XhfZep01NYEJ-da6izYu7sysA-NmuAYnx7jBp5u0Pq7pYOU-hVPSeV-6tesNb2aRK_2I0Ga1SXFEt5xScvcL5vTESv-9lg/s1600/gmebrd5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU96T3zpBbWeThyphenhyphenVysZhiGanpVsjld97RG1Xp1RlL8e1XR8XhfZep01NYEJ-da6izYu7sysA-NmuAYnx7jBp5u0Pq7pYOU-hVPSeV-6tesNb2aRK_2I0Ga1SXFEt5xScvcL5vTESv-9lg/s400/gmebrd5.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A mockup of the game box and setup I've made</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Anyway. I've also been coming to grips with online paid advertising using very small dollar amounts, but making sure that I'm still getting eyes on page + gearing up. I want to make it so that when the big day hits I've already have maximized my advertising potential.To this end I have a couple of ideas that will help me to get a rough projection on conversion rate, which will be useful in determining how effective advertising will be, and if I should amp it up, or just let it simmer.<br />
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I've also filmed some more footage with the help of my brother and his company <a href="http://bbgroup.net.nz/">bbgroup.net.nz</a>. This is all a bit of a learning curve, but I think video is definitely the way forward and I will be trying to use as much of that medium as I can. I need to make shorter snippets and use them in posts. Something like a live play through and having the rules 100% exposed on the website are examples of this, which is definitely something I have planned to do.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.imgur.com/gp2zzTL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/gp2zzTL.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An Actual Act of Treason Advertisement</td></tr>
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I'll also be trailing videos to use for advertisements, I think the current one I'm using is good, but it needs a much better readout and a call to action to drive those who are interested to join the <a href="http://www.playaot.com/kickstarter">mailing list</a>, or follow on the <a href="http://www.playaot.com/contact">social media.</a> It could also be a lot shorter. 30 seconds would be ideal.<br />
<br />
I've decided to release a public schedule of things I have still to do with a rough time frame associated with each block of tasks. Bear in mind this is a ROUGH outline of the things I have left to do. But it will hopefully provide some clarity as we move forward. Bear in mind that timelines may get vastly pushed out depending on what blind playtests reveal. But at the same time, lots of these tasks can occur concurrently.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYhoQsNvZyTOB0ttUKa9t9wUd9-cC0MfnvfLPkPpKAd-AJl7sSuJ527P24HWG6OL2jg6HCUMmcTeGrGb4tbxRCHygwbw38tO3ZXryqYqY7u763sB1vITowORSi-f4c50_Vtp9BroZuWI4/s1600/Act-of-Treason-Schedual.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYhoQsNvZyTOB0ttUKa9t9wUd9-cC0MfnvfLPkPpKAd-AJl7sSuJ527P24HWG6OL2jg6HCUMmcTeGrGb4tbxRCHygwbw38tO3ZXryqYqY7u763sB1vITowORSi-f4c50_Vtp9BroZuWI4/s1600/Act-of-Treason-Schedual.jpg" /></a></div>
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Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, I had a playtest last Friday, which went awesome. The changes added to the game seemed to have fixed things. As mentioned in Design Diary #1, I would shed some light onto what I was testing, why, and my findings.... But not just yet. That was plenty to cover this week and I have a lot to say on the design choices and my thoughts behind them - So I'll save that for my next post soon. Super excited for everything to follow!<br />
<br />
Be sure to <a href="http://www.blogger.com/follow-blog.g?blogID=1091217442709951137">follow</a> this blog or out other social media below and make sure to sign up to the <a href="http://www.playaot.com/kickstarter">Kickstarter Mailing list</a> so we can let you know when the game comes out!<br />
<br />
Until next time friends.<br />
<br />
Cheers,<br />
Tyson<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/ActOfTreason">Facebook</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/ActofTreason">Twitter</a> | <a href="http://www.playaot.com/youtube">YouTube</a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mzfnUIdzq4">Music of the week</a>Act of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1091217442709951137.post-48389180571379751632017-02-25T00:42:00.001-08:002017-02-25T00:42:07.409-08:00Development Diary #2Hi all,<br />
<br />
Just a quick update.<br />
<br />
Working on more videos with my Brother who runs <a href="http://bbgroup.net.nz/">BBgroup.net.nz</a> so I'll have plenty of content going forwards. Also working on a bit of a secret gambit which will pay off in spades if I can pull it off. I won't share any details here, but I will in time depending on the outcome of it. Needless to say for a somewhat small sacrifice in time I have the change to gain a LOT of exposure, but I can't guarantee I'll be able to pull it off. Time will tell.<br />
<br />
In case you haven't seen it. Video below explaining in brief what Act of Treason is - More to come!:<br />
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<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_Vo21jzRqCU/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_Vo21jzRqCU?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
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<br />
I've got two playtests lined up over the next two weeks and development has been going well. Once these playtests are done I’ll be in good place to begin blind playtests – I’ll ask groups of completely new players to pick up the game and understand/follow the rules without any assistance from me. I’ve run blind playtests in the past and the results can surprise you. People get snagged or confused about something you wouldn’t have guessed. It is mostly to ensure the game components are easy to follow and intuitive as well as the rulebook is clear. Blind playtests are crucial though, as you won’t pick up such issues before it’s too late without them.<br />
<br />
So I'll be spending some time on revising the old rulebook which has become a bit of a tangled mess - The new draft I've been preparing is far slicker and hopefully will be a much better rulebook once I'm done with it.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGophoXRZd5X-q5JgFioy2_kPcbLNgdKGMzQJLqnPLOfP_UlCDJwlxfMnzvCEMoKuRWvqK-bK2zim8I6OpcovBxa0yirqnTZlvlprwBrkOe2wr2jDSny_B3kgvFfZpcNmtYASSVFSe8zE/s1600/Untitled-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGophoXRZd5X-q5JgFioy2_kPcbLNgdKGMzQJLqnPLOfP_UlCDJwlxfMnzvCEMoKuRWvqK-bK2zim8I6OpcovBxa0yirqnTZlvlprwBrkOe2wr2jDSny_B3kgvFfZpcNmtYASSVFSe8zE/s320/Untitled-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Make sure you guys are getting enough rainbow</td></tr>
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After blind playtests, I’ll be able to send the game out to 3rd party reviewers, which will be important step as not only do they have their own followings that they can bring to the kickstarter, but if they do a good endorsement of the product, it will significantly help to convert more visitors to the Kickstarter page into pledges.<br />
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Lots to be done whiles all that’s happening though - Website is up and is undergoing updates. I’ve also put out a video explaining what Act of Treason is and all the social media is in place. I’m slowly gaining followers, especially on twitter for some reason. I’m doing some learning as I’m prepping things, as I've mentioned, marketing is very new to me. Reading books on the topic, etc. For the most part I’ve just been preparing assets such as images and videos for promotional use later.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://chatsworth.com.au/wp-content/themes/chatsworth/images/home.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://chatsworth.com.au/wp-content/themes/chatsworth/images/home.jpg" height="181" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One plank at a time</td></tr>
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All in all, things are progressing well. It feel a little like one man building a house at times. Yes there is progress, but there is so much to do it just feels like it will never end. Nevertheless I'm slowly ticking things off of my to do and inching closer and closer to a very polished and very slick final product that I know I can be proud of.<br />
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Cheers,<br />
<div>
Tyson<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.playaot.com/">Website</a> | <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ActOfTreason">Facebook</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/ActofTreason">Twitter</a></div>
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<a href="https://youtu.be/u3FO46D1dqs">Music of the week</a></div>
Act of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1091217442709951137.post-74561207615460974472017-02-11T21:00:00.000-08:002017-02-11T21:00:46.781-08:00Op-ed #1: SocratesThis is something I posted to my facebook page just now.<br />
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I'm posting this because it may be of interest to you, the reader. I also think it's a shame that we can't share our opinions in the modern world. If we keep dividing ourselves based on what we believe we will continue to divide ourselves down to the individual level. This is no way to form a functioning society. We need to be able to work together to make the world a better place.<br />
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I'm just posting this now because I just wrote it, but I will be posting another on Jordan B Peterson in time. I would also like to do book synopsis where I read a book and then do a post, summarizing all of the useful information contained within down to just 1 blog post per paragraph.<br />
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Anywho, we'll see if that ever happens:<br />
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There was this dude called Socrates, born about 470 BC. He is credited as one of the founders of western philosophy. There is no doubt in my mind that we owe a fair amount to Socrates and to the works he did throughout his life.<br />
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What did he do you might ask? Well he asked questions. Lots and lots of questions. From Wikipedia:<br />
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“Perhaps his most important contribution to Western thought is his dialectic method of inquiry, known as the Socratic method or method of "elenchus", which he largely applied to the examination of key moral concepts such as the Good and Justice.” “The dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to establish the truth through reasoned arguments.” “Socrates favoured truth as the highest value, proposing that it could be discovered through reason and logic in discussion”<br />
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In fact Socrates exposed so much through his questioning that it started to piss people off. It pissed people off so much, that a jury of his own peers voted to execute him. This time from Time magazine:<br />
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“was put on trial for impiety and corrupting the youth of Athens. At the time, Socrates was a controversial figure in the city and not particularly liked. He challenged anyone's thinking through his endless and circular Socratic dialogues, and he publicly questioned the gods Athenians worshiped at the time… …Socrates supposedly could have escaped Athens after he was found guilty by an Athenian jury. Instead, he chose to stay on principle. He would abide by the law and apparently didn't even try to convince the jury he was innocent. Socrates performed his own execution by drinking hemlock poison.”<br />
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Now that is a dude with conviction.<br />
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I would never dare to compare myself to Socrates, but I try to adhere to his principles. I strive for truth because through truth we learn more about what is right and what is wrong and how best to conduct ourselves and navigate ourselves through life.<br />
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So, I'm going to continue to share my opinions freely. I'm not going to shut up just because some people don't like what I have to say. I'm more than willing to discuss things if you'd like, who knows, you might even change my mind.<br />
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Otherwise, If you’d rather not see what I have to say then you are more than welcome to unfollow me.<br />
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Thank you for reading and have a nice day :)<br />
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Cheers,<br />
TysonAct of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1091217442709951137.post-51165002216513870782017-02-06T01:36:00.002-08:002017-02-07T22:16:10.715-08:00Development Diary #1Hi all, just a quick update on how things are progressing with Act of Treason.<br />
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I won't be sharing too many mechanics with the game this time around as I've not had a chance to try out my latest changes - that'll be in two weeks or so. Once I've tried the new mechanics I'll do a full dissection on what worked, what didn't, and why. But honestly, this week I've just been so focused on getting the groundwork for the promotion going I've not had much time for anything else.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaMVPMi8pohIDXMu-Lpe6jv_M5qnDEKLr2uqNNhD_FIe_k6QMb38Sggr4R1CgvtN8ms5jyUJFkrKdgpFMPlz654QzraU36hYaHwmnaYRBd4Lxr-zMZhaw6mc3d6SMNCeDAgCNtP0TbaPs/s1600/scrap4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaMVPMi8pohIDXMu-Lpe6jv_M5qnDEKLr2uqNNhD_FIe_k6QMb38Sggr4R1CgvtN8ms5jyUJFkrKdgpFMPlz654QzraU36hYaHwmnaYRBd4Lxr-zMZhaw6mc3d6SMNCeDAgCNtP0TbaPs/s320/scrap4.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Global Progress chart - blue arrows show recent progress</td></tr>
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As you can see from above we are getting a lot done, it just unfortunately takes a while! Each one of these is a large project in and of itself. A 'three level' system really doesn't do it justice. I might update that to have 0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100% levels. Very easy to track progress then for both me and you! (This is actually live on the site right now -> you can check it out at the bottom of the about page)<br />
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Last week has been mostly geared toward prepping for my next play test. The design pieces are done there. The important conceptual work is done, I just need to do the boring labor part of cutting a hundred cards or so and slipping them into sleeves. This week has mostly been devoted to an update of the website, and a few other minor things as well such as cleaning up wordings and the look of various things (cards, website, rules, you name it), and making new promotional art.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkSPwb6bB7UXze5sPyystqNS5Ck-CYQPapelnN8c4ijgpWygSD0bqAsfS0-MMJs2n8nSGgoGOyWXzqN9H0ncJGYC3blDIaAEzs4J-Gii1RU6RUkPF7_czLswwGDioJYZJ9-smE3dcNs8I/s1600/scrap3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkSPwb6bB7UXze5sPyystqNS5Ck-CYQPapelnN8c4ijgpWygSD0bqAsfS0-MMJs2n8nSGgoGOyWXzqN9H0ncJGYC3blDIaAEzs4J-Gii1RU6RUkPF7_czLswwGDioJYZJ9-smE3dcNs8I/s400/scrap3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Just one of the many updates to playaot.com</td></tr>
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Now don't get too excited, it's not a total overhaul to the webpage. Ultimately I still love the very minimalist design of my website, so it's just a few minor quality of life enhancements. For example, the 'featured wall' (as seen up above) on the about page will be added. I think the featured wall is important as it provides for a very easy 'hierarchy of information' for a new reader to follow.<br />
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We don't consciously do this - but we are constantly assessing our surroundings and categorizing the importance of all the information we come across. Things of minor importance we don't track and, things of major importance we do. The number of lights in the room might be of very low importance for example. The number of people might be highest importance, or the nearest exists, or a person of interest. Everything fits somewhere on that spectrum. The featured wall gives the uninitiated a sample of things that indicate that they are of 'high importance'. Otherwise there is just a sea of information and the reader could quickly become frustrated and rightly so if they can't find the information they are looking for. <i>But more importantly, the user isn't shown what is deemed to be important. </i><br />
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Why is this necessary? Well without this you're sending the message that effectively all information contained within the site is equally important - which is profoundly not true. You're not providing direction, which can be fairly annoying to a reader who simply wants the answer to a would be simple question "What is this about", or perhaps "Where can I learn more?", or maybe even "I'm looking to purchase one of these as I have learned enough from else where". These are likely the three most common questions a new website user will have when coming into the website for the first time (I haven't done the research, but, you know, it's likely true or near enough to truth). I can't tell you how many times I've gone to a website with the simple question: "What is this Business, Product, or Brand about?" and the website seems almost intentionally vague. What, where, how, why, when and who should be answered somewhere on your website, not necessarily in that order.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirw4EVgMAkirm1f_UAmlCgUuvG8mk8bWMZgA4WlHWlIMcuaaca7KKXa1L66wi5ce2UU8uxoaSXblF-P43L3mIU3PiEBT2D4DksrCnz51dTmEwg2L7e3UgLAAR5qCYf-k77phbQfVA6w1E/s1600/scrap7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirw4EVgMAkirm1f_UAmlCgUuvG8mk8bWMZgA4WlHWlIMcuaaca7KKXa1L66wi5ce2UU8uxoaSXblF-P43L3mIU3PiEBT2D4DksrCnz51dTmEwg2L7e3UgLAAR5qCYf-k77phbQfVA6w1E/s1600/scrap7.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another lovely snippet from the website</td></tr>
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All of this is nothing new. Many websites do something similar, flagging important information to the user. It's just fascinating to me as it's a whole new world that I now have to be open to and think about.<br />
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Oh I also am adding analytics to the site - which I can't believe I didn't add before. I still don't know what I'm doing with it all too well. But at least so far I have managed to get some rudimentary analytics and reports running with it. So will hopefully be able to expand on that in the coming weeks and get up to speed with it before I start rolling out the serious advertising.<br />
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I have to say things have really begun to progress rapidly with Act of treason, and it's really hard to pin point exactly why. I think there are actually multiple factors that have all culminated into giving my the motivational groundwork to push off from. I think Jordan B Peterson with his Self Actualizing Suit really helped - you can learn more about him in the op-ed I will be releasing asap. I think my exercise regime really helps. I think having just a little bit of extra time away from work really helps. And I think the added weight of responsibility helps - having responsibility for others who rely on you really does change the dynamic of the situation. Altruism kicks in and you're not just in it for you anymore, you're in it for those you love and those whom you want to support. This is one reason why married people tend to earn more and be more prosperous - they likely have more children, and thus more responsibility.<br />
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Anyway that's enough for today. Thank you for reading and see you next time.<br />
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<div>
Cheers,<br />
Tyson<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.playaot.com/">Website</a> | <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ActOfTreason">Facebook</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/ActofTreason">Twitter</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlEb3L1PIco">Music of the week</a></div>
Act of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1091217442709951137.post-91909203807601267162017-01-25T01:14:00.001-08:002017-01-25T01:14:55.421-08:00Update of last stepsHi y'all,<br />
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So I've been flat out recently, and so will keep this weeks update really brief. Had a big playtest and have worked all weekend to implement changes and make a new slicker design for next time. In fact I worked so much it basiclly didn't even feel like I had a weekend. It just zipped by, and I felt like I was back into work Friday -> Monday, without even having a break of two days! It was pretty intense.<br />
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Anywho, this coming weekend hopefully I'll do a blog post or two to fill in more updates with AoT and to talk about some of the mechanics in detail. I might even throw in an opinion piece. Will also start working on a couple of simple tweets on the website - A couple of front page colorful 'Adverts' that point the reader to places of significant interest for them. I just think it's an easy way to share the most relevant information to those new to Act of Treason.<br />
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But for now I just wanna say I had a really good play test with people at work. I had tweaked a few things and tried out that I wanted to test. It was great and I learned a lot, but unfortunately it did not yield the final version of the game as I had hoped it might. However, the games that I did play on Friday were so illuminating that I think this next tweak to the game will be the final push it needs to get to perfection.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkmx07J8vaF7fe9QB8gJdMp83GrZK6BgXw4vH_kp6TzdrfabSzLpzNkkKTtOgoVIU5r2c4HE8ZL4ora1i2jaeGoWV2z1mKkp9nMg5kE8VezecNqqt-GVi4KNuUMLAEzlJTDNICYPmv1cM/s1600/ActOfTreasonVlog01.00_07_59_56.Still002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkmx07J8vaF7fe9QB8gJdMp83GrZK6BgXw4vH_kp6TzdrfabSzLpzNkkKTtOgoVIU5r2c4HE8ZL4ora1i2jaeGoWV2z1mKkp9nMg5kE8VezecNqqt-GVi4KNuUMLAEzlJTDNICYPmv1cM/s400/ActOfTreasonVlog01.00_07_59_56.Still002.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me with a prototype board</td></tr>
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<br />
So - What's the last thing that I'm trying to fix?<br />
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Well I will cover that in the next blogpost, but essentially in current AoT, a social contract is needed to create an excellent game, and an okay/good game emerges if the social contract is not followed. I need to find a way to ensure that this social contract is converted into the rules and core mechanics in some way or form.<br />
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As it stands right now, ignoring or not knowing about this useful 'social contract' is a trap for new & intermediate players. Not following it promotes a type of play that detracts from the fun and design goals of the game.<br />
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The best option by far would be if I can create a mechanic that helps to foster this kind of social contract without actually having to enforce it by fiat.<br />
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I have already drawn up some proposed solutions that will fix this - and so I just need to test it. I really cannot wait for the next playtest<br />
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Until next time<br />
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Cheers,<br />
Tyson<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.playaot.com/">Website</a> | <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ActOfTreason">Facebook</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/ActofTreason">Twitter</a><br />
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MotW: <a href="https://youtu.be/_wQR-jgw7PI">Droid Bishop - Nightland</a>Act of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1091217442709951137.post-41170881753287875132017-01-15T00:04:00.001-08:002017-01-15T00:04:39.498-08:00A Quick UpdateHey y'all<br />
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Just giving you a quick update on AoT and other things that interest me.<br />
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For starters I'm making some headway with playtests. You can see the list of things I need to get done at www.playaot.com. Down the bottom I have a list that shows how far away we are from launch. Once all those ticks are green, the Kickstarter will be well underway.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All goals so far. Stay tuned for updates!</td></tr>
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Can I just say. I love those who have supported me so far - thank you so much for your assistance and your time and effort. It is much appreciated.<br />
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When I have more videos lined up we'll be able to really get into the marketing push. All I ask is if you like like the product or what I have to say - and you want to support me - then share, share, share! It would be a huge help.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0i_95AhZ02OeeWnDCOjV3oAshKgN0UUqQwc91hYwSiflx85ArZASL82t2kaGSGg74LGggBRRxhk7eLDurH48-GSIfmCRV-96TRTSyd_UW-ajK4JjTK-Ye_TnFJpnonBMgmWi5mKKO_PI/s1600/AOT_EndScreen.00_00_12_51.Still002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0i_95AhZ02OeeWnDCOjV3oAshKgN0UUqQwc91hYwSiflx85ArZASL82t2kaGSGg74LGggBRRxhk7eLDurH48-GSIfmCRV-96TRTSyd_UW-ajK4JjTK-Ye_TnFJpnonBMgmWi5mKKO_PI/s400/AOT_EndScreen.00_00_12_51.Still002.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">End Screen from some of the videos. Looking pretty, pretty, pretty. Pretty good</td></tr>
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<br />Upcoming Blog ideas:<br /><ul>
<li>I'll do a blog post on an roleplaying game that I've been working on, on and off, for a little while now, and other ideas for games and general thoughts on games.</li>
<li>I'll do one on Gab.ai, Vidme, alternative social media, globalism and autarchy and why I think it's so important in a modern world (this will likely be two or three posts)</li>
<li>I'll do a post on some of my favorite games and why I think they are so great - and why you might like, or might not like them as well.</li>
<li>I'll also keep you up to date with anything AoT related of course, and anything in my life that feel is important, or if I have any words of advice or wisdom.</li>
</ul>
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A bit off topic, but I wanna say I'm very excited for Trumps inauguration. I'm looking forward to seeing how things develop in the states. I have a lot of hope that Trump will do well, and I'm really excited to see if he delivers. </div>
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Some people might not like that I'm talking about politics, or they may think I should keep politics separate from my work. Let me be clear: I'm very inquisitive person by nature, and trying to separate me from big ticket and often polarizing questions such as religion, life, and politics would be like trying to separate me from my body. I am like a modern day Socrates. I just have to ask the question even if it kills me. But I try to do it respectfully. All I ask is you not crucify me for thinking and having an opinion. And I also ask that people not infer or assume anything about me simply because I like to share my opinion. My true political views are not clear cut, and may surprise you.</div>
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I have found this election cycle one of the most polarizing, vicious and divisive that I will likely see in my lifetime (in America at least). If people want to ratchet things up to 11, that's their prerogative, but I simply think it's unfounded. Take Patton Oswalts tweet from below - this is in response to Trump refusing to answer a frankly rude reporter, Jim Acosta. </div>
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These kinds of reactions don't help anyone. Trump simply didn't want to answer a question from CNN, one of the few news networks to report on fake news. After Acosta wouldn't take no for an an answer, Trump labeled his network "fake news", <b>which was met with clapping from the audience</b>. </div>
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I'm sorry, but in this situation, there was simply no right for Acosta to accost Trump. People like Patton Oswalt, and the never Trumpers need to calm down and actually point out legitimate grievances. They do not understand that pointing out that misinformation and outrage culture only furthers to delegitimize them and actually makes the case and support for Trump stronger. <b>If you don't have legitimate complaints then don't make them up.</b> They will only make it harder for you to state your case later on, such as the boy who cried wolf. Let's all try to get along people, regardless of our race, or beliefs.</div>
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This is just me dipping a toe in the political water. I may discuss more political tripe down the road if it really interests me, but we'll see.</div>
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Geez, this was supposed to be a quick update. :/ Oh well. Next time I'll try talk about something light and fluffy.</div>
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Papa Bless and enjoy your week.<br />
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Cheers,<br />
Tyson<br />
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<a href="http://www.playaot.com/">Website</a> | <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ActOfTreason">Facebook</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/ActofTreason">Twitter</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap9LN1kFb98">Music of the week</a></div>
Act of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1091217442709951137.post-29435218678602903062017-01-04T22:29:00.000-08:002017-01-14T23:22:00.157-08:00New Year - New Post - New TreasonWell it's been a little while since I made a post. Pardon my absence. This will be a lengthy one, but then I endeavor to do shorter, more frequent posts in the New Year... Here goes.<br />
<br />
There's three major reasons I've been a bit slow on Act of Treason as of late:<br />
1.) I've been dealing with personal issues<br />
2.) I am very new to marketing<br />
3.) I've never been good with finishing projects that I start<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnLlUrM8CE1-cRqlXqs6U0SEwicQdWCmBlLQolDgF4lcRxVoI-aTjgc7Fg49OMxzgARUPWaREa00T_v5V3H8Capr-prhoobkJIinlYun7i7AURheYPI6VvGWMU-I4KQOnr1jnx1hCHrBs/s1600/Promotion2b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnLlUrM8CE1-cRqlXqs6U0SEwicQdWCmBlLQolDgF4lcRxVoI-aTjgc7Fg49OMxzgARUPWaREa00T_v5V3H8Capr-prhoobkJIinlYun7i7AURheYPI6VvGWMU-I4KQOnr1jnx1hCHrBs/s400/Promotion2b.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Who doesn't love pictures?</td></tr>
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I don't want to dwell on my personal issues too long as I don't want to complain or look like I'm fishing for sympathy or something weird like that. Screw your sympathy. What I will say is that I wasn't in a good headspace. I think a primary culprit was my junk food intake and my lack of exercise, specifically cardiovascular exercise. Lastly, my sleeping patterns have been terrible, where I stay up too late and sleep in too long. All of these things really didn't help - So I've spent the last few months getting all these back on track, and I'm feeling MUCH better for it. I think more needs to be done to promote a healthy lifestyle as it clearly has direct linkages to mental health. I don't like being mean, but there is such a thing as tough love, and I'm against movements such as fat pride for this very reason. Anywho, I'm now in a good space to continue work on Act of Treason in the new year.<br />
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Right, that's number one out of the way. Let's tackle number two and three.<br />
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I've been working on Act of Treason on and off, during this time, but I've always found it difficult to complete projects. And trying to finish one that I've worked so hard and so long at is proving difficult. It doesn't help that Marketing is not exactly my forte and that's really the crunch point here. It doesn't matter how excellent Act of Treason is, it's the marketing that will ultimately make the sales. It also doesn't help that I'm not filled with boundless energy like some of these high flying CEO's have. I don't think I could wake up at 5 and finish at 11 every day. No chance. I am just a one man operation, a mere mortal. I do my best.<br />
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With all that said. I'm determined to see this through, even if it kills me. I've never had so many positive responses before for something I work on. I know Act of Treason has the ability to be one of the best board games of 2017, if not the best Social Board game of all time, if not the best board game of all time... Okay, I might be stretching there - but I'm exceeding confident in this game, and I know that it's good from my own assessment, and from that of others. It's mechanics are finely balanced, there are no flaws to detract from the fun, and It allows for massive in depth strategic plays in an area where there is truly no skill cap - social interaction. If there is any one project that I need to finish while I'm alive, it's Act of Treason. So I'm having to strap up my marketing boots and learn as I go, so far it's been okay (at least I hope). I will be doing paid marketing stints soon as we get closer to launch.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibgcvB_9eX0YroZXKQAs9c2Dbst2kA5jyuSzqqKo8gaQc6RqiMFPZmJGDgo4MSlYXbmzEWZaxDpAaAu1O_7t9lyutfZdYuPmysI0Jq9LJW5MisTAXS6tadt0Rti7jVUb5t41Hgu3VXv50/s1600/ChannelArtv5_Promo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibgcvB_9eX0YroZXKQAs9c2Dbst2kA5jyuSzqqKo8gaQc6RqiMFPZmJGDgo4MSlYXbmzEWZaxDpAaAu1O_7t9lyutfZdYuPmysI0Jq9LJW5MisTAXS6tadt0Rti7jVUb5t41Hgu3VXv50/s400/ChannelArtv5_Promo.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">I cannot wait for the big launch day</td></tr>
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Another thing I want to make clear is that their is still some small development and changes taking place with the game. So take all the art, wording, rules, etc, with a grain of salt. 95% of the game is locked down and I'm happy with it. I wouldn't change it as I know it's solid and foundational. But small things like the wordings, the theme, the balance, etc. All these are subject to change. I need to remember to add a small disclaimer "All art is subject to change" to all my work.<br />
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One last thing. My spelling is atrocious, so pardon any spelling mistakes or grammar mistakes in these posts. The time and effort spent cleaning these blog posts up, beyond a rudimentary glance, really don't match the value gained. I think the value is in the insights offered and the updates for those who are curious. If you can understand what I'm saying, then who cares. Believe me I don't treat my other works like this - Act of Treason goes through rigorous spell checks, sense checks, and grammar checks. But I feel like a blog post doesn't require such scrutiny to be of value.<br />
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Oh and I'm dropping the video / music of the day as a requirement for these posts. I might share music or funny videos that I find occasionally, such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/placeboing">Placeboing</a>, and his excellent video on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kAEoCHANYY">Goblins</a>.<br />
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Papa Bless and have a wonderful New Year.<br />
<br />
Cheers,<br />
Tyson<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.playaot.com/">Website</a> | <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ActOfTreason">Facebook</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/ActofTreason">Twitter</a><br />
<br />Act of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1091217442709951137.post-4789119520535935152016-08-27T23:02:00.000-07:002016-09-24T20:58:42.751-07:00Act of Treason - A History in DesignHi all,<br />
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So, lets cover how I came up with the idea of Act of Treason. This journey started about 4 years ago. So forgive me if my memory is a little fuzzy, but I certainly remember the broad strokes. I won’t bother going into what Act of Treason is. For that you can visit www.playaot.com to find out more information.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0EFTCxQINfLt6fJhyphenhyphen2iI_fv6oKTu3Jaw0ZntULmQdXIdSXtkCVJ3KIYsBkGkdoG7Fhz_Cm6UUSFyQOUnQJWxHS4wdV0sLhadTVjNDetDYA_VYeRC_Rf6oWpnNIouRX-WcA0k_3peR1eE/s1600/banner4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0EFTCxQINfLt6fJhyphenhyphen2iI_fv6oKTu3Jaw0ZntULmQdXIdSXtkCVJ3KIYsBkGkdoG7Fhz_Cm6UUSFyQOUnQJWxHS4wdV0sLhadTVjNDetDYA_VYeRC_Rf6oWpnNIouRX-WcA0k_3peR1eE/s320/banner4.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cards for Act of Treason</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I was really getting into board games back in the day. Settlers of Catan, 7 Wonders, Dominion, Power Grid, Claustrophobia, etc. A lot of the popular ones, and a few of the lesser known. I was having a grand old time. Then I started playing social deduction games like Mafia, Werewolf, and Battlestar Galactica. I loved these games! The social aspects of these games were awesome, but I always felt there was room for more. They left me feeling like the mechanics actually didn’t lend itself to real deduction - the mechanics got in the way. There was room for improvement.<br />
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These games also had some mechanics that dampen the experience and could have used some mitigation. A good example of this is in mafia, how one person always dies at the start without any knowledge. They just die. This one mechanic alone is of such detriment that games like one-night werewolf and The Resistance have started cropping up. Sure these games have other aspects top them, but I feel like one of their primary goals was to remove that one flaw - early player elimination. And it's fair enough because it's a fairly big negative. Act of Treason has player elimination, but mitigates early player elimination by providing strong incentives to keep everyone alive - because once the killing starts, it doesn't stop! So all players typically die at the same time, or there abouts.<br />
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I wanted to make a game that expanded on the social intrigue and deduction that these games have. A game that REALLY let players use their social skills to their full extent, without the game holding them back or clipping their wings. I had no idea where I wanted to start mechanically, but I had a good idea for theme. My first prototype was horrible. <b>*wretched*</b>. I can’t explain how bad it really was. But it took a long time to make, and it had mechanics that were lengthy and completely unnecessary. It didn’t really do what it was trying to do. But it taught me a couple of very important lessons in game design. When starting out on a new project:<br />
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<ol>
<li>know what makes your game fun and,</li>
<li>keep it simple. Only start with mechanics that directly feed into point 1.</li>
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Honestly, the game will likely change a lot from your first few prototypes. Don't spend ages analyzing every tiny detail. Get the core parts in that derive the most enjoyment and get them functional. It’s best to just strip out everything that isn’t core, and just see how the concept performs. How the ‘fun’ parts work. Is it actually fun? Why? Why not? If not how can we tweak this to get to the fun?<br />
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For Act of Treason, I did exactly that - whittled down the game to only the core parts. The social deduction. The game essentially had Tribute (all players secretly contribute cards to check to determine who wins the round), and the ability to assassinate that that was really it. These were the mechanics that got people talking and accusing one another. The fun part of the game. And it worked! It was the third prototype and it really had people loving the game. It had a lot of flaws for sure. But people enjoyed the game in spite of them. I had managed to target the fun part of the game and create mechanics that allowed players to tap into it.<br />
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It was actually pretty quick for me to reach that point. What took much longer is honing in on how to improve the mechanics, what mechanics worked best, and how to mitigate the negative mechanics. That takes a long time, and often I would try out a mechanic only to find that it added too much complexity, or got in the way of social deduction. The Act of Treason third prototype is similar in a lot of ways to the final prototype, but I’ve tried so many things in-between now and then only a few of the mechanics stuck. A lot of changes were simply small revisions that improve the quality of life of the game.<br />
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I strongly believe that Act of Treason hasn’t changed from the 3rd revision that much because early on I focused on what was fun and threw out anything else I didn’t need – because anything else would just get in the way of the fun! And that's how every game should be. Even now the game still has that format. It's just that the mechanics are even better streamlined to promote the fun - the social deduction.<br />
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Does this approach work for all games? I think it will work for most, if not all - and I think it's a good mindset to have. You need to understand what makes your game enjoyable. And then work on two core pressure points<br />
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<ol>
<li>What aspects makes the game fun and how can it be improved.</li>
<li>What aspects detract from the enjoyment of the game and how can we mitigate or remove them.</li>
</ol>
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Is it really that easy? Well, no - it's a simplification. However, I can’t stress enough how important it is to remove the negative features in a game and to understand what makes your game fun. These are vial and arguably the most important things that turn a good game, into a fantastic game. I’ll try cover this off in a video on my channel <a href="http://bit.ly/OverIceDesign">OverIceProductions</a> at some point in the future because it is important. I feel there are many games out there that don’t do this enough - especially point 2 - removing the negative aspects. That is what provides the balance and polish.<br />
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Phew that was a lot! I have no idea what we'll cover off next week - it'll likely be shorter - something fluffy. Then maybe after that we’ll do something similar to this post and cover off some specific design examples within Act of Treason.<br />
<br />
Game On,<br />
Tyson<br />
<br />
Creator of Act of Treason // <a href="http://www.playaot.com/">www.playaot.com</a><br />
OverIceDesign on Youtube // <a href="http://bit.ly/OverIceDesign">bit.ly/OverIceDesign</a><br />
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Music of the week:<br />
Caravan Palace // Lone Digger - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbsBEb1ZxWAAct of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1091217442709951137.post-41732956658082431162016-08-20T05:45:00.001-07:002016-08-20T05:46:52.813-07:00Welcome to the Blog of Treason!<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #444444;">It's not really a Blog about Treason or anything like that. It's a blog for my game: Act of Treason. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.38;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Catchy right? It's not just a self-serving blog either. I hope to provide you with value: </span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hope to engage you and give you food for thought. I'll be covering a range of topics</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">. W</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; line-height: 1.38;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">hatever is on my mind at the time. Although, to be fair - we're going to start with the Act of Treason stuff. It is the Blog of Treason after all. It has to be true to it's word (or does it? It is the Blog of Treason after all). </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I'll do my best to blog once a week, usually on the weekend. </span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I'm also going to include a weekly feature where I share an interesting YouTube video or some catchy music that I stumbled across. I love sharing things like this with people and I'm sure that you'll be able to get something good out of it. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial";"><span style="color: #444444; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial";"><span style="color: #444444; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anyway - that's by the by.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">I've spent the last long while working away at getting an online presence for AoT. The w</span><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">ebsite (<a href="http://playaot.com/">playaot.com</a>)</span><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is </span><b style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">almost</b><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"> ready to launch now and it's looking really nice. Hopefully by the end of this week or next it will be launched. </span><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Took roughly 3 weeks of most of my time and it was some solid work.</span><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"> You can check out a screenshot below. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYA7W3i1NxC7b-5AmmPsz_rZqgUtDVKInpI_G98vj0njWita5b9ABaSCEWIizkQwsnL5Y9MqKhxeprexi4jtc8H8qSe8mOyGASJmi_CY6GagchvX7poOCPwy6_u9TuZuIJFIytpdnFdPA/s1600/temp20160820.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYA7W3i1NxC7b-5AmmPsz_rZqgUtDVKInpI_G98vj0njWita5b9ABaSCEWIizkQwsnL5Y9MqKhxeprexi4jtc8H8qSe8mOyGASJmi_CY6GagchvX7poOCPwy6_u9TuZuIJFIytpdnFdPA/s320/temp20160820.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What a lovely, lovely website</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #444444;">I've also got myself up and running with an AoT Facebook page, an AoT Twitter account, and now a AoT Blog! The BoT. There is still a little bit of setup to do with each of these, but as they are not urgent, they will have to wait a little while to become fabulous.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #444444;">It’s been a wild ride to get to this point and there is no doubt in my mind it’s about to get 100x more wild. Here’s the thing. I never really wanted to have to do all this marketing crap. It’s not what I’m good at - It’s not what I like doing. But people love this game, and I know how good it is. I just couldn't live with myself if I didn't see it through to the end. Honestly, if AoT wasn't as good as it is I would have stopped working on it a long time before. It's a compulsion to do public good at this point. So with all that said, I’m going to have to become good at this marketing crapt. So, I’ll be doing lots on the social media front. Advertising, promotions etc. All leading up to the big day on Kickstarter. If you'd like to help out or get in touch - you can contact me here: playaot.com/contact. </span></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #444444;">I’ll be doing the vast amount of the lifting when it comes to getting the word out - all I ask is that if you like what you see, just let somebody know. Link, share, and spread the word :)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #444444;">We only have one shot at this kickstarter thing - and if it goes well, you can expect to see more top quality games from me. *For sure* I already have some ideas in my belt. I just need the time to work on them. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #444444;">I know I've not really covered Act of Treason much in this post. Lots of detail will up on the site really soon. Next week I'll cover some basic concepts of the game, and the background into how I came up with the idea.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #444444;">Game on,</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #444444;">Tyson</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #666666;">Creator of Act of Treason // </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.playaot.com/">www.playaot.com</a></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #444444; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #666666;">OverIceDesign on Youtube // </span><span style="color: #666666;"><a href="http://bit.ly/OverIceDesign">bit.ly/OverIceDesign</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial";"><span style="color: #444444; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Music of the week:</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "arial";"><span style="color: #444444; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Zombie Hyperdrive // Red Eyes - <a href="https://youtu.be/NZf15xVrOW8">https://youtu.be/NZf15xVrOW8</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #444444;">Quite upbeat. Awesome bit at 2:42 where it breaks into music right from Castlevania (I think); utterly fantastic. My only wish is that this was a larger part of the song.</span></span></div>
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<br />Act of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1091217442709951137.post-8981575020095327442016-08-17T18:10:00.002-07:002016-08-17T18:10:51.737-07:00Hello world!Act of Treasonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08506216785420606220noreply@blogger.com