Procedurally generated game around cards and deck building

Let's play a game

So, I have been playing Hands of Fate on and off for a while. It is an interesting game, I must say. If you don't know what it is, picture taking the Batman: Arkham series combat and combining that with a deck building game and playing that out on a procedurally generated board. The setup is that you are at a table at the end of nowhere, okay, we don't know where we are. But on the other side of the

table is the Dealer, the man whose domain this might be, we don't know. So we start with a lot we don't know.

So let's get down to the reason for this article. Building a procedurally generated game around cards and deck building is an interesting idea. You play the game is sessions, in which you take one Equipment deck that you have constructed and one Encounter deck which you also have constructed.

Each session the Dealer adds a few cards to the Encounter deck. These are determined by the boss at the end of the session if you are playing the Story mode. In the Endless mode, the Dealer just adds a few random cards after each level. At the beginning of each session, the deck is shuffled and a random amount of cards is drawn to form the board for the first level. Once that level is cleared, new cards are drawn to form the board for the next level. In Story mode, this is until a level has the boss card in it, while in Endless mode, this is until you die.

The Equipment deck is where all the items you can use are, with some minor exceptions such as the Metal Ore and the Holy Forge encounter cards. Here you have to balance what weapons, shields, armours and the like you want to be able to bring to bear against the monsters and traps the Dealer will send your way. In the Story mode, the size of your deck expands as you play through the game. This has both upsides and downsides. One the upside, you can get more loot, but on the flipside, you will less reliably get your best gear. But in the end, you will have to build a Equipment deck that is tailored to your playstyle. I for one like to play something of a reactionary style which leads me to including lots of shields so that I can gain access to the counter ability, but at you play through the game you will get to a point where a basic shield is included in your starting gear. At this point have your Equipment deck full of basic shields is something of a waste. It's not a complete waste as you can lose your shield, at which point you will be glad that your deck has several shield which makes it easier for you to draw a new one.

You will also have the option to build your Encounter deck. These cards are the events you will encounter as you play. Some are only good, some are only bad, some are good with a risk and some can border on pointless. Though the pointless once can be used to fill out the deck, reducing the risks. In Story mode you are forced to úse certain cards which are locked to the deck until you have completed the event. This also unlocks new cards related to the event that you played. A good example it the event Fire in the Deep. This is a very simple event. You get to choose to attack the monster of flee, and if you fight it, you will get your first encounter with a lava golem. At the end of the session you will get a few new cards for completing the event, which centers on lava golems.

Cards on the table

What can we get from the use of cards? Well, not all of us likes to deal with probability or has the head for it. This makes cards a good way to represent it. Everyone can place into the real world then and understand how it works. Anyone who has ever handled a deck of cards can understand how the randomness of which card is pulled works, at least on a basic level.
This also give the developers a good way to expand the game by simple adding new cards which they have done when the have released updates. They could be clearer about the new cards the add though. They have added new cards, but I don't think they gave a proper heads up that new cards had been added. However, I might have missed it.

Now, what I my opinion to the system? I think it is a very elegant system to use. This might be because I have a fondness for card games and games that includes cards so my opinion is biased in that regard. This system is however limited to certain games. Games with random events can use this system. Unless you give the player some control of which events are available however, it can feel token to the player. It can also feel out of place in games with a more modern setting. Westerns and fantasy game are probably the best candidates for it. But in the end, it depends on the game itself if it is appropriate.

But what do you think about the system? I'd love to have a discussion in the comment section. With that, I'm signing off.

What effect can BasedGamer have on gaming?

FULL DISCLAIMER: I have written review on BasedGamer, one of which has been featured. I have also exchanged messages with people who works there. This includes some question I sent them to get their view to prepare for this article.

So, what is BasedGamer? BasedGamer is a website where anyone can review videogames. This was started to give the consumer a place to review games. According to Jennie Bharaj, one of the creators of the site, "BasedGamer.com is a crowd-curated game review platform for the community". I have seen people compare BasedGamer to Rotten Tomatoes. This would be a poor comparison though the spirit is in the same way. As I have made review on the site I can say that you, as an ordinary person can't just rate the game overall like on Rotten Tomatoes.

This is because a game is on some level fundamentally different to a movie as with a movie all you have to concern yourself with is if it is a good watch. On BasedGamer, every review needs to rate several aspects of the game, those being gameplay, visuals, storyline, music/sound, sociability, entertainment and the difficulty of the game. This gives the user several metrics to judge the game with which is very useful as some consumers are more interested different parts of a game compared to other. Some players for instance only care about how the gameplay is and doesn't care how the game looks or how the storyline is.
They are currently in what they call Phase One where people can start making review, although this is to be able to have reviews available when the site launches.

Now that we know what BasedGamer is we need to ask one question, how will it compare to Metacritic? BasedGamer will have a chance to take over from Metacritic just because it is focused on games and as such will have information that the consumer wants. And in that way, the comparison to Rotten Tomatoes works a lot better. The obstacle for the BasedGamer team to overcome is how to get the review up early. One major advantage that Metacritic has over BasedGamer is that the major publication will still make their review and those review will be connected to Metacritic. I think that with the weakening effect that the major publications have on the market have combined with the rise of alternative reviews such as John "TotalBiscuit" Bain will help the BasedGamer team getting people to start using the site. When I asked the BasedGamer team what their biggest worry was they said that they try not to focus on the worries as that would only be a hinderance. Something I think is admirable but also might risk the team getting sideswiped the a problem down the road.

One major problem with any site relying exclusively on consumers in gaming is the pre-order culture that publishers seem to want to push. This means that the majority might pick the game up before any review can come up on the site. This could be circumvented by working together with the aforementioned alternative reviewers. This is because even among them there are those that get review copies with which they make the reviews you see that comes out before the game is released, just like the major publications. If the site is successful and a large amount of consumers starts to use it, we might see the publishers start to decrease the amount to pre-order pushing currently going on.

But in the end, BasedGamer will only be successful if the consumers make it so. And according to the team, if you look at the response, there will at least be some community that use BasedGamer. And in my opinion, any form of community that tries to inform each other will be good for gaming. It might end up saving people from buying bad or defective games or it might show people a hidden gem. But that will all be decided by how well the platform works when it comes out and how the review look. Judging by the current look of the site, they have a good chance to succeed and they attitude of the BasedGamer team is quite inspirational, with their positive outlook and drive.

I'd like to thank Jennie Bharaj for answering my questions for the article, and on a purely personal level, I wish the team good luck in creating a good community.

Guide to League of Legends, part 3; Tips and Tricks

If you have missed the first two part, you can find part one HERE and part two HERE.

This will be the last part, and in this part I will give you some tips and tricks to help you get started. I can admit that I'm not the best player in the world, far from it in fact. But I do know my way around the Rift so to speak.

My first tip is, find a few champions you like to play. This may sound obvious, but it is the few part that is important. Don't just find one champion you like because you cannot be guaranteed the get it every single game. And only having one champion you can play also means that you can get bored with it, I know I do. And lastly, you aren't as restricted in where you can go on the map.

Secondly I would say that you should make sure to have a positive attitude. You will encounter people who flame and harass people in the chat. Sadly, that comes with interacting with people on the internet I have noticed. The best thing to do is to ignore it, and if to becomes too much, you can mute them by taking up the score screen by holding down Tab and pressing the mute button on the right side. While I tend not to do it because I really don't care about people who say such thing, it is okay to do it. However,never say that you are muting someone because that might make it worse. Just quietly mute them and continue playing.

Now this here is a more personal philosophy, but I would say, never give up. Some people will give up very easily, while I personally never give up until my Nexus has fallen. I have seen game turn when one of the sides had sub 100 health on their Nexus to a win. Because remember, giving up mentally will make sure you lose as you will play worse.

Now for more tactical advice. Don't forget to ward. If you can see where the enemy is you will have an advantage. Wards will help you see where the enemies are when they leave lane. If you compare low level play with high level play you will notice that the better teams places a lot more wards. Why is this so important? Because if you know where you opponent is, you know if you can go super aggressive without being punished for it with a flank.

Even if you don't play a particular champion, you should learn what it can do. Doing this will make sure you know what strengths and weaknesses your opponent has and how you can exploit them. You don't need to know everything about all of the champions, but learn in general terms what they can do.

Playing with friends is the best way to good. The game is much more fun when you play with friends. This also helps you avoid the bad part of the community. If you don't have any friends who play league, you can join communities in league to help you. I for one hang out in The Gentleman's Club on EU West. If you where to play on EU West, I highly suggest joining the chatroom. Everyone in the chatroom are pleasant.

If you want to get better, a good place to start is to master last hitting. Last hitting is the skill of delivering the killing blow to minions to get gold. A good way to train is to create a custom game and just go into lane and last hit. Strive to last hit every minion in every wave.

With these tips you will have a good foundation to get into the game. And as always, have a good day and comments are welcome.

Guide to League of Legends, part 2; On the Fields of Justice.

If you havn't read the first the first part, you can find it HERE.

Game modes

In League of Legends we have 5 permanent game modes. A few of these are variations of each other. In addition to this we have sometimes what is called a Featured Game Mode. These are special modes that are available only for a few weeks which brings a new way to play.

Summoner's Rift

The classic is 5v5 Summoner's Rift, in which teams of 5 players battle through towers to destroy each others Nexus. The map is divided into 3 lanes, Top lane, Mid lane and Bot lane. Each lane contains 3 towers and 1 Inhibitor. Between each lane, you have the Jungle, where you can find neutral monsters, which can be killed for extra experience and gold.

Dividing the map from the top left corner to the bottom right corner is the river. The river is often used as a dividing line. At the start of a game, if you stay on your side of the river, you will be more safe. As soon as you cross over to the enemies side of the river, you can get collapsed on fairly easily. As such, it should not be done unless you have enough information.
The normal division of people on the map is to have 1 person in the top lane, 1 in the mid lane, 2 in the bot lane and 1 in the jungle. This is however not how it will look for the most part in the lower levels as it is difficult to jungle without a proper rune page. In these cases, which you will encounter as you level your account, you will have 2 player in the top lane.
In the jungle, there are 6 major objectives to contest. These are 2 Blue Sentinels also known as the blue buffs, 2 Red Brambleback also known as red buffs, the Dragon and Baron Nashor. The blue buff is a temporary buff granted to the champion which kills a particular monster. The buff grants the champion cooldown reduction and mana regeneration. The buff is transferred if you are killed by another champion. The blue buffs are on opposite sides of the map. One of them is in the left jungle and the other is in the right jungle. The red buffs is like the blue buff but it is in the top and bot jungle. The effect of the red buff is that you get a slow and a true damage DoT on physical attack and that you get increased health regeneration for the duration.

Here is the locations, the Blue Sentinel on the left and the Red Brambleback on the right.

The last 2 objectives in the jungle is in the river. The first one is in the lower river and is the Dragon. Taking down the Dragon can be dangerous early in the game. While it gets easier to take as you get more items and level, you can never take it for granted. The Dragon gives the team which kills it a stacking buff. This caps of at 5 stacks where you get a temporary buff. Every time you kill the Dragon after that, the team gets the buff again.
Baron Nashor is the big objective on the map. To kill Baron Nashor you will generally need the help of the rest of the team. Many games have been lost due to attempts to take the Baron. If your team were to kill the baron, every member of the team that is alive at the time of the killing blow would get the buff, Hand of Baron which gives increased Attack Damage and Ability Power, faster Recall and empowers nearby minions for the duration of the buff.

Here is the locations, the Dragon to the left and Baron Nashor to the right.

What champion goes where changes based on the current meta. Generally though, you have a marksman in the bot lane along with some form of support. It is not always a champion with the support tag. In the mid lane, you will generally see a mage or an assassin. In the top lane and in the jungle you will see different types of champions running from tanks to assassins. But as the meta shifts all the time saying where a particular champion goes is useless as that info can be out of date a week later.

Twisted Treeline

We also have the 3v3 map Twisted Treeline. This is very much like Summoner's Rift, but with some small changes which makes a large change on how it is played. To accommodate just 3 players on each team, there are only 2 lanes, top lane and bot lane with the jungle being between them. The exception to this is that above the top lane at the center you have a small jungle part housing Vilemaw.

The core is the same as Summoner's Rift, but some changes are made. First thing is that there is no river dividing the map. This mean that there is no line straight through the map. This mean that the pathing around the map is different. But that comes with any map. What really changes things are the 2 altars.

There is one on each side of the map. Both teams can take control over them and the give bonuses for each controlled. As the buffs given by the altars being changed at time of writing, I will not comment on what each buff is, however for each altar controlled you will get a buff. So if you are controlling 1 altar you will get one buff, and if you control 2 altars you will get both the buff for controlling 1 altar and the buff for controlling 2 altars. This creates conflict points on the map. After capturing an altar, it will be locked for 90 seconds and can not be captured during that time.
Vilemaw stand in for Baron Nashor on Twisted Treeline. As Vilemaw is undergoing some changes at time of writing I can not comment in specifics on the buff it gives.
In the center of the map, a health relic spawns which gives the champion who walks over it a small amount of health and mana and simulates the effect of a Speed shrine which gives a temporary speed boost.

Crystal Scar

Crystal Scar hosts the often forgotten game mode Dominion, which is very different to the previous two. Crystal Scar is a round arena with 5 capture points. These capture points are how you win the match. Each teams Nexus starts with 500 health. As long as your team control more points than the opponent, their Nexus health will tick down. You can also damage their Nexus by killing champions up to a point, you can't win the game on a kill. The last tick on the Nexus has to be because you control more points.

Next thing to take up in Dominion is the Storm shield. This is something that spawns in the center of the map, one for each team. Any player can got there, channel for a short while and get the buff. The buff has 2 components, the first being a health shield which means that you have a shield the gives you some extra health. The second component grants a damage burst on auto attack and damage spells, though the effect can only proc once every 4 seconds.
There are two other things to note about the mode and that is the health relics and speed shrines around the map.

Howling Abyss

The final map, Howling Abyss stared just as the map where you play the tutorial. It has been expanded to host a less serious game mode, ARAM or All Random All Mid. Howling Abyss doesn't need much of an explanation as it is a very simple map. It is a single lane with no jungle. In ARAM, everyone get a random champion selected from their own pool of available champion. You can get reroll tokens by playing the mode which lets you spin the wheel so to speak if you really don't want to play the champion you got. One major thing to note is that you can not go back to the fountain to heal or to buy items. You can only buy items if you die or at the start of the match.

Featured Game Mode

Now every once in a while, for a limited time there is a featured game mode which puts a twist on a mode. For instance Hexakill where there is a 6v6 on Twisted Treeline. The only difference is that you have 6 extra player on the map. We have also seen a mode where you face super charged bots (Ai controlled champions) on Summoner's Rift and a deathmatch mode on Crystal Scar.

Special events

You might encounter special events or Quests ingame such as The hunt is on, which triggers if one team has Rengar on it with a certain amounts of stacks on his special trinket and the other team has a Kha'Zix which has reached level 16. And the winner in the Quest gets a bonus. There are several of these, but I will leave you to find them. There is a Quest in Dominion which is a team based which I will talk about however. When this Quest triggers, each team is tasked to capture a particular capture point. The team which completes it first gets a temporary buff and deal some damage to the enemies Nexus.

In the following and final part I will talk about some tactics, strategies and tricks. Until then, have a good day and remember that comments are welcome.

Guide to League of Legends, part 1; Outside the game.

Intro

One on the games I have played a lot lately is League of Legends, a free to play game developed by Riot Games. It is a MOBA game played from an isometric view. In the game you control a character called a Champion. At the time of writing, the game contains 121 released Champions with one new currently on the Public Beta Environment or the PBE. It is a free to play game with a fairly fair monetary model. You have a few things to acquire for you. In addition to Champions, you have runes. Runes are minor stat boosts that all players have access to. At the start of each game during Champion Select when all players selects which Champion they are going to play, they also selects a Mastery page and a Rune page. The game has several game mode, ranging from the standard 5v5 game mode with a slower pace to a slightly faster but similar 3v3 mode all the way to a 5v5 mode where you play a random Champion that you have access to. I will going down the different parts of the game, one by one. And a note on the capitalization, I will capitalize several words throughout the article. These terms refer to specific components of the game which everyone might not have familiarity with, and are terms which I will explain in the article.

Account and Summoners

When you create your account, you get to pick you in game name, also know as you Summoner name. Your account represent your Summoner which levels up as you play games. These levels are seperate for Champion level which are earned ingame each game. Each time your account levels up, you gain 1 Mastery point and 1 Rune slot. The max level is 30 at which point you can start to play Ranked games.

Champions, Runes and Masteries

Lets continue with Champions, Runes and Masteries. This is what you set up before the game. The current roster consists of 121 Champions divided up in 6 roles, with several of the Champions having secondary role tags. The role tags are Assassin, Fighter, Mage, Marksman, Support and Tank. Each tag gives a rough idea on how the Champion work and I will explain how they generally work.

Champions

As a new player, you won't own any Champions, you have to buy them as you proceed. Don't worry though, each week 10 Champions are free to play for everyone. You can buy Champions for either Influence points, the currency you earn by playing the game, or for Riot points, which are purchased for real money. The Champions have different prices depending on a few factors, but mainly based on when the Champion was released.
Each Champion has at least 5 Abilities. One passive Ability, three basic Abilities and 1 Ultimate. The passives are varied, although some are quite alike. But even those who share common traits behave differently. There are a few "extra life" passives, each with its own mechanic. We have Anivia who turns into an egg if she gets killed and her passive isn't on cooldown. And we have our gooey hero Zac which splits into 4 blobs when he died is his passive isn't on cooldown, which then move together and reform him unless the enemy destroies the blobs before that. In addition to those, you have passives the gives the Champion a shield, extra move speed, a bleed and a whole lot more.

From left to right, passive, followed by 3 basic abilities, an Ultimate and finished with 2 summoner spells and the recall spell.

All Champions have 3 basic Abilities, and some have 4 but no Ultimate. These Abilities come in all shapes and sizes. Some are simple click on target and do damage, some are player aimed Skillshots, some are activate and get a buff and some are far more complicated. However, many of the simpler Abilities have interesting side effects.
Most Champions have an Ultimate, that being an Ability that is stronger than the basic Abilities. The Ultimates in the game are very varied. In some ways, some Ultimates might seem broken. For instance, we have the Champion Karthus whose Ultimate deals a large amount of magical damage to all enemy Champions after a short channel. This is however balanced by the fact that the channel can be interrupted, unless he is in his passive form which activates when he dies, and that the it has a long cooldown.
In addition to your Champions Abilities, you get to select 2 Summoner spells. These are chosen from a group which everyone has access to. Currently there are 13 Summoner spells in the game. There are 3 mobility related, 4 self enhancement related, 3 that targets enemies and 3 that do other things.

Lastly, you have the Recall spell. This spell is something everyone has access to, and it teleports you back to your base. It takes a couple of seconds to channel, and it gets interrupted if you take damage during the channel. This puts you on the fountain which will health you up to full health and mana.

The Recall spell

Assassins generally are good at doing just that, assassinate. This means that they tend to someway to get on to their target and kill them quickly. However, as a drawback to doing terrible terrible damage(I tip my hat at those who know the reference), they can't really take a hit. If they are caught out, they will go down very quickly.

Fighter are the group most difficult to define, and this is something Riot is having trouble with as well. Fighters are somewhere between Assassins and Tanks. They have more damage than Tanks but less than Assassins. While being able to take more damage than Assassins but less than Tanks. Fighters doesn't follow any distinct pattern. Some have a large amount of damage, some not so much. Some are range(or partly range at least), some are not. Some are very mobile, some not as much. Some do magic damage, some do physical damage. As you can see, there is a great variety to Fighters. But this also makes them difficult to nail down.

Mages are Champions that mainly deal damage through their Abilities. While some can be built to do physical damage, they mainly do magic damage. Other than that, Mages are a quite diverse group, which is shown by the diversity of secondary tags. There is at least one mage with every possible secondary tag, a trait only shared so far by, surprise surprise, the Fighters.

Marksmen are brought together by one thing, most of their damage comes from their Auto attack, generally. While a few can build to primarily do damage through their Abilities, Marksmen can all do large amounts of damage through Auto attacks. Tagging along with that damage, is an inability to take large amounts of damage. Marksmen are known for being one of the least tanky roles.

Supports aid their allies through buffs, heals and Crowd control. During season 4, Riot introduced Utility scalings, something commonly found on Supports. That being scalings that increase the utility of something. For instance, several Movespeed slows got Utility scalings which affected the rate the slow decayed or decreased in effectiveness.

Tanks are a group that is easy enough to understand, they can take a lot of damage. Tanks tend to do relatively small amounts of damage, when looked at in aggregate. This does not mean that they can do damage though as some of the Tanks are know for doing massive amounts of damage if built a certain way. But something that is universal among the Tanks is that they have some sort of Crowd control.

Runes

Runes are something that each player can acquire for Influence points, the in game currency earned through playing games. Each Rune gives a small stat bonus, which can be put into a Rune page. The Runes comes in four versions and 3 tiers. Each tier is a bit stronger than the last with tier 3 Runes being the strongest. The 4 versions are, Glyhps, Sigils, Marks and Quintesenses. Runes either gives a flat bonus or give a bonus that scales with your champions level ingame. The general consensus is that you should not spend any Influence point on Runes until your Summoner level is at least 20, as it is a that point you gain access to tier 3 runes. This also means that at that point you will have a grasp of what each stat does, and which is useful on which Champion.

Masteries

On each Summoner level, you gain one Mastery point, to spend on masteries. Mastery points are never permanently spent to be clear. You can have up to 20 different Mastery pages, in which you can have different configuration of masteries for different Champions. This is so you don't have to fix a full page each time you are starting a new game.
The Masteries are split into 3 catagories, Offence, Defence and Utility. The Offence tree contains things that boost you offensive capabilities or are triggered by offensive actions. The last one you can get in the Offence tree is Havoc, which gives you 3% increased damage. This counts for abilities and auto-attacks. The Defence tree helps you to survive, either through giving you more health, more resistances, more health regeneration or through strait up damage reduction. The final Mastery in the Defence tree is Tenacious, which reduces Crowd control on you by 15%. The final tree is Utility. This one gives you a bit of everything not included in the other trees. It have masteries that increases your Mana regeneration, gold generation or as the final mastery in the tree, Wanderer does, movement speed. Wanderer gives you 5% increased movement speed outside of combat.

I will continue with the guide soon, at that point going more into the ingame aspects. And as always, comments at welcome and have a good day.

Update - Lets resurrect this thing.

Right, this thing died hard. My last attempt to revive this thing failed horribly. I think I failed last time because I couldn't find anything to write about. This time I won't be as picky and I will not care too much about the length of the articles.

I'm planning on getting into a schedule where at least one or two articles are posted every month. The more responce I get, the more effort I will put into this. As I'm starting to make my own games, I might have beta or alpha test for readers. And if someone wants me to cover something, contact me.

I will post on twitter when I post a new article. You can follow me @RaiganAvalon

A personal word on combat and difficulty, part 2

Bullet sponges, what can I say about them other than that they are the worst thing ever invented.

The big problem with bullet sponges is that they arn't any more difficult then enemies with less health. If you can defeat the enemy when it has less health without taking damage, you can take the same enemy regardless of how much health it has. This make scaling difficulty by increasing health pointless as as you get better, the enemies just gets annoying, not difficult.

This is not how you do good difficulty. You should make the enemies more intelligent. Sadly, I have yet to see a game that did this. Though I have some ideas about how it could be done. If you compare how the enemies in Assassin's Creed and the enemies in God Hand act, you can see that in Assassin's Creed, the enemies wait a lot more for their allies to finish their attacks before attacking themselfs. While in God Hand, they just attack you if they see an opening. In games where you fight a lot of enemies, you could scale the enemies aggresivness instead of their attack pattern. While each individual enemy wouldn't be any more difficult to defeat, groups would be a lot harder.

This became a shorter part, didn't have much to say this time and I wanted to get another post out. Sorry for that.