I've been to a number of talks at GDC and PAX by some very smart people that have espoused the idea of building a series of 7-day prototypes as a way of generating good game ideas. There are two main arguments that are usually presented in support this idea. The first is that 90% of anyone's game ideas are crap (Sturgeon's Law) and the only way to find the good ones is to try them all out. The second is that game design is just hard anyone who wants to do it well needs lots of practice.
I recently decided to put my current project on hold and try this idea out. The result of my first attempt at a 7-day prototype is below (click to play, needs a large browser window, sorry about that):
Overall, it was a really fun experience to build this. It is challenging with lots of room for creativity. The time limit really helps to keep you focused.
The game itself, I feel, plays well at the beginning but has a tendency to getting bogged down in the later game as borders are drawn the player and AI push each other back and forth with small attacks. In these cases, I've found that the AI, with its infinite stamina, will grind the player down and win which can be less than fun. Were I to continue with this game, I would probably try to find a way to give the advantage to big pushes instead of lots of small pushes. Or, perhaps, make the game completely non-symmetrical.
Anyway, feedback is more than welcome.
Edit: Requires Flash 10.
All I see is a black screen and nothing happens. Using Mac. Tested with FF, Safari & Chrome.
Posted by: s | October 21, 2009 at 07:42 PM
I just tested it on a Mac and didn't have a problem in FF or Safari. Two guesses:
- Do you have Flash 10 installed? If not, that is probably the problem.
- Are you using a PowerPC-based Mac? The game uses Pixel Shaders which run in interpreted mode on PowerPC-based Macs and might be the source of the problems. (Unfortunately, the only Mac I have ready access to is Intel-based so I can't test this theory)
Thanks.
Posted by: Alex | October 21, 2009 at 08:22 PM
I like the game. Unfortunately, the AI is not very good about building its network. It should prioritize getting to more resources instead of just building nodes. I beat it easily on Impossible. I think this would be very fun in multiplayer though. Good job.
Posted by: Mirolyub Hristov | October 22, 2009 at 02:43 AM
couldn't figure out controls :(
Posted by: makc | October 22, 2009 at 05:32 AM
Mirolyub: Thanks. I'm impressed that you were able to beat it easily on Impossible. My early testers (including myself) felt it was too hard, not too easy. You are right that the AI does not make any global plans, just acts in locally optimal ways. Planning would definitely help.
makc: Sorry about that. At the start, the single green, red and blue spheres are the players. The multi-colored 3 sphere mixes are resources. You are the green player, click on the dark green sphere and when it becomes light green, an overlay will appear and you will be able to build an edge and a new node. Capture resources and cut edges of enemies to cut off their resources. Any node left without edges is eliminated. Hopefully that will get you started.
Posted by: Alex | October 22, 2009 at 01:02 PM
Yep, I got Flash 9. A few months back, Flash 10 started crashing every single browser on the Mac. So had to go back to 9. I'll try it 10, fingers crossed. :-)
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