Drew’s Out of Office — Zounds! — June 7th, 2024
Buckle up… this is a long one
Games I’m Playing — Princely Sum — Back in the late 90s 3DO was a string of 3 characters that wasn’t actually 1337 speak for the former name of 東京, but a game company. It was known for an absurdly expensive console in the mid-90s and a string of mostly mediocre original IP with a smidge of quality games. RIP. One of these was the Heroes of Might and Magic (HoMM) series. It was a top down? Birdseye?! flat view, turn based, semi-4X game in a fantasy setting. HoMMII and HoMMIII were highlights of the series with a map editor and plenty of exploration to be had (HoMMIV shall go henceforth unmentioned). Additionally players could play “hot seat” which was shared local multiplayer. When 3DO folded Ubisoft bought the rights and did exactly what one would imagine. So with that, a worthy successor had yet to present itself… until Clash of Cl… now. Until now
Songs of Conquest released May 10th on PC and is a tonal and systemic clone of HoMMIII. There are multiple campaigns players can choose from where they take the role of a hero and set out for a night on the Barony. This starts with players controlling Cecillia, Baroness of Stoutheart. Her Barony is under attack and she’s building allies and leading armies while uncovering a plot by the Followers of Loth who have been raising undead and attacking her lands. The player must capture territory, raise armies/defeat enemy heroes, build/gain experience, and explore. Additionally players can find or hire new heroes. Truthfully, much like the game that inspired it, the story simply supports the gameplay loops rather than add much intrigue. It’s not bad, just about as interesting as it should be with each chapter bookended with an unskippable bard’s tale. There are four scenarios each with the goal of teaching players how to use different factions as the real fun, much as in the games of days gone, is in the conquest and multiplayer modes. The graphics are minimal and not much different than a game from 1999 and the music is soft and pleasant without being annoying (looking at you, Balatro)
The game is kind of split into 3 separate games. The first involves moving a hero/heroes around a ~bird’s eye view of the world. On that map players move heroes to multiple types of treasure including resources (either in single use piles or in mines that produce recurring “revenue” every turn, gold (also in piles or mines), enemies, trees, ponds, towers, sacrificial altars, etc. The primary game loop is moving the character their limited number of spaces each turn, exploring, and collecting stuff
The second game stems from the first and is city building. Players construct preset buildings in towns they either start with or capture. A series of upgrades allows players to build more advanced buildings, recruit more powerful troops, and research new spells and powers.This is a longer loop than exploration and the resources gathered in the moment to moment are what allow players to build, upgrade, and recruit. The more advanced/powerful the thing, the more it costs. The upgrade systems and recruiting are fun 25 years after HoMMIII
Finally, players engage in combat on a battlefield made of hexagons like a board game from the 80s. Players make strategic choices about arrangement and set their troops on preset spaces, typically on either side of the battlefield. There are beefy fighter types meant for melee engagements and ranged attackers who are weak up close but can do a lot of damage at distance. Troops all have different amounts of movement across the battlefield. To add spice, heroes who are not present on the field are able to cast spells. Their spellbooks grow over time and become powerful enough to turn the tide of a specific battle (these spells are cast by players and can affect all or specific targets)
The game is truly the first to fully take up the mantle of the Heroes of Might and Magic games and it’s about time. It’s a city builder, a battle tactics simulator, an explorer’s dream, and a good time. The only issue is the progenitors certainly gave inspiration to some of the predatory mobile base building experiences that dominated that market for so long. Those games took good gameplay and eXploited players by monetizing all the currencies, building/troop upgrades. This game has none of those exploitative measures and is truly a relic of a different era in the best way
Op-Ed — Repeat Offender — Nearly 40 years ago the game industry was in a tailspin. The engine’s roar of the first console generation was silenced due to overabundance and lack of quality. The “Atari Shock,” as it was known in Japan, would end up simultaneously nearly destroying while also redefining what games would be (years later Japan would colloquially refer to the 2008 financial crisis as “Lehman Shock”). What caused this collapse and rebirth and how is it applicable to the industry today
From the late 70s to ~1983 the video game industry appeared unstoppable. It had grown from a fledgling hobby to an inflation adjusted $9.76 billion industry. Games were mostly story free simple ideas that mirrored arcades, from the hit Pong to games like Pac-Man, Asteroids, Space Invaders, Missile Command, etc. The Atari Video Computer System (later known as the Atari 2600) brought games into players’ living rooms with huge sales. Additionally, it was the age of arcades, with 1000s of locations around the US and elsewhere stocked with the high quality games of the time. Jerry Lawson created game cartridges at Fairchild Semiconductor that were later popularized by the 2600. This made gaming consoles possible in a real way. With the ability to play different games on a single console and the success of the 1977 launch of the 2600, video games were on the rise. Players were playing, revenue was growing exponentially, and games were being made. Things were good. But when things are good people tend to become blinded. Multiple electronics manufacturers saw the $$ and entered the console market with new systems like: Colecovision (Coleco is short for Connecticut Leather Company, if you can believe it), Intellivision, Magnavox Odyssey, and the Vectrex. Additionally, game developers at Atari weren’t getting credit for their work so several left in 1979 and formed Activision. They wanted to release games independently that would work on the 2600. After some initial lawsuits it was determined Activision could freely make games for Atari but needed to pay a licensing fee (30% cut). A few years later, it was successful with its own games and Venture Capital took notice. They started to invest money in other independent game studios but mostly with inexperienced teams that ended up producing a dearth of shovelware. The industry had a lack of quality control coupled with too much content and too many consoles. It was a recipe for disaster. By 1985 Industry revenue fell to an adjusted $283 million. All this would change within a few years by “Leaving Luck to Heaven”
Today games (Console, Mobile, PC) is roughly a $200 billion industry, but size doesn’t mean it’s impervious to mistakes of the past. Consoles have seen budgets balloon and sales stagnate in a market where everything competes for attention. The mobile marketplace (App Store/Google Play), have long adopted a laissez faire attitude towards gaming which has enabled endless shovelware and questionable design which, regardless of how much money it makes, has become the norm. These marketplaces need revised strategies
The console market has become too consolidated and complacent. Years of ballooning budgets have heavily altered risk taking and created a hyperfocus on dependable profits. While it’s true any organization needs profits to exist, it also needs innovation. These are things that can be opposed to each other. How can console games achieve this? Firstly, budgets need to come down. The graphics races of early generations aren’t what sells games now and it’s perfectly acceptable to play prior generation console games dating back to the mid-2000s. Second, invest in new content. While dependable revenue has always been, and should be, a clear goal, content gets stale. Create skunkworks teams focused on creating new gameplay and finding the fun (Supercell does this well). Finally, learn the right lessons from mobile gaming namely, smaller teams/budgets for many projects as well as shorter experiences are ok. Console games are fundamentally different from mobile and there is a strong and loyal market for them, but it doesn’t mean there’s no room for improvement
Mobile games are covered in years of an open market and a rush to the bottom. Something I pressed for while at Google, and failed to fully make happen, was to let players opt into experiences they wanted through self selecting stores (we did launch Google Play Premium, but it was buried in UI). I.e. if players want premium experiences, let them land on a store with only paid games. After all, cost is only anathema when people are price anchored. Imagine trying to sell an Hermes Bag in Walmart… it’s not going to happen. Next, the industry should take a hard look at the designs implemented therein. To gloss over and say that designs are above board and people are all making their own decisions is dishonest. Subsequently, games can be more complex and interesting. Arcades started out with artificial difficulty aimed at collecting the most quarters but things evolved. Gamers began demanding more out of games including story, depth of gameplay, and removal of artificial barriers. Play should become less about addiction and more about fun. Finally, Apple, Google, and any newcomers (Microsoft) should focus on real curation and quality. The plague that almost destroyed the industry back in 85 was endless shovelware and a lack of gatekeepers
This brings us back to the market bottom in 1985. The Atari Shock didn’t happen in Japan and a company had been preparing for a US release. In 1985 the NES launched and changed the world. It brought original game content that was a cut above any prior console offerings. It incorporated the Official Nintendo Seal of Quality to address the era of games that was leaving and the new one that was forming. Aside from reviewing 3rd party games it also meant limiting the number of games a publisher could release on the NES annually to keep shovelware from becoming the norm. Less games meant publishers were focused on better quality in order for it to be a profitable endeavor
The collapse was a harbinger of much needed change. The industry proved it wasn’t a fad but changes may well be needed and we ignore them at our own peril
Game Dev — Anatomy of a Fall — One issue that plagues many open world games is there is a quantity over quality problem when it comes to content therein. In the pre-live services time this was often to give players enough to keep them occupied and keep games off the used game shelf at Gamestop. In the eyes of publishers, players also demanded a certain number of hours in a game to be worth the price of admission. With a sort of proto-engagement model, along with the expansion of the open world genre, this led to the need for lots of content throughout a world to make it feel full. This also led to the proliferation of the game equivalent of “busy work,” that is to say lots of non-mainline content that feels more like a job than fun (it should be noted that some of this can also be due to truncated development schedules). An example of a game with a great mainline quest and terrible sidequests is Mass Effect (who can forget those cookie cutter Mako missions or planet scanning — Strangely, ME2 was essentially all side quest loyalty missions with a minimal main quest)
To dissect good side quests, we need to establish what one is. For starters, this is content that is outside of whatever the main goal of the game is. To use Mass Effect again, the overarching goal of players is to stop the Reapers from destroying life in the galaxy. To that effect, an optional mission that was about resolving a local dispute between two people in the citadel would be outside the main quest and not affect progress toward that goal
Part I (the needle)
In Fallout: New Vegas there is a multipart sidequest called “Return to Sender.” This mission is ancillary to the main story, though it could have an effect on the outcome. Each part of the sidequest builds on the previous part, though that’s not apparent at the outset. The quest can start relatively early in the game at an NCR (New California Republic) outpost named Camp Forlorn Hope. If the player talks with a Radio Operator named Sgt. Reyes, she tells the player they need to deliver a new security code to multiple ranger stations to keep communications secure:
PLAYER GOAL: Deliver security code to six Ranger Stations
INTEREST LEVEL: Low. Feels like an errand rather than something exciting, with the exception of the framing of some points of interest in the world
WHY IT WORKS: While not a particularly exciting task, the quest likely has the player heading to multiple locations they had not previously discovered. So it expands knowledge of the overall map, introduces key points of interest along the way, such as Camp Golf and Caesar’s Legion HQ across Lake Mead, and pushes players to the area in/around New Vegas itself. It also directly ties into the core gameplay concept of exploration
Part II (the thread)
Once completed, players return to Sgt. Reyes to check in. While many games would be content to end the mission here, NV doesn’t. Reyes informs the player they’ve been receiving strange messages from three of the previously visited Ranger Stations since the security code update. She asks the player to go back and investigate:
PLAYER GOAL: Return to three Ranger Stations and verify the issues (much easier this time with Fast Travel)
INTEREST LEVEL: Medium. Narratively it’s more interesting this time as the transmissions Reyes received seem far fetched
WHY IT WORKS: It raises the narrative stakes from the first mission with the allure of potential combat and allows the player to come in and, potentially, save each Station. However, when the player arrives, they find that each of the communications weren’t true and the stations are under no immediate threat… Whoa
Part III (the stitch)
The player returns to Sgt Reyes and lets her know the information was bunk. Confused, she tasks the now invested player with going to Camp Golf, likely discovered during the first part of this mission, to talk with Chief Hanlon, as communications are routed through Camp Golf before being relayed to Camp Forlorn
PLAYER GOAL: Head to Camp Golf and talk to Chief Hanlon
INTEREST LEVEL: High. The communications are clearly being altered in transit from Ranger Station -> Camp Golf -> Camp Forlorn Hope. Who was responsible and why was it happening? Questions abound!
WHY IT WORKS: It raises the stakes to a surreptitious plot at a new location and can present a bunch of information on the main factions within the world, namely NCR and Caesar’s Legion. Ultimately, the player is presented with a choice that can have a consequential impact on the outcome of the game
Chief Hanlon, an old salt who’s in charge of Camp Golf and NCR Ranger, talks with the player while sitting on a deck that faces Lake Mead. Consequently, Caesar’s HQ adorns the horizon on the other side. The stakes for him are real and he stares at them day in/out. Chief Hanlon is affable and tells the player how the NCR has become corrupt with influences that may not serve the people. Moreover, it has been losing troops in New Vegas since before the first battle of the Hoover Dam and the backup Rangers that were sent to New Vegas weren’t the best of the bunch (they went to Baja)
He also covers the origin of Caesar and his first lieutenant and how he gained power. When confronted about the altered Ranger Station communications coming from Camp Golf he asks the player to come somewhere private with a reassuring, “Don’t worry, this dog lost its bite a long time ago.” Now in Hanlon’s office he reveals the motives for the alterations. He believes the work in New Vegas will be the end of the NCR, even if they defeat Caesar’s Legion. “Will the NCR take and hold the entire Colorado River? How many more lives need to be lost?” Reasonable questions. The player can choose to turn him in or allow him to continue to alter communications. If the player says they will turn him in, he asks them to get a Ranger to make it official. When the player steps out the door closes and locks. Hanlon sends a ~1 min message out to all the Ranger Stations apologizing for letting them down. After he signs off the player hears a gunshot. Hanlon’s plot is over but so is his life
This side quest is a relatively simple but deep one. Narratively, it demonstrates the depth of the world and world events including two of the major regional players and the stakes within the Mojave. From a gameplay perspective it delivers an emotional player payoff where the decisions they made influence the future of the world. It also takes the relatively boring concept of delivery and flips it on its head by raising the stakes and then subverting expectations, i.e. instead of an infiltrator from Caesar’s Legion, it’s a veteran with good intentions. The final conflict isn’t a shootout or assassination, as one might expect. It’s a decision, and one that doesn’t have a clear “right” answer
In building side quests there is often a propensity to create busy work for the player. This is a shame as a well thought out, but not overly costly needle, thread, and stitch can create memorable and world building results