Devlog 9

During this week (October 17 and 19), we began discussing the next major group project for the class. On Tuesday, we played BattleBattle! and discussed game balance; we also were tasked with making a change to balance the character we were given before Thursday's class. In Chapter 13 of The Art of Game Design, Jesse Schell enumerates the twelve most common types of balance in games and discusses things like the forms in which these types of balance appear and some techniques and tips for striking proper balance. The twelve types are fairness, challenge vs. success, meaningful choices, skill vs. chance, head vs. hands, competition vs. cooperation, short vs. long, rewards, punishment, freedom vs. controlled experience, simple vs. complex, and detail vs. imagination. Of these, the ones of particular interest to our next project are the first four, the sixth and seventh, and the eleventh; we have been given requirements like keeping the game length to about 10 minutes, and other considerations like skill being able to overcome the chance-based nature of the game are also important. Richard Garfield discusses similar points in Design Lessons from Poker, pointing out aspects of poker that work well like its luck and skill elements, the short length of the game, its customizability, and its high stakes. One point in particular stands out, though; Garfield states that luck and skill are best thought of as two axes, and while having less luck in a game allows players to showcase their talent, adding more luck may make players more willing to play the game since a player can always come back from behind. Other important points are made about the flexibility of poker's framework and the customizability of the game; the same can be said of BattleBattle!, which I presume is one of the reasons why we are using it as a basis for the next project.