R.A.I.N. back story (First Draft)

The following is an account of the events prior to the game, which will provide the player with some sort of idea what the situation is.

In the final years of the late 23rd century humanity has changed. The entirety of the world is under the control of a single world government, under which exist a number of super nations who’s leaders answer directly to this world government. This world government is rife with political posturing and corruption, population control is enforced to ensure the populace is kept under their heel, under the guise of protecting the planet from “overpopulation”. This in conjunction with world wide redistribution of wealth and destruction of all religious institutions has served to turn humanity into a depopulated, unimaginative, shadow of its former self. Despite discovering the ability to travel through space beyond our solar system, space exploration has been suspended by the world government in the hopes of keeping humanity imprisoned and under their control on Earth.

However, not quite everyone has been reduced to slavery. During the end of the first World War a number of religious, political and economic leaders appalled by what was effectively the suicide of Western civilization formed an organization in secret. The sole purpose of this organization was  to act a life raft for all of the knowledge of humanity as well as a seed to begin humanity anew. The original idea was for the organization to gradually mend the wounds of World War I and rebuild the West slowly and quietly, however the events of the Second World War shattered those plans. Realizing the slow path to decay humanity was on, the organization retreated to a string of islands in the South Pacific to prepare in secret for the decay of humanity. In their isolation the organization, with vast sums of money and resources from across the world at its disposal constructed numerous labs and living quarters hidden deep within the dense jungles of their islands. The organization recruited scientists and other various persons of interest to their cause, transporting them to the islands where they may continue their work in secret. The organization developed computers based off of the first computers developed during the second World War by the United States, however with their near limitless resources and talent their technology advanced at a rate far faster than ours. By the 1970s they had hardware that would have amazed humans from the general population, hundreds of years in the future.

As the moral fiber and intelligence of the general population eroded the organization turned its sights toward the stars, in the hopes of finding a new planet upon which to rebuild humanity. Developing aircraft that put the most advanced jets of the U.S. Military to shame, they began experimenting with space travel, their initial tests however did not go unnoticed. The foreign nature of their aircraft, and lack of information on them caused many humans in the general population to assume that they were alien UFOs. Eventually the organization was able to discover how to fly through the atmosphere, then through the solar system, and eventually how to travel to other stars.However, their efforts had not gone unnoticed. The general population was becoming increasingly suspicious as they began to trace patterns in the sightings of organization aircraft and personnel. The United Nations world government began sending military units to the area to investigate.

Recognizing their peril the organization filled their space craft with their people and fled the planet en mass, taking all of their scientific discoveries and technology with them, and leaving behind only empty facilities. In their panic however, they had not had time to complete their search for a suitable planet to inhabit. Instead they opted to have the ships set a course through the stars, stopping to test each planet in the hopes of finding one capable of supporting life, while they slept in cryo stasis. The protection and maintenance of the ships and crew was left to the ships Robotic Armored Independent Necros, RAINs for short. The stability and health of a human mind is unable to be preserved if it is simply frozen for hundreds of years however, some sort of activity needs to stimulate the brain to keep it from simply dying from lack of use.  In order to maintain their minds, the humans infused their personas into the machines, by providing them with a link to each individual humans mind. The RAINs now had the personalities and memories of their humans stored within them, influencing their decisions and making them more than machines, they were programmed to act with the best of humanities traits, selflessness, courage, honesty, and compassion, while never having access to emotions such has hatred or despair.

After hundreds of years roaming the stars, one of their ships at last comes across a habitable world, similar in appearance to Earth, though it is nearly triple Earths size, as well as possessing a far greater percentage of jungle habitats. As the ship moved to land a freak thunderstorm caught them in their descent, due to the size of the planet and the greater height of its atmosphere the lightening bolts were far larger and more powerful than anything on earth. They tore right through the ships canopy, destroying countless humans asleep in their pods, as well as many of the RAINs, before they had even hit the ground. Upon crash landing in the middle of a dense jungle the surviving RAINs began attempting to wake the humans up, only to discover that the atmosphere was toxic, and the air would not be breathable for humans for another 3 thousand years. Unfortunately, the RAIN of the captain (a powerful and domineering man) had been struck by lightening during the crash. While it was not killed, the safeguards against it being able to access its humans negative emotions were destroyed. Now completely aware of the situation, and its position as a servant, the RAIN went mad and fled into the jungle, murdering the RAINs that attempted to halt its flight. Alarmed and reminded of their roles as humanities guardians the RAINs set themselves to work fortifying the crash site, before long they had erected a massive fortress city around the crashed ship, and placed themselves in positions of perpetual vigilance, always watching for the return of the mad RAIN.

In its hatred and madness the crazed RAIN roamed far to the North, where it bent the will of native primates and animals to its will. It erected massive factories capable of producing their own RAINs as well as modifying the native creatures to act as beasts of war. All of this with the intent of reclaiming the crash site and killing the remaining humans in the hopes of being freed from their “slavery”. The mad RAIN is at one critical disadvantage however, the existing RAINs all still possess their human elements, enabling them to think more deeply and develop greater skills. While his machines of war can think, it is all mathematical and devoid of emotion or deeper thought, meaning they are outclassed by the original RAINs and their access to superior technology. Realizing this, the mad RAIN makes a force of overwhelming size over two and a half thousand of years with the intent of overwhelming the guardian RAINs and their fortress city.

The players are RAINs that were discovered in one of the segments of the ship that had been sealed off since the crash under rubble. And only explored recently by the other RAINs in search of aid as they are under siege by the mad RAINs forces. Their first moments in the game are of seeing the light of day and their fellow RAINs for the first time, as artillery sails overhead and the sounds of war shake the air around them.

R.A.I.N. basic design mechanics

Since I make the claim that I want to be a game designer, I think it’d be best if I actually started laying out my game design theories and prototypes in detail. Normally I’d be concerned about simply handing out intellectual property that I may receive absolutely no credit for. But in this case, I recognize that this blog receives virtually no traffic so that’s a bit of a non issue.

One of my current pet projects goes by the name “Rain” it’s roots can be traced back to virtually any 1 vs. 100 type game currently on the market today. Be it, Gears of Wars Horde mode, Killing Floor, Left 4 Dead, or even Counter Strike’s zombie mod, “Rain” has borrowed the best of these ideas while weeding out the flaws. The core of the game is one simple fact, you are going to die, no matter how well you perform, in the end, you will be unable to resist the enemy waves and the game will end. The entire game can be summed up in its name. What do you feel when it begins to rain? The first few cold drops of liquid splashing on your exposed flesh, chilling you, heightening your senses, and you are left with the distinct impression something is about to happen. Then the rain begins to fall in earnest, drenching you, overwhelming you, until eventually you are completely soaked and chilled.

In games such as Left 4 Dead or CSS’ Zombie Mod, you are fleeing from an enemy towards some sort of salvation, be it a boat, plane, car, or safe house. This works well enough as a game mechanic, as it gives the player a sense of urgency bordering on panic, that if they do not keep up, they will be left behind to suffer the worst. This premise suffers from a fundamental flaw however, if you are spending all your time moving forward, that’s typically where your gun is pointed as well. You shoot enemies to clear a path so that you may continue to move onward. but the majority of enemies do not receive your immediate attention and often just turn into an ominous presence behind you, that you rarely stop to face. Sure there are occasional stop points, typically where you hold one position while waiting for some  contrived and painfully slow escape mechanism to allow you to move onward. But these defense events are often no more than standing around, hosing down enemies as you wait for that helicopter which always manages to be late and trigger a bunch of enemies. Again, all of this would normally be fine, the problem is, that after you’ve done the same thing a dozen times, the sense of urgency and fear from the chasing enemies dulls, and the impatience at defense points where you are forced to hold out is relegated to a sort of bland shoot in place checkpoint.

The map design in “Rain” borrows the concept of a relatively linear long map, but in most other aspects, it is a sort of up-ended version of the map design mentioned above. Effectively the players would begin at the “end” and finish at the “beginning”. For the purposes of demonstration I’ll lay out a match in this game mode from start to finish with key components being elaborated on at the end.

You start in a garrison in the woods with a number of other players, the walls are crumbling and the blast door to the complex looks like it could topple inward at any moment. You spend the next couple of minutes searching around for weaponry, armor, and building supplies. Weapons initially consist of the most rudimentary of firearms, low caliber revolvers, bolt action rifles, pump shotguns, and perhaps a couple of frag grenades. The players would use the remaining time to shore up their defenses, load their weaponry, and position themselves before the first enemy attack. Waves would initially consist of the most basic of enemies, their weapon accuracy, damage, and hit points would all be relatively low. Players gain points for barricading and repairing barricades, along with kills and assists, they may also gain points based off of their equipment and how well they use it (ie, use of medical items, buff items, etc, etc). Enemy movements and attacks are dictated by a player commander.

After a while the players will begin to run low on ammunition and enemy waves will become too difficult to handle with their current equipment. It is at this stage that the players may decide to fall back, on this particular map, their garrison has an underground bunker attached to it. They would retreat inside the main entrance to the bunker and close the blast doors, granting them a set amount of time to prepare, however now that they have passed the first stage, they will have their first armory open to them. After making their purchases, they will once again take up position and hold off the waves of enemies until it becomes necessary to retreat. The end goal of the game is to have as many “community points” as possible by the end of the match. Finally they will reach an area from which there is no retreat, the players are reminded that this is the “Death room” and to make any final purchases at the armory they need. Here they will hold out for as long as possible, while receiving suicide offers at various time points.

When all players are permanently dead, the game will end.

Armories: Armories are just what you’d expect, rooms containing armors, items, and weapons all of which perform specific roles, and cost certain amounts of points. Borrowing from DOTA style games, some of these items are flat uses and some form item trees which lead into more powerful items with more unique attributes. For instance, you may choose to purchase a shotgun and a type of armor which protects against thermal damage. Possessing one or both of these items may reduce the price of say a cryo shotgun, which gives a buff against thermal weapons, and fires rounds which freeze enemy limbs on impact. Additionally, they may buy med kits, building materials, and various other stand alone buffs like night vision goggles or laser sights for weapons. This includes special items like armored suits, turrets, and friendly defense bots which may be deployed to aid the players. Armored suits are just what you’d expect, player piloted mechanized suits armed with a multitude of different weapons and abilities, these suits retain the abilities of any of the player’s previous equipment. Meaning that if you had a flamethrower, the armored suit will also have something similar if not identical. How do you keep players from all simply buying armored suits and never fighting on foot? Simple, make repairing them at armories costly, along with a costly purchase price and reduced movement speed.

Just a side note, the reason these locations are called armories and use points versus being called shops and using money for purchases is simple, immersion. I enjoyed Killing Floor immensely, its gun-play was excellent as were the maps and enemy units. However, one of the things that killed it for me was that in order to gain new weapons, you had to go to a shop and use money to buy new weapons. This situation causes two major questions to arise.

1. How is shooting a zombie in the head somehow giving me $5? Where does this money magically appear from, and who is paying me?

2. Why the hell… is a shop keeper demanding money for weapons in a clearly post apocalyptic setting where paper currency is likely worthless. Not to mention the fact that you are the ones protecting her. Wouldn’t it be in her best interest to just give you whatever weapons you demanded?

The armory system resolves these questions by having it so that you are receiving weapons from an AI installed in the armory that distributes weapons to players based on combat performance. The AI “observes” this performance via security cameras scattered throughout every map. This is not literally how players gain points, they will receive points regardless of their location while in combat, however it does serve to maintain the atmosphere and protect immersion.

Commanders: For a good comparison, it may be prudent to look up the Half Life 2 mod, Zombie Master. Commanders are randomly selected players who view the entire map from an RTS perspective.  At the beginning of each wave, the commander is given a set number of unit points to spend on a multitude of different types of units to throw at the players within a certain amount of time. The number of NPCs available to the commander scales based upon how many players there are and what stage of the game they are at. However, the number of enemies and variation at the commander’s disposal will increase with each stage, regardless of player count and deaths. If the players survive to the final stage, commanders will receive dramatically increased numbers of unit points at their disposal and the ability to spend them on super units.

From the map overview, commanders will see the layout of the entire map, and deploy units how they want to. For instance, they may tell 50 NPCs to attack from the East, and use melee attacks. While they may order a detachment of 30 units to attack the players from the North but to hang back at 500 meters and engage with ranged attacks. This does not require sophisticated AI, or a massive learning curve, you simply issue basic orders and AI with simple friend/foe recognition can carry out these orders. Obviously player controlled “defector” units are outside of the commanders control. NPC attack groups can consist of any unit combinations, attack types, and directions the commander desires, to clarify, you can attack with more than just one unit from one direction. Or alternatively, you could get a large amount of the same type of unit and have them attack from multiple directions.

Building materials: Building materials serve a number of different functions, their first and primary role is to shore up defensive weak points. For instance the weakened blast door may be strengthened by reinforcing it with some iron bars and planks of wood. This is a temporary solution that helps to alleviate pressure on the players when enemy waves become overwhelming. The secondary role of materials is to act as temporary cover, the items if placed as cover may have a certain number of hit points based on what the item actually is. Obviously a concrete barricade will be able to withstand more punishment than say an overturned wooden table. Certain special building materials may be purchased from the Armory for various amounts of points. For instance, items like deflector panels may deflect 20% of the shots fired at them back at enemy troops.

Death: The death mechanics themselves are relatively simple, a player may go down 3 times before they are permanently killed. In this downed mode they may crawl and use a side arm before bleeding out (assuming a teammate does not help them up). Enemies will ignore downed players unless all players in an NPCs vision are downed. Once a player is permanently dead, they are given two options. They may either receive whatever community points they earned during the game, and quit. Or alternatively, they may choose to defect.  The concept of defecting is really quite simple, dead players may occupy a lesser enemy NPCs body and fight against his former allies. The limiting factor to this, is that they are not allowed to occupy the more powerful NPCs and they have a limited number of respawns. What this means is that while they may be more precise and dangerous than your average NPC, they still have very limited firepower and durability and as such will not be a dire threat to players. Players gain minor amounts of community points for defecting, though the real allure to doing it, is to have the ability to shoot at your friends. Players are able to occupy and lose up to 5 NPCs before they are barred from occupying any more NPCs and have to either spectate or leave the game.

Suicide: The suicide mechanic is integral to the game’s reward system. On the last stage, in the room from which players cannot escape, they will occasionally receive a prompt asking them whether or not they would like to commit suicide. The benefit to committing suicide, is that in addition to your flat reward for completing the entire map, you receive a community points bonus. This introduces a bit of a gambling factor, the players will be given the choice to vote on whether or not they will all suicide, if they refuse, they will have to hold out until the next suicide offer. Each successive suicide offer brings greater community point rewards. However, the risk to going for the greater rewards, is that if players are killed between suicide offers, they only receive their flat community points reward for reaching the final stage, all bonus offers are revoked. The way the actual suicide mechanic would be worked into the game in a believable way however, is that there will be a bomb which is capable of detonation during set points in time. If the bomb does not detonate, the base remains intact and the enemy gains control of it. However if the bomb is detonated the facility is destroyed along with all enemy units. This is why players are rewarded when they detonate the bomb, and are not rewarded when they die between suicide offers because they were greedy.

Community Points: Throughout this basic game layout, I have referenced “Community Points” a few times. The purpose they serve, is a sort of ranking system within the games community that does not directly impact game play. For instance, a player earns 1 million community points, at this stage they may apply for a position as an admin on the game’s official forums. This grants them some community power, but no direct game advantages (assuming of course they are approved for admin-ship). In addition, players may unlock certain customization options for their character as they level up, such as being able to apply custom paint jobs and logos to their gear and in game weapons. As players gain more points, they may also be allowed to actively influence the games development. Lets say a player has 250 thousand community points, they may be allowed to vote on the community forums in polls regarding what sort of weapons, maps, items, and game variants they would like to see added in the next patch. One of the key reasons that games such as Minecraft and Killing Floor are able to maintain such high levels of popularity while spending next to nothing on advertising is quite simple. Tripwire and Mojang studios are actively involved with their customers and community, they make them feel important, and in return the community gives the game popularity via word of mouth. Which as any advertising agency will tell you, is in the end, the most powerful means by which something may gain publicity. The other benefit to giving your community such a degree of involvement, is that your game becomes tailored towards the majority, as they are able to influence its development in a limited way.

In conclusion, this game is still in its early stages of mental development. There are probably many mechanics that will require a bit of fine tuning, and no doubt some flawed concepts. I am still a newbie to game design after all. However, I do believe the premise is solid. The basic mechanics make sense and would provide hours of entertaining game play.

PCs are archaic because they are not archaic?

As many of you are no doubt aware, there is a prevailing feeling of newness among gamers who use consoles exclusively. What I mean by this, is that there is the misguided notion that because consoles require less work and have more exclusive titles, the PC is some sort of obsolete relic. This implies that gaming on the PC will gradually be phased out, and become an affair reserved for consoles and mobile devices, the irony is that the exact reverse is happening. What do I mean by  this?  http://www.joystiq.com/2009/06/01/facebook-twitter-on-xbox-live-this-fall/ consoles were once devices devoted entirely to gaming, and nothing else. You had your disk slot, your controller, and your television, not much you can do with that aside from game. however as time has passed they are becoming increasingly more social, allowing you to check websites and social networks while remaining on your console. What is a PC? A platform on which you can work, browse the internet, play games, and socially interact with other people via the internet. Consoles have begun to adopt nearly all of these traits to a lesser degree than a PC is capable of providing. Effectively what you are doing when you go on your Xbox to play a game, or browse a website, is nothing more than using a more limited version of a PC running off of hardware which is now nearly six years old. To add insult to injury however, Microsoft has the gall to demand a $5 monthly fee of you, to use their obsolete pile of scrapwares multiplayer function and dated hardware! Meanwhile, you have platforms like Steam on the PC and now PS3 where Valve does not charge you anything to use their service. Despite it being a better design, that actively encourages modding and has massive sales on a regular basis along with superior customer support.

Now, why is this such a big deal you ask? Sure, it’s a stupid situation, but it can’t possibly be  actively damaging anything can it?

This is exactly what the con artists running Xbox Live want you to think, that “sure, its a shitty situation, but its not really harming anything.” After all, it’s just a $5 fee every month, and that’s nothing. What is happening, has happened repeatedly throughout history, it is not exclusive to our passion, Governments do it, Religions do it, and Corporations do it. You are being conditioned. You are being conditioned to reject platforms that require an ounce of brain power to operate. You are being conditioned to accept mediocrity, to accept being abused as a consumer, and to appreciate the fact that they grant you the “privilege” of using their platform. The way they see it, once you are dumb and happy, they can spoon feed you lesser experiences and you will continue to hand them money for it. Why? BECAUSE YOU DON’T BLOODY KNOW ANY BETTER! These people absolutely loath creativity and innovation in the market, and they have no interest in serving the consumer any more than is absolutely necessary to make a profit. That is why they actively discourage modding on consoles. On PCs modding is often regarded as a way to discover new talent, and hone one’s design skills without spending a lot of money. The key words there are “WITHOUT SPENDING A LOT OF MONEY” these people despise this, they want to nickel and dime you the consumer at every possible opportunity. Do you really believe that they think it is criminal to modify their hardware and software? Of course not. What they don’t want is competition from individuals passionate about gaming. They can’t sell you $15 map packs if you can go play on custom built maps, designed by modding experts with no interest in making money!

If any system is archaic and dated, it is the console in its current form. The PC represents a platform which actively encourages creativity and ingenuity, with total freedom of choice in terms of personal use, and equipment. The console represents its diametric opposite, a closed platform in which creativity is discouraged, and hardware is kept in a state of stagnation for years. You are not rid of the negatives of consoles even if you use the PC exclusively, why is that you ask? Earlier in the article, I mentioned how people prefer simple things that don’t require more than the tiniest bit of brain power to operate. As is humanitys nature we are often drawn towards the easier option, even if it is not the best one. What this means is, there are more people playing games on consoles than PCs (excluding social games like Farmville).

By now how this effects even PC gamers should be somewhat obvious. With the exception of MMOs, very few studios want to make PC exclusive title’s as they are losing out on a massive stream of revenue from the console market. While this is very sensible from a business perspective, it is absolutely counter intuitive to real progress in graphical fidelity and system capabilities. These developers who make games available to the typical 3 platforms (PC, Xbox 360, and PS3) are unable to make games which fully exploit their visual potential for the PC because they must be made to run on six year old hardware. In short, because developers are forced to make games for graphically inferior consoles, PC gamers suffer by not being able to put their hardware to use.  Were console cycles shorter to allow for more frequent hardware improvements, you might see more powerful engines and as such, more visually impressive and dynamic games. This would be a boon for not just PC gamers, but gamers as a whole. However the gentlemen running Microsoft and Sony don’t seem to care too much about progress. So long as you continue to buy their garbage without demanding improvements they’ll continue to sit on their successes, and feed you mediocrity by the ton, like pigs eating slop from the trough.

So, how do we reverse this trend you ask? Well to start, stop writing their bills for them, teach them that if they want your money, they’ll have to stay competitive and provide improvements. This doesn’t mean you have to stop buying games, far from it, continue to buy games, support developers that you like, that is key to continued progress in the market. However don’t buy into pointless garbage designed to take money from you without providing a justifiable return, Xbox Live? Fuck it. Play single player or co-op with your friends, have some guys over and play through a campaign on your favorite game together. Microsoft has done nothing to merit $60 a year for providing you with a service which ought to be free. However, if you are not into half measures and want to send a real message, buy a PC with some decent computing power. Show them that the PC is still a more than viable platform, and shouldn’t be abandoned by developers merely because the Console’s dominate an undeservedly large portion of the market. Don’t reward lack of innovation, demand better, and if no one will provide anything better, make something better yourself. You are not cattle, you are humans, show them that you will not be fed mediocrity!

There is a problem that needs fixing.

There are those that would have you believe that the gaming industry is just fine, that the current trend of the market is marching forward in the name of progress. This is widely accepted as fact – the notion that things will always go upward and onward is the great optimism of our time. However nothing could be further from the truth.  As with any market or organization, there is the danger of stagnation and reversion of years of progress.  It is a constant threat and we have been all too happy to let it slip by, as it is much easier to look away from a problem, than to address it. What is this problem you ask? Seeing as I have the gall to accuse the entire gaming industry of entering stagnation, it is a reasonable question. The truth is, however, that I do not know for certain.  All I see are the symptoms and on a rare occasion, the causes.  This blog is dedicated to highlighting those symptoms, searching for the cause, and on some rare occasions, identifying a possible solution. I don’t have all the answers, but I most certainly have all the complaints.