{"id":1086,"date":"2025-03-12T22:28:15","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T22:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mycours.es\/egd\/?page_id=1086"},"modified":"2025-04-08T12:08:05","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T12:08:05","slug":"choice-based-game","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mycours.es\/egd\/choice-based-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Choice Based Game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Reigns: Her Majesty Gameplay (No Commentary)\" width=\"840\" height=\"473\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/IdvE7WKwclY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s make a choice-based game as a prototype for your simulation.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m choosing a Spent or Reigns-like gameplay as a template due to several features:<br \/>\n-it&#8217;s minimalistic and easily implemented<br \/>\n-it can be paper prototyped, and the deck metaphor makes it immediately intuitive<br \/>\n-it distills the &#8220;game as interesting choices&#8221; idea<br \/>\n&#8211; it allows you to present heterogeneous views and choices without creating complex subsystems<br \/>\n-it has a clear separation between content\/data and engine, so you can build upon it with little coding<br \/>\n-it combines interactive narrative and resource management. You can use it to tell a story or to prototype a more complex simulation<br \/>\n-it can be a component for more complex games (the event system in a game like Crusader King) or a starting point for more complex card games<\/p>\n<p>It also has some notable limitations like:<br \/>\n&#8211; the player&#8217;s agency is limited to reacting to events, no initiative or strategy<br \/>\n&#8211; it can be hard to convey a sense of progression and build-up (which are important aspects of simulation games)<\/p>\n<h2>Brainstorming<\/h2>\n<p><strong>The scenario<\/strong><br \/>\nLet&#8217;s list some (real world) systems or situations that could be interesting to &#8220;simulate&#8221; as a series of choices + a small set of variables.<br \/>\nWhat are characteristics that would make a scenario interesting?<\/p>\n<p>Pick a scenario that intrigues you and answer the following questions in relation to it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Your goal<\/strong><br \/>\nAs a creator\/artist, you want to ask yourself what the goal of this project is: entertainment, education, comedy, maximum accuracy, raising awareness.<br \/>\nWhat is your position (and positionality) regarding the subject matter?<\/p>\n<p><strong>The role<br \/>\n<\/strong>What would be the most interesting role to play in such scenario? Why?<\/p>\n<p><strong>The stocks<br \/>\n<\/strong>What are some aspects of the world that would make sense to quantify as variable?<br \/>\nWhich ones and when should be visible to the player? Which ones should be hidden and why?<br \/>\nWhat are some ways to present them visually?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Agency<br \/>\n<\/strong>Given the player&#8217;s role and the variables at play, what actions could the players take?<br \/>\nFor each variable, describe at least one action that increases it and one that decreases it.<br \/>\nDo the same with events beyond the player&#8217;s control.<br \/>\nNow, for each possible pair of variables imagine an event that constitutes a trade-off between these two variables.<br \/>\nWhat are some interesting dilemmas?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Thresholds\/tipping points<br \/>\n<\/strong>What are some crucial thresholds that a variable can trigger?<br \/>\nWhat are some effects?<br \/>\nWhat are the winning and losing conditions?<br \/>\nEg: when money is 0 the company goes bankrupt, it&#8217;s game over.<\/p>\n<h2>Assignment<\/h2>\n<p>Make a paper prototype for a choice game.<br \/>\nMake a deck of event cards (20 or more).<br \/>\nPrepare a list of variables with initial values.<\/p>\n<p>Each event card should have a description.<br \/>\nEach event can present multiple choices to the player.<br \/>\nThe choices can have conditions to be selected (eg a cost) and effects<br \/>\nA choice can change any game variables using any mathematical formulas or card\/deck operations (discard etc).<br \/>\nAn event can also have a single choice if the player has no control over it.<br \/>\nThe effect of a choice can be hidden to the player until the choice is made &#8211; you can write them on the back of the card<\/p>\n<p>-You can operate the prototype as a kind of dungeon master, it doesn&#8217;t have to be a functioning solitaire.<br \/>\n-The goal is not to make a fun game but to figure out if the premise and scenario is compelling to explore<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a preview of the unity template:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mycours.es\/egd\/files\/2025\/03\/Screenshot-2025-03-12-223424.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1099\" src=\"http:\/\/mycours.es\/egd\/files\/2025\/03\/Screenshot-2025-03-12-223424.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"947\" height=\"455\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mycours.es\/egd\/files\/2025\/03\/Screenshot-2025-03-12-223424.png 947w, https:\/\/mycours.es\/egd\/files\/2025\/03\/Screenshot-2025-03-12-223424-300x144.png 300w, https:\/\/mycours.es\/egd\/files\/2025\/03\/Screenshot-2025-03-12-223424-768x369.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 1362px) 62vw, 840px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Let&#8217;s make a choice-based game as a prototype for your simulation. I&#8217;m choosing a Spent or Reigns-like gameplay as a template due to several features: -it&#8217;s minimalistic and easily implemented -it can be paper prototyped, and the deck metaphor makes it immediately intuitive -it distills the &#8220;game as interesting choices&#8221; idea &#8211; it allows you &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/mycours.es\/egd\/choice-based-game\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Choice Based Game&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1086","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycours.es\/egd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycours.es\/egd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycours.es\/egd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycours.es\/egd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycours.es\/egd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1086"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/mycours.es\/egd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1103,"href":"https:\/\/mycours.es\/egd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1086\/revisions\/1103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycours.es\/egd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}