How Town of Salem made a mechanic interesting

Town of Salem is a cool game. I just wanted to get it out of the way right now. It's free in browser, give it a shot, you'll have a good time. If you're at all interested in what I'm talking about here, I'm sure you'll have a good time.

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But it's also really interesting to look at what makes this seemingly simple game tick, and how something as simple as being immune to death at night adds layers upon layers of complexity. If you've ever played mafia, ToS is basically like that, but a bit more complex, taking advantage of it being digital, and having more roles.

Now, being night immune is a trait shared by several roles in the game, such as the serial killer and the godfather. If you haven't played or if your memory is fuzzy, it means you can't be killed at night through conventional means. That means no mafia killing you, no serial killer, and no vigilante. Let's take a closer look at what this means for the game as a whole:

It increases the value of certain roles

There are specific roles that can kill through night immunity. The Jailor, Veteran, Werewolf, and Arsonist all have the ability to ignore this attribute and just kill anyone they want at night. Obviously that's a powerful tool for whatever role has it, but it's not without downsides. The jailor is obscenely powerful, but to compensate they're always in the game and are the number one target for pretty much every killing role. The veteran can't actively kill, and can only react to other night immune roles coming to visit them. And of course the arsonist and werewolf are alone, and can't risk being found out or killed or else they lose.

When you give a role such a powerful tool, you're forced to give them downsides, and in doing so each role is just really interesting. You need to play more carefully as a jailor. It's common to try to bait people to visit you as veteran. This mechanic changes every role it applies to, and it makes the game much more interesting as a result.

It's a key strength AND weakness

Night immunity just sounds like a straight strength, no? It certainly is a necessary one for many of the independent roles. The neutral killing roles, for one, are a target of literally every other player in the game, and your "team" is made up of only yourself in this case. It'd be far too easy for you to automatically lose by a random killing if you didn't have night immunity in this case. The town can rely on their numbers, the mafia can afford a loss, vampires can make more of themselves, and so on. Every role has some sort of failsafe, and in the case of these solo roles their failsafe is just flat out being unable to be normally killed.

However, this isn't just a flat buff in these evil roles. Again, it makes the game more interesting, because the party that tried to attack you will know you're night immune. And that's pretty much always a bad thing. If you're neutral killing, mafia and town both want your blood and will out you the next day or in a death note. If you're the godfather, everyone but mafia wants you gone. In these cases, it means you've been put at a disadvantage but still have several options to get out of this mess, rather than just an instant failsafe.

And it's not as simple as "lynch the immune" for the town roles, either. The survivor and bodyguard both have the ability to assume temporary night immunity, so they can't just go about lynching everyone like this.

This is really, really good multiplayer design. I often see a lot of games stumble in providing interesting options on all sides. Take a sniper rifle in any FPS. Typically your options boil down to "get out of sight or die" and the sniper's options are "keep at range or die". It's just not as interesting when each weapon or mechanic gives a very binary state: play this way or fail. Town of Salem keeps it open, even when something bad or good happens to you. Getting found out as night immune isn't an immediate failure, and finding a night immune isn't an instant success. As a result of this it's also not a straight, boring buff to a class to help it work. It's a dynamic mechanic that helps them do their jobs.

It also works as an unknown

Night immunity is always going to be present in a typical game of ranked. The godfather and a neutral killing role will always be in there, so the killing roles will always have this mechanic to work with. That uncertainty means that night immunity is something every role will want to know about for different reasons.

The mafia will usually want to know who's immune so as to not waste nights to kill, and seeing as they're the only factions guaranteed to have someone able to confirm of someone is immune, it's often in their best interests to reveal who's immune through indirect means. It's a question of risk vs reward, typically. Is it in the mafia's best interest to leave roles that can usually kill them alive to see if they'll get the town first. That question doesn't have a clear answer and must be answered per game, and that's great.

On the other hand, every role with permanent night immunity is an enemy of the town, and a massive red flag that this is likely a bad person. It becomes a goal of leveraging every piece of info you get and then putting it into action, as town usually takes control of the lynchings. If it's not coming from the mouth of an investigative role or vigilante, however, it's typically suspect. This turns the simple act of trying to find the evils into a mad scramble to see who can be trusted and what info is good and it's just great.

The point I'm getting at here is that Town of Salem weaves this one gameplay mechanic through the entire game very well. So many multiplayer games keep mechanics isolated and single use. You can only use the grappling hook for mobility. This shotgun only has one use: close range combat. The mechanic of night immunity is not a one and done mechanic only applying to certain scenarios. It's used across the entire game and has repercussions far more than it appears at first. Not every game needs to do something like this, but it's certainly a valuable tool to keep in mind.

How Far Cry 2 Made War Boring

Hey, I don't hate Far Cry! Just bad stories ;)

In my last article, I expressed disappointment with Far Cry 3's inability to make the story and gameplay work together, and it ended up being a fun game with a story that just doesn't work with the gameplay. This is very often the norm in video games, however. You'll get a dramatic cutscene about how this is a life and death scenario, and then you'll take 30 bullets to the face and not die. However, the reason I took such issue with Far Cry 3 in particular was that this series had already gotten it right.

But before that, just a quick disclaimer: please play Far Cry 2 first. If I tell you what it's all about the effect will be ruined. Just go in blind and you'll get it. Maybe.

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Far Cry 2 is an anti-war game to it's very core. Everything from the story to the gameplay is perfectly in tune with what it wants to do, in stark contrast to Far Cry 3. This is pretty much the best execution of an anti-war message I have ever seen. It doesn't make any grandiose statements. It just is, and it's a hell of a thing.

Far Cry 2 is all about war. From the moment you start the game you hear about war. You're shot at 5 minutes in. You can't go more than a few meters between soldiers. The region's very identity has been erased and replaced by war. It's all you do in gameplay, it's what all the missions are about, you cannot escape war.

Already we can see that it's doing much better than Far Cry 3. That game is unable to reconcile the difference between the player and story, constantly talking up how violence consumes while giving the player total control over everything. Fary Cry 2 keeps it constant. The game is about war, and thus the story follows. It's certainly an easier line to toe than 3, but it achieves what it sets out to do.

That's about where I stopped with 3, since if a game fails there it can't really go much farther. However, 2 does indeed go one step further. It's one thing to have the gameplay and story work together. Plenty of games do this. It's another thing entirely to make the game convey a message through all this.

Because Far Cry 2 can get pretty dang boring. Enemies never run out and you need to clear camps every. Single. Time. You move through them. Missions never change much either. You'll run a gun related mission to unlock more stuff in the shops. You'll constantly get in and out of cars looking for meager handfuls of diamonds.

And it's not like the region will ever change, either. It's not like you're able to change anything. At the end of the day, everyone will shoot at you, no matter what. You can get to a new area, but that doesn't change anything, just expands it. You can run mission after mission, and nothing, nothing, will change.

I hope you're seeing my point. This is all very intentional. That's very often a defense thrown out for bad game design (I am looking SQUARELY at you MGS4), but Far Cry 2 gets it right, oh so right. The reason this simply isn't sloppy game design is that it follows the story and tone very tightly, to such an extent that this simply had to have been intentional. The entire plot is tedious and barely changing. The soldiers are hard to tell apart. And it's not like anyone goes about being happy or optimistic. This tone was taken very seriously, and reflected right in the gameplay.

It's not always going to be a fun game! It's really not! You'll grind through camps forever. Maybe you'll get a terrible sniper rifle or an awkward mortar. Maybe you'll get a slightly different pistol. It's all the same in the end, though.

Far Cry 2 makes war just so fucking boring. And I think that is the most powerful thing about this game. You can fixate on the gunplay, the fire physics, or the story, but at the end of the day, this is a game hellbent on showing you the crushing awfulness of war through a feeling common to many games: boredom.

You hear a lot about boredom in war stories. Look at any interview with a soldier and they're likely to talk about the crushing boredom inherent to war. It's not like games portray. It's not adrenaline pumping action, it's a whole lotta waiting. Far Cry 2 knows this.

But what if you push through all that? Surely, if you push through and kill the Jackal, the supposed source of this conflict, it'll all be over, right? Only it turns out the Jackal is on your side, you've been flaring tensions up for nothing, and in the end to actually help people the Jackal is going to have to die. Oh, and even if you somehow make it out alive you have malaria and are going to die anyway. Fuck you.

War consumes everything in Far Cry 2. It consumes the characters, the region, the game characters, and perhaps even your fun in the end. It's got a clear message and intent, and every element of the game works with it. Far Cry 2 is a sterling example of how to weave the gameplay and story, and I do hope more people take a close look at it.

How Far Cry 3 Failed at Story

Far Cry 3 is a video game. That's the start, end, and sum of all of its issues.

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This is a very odd game, looking back. It's been almost 5 years since it released and it continues to be a very present game. People look back on it fondly in a lot of ways, and in many areas I do have to agree with them. The actual gameplay is very good, particularly once the wingsuit is relinquished to the player. It gives a lot of choice to the player in the gameplay, and is a nice mix between keeping things at a good pace while also giving the player a lot of freedom.

I'm not here to talk about the gameplay, however. It works, it is good, etc. etc. That's beside the point. The far more interesting bit, and where I think it fails, is in the, well everything else. This is a game that quite honestly falls flat when it comes to everything but the gameplay. It tries to have a complex story deconstructing the gameplay and murder key to the game. In doing so, however, it fails to use this in anything but the script, and as a result comes out limp and toothless.

Except for Vaas actually he's a very good villain who really does do an effective job of communicating conflicting themes and overall pulls things together very nicely with some great voicework and brilliant monologues seriously he's like a character dropped in from a different much better writer

cough

See, here's the thing about Far Cry 3: it's ostensibly about deconstructing the violence in the game and how it erodes the main character's morality and sanity. Not exactly a bad idea for a game. You have to remember, back in 2012 things were pretty different. The violent AAA game was still being played pretty straight and the landscape for success was a lot more limited in publisher's eyes. We've gotten quite a few games going after that nowadays, but back then this was still a fairly new concept when applied to a big game.

The story is... well it's OK. I don't think the writers did a phenomenal job of it, but the core of the script is fine and for the most part I think they had a pretty solid thing going. It does tend to stumble sometimes, but I think for the most part they had a very basic idea going that could have been fleshed out very well. And like I said, whoever wrote Vaas definitely deserved a pay raise. Of course, it also stumbles sometimes, mainly whoever decided Vass should have been replaced with Hoyt should have been fired. But by and large, when I talk about Far Cry 3's story being bad, I am not talking about the writing.

People absolutely love throwing around the term ludonarrative, I've done it before even. I do really like this term, however, because it gives a vocalization to the idea of story and gameplay working together. It's really cool to see a game doing this right! It's also really interesting when it, erm, all falls apart.

It is quite obvious in retrospect that the game designers and story writers were not working so closely. Separately, they're fine as ideas and even mostly in execution in game. Neither works so well when combined, however. Far Cry 3, in what I think was likely some accident of miscommunication, tries to have its cake and eat it too. This is kinda tricky to explain, but let's take a look at 3 different parts of the game and I hope this'll become clearer.

Going forward I'm going to assume you've played the game or at least know the story, as it'd take too much time to explain otherwise.

In the Beginning
Far Cry 3 has a pretty effective story opening, I think, and hell, I think the gameplay for the most part helps out here. It's a tad out of your control, but that generally works to its advantage and you are for the most part in the same shoes as Jason. Out of control, confused, and maybe a wee bit scared. It works, it's not genius, but it's a pretty effective opening and makes the tone of this game known to you from square one.

And then you get in control of Jason, and the illusion just all falls apart.

See, here's the thing. Jason will act and talk like a scared kid in the opening portions of the game, which makes sense. However, it doesn't gel with the gameplay at all. You handle a machete in the same way at the start and end. Your gun accuracy? Always perfect. You'll run through combat just as flawlessly the first time as you do at the end.

The issue here is that this is not at all what's happening in the story. Ostensibly, Jason is terrified, has no idea what the hell he's doing, and barely even knows how to shoot a gun in a firefight. And then you get plunked into a firefight and none of that holds true. The story, in this part of the game at least, is so totally and completely undercut every single time you're in control. I understand that sometimes liberties must be taken, but when the basic acts of moving and shooting are contradicting your story, you may want a second pass at it.

The transition
It's certainly a good idea for a character arc to have Jason slowly enjoy and relish in the violence. It had never seriously been explored in a high profile game before and seeing as games tend to revolve around violence, it's a great fit too.

It was not to last in quality beyond and idea, however. The opening is a little worrying, and those worries just sort of continue and develop throughout the game. The entire game is just... so... static. Nothing ever changes. There is no progression in the gameplay besides the skills you unlock.

While I can perhaps see the intent to have your skills reflect your state of mind as a killing machine, it just doesn't work. How exactly does learning how to cook grenades or getting more health help show the player how Jason is? For that matter, why would an upgrade system work at all in this game?

I'm serious. This game should not have had a skill upgrade system if it was seriously committed to making the gameplay and story work together. The entire purpose of the game's story is that violence without thinking can be easily stumbled into, and any old person could slip into that darkness. That entire point does not gel with letting the player make specific choices on how to progress your killing excellence.

Maybe the idea was that you're somehow complicit in progressing this? It's done really, really badly if that was the intent. The game presents a story of out of control instincts and then hands you a handy menu in which to progress. It just makes no sense. Imagine, if you will, a game where your upgrades are gained by doing specific things. Maybe you learn a new, vicious way to kill from a mission. Maybe after you've killed enough with a grenade you unlock new ways to use it.A menu is just so... direct and against the entire flow. Jason progresses as a character in one part of the game. He progresses as an unlock tree in the next. Does it really have to be this way?

All for what?

Let's be real here; Far Cry 3 fumbles the ending, as it does with everything else. There are 2 endings that you can get by making the choice at the end of the game to kill your friends or not. If you kill them, you get a very, um, let's be delicate and say badly written ending. That's not the point here, seeing as we're looking at the gameplay vs. Story. The point is the other ending, where you just leave the island.

Why does this ending even exist? To fulfill some idea that video games need choice? This screams executive interference, and it just goes against literally everything the story has been building up to this point. Everything is building up to Jason killing his friends. It's obvious. The entire point of the game has been how violence corrupts and takes over one's morality. To give the player the option to say, "no", and go against every single point in the story is just... wrong. End of story. The player should not have had a choice here.

And that's pretty much Far Cry 3's story in a nutshell. OK, but brought low by it's inability to reconcile the gameplay and story. It's clear to me that everyone involved were concerned with making a fun game first, and a story second. While that may be all that is needed, it's disappointing that this is a sequel to a game that got this dynamic so, so right. 

But more on that next time. Thanks for reading!

How to manage a community

So, typically I want to avoid this sort of stuff. Generally blog posts that are rants/examinations don't fit an all purpose area like this, and I have no intention as to delve into either of those fully. Today, we're going to be taking a good, hard look at how Blizzard fucked up in their latest Overwatch patch, and examining what this can tell us about how to handle a multiplayer game in general. If you don't play Overwatch, I'm gonna try to keep it understandable, but no promises.

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So patch 1.8 came out a while ago, and take one look at the forums at the time... oof. People were not happy with this update, and I'm honestly fully in their court here. I'm not here to rant or get mad, though. Let's take a calm look at the individual aspects of what mess the two weeks leading up to the update were. Obviously the response from Blizzard to fix this stuff has been swift and responsible, but I still feel it's a good idea to examine what not to do.

So let's start with the elephant in the room, or in this case, omnic: Bastion. The general community consensus was definitely that he was at least a tad overpowered before a hotfix brought him down a notch. While this might seem to be just a simple bad balancing issue, I don't think that's what you should be taking from this alone. Bad balancing happens all the time in every game, and the real issue lies elsewhere, I feel.

This is a prime example of a negative player behavior loop, one that is plain to see because the test server completely failed to catch this. The root cause is a lot more general and I will get to that, but right now let's look at why offering a direct incentive is a lot more important.

So when it comes to what is beta testing, in essence, there needs to be a big incentive for players to get in on it. Remember that it can be a big ask to get players to even load up the PTR in the first place. An entire 2^nd copy of the game needs downloading, plus any and all time you spend on it won't affect your progress in the actual game. Not to mention that it can be buggy, and a low player count means worse matches, and so on. It's a big barrier to entry for many, and what rewards do they get? The satisfaction of helping the game maybe?

What we're looking at here is what would be instantly identified as a poor rewards system inside any actual game. When all you have to offer is the vague satisfaction of maybe helping, that's going to be a nonexistent incentive for anyone not caring about high level play, for one. It's easy to forget that people will still follow said systems outside of the direct game, but this is a great example of this in action.

So, what about Bastion himself? The main issue that sprung from him was ultimately swinging the balance hammer too hard, too silently. Balance is already a tricky thing to do, but what I think a lot of people forget is that the developers have to take into account the community reaction when implementing or even suggesting changes.

Now, the community is often wrong when it comes to what they think is right for balance. Rightfully so, as we're not game designers, nor do we get paid to do this. However, that fact is a tricky one indeed to balance with what's right for the game. What's right is not always what will be percieved as right, and outrage among the playerbase can run rampant, making forums a mess and from an outsiders perspective making your game and playerbase look a lot worse.

Now in this case specifically, the community turned out to be very correct in their assumptions, and Bastion did swiftly receive nerfs a mere days after his buffs went live. So why the outrage? Point number 2: communication.

See, generally Blizzard are pretty good with communication, providing regular updates and posts for the community. However, developer updates and the like can be a bit sporatic, which makes sense. However, get a change the community doesn't like and have it line up with an unfortunate 2 week radio silence on it, and, well...

It was like a weird microcosm of a really resentful community for 2 weeks, let me tell you. Players got frustrated at the changes, frustrated at the lack of communication, and frustrated at how vague everything felt. It went from a pleasant relationship to a one sided shouting match.

That is lesson number two from this whole mess. Communication, however small, matters. You cannot rely on your community to moderate their feelings nor can you assume the best. If you set a standard of communication, stick to it. Doubly so when you're introducing huge change. Those are the times when the community is at the most volatile, when it's at its worst and most emotional. That's when the real legwork by community managers needs to be put in, and that's when you can make your game and community truly great.

And to cap this all off, the community outrage seemed to disappear in one simple dev post. That's all it took. Players are not anger machines. It is possible to control them and their emotions, odd as that sounds. With the right updates and openness, anything is really possible when you're making a multiplayer game in the community.

Short and shallow post this time, been busy, sorry bout' that! Hope you enjoyed anyway.

Danganronpa Vs. Ace Attorney: How to make meaningful changes

Pleaedon'tkillmeIlikebothgames

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Man, I really cannot get enough of Danganronpa, can I? If you follow me on Twitter (Wink wink nudge nudge) you'll know I've been obsessed with it ever since I started playing. I obsess with a reason, however. Now why is it that all the visual novels I play involving murder trials are so good?

Yes, ladies and gents, today I'm going to be examining and comparing Ace Attorney and Danganronpa, though not to say which one is better(not today anyway). That in mind, let's take a closer look at these, shall we?

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When it comes to these 2 games, comparisons may seem odd at first. One's a high school death game, the other's a law procedural. Though they share investigations and "trials, really even a passing glance at both would never have you making direct comparisons. Those who have played both also know just how different they actually are. So why even compare them?

Mainly because of the underlying gameplay loop, I feel. They both follow the same basic formula of the Setup-Investigation-Trial loop that repeats for 4-6 cases in each game. Each game takes the time to set up its own world, and more importantly, own tone.

Ace Attorney strives for a somewhat clinical tone in its story. Yeah, it's wacky and ridiculous a lot of the time, but when it comes to the cases you're rather... detached, in a word. You often don't have much emotional stake in them, and when you do it's usually a very special case indeed. It has at least a semblance of an orderly trial, with cross examinations and evidence presenting going back and forth. What happens in between is often, ah, insane, but fundamentally it is still a law procedural.

As for the other game in the ring, Danganronpa is the exact opposite, purely chaotic. There isn't any set procedure or process to go through. Cross examinations become debates with many participants. Your own life is on the line, alongside everyone else's. You interact with everyone constantly, and any one person could be a killer or victim. This is no law procedural, it's a psychotic death game.

Let's take a closer look at some individual elements, shall we?

Gameplay

Again, both games do share fundamental bases with the gameplay, being logic puzzles. They both give you a mystery, a bunch of clues, and tell you to work it out through deductive reasoning and step by step logic.

Ace Attorney takes this premise and puts it into a courtroom, perhaps the most fitting environment for such a gameplay idea. All the actual logic you need to employ is step by step and every cross examination has a single key contradiction in it. If you're not cross examining people you're using other gameplay mechanics, yes, but you're always looking for one single flaw, and matching the right piece of evidence with it. The actual gameplay actions you take are all simple button presses, with most of the actual difficulty mainly coming from the logic puzzles you need to mentally work through. 

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The gameplay of Danganronpa is a lot different, despite similar concepts. Danganronpa has you needing to actually physically aim your evidence at the weak points in arguments, desperately sorting through letters to form words, taking part in actual confrontations against others, and more. On top of all this, there are time limits that you need to stay under all the while. Another key difference compared to Ace Attorney is that you've never got a pile of evidence to sort through, and you'll only be given a few truth bullets (evidence) per round of debating.

(I'd put a Danganronpa screenshot here but I literally cannot find one without spoilers)

Danganronpa and Ace Attorney each have you solving logic puzzles in very different ways. The time limit in Danganronpa forces you to think fast with the few options you have, while a lack of time limit in Ace Attorney is offset by you having all of your evidence to use all the time. It's a slow and caculated approach, helped by simple button presses, where in Danganronpa the heated debates where everyone's lives are at stake are much better represented with you needing to get more physically involved. Speaking of...

Premise
You can't talk about comparing these games without talking about the premise. They're such a fundamental part of what gives them their identity and the basic idea is so tightly interwoven with every singe part of the game.

Ace Attorney is a law procedural, obviously. Everything's related to the courtroom. You invesigate and file away evidence, as the police mark things down and the prosecutors prepare witnesses. Everything has a way you need to go about it, a way to question witnesses, and a way you need to ensure a proper, well-run investigation.

Danganronpa is a lot more messy. You know every single murder victim and you know every single murderer, throwing the possibility of a clinical assessment of every case out of the window. It's a tense and emotional setup, and every single person involved with the case is a potential murderer. These are high school kids, and this isn't their job. Every investigation is sloppy and fast, with you having a personal stake (I.E living) in every trial.

The premise does a lot for the tone and motions of each story. Say in Danganronpa, each trial will have a lot of accusations throughout, since everyone wants a culprit found for the sake of their own lives. Ace Attorney stays realistic(ish) to trial format, and you're only allowed to make formal accusations when the time and evidence is right.

It manifests in the little things as well. The manner of the number of people on the stand at once makes Danganronpa more chaotic and Ace Attorney more confined. There's the threat of legal oversight on your actions in Ace Attorney, while anything goes in Danganronpa. Ace Attorney also stays static in trial format while Danganronpa whittles the cast down, slowly making the trials smaller.

Characters
Ok, so I think by this point we've got a general idea of how a core idea behind a game does not a similar game make. Logic is executed on and used in very different ways in a court and a murder school. For the last part of this examination, let's see how characters impact the core ideas and mechanics behind the game.

So Ace Attorney's characters are firmly rooted in the law procedural, once again. There are a lot of characters but for the reoccurring ones, the most important thing to note is that they do this for a living. It's their job, it's what they do every day. Every trial is met with a certain amount of familiarity and confidence. All the lawyers are usually divorced from the case emotionally, and approach it as such. Ace Attorney is mostly made up of an adult cast, as well. Things can get quite crazy overall, but there's always this veneer of professionalism and respect everyone shows. All this is a textbook law procedural, like I keep saying. The characters are shaped and molded to fit this approach.

I don't even know what you'd call Danganronpa on the other hand. Maybe a murder mystery death game? Is that even a genre?

Anyway, the characters in Danganronpa are all high school kids who really, really don't want to be stuck in this death trap. For the purposes of comparing it to Ace Attorney, this is what that change does:

- This is an abnormal situation for them
- They have no experience doing this
- There is no expectation of professionalism

It's not like the characters know what they're supposed to be doing or how. Every investigation and trial is filled with some level of bumbling around and mistakes. As a result, the pacing is a lot more inconsistent, speeding up and slowing down at will depending on how the characters are acting. Ace Attorney stays consistent due to the nature of the characters, Danganronpa adds to the tension by making everything inconsistent, in no small part due to the characters.

We also see how points 1 and 3 seep into every aspect of this game. People are panicking and unsure of what to do. Remember the last time you were in a situation foreign to you and you had no idea what to do? The abnormality to the characters informs how they present themselves and how you need to interpret them. Everyone has something to hide in Danganronpa, while it's really only ever the guilty parties that are maliciously hiding info.

It's truly interesting to see how 2 very different series can have 2 very different tones despite the core gameplay ideas being pretty much the same. I'd say it's a great example of how your idea for a story, or gameplay mechanic doesn't have to limit you in any what whatsoever.

Dammit, Komaeda

What the hell. Let's make this a 2 parter.

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Spoilers. Obviously.

So previously, I wrote one thousand, four hundred, and fifty-nine words on one single element of the original Danganronpa. Today, I'm gonna examine one character in the game: professional crazy person Nagito Komaeda. Nagito is, in a word, really really interesting. There's a tone and way to his words and actions that really sets him apart from almost every character in the series, a kind of unsettling effect, like he's in the wrong story, reading from an entirely different script, one sort of aware of the story themes, rejecting the ideas of hope and despair yet at the same time embracing them like nobody else does. He almost actively refuses to take any roles in the story or group, up until a point. It's almost impossible to form a coherent picture of this guy, but I'm gonna damn well try to. Let's hope for the best, shall we?

Nagito the Hope

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This was a character expressly written for those who have played the first game. The whole game sort of assumes this anyway, but Nagito sticks out as some sort of parody or critique of the first game's themes and ending. If you've played the first game, the first thing you're going to think when you see him is "Makoto". It's written all over him. Similar design besides the hair, same Ultimate talent, trusts in the group wholeheartedly, hell, the same person even voices him.

Nagito is most certainly not Makoto, however, and the way in which the game starts to hint at and reveal this is instrumental to how you view his character. What may be the most vital element to his character, one you'll see reflected in every part and aspect of this analysis, is the disconnect between his ideals and his words and actions. Nagito talks a lot about hope, and I do mean A LOT. It's as if someone took Makoto's speech at the end of the first game about hope, and how it can overcome any despair, and built the foundation for a character on top of that. Nagito's principle motivations will often well and truly be this simple: he genuinely appears to want hope to prevail. The most striking element I can see is that when he tells you about what he wants, there's no bullshit in those words.

What's interesting about this is that the motivation is the first thing you really learn about the guy. There's none of his actions that will occur later in the way, and because it's shown so soon into the game it's easy to forget how benign Nagito appeared at first. It's also important to remember how little conflict or thought had honestly gone into the series about hope and despair. Hope and Despair were basically fancy names for good an evil in the first game, with good being resolved as the eventual victor as is expected. Of course, this worked fine for a murder mystery focus, with the overall themes and plot being more window dressing and backstory than anything else.

So the second game comes into the mix wanting to get more in depth about these themes and the world, wanting to break free of that simplicity. In essence it breaks free by tying the simplicity to Makoto and Junko, positioning them as forces of nature of Hope and Despair. Nagito pretty much exists as a character to mess with the perception the player likely has going into this game. I really do think that his character is "hope and despair", as in that is how he was written. It's what would happen if these 2 very different ideals were forced into coexisting within a character.

With that all in mind, let's look at our first look at him as a character: hope. Nagito is the first person to help you in the game, and he's the first person you can have a frank, proper discussion with. He's positioned as your partner right out the gate, or at the very least somebody you can trust. He's very much in support of the game of hope, as he should be, and appears to be very thoughtful and easygoing. His statements can be a bit grandiose and odd, but he seems to be a good guy.

What's really cool about this part of the game is how consistent his character remains. He's all about that hope, and when the objective is to be friendly and garner trust to gain hope, he's a pretty nice guy. But the circumstances change, and, well...

Nagito the Despair

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See, the groundwork for his character is that of hope, but he's not quite so simple as that. Nagito is a character obsessed with hope, and that's led him down some dark paths. He only cares about the result of hope, and believes that testing it and the resolve of people is a fantastic way to unlock true hope. He's cautious, never trusting that those around him are truly the hope, always needing to test that hope against despair first.

Nagito as a character spreads much more despair than hope, really. It's that sharp contrast between what he wants in the end and what he will do in the moment that makes him such a controversial person in-universe (Not out of universe, though. We love the guy).

Nagito is there to tear down all your preconceptions about hope being good and despair being evil. Hope is fine and dandy, but what if you'd induce hopeless despair to get to it? Is it worth pushing through despair? Those sorts of questions are at the forefront of Nagito's character, and it's not my position to say one side or another is wholly right. However, the fact is that Nagito's role in the story is these questions, and changing one's perspective is what he was put in there for.

Finally, I want to discuss Nagito's place in the actual plot. The themes are what I wanted to make up the meat but Nagito as a character serves the purpose of a rogue element. What's notable about this is how it changes the dynamic of suspicion compared to the first game.

The most comparable role in the first game would be Byakuya Togami. The difference between Byakuya and Nagito is that Byakuya never actually takes murderous action. He talks a good game but never acts on it, always planning but never moving. Compare that to Nagito, who tries to kill within the first few days.

This is the slow grind of suspicion versus the heated action of suspicion. It's certainly something I want to talk about in more detail in the future, but for now let's stick to a quick overview. In every other case in both games, there is only one person open in their intent to do harm, but only one of them ever actually acts upon it. There are no other characters in their separate games that kill or attempt to who aren't then immediately executed.

What Nagito does for the game as a whole is make it more frantic. He allows alliances against himself to form. He actually lets the remaining participants feel closer, as they all feel united against his obvious malice. What Nagito does for the game as a whole is subtle, but very important, and the closer you look the more impact he actually has.

...And that's a good place to stop this overview of sorts, I believe. I could go on for a lot longer about this guy's impact, but I'd just be rambling at that point and I need to cut this off somewhere. Nagito's one hell of an interesting character, and I love him to death for what he does. Never stop being crazy, you beautiful, hope obsessed person.

Danganronpa and Misdirection

Writing a good mystery is very hard.

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It's commonly said that comedy is the hardest genre to write, and honestly I'd have to agree with that. However, if you asked me what the 2^nd hardest genre to write is, I'd undoubtedly say mystery. This stems from a variety of things, but foremost in this is the sheer number of mystery stories that have been told. A mystery isn't mysterious if the audience knows what is going to happen, of course. It was a heck of a lot easier to write an engaging mystery even 100 years ago simply because less stories had been told and as a result, more new ideas. This is only exacerbated by the era we live in of information, where anyone can write a story and have hundreds of people read it easier than ever.

So what if you do want to write a mystery now? One way to do that is the most obvious: come up with something never done before. With your enemy being thousands of years worth of human thought, though, you're probably fighting a losing battle. So this leaves aspiring writers to pull on a variety of other methods to make their stories effective. My favourite technique out off all the ones I've seen is misdirection.

It's so simple at it's very core. What it entails is basically pulling the audience's attention away from what has truly happened. Now, you can do this in a variety of ways, with a wide range of fairness. You can gloss over all the important details. You could pull the audience in one manner of thinking, when in actuality that mindset was wrong from the start. You could even (rather unfairly) just never show what the important details are. Bur regardless, the common thread, the one that must be followed to successfully pull of this trick, is leaving the true solution out there while making sure the audience pays no mind to it. I love it when a story does this, and the absolute best execution I have ever seen of misdirection comes from Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc.

Spoilers follow, obviously. Seriously, don't spoil this masterwork of a mystery for yourself. I'm also assuming you've played it so it won't make much sense otherwise.

So Danganronpa is the sort of premise that if I was a fiction writer I'd be terrified of. A story where there are 5 separate murder mystery arcs AND an overreaching mystery to solve? A single mystery is already hard enough! Of course, as you know if you've played it (RIGHT?) the game somehow manages this feat, and manages to do it splendidly. I'm not here to gush about this, however. Today I want to take a comprehensive look through the first case of Danganronpa and look at how it plays with player expectations, tropes of the genre, and of course, how it misdirects you.

OK, so first we should look at the relevant elements before this case even begins. First and foremost is the setting, or rather the important part of it: the killing game. For our purposes, we'll hold the game here as the motive. Fairly self explanatory. Next, of course, is the eventual victim of the case, Sayaka Maizono.

Sayaka is an interesting element for many reasons, but let's just stick with her before her eventual death. To the player, Sayaka is initially presented as an ally, but more importantly someone the protagonist has a prior connection to. What she serves as is an element of stability and relief.

Following Sayaka is of course the 13 other students, ones that at this point we know very little about. A glimpse here or there, perhaps, but in the end our knowledge of them this early on is limited at the best. They're rogue elements.

Finally, there are 2 key events I want to examine as well. These are the CD reveals and Makoto and Sayaka swapping rooms. I'll call these the catalysts.

Seriously this is your last chance before major spoilers if you didn't listen to me before

So we'll fast forward to the events right before the investigation. Sayaka and Makoto swapped rooms for the night, and the next day Sayaka shows up in Makoto's room, murdered by the hand of someone in the group.

Now, this basic setup is great for a few reasons. First, it gives the other characters a reason to totally think on the wrong path in-universe. Obviously, if you're not Makoto, the primary suspect is him since the victim showed up in his room. This is the first way the game misdirects you, by having the actual characters be misdirected, giving a believable reason for it, and most most importantly, disallowing you yourself from thinking that line of reasoning is correct.

That last point is the most important because all the discussion around the case is going to be focused on that line of thinking, meaning you know it's wrong but the game isn't letting you develop other lines of thought. It's intentionally steering you away from the truth, and it's not doing it with any obvious roadblocks either. It's also a nice bonus to raise the stakes.

Another thing the game does that I really like is that it takes full advantage of the point of the story it's at. I can very easily see a scenario where a case similar to this happened later on in the game, but there is no way it would work as well because by that point you'd know more about your fellow students. At the start of the game, however, you've got 2 basic relationships in the game: you know nothing about the others, and you likely trust Sayaka. And then Sayaka is murdered. So you're left in a position where you can't trust anyone but the dead person lying on the floor.

Until you can't even do that.

I'm skipping ahead a bit, but eventually it comes to light Sayaka was the initial aggressor, and in all likelihood was just being friendly and open to Makoto to use him for said purpose. This is great, and I was absolutely freaking out at this revelation because it's brilliant storytelling for so many reasons. Primarily because you probably didn't think of this possibility, right? Everything thus far has been presented as fairly straightforward: Sakaya is trustworthy, nobody else is. But as it turns out, that's exactly what you were supposed to think, and as a result you never even thought of the possibility of her being the true aggressor in this situation. It's also brilliant at a few other things like making you trust nobody and letting you know the usual tropes are not in effect, but that's not what this article's about really. The misdirection is so prevalent not only in this case, but throughout the entire game.

That's Danganronpa's M.O. It's so simple but it works so well. You see it crop up with the Sakura's "Locked room" murder and even intentionally invoked with Byakuya's Genocide Jack troll(for lack of a better term). It's most clearly set and seen in this first case, however, which is why I chose to examine how it uses misdirection. The usage of this little trick isn't braindead, either. They carefully develop it each time (See Genocide Jack reveal) or cleverly bury the important details in the evidence (See Sayaka's motives).

It sees use in many ways, but again, the game is essentially at it's core always trying to get you to look and think in the wrong directions. There aren't many cases where the facts are all there and you simply need to piece them together. There is always some active effort to prevent you from doing so on the part of other characters or the plot itself. You'll notice if you look a little deeper how the actual mysteries wouldn't be that mysterious on their own. "Girl tries to kill man but in struggle man kills her" or "Person commits suicide alone in room" aren't exactly original twists nowadays. However, muddling the story with previous relationships or having actual attacks before the suicide contribute to you not going down the right path and getting sidetracked or interpreting things entirely wrong.

So I hope I've helped you see misdirection in action and how it can immensely help a story. Danganronpa makes liberal use of it and the second I finished it I immediately started to use it as an example here, I don't think I've ever seen a story use it quite so much. I could seriously go on and on about how Danganronpa uses storytelling tricks and gameplay elements for a long time, but I'll cut myself off now. I hope you enjoyed reading, and have a great day!

A Deep Dive into Sombra's Hacking

Sombra has finally, FINALLY hacked her way into Overwatch, and seems set to do some interesting stuff with the meta. However, today I want to cast that all aside and take a close look at one single aspect of her moveset: her hacking.

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First, a brief rundown. Sombra’s hacking ability has a 12 second cooldown and may be used on an enemy hero, turret, or healthpack. If applied to a hero, they are unable to use abilities for 6 seconds. If applied to a healthpack, it becomes unusable by the enemy team and recharges faster for one minute. Turrets hacked are useless for 6 seconds. Hacking takes about 1 second and taking any damage stops the hack from going through.

First of all, we must ask what this ability’s intended use is, fairly obvious here. It’s mainly meant to deny area control and mark a target to take out. It is able to deny enemies health regen otherwise available to them, and makes areas covered by turrets safe. If you decide to hack an enemy, however, it takes on a dramatically different use. This ability is one requiring teamwork to effectively utilize. Since Sombra cannot hack while under fire, she relies on the enemy being distracted while she gets her hack off, essentially meaning teammates need to draw fire. Teammates are often needed after the hack goes through as well, since Sombra’s primary fire often will not be enough to kill the enemy by herself. While it is rather situational as a result of these caveats, it’s an incredibly powerful ability if used at the right time, enabling guaranteed picks on a weakened target, or an opening to attack by disabling a dangerous enemy.

And really, the fact that she needs a team to get stuff done with her hack is emblematic of her whole kit. Sombra is, more than anything else, an enabler for her team with this hack. Use it on a D.Va and she’s a sitting duck with no defense. Hack a Reaper or Mei and your team no longer needs worry about their invincibility-granting moves. Sombra’s hack fits the role of making your movements as a team safer rather than faster. She lets you go all in on that Roadhog, knowing he can’t slip away and heal.

On the flipside, she can also blunt the force of an enemy assault, once again ensuring safety for your team. Take Roadhog once again. Many a defense have fallen because Roadhog hooked the healer for a guaranteed kill. Sombra can, if not stop the assault, delay it with a well placed hack, forcing the team to wait as their setup has been taken away from them for a short while. On defense, Sombra fills the role of disruptor, throwing wrenches into the enemy team’s plan and letting her allies bear the brunt of an assault more effectively. Once again, she’s making a team’s defense more secure and safer.

So that’s what her hack is trying to get people to play like. But what about the mechanics of the hack itself, the numbers and effects?

The cooldown is the most interesting number on the move to me. 12 seconds is quite a long cooldown, and in fact the only moves with higher cooldowns are Soldier: 76’s biotic field, Hanzo’s sonic arrow, and Winston’s barrier. This is mainly due to the dual use of it, forcing players to choose between uses of her hack in between engagements. Since Overwatch moves at a pretty rapid pace, most fights take at most 20ish seconds to fully resolve. This means that often if you hack an enemy in the middle of a fight you will lose the ability to hack a healthpack in the aftermath, and if you hack a healthpack you may be without a valuable disrupting tool for much of the next fight.

The cooldown is in place to ensure Sombra can’t quite literally “hack the planet”. She has to decide between area control and teamfight effectiveness at any given time. Area control lasts longer, but it may not matter if one team pushes up past the area you’ve locked down.  Teamfight potential can swing a game, but if you don’t punch through the enemy lines you’re giving up a solid defense to fall back on. On a very broad level, you can think of it as risk (Offensive enemy hack) vs. safety (Defensive healthpack hack).

Ok, let’s switch over to the numbers on the enemy, mainly how long the hack lasts for. Those 6 seconds are quite deliberately chosen, as most abilities in the game have  an 8 or more second cooldown. Pluck a random ability out of the air, and there’s a good chance it falls in that 8 seconds or higher range. What this means is that it’s totally possible to, in essence, whiff your hack even if you get it off.

Imagine a scenario where Zarya has just shielded herself and an ally, and right after you hack her. Well, that hack isn’t going to do much, as she wouldn’t have been able to use her abilities on cooldown anyway. The cooldown ensures you can’t use it mindlessly, and forces to to stay cognizant of the fight at hand.

One final element adding to the cooldown is the ability to see if an enemy has their ultimate up when you hack them. You’re able to use this ability for recon as well, although it’s generally viewed as a suboptimal use of the hack purely to gain this info. Still, in the scenarios where it is useful in this way, you have a 3rd use if need be.

Last, but certainly not least, is the amount of time needed to execute a hack. It’s about 1.2 seconds, and if Sombra takes any fire at all the hack is cancelled automatically. Nothing too complex here, this is to force Sombra to use it when flanking or working together with an ally to take fire. She can’t get into the fray at full effectiveness.

So, overall, the elements of the hack are:

- Area control by hacking healthpacks

- Safe picks with an offensive hack

- Ability to shut Torbjorn’s turrets down

- Delaying enemy pushes with defensive hacks

- An inability to use it when under fire

When you put it all together, you end up with an ability that’s focused around Sombra’s team rather than Sombra. She can’t hack a turret or enemy in a 1v1, as taking fire renders the hack unable to execute. The health pack hack lasts for a minute, leaving it open for her whole team to use it. She personally doesn’t benefit from defensive hacks as she’s meant to be hard to pin down, but her teammates more in the enemy’s face do benefit.

So, overall if I had to describe this ability in a single sentence…

An area control and team enabling ability used to deny health and ability use to the enemy, making your team safer, yet cannot be used if Sombra is in immediate danger.

Whew, this article took way longer than it really should have. Did you like looking into each individual aspect of a small game element? This is something new I really enjoy and want to try more, so feedback and feelings on this would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for reading and have a great day.

Overwatch Vs. Atlas Reactor: The Loot Box

Yeah yeah, more Overwatch AND Atlas Reactor. Sue me.

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As you have no doubt heard about Overwatch, the Loot Box system is, to put it politely, not very good. It's microtransactions in a 60$ game, and it's all RNG based, meaning you have no control over what items you get or how much money you get. And to top it all off, cosmetics are all there are to unlock, making an unrewarding system that is a blatant attempt to get money out of consumers in one of the worst ways possible.

I'm saying all this because they could and should have done better. Atlas Reactor proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt. It too has loot boxes (called loot matrixes) that you gain at every level, duplicates that give you a small amount of currency, and the whole system in general being dictated by RNG. However, it takes this base and improves, improves, improves. Overwatch is the base, and nothing more. AR is the base and so much more. Let's take a closer look.

We can start with what both games actually have on a base progression level. Overwatch has loot boxes. AR has loot matrixes, character specific matrixes, a mod system to change abilities, rewards for hitting certain levels, and daily/seasonal missions.

Already you can see there's simply more to actually work towards in AR rather than Overwatch. In Overwatch, you either grind out levels or pony up some cash. In AR, if you don't want to grind levels, you can play characters a lot to gain their matrixes. You can work towards a mission for an XP boost. You can try out different mod loadouts. You can work towards a concrete reward rather than a vague RNG box. At all times, you're working towards a variety of different objectives and goals at different points. Missions are brief, and give smaller, faster rewards, while levels take a bit longer. It's all staggered out nicely, and there's never a sense of an endless grind since you're gonna achieve something just around the corner at any moment.

Not only are the rewards more plentiful, but when you actually get them, it's miles better than how Overwatch doles them out. In Atlas reactor, you are guaranteed a character skin/taunt in every matrix. This does wonders for the progression system by itself, let me tell you. Besides the obvious effect of having something of value every time you open a matrix, it also lets the good aspects of using RNG loot come out into the open.

Did you just get a legendary skin for a character you've never played much? Might as well try them out for the skin. Did you get a cool new taunt? Why not give it a spin? Forcing the player into unlockables for other characters lets them expand their play experience and pushes them to try other playstyles. Overwatch doesn't let you do this as much. The odds of getting a skin are already low, as there are icons, sprays, and voicelines in every crate too, and the odds of getting a legendary skin are even lower. So the odds of you getting a cool new skin and trying the character out are just so low as to not even matter.

On a second point, AR has another type of loot matrix: character specific matrixes. Get a character up 5 levels, and the game will give you a matrix guaranteed to give you a character specific skin or taunt. This is one of the many ways in which AR gives you quite a bit of control over the RNG. You get skins for a character you want with these, mitigating the frustration of RNG a lot. It's an important step helped along by missions.

Every day you get a daily mission, and there are season chapters that give you several long term missions. The effect of these are twofold: immediate goals and help with other goals. You get something to work towards, something concrete, not dictated by RNG. A quest like “Play 5 games” or “Play 2 games as a certain class” gives you a short term goal to work towards and contributes towards the longer term goal of a matrix.

Meanwhile, Overwatch has... a first win of the day XP boost. At best, you lose a few games before getting this, not a fun player experience. At worst, you get this already small boost immediately, and then what do you progress on?

And to cap this all off, AR has stuff outside cosmetics to play around with. You can actually change your characters with mods, and try out different playstyles. You get the opportunity to try out individual playstyles, a much more powerful motive than simply trying out a new team composition. Team comp diversity immediately disqualifies solo queue players from this depth, as it's almost impossible to get 5 other people on the same page quickly, if they even want to. And even if you can, you're not changing anything about how you play. If you play Roadhog in one team comp and  then another, well, he's still playing the same. Individual depth lets you take control of the gameplay and have a guaranteed difference in two different games.

So why is this all so important? Like I mentioned in a previous post, progression is a key factor in retaining a lot of your audience for a long period of time. Some people are motivated by gameplay, some by improvement, and some by unlocking stuff. You lose a lot of people if you mess progression up. And even ignoring that, it just makes the game better for crying out loud! Would you rather play a game with a satisfying unlock system or not? Even if it doesn't affect you, it makes the experience better since more people will now be playing.

Look, I've tried to be unbiased and distant throughout this whole thing, but the fact is this demonstrates something quite distasteful on Blizzard's part. They can no longer have the defence of there being no better way to do this system, because another game has just done it better. What reason could there be except wanting more money? I have been thinking on this for days, and I can't think of another reason for the life of me.

Blizzard, you have no conceivable alternative motive at this point. Another game has done your system infinitely better as of now, and you need to step up or fess up. Either improve your system, or just say you want to squeeze money out of people. There can be no other reason.

And as for Trion? Keep doing awesome stuff with Atlas Reactor. If you keep going on like this, I'll be with you all the way.