I've discussed that I think support for solitaire gamers is important. Part of this is that I'm a big solo gamer myself: I just don't like videogames all that much anymore because I'm sick of looking at screens all the time. I love physical games because they tend to be run off simple engines that are transparent, and don't come with a lot of the baggage of modern games like grinding, lootboxes, and microtransactions. Usually, when you guy a game, it's complete, and to play it you have to understand it, so it can only be so complex.
But I also like designing player-versus-player wargames. I've only written one "pure" solitaire game, Split Second. All my other solo projects are modules for player-versus-player games, which makes them harder to design. But when I write a game from the ground up and test the two in concert like I'm doing with Afterglow, this creates an interesting bit of tension where the one aspect of the design can potentially influence the other. I like solitaire gaming and consider it to be an important part of my projects. This is because I think a lot of games that are designed to be multiplayer end up being solitaire regardless of what the initial intent was. There's a lot of room for solitaire games and there's clearly demand (hen a new product is announced I often see "is this solo compatible?" asked as one of the first and most frequent questions). I also personally like playing physical games more than videogames, despite the obvious barriers to use (setup, components, manual calculation) because I like the look and feel of game pieces in front of me. It's rewarding.
But solitaire games present unique challenges, and one of the most fundamental ones is providing an appropriate challenge. The essence of most games is trying to reach the victory state as a preferred end condition. But ensuring you have the right end state in a solo game is hard! I'm currently working on an expansion for an unfinished game. Afterglow is pretty much structurally complete, but needs to be tested quite a bit before being released. But since I can only play other opponents once or twice a week, I figured I might as well work up a solitaire module. I like solitaire games anyway, and usually work on two parallel projects; a multiplayer competitive game, and a solitaire or co-op game. In a first-time occurrence, both projects are for the same game. It feels weird to work on an expansion while the main game is unfinished, but it's also nice to not have to shift gears mentally from playing one game to another. Outer Dark (aside from being an excellent novel) is a module that introduces a new enemy to the Postcolonial universe, aliens known as the Biocraft who are obviously modelled after Gunbuster's Space Monsters. It includes seven types of aliens to fight with; each of these Biocraft have distinct behaviour and abilities. Crafting each is a fun and occasionally frustrating exercise that's allowed me to explore the basic rules of Afterglow in an unconventional manner and given me insights into the game I probably never would have gotten otherwise. |
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