Of course this is mid-week

Running late, but still up for this week.

On the last Zero punctuation on The Escapist, Yahtzee reviewed MW3 and BF3, and though I'm sure that part was terribly interesting, the part that stuck out with me was the idea of building a game around the Anglo-Zanzibar war. For those who don't know, here's the rundown:

After the death of the most recent Sultan, a new guy came up to sieze power and crowned himself the new Sultan of Zanzibar. The British government had a problem with this, as they had their own man in mind, and told the new guy to step down. The new sultan refused, and the British bombed the everliving heck out of his palace until he surrendered. From the death of the old sultan to the surrendering of the new one, only 3 days past. The actual war portion of the conflict lasted only 38 minutes.

Now that the history lesson is over and done with, onto the design. Rather than try to build a game around such a short war, it seemed more appropriate to only build a game type that encompassed the whole war in one round. Without further ado, here's the design

Design a Week #7: Anglo-Zanzibar War

Not much else to report this week, folks. Paris is cold, and I'm still studying up on the toolset. Hoping everyone had an excellent Thanksgiving Day if your in the States, and talk to you all later.

- Rob

Been a hectic Week

I am back in Paris, which is why this week's Design-A-Week is coming on the last possible day. I promise to get next week's DaW up by mid week at the latest.

Some news before we get started. Lee, the other half of BCC is having to back out of any work due to other obligations. It's sad to see him go, but I understand why he has to. What does that mean for the status of our internal project? Nothing at the moment really. No true development had started on it yet, with no art, scripting, etc being done. Parts of the design have definitely been written, and I intend to forge forward with the idea for the moment solo, learning what I can about the toolset I am using so that someday, maybe this project can get off the ground.

On to the Design-A-Week. This idea came from a talk I had with a friend of mine on a walk. We were discussing the DaWs when the idea for boxing came up. Specifically, applying a long-term effect to the boxer's stats. From that came this week's entry. It explores an initial design for a system where the injuries a player's boxer accrues over time slowly begins to affect their capabilities in the ring.


Design a Week #6: Boxing Injuries

Anyway, keep on keeping on, and have a great next week.

- Rob

A missed week

So obviously, I missed getting last week's Design-A-Week up, which is a shame really. The hope was to be able to pull off a weekly creative outlet for myself, but it was not meant to be.

That being said, here we are 2 weeks later, with design #5 ready to go. This week I explore creating a multiplayer gametype based on the light and dark mechanics and specifically how they can affect both the player's characters and the level design.

Design a Week #5: Light and Dark

Do note, these are not intended to be fully fleshed out designs by any stretch of the imagination. I consider them the design equivalent of a rough sketch. There's an idea to be seen, sure, but further work to bring it to a fully developed idea.

- Rob