Recent posts by Jzyehoshua on Kongregate

Topic: Game of Thrones Ascent / the random factor.

Another possibility I’ve considered is that buildings and trained equipment/soldiers might play a role in the odds. For example, researching the Siege Works building and getting catapults and rams might perhaps help in siege related missions like the Lord Braxton quest. Maybe power and number of friends plays a role also, I don’t know. There are some wikis out there on Game of Thrones but they don’t seem to mention how the odds work, so I’m just guessing.

Topic: Game of Thrones Ascent / the random factor.

I am saving up for a high rarity sworn sword right now to see if it increases my success rate, with about 150 points in battle as well. However, I still seem to lose battles I shouldn’t, and the only thing I can think of is that the sworn sword type must play into it when fighting an enemy peerless or legendary opponent. Since my best sworn sword right now is only uncommon, I’ll try getting a peerless and see if I start getting better results.

Topic: Game of Thrones Ascent / the random factor.

I suspect it may actually be affected by the hero type, because it seems my uncommon sworn swords have much better chances than common ones regardless of leveling. If so, getting a rare, legendary, or peerless hero might really increase the odds. Maybe their rank matters less than the type of hero they are. If so, an uncommon hero will just be more capable than a common even if the levels are about the same. My common doesn’t seem to be able to complete more than the simplest quests effectively.

Topic: Collaborations / Writer/Proofreader

I’m willing to work on a project free just to help with writing and proofreading. I think it would be a good way to see what game design is like as I have my own projects I’m considering in the future but am not experienced with Flash. Anyway, I’m willing to help proofread and write for any good projects out there. All I’d want in return is my name in the credits.

Topic: Game Design / Game Idea Possibilities

The only thing I was thinking of is whether loading time might be an issue. Badge Master only looked at badged games specifically. It’s tough to tell how much trouble would be caused by looking at all games on the site. Perhaps only games with a 3.50 rating or above should be shown, to increase loading speed. And maybe the search could run just looking at the top 10 favorited categories for a user, with a search option to expand or diminish this range. Features like this might be necessary though to have the game look through fewer results to improve loading speed and performance.

Topic: Game Design / Game Idea Possibilities

“Very good. But if you’re going to make one, be sure to maybe omit some of the games under judgement, and perhaps have an option to sort games by whether they have badges or not, and rating, etc.”

Very good points! There should be a way to turn on search features like you said, omitting games under judgment or with badges. A minimum rating feature would be a good search option as well. Perhaps a sort tool by ratings, views, or recency. All of your points though are excellent ideas for the game.

I suppose another idea would even be to let you turn on or off different categories, so you only search for the ones you want. For example, turn off Keyboard Only or other categories, to further refine your search.

Topic: Game Design / Game Idea Possibilities

For example, I went through my favorites and looked at the 3 tags listed for each game, adding them all up. A good program ought to be able to do the same, maybe even let people browse their own lists to see what game categories they favorited most, and quickly go to a given game category. It should then search for new games to recommend. A simple algorithm would be to just assign a point total based on how many favorited games a person has. So an RPG, Strategy, Turn-Based game would get a score of 96 per my favorites (39+34+23). This would be a great way to find new games for recommendation that would be much better than the current Kongregate recommendation system.

• RPG – 39
• Strategy – 34
• Turn Based – 23
• Adventure – 21
• Defense – 20
• Fantasy – 14
• Dungeon – 12
• Tower Defense – 12
• War – 10
• Zombie – 9
• Multiplayer – 8
• Card – 5
• Mouse Only – 5
• Pixel – 5
• CCG – 4
• Upgrades – 4
• Action – 4
• Shooter – 4
• Manager – 3
• Space – 3
• Puzzle – 3
• Match 3
• Epic War – 3
• Business – 3
• Army – 2
• Fighting – 2
• Gladiator – 2
• Magic – 2
• Monster – 2
• Platform – 2
• Protector – 2
• RTS – 2
• Sports – 2
• Art
• City
• 3D
• Detective
• Gun
• Idle
• Island
• Hex
• Keyboard Only
• Mystery
• Pet
• Quick
• Robot
• Rogue-Like
• Soccer
• Sword
• Tactical
• Time Management
• Train
• Virus

Topic: Game Design / Game Idea Possibilities

New idea I think people might find interesting. “Badge Master” was a huge hit. I’m suggesting a similar game, but a bit more fine-tuned. Basically the idea is for the game to just check a person’s favorites for what tags/categories they have the most of, and then search for new games to recommend based on these criteria. It should recommend in proportion to the tag popularity. If they have more strategy games favorited, more strategy games get recommended. More shooter categories then more shooters recommended, etc. It could even be more likely to recommend games with multiple categories in favorites. Since it’s possible to do this manually, I don’t think it should be too hard to make a game similar to Badge Master that does the same thing.

Topic: Game Design / Game Idea Possibilities

Originally posted by Aesica:

Originally posted by Ace_Blue:

Thankfully I’m knee-deep in ideas of my own, so don’t worry about how I’ll keep myself busy in the meantime. ;)

That’s one thing a lot of “idea guys” don’t realize. Even though they could very well be brimming with amazing ideas, most game developers are what they are because they also are full of ideas. The idea guys are best off picking up a programming language, because it’s very rewarding to watch your own ideas come to life.

A large portion of the games I see made on Kongregate are not original in any way, shape, or form. Tower Defense games are a dime a dozen, as are the tired energy system games which use the exact same design each time. I honestly think most game designers don’t have good ideas and are having trouble finding concepts people would like, because most games, like I said, do not show originality or uniqueness. I think it’s like politics – everybody knows the theories from the major parties, some major designs that are used, but you have very few people with brand new ideas. Look at the Republicans and Democrats, you have very few good, original ideas on fixing the economy from either party.

Topic: Game Design / Game Idea Possibilities

Originally posted by Aesica:

Originally posted by Ace_Blue:

Thankfully I’m knee-deep in ideas of my own, so don’t worry about how I’ll keep myself busy in the meantime. ;)

That’s one thing a lot of “idea guys” don’t realize. Even though they could very well be brimming with amazing ideas, most game developers are what they are because they also are full of ideas. The idea guys are best off picking up a programming language, because it’s very rewarding to watch your own ideas come to life.

I actually took C++, QBasic, and Visual Basic in college, and I still have a lot of my textbooks. I know HTML and CSS as well. And I have experimented with game design programs in the past, also. I just don’t want to spend that much time on it any time soon. Like I said, I’m working on a 2012 update to my 2010 eBook, except now I have time to publish it formally:

http://www.slideshare.net/Jzyehoshua/the-zambrano-report

Right now this takes priority. I’ve just been running into difficulties getting a new computer up and running (some unmountable boot volume error) which has the software on it I need to write the book, so I’m venting a bit on Kongregate in the meantime. Anyway, coding is a lot of work and I don’t have energy for it. Writing on the other hand is easy for me and fun.

I never described myself as an “idea guy”. I just figured I’d share my ideas since I think these would be cool games to see on Kongregate at some point. I have no intention of devoting the kind of time it would take to learn Flash coding in the near future, so I thought I’d share some ideas.

Topic: Game Design / Can I have some feedback?

Maybe you could add in achievements for enemy snakes eaten, time survived, etc. These achievements could be used to customize snake appearance?

Topic: Game Design / Game Idea Possibilities

More game possibilities (I’m just writing them down as I think of them):

-GAME NAME: Total Blackout
INTERFACE: I’m recommending a top-down approach of someone going through towns looking for supplies, talking to people, etc. A sidebar could have an actions menu, information about time/health/status, etc. Once in-game checkpoints are hit, then game events could be triggered to widen the map from a local town to state-wide. Both of my in-game concepts (2nd post) could be useful here.
PREMISE: An unusual meteor shower has just caused electricity worldwide to go out. You play the role of a character who must go outside (randomly generated towns recommended) and decide where you’re going to stay, what items to seek to acquire (and currency in the game should be more a matter of trading/bartering), how to get food, convincing others to join your party, etc. I’d like to see the game more open-ended rather than following a given script, so that it’s not easy to figure out what should be done or how to do anything. Rather, players should feel like they’re going blind and trying to figure things out as they go.

-GAME NAME: Two Worlds
INTERFACE: The first interface should probably just be a screen asking questions on Earth, with simple multiple choice options at the bottom of the screen and some basic pictures illustrating what the results are at the top, along with a status sidebar on the left for the characters. The second should be the main screen, once arriving on the new planet. I would favor a 2nd-person view so that you’re looking forward at forested area where you’ve arrived, and looking around in 3D to explore, with enemies who can attack at any time. Once attacked though, combat could occur in another interface (perhaps top-down, turn-based), or slow motion, with characters allowed to determine actions one by one in response to combat.
PREMISE: The game should actually take place on two planets. The first, Earth, should have a simplistic interface. You choose party members (friends) and answer some questions to get values for them. However, it should look at first like it will be a modern sim, where you are answering questions to develop characters who will be successful in life, as they develop towards careers. Then, after X days, an in-game event results in them visiting an area where they get teleported to another planet. Suddenly the skills become necessary for survival there, in a D&D type environment. They land out in the wilderness, and are forced to survive and look for nearby towns (should be randomly generated) to get away from the goblins/orcs/etc. that are nearby. It’d be like getting thrown into a wilderness and trying to survive your way to civilization, and then developing a party that can explore with hopes of reaching Earth again.

-GAME NAME: King David
INTERFACE: I think this could be done in similar format to a MUD, but just with one-player. Basically all text descriptions with multiple choice options and a sidebar showing health/stats/inventory. Perhaps simple visuals of trees or cliffs could show at the top given the terrain, or pictures of enemies/NPCs as appropriate, in a top box.
PREMISE: You play King David, being hunted by King Saul and an entire country across the country of Israel and maybe even neighboring territories starting from about 1 Samuel 22. Basically you need to forage and find new warriors. It could include hunting for food, keeping the population safe, returning to the area with your troops, moving from place to place with them, and fighting Saul’s men or Phillistines/enemy nations that show up. Looking for intel across the map. Being in certain locations could trigger Bible story events.

Topic: Game Design / Game Idea Possibilities

I was just providing ideas more on what types of games the site could use originally, and some in-game concepts, leaving it open-ended so people could use them with their own ideas more. However, I suppose I can provide some specific plot ideas. Here are some interesting possibilities that I’ll give more detail about:

-GAME NAME: Archaeology
INTERFACE: I’m thinking of a 4-part interface. The first would be a global map which takes you to different archaeological areas. The second would be a terrain you can interact with to try and find fossils and artifacts in. The third would be inside buildings such as a research lab where you can work on and examine what you’ve found with various tools for examination to be acquired, shops to buy materials from, village areas to interview locals at, etc.
PREMISE: You try and find archaeological artifacts around the world. Examples could include fossils, ancient civilizations, documents, etc. What I think would be cool is that when you find something and research it, it then shows pop-up links to the real-world discovery, news articles, scientific papers, etc. So you could have real-world discoveries with information and links to them in-game to be discovered. This could be recent discoveries over the past decade too, like A. ramidus, too. There should be a way of considering what sites to look at and where in the terrain to search also, a way of questioning experts or local citizens to find out information on where to look. It would be a fun way for people to look into the recent discoveries made in recent years.

-GAME NAME: Nation Developer
INTERFACE: There should be a world map to see information about other countries from and take foreign policy actions from. There should be a government control area for settings and taking actions relating to the country itself. There should be some kind of dialogue area for interacting with other country’s leaders, concerned citizens, the press, etc. – which could be visual and show either a scene or television with the interacting figure(s).
PREMISE: You control a small nation on a fictional world map, competing in multiplayer with other nations to make your nation the best. However while this can involve war, it doesn’t need to. In fact, war should have detrimental in-game aspects where both countries get weakened and vulnerable. There should be a large variety of political settings with which to design the country’s government model. Examples include political type (direct democracy, representative democracy, dictatorship, parliamentary dictatorship), minimum wage, business regulations (on CEO pay, business practices, etc.), trade (free, tariffs – and if so with whom based on what), freedoms provided (speech, religion, press, etc.), etc. As the country grows you get money to spend on infrastructure projects, technology, business grants, military development, etc. You can interact peacefully with neighboring countries and seek to grow peacefully, by convincing other countries to become territories (if multiplayer they could retain some independence but have to abide within certain settings like political type or minimum wage – thus attractive to countries of like type), economically, by purchasing other countries as land (perhaps NPC countries on the map), or through war (which would make one vulnerable to attack from others). There should be a lot of complexity and in-game effects from different choices – for example restricting press freedoms could result in populace anger and petitions/protests, a lower minimum wage could result in more hiring but money concentration among the rich and a higher minimum wage businesses failing and fewer workers hired, trade restrictions could result in more in-country business development but higher costs on materials, etc.

I tend to think of very complex game ideas though, so not many people would be able to do these justice, is my worry. You’d need someone who knew what they were doing designing the game. So I reserve the right to make my own game versions later if good versions aren’t made.

Topic: Game Design / Game Idea Possibilities

If I wanted to spend that kind of time on it I’d just make the game myself. I have another project going though (writing a book) and don’t have time to devote to game design anytime soon. I’m not trying to convince people about a specific game idea so much as simply pointing out where I see openings for game creation on Kongregate and what some features I’ve thought of are. If game designers want to use that, fine, if not, fine too. This was just something I thought I’d post for any game designers considering game ideas, games I think Kongregate lacks and there’s a demand for. But if designers don’t notice I’m not going to be distraught by any means. Just thought I would share, nothing more.

Topic: Game Design / Developers: How to manipulate high ratings out of the flash gaming community.

I have a lot of disagreements with this:

-Zombies are popular. So are medieval/fantasy D&D type stuff. So are sports games. So are sims. I’d argue Kongregate has some really brilliantly designed zombie games. If you look in the Zombies category there are some extremely good ones and some extremely bad ones. Having zombies in the game won’t automatically make it popular, sorry. Rebuild, Sonny, Decision, and Zombies Took My Daughter (Nerdook’s) are all top games because they are brilliantly designed. They have great, interactive setups, solid plots, customization, etc.
http://www.kongregate.com/zombie-games

-Memes require wit as well. Without it, there’s really not that much point to throwing in some pop culture references. Wit is an asset to a game, while memes not so much.

-Achievements without actual in-game rewards are probably not going to be as successful. How many games do you know that are successful without linking them to in-game rewards?

-Company of Myself excelled because of its plot – something that hasn’t been mentioned much here – not because it was an “Art Game” – whatever that is. It drew people in with emotions and thought-provoking dialogue and storyline. Few games have the writing to get away with that.

-Games that are too simplistic just get ignored as too easy. The games that are remembered and stay around a long time are those with great replay value and challenge like Caravaneer. Even if they don’t get high ratings at first, people will come to appreciate their worth. Caravaneer years later is seeing a ratings rise as more people come to understand (mainly because of its top comments) how to play and appreciate the challenge. How many top games on Kongregate are extremely easy?

-Concerning time investment, Mardek and Sonny are both top RPG games. Here are the stats for the games in each series:
*Sonny – 4.41 rating, 9,229,154 plays
*Sonny 2 – 4.40 rating, 5,821,937 plays
*Mardek RPG 3 – 4.26 rating, 2,622,325 plays
*Mardek RPG 2 – 4.22 rating, 1,898,850 plays
*Mardek RPG 1 – 4.10 rating, 943,436 plays
Mardek did get lower ratings and fewer plays altogether, but both are fantastic games. Why that happened is questionable. Mardek for all its greatness is pretty unique in its unusual humor. You also have to follow the previous games to understand what’s going on in the next ones, and these are VERY long games. Complex storylines aren’t bad and can definitely be positive. The Company of Myself is probably a good example of a game that lives and dies by its storyline.

Topic: Game Design / Design Dilemna.

Question 1: I personally think platform games are going away and have been in favor of top-down or 3D games. What platformers do survive often make use of advanced graphics or 3D models to try and remain relevant. Zelda though incorporated both top-down and side-scrolling features. Platformers now represent just 2% of the market share:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_game
I think this is mainly because platformers have a linear plot with a singular goal and thus a player will feel less control over the game’s outcome. It’s the same feeling I imagine a rat running through a maze must feel, that there’s only one outcome and one right way to get there. Not many platformers even can function as true RPGs, because they are so linear, so if you’re looking to make an RPG I’d suggest top-down aspects. You could I suppose use a combination of both, like the early Zelda games, although I’m not that would work so well. Some other good games that combined 3rd person and 1st/2nd person perspectives include Shadowrun and D&D: Warriors of the Eternal Sun, both for the Sega Genesis.

Question 2: Probably the easiest way to limit the usage would be to let items break and have players go to shops to get them repaired. It might also motivate them to carry more than one weapon (if allowed) as well. Depending on how tough you wanted to make it on FAQ creators, you could even add a slight random factor to weapons so weapons of the same type would be slightly different in capability, and not show the item stats, forcing players to try and decide for themselves what weapons were most effective given their results in combat.

Topic: Game Design / Game Idea Possibilities

Here are some specific in-game concepts that might be interesting as well:

-Ask questions in multiple choice style test format at the beginning of a game to determine character attributes, intelligence, personality, etc. To make it more realistic, you could even conceal the player values so they don’t know how well they did initially, saying only that responses will influence what the character becomes. I think there’s a HUGE potential for this in games – some like Ogre Battle 64 have used such a format for some time now. It’s an alternative to rolling dice for values like in D&D that’s much more interesting, I think, and makes players feel more involved.

-If you want to get money from players, rather than using the silly energy system that many dislike, another possibility would be to have money used to keep characters from being deleted. Think for example about Realm of the Mad God or Monster’s Den, and how frustrated people get when their beloved characters die. Money could be used to buy extra character save slots, to have more characters at once, or to get extra revives. In this way someone could spend money as insurance so if their character dies they won’t be lost forever. And it won’t anger all the people who dislike the energy system.

Topic: Game Design / Game Idea Possibilities

I don’t expect to really follow up on these anytime soon so I thought I’d share some ideas for games that could be really successful if anyone is looking for ideas on games they could make:

-Sports Simulation: Right now there aren’t many good sports sim games apart from Siread’s New Star Soccer. If you look at a lot of the sports games coming out in recent years, Madden, MVP Baseball, etc., they are putting players in the seat of athletes and letting them sim a career, like Siread’s game. I believe there’s high demand for this. Another possibility would be team management similar to Smallball or Hattrick. However, the market in sports is wide open right now on Kongregate for creative game designers.

-Superhero Games: Both Marvel and DC are beginning to appreciate the broad appeal of Superheroes. Many superhero games released on platform consoles have allowed players to play as superheroes in RPG format. I think a key with any such game is more customization and less rigidity. People aren’t looking for two-dimensional side-scrollers so much as RPGs where you cross the land and can customize the characters. The recent superhero card game is too rigid I think, where you’re basically going linearly rather than exploring or having true freedom in the game. Everyone gets the same powers, the same quests, the same path, in other words, and I don’t think that’s the way to go. I’d suggest more Realm of the Mad God style with exploration and customization.

-Life Simulation: Sim City and Stick RPG have both been tremendously popular. This is another area of Kongregate I see as wide open, with very few games creatively simulating a life experience.

I may post more as I think of them.

Topic: Kongregate / Suggestions

I just had an interesting new idea. What about a little sidebar on the Recommendations page giving stats on your Favorited games by Category? Just show what categories you have the most Favorites in. As seen from the Home Page’s Recommended Page section, each game gets tags like Strategy, Defense, RPG, etc. I think it would be awesome to see a sidebar showing a ranking of what your favorites are by Tags with numerical values. For example, you have 14 games with Strategy tag, 10 with Fantasy tag, etc. And just list them. It shouldn’t be hard to put in but could prove really useful on the Recommendations or Favorites page as a small sidebar someplace.

Topic: Kongregate / Suggestions

A few other comments.

It’s especially easy to overlook that on the home page because none of the other sections (Hot New Games, Recently Popular, etc.) have Xs on them. It’s not like you’re expecting to see it as an option because it’s not anywhere else and only appears when hovering, which can be for a split second. And even if someone notices the red X, they may not easily put 2 and 2 together to figure out what it does, or even accidentally click it and delete a recommendation they’d have been interested in.

I notice it only shows the the first 9 results in the Home Page recommendations, so you can’t even manage 6 of the 15 results there.

If they put it on the Recommendations the same way, where it’s an X when hovering over, there should be a notice at the top of the page letting people know about the hovered X and that it lets you delete Recommendations, or it could go unnoticed or even get accidentally clicked when people don’t want to click it.

Also, how about showing the tags on the Recommendations page as well? I notice on the homepage it shows tags like “Defense”, “Strategy”, “Shooter”, etc., but does not show them on the actual Recommendations page. It would be nice to have the info visible there as well.

Again, I think the success of Badge Master illustrates the demand for an effective Recommendations page so people can find new games easily and quickly.

Topic: Kongregate / Suggestions

Wow, you’re right! I had no idea this was there the whole time, much appreciated to you both! Not sure I’d have ever noticed that, either. I usually just go straight to the Recommendations page. Although given this, I have a new recommendation.

They should make a similar feature on the actual Recommendations page, because:

A) Many people might not notice it otherwise, since you have to notice it while hovering, not that easy or likely.
B) It’s a pain to delete on the home page like that, since if there are a few you don’t want to delete, you have to go forward a page, hover, click the X, and then it resets to the 1st page. So you have to go forward through the page(s) again and repeat it to get new results. Management is difficult in other words.
C) It’s not that easy to see info on games in that small little space allotted on the home page to decide which ones to delete as on the Recommendations page, also compounding the difficulty involved.

I also have another suggestion. They should show the reasons WHY games are recommended on the Recommendations page as well as the game description, show both at the same time. It’s kind of odd to show the reason only on the home page and not on the Recommendations page.

Topic: Kongregate / Suggestions

I can remove them without having to rate them??? How? I am looking at the Recommended Games page and I don’t see what other way there is.

Topic: Kongregate / Suggestions

How about changing the Recommended Games section? It is very annoying that a lot of games I don’t want to play are there and I can’t refresh the list. What about one of the following?

(1) Option to refresh the list.
(2) Ability to remove games from the list without having to rate them.

I don’t want to rate a game down without having played it just to get it off the Recommended Games page but would like to be able to see games I know I’ll be interested in. The Recommended Games section really needs a serious change to become more useful, as evidenced by “Badge Master”.

Topic: Legacy of a Thousand Suns / The lords of life [alliance]

We are still recruiting. Growing and active alliance, yet casual.

Topic: Legacy of a Thousand Suns / The lords of life [alliance]

Well, I joined from seeing this post. :) Seems like a good alliance so far, and happy to be here. :)