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Teamwork!

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Three
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Joined: 08/31/2011

Here I go, rambling again.

When I think about what kind of games I like most of them tend to be cooperative. I like the feeling of accomplishing something in a group, and contributing to someone else's gaming experience in a non competitive way if that makes sense. I still love a lot of competitive games mind you, but I feel like my personal favorites put you in a group. Whether to fend off AI controlled enemies, or a “dungeon master” of sorts.

These games tend to be fairly difficult to compensate for the number of players working together (one that I've heard of and want to try is Ghost Stories). I've said it before that I prefer games that make you feel you were actually good at the game. This is amped up to the 'enth degree when I play a (fair) difficult game. Not only do you feel like you've accomplished something with your friends, but now you've accomplished something big. You never would have made it out without help, and it was because of your good teamwork that you were able to overcome the odds.

I'm very glad that I was able to capture a similar feel for the game I'm working on now. Something one of the players said stuck with me though.

“This game is fun for the same reason DnD is fun. You know you're going to get fucked at some point, and it might not be soon. You're just waiting to find out how!”

Not sure how I feel about that one...but I took it as a compliment at the time. What do you guys think?

Orangebeard
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Joined: 10/13/2011
World of Darkness?

Sounds like your friends would just love Vampire - The Masquerade :)

I think I would still take this as a compliment. To me, this comment shows that the players were emotionally invested in the game at some point; they felt fear, anxiety, nervousness, etc. That will only happen if the game you created sucked them in and held their attention.

What is the theme of your game?

Three
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It's a dungeon crawler; after

It's a dungeon crawler; after I get to testing it more offline I want to post and distribute it online as a free print and play.

I never thought of it that way, but in that case I guess it's a good thing. To clarify though I meant to ask your opinions in response to the bulk of my post. My bad for not making it clearer!

JustActCasual
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Joined: 11/20/2012
The Edge

I think the way you make a coop game like what you describe is the same as a competitive game: scarce resources. When the team does not have quite enough resources you get that feeling of challenge and skill from eking out every advantage from what you have and everyone HAS to be involved.

I think the player comment is reflective of this: when you're skating along that thin edge it's almost inevitable that you sometimes go over: then you get the fun of trying to scrabble back out of the abyss. I would say in a good coop game the Other (AI/game/enemy player) should win about 20~35% of the time if you want your players to really feel the tension, and when your players DO win it should be by the skin of their teeth.

In terms of scaling the game, I think it is important that the power of additional players is circumscribed rather than cumulative. You can often do this by giving the Other resources/actions per player turn rather than per round (think the clock mechanic in Elder Sign). Essentially you are alternating control of the Player turn, breaking the power of one player across the whole team: in fact, a good sign of this type of coop is if it works fine with just one player. I would say this method is generally better than cumulative scaling because it's much easier to balance, it leads to more consistent gameplay overall, and it helps reign in complexity concerns.

Obviously no coop game is going to be purely circumscribed or cumulative elements. One good common scaling mechanic that bridges the categories is character powers: it is cumulative in that the team has more options, but circumscribed in that the absolute power of the Player turn does not increase. Characters are also nice because they allow players to assign themselves roles they think they'll enjoy, and they strongly encourage teamwork through specialization.

Qwibbian
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Joined: 10/24/2012
More musings on cooperative games

Great thread! I also like cooperative games, because they give the players a break from competing against each other, so although there's tension during the game, it's a shared feeling rather than a winners-vs-losers scenario. That being said, some cooperative games do introduce a bit of competition (although it's not the main theme) - for example, everyone loses if the team fails, and everyone wins if the team succeeds, but one person may be given a title (i.e., declared the "winner of the winners") for meeting certain criteria. Two examples are the player with the most kill points in Castle Panic and the First Citizen in Arkham Horror. I know these are minor awards, but in some games they could be woven into a more competitive form. I believe a recent Lord of the Rings game (where the players play the Nazghul) does this.

My only frustration with coop games is when everyone has a specific role, usually there is an optimal move that all of the other players are more than willing to tell you about. I think some games have fixes for this - I'd love to hear more about that.

As for dungeon crawls, my favourite mechanic is a dynamic playing field, where you reveal more and more of the dungeon as your party explores it.

Looking forward to seeing the details of your game, Three!

Regards,
Qwib

Three
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Joined: 08/31/2011
That's actually the main

That's actually the main mechanic of my game. Players have to “reveal” squares on the grid to create dungeon paths. How many squares a character can reveal per action depends on their Speed stat. Having a speed of 6 lets you reveal 3 squares per action, and a speed of 3 only gives you 1 square to reveal.

(Revealing = half of a character's speed rounded down).

dameonunleashed
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Joined: 09/07/2011
I definitely think this is a

I definitely think this is a compliment. The other posts are correct; as long as the players are emotionally invested, then you've got something there.

I host a bi-weekly game night, and the most popular game in the last few months has been Red November. It's completely cooperative, and so difficult that approximately 85% of the time everyone dies. But everyone loves it for that same reason your players like yours. They know there's a better than fair chance that they are going to die, and they don't know how or when, but it will happen, and it will probably happen in a dramatic, interesting way.

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