Wings of Lightning: A New Kind of Solo Gamebook

Old School

With the astounding rise of popularity in role-playing games in the late 70s and early 80s came a demand for role-playing adventures that could be played solitaire.  After all, not every gamer could round up several friends and devote 4+ hours to a gaming session on a regular basis.  But the craving for role-playing-style games was nigh insatiable. 

Several major titles rose to meet this demand, notably the Fighting Fantasy series by Ian Livingstone and at least two different Steve Jacksons, and Lone Wolf by Joe Dever.

These gamebooks were designed to provide a single player with an RPG experience mimicking the popular mechanics of the time.  There were stats to track, inventory lists, and most importantly, dice!  The games played a bit like Choose Your Own Adventure books with dice-rolling.  The player would make decisions, turn to paragraphs as instructed, and roll dice to see if they fail or succeed at various endeavors.  The gamebooks essentially acted as GMs for the player.

I have attempted to write gamebooks on multiple occasions.  They combine two of my favorite hobbies: game design and creative writing.  None of these projects ever came to much, though.  I would get really excited by the story of the game, but the mechanics always felt... flat.  I didn't feel I was adding anything new to the genre.

I had to do some research.  I played a wide variety of both professional and amateur gamebooks, trying to figure out what worked, what did not, what I enjoyed, and what I felt could be improved.  The Fighting Fantasy Project was a particularly useful site, as was Project Aon, the attempt to make all the Lone Wolf books available for free online.

New Project

When I began to work on my newest design, Wings of Lightning, I tried to write a gamebook that drew upon the lessons that I had learned.

One of the key differences between Wings of Lightning and traditional gamebooks is the lack of dice.  I had attempted to write WoL several times, always with various attempts at dice-based combat, and none of them worked.  The problem was the Wings of Lightning was originally conceived of as an action-adventure video game, in the style of Legends of Zelda, God of War, and Shadow of the Colossus.  Combat in such games revolves around patience, combos, and pushing one's luck to get in the last few hits.  Dice just couldn't seem to emulate this.

Combat Evolved

I cast about for a mechanic that would mimic the fast-paced, brutal combat of God of War and Dante's Inferno.  Dice were not working.  What else could I use?

Many of my ideas seem to come during that blissful half-awake period when I am lying in bed waiting for my alarm to go off.  During one such time, it occurred to me to use playing cards rather than dice.  Playing cards have "memory," which in game terms means that the chances of achieving a certain outcome change over time as cards are depleted from the deck.  Dice lack memory; previous rolls have no effect on future rolls.

I initially thought about having the player guess the color or suit of the top card of the deck, then revealing that card.  A correct guess would mean a hit; an incorrect guess would therefore be a miss.  Too many misses, and the player would receive a damage penalty.  More hits would lead to better combos, thus encouraging the player to push his or her luck.

I liked this idea, because it would allow astute players to improve their accuracy over time.  The more cards they revealed, the more information they would have about what cards remained, giving them a higher chance of guessing accurately.

It occurred to me, though, that a deck of cards has too many cards.  Drawing four or five cards does not significantly alter the chances of drawing one suit or another.  I had to limit the number of cards so that drawing even one card would significantly alter the chances of revealing one color or another.  "Face cards!" I thought.

I tested the idea, and it seemed to work.  Using only the 16 face cards (Jack, Queen, King, Ace), I could guess with a decent amount of accuracy the color of the top card.

What, then, to do with the remaining cards?  "Enemy AI!" I thought.

For enemy attacks, I decided to use the numbers of the cards, rather than the colors.  For each enemy, the player would simply reveal the top card of the deck.  If the number on the revealed card was equal to or less than that enemy's Aim stat, the player would take a hit.  It was fast, simple, and easy to understand.

After releasing an initial draft for viewing on boardgamegeek.com, some early testers helped me iron out some kinks on the system.  (Shout out to Tony, Jessey, and Michael!)

First, the player wasn't interacting with the enemies enough.  The enemies would either hit the player, or not, and the player could do nothing about it.  I decided, then to utilize the "miss" cards that the player was accumulating anyway.  The "miss" cards became "maneuver" cards.  They would work the same way, in that too many maneuver cards would lead to a damage penalty, but they could also be used to cancel enemy damage.  If an enemy hit the player, the player could cancel the damage by matching the revealed card with a maneuver card of the same suit.  This added a nice extra layer of strategy, as players could deliberately miss in order to gain the suits they wanted to use to dodge enemy attacks.

Second, the idea of using guessing either colors or suits was too much.  Colors were much easier; suits were just too difficult to guess consistently.  So I ditched suits and went with colors only.  The player only had to guess the correct color to get a hit.

Linear Story

Wings of Lightning was originally intended to be a video game.  I had a very detailed plot laid out in my head, with several key characters playing important roles.  The game was originally a sort of on-rails adventure, a la God of War or Dante's Inferno; there would be no wandering around looking for extra items or performing menial tasks for NPCs.

This meant that when I sat down to write WoL, I had to make a crucial decision.  Instead of giving the player a lot of free reign over the story, with many branching paths and decision points, I decided to tell the story that I had already plotted.  Wings of Lightning has a chapter structure traditionally found in novels, but not really seen in gamebooks.  The player reads through and completes each chapter consecutively.  He or she still makes choices, but ultimately the story will be the same each time.

There are pros and cons to this approach.  On the one hand, the story will always be cohesive, and the characters consistent.  I get to tell exactly the story I want to tell.  On the other hand, once the player has completed the game once or twice, there is little incentive to replay.  But WoL is intended as a free print-and-play game, and I don't think replay value is as important in a game that cost nothing.

Looking Ahead

Wings of Lightning is being designed for the 2012 Solitaire Print and Play Contest.  Submissions must be complete by the end of July, which gives me about two weeks to wrap up the gamebook.  I've been writing steadily, but some upheaval at work has been very draining, making it difficult to complete more than about a page a day.

Still, I am hopeful that I can complete a solid draft in time.  I have outlined 10 chapters.  The rules and chapters 1 and 2 are complete.  Chapter 3 should be done by tomorrow evening.  The biggest hurdle will be chapter 9 (assuming I stick to my outline), because it involves a very tricky plot twist.  I think I can do it, with encouragement and dedication.  Even if I don't manage to complete the game in time to submit to the contest, I definitely plan to finish the game before the end of the summer.

Then I'll get to work on the sequel: Horns of Thunder!

A Thousand Years of Blood

I have released another print-and-play game titled A Thousand Years of Blood.  It was designed for the June 24-Hour Game Design Contest, which was very intense.  It looks like the 24-hour design contest might become a monthly contest, with each month presenting different restrictions or challenges.  This month, the trial month of the contest, was open-ended.  Participants could design whatever they wanted!

To start the clock, the participant posts on the contest thread, announcing that they are beginning their game.  They then have 24 hours to create a game entirely from scratch.  No revisiting half-finished prototypes, no starting the graphic design or mechanical testing prior to the start, nothing.  Of course, this is all on the honor code, but we experienced designers have a good idea of what can and cannot be done in 24 hours.

My submission was designed, tested, tweaked, and released in a whirlwind weekend.  The game is about an alternate reality wherein a superhuman named Heinrich Kirchner took over Nazi Germany after Hitler's assassination.  Heinrich has lead the Nazis to victory over the human race.  You, as a fellow superhuman, must escape capture and bring down Heinrich's regime.

The game fits onto a single PocketMod, a sheet of paper that can be folded origami-style into a little booklet.  The player starts the game by selecting two super powers, then proceeds through each of the three levels to reach and defeat Heinrich.

It was definitely a fun and intense challenge.  I learned a lot about my design methods and sensibilities. I definitely work better starting with a theme and then matching mechanics to it.  The original concept for the game was to make a board game version of a side-scrolling adventure, but I quickly realized that there was no way to create that sort of game in 24 hours.  A side-scroller really needs artwork to distinguish the various obstacles and enemies, and there was no way I would be able to pull that off in a day.

It occurred to me, though, that I could have the players draw their own enemies and obstacles.  It was a stupid idea, and there was no way I could actually get players to do it.  But it did lead me to the idea of having players generate the maps, themselves.  Once I latched onto that idea, I decided to try and squeeze the game onto a PocketMod.  The small space would restrict the design possibilities--which is a good thing when you only have a day.  Additionally, I know from experience how to craft PocketMods, and I was confident that I could craft one quickly and get to testing.

The fact that the game was solitaire was extremely useful.  I could get in a lot of testing in a short amount of time, and tweak the game quickly and easily.

There haven't been very many participants in the June contest, yet, but we're only halfway through the month.  I'm hopeful that we'll be able to drum up more interest.  The prize isn't hugely compelling, but the challenge is very fun and quite instructive.

Anyway, feel free to check out the game!  The rules can be downloaded here, and the PocketMod is available here.

The First Planet

It's been a while since I posted on this blog, which is a little sad, since I've actually been very active in the board game community.

Here's a preview of a game that I've recently started working on:

The First Planet

            Life did not start on Earth.

            Uncounted millennia ago, the Earth was seeded with genetic coding.  Life slowly evolved, changing form as the Earth developed.  The land solidified, and creatures began to walk, slither, and fly across it as the oceans teemed with life.

            One species, a weak, slow, hairless species, learned to survive by traveling in packs and outsmarting their predators.  Their wits let them survive, and eventually, thrive.  They tamed the wilds to their liking, spread across the planet, and became the dominant species of the planet.  And when the Earth grew too small for them, they looked up to the sky. 

            The Moon was colonized, then Mars, then the ring of asteroids spinning around the sun.  That’s when they discovered the Structure.

            Nestled into a hunk of rock in the asteroid belt, the Structure had been built before humans learned to sharpen rocks into weapons.  It was designed to survive the cold, harsh destruction of space.  Half of it was exposed, a perfect half-sphere, while the other half was buried in the rock.

            While the half-sphere portion of the structure was surprising when discovered, it was the inner part of the structure that caused shock and awe through the human society.  Some described it as like a beehive; others said it was more akin to a nautilus shell.  It was clearly designed by something with great skill and craftsmanship, and it was not of human origin.

            Other clues were found later, but the Structure was the first, and in many ways the most important.  Life had existed elsewhere in the universe long before it developed on Earth.

            So humanity set out to find that life.  They set out in search of the First Planet.

This doesn't actually reflect my views on creation or anything, but the concept is interesting and should make for some fun gameplay.

The Tenth Dragon

When Godd created the Wurld, she saw that it was beautiful, full of green mountains, white shores, and blue seas.  Godd wanted to display the Wurld to all of Creation, and so, she hung the Wurld in the Heavens, suspended by nine chains gripped by nine dragons.  A tenth dragon circled the Wurld carrying a great Torch, which gave warmth and light to the Wurld.

But now, something is wrong with the tenth dragon.  You can see the great Torch receding, and feel the Wurld growing colder.  Snow is falling in the harvest month.  The crops are withering and dying.  And furred beasts are descending from the north and ravaging the village.

Knowing that time is precious, you gather supplies and prepare to journey north, to the mountains, to the Shrine of the Tenth Dragon.  Only there do you have any hope of discovering how to return warmth to the Wurld and saving your village.

This is a game idea that occurred to me this morning.  I was supposed to be sleeping in, because Saturday is the only day that I can catch up on my sleep.  Instead, though, I was mostly awake, and kept having random ideas.  One of them was a game title, The Tenth Dragon.  I rolled with the idea, and came up with the background you just read.

I am currently envisioning the game as card-based, for one or two players.  In solitaire mode, the player must work to overcome various obstacles in a journey to the Shrine of the Tenth Dragon.  In co-op mode, two players will work together to overcome the different challenges, while should hopefully scale in difficulty.  I have a few ideas about how the game might work mechanically, but this will probably be on the back burner for a while as I focus on research for another project on which I am currently working.  For now, I just wanted to get the inspiration "on paper" so I can refer back to it when I have the time to work on the game.

The Sewer Rats

I want to put some thoughts to paper (figuratively speaking), but don't want a lot of people reading them as of yet.  This idea is still quit undeveloped and needs to simmer, but writing about it well help me gel the concept.

I plan on writing a role-playing game.  It may just end up being a module for a game system that already exists (I hear that the GURPS system is pretty versatile), but I kind of like the idea of designing my own system specifically for this setting.

In the not-too-distant future, the world's oil supply suddenly and rapidly dwindled to nothing.  The infrastructure of the United States, so dependent on gasoline, crumbled.  Power outages swept across the country as power stations ran out of the coal, gas, or oil necessary to keep them going.  The economy collapsed, and the nation's leaders, huddled in their underground bunkers powered by hydroelectricity, cowered and waited for the country to dissolve.

Then came the Corporation.  It approached the United States' panicked legislators with a new, renewable energy source.  While not environmentally friendly, it could rapidly replace oil as a source of fuel, restoring the country as the dominant nation of the world.  All the Corporation asked in return was control.

And control it received.

No longer governed by the people, no longer protected by the Constitution, the United States became the Incorporated States.  The Corporation dissolved all American businesses and established a communist totalitarian state.  All citizens were required to attend Corporate schools, work in Corporate jobs.  In return, the Corporation restored energy to the nation.  It provided jobs, housing, food, clean water.  Everything a citizen could ask for.

All for the price of freedom.

Thirty years later, you are a member of the resistance.  You live off the grid, underground, or in abandoned buildings.  You do what you need to do to survive.  And you fight and hinder the Corporation in any way you can.

You are a Sewer Rat.

That's the basic backstory.  I may, later, change the way that the Corporation came to power, but I like this one because it makes some sense, and this new energy source could cause it to be dark, rainy, and unpleasant all the time, which would fit the pseudo-post-apocalyptic mood.

The basic idea of the game is that the players take on the roles of Sewer Rats.  They try to take down the Corporation using any means necessary--stealing from them, subverting employees, whatever they can do, they'll do it.  And while their cause, it is just, they also have to eat occasionally.  Which will often mean that they must steal from the very citizens they are trying to free.  Moral dilemmas galore.

Game Concept: Enki-Des

I didn't set out to come up with a concept for a game.  Admittedly, I knew it was a possibility, but it was not the goal.  My intention was to have a nice thought-exercise in creating a mythology.

So here is what I came up with:

The Ukri are a people constantly at war.  They developed along the western edge of Baltien, but despite ready access to the ocean's vast resources, did not develop sailing techniques for centuries.  Forced to eek out a living without being able to fish on a large scale, they eventually rejected small-scale pearl diving and fishing in favor of raiding their wealthier neighbors to the east.  They became a very warlike people, and their mythology reflects this.

The Ukri believe that death brings them to the Enki-des, or Soul Gates.  The Enki-des is a series of seven gates, and the Ukri spend their lives preparing for the seven trials they must face in order to pass through the Enki-des to reach Furrma, or Paradise.

The first six trials are combative.  A deceased Ukri must battle and defeat a powerful guardian to pass through the first Enki-des, then the second, and so on until the last.  The final trial is not a trial by combat, however.  Instead, the Ukri must present his or her Enko-ori, or essence pearl, to the Enki-Rochimga, roughly translated as Guardian of the Soul, who is usually depicted as a giant white bear standing upright on two legs.  If they are able to present their Enko-ori to Enki-Rochimga, the Ukri are permitted into Furrma.  Obtaining these Enko-ori is critical to the Ukri--without it, their battles through the first six Enki-Des will be for naught, and Enki-Rochimga will devour them.

There are two ways to obtain one's Enko-ori.  It may be obtained in life if one lives a long, honorable life.  In such cases, one's Bilchidru, a sort of observing spirit, will grant one his or her Enko-ori immediately after death.

For those who do not live long enough or honorably enough to be granted an Enko-ori freely, there is still hope.  They must search the Enki-des for their Enko-ori.  This search may take a very long time, and they will be fighting the guardians of the Enki-des the whole time.  

Subsequently, the Ukri prepare their entire lives to fight.  From the time they can walk, they are told to run.  From the time they can lift a stick, they are shown how to use a spear.  They are trained to fight, and they do so exceptionally well.

Interestingly, they are not bloodthirsty warriors, like many of the warrior nations that developed in Baltien.  This is likely because of their quest to obtain their Enko-ori by living a long and honorable life.  While they are willing to fight and raid as a way of life, they do battle as bloodlessly as possible, seeking to leave their opponents alive, but incapacitated.

So, the game concept is pretty straightforward.  It's a solitaire game, wherein the player takes on the role of a deceased Ukri warrior, and must battle his or her way through six unique guardians.  After defeating a guardian but before advancing to the next stage, the player may search the area for his or her Enko-ori.  If he or she does, they must battle the guardian again, regardless of whether or not they are successful in finding their essence pearl.  Alternatively, their may be a way to search the area while doing battle, but the player will be distracted and thus take damage from the guardian.  I haven't worked out how this might work mechanically, yet.

If the player is able to reach the final gate of the Enki-des and present his or her Enko-ori to Enki-Rochimga, he or she wins.  Otherwise, he or she loses.

Solitaire Print-and-Play Contest

I am getting close to finishing my newest game design project, called Derelicts of Sin: Heresy.  Heresy is the first in a series of games that seeks to combine the feel of old-school text adventure games with modern board game design sensibilities.  It is a solo RPG-esque game with a sci fi/horror theme, designed for the Solitaire Print and Play Contest.

The player uses a series of randomized room tiles to slowly create the derelict ship throughout the course of the game.  Gradually, the player will also gather items and solve puzzles in order to restore power to the ship, at which point he or she has multiple options for winning game.  Time is of the essence, though; once the player runs out of oxygen, it's game over!

Version 1.0 of the game book can be found here.  Version 1.0 of the tiles are here, and the data cards are here. The player sheet is here.

For background purposes, you should know that I'm a bit of an oddball.  My synapses are always firing, and occasionally, out of the blue, a word or phrase will pop into my head and I'll think, "That would make a cool title for a movie/game/novel/whatever."  One Thursday, 5 May, a phrase popped into my head while I was at work: "Derelict of Sin."

"That sounds cool!" I thought.  "How can I use that?"

I started brainstorming, and very quickly came up with a rough storyline in my head.  I decided I liked the idea of a sci fi puzzle adventure, like the old text adventures we all know and love.  (Or is that an older generation thing?)  I even considered making it a text adventure, but thanks to some suggestions and encouragement from various BGG members, I decided to attempt it as a board game.

Derelict of Sin has since evolved into a concept for a series of games called Derelicts of Sin.  The first game, Heresy, involves the protagonist, Kyle Mason, exploring one of the Derelicts of Sin in an attempt to survive.  His ship was destroyed by sabotage, and by sheer luck, he was able to reach the Wreckage, a Cursed zone declared off-limits by the Theocratic Council.  As Kyle explores the [i]Heresy[/i], he learns more about what happened to the ship, and must face the truth about the Council--that it is not the holy governing body it pretends to be.

I had several design goals while creating this game.  Feel free to let me know how well I accomplished these goals:

1. Create a tabletop game that evokes the feel of a text-based adventure.

2. Create interesting decisions for the player--i.e., moments where the player must decide, "Should I do A or B?  Which would be a better use of my resources?  Which will help me win the game/achieve the ending that I want?"

3. Weave the storyline into the story in such a way that it doesn't crowd out or distract from the gameplay.  In other words, make the game playable without the storyline, and add in the story so that those who are interested can enjoy it, while those who simple want to play or replay the game can do so without getting bogged down.

4. Allow for multiple "good" and multiple "bad" endings.

5. Push the player to a particular "preferred" ending.  This was a minor goal, but since I have a few sequels in mind, at least some of which will likely involve more of Kyle Mason, I wanted to guide the player to an ending that made sense, yet would continue the Derelicts of Heresy storyline.

Check out Joe's wicked awesome graphical update to the game here.

Also check out the "stealth" version, Pocket Derelicts: Heresy, based on the popular Pocket Dungeon print and play game by Jonathan Gilmour.  The PocketMod player sheet for Pocket Derelicts: Heresy can be found here.  The rules can be found here.