Alpha 1

Alpha 1 was this past Monday Feburary 19, and things are starting to really pick up. We have a barebones version of our experience up, whereby gamers can sign up, login, and play casual games to improve his or her characters' stats. These characters are then imported into the hardcore game that Bill has been slaving over for about a week now. The hardcore game that we have implemented is a rather simplistic strategy battle that is on a 10 x 10 grid. The style of gameplay that we're aiming for is akin to Final Fantasy Tactics or Advance Wars, though our game will inevitably and undoubtedly change due to how we design for the connection between casual and hardcore gamers.

All of our design decisions are steeped in creating and strengthening the connection between hardcore and casual gamers, and I think that there's a lot of promise in that so far. Obviously, our whole project is hinging on that connection, so hopefully we'll be able to pull it off.

Some of the issues we're working on currently include finalizing our art avatar style. We've gone through a number of iterations and concept phases, but we need to just make a decision about them and move forward. We're also at the point where we're trying to get both the design and functionality of all the group interactions such as creating, joining, leaving, and disbanding groups. Here are some potential questions that Edmundo wrote from the players' points of view:

Hardcore side:
1) Do I have to ask anyone to join or can i just draft them immediately?
2) How often can I switch the players in my posse?
3) How can I easily find players that will do well for my battle?

Casual side:
1) Why do I care about joining this posse?
2) Can I find and ask to join someone's group or do I have to be asked
by the hardcore guy?

Both:
1) How can I trust the other side?
2) Is knowing what the others are doing important?
3) Does my group have to know what I'm doing? How is this important?
4) Can I play with my friends? How can I easily find them? Do I have to
know their nicknames?


All of these are issues we're hoping to tackle soon. More later!

-A