Alpha 1.2 and Midterm Presentations

We had originally planned for Alpha 1 to only be open internally, but what became rapidly apparent with a team of seven hardcore gamers was that we needed to get our site into the hands' of casual gamers. We got a good bunch of testers who've been giving us good feedback and bug reports so far, but our connection at the moment is very thin. The connections currently implemented are:

1. Minigame scores affect each casual gamers' stats
2. Casual gamers' stats are used in the hardcore game.
3. Casual gamers can see their avatars in combat in the hardcore game.
4. Fighter, the situational mini-game. Playing this game provides a temporary boost to the casual gamers' stats. If that casual gamer's avatar is hit in the hardcore game, blocks fall down in the casual gamers' Fighter game.

While these connections are present, they are fairly weak. The stats connection is a very slow, long-term connection and the Fighter connection requires both casual and hardcore gamer to be on at the same time.

We've since been trying to come up with more ways to connect the casual and hardcore gamer together, both synchronously and asynchronously. Here is an absolutely ridiculous list of ideas that came up in terms of how we would create/foster a connection. A number of these ideas have been around since pitch, but some of them just came up during our last design meeting:

1. Casual gamer as Tamagotchi – This idea is pretty self-explanatory, but the casual gamer is more or less a tamogotchi that the hardcore gamer has to take care of by providing with sustenance, shelter, etc.
2. Casual gamer uses party for a more casual purpose – The casual gamer could potentially use his or her part y in a somewhat “Animal Crossing”-esque fashion in that outside of the hardcore game, the other party members are able to interact with each other in a social manner.
3. Group line-up/party menu to show everyone else in your party visually. This should help the connection if nothing else than to show what everyone else looks like in your party.
4. Finding items in the casual games, for instance breaking 5 blocks in Bejeweled, and finding a weapon or item that your character can use in the hardcore game.
5. Badges (both hardcore and casual). Badges are good ways to create meaning for casual gamers and also to create competition for hardcore gamers.
6. Each casual gamer has his/her own personal space, such as a house. The hardcore gamer unlocks stores that the casual gamer can then buy things from such that they can decorate his or her own house.
7. Consumables. This was more of an idea such that gameplay wouldn’t be based entirely on content, that way we won’t have to run into the problem that many MMOs run into, which is having to constantly create new content. This also fosters the connection in that the hardcore gamer can “give” these consumables to the casual gamer. “Hey, you get a pie! Yay!” The casual gamer’s stats go up, and he or she also gets a gift from the hardcore gamer.
8. Inventory/wardrobe. People will be able to store items and clothing that they buy and then freely swap back and forth what they have for their own personal customization.
9. Ladder/Ranking for both casual and hardcore. Ladders and rankings are easy and immediately create competition for the hardcore gamers.
10. Casual resource. A stat that casual gamer increases and the hardcore player spends (money/points). The idea behind this stat
11. Messaging. It’s pretty clear that we’re going to need direct communication of some sort between the casual and hardcore gamers. Whether this is done with preset questions and commands or if it’ll be entirely free text, we aren’t sure, but we want this in there.
12. Wishlist. The idea behind this connection would be for the casual gamer to create a wishlist of items, clothes, etc. that he or she wants but aren’t available to him or her. The hardcore gamer then has to
13. Different money types – The casual gamer gets different money types that the hardcore player then converts for them so they can buy different kinds of items.
14. Elemental alignment – Each minigame increases a character’s elemental alignment, and this elemental alignment works against or with each other in the hardcore game. Think Magic The Gathering.
15. Location-based backgrounds for the casual games – In a world where the hardcore game is on some sort of world map,
16. Every casual games has an effect on the hardcore game/stats. This idea is something we’ll almost definitely implement regardless of what other decisions we come to since all this can do is help the connection.
17. Hardcore gamer’s clothing – Whatever the hardcore gamer’s avatar is wearing is automatically unlocked for the casual gamer. It’s more like a uniform than anything else.
18. Party has collective attributes. Casual + Hardcore trying to enhance the party – A house, city, and ship.
19. Casual clothing is a profession types of games enhance your profession.
20. Clothing affect stats – Casual gamers’ stats go up according to whatever they’re wearing, not their minigame. This way, if a casual gamer wants to be a medic or a mechanic or scientist, they can be that without worrying about how their stats would affect them.

Some of these ideas are stronger than others, but a lot of these are promising, and we're going to go forward with these as soon as we all get back from GDC. Until then, we're going to touch up what we already have and get ready to party in San Francisco!