A Fish Called Bando

Bandology got a fish today! His name is Bando, and though he's only been in the office for 4 hours, Bando has already livened up the office considerably. Here are some photos of him:

Won't Get Fooled Again

Week 2 = over! This week was filled with problem-solving, designing, and prototyping. One of the conclusions that we've come to after a week filled with thinking is that lot of our designs revolving around the world of Bandology shouldn't change; a lot of these features worked really well and we have no intention of changing them drastically. The progression for bands, the band member interactions, the customizability of avatars, the personalization of band information- all of these things are remaining in tact in some way, shape, or form. The fuzzy and tricky point of Bandology is the core gameplay mechanic. The core gameplay mechanic that existed in the first release of Bandology consisted of borrowed (read: stolen) casual game mechanics and a somewhat bizarre and abstract hardcore game that made varying amounts of sense depending on the player. We also didn't really have any games that captured the feeling of being in a band, or performing music live. Additionally, while our players absolutely loved creating bands, becoming super stars, and immersing themselves in the world of Bandology, the gameplay progression for casual players was pretty dreadful.

In looking at these issues that plagued Bandology as well as some commonplace problems found in online gaming, we were able to narrow down the focus of our core gameplay, which is to solve these two problems:

1. Eliminating grind:
   
   Probably one of the most difficult problems to solve in online gaming is eliminating grind, especially when most MMOs want to reward and benefit players who spend more time playing the game. While it's not to say that there will ever be a situation where casual and hardcore players well ever be on a completely level playing field, we hope and strive to create a way in which players of all skill levels and time commitment can play together, since one of the cornerstones of Bandology gameplay is to create a fundamentally casual MMO.
   
   
2. Asynchronous cooperation:
   
   Another problem with MMOs is something of a subtler issue. Generally, in order for people to play together in an MMO, everyone is required to be online at the same time. Whether this is done casually or scheduled as in a raid, the general set up for multiplayer play is for everyone to be online simultaneously. The notion of having scheduled times to play a game, or requiring a large amount of time spent to playing a game eliminates nearly any semblance of casualness, yet we want people to be able to play together cooperatively.
   

While we don't have any hard and fast solutions to either of these problems, we have a number of ideas that we're prototyping. Some of our thoughts behind eliminating grind revolve around having weekly group contributions to the band in the form of "playing a gig." The core gameplay that we're creating is tied to players playing in a gig, so every band member is basically playing their part in a live show. One game play session will be short, so that the minimum required play time for every band member should be 10-15 minutes max for 5 days or a week. After they've played once, how they played is their contribution to the gig for that week, and the casual player can simply log off and wait for the next gig to pop up. However, let's say there's a point value tied to their contribution; if a player wants to play again in order to contribute more or do better, such as, get a higher score, they're more than able to if they're so inclined. While this still creates some degree of grind, we feel that setting the minimum requirement to be low enough should prevent too much pressure on the casual player.

The asynchronous issue is a slightly trickier point that we're trying to solve as well. Carlos is currently working on a prototype that turns Bejeweled into an asynchronous cooperative game. Yes, yes, we're borrowing Bejeweled again, but the idea is that our asynchronous cooperation mechanic will be able to be layered on top of numerous games, so we're using Bejeweled as a test case. Here is how an asynchronous game of Bejeweled might play:

1. Player 1 plays a timed 5-minute game of Bejeweled. We log every move and block that Player 1 destroyed.
2. Player 2 comes in the next day and plays her 5-minute game of Bejeweled. As she is playing her game, bonus blocks and powerups might pop up at the same time that player 1 may have destroyed 4 jewels or 5 jewels in a row.
   

It's rough and sketchy at best, but babysteps.

Also, here's some concept art to tide you all over. Cheers y'all!

Jamming

We have this song stuck in our heads:

And... We're Back

After a very restful break over the holidays, the Bandology team is back in full gear, and we've had one week under our belts to get ourselves situated and ready for the cold Pittsburgh winter. I'd like to extend a warm welcome to the two new members of our team: Lisa and Carlos!

As Edmundo posted in a previous blog post, we've been spending a lot of time looking back at what Bandology was as of last June and doing lots of design work to make Bandology as amazing as possible. We had our first meeting with our faculty advisor Jesse Schell on Thursday, which has always been refreshing and enlightening. We discussed what a lot of the core problems are with Bandology and how we can fix these problems. After (not-so) much deliberation, we've decided to very graciously sever the ties that Bandology has with CasualCore. RIP CasualCore, you shall be missed.

With that in mind though, it's a brand new day for Bandology. We're setting off in exciting new directions, and we can't wait to show you what we have in store next!

Happy New Year!

Happy 2008 to anyone who is reading this blog! To celebrate, here's some music:



If you've been missing out, Radiohead released their newest album, In Rainbows, last year as a pay-what-you-want download from their own. Since then they've taken it offline (probably because the album is coming out in "normal" stores), but we support that kind of stuff. This video, released last night as a New Year's celebration, showcases their new album.

We'll be back working on Bandology in full force on Monday, January 15! For now, we're taking a break, working a little bit, doing some research; basically getting ready for some crazy amount of work.