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Kaunisto
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Gladiator/Wild West/Naval/Magic/Space Arena: design and chat
That's the working title.
Yesterday I got inspired by my chess board idea and came up with a simple RPG-ish strategy game with simultaneous moves.
Basically you pick one of eight character/weapon combinations and move around chess board trying to hit other players by guessing where they move.
Here's current rules version 0.2:
Gladiator Arena
1. Player has following qualities:
Hit points (HP): player has certain starting amount, depending on race (see 6); player loses HP when struck by another player; when player has 0 or less HP, player is removed from game
Movement per Turn (MpT): player has amount of MpT depending on race and weapon (see 6,7); these are used during one turn, on moving and/or striking (see 2)
Damage caused when striking other player: amount of HP that is removed from other player when striking that player; depends on race and weapon (see 6,7)
Range: area to which player can strike, measured from the square player moves to or remains in during that turn; depends on weapon (7)
2. Players actions during one turn:
Player can move and/or strike.
Player can only move one square per turn, not diagonally. Doing so costs one MpT; player can choose to not move and then can use that one MpT on striking.
If two players would move to same square, they "bump" and both remain in squares they were; they still used the MpT.
Strike is an attempt to harm another player. Player can strike as many times as he/she has MpT (left after he/she has moved or not). When player strikes more than once during turn, he/she can strike any number of times at same square or every strike in different square.
Striking happens always after moving of all players.
Player strikes by choosing the square(s) to which attack that turn. If another player moved to or remained in a chosen square, that player takes damage, losing HP.
If players "bump", they are considered to have temporarily been in the square they tried to enter and did their strikes from that square, meaning they attacked the squares they chose, despite it might not be possible from the square they were returned to. Players do not take damage if the square they "bumped" in was struck, only when there was an attack on square they remained/returned to.
3. Turns are simultaneous. All players do their moves and strikes before results of the turn are resolved.
4. The game is played on chess board, 8X8 squares marked as "A-H 1-8" (as default; different size variations may be used).
5. In start of game each player chooses race, weapon (see 6,7) and square to start; if two or more players choose same square, they must choose again
(Note: I don't think this'll be big problem with less than 10 players on 64 square board)
6. Each player has one of following races:
Human: starts with 8 HP, MpT 3
Dwarf: starts with 9 HP, makes one extra damage over base damage of weapon, MpT 2
Elf: starts with 7 HP, makes one less damage than base damage of weapon (thus elf can't use spear as damage would be 0), MpT 4
7. Each player has one of following weapons:
Axe: base damage 4, range 3x3 squares area centered on player
Sword: base damage 2, range 5x5 squares area centered on player
Spear: base damage 1, range 7x7 squares area centered on player
8. Scoring (default; come up with your own variant)
Game ends when there is only one player or none left.
Winner is the player who kills (strikes to cause HP become 0 or less) most other players. when two or more players have same amount of kills, winner is one who survived longer. If they were removed from game on same turn, the one with more HP wins (a player can have 0 or negative HP at the time of being removed). If even that's tied, winner is one who caused more damage during whole game.
I hope we'll get around playing a game or two.
If it's the only option I can set it up at AG, but I was really hoping we could have it here.
The simultaneous moves system kind of needs forum for each player, but I was thinking that for play test purposes we could just use topics and assume that in a friendly game nobody cheats by reading other player's topic.
It takes the one person to run (me, for starters) and 2+ players (preferably ones who own a chess board to make this easier for them). And a topic/forum per each player, optionally an open game topic to say where everyone moved and who got hit.
Hmm... that's still undecided, how much information is open? Do players see each other's HP etc.
Edit: now that I think of it, if we play a version where everything is open, I could play myself too, making my moves before watching other player's. I had thought other player's attacks when missing wouldn't be open information, but that's not really meaningful.
The main problem is that the game is too simple, like chess endgame. With some race/weapon combos there's easily standoff (when only two players). This may need time limit, like starting turn 15 all players lose 1 HP every third turn or so, forcing losing player to attack.
Last edited by Kaunisto, 9/23/14, 7:48 am
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6/7/14, 12:45 pm
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Kaunisto
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Registered: 01-2008
Location: Finland
Posts: 295
Accolades: 3 (+3/-0)
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Re: Gladiator Arena
Testing...
8
7
6
5
4
3 
2
1
Darn it, I made them too big. Depends on resolution and browser of course, but bad estimate anyway.
Oh well, these can be used in smaller than 8X8 games.
If it's not obvious, I'm trying to set up a system to relatively easily draw board every turn.
Edit:
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
---A-----B-----C-----D-----E-----F-----G-----H
Anyone, do the letters match at all in your browsers?
Last edited by Kaunisto, 6/8/14, 1:53 pm
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6/8/14, 1:00 pm
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OldWarrior
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Re: Gladiator Arena
The letters match fairly well in my settings. Screen resolution: 1920 x 1080 and using IE 11.
Suggestion for avoiding display issues: you could just create it as a table in a fairly easy to use html editor and then center the numbers and letters in columns/rows (I like MS Front Page, though I know it is outdated!). A separate image, or just adjusting the background color (or background image) and borders of the cells within the table could produce the same effect as you show here.
Of course, a spreadsheet program might work just as well.
Whichever way, you could then take a screen shot when you have it looking just like you want others to see it.
--- Old Warrior
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6/8/14, 9:40 pm
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Kaunisto
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Re: Gladiator Arena
Having slow connection and other issues, I'm trying to avoid having to make and upload an image every turn. I think for now I'll stick with this, having the code for empty board ready for copy-paste, just needing to edit in the player positions.
I haven't yet looked through the 0.2 balances (I made quick estimates on my first version and turned out axe - with damage 3 - was too weak and dwarf too strong and elf too weak, originally with 10/8/6 HPs), but I'm thinking of adding fourth race and weapon:
Halfling: starts with 5 HP, makes one less damage than base damage of weapon (thus halfling can't use spear as damage would be 0), MpT 3, halfling can use two MpT to move twice in one turn
Bow: damage 1 on all races, range infinite but can't strike 5x5 squares area centered on player, uses two Mpt to strike once
I also have wild ideas of catapult and giant for fifth...
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6/9/14, 6:04 am
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Pastor Rick
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Re: Gladiator Arena
I can set this up. I had a huge time killer hit me over the head this past weekend so I was a little rushed. I'll read over what you have created and then see what we can do...
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6/9/14, 9:05 am
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Kaunisto
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Re: Gladiator Arena
I've been expanding and tweaking the game all day, I'll post the latest rule version later.
I'm starting to be ready for a test game, I can do it here in Game Design, just making a topic for the game and one for each player. Oh right, I need players.
So, volunteers? This'll be friendly little "let's assume nobody cheats" test (that includes myself playing), aimed to be turn/day. I estimate 5-15 turns, depending luck, aggressive playing and number of players.
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6/9/14, 4:16 pm
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Kaunisto
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Re: Gladiator Arena
Rick, here's our main issues:
1. Shall we just play first test games here in Game Design or will you make a forum for GA?
(I suppose I'll eventually set up the game back at Anything Goes, but for some develop/test time I'd rather work here.)
2. Could you put these as smilies? They are small and might be of some use in other future games too.
And it would much help me to have them as :square: :square1: etc. (or even :s:   ) compared to the current full addresses...
(I should've made a zero too.)
3. I think the rules/instructions is now good enough for playtesting, when do we start and who's playing? I'd prefer 2-3 players beside myself for starters.
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6/10/14, 10:38 am
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Pastor Rick
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Re: Gladiator Arena
Like this?
  
     
Last edited by Pastor Rick, 6/12/14, 12:01 am
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6/10/14, 10:26 pm
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Kaunisto
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Re: Gladiator Arena
Thanks a lot, just please chance "square" to "sx".
The idea is that I can have empty board ready for copy-paste:
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
---A-----B-----C-----D-----E-----F-----G-----H
and I can then easily edit there the players by changing x to number
Edit:
Scoring is a problem. Simply playing for who survives last would cause extremely passive and defensive play, but counting kills doesn't seem fair either.
Maybe 0,1,2... points to players in order they die plus one for a kill?
Other design problems:
- Too much about luck. You choose race/weapon and corner/center/other to start accordingly, but whether the axe dwarf starts next to your sword halfling is matter of which side of board you happened to choose.
- The game can be short, any player can in theory lose on Turn 1.
- On 3+ players, 2+ can kind of choose to take one player out and the poor fella has no chance. Though it's interesting tactical question if you want to try for a quick kill(point), or concentrate taking out the toughest enemy; whether to fight the axe/sword/spear enemies near you or go after the bow/catapult enemy.
A team play might be better than allround deathmatch
- The races and weapons aren't well balanced - but that just adds to tactics: "he's just a bow elf, I'll take down that dangerous catapult giant first..." "bow elf wins 2-0-0!"
Worst thing is the potential standoff. Two (or in rare case more) players, especially with same race and weapon (axe/sword/spear) may get stuck into position where attacking would be obvious suicide. Have to add a rule...
I just got an idea for a similar Wild West game. Pistol/rifle/shotgun, with 2-4 movements a turn (the way halfling has 2 and others 1) but you'd shoot only horizontal/vertical/diagonal lines, hitting closest target on that line.
Last edited by Kaunisto, 6/11/14, 1:04 pm
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6/11/14, 7:41 am
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Pastor Rick
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Re: Gladiator Arena
Kaunisto wrote:
Thanks a lot, just please chance "square" to "sx".
Done 
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6/12/14, 12:02 am
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