One of the biggest challenges Impulse has had to overcome is getting content up fast enough for users.

When Impulse launched midway last year, the goal was to be able to release 5 titles a week.

The goal now is to be able to release 5 titles per day.

Even that goal isn’t sufficient though but it’s a major first step.

The big advantage a digital distribution platform like Steam and Impulse have over websites is that they take care of the installing and maintaining of the games.  Simply put, with Impulse, you purchase a game and it’s attached to your account. Get a new computer and you can just download Impulse, logon, and have it download and install your games while you’re doing something else.

But doing the above requires a lot of additional work than simply putting up a setup.exe up on a secure URL.  The extra work, however, is worth it in the long run as users begin to be able to use Impulse to simply take care of their software library for them.

Check out this week’s progress:

http://www.impulsedriven.com/explore/sort;releasedate/order;desc

X-COM finally made it up! w00t. Make sure if you buy X-COM to vote it 5 stars in Impulse as it’s only at 4 stars right now (boo on whoever voted it less than 5 stars).

A demo of me playing Master of Magic.

There’s a lot that game designers can learn from Master of Magic. In this video demo, I walk through a few of the mechanics of the game.

You’d think before a PC game developer decided to “dumb down” their game they’d look at the sales of other games that went down that path.

If you want to make a simplified, “mainstream” game make it for the console and be done with it.  But if you’re making a PC-specific game, take advantage of what the PC can do and make the game you want to make along with look at what the people who buy these games want.

Speaking of PC advantages – the new version of Havok apparently supports 64-bit Windows. This is a big deal because it means we should be able to make a native 64-bit version of Elemental. 

Why does that matter? Because memory limitations are a big deal in PC games. Even Galactic Civilizations II (2006) was hitting the 2 gigabyte limit. It’s not about the graphics but rather the scale/scope of the game.  If I want to have immense sized maps or incredible amounts of detail, I don’t need a mega machine for that but I do need to be able to address a lot of memory.

Hopefully, everyone who has been upgrading to Windows 7 has been careful to get 64-bit because the quicker we migrate to 64-bit, the more the PC (as a platform) offers again to game developers. 

Consider this: The XBOX 360 has 512MB of RAM.  Even the “next gen” console is likely only to offer say 1GB of memory, maybe 2GB for cost purposes. So being able to address massive amounts of memory will allow PC game developers to do new and interesting things that we can’t currently do because of the memory limitations.

Hopefully, that will help encourage developers to not to feel the need to “dumb down” their game.

Just my 2 cents.

Choosing opponents should just use the advanced screen.

Sovereign Customization:

Sex: Male or Female

Base Attributes:

All default to 10. You get 10 points to add from this. Each point over 10 represents a 10% bonus to whatever it is applied to. So a strength of 11 would be Attack = Base Attack X (11/10).

· Strength (helps with attack)

· Intelligence (helps with spell learning)

· Wisdom (helps with spell casting cost in terms of mana)

· Charisma (helps with Diplomacy)

· Dexterity (helps with defense)

· Constitution (helps with HP)

Triggered events would make use of these to provide additional options.

History: (pick 1)

· Mason. (provides construction bonus in cities he’s in, gains access to unique tech)

· Warlord. (increases combat effectiveness of army he is with, gets special equipment)

· Merchant. (increases wealth produced in city he is in, gains access to special improvements).

· Bard. (increases moral of any army he is with, heroes easier to recruit)

· Swindler. (gets bonuses added to trade treaties)

· Assassin. (bonus to initial attack)

· Thief. (more loot after battles)

· Adventurer. (more and better goodie huts)

· Hunter. (“game” food resource becomes available)

Talents

· Brilliant. Increases research in any town he is in.

· Diplomatic. Increased diplomatic ability.

· Shrewd. Superior at negotiating deals.

· Lucky. Random events go your way more often.

· Organized. Decreases movement penalty for larger armies.

· Intimidating. Decreases enemy morale in combat.

· Natural Leader. Increases morale of friendly army in combat.

· Hardy. Bonus to HP.

· Tracker. Movement penalties reduced for going through rough terrain.

· Naturalist. Starting position slightly nicer.

Weaknesses (give points back to pick more items)

· Stubborn. Is more likely to not escape from a battle that goes badly.

· Unlucky. Random events tend to not go your way.

· Blunt. Increases difficulty in recruiting allies.

· Insane. Prestige of any city he is in is lower.

· Cruel. Morale of armies he is with is lower.

· Ugly. Fewer children

· Inefficient. Provides construction penalty in cities he’s in.

· Clumsy. Movement penalty in rough terrain increased.

· Outcast. Starting position slightly worse.

Additional traits and training can be picked up during quests in game.

 
Current Size

New size

Here are our 10 commandments that we live by:

1. Choose a topic you have a passion for. Game Design is about creativity.
2. Do research after the game is done. Tap into the player’s brain.
3. Define your axioms, refine your axioms. Prototype, prototype, prototype; sit in all the chairs.
4. Double it or cut it in half. You are more wrong than you think.
5. Make sure the player is having fun, not the designer/computer.
6. Games should be easy to start playing, but hard to stop playing.
7. Simple systems work together to create complexity.
8. Make it ‘Epic’!
9. Most important part of the game is the first and last 15 minutes.
10. Know when to stop, more is not always better and just because we can, doesn’t mean we should

…A few quick notes…

The point of DEVELOPER journals and the early Elemental beta is to let people, like ourselves, who are hungry for this type of game to be made the opportunity to participate in the kinds of “design meetings” that are typically closed to the public.

A typical BETA program in the modern sense is more of a late-game marketing exercise designed to help provide good publicity. This is not one of those betas.

When these developer journals are posted, the idea is to solicit feedback, ideas, and concepts from you guys.  But too often, I get the distinct impression that people think that we are TELLING users how things are going to be rather than talking with users.  These journals are not designed to be “previews” (unless they actually say that somewhere).

…So with that in mind…

In this discussion, we got some great ideas.

Here are some general thoughts on that feedback in no particular order:

1. Your sovereign (the channeler) should be customized in ways that are fairly unique.  That is, you pick attributes that are not easily modified in game.
2. The presentation of customization should not be spread-sheet like but rather presented like we’re creating a biography of a person.  After all, the sovereign didn’t just materialize. Let’s create a history for him and that history walks us through what he’s good at. 

A player is trying to give a history to their channeler.

History

• Mason. (provides construction bonus in cities he’s in, gains access to unique tech)
• Warlord. (increases combat effectiveness of army he is with, gets special equipment)
• Merchant. (increases wealth produced in city he is in, gains access to special improvements).
• Bard. (increases moral of any army he is with, heroes easier to recruit)

Talents

• Brilliant. Increases research in any town he is in.
• Diplomatic. Increased diplomatic ability.
• Shrewd. Superior at negotiating deals.
• Lucky. Random events go your way more often.
• Organized. Decreases movement penalty for larger armies.
• Intimidating. Decreases enemy morale in combat.

Weaknesses (give points back to pick more items)

• Stubborn. Is more likely to not escape from a battle that goes badly.
• Unlucky. Random events tend to not go your way.
• Blunt. Increases difficulty in recruiting allies.

These are some examples.

Picture this game-flow:

Choose new game…set up world…choose faction (or create a new one)…customize faction…choose sovereign…customize sovereign…

Now, at that point, we’re talking about customizing ones sovereign (as opposed to your faction)

So what might some of those traits be that you’d want to tweak?

Here’s a few off the top of my head:

• · Essence (-1, 0, +1, +2)
• · Fertility (-10%, 0, 10%, 20%)
• · Base Attack (-1, 0, 1, 2)
• · Base Defense (-1, 0, 1, 2)
• · Base Strength (-1, 0, 1, 2)
• · Base Combat Speed (-1, 0, 1, 2)
• · Base Movement (0, 1)
• · Base Diplomacy ability (-1, 0, 1, 2)

You’d start out with N points and can spend them on these various traits.

What would you add and how would they affect the game?

We’re starting work on Dynasties in Elemental. 

Here’s a basic outline:

Sovereigns will get the opportunity to get married. Once married, they will, for a period of time, be able to have children.

The sex of the child will result in very different game options.

Males stay part of your family line.  Females are married off to other families.  However, should the sovereign of a particular kingdom die, then his kingdom is inherited by the player whose daughter is married highest up into their family.

Hence, if I marry my daughter off to the first born son of the sovereign of Kraxis and that sovereign is killed, then his kingdom becomes my kingdom.

Speaking of sovereign “killin’” we do plan to have an option where your sovereign cannot actually die in battle for those players concerned about sovereign assassination.  However, AI sovereigns will “abdicate” if they think their situation is hopeless and rather than abdication being random, it will be based on the aforementioned succession rule.

We will have quite a bit of time to play around with this come January when the dynasty beta goes out. But this hopefully gives you some insights on how we’re currently looking at implementing this.

Damage types:

• Damage from mundane  (being whacked with a club or cut by a sword)
• Damage from magic
  • Fire damage
  • Ice Damage
  • Mystical Damage
  • Electrical Damage
• Armor / shields that protect from mundane
• Protection from magic
  • Protection from fire
  • Protection from ice
  • protection from mystical
  • protection from electrical

Players can mine crystals which can be used to create enchantment kits that are then enchanted at the time the player trains the unit. The mana is taken from the player’s mana pool.

You don’t research “magic swords” but instead would take a mundane sword and equip a fire magic kit with it. Players can equip multiple kits with their unit to make them increasingly lethal (but expensive) or defend against fire damage by using a defensive fire magic kit.

Update:

Based on the comments, it's clear some people are reading way way way too much into these journal posts.

It should also be noted that, like the research system, we reserve the right to toss out any system we want if we don't think it's fun. Any system, once implemented, will go through the beta process.