or a computer that players can "bribe" to help them vote? =O

Actually I had thought about adding an NPC layer. I'll worry about that later, though.


Also, I thought of another use of the context ability: Hearing. That is, you stand still for several seconds and get a minimap ping of all nearby moving players. Should help make night activity a bit less random.

Man. At this rate I'm going to end up with a tactical map.

Well, there's nothing wrong with tweaking Mafia so that it more fits an RTS (ie. um... strategy?)

Additional investigate ability: Detect player identity. Stacks with detecting sleep meter. Might not be too relevant during the day, but at night, cloaked mafia players will want to run away from cloaked townies who could try to run up to them to investigate who they are. Now townies finally have something meaningful to do at night (instead of just hiding like babies)! Seems like it should have been obvious to add this.

I'll have to consider limiting townie cloaking, else it could be OP. Or maybe just stick with the sleep meter buff the mafia already have, which should limit townie night activity anyway.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Oct 1 2009, 5:28 am by Tuxedo-Templar.

A good idea for gameplay is controlling turfs or "properites" which gernerate money....

of course other people can destroy it ;(

I approve of this map. Makes me wish I did not have a fail router like the one I have.

That's a little beyond the scope I'm aiming for. Even the idea of "persuading" NPCs to grant you vision and voting power seems to push it a bit, though I'll definitely look into that for a later version.

Sorry this is taking so long. I got a few nasty time sinks to contend with, but I am now wrapping up some last bits and bobs. It really isn't a hugely complex map at this stage, it's just the fact that I can't make up my mind on the best approach to this that's kept me running around between revision after revision.

So like, I've been progressing at a glacial pace lately, though this weekend I'm looking to crank up the flow a bit and finally have that tester version ready.

My main dilemma so far has been with the nature of cloaking. I knew it was going to be important to gameplay, but when I ran a few mental simulations of how it would play out during the nighttime phases, I realized the kind of strategy involved would not be easily or intuitively controllable by the players. There's just no way around it. I have to add a VM (Virtual Mana lols) system to make this more logical.


One idea I'm going to try is to link up armed mode with mana drain: While you're armed, any movement drains your mana. Mana doesn't drain while standing still, though. You can only (partially) regain mana by sleeping and (slowly) by being unarmed. Player investigations sap your mana, so players have some ability to counter mafia players at night by attempting to strip them of their mana. Organized mafia players can turn this around, though, and strip townies of theirs in the attempt. You really can't win against competent mafia players without using the daytime voting system, ultimately.


In a later version I'm hoping to make things more interesting. I'm looking into options for special roles, but I'm also thinking I could handle "special" features in a decoupled fashion for all players, like with items or spells-like abilities or whatnot. Be neat to have shit like dynamite, poison, traps, etc., for instance.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Oct 9 2009, 10:50 am by Tuxedo-Templar.

I hope tester version can go up soon

Welp, my predicted completion time for this couldn't have been any worse, but I think I have a testable version ready. I guess I'll just go ahead and see how it works out with what I got so far.

Few things to note:

1. Best played with at least 5 players. Playable with less, but I'd rather not.
   
2. Lots of balance tweaks will likely be needed. All just guesstimations thus far.
   
3. Votes DO NOT kill players: You do. Literally. Once a vote occurs, law protection is off on the victim, so you can then gang up on them during the daytime while you have the chance, or leave them be to survive, if in doubt. I'll decide later if I don't want to turn this into straight up lynch vote, instead.
   
4. Houses are critical to survival. Try to protect yours as much as possible. Time your sleep periods so you can defend yourself when you suspect mafia will likely attack.

What's kept me on edge about this so far is the thought of how to properly implement and balance not one but six significant new gameplay mechanics. These are:

1. Houses: Each player has their own house. Only they can open their doors to get in or out. Houses can be broken into or destroyed, however, but these acts take time. Houses provide players with a bed to sleep in (improves sleep meter recharge) and an arming station to toggle armed mode on and off.
   
2. Sleeping: Each player has a sleep meter (Gas) that tells how long you can stay awake. When it starts running out, you better get to your house and a bed fast or you'll be a sitting duck for quite some time. Especially at night.
   
3. Investigate: Each player can move up to another player and, after a few seconds of stillness, 'read' information about that player, including their sleep meter and other stats (but not their mafia status, of course). This ability can also be used against stalking players to counter their stealth.
   
4. Law protection: During the day, while the town is illuminated, players are 'protected' from the attacks of others by law protection. A vote occurs in the town center each day to pick 1 player to revoke law protection from. Mafia players, of course, must manipulate the other players to vote against each other. Without law protect, players can be ganged up on and killed at any time during the day.
   
5. Armed mode: From a player's house, they can switch to their 'armed' mode at any time. Arming allows you to attack other visible and non-protected players, but it drains your sleep meter faster, so consider well when to use it. Stalking is possible while armed.
   
6. Stalking: Cloaking with rules. Mana is represented by a separate meter (Ore) which charges when still, but drains while moving. Staying unarmed can slowly charge this meter, but you'll need to be armed to use it. Using the 'Investigate' ability against others, even while they're cloaked, empties out their mana and allows you to reveal them. Two or more players stalking each other might be interesting to watch.
   

Managing your sleep meter and player trust are really the main elements of this. I really don't know how this design will turn out in practice, though. This is only one of several gameplay models I've come up with. I may scrap it entirely and start fresh with my next model, if I'm not satisfied with how it turns out.



I think sometime tomorrow or later I'll begin organizing game sessions for this. Stay tuned.

Post has been edited 10 time(s), last time on Oct 12 2009, 11:21 am by Tuxedo-Templar.

Update: Hmm. Well pending some lots fuckthisimstartingover a week of oncoming bug fixes (not surprised ), I want try to get together a real match of this with at least 5 people. My surface-level observation is the stalking system isn't going to work out very intuitively, but I'm going to give it another chance until I get some better data on it. I still have options.

I also want to add that NPC layer we've been talking about earlier, since there's currently not a ton of gameplay tension while waiting for the mafia to make their move at night. It appears the long, drawn-out chit chat drama of forum mafia just doesn't translate well to Starcraft gameplay, so I think something to fill that void is needed.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Oct 14 2009, 8:11 am by Tuxedo-Templar.

(I should just consider this dumb thread a blog now, shouldn't I?)
Update x3: Funny thing with my new method of design by constant iteration is that by simply tweaking, toying with, probing, or otherwise just sitting on something for weeks on end, I gain the curious ability to strike upon epiphanies that I'd otherwise have missed out on completely. It's interesting. Already this dumb little map idea has taken me now through its 5th full concept draft, for instance, and I'm still not 100% satisfied. But maybe this is a good thing. I wouldn't have gone nearly this far in the past with planning. I'd just have come up with something that arbitrarily sounded like it might work, and then jumped right the fuck in to it (near) mindlessly. But now I can actually say no to myself.

I'd rather do things like this from now on than to continue spewing out the usual experimental, schizophrenic garbage I've done in the past. Maybe I won't release as many maps as fast as I used to this way, but I suppose that's the price for doing things right, isn't it?



So uh, about the map? I've dropped back another few weeks (again) thanks to my latest set of revisions. Sorry again. I was coming this close to scrapping it and starting fresh, but I think I've still more mileage yet to get out of refactoring instead of revising, so I'll stay the course for now. I'm definitely inching closer, though.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Oct 18 2009, 6:44 pm by Tuxedo-Templar.

Blog Update x4: Between procrastination and chronic indecisiveness, I'm now the better portion of a whole month past my initial intended beta mark. Big surprise there.

Well, I wish it were a surprise. Meh.


Anyway. Ranting aside, the map is going slow, but I do believe I have the final draft smoothed out, so it ought to be a straight shot from here. That means that I'm finally satisfied with something I've come up with for a change. For now. Rather than blather about my new outline, which is an entirely pointless thing to do as of now, I'm simply going to plug away at implementing it until I'm back up to a good beta stage. Assuming I don't procrastinate any more, of course.

This is as good as I'm going to get it without changing the fundamental formula, I think.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Oct 26 2009, 8:46 pm by Tuxedo-Templar.

Delete please.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Oct 28 2009, 9:34 pm by DevliN.

You should make a little mini game in the later versions to increase the gameplay for like 30 minutes....

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Oct 28 2009, 9:35 pm by DevliN. Reason: Other post deleted, rest of this post is relevant.

Ideally, if I do my design right, I'd prefer any gameplay gaps like that to be filled naturally with mind fuckery and drama generated by the players themselves.

When do you expect to finish the open beta?...
And in most games what do most people do while they try to find out who's the mafia guy and who's not...

There will be no mechanism for directly detecting mafia outside of clues. You can, however, catch people in the act of doing things at night if you get lucky or anticipate them. But it entails some risk each time.

Beta will be ready when its ready. I've been moving slowly, but I'm starting to get some progress lately, so it shouldn't take too much longer. Knock on wood.

Blog Update x5: Starting to get tired with this map at almost the same rate as I'm finishing it. Well no matter. I'll have this fucker finished sooner or later. Probably sooner, now.

Right now I'm trying to come up with a mini-game-ish way for 'recruiting' townspeople around the map (daytime only?). The goal being that, at night, for each house you've 'recruited' out of a large set scattered around the map, you gain a swath of vision and perhaps a sunken colony or something at that location. The only real purpose of this is to deter non-cloaked wandering players (who now have a special ability available while in their unarmed mode) and to keep tabs on what's going on around the map to a limited degree (all during night time, of course).


Might be going for outline draft #6 at this rate. Ugh.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 5 2009, 11:20 pm by Tuxedo-Templar.

Blog Update 6: Alright alright alright. I got it done finally. Fuck.


Well, almost. I'm wrapping up some last bits of crap right now. Up to outline draft #8 already, too (ffs!). I'm starting to question whether this iterative process is really the best way to make maps. This has already taken 5x longer than I anticipated it should have (procrastination not included). I guess the proof is in the pudding, though. If it doesn't turn out like crap, then maybe it was worth it and I'll get to work on refining and recommending this approach properly. Either it works, people like it, and I'll update and polish after release, or this remains a blog thread and I call it done.
Spoiled gits.

I guess I'll just make this a public beta when its ready.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Nov 20 2009, 8:55 am by Tuxedo-Templar.