Page: News.News201504191006AM - Last Modified : Thu, 23 Apr 15 - 1473 Visits

Ok, so what is going on right now.

My main activity, was trying to do some android coding with my Pixel Board project. The project is progressing slowly but I am also learning Java and LibGDX as I am doing it. The "Feeling" is much more different than it wizardry because the base structure is not implemented yet. It's like if I was asked to build a floating castle in the middle of the ocean. Before being able to do that, I need to at least have a stable construction platform. This is what I am working on, so I don't have much interesting stuff to show yet.

I recently got a Samsung tablet to be able to test those android app. I happen to run into some issues in the process. I might try to make some small app or demo app in order to get some completion feedback on what I do and to get more familiar with the development tools. There was my cyber glider demo that I made while reading the libgdx book. I might finish reading the book and polish my demo and release it as a free app in the app store. That would give me some experience with the app store.

Else for board games, I have taken a pause in playing board games, so I am not much in the mood right now. I might work instead on small or simple project since they can be playtested more rapidly. There was that Eldritch express idea that came in suddenly, I'll make a project page soon to upload my content. The biggest issue seems to balance the abilities of items, artifacts and characters. Else the core system seems pretty neat.

I am starting to lose interest in coding Pixel Board so either I'll code something else like wizardry or I'll do a bit of board game design next. Not quite sure yet what I will do next. I work in mood phases that remains for 1 month or 2 before switching to something else. It's something I have to deal with. I call it the "short motivation span" syndrome.

Thematic games

I read an interesting article lately (Reference Here) that could be sumarized that what makes a game thematic is not the artwork and the cool minis supplied with it, but rather the amount of options and actions the player can do to interface with the game. I seem to agree with that philosophy as by best thematic experience seems to comes while playing video games that game a lot of flexibility on what I could do. But unfortunately, I think that would only be possibly implemented as a video game else as a board game, even if solitaire, it would be too heavy or long for a player to manage forcing compressing and abstracting the game further which thin the thematic experience.

This is a bit the reasons behind the pixel board project. To make board game like games that breaks some laws of reality or allow to manage much more rules in the background or handle much more components without increasing the play time. Then in order to make the game more thematic, give players more actions that will make the game more immersive, but since most of the rules are handled by the computer, it does not complexify the game too much for the player.

That should be the goals of my future design, but without a video game platform, it is impossible to achieve.