Rimelands: Crafting a Dice-Based Mobile RPG

1. Cranking A Full-Scale RPG Inside A Tiny iPhone • Arto Koistinen • Dicework Games

2. Overview • Introduction - What is Rimelands • Part 1 - Design • Core Mechanics • Character Development • Balancing • Part 2 - Production • Production per topic • Design • Art • Code • Testing 2

3. Introduction - What is Rimelands • Turn-Based RPG for iPhone • Development time about 1 year • Original schedule: 6 months • Extended with a month or two once, twice... • 5 months for updates • Started out as a “simple puzzle-based” RPG • What went right? • Combat system • It’s a full scale mobile RPG! • What went wrong? • Too many bugs • Story would have needed a lot more work 3

4. Introduction - Design Goals • Transparency • The player should be able to understand how the game system works • If you lose, you should have at least have some idea why • Variety • No single “best build” • No “outdated” talents • Approachability • Suitable for mobile play • Playable by non-hardcore players 4

5. Core Mechanics - Dice System 5

6. Core Mechanics - Dice System • Why dice? • Familiar to most players, even nostalgic to some • Easy to visualize • Many digital RPGs use dice or dice-like systems under the hood anyway • Not just a visual gimmick • Early on, the dice were just a visualization • Re-rolls added to justify the dice rolling • Did it work? • Yes! It was probably the most praised feature in the game 6

7. Core Mechanics - Dice System • What is a Dice Pool? • Common in tabletop games • Characters skill is measured by number of dice • Each dice can either be a success or fail • The number of successes determines the outcome 7

8. Core Mechanics - Dice System • Benefits of the Dice Pool approach • Easy to visualize • Non-linear probability curve • Problems with Dice Pool approach • Critical Hits (Piercing hits in Rimelands) • Rewarding extraordinary success • “Traditional” criticals (hitting the highest number on a die) not applicable to dice pools • Takes a lot of screen estate • Limits the stat range 8

9. Core Mechanics - Dice System • Luck versus Strategy • Dice bring luck to the foreground • Harder to balance by “cheating” • Player can’t influence luck, but can affect the odds • Complexity versus variety • You’ll need enough variables to be able to produce a large amount of items... • But too complex mechanics will confuse the players • Rimelands was too complex! 9

10. Core Mechanics - Character Development • What is Character Development? • Possibly the defining feature of RPGs • If done well, adds depth and variety to the game • A good way of slowly introducing new mechanics • If done badly, the character will get better so that the player doesn’t have to • Character Development is often a hardcore feature, but it doesn’t have to be • Levels are a good way to measure growth in character’s power 10

11. Core Mechanics - Character Development • Casual “levelling” is possible • Worked well in Rimelands • Simple decisions • Don’t flood the player with too many choices • No initial decisions • No character creation • Can’t expect the player to make meaningful choices before playing the actual game • What are the common expectations? • Choices should be visible • Visible gear is mostly a must-have • The system has to be non-linear in some way 11

12. Talents 12

13. Talent Overview • 3 Talent trees • Each tree is split into two paths: • Barbarian: Offensive - Defensive • Assassin: Stealth - Sniper • Shaman: Fast - Slow • 38 Talents • All talents are unique, though there are similarities: • Mana regeneration talents • Boost talents • Damage per turn talents • Divided to skills (active) and boosts (passive) • Skills are active talents (attacks and so on) • Boosts can modify other talents 13

14. Talents • What makes a good talent? • Bring something new to the core gameplay • Energizing Wind will give mana when making piercing attacks with magic - turned out to be a very essential part of the gameplay • Talent should not outdate • Windstrike, Battle Charge and Crippling Shot remain usable for the whole game • Talent should speed up the combat • Battle Charge gets rid of the frustrating run to your enemy • Stunning takes away an enemy turn, making for less waiting 14

15. Balancing • Balancing is important and a great deal of work • You will need a spreadsheet to make it work • General balancing guidelines are good • “Average enemy should die with 3 hits” • Enemy balancing • Be careful with healing enemies, they can make a battle long and boring • Player should be able to prevent healing • Enemies with high HP but low damage are usually boring • They don’t generally offer much of a challenge, they just feel like work 15

16. Balancing • Gear balancing • Dice vs Damage • Which is more effective? And which seems more effective? • Active gear is more important than passive gear • Players tend to favor offensive to defensive • Gear needs variety • Sword +1 vs Sword +2 is not a choice • Sword of Magic Damage vs Sword of Physical Damage is better, but it assumes that the player knows which is more effective in any given situation 16

17. Casual Approach • Can an RPG be a “casual” game? • ... is Rimelands a casual game? 17

18. Casual Approach • Enjoyable by people not usually into turn-based games • Easing the player in • Yes, we pretty much failed this one • Tutorials are important • Don’t choke the player • Avoid a lot of obscure statistics • An RPG enthusiast may know that Strength equals melee damage and Dexterity equals ranged skill, but not nearly everyone • Did you include Charisma just because D&D has it? 18

19. Production - Overview • Two full-time developers • Arto: Code, story & design • Peter: Art & design • “Multiclassing” is essential! • Two part-time developers • Jarkko: Level design • Nelli: Concept, web & cutscene art • Outsourcing • Wolf model • Music & sounds • Both tailored and bought from the web • Animations 19

20. Production - Unique Selling Fails • No character classes, support for hybrid characters • Didn’t really work, too much work to balance correctly • A “single class” character was nearly always the best option • Randomly generated levels • Ended up being a bit boring, a lot of work to iron out all the bugs • Would need more variety (random non-combat encounters, etc) • Blueprint system • Was supposed to bring the community in (you could trade blueprint codes), but was too confusing • Codes were leaked immediately 20

21. Production - Design • Very iterative design cycle • Easier when the designer is the same person as the coder • Prototyping beats writing design documents • Don’t panic! • Analyze feedback properly • Feedback often shows the symptom, not the cause • What are the essential features? • Anyone can list a dozen things that an RPG must have, but which ones are truly essential? • What are the hidden features? • No one will list “spell effects” as an essential feature, but it must be designed too 21

22. Production - Code • Don’t reinvent, use available tools as much as possible • There’s a lot of tools and plugins available for free • Most of the paid Unity plugins are quite cheap • With 3rd party plugins you’ll know the code has been tested to work. That’s essential when your own QA resources are limited. • Develop your own toolset early on • If you find yourself doing the same task often, it may be worth your while to automate it • Coder needs to use the toolset too! 22

23. Production - Code • Plan testing early • An RPG is a QA nightmare - you’ll need to think how to test things as quickly as possible • A “playground” level is a good way to test new features • Plan essential features early on • Spell effect system may not be vital for playing the game, but it can be a pain to add in beta 23

24. Production - Art • Recycling Assets 24

25. Production - Art 25

26. Production - Art 26

27. Production - Art • Recycling • More content with less assets • Get repetitive in the long run - lack of unique bosses was a definitive minus • Even “non-essential” art should be done early on • It’s easy to leave things like spell effect to later parts of the production • Visual effects are a part of the core experience, even if they don’t affect the gameplay 27

28. Production - Level Design • WYSIWYG level editor 28

29. Production - Testing • You have to play your game. A lot. And then some more. This applies to every member of the team. • Add tutorials early on, that’s the best way to know if your mechanics are clear enough • Free testers are readily available • Unreliable • Only 10 - 20% of testers actually do anything • Paid testers • Movie tickets or small money rewards to motivate testers • Often not very professional either • Hard to get good feedback 29

30. Thank you! 30