Post by Snaq ◢ ◤ on Jan 8, 2023 20:37:59 GMT
Deep Dive: Twenty Year Time Heist
Written by ForgotToFlush
Twenty Year Time Heist (TYTH: X) was an experimental game, developed by myself, ForgotToFlush and 14 other collaborators (full list: X). The game was designed for 15 players and lasted 6 game days. While not without problems, TYTH introduced many previously unseen mechanics to the PS! Mafia Forums.
Development started in August 2020, but the game did not run until January 2021. While this seems like overkill for a mafia game, the nature of the new mechanics to be used demanded a sizable time investment just for the sake of making things work. Now, I’m choosing to peel back the curtain and show some of the work that went into the game, and why certain decisions were made. I hope that you not only find this interesting, but hopefully you are also inspired to undertake larger and more ambitious projects.
New Mechanics and Solving Problems
Game design for TYTH revolved solely around the split threads mechanic, one thread for the Past and one for the Future. Players would communicate solely with players in their thread, with the exception of the Mafia, and role interactions were thread-limited, with key exceptions. The biggest early challenge that we uncovered was making participation matter for each thread. The intuitive solution was to have both threads vote to eliminate someone, but with a planned game size of 15 players, this was deemed to be too many deaths per cycle. This issue proved to be quite difficult to resolve until the idea to introduce a mayor vote, on alternating cycles, for each thread was discovered. This sounds complicated, but essentially it meant we could have one thread voting to reward a player while the other thread voted to eliminate, and what each thread would be doing would change with each day. This added a new layer of strategy not typically present in PS! Games. The mayor vote mechanic is commonplace on Student Doctor Network, but I haven’t ever seen it used in a manner like this. Additionally, we used the mayor vote to create a flavour-appropriate award by introducing opportunities for Time Travel.
Getting Creative
With the central mechanic of the game sorted out, much of the role design process focused on operating within this unexplored space. My vision for the role design was for players to open their role PMs and see something that was largely unique and unconventional. Unconventionality is not a difficult thing to achieve with game design, but doing so in a manner that was balanced and grounded was a top priority. Below are some examples of roles used. They may seem initially confusing but I hope that they convey my vision for the role design.
This is a major spoiler for the game and a contributing factor to why it cannot be replayed so proceed with caution. The first major landmark of the role design was the use of role counterparts. The game featured 8 characters, 7 of whom had counterparts for both the Past and the Future. The locations of players in each thread were determined beforehand by the game’s story, and a set of counterparts together would offer an explanatory view of their role in the game’s story. These counterparts were linked by more than just the story however, as there were game-related consequences for roles interacting with their counterparts, or a counterpart dying while the other was still alive.
Additionally, some roles were designed around the counterpart mechanic. For example, one role would redirect actions, from one role to its respective counterpart.
Flavour
With this game, I wanted a unique accompanying aesthetic experience. Character portraits were done by two friends of mine (kalen#7986 & Dillooooo#0710). They managed to produce stunning results, under time constraints, with my incredibly limited character descriptions and I am forever grateful for that. (You can check out all of their work in the thread here: X).
Additionally, I produced an amateur soundtrack to accompany the game at key points (Can be found here: X). The soundtrack featured songs for each of the game’s 6 endings, which are each resultant on the outcome of the game, as well as the fates of key characters in the story.
Getting to work on non-mafia related game elements was refreshing, and I’d love to see more of it done in future games.
Concluding Thoughts
At the time, Time Heist was the most active game ever recorded on the forum (1878 posts!), and I consider it to have been a successful venture, as well as a personal, landmark achievement. While there were hiccoughs encountered, I feel like all the unique elements of this game came together to provide a unique experience for everyone involved. I hope that this look behind the scenes has inspired you all to attempt more ambitious projects, in the hopes that my achievements may someday be surpassed.
Written by ForgotToFlush
Twenty Year Time Heist (TYTH: X) was an experimental game, developed by myself, ForgotToFlush and 14 other collaborators (full list: X). The game was designed for 15 players and lasted 6 game days. While not without problems, TYTH introduced many previously unseen mechanics to the PS! Mafia Forums.
Development started in August 2020, but the game did not run until January 2021. While this seems like overkill for a mafia game, the nature of the new mechanics to be used demanded a sizable time investment just for the sake of making things work. Now, I’m choosing to peel back the curtain and show some of the work that went into the game, and why certain decisions were made. I hope that you not only find this interesting, but hopefully you are also inspired to undertake larger and more ambitious projects.
New Mechanics and Solving Problems
Game design for TYTH revolved solely around the split threads mechanic, one thread for the Past and one for the Future. Players would communicate solely with players in their thread, with the exception of the Mafia, and role interactions were thread-limited, with key exceptions. The biggest early challenge that we uncovered was making participation matter for each thread. The intuitive solution was to have both threads vote to eliminate someone, but with a planned game size of 15 players, this was deemed to be too many deaths per cycle. This issue proved to be quite difficult to resolve until the idea to introduce a mayor vote, on alternating cycles, for each thread was discovered. This sounds complicated, but essentially it meant we could have one thread voting to reward a player while the other thread voted to eliminate, and what each thread would be doing would change with each day. This added a new layer of strategy not typically present in PS! Games. The mayor vote mechanic is commonplace on Student Doctor Network, but I haven’t ever seen it used in a manner like this. Additionally, we used the mayor vote to create a flavour-appropriate award by introducing opportunities for Time Travel.
Getting Creative
With the central mechanic of the game sorted out, much of the role design process focused on operating within this unexplored space. My vision for the role design was for players to open their role PMs and see something that was largely unique and unconventional. Unconventionality is not a difficult thing to achieve with game design, but doing so in a manner that was balanced and grounded was a top priority. Below are some examples of roles used. They may seem initially confusing but I hope that they convey my vision for the role design.
This is a major spoiler for the game and a contributing factor to why it cannot be replayed so proceed with caution. The first major landmark of the role design was the use of role counterparts. The game featured 8 characters, 7 of whom had counterparts for both the Past and the Future. The locations of players in each thread were determined beforehand by the game’s story, and a set of counterparts together would offer an explanatory view of their role in the game’s story. These counterparts were linked by more than just the story however, as there were game-related consequences for roles interacting with their counterparts, or a counterpart dying while the other was still alive.
Additionally, some roles were designed around the counterpart mechanic. For example, one role would redirect actions, from one role to its respective counterpart.
Flavour
With this game, I wanted a unique accompanying aesthetic experience. Character portraits were done by two friends of mine (kalen#7986 & Dillooooo#0710). They managed to produce stunning results, under time constraints, with my incredibly limited character descriptions and I am forever grateful for that. (You can check out all of their work in the thread here: X).
Additionally, I produced an amateur soundtrack to accompany the game at key points (Can be found here: X). The soundtrack featured songs for each of the game’s 6 endings, which are each resultant on the outcome of the game, as well as the fates of key characters in the story.
Getting to work on non-mafia related game elements was refreshing, and I’d love to see more of it done in future games.
Concluding Thoughts
At the time, Time Heist was the most active game ever recorded on the forum (1878 posts!), and I consider it to have been a successful venture, as well as a personal, landmark achievement. While there were hiccoughs encountered, I feel like all the unique elements of this game came together to provide a unique experience for everyone involved. I hope that this look behind the scenes has inspired you all to attempt more ambitious projects, in the hopes that my achievements may someday be surpassed.
