Monday 16 March 2015

#GangWar A Weekend Playtesting & An Upcoming Competition

Greetings friends!

So the weekend is over and I wanted to share something truly awesome with you all.

First of all; my good friend Tom visited us and we were able to put Gang War through it's paces involving pushing the game to it's limits in what is possible and what is not.

Let me tell you; this game is fun, fun, fun!

I've been careful not to push it too much before. I mean my testing has been very limited before and really was only my opinion, but I was super relieved to see my friend's reaction to the game being exactly as I felt.

Each game was tense with every unit from the Leaders to the lowly Members giving massive sways to the potential outcome.

We had data being hacked, snipers gunning down Gangers, EXO Suits firing off HMGs, EXO Suits being hacked and ejecting their user, even a hacked EXO Suit being hijacked by the opposition as he continued to stomp around the battlefield as a duo of EXO Suit users laying waste to everything left on the board.

We also made a couple of minor adjustments to the rules, things like the melee engagement rules, how to treat terrain directly in front of you, adding parkour, things that enhance the experience from both thematic, realistic and gameplay directions.

There was a couple of things I noticed; both games we played were won by force - using firepower to take my guys out and force me to retreat. Obviously the aim of the guy is objectives (Capture the Data, Node or PoI) so how is this resolved? How do I make objectives viable compared with simply shooting the opponent?

This to me seems simple. Eventually there will be two game modes: Campaign and Beyond Freeport (Tournament play). Both of which provide rewards from Victory Points, to XP and Notoriety. You just make it that winning the game via completing the objective gives more (maybe double) of the rewards than winning by forcing a retreat. That way players themselves are less inclined to force that result due to the innate desire to maximise rewards where possible.

The best thing about this game is that almost every part of it feels exactly like I hoped it would: elegant.

Things happen because they make sense, and whenever we came across something that felt inelegant we made a small change to the rules and then it worked out exactly as I hoped it would creating an experience that was both cinematic and balanced.

Can I throw that word out again? Balanced! The game felt freaking balanced! This is what I really hoped for, as by creating the balanced Humans as the template, I am now able to start creating the other races and basing them off this human template (the Red Claw for example having a lower Range Skill but a higher Melee Skill).

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Which leads me onto my next point I'd like to raise:

At the time of writing I can currently ~3,800 page views away from 50k. According to my calculations, at the current rate of consumption, this should be reached somewhere between 1.5 to 3 months. This is something I'm quite proud of. More that I am VERY proud of it.

So here is what I am thinking:

Between now and the target 50k page views I am offering you the audience the chance to appear in the game as a Licensed Bounty Hunter. Your character can be hired by any Faction and any Sponsor, will have a set series of skills & gear and will be usable in both Campaign & Beyond Freeport games.

Should I ever seriously entertain the notion of an official miniature line, yours will be the first to be created and cast.

How do you win this prestigious honour?

It's actually simple.

For every post beginning with #GangWar in it's title that I publish on my blog from now until the target is reached you can earn entries into a random drawing.

You can earn entries by doing the following:

-Retweeting about the post on Twitter
-Commenting about the post on Twitter
-Sharing the post on Facebook
-Commenting on the post on Facebook
-Leaving a Comment on the post itself.

This means if you do all of these for every post you can earn up to 5 entries PER POST!

Note: this only applies to posts that start with the hashtag GangWar. It is possible that I will release about 20+ posts in this time but some of them will be rage posts or what not & I can't be bothered to track all of them. However every post which covers the game Gang War will include that Hashtag at the start. This way we can not only promote the game but also the blog.

Of course I need to be aware of these comments & shares so be sure to tag me in them. If you need any extra info from me to do so then please let me know.

Once we reach 50k pageviews (and with your help we can do this much faster) then all these entries will be put into a metaphorical hat and a winner drawn at random.

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I hope you are all as enthused by this as I am.

Now I just need to find some way of demoing the alpha rules to people so they can see how awesome these rules are!

Until next time; stay safe and be excellent to eachother!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

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