At The Gates: Jon Shafer's new strategy game

Jon,

I'm curious how your game will address the issue you wrote about in your blog under the section entitled "Too Much Fluff, Not Enough Strategy."

With the addition of seasons and the need for supply chain management, it sounds like you might be adding more complexity - not removing it. In your blog, you may have just been referring to the need to limit the number of units or techs available to the player to avoid overwhelming him, but don't you think additional systems would have the same effect?

I found that the Gods and Kings expansion fell into this trap for me (even though I did enjoy it overall). The Religion and Espionage systems started to feel like too much on top of everything else I was managing.

Anyway, thanks for dropping in and good luck on the KS.

Sheeeeit man, I haven't had time to even check my Facebook page during the past few months. Finally getting back to the "real life" bits. ;)

- Jon

Thanks for the explanation, I'm really curious to see how you end up mapping that to the UI and the flow of gameplay. I think space games have gotten around this to a certain degree by eliminating the map and just having points in space, but within their constraints many war/hybrid board games have experimented with positional strategy and come up with some really interesting answers, from the simple but utilitarian (Command and Conquer) to the true theme-heavy hybrids (Sekigahara) to the more heavy duty stuff.

Anyway, thanks again, and I look forward to the updates.

Well here you go, you can start with this one then: http://www.unamommer.com/?p=109

(what's the emoticon for violent, attack of the Villain Laugh?)

Color me disappointed there is no tie-in to one of the finest death metal bands of all time.

I liked this because of my love for Persona 4, but I have to object to your last statement. CHIE > RISE!!

Man, I still go with Ai just for the sexy sisters/crossdressing date suggestion.

Jon Shafer - that link may be NSFW as far as the Stardock offices are concerned. ;)

[EDIT: Nevermind, just read about Conifer! Excellent news! Glad to hear you're sticking around here in Michigan.]

Also, great to see you posting around here, enjoy the Likes and please stop by our LP section if you want to watch adorable weirdos playing more creepy Japanese sex dating games.

also now that you're here, you need to play Dark Souls. It's required. Sorry.

Why would you say that? It's like you don't want him to finish At the Gates.

Here's her others:
Hatoful Boyfriend Full Version
Girlish Love Revolution
Prince Maker 2
ADOM
Matches & Matrimony
Tokimeki Girl's Side 1st Kiss
Tokimeki Girl's Side 2nd Season

Erythematic Trombone Player 4 Life

I think the most interesting area will be whether it delivers on providing the interesting end-game promised. It's so rare that TMA has to reach back to Imperialism for an example.

EDIT: I really like the theme music, it's very evocative and builds nicely. I get the feeling that it's telling its own story.

Burnnnnnnnnn.

No multiplayer in ATG. I love it personally but doing MP right requires a huge amount of time and effort. Depending on how ATG does it might be included in our future titles.

- Jon

We've been thinking about ideas for stretch goals and yeah, they're nothing that affects gameplay directly. The whole idea of more money affecting the core experience makes me feel icky inside, and I could never do that sort of thing with my own projects.
- Jon

Think fast. It's probably get halfway in the first 24 hours. :)

There's worse problems to have, I guess.

I just realised that it's called Jon Shafer's At the Gates. One day young aspiring designers will toil unknown in the shadow of Jon Shafer's name.

Mod, please change the title to "At the Gates: Jon Shafer's new game", please :-)

"Jon Shafer's At the Gates: A Game By Jon Shafer"

We call our mod by name here, that name being Fatbird.

Wow, this game's feature list reads like part of my 4x game wish list. Climate, playing a semi-nomadic tribe with both the option of moving and settling down, supply based on terrain... Do you have any interesting mechanics for cultural shift (other than converting to Christianity)?

If you're a barbarian tribe, what is the end game / victory conditions supposed to look like?

A posh European country you are somewhat fond of in the post WWII era adopts you as their arbitrary choice of cultural forebears, and they parade crudely interpreted imitations of your culture in order to consolidate nationalist sentiment.

To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.


And I suppose I am making LK's point.

The first "15 minutes of gameplay" video is interesting.Could use a script next time though. :P
It's on the bottom of the Kickstarter too.



You win by conquering the Roman capital.

Also, some people liked Civ 5 and wished the changes would have gone even further.
A good combat system with weak AI is soooo much better than the stupid stack of doom Civ 4 system.

Also also, stretchgoal 1: commission music from Christopher Tin (Baba Yetu).

In for $80. Glad to see this isn't on Stardock and it's up my alley. I look forward to helping out with the Alpha testing later this year.

Almost half way to the goal after one day! I'd say things are looking great. :)

1. Bad UI and tutorials - ok, applies to everything.
2. Puzzles, not strategy - go on.
3. Midgame drag - no really, DO GO ON.
4. Fluff - disagree, baroque game designs are fun in their own way.

I didn't see "micromanagement" listed though. FOR SHAME.

Supply is definitely an underserved concept in the space.

I regret that I have but one like to give for this post. Simulation and abstraction each have their place, to be sure, but time and time again I am frustrated by designers (and overzealous fans, whom I would like to introduce to Bruce Geryk, Armageddon Empires, or both) who advocate simulationism and detail for their own sake.

And in for $25. :) It's great to see you here, Jon Shafer !

I like:

• The way the mechanics focus on interesting aspects of the theme of the game.
• The idea that migration and weather/terrain might change the standard way I play these types of games.
• That the release date is realistic

I'm surprised, based on reading and hearing Jons words over the last few years, that hes not making a completely asymmetrical game. AI is alot tougher to code when you have factions with similar capabilities to the player. Clearly the Romans will be quite different from the the tribes, but even taking that into account I expected more asymmetry from Jons next design.

I'm backing it.

Threw in my own $25 as well. I like a lot about the project but I'm rather dubious about the graphics, as were some other responses I've seen. I think it would be a good idea to invest a substantial part of those $40k in prettying them up, and perhaps finding a more abstract symbolic style since that budget is hardly going to pay for motion-captured horse animations.

I like cnahrs analysis of the Kickstarter. I'm bookmarking that web site. The graphics look fine to me though.

Some are. The point he's making is about connecting what you do in the game to meaningful choices. So to many people distinguishing among Christian Sects of the time period constitutes a level of detail that adds flavor to the game. He's making sure that the choices you make around the sect are going to be consequential, and that whatever flavor is added doesn't get in the way of making a coherent strategy. Now, there's certainly an argument to be made that, as shown in the gameplay video, religion is perhaps too un-religionlike in terms of how you deal with changing it to match potential allies, but that's not a question of fluff but rather a question of the balance between game-coherent realism and strategic refining.
Now, it could be that you actually believe "complexity for its own sake" should be a game design goal, but I somehow doubt it.

The problem with micromanagement isn't the scale of a decision per se. It's the scale of the decision relative to the overall arc of strategy, and the amount of busywork that entails. So it seems to me it's covered by his focus on meaningful decisions, but I could be wrong.

This, a thousand times over.

Hmm? Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but changing religions to match potential allies was par for the course during that time period.

I meant being able to change it on the fly from Arianism to Paganism, with no described consequences/internal unrest/etc or even cosmetic changes, which is what was shown in the game video. I understand religion as an instrument of diplomacy, but it's not that exclusively in most games. Now, whether what most games do with it is interesting or useful is a separate question, but it's not particularly impressive in its current form in terms of theme.

I can see gameplay justifications for keeping it simple, but I just assume there are gameplay justifications rather than thematic ones.

I think Eclipse is a fantastic example of finding a balance between abstraction and theme. The trend in 4X games of late seems is towards needless complexity and fluff. What passes for the modern strategic layer requires you to micromanage your empires down to building specific buildings on planets, outfit (and retrofit) each individual ship in your fleet, and manually build and move colony ships and colonists between your systems. I get that logistics is a part of strategy, but micromanaging logistical details shouldn't be. Eclipse greatly streamlines this simply by tying your ability to take actions to the strength of your economy and spread of your empire. Instead of having to build and move around colony ships, it's just abstracted out that the more exploration/colonization you do the less other things you can also do, without needing to specifically manage resources at a micro level to accomplish this same thing.

I think Eclipse is very good for a multiplayer short boardgame, but it's difficult to assess it in terms of building an AI-oriented singleplayer experience, where you do need more theme and detail in order to keep it interesting, and especially to make the explore part a lot more lively.

That's very true. I guess what I was getting at was more that several of the mechanics streamline the gameplay without sacrificing the elements that make it strategically interesting. That to me is a solid demonstration that those extra elements are absolutely not necessary, and may well be counterproductive at emphasizing the strategic goals if used where an elegant abstraction would suffice. I think the game as a whole wouldn't translate into a compelling single-player experience, but it's the underlying mechanics at work that interest me more than the complete package.