Tracy Hickman's Blog, page 5

30 Years of Dragonlance

Thirty years ago, ‘Dragonlance’ was unknown outside the walls of TSR Inc. It was a difficult time for the company. There had been a downturn after the large wave of hirings which had brought me into the company and how many of the creators were faced with layoffs. There was a desperate sense that the […]

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A Little Christmas Test

As a Christian and devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), you would be right in assuming that Christmas is a special time of celebration for my family and me. My father being a scholar, over the years, has annually presented us with a ‘Christmas Test’ to help us keep […]

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Hickman Worlds Tour

Where in the World … or out of them … are the Hickmans? If you tried to keep up with our location in November, you might be a little hard pressed to find us Here’s a quick report on our whirlwind world tour to a city-state in the Far East, a fantasy realm located in […]

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Tracy Hickman’s Confession as the Onion Reviews: ‘The Hobbit’

The Onion Reviews ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug’ I will be going to see the moving this week and have been looking forward to it for a very long time. I think Peter Jackson’s work is groundbreaking and (hopefully he is reading this) could be applied with great effect in other fantasy settings … […]

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Unwept Cover Revealed

Unwept is the beginning of a spellbinding new trilogy by the bestselling co-creators of Dragonlance and Ravenloft — and we wanted to share the cover art with you as soon as we saw it! Gamin, Maine, is a remote seaside town where everyone seems to know Ellis Harkington better than she knows herself—but she doesn’t […]

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Sojourner Tales Launches!

Sojourner Tales launched last night just over twenty-four hours ago … and we are now 44% funded! Thank you, our fellow Sojourners for getting us off to such an amazing start! Come join us on our Sojourner Tales Campaign!

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Space City Houston … We Have Landed!

Laura and I had such a wonderful time last year at Space City Con in Houston that we were excited when they asked us to return again this year. Laura and I flew down on Wednesday, joined the celebrity guests of the convention on Thursday for a tour of the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center and […]

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Batman’s ComicCon Return with ‘Wayne of Gotham’

In honor of ComicCon being held in San Diego this month, our publisher has decreed a celebration price of $2.99 for ebook copies of my Batman novel, ‘Wayne of Gotham.’ If you have not yet had a chance to enjoy my otherworlds take on the Caped Crusader, this special price will be available through the end of [...]

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Designing Games? Play, Play Again!

Even for the most practiced game designers, no initial set of rules is going to work the first time out of the box. Indeed, the most common experience in designing any kind of game is that the designer puts together the rules, layout and components of a game with his ‘best guess.’ It looks pretty solid to the game designer and, with confidence, he presents his next genius creation to a set of players anxious to kick the tires, turn over the engine and take if for a gamer’s spin.

Which should remind you greatly of Wile E. Coyote.

This, almost always, is the moment when that beautifully crafted and carefully considered design crashes into a flaming heap on the ground, its pieces barely recognizable as its wreckage lies before the game designer in a horrible mangled mess.

In the military, they like to say that the first casualty of any engagement is the plan — that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. What this means is that despite everything we think we know about our beautiful, brilliant game design, reality has a way of showing us how our Swiss-movement clockwork plans just don’t actually ticktock as smoothly as we thought they would.

This is why it is critical for any game design to be play-tested. You sit down with your nearly completed game and actually PLAY it. Most likely, the result will put the game’s designer in the same roll as our old coyote friend.

Laura and I have created what we think is a really wonderful new storytelling board game. It is designed both with families and gamer’s in mind and does some pretty amazing things — at least, that was the theory when we drew it up on the drafting table in our secret lair and sent out for parts from Acme.

Not unlike Wile E., I believed my first design was pure genius and would encounter absolutely no problems whatsoever when played. Everything made sense in my mind, the rules were elegant and well sequenced. The players would pick me up on their shoulders and carry me in triumph from the game in appreciation.

Unsuspecting initial playtesters.

To be truthful, things worked out a great deal better for me at that first play-test. We actually got through an entire game which was remarkable in itself. But it did not take me long as the game designer actually PLAYING my own game to realize that is was clunking along like a Rube Goldberg machine invention. We didn’t want this game to just work, we wanted it to be magical and so we knew we had some work to do.

Back to that drawing board. I took the game apart. Which parts worked? Which parts did the player’s seem to really like? Which parts bored them to tears? How could I make it better, faster, stronger? I rolled up my sleeves, reached in with both hands and started ripping pieces out of the design.

The game rules became much more streamlines and, remarkably, the board didn’t really need to change nor, for that matter, did the cards. The underlying machine had to be engineered, the rules rewritten and the story book took did most of the bleeding.  Then what?

One of the primary rules of game design might be ‘if at first you don’t succeed — play, play again!’ So we took the game down to play it with my son and his wife. Clank! Shudder! Wheeze! They both gave excellent suggestions. Back to the design board. Maybe this time? We invited over some friends to try it again. Creak! Rattle! Gasp! Better but still clanking awkwardly along. Laura and I went back to the drawing boards together. This time, Laura started asking me questions about the parts that didn’t work for her. I was shocked at her suggestions. Didn’t she understand the beauty, the elegance, the Swiss-watch perfection of the rules which … oh, bother! She was right about all of it. I grabbed a rules wrench and once again started stripping off all the unnecessary complication I had boated the game with in my first few sets of rules.

Note that I said sets of rules.

And a wondrous thing happened. It often happens for me during this play-test period. I call it watching the rules ‘collapse.’ By that, I mean that there comes a critical point when the rules literally collapse down to their simplest form and suddenly start working. It doesn’t happen all at once but when it starts happening you know you’re on the right track.

So, what do you do when you have rewritten the rules? Why you play, play again! So we invited more unsuspecting friends to come over to our house to play the game. We set up the game and started it up.

Lynn Lonsdale, Gordon Lonsdale, Tracy Hickman & Laura Hickman (L-R)

And it STILL wasn’t right. We had a good time and a lot of fun that night but remember, we weren’t out to create just a game that worked or even a game that was mearly fun — we wanted MAGIC!

So, Laura and I sat down AGAIN. Took the game apart AGAIN. And it turns out that my wife is something of a savaant when it comes to game design and made me tear out more rules in our hunt for a game that was more than fun … that was magic. And I think this time we are actually VERY close.

The most difficult step is still ahead of us. This is called the Blind Play-test. This is where you take your beautiful baby board game and hand it over to heathens — players who have to play the game without you holding their hand or even watching them as they do everything they can to destroy your brainchild. Their notes on that test can tell you if you really have something that goes beyond just function but into the realm of art.

But, for now, we are excited to test our latest and, perhaps, greatest set of new rules on our nearly finished game. We just need to find some friends to come over to our house and play, play again…

 

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Fantasy Novelist Hickman to Write Computer Game Novel

‘Stretch Goal’ Promises Tracy Hickman Serial Novel for

Upcoming ‘Shroud of the Avatar’ Fantasy Computer Game

Portalarium Games announced late yesterday that I have offered to write a serial fantasy novel for the upcoming fantasy computer game ‘Shroud of the Avatar’ should the project fund to the $1.8m dollar stretch goal. All backers (including those already backing the project) beginning at the $25 level will receive a digital edition of the book as it is released with higher level pledges receiving numbered collector’s editions signed by Richard Garriott and Tracy Hickman. These are in addition to the other rewards already earned at these levels.

I am the Lead Story Designer for the project and am working side-by-side with Richard Garriott to produce a rich, epic story for the upcoming game. The game project itself has ALREADY met its funding goal and, therefore, will be produced — but the stretch goals allow for the addition of more fun aspects to the game and, now, the possibility of a full-length fantasy novel as well.

We need your support to make this game the amazing journey we know it will become and…

…there are only four days remaining to back this project!
I hope you’ll come and join us on this epic adventure!

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