Zero Escort - a psychological strategy game

[Pistos2]

Hi. I'm looking for early adopters or beta testers for an online strategy game I've created, called Zero Escort. Some screenshots, showing two different skins/themes (one of which uses graphics from Wesnoth):




Your goal is to move your weakest unit (the Zero unit) to the other side before your opponent does the same, or destroy his/hers so it can't ever get there. In this game, you must manage risk, make deductions, apply logic, and engage in psychological strategy (bluffing, baiting, etc.). It is (very) loosely modeled after Game of the Generals (which itself is in the same vein as Stratego).

I would appreciate if anyone could stop by http://0e.pist0s.ca/ and give any constructive feedback. You can play a demo game against a computer opponent without signing up, to give the game a test drive. The AI is nowhere near as challenging as the human opponents, of course. If you find it's not your cup of tea, I'd be interested to know why this particular game doesn't appeal to you, but others do -- i.e. what I could do to improve it.

Thanks in advance!

[pauxlo]

Okay, I played (and won by accidentially killing the opponent's 0) one game against the computer, without even understanding the rules fully.

You really need to put a rules document somewhere.

[Caphriel]

The game seems to have hung while playing against the AI. Also, when playing against the AI, when the player moves, you should show the result of that immediately. Instead, it seems to not update until after the AI moves, which is confusing and annoying.

Edit: Nevermind, apparently I won, instead of the game hanging, but that was only mentioned the the body of the web page some distance above, not on the game screen or in the log.

[Pistos2]

There is a rules link on every game page. I guess it's more obvious when all the help boxes are not littering the screen. The interface is cleaner when you're not using the demo account, but I will try to clean up the demo appearance, too.

Thanks for trying it, though, guys! I encourage you to try some human vs. human games.

[Caphriel]

The demo account interface is what most people are going to see first, so you should make that as clean as possible.

I played another game, and talked a friend of mine who is also interested in game design into examining it, too. I will preface this by saying that I know playing against the AI is not representative of playing against humans. However, our conclusion, based primarily on analysis of the mechanics, is that this is not so much a psychological strategy game as it is a guessing game.

The facts that contributed to our negative impression are as follows:

• Very low information gain from each move, and the fact that each move that gains you information results in a piece being removed from the board. This means that there's no way to test a hypothesis about the enemy configuration without rapidly moving the game toward the endgame state, since there are very few pieces in play to start with.
• Information gain is commensurate to risk taken if you lose an attack, and approximately inversely proportional if you win an attack.
• Units move and then attack, giving units a very high range of attack compared to range of movement.
• The attack wins draws. This, combined with the above, makes it very advantageous to be attacking. Your win rate will be higher, and it is impossible for the enemy to move their units away from an attacking piece in any fashion.
• The board is shallow (it's wider than it is deep), which means that moving units laterally to respond to an attack is cumbersome. This, combined with the previous two conditions, lead us to conclude that responding to an enemy attack is less important than continuing your own attack as fast as possible.
• At the end of the game, the position is not revealed. This make it difficult for players to analyze a game they just played and learn from it. It contributes to not knowing why you won or lost, which makes it hard to improve. This was discouraging to us, as people who enjoy studying strategy games.

So, in conclusion, I'd rather play Stratego or Game of the Generals, which in general are more polished than this, and have a nicer feel to them.

[Pistos2]

Caphriel:

Thank you for the detailed feedback. It is very valuable to me, and I'll definitely be taking many points back to the drawing board. I will experiment with some rule changes and enhancements. Certainly, Zero Escort is in its infancy, but that means there's lots of room to grow, and I'm very interested in what the players have to say, and am very willing to incorporate good suggestions into the game, and iterate version after version.

The demo account interface is what most people are going to see first, so you should make that as clean as possible.

Agreed.

I played another game, and talked a friend of mine who is also interested in game design into examining it, too. I

Thank you for inviting a friend to check it out.

Very low information gain from each move, and the fact that each move that gains you information results in a piece being removed from the board. This means that there's no way to test a hypothesis about the enemy configuration without rapidly moving the game toward the endgame state, since there are very few pieces in play to start with.

I will experiment with adding some aspects to the game that address this issue. Perhaps something that enables you to spy on or reveal information about enemy units.

Units move and then attack, giving units a very high range of attack compared to range of movement. The attack wins draws. This, combined with the above, makes it very advantageous to be attacking. Your win rate will be higher, and it is impossible for the enemy to move their units away from an attacking piece in any fashion. The board is shallow (it's wider than it is deep), which means that moving units laterally to respond to an attack is cumbersome. This, combined with the previous two conditions, lead us to conclude that responding to an enemy attack is less important than continuing your own attack as fast as possible.

Based on my 20+ games played against human opponents, I cannot concur that pure offense is the road to victory. This is especially the case if I know ahead of time that a given opponent always plays this way (based on a few games' experience with him/her).

I will experiment with increased unit mobility, such as two hexes range instead of one.

At the end of the game, the position is not revealed. This make it difficult for players to analyze a game they just played and learn from it. It contributes to not knowing why you won or lost, which makes it hard to improve. This was discouraging to us, as people who enjoy studying strategy games.

There is a checkbox available to each player during the setup of a game (when the units are being placed on the board) which the players can use to indicate their agreement to reveal the unit strengths at the game end.

Thanks again for your valuable feedback! I will continue playtesting various changes, and return in a few weeks with the results, and report on what the new rules are.

[Caphriel]

Obviously, since I didn't play against another human, I didn't see that checkbox

If I can offer a suggestion, try letting a specific piece able to move two or more hexes at once. In addition to offering some new value to a piece (probably the 1-piece or the 2-piece?), applying that ability will give the other player some information.

Also, although I haven't seriously examined the ramifications, permitting the player to examine an adjacent piece instead of attacking it under some circumstance might provide interesting choices. You'd have to expose a piece to easy attack to do it and you don't get to attack that turn, but you gain more information.

I'll mull it over some more tomorrow; ideas that seem reasonable late at night often are obviously flawed come morning

[Pistos2]

Obviously, since I didn't play against another human, I didn't see that checkbox

If I can offer a suggestion, try letting a specific piece able to move two or more hexes at once. In addition to offering some new value to a piece (probably the 1-piece or the 2-piece?), applying that ability will give the other player some information.

Also, although I haven't seriously examined the ramifications, permitting the player to examine an adjacent piece instead of attacking it under some circumstance might provide interesting choices. You'd have to expose a piece to easy attack to do it and you don't get to attack that turn, but you gain more information.

I'll mull it over some more tomorrow; ideas that seem reasonable late at night often are obviously flawed come morning

No, really, Caphriel, these are outstanding ideas. It is in line with what I've been thinking about since I read your earlier commentary. I will definitely experiment with some of this, beginning with a change to allow units to move up to two hexes in one turn. Your idea about giving a choice to expose an enemy unit instead of attack it is also good! Something I thought of before was introducing a seventh unit type that would reveal enemy units which are adjacent, but I think your idea is even better. I'll try it.

[Pistos2]

Two-hex movement has been implemented. It seems to be an improvement to the game, as there are more possibilities to think about in your own strategy and thinking about what your opponent might do.