Director: [QUARTERLY REPORT] Friendly spite in games

Our recent success with Chopscotch brings up an interesting question: what place does spite have in games?

Our lengthly and in-depth observation of human psychology has confirmed the presence of spiteful behavior in humans, i.e. the occasional desire to deliberately cause annoyance or grief in another human. We have further observed that by and large this behavior is viewed as rather juvenile; those who act out of spite are looked down on in anger and annoyance by others.

And yet, a large portion of Earth's games include some form of competition. For any game that pits players against each other, we take it as a given that where there is a winner there must also be a loser. When a soccer goalie blocks a score they as much taking a point away from the opposing team as they are protecting their team's chances of winning. As the goal is blocked, a collective groan rises from the opposing team, the kicker scowls and swears under their breath. The goalie has deliberately caused annoyance from their successful block.

Humans have developed a special word for spite in the context of games: sportsmanship. It seems to be an agreement that a certain amount of spite is allowed to the players but only in the context of the game and its rules. A goalie may indeed block a goal but in doing so they are well aware that in return the opposing team will rush at them with renewed fervor at the next opportunity. Players may also expect that outside of the game, those that were previously their enemies are now entitled to peace from spiteful behavior until the next round.

Our question is this: given that the rules of sportsmanship allow for an acceptable amount of in-game anger, where is the limit? At what point does frustration caused by spite outweigh the fun?

Let us take, for another example, the board game Munchkin. Players take turns to try and level their in-game characters to 10. The closer a particular character gets to 10, the more likely that the remaining players will gang up on them to prevent them from reaching that level and winning. Spite runs rampant in Munchkin. For some, it is too much; they dislike the game. For others, the most satisfying part of the game is the opportunity to bring a successful player to their knees simply because they are doing a better job.

This is an intriguing area to explore. Get on it, R&D.

R&D: Re: Renaming Hopscotch

Marketing: That's an excellent idea! Chopscotch it is.

[Excerpt from discussion log]

[Red] You see that? Can you believe those #&@$ in Marketing? I did most of the work on the hopscotch game.

[Dev] I resent that. 

[Red] It's true.

[Dev] Why are you complaining? You don't like them. Now you don't have to talk to them. Just let me handle communications from now on, okay?

Marketing: Renaming Hopscotch

Dev: Excellent game. We have noticed how the game sticks resemble humorously large chopsticks. We propose that you call the game Chopscotch.

Testing: Hopscotch Test with new rule

We got a few videos of humans playing the new game. Isn't it adorable? Full report coming soon.

R&D Hopscotch [5] Rules change

Testing: Alright, how about this: once a player has placed a goal object in their base, if they leave their base another player can steal it. Humans love spite.

Testing: "Hopscotch Improved!" Playtest 1 Results

R&D: Thanks for giving our testing volunteers something to do! Poor things, they've been all cooped up in here. It's nice to give them a chance to stretch their legs.

Things went fairly decently but we've got some problems with player engagement.

During the first round, the players raced and fought over the goal objects in the center. Both the volunteers playing and watching were laughing and seemed to be having fun. During the second round, though, after a rocky start where one of the players fell down, the timing between the players reaching the center was staggered so there was almost no player interaction.

So, in short:
Positives

• Good cardiovascular exercise; volunteers out of breath but not wheezing
• Players are engaged at all times
• Game is also enjoyable for observers to watch

Negatives

• While players are engaged in gathering goal objects, they don't necessarily interact with one another

Anyway, we'll keep the volunteers out for now in case you have any rules updates. 

Testing: New Hopscotch game

We'll round up some volunteers* and begin testing on the new Hopscotch game.

*as defined by Central Orion Arm Trading Company (COATC) Human Resources

R&D: Hopscotch [4] Rules

Marketing: [REDACTED]

[edit: Director] R&D and Marketing: If you continue to act like children then your salaries will be adjusted accordingly.

Number of Players: 3

Materials

• Masking tape (indoors)
• Sidewalk chalk (outdoors)
• 6 three-foot dowels or sticks
• 7 objects about the size of a pair of socks (preferably soft and malleable) 

Setup

Begin by creating the following game board on the floor using chalk or masking tape. For scale, the circle in the middle should be about three feet in diameter.

Place the 7 objects in the center of the circle.
Place the 6 sticks in pairs around the edge of the circle at equal distances from each other.

Goal

At the end of the game, the player who has collected the most objects is the winner.

Rules

SQUARES: There are three kinds of squares: bases, movement squares, and goal squares.

Each player chooses a base. Players begin by standing with both feet in the center of their bases.

When the game begins, players hop from their base to one of either of the start points next to their base [See figure: gold stars] and begin to make their way along the path of movement squares to the center circle.

MOVEMENT: After entering a set of movement squares, players must hop on one foot from their current square to an adjacent square (vertical or horizontal, diagonals don't count). A player in the movement squares may not switch feet. The only points from which a player may enter or exit the movement squares are from a start point or an endpoint.

Should the player put both feet down while in the movement squares, skip a square, or fall outside of the squares, they must walk back to their home base.

Once a player has reached an endpoint [See figure: black dots], they may jump to any of the goal squares. If they fall outside of a goal square or land in multiple goal squares, they must walk back to their home base. Once in an endpoint, a player may only jump to an endpoint. The player may not move to any other goal square before touching an endpoint.

OBJECTS: Once a player has reached a goal square, they may plant both feet in the square. There should be three pairs of sticks arranged around the circle. The player may pick up a pair of sticks and use them to drag one of the seven goal objects from the center of the circle to their goal square. Once the goal item is within the bounds of the player's goal square, they may drop their sticks, pick up the goal item, and hop back to an endpoint and travel back along their movement squares to return the goal object to their base.

In this process, players may NOT:

• Grab more than one goal object
• Carry the sticks beyond the circle
• Hit other players with sticks (though it's fine to hit others' sticks)

If the player falls outside of the squares or places both feet on the ground in the movement squares after having picked up a goal object, they must first return the object to the circle before walking back to their base.

Once an object has been placed in a player's base, no other player may touch it. 

End Game: The game ends when all objects are in one of the three home bases. The player with the most objects in their base wins.

[Excerpt from discussion log]

[Dev] I dunno, is it still hopscotch? I mean, there's hopping, yes, but there isn't any throwing anymore. That was half the skill–first you threw, then you hopped.

[Red] We replaced the throwing with the stick battles. We also added a bunch more player interactivity and engagement. I didn't like the throwing bit, anyway. It slowed things down.

[Dev] Oh wait, wait. Idea. What if instead of throwing rocks at the squares, you could keep them in your pocket to throw at other players to... you know what, just don't listen to me.

[Red] I rarely do.

Marketing: Re: Re: Hopscotch Feedback

R&D:

1. We are a hive mind. We process quickly.
2. We have a large databank of human information. We simulated our humans.
3. If we had used our live humans, we could have tested them in parallel (see 1).
4. Our humans are better than yours.

R&D: Re: Hopscotch Feedback

Marketing: "Lengthly tests and surveys"? That didn't take long. Where did you find your superhuman survey-takers? Our humans sure can't process that quickly.

Marketing: Hopscotch Feedback

R&D: After lengthly tests and surveys, we have determined that the first of your three ideas has the highest probability of being successful at this time. We suggest that you pursue your first option.

R&D: Hopscotch [3] Top Three Hopscotch Ideas

We've narrowed it down to three ideas:

Idea 1: Players use sticks to compete over objects out of their reach to earn points.

[Excerpt from discussion log]

[Red] Yeah, you carry your sticks and fight over stuff outside of your area.

[Dev] So let me just make sure I understand. You want people to hop on one leg over large distances carrying pointy sticks? We need these people to live.

[Red] I guess this needs some work.

[Dev] No kidding.

Idea 2: Players must collect one of each of an array of objects. Course is set up to have a different hopping challenge to collect each kind of object.

[Excerpt from discussion log]

[Dev] What if people run into each other?

[Red] This is supposed to be a kids' game, right? Kids are springy. They'll just bounce.

[Dev] Good point.

Idea 3: Players have a stack of cloth squares that they take turns throwing onto the floor with the goal of making it into their competitor's territory.

[Excerpt from discussion log]

[Red] We could put wizards into this one! The cloth squares could be different spells. You could have attack spells, defense spells, move spells, summoning spells...

[Dev] You were the one who vetoed the Oculus/dance pad combo. "Keep it simple" you said. I could dig up the log if you like.

[Red] Fine, fine. I want to bookmark this for later, though.

[Dev] Noted.

R&D: Hopscotch [2] Brainstorming Session

Technology

1. Nerf guns to defend territory Boxes or desks to block the sight of whoever’s “it”
2. Blankets
1. capes to duck under
2. curtains to hide behind
3. Sticks to reach things outside of the designated squares
4. Light switch; dark room vs light room mean different things in gameplay
5. Oculus Rift: immersive? (interesting thought, beyond scope of this project)
6. Dance pad
7. Pressure sensors: tell if player falls outside
8. Multiple choice clickers: everyone anonymously chooses where to go using clickers, person who is ‘it’ reveals majority. Majority rules. Last person to hop there is it.
9. Dice: roll to determine where to go next
10. Hanging metal course: monkey bars

Mechanics

11. Dodgeball: working against other people on a similar court on one foot
12. Tag squares: larger court, some squares for two feet, some for one
13. Face-off cowboy style: First to center wins
14. Race: go in parallel against other players
15. Whack a mole; other players throw things onto the court, timer to how many you can hit
16. Larger court, get as many flags as you can in the time given
17. Sneaking: red light green light (tip-toeing)
18. Squares disappear; flood?
19. Hop back and forth over a border
1. River?
2. Country borders?
20. Try to reach objects just outside of your reach in the squares
21. Squares have two meanings; change on timed intervals
22. Larger gaps between squares; jump onto islands
23. “Golden snitch”: one person “it”, everyone else tries to catch them
24. Throw cloth “glyphs” at other players’ squares; touching them when hopping incurs a penalty
25. Teleport squares: appear at other parts of the board
26. Large course with many secret boxes; secret boxes randomly contain different points, weapons, powerups, etc.
27. Play in a cornfield; duck down in corn to hide from person who is “it”

Aesthetics

28. Piano keys
29. 12 pubs from World’s End
30. World’s countries
31. Leaves on a tree: don’t fall out of the tree
32. Pirate ships: swing to different ships
33. Moon walking
34. Diving suit; walking underwater
35. Islands in an archipelago
36. Perspective shift: tops of very high buildings
37. Wizard’s magic circles
38. Different planets in solar system

Story

39. Giants stomping around a town without hitting people
40. Floor is lava
41. Cops and robbers
42. Superheroes vs supervillains
43. Prison escape
44. Holiday shoppers
45. Chefs collecting ingredients for a dish
46. Paparazzi trying to get the best shot
47. River hopping; hop back and forth over a river
48. Between solar systems, delivering things, battling: “warp drive”
49. Ghosts: hop back from the grave to haunt the living
50. Running from the kraken

[Excerpt from discussion log]

[Dev] It's such a simple game–we should probably start by changing the mechanic. Let's ignore aesthetics and story until the fun part's solid.
[Red] I guess that makes sense... as long as we get wizard battles in there. Wizards are fun. On that note we should avoid anything too complicated technologically.
[Dev] Oh come on, you were all for the Oculus Rift/dance pad combo. It was such a cool idea!
[Red] Well I'm not building it. We're on a deadline.
[Dev] It can't take that long. You're supposed to be an engineer, right?
[Red] Why did they hire you again?
[Dev] Someone's got to be diplomatic.

R&D: Re: "Hopscotch"

Marketing: Maybe if you provided us with age-appropriate human volunteers* we wouldn't have this problem.

[edit: Dev] My apologies, Marketing. What my partner means to say is that Testing's studies have shown that when presented with a new game, many university-age students are roughly equivalent in attention span and mental activity to elementary-age humans. We should have no trouble with our current batch of volunteers*.

*as defined by Central Orion Arm Trading Company (COATC) Human Resources

Marketing: Re: Hopscotch

R&D: Why are you changing the target audience? You noted that "Hopscotch" was directed at younger humans to improve in their balance. Stick to the plan.

R&D: Hopscotch [1] Preliminary Research

Project Declaration: How do we improve Hopscotch?

Chosen Intended Audience: College students

After preliminary research, we have concluded the following positive and negative elements:

Positive

• Simple rules; easy to learn
• Easy setup: chalk, stone “shooter” for throwing
• Can be played solo or with a group
• Main mechanic involves balance; enjoyable exercise
• Changes difficulty slightly as you progress on the course

Negative

• Turn-based makes it slow for other players
• If player is successful, they can keep playing and win without anyone else getting a chance
• Adding more than a few players makes the game take an increasingly long time
• Becomes rather easy after practice
• Mistakes puts player out of the game for a long time (until said player's next turn)
• Game board not particularly interesting

[Excerpt from discussion log]

[Red] Look at how simple the board is. No wonder people don't like this game. This should be the first thing to go.

[Dev] It's a children's game, Red... its primary function is to improve basic motor skills in younger humans; it's not supposed to be complicated. Calm down. We're in hot water as it is thanks to your little stunt with the first post.

[Red] So you'll write the next one, then?

[Dev] ...fine

Stated problem: Hopscotch only engages each player on their turn which, depending on their skill, could be either incredibly long or incredibly short. How do we make hopscotch more engaging for all of the players?

Director: Re: Hopscotch

R&D: your sarcasm is noted. Its presence will be included in your quarterly report. Follow up on project codename "Hopscotch". Submit a detailed report by Earth date [Jan 21, 2014].

Field Research: Hopscotch

Hey, all. Looks like "Hopscotch" could use some work. See below references:



"Hopscotch is a children's game that can be played with several players or alone. Hopscotch is a popular playground game in which players toss a small object into numbered spaces of a pattern of rectangles outlined on the ground and then hop or jump through the spaces to retrieve the object."

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopscotch

Testing: We love the bulletin board!

This bulletin is a wonderful idea. We at Testing were just discussing the need for a better medium for conveying the importance of our work. You can expect the following updates from our sector:

1. Full reports on the human-developed games that we test
2. Detailed information about successful mechanics and aesthetics to R&D 
3. Copies of all bug reports

Any members from other sectors interested in contributing to said bug reports will be welcomed.

[edit] Thank you for your enthusiasm, Testing. The duplicate bug reports will not be necessary. Continue using the ticketing system.
-The Director

Field Research: Hunt now, report later

Haven't got time for this. Following a lead.

Memo to Testing: take a look at [Sir You Are Being Hunted].
Memo to Director: I'm off to do the job you hired me to do.

Marketing: Bulletin Board Title

We've changed the name of the bulletin board to "Conqueror's Cookbook". It's got a catchy ring to it, doesn't it? Our analysis of company records shows that with the addition of regulated doses of whimsey to group activities, team synergy can be increased by a rate of 21%.

Marketing: First Post

Good morning, everyone! Marketing has reached a consensus that we'd "break the ice" on this company journal by posting a draft of the press release that will be shipping on Launch Day. You're gonna love it!

[edit] Looks like R&D beat us to the punch. It would have been nice to have some valuable content in the first post but nobody's perfect.

Greetings! 

We represent the planetary expansion company Central Orion Arm Trading Company where our motto is "A Fun-Filled World is a Happy World!" We would first like to extend our congratulations on your species' recent recategorization as a Basic Intelligent Life Form. This is a big step for a young planet and we share your excitement in the commencement of your next stage of evolution. 

In that vein, we are currently in the process of acquiring your planet so that we may begin your species' service phase. We realize that this process should be fairly new to you so before we commence with basic retopography, population redesign, and profession assignment we will be conducting a series of brief surveys of the human population. This particular survey branch is dedicated to the impact of fun on the human psyche. We will be collecting data on existing sources of fun, namely games, with the anticipation that well-designed company approved games will assist in resident education and acceptance of the new management system. 

We look forward to working with you and will keep you informed of our progress with regular updates. 

Thank you for your time,  

Marketing

Games and Diversions Division 

The Central Orion Arm Trading Company

Introductions: R&D

We were informed that our department is required to post frequent updates to the company's media outlet. Our numerous appeals to the effect that we don't need another job on top of our already absurdly heavy workloads have been denied, however, and I lost the coin toss so here I am.

Hello, I'm Red. My partner Dev and I are responsible for the development of new games, diversions, and technologies that may one day be released unto the unsuspecting masses. Or, rather, that would be the case if we hadn't been ordered to document our work in a public space. I'll never understand bureaucracy. 

On that note, I'm honestly a little surprised that we don't seem to have a more experienced supervisor on our team. Well, I am absolutely sure the Director knows what they're doing...

A Memo from The Director

As you all are well aware, we are at two standard years from ACQUISITION DATE. Your division, as a new experimental addition to our "Win the hearts and minds" campaign, will be expected to not only complete the work that has been designated to you but also to prove that you are a valuable addition to the Central Orion Arm Trading Company. In this probationary period we will expect regular reports on your progress. Therefore, in addition to your regularly scheduled deadlines, we will be asking you to contribute regularly to this internal company bulletin in order to keep your coworkers and supervisors informed of your progress.

Thank you for your time,
The Director