After spending numerous days/weeks/months/years to develop ZPLUS, ultimately we want it to be a success! (Like any other developers would have dream of) I am really happy for the team as we have somehow manage to design ZPLUS to accomodate extension. We are pretty sure that technically and visually this web based game can be scalable in the future. The visual design can be extended, and so as the game-play. Currently we are testing it with MINIZ-games.
Despite of the complexity of ZPLUS, we are currently implementing simple to play MINIZ-games to allow players to experience different forms of gameplay. Can’t really tell much on the MINIZ-games, however we ensure that players will have different gameplay apart from the conventional RPG grinding experience in ZPLUS.
When developing ZPLUS, in the begining what I have in mind was to develop an infinite leveling gameplay that doesn’t rely on story. Players will just have to keep on leveling their character infinitely. And so our version 1 zplus was developed. Then I was WRONG! During alpha testing we found out that players would also want to see some storytelling elements in web-based game as well. A minimal storytelling elements should be there to allowed players to cognitively link all the web-based game features as one single entity. Because of that ZPLUS is going to have an upgrade on the storytelling.
I have come across a blog that categorises some storytelling methods in casual games. It’s a good reference for us to start from http://www.untoldentertainment.com/blog/2010/07/14/six-ways-to-tell-stories-in-video-games/
I think we have solution for that 
I have been thinking on using the FB functions to increase the usability of FB features in the game. Well I have to be honest to say that when we developed the architecture of ZPLUS we didn’t think of connecting it with FB and that’s our limitation. However it is also decided that FB is the way to go and we are currently looking into how to connect ZPLUS into FB. Glad that we have found away to link it to FB and with this method we will try to make the best use of FB’s features
- Posting announcement on achievements; trophy; and gift.
- Inviting friend to take part.
Here’s some useful tutorials for FB development
http://www.takwing.idv.hk/tech/
After integrating our ZPLUS into FB we have found out one annoying problem, the size of the interface is a bit small. Originally it was designed at 640 X 480, and it looks alrite, as the numbers of textual information is still less and managable at that time.
Once we started to polish the game, more and more information was included into the game and it has resulted too much of text displaying on the screen and we have to scale the size of the text down to point 8 in order to fit it in. It is really tiny and hard to read for some players, and afraid that it would affect the experience of the game. We don’t want to project a bad gameplay experience to the players in our 1st MOG and so we have scaled it into a proper interface size so that it can be fitted nicely into FB layout with minimal effort. And so text size can be increased to point 10 for better visibility.
We are at the final phase of close beta to our ZPLUS ゼッタモンスタープラス (Zetta Monster Online Game). Thanks to the team that we have include critical upgrades to our current ZPLUS. We have improved the character customisation system, as now no single player in the game can have similiar stats in regards of having the same level and age 
Another upgrades that we have is in the PVP card battle. We are delighted to improve on the gameplay of the card battle by adding an additional “trap” card feature. This “trap” card feature allows weak player (having weak cards) to be able to turn the table around from losing the game into winning the game. However certain levels of strategies and skills needed in order to win the card battle.
Apart from improving the gameplay, we have also integrating it to facebook. Players can choose to play from the website or FB. Not forgetting another standalone version named Zetta Monster will also be release to extend the experience of the game. The Zetta Monster game will focus heavily on storytelling, puzzle solving, aesthetic, MOMO-RPG gameplay with some surprise elements and exploration .
Zetta Monster is a Casual J-RPG game made by MOMO Studio (スタジオモモ), a malaysian game studio that has this mission of taking over the world using MOMO-RPG Game.
Do support us on our mission!
As a definition from Wiki;
Wabi-sabi (侘寂) represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience.
In a J-RPG game, wabi-sabi elements is important to bring the in game aesthetic to a great level of methaphor interpretations. Every graphical assets should have their own meaning that contributes to the lore of the game that was created.
For e.g. when a character casting a spell, have you every wonder why there is this symbol in the game that is keep on repeating over and over again? The symbol represents a metaphor that reveals the background of the character; the attitude of the character; the skill levels of the character and many more.
We have the same philosophy when design and creating Zetta Monster. And we hope players’ will discover the WABI-SABI of our game.
Posted in Concept, Design
|
This is a concept derived from Doug Church’s presentation, on “Abdicating Authorship”. In a nutshell on “Abdicating Authorship”, players have the ability to decide on the possible flow of the story in the game which contribute replayability.
As for the “Abdicating Visual Aesthetics”, players are allowed to use gameplay mechanics to contribute different forms of visuals and effects in the game. The main experience is to enable players to deploy different forms of visual effects to beautify the screen. The visual effects is refered as “particles” system. The game should be presented as static visual, and with the use of different particles, users can trigger different combinations of particles to beautify the in game screen while clearing the stage. To do so you need the following rules;
- Static in game screen
- Different particle combination
- Simple game objective
This can be proven if you compare the style of playing between experience and new player. Experience player will use different particles combination to “beautify” the screen on clearing the stage, whereas the style of new player is limited by the knowledge of using the particles combination. Thus the experience player creates more apealling effects as compared to the new player. The “Abdicating Visual Aesthetics” experience is also more expressed thru the experience player as compare to the new player.
(C) 10-7-2010 11.00am
Was browsing for some effects with perlin noise, I’ve found a web site that talks about flash effects. Saw some of the tutorials and it was mind blowing! This jap guy is really good. As he was experimenting with some fire effects, it looks darn realistic and visually impressive. That’s the power of Flash and the community
Few thinks I would like to share 1st. The fire effects; {btw this is written in AS2 however you can find the AS3 file in the site}
http://www.project-nya.jp/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=864
And BetweenAS3 engine for doing tweening. {it was a alpha engine developed by Spark Project}
http://www.libspark.org/wiki/BetweenAS3/en
Some tutorials below
http://www.project-nya.jp/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=1161
The firefly particles that can be used in our scenario and battle; Wah Lau Eh!
http://www.project-nya.jp/modules/weblog/details.php?blog_id=942
Go Jap!
WOW, let me introduce other least mentioned feature in Z+ that is our Z+-CARD-BATTLE. The Version 0.5 was a bit simple, however still need balanced rules and mechanics in the design. After completing Version 0.5, we have adopted few interesting idea and amend the gameplay of the card game, and it was quite impressive (IMO) Finally we have Version 1.0 with level 1 polishing.
Few points that I want to highlight when developing a gameplay; I know it’s kind of cool when developers/programmers can incorporate complex gameplay logics however in the perspective of a game designer, it is also important to let players to understand roughly how the logic works. This can be done by using the idea of “FEEDBACK”. E.g. when a player is being attacked, the immediate response would be HP bar reduced; some value hovering the player appear/disappear and etc.
Types of feedback that are commonly used;
- words/message
- simple animations e.g. flashing of light
- auditable tone/message
- symbols and icons
I would say “ya rite” however it is important to let players’ know that there might be a deeper mechanics in the game apart from reducing the HP. Letting players to understand the gameplay is important for players’ immersion to the game.
