Fantasystrike.com Relaunch

The new fantasystrike.com is now live! There's several big upgrades we just did, as well as a surprise, so let's check it out.

Yomi

The production values are way up now. The playfield now looks like a side view fighting game. It has fancy life bars, sound effects, and awesome music from OC Remix. The UI in general now helps you understand what's happening more. If your throw wins combat vs a block, we show with gigantic letters and effects that your throw won. When an ability happens, we show the ability box big, in the center of the screen. At the top of the screen, there's an info box telling you what you should be doing.

Here's some before and after screenshots:

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NEW:

Oh and by the way, Yomi is now in German and French, as well as English.

Puzzle Strike

We upgraded the production values a lot in Puzzle Strike as well. There's sound, OC Remix music, and a more puzzle gamey theme to the UI. Puzzle Strike is now a lot easier to watch (and to play) because we added so many elements to help you understand what's happening. When a chip goes somewhere, it's now more clear where exactly it's going. Most importantly, the visuals for the gems in your gem pile make it very clear how close you are to losing. Your gem pile also has little notches that show when the height bonus triggers that allows you to draw more chips. Here's some before and after screenshots:

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Flash Duel

This is the first release of Flash Duel online. All 20 characters plus the Dragon Raid are working. You can play 1v1, 2v2, and up to 4v1 (vs the Dragon). You can even play the Custom Clockwork mode where you build your own 4-ability character out of the abilities of several different characters. The UI is a first pass, but the game is fully functional and features 8-bit animations for all 21 characters by famous pixel artist Conor "BT" Town.

Coin System

There's a new coin system for the site. There's a free character each week in each game and you don't need any coins to play that character. You can play them as much as you want, unlimited times, for free. If you want to play other characters, you are now able to do that for free as well! Every day, you automatically get 10 free purple tokens just for logging in. That's enough to play any character in any game one time for free. This is great because it allows you to try out a new character and see if you like them without actually spending anything.

The first win of the day also gives you 10 free purple tokens, so you could then play a second time that day for free. Once in a while during gameplay, you can get a "critical hit" which gives you purple tokens, too. These purple tokens only last 24 hours though, so you might as well use them when you have them, or you'll lose them.

If you want to play more than that, you can buy gold coins. You can also use gold coins to play any character in any game on game on the site, but they don't go away after 24 hours, you can pile them up all you want. You can even give gold coins to other players as a gift.

Between the free character, all the daily free tokens, and the sheer amount of gold you can buy in a single purchase with rebates for buying in bulk, we're somewhat worried that we are being too generous to maintain a business. We'd like to try it anyway though and see what happens.

(Note that anyone who previously bought characters still owns everything they bought and can play those bought characters all they want. All gold you had from the previous system will be converted to new gold, even if you never *bought* that old gold.)

Subscriptions

There's no change at all to how subscriptions work. Just like before, you can get a monthly subscription and have access to all characters in all games as well as some other perks like more saved replay slots. What's great is that we've been able to offer more and more value for those subscriptions over time. At first, a subscription gave you access to 10 Yomi characters and 10 Puzzle Strike characters. Now, you have access to 20 Flash Duel characters (plus the Dragon and Custom Clockwork mode), as well as 20 Puzzle Strike characters and all expansion puzzle chips as well as...

Surprise: Yomi Expansion is Live Now!

Yomi now has all 10 expansion characters implemented with rules enforcement in addition to the 10 base set characters, bringing the total to 20 characters. The expansion characters do not currently have all their art on the cards, but over the next couple months we'll be filling more and more of it in. In the meantime, they are fully functional to play!

Ladder Reset

We reset the ladder for all the games and are starting a new season. Note that Yomi will have some gameplay changes during this ladder season as the beta characters get updated. We might reset it early or just leave it as an experimental season, with the following season being the more stable competitive one.

Leaderboards Page

Even the leaderboards page got a graphical overhaul too. Here's a before and after of that:

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NEW:

 

These upgrades have been in the works for a long time, and we all thank Thelo for his awesome work on getting them implemented. I hope you enjoy! Head on over to the game area on the new site.

Announcing Chess 2

The digital version of Chess 2 is coming out Q4 2013 as a timed exclusive for the OUYA console (other platforms will follow later). It will be shown at the OUYA installation during E3 in two weeks.

Game Design

Chess 1 was a big hit, no question there, but a few issues have cropped up over the years. First, the original game ends in a draw uncomfortably often. Second, memorization (rather than on-the-spot intuition) ended up being much more important than the original developers intended. Even top players such as Fischer and Capablanca complained about this. Third, because it has no hidden information, the ability to capitalize on reading your opponent is more limited than it could be. And finally, the first version offered only a single army and one matchup.

Chess 2 addresses each of those concerns. (And the rules pdf is here.) A new win condition (in addition to the old one) allows a victory if your king crosses the midline of the board. This practically eliminates draws, and it also cuts down on having to walk through book-solved endgame situations, and eliminates the need to concede far before the game really ends. In Chess 2, there's action right up until the end, and the end is unlikely to be a draw.

A double-blind bidding mechanic when you capture pieces allows for some "yomi" or mind reading of the opponent's intentions. It also greatly disrupts scripted openings allowing for more emphasis on intuition. It's also quite skill-testing in measuring how much each player values each piece. If your opponent has an incorrect opinion about how much a particular piece is really worth in this particular game situation, you can capitalize on that by making him bid incorrectly in an effort to save that piece.

There are six armies to choose from, creating 21 matchups rather than just 1. While each army has its own twist, none are completely alien to chess. Each army modifies only a few (significant) things so that remembering what everything does isn't too hard. The six armies are: 

1. Classic (back by popular demand)
2. Nemesis (favors pawns)
3. Empowered (favors knights, bishops, and rooks)
4. Reaper (favors queen)
5. Two Kings (favors kings)
6. Animals (wild card!)

Digital Version

The digital version of Chess 2 is being developed by Ludeme Games. You can follow them on twitter @LudemeGames and #Chess2 for updates. Ludeme Games would also like to thank their families, dogs, and legal counsel for making all this possible.

The production values of the game are really coming along. Ludeme Games created wonderful looking sculpts for all the interesting new pieces in the game. I'm not quite sure, but I think Chess 2 might end up being the best looking title that comes out near launch on the OUYA. That's one of the advantages of doing a "small scale" game: fewer elements means it's easier to polish the production values. (Easier to focus on the game design too!)

I'll leave you with this shot of the Reaper queen, who can teleport to almost any space on the board:

Asynchronous Games and Codex

Asynchronous play means that your opponent doesn't have to be around at the same time you are. You can take your turn, then later on your opponent will take his turn at his leisure. This is increasingly more important now that mobile games are a bigger and bigger phenomenon. You can take your turn in some game while waiting at a bus stop or whatever even though you wouldn't be able to play an entire (synchronous) game in that same situation. So it's not just a "feature" when a game can be played in this way, it's transformative in that it allows you to play games in different real-life situations than you otherwise could. It also means you can play 10 different sessions of the game against 10 different people, all taking their turns here and there at bus stops or other free moments here and there. Synchronous games can't do that.

Although I play some simple asynchronous word games, when it comes to "real" games I generally scoff at asynchronous stuff. People ask if Puzzle Strike or Yomi could support such a thing and they pretty much can't because they are both so INTERACTIVE. I tend to put as much interactivity into my games as I can: the more the better, and the less the worse. The games that most lend themselves to asynchronous play are the ones with so little interactivity that you can do a whole bunch of stuff on your turn and the opponent can't even react. That said, allowing asynchronous play is still a huge win in convenience and maybe these days people don't want a "better" and more interactive game, maybe they want a game they can actually get around to playing. Often, that means an asynchronous one. (And does asynchronous really have to mean worse anyway? See below.)

Codex

One day I thought, "Can my card game Codex be altered to support asynchronous play?" It's actually ludicrous to consider. The opponent can react about 9,000 times per turn to stuff you can do. It would be like playing MtG asynchronously, where the number of back and forths waiting to see if they other person does anything is so large that you'd give up on it before getting through a single turn, probably. That said, it would be such a big win if it were possible…somehow.

The thing that made me consider this at all is

Click to read more ...

Free Shipping

You now get free shipping in the US for any order over $25 from www.sirlingames.com. Even for heavy products like Puzzle Strike or Yomi that cost more than $10 to ship? Yes, even those. Does the Puzzle Strike Extras Pack qualify, even though it's exactly $25? Yes, it does.

Free shipping: you want it, you need it, you got it.

Fantasy Strike Expo

Announcement!

The first Fantasy Strike Expo will take place June 7th-9th near the San Francisco airport. It's a tournament series and casual play event showcasing the Fantasy Strike tabletop games as well as video game tournaments for Street Fighter HD Remix and Puzzle Fighter HD Remix. Come compete, watch, and make new friends with other Fantasy Strikers. There's also a chance to try out games in development!

Registration link: www.fantasystrike.com/fsx

Location: Marriot Courtyard San Francisco Airport.
1050 Bayhill Drive, San Bruno, California 94066 USA.

Discuss Fantasy Strike Expo on the forums.

Tournaments

All tournaments will take place Saturday and Sunday June 8th and 9th.

Tabletop tournaments:

• Yomi
• Puzzle Strike
• Flash Duel

Video game tournaments

• Street Fighter HD Remix
• Puzzle Fighter HD Remix

Beta games

The beta games will be showcased on June 7th. This is an optional day of the event, and has an extra cover fee due to the extra cost of facilities and materials. We'll demonstrate and allow you to play:

• Pandante, a panda-themed gambling game based on lying
• Codex, a not-collectable, yes-customizable card game that's been in the works for a LONG time

Who should come?

Note that this is not just a local event. It's located right next to the San Francisco International Airport to make travelling as easy as possible. There's even a free shuttle from the airport to the hotel. There will be several Canadians coming, can you beat them on distance travelled?

One reason to come would be if you're actually good at any of these games. You don't want to let some shmoe win do you? That said, all skill levels are welcome. Attending a tournament is usually quite a learning experience regardless of your skill or lack of it. Even if you don't enter any tournaments at all, plenty of casual play is encouraged as well. It's fun to be in an environment with like-minded people and to make new friends, so you might be interested in attending for the social aspects alone.

To sweeten the pot, I'll teach anyone who attends the optional day on June 7th how to play two of my new games in development. You'll be getting a sneak peak that the public hasn't seen yet. One of the games is easy to learn, while the other is very complex and the kind of thing you're meant to play for 10+ years. Get a headstart on everyone else just by showing up.

Reserving Rooms at the Marriott Venue

By using the links below, you can get a discounted rate if you reserve them before Thursday, May 16th 2013.

King room ($129/night)

Queen x2 room ($139/night)

King suite ($229/night)

You can also reserve rooms by calling (800) 321-2211 and asking for the Sirlin Room Block. 

I look forward to seeing you all there!