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Mechanic Monday: Dungeon AI in Fantasy GM Squared

I should work on this so I stop boiling my own blood over a willfully obtuse friend of an equally obtuse in-law opining on FB that police shootings are all accidents.  I am so filled with rage and loathing, so much of the time.  Oh man, I hope getting political doesn’t cause my readership to fall from zero all the way down to zero.  That would suck.

So I’ve been back in talks with Those Ironrise Fellas about Fantasy GM Squared, and we got to talking about solo modes.  I had honestly never thought about FGM-sq having a solitaire option, which is wild since I think about solo games… all the… time…

(Stares into the Void thinking about that rebel Prince of Hell deck thinner game idea again)

Anyway I’d never thought about it because not only are Fantasy Sports are such an interactive experience, but that interactivity is a feature, not a bug, and a key feature, not an add-on.  The greater the interactivity in a Fantasy Sport league, the more profoundly you experience the core kernel of the whole thing.

But! I wanted to give a fair crack to my collaborators’ thoughts and the possibilities presented therein.  And you know what, sometimes you find yourself in a League where the prevailing vibe doesn’t include trash talk or any talk at all, no trades, no offers.  Times like that can feel a lot like multiplayer solitaire.  So, while it wouldn’t mirror the full experience, maybe there’s something there that can be adapted.

Ergo! Behold this week’s Mechanic: an AI for Fantasy GM Squared

The Blight Upon The Land
In Fantasy GM Squared, crises occur from time to time that require the full, undivided attention of your Guild.  Descend into the Dungeon, a set of cards/tiles that will gradually flip over, revealing interconnected threats that can only be overcome by judicious organization of the parties of Heroes you send in to meet them.  It will take multiple Seasons for the scourge to fully be purged from the land, and you will be rewarded points based on how effectively you face the challenges that arise.

A good sideways approach to solitaire modes is to look at what would go into a cooperative mode, and then consolidate that decision-making / avataric representation into one person.  This first stab draws on a related part of the Fantasy genre, the dungeon crawler, which could be a cooperative or lone experience, but which takes the competitive aspect of the regular game and creates a common non-player enemy that must be defeated.  The version I had in mind when I wrote the above is basically a series of partial-information puzzles with some fog of war built in.  I could also ditch the dungeon aspect, which draws on the Fantasy side, and go more on the Sports side, have the AI be fictitious GMs from the Hall of Fame.  Go up against the Legends, that type of framing.  Could adapt the Calendar Deck, or crib from that old Danger 5 Game I abandoned when Season 2 disappointed me.  I love the design space that’s being explored re: the overlapping Carboard AI / Automata / Co-op / Solitaire conversations right now.  Very convenient for someone like me who doesn’t live with a gamer.

Well, having said that, I’m gonna try again tomorrow to find time to play Tussie Mussie with my wife (not a metaphor), and to get a playtest of Ironrise’s Potionarium before we touch base on Wednesday.  Til next week!

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