Game Mechanics

Recently, I've been thinking about slightly changing the game mechanics for Dangerous Apples. This is largely in light of the situation involving Scrab...uh, Wordscraper, which recently re-launched with some significant gameplay changes to avoid copyright infringement. I can't help but wonder if Dangerous Apples will encounter a similar situation. Thus, I'm considering what types of rule changes could be made.

To start, let's take a step back and examine why Apples to Apples (the original) is so much fun. I think there are two main factors. The first is the sheer absurdity of the decisions that the game forces you to make. Many of the cards are intrinsically funny, but the juxtaposition of cards in ways that are unexpected but still make sense makes it even better. Are pirates more casual than Yankee Stadium? Which one out of Al Gore, San Francisco, and a dozen roses is the most tolerant? Is the concept of Hannibal Lecter being described as "cuddly" funny enough that you would choose him over bunny rabbits? There is no correct answer for any of these; in fact, there's not even a framework for you to evaluate these questions. Instead, you get to fill in whatever logic (or lack thereof) you want. The second factor is directly related to this; it's very helpful to know the other players well enough to guess what they are likely to enjoy and choose. The social component is what makes it such a great party game. So I think it's essential that whatever Dangerous Apples turns out to be, it must have these two elements.

In my opinion, the key to making Dangerous Apples better is to leverage the advantages that a web-based game can have over playing the same game in person. Ideally, Dangerous Apples should let players do something that Apples to Apples cannot do. Here are the advantages that I can think of:

• Freedom from physical constraints. Web games can do things that aren't strictly limited to the equipment that you can fit in a box. An example of this is how Wordscraper now allows you to play on a board with a randomized layout - you sure can't do that with your Scrabble board! In this case, unfortunately, there's not much that I can do, considering that all that comes in the Apples to Apples box is a whole bunch of noun cards and adjective cards. There's really not a heck of a lot that you can't do with that. However, there's basically no limit to the number of cards I can put into my database, as opposed to having to deal with thousands of actual physical cards. I can also provide a wild card that the player can fill out with something different every time he plays it. While this is not impossible with Apples to Apples' wild cards, it's unlikely and impractical. Or, cards could be dynamically generated, perhaps referring to randomly selected players.
  
• Perfect information management. This is admittedly a vague term, but what I mean is that a computer will always keep track of storing, calculating, displaying, and hiding the game information as necessary. (On a side note, this is why I'd like to see a computer-moderated version of Mafia, since players never have to worry about the moderator forgetting the assigned roles or game mechanics, or a role being revealed inadvertently.) I'm already leveraging this by showing exactly who played which card after the judge votes, which is something that rarely happens in Apples to Apples. Beyond that, most of the information management in Apples to Apples is pretty simple - cards are dealt randomly, then kept hidden in the players' hands, and players' identities are kept secret until the judge votes. The original game takes care of this very well.
• Connecting people. This is where I think the biggest advantages for Dangerous Apples are, even if the rules stay the same. It's tough to get more than 10 people together in a single room at once, but it's much easier over the Internet. In fact, Dangerous Apples can allow for games with way more players than Apples to Apples can, although I don't think that a game with 100 players would be as much fun.

So based on these ideas, I'm considering a few changes or variations in the rules. It could be that instead of a judge picking the answer, all players rank each card on a scale from 1 to 5, and the card with the highest score wins. It could be that there is no deck of red cards at all; instead, players must choose a noun by starting from a randomly selected page on Wikipedia and browsing through the links on that page. It could be that all players are shown the same list of red cards, and you receive points for choosing the same cards as the judge. I'm not sure I like these ideas better than the original game, but they're starting points.

Any thoughts?

Red cards on table

One of the interesting decisions involved with porting any system to a computer for the first time is figuring out whether to completely replicate the old system, down to the finest detail, or to redesign it using the added benefits of a computer. For instance, if you were writing a computer program to call people, you could duplicate the way it's done on a telephone, by entering in the phone number, or you could redesign it specifically for the computer, using an address book or something similar. Do you stick with what people already know and are familiar with, or do you try to correct the flaws in the old design and make something new and better?

I've recently run into this kind of decision for A2A; specifically, I'm looking at what happens when people play red cards. I have a "table" area of the screen where you can see the red cards that have been played, and this is also where the judge picks the winning red card. Now, when anyone plays a red card, it will show up on the table, but what I realized is that, unlike the real Apples to Apples, I can show which red card it is as soon as it gets played. In the real game, you see people as they are playing cards, so revealing a card immediately would also reveal who played it. However, since this is an online game, you do not see people as they play cards, so everyone's identity is protected. This means that I can reveal the exact red cards as soon as they are played. I'm interested in how this change might affect the game play. Will it be amusing to see the cards immediately? Will people rethink their plays if they see what other people have played? Is it worth knowing who has played already? The good news is, it's not that hard to whip up two different versions of the game, one that mimics the original game and doesn't reveal red cards until everyone has played, and one that shows the red cards immediately, so I can test both.

Also, I've renamed the blog to "Dangerous Apples" instead of "Apples to AJAX" since I'm using that name on the current design. I'm heavily leaning towards "Dangerous Apples" for the final project. The blog will stay at the same URL, though.

Common Ground

This is kind of the follow up to my previous post, in which I promised to discuss common ground. So here goes. Basically, this relates to one of my grad school foundation courses from a few months ago, in which we discussed (among other things) what it means to truly communicate. It centers around the idea of establishing common ground, which we defined as basically a belief among all parties that everyone knows what everyone else is talking about. We also discussed the various media that people to use to communicate and the various advantages and disadvantages of each one; for instance, if you're speaking face-to-face with someone, you know your partner receives your messages immediately and you can reference things in the environment, but if you use email or IM instead, that offers you the opportunity to review your messages before you send them, and to review everything that has been said previously. Finally, we talked about some costs that each medium has, and how people adjust what they do to account for each cost; an example was that when typing a message over IM, in which it is relatively expensive to compose a message, people will tend to use fewer messages with more information in each one to minimize the total cost.

I don't want to sound too gushy here, but this discussion made me rethink some things about how I'm doing A2A. It's easy to say that Apples to Apples is entirely random and there's no strategy or no such thing as being good at it. But I realized that that's not true. (For one thing, I tend to demonstrate that there is such as thing as being bad at it.) There are a lot of random elements, like your hand, everyone else's hand, the green card, the judge, etc., but in order to succeed, you have to know how the judge thinks and what they're going to find amusing. So in other words, it's all about common ground. In order to figure out what the judge will like, you need them to start talking.

This is where the discussion about the costs of various media comes into play. I've figured that I can't really force people to talk, but if the interface isn't designed correctly, it will force people not to talk. It's especially true of spontaneous reactions, which I'd really like to capture. Granted, it's going to be expensive to type a message up regardless, but there was one thing I implemented. I have set up the game window so that its "focus" is permanently fixed on the chat message bar, meaning that no matter where you click in your browser, any random text you enter goes into the message bar, ready to be sent. It sounds like a small change, but I think it'll make a big difference. Imagine if you've just seen a hysterically funny red card, and your immediate reaction is to start typing about how much you like it. But after a few letters, you realize that nothing has been entered. You have to diagnose the problem, realize that you weren't focused on the message bar, move the mouse to the message bar and click on it, and then re-type and send your message. By the time you've done all that, the moment has passed and your reaction is different.

What I find interesting about this feature is that it's so minor, most people probably won't notice it. I'm expecting a lot of "wow-that's-so-cool" reactions from various parts of the interface, including the animation for playing a card, the chat application in general, and even the fact that people are actually playing A2A in their browser. But I'd be totally happy if no one ever notices this feature. In fact, I prefer it that way - if no one knows about it, that means it's working perfectly.

There are some other changes that I'd like to make based on this subject, though. In particular, I realize that the most important conversation to capture is when the judge is discussing their rationale for selecting the winning red card. I don't think the current interface really does a good job of promoting that kind of discussion, since the list of red cards to review is on the opposite end of the screen from the chat area. I am going to have to rethink where the list goes, especially since it also needs to fit all the red cards into one window without scrolling(any red card that the judge has to scroll to see is just not going to get picked). But that's a thought for another day.

International Flavor

I just got back from playing a game of Apples to Apples (the real thing!), and what was interesting was that we had a few international students included, one from India and one from Germany. I think this was a very useful experience for me to have, given that a web-based version is necessarily going to be international. Apples to Apples is by its nature rooted in common ground (I'll get more into that later) and usually involves a good deal of shared cultural understanding, so it was interesting to see the reactions of people who have a different cultural background.

So my question is, how can I set things up to avoid excluding people on the basis of cultural background? I am planning to allow multiple decks in some future version, so I can provide a deck that's essentially the same as normal, but without most of the centrally American references (actors, politicians, etc.). But even still, people tend to be unfamiliar with at least some of the cards no matter what their background, especially if we wind up with ridiculously obscure decks, so I think we need a way to define any arbitrary card. And of course, what's the number one open resource for defining anything you could possibly think of? Wikipedia. So to sum up, I plan on automatically linking to Wikipedia entries for your red cards and green cards. This will also solve the legal issues of copying Apples to Apples' original definitions. since I won't have the original definitions anymore.

Minigame idea

I had an interesting idea for a minigame to include. Basically, it'd be like a solo version of Apples to Apples - you'd be dealt a random hand of red cards, and you'd pick the red card that went the best with a randomly selected green card. The judge would be taken entirely out of the game, so there wouldn't be any judging whether or not you picked the "right" one. It'd just be an opportunity to make funny connections without having to gather enough people together to play a real game.

Of course, there is a darker, more sinister purpose to the minigame behind its shiny exterior. When someone plays a round of the minigame, I record those results to fuel a useful service to the real game. Basically, it'd be popularity rankings on the red cards. So if you're playing a game and you're not sure which red card to play, you can ask the server which red cards are most popular based on the results of the minigame and the real game, both overall and in terms of the current green card. It's all about social computing and collective wisdom and Web 2.0 and other such things!

Any thoughts? Maybe this could be the basis of the Facebook app that someone keeps bugging me about (you know who you are :D).

What's in a name?

I'm back! Sorry for the lack of recent updates, but real life intervenes. Anyway, this post is dedicated to what this project will actually be called. Right now, I'm using "Apples to AJAX" just about everywhere, but I have to say that I don't particularly like that name. For one thing, I think it's a little bit too close to the original "Apples to Apples", and I don't really feel like risking legal trouble. My understanding is that I'll be OK just as long as I don't use the exact name or a very obvious derivation thereof (definitely correct me if I'm mistaken on that), but I'd really like not to push it.

Additionally, I don't like the fact that it has "AJAX" in it. Granted, the game is going to feature AJAX very prominently, but I don't think it's important for my future visitors to know that. When you boil it down, "AJAX" is basically just a web development buzzword that doesn't have a whole lot of meaning to the end user. A lot of people don't know what it is, so I would have to answer "what the heck is AJAX?" from the majority of people who visit the site. I don't think I could even explain it succinctly to someone who doesn't know a lot about how the Internet works, which is likely to be most of my audience. And that's kind of the point - even if you don't have the slightest idea what AJAX is, you can still play the game perfectly fine. So basically, there's absolutely no reason for the word "AJAX" to appear in the name.

Just as an aside though, I do have to say that the shorthand of "a2a" is very convenient. Right now, the project is living in a folder called "a2a", and the CSS and JS files are prefixed with "a2a". Additionally, I think it's appropriate given my current location in Ann Arbor, commonly nicknamed A2 or AA. I definitely didn't know I was gonna wind up here when I started working on this project, but sometimes things just turn out the right way.

So what am I thinking instead of "Apples to AJAX"? I haven't completely decided, but I am personally leaning towards something like "Dangerous Apples". I like the fact that it has the adjective-noun format that you construct during the game, and also a certain non sequitur element to it. You can imagine playing "Apples" as a red card for the green card "Dangerous". That and I just like the rhythm - that whole dactyl-spondee sequence. Virgil was onto something for sure. I'm not sure if it's too crazy of a name though, and I wonder if I'd need to redo any of my artwork - the current apple logo doesn't look very dangerous for sure. (Maybe it's just a facade...)

Any other thoughts?