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marzecMario Zechner took the basic ideas behind Dyson and developed a multiplayer version in Java, along with a series of maps that are much larger than the ones in Dyson. (With the approval of the Dyson developers.)
The enterprise has both advantages over Dyson and disadvantages. On the good side, the larger maps provide more of a sense of sweeping scale; on the down side, even when zoomed in to deal with individual planets, the fractal trees are hardly visible, and the pods a mere swarm of dots; thus, the visual appeal of Dyson, one of its strengths, is lost.
The multiplayer nature of the game redresses what I felt was a potential weakness in Dyson -- the difficulty of seeing how the basic framework could be extended to a large number of levels with different challenges. Multiplayer games are, by nature, different with each game, because live opponents are tricky and unpredictable -- you're unlikely to play the same Doom level twice, but will happily deathmatch over and over on the same Quake map. However, it has the basic issue that all symmetrical multiplayer games face; since all starting positions are equivalent, the only differentiators among players are speed in execution, and perhaps some minor strategic planning in where to focus attacks. For me, at least, this leads to a certain ennui after time -- and ultimately a loss of interest, when you realize that interface mastery trumps planning.
One other aspect is problematic, although it likely reflects that I played the game on an older machine: during play, there can be thousands of individual pods, with each path being individually calculated with each tick, and Java, being an interpreted language, inherently runs slower than compiled code. Consequently, it starts to lag, and the sound to judder toward the end game.
It's interesting to see how quickly a novel gameplay idea is adopted and extended by others, though.
A textual/historical quibble
Doom definitely featured deathmatch play; there was a maximum of four players, but it was the same FPS multiplayer match play. It sounded like you were making a distinction between Doom and Quake based on single/multiplayer, but there really isn't one. (A minor ambiguity, sure, but it bothered me!)
blast from the past
Doesn't Galcon, mentioned on this site nearly 2 years ago, do a better job of this already? I don't quite get the fuss over Dyson.
Asymmetrical Gameplay
Hey Costik,
would you happen to know of any articles on asymmetrical multiplayer games, preferably from a designer's standpoint?
Quantum comments
Hmm, yes, Doom had deathmatch play, but it required you to play via LAN or know the IP address of the host, and certainly I played it mostly as a single-player game... and in subsequent years, Doom seems to have become id's brand for single-player FPS, with Quake its brand for deathmatch play.
Galcon is in many ways a very similar game. yes. Quantum's main difference is that unit production is based on Dyson's algorithm, rather than set production per star system. Actual gameplay is quite similar, though.
I can't say that I've seen anything written on asymmetric multiplayer games, but the basic idea here strikes me as pretty obvious: in an asymmetric game, even when players are perfectly balanced (and of course it's hard to balance them in an asymmetric game), asymmetry leads players to adopt different strategies, which inherently makes for a more interesting game. I note also that even if not perfectly balanced, a multiplayer game is in a way self-balancing, because weaker players will tend to combine against a stronger one. E.g., you could quite easily design an interesting game with one very powerful player and a bunch of less powerful ones.
RTS
Costik,
Your comments apply equally well to Starcraft, which I played a lot of back in high school. The campaign gives you a nice little story (which I didn't ever bother playing through). Online you are forced into a resource-maximisation strategy (with a lot more choices about how to utilise those resources), so, again, speed becomes the determining factor of skill.
However, I mostly played the game for its social aspects. None of my friends could drive, and one lived in another state. But every evening, at roughly equivelant times in the evening, we would get online and play starcraft.
In social play, there is a kind of game-seeking strategy, and they are arranged in an ascending hierarchy. At first everyone comp-stomped. Sometimes seven players against one computer, which was clearly a game in which players were still learning the basic interface. As you weaned yourself off that, sometimes you would go back and backstab the newbs. It was hazing, I guess. You felt bad but hey, everyone gets backstabbed at some point in their Starcraft career, it may as well be me doing it.
Anyway, we graduated onto team games against randoms. Sometimes if they figured out you were on the same team, they would refuse to play against you. But there were always some up for the fight. Eventually we formed a series of clans (which I always tried to work my primitive social theories into) so as to advertise ourselves as this kind of fight. Eventually we were looking for teams to play against.
But our most regular opponents, even later on, were usually just good individual players. My friend was one of these. He could play incredibly well, and he did it by playing solo more than most of us, I think. That was where you really tested yourself. Unknown allies, unknown enemies. You had to learn to execute your strategy as quickly as possible, constantly adapting to a surprising situation.
These different game-seeking strategies were our way of remaining within our confidence zone, with some games definitely more terrifying for a beginner. When my friends and I played games against each other, the pecking order was immediately obvious by how teams were determined. Skill levels were carefully balanced to create some teams (combined with some social climbing in the mob), which would play together for a few games. In these games you'd learn more about your friends. You learned how your usual allies' styles were looked from the other side, and in the usual 2v2 you'd learn how you and one other person co-operated. Eventually everyone teamed with everyone, and we chatted constantly about our strategies. As they improved, we had much to discuss.
The best bit was learning not to care about losing.