I remember looking on this before, and thinking i would like to test. But i guess i never posted.

Would like to test. Although im muted on SC, if you dont know that already (working on it...)

The only bad thing i can see about this is how fast can someone die from an armed player?

Also unit speeds, but that can be fixed.

I'd personally prefer a more strict and straightforward implementation personally, that's closer to the original.

However what matters in the end is whether or not it's fun to play.

Pretty fast, if you let them. It's partly about not letting them, of course. Which (if my design works) makes this predominantly a battle of wits over brawn.

Personally, I'm eager to see how this design works myself. Other than theory, I have virtually no feedback on how well it'll work in practice. After 9 conceptual design iterations, though, hopefully something will come through the way I intended. I may go through more iterations yet depending upon how this turns out, of course (and probably will, knowing my luck).

Yeah, but I figured there wouldn't be much point trying to replicate traditional Mafia in a constrained, in-game implementation. I mean, I could always try to do one (or someone else could), but I just figure you'd be better off playing traditional mafia. I wanted this to be an interpretation of traditional mafia into dynamic, real-time, concrete gameplay. This is just one of my ideas of how to do it.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 23 2009, 3:38 am by Tuxedo-Templar.

You make a good point. Make sure you don't drift too far away from the paranoia and arguing that make mafia mafia so great though.

I think it's safe to say Tuxedo-Templar that this may be your greatest creation ever. Like, a mafia game realized in starcraft form? It's like combining our favourite parts of SEN and putting it in a map!

No wai.

Blog Update 7: Well again I'm done, but again I'm going to push it back to work on it some more. I figure I got the core gameplay mechanics ironed out, but the presentation and usability layers are still lacking. Going on to draft #10 now. *sigh*

I'll get this done.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 25 2009, 3:17 am by Tuxedo-Templar.

I knew it. >.<

Blog Update 8: Alright, I change my mind. I'm actually not going to go total apeshit on this. Again, either the gameplay naturally carries itself and everything falls into place (mostly) on its own, or I've screwed up and that'll be that.

One thing I am going to do, though, is ensure players understand the basic option selection mechanic during the intro by requiring them to use an option to continue with the game. A bit forced, maybe, but I won't draw it out so it shouldn't be a huge problem.


Another thing I anticipate some difficulty for players to understand is the concept of law protection. I'm going to try to find a graceful way to convey that as well. It is a bit of an awkward concept, but it's necessary for gameplay.

That'll basically be it. I'm just going to go ahead with beta after that.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Nov 25 2009, 3:29 pm by Tuxedo-Templar.

Blog Update 9: STILL chippin' away. Fack. I don't know HOW I managed to make such a mountain out of a molehill with this map.

Here, I'll give you a small peek at my latest set of to-do list entries (and don't worry: This'll balloon out as I get further into them):Note: My task list works from the bottom going up.

Supposedly that's all I have left before beta. But that's a fucking lie and I already know it.



See my problem now is connecting all my wonderful ideas for gameplay and whatnot with the reality of people who will be playing this map. That's where the challenge really enters in. That's what's keeping this from being done.

Apparently I didn't learn my lesson from Astrogears well enough.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Nov 28 2009, 9:40 pm by Tuxedo-Templar.

i say hell with dumbing it down man. not everyone can make a fun map for people that aren't bnet waterheads. the crowd thats more into challenge and something different will dig it. that sucks because i'm sure you, like everyone else, would love to log on bnet and see your map hosted 3 times at once but hey....if you want that make a mass or lame helms deep.

Blog Update 10: Alright, remember that shit I used to talk about where help messages and tutorials are no way to get out of preventing game mechanics from being difficult to grasp? Well this is where that Astrogears lesson starts to pay off.

Again, law protection is becoming a real pain to make comprehensible, and is probably the main offender. Yeah, I don't like it either, but I can't think of a better way to make players actually behave during the day. There's three things I want to avoid making this map in to: Hide and Seek, Snipers, and The Thing. Without some constraints built into the design, Starcraft is just dying to turn this map into either of those three things if I let it.


So here's my problem: How do I indicate CLEARLY to everyone in the game, during the daytime period, that a given player is law protected and can't be harmed? Simply leaving it as is and denying attack via. constant ally isn't the answer, since it's just confusing (and I can't use invincibility for... other reasons; not that using it makes the mechanic any clearer). I need something visual to indicate this. Leaderboard is one idea, but I wonder if there isn't a better one...

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Nov 29 2009, 8:25 pm by Tuxedo-Templar.

A targeting EUD condition, since display text is local.

I'm not using EUDs.

Perhaps an offscreen indicator? I'm a big fan of making slots in maps where you can space a few larger buildings out so when they are present you see an individual green square for each. I use it for spell cooldowns. Like if spell one is available you will see a big green building in the first slot. so a quick glance will let you know what is happening.

Perhaps you could do something of the sort. And to make it even more clear (if room is available) you could use square terrain to write a word or two to make sure they know what that area is for.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 29 2009, 11:27 pm by PearS.

Hmm. Well when I shrink the main playing area down I may then just have enough room left over to do that.

I'll see if that'll work.

Blog Update 11: Welp, got me back up to a testable version now. Again. Barring any further idiotic oversights or schizophrenic epiphanies, of course.

I'm finding myself adding a lot more polish to this than I normally would have thought I'd be doing during what is basically this alpha stage. I think the reason is that I can no longer classify it as just buffing and shining; it really is necessary stuff. There's just a lot of stuff that simply doesn't work until it's done fully. When you start bending Starcraft's gameplay out of it's natural shape like this, you really have to cross your 't's and dot your 'i's to have a chance at making it work.

Another thing I learned from Astrogears.


I think I have a fair enough resolution for the law protection issue, so now the remaining issue is the map size. I've been dreading the thought of shrinking it down on account of all the things I'll likely break in the process, but I think I really should just stomach it and get to it sooner rather than later (though I'd call it pretty damn 'later' as is at this stage). It probably won't be too big a deal, really.

After that's done, I think I'll have gone about as far as I can possibly go running on theory knowledge alone with regards to getting this to work. I simply have to start getting some real gameplay data coming in.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Dec 3 2009, 10:21 am by Tuxedo-Templar.

what do you mean thing will likely break? you takling about from using a compression program or redoing triggers to reduce size and possibly mess thing up?

I meant the physical size of the playing area. Though I may probably also need to shrink the file size down, too, which is just a matter of compressing a few wavs.

Blog Update 12: Finally! Think I got a decent beta version ready. It's just been a non-stop game of whack-a-mole lately with tweaks and fixes. Think I have most of them squared away, now. Surely not all, but enough to get started perhaps.


PM me if you want to help test. Note that it's probably going to be very imbalanced, so if you're "just curious" about it then please hold off until this gets out of beta.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Dec 6 2009, 12:29 am by Tuxedo-Templar.