The Game Prototype That Had to Be Banned by Its Own Studio

After the huge success of games like Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride, Halfbrick Studios began prototyping some new ideas for their next game. This is the story behind one of those prototypes; a game that caused so many problems within the studio, its creators were forced to ban it from being played entirely.
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Luke's GDC talk on the prototype: • The Prototype that was...
Written and presented by Chris Bratt:
/ chrisbratt
Design and art direction by Anni Sayers:
/ anni_sayers

[@PeopleMakeGames]

If you want to support our work and also gain access to Chris's emotionally taxing Let's Play of Neptune's Pride, head over to: www.patreon.com/PeopleMakeGames

[@PeopleMakeGames]

Unless you're Alan from Accounting, that is. We don't trust that guy.

[@ThomasEdits]

@@PeopleMakeGames Poor Alan

[@AlanStryman]

Nooooooo

[@infectiousfungi3188]

nooo its behind a paywall!!!!

[@linsylar7649]

This game is like the mobile game subterfuge. One of the best games I have ever played. The game gets me mad and crazy all the time.

[@rpnct]

They managed to build the exact opposite of a team building exercise.

[@hyperteleXii]

A game of winner takes all, who would've thought.

[@hugofontes5708]

Team demolition drill, sounds like a nice name for a band

[@Nukepositive]

Would've been completely different if it started with defined teams and you go until one team is eliminated.

[@jc6558]

Humm, the anti-team building… I have an idea for next corp. team building lol

[@pewpewdragon4483]

​@@Nukepositive Yeah, even with teams of just 2 people would've drastically lowered the levels of distrust and backstabbing.

[@Stalkie]

9:45 Guilt tripping other players with their real life health issues is exactly why you can't trust light blue.

[@Katt1n]

Yeah, that is just pathetic honestly. If you can't handle losing, don't play.

[@AbsolXGuardian]

Yeah. I absolutely don't believe Light Blue.

[@teratoma.]

@@Katt1n maybe its just a manipulation tactic

[@PlayerZeroStart]

If someone talks about their health issues to guilt trip you about something, 9 times out of 10, the health issues are completely made up

[@logangantner3863]

I actually felt mad at PMG for validating this tactic by saying it made him "feel bad" without pointing out what was wrong/manipulative about this action. No dude, you're not responsible at all and please don't act like this is something that you or anyone should feel guilty about.

[@thrownstair]

If a mobile game studio of all places shelves a game for being too psychologically manipulative, it must have been bad.

[@WannaComment2]

​@@CortVermin I'm sure they could find a way. Like selling private chat channels, or the ability to listen in on them. Auctioning off a certain number of additional energy points per day. Funny hats. The sky is the limit here.

[@pvshka]

@@WannaComment2 NFTs 😅

[@kyle5674]

@@pvshka you see, i own this action point now, i have this reciept so you have to pay me for it >:(

[@pvshka]

@@kyle5674 that's the spirit 😂👍

[@samuellove9619]

@@sedme0 have you played jetpack joyride recently? every death takes 5 seconds of telling you to watch an ad for a free life, only to show an ad anyway when it finally ends.

[@HalfbrickStudios]

How to lose friends in 1 day.

[@PeopleMakeGames]

Oh hey!

[@_mossy_8520]

Woah

[@livedandletdie]

I could balance that game in a few seconds, I've played too many such games in my life, and I've simulated such games infinitely in my head. Everyone gets 1 AP per day. That can stay as it is. A low game speed isn't necessarily bad. Everyone starts off with 0 Range. Everyone can choose where to place their tank, when they begin. To upgrade one's range costs n+1 AP where n is the current range. To shoot costs 2^(n-1) AP where n is the range. So the costs are 1.44 AP at 0 range, 1AP at 1 range, 2 AP at 2 range, 4 AP at 3 range, 8 AP at 4 range etc... and yes it gets cheaper to shoot closer enemies as the range to attack them is lower. To move costs 1 AP. To give 1 AP to another player within range costs 2 AP meaning it's extremely disfavourable for you as a player to give away your AP. Now this system favours low range and high maneuverability. Not only does this increase the risks individual players have to take, convincing others to help you means they've lost 2 days of actions to give you 1 additional action. It's still possible to win in a diplomatic fashion. But it's a lot less likely. This removes almost all scheming, however still allowing those who are so inclined to do so, however it also gives those who aren't inclined to scheming a fair chance to combat the schemers. Oh and if you make the board big enough, you can spread out the players so far and wide that you can make the game almost grind to a halt. At which point some players will change tactics into fortress tactics, that even if it costs them 64 AP to fire a single shot at 7 range they will. Thus some players will favour hoarding AP, and thus you have already created 3 types of players, the Box players, the Hit and Run and the Schemers. Now the interactions between these different types is what would determine the game in the end. As the earlier stages clearly favours the hit and run strategy. The middle part to late part of the game favours the Box players, and the last part clearly favours the schemers. So yeah restructuring the game, clearly limits all the stress people had. Now you could introduce yet another system to this game and that would be, you can spend y AP to increase your life. Where y is max(1,z^3) AP where z is the amount of times you've increased your life. SO it would go... 1,1,8,27,64,125 etc. Thus you've created a less mentally straining yet more favourable to play, and of course you could have it be people gain 1 AP per minute or whatever, it would begin to take ages... Oh and you could add so much more to the game, other than just a flat nondescript plane for players to move along, have you heard about the gloriousness that is impassable terrain. Or the glory that is terrain that costs more to move through, etc. Terrain which in you can't shoot through, such as mountains. Trenches, Oceans, etc. And now you suddenly have created a warfare simulation game. These things are way too easy to come up with.

[@Chloelol]

@@livedandletdie The point of this game is that it's _not_ balanced. There isn't a huge rulebook bounding players and restricting their actions. That's what makes these games stand out. To add rules like that would destroy the very essence of what makes these games unique.

[@nutzeeer]

Isnt this some sort of world war simulator? With treaties, and broken treaties? Maybe it could work under the pretense that it is the apocalypse. I would let the game end after a set time to add the option of a peace victory

[@funkdefied1]

I did not expect “a decade ago” to mean “after fruit ninja and Jetpack joyride”

[@E4439Qv5]

That era of free-to-play phone apps is now an entire generation's understanding of childhood video games. (I am quietly terrified for the future.)

[@zOMGGaiaOnline]

@@E4439Qv5 at least they were arcade types that kind of established a new thing in and of themselves, instead of what most free to plays nowadays achieve which is either gacha bleed copies or idle cookie clickers

[@E4439Qv5]

@@zOMGGaiaOnline remember flappy bird?

[@zOMGGaiaOnline]

@@E4439Qv5 of course that was disconcerning, I never got into the fad but it was worrying that somehow that was a game enough for most

[@Shalakor]

I hate how a lot of the big money phone games were just reskins of games or genres pioneered by free flash websites while getting credit for being unique properties, some of those phone game companies even trying the copyright and patent the whole concepts after their successes.

[@declanlowthian5820]

In LARP they call this emotional overlap "bleed," and it's very real and good to keep an eye on. You have to be really aware of how the games emotions are spilling onto your real life.

[@TheMrVengeance]

I think the major thing there (and the mistake with Tank Tactics) is that LARP has a clear "time in" and "time out". From the moment the game starts, everyone is a fictional character in a fictional world. With Tank Tactics you break that rule. The game starts, but then real life keeps going as well, and gets involved, and things get twisted. There's no clear "IC" and "OOC".

[@earlknit5372]

@@TheMrVengeance Even with a clear IC and OC difference bleed is an issue with LARP and having a post-game hang out is important for many players to mentally reset. For me, the game where I had the biggest post-LARP crash due to mental toll was also the one where I couldn't go to the post-session hang out. Tank Tactics is definitely something I can see dialling that issue up to 11 due to the timeframe and lack of distinction between in game and out of game interactions, especially with how people were planning and discussing it

[@TheMrVengeance]

@@earlknit5372 Oh I'm not saying it's not an issue in LARP. Just saying the lack of in-game/out-game boundaries makes Tank Tactics so much worse. My worst bleed over was when someone was (apparently) being IC flirty with me while in OOC downtime, for that exact reason.

[@idontwantahandlethough]

@@TheMrVengeance I'd be irritated at that too... that just seems like using LARPing as an excuse to hit on somebody. Like is it really "in character" if he totally is actually hitting on you and is 100% using it as a way to actually get closer to the IRL, non-LARP version of you? (I could be wrong, I just know a lot of dudes who LARP and have poor social skills and would absolutely not hesitate to do that lol)

[@TheMrVengeance]

@@idontwantahandlethough - Nah it's the other way around, they were being flirty IC but not looking to date OOC. But because it was during evening-chill-OOC downtime, I interpreted it as serious.

[@IsomerMashups]

The answer to this game is to make it a sit-down-and-finish game. You can get over a momentary betrayal, but not one that drags on for days or weeks.

[@VolcanoEarth]

With turn-limits and an after-game discussion, this could be an interesting teaching-moment for a newly-formed project team to learn about the perils of bad group dynamics.

[@louiegallagher990]

Yeah, I was honestly constantly comparing this game with Among Us and why this game is way more harmful than it. It's the accumulation of something, constant potential discussion, and like you said long time consumption that makes this game dangerous. Would be interesting to watch though as a morbid experiment where 12-20 people of different ages and backgrounds are dropped on an island to play it.

[@mylesfrost335]

@@louiegallagher990 i hate risk because i always end the game salty and upset even though betrayel is the point

[@legendarylunatic4738]

Yeah... that's what I expected in the beginning lol. I assumed the action points would've been distributed once per turn and got confused as to why they would stretch it out like that. Also assumed you could only use one action point per turn, so someone w/3 HP could die only if 3 people decided to team up on him. A game like that would be a lot more fairer imo.

[@trinidad17]

@@louiegallagher990 Among Us is silly and pointless, one of the worst games I've ever played, barely qualifies as one and misses totally the point of SS13 or Werewolf type of games.

[@JacobGeller]

okay Chris but you can definitely give me your energy points, I swear, nothing bad is gonna happen

[@merlinkater7756]

Do it Chris! your points will be well spent on an existential but passionate video essay about obscure and/or popular media.

[@jasper5622]

always feels weird to see people i watch on other peoples pages

[@Encysted]

I have definitely not been bribed in energy points to endorse this statement.

[@TartarusHimself]

A wild Jacob Geller has appeared

[@larsnyman2455]

Holy shit it’s Jacob Geller

[@GoblinKoboldGaming]

Reminds me of a story from my uncle. His bosses had given him the go-ahead for the winner of a game of Diplomacy to be given a paid day off of work. They were able to, however, immediately agree to declare a truce and all get a day off of work.

[@keltzar1]

This is what I like to call organized labor

[@pvshka]

Lawful good

[@DaBonkinator]

The actual opposite of the case in the video lmao

[@nineterfive7484]

@@DaBonkinator if it was possible for all the tanks to win in this game, the outcome would have likely been the same

[@Heigou_]

with my own personal experience with Diplomacy, you could either have a game that lasts potentially up to a year or a game that last just a few hours. Definitely a very fun, but very taxing game depending on who you're playing with

[@cfdj43]

This right here is why roleplay is actually larp's most important safety tool. Your friend betraying you feels terrible, your friend's character betraying you is fun. (It also allows a lot of out of character communication for safety and creates a barrier between people and the game)

[@heinokunzelmann8967]

...sometimes. You don't want to be "that guy" who goes around backstabbing and stealing from the party, because "ThAt'S wHaT mY cHaRaCtEr WoUlD dO"

[@blacksheep9950]

LARP bleed is a real thing, though. I played one game where my character was in opposition to most of the others, and being in a room for hours with everyone against me had a real effect on my mood even though it was all just a game.

[@tzeneth]

This is why I love tabletop RPGs and larps. You can have fun and make sure everyone understands the stakes and what's going on.

[@Dryadal]

I think it's about timescale - I've been part of a long-term rpg that included alliances and betrayals and I can see myself in this video. Role-play taking the edge off any betrayals only works if it's a game of few hours, or a weekend larp. A game that's taken over half a year to a year? That's going to feel a lot more personal. As I would wake up I was thinking about the game, eating lunch at uni I'd send messages to other players to make alliances or try to sway them to my cause. And eventually, it started affecting the real friendships I had with the people involved and why I decided to quit. It was stressing me out. This is all ofc very anecdotal but it really reminded me of this game, psychologically. Because the rpg was text based, it was updated any hour of the day - whenever anyone would post. Just as with Tank Tactics there never was any "off" hours, like between DnD sessions. Leads me to think it's about time scale rather than anything else, shows like Survivor and Big Brother (and the prototype of Tank Tactics!) all have that in common.

[@tzeneth]

@@Dryadal I think timescale is also important. I also think what is important is the tone of the game. Is the game described and sold to the players as a politics game where all of you are advisors while one of the characters has suggested they would do better as king while others are opposing this? The one big advantage of a personal tabletop rpg is that if things become too serious, you can stop, step back a moment, pause the game, and talk. If that action would REALLY bother a player, maybe it gets retconned and something else occurs. There will probably be some bad feelings but that's why you talk. Since tabletop rpgs are usually a group of friends playing together, talking is super important. Communication is super important for EVERY relationship. If there's been some misunderstanding or someone didn't realize they would feel a certain way about a betrayal, then there should be a pause and talk to communicate and understand what happened. It's very possible in the abstract Person A think they're fine playing a game with betrayal until it happens in the middle of the game and then the player rather than the character is feeling emotionally hurt. Everyone must always remember the most important rule and its corollary for tabletop rpgs. If you're having fun, you're winning. If you're not having fun, you're not winning at tabletop rpgs. (Winning being the arbitrary term for doing things right :P )

[@Runningfromtheredqueen]

The moment I heard "they can hand over their action points", my immediate thought was "ah, so now this game is _politics_ ". I know what _Diplomacy_ can do to a gaming group, and it only has seven players. One with sixteen would be madness.

[@kirtil5177]

yeah in my opinion politics draws out the worst out of everyone

[@j.r.7339]

@@kirtil5177 yes

[@RealPendragon]

Ironicly its quite similar to the Game called "Diplomacy"

[@yektaagra741]

@@kirtil5177 solution: monarchy

[@chickendragon8526]

i was looking for the Diplomacy comment.

[@pinkrose8272]

Honestly I’d love to watch a movie inspired by this. A video game studio descending into chaos when they decide to test their new game. And it turns the whole office into a war zone not knowing who to trust while showing the affects this has on the team as a whole. As friendships and work bonds are tested, and being destroyed. Sounds like a kinda cool idea for a dark comedy.

[@BinkiklouGaminglol]

sounds like an episode of the office tho

[@Sorain1]

I second that idea. Especially because you know there would be at least one scene (I'd have a four or more way split screen with overlapping audio for it, but that's a style choice) where someone outside the game is asking one of the studio members "Why are you so upset about this? It's just a game!" and their immediate reaction of denial.

[@aidansherlock1501]

Pitch this to college humor…

[@supersucks]

need this as an a24 movie but it turns dark and sinister…

[@numimio]

I especially like this idea because there'd be a scene where like, they're suddenly sent to like old war times with gear and everything as they debate strategy in older dialects.

[@happy_moth]

Went to halfbrick a couple years ago for game testing Fruit Ninja 2. They still had the room, and I could tell it had a dark aura.

[@mrmimeprime4149]

Damn

[@Starfloofle]

spirits of malice still haunt that place to this very day

[@errortryagainlater4240]

The demons are investing in that place. They're waiting for the next gamer social experiment.

[@mylesfrost335]

i never relised it had a sequel outside VR

[@qwerty3793]

I feel like the main issue they had here was the extensive time frame for the game. One action point gained per day, excluding whatever jury points people received later? That means multiple days of planning and teaming up and sabotaging your coworkers...that's a lot of time to dwell on anger and frustration. It isn't that long time frames can't work for a game, but considering the nature of the game and how important it was that these people get along well as a team in their actual careers, I can see why it was a bad idea. Could just be me, though. Heck, I get annoyed after a couple hours of working out trades and pseudo-alliances in Monopoly, and that game doesn't take days (usually...) - I wouldn't have had the patience for this kind of thing.

[@kirakoraawesome]

yeah I've never felt betrayed by a game of mafia/ werewolf, town of salem, or amoung us. That's cause they are all alot shorter. I don't really care to much if I win or loose.

[@nyloflake3100]

Like he mentioned earlier in the video, there are games like survivor which last like 40 days and the people are completely isolated on an island away from their homes but it still works. There are also games over discord designed to be kind of like a "survivor simulator" that I've played, and I've had a lot of fun scheming over the course of weeks to figure out how to get to the end. As you play you learn that it's just a game and that other people are trying to win too, so you have to respect it when people target you for whatever reason if it's best for them. I think that it's not that the game lasts that long but rather that it was played between people who all knew each other. I find it's much more exciting (and fair) to play social deduction games with complete strangers because firstly you have no idea how trustworthy people actually are and second, since you don't know each other as well it doesn't hurt as much when they betray you. I think that if I had to play something like survivor with people I actually knew in real life it would be exponentially more hard on me because you have to betray people you actually know instead of just strangers over the internet.

[@A2ne]

@@nyloflake3100 I think it is a combination of both long time-spans and with people that you are close to, not just one or the other. Games like among us work fine with people that you are close to, and for me it makes the game more fun when you have to question what you think you know about someone. While I'm sure it could ruin some relationships, I doubt very many close friends have had disputes over a single game. Its just when you can only make one move a day, you become more invested in it, and every detail matters. When you make such an investment of time, and in some cases, money, it hurts a lot more when you get betrayed.

[@Overwhelmer0]

@@A2ne I think time frames are a huge part, investing a lot of time into something only to be killed by someone you trusted hurts a lot more than a short time one. However, I think it's more than that. Compared to other types of betrayal games (secret hitler, werewolf, town of salem, among us ect) the betrayer in this game is NOT a pre-defined role. You cannot just excuse the betrayal as 'well the game told me to'. So instead it becomes a personal flaw, this person betrayed me because THEY as a human, wanted to. It's not 'this game hurt me', it's 'this person hurt me'.

[@A2ne]

@@Overwhelmer0 I think that is a very good point. I didn't really think about it that way, but I 100% agree that the active choice of betraying someone is significantly more damaging than just being told to by the game.

[@soxxoxsmox8453]

This has me wondering if you could do the reverse - improve workplace morale and relationships by having players play some kind of cooperative grand strategy game that evolves over the course of days. I'm sure plenty of workplaces have tried it.

[@arsenal4444]

instead of health, 3 allegiance points for converting others to your team, and negotiating within team how to split prize, bigger teams more likely to win but have to be more generous with sharing in spoils

[@guard13007]

@@arsenal4444 That still pits teams against each other. You need something like a mastermind/DM/AI enemy that's overwhelming, and everyone has to work together to defeat it.

[@arsenal4444]

​@@guard13007 Since the original concept of the game is every player is an actual player and they're all on the same footing I find your perspective on it to be one that undoes the original point of the setup. You are correct, but I think that goes outside of the parameters of this game and creates a completely different game to the extent that is can no longer be reasonably called a modification. It is something entirely.

[@830927mjki]

@@guard13007 Y'know I think that game may be D&D type games.

[@cognisant307]

Multiple rounds of something like "capture the flag" with randomized teams, it's competitive but you don't hate the other team and the team that wins is the one that most effectively coordinates, you just have to make sure there's a low skill ceiling so it's coordination that matters not individual player skill. Maybe something like Halo 2 but everyone has overcharged shields so takes a while to kill someone unless you hit them in the back which makes players a lot more deadly in pairs than they are alone, encouraging teams to stick together and work together. Also reduce movement speed to the Halo 1 speed, gives people more time to talk further encouraging coordination.

[@eepiestgirll]

i have a hypothesis i wish i could test that “betrayal” games are much safer when they have assigned roles, as that gives non-personal justification for all actions and turns deception into just a skill rather than a trait not perfectly safe necessarily, but safer

[@tarakoyomac9493]

Like amonGus?

[@yahya3683]

Also maybe reduce the time scale of the game. I think the reason betrayals hurt this bad is because of the time spent. Being betrayed by someone you have been working with for the past 1 to 2 weeks hurts a lot more than being betrayed by someone you've been working with the past 10 minutes.

[@LeFrog0]

@@yahya3683 Completely agree. I once organised a real-time Werewolves, and over time we really felt the tension of every death. In one hand it was pretty cool to see how invested players were, but on the other it kind of sapped the fun for them

[@gljames24]

Yeah, hidden role games do that pretty well.

[@brennanruiz1803]

Actually, in that line, the Betrayal games (House on the Hill and Baldur’s Gate) by WotC handle this aspect really well. Up until a point, you’re _actually_ all working together, and then the titular betrayal selects one of the players at random to become the traitor, instead of the turn being planned. It also re-frames the game from an exploration game to a PvP/PvE at the same time, which further separates the cooperative section from the competitive section.

[@onlysmiles4949]

I think the reason Among Us does this concept extremely well is because every game is only ~10 minutes long, rather than spanning over the course of multiple days or weeks. So, someone you betrayed in one game is probably gonna be an ally in another, and every game is separate so the betrayal doesn't feel personal. The other important point is that the only time you can communicate with someone is during meetings, so you really can't go and form alliances with other people

[@cbalan777]

I still haven't played that game. All I know is the memes.

[@Greywander87]

There's also the fact that the teams are determined before the game starts. If someone betrays you, it's not because they're a jerk, it's because the game put them on the other team, and they had to play accordingly. You would have done the same, and you will when it's your turn to play on the other team.

[@jackaufenhand5710]

I still don't like playing Among Us because you learn how your friends lie and then you can never unlearn it.

[@nopenope1]

@@Greywander87 yeah, at the end of the interview, Among Us is more a rule based game - you are put in one 'group' from the game so the betrayal is not personal, or at least not as personal by far. I personally do avoid such games like the devil the holy water does or some phrase like that. I do fully get it, this can destroy a friendship!

[@kennethkho7165]

@@Greywander87 Exactly!

[@CainXVII]

I really feel like bringing up your health issues and putting guilt on someone because someone betrayed you in a game is the sh**ty thing to do

[@Firesgone]

There is a very good chance it's just a lie too, so I always disregard it. Especially knowing it is just meant to emotionally wound in retaliation or get something for cheap. I might be willing to help a frail elder walk down some steep stairs, but I am not blind to the possibility of that person trying to pickpocket me in the process. Nor am I any more willing to give them $5 for their financial hardships. My semi-casual physical effort and a few moments of time are just about free, but nothing more.

[@psychopiper8224]

Right? Like even if it's true, they're willingly signing up to play the game where you'll get betrayed. They're just trying to have the last laugh by bringing up something personal like that, and opening themselves up to actually having it _made fun of_ if they do it to the wrong player. Just accept the L and stop trying to make people feel bad

[@RedTail1-1]

It’s called being a sore loser and it’s something you’re supposed to be taught at a young age. I just assume that most kids never play any sports and that’s why they end up this way.

[@BladeTheGabite]

You act like people don't do that in survivor already

[@reyy9220]

yeah its literally just a game

[@Johnof1000Suns]

The game was like a monkey’s paw wish was granted. They wanted a game that’s super popular that would be talked about outside it. They got that, but their team got over invested and started harming themselves.

[@Fiddler1990]

Same energy as SlateStarCodex' "Sort by Controversial" post / short story

[@Jawsomest]

@Jack Salzman “halfbrick studios Fainted!” *fades to black*

[@squigly8r]

@@TomNook. This is a very startling thing to hear from the highly successful entrepreneur: Tom Nook himself.

[@griffsmithproject]

“What did they bribe them with?” “Money”

[@nahometesfay1112]

I mean it's pretty crazy that they were willing to spend money to get an edge in a prototype game with no real world stakes in only a few days... A full fleged version could rack heaps of money and destroy lives

[@nightmarethrenody8232]

Deception within the context of the game I can get. But taking things outside the game like that really crosses a boundary. Breaching the Magic Circle, and all that.

[@Mkoivuka]

@@nahometesfay1112 I mean it's pretty crazy that people are willing to pay others to pick stocks on the stock market for them. This video is clueless and even the developers seem not to understand the mechanics of what they were playing with.

[@livedandletdie]

@@Mkoivuka It's the good old Politics 101, a most scary and good game to get rich or die poor. The weak will suffer, promises will never be upheld, and only the select few will reap any benefits. And people wonder why their kindhearted politicians go corrupt within such small timescales. Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely and the sole thing in our world that has absolute power is CASH.

[@nahometesfay1112]

@@Mkoivuka because they aren't willing to learn the stock market or put in the effort to manage it. I don't see how this game is analogous to stock trading. Sure if scaled up enough, a stock market would likely form, but I don't think they're messing with anything to scary at this scale

[@seraphimxiii]

when i first watched this video a couple days ago, i thought to myself, "i don't understand the fuss, i love games like werewolf or town of salem and i've never had lasting damage to my real relationships because of them." but now on second viewing, i realize (as others have mentioned) this game's timeframe gives the players a lot of space, maybe too much space, to dwell on each other's real life character based on in-game actions. a game of werewolf between co-workers that goes on for over a week is very different from one that goes on for an hour or so. i've played social deduction games with friends and classmates in comparable numbers to the tank tactics playtest, and the tensions between players in those spaces frnakly does not need any more time to develop and bubble over.

[@RedKytten]

This is very much drawing from a similar place as a game called "Diplomacy". While I love Diplomacy, it can really only be played by people with certain mindsets. Even knowing there will be betrayals, and that you will be putting a lot of time into the game... well... it is one of the most famous 'friendship ending' games out there for a reason.

[@MurderWho]

A major component is also the amount of investment that can be put into the game. Brokering multiple deals with multiple people to allow one sequence of actions to be carried out takes . . . a lot of time, not even including the time it takes to earn trust on certain parts of the link. Once you've put in the equivalent of like, multiple team meetings worth of collaboration, you've very invested in the outcome, and even a positive outcome that isn't the one you expected can feel like all of your work was for naught, which itself is a pretty negative feeling regardless of any feeling of betrayal that might also accompany that. And before the actions go off, you also need to careful of who you've made a deal with. You need to be paranoid of them. Which here, was, uh, everyone at the office. It's hard to invest that much into Among Us, even intentionally trying. Even diplomacy has much lower limits.

[@joeymormango8614]

I think another reason is, with something like Werewolf or heck a way better comparison, Mafia which does go for an average of a week, is that in these games, you are assigned to the group. Like you are assigned Mafia, the person that has to betray. Like sure being strung for 5 days from a friend hurts, but they did it because they were assigned Mafia not due to some personal grudge. In this game however, there is no assigned team, all teams were made via a verbal contract that had no strings so betrayal could just happened, even with the knowledge that only one winner will remain, having a plan and then they backstab you must really hurt.

[@afuzzycreature8387]

its that the game moves outside of the game space and into the interpersonal space.

[@DeathnoteBB]

Also they’re all at work, so they’re forced to be there

[@stormRed]

Oh, that's not a board game, it's a social experiment.

[@kirtil5177]

an acidental one, too, which is even better because people act different when they know they are participating in an experiment. shows a lot too, like how they will form personal grudges over an in-game advantage, and how even in such a simple game some will try to win at all costs

[@leerman22]

It's a cognitohazard.

[@static6664]

It’s like risk

[@mrmimeprime4149]

@@static6664 yo... I really love that board game

[@bennyjones1502]

It’s like Risk combined with Mafia… turned up to 100, played over several days, and interspersed in the relationships of office coworkers, alongside often stressful work and corporate relations 😆😆😆

[@pawedziedzic3250]

"I betrayed them, because for me its just a game and I didnt think they would be hurt" vs "I betrayed Quinn and printed a t-shirt that says fuck quinn"

[@trinidad17]

lol well yeah there are people that are too sensitive and people that use the game as a weapon. If insulting the guy served some in-game purpose I would think it's fine, but once the guy is not playing any longer (at least for the most part) then it turns into just being an out of game jerk hah

[@mushmush4980]

yeah who does that

[@lindybeige]

And the tanks didn't even have names! Now think of long-term live-action role [playing games, where the playing pieces are characters played by people, and the 'campaign' continues between scenarios. Some people fail badly to differentiate between their characters and themselves, and tempers fray.

[@the1ultimatet1u49]

that would probably end up with a less serious outcome. having a name or a character distances the people playing the game from the actions they take in the game. if the character "Max" betrays the character "Johnny" it will create a distancing from the people playing the game. in this case, without characters it is for example Project manager "Robert" betrays his assistant "Tom" he has worked with for 3 years. Betrayals in DnD may hurt, but they usually will not hurt established relationships because having your character do something instead of you doing it will change the view of the action completely.

[@RedKincaid]

It definitely spills over in tabletop rpgs. The reason I play with the people I do is because when my friends character burns down another characters favorite bar their characters might be crying and fighting and holding grudges, but me and the other players are laughing. Also huge fan of your work :)

[@themysteriousstranger4580]

God I remember arguing over who got to keep a cursed magic sword like my life depended on it. A very good friend and I were genuinely upset with each other for a while over it. Wild. Nice to see you here, you wild wispy bastard.

[@JoshStrifeHayes]

If only they had spears.

[@carnivoriousleaf]

Or what about just Diplomacy.

[@kalebearl6933]

What's interesting to me is the difference between something like this or Secret Hitler or Blood on the Clocktower is that those social deduction games are time bounded. It's easier to bracket it from real relationships when it's half an hour and then done. Whereas Tank Tactics was played over days, and so it's always layered underneath your "real" relationships with those people.

[@Cojrak]

Yeah, and also I feel that the catharsis when the came ends and everyone can talk about the game freely mends all the ruptures that the gameplay may have caused. This very temporary rupture can make real relationships even stronger in the long run. Tank tactics seems to delay that moment or even deny it thanks to it's jury system feeding grievances for long after it became not fun.

[@luigi64fan]

It also helps that there are pre determined roles. Still, it depends on the group of people, and their mindset while playing.

[@tegxi]

Pre-determined roles, everyone signing up for a game where betrayal is literally assigned and the core of the game, a reduced time scale.. all of that contributes to making games like blood on the clocktower more fun and less relationship-ruining. On an unrelated note, did I just see someone in a youtube comment mention blood on the clocktower? that one never gets any love and it's so fun

[@artemshlyakhtov9375]

Yeah, a big part of these games is investing in some kind of grand plan that you're really proud of, that you really want to succeed and that really becomes your baby in some way. For people who like these games crushing these plans or even having your own plan crushed through betrayal is part of the fun. But the hurt is so much worse when your plan is something you've been forming for days, rather than a few minutes. I'd imagine it'd actually take a huge amount of detachment to sustainably enjoy the longer variants of these games and even then if you're not playing with people who are equally detached it must be shitty to hurt people.

[@TheRodentMastermind]

We used to run Diplomacy over two days at a house party. It was cut throat, but here is the big thing we were at a house party you could watch a movie, have pizza, chat to people on the downtime.

[@FindTheFun]

The REAL problem here I think is this was tested among 17 game developers who are known for trying to ruthlessly dominate any game they play.

[@applesyrupgaming]

AMONG

[@entengummitiger1576]

well some were obviously not or they would have been able to tell game from life

[@DeathnoteBB]

@@entengummitiger1576 congrats you learned nothing

[@revimfadli4666]

Yes, the Korean gameshow The Genius doesn't seem to exhibit such toxicity

[@Vacc19]

@@revimfadli4666 was pretty sure on the first season almost everybody gangs up on Jinho which was pretty toxic imo

[@atroniac5703]

"This game caused emotional harm to those who played it." Me to my friends:So who wants to play a new game?

[@christianbarnay2499]

This sentence is silly. The game caused no harm at all. The players who can't make a difference between a game and real life are the ones who harm themselves. Who in their right mind would proudly print and wear tee-shirts with "F*** " marked on them, whatever the reason? Within the hands of grown adults that game would be really fun and interesting.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

@@christianbarnay2499 Which means that the majority of sports enthusiasts are in the same situation

[@jacobrutzke691]

@@christianbarnay2499 did you really watch the video? I'm not gonna say anything but there's a good reply on noata kenichis comment addressing what I'm talking about.

[@christianbarnay2499]

@@jacobrutzke691 Yes I have watched the video and I have read that comment. But that doesn't invalidate what I say. The problem is not in the game. It's in the payers who broke the central rule of all games: the game is just a game and has no consequences outside of the game itself. A player is an actor. You are not supposed to treat him in real life based on the acts of the character he played in the game. A player who plays a traitor in the game is not a traitor in real life and should not be treated as such. If as Noata Kenichi says they made a gamble, then they should have been prepared to lose that gamble and accept this was an expectable outcome. The way I interpret their violent reaction to the event is that they weren't prepared for this because they didn't do it as a gamble. They just wanted someone else to decide which action to do with those tokens.

[@christianbarnay2499]

@@HappyBeezerStudios Sports is different because there is a physical personal engagement. Getting hurt in a match has consequences in real life. There is no distinction between the player and character in sports. Sports it's closer to the work vs private life distinction. For professionals it's obvious since this is actually their work. But it's also valid for amateurs. And it also depends on what you call a sports enthusiast. Do you consider a hooligan harassing a player who made a bad move in the finals a sports enthusiast? I don't.

[@ZachHixsonTutorials]

Any game that _requires_ me to think about it outside of the play session scares me. I understand why people like them, but personally I've always just stayed far away

[@RhesaJonathan]

Yes. I already have work and life to think about and now I need keep thinking about some games all the time? No way

[@livedandletdie]

My biggest problem with diplomacy games is just that the slow speed. A faster speed game is a lot better for everyone involved, and the game feeling stays there, and then there will be less depressed people after it's done.

[@CeliriaRose]

Yeah, I generally am of the opinion that any time people start obsessing over anything continuously for extended periods of time isn't great. Like just look at a lot of gaming fanbases particularly the people who spend hours and hours on forums obsessively discussing and hyping a game they like (even in many cases regarding games they haven't even played yet). And then you see that give rise to the toxicity that tends to plague otherwise good fanbases with people attacking anyone who disagrees, or taking sides against other games in the genre, or taking things that don't even directly relate to them far to personally, and all around just spiraling out of control into this passive aggressive (or outright aggressive) pile of misery. Social media sites like twitter are the same way, they are so prevalent and easily accessed that people begin practically living there which leads to obsession over the various topics that are most visible in the person's respective feed again leading to toxicity and aggression as it starts to take over their life. Overall I just feel that ideally no matter how much you like something or how much it means to you there needs to be that line where you can stop and turn it off, a chance to escape and get away for enough time so you aren't constantly thinking about it and fixating on it. Without that downtime even something you love can just take over your life for the worse.

[@Mreoewwmrow]

lol, half the board games in existance requre negotiating and thinking, why is the comment section so scared of all of this

[@CeliriaRose]

@@Mreoewwmrow There's a huge difference between "negotiating and thinking" and what this video and people in the comments are discussing. What makes the kind of game like tank tactics so risky is it is built around a design which encourages freeform scheming and backstabbing paired with a set up intended to be engaged with frequently for long periods of time with many players focusing on the game constantly throughout the day. It's this combination that people get nervous about because it gets to the point of borderline becoming an unintentional social experiment expressly suited to cause stress and social issues among the people playing. In a basic sense it pushes players into a stressful situation where they are both encouraged to trust and mistrust those around them and then keeps them in that situation for weeks if not months at a time. And even though it may be "just a game" as some will inevitably point out that amount of required engagement mixed with that kind of stress is unhealthy on both an individual and group basis. Sure some people can handle that kind of thing and with the right kind of group it can even be fun but that doesn't completely remove the inherent danger of the set up to begin with and the issues it can very easily cause.

[@Hunterkiller36]

Honestly I think the problem is the underlying human psychology related to being “the last man standing” type games that are everywhere now, encouraging alliances of convenience and deceit, playing everyone against each other till only one player becomes king of the ash heap while all their friends are dust beneath them. Why not have dynamic alliance victories as an option? It draws upon the same skills regarding diplomacy, coordination, etc. but encourages players to have integrity not a lack thereof. So say that there are 4 colours, each player starts colourless and spends one point assign themselves a colour at any time and it gets increasingly expensive to swap if you do it more than once on the same turn. So the first turn of the game will most likely be everyone picking sides but the catch is that no more than 50% of players can be a certain colour at the time of changing (though if players are already part of a team that now exceeds that ratio that’s the reward for long term unity as players were eliminated allowing for large alliances that survive through cooperation to be rewarded with a win). So teams will quickly form and as the game plays out they can opportunistically join or leave factions if they wish but can also stay loyal to friends. I don’t understand modern game designs need to draw upon people’s selfishness, it’s just as easy to manipulate their selflessness if you pull the right strings, it’s just ostensibly so much easier to draw on our negative impulses than encourage our positive ones because so much of this world is unnecessarily geared towards a “winner takes all” mentality that serves no real benefit to anyone except the winner.

[@P-Mushu]

This sounds like an awesome way of making the game work out.

[@RedKytten]

It isn't just modern games. A game I quite enjoy called Diplomacy is a lot like this, in that eventually there will be only one winner after long game, lots of talking, and plenty of betrayals. It is a great game... with people who have a certain mental space. Otherwise it ends friendships.

[@siangchengpang772]

In Paradox Strategy Games, dynamic alliance create hugboxes, which means large group of player not doing anything because no one else can defeat them and they don't have to risk making a move at all

[@crispyandspicy6813]

Probably because if there aren't big stakes there isn't a reason to get invested. And if your game allows winning without effort it doesn't have sportsmanship. So a low stakes low effort game won't get as big as a crowd as a high stakes high effort game. That's why modern FPS games are shifting towards battle royale. In CSGO out of a team of 10 players only about half will be actively playing in the interest of the team and even fewer will be playing good, however the victory goes to the entire team, which can make the top players feel like their efforts aren't acknowledged. In Fortnite, the victory goes to the only remaining player, validating their effort. This is also why the MVP feature has been added. Losses are also important as losing in CSGO while having done your best is a very bad feeling, as you will rightfully believe that it's you team's fault, whilst in Fortnite you won't have anyone to blame but yourself. And finally the stakes are higher, as the matches in Fortnite take way longer than CSGO. If you lose a match in CSGO you will have plenty of ocasions to win more in a typical gaming session, but not as many in Fortnite, especially if you're the last to go. The issue isn't however with how victories are recognized, or the "world mentality", but with the player base. Videogames are by design very individual things, an thus don't lend themselves very well to big teams, as you're going to play with random strangers, and thus can't trust them. A big part of teamwork is team building, which is impossible to achieve in a couple of seconds, so players are forced to only trust themselves and not their team mates. The only exception is when you actually know your team mates. Which also makes you trust them and not your other team mates. Another reason is leadership. Without a chain of command there's nothing stopping players from acting in their own interest, and there isn't a way to employ an effective team strategy. All in all these are the aspects that a game dev is looking for, as these draw big crowds and keep the player base invested in it(as well as non players, like people who like to watch streamers). There are games that promote teamwork, but those are niche, as you're cutting yourself out of all the players who play alone.

[@miss_yuzu]

a game with such alliances would likely exacerbate the interpersonal issues caused, not prevent them. if you're playing a game with 3 of your friends + 1 friend-of-a-friend, then your 3 friends form an alliance and win, you'll likely feel excluded or betrayed that they didn't make you a part of their alliance so you could win. if all alliances are inherently temporary this is less of an issue, as you know that any actions your opponents take will be primarily self-serving, therefore not saying anything profound about your relationships.

[@alisande_]

As someone who played online mafia for years, it's painfully obvious that introducing a long-term social deduction game into a work environment could really only ever end in disaster.

[@gamerrex5940]

You even talk like Kyoko lol.

[@Jebu911]

true games about lying have to be pretty fast paced to not make people angry.

[@alisande_]

​@@Jebu911 Yep. Creating a deduction game that stretches across multiple days and plays a significant role in their workplace experience is just asking people to form grudges.

[@peterstedman6140]

I mean, there have been a couple jobs where I think we could have played Diplomacy without having feelings hurt.

[@alisande_]

​@@peterstedman6140 same here, but setting up a game like that in a large-scale office setting? that's just asking for trouble

[@milesparker557]

This story sounds like a lost episode of Community.

[@MiloKesteloot]

LMAO TRUE

[@AlfiRizkyR]

I can picture it in my head already

[@inigo8740]

The paintball episodes are pretty much this. Alliances, betrayals, only one winner. The difference is that the next episode everyone forgets and life goes on.

[@TR123]

Meowmeowbeenz

[@raphaelmorgan2307]

wdym lost this is literally every paintball episode

[@sideways5153]

They developed a battle royale game that enabled and encouraged teaming up and betrayal. Very good depiction of the real horror behind the concept of battle royale or the hunger games

[@A.C_B.]

I guess telling a bunch of people who earn their living with games "calm down, it's just a game" isn't all that helpfull.

[@rameynoodles152]

Hell, i dunno. I really have a hard time empathizing with anyone who gets personally upset because someone else just played a game as it was intended. I also have a really hard time with people who take a game so seriously that they feel the need to cheat, or act like an asshole to people because they didn't win or something. Both are extremely childish, and indications of immaturity. People who have these issues need to learn good sportsmanship. End of story.

[@Ptcruz]

@@rameynoodles152 There is a saying where I live that says: "Don't know how to play, don't come to the playground." That means exactly this. If you are gonna be mad because you lost, then don't play the game in the first place.

[@alalalala57]

@@rameynoodles152 Its not just that its a game. Its a game that takes place over a really long period of time. Time that your brain will dwell on your frustrations and such, especially because you're surrounded by other players at work. These are not evil people, and psychologists don't say that only terrible people are susceptible to conditioning through game theory. _Everyone_ is susceptible, whether they like it or not.

[@TynamM]

@@rameynoodles152 Wow, you're underestimating how far people who play a game of diplomacy and backstabbing "as intended" will go to win _without_ cheating. In an all-hours any-time treachery-based game, it's not always obvious what "good sportsmanship" MEANS. It can't mean "don't lie or betray", because those ARE the intended gameplay and everyone's signed up for that. It can't mean "don't talk about people personally", because persuading people to trust or betray using your knowledge of them personally IS the intended gameplay. So where's the line between "friendly persuasion" and "unsportsmanlike personal attack"? Was it "bad sportsmanship" when people bribed the staff working nearby who weren't playing to tell them when moves were made? Or was it smart use of the available resources as intended? Reasonable people can disagree about that. There is no "end of story". Storytelling about this sort of thing is entirely what humans do.

[@flightrisk7566]

@@Ptcruz That is not a useful analysis. The only thing we know about the people who played this game is that they self selected to play this game. In a games studio known for PvE titles that you can literally play away from keyboard, that’s not really something that should count against them. The problem is that people’s personal relationships at work were explicitly becoming currency. No one should ever have to ask themselves in a make or break setting like this whether people at work, especially superiors, are actually trustworthy. The problem isn’t even the game. The problem is that the game forces that question. It might be less destructive with strangers, where the stakes aren’t occupational. But they were. And that doesn’t implicate the players. It doesn’t even really implicate the game. Maybe it just means this was the wrong place to try to test it, or some truths about human nature aren’t worth acknowledging in our daily lives. It wasn’t played in vacuum like it would be online. I struggle to envision any scenario where reifying this question of trust and forcing people to ask each other and themselves what kinds of deceptions they’re really capable of levying against their colleagues would ever end well. Remember that there’s only one winner. That means that every single contribution that the winner used to carry out their campaign _has_ to eventually culminate in betrayal. There’s not really any other choice. Players repeatedly asking themselves who to trust and then being universally punished for it because there’s actually no right answer- at _work?_ Even with the tribunal system the interpersonal damage is already done. Punishing people retributively after the fact doesn’t really change that. There’s no way that this situation could be anything but destructive. It’d be one thing if people knew in advance that their interpersonal relationships were going to be implicated like this, but no reasonable person could have anticipated any of these deeply personal negative outcomes just from showing up. EITHER the game is played “as intended” and trust is compromised OR the game is played “not as intended,” and people get to walk away without deep thoughts about each other’s intent. Remember it’s a PROTOTYPE? Maybe something to be said for just redesigning the game here. Or better yet, _shelving it,_ like you _said_ they should. They all mutually agreed not to play it anymore after the fact. All at once, not individually. Hm. Why is that I wonder?

[@IoFoxdale]

I think the big issue with games like tank tactics or subterfuge is the sheer time scale and always on nature. Makes it harder to compartmentalise and the betrayals harsher.

[@PeopleMakeGames]

Oh totally! I think that's why Among Us doesn't typically deal with the same problems, for example. It's also why some people love these kinds of experiences, I should also say. I definitely became really, really invested in that Neptune's Pride game I mentioned. -Chris

[@IoFoxdale]

@@PeopleMakeGames Yeah I'll probably sub to the patreon for that when I get paid. And also yeah I'm absolutely someone who likes those problems. My favourite Board game is New Angeles but it's hard to get to the table because it's long and I'm notoriously a monster in it. Which is an interesting case of reputation and social games carrying more weight.

[@rayzhang3425]

Oh hey Subterfuge :D I've played that once and decided never again, having won off of keeping two alliances I'd never broken, in-depth real-time tactics, and mining to the top only at the end. I felt like I had beaten the game using only its rules, and without resorting to the backhandedness it seems to foster so much, but I know how rare that must be and I'm not about to lose another five days of sleep over that again

[@Chronowizpal]

If I have to change something about Tank Tactics is that you assign a random color to each player that cannot be revealed until they die. Each color representing a team. You could lie to your neighbors and friends and they will totally be fine with it

[@manuman5319]

Exactly, if the game lasted 10 minutes there wouldn't be any issue at all

[@L0op]

I think the long time frame the game needs contributes a lot to how emotional people are getting. I realized this while playing Mystic Messenger, an otome game where all you do is chat with a couple of characters, form relationships with them and discover the lore. But the catch is, you can't just play whenever, you'll have to join a group chat at a specific time of day. You have about three to six hours to join and "contribute" to the chat, and if you miss that window, the story goes on without you. This didn't feel like a big deal during the first couple of days, but after a week, this game became a part of my daily routine. I started to genuinely feel bad if I missed a chat. At the end of the story, I regularly stayed awake until 3 or 4 am, so I could catch that nightly chat.

[@ROCKETLEAGUE-FX]

now i want to play this game

[@tj12711]

Just play Cosmic Encounter. This game sounds like a less good/less clever version of that.

[@JamesDenholm]

I legitimately want to implement this game, yeah. But I've always been a sucker for games like Diplomacy and Neptune's Pride.

[@comradecapybara]

Check out diplomacy its based on a very similar concept

[@TJSheibal]

@@tj12711 cool name

[@driftking1145]

Subterfuge is incredible

[@atfruitbat]

The real life power differentials would have made that game even more fraught. I'm surprised they lasted as many days as they did.

[@Exsulator2]

That's so true, I mean could you betray your boss in this game who is clearly very important to everyone? Someone who has power over you in real life? Not a good idea

[@LuizAlexPhoenix]

@@Exsulator2A lot of people spend their work time thinking how much their boss' flaws are keeping everyone down. Having a way to hurt them and say "it's just a game" is probably really dangerous precisely because I can see people taking it.

[@aidandruck2423]

This is how Risk always goes whenever I play with people I know. It's rarely about any actual strategy and only a little bit about the dice rolls (if your luck is extremely good or extremely bad), it really just boils down to the alliance you can form and how well you can undermine the other alliance(s). Among my family particularly the game is usually pretty much decided in the first 10 minutes of bickering over alliances because we all know that my two cousins who are brothers will always end up on opposite sides because of ego and grudges from past games going back to our childhoods. From there it really depends on how the rest of us fall into those teams and the only thing that usually changes the outcome is if someone decided to betray their team early, before the other team is finished off. There are a lot of promises and mind games.

[@UltravioletNomad]

This feels less like an innovation and more like a de-make of strategy games, removing all roles, safety nets, and progression mechanics. These games can get worse when the game theory bleeds out of the game and into the players themselves, and since tank tactics has no roles it's only about the players. How could it not get personal?

[@potatorurik7536]

Because it’s a game? I feel like it’s a failure of maturity to participate in any game and let it get personal to you

[@UltravioletNomad]

@@potatorurik7536 No, I don't mean like getting mad at your friend for kicking your but in Smash. Games like Secret Hitler require players to bluff, lie, and persecute others as mechanics. Its really cool, but what end up happening is less considering the logic of the game, and more the typical tells and strategy of particular players. For instance players will have some consistent tells when defending themselves that are independent of their given role or overall strategy. Now Among Us, Secret Hitler and the like assign the roles for the "Antagonist" character, the ones who have to lie, and set rules for winning based on beating or losing to them. Games like Tank Tactics on the other hand have no roles, its a free for all where only one can win, but the mechanic where you have to pass points and rely on other players by teaming up and making moves on others requires a higher level of game theory, and eventually collaborators will have to become enemies. Making actions mean considering trust in a potential team mate, as well as the backlash of every desision. Every player is the liar, every alliance made means you chose one person over another for various reasons, Every move gives away your deceit. When I say "how could it not get personal" I'm not trying to justify those two guys who won't talk to each other anymore over the game, I'm commenting on how if every player is being seriously competitive, its no wonder it was eating all their attention.

[@potatorurik7536]

@@UltravioletNomad ah okay in that sense yeah I understand what you mean

[@alexforce9]

I was thnking the same thing. If it was realy complex and deep and "made up" it would be game about the game. But so simple rules actualy made it like an virtual extention of the real wolrd connection between people.

@@UltravioletNomad Yes, the lack of pre-assigned roles makes for a much more mature and cut-throat game. It's the same with Secret Hitler vs Diplomacy.

[@uheartbeast]

The real question is where did you get that super cool grid mat/tablecloth or whatever it is. I need one.

[@seanwilkinson8696]

I recall making what was planned to be a dry-erase D&D map board as a teen. I got a sheet of Bristol board and stick-on clear cabinet liners, measured out and drew my grid on the board, then sealed it. My brother then, just for his own giggles, grabbed a marker and scribbled all over the surface. Not a dry-erase, but a smelly old permanent marker. He tried to clean it off, but no (polyhedral) dice. GG, bro. (He also took the first two white metal figures I ever bought, placed them on a steel shelf our dad had brought from his workplace when they renovated the stockroom, lit a propane torch, and melted them from underneath. His amusement, my $5.)

[@testacals]

It's probably a chess board

[@Tobyzguy]

Giant chess...

[@tobistein6639]

@@testacals a chess board would have alternating colored squares

[@siliasporter4424]

@@tobistein6639 and only be an 8 by 8

[@user-ne4ld3jp6i]

Back when Among Us was popular, there would be times at the end of a play session with my friends where some of the frustration with one another got real. Of course we decided to end at that point and instead of sinking the better part of a week into playing, we had only spent an hour or two. Social deduction games are fun, but they often involve ruthlessly lying to other people, and that starts to hurt after a while.

[@s--b]

I remember that my biggest problem with the game Deceit was not that my friend was lying to frame me but that my other friends believed him lol

[@SarahZ]

Comforting to know Lord of the Flies moments aren't unique to children edit: it’s a joke you cinemasins wannabes

[@Thunderbull]

They were just doing everything the adults would do.

[@trickytreyperfected1482]

That book was... interesting

[@wolfumz]

Feeling like I found Waldo rn

[@AlexPBenton]

There is nothing comforting about that

[@BoatsAndJoes]

The Guardian published an article last year about 6 boys who were shipwrecked for 16 months in 1965-66, and the ship captain who eventually rescued them. In real life, everyone worked together: nothing like Lord of the Flies at all.

[@dima5467]

This actually seems like it could be a fun game, even the online version in the video. The problems arise when you introduce personal relationships and a persistent format. The stakes need to be lessened, shorter length games and no personal betrayals. You can make betrayal and trust a game mechanic without it being hurtful to the player.

[@missingdev0948]

Amon gus

[@kirtil5177]

it seems at first that making this anonymous would make the game fun, but in my opinion it will instead make people trust each other less since anyone can insult everyone in a fit of rage and leave without any repercussion

[@dima5467]

@@kirtil5177 That's why I suggested making it a game mechanic instead of real world trust and relationships. Take out the ability to chat with other players and implement some sort of karma system where players can mark a player as trustworthy or not. Maybe restrict communications to a nice ping system or something, who knows. Just spitballing here, I think it's possible to make it fun.

[@Adrian-jn9ov]

I like playing social deduction games with friends, but they have to be friends that play it as a game and don't take anything that happens in it personally

[@kirtil5177]

@@Adrian-jn9ov thats pretty hard because the brain is wired to think of people who oppose you as an enemy

[@raver377]

8:03 "what did they bribe them with?" "...money?!" idk why but that made me laugh harder then it should have

[@davidelstob]

The real question is why wasn't it called TankTics?

[@PeopleMakeGames]

David, you're hired! I'm not sure for what exactly, but we need your kind of thinking on the team. -Chris

[@Roxfox]

That was a video game! Developed by DMA of all people, between GTA 1 and 2. Something about stacking ridiculous amounts of turrets on tanks, and... sheep? It's been a while...

[@cynnicysm]

Counter offer: tactanks

[@cynnicysm]

I feel like the tank-based portmanteau genre has more to offer us: tank-tac-toe (Tick-tank-toe?) being my first idea.

[@ThePigeon5734]

@@PeopleMakeGames world's shortest job interview

[@santagonewrong]

This really reminds me of when one of my high school teachers hosted a series of games of Diplomacy amongst some of the students that took place over a couple years. We'd do one year of game time every week and there was a lot of time spent outside of his room playing. While it didn't get quite as intense as this sounds, there were a lot of hurt feelings and strained relationships in our cohort caused by the Diplomacy club.

[@usernametaken017]

Light blue: Rants about his life problems to the guy that betrayed him Also light blue: *឵Is playing a game about betrayal*឵

[@RedHair651]

right?

[@InventorZahran]

Light Blue is sus...

[@volundrfrey896]

Honestly venting like that is a pretty cruel thing to do.

[@notNajimi]

@@volundrfrey896 yeah I mean the game *is* about manipulation, but that’s a bridge too far

[@christiangibson1867]

Just respond as dickishly as you can in these situations. "How am I supposed to get an erection if I can't make frail genetic failures like you just slightly more miserable?" Fight fire with fire. Fuck em.

[@TheTwistedKris]

Looking at the mechanics at play, they didn't put in place enough brakes to prevent snowballing. Anyone familiar with action economy and even card economy should have immediately picked up on this issue. A good example of combating this phenomenon comes from bug fables where each of your party members has 1 action per turn, but you can hand it off to a teammate. The major difference is that you recieve a stacking debuff after each attack, making it harder to just steamroll with a single member. Bringing this back to tank tactics, introducing a reload action after each shot would limit the offensive potential of stacking actions. Your first shot each turn being free, but each after requiring 2 ap effectively. I also agree with others saying making it a sit and play game would help. Everyone is in a game until it's over, but the sunk cost falacy shows us that people get more engaged the more time they invest. Most social deciet games don't overstay their welcome specifically because of this as living with that degree of doubt in another can very emotionally taxing.

[@WidowmakersAss]

tbh I think this is over complicating it. The biggest issue is they didn’t have a cap on how many ap you could have at one time or how many of the same actions you could take in one turn.

[@reese7090]

the issue is that there are no defined “turns” and anyone can play whenever they want so you can’t them a “first shot free” each turn

[@googiegress]

It's simple. The OP strategy was teamwork, which is OP IRL, so it's unclear whether the game is just WAI at that point. But if you don't like it, just offer a "poisoned AP" option. Anyone giving an action point to someone else can slip the referee a note saying they're actually handing him a poisoned action point. When the trades are all completed for the trading phase of the turn, the referee reveals how many AP you actually received and how many poisoned. In the example of Turn 1 of the Tank Game, if 3 people of the 12 bloc had poisoned their AP trades, then the reveal would be "Okay leader-guy, you received 9 AP and 3 Poison, so you're KO and you can't use those 9 AP after all." If you receive AP from just one person, and it turns out to be poison, you know who did it to you. But if it's 3 people and you get 1 AP and 2 poison, you need to figure out who the true ally is. This would also make anyone hesitate to accept 3 AP or more in a turn. You could still see a 12-bloc emerge, with four teams of three tanks. But that would still open up the possibility of someone in a strike team poisoning, so the team leader can't get a kill that turn because he only has 2 AP. It also prevents one tank from being able to move far and also KO multiple tanks, splitting power among four leader-tanks. Of course, this also means a trade requires both an offer and acceptance, because now there's a reason to not want an AP from someone.

[@arsenal4444]

@@googiegress brilliant

[@nineterfive7484]

I don't think the action economy is an issue, because the way to snowball ahead of your opponents is to form alliances with them, which is an entire mechanic in and of itself. The real issue in this game is the slow-play style, putting player relationships at the forefront of the game. You can take 1 action a day, which, at a stretch, might be 10 minutes to decide what to do with it. The only other thing to do with your 23 hours and 50 minutes before your next action is to form relationships with the other players. There is a huge time disparity between the two sides of the game. Confining the game to a single room, and drastically reducing the time frame between each player taking their turn, could make for a much more enjoyable game, where player relationships are still totally present.

[@squidheadss7105]

Like Diplomacy, this game is a solution to having too many friends

[@oddvertex9429]

Almost gave up scrolling to look for Diplomacy 😀 if Turkey and Russia can just work together!

[@malkav_ils]

Played Diplomacy for ages, never lost one friend to it. Just good sportsmanship (as far as the game itself goes) and understanding real politique..

[@The_Cakeminator]

@@malkav_ils JFK and Henry Kissinger used to play Diplomacy and both of them said in interviews that it was their favorite game. It's worth thinking about...

[@thederpderp7758]

Oh nooooooo 😂

[@marinemanaphy101]

These games are hard on people because not only are they very long, they also aren’t being cut up into sections by bigger events. Short games like Among Us have the same cutting betrayals, but also they last 5-10 minutes and then you’re in another game and you’ve got a new bad guy. Survivor works because even though it’s more than a month long, it has a defined end point (39 days, usually) with things happening on a schedule, but more importantly, the game is what defines when you go from team-based to individual-based. That’s actually super important - so much of the frustration in these social games is that it’s impossible to really define a difference, and a major part of strategy is therefore trying to convince people that you’re still in the teamwork phase. In Survivor there’s internal fighting within tribes, but you’re still essentially in a teams mindset - until the merge, when players are forced out of the security of collective immunity/vulnerability and the game becomes individualistic. You still have alliances, you still have voting blocs, but it’s so different than something like Tank Tactics where the game has to be played in teams for a while with an undefined end point. Survivor’s mechanisms also allow a struggling player opportunities to save themselves - plenty of mediocre social players have carried their games on the back of challenge win after challenge win, and at a tribe swap or a merge, it allows the players to re-establish a pecking order. I actually tried playing Neptune’s Pride after watching this video and it’s infuriating to play with randos because there’s no real chance to do anything like that. Even in Among Us, unless the impostor is the one who kills you, you still get to make your case to the jury and actually fight to stay in the game.

[@Peter-wu8rn]

Reminds me of the LARP concept of bleed, when in-game emotions bleed over into real world emotions. Happens a lot in specifically this way in pvp LARPs like Vampire.

[@aaronbennett3966]

They need some acting skills, same skills in role playing.

[@graftednormalcy1376]

Which is why I make the concious effort to talk about my character in third person instead of first. "Claudia would definitely want that item the boss dropped" verses "I would definitely want that item the boss dropped" make things a lot less personal

[@SkylorBeck]

This is why you have to debrief people after BDSM. It's very easy to confuse a set "we are acting" situation with "genuine thoughts and feelings"

[@malonemalo]

Me: I really don't understand all the fuzz. I mean... even if you die, you still get to play, and nothing is at state... Developer: "there were different levels of seniority, and even people in charge of reports were involved in that game" Me: Aaaaah, filho da puta, agora sim entendo...

[@creativedesignation7880]

People are generally really good at pretending, sometimes so good, they manage to fool themselves.

[@kaydreamer]

I’m really impressed that they discontinued the game. With how simple and addictive it turned out to be, it could have become wildly popular. They sacrificed what may have been a wild amount of money to make a far more ethical choice- they should be proud of that decision.

[@qualia765]

well they would have had to play test it thus decreasing there team strength, which is essential for making anything together.

[@giladkay3761]

Well the rules were simple, there wasn't anything more to add or fix, so I doubt that was a real concern from a financial- efficiency point of view

[@ktvx.94]

The team would've probably torn itself apart and there would be no money to be made or anyone to make it. Not really an "ethical" choice

[@RyukyuStyle]

lol no. they cancelled the game cuz they wernt getting any work done. had they continued to be productive there would have been no problems. you are making it seem like these mobile game makers are saints lol. they are literally targeting people with mental issues who cant control the money they spend. exploiting vulnerable people with addictive personalities in order to siphon as much cash as possible from them. there is 0 chance they did anything that wasnt self serving themselves. they would never sacrifice money for 'the greater good' you clearly dont understand capitalism.

[@testacals]

@@RyukyuStyle Not all mobile games have loot boxes .

[@lethalantidote]

You make such great, well-explained videos of obscure products and services. Wildly fascinating for reasons that I cannot explain. Love it.

[@nekobun]

As someone who's done time in games of both Diplomacy and Supremacy, I knew exactly where this was going as soon as the shared point mechanic was revealed. Oof.

[@TheBorkLaser]

Couple of friends were playing Supremacy for a while, back in school. There was another one where they would run virtual teams and trade around football players. All games always ended with people arguing in public and generally "making a scene"; all of the bribing and scheming would usually precede that. I saw people offer small amounts of money, cigarettes or meals to get ahead in the game - which kinda made me think if that's what living in a prison block is - existing relationships were played with too so alliances would rise and fall to drive out/eliminate less popular players at the very start of a game. The fact you could benefit from others abandoning (especially Supremacy from what I saw), due to lack of interest or getting pissed off at other players, is kind of a big driver too. Because you could farm their accounts for resources. Every time you start a new game there's an incentive to ensure these people leave ASAP - so some guys would resort to flamming, which is really a nice way of saying they would capitalize on being obnoxious and disrespectful. The final anecdote from me being that of the guy that would sign up his girlfriend and then gut her account for personal gain. Real messy stuff looking back...

[@nekobun]

@@TheBorkLaser Bribery was less a thing in our games, but of the three Supremacy games I can remember: 1) ended mercifully early because we'd already spent two hours going through the rules since it was the first time, though it was clear we'd have to gang up on one guy 2) ended in nuclear winter because one player was just fed up with the increasing tensions between everyone else 3) wasn't around for this one, but one player ended up physically pinned up against the wall by another player after he didn't help with a plan as promised Needless to say, there wasn't much Supremacy played after that.

[@TheBorkLaser]

And all probably were prone to hours of discussion, both live and online. The conflict is what resonated most with me - just how they'd spend so much time arguing :D

[@FelixMeister]

Diplomacy so much.

[@Miles_Edgeworth]

@@nekobun that escalated quickly

[@gonzoshots4691]

tbh they all seemed like a team of really intelligent and thoughtful people, i hope they're all doing well today and they've repaired the bumps in their relationships.

[@orangeapples]

10:54 “One person saw it as a game and the other saw it as a personal betrayal.” Well, if I got my leg broken I’d be upset too.

[@stultulanimo1250]

This feels like a game Monokuma would force students to play to break their trust in each other for some big prize

[@fgvcosmic6752]

This is already a plot for danganronpa 4

[@Vearru]

I’ve been watching way too many danganronpa KZbin videos over the past few days and my first thought when I saw there were 16 players was “wow this could be made into a death game where the tanks are tied to their controller’s life”

[@b-chroniumproductions3177]

Danganronpa fans hearing the number 16

[@aaronpoole5531]

I remember playing Coup a few years ago and I won purely because I used the fact my friends think I'm trustworthy and bad at lying against them. What a power trip honestly (I then felt guilty for like half an hour after lol)

[@cyncynshop]

I like to joke around a lot so people don't believe me when I want to win a game TAT

[@peterwang5660]

Why sometimes you don’t do business with your friends, they can just… screw you if they just changed one day.

[@DonVigaDeFierro]

@@peterwang5660 There's a saying in my country: "Clear bills, long friendships".

[@RyukyuStyle]

@@peterwang5660 you never do business with your 'friends' it very rarely ends well. its the quickest way to expose that you arent really friends.

[@windexwindexian7976]

Pretty much exactly the same thing Walter White did in breaking bad lol

[@Stofferjib]

It's a perfect storm really. Games played over longer periods means people have more time to think about it, more time to get invested in their next move, to begin fantasizing about how to next proceed. When a game allows for cooperation and betrayal, it makes those moments all the more meaningful when they occur. Then there's also the fact that being taken out of the game means everyone else is going on (hopefully) having fun without you. Then there's resource management, where you have to actively sacrifice your own gains to someone else who is inevitably going to betray you, but you can't expect to win if you refuse to cooperate with others, as now you're a perceived threat, an outlier wildcard. At least with strangers you can choose to remind yourself that the opponents aren't people you're going to have to interact with, but imagine being in a shared space where someone you thought you were close to allies with someone else and betrays you. I can see why this fell apart so fast.

[@WilCornish]

What a story! I cannot imagine anything more exhausting than adding a “fun game” that relied that much trust into office politics. Just awful for everyone involved.

[@D0cSwiss]

They really just created the opposite of a 'team-building exercise'

[@The_Rising_Dragon]

@@D0cSwiss Team bulldozing exercise?

[@icedragonaftermath]

@@The_Rising_Dragon Someone proposed "team demolition drill," which I quite liked.

[@ziwuri]

And the worst part is, with that many players and betrayals, it's essentially based on luck who ends up winning the game.

[@Qobp]

Ehhh you could certainly make it likelier you'd win with clever politics, but yeah with that many variables, you'd need to clear out the game relatively fast to make it manageable

[@jonasamdroid2356]

Let me Put a thought Out. You can Upgrade your Tank. You can increase the Ränge of your Tank by a square each day. If you stay Alice for 4 dass you have one Upgrade AMD an instakill fields surpassimg Others. am i missing Something?

[@lvlinty]

@@jonasamdroid2356 it's not exactly clear from the rules given if the range includes all squares within the range or just the surrounding ring.

[@shaunc-b6c]

@@Qobp clever politics is manipulating and lying to your co workers..... yeah ziwuri13 has a point

[@slimy4245]

It's not luck. It's about social intelligence and adaptability

[@InventorZahran]

I think the problem with this game concept is that it doesn't have enough limitations: the players can hold an unlimited amount of action points, spend any number of them in a single turn, and trade as many as they like with other players. Placing hard limits on the number of points each player is allowed to hold, spend, and trade could reduce the severity of multi-point attacks and prevent any single player from holding an unfair quantity of action points. Also, positioning the game board in a room with glass walls was probably a bad idea, as it enabled non-players to act as spies and informants to the players (a practice that should've been strictly prohibited by the game's rules.) Now I understand that none of the unexpected outcomes of this game could've been predicted, but that's the whole objective of play-testing a prototype. If the designer had stopped the game to make adjustments every time they noticed something imbalanced or problematic happening, it could've been refined into a viable game with rules and limitations that accounted for the players' unexpected behavior. As for the psychological aspect of it, the fact that the game went on for multiple weeks and the players could discuss it while AFB (Away From the Board) exacerbated the effects of manipulation, mistrust, and betrayal. If the game had to be started and finished within a single session of playing, there would be no time to plan, discuss, gossip, or conspire; the game would be far more spontaneous and dependent on quick thinking.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

I can design a better TTRPG with similar concepts. But instead of tanks. It's Medieval Fantasy because I like this genre over the others. At least to me... It's an organic lay of the rules and not some ultimatum PvP. Plus a DM to oversee things along with the Book.

[@jamesknapp64]

Yeah I think the game has a LOT of possible variants and some of them are going to be good. As pointed out Among Us also has lots of betrayals and lying; but each game is short and the betrayals are often defined (ex they actually are the imposter and you vouching for them the previous meeting means killing you now scores points with the rest of the crew, etc). on the flip side there are a lot of varients that are horrible as well.

[@TimASpace]

with the whole office side of the story, it almost seems like a legit social experiment. not intendet of course, but damn this feels really like it tells you something basic about human nature xD

[@MarcosAlexandre-no3qx]

They even had spies in each side It was Crazy for a game that was supposed to be easy

[@mareksicinski3726]

well about human relations

[@DonVigaDeFierro]

Damn. I now want to make a game that encourages all those things. Call it: Team tank tactics.

[@joao34386]

It’s fascinating to see these sorts of experiments, cause it reveals a lot about who you could genuinely trust in a dire situation, and who’s just putting up a facade to get along with you

[@thepinkestpigglet7529]

We live in a society

[@obiwanpez]

Sounds like Diplomacy and Twilight Struggle. When playing the latter, my friend & his wife had reached the final turn after a very intense game. He was up 2 points, and had a winning strategy. She, on her turn, scored 3 points, ending the game, won, burst into tears, and has refused to ever play it again.

[@abebuenodemesquita8111]

honestly it doesn't seem nearly as bad as diplomacy (I have never played Twilight Struggle so idk)

[@abzalamangos2049]

Do you mean twilight imperium?

[@obiwanpez]

@@abzalamangos2049 No, there is a Cold War diplomacy game called Twilight Struggle. I constantly think of Twilight Imperium before I correct myself, though.

[@lukasprazak7362]

@@obiwanpez Well, Twilight Struggle isn't really a diplomacy game. Like, thematically it sort of is, but there aren't any mechanics that would allow diplomacy. It's a two player game, after all. You just can't make alliances and such with only two players. There are some bluffing elements for sure, but no diplomacy.

[@garrettsmith9788]

We played Diplomacy in the office. One turn per day. This was meant to reduce impact on work time as actions would be played out at lunch. Productivity dropped to near zero. Whenever you had a meeting or a casual conversation, the rest of the team would be buzzing with “what are Germany and England talking about”. This happened more than 40 years ago and I am still mad at back stabbing Greg.

[@alphajackal6648]

This reminds me of my experiences with games like Tribal Wars(years and years ago), and Space Station 13. In this particular case, I think that the real problem here was that they did internal testing and not external. When it comes to social deduction and betrayal games, if you don't go in with a certain mindset, knowing someone actually becomes a huge problem because it can be difficult to separate the game from reality.

[@alsorew]

“Ark of the Covenant can melt your flesh! …and here it is on my kitchen table” :)

[@alsorew]

Joking aside, the big question here is why, say, 95% of all games are still about killing, destroying, betraying, etc.? People like other stuff too: creating, collaborating, exploring, just chilling (one of my favorite memories in all gaming was building an XP grinder in “Minecraft” that other players on the server started to use). If you make a game about betraying, no wonder that even your own coworkers gonna be betraying each other. And, no, it doesn’t feel that great, no surprise there. If you are a game developer, you should be smarter than this.

[@nightcatarts]

​@@alsorew It's a consequence of there having to be a winner & loser in order for the game to end, or even exist. Those that have attempted the collaborative thing without narrowing things down (to one or a team) never really seemed like games to me. You could do all that stuff just sitting in a room and writing a story, thus making the gameplay (such as it is) completely unnecessary. Even in Minecraft, there is threat & you have to destroy the world in order to create new stuff in it, excepting creative mode which, again, makes the actual gameplay pointless since you could do the same thing on graph paper or with Lego bricks. At that point, the game ceases to be a game & becomes just a set of building blocks (whether it's Minecraft or something analogue like Icarus) with a different medium or skin on top. Introducing killing or betrayal or some other way to remove entities from the game creates, simultaneously, a win & a loss state. Having those things bookends the game between the start & one of those states, thus giving it a tangible structural core around which the gameplay itself can take place. Now that's not to say that you couldn't make a first person shooter style game where, instead of murderising everything, you must plant trees, but how do you determine who wins such a game? Most trees planted & you've got competition. Trees planted in certain locations & you've got conflict. Any gameplay you introduce will & must create some form of friction because that is where the enjoyment comes from in a game. Without those things, it might still be enjoyable but it won't be a game anymore.

[@nahometesfay1112]

@@nightcatarts umm you could set different goals your tree example could be plant trees until you have a forest or an orchard. Win conditions can be attached to arbitrary scores like style points in a skateboard game, lines cleared in Tetris, or coins collected in a platformer. While violence is a common and effective trope in games there are so many other ideas to explore in games.

[@nightcatarts]

@@nahometesfay1112 Yes, but to what end? Planting trees until you have a forest is mindlessly clicking the mouse just dressed up in a fancy skin. The example was primarily an analogy to multiplayer stuff since it's a lot simpler to avoid conflict in singleplayer (such as Tetris & Mario, the multiplayer variants of which are chock full of it), so what would happen if you wanted to plant a tree where another player wanted to plant a tree? How do you resolve that? If there are points assigned to it then how do you get the most points & win the game? If you don't & there's no win condition then why are you there? You'd be better off going for a walk or watching a film than playing a game. Again, I'm not saying that there's not a space for those sorts of experiences presented as videogames, but I don't think they fit the definition of a game any more than said walk or film would.

[@ayior]

@@nightcatarts Reminds me of that time I was surprised "German/European Board Games" are apparently classified as a genre on the basis of not focusing on violence and eliminating players (I was surprised because I'm German and didn't know such a distinction existed). For example Catan (which I think many people know), basically being Civ lite where the goal is to build a settlement - you compete for space on the map and the winner is the first one whose settlement reaches a certain size. There is no war, but you must trade because ressources are limited and you'll never have all that you need. It's really fun~

[@1red2blue4]

The core issue with this game is the unnecessary extension in time of The Magic Circle. Social deduction games work without turmoil between players because you can play in one sitting. Tabletop RPG's maintain their Magic Circle distinct from the real world for numerous reasons: you play as a character that's not you; usually the game is cooperative and the only thing you need to watch out for is the next trick the GM pulls (which is usually enjoyable); and when a character dies, you start with a clean slate, a new character. You can even see what happens when games like these pull elements from Tank Tactics: if you make a tabletop RPG post-by-post, you never know when you need to be ready to push the story. You're constantly on-call, being taxed by the obligation of your character and the story you became invested in. What if a social deduction game is extended into a murder mystery? The longer a game lasts, the harder it is to keep up the act that you're not a secret murderer (in the game; chill, algorithm). Games like these are heavily streamlined, ready to play out-of-the-box provided you made some food to go along with it, and designed to last as long as it takes to eat dinner and maybe a little bit more. TLDR: It's the timespan over which the games in the video are played that tax the players.

[@bamboozled2761]

I agree heavily with this, but another comment makes me believe that it is also dependent on the players (somewhat, not entirely). If you have people that can separate the game from themselves (people that treat the game as *a game*) then it's feasible. Conversely, that means people who cannot separate themselves from a game like Tank Tactics that takes extended periods of time, will have more trouble. But that's a very isolated (and unlikely) example.

[@emulo1437]

Completely agree

[@revimfadli4666]

The Korean gameshow The Genius which limits each game to a few hours does seem to support this hypothesis

[@hedgehog3180]

And if you play TTRPGs getting angry or annoyed with a GM who made things too tough or just designed the wrong experience is a common experience. The lasting consequences are limited though since the GM was never your ally so it doesn't have the sting of betrayal, but losing a character that you love for what feels like dumb reasons just sucks.

[@evanflynn4680]

The problem was that you only had one move per day. Too slow. The rest of an entire day can be used to interact, plan and scheme. If it was a rounds based game played over lunch, where everyone plays a single turn per round, however many rounds that can be played during the lunch period and ending at the end of lunch, it could have remained a game instead of what it became.

[@reidleblanc3140]

This reminds me a LOT of a social deduction text RP I got involved with in an online group. Each in-game "day" lasts multiple IRL days and certain game actions have to wait for certain game "times," so the game often goes on for over a month. Because players have limited ability they're often forced to team with others to achieve their goals, but you never know anyone else's goal, so at any point your team plan could be sabotaged and everyone is killed. And there is LOTS of "I saw so-and-so do this" or "I promise I'm not going to do that." And I can confirm, no matter how long in IRL time you make the game last, it won't stop people from obsessing over it. Luckily we are all friends and understand that the characters we play don't represent our actual feelings about each other. Nobody is ever genuinely hurt by betrayals; if anything, we're actually excited about getting outsmarted. That's what I don't get, honestly. I HAVE played games like this before. And literally nobody was even slightly bothered. Is it the fact that we're behind screens? No, because it happened in your online game example. Is it because we're playing characters? It's possible. Having that extra layer of separation between yourself and the game might make all the difference. The blow of betrayal is softened by the new revelations you get about your betrayer's motives and the wider scope of the game universe. Maybe that's the only way this kind of game can be successful.

[@bamboozled2761]

What game was it? Or was it something your group made up?

[@grubbygeorge2117]

Your group is either remarkably mature about this sort of thing, or the fact that you're playing fictional characters and holding interactions between those prevents OOC hostility from taking place between your group's members. Instead of outright competing with one another for a prize, you are at the end of the day partaking in cooperative storytelling. While it takes place from your character's perspective and any planning you do involves that character in particular + their allies, there's still a desire to see where the overall story arc goes. You WANT to explore the other characters' motives and goals. In the example from this video, it has a way more 'gamey' feel. There's no story being written, it's all about you as a person directly competing with other people for first place (since you well know from the start what everyone's goal is, and that only one person among the group can achieve this goal) and winning becoming the sole purpose within the game. During a betrayal, it's THEM betraying YOU, not their character plotting against yours in a grand reveal.

[@PeppoMusic]

One factor I feel that must not be overlooked, is that you can see at 8:58 in the video, they offered a cash prize for 1st ($30), 2nd ($20), 3rd ($15) and 4th ($10) place. Not a whole lot, but I think just the fact of a prize being involved changed some of social dynamics and motivations for the players. Would be interesting to investigate the differences between various game rules, parameters and environments further to see what actually causes different group dynamics and behaviour to appear. Also, probably the types of people that actually play the game. This happening in an office environment where people see each other everyday, and having prior experiences with each other, which tend to be pretty mixed in your average office environment, is also a possible factor indeed, as you noted. Since online with 'relative' strangers and friends is a completely different social dynamic.

[@hamizannaruto]

Playing as character does help soften the blow. Each character are not yourself, nor a representative of you, but just a character to make for that specific thing. One game that has this effect on me OneShot, where I don't play as the character in there, but rather as a god who help the character. It hit me in a way I have never felt before, and that concept may have a play on it. How you design a game, the artwork, the theme, all can have an impact, even tho the gameplay are just the same thing. Jonas has make an excellent video on how he can make the same game more fun. Another has to do with bribery and money. As the video said, there is people are literally bribing others, and bribe is never a good thing. It create distrust, ingenuity between players. This really link to real life where cop, and higher up had been bribe, quite a lot. The type of players are also to be blame, and games with very dedicated player can sting.. quite a lot. Imagine pouring thousand of hours just to get betray by some random players. I wanna talk about games like mafia or werewolf, and more recently among us. These game has roles, roles that need to be hidden, and thus it's clear you need to work together. You have a clear group you need to find. These kind of social deduction does not hurt, because you know the sacrifice you make, are needed to win the game. Everyone in the group wins. There is no 1 winner.

[@CheshireCad]

Probably the most significant difference is that in games like Mafia and Werewolf, each player is randomly assigned an objective. So if one player betrays the others, it was because the game requires and expects them to do so. They had no choice but betrayal. But with a game like Tank Tactics or Diplomacy, no single instance of betrayal is ever required. Sure, some betrayal is all but required to stand any chance of winning. But every single betrayal is still a deliberate choice.

[@mangckyatmamon]

I remember reading something in Rock Paper Shotgun about various writers playing Neptune's Pride. Lot of deals, backstabs, sneak attacks. By the end, they were so exhausted by the treachery that instead of having a last three-way grand battle for the winner, they just sort of languished.

[@dragonace119]

To be fair RPS has always been complete shit.

[@Daemon7942]

The mutually best group size would be 4 players in a ‘gang’ because it means that if one player betrays the group, then they *will* be destroyed by the 3 others

[@tj12711]

This sounds like an office that desperately needs to discover and play Cosmic Encounter or One Night Ultimate Werewolf. Games of ONUW are so quick that you never feel too upset when you thought you were gonna win but then were betrayed (it has that "one more round" addictiveness) And in Cosmic there's sometimes plausible deniability, because some betrayals are outside of the betrayer's control. And even when factionalism and backstabbing are explicit, you don't often take it personally because it's usually the result of the different playable characters all being intentionally unbalanced. In my experience, groups playing Cosmic are more likely to realize just how tenuous their alliances are, and so they aren't as devastated by surprise backstabbings.

[@livedandletdie]

Yep speed definitely helps remove the feelings of betrayal, and keep the gamelike experience. Time is a scary enemy.

[@taragnor]

Werewolf isn't really betrayal, only deception. The players were werewolves all along, there was never an active choice to betray. They may have tricked you, but they never betrayed you.

[@tj12711]

@@taragnor Not true. For instance, two Werewolves claim that they are Masons, and then somebody claiming to be the Troublemaker tells one of them that they were switched with another player. Realizing that they are now part of the Villager team (assuming they believe the supposed Troublemaker) that player immediately admits that they and the other "Mason" were Werewolves all along- because they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by admitting to previously lying, thereby ratting out their ex-partner and winning the game. This absolutely qualifies as a betrayal, and will feel like it to the other Werewolf. Though like I said, there's less risk that people take it personally since games are so short.

[@taragnor]

@@tj12711 : Yeah I suppose I forgot about the troublemaker. That is a sort of betrayal, but still even in that case, the circumstances of the game picked the players team, and the player was only playing according to the team they thought they were on. Granted if the troublemaker was lying, both people would feel really terrible.

[@qqweebird]

to be fair ive played some harsh rounds of ONUW where people who were not werewolves got pretty real-life upset that nobody believed them and they got voted out 😅 but it wasnt near this level of psychological torture

[@programmer1840]

Seems similar to Risk in terms of generating trust between players. "I won't put defences on my border if you promise not to attack me"

[@christianbarnay2499]

The last game of risk I ever played was exactly that. My secret mission was to wipe the yellow player. The initial distribution of territories gave him almost all of Oceania and isolated places scattered all over the place. I had a big enough cluster in Asia and managed to build a barrier between him and the others. Since he rapidly lost all his isolated territories I offered him an alliance. I protect him and won't attack him until he can grow a sufficient force to come back in the game. He grew slowly due to his reduced territory while I gathered a huge force by fighting others and not defending at all against him since he wouldn't attack. And when I had sufficient force to ensure almost certain victory I just turned back and wiped him without giving others enough time to bring all their troops against me. And since I had pretty indecent dice luck at the time and had always won all Risk games I played before I decided it was a really boring game that was way too dependent on dice and never played Risk again. And guess what? Other players didn't call me a traitor and didn't turn their back on me. They just admitted they didn't see it coming.

[@Sifd]

Feels like all the problems stem from the fact that you get an action point every *day* and the game lasts 1-3 weeks to finish. In my opinion they should have tried the game again with the rules beeing "1 energy every 5 minutes" and see how it would go. Expanded Opinion: This whole "trust nobody but also be ready to betray some people because only one person can win" reminds me of a board game called "Dead last" which is literally "you conspire and then vote whoever you want to get rid of, no powers, no hidden roles, no weird mechanics, just vote whoever you want to lose without them realizing it (by lying to their face)" that lasts about 30 minutes until a winner is decided. You might betray or get betrayed and then stop trusting people from match to match but it never made people hate each other... Making a game last more than 2-3 hours is what makes people feel betrayed in real life because it pretty much made them waste a big amount of real life time to just get betrayed in the end...

[@Audiojack_]

Psychopathy OP, please nerf.

[@LostJanbo]

@@vlc-cosplayer Sigma is currently the meta due to it's Centigogillionare Grindset

[@Themaskedathlete-4]

*CERTIFIED SIGMA GRIND*

[@SuperAnonymouze]

A friend once told me, more or less: "You can't use our friendship to win and then expect our friendship to not be affected."

[@Miresgaldir]

I find this very interesting. I've felt this in some games before games I loved and I had to stop due to their psychological effect. I thought it was just me.... Great video

[@lukasnovella9001]

I feel like if it was played as a short term game, similar to chess, it would actually be quite fun! In the same way that Monopoly is fun with lots of yelling and stuff, but I think it could be genuinely cool

[@WelcometoHellPlus]

Tank Tactics definitely seems brutal, especially in a workplace setting....But my god it would make the best episode of "The Genius" if that show were to ever appear again in some form xD

[@conscir4575]

OH MY GOD THIS IS SO TRUE.

[@sgtstens1274]

The devs basically re-implemented the game Diplomacy, a friend-ending classic that's over a century old now.

[@Zeroharpe]

So... It's Diplomacy, Right? This sounds like Diplomacy with a grid.

[@manwhat7590]

The part that made it riskier than Diplomacy is that in Diplomacy all turns happen simultaneously. In Tank Tactics you could do something as soon as you had an action point

[@tavern.keeper]

@@manwhat7590 Simultaneous actions would probably have made Tank Tactics a lot more playable. Also, transferring action points to another player should probably have cost an action point.

[@Lismakingmovie]

@@tavern.keeper I think making it cost an action point means it will never happen. I think a better solution is to make it so you can only give up an action point within range of a player.

[@PJWALKER440]

@@Lismakingmovie That was how the prototype worked. But since there weren’t 'turns', points can travel across chains of nearby players immediately. At 5:00 the animation shows a player getting every possible action point from the right half, before moving into range of the left half.

[@Lismakingmovie]

@@PJWALKER440 oh nevermind lol

[@benjaminshields9421]

This sounds like needing to be reminded, "What happens in Among Us, stays in Among Us"

[@OMGLX]

The way I cackled maniacally when Bratt brought up Subterfuge, having watched the series wherein that game plays out and utterly consumed everyone participating (with the exception of Leigh, whom if I remember correctly saw the writing on the wall fairly early and opted to maintain a cool distance from the proceedings). 😆 It's a brilliant series, I strongly recommend everyone to watch, if you want to see how much 'out of game' strategy takes place in games like these.

[@fribblip]

This is amazing! I watched the talk multiple times and even wrote multiple e-mails asking for further design specifications so that I could recreate it and play it with friends. Seeing it laid out here is awesome! Thank you guys so much

[@PeopleMakeGames]

Did you end up playing it? How did it go?!

[@Bobbossa]

Did you end up getting a full set of the rules? I can't make out the last few points on the rules page in this video.

[@fribblip]

@@PeopleMakeGames I played it once with a couple of friends, but we didn't have all the rules and because of the time sink and disinterest of some of the others, it didn't really go anywhere

[@shayneweyker]

Interesting to consider how a tiny rule change of limiting a player to only be able to accept a single action point from another player per day would change the game and the social dynamics around it.

[@MocaHere]

I feel like playing this with less people and making sure everyone understands it's just a game would actually be pretty fun, forming teams, going around, making elaborate plans to eliminate enemies, it sounds like a really good time honestly

[@Table53]

"Okay, how about neither of us enter the English channel this year?"

[@jonathand.t.5051]

"Hey lets dmz the black sea"

[@Table53]

@@jonathand.t.5051 Two years later "So I know I took Sevastopol.. but I still think we can be friends?"

[@jonathand.t.5051]

"Sure" *moves into Moscow*

[@wynnmusic_]

Hypothetically, if the game went mainstream, was processed by computers and the internet masses, and was played on a professional level, would the game become less about human interactions and manipulation and more about theory, math, and definitive strategies?

[@BobTheBob9]

in theory, but with a game this simple, it only takes one guy to fuck up that definitive strategy and kill you

[@olgierdvoneverec4135]

if we assume a "professional meta" of sorts, the game would be about your starting position, then as many points as can be linked together would be used to eliminate as many players as possible as soon as possible. the first few turns would be done as soon as the board got shown, most alliances would be obvious and made with everyone except the kill target, but there would always be some level of social manipulation because of the jury, also the outher-most player has a great incentive to betray the alliance quickly while the player most in the middle has to do as they're told. I feel like a pro tank tactics game, would only be different in that the deceit is about risk vs reward inside the game, rather than actual personal matters, but the charisma of a player to convince and earn trust would still play an important role and players would still face emotional exhaustion. it's kinda like poker, but there's no luck involved, and reading the players is much more convoluted.

[@eyekandi]

not really. There’s many competitive games that cause players to think of strategy and math but they also have a toxic community. You can’t have a game like this and not expect it to be draining.

[@michealdrake3421]

10:00 If the guy has health problems that are set off by, I guess the emotional baggage of betrayal, then maybe he shouldn't being playing a game where betrayal is a major part of the game. Kind if like how people with epilepsy should stay away from games with strobing effects. Unless I've misunderstood. It kind of sounds like he was trying to guilt trip you, but maybe I'm getting the wrong message.

[@pierrebernard142]

*Entire video :* This game will destroys all your relationships *Me :* Wow seems pretty f*cked up ! *Also me :* Do I have 20 friends that I'm willing to lose so I can play this game ?

[@RhizometricReality]

Right lol. I'm surprised this isn't a web app yet

[@Gadgetmcflyv2]

Just a little suggestion: Do it while roleplaying as an existing character or a character you made up so this doesn't bleed into real life.

[@henatatorplays]

I don't have 20 friends sadly

[@lamenwatch1877]

@@RhizometricReality Except, the video stated multiple inspiration that basically looked the same in function.

[@FullKnight51]

play diplomacy, its basically 7 player ver of this

[@boxhead6177]

Oh my workplace is looking for fun team activities to welcome people back from long-term “work from home” Perfect (evil grin)

[@bradfin12]

A game that breaks the illusion that you can trust anyone especially if you are an obstacle to their end goal seems like a good lesson to me.

[@DsiakMondala]

Good lesson, but not a good game. Imagine paying for a game to be reminded of reality lmao

[@vintprox]

4 players chess looks like a child's play when compared to this

[@linky0064]

oh my god i saw the gdc talk ages ago i am so hype

[@arkavi]

lmao sameee

[@jimbrenneman2040]

Somebody should make a movie about this game as a death game

[@coolnoah8183]

"attacking me is pretty shitty, I have health issues" Bro it's a game about betrayal and alliances, if you are going to have a cry when you don't win, don't play

[@turtlellamacow]

exactly. the problem with a game like this isn't the people who betray others to win a game based on betrayal. it's the people who take that betrayal so personally that they bring their personal life into the game world

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

That could've been someone who actually had some. Or just just used it as strategy to create empathy in other players.

[@hamzaimran771]

@@turtlellamacow Yeah I feel like there should be a warning message anytime someone plays games like these to make sure people who can't handle games like this can leave.

[@akpokemon]

wait...you just played right into his comments though. LMAO. Unquestionably took his claim at face-value. I thought your point was going to be more perceptive, considering how upvoted it is. "HappyBeezerStudios - by Lord_Mogul" brings up the most valid point pertaining to Light Blue's "health issues"

[@funnyfeetfiddlerforfriends4763]

“Disliking my comment is pretty shitty, i have attention issues”

[@CharlesSchaum]

The Paranoia RPG introduced the "trust no one" theme to a previously cooperative genre starting in 1984 (I played both 1st and 2nd ed 30 years ago). It would have been awesome if a "jury" concept of players who had been killed off got to roll as "the computer" for or against other players. Then again, it would have become violent, given enough beer.

[@christophermoore8524]

I think it would have worked for Paranoia, on account of the tone of the game. You play Paranoia expecting to get backstabbed from the very first turn.

[@Aedi]

paranoia also gives you a healthy stock of clones tho, so its usually light hearted, chaotic backstabbing, not deep seated emotional betrayal

[@CharlesSchaum]

@@Aedi my experience was that the group I was with camped my clones just to be that way. Part of it was that I was the outsider they needed to have enough people. I knew others who weren't as ruthless, though.

[@christophblumentopf9902]

A couple of years ago some people in my office started playing Neptune's Pride, it nearly broke the office, with people not talking to each other for days after. But while the game was on, it was super exciting.

[@TimSchraepen]

When we played Subterfuge in our team of devs at work, there was one time where somebody suggested a truce on Christmas Eve, because they also realized the time we were all putting into this game was growing out of proportion. 😅

[@calcium_addict]

Subterfuge is too much man, I still think about the last match I played and it was over 3 years ago.

[@olatomiwaaduloju9533]

@@calcium_addict every match is like a TV series