25 Years

We had high hopes when we released King of Dragon Pass on 29 October 1999, but didn’t have any idea that the game would still be reaching new players 25 years later.

Back the, games came on a CD in a box, which was a challenging proposition for an indie developer. We didn’t have the resources to buy shelf space (which was no guarantee a game that mixed genres would sell). And at some point we decided not to pay for warehouse space, and moved the remaining inventory into our attic.

The App Store was an opportunity to reach players directly (without needing to go through distributors and retailers), and adapting the game for iPhone was also a chance to add dozens of new scenes to the game. And to make the game accessible to blind players. I was touched when one of them told me that King of Dragon Pass was the first time that he felt like an equal member of the game community, since he could play the game just like any other player.

HeroCraft helped us bring the game back to PC as a download, letting it reach even more players. Many of them were introduced to Greg Stafford’s world of Glorantha for the first time. Some were inspired to design their own games.

I’d like to thank the team that helped make the game. Sadly Greg Stafford and Stan LePard didn’t live to see this milestone.

And I’d like to thank all the players who took a chance on a different game and gave it a review or let their friends know. Your support has let me continue to make games.

KoDP on the web: 50 Years of Text Games / Storylets with Casting

 Emily Short just posted

Aaron Reed’s 50 Years of Text Games has now covered King of Dragon Pass, which I strongly recommend reading: the game used techniques that we’re still very much exploring and discussing now, including elements we might now refer to as storylets with casting (that is, storylets that assign characters to particular roles). Well worth a look if you’re interested in the structure, code, or writing process of that game, or storylet games in general. 

First, Aaron did a very well researched look at King of Dragon Pass. If you’re at all interested in how we made the game (and how our effort at selling it was received), check it out.

Second, Emily’s categorization seems pretty accurate. Our scenes (a term we used because of their similarity to scenes in a play) would now be considered storylets, and they’re chock full of assignable roles. In many cases, that role is a clan (a neighbor, a rival, an ally, etc.). It can also be a character.

Often the role is a requirement for the scene to be run. The scene condition is in square brackets on the second line of this script, the actual assignment is on line 4.

scene: scene_228LetsPretend

scene228, left, [ProDragonewtOnRing AND dragonewt.knowledge <> 'unknown]

music: "CouldBeBad"

p = ProDragonewtCharacter

text: Two children have been pretending to be the god Orlanth and Aroka, the blue dragon. Somehow, their play has gone beyond pretend, and magic is gathering, almost as if they were on a heroquest.

saga: Somehow two children playing at Orlanth and Aroka started a full-blown ritual.

…

[ProDragonewt Priority] The children may learn draconic wisdom from this experience. [1]

[Trickster AND ProDragonewtOnRing] Good one, <p>! [1]

This is a fairly typical script. The scene is richer if there’s a named leader who can be involved, and in general, we favor choosing leaders who are on the clan ring. Players have typically had an opportunity to learn a bit about their personality (as well as have invested in them as a representative of the clan). The advisor is curious to know about the summoned dragon, and another character offers a rejoinder.

(This scene was created by Lysander Xen as part of our contest, so it’s technically not part of the version Aaron was describing. The illustration is by Jan Pospíšil.)

Note that KoDP’s spiritual successor, Six Ages, also makes use of storylets. A blog post goes into more detail. But pretty much it’s the technique we pioneered in 1997.

Farewell, Greg

Last Friday I got the sad news that Greg Stafford had passed on.

My first reaction was that I’d never be able to talk to my friend again. I think that really speaks to who Greg was — not just a wildly creative person who I collaborated with on King of Dragon Pass, and who taught me so much.

My first indirect interaction with Greg was in 1976 or 1977 when I bought his board game White Bear & Red Moon and sent in the registration card. He sent a copy of his mimeographed zine, Wyrms Footnotes.

A few years later, I sent him a cult writeup for RuneQuest. As I recall, it was more concerned with game effects than mythology, which he gently pointed out in a reply.

I probably met him in person after that, at a game convention. I don’t remember the specifics, but I know that he was a designer who I could like in person, not just for his works. (Unfortunately, this wasn’t true for every game designer.)

A later convention memory is playing a game of Pendragon which he was running, remembering one of the rules better than he (the author) did. That was a lesson in how the story is the important thing.

We had a fairly extensive correspondence, back in the days of mailing letters. This was usually related to Glorantha or his games. I suspect it was mostly me asking questions. It often ended up with Greg sending something he’d written.

When Greg wrote King of Sartar, he sent me parts of it for feedback. I think this is when I conceived the idea of combining his world of Glorantha with a multi-generational game, like Pendragon. The next time I was in northern California, he let me visit the Chaosium offices and make xerox copies of any of his relevant notes.

Our correspondence and convention meetings started to discuss making this into a computer game. As we got more serious, I flew down to meet him. He picked me up at the airport, having rented a car so that he could.

We agreed on terms for the contract, which were very reasonable from my point of view. One of the most important issues was the freedom I had to make the game. I was worried about being second-guessed for getting Glorantha wrong, but Greg was totally willing to trust me with his creation.

As for the actual contract, Greg didn’t like how legalese my lawyer’s draft was, and rewrote much of it to be more clear.

During the game’s development, we had a weekly call. Greg usually had way more ideas than I could use, but always just put them out as possibilities.

The one point of approval we’d agreed on was art. We faxed illustrations for several weeks, until Greg finally told me that he no longer needed to approve them. Once again he was giving me a lot of trust, at a time when my game was going to be one of the only Glorantha products in print.

We both tried to pitch it to publishers. We went to a Computer Game Developers Conference. On the way over, Greg expressed his doubts about the quality of the coffee that would be available, so I had to drive around to find a Starbuck’s for him.

Other convention memories include how he always preferred t-shirts with a pocket, and how at one Tentacles, he shared a bottle of excellent mezcal someone had given him.

Greg (left) and me (center) at Tentacles 1999

When Greg started a new company to publish Glorantha, Greg asked me to be part of it. I tried to help him as best I could. I’m not really sure I discharged my duties all that well, though I did what I could to resolve an unpleasant dispute. At one point the company needed a loan, which I was happy to give to a friend. Greg made sure to repay it when he could.

As for running a business, I know he was always honest. He once told me that if you had to cheat on your taxes, you didn’t deserve to be running a company.

Although most of what I’ve written is about playing and making games with Greg, he was also someone I could confide in about family problems, or share a good meal with. And one visit, we were on the way somewhere and he ended up hanging out with a kid who’d gotten hurt, until the emergency responders had showed up and Greg was sure the kid was in good hands.

I haven’t been able to get to many conventions lately, and Greg had retired. He was still willing to give me some ideas for Six Ages.

Thank you Greg for all you’ve given me over the years. I literally wouldn’t have had any kind of game development career without you. Or have branched out my interests into mythology and anthropology without you having made games informed by them. And maybe wouldn’t have had a tlayuda or mezcal. Best wishes on your final trip to the Other Side.

Happy 18!

The first public release of King of Dragon Pass was 18 years ago — 29 October 1999. Back then, it was a boxed CD.

Since then, we updated and expanded the game for iPhone and iPad, and licensed it for Android and Mac and Windows (on Steam). And GOG made the original version available for download. To celebrate its birthday, the game is 50% off on the iOS App Store for a limited time!

In 18 years, we haven’t seen anything like KoDP, so we decided to make another: Six Ages. It’s currently feature complete and being tested, for release in 2018. Making another game of this scope is a risk for an indie studio, and not many games last 18 years. But we hope we can approach KoDP’s sales (over 175000 on all platforms).

A Hard Game

I don’t think that it’s a secret that King of Dragon Pass is a hard game. Version 2.0 tried to prevent death spirals, but only goes so far. And there are plenty of ways your decisions can cause you to lose. (Almost always decisions plural…)

Although we have only had metrics in the game since version 2.2 (and only for iOS), a quick look at them bears out the idea that it isn’t easy to win.

For example, of complete games, only 18% are won. Though only 17% of games are played to completion. Presumably a lot of players are restarting rather than play to a grim end. Looking at the overall picture, of games begun, only about 3% end in victory. (I haven’t checked Short vs Long games — presumably Long is played by more experienced players.)

Anecdotally, the game may be hard, but you can learn to master it. Some people complain that 2.0 is easier than the original (which I believe to be true). I think the statistics agree that the game can be mastered, because 11% of long game victories are on the Hard level. You definitely have to know what you’re doing to win playing at Hard.

Interestingly, almost as many people win at Hard as the middle difficulty, as the graph shows.

Wins, broken down by Difficulty

There’s not a lot we can do with this data, years after the game was designed. But it’s something to think about as we consider difficulty level for Six Ages, our next game.

And if you have won King of Dragon Pass, congratulations! It wasn’t easy.

Where’s Kero Fin

Recently a player was having trouble sending exploration missions to Kero Fin.

We tried to make this a fairly easy hit target. (After all, an omen tells you to visit.) Probably the easiest thing is to tap or click the label, but the picture shows the extent of the map zone (with debug shading turned on).

17 And Counting

The first public release of King of Dragon Pass was 17 years ago today — 29 October 1999.

Since then, we updated and expanded the game for iPhone and iPad, and licensed it for Android and Mac and Windows (on Steam). And GOG made the original version available for download. To celebrate its birthday, the game is 50% off on all platforms for a limited time!

We’d like to thank our fans for keeping the game going over the years. Selling more than 150,000 copies (on all platforms) seems pretty good for an indie game, and your continued support encourages us as we continue to work on its spiritual successor, Six Ages.

We just posted a progress update to the Six Ages development blog, and here’s a sneak preview of some of the art.