JAM #7 - EMPATHY - SLIME HEROES
For Slime Heroes, the main concept was to make the need to empathize a central game mechanic. The tricky part was the way we would present it to the players, empathy is less powerful when not spontaneous but encouraged. The rules we set for ourselves were simple:
1. The game has to be short and intense.
2. The players need to feel inequality from what they are given in the game.
3. Your situation as a player must be changing quickly, so you can experience being powerful and being helpless alternately.
4. The players must help each other in order to finish the game.
The idea behind this set of rules is to put the player in a weak position in which its own range of action is limited, so he has to rely on more powerful players for the moment. We want players to feel that the inequality of their starting setup, and therefore the difference in their ability to act, is frustrating for the weak and rewarding for the powerful. We want them to experience the responsibility to act of the powerful, and to build an intimate relationship between the concept of being in a situation of power and the idea of helping others. We had to be careful to balance the game properly in order to avoid to much frustration for weak players staying weak for too long.
In order to create this inequality, we implemented a system of randomly picked attributes that would change to players stats, as well as giving their slimes a personality, depth and background. The accumulation of attributes would create funny results and (usually) positive stats.
The list of attributes:
| attribute | hearts | cards |
| dumb | 0 | -3 |
| lame | -1 | -2 |
| smelly | 0 | -2 |
| forgetful | 0 | -2 |
| quiet | 3 | -2 |
| ripped | 4 | -2 |
| chubby | 6 | -2 |
| poisoned | -2 | -1 |
| clumsy | -1 | -1 |
| sad | -1 | -1 |
| baby | -1 | -1 |
| predictable | -1 | -1 |
| annoying | 0 | -1 |
| spooky | 0 | -1 |
| passive | 1 | -1 |
| shortsighted | 1 | -1 |
| generous | 2 | -1 |
| proud | 2 | -1 |
| selfish | 3 | -1 |
| sick | -2 | 0 |
| abandoned | -1 | 0 |
| weak | -1 | 0 |
| boring | 0 | 0 |
| neutral | 0 | 0 |
| cowardly | 2 | 0 |
| handsome | 3 | 0 |
| wild | 3 | 0 |
| dry | -2 | 1 |
| aggressive | -1 | 1 |
| lonely | -1 | 1 |
| tiny | -1 | 1 |
| evil | 0 | 1 |
| fuzzy | 1 | 1 |
| stiff | 1 | 1 |
| enthusiastic | 1 | 1 |
| sociable | 2 | 1 |
| determined | 2 | 1 |
| anemic | -2 | 2 |
| daring | -1 | 2 |
| modest | 0 | 2 |
| cool | 1 | 2 |
| flying | 1 | 2 |
| happy | 1 | 2 |
| cuddly | 2 | 2 |
| savvy | 3 | 2 |
| undead | -3 | 3 |
| burning | -1 | 3 |
| hyperactive | -1 | 3 |
| smart | 0 | 3 |
| patient | 1 | 3 |
Our only regret is that we could not achieve to create a system in which we would not need to force the players to work together towards a common goal. We tried several approaches, but in this system of inequality, all our attempts to allow an individual victory led to weak players without any range of action being sacrificed by stronger ones.
Try it and tell us how you felt while playing!
Cheers!