The Final Game - The Base Management Battle Royal

Scott's back! This week we go into the the wonderful world of Battle Royal's and Base Building. The game we create hopefully has something for everyone. 

We also begin the great 'Matt's Wheel of News' which brings a discussion about No Man's Sky. 

We Hope you enjoy. 

Thanks for listening and please leave us a review and subscribe if you enjoyed it. It really helps us out. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-gaming-blender/id1597738101

Also please get in touch with us at @gamingblendpod or thegamingblenderpod@gmail.com with your ideas for new games and challenges.

We have begun to update our YouTube channel with video playthroughs and we hope to put more up there soon https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZTPuScm5BTf8DdwvaCj0jQ

Keep blending!

Transcript

0:02

Hello, hello and welcome back to the Gaming Blender, the podcast of hypothetical video games. I am your host today, Scott, and as always, I have Matthew with me. Matthew, how are you? I'm very well. It's lovely to have you back, Scott. It's lovely to be in the virtual room with you, the virtual space, the virtual box. It's nice to know... I mean, just so everyone knows, I am here now for a few months so I don't have to continuously go away and continuously miss one of my favourite things which is of course doing this with Matt. So, listeners because I will be here for some weeks to come! There are listeners out there going, God, unsubscribe. He's back. they're going, I hate that guy. I always tune into the episodes where he's gone, damn it! We don't record for the listeners, we record for us and the listeners. was about to say is that's called a lie. Let's not start lying. We have a new feature listeners this week that we're going to trial today. is an idea of Matthews so let's... a small idea that we're going to grow over the next few weeks because I like it when we talk about current events. I like it when we talk about new things going on. However, we're a reverent. We're not news reporters. You don't come to us going, I want their hot take. You come to us and go, what's their tepid take? That's what you come to us with. What is your... is their disappointing nonsense that they're going to spew about this? We are calling this Matthew's Wheel of News. But he didn't really... what's the word? Prepare. So what he's got is more a Matthew's Bullet Point of News for this particular week. So yes. because there's a few things that are bumbled around on news. So what we're going to do for this wheel of news is I'm going to present a few things to Scott, as in these are newsworthy this week. And Scott will pick one of them and we get to discuss it in more detail to stop us bumbling around and jumping from left, right and center. We're going to try and narrow this focus. And of which, since you've been away, Scott, there has been a few little bits in the gaming news. And so this is going to feel like small fry. I'm going to present a few bits to you. Hmm. Things to talk about are Arcane, No Man's Sky or Watch Dogs. Pick one. is interesting, so I only know about one of them, which is Arcane. I always like No Man's Sky, so I'm intrigued as to what I've missed on No Man's Sky. Just so you know, I've been in Finland for the last month, which is going back to the Stone Age. Apologies for anyone who lives in Finland. But I was in Lapland, and there's not much there. So I have been... not had access to the internet really for the last month or so. So I've missed this. So Matthew, please enlighten me on No Man's Sky. So No Man's Sky, as we know, released on Steam and it got overall mostly negative reviews. So horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible. it's, it spent many years. mean, what year was it released? No Man's Sky. Now, what, did come out? It was 20. No, I think it was earlier than that. I think, cause I was, remember when I was working at the time, it might've even been 17. It came out in 2017. I'm going to be an incredibly poor... no, I've got it. It was August 12th, 2016. That is eight years ago. Eight years ago, it came out. Eight wonderful years. So it came out eight years ago and obviously ReviewBond, people didn't like it. I know some people that like the Vinnyler experience. However, so that means that you have the horrible mostly negative review score on Steam. They have got to the stage after eight years of work. It is now very positive reviews. They have done it. They have actually managed to turn it around. And I think that is phenomenal work to get that to that stage. I would agree with that because I would say the vast majority of people who left a negative review, this is just me guessing, but the vast majority people probably wouldn't have changed it. I went through various reasons, through I can't be bothered, through I don't play the game anymore, all that sort of stuff. And the people that changed would have been relatively minor figure. So you've then got to acknowledge the fact that what happened is they managed to attract an entirely new player base. which all loved the game to overturn that curve. Yeah. Yeah. that's incredible news. And they're still releasing updates, because I believe the most recent update was part one, wasn't it? It was, I forget what it was called. We're not very good at this. No, well, this is why I like the Wheel of News. This is why I like it. So it means that the essentially it means by that that's around 100,000 positive reviews, which is incredible, which and that means with that's with no negatives, that's that's all the positives. So it's well gone from one of the worst launches to one of the best and I think that should be celebrated and turned around. And but what's difficult is I understand the different types of games. But if you flash back to Flashback? Do you flashback? No, you do flashback. You flashbang. You flashbang. No, I'm not okay. I'm not okay. So if you flashback to something like Suicide Squad Save the Justice League, which is again one of the worst launch at all time and it says it's going to lose millions and millions of pounds and know, mess it up. Do you think that they will stick at it? No, I don't. I don't think that there are many games nowadays in the situation of No Man's Sky where they just have lots of lovely developers just throwing the weight at it and going, we'll get it right eventually. I just don't think it happens anymore. No, think they probably benefited from being quite a small studio that received a lot of pre-orders and a lot of people buying it for the time because obviously they promised so much. So they had a big intake of revenue which then gave them the leeway, at least bought them a few years where they could go, right, we're not making anything else, we're just going to make this game, you know, we're going to make it properly now, we're going to make it as we promised. and then they did and then within a few years they'd started getting back towards mostly positive and then all the expansions they've done have all been excellent so I mean yeah I agree absolutely massive kudos and I can't hmm yes that yeah who aren't aware of it. there. The equivalent, it looks very similar to No Man's Sky because obviously it's running on the same game engine, but it is a medieval-esque world where you're flying around. I've seen clips of it and you're playing as a medieval, well I say medieval, it's high fantasy fundamentally. And I've seen clips of riding around on dragons, but it is a world-sized world. It's very hard to... It's very hard to describe their games because you say, it's an open world, but it's a world. And they go, because people think open world, but in reality most open worlds are contained. There is an end of the map, whereas this will just keep going round and round and round because it is... well, round. It is an entire, as you say, an entire world, an entire planet. So, mean, undoubtedly there will be some madman who within a week of that game will have traversed the entire world. Well, I did think that was very funny that they did entirely when they first released it, they completely misjudged how insane people are because what there was that thing where they said, don't worry. It's very unlikely, but if you do meet other people, like the world will respond or whatever. And then within the first week, two people had gone through the universe to find each other and went, nothing actually happened. And I think Hello Games went, yes. Yes. People. Yes. We have underestimated the human race. Yes, underestimate the human race and also never underestimate gamers and the tenacity and the will of gamers. Never under a... because I do love the gaming community in the sense of if there's a broken game and the gaming community loves it, you'll get, you'll see a news story, which I'm sure will feature on Matthew's Wheel of News in where someone says, don't worry, they fixed it. Yeah, I mean Skyrim is the obvious one. Skyrim had so many problems with it. But it was so good that everyone just went, we'll just fix it. Yeah. The meat and bones were there. Although I would do say it's very interesting when you go back and play Skyrim now and you just go, wow, the combat needed a lot of work. Which is why I'm very excited for the next one in the chamber, as it were. We haven't said what the podcast is, dear host. Nine minutes, nine minutes in. but we were trialling Matthew's bullet point of news. I'm going to start calling it Matthew's bullet point of news. I won't, I won't listen because it will upset him. funny. is the antagonistic relationship that we need to draw in the listeners. Keeping up with the gaming blender. Welcome everyone! New listeners and returning listeners to the Gaming Blender podcast. This, we are. This, we are. We are the podcast of Hypothetical Video Games. What Yes, yes, yes, shush. What we do every episode is we take it in turns to pose to each other. four randomised numbers which correspond, the first one corresponds to a genre of game the second to two particular mechanics and then the last to a narrative what we do is we take all these randomised genres and mechanics and we make them in 20 minutes into a video game or the concept of a video game that of course will get picked up and made obviously many of them have a lot of them work To be fair, we make most of them work even when the mechanics and the genres don't work together. I don't want to talk in hyperbole, but I believe that we are the greatest game designers on the planet. We'll go with that. go with that. Matthew, I have of course prepared the roles beforehand and they are interesting. How are you feeling? I got a slight cough. Good, thanks for the update. Are you ready for your numbers and what they actually mean? Okay, you roll... I rolled... I rolled for you! For your genre is the number 19 which is base management or city builder? Okay, that is quite broad. Okay, so you could do something that is more akin to city skyline. or technically Age of Empires is base management Command and Conquer is also base management obviously there's a bit of strategy in there as well but they are they are part of those genres the two mechanics that you have are number four and number 33 the first one is career mode Okay, when it works, works, it works. mode could work so as per Football Manager or FIFA or Madden for example Do want to not name sports, Phil? Sports seem to be where you've gone there entirely. Can you think of a career mode game that's not? This isn't about me. well there you are. And number 33, which is Battle Royale. A la Fortnite, etc. All those sorts of everyone parachutes onto an island and molars each other. I think the first two go together, I'm not sure about the third one. Go. so you play as an entire city and you drop out of a bus from the sky. Yes, why not? Why not? Here's an idea. You play Battle Royale, but you play as the map. You're going to have to give me more, I'm afraid. I have no more to give, that is it. I don't have any more to give right now, but I feel like there's something interesting there. Imagine if you played a Battle Royale game. and where you had to design and build the map and it was your job to design and build this battle Royale esque situation like the hunger games. And you were advancing in this, your career of building in this strange society of building the maps. And each time you built the maps, you would watch a battle Royale take place on your map and you'd be taking part against other people. however you're, however you ha However, I said however like four times there, but I didn't mean however. What I actually meant was sausages. Obviously. So when you're playing and you design this map and you let them play Battle Royale on it, and depending on how that map performs, I'm not sure how, what, what dictates that, you keep advancing in your career and you can keep fiddling and tweaking with that map. However, this is where the sort of Battle Royale comes in for your side. If you lose, you have to redesign your map from scratch. So it is a sort of, well, you career mode and you're advancing and your career is in the career of this map. still could lose and lose everything. So it becomes a bit of a battle royale slash rogue-like hybrid. I have... I like it. I have an idea that is very similar to yours and I want to propose it to you. Is that okay? Let me brace myself. Go ahead. you know the... what are they called? Are they called the Gamekeepers in the Hunger Games? My knowledge of Hunger Games could be written on a very small post-it, but so I'm going to say, yes, you're definitely right. in the Hunger Games, the people that design the arenas in which they fight, think are called Gamekeepers or Game Masters, are they? I can't remember. more treasured. Let's call them Jeff. Okay, so Jeff, as a game master, let's say in the game, the game within the game is that there are people, bit like the Hunger Games, who create entire cities and maps, it doesn't have to be cities but could be like maps, cities, different environments. for people to have an actual battle royale in. So you live in a society where there is blood sport. And your job, your career is to make and design these maps. It's a spectator sport. So you could have that as people actually watching from television cameras. people, could just, you could just do people playing it. And then at the end, people rate it and you have to hit a certain threshold. And if you don't hit the threshold, say if you're in a, maybe you're in a group match with like five other maps. And if you lose, you just get obliterated and have to start again. So can you imagine the tension of like really enjoying a map and going, no, that map might, might not exist anymore because if it doesn't win, I better give that map a positive appraisal. And you might be just watching it going, God, this went really badly. Yeah, and you could, but then, so hang on, so are we saying that there are some players who play the maps and then there are some players who make the maps? So there are two, you, so you, play making the map and then other players get dropped in who play it and then they rate it depending on how much, mean, I'm sure you'll get griefers, but maybe just, you have to filter that out somehow, but let's assume that everybody rates it honestly. And then depending on that rating, if you get high enough rating, you advance to the next round. So we lose one every sort of time and you can make slight tweaks to your map each time you can see feedback. Or you can maybe you see the way that people play it. That's probably a more interesting way to do it. You watch the way people play it. You make small tweaks to it and you tweaking it. But if you get knocked out, that map gets destroyed. So you have to start again. So there is a genuine like career and genuine jeopardy. No, I like that because then what you'd end up with after say a year of the game existing, what you'd have is you'd have people who don't know how to make maps but who are very good at playing the maps and understanding what makes a good map and a lot less but then a thin sliver of people that have actually become really good at making maps and actually as the developer that means you don't have to make any maps because the players make your maps for you. up doing is if you won everything, you'd go down a bit like gladiatorial combat in the sense of if you were the map that won out and you were the best map after all your rounds, you went into a sort of the locked down set maps that are forever retained by the game. that's the creme de la creme, but a very small amount. Could you say, obviously because you're going to have this eventual split where you've got the vast majority of people who are players and then the minority that are map makers, obviously the career mode then is focused on the people who are the map makers. Could you do it as a dual approach whereby once you, as a person in real life playing the game, you figure out, I'm not really that good at making the maps so I'll just focus on being a player and playing the maps. Could you create a career mode within the player base? i.e. little bit like, within the society that's in the game, there is a career mode as part of the Battle Royale. do is you could, would, that would, if you give feedback to your, if you give feedback, this is a clever way of doing it to stop griefers as well. If you give feedback to the map maker, that the map maker thinks is good. Or say you give a positive appraisal. So if you give a positive appraisal, you get a little bump. If you get, give feedback that the map maker thinks is good feedback, whether it positive or negative, you get an even bigger bump. to encourage people to give decent feedback. So that's to stop people just going through and liking every map and just going, yeah, it's great. Yeah, it's great. If you give a piece of feedback, which the creator goes, that's a really good piece of feedback, then you get a good old bump. And that's the career. And as you advance, you get more sort of buffs. just because it's battle royale, you can't go nuts with it. But it'll be just visual appearance stuff. Whereas in the career mode, perhaps what you do is you start off with basic maps. And when you start in basic maps, you only play against other basic maps. it's everyone's on a level footing. As you become a map maker, become like, you go from apprentice map maker to junior map maker to senior map maker. You unlock more tools to use. And as you unlock more tools, you go into higher standard battles. So there are more, the maps you play against are from other senior map makers. So then you could, as a player, maybe as you level up as well, you get access to these more and more complicated maps. Yeah, you get access to more complicated assets. what you can do also, can have this is the trial weekend where everybody gets access to the high standard maps is that sort of carrot to encourage people to be like, you can be here if you just get a few up a few levels. I like it, I think it would be quite fun especially because you can make it very chaotic. So can make it so that not just... the maps themselves can be weapons in that, you know, very much like... I don't want to keep saying that in very much like in games, there are traps everywhere and as you get better as a player you start to notice where these things... where these things are, so the map makers then have to be better at hiding them and all this sort stuff and can have... could you have... could you have things like... have the first few players that get killed can't leave a review. Yes. Yeah, that makes sense. generally if you play a map for five seconds, either you're not going to know anything about it, or you're going to not like it as much because you died. So you're going to want to... I think what you say is you can only give the review once you get to the end because then that means all the rage quitters have all left and so when you get to the end you've got the people who actually want to leave a a review that isn't based on... Do you know what mean? group of people get to leave a review because hopefully they're not going to leave a rage-quitty-esque review. I think it'd be quite good as well if you're the map maker. You give the map maker some certain tool sets that they can do when they're... because obviously they're going to watch the battle royale because they want to see how the map... I think you give them some tools that they can use at certain times to... let's say, you know, do some stuff to the players that is entertaining. we can give them refreshments or maybe a snack. Well, I mean, they can be both positive and negative. You could have ones that, you know, they parachute in, you know, healing potions and things, or you could have ones that set out... I can't stop quoting kind of games here, but you could have one that, you know, along the side of the map is set loose a pack of horrible mutant dogs, you know, that then hunt the players down, and that's cool, because that's... hunt, okay, hunt, thank goodness. Yes, hunts, yes. Honestly. And that's neutral because they'll just hunt everyone. you know, so that would... I think that would be quite fun. Do you want to try and do a narrative? Let's try and do the narrative. feel like we want the narrative just to be, can the person who wrote The Hunger Games just give us an epilogue? Yes, I know. for new listeners, the narrative is usually where this falls down because we come up with something good and then the narrative spoils it because we have to shoehorn it in. today, Matthew, you have the number seven, which is the riddle. Could you do the little description of the riddle, please? I can do the little description, it says if you like a mystery this is the plot for you. We haven't expanded that one particularly well. no, no, no, no, I did not. just, that was kind of just essentially mystery plot, which does and doesn't work. It does work in the sense of it's kind of nice, you have all the people doing and, and because you're doing math things, no one quite knows what's going on. So that's the mystery. However, the resolution to the mystery at the moment, needle haystack, I think is what comes to mind. So perhaps what you have Maybe you can do it the whole thought, you can go down the sort of route of mysterious company, mysterious entity asking you to do this and you're never quite sure why. And the way you can do it is easy in a simulation. Rather than obviously there are stakes because there are personal stakes to the gamers. And I think we've, what we've designed quite nicely means that you will be connected to your things. So you don't need to die for the players to feel loss because you'll be just irritated by the fact you haven't made it through or haven't done whatever. So. that I think we've engineered that quite well. Do you, by doing that though, you not only giving the narrative to the map makers rather than the players? That's where the players are being encouraged to play the maps. But why would this company be asking you to learn how to make maps and learn how to fight in them? So, I would say it's all about entertainment. whole thing is all about you're there to entertain the public. The public want to watch this bloodsport. So, the more... there's no blood if it's gaming. If it's a game, there's no blood because it's virtual. If people are being regenerated. I think maybe you make it in the plot that it is a bloodsport that maybe when people are dying, but you could say it's like they get cloned or whatever it is. And that when they die, they literally have died, but they get regenerated, if that makes sense. So it is a bloodsport, people are. very Borderlands-esque. When you play Borderlands and you die and it'd like, thank you for using our cloning system. Kind of, yeah. I mean that could work. I feel like this is something that would befit a twist. in terms of finding out, I feel like a twist would be nice. So maybe how about, and I'm going to try and engineer a twist while talking. I'm going to try and night Shyamalan in, in, in 60 seconds. So let's say that you are designing, you, are being led by the people. What's happened is in this world, you have an equivalent of Fortnite. So what Fortnite has done. and Fortnite is kind of the game you're playing, but the people in the game has been shut down, servers have been shut down, they don't know what's going on. So what happens is the game has become sentient. The game has looked into what do people like? People seem to like these games where they've go and play blood sports in your wedding. So the people that seem to like these battle royale games, that must be the way to their heart. Okay, let's keep rebuilding it and then the game becomes sentient, you work out that what you are is you are stuck in a video game where the servers got shut off, where the game thinks that the best way to connect with mankind, because it's looking at this piece of culture, which is Fortnite, is to create the greatest battle royale game that's ever lived. And that's why you're this locked in this blood sport of it is looking for the greatest so it can present it to humanity and go, look what we created. So fundamentally, it's a sentient battle royale game that's trying to impress its creators. and the people that are in it are actually real people that have become stuck in it. They are the remains. So what they are, they have the memories of their players. So they are the player avatars. So they're like stuck in the game and they think that they are Susan, John, whatever they are, but they're game attacks. That's all they are. But they have access to all that information because of cookies, because of the generation, because of the way that things hacked into it. So they think they're real. So the twist is you're stuck in the video game. This world with the game makers is still a video game. It's just sentient and it believes that what it's trying to do, it thinks that the most important thing in the world is to have a good battle royale because it thinks that's the most important thing to human culture because of the amount of time people spend on it. So it's a video game within a video game, it's very inception. It's very inception, yes, but I just kind of like the idea that this video game becomes sentient and goes, what do people care about the most? everybody spends all this time on this thing called, everybody spent so much time on me as Fortnite. That must be the way to go. Let's create the greatest battle royale in the world and then everybody will love us. The at the end is that humanity doesn't exist anymore. Yeah, could, maybe it zooms out and what you have is you just have this little box, which is the game sent in, it zooms out and it's just like, no one's there. The world has been abandoned and this poor game is just waiting. It's still waiting for the day where it creates the greatest video game, but it's got no one to show. That's really upsetting. I'm upset by that. sorrowful. Can imagine a little robot thing you meet at the end just going, I cannot wait to show them what you've created and it zooms out and there's just nothing, just desolation. They will enjoy it, I'm sure. were well enjoyed. Yeah, no, I think that could work. Obviously, we made it sort of like a multiplayer game that doesn't really have an ending. Do you know what mean? but it doesn't, doesn't. like that as being the sort of the ending. If if you win a, if your map gets created or if you get, maybe if you get to the highest rank of career and your map gets selected, you win the highest ranking thing, you get that cut scene where it goes, you have created the greatest battle royale map of all time. Hmm. I like it. Maybe both players and mapmakers can uncover clues as you're going through, perhaps. You have your player avatars and you get to that final cut scene. Your map maker goes in, another door opens, the person who won your map goes in. So you experience the final cut scene together, the person that beat your map and the person that made your map. I it. I like it. I'm a fan of that. Shall I sum up? Because I think within 20 minutes we've got a game. Unless there's anything you want to... I think it's lovely. It does, doesn't it? Right, in that case I will sum up and you come up with a name. listeners, what we have there is a... It's not really a base manner of a city builder, it's more sort of... horrific bloodsport creator genre with a of a career mode built in encapsulating this battle royale. set in a game within a game, very inception, the game in question has become sentient and has trapped player avatars within it. Its goal is to recreate or create the best Battle Royale game in the world that it can possibly do in an effort to present it to humanity and win back players to keep playing the game. What this will entail is a choice really where players can choose to be either players in the Battle Royale or the map makers and the map makers will obviously design and create the maps that then the players for the battle royale will then play on. Towards the end of the battle royale you will be able to give the map maker various bits of feedback on how they can make their maps better. If you like their maps, their maps will be promoted. Other people can play and progress and those particular map makers can then gain new assets to make new maps. for new players. As you go on throughout the game, both players and mapmakers will start to receive little tidbits of information that makes them think that perhaps all is not quite right. Because obviously at the beginning you don't actually know at the beginning that you're within a game. And so by the end, mapmakers, when you finally finish the ascension throughout the game, and you create the best possible map that you can. You and the player that beat your map, the player that wins the battle royale on that map, will be treated to a special cutscene which shows that you have, well, unveils that you are within a game and that the game is particularly excited about the map you have created. And lo and behold, it wants to present this map to humanity. The camera will pan out only to notice that humanity is no longer there. It's very... end of an 80s sci-fi movie, incredibly depressing, which I'm all for. And this game is going to be called... Right, I've got three and one of them was stolen by a small film. End game. It's only a small film. only a small film. The other one's called Game Master. Game Master, yes, very nice. the other one's called The Final Game. I like both. Which do you prefer? I... For drama purposes, I like the final game. For general, does what it says on the tin, I like Game Master. So Game Master, I think, is... would only be... you're only talking about a certain part of the play... of the players, because the others are the play... because the others... the Master only feel for end up being players rather than map makers. So I think the last game is a good one. that's a good one considering I didn't even suggest that one. Yes you did. You just hit... sorry, the final game, sorry. What I actually think is this. sorry listeners, Matthew and I don't actually listen to each other. It's firmly established in our friendship. But there you are listeners, that is the final game. That is the third game. That is the fourth game. That is the game on a Tuesday. That is the final game. I think this is console and PC, I think. I think this is console and PC gets many players together. think PC games would probably PC gamers would probably end up being the game masters with the mouse and keyboard to this. they would. But yeah, crossplay obviously, crossplay enabled. So yes, we hope you have enjoyed this episode of the Gaming Blender. Please do leave us a review, please do leave us a comment, please do give us suggestions about what games you would like us to make and we will endeavour to make them. Always. In the meantime, I have been Scott. and I have been mad. I did. Well no, I usually just try and wind you up with I have been a St Bernard. Yes, well done. Keep blending and we shall see you next time. Bye bye. and Bernard Hear Me Raw.