Chronic Logic

QuoteFirst off, I think Josiah's clean up job was wrong and unnecessary. We're not in totalitarian dictatorship North Korea here. This is America (or for me, Britain) one of the greatest Democracies in the world, where people fought and died for freedom of speech, including some of my ancestors.  Forums are all about spreading ideas and creativity. Unless something very offensive pops up, then everything in forums should stay. I'm definitely a bit angry about having some of my things deleted, and Norsker little harmless Simpson comment. I thought it was quite funny and actually provoked me to become more creative and think about how Zatikon could be improved. But my mood has definitely changed now.

This will be my last comment on this forum I make, and hopefully some people see it before Josiah deletes it.

When Mongolian was talking about advertising and YouTube (and he is completely right about this game needing more advertisement) I went to YouTube and searched 'Chess Evolved' to see what popped up, for this is how I found Zatikon, by typing these words in Google. I mentioned this in a previous forum comment but maybe it's deleted now. What popped up was Chess Beyond.

I've actually just started playing Chess Beyond. It is like normal Chess however every time you make a move you also move a square on the board. Beyond Chess offers a whole new level of strategy because the board directly influences play throughout the game. This creates a new arsenal of weapons in addition to those already known by chess players. With new strategies comes new terms like Trenching and Boxing. So when you play Beyond Chess you must always be aware of your surroundings – not just where the pieces are at any given time, but where the squares of the board are also. The location of squares directly effects where pieces can maneuver. A key concept of playing Beyond Chess is manipulating the board to your advantage and to your opponent's disadvantage. By isolating his pieces and rendering them useless, you can paralyze your opponent's ability to threaten.

They give a quote on their website from Frederick the Great to his Generals in 1747:

'I approve of all methods of attacking provided they are directed where the enemy's army is weakest and where the terrain favors them the least.'

Then the developers of Chess Beyond add 'Judging from his quote, Frederick the Great probably would have been a great Beyond Chess strategist. Too bad he was born in the wrong century!'

The developer of the game is actually a Marine. He created the concept of a moveable board to more closely reflect modern warfare and to take Chess to a whole new level never before seen. He even played it in Iraq when he was out there fighting!

He states that 'A true test to one's personal ability is to play in an ever changing environment in which you must think, analyse and adapt using your own creative mind.'

The game takes some getting used to but I think it is brilliant and at the moment I think really does deserve the name 'Chess Evolved'. I think you Zatikon developers should take notice of their website and the things they have achieved: http://www.gobeyondchess.com/pages/home.htm

Of course they are feeding off an original game that has always been and still is immensely popular; however they have definitely done some good advertising. First, as already mentioned, they are snugly under YouTube as 'Chess Evolved'. I think you Zatikon Developers should fight for that spot. Also they have developed a Beyond Chess Strategy Guide PDF document to help out beginning players along with an online tutorial. Zatikon definitely needs something similar.  They also set a day and time for people to jump online and play each other. Concerning your tournament idea, this could be a way you could do it. 'Tuesday night 8pm, everybody online to play their tournament game.' If you don't go online at that time and day then you lose. Some players might argue about what happens if they can't make that time on that day. Well real athletes or tournament Chess players have to show up at the venue and play. If they don't then they have to forfeit. However, if you want to be a bit nicer then you can have each player have like a holiday day off or something. So I think this type of thing could definitely work.

And now, I will leave you Zatikon with these last words:

Healthy competition, will power, creativity and freedom of speech has made America one of the greatest countries in the world. Continue those ideas Zatikon Developers and Zatikon could be one of the greatest games ever made in America.

To all you Zatikon players, keep up all your great comments. The Zatikon developers are lucky to have such dedicated players who offer for free such great ideas and feedback.

I wish you all the best for the future

Sean Gainford

I started blogging on the zatikon strategy blogger.  Not sure if I am allowed to give the URL out to people, so I'll let someone more official do that.

Sean, Just start up a new thread.  Ideally, he should have moved the irrelevant discussion to a new thread, but I dont see it being a big deal.  It's still more important to keep the discussion focued on target just for this thread specifically.  3 pages long, someone is already going to get the points lost anyhow.  Keep in mind, I'm just another Zatikon player, so I have no bias except to see the discussion move forward.  

PS - I love random comments in most threads
PPS - Please feel free to remove this comment.
PPPS - not enough people read forums anyhow, heh.

BTW, would you guys ever consider how to redesign some game aspects to be be more simple.  More specifically, how unit information could be displayed.  I'm not actually asking for anything to be coded differently, but displayed differenetly (but maybe that's difficult).  For example: it's really difficult to see as a new player the range a channeler can hit, which is a lot!  That and some of the unit stats are very confusing like # of actions 2/2 movement? etc.    

sorry for not being specific enough, NOT EMAIL ADVERTISING.  Email banner advertising!  Which, please ring in, must be one of the all-time best spots for advertising next to google.com banner advertising for trigger words.  But, this is only my speculations. I dont have data to back anything up.  Gaming conventions would seem to be the best bet if someone wanted to put together CD's and print material.  I can even make all the graphics pro bono if you guys are interested.

Can someone send me a private message so I can start writing as the strategy gamer? 

Sgainford, I was really hoping to hear you elaborate on the part where you get the girl.  But, your story reminds me of a typical night out in most European cities.  Maybe it's just a universal thing for young guys to be cocky all the time. 

EEP, why would a game be called trash   It's a cool name too, but if unsuccessful it's going to live up to its name..

Lunaraia, are you not a blogger too?  Or is this something else?  You are one of the most frequent posters.   PS - I am more then happy to always help out with any in-game question. Best way to reach me is private message in these forums.

I forgot to reiterate again: please, please don't develop tournaments yet.  Get players first, keep players playing longer, then it's a viable thought.  But to do both of these, many more changes would need to occur.

Thanks for the long reply sgainford.  I can't stress how wonderful it is to read long well thought out responses. I try not to be detailed with my ideas, therefore letting the developers deviate how they please.  But, I will get more specific:

Trainer mode:  I believe, the board would always be setup in the same exact position with the same exact pieces.  That way you can see what happens when you attack the piece beside it, diagonal, 2 away, 5 away, cluster attacks, how much damage per unit, etc.  The unit would damage the piece and then the scenario would end possibly with some text showing how much damge it dealt and to which pieces.  It really doesn't even need to display that kind of information as newbies just like to click-click and think/ask later.  If you want Zatikon or any game to succeed it must be made for the masses, aka made for people with no attention span and made to be enjoyed by morons.  

Boss mode is also a great hook.  Look, yellow pieces are 'special' pieces that only the AI can use.  Why not just invent new pieces that only the AI can access that equal yellow pieces.  Simply put, they would appear as units in your unit list but worth over 1000 pts ( or possibly hidden as some kind of unlockable). But seeing a big ass dragon or monsters is much cooler then seeing a yellow piece which i have to click and read all the 3 powers it has and according stats.  DONT make players read!

Yes, I can say I have mastered a big majority of this game in a means of a few months.  Chess would take years, but chess is unfortunately about memorization and I'm not interested to learn the brilliance of the moves beyond in the exchange of that kind of  dedication.  On the contrary, I'm addicted to seeing brilliant games that take little time but are very thought out.  In Zatikon there is a clear hierarchy with many deviations, but a clear foundation is seen.  Simply put, Zatikon has not developed enough units (or made too many) that it can't stray far enough away from calling it a range game.   Units like the warrior, doppelganger, barracks, summer and artificer have helped move it away from being a range game, but the other core values are still under rated.   I have much longer explanations upon this, but Zatikon is still an amazing game and I'd rather focus on what it needs to succeed.

I know I have missed some more core points for what Zatikon needs, so let me try to rehash (and hopefully I don't bore everyone with my repetition).

1.   More Advertising/Marketing. (with budget: gmail/yahoo email advertising), (grassroots: marketing at game/anime conventions, revamping and re-advertising on gamer sites like jayisgames.com, free CD's of game handing around campuses across USA)

2.   Made simpler. (trainer mode, cleaner GUI, easy to follow website for information via you tube videos)

3.   More newbie friendly (the strategy players are the ones that stick around but the mass audience comes in like chess players and people who will never think about strategy)

4.   New look.  At some point, it might even have to be marketed as a new game, to grab the attention of them all.  Here is a screenshot of a new GUI I designed long ago: http://www.biyte.com/zatikon/index.jpg

PS - email = staypuft242@yahoo.com
PPS - typing long entrees in this forum is very difficult now (keeps scrolling wierdly).

Strategy or Experienced Blogger.  Which is needed more?  I'm typically pretty lengthly in my answers so perhaps strategy suits me more?

Long time ago, I actually made a crucial reccomendation: Trainer mode.  Yes, this game is VERY OVERWHELMING.  I think it actually has a very negative effect on an average player's mind.  I don't know how to "dumb down" the game, but if there was a (1) good youtube like tutorial and (2) a mode of play where you could see how each piece moves, attacks and such.  In this mode, there would only be 1 piece on the entire board.  A testing zone.  Even after saying all this I feel I am underegagerating that this game needs to be more newbie friendly.  So it's a combination of

1. Cleaner/simpler GUI
2. Test zone to see how each piece moves/clicks
3. YouTube-like video tutorials
4. Other?

Tournaments really seem like a note worthy idea, but I don't see much point due to lack of player pool.  Unless tournaments can all be self made inside the game, it's really too much to see player's setup matches.  If you want a SUPER easy way to setup your own tournaments, this site is free:
http://www.bracketmaker.com

Also, I think Zatikon could use more supportive things to help use your money with.  Things that help edit/cnhange your avatar.  See this game's model for reference: http://www.kongregate.com/games/urbansquall/battalion-arena

And now Marketing/Advertising.  The chess angle definately seems like a note worthy idea, but what are big name chess sites that would help let zatikon be advertised on?  Small numbers can help in readvertising on game sites like www.jayisgames.com and www.rockpapershotgun.com But, I suspect the big ways come from spending big budgets on things like yahoo mail/gmail advertising, other popular gaming sites like warcraft, and elsewise.  If someone really wanted to reach a big audience, I would also strongly reccomend sending people to gaming or animation like conventions with free CD's of zatikon on a disk.  It's a great way to spread awarement to a game.

Before I get ideas, how do I become a blogger?  Are you providing a URL for us to blog, or you want us to create/set it all up via any particular blog site.

If you haven't guessed it by now, Zatikon's biggest problem is lack of players.  This means, the game needs to support more 1 player modes and less development on the 2v2 mode (despite how much I love it).  A simple way to do this is on top of the normal single player mode a new single player mode could be created: boss mode.  Boss mode could work in many ways, but the simplest is the mode ends when the 'boss' is dead.  Depending upon your level, the 'boss' would have multiple powers.  Also, boss mode should mean a different initial startup position from the AI.  Possably it starts out with all its units on the board or a much more limited # of units kinda deal and more structures possably.  If this idea is too much work to develop, try to make something more similiar to single player, but set it up as a new single/coop player mode.

Due to the fact too many units are uber powerful in the game, a mirror random mode would also help freshen up the game too.  Either way, it's clear the game needs another mode!

To me it's always strange to see my favorite/best games on the net with the fewest people.  So how did a game so almost perfect like Zatikon fail?

I realise the game has a small demographic, but I find this a cop-out excuse.  Or was it truly too small a demographic?  Are strategy gamers really that few to count?  Was there not enough advertising-marketing?  How is a game with no budget supposed to get more exposure?  Was the game too complicated?  Was the game too difficult to pick up?  Was the community not connected enough?  Or is this a diagnoses that too many people like lame real time strategy games?  Or are people so shallow that they can't get past graphics?  

If someone could shed better light, greatly appeciated or please point to strategy games that have had better success that are TURN BASED or in a similiar vein.  Is there anything that can be done to help save the game and/or find better solutions for the future?  Also, I thought Zatikon was going to advertise more, what happened?

Sycophant will get raped vs channeler. Lol.

Back to the warrior.  Firstoff,sergeant needs to be tweeked above all anything else.  Warrior clearly needs tweeking. why?  Because aside of the doppleganger, no other unit is strong in melee.  And why is dopple strong? because you always have a backup dopple, so it's almost like it's not a mellee unit. 

Anyhow, warrior needs simple changes as the concept of it is perfect.  It needs again either (A) 1 or 2 more HP (B) it costs $150 and maybe 1 less HP (C) 4 actions and no armor. (D) maybe gets -1 damage (like serpeant) if didn't perform any actions this turn.