Highest Rated Comments


StudioWumpus42 karma

To explain to everyone else: Goats are the currency in our game.

Short answer: Because they are charming as hell.

Long answer: They actually started out as gold bars which later evolved into silver coils. But we wanted to be as historically accurate to the Sumerian culture as possible, so we introduced the idea of trading goats. Goats were a lot more fun to explain when teaching the game, so we stuck with them.

  • Sig

StudioWumpus16 karma

Most of our inspiration came from turn-based board games like Catan, Agricola, or Lords of Waterdeep--probably my biggest surprise during development was learning just how much making things real-time would affect the constraints of the design. Probably the biggest concept I’ve learnt from this project is the idea of thinking time as a resource--since Sumer is a strategy game it’s going to be the player with the best strategy who wins, but every moment you spend thinking during the real-time segments of the game is a moment the other players are getting a lead on you.

Our early builds of the game suffered from two main problems related to this: way too many moving parts and not nearly enough downtime.

The moving parts issue was fairly simple to handle--we just had to keep streamlining and streamlining the game until it was as slim and elegant as we could make it. Early versions of the game involved such elements as workers with different ability scores and talents or upgradable buildings. All this proved to be far too much to hold in your head in a real time game, so we took them out. Every game has a golden zone where there’s enough complexity that things feel rich and strategically deep while still being effortless to hold in your head and we found that for real-time games that golden zone was significantly more streamlined than in turn based board games.

The downtime issue was a little bit trickier--we found that people were having a lot of trouble thinking strategically while the game was running. Every second of thought you had was a second you were falling behind, and it just made the entire experience very stressful and made it way more important that you were always in motion than that you were thinking ahead. Our eventual solution was to break the game into ‘days’--during each day you get a certain number of actions you can take before you have to go back to bed and wait for the next day to start.

Each morning you would be able to look at the ziggurat and plot out your moves that turn without any time pressure on you. Then, once everyone confirmed that they were ready to start the day, there would be a mad rush to place all of your workers in the shops you wanted before returning to bed. This worked out great--the game still rewarded quick strategic thinking (inevitably your plan would need to be adjusted on the fly as the day played out and rooms got filled up), but also gave you times to clear your head and analyze the situation. By giving the players low-pressure downtime we let the intense moments be more intense without threatening to burn the players out and let the less intense moments be used for such vital activities as planning ahead and talking trash.

--Misha

StudioWumpus12 karma

True. We typically call it a digital board game - we thought we’d mix it up a bit with the description here. The “board game” part isn’t just the mechanics, though - it’s also about the experience. Just like a board game, Sumer is about interacting with your friends. You’re messing with each other’s strategies, outsmarting each other in the auction, and so on. It’s a social experience.

If you’re interested in a game that properly mixes physical and digital elements, check out Fabulous Beasts: http://playfabulousbeasts.com/

We think they’re so cool that we’re actually doing a crossover with them! In addition to our normal set of more Sumerian animal icons, we have a new set based on the Fabulous Beasts. These icons actually come out of their frames, which was inspired by how Fabulous Beasts bridges the physical and digital worlds.

-- Josh

StudioWumpus8 karma

1) The game was initially inspired by our love of modern board games and local multiplayer video games. We saw that they had never really been combined into a single experience.

Our biggest inspiration was M.U.L.E., a game from 1983 by Dani Berry. It's an amazing mix of action and strategy that's just super different from anything we'd seen. We adapted our auction mechanic directly from there.

Our worker placement mechanic was most directly inspired by Lords of Waterdeep, a board game set in the world of Dungeons & Dragons. Another influence was Caylus, the original worker placement game.

As for video games, we found The Yawhg super inspiring in terms of just having a different take on local multiplayer. The aesthetics of 7 Grand Steps somewhat inspired our style. Indie games like TowerFall, Nidhogg, and more recently Duck Game got us excited about local multiplayer action titles in the first place.

2) Actually, the bidding isn't anonymous - the excitement comes from the fact that it's in real time. Players are constantly adjusting their bids. You change your bid by moving your head left and right across the screen. When time's up, the player furthest to the right wins the bid.

Because it's in real time, you can fake out your opponents. You can jump way out ahead at first, then suddenly drop back at the end to stick them with an item you don't want at a high price. Or you can hang back and surge forward. Or just move around rapidly to keep them guessing!

3) Good question :) The designer who's answering this, Josh, is a competitive Smash 4 player. Honestly, I just find Lucina the most fun character to use. I also usually feel like when I lose in tournament, it's because I was outplayed - not because it was unwinnable. If I felt like she was truly hindering me, I might eventually switch, but I haven't hit that level.

Lucina is generally considered a low tier character, though she's moved up since some recent patches. I think she's underrated. In particular I think she's very nearly as good as Marth, and there have been some quite successful Marth players (Pugwest and Mr. E come to mind). I think if someone equally skilled and dedicated played Lucina, they could achieve similar results. Hopefully I can be that person!

-- Josh

StudioWumpus4 karma

Inanna was indeed the most powerful Mesopotamian goddess. She ruled over several critical domains, including fertility, agriculture, and war. It’d be hard to come up with a list of three things more fundamental to the security of an ancient people.

She was specifically the patron goddess of Uruk. This was one of the first cities ever built, and it was the city that Gilgamesh ruled. This grants it a unique place in the history of human culture, since the Epic of Gilgamesh is generally considered the first great work of literature. Inanna herself appears in the Epic, sending the Bull of Heaven to rampage through the city.

The only male deity to possibly rival her in popularity and importance was Enlil, the god of royalty who provided counsel to kings. We originally planned to have four other gods in the game - Enlil, the mountain mother Ninhursag, the oceanic craftsman Enki, and the heavenly father Anu - but decided to cut it down to just Inanna to give the game a better narrative focus. Instead of pleasing an array of gods, it’s just Inanna.

-- Josh