Puzzle Strike and Flash Duel News

Puzzle Strike Sale

First up, Puzzle Strike is on sale for $10 off during December only. The combo with base game + upgrade pack is also $10 off in December. There's also some new stuff you can try in Puzzle Strike, but let me tell you about Flash Duel first.

Flash Duel Previews

Here's the first preview I've seen of the game so far. Pretty positive! He mentions that even those who have Flash Duel 1 should "nab" the 2nd Edition. Well yes, because this is an expansion with 10 new characters. It just so happens that this expansion also contains a second expansion with the Raid on Deathstrike Dragon...and a rework of the base game too...all mysteriously the same price. If anything, I might have goofed up on this $35 price point being too low. Maybe I'll have to raise that later. I just really wanted to give everyone a cheap entry point into the Fantasy Strike universe that actually had all 20 characters.

Here's another kind of preview for you. I put up the card images of the base 10 characters plus the enormous Dragon cards here. The other 10 characters will be revealed a bit later. Man, those Dragon cards are sexy.

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Ok back to Puzzle Strike. I'm testing out some stuff out for the full expansion of Puzzle Strike. You can actually try these things out right now though, with the base set. These aren't official features yet, so there might be problems, but these things probably work pretty well. Feel free to try them out and report back how it went!

New Rule: PANIC TIME

This rule increases the size of the ante as the game goes on. It will have a relatively small effect on most games played by experts, but it will have an enormous effect (to prevent overly long games) on games by new players.

In a 2-player game, the first moment there are two empty stacks in the bank, Panic Time is activated and everyone must ante 2-gems from then on. Even if bank stacks get filled back up from trashing, the game does not return to Normal Time. The first moment there are three simultaneously empty bank stacks, Danger Time is activated and everyone antes 3-gems. The first time four stacks are empty, Deadly Time is activated and everyone must ante 4-gems. Note that if you would ever ante a certain kind of gem that the bank is out of, you must ante it anyway with a stand-in gem of some sort.

For games with 3 or 4 players, the same sort of thing happens. The number of empty stacks needed to activate Panic Time is actually X, where X is the number of players left in the game. X+1, and X+2 empty stacks are when Danger Time and Deadly Time activate. This means in a 4p game, 4 empty stacks will activate Panic Time (ante 2-gems), but once one player is eliminated, there will only be 3 players left and only 3 empty stacks are needed to activate Panic Time at that point. This (combined with the standard rule for Overflow) means that once a player is eliminated, the game is likely to end very soon, so the eliminated player won't be waiting long, if at all.

Midori's Dragon Form is revised to say "Ante a (gem) 1 bigger each turn or discard this chip..."

New Mode: 2 vs. 2 Team Battle Mode!

Teammates share a (normal sized) gem pile, but do not share other resources. Each player has his own hand, bag, and discard pile as usual. If you get +arrow or +$1 or whatever, that goes to you only, not shared with your teammate. Anything that says "you" in the game means "you," so having a Hundred-Fist Frenzy on the table doesn't let your teammate activate it, only you.

Teammates share their action phase. You can each play your actions in any order, so maybe you play roundhouse (and draw from it), then your teammate plays something, then you use Roundhouse's +arrow to play something else.

Teammates share their buy phase. You can make your buys in any order.

Your attacks cannot affect your teammate, but effects that say "all opponents" do hurt both opposing players. The only exception is anything of the form "Each opponent does something to his gem pile" only affects the enemy gem pile one time not two times. (Sneak Attack, Mix-Master, Burning Vigor, and Hex of Murkwood are examples.) If a chip says "next opponent" then you can choose which of your two opponents it hits.

Blue shields operate as usual. You can blue shield a fist that affects you and you can't blue shield one that doesn't. So you can't "save" your teammate with a blue shield on an attack that would only hit him, but in practice blue shields still usually work because you'll often be affected as well. If you become immune to one of those things like Sneak Attack in the previous paragraph, your team's gem pile is safe.

When the opposing team sends gems to your gem pile, you and your teammate can each counter-crash. (I think one of you can, not both. Only one reaction per "event.")

This cooperative, no-elimination way of playing 4-player Puzzle Strike hopefully opens up new doors for those interested in 4p. Maybe especially fun for a girlfriend and boyfriend to team up. ;)

Spectating in Games

I've mentioned before how fighting games are the perfect competitive game for spectators because the action takes place all on one screen. There is no other screen or view to cut to. Also the basics of what's going on generally readable. There are two characters trying to hit each other, and you can see the lifebars and when one guy is knocked out.

Some people responded by saying that the slower pace of Starcraft contributes to it being even better of a spectator game overall. It gives commentators more time to talk about why a decision was smart, or what to look for, when those things can flicker by very quickly in a fighting game.

I recently watched the Starcraft 2 tournament coverage at MLG Providence and at Dreamhack. I have to say it was probably about the best spectating experience for a competitive game I can imagine. I'll qualify that by saying that for me personally, watching a competitive fighting game could be more exciting, but that's because I have enormous knowledge about the specifics. I'm talking about for a more general audience of people who are not extreme experts, I have to admit that the pace of Starcraft really does help tremendously to viewers.

The commentators at those events did extremely well, by the way. So special thanks to Day9, Artosis, tasteless, and the rest. Speaking of Day9, I really have to mention his episode #100. He feels like a kindred spirit who I've known forever after hearing what's practically his life story in that episode. Day9 is the real deal and he's doing e-sports a huge service with his skills right now. (Dear Day9: you know, I'm working really hard on an RTS-themed customizable card game right now. Might be up your alley. And if it isn't, you're still the real deal.)

Back to spectating. Another reason why watching Starcraft is exciting is the drama of hidden information. Now, fighting games have hidden information too, it's just that you probably don't realize it. It takes place at the time scale of 1/60th of a second, and it has to do with one player often not knowing the exact state of his opponent's character at the moment he himself executes a move. The reason he doesn't know is because the human brain can't even process the information and turn it into conscious awareness that quickly, so there are lots of guesses, instincts, and predictions that come into play. And it's all invisible to the untrained eye.

Not in Starcraft though. It's plenty visible and obvious there. Does player2 know that player1 is going for an all-in rush? Or does player2 know that there is a pylon hidden in his base? Player1 is expanding to a new base, but he doesn't realize that a pack of pesky flying Mutalisks is going to wreck it, and so on.

It's more than just hidden information, it's dramatic irony, to take a term from literature. Situational irony is the kind you probably are more familiar with, where the outcome is the opposite of what you intend and expect. Dramatic irony is when the audience knows something that the characters in the story (or the players) don't know. Starcraft is one big ball of dramatic irony. There is so much fuel for exciting commentary based on the abundance of dramatic irony from the fog of war, from build orders, from scouting, and from trickshot plans that players sometimes go for. During all that, we get to see all that hidden info and we have time to soak it in. We see it coming while in a fighting game, we blink and we missed it. (Note: I like watching fighting games, remember, because I can see all that stuff that fast.)

Dramatic irony was also the key ingredient that lead to the rise of poker on television. If you remember, poker wasn't really on tv at all, then suddenly it was everywhere. What changed? Answer: the camera on the hole cards. Once the audience and commentators could see those cards, it created dramatic irony that makes it a lot more exciting to watch.

The Yomi card game benefits from this as well. It's all about mental sparing, deception, and tricks that revolve around hidden information. It takes place at a slow enough pace to enable great commentary. That great commentary is coming from Aphotix, and here's an archive of his stuff, including last week's online tournament. It's amazing how much mileage he gets without even benefiting from dramatic irony, too. So far the casts have hidden the player's hand cards from spectators, but I think they will be even more exciting when spectators can see that info. (We just have to prevent cheating by delaying the broadcast stream, probably.)

Enjoy your Street Fighter, Starcraft, and Yomi spectating. ;)

Yomi Exhibition and Puzzle Strike Expansion Tournament

Today's online Yomi tournament was great to watch, thanks to Aphotix's great commentary. And congratulations to Choke Artist for winning.

Tomorrow morning at 8am Pacific Time, Aphotix will be back, casting an intense first-to-ten, iron man exhibition match. You'll be able to watch it here. (You could also go to www.fantasystrike.com to see it, but the stream will have the cool commentary.)

Also tomorrow is ChumpChange's "Short Notice Puzzle Strike Expansion Tournament." You can sign up here. We can use all the playtesting we can get, so join up and try your craziest strategies, or try your familiar good ones. Again, the tournament will be played online at www.fantasystrike.com. ChumpChange says the winners will be added to a secret list, so that's pretty exciting.

Watch the Yomi "Gobble Master" Tournament Right Now

There's an online Yomi tournament going on right now. Here's the link. Aphotix's excellent match commentary really makes the game come alive. Check it out!

(By the way, these games are being played at www.fantasystrike.com.)

This Week in Puzzle Striking!

So there's a lot going on with Puzzle Strike. First, the Upgrade Pack is a hit, thankfully. Here's a review, and another, and another. Some players think the main point of it are the playmats and screens, which make the whole experience of playing kind of cooler. Other players think the whole point is the set of 30 character chips, rebalanced based on tournament play. Yesterday one player named vivafringe said "Puzzle Strike is finally fun." Ha, I'll choose to take that as a compliment. ;)

Next, here's a french review of Puzzle Strike.

And here's a podcast with Magic: the Gathering creator Richard Garfield and Pro Tour creator Skaff Elias. Too bad Richard fixates on the barely-used mechanic of putting a chip on top of your bag, but he seems to really like the mechanics overall, cool. And of course the asymmetry. And the part where there's a lot of player interaction.

Next, there's the full expansion in the works. You are invited and welcomed to come test it online now, before it's finalized. You can do that at www.fantasystrike.com, then click on "PLAY" and then go to Puzzle Strike. From the character select screen, use the code "shift+b" to enable the expansion characters. We're working on balancing them right now and the more help the better. If you're planning on complaining about something after release, it's better to complain now! Excuse our dust on the website, by the way. We just updated the site with several graphical enhancements, so now there's a mix of a few real parts and many placeholder parts, and clashing color schemes. I'm really excited that we'll be upgrading the website graphics again probably next week to make the matchmaking screen look a ton better.

Speaking of testing, if you're in the tinkering mood, I'll give you some changes you can try out in the base set. These aren't official errata, but they might improve your play experience if you're feeling adventurous:

Secret Move. Cost 1 instead of 3. Gives you +black arrow the turn you play it.
Thinking Ahead. "Put any chips you buy this turn on top of your bag" as opposed to just one chip.
Iron Defense. Costs 4 instead of 5. The part about "you may play the crash gem as if from your hand" works on the current turn as well as future turns.
Gems to Gemonade. Cost 4 instead of 5. Reaction effect changed to: Negate up to three gems sent to you and get +$1 for each negated gem during your next buy phase."

You can remind yourself what all these chips normally do here. (Click on "Puzzle Chips" toward the top.)

Finally, you are encouraged to hold tournaments at your local game stores, or even casual events. We'll eventually have a better way for you to report those results, but for now just let us know in the forums or post about it on our Facebook wall or something. You're also encouraged to run and participate in online tournaments for the expansion, since we need get the balance in shape.

Thanks to all the Puzzle Strikers everywhere!