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Archives 2016

Exploit: Zero Day Update to 0.23.0 - Scryp Galore!

Exploit: Zero Day Update to 0.23.0 - Scryp Galore!

We've updated Exploit: Zero Day as part of our Alpha Two phase of development.

Changes:

  • Scryp implementation for solving home cluster systems.
    • Players will earn scryp when playing systems in others' home clusters.
    • The creators of home cluster systems get a kickback when other players solve them.
  • Fix system timer ...

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The Troubled Morality of Hacktivism

Exploit: Zero Day is a game about hacktivism. We cast players into the role of hacktivists fighting for justice against monolithic corporations and governments. In doing so, we portray hacktivism as necessary, effective, and even (to some extent) glamorous. But to treat it too lightly would be to ignore the ...

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DevOps in Game Dev: (Blameless) Retrospectives

DevOps in Game Dev: (Blameless) Retrospectives

(This is part 3 of a series on applying devops principles and practices to game development. The main post is here and all posts can be found under this tag.)

In our post on devops philosophies, we emphasized the continuous process of learning and revising, and said that a good place for that to happen is in retrospective (or post-mortem) meetings.

So what is a retrospective?

...

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Setting Rewards for Player-Created Puzzles

Our browser-based puzzle game about hacktivism, Exploit: Zero Day, has two major components: Jobs and player-created puzzles. Jobs are what a traditional MMO would call PVE challenges; they're story crafted by us, which you play through alone. Player-created puzzles, on the other hand, are currently the closest thing we have to PVP challenges, although in our case the goal isn't really to defeat the other player but to give them an interesting challenge.

We're currently developing currency mechanics that will serve as an extra incentive for players to create puzzles and solve other players' puzzles (we call puzzles "systems," since they represent computer systems in the game's fiction). Players will be able to earn "scryp" by solving puzzles or having puzzles in their home cluster solved, which they can spend to make their home cluster more attractive and challenging. A big question arises, however. How do we set these rewards to encourage people make the best systems they can?

...

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DevOps in Game Dev: The Philosophy

DevOps in Game Dev: The Philosophy

(This is part 2 of a series on applying devops principles and practices to game development. The main post is here and all posts can be found under this tag.)

If nothing else about this series proves directly useful to you, take this one thing home:

Don't get stuck in a local maximum.
Michael DeHaan, creator of Ansible

Keep moving and keep improving.

Very often, we find a system for ourselves that works and stick with it. We just get used to things that are initially annoying or rough, even if we know there might be a “fix” for it. As a result, we accept failure in some areas, telling ourselves “that's just how it is.”

We shouldn't just accept those irritants and move on. We should continuously reassess whether those need to continue to be rough spots.

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