GEMCRAFT: CHASING SHADOWS
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About the Game
Gemcraft: Chasing Shadows (GCS) is a tower defense game released by Game in a Bottle in August 2015. The game's distinctive mechanics arise from its namesake crafting system: 9 different gem colors each offer a unique power, and these colors can be combined to create hundreds of distinct gem types. Further, each gem can be used and re-used to activate dozens of features on the battlefield, resulting in a deeply complex system that rewards experimentation. As of June 2017, GCS has received Overwhelmingly Positive reviews from 1,400 Steam users.
Gemcraft: Chasing Shadows (GCS) is a tower defense game released by Game in a Bottle in August 2015. The game's distinctive mechanics arise from its namesake crafting system: 9 different gem colors each offer a unique power, and these colors can be combined to create hundreds of distinct gem types. Further, each gem can be used and re-used to activate dozens of features on the battlefield, resulting in a deeply complex system that rewards experimentation. As of June 2017, GCS has received Overwhelmingly Positive reviews from 1,400 Steam users.
Busted: No traps, shrines, talisman, or endurance mode
The original challenge for GCS was to complete every level on every difficulty with broad restrictions for both the tactical layer (no traps, shrines, or amplifiers) and the strategic layer (no skills, talisman, or endurance mode). This would strip away much of the game's complexity, leaving behind only towers, gems, and walls to combat the enemy waves.
With these minimal tools, the dominant tactic is to use walls to funnel all monsters into a single path which traverses past two towers: one to target the weakest monsters, and the other to finish off whatever makes it past the first tower. The two diagrams below show how these structures can create an effective killing field.
The original challenge for GCS was to complete every level on every difficulty with broad restrictions for both the tactical layer (no traps, shrines, or amplifiers) and the strategic layer (no skills, talisman, or endurance mode). This would strip away much of the game's complexity, leaving behind only towers, gems, and walls to combat the enemy waves.
With these minimal tools, the dominant tactic is to use walls to funnel all monsters into a single path which traverses past two towers: one to target the weakest monsters, and the other to finish off whatever makes it past the first tower. The two diagrams below show how these structures can create an effective killing field.
While this tactic is sufficient for early levels, monster stats eventually begin to scale quickly enough that the player is forced to employ more resources to keep up. Whenever progress stalled, one constraint would be removed, systematically adding features as they became necessary:
- After 138 battles out of 527 (26%), skills were added. Of the 25 skills available, only 9 were used to increase damage output.
- After 511 battles (97%), amplifiers were added.
- After 525 battles (99%), traps were added.
In the later levels, it becomes necessary to set up a "mana farm" in the early waves in order to be able to afford a sufficiently powerful kill gem to handle the monsters in the final waves. Although the orange mana leeching gem performs best when placed in a trap, all standard levels can be still completed without using this structure. Only two bonus levels, V16 and V19, strictly require the player to use traps, as shown in the image below.
At no point was it ever necessary to use the talisman, shrines, or endurance mode to make progress.
At no point was it ever necessary to use the talisman, shrines, or endurance mode to make progress.
Out of 527 battles, only the 2 circled stages require traps.
Design Analysis
There are a number of systems in GCS that are designed with safeguards to prevent abusive strategies. For example, the number of points required to increase a skill is proportional to the current level of that skill, and unspent points increase the player's starting mana pool. Together these constraints ensure that mindlessly pouring points into a favorite skill will quickly reach diminishing returns.
Despite thoughtful constraints such as these, the vast majority of the game can be completed using only a small fraction of the available resources and possible tactics. Thankfully, the game compiles a vast archive of statistics on the player's actions -- monsters killed, mana expenditure, XP gained on each field, and so on. This archive can help explain why the minimalist tower-focused approach is so effective, and how the game can be rebalanced to encourage more diverse playstyles.
What insights are revealed by the statistics archive?
The graphs below illustrate how much mana was spent on the various types of gems. The graph on the left breaks down mana expenditure by gem color. The graph on the right aggregates this data into categories: critical hit, bloodbound, chain hit, and poolbound grouped together as "damage output" gems; armor tearing, suppressing, poison, and slowing as "weakening" gems; and mana leeching as an "economy" gem.
There are a number of systems in GCS that are designed with safeguards to prevent abusive strategies. For example, the number of points required to increase a skill is proportional to the current level of that skill, and unspent points increase the player's starting mana pool. Together these constraints ensure that mindlessly pouring points into a favorite skill will quickly reach diminishing returns.
Despite thoughtful constraints such as these, the vast majority of the game can be completed using only a small fraction of the available resources and possible tactics. Thankfully, the game compiles a vast archive of statistics on the player's actions -- monsters killed, mana expenditure, XP gained on each field, and so on. This archive can help explain why the minimalist tower-focused approach is so effective, and how the game can be rebalanced to encourage more diverse playstyles.
What insights are revealed by the statistics archive?
The graphs below illustrate how much mana was spent on the various types of gems. The graph on the left breaks down mana expenditure by gem color. The graph on the right aggregates this data into categories: critical hit, bloodbound, chain hit, and poolbound grouped together as "damage output" gems; armor tearing, suppressing, poison, and slowing as "weakening" gems; and mana leeching as an "economy" gem.
The two graphs paint a clear picture: the vast majority of mana was spent on crafting gems with high damage output. But is this optimal? Another statistic helps to answer that question: out of 2,910,594 monsters killed over the course of the game, 64% were killed by a single tower shot. Considering the consistency with which damage output gems can eliminate monsters in a single hit, it is unclear why the player would be motivated to use the 4 weakening gems or the trap structure that increases their effectiveness.
What changes can be made to encourage more diverse mana expenditure?
What changes can be made to encourage more diverse mana expenditure?
- Consolidate armor and health regeneration into a single variable, perhaps called "energy". This would open up a wide range of possibilities for designing enemies that discourage one-hit kill tactics. For example, killing a "breeder" enemy would release a number of spawnlings that is proportional to the amount of energy the breeder had when it was killed.
- Following from the above, combining the armor tearing and suppressing gems into a single type would open a slot for a new gem type. A natural extension of the mana leeching gem concept is an XP leeching gem. This gem would provide minimal utility within a single battle, but this would be strongly counterbalanced by its long-term benefits measured over the course of the entire game.
- Introduce a burrowed enemy which cannot be directly targeted by towers. While susceptible to area-of-effect damage, this threat would be most effectively countered by building traps. If the player already plans on building traps to deal with burrowed enemies, they may be encouraged to fill their traps with weakening or economy gems in order to get the most value out of their investment.
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Summary
With 9 gem colors, 25 skills, dozens of map features, and hundreds of unique levels, Gemcraft: Chasing Shadows presents a broad palette for experimentation. However, the game does not do enough to encourage diverse playstyles, and can be completed using a very narrow set of tactics and resources.
To address this, we examined the wealth of player data that the game records, and used this data to identify key balancing weaknesses. A variety of new features were suggested which would encourage broader problem solving, while still adhering to the strong theme and smooth difficulty progression that the game already provides.
With 9 gem colors, 25 skills, dozens of map features, and hundreds of unique levels, Gemcraft: Chasing Shadows presents a broad palette for experimentation. However, the game does not do enough to encourage diverse playstyles, and can be completed using a very narrow set of tactics and resources.
To address this, we examined the wealth of player data that the game records, and used this data to identify key balancing weaknesses. A variety of new features were suggested which would encourage broader problem solving, while still adhering to the strong theme and smooth difficulty progression that the game already provides.