Week Six

Hello hello, week six was just lovely!

First off, I finally finished that horribly frustrating game from the previous weeks, only to move on to another even more challenging game, ha ha. This time, however, we are taking a slightly different approach. This game was actually assigned for me and max to work together on, since now we not only had to write the code to make the game function, but we actually are working on the math involved that will eventually make the game pay however much we want it to. To clarify, for the other games we’ve done, all the math and every detail about the game was already done by someone else, and we just had to write the code that accomplished whatever the game said to do. Now, most of the game has already been coded, and we actually have to find some way for the game to pay in a specific way that appears exciting to the player, even though on average they’re losing money. This involves a lot more math than coding, as we have several different points that we can tune to make slight changes in how the game works. At this point, there’s honestly more guess work at play than anything else, but it’s definitely really fun to take this approach. Sorry if what I just explained didn't completely make sense, feel free to ask questions in the comments so I can clarify wherever there's confusion.

As for the Facebook game data, there wasn't much to do this week, so I guess we got a break from it for a little while~~

With this latest game, I’m really starting to get a feel for how the games are really designed and how they accomplish the goal of appearing profitable to the player while sneakily taking all their money (essentially). The bonus feature of this game is designed to make the player feel like they’re progressing quickly by giving them higher chances to win big while they have  a low score, as well as they are almost out of spins, but as soon as the player begins to get close to the jackpot scores, the chances quickly drop to where it is almost impossible to actually achieve it, giving the player hope without granting them any reward. In the process of figuring out the math behind this process, I felt almost like an evil mastermind, trying to find the best way to give people hope without them ever having a real chance... and I kinda enjoyed it… ;)