Gamasutra - Features - "Postmortem: Nayantara's Star Chamber"

Focused vision - Focusing the design down one clearly plotted path from start to finish resulted in a game with strength of clarity and identity. On my previous project, I had run into issues with certain producers and executives wanting the game to go one direction, while others on the design team wanted the game to go in another direction. The result was an arguably muddy finished product. With Star Chamber, I knew exactly the kind of game I wanted to build, and while some of the details of the design changed along the way, the main vision never strayed.

Even though I was working alone, I did write a design document, but it was a relatively minor chore. It was small and succinct, not written for others, but rather as a sanity check and a roadmap for myself. I wanted to convince myself that this game looked good on paper before fully committing to the arduous programming needed. It wasn't being used to pitch the game to a publisher, because I felt that spending energy to convince a publisher to fund Star Chamber would have been a fruitless expenditure of energy, especially because I had virtually no contacts with publishers.

Early prototype - A playable version at the three-month stage allowed me to spot some problems with the initial design and revise it accordingly. This resulted in less time being wasted implementing or worrying about certain game mechanics, since I worked out problems with them using a prototype version. For example, I discovered that there were plenty of mechanics to work with and plenty of fun to be had, without personal combat mechanics for when opposing heroes ended up at the same planet.

Development contracting - Contracting some of the development work out and using creative payment schedules allowed the very tightly budgeted game, while remaining a one-person vision, to be a competitive commercial product, with better features than I could have developed totally alone. I signed graphics artist Lee Moyer onto the project early so I knew all along that the artwork would be do-able. A lucky break happened when, after the deal with NIOGA fell through (see below), Aaron Walker became available as a programmer to help with the server design and implementation. On the other hand, we had an unlucky break when Keith Baker, about to start helping with back story and flavor text, was suddenly needed elsewhere, as he made the top three and subsequently won the Wizards of the Coast Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting search contest with his Eberron entry. After launch, I hired two additional contractors for helping with server maintenance, technical support, and improving the game's website with important post-launch features, such as improved payment services and web-based trading.

Alpha and beta testing - Long, meticulous early testing periods allowed players to acquire deep understanding of the gameplay, and they were then able to provide well-informed feedback that was invaluable in balancing the game. Alpha testing carried on for about four months, and beta testing for another five months.

When beta testing started, within a day, some players started making kneejerk balance proclamations without fully understanding the gameplay. Their comments were often contradictory, for example: "Androids are far too powerful" vs. "Android ships are way too expensive." It quickly became obvious that it was going to take a while to let the players sort out their evaluations, by simply letting them play lots of games. So, I decided to mostly ignore balance reactions for the first couple weeks, and instead concentrated on bug reports and interface feedback. One example of beta tester feedback contributing to an improved interface was that players weren't happy with the collection manager being a separate area from the chat lobby. The end result is that players can enter the main chat area and then switch to collection mode, allowing them to build decks or make trade proposals while also participating in the lobby chat.

The long beta period was crucial for a healthy gaming environment, even though I had not expected testing and fine-tuning to take that long. If beta had only lasted a month, the game simply would have been terrible. But with long, committed testing periods, modeled after the Blizzard mentality of "ship when it's done and fun", we were able to achieve deep, balanced gameplay that has helped foster a small but strong community.

Low maintenance and continuing development costs - This means that Star Chamber doesn't need to achieve massive numbers of players to break even and continue to move forward. Being a turn-based game, the bandwidth bill for the production servers is quite low. The majority of the bandwidth that we pay for is for the website, for players downloading the client, forums and web trading. Actually, the Star Chamber server at launch was running on a friend's machine in his basement, and only after amassing sufficient customers did I have enough money to buy a rack server and put it into a professional hosting facility.

Diverse purchasing options - The range of payment options we implemented allow different types of players to get into the game at their own pace. The game client is free to download, and trial players can get started with five different sample decks on a fixed map. There's enough gameplay in the sample games to get players excited about buying in and collecting their own cards. Purchase options vary from $5.99 for a few packs, all the way up to $49.99 for a box of 36 packs and 6 event tickets. There's an optional $5.99 monthly subscription that gives players special perks like promo cards, enhanced web trading, and the ability to play in special tournaments. Many casual players will just buy in for $20 to $50, and that purchase provides months of gameplay. It is not uncommon for some hardcore players to spend hundreds of dollars over the course of many months. This, intentionally, doesn't buy them raw power as much as improved versatility. Therefore, where the casual player might be able to build competitive decks for three races, the hardcore collector can build a deck for each of the races. Players are free to buy and sell their cards in the secondary market, something that Nayantara stays out of.

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