I was really inspired by the Spelunky Daily Challenge, where every day there’s a newly generated map that is identical for everyone, and you all play it and see how far you can get. So I think it’s important from that standpoint, and I think it’s really interesting, too. 'Singleplayer is a really great way to let people make mistakes against the computer, as opposed to fumbling around against an opponent.' And when you have a game as complicated as a card game like Hearthstone, or SpyParty - which is very new and unique - single-player is a really great way to let people make mistakes against the computer, as opposed to fumbling around against an opponent. All of these things, single-player enabled. It eased him in really well, to the point where he decided to go online and see what happened.Īnd because the matchmaker wasn’t prepared for someone who could beat the AI on Expert, he crushed everyone for a while, which gave him confidence. John, my art director, was telling me about his Hearthstone experience: He was just playing the AI, and he kept playing it until he got to the level where the AI was using cards he didn’t have, so he bought a few, and then finally he could beat the AI on Expert. They log into a lobby and their stats are zero wins and zero losses, and they see someone with three thousand of each, so they just log back off. A lot of people don’t realize, since most multiplayer communities aren’t as nice as SpyParty’s, that mentoring is even an option.

Right now your choice is to go online and get creamed/mentored by experienced players. Eventually I’m going to have to focus on the new user experience, and single player is a great way to get people comfortable playing a game. I’ve just been focusing 100 percent on depth. The user experience is totally terrible in SpyParty. Who knows? But I actually started thinking about it and realized that there were interesting aspects to it from a design standpoint.įor example, imagine integrating it with a tutorial.

I’m not sure I would have done it out of fear only. But then, it’s actually interesting to me from a design standpoint, and that’s what gives it legs. So that certainly gets you thinking about it.

I guess there’s two reasons first, yes, it’s partly a realization/fear that a multiplayer-only game, even if it's one-vs-one, is fraught with peril. First of all, why do you want to make a single-player mode for SpyParty? Is it purely to cater to the kind of player who doesn’t want to go online?

Spyparty online