Casual social game feature draft

Casual social game feature draft

Introduction

This is a rough draft of a feature designed for casual social game like Second Life. This feature is intended for players already familiarized with the game mechanics and it is designed to create an incentive for the players to spend money on the game, socialize with others and invite their friends to the game.

Note that the vampire theme chosen in this particular documents is in no way necessary for the whole concept to work. The narrative part of this feature might as well be a generic VIP setting or something similar. Given that, the vampire theme used here was not chosen by accident – the vampire mythos became quite popular in past few years (the Twilight franchise for example) and it is a great setting for creating semi-closed communities that compete with each other (think Mafia Wars). Also, use of a supernatural vampire motive in a casual social game might generate quite some publicity, if enough PR effort is made.

Become a vampire!

Players can choose to change their avatars, which are human by default, into vampires and become a part of a vampire community, getting access to new, exclusive for vampire players content and becoming a part of or creating their own bloodlines.

Both vampire and human players have to manage a blood resource, which is expended on several occasions and can be transferred between vampires and from human to vampires. Assuming that vampires have at their disposal 100 blood points, humans would have 20 blood points. Of course using this resource brings no harm to vampires or humans. Human players regenerate blood by themselves at a very slow rate.

How to become a vampire?

There are two ways of becoming a vampire. First way is to find a player who has already become a vampire and then convince him to share his blood. This way the changed player becomes a member of his “parent’s” family.

Second way is a bit more complicated – the player wishing to become a vampire first has to purchase using the in-game currency a Tome of Vampirism (or something like that) and then find five human players, which already spent at least few hours on the game, willing to became donors. All they have to do is spend few hours in the game getting some experience in-game, become friends with the vampire wannabe and then confirm their willingness to help him. A player can become a donor only once in a while as his blood resource, which is spent on this occasion (20 points – all of it), regenerates quite slowly.

Note that vampire player has to spend 100 blood points to change someone and as a newborn vampire has no blood resource at his disposal - it has to be acquired from other vampires or humans - “I change you, you change me” scenarios are rather hard to achieve.

Why become a vampire?

There are several reasons for a player to want to become a vampire:

-          access to exclusive content like face expressions and animations (showing off fangs, biting necks, changing into a bat, etc.)

-          access to exclusive areas like vampire-only clubs and meeting places (cemetery, old mansion, etc.) – human players can receive an one time invite to such a place from their vampire friends

-          opportunity to be a part of an elite community

-          opportunity to create your own bloodline by recruiting human players then changing them into vampires and therefore members of your family

-          opportunity to compete with others in a popularity contest (whose family is bigger and cooler?)

-          being a part of a family gives the player access to additional ways of earning in-game cash

Vampire families

Some players will want to become vampires just so they can enjoy all of the game’s content, role play the undead or become a part of a more close-knit community. But some of them will want to become leaders of their communities and compete with other similar minded players. They can do this by creating their own bloodlines and, just like in Mafia Wars, recruit their friends and strangers alike to their side and compete in popularity with other families.

Large enough bloodlines can acquire through their combined wealth and influence their own special areas (havens) which could serve as a visible proof of their status and prestige. Vampire leaders will be able to choose a distinct name for their bloodline and perhaps even a symbol.

Rivalry between families is driven by a struggle for influence and resources. Havens that become property of a particular family can generate in-game cash for all of its members. The more members a family have, the more havens it can have and produce more revenue for its members.  

Invite your friends and make new friends!

Introducing new players to the game is a crucial part of the whole vampire gameplay. Players wishing to change themselves into vampires will encourage their friends to start playing so they can became donors. Vampire players will encourage their friends to start playing so they can strengthen their bloodlines and grow their provider herds.

Organizing player communities into semi-closed groups that make their members feel special and chosen makes bonds between players that more stronger. Common property like family name or family haven encourages players to keep on playing and makes them feel like they matter and belong.

Monetization

Vampire players have to manage carefully their blood resource and spend it wisely on introducing new members to their family and perhaps bartering with other vampire players. There are two sources of blood for vampires.

First one is the obvious one – humans. Vampire players wishing to extend their bloodlines will tend to gather a herd of human providers which will give their blood to the vampire for an invitation to a vampire-only area, promise of being changed into a vampire themselves or for a completely different reason (in-game cash?). Humans regenerate their blood very slowly by playing the game, but this regeneration can be boosted with certain foods and drinks on which players may want to spend money. Second way for a vampire to get some blood is to visit a blood bank and purchase there a blood pack.

By making blood regeneration a more cost effective way of acquiring blood than buying blood packs, the game mechanics creates an additional incentive to socialize with others – vampire players would rather buy food for their human donors than spend their money on blood packs.

Also, buying the Tome of Vampirism for the in-game currency would be quite expensive. which is a great reason to spend money.

Closing comments

This very basic description of an idea for a feature in a casual social game is in no way a complete design, as creating such a document would require much more insight in already planned or implemented features and main game mechanics of the particular game. Also, there is a problem with the blood mechanics that remains to be solved – it would seem that the game would require a constant influx of new players to maintain its human payers to vampire players ratio and if not, the whole system would collapse similarly to a financial pyramid scheme.