Hello and Welcome

   Hello! I'm Drew Dunaj, a 23 year old game designer from New Jersey. Welcome to my personal blog, 8Points!

   I plan on using this blog to chronicle my adventures as a game designer. I'll be giving regular updates on my two current projects - Clepto and Decoys - as well as any other ideas that come to me. I also intend to write about the games I'm playing, and games in general where it strikes me. I basically started this blog for exposure. Everything I've read or heard about networking says I need a website, and I agree that this will be a great way to introduce myself to the world.


Why I Love Video Games
   Games are a great way to challenge yourself in new ways. Video games in particular, with their detailed aesthetics, can drop you into a new world with unique and exciting challenges. My favorite games let me break traditional linear storytelling rules by taking that world in at my own pace. And while I would like to see more video games with non-linear narratives, I cannot deny what they bring to traditional linear narrative.
   Games, with their unique mechanic of interactivity, have the potential to tell more compelling stories than those of other traditional mediums. Giving players the opportunity to interact with characters and environments creates a more intimate relationship between them. Whether these stories are linear or non-linear, embedded or implied, it is that intimacy that distinguishes them.

   That being said, I haven't designed a game that lives up to my own narrative ideals. Rather, as a young, fledgling designer with much to learn, I've designed simple games meant to create interesting challenges.


Clepto
   Clepto is a stealth action multiplayer game about shoplifting. It started as a design exercise in my Fundamentals of Game Design course back in 2010, but last year I decided to make it a reality. Up to four people play in a top-down 2D department store trying to steal as much as they can without getting caught by the staff. The core mechanic was about dropping or throwing items that you took off shelves to manipulate NPCs who would break their patrol route to put an item on the ground back where it belonged. It involved a meter that rose as players were seen doing suspicious things, which would effect the NPC patrols. Unfortunately, my weak programming skills are keeping me from finishing a digital proof-of-concept. I've recently decided to put Clepto on the back-burner in favor of honing my design skills in the form of Decoys.

Decoys
   Decoys is a stealth strategy board game with symmetrical player experiences. I wanted to design a stealth board game without the common and obvious mechanic of having separate game spaces that players hide from one another in an effort to represent sneaking. What I came up with is reminiscent of Chris Hecker's Spy Party.
   I won't get too into it in this post, but there's two teams of three uniquely marked pieces. Players secretly pick a piece to be their spy. The objective is to move your spy to different objective points on the board, and then to the exit. If a player thinks they know which of their opponent's pieces is their spy, they can reveal their own spy and attack the suspicious piece. If they were right, they win! If not, the game continues, presumably with swift punishment from their opponent. The core mechanic is the movement, which is handled with points. On your turn you have three movement points. It costs one movement point to move any one of your pieces one square in any direction. The idea here is that movement will convey emphasis and interpreting that emphasis will be the key to sussing out the spies. 

   Thank you for taking the time to read! I plan on my next couple of posts being in-depth looks at Clepto and Decoys. I will be attending GDC 2013, with Decoys in tow, so if you are too, keep your eyes peeled for me!