Noble Flame Xi-Rho: Buyer Friends - Designer Commentary 01

This started out as a thread on Twitter, but I thought it would be useful to also have it documented here.

Noble Flame Xi-Rho: Buyer Friends is a hack of Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands for the #Rhymerbrands game jam where you have to design a Firebrands hack with a title that rhymes with Firebrands. 

I was initially quite stumped on what kind of game I wanted to make for the jam as I didn't really like any of the rhyming names I could come up with e.g. Pyrelands, Briarhands. I almost went with Choir Friends, but couldn't get excited about the concept.

I decided to focus on Buyer Friends, because it was a transposition of the consonants in Firebrands and I like that shit. I still wasn't too excited about it, thinking it'd be something about being fellow merchants, until I stumbled upon the idea to make it about mechs. Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands is about playing ace mech pilots who fight and flirt and fall in love, like in so many mecha anime, so making the hack be about fans of mecha anime interacting in that way felt right. It felt like it RHYMED.

The phrase "Buyer Friends" led me to focus on the subculture of Gunpla builders and collectors (which is honestly why I love game jam restrictions, I don't think I would have gone this way naturally). I wrote up an initial pitch quickly and I was fired up about the concept (you'll see I ended up toning down the obnoxious styling of Xi-Rho into ξ-ρ since it kinda lookes like E-p if you just glance at it).

I almost never do this, but I was excited about making a cover image and ended up making one before I finished writing up the rest of the game. I wanted it to feel like a screencap of an old anime, superimposed with a notification element from something like Discord or Slack.

This image became my lodestar. It's a game about being a fan and collector of plastic model kits of a long-running mecha anime franchise and interacting with other fans in an online community. Looking at the cover reminded me of the feeling I wanted to evoke. It should feel like you're messaging friends in a group chat while you're watching the latest episode or rewatching episodes of the series. Friends that you can have obscure in-jokes with, who could give you advice on what models to start out with or buy next.

With this aesthetic in mind, I re-named the games and scenes from Firebrands into Channels, as if you were selecting which channel or subforum you'd be interacting with (which do have their own sub-rules in online communities). You'd pick specific channels to interact with and your mode of interaction with other members in that channel would be different than in others, which I thought was a good rhyme with the minigame structure of Firebrands.

I used the Conversation Over Food framework for the #general-discussion channel, where the "food" in this case would be fandom topics - something that you wanted in its own right but also a catalyst for social interaction. I initially considered using a "this week's episode" or "watch through a series together" kind of framing but decided to go more general. I might revisit the idea later, but for getting something playable, I though I'd better go wide first.

I want to also shout out Chefkiss by Adira Slattery for inspiration on how to model online interactions in the game, especially the idea of posting GIFs as reactions. I think I may need to add more opportunities and reminders for players to use GIFs, images, videos and other links in their interactions rather than just in #general-discussion.

An Animated Disagreement is one of my favourite minigames, but I wasn't sure how to frame it. I initially thought it'd be a random/shitpost kind of forum for flame wars or a group chat, but saw a Twitter poll which reminded me weekly polls and discussions were a thing in forums. For these two games, I hewed pretty close to the existing questions in Firebrands/The King is Dead with minor additions on the relevant topics and addressing fandom since the ones there already kinda work, but I'm hoping playtesting will inform how to shape this later.

Obviously we'll also need a 1-on-1 game that wasn't as public as weekly-poll. I was tossing up between Meeting Sword to Sword, A Chase, Stealing Time and A Tactical Skirmish and figured Sword to Sword worked best for a private conversation.

I also wanted games that focused on the model collecting and building aspect of the premise, and the one I'm most excited to try is #show-off-and-feedback. #show-off-and-feedback isn't just about showing off plastic models, but about any kind of putting yourself out there on a semi-public forum. Kind of like what I'm doing now. It's nerve-wracking putting something you've made in front of others, and I wanted to reflect that.

The other model related games are a lot more "mechanical". I ended up implementing a set collection minigame, inspired by the one in The King is Dead. Each collector type would have different goals for collecting, though I didn't tie it into any direct mechanical payoff.

Splitting the deck into numbers and face + ace cards is a trick I use often in card based games since it makes math easier to predict and sidesteps having players remember what (if any) values are assigned to those cards. This time it gave a fun bonus of having the face cards, which are based on nobility, represent the Nobles which are now the mechs in the show. I chose the name "Noble" as a rhyme with "mobile" (I know, shut up) before I knew I was using cards so this was a nice bit of serendipity.

#sales-and-trades is the most straightforward and cardgame-like, while #deals-and-haggling is modeled after A Chase to have a more mediated negotiation feel. #afk is a way to regain cards and also expand on characters doing stuff offline.

This also gave me vectors to let players feel a bit unique with their chosen collector types: Hunters and Completionists could look at more cards, Creatives could spend time AFK to improve card draw potential, and Aesthetes and Stans could argue loudly lol

Finally, I wanted a suitable event to cap off the games. I love Fiirebrands, but it was tricky to negotiate a suitable endpoint with some players, and I really liked the scaffolding that The King is Dead provided, so I used that. I chose to have it be about meeting in person at a convention, because even though I consider online friendships as real as "IRL" ones, I always treasure face to face meetups at conventions and getting different contexts to people you've spent online time with. Also there's a mix of excitement, nervousness and faint dread that comes with meeting someone you've interacted with in one mode in another. I thought that would be a perfect cap to a game and also let me use The King is Dead's Reunion game, which I adore.

The convention meetup ending is something I'm still unsure about mechanically, as it feels like another set of minigames within a minigame (it's minigames all the way down baby!). I've tried to pare them down so it feels more like a culmination of previous games, but we'll have to see how it plays.

Also I cut out Steal Time Together and cut down on the horniness because I'm a coward.

(Maybe I'll add them back in with the next revision - Noble Flame Xi-Rho: Buyer Friends: Hard ABS)

So that's about it on Noble Flame Xi-Rho: Buyer Friends for now. I hope you found it interesting, and I hope you'll check it out and let me know what you think!