Spymaster – a Twitter Game with Possibilities

I have to admit, when I was initially thinking about writing this post, I was split. I wasn’t sure whether the post should be “Spymaster – Twitter’s version of an annoying Facebook app” or “Spymaster – Cool Game.” Then I had my mind made up for me. As of approximately 0200 hours on Mon. Jun 01 I’ve completed my first Spymaster war.  As a result, I’ve been thinking about what I would change or add, if I was heading up The Directorate.

Previously… on Twitter:

• iList’s Eston Bond, Chris Abad, Albert Choi and Ben Myles launched their Twitter-based game Spymaster on May 28. The game allowed you to execute spy-like activities and assassinate your Twitter friends. Attack and Defensive power was a numeral determined by a combination of your number of followers and the equipment you purchased thanks to your illicit activities. Friends you converted into spymaster by getting them to join the game gave extra power.
• The game, previously in beta, wracked up hundreds, probably thousands, of users and gained the top trending spot in Twitter Search, staying on the list for at least a day more.
• Backlash ensued, Twitter spymasters using the game would automatically tweet their spy activities through the game, using the #spymaster hashtag. While some didn’t seem to care, a few big bloggers went very public about considering the game’s communiqués spam. 
• Most Spymasters quieted down, the game falling out of the trending slot.
• And yet… the game continued…

The following events occurred between 1 and 2 a.m.:

The day before I had noticed that Spymaster @luxuryluke had attacked me. I returned fire with a few attempted assassinations myself. After he had taken me for over 84,000 pounds in game money (I had joined the MI6 team), I fired back. The game scales wins to risk, which meant that as a much lower level player, he had won big. Though I was able to beat him a few times (and lost a few others), my wins were not as large.

LuxuryLuke was sitting at my door, and attempted a number of assassinations. Then, I retaliated. Suddenly, there was another spy in play. Spymaster @mediapeople began his own campaign of small cuts. As my health got chipped away I found myself almost entirely unable to strike back, so I called in the cavalry via direct messages.

Through both public and private messages I called on fellow members of my spy-ring to target and assassinate the two players who had come after me.

Just like any war, it didn’t take long for things to escalate.

@Mediapeople was a lower level player but had a huge advantage in terms of the number of his followers, which meant that he was able to strike with impunity. With a little help from his friends, @Mediapeople was able to finally fully assassinate me, stealing away a savings of over £200,000 by the end of the night, and leaving me in Spymaster purgatory, unable to act until I had been resuscitated by the game. (Which took about ten minutes.)

What about my spy skills?

I discovered a big flaw here. Simply that being an upper level character is in fact a disadvantage. You have more to loose and an inability to get money back stolen from you by lower level spys. Without the ability to properly retaliate and recapture some of my funds, low level spies could take me down with impunity, especially if they have a higher follower count than I.

The way this should work is that if I’m attacked, I can declare all out war against my assassin and get my money back. The other big issue here is balance. A high level should act as a balance against high follower low level characters. Right now, having a low level character is in fact a huge advantage. See the problem?

Ok, ignoring that problem and others that have come up and sometimes dealt with since my first Spymaster war, the game has a lot of potential if we can apply some serious game theory.

So, for the duration of this article, let’s see if Spymaster got game.

A Tactical Triangle of spies.

The tactical triangle is what gamers say when they don’t want to call their method of game balance what it is, Rocks, Paper, Scissors, at least initially. So, does Spymaster have a Rocks, Paper, and Scissors? Assuming you are not cheating, here’s the breakdown that I see, you may notice they map pretty closely to the various directorate (CIA, MI6 and FSB) specialties. I’m also going to propose what roles they should be taking, especially if Spymaster decides to initiate a greater focus on teams in the future.

Spy Classes:

Base Commandant (Defensive Class, aka Tank)

• Has an especially high defensive rating.
• Very public status poster, daring people to attack him and loose their money.
• Invested in serious defensive equipment.
• Role: Provide protection to others in the ring.

Saboteur (Earning Class aka Healer)

• Has a continual high level of capital, allowing money “laundering” through Swiss Bank accounts.
• Has a lower defensive and attack rating because she doesn’t waste money on anything but the bare minimum of equipment.
• A higher level character.
• Serious experience in tasks.
• Owns many safe houses.
• Role: Generate and manipulate capital to “heal” offensive and defensive team members by allowing them constant access to equipment and protection for their funds through Swiss Bank transfers.

Assassin (Offensive class aka Damage)

• Has an especially high attack rating and relatively normal defensive rating.
• Owns a significant cache of equipment
• Stays fairly undercover until he comes out and kills you.
• Role: Assassinate enemy spies.

While this is what I’ve seen, the three roles tend to blend together out of necessity, you have to keep your defense high to prevent people from stealing your stuff and upper level tasks require expensive equipment, necessitating an investment in more defensive equipment over safe houses to keep it from being stolen. Further, the lack of support for real team play means that playing a support role leaves you in the unwise position of ‘depending on the kindness of strangers.’

How to resolve this?

Put yourself somewhere safe.

Image by inju via Flickr

Right now the whole point of safe houses is that, in some nebulous way, they provide a regular stream of money, even when not performing tasks. However, to really create and effective and long lasting game, we need to give purpose to the name and make Safe Houses usable objects.

Let’s say that you can actually go into a safe house, what advantage would it give?

When in a safe house you cannot do anything other than wait. You must stay in a safe house for at least 10 minutes and you cannot retreat to a safe house without two subsequent turns not under attack. While in a safe house you pay money to the owner of the safe house, if you own your own safe house it stops earning money for you while you hide in it. Safe house attributes are multiplied by those of their owners. While in a safe house, no one can use that safe house and no one can use any of your safe houses. Safe house attributes are added to the defense attribute for the person in it.

The values each safe house adds to those hiding out in it should be calculated by compounding a base and owner value. Each safe house should have a defensive value on it's own. Then a percentage of the owner’s defense is added to that base value. That final number is added to the defensive value of anyone hiding in the safe house. I know this sounds like it may create an invulnerability situation, but we’ll get to resolving that in a bit.

Spy Cells

First, an increased support for Spy Cells, organized groups or guilds of spies. Allow spies in cells to call in support, retaliation strikes and request private handoffs of money outside of the Swiss Banking system, this would allow a greater level of discrimination, pushing more towards character “classes.” Rewarding different play styles is essential for keeping people playing. Further, by creating formalized allegiances, it allows people to further specialize, creating the opportunity for expansion of the tactical triangle.

Further, joining a cell should boost a players statistics through allegiance.  

Additional Classes

Infiltrator (Research class aka Artillery)

• Relatively low levels of Attack and Defense
• Medium size weapons cache
• Medium number of safe houses.
• Experience with “Analysis” tasks (initial rating determined by retweets perhaps?)
• Role: Discover intelligence and lay groundwork for assassinations by performing tasks that uncover information about targets. 

Freedom Fighter (Bunker Buster class aka Anti-Tank)

• Extremely high attack class at the expense of an especially low defensive class.
• Experience with bomb making tasks.
• Must spend money on explosive (one-time use) materials.
• Role: Eliminating enemy safe houses.

These are the resulting specialty tasks that spies could accomplish in order to train up the new skills and look at future tasks. Each of these specialty tasks increases the specialty Bomb and Analysis skills.

Bomb tasks

• Rig car bomb

  • Never let them drive away.

• Disrupt communications

  • Loose lips sink ships.

• Disrupt power flow

  • Who turned out the lights?

• Destroy supply lines.

  • Enemies can’t act when they can’t eat.

• Incite panic

  • Sometimes you’ve just got to go for the big boom.

Analysis tasks

• Encode communiqué

• Keep it secret.

• Hack civilian system.

• They don’t know what they’re dealing with.

• Hack bank system.

• At least they’re not Swiss.

• Hack military system.

• How many tanks does it take do get to the center of a rouge nation?

• Uncover information

• Some secrets are meant to be known.

To accomplish some of these new specialty tasks, you are going to need specialty items.

Bomb items (one time use)

• Grenade
• C-4 Explosive
• Timed detonator
• Remote detonator

Analysis items

• Cipher
• One time key (one time use)
• Decoding system
• Specialized laptop

With the expansion of classes and safe houses, this creates some additional tasks that can be associated with assassinations.

• Steal target dossier.
• Uncovers player info
• Requires a low to medium analysis rating depending on target(much like attack and defense ratings).
• If failed player is notified that someone is looking into him and can retreat to a safe house.

 

• Infiltrate enemy cell
• Uncover the last allies the player interacted with or find out some of the cell’s members.
• Requires a high analysis rating.
• If failed entire cell is notified of attempt.

 

• Uncover recruiter
• Discover who sent the spy invites.
• Requires a low analysis rating.
• If failed, both the spy and his recruiter is notified.

 

• Uncover recruited.
• Discover who the spy sent invites to.
• Requires a medium to high analysis rating.
• If failed, the spy and all the people who he sent invites to are notified.

 

• Uncover safe houses owned by spy.
• Find out where the spy owns safe houses, this task allows you to uncover one at a time.
• High analysis rating required.
• If failed, the spy is notified of your attempt.

 

• Destroy identified safe house.
• Once a friend uncovers a safe house, bomb it off the face of the planet
• Requires a high bomb rating.
• If failed, the spy is notified of your attempt.

 

• Destroy spy’s refuge safe house.
• Someone lost an attack to a spy in a safe house, now they know he’s hiding out. Let’s flush him out.
• Requires a very high bomb rating.
• If failed the safe house’s owner and the spy taking refuge in it are notified.

 

In order to really throw in more team play, spies should be able to post tasks for others to accomplish on their behalf, this could increase the team play. There would be a global board, which people would have to spend money to post tasks on and then spend again to pay off whoever accomplishes the task. Formal cells would have private boards (perhaps they could build them using forum systems themselves), that members would not have to pay to post on.

Player post-able tasks

• Any type of special assassination task
• Kill order
• Alliance proposal
• Request to document player’s cell.
• Vendetta

Finally, we get to one of the biggest and coolest possibilities to think about. We are half-way to an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) with Spymaster already, why not take it all the way? The last game to try this was pretty cool but didn’t succeed for a number of reasons, the biggest being that right after they launched, 9/11 happened and no one wanted to receive fake calls about terrorists and spies after that.

Provide a running story, encase secrets in random websites, recruit spies to help set up real-life clue hunting events and more. Here’s some ideas on tasks to drive the story forward.

Story Tasks

• Retrieve task information.
• Enter encoded information
• When you find information in a site or IRL location, enter it into the game.
• Decode information
• Take found codes and run an in-game decryption.
• Retrieve database key.
• Find out clues where to go for more information.
• Read database file.
• Find out more secrets.
• Hack Fourth Directorate.
• The enemy is out there, find out a few big secrets.

I know, I know, we’re getting into a pipe dream area here, but a guy can hope right? You got to dream big. Obviously this increased activity means increased cost. What can the Directorate do to make some money?

Micropayments may be a big possibility, allowing people to pay in for extra content, or infusions of cash without experience could be a way to make some money. A subscription cost to access higher level content would be a possibility, as much as I hate the idea. However, is this really the audience that would pay such a thing?

Obviously, when it comes to making money beyond display ads, the topic requires some though. Who knows what possibilities are to come for the game? I just like being a Twitter spy and it would be great if I could keep on playing, instead of getting bored.

This is one spy, signing out.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Spymaster: The Twitter Game That Will Assassinate Your Time (techcrunch.com)
• Stepping over that Twitter line (inquisitr.com)
• Games: Another reason why Twitter needs filters (venturebeat.com)
• Twitter Goes Down, Spymaster Makes Fun Of Them (techcrunch.com)

Sphere: Related Content

The Semantic Web and Display Ads with Amplify

A recent presentation on the semantic web API called Amplify really put into focus the issue of targeted advertising online and how to solve the recent decreases in display ads for newspaper websites.

Image via Wikipedia

I went to a Social Networking and Semantic Web meetup on May 13. The event, which was the Roy Rosenzweig Forum on Technology & the Humanities, was run in concert with George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media.

There were a number of great products and ideas put forward. The group of presenters covered how to make Recovery.gov more “citizen-friendly,” Zotero, and Glue. The one presentation that really got me thinking, however, was Amplify.

In the demo at the Social Networking and Semantic Web meetup, Amplify’s CIO Mike Petit showcased a quick example with a paragraph written by someone who hates baseball. Amplify analyzed the paragraph and ranked topics by importance and than took those topics and analyzed their sentiment. As a result, it could tell that baseball, despite many occurrences, was a negative topic.

This sort of technology could be the key to saving newspapers online.

One of the big issues that all newspapers are facing, from the college level all the way to The New York Times, is how to make their websites profitable. The big stumbling block on the path to a self-sustaining website is the reluctance of advertisers to buy online banner and button ads from media companies.

Image via CrunchBase

At the end of 2008, Gawker Media Ring’s Nick Denton noticed the trend. Predicting (accurately) that making a profit off of being an online news source was about to become much harder. His very first point in his 2009 internet media business plan was “Get out of categories such as politics to which advertisers are averse.”

This is missing the point. It wasn’t that advertisers are adverse to divisive politics or product reviews (Wonkette and Consumerist, two of the blogs that Gawker shed, covered these categories), it’s that covering sensitive issues means that an advertiser’s ad is more likely to show up next to something critical of the advertiser.

The Consumerist is a great example. Wal-Mart may want to reach that audience, but it can’t do so if its ad is sitting next to an article on how Wal-Mart might be the worst company in America. It’s the same for Wonkette.

The problem is that newspapers are well known for their criticisms and advertisers don’t want to take the chance of having an ad show up next to a bad review. As a result, with the economy down and companies looking to decrease risk, no one wants to chance a Kayne and Lynch incident. This is a special concern in hyperlocal ventures, where your advertisers may often be the people whom you are covering.

That’s where Amplify comes in.  In the example shown, most semantic ad services would see the numerous occurrences of the word “baseball” and shunt an ad about baseball on to the page, exactly the opposite of what you’d want to do. Amplify, however, understood that a baseball ad was the opposite of what you’d want.

This sort of brand protection may be exactly the thing that newspapers need to bring confidence back to their advertisers and survive online. If we’re looking for a way to save journalism, Amplify and similar technology may be the key.

In case you couldn't tell, their presentation was very impressive. 

Sphere: Related Content

Journalism From the Outside

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

This past weekend we had a great discussion in the #collegejourn chat about the future of journalism. Starting off talking about the recent congressional hearing, we quickly moved towards the subject of how newspapers should work on the web or in print.

I feel like that discussion, regarding the future of journalism is being mirrored all over, not just in Congress but in many college media groups as well. Unsurprisingly, I brought up some of the same points in tonight’s discussion that I have talking about where GMU’s Office of Student Media should go.

I always feel a bit unbalanced in these discussions. Though I’m passionate about what I think is wrong with journalism and newspapers, and how to fix it. I’m not sure that I’m actually a journalist. I sort of fell into journalism by virtue of being a good copy editor and simply ended up in Student Media. I didn’t come into college interested in being a journalist and, though it may end up that way, I don’t really have the goal of living as a journalist either. Journalism is fascinating and important but I have a completely different perspective that landed me here.

My specialty is interactive narrative. I got involved in journalism at GMU because it seemed like the Office of Student Media was one of the best ways to build my narrative side. That being said, my aim is really to work in the video game industry.

Even though I’ve written a lot of journalistic stories and blogged for a real news organization, I sometimes feel a bit like a faker. For the last year or so, even when working as the student newspaper’s managing editor, my gut reaction is to say: ‘Hey, I’m just a blogger, I’m complimented and all, but shouldn’t you talk to someone who’s an actual student journalist?’

I’ve had the same reaction more than once (including an apparent Freudian slip while writing this post) and it is only within the last few months that I’ve started to think of what I do for the Office of Student Media as something that might possibly be journalism and not just a weird way to do what I love, which is create interactive media. I’ve been extremely lucky because working in Student Media at GMU is the best experience in that regard I could have possibly had. However, it is still hard to think of myself as a journalist.

Now, I’m embroiled in the discussion about the future of journalism all the time, but I always feel a little bad. Because of my perspective, where I’ve come from and where I’m going, I’m either hobbled or freed in these conversations.

It can sometimes feel that, because I’m not necessarily a journalist at heart, I’m released from some core beliefs. I don’t believe that people can be impartial about anything and I don’t think that good journalism has to come without bias. Twice in the last week, when I was arguing about the future of the media, hard-core journalists responded “What about the Journalism?”

Either I’m horribly unethical or thinking outside the box with the idea of good journalism rising from a good platform. I’m not entirely sure yet.

In the discussion last week someone separated us out into Web People and Print People. Another participant noted that as being simplistic, but in retrospect, I think it wasn’t necessarily wrong.

This isn’t to say that the other side doesn’t get it, that print people can’t comprehend the idea of web journalism or be good journalists online (or that web people write bad stories). It just means that they have a different set of priorities then I do. One group is not better or worse than the other.

I think there are are some people who have come into this wanting to be web people and some who come in wanting to see their name in print. I’d bet that those other web people, like me, prefer Hunter Thomson to Bob Woodward, think that citizens can be journalists, and believe there is no difference between a Journalist and everyone else. We don’t care who is displaying our content, we care who is discussing it.

I think for print people it is more about the depth of their investigation, the breadth of their reporting, and the size of their word count. That sort of attitude is good, important and essential. Their satisfaction comes from a byline and from the knowledge that they did a good job. Which is not a bad thing at all.

Both sides need to exist. If we have either one without the other, I’m pretty sure everyone would be screwed. However, I think the web people are going to win out in the end, not because of the economy, but because for us, it’s more about empowering the people than anything else.

Sphere: Related Content

Patriot Games Episode 5 - Lost Halos

Here's Episode 5, We talk briefly about the new Halo 3 maps, some old games, and Aram finally gets to play GTA4's DLC, The Lost and Damned

Welcome to the Patriot Games podcast! George Mason University students Keith Wick and Aram Zucker-Scharff take a look at video games, game culture, and what it means to be a gamer in college.

Patriot Games Episode 5

Sphere: Related Content

Patriot Games Episode 4 - The Pitt and the Prince

Here's Episode 4, find out all you need to know about Fallout 3's DLC: The Pitt, get the final word (or letter) on Halo Wars, check out the new Prince of Persia and more.

Welcome to the Patriot Games podcast! George Mason University students Keith Wick and Aram Zucker-Scharff take a look at video games, game culture, and what it means to be a gamer in college.

In episode four, Keith and Aram talk about the latest Fallout 3 DLC and the new Prince of Persia game.

Patriot Games Episode 4

Sphere: Related Content

Patriot Games Episode 3 - Halo Wars and Mirror's Edge

Somewhat delayed due to Aram's jet-leg and subsequent sickness, here is Patriot Games episode 3!

Welcome to the Patriot Games podcast! George Mason University students Keith Wick and Aram Zucker-Scharff take a look at video games, game culture, and what it means to be a gamer in college.

In this second podcast, Keith and Aram talk about the brand new Halo Wars, what it means as Ensemble Studio's last game, and the pretty but difficult Mirror's Edge.

Patriot Games Episode 3

Sphere: Related Content

Patriot Games Episode 02

Much delayed due to Aram's jet-leg and subsequent sickness, here is Patriot Games episode 2!

Welcome to the Patriot Games podcast! George Mason University students Keith Wick and Aram Zucker-Scharff take a look at video games, game culture, and what it means to be a gamer in college.

In this second podcast, Keith and Aram talk about the brand new RE5's stop-and-shoot style and the weird but cool Braid.

Patriot Games Episode 2

Enjoy!

Sphere: Related Content

First Episode of Patriot Games!

Welcome to the Patriot Games podcast! George Mason University students Keith Wick and Aram Zucker-Scharff take a look at video games, game culture, and what it means to be a gamer in college.

Welcome to the first Patriot Games podcast. In this podcast, Keith and Aram talk about the brand new Street Fighter and slightly dated Dead Space.

Download Podcast



Cross-posted from Connect2Mason

Sphere: Related Content