In Rogueship, game events are the main delivery mechanism for background story, and more importantly, for the general character of the universe. Events which the players encounters set the mood for life as a space trader and contrast the otherwise analytical trading gameplay.

Because the events occur randomly, they’re an even better counterpoint to trade which can be relatively well optimized by clever players. What’s more, they can be and in fact are used to influence commodity trading strategy.

For example. while technology and industrial commodities are widely traded and thereby reliable cargo, there are more events that negatively effect these commodities and target players who try to specialize. Guild Regulators are an especially glaring example and act as the direct challenge to those who would profit from the fluctuations in the market index on contraband.

Beyond influencing trade, events serve as the core content in Rogueship. Ranging from static encounters which resolve automatically to combat with pirates which verges on a minigame, events expand the basic gameplay in simple and hopefully somewhat emergent ways. A measure of variety can be introduced to the game without threatening the core gameplay or balance too much.

This design also works well with the incremental updates encouraged by the App Store, making it natural to enhance Rogueship simply by adding more events.

More than anything, the events mechanic in Rogueship is inspired by the event card decks found in many boardgames. These have always served as a source of suspence and excitement in the tabletop setting, and the intent is for events in Rogueship to do the same. Every time an event is about to appear the player should enjoy a brief rush of anticipation and dread. Rogueship has the advantage of further being able to weight the events, or rather, give players a way to “stack the deck” to their advantage by increasing or decreasing the likelihood of certain events. In other words, events give the player another way to tactically manage risk. And if they don’t, it makes sure they know the ruinous consequences of a heedless acceptance of fate.

Read Part 1: Design Foundation
Read Part 2: Gameplay Foundation
Read Part 3: World Foundation
Read Part 4: Commodities Trading
Read Part 5: Combat

Rogueship is not a combat simulation. Battle is abstracted, a means to an end like any other at a captain’s disposal. Because of that fact, combat in Rogueship transpires like other game events, with a few key strategic differences.

Any battle-ready starship carries both (1) shields and (2) weapons, and all combat is a function of these two factors. An exchange in combat is a summary matter of resisting an enemy’s attack and then breaking their defense with a counterattack. Owing to universal malevolence, the player always strikes second, meaning that defense really is the best offense in the game.

The consequences of battle, unlike combat itself, depend entirely on the enemy and circumstance. The penalties and rewards are what defines a battle, whether it’s a pirate raider blasting apart pieces of a ship or an alien intruder devouring shields.

Behind the scenes, various difficulty modifiers come into play driven by circumstance, but for the player combat will always remain a quick, intuitive, high-stakes affair. Deeper strategy comes from evaluating the need to equip your starship with weapons and shields, and timing the upgrades effectively.

In other words, it’s a matter of resource management. Like everything in Rogueship, war, too, is a product of commerce.

Read Part 1: Design Foundation
Read Part 2: Gameplay Foundation
Read Part 3: World Foundation
Read Part 4: Commodities Trading
Read Part 6: Events

Munitions, technology, luxuries. Trading commodities on the galactic market is at the heart of Rogueship, and so it’s arguably the most important part of the game. Keeping the trading mechanic simple and abstract, and therefore accessible, is the design challenge. At the same time, the gameplay should help the player understand some of the game’s themes, such as the volatility of markets or the importance of planning around risk.

Choosing the commodities was a matter of imaging the basic needs of a futuristic humanity, compounded by scarcities that would emerge after space colonization. The commodities must be evocative of that world, and also tell a story about a planet based on their availability and cost.

The trading mechanic runs on the rule of buying low and selling high. It’s a concept anyone can understand, and you can quickly make a decision after glancing at some numbers. For the trading screen, tabular interfaces with simple responses are ideal for the iPhone, and modeling trading in the native table views felt familiar and fluid.

The second element of trading is randomness; downturns and windfalls. To represent the galactic ebb and flow of consumption, Rogueship has a market index which modifies the base price of commodities, moving up or down in trends. The player must time their trades to opportunity, giving the extra thrill of running cargo on a deadline before they’re selling at a loss, or seeing cargo that they’re sitting on jump in value.

A balanced trading strategy must play on known commodity values while planning for risk.

The final element of trading is the criminal one; contraband and the black market. You have the option of accepting extreme risk or reward by smuggling contraband cargo, which continually sees wild fluctuations in price and can be sold for a quick profit or made into a prosperous career. The danger, however, rests in the hands of the Regulators, enforcers employed by the merchant cartels to portal the tradeways of space and issue brutal inspections to potential smuggling vessels. Upon arrest, the criminal fines can easily bankrupt a player.

Throughout a game of Rogueship, events may nudge the market in one direction or another, but the core strategy and mechanics remain simple and unchanged. It’s not a matter of how to trade, but what to trade and when. And of course, better players will find ways to set the odds in their favor.

Read Part 1: Design Foundation
Read Part 2: Gameplay Foundation
Read Part 3: World Foundation
Read Part 5: Combat
Read Part 6: Events

One drawback of trying to design a tight, compendious game is that there just isn’t room for an elaborate story. A summarily intriguing or suggestive one, yes, but on mobile screen estate and with expected game sessions of a few minutes, most of the attention goes to servicing the core gameplay (unless narrative itself is somehow the core). Fortunately for Rogueship, sci-fi has a venerable tradition of ornamenting shallow stories with a soaring host of operatic tropes and clichés.

I think the popular consensus is that our future will be a dystopia. That as good as humans are at improving technology, we’re not so good at improving ourselves, and so we can expect that by the time we’ve colonized space most of our old problems still remain, only exaggerated perhaps in scale. Commercial enterprise will galvanize entrenched powers while upstart pilots and privateers will find ways to appear on the front lines, all while criminal industry rushes to fill the gaps.

Rogueship is set after humanity’s realization of space colonization, but while interstellar travel still remains a hazardous and unregulated enterprise. Planetary merchant cartels have achieved an uneasy but functional balance that keeps humanity’s collective resources flowing through the galaxy. Wealth and influence have consolidated in the hands of private agents, and in return for services rendered the merchant lords are able to exert tremendous internal power in the preservation of their empire. Starfaring technology is not in abundant supply, however, and, beyond the reach of gravity, space remains a lawless realm.

The player takes the seat of a starship captain who has just enlisted in the service of the Hansa Star Guild, the largest merchant interest in the galaxy. The guild offers its contract pilots a proposal of insidious terms. The guild leases the pilot a small starship and a trade license, and authorizes them to do business in guild-sanctioned ports. In exchange, the pilots must complete a total of four payments to guild, after which they will own the ship and the guild will grant them an official rogue trader charter. Those who fail to pay have violated their contract, and are summarily endentured to the service of the guild where they shall suffer their remaining years in hard labor on an offworld debtors prison.

This gets the player running from creditors, trying to turn a profit from the stormy trade markets, battling space pirates, and a number of other unsavory tasks on the road to glory. It also rationalizes the turn limit, and conveniently divides the game into 4 rounds of payments.

So the world of Rogueship is basically a sci-fi adventure story about a starship captain beating a powerful organization at their own game and winning a ship and a trade charter. Or, well, dying with that ambition anyway.

I’m hoping that the ideas behind that setting are familiar enough to anyone passingly acquainted with sci-fi that they should be able to instinctively pick up on the mood, and anonymous enough that anyone could fill the roll. I mean, we all have our own reasons for becoming merchant starfarers, right?

Read Part 1: Design Foundation
Read Part 2: Gameplay Foundation
Read Part 4: Commodities
Read Part 5: Combat
Read Part 6: Events

The core mechanic behind Rogueship is calculated risk; randomness that can be gambled against. Randomly generated galaxies, fluctuations in the commodities market, and the vicissitudes of weighted encounters are how gameplay keeps the wicked hand of chance grasping the player.

Shrewd trading at favorable prices, while preparing for inevitable misfortune, is the simple recipe for success. Whether it wins out for a given round remains a balance of player resourcefulness and a few turns of luck.

A game of Rogueship lasts only 60 turns before the player is victorious or dead, and games are autosaved every 15 turns. Taken together, these mechanics mean that Rogueship is designed for pick-up-and-play. Short bursts of devious starfaring, and an interface simple enough that anyone can grasp the decision making process.

While random content in the game ensures replayability, it also serves another purpose as well. By essentially assembling a story from sequences of chance events, Rogueship encourages the player to imagine the greater story themselves, passively filling in the details and continuities which tell of a star captain’s harrowing career.

Both mechanics – the trade system and the sort of storyboard random encounters – are a throwback to an era of games that were played at a pretty high level of abstraction. And that’s the experience I want Rogueship to create.

Read Part 1: Design Foundation
Read Part 3: World Foundation
Read Part 4: Commodities
Read Part 5: Combat
Read Part 6: Events

Rogueship was born like a star: from nebulae of fusing elements.

Space trading simulations come from a universe of Commodore 64 and BBS games, with text-based interfaces and methodical, condensed gameplay. While latter-day incarnations tend to be sprawling conquests, there’s something elegant about the short, pure form. It’s easier to imagine a story for ourselves when we play games that are more abstract, and good games will provoke you into doing it unconsciously.

The iPhone is a great fit for this philosophy. Try to develop something too rich and there’s an uncanny valley effect, but if you play to the strengths of the touch interface, design expectations, and player habits, it can enhance the summary experience for certain genres, styles, and designs.

So that yields the design motives behind Rogueship. Reaching the perfect gameplay balance may be like colonizing Mars, but there it is and here we go.

Read Part 2: Gameplay Foundation
Read Part 3: World Foundation
Read Part 4: Commodities
Read Part 5: Combat
Read Part 6: Events