Thorium Nova's North Star

When Victor Williamson ran camps at the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center in Utah, he would spend 15 minutes lecturing the antsy, excited crews before introducing them to their Flight Directors and sending them into their ships. Here, he would list the rules of the Space Center – things like "Listen to the staff members" and "Don't intentionally break the ships." Following these rules would shape their experience and make it as effective as possible. The rules – requirements and constraints placed on the crews – are among the most important parts of the design of any experience.

Requirements and constraints are only one part of good design, though. I recently read this blog post about product design. TL;DR: If you have a moonshot, North Star, idealized plan, completely unburdened by time, resources, or other constraints, the final product will likely be that much better. It is unlikely you'll actually achieve the North Star plan – you will have to make compromises and tradeoffs as you go – but keeping your eye on the North Star will elevate whatever experience you do manage to attain in your product, in the same way imposing constraints will.

So what's the North Star for Thorium Nova?

"Better than Disneyland."

What could be Better than Disneyland?

While it might seem impossible to best Disneyland, a place that is entirely optimized for its patrons to have a good time, let's consider their biggest constraint: There's high demand from patrons, so they need to optimize rides and other experiences for a lot of throughput. Most time is spent standing in line waiting for a 4 minute ride (though they do an excellent job of making the line an enjoyable part of the experience).

That means rides at Disneyland are, largely, exactly the same for every patron. Everyone sits in their ride vehicle and sees the same pirates, the same overhead view of London, the same Yeti. And it's a thrilling experience that is often worth repeating - I would binge Space Mountain in an hour before the park closed when the lines were nonexistent. But unless patrons are riding different rides, they don't really have much to talk about after the fact. It's just on to the next ride.

There are a few notable exceptions. First, Star Tours, which has a three-act structure that swaps out the different acts for each ride. Some patrons might see Darth Vader, then go to Hoth, then end up on Yavin. Others might be attacked by Kylo Ren, then visit Jakku, and then join the battle above Naboo. If patrons ride at different times, they'll have a slightly different experience.

Also from Star Wars, the Smuggler's Run ride has each participant take a different job on the Millennium Falcon - Pilot, Weapons, Engineer - to fly the ship through a pre-set experience. The actions of the crew do affect the dialogue and events slightly – the pilots can steer you into a wall if they aren't careful – but the overall arc of the story is roughly the same every time.

Then there's the Jungle Cruise, which is essentially a stand-up comedy routine on a boat on rails. The jokes are different from skipper to skipper, but I know for a fact some of them are exactly the same as they were the first time I went 25 years ago. Still, there's a chance that different patrons have different experiences.

What's great about all of these is they each have a separate aspect of the bridge sims I'm familiar with - varied storylines, different jobs for each participant, and a Flight Director that spices up the experience for each crew.

Bridge simulators will never have the budget, land, imagineering capabilities, or well-loved IP that Disneyland has at its disposal. But that doesn't mean it can't be better in this one way: giving each participant a powerful, memorable experience that continues well beyond the time spent in the ships.

What we come away with

When we do the ideal bridge simulation, what sticks with us? Is it the sets? Maybe the costumes? The monsters in rubber masks that chased us? How about the computer controls and the dial and switch panels? Or the away missions? Or the characters we meet along the way?

Or is it the storyline? Perhaps it's the way we get to delve into moral and ethical decisions that we wouldn't normally need to address, with "real" consequences (at least, in the story).

Maybe it's that time that we were the only person standing between our crew and sudden death, and we saved the day!?

The answer is probably "all of the above".

I've said before, when I talk to people and they find out I worked at one of the Utah space centers, they'll say “Oh, I went there when I was in 5th grade. I was the insert bridge position officer, and we had to insert vague mission detail!” It sticks with them. These players were immersed in the experience, and it changed them. Like other LARPs, it is "an attempt to convince players they were on the brink of unimaginable transformation."

Bridge Simulators are different from normal video games because you don't play as an avatar, you play as yourself. Unlike Disneyland, you get agency in the story and what happens during the experience. You can actually make a difference! You can actually feel like a hero!

And the story isn't just what the mission author wrote – it's also all of the things that happen in the middle as the crew tries to figure out their stations, discuss what's going on, and deal with surprises that happen. Each player has a story that is entirely unique to each player and mission.

So there's the North Star:

Every player gets a different experience every time, even playing the same mission.
Players build their own story based on the authored mission and spontaneous interactions with fellow crew.
The stakes feel high, players make tough choices, but everyone can become a hero.

This requires a combination of well-written narrative AND mechanics that give each player the agency they need.

Now let's talk about requirements – what do we need to pull this off?

Requirements of Thorium Nova

I've been doing this for a long time. I wrote my first set of bridge simulator controls in 2007 - a 6 station set for the CMSEC for a battleship with 44 NPC crew members. Later I made an 8 station controls set for a science ship, and then a 6 station set for a shuttle, and finally a whopping 28 station set for a station with 900 crew.

Since then, as I've seen people use my bridge simulators and played other bridge sims, I've developed opinions about how these games should be built. These opinions have turned into the requirements, and the design decisions of Thorium Nova have fallen out of these requirements. Let's take a look at them.

Requirement 1: The in-game setting should inspire imagination and provide a compelling backdrop for storytelling.

Space is pretty interesting, sci-fi provides a very inspiring backdrop, and having the players control different aspects of a spaceship as it flies through space provides a lot of great storytelling opportunities.

Requirement 2: The game should support any real-life setting where a crew can conceivably come together in real-time.

The game is intended to be played in the following venues:

In a living room
At conventions
In brick-and-mortar space centers
Over the internet

For internet play, the game should perform well when players are ±2 time zones from each other. We are not optimizing network code for intercontinental internet gameplay.

As we're designing features and interactions, we should keep each of these venue styles in mind.

Requirement 3: Different kinds of ships will provide different constraints for telling different kinds of stories.

The two major classes of ships will be large ships with NPC crew and small ships with no NPC crew. Additional distinctions can be made by adding or removing capabilities from the ships. That allows for small shuttlecraft, stealthy science ships, beefy battleships, and stately capital ships, each with their own style of gameplay.

Requirement 4: Multiple players controlling the same ship with different controls provides opportunities for spontaneous storytelling.

The game will allow up to 12 stations:

For small ships with no NPC crew, between 3 and 8 stations
For large ships with NPC crew, between 6 and 12 stations
Single-player ships should be possible, but not encouraged.

Having stations depend and interact with other stations frequently will facilitate spontaneous storytelling.

Requirement 5: Accessibility means more players can play - it should be easy to play without a lot of setup or preparation.

The game should be easy to pick up and run by any of its intended players. To run the game, players should only need to run a single self-hosted server and connect via modern web browsers. The game should work on a local area network without needing an internet connection. Features requiring an internet connection are considered optional.

Most importantly, it should be possible, but not required, to fully automate storylines and narratives through pre-defined timelines without requiring a player to take on the Flight Director role to move it along.

This is not to discourage Flight Directors – quite the opposite in fact. Once players find the enjoyment of playing the game without a Flight Director, they will likely gain interest in how the gameplay improves with a Flight Director. Flights without a Flight Director will induce demand in Flight Directors.

Requirement 6: The game can be more fun with an extra player in charge of developing the narrative from the NPC perspective and reacting to the player's decisions.

The game should allow, but not require, Flight Director controls for enhancing the storyline. We'll provide them with the minimum necessary controls for most common actions, with some ability to drop down to do more complex stuff. We can also allow them to add their own FD controls for convenience.

That said, Flight Directors are not required to play the game – see Requirement 5 – and as such gameplay will be different with or without a Flight Director. Those differences, as well as differences in venue, ship size, and other gameplay styles, should be considered when designing features.

It might seem like we have two modes of gameplay - fully automated, and fully supported by a Flight Director. This is not the case. Rather, it's a spectrum. Flight Directors should feel empowered to lean on, or disregard, fully automated timelines based on the needs of the crew, their Flight Directing style, and the needs of the storyline.

Requirement 7: Immersion and engagement will occur naturally if the player believes they are present in the game setting.

The player's ship and the universe around it should be realistically simulated in 3D space with consistent, predictable rules. The game will simulate the movement of NPC ships, track position of player through space, and tightly integrate with ship system behavior for weapons, sensors, engines, etc. These ships systems will interact with each other to create emergent gameplay.

A 3D viewscreen will show the crew what is happening outside of their ship. That view will correspond to what's on their stations. This is also related to Requirement 5 – not needing to manually create visuals for everything that happens in the simulation will make it easier to play and write missions for the game.

For larger ships, simulated NPC crew will move around the ship to give color to the gameplay and add opportunities for additional nascent storylines.

Requirement 8: The game should support educational purposes, both through mechanics and storytelling.

Using as much real science and physics as possible in the simulation and storylines, along with addressing themes from history and social studies, can make the game a compelling educational tool. However, we will resort to "space magic", like faster-than-light engines or unrealistic sensors behavior, as gameplay and story requirements dictate. It's still a game after all.

Requirement 9: Augmenting the game with additional effects outside of the game controls themselves can encourage immersion.

The game should allow, but not require, expansion outside of the game controls. Show controls such as lights, sound effects, and music elevate and accentuate the action in the game. These should work well for a dedicated bridge, over the internet, and with or without a Flight Director.

Hardware devices, like Joysticks, control boards, custom hardware panels, should optionally integrate directly with the controls in meaningful ways.

Third-party clients that interface with the main controls through an API can provide additional expansion opportunities without needing to make changes to the core codebase.

Requirement 10: Additional gameplay opportunities arise if different sets of players can play multiple ships in the same gameplay session.

Multiple players ships can operate in the same universe and story at the same time. This lends itself to replayability, allowing crews to experience the story from each ship. It also allows for unique collaboration - and competition - between different player ships.

Requirement 11: Players can find great enjoyment from creating their own storylines and mechanics and sharing them with friends.

The game should allow for customization or complete overhaul of almost all of the built-in mechanics of the gameplay. By extension, everything that can be done in the controls is documented, both for players, mission writers, and for people creating code or hardware expansions to the game.

Requirement 12: The game should celebrate human interaction, creativity, and ingenuity.

This game is all about human interactions between crew members, Flight Directors, and other human participants. In this spirit, we prefer human-created contributions to AI generated contributions.

That's a lot of design decisions, and hopefully you can see them in how Thorium Nova is already shaping up. And development progresses, these decisions might shift and change, but the North Stars will remain.

More fun than Disneyland.

Unique, novel, gameplay with every flight.

Building a story together, as a crew.

Everyone can be a hero.

And, possibly the most important, the final of Victor's Space Center rules:

Have fun. You are required to have fun.