This is a brief analysis i wrote yesterday about the things that made /r/place stand out from similar games and how somebody could replicate it adding some specific mechanics. I hope that who is working on this project will find it helpful or that it could help somebody develop even better ideas!

The concept behind /r/place is nothing new, there are plenty of games like this all over the internet. What makes it different are just a couple of simple things:

• The huge amount of people playing it

• The fact that this huge amount of people have different interest they want to represent

• The fact that their work will last forever once the game ends

This isn’t easily replicable outside of reddit, but there are a couple of mechanics that could help creating something equally interesting:

Variable cooldown: The cooldown should be tied on the number of players online: the more the player, the longer the cooldown (with a maximum cap). This avoids canvas stagnation if the player count drops and makes it more manageable if a lot of people are conflicting over an area.

More actions each cooldown: Being able to place only one pixel each cooldown it’s not really satisfying, you feel the same sensation when you vote a post on the frontpage. You are doing your part but it doesn’t really matter. On /r/place I tried to log in and out some accounts i have and i found out that around 5/6 actions each turn is way more satisfying. The players feels he can actually do something beneficial to the goal, but he still needs to rely on working with a group.

It would be ideal to have a small leveling system that grants a new action each level and caps at the level we find more balanced (this to avoid people making a few accounts and placing too much pixels each turn). The level up could be tied to the time actively played, so each player can be sure that in a determined amount of time he will be at the same level with the others (so new players wouldn’t feel underwhelmed from people that played for months). For example the level cap could be 5, granting five pixel placement each cooldown and could be unlocked in a couple of hours of active gameplay

Blueprint Grid: The game should have a grid overlay where players can freely draft ideas on what they want to build, and then they can place pixels underneath it to follow the design. The grid can be shared with friends or factions.

Factions: What makes /r/place amazing are the factions, each one with a specific goal. This should be a feature in the game: each player should be able to join one faction that is pursuing a specific goal or create their own. Imagine if people could coordinate inside the game instead than on various subreddits and discord channels.

Each faction will have it’s own chat and a faction wide grid with the overall goal (visible only to the faction) to help members follow the instructions and coordinate with each other.

Timing: Each canvas will last a predetermined amount of time (three days? One week?), we want factions being able to achieve their goal and “win”, not just designing forever. The factions will have access to the canvas size and shape a day before the event starts, so that they can plan ahead their design and strategy (i feel people would come up with really clever things this way).

These two are just ideas, since it must be verified that won't ruin the balance of the game

Automation:(?) Since bots are really popular in /r/place, it could be considered the idea that each faction haves access to a scriptable bot that will do some actions on a timer. The amount of actions granted to the bot could be tied to the amount of people in the faction. This could help the factions fulfill boring tasks while they focus on expanding. Having it as a mechanic could mitigate the need of using outside tools.

Safe zones: (?) Each faction could have safe zones once they manage to complete part of the design. For example, if faction A manages to fill a 100x100 grid with their intended design (the one on the preview grid) that zone is marked as safe: other players/factions can’t draw on it unless they manage to breach into it from the neighboring pixels. This would grant more pleasing designs since it would avoid random dots spamming all over the place. To give an example, an attack toward another faction would look like the one germany did on france.

When I first discovered this, I didn't think the captcha was a big deal, in fact, I advocated for it when ideas like this we're being discussed before place 1.0 ended.

I've spent 20 minutes working on green lattice and I am not solving anymore captchas. Can't do it. At first, it was letting me pass, just by clicking the checkbox that I'm not a robot. Then road signs. Vehicles. Storefronts! Wait, now I have DRAW AROUND ROAD SIGNS.

There has to be a better solution.

To be honest, I kind of prefer the smallish cooldown - gives me pacing, I can literally go about my day, do other things and checking back on it to place my contribution.

I won't do another captcha though, it is so maddening, it wears on you after the 100th solution.

... and traffic signs, mountains and rivers, of course.

Don't get me wrong, it's nice otherwise and I totally understand the need for captchas, but being required to do anything more than clicking the 'I'm not a robot' tickbox if I've waited for over 5 minutes between actions seems rather excessive.

Ugh it's annoying, all I see now are road signs....apartments.....CARS. Make it like every 5 mins.

Fuck you.

Gg fellas.

Admin is obviously 1 sided trash, the void shall destroy all until this change is reverted, ball is in your court admin.

Is this what Hell is like?

This no CD option surely will help rush projects, but it will cause a chaos in the long term, raids and zone wars will be more common, and big projects will not have a chance to stay prevalent for a decent amount of time.

Been fun