This is the greatest and best game in the world... ...tribute.

Quix-Tac-Dash
(by Klaus Preisinger)

Quix-Tax Dash is a combination of Tic-Tac-Toe, the classic game Quix and the 100m dash from Decathlon. It is designed to be a piece of Wiiware best played with your Wii Nunchuck controller. Preferable two human players square off in a brutal competition testing their wits, their psychological resilience and their physical endurance. The game is best played while other people are watching. Alcohol might impair the strategic part, but turn the rest into a wild rampage of mayhem and destruction. Should players ignore the “no touching the other player while the game is on” rule, basic skills in Real Life Mortal Kombat also might come in handy.

The Tic-Tac-Toe aspect:

Obviously you are either Agent X or Agent O, you will win the game by claiming 3-in-a-row. You do that, you win. Easy, right?

The Quix Aspect:

It's no longer simply your turn to choose a field, this is real time Tic-Tac-Toe. You move your X or O avatar, just as seen in Quix, on the rather thick grid lines. There is no movement on the outside of the the two horizontal and two vertical lines. Only the black areas are maneuverable. You move with the Nunchuck analogue stick. Just like in Quix, you have to hold down the trigger to start drawing (i.e. claiming) a line while pushing your Nunchuck against the white wall you want to claim and the direction you want to paint it your colour. Once you do that, your avatar will no longer move and that is where the decathlon part comes in.



The Decathlon Dash aspect:

So you decided to paint one of the white boxes' walls in your color? You pressed the “start painting” button and have pointed the analog stick towards that wall and the direction you want to paint it? Then you will only move forward now if you waggle your Wiimote left and right. The faster you do it, the faster you will be finished with your wall and if all side walls of a white box are painted your color, you score the box for your color.

After that you are in free move mode again and you better target a strategically important wall next. Else those arms might fall off soon.

The Tactical Aspect:

Balance is tricky, as long as the white corner boxes are claimed fastest. They only have two walls to paint which is an advantage (but only until I increase the amount of waggling it takes to paint those particular walls in comparison to other boxes with more walls). The center boxes on the outside have three walls making them a bit more difficult. You will never paint opposing walls at the same time! Notice in the picture how the red player claimed the first field without affecting the field next to it. The center box has four walls, making it mighty unattractive at first glance, since a box will only be awarded to you if you own all walls. If you want to go as fast as possible, then you would try to create 3-in-a-row by only using the three boxes on the outside, because you only need to paint seven walls total. Since both players could employ that strategy while completing avoiding contact, the whole game would degenerate in a waggling contest. But we want to have strategy and force the players to compete for the same spots. The solution is easy. The center field has to be incentivized. If building a line of three including the centerfield requires less waggling than making a strait line on the outskirts of the level, then the players will not avoid each other, but step on each other's toe all the time. So the balance is like this: Claiming a corner field will require a total of 12 waggles, claiming one of the outer middle boxes will take 10 waggles, the whole centre box will only take 8 waggles. I put it into a matrix to show how often you need to waggle in order to claim each box. Feel free to multiply that number based on your level of sadism.

12 10 12
10 08 10
12 10 12

As long as players start at opposing ends of the field, the shortest route will always be through the middle. As long as both players waggle at the same speed, player (1) going through the middle will always cancel the attempt of player (2) trying to grind a straight line on the outside while ignoring the other player. Player (2) will always see that coming and instantly try to partially destroy the center box in order to avoid defeat. A player only controls a box if he controls ALL walls. With the help of this small balance tweak, both players will compete for all the boxes on the field at all times.

The Clash

If you try to claim a line while the other player is claiming that very line, you will start at the opposing end, even if you were not there, and start claiming that line from the other end. When both players meet, the player waggling faster will push back the other player. Sometimes both players will have claimed enough outside fields for the centre piece to become the decider. In that case, a final face off will put an end to strategy and have both players pushing their limit. What started off as a strategic game, has the potential to turn into a very mean waggling contest. But this is only a Tie-Breaker should all previous employed strategies be countered. Tic-Tac-Toe has the potential for a draw, Quix-Tac-Dash has not!

Graphics:

A bit vectorish, many light effects when boxes are claimed. Lots of sparks flying when lines
are drawn, lots of X and O symbols flooding into boxes when they are claimed, big X and O
symbols are made from clusters of smaller X and O symbols. When control of a box is lost, the
whole symbols fracture into small pixels, much effect spamming going on all the time.

Sound Design:

Each player gets to select the color of their X or O. Each color has a unique five track
audio file attached. Five because that is the maximum amount of boxes one can claim without
winning the game. Once you claim a box, one track of your audio file will activate. Same goes for the opponent. If both of you have claimed two boxes, then two tracks of each player's color will playback, resulting in a ever changing music mash similar to Stomp and crazier than Locco Rocco.

Some tracks will “answer” to the basic beat of the game which is always present, some will give it an additional baseline, a lead guitar solo, other tracks will provide some “lalala” singing. Each
colour scheme is unique, is using different voice pitch and different music instruments. So while the player fight it out on the battlefield, the music will turn into a mad jamming session. As soon as one player wins, the music will shift towards playing his fanfare.

Iterations:

Why waggle left and right, when you can configure so many motions. Huge circular motions, brute force applied the accellerometer (like trying to shake off something glued to your hand), up and down, diagonal, stabbing motion, anything goes. As another option, claiming boxes could also reward you power-ups to mess with you opponent, like giving him a waggling penalty or give you a waggling bonus. Other upgrades might give him a less favourable way of waggling or destroy one of his lines. This even increases the motivation to claim the “easy middle box” and throw a hostile bonus item at your opponent. Applying physical stress on the hardware is part of the experience. Decathlon was all about breaking your controller and Quix-Tac-Dash is too. Stories of broken Wiimotes shall be the viral marketing tool and they will be fixed with duct tape. Even more controllers will be sold and people will learn how to repair a working Wiimote from a bunch of broken ones. Maybe the will also apply glow-in-the-dark paint. Alternative board layouts were not part of the design challenge but are an obvious evolution of the game.

Multiplatform:

After you broke all your Wii controllers, the gods of design hell purgatorio demand new sacrifices. I shall offer them a DS version in which you will use the stylus to scratch your DS within a day or two. After that I will offer an Iphone port completely ruining its shiny surface. Instead of only scratching, both platforms have the advantage of being able to register tapping.

So quickly tapping alternating sides of the touch sensitive surface can also be employed here and put further strain to the hardware, as any game in the spirit of Decathlon should (I would never use buttons though). Finally, an Eyetoy version will register hand waving motions. Just remember: choking your opponent will not register as claiming a line! As a standalone product Quix-Tac-Dash is rooted in the realm of microtransactions and must-have title for every party.

And the peculiar thing is this my friend, the game I designed on that fateful night, it didn't actually play anything like this game! This is just a Tribute, you got to believe it and I wish you were there...

©2008 Klaus Preisigner