Sakura's Game Design Blog

Afterthoughts...

2010-11-22T03:22:00.000-08:00

I found this game while reading my kotaku feed the other day:

http://www.kongregate.com/games/2DArray/the-company-of-myself?sfa=permalink

The whole premise of the game is that the main character is a lonely hermit who has no one, and goes through levels by only helping himself. You get to a point where you're reunited with your former love but then you realise that you're meant to be alone after all. It made me sad when I got to the level where I had to kill the main character's love interest =(

It reminded me a lot of those depressing games we played during the last lecture. This one's quite interesting though... you learn the mechanics of the game as you go. It's not a straight platformer as you're able to create clones of yourself to help get yourself through the other stages. It's very much a game where you have to fail a level once to see how to complete it. There's elements similar to Braid in that you can't die - or rather, there's no penalty for dying.

I spent a lot of time playing this game, just because it was simplistic yet challenging.

Journal Week 12 - What Did You Learn?

2010-10-25T01:10:00.000-07:00

When I started this course I was into a lot of mainstream games. I had big ideas about game ideas and what I wanted to achieve, and in some ways the course was a massive slap in the face. From the get go the course has turned all my assumptions around and still made it fun, from the moment we threw plastic balls at each other. Doing this course has changed so many perspectives and assumptions I have on games:

Indie games are fun.

I used to balk at the site of games that I didn't know some background on. It would take my boyfriend to play a game I hadn't heard of. But after playing games which are free, or at least not a Lucasarts/Blizzard/Westwood/Bioware creation, I've come to realise that they're a lot of fun! Games like Galcon and World of Goo, and even online and free games such as Home and Missing are games I've come to appreciate, even if I wouldn't play it for hours on end. Doing this course has broadened my appreciation in games for what they represent and the messages the convey.

Game Design is really hard.

From my friend's talks about a Pokemon MMO to vision I have in my head of what I want to do to games I already play. It seemed like making a game was so simple at the start. But when you look at the parts that comprise the bigger picture you realise there's more to it then "fun". It's actually getting there and achieving the intended experience. I didn't realise something as simple as a mod for a game could have a hugely positive or negative impact. Nor that every design element of a game is crucial - story, characters, visuals, audio, gameplay. There's more to game design than what meets the eye and it's something I really want to look into later on.

Game Design is still work.

It's not all fun and games, if you'll pardon the expression. There's actually a lot of technical aspects in game design - and important aspects - that differentiate between an ok game, and a good game. There's still a design process you have to go through. There's still painful group work. You still have to test. You still have to redesign. You still have to justify it. But it means a game can come out of the process as a great game.

Enjoyment comes from the most unexpected things.

It seemed like such a stupid aspect to a game - you have a bunch of triangles, try and get all of the same colour in your space. I didn't really expect the chaos that ensued as a result to be so enjoyable. Some ideas for game mechanics failed, others worked spectacularly, and it made me realise that you don't have to follow a set formula of build a base, make some units and go blow the other player's brains out to have a good time. Not every game needs a lightsaber to be cool.

Fun is no longer part of my vocabulary.

Now that I can see the reasons why I enjoy a game, the word "fun" is such an inadequate word. There's so many other ways of describing the gaming experience that not only conveys the same message but also shows what makes a good design work. It sort of sounds like an English class back in high school, but analysing why I like a game has become much more in depth than how it was before.

Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road.

This course has been great to me and I know to a lot of people. I definitely want to explore other types of games and step up the gaming experience. I'm not the best gamer around, but I've certainly developed a greater appreciate playing and making games. I think above all, though, doing this course has reasserted that I love games, in every shape and form. As for where I'll go... I'm considering doing honours and doing a thesis. I'm not entirely sure. I'm thinking of doing Advanced Graphics next year - who knows? Maybe I'll make a game.

Game Week 11 - missing and home

2010-10-11T04:13:00.000-07:00

These are probably the most depressing games I've ever seen. I like games with some conclusive and happy ending, and that's mostly been the type of game I play, so this was an eye-opener for me.

Missing is just sad because you never seem to finish it, and it's also a bit tedious because you talk to people and they say the same responses but nothing progresses from them. This aids in the depression I get from the game because you're trying to find your player's son but no matter who you talk to no one knows anything. The pixellated feel and the emptiness in the game play also adds to the void and the emptiness I feel from the game.

With Home it was sad because whatever you did was futile. You eventually lost one status bar after another until your character becomes incapacitated. It also feels as though your player had alzheimers from te start because at the end your daughter comes in and tells her she visits you all the time and you seem to forget. It was sad to play towards the end because you couldn't sleep anymore, or go to the bathroom, or talk to the nurse, and the rate at which the status bars dropped was faster than you could walk, so there was a sense of dread as you wonder what happens towards the end.

I don't agree with the article, I think games are very much art. Just because it doesn't have the same historical presence as Shakespeare plays or Monet artworks, it doesn't mean a game can't be a piece of art. Something that induces some emotional experience in the audience, viewer or reader and has some form of creative input into it is certainly art. It's simply art in the contemporary world.

Design Week 10 - Music

2010-09-27T21:07:00.000-07:00

A puzzle game comes to mind when I think of this. A player navigates through a world where they must unlock doors or get past objects by playing music.

They start of with a simple instrument such as a drum, and have requirements with each obstacle. They make a tune or rhythm of at least 10 notes for each obstacle. Sometimes if they must persuade a person to let them through they might be required to accompany a rhythm or a melody, much like in the Legend of Zelda games on GameBoy where the player must follow a rhythm.

They can pick up additional instruments and in later levels have the potential to do a symphony or a jazz number, but because of the small restrictions of at least 10 notes and maybe an instrument which is required, the player is allowed to do as much or as little as they want.

They can then save the pieces they make and further improve them if they want as one of the side features.

There could even be a feature where as the player makes their music the happiness rating of the person they must get past goes up or down, so that a player doesn't make something awful. It would probably detect harmonies which class at any points so that a player doesn't ruin the ears of other people.

Journal Week 9 - Impro

2010-09-26T21:05:00.000-07:00

In most computer games, players have their own perceptions drawn on the game based on what conceptual art, platform and backstory the game pitches to the public. Players go into first person shooters expecting to be given a gun and allowed to go nuts, whereas players who buy a real-time strategy game look forward to the expansive selection of units they can build. Similarly, when a player reads the blurb on the packaging they form their own ideas of how the story will unfold, particularly if the story pertains to a universe they may be familiar with such as warcraft or star wars.

If players have narrow expectations for a game it may cause certain aspects of the game to disrupt their immersion. Suddenly asking a player who's into a first person shooter to do some puzzles as part of the gameplay may cause a bit of confusion and frustration in the player as they might be so into the action going on around them. A player might not be used to a certain style of game either - whilst playing Knights of the Old Republic I suddenly had to race a swoop, which I wasn't expectng at all, and it took a while to get used to. Players wanting to build huge bases might find that levels in a game that require them to manage a finite number of units a bit frustrating as they have no supply to fall back on.

I think players should expect the unexpected in a game. While a game should incorporate other elements of game styles well - like the puzzles that platformers such as Super Metroid have which teach the player new tricks or make them think about how to get to a certain area, players should be prepared for anything that the game will throw at them. To do this, games like Super Metroid should have the other experiences incorportated WELL into the game. KotOR I think is fantastic at this - there are various elements such as puzzles, racing, card games and duels which are all different to regular game play but fit in well with the story and allow another form of enjoyment for the player.

Having played Word at a time story in the CSE Revue Cast I know only too well that games such as this force the players to think about where the story is going. It's the notion of accepting the offer that another player as given. If a player suddenly changes the situation you were intending the story to go into, it makes you think about what you can do to work with what you've got. Of course, some ideas given are downright weird and often made just for the fun of it, but all in all a player in any game should be able to take the information they are given about the situation and run with it and turn it into an even greater story with enjoyment.

Design Week 8 - Sydney Explorer

2010-09-18T05:47:00.000-07:00

I played a game when I was in Singapore two years ago. When I lived there back in the 90s I noticed along Orchard Road there were plaques that had different kinds of fruit on them, all important in Singapore Culture. At least that's what I think they were there for. When I got back I vowed I would find each different type of plaque and take a picture of where they were, and what they were. It turns out I only managed to find 7 different designs, but as they were all along pathways I had to travel along all these streets to find them. People tend to stick the same type of sticker around places and I always make a habit of finding them and seeing where they all are.

I think something similar could work here in Sydney as well - even more so as Sydney roads are designed so haphazardly. Basically you have a noticeable icon - a plaque, sticker, statue or some form or sign which is replicated along the streets and sights of Sydney, and the goal is to find as many of them as possible. You cannot go by transport nor is there anything past the Harbour or Anzac Bridge. It's almost like a scavenger hunt except you're not looking for a list of places, you're looking for an identical symbol in various locations. The group who can find the most number of symbols - and have proof - would be declared the winners.

The catch is you're not told what the symbol is. You know it's going to be a plaque, sticker or whatever medium it is, and you know it's going to recur in various locations (and it's not already existing such as a company logo - though finding all the McDonalds' in Sydney is probably as time consuming) so you might even miss the item at the start. This would mean people have to canvas all of Sydney, even parts they might not have been to before. It would also mean they familiarise themselves with the area - I often remember where I've been through Sydney based on posters I've seen on the walls.

Journal Week 8 - Story in Games

2010-09-18T05:43:00.000-07:00

I think stories take on several roles in games. One is to give the player a goal - a set and solid storyline gives the player a sense of direction in what they're doing, rather than aimlessly wandering about, trying to figure out where to go. A good story should drive a player to play the game, wanting to find out the next plot point in the story. It should also aid in bringing the player into the world of the game, weaving a tale and characters so tangible the player is immersed in gameplay.

Stories need two important things: a well written plot and well written characters. You cannot have one without the other. A well written characters cannot drive a poorly written story, nor can an excellent story have the same impact if the characters do not have depth to their history, personality and their purpose in the game. As such, it is possible for a game to have a very good and meaningful story if both these elements exist in the game.

Suffice to say I will be highlighting an example which the video would knock off as being in the Star Wars category, but their RPG Knights of the Old Republic has one of the best stories I have ever seen in a game. Not only does the plot have a good level of suspense, emotion and depth to it but the characters all contribute in their own way to push the story and make it as engaging as it is. If not for the characters and the storyline I would not have played that game more than once despite it's fantastic game play, which brings me to another point.

Stories cannot be overshadowed by the gameplay. Games which focuses on the graphics and the mechanics tend to butcher the story or possess one which is sub-par, and one example of this was the fifth Ace Attourney game, Miles Edgeworth. The gameplay was fantastic. I had a new way of logically determining what went down in each crime and got to see the prosecution side of the game I knew and love. There were more interactive parts of the game plus a few throwbacks to the origianl series. But the stories were terrible, and it made the character I loved from the Phoenix Wright trilogy crueler and less witty than before. Not to mention the bad puns. Puns in a game can kill the characters and the plot if used badly *cringe*

As such, I don't think narrative contraints impede on freedom of play. in KotOR you could talk to several characters and do other missions, end missions your own way, build your own equipment and play mini games. While, yes, most of these can ultimately lead to the end there's still room for play for the player. In Max Payne you could interact with the environment: vending machines, TVs, shoot pattersn in the walls. In both games there was no time limit on levels, so games with good stories still allowed for freedom of the player to do what he or she wanted while still reaching the next plot point.

I'm not sure if sandbox storytelling can be completely feasible. Like Adams said, the Sims has some form of sandbox storytelling but only through having multiple facets which the player can tell the story through, and coming up with their own narrative. Having a single player in a world with multiple forms of interaction, would, in a sense, be exactly like an MMORPG, and ultimately have a world where the plot isn't necessarily experienced through exploration because there is no plot at all. For a game to be good, it has to either have multiple facets which engage the player through mechanically performing the same actions, or have a single plot that drives the player to the conclusion of the game. I don't think games with stories can have both these elements.

Game Week 8 - Interactive Fiction

2010-09-15T04:36:00.000-07:00

Playing these games was incredibly annoying. Because of the wide bank of words that is the English language it was difficult to find the words that would trigger any progress in the story.

The playability can be taken in two wasy: playing it over and over again with different words, or going through all the words then playing it again. With Aisle, the same word triggered the same ending. In a way this was good, because it allowed for consistency, but if you managed to exhaust all possible words then you couldn't play it anymore. As a first timer with the game, however, it was enjoyable to read the various endings I could trigger. The fact that you could only go one step into the story, however, madeit slightly addictive as you would go back and see what ending you could come up with.

Galatea was a bit more annoying. The story would run for as long as I could continue conversing with Galatea, but you couldn't use the same word more than once. If you tried to, they would say the conversation has been exhausted. There were also certain formats you had to write sentences in to trigger an event which was also frustrating. I felt this game could go on for longer but the limited vocabulary, again, made it frustrating.

In short, while these games can be entertaining for a while, for me, they don't work. The discovery element in the game of finding out where you progressed in the story with trigger words is fun for a while, but the restrictive format got me very bored in no time.

Design Week 7 - One V. Many

2010-09-09T15:00:00.000-07:00

I would say there are several things that define the advantages players have in groups and on their own. It reminds me of 1 vs 100 (the quiz show) where 1 person and 100 other people are competing for money. Having analysed Zatacka with Sean earlier I can suggest that part of it is the team work and micro management, and other factors that make it beneficial to be in both situations:

On your own it is:

- easier to manage where you go

- easier to strategies

- harder to avoid more obstacles if everyone is out to get your

- harder to achieve your goal without assistance

In groups it is:

- easier to reach your target with everyone working towards it

- easier to achiever you goal with less resources in possession

- harder to manage everyone else

- harder to prevent self-pwnage.

Therefore a game I propose would be a first person shooter game. The person on their own has to reach a goal area, whereas the group are aiming to kill the player. Normally in games such as quake this would be pretty unfair if there was an arsenal of weapons each person had access to. So at the start:

- each member of the mob only has close combat capabilities and one ranged shot (ie one bullet)

- close combat makes another player stunned for 5 seconds.

- if the mob hit the solo player then the solo player is sent back to their base.

- the solo person has a net gun which they can use to stop the other players from moving for 5 seconds.

- this gun has infinite ammo, but can only trap one person at a time

Each side has 60 seconds to achieve their goals:

Solo: must reach the goal within 60 seconds

Group: must stop the soloist from reaching the goal.

Each time you stun a person you get 1 point. If the soloist reaches the goal then he or she is awarded 10 points. If the soloist doesn't make it and died, the person who killed them is awarded 5 points and becomes the next soloist. If the soloist doesn't make it, but didn't die, each member of the mob gets 2 points and the person on the mob with the highest score for that round becomes the mob. The winner is the first person to reach a total score of 30.

Having no ability to playtest it I cannot accurately predict how this would end up, but I would like to believe it allows for creativity and skill development and soloists undergo the challenge of dodging lots of attacks, and teams figure out interesting ways of working together. There would also be an element of back-stabbing as one person might forego the strategy in order to get ahead.

Game Week 7 - Small Worlds

2010-09-08T21:38:00.000-07:00

Doesn't look so small to me...

When I played this game there was no instructions other than how to move. I start off as a very pixellated person in a confined space, but as I move I realise the viewpoint to the game expands and there's more to my surroundings other than I realised! The more I explore the more I discover of my surroundings.

Where is the fun in this game?

This game doesn't tell you what you have to do other then how to move. I think the beauty in that is that it allows the player to come to their own conclusions about the premise of the game. I realised that I started in a dome, and when I saw another one that was broken my first response was "shit, there's another person lurking around.". The suspenseful music also added to the illusion that I wasn't alone.

Because of the lack of information about what to do the fun in the game comes with discovering more about your surroundings and finding out where you are. I think it was fun to wander around and realise "hey, I can go through this part" or "what's this flashing thing?

How do I know what I am supposed to be doing?

I don't. I have to take a risk wherever I go in the game: do I jump to this part? Do I touch this flashing thing? Why am I suddenly in a different area? Can I get back to where I started? It's instinctive to be curious, so all the player has to do is just try something and find out what the conclusion of it was.

When i entered the flashing zones I was transported to somewhere else. The only option for me then was to wander around until I found something else of importance. In the first zone I entered I found this glowing item which looked like a gem, and when I touched it I was back to where I was. After going through the zone next to it and doing the same thing I realised I was collecting these gems, so the next logical step was to find the rest through the same motions.

What makes you continue playing?

Curiosity. Not knowing what the resolution of the game is, and the suspense that the music and the lack of information about your surroundings is what drives me to finish this game. There's also a sense of progress once you find that first gem and come back to the space-like terrain that you were in to start with. The relief that comes with coming back to familiar ground also spurs the player to continue what they were doing. Knowing you're making progress assists you in working to see the conclusion.

Done! Now to see what's next... wait that was it?

Exactly the thought I had when I finished collecting those gems. I thought there would be a progression to another level, or something bad would happen, but all I get is an animation of me jetting off to the surface of a fiery looking planet and a single word. I don't know what just happened, I don't know where I went. I don't know what I even did apart from seemingly leave the space platform.

It's a small world after all...

Game Week 6 - Galcon

2010-08-26T05:43:00.000-07:00

Man, I haven't played a game for blogs in a while... World of Goo was too amusing. Anyway, this week's game is Galcon, which is basically a speedy conquer-the-galaxy style game. Right up my alley! Along with almost every Star Wars game imaginable (almost) but that's besides the point.

The basic premise of the game is you have fleets that you need to send around the galaxy to take over planets. Large planets generate your ships faster, and you need to send a number of ships equal to the number of the planet before it becomes yours. Enemy planets generate additional ships while neutral planets (denoted in black) have a static number. You can change the size of the fleet you wish to send and also the number of planets that ships are to leave from. And there's lot of triangles.

There's a few reasons why I like this simple game. The first is that it has the potential to be a very fast-paced game, much like games of Speed or Spoons. I've been able to win a map in as early as 15 seconds and this is my first time playing it. I guess most of it owes to the feedback loops in the gameplay. The first is that the more planets you own, the more ships you can generate and thus the more ships you have to take over more planets. Conversely, the less planets or the smaller planets you have, the slower your fleet generation is and so it is harder for the loser to catch up in the round. This means all players have to work quickly to build their fleets as efficiently as possible and take over as many planets as they can early on in order to succeed early.

The game needs a small amount of quick thinking and calculation as the player determines the best order to take over planets. Large planets are favourable over smaller planets but planets with a large number of fleets take more ships to conquer. Thus the players are forced to determine the order in which planets should be taken over so that they still have ships for future conquests. The higher the number of ships a player has, the higher the numbers they are able to conquer, thus the more planets they have access to, and in turn the player can generate more ships.

The game also has some negative feedback on the player in terms of the level of managing and ease of play. The more planets a player has, the more attention they must pay to each planet, thus the less chance there is of protecting some of their planets. This stabilises the game somewhat as the player who has more planets has to micro manage to a high degree, whereas the player with only a few planets can easily move to take over the opponent's planets with smaller numbers.

Some of my friends enjoyed the hoarding nature of the game, where you just stockpile the resources and then send them out all at once. I preferred micromanaging in small groups and create a constant barrage.

The tutorial at the start of the game? Ha, I wasn't even aware it was even a tutorial! The game's pretty simple enough; the tutorial provided basic instructions on how it works but I don't think it's absolutely necessary. It simply got the player immersed in the game early on, getting them used to the mechanics. However, the game is really easy to pick up and in the end I don't think a tutorial is needed for a game with simple rules and mechanics.

Journal Week 5 - Fairness

2010-08-19T05:40:00.000-07:00

A game which is extremely unfair is basically one where, no matter what the player does, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the player to achieve any level of progression in the game. In the case of multiplayer games it would be one where a player in any specific role is unable to best the other player, and is such for all possible players.

Games which are unfair generally instill a sense of frustration and lack of accomplishment in the players. It leaves a player unsatisfied with their game play. For most games there should be a level of fairness so that the player is able to progress in the game. Such games are Mario or even Sudoku where you know that a level or a game is solveable. In most games the player is able to figure out the way to get past a hurdle in game play. In these games, if it was impossible to finish something then it wouldn't be fun

There are some games, however, where the seemingly impossible nature of the game makes it both enjoyable and addictive. A perfect example of this is I Wanna Be That Guy where each level is a nightmare of obstacles that the player must over come in order to finish the game. Each level involves a player passing spikes or other deadly objects just to traverse a few sections away from their current position. However the intense difficulty not only makes it a challenging game that games continue with in order to over come them, but seeing the difficulties ahead makes it more enjoyable and even humorous for the player as they realise "Oh shit I have to get through THAT now!"

Design Week 4 - Games for Mum

2010-08-19T05:09:00.000-07:00

This is kind of hard to do because the kind of games my mum would like already exist =.= she also does a lot of things during the day so the game shouldn't be too hard to think about or lengthy.

Some of the things she likes are:

- Cooking

- Reading

- TV

- Brain puzzles

- Light procrastination games

So maybe a game that involves finding the missing ingredients in a recipe? Kind of like how Master Chef has a segment where there's a recipe that isn't perfect and you have to make it better - there could be a picture of how a dish is supposed to look like, and the current dish, and it could be in a restaurant setting. The customers could have a mood meter displaying how much they like the dish and you could add ingredients in the kitchen segment, making it how it's supposed to look or better.

So the player would have more freedom in how to play the game - they could put in random ingredients and see how it goes, or see if they can make a totally different dish and find out whether it'll be just as popular as the real thing. Knowing my mum, though, she'd want to do it properly, but with different stages it could be a good game that involves cooking and a bit of problem solving while still being a game she plays on the side.

Journal Week 4 - Sensation

2010-08-19T02:11:00.000-07:00

After reading the material given for the sensation journal it made me think about how the games I play allow me to enjoy the game through a visual and audio experience. A good example of a game that I can think of is Jedi Outcast where you can maneuver the player much like in Mario 64. There's obvious points in the storyline that you have to achieve, such as finding Desann and retrieving your lightsaber, but the majority of the game is doing force moves and wielding weapons. There's also the sounds of the player walking across metal, opening doors or swimming through lakes.

I think a good game allows a player to feel as though they are a part of the game. Games that have background music that reflects the current location of a player such as in clubs or outside, or games that allow you to interact with objects in the virtual world help to achieve this effect. In Max Payne the player is able to use the vending machine or the TVs and can open lockers as well as doors. There's also sound effects from the TV as the player changes channels.

In terms of visuals I think games which have more realistic graphical work are more immersive than abstract or retro games. Playing a real-looking person in a first person shooter makes it easier to relate to the character than if you played Pacman, for example. A game with good physics is also enjoyable and immersive, as we cansee with Mario 64 where you're able to run and jump and slide down inclines. Swimming is also done well in Mario 64 where you can appear to swim upwards rather than the character just magically moving up. This is something to think about if I have a game involving a player character interacting with its surroundings.

Game Week 3 - World of Goo

2010-08-17T04:24:00.000-07:00

Playing the prototype, Tower of Goo, it was clear to me that this was more of a toy rather than an actual game. The only thing you can do is build a tower. There are flags that indicate, in a networked setting, the heights of the towers your friends have made but beyond that there are no rewards for building a tower of a specific height apart from satisfaction that you have built a tower higher than your friends.

In World of Goo there is much more of a game element to that form of play. Instead of a simple tower building engine the player has a goal which they must reach by creating structures out of goo. The game also has a storyline and added features such as different types of goo balls which aid the player in solving extra puzzles. There are set levels which the player must complete before they can progress to the next stage in the game.

The resonance is achieved in this game through the way the mechanics, the story and the presentation all relate to the concept of Goo. The Goo Balls are fluid in their movements and bounce around the screen, bobbing up and down when a new addition to the structure is added. The sounds are also goo-like and squishy, and make squelching sounds when placed down. The story is centred around the goo balls as characters and have parts which are about their characteristics, such as in the game tips for each level.

Design Week 3 - Make a Toy

2010-08-09T19:42:00.000-07:00

So a toy is pretty much a game that has no real objective... I played with the falling sand game quite a lot and that led me to download Bontago and play that... so I didn't get around to this journal entry until right now. On the train. Where I need to conserve battery because I'm about to run out of power. Very. Soon. ><

Following the falling sand game and the sandbox mode of bontago I think a good aspect of a toy is that it can emulate things in real life. In the falling sand game the oil gets burned by fire, plants grow under water, walls properly cause the falling material to properly slide/bounce off. In Bontago the blocks properly bounce, fall off or destroy other stacked blocks depending on the angle they land or how high you drop them.

So a toy I can think of is a tank of water and a set of blocks on a dry surface in the tank. You can build the blocks into any arrangement on the dry strip or choose to drop them into the water. The larger the block, the higher the waves get. Blocks can have other properties like metal or "magic rocks" which can grow in the water. So if people wish they can produce huge tsunamis that topple all the blocks over or grow sculptures in the water, but other than that there's no real goal or objective.

Design Week 2 - Ball Game Again

2010-08-09T19:25:00.000-07:00

I can think of something akin to multiplayer tetris and bust a move (mostly for those coloured bubbles). Each person has a screen with a set of blocks laid in levels in them. The goal is to clear out your set of blocks, but you can only remove blocks if they are the top most block in the column. So you can't remove a block under another block until the top one goes. You remove a block by clicking on them with the mouse.

Each time you remove blocks of the same colour in a row, you add an amount of blocks to another person's stack, which generates randomly. For example, one block will add 0 or 1 blocks, 2 might add 1, 3 might add 3, 4 might add 8 etc, but only if they're the same colour. You could choose which player it goes to, or maybe it's equal amongst everyone else. Combos will stack even more on other people.

You can also get random powerups that show up on your stack which might remove all of the next colour you generate (and thus add lots to the other player's piles). Or it might explode a whole section of your stack. Anyway, the goal of this is to be the first to clear out your stack. I think it can emulate the same amount of mayhem the ball game had as you can be about to remove a colour that finishes your combo and then someone drops a block on top of that. Or you can just be about to clear the level and everyone else drops blocks on you. It can leave room for eventual strategy or people can be just mindlessly rushing to clear the field.

Something I just thought of - rather than being able to randomly select any colour you could be forced to pick a colour base on what's displayed in a section of the screen. So you might be told to remove as many blue as you can in 3 seconds, then it switches to red, etc.

Journal Week 2 - Digital vs non-Digital Games

2010-08-09T03:00:00.000-07:00

In this day and age technology makes it easier for us to do things: talk to each other more often, send messages to friends and family overseas conveniently and even buy stuff. One medium which is experiencing lots of expansion is the games medium. Computer games, video games and electronic toys are a huge part of my life.

There's three game categories in regards to the medium: board games/table-top/card/RPGs, computer games and sports games.

Board games have the advantage of allowing the player to interact directly with their teammates/competitors. You are all around the same space and can talk with each other, even physically trade items, money or other tokens. It makes the environment a lot more fun especially with games such as Twister or Hungry, Hungry Hippos where the excitement is in the atmosphere and you all feed off it and contribute to it. However board games have a very limited space and thus the environment has little change in the arrangement of the pieces and the very art itself. For a designer you have to take into account the properties of the materials when making the parts of the game and the printing capabilities (the colour space on a computer is different to the colour space in print). With a board game you're very limited to the rules and the pieces.

Computer Games are more versatile in how the player can interact with the game itself: some games let you do jumps and have some features where you can interact with vending machines, other characters and even other online players. While some small games such as Plant vs Zombies have no extra features once you finish the game twice, have bought all the cards and finished all the mini games, large scale games such as WoW have a huge array of features and places to explore. It's difficult, however, to interact with other players well unless you're at the same machine. Online players cannot see each other and thus have to come up with an image of the person they're playing with. The anonymity also allows for easier methods of harassing others. Designers, however, can either have a field day or a nightmare designing the game - they can add whatever they wish to the visual aspects and graphics of the game, or incorporate physics or other fun features and easter eggs.

Sports and Live action games have the greatest amount of interaction and physical immersion. Playing the actual game physically provides a greater experience as you understand exactly how the mechanics work and develop the physical skills, as opposed to a virtual representation of the player gaining those skills, or card games where you cannot see that experience gained in an animated way. You can feel the tension, fatigue and excitement more as part of a team, or the adrenaline of running a race. The downside to these, though, is that breaking the rules or doing things which aren't part of the game can have serious consequences, may it be breaking something or injuring someone else. For a designer these have to be taken into account when creating a new sport/live action game or someone could be seriously injured.

Games can change drastically depending on the medium it's being represented in. Take soccer. In the real life sport you are only in control of your own body. The ball will fly around based on how you kicked the ball, your strength behind it, and you run the risk of hitting another person/being hit by something and being injured. You can communicate directly with others to form strategies or call out to them to get them to pass to you.

In foosball, the "board game" version of soccer, you have control over all players but they only have a certain range in which you are able to move them. You can't perform any tricks with the players such as headbutts or dribbling and there are no penalties for kicking the ball out of the field (indeed, this is impossible unless you kick it out of the unit). However this makes the game fun because of the lack of rules/penalties, and you can either play 1 on 1 or team up with other people.

Virtual soccer games such as FIFA allow you to experience the game from a bird's eye view. You can control the current player that possesses the ball or just your own player. The game incorporates features such as penalty kicks and other rules pertinent to the actual soccer game. You can play through a full competition and manage your team. However there's less interaction with the game and physical immersion - you can't go through the movements yourself and you cannot communicate with other players directly unless you are on the same machine or on headsets.

Personally I like foosball because it has less rules, and more cause for mayhem =P

Game Week 1 - Trogdor!

2010-07-26T16:30:00.000-07:00

This week's game to take a look at (and subsequently procrastinate with) was Trogdor. The basic rules of Trogdor is to stomp on 10 people and achieve Burninate then burn the houses down without getting stabbed or speared by knights and archers.

What kinds of fun play experience does this game provide?

There's an element of drama in the game - the suspense and anticipation of stomping the last man before he gets back into his home and the panic that might be experienced when the player gets too close to the knights or arrows adds to the emotional experience of the game.
Sensation is evident in the simple graphics and the sound effects. There are points in the game that provide auditory humour (such as the occasional comment "Aw, this is the worst game I've every played!" if you die) and visual humour (the image of Trogdor sworded/struck with multiple arrows as a way of teasing the player for dying)
Challenge is an important as it's the primary focus of the game - the levels get harder as you go and there's a higher rate of getting killed.
Fantasy - I mean, come on. Fire-breathing dragons and medieval knights?

Can you summarise the core experience of the game in just a sentence?

A simple and amusing game that merges pacman and pyromania into one game.

How does the game progress? Does it change? How does this affect the experience?

The game progresses when you burn all the houses down by achieving burnination. As it progresses the levels become more difficult - there are more houses to burn, they are orientated differently on the screen and people are harder to stomp on. This means the experience is largely dynamic and never gets boring (unless you Game Over a bajillion times and have to play level 1 again... and again... and again...)

Some houses have a bonus area where you get extra points and after every certain number of levels you get a fun cutscene.

What are the core mechanics that make the game work?

The reward system of having a level achievement every time you reach 10 stomped pilgrims and the loss system (losing a pilgrim on the meter when they reach their house safely) is definitely an important aspect that makes the game enjoyable.

The increasing difficulty of the levels with changing number and orientation of houses adds to the success of the game - it becomes less easier to burn everything down in one go as some houses get blocked off, and the positioning may result in less area for you to side-step the knights.

The point system (getting an extra life when you reach a multiple of 300 points) also means people are able to enjoy the game longer, as levels get harder to success unscathed.

How do the various components of the game contibute to the core experience?

The visuals allow a simple way of keeping track of how close you are to the Burnination, heightening that sense of drama. The invincibility attained through Burnination also adds to the Reward system giving the player a sense of empowerment. The bright colouring and simple design make it pleasing to look at while playing, and easy to distinguish the targets and the obstacles to avoid.

The mechanics of the knights also add to the core experience and they have a generated path across the screen, adding to the drama as they speed up and slow down, change directions across the screen and seemingly follow the player around.

The cutscenes at certain milestones also add to the challenge as it gives the player the sense of accomplishment needed to make the game work.

Are there any parts that detract from the experience? How could they be changed?

Sometimes the knights have an ambigious radius where they kill the player. I had a visible gap between a knight and myself once and I still died. Also sometimes the knights go up into the sky - a glitch which could easily be fixed.

Sometimes the Burninate Meter feels like it drains a lot faster than Trogdor, which meant even on simple maps depending on where you are on the map when you achieve it you run out before you can get all the houses.

Despite invulnerability you can't kill the knights during Burnination - that would be more fun.

All in all, I think I've found a new method of procrastination =)

Journal Week 1 - Why am I here?

2010-07-21T08:33:00.000-07:00

So, after Blogger acting up on me for a total of about an hour I can finally post. Sweet Jesus. If it repeatedly loads blank pages I might just switch to another domain. But I digress.

Anyway, here I am! Game Design Workshop! Wooo! I've been looking forward to this course for a while now because I love playing games. It's really good to be able to study something that I really enjoy and have an active hobby in. Eventually I want to get into game design (though I probably won't jump into Blizzard RIGHT away) and of course this is the most logical step towards that goal.

Actually thinking about games, it's hard for me to fully explain what I enjoy about games and what it is about them that maintains my interest. Plots, graphics and gameplay are a few points. I'm never bored with games that have good storylines such as KotOR or StarCraft, or games that have beautiful graphics (even if it might be obsolete now). Games which are really simple or easy to pick up the controls of I like too. It has to be a combination of these though - I can't stand overly pretty games that will ravage my computer and have shit plots and characterisation. Even if a game has the best storyline if it looks horrible I won't even give it a second look.

Another thing that interests me is the development. In some games the physics engines are just amazing, the graphics are gorgeous, the plots are so intricate or so simple yet have a huge impact, and some games have cool features and mini games. I'm interested in finding out how these aspects come about and what actually goes into making the games I enjoy so much. Doing Graphics as well as this course I'm interested to see what I can come up with over the summer holidays where I can take game design that one step further and actually code it up. But that's a task for later.

I like lots of games really, looking back at it, and I wish I had time to play more role-playing games, first person shooter/saberer, and real-time strategies. I've played a few of these - mostly they're games that don't have a huge element of horror or gore - Left 4 Dead freaked me out the first time I saw it played, as did the Gears of War 2 main menu cinematic - but games that involve science fiction/space elements I really like, as with fantasies. I'd like to play more non-Star Wars games since I think I've pretty much exhausted that list of PC games. I've played a few MMOs (not WoW) and I'd like to play that a bit more, but not enough to sell my life away. Definitely from the above categories I want to play more first person shooters since I've mostly been playing Star Wars ones, and get better at RTSs.

While it's probably infeasible to make an MMORPG, a simple RPG with a solid storyline and an actual end to the game that doesn't take 1000s of hours to reach would be really cool to make. I'd like to make a game that's witty, has good characters and a decent plot and really easy to pick up the controls of. A game that incorporates puzzles and problem solving like Myst or KotOR into its storyline and helps strengthen the player's mind as well as the action of the game. Something that doesn't require the player to go through hours of labour, but isn't over and done with in 5 minutes and never touched again. It should be challenging but a game that isn't stressed over.

All in all I hope to learn more about the process of coming up with a good game and what you have to consider to make a great game; what elements are involved in producing a good player experience. Hopefully it'll give me more insight into why some games do so well and others fail miserably no matter the hype about them.

Why do so many games involve guns?

Probably because it adds an element of thrill and rebellion. I wouldn't expect anyone to want to hold a weapon in their hands and shoot other people. It's the thrill of having contraband in your hand and getting to do stuff you know is wrong in real life and seeing what the consequences are. Having games with guns allows you to experience something you're not daring to go near in real life.

For some it also empowers them; you have a gun in your hand, you can shoot things with it with no ramifications. You're not going to get hurt physically if someone shoots you in the virtual world. They're not actually going to die if you shoot their character. As such, it's also a way of giving challenge. Given no repercussions for having guns, you compete with your friends to see who can shoot the most number of people - free for all competitions in Quake, for one.

It's cool to see things get blown up, or see what other physics occurs when something gets shot. In Max Payne 2 I shot vending machines, windows, cans, water, TVs, all to see how things when flying. In Quake it's cool to see explosions and people getting torn apart and people commenting on it. It's gross, yes, but it's incredibly amusing.