Escapades of a Budding Game Designer

We make cakes now.

2013-03-28T09:58:00.001-07:00

My profession?! Well actually I've always wanted to be a baker....

League of Legends Logo Cake (LoL)

Portal Cube Cake w/ Aperture Logo

I want to sell cakes for a living. It means I can make cakes all the time. And they are really tasty by the way! They aren't your average Joe cakes!

Ross, Out.

Monetising games

2011-10-04T08:40:00.001-07:00

So I now have an account on Platogo, a website that installs banners around your game and with a bit of coding links into the score systems and so forth.
Instantly this platform updates onto the main Platogo website however it gives the option to add it onto facebook.
This is what I have done, after a few hours of working the system out I have got this link

https://www.platogo.com/facebook/applications/zombac/
(hopefully it will work for you)

You may need to log in and accept permissions but I have (at leats I hope) got it working.

Please feel free to play, beat high scores pass it to your friends and challenge them in a high score battle!

Today, as you can probably tell, was our first monetising games lecture. With this website just being one way to monetise games, I may have some work to do to expand around the internet. I get a feeling my year one project is not good enough to win any awards, or even sponsorship or licensing but uploading my game on facebook is a start.

Monetising games essay, Bring it on!

Ross, Out.

New Year, New WorkLoad...

2011-09-13T01:52:00.000-07:00

So I have once again managed to ignore this blog for a few months, this has been due to me off on holiday from Uni. Now this has been no excuse to forget this blog I know, however alot of my time has been spent sitting on a campsite with no internets or computing nearby!

So now I come crashing back to real life. The second year of university and a time for this blog to thrive once again. As I wander into the unknown once again as the second year begins, I wonder what this year will bring, new lessons to learn or new skills to acquire?

I will be back, updating this blog more regularly very soon. Until then, Good day to you!

Ross, Out.

Circuitry absurdity

2011-04-15T12:42:00.001-07:00

I'm back and this time with a work based essay which we had to write as part of a module for Critical Games Studies.
I wont take ages to explain as hopefully the essay will do that for me, anyway here goes nothing

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Design issues faced in making a Key Stage 1 game

During the creation of games there are many risks and problems that a designer will need to overcome, these design issues must be considered so that the final resulting game is one which is enjoyable, appropriate for the audience, at the correct difficulty and many other design issues. A designer must consider every issue that may arise, and even more so within a Key stage 1 educational game, much like the one that I am creating alongside a team of people at university. This essay is dedicated to discussing design issues that our team has faced during the creation of Circuitry Absurdity.

Our first design issue that nearly every games designer will face is how to make a game actually fun. First the designer must understand what the term 'Game' truly means. Greg Costikyan, in his article 'I have no words I must Design' (2002), breaks down the term 'game' and explores various tools for how a games designer may create a game themselves. Costikyan writes about Interaction, Goals, Struggle, Structure and Endogenous meanings. For a successful game all must be considered before going into more detail about what is required within the game to make it 'fun'.
- Interaction between player and the game is imperative, choices with meaning and obvious outcomes to how a player responds can make the game draw the player into the game world.
- Goals that are set to the player must be purposeful, they must make the player adapt to achieve. Just giving goals is not enough however.
- Competition (or as above, struggle) adding an extra element, as the goals increase the difficulty range advances
- Structure is another important area to consider as a small change in structure leads to a large change in player behaviour. This behaviour can be controlled by the designer by introducing certain goals
- Endogenous meaning, possibly one of the most important to the gaming medium as giving the player something in game that has no actual significance in the real world can give the player a reason to complete a game.

Costikyan summarised all these terms with one sentence with which we can use to decide what the term 'game' truly means, and thus how we could start to design our project.
[A game is] 'an interactive structure of endogenous meaning that requires players to struggle towards a goal'. (pg 24)

Looking solely at this single tool set would not profit our project as using only these terms can lead without a doubt to a playable game, however above I have used the term 'Fun'. To keep KS1 children playing our game before giving up bored and uneducated, we need to consider making our game fun to play.
Costikyan also explores Marc LeBlanc's Taxonomy (pg26), 8 terms that he used to describe how a games designer could create a pleasurable experience for the player.
The terms:
Sensation - Visuals, Audio, Tactile or even Muscular sensation
Fantasy - The fictional constructed world of a game
Narrative - A story within a game
Challenge - As above, struggle or competition
Fellowship - Simply put, the community surrounding the game
Discovery - Litterally exploring a game world or just revealing hidden information
Expression - Self expression, how the player portrays him or herself within the game
Masochism - Submission, allowing yourself as a player to be drawn into the games world

So now I have baffled with terminology how is all this related to creating our group projects final product?
Circuitry absurdity is a puzzle game in which the player must complete a circuit using all the components available running wires from the battery to the components within a certain amount of time to be awarded with a gold, silver or bronze medal.
Considering all the terminology above posed a new design issue, that we needed to include the majority of the terms in order to create a compelling game.
Straight away we could add fantasy to the game using a level select feature to create a 'world' or as it were, a house with toys to fix. With the target audience being set at a low age the toys we included would help to immerse the player into the game, making them believe they were fixing their own toys and thus a form of masochism had been included. With a level select discovery became a system to unlock rooms within the house, to find what new toys can be fixed around the various rooms.
The narrative of the game is very loose, Mr Sparks is helping the child to fix all the toys in the house, working from one room to another. This caused a few issues we needed to overcome, do we need a stronger narrative? Is the educational value more important and so should we focus more on the game play itself?
To appeal to the correct target audience we need to make the game compelling to the ages 5 - 7 and thus a more involved story was to be included. Along with the target audience we needed to consider the endogenous meanings. Children love to collect things, be it medals in games or shells in real life. We cannot give the child a shell, but we can give them medals for completing the game, even if the medals mean nothing in real life, through play testing I discovered that the gold medal meant a lot to the player, where his friend did not achieve. The player was therefore presented with a goal, to claim all medals within the game or to even beat his piers by acheiving greater heights and better scores.
This introduces our competition, or struggle in the game and even fellowship. Utilizing a score system to show off the previous players achievements meant each player had something to beat, a time that his fellow community member had set.
Interaction between players is always important however the player having meaningful choices within the game is also imperative. We have created the choice in which level the player wishes to tackle next however there is not a definitive meaning behind each choice, as the player must complete all levels to continue anyway.

I could continue with how we overcame multiple design issues however I have covered all the major areas above. Other aspects of the above terminology I will cover but in less detail.

Having a concept to work with is one thing, being a 5 man team however we needed to decide early what the art style would be, I quickly locked down onto a previously existent style which we dubbed 'The Jimmy Nuetron Effect'. Using the 3D style from this children's TV show, our 3D artists knew exactly how we envisioned the game looking, creating a perfect 'sensation' base for the artistic pleasure.
'We call the representation of one medium in another Remediation'
The artistic style of the television show Jimmy Neutron was used as a springboard onto the artistic style that we took for our game, the representation of a previously existent look, feel and style recreated similarly within our game. A style that will appeal to both genders and therefore a vast target audience

Originally our game was going to appeal to both genders by allowing the player to ave an on screen representation of themselves however this was worked out due to safety issues and such like and so we had a new design issue. How can we make the game appeal to both genders?
To overcome this we set up each room to contain toys that would appeal to both genders or a specific gender.
Gender in gaming is very male dominated, Gamesindustry.com held host to the 'United Kingdom National Gamers Survey 2009'. A survey which discovered in terms of gender children between 8 - 12 had a more male populated games intake than females, where males would play for over 3 hours more than females a week.
Taking this into account we could aim our game more at a male audience however due to this being an educational game which teachers could use to inform students how to create circuits, classes will be filled with boys and girls and therefore our game must comply with both genders.

Looking back at Costikyans assessment of the tools of game design, challenge is one very important area that we had to consider when designing our game. A design issue that without looking into would make or break or game completely. Thus tasked with a play test with the target audience, we needed to see exactly how difficult the game would actually be for the players we were aimed at producing the game for. Its one thing having challenge in a game, its another not being able to complete it due to its intense difficulty! The children managed to complete levels within a certain amount of time however seemingly they couldn't achieve golds as the medal times were set too quick for them. The mechanics of the game therefore became a design issue, we needed to lower the complexity of the level designs or heighten the medals to become more achievable for the target audience we had been briefed.

Adding a tutorial to the start of the game was also extremely helpful as success rates heightened due to a less word based tutorial and a more interactive 'play along' style tutorial. Giving the player the chance to see what his or her actions did in an un-timed version of the game gave them the chance to build up a 'perceivable consequence' for each action. As Doug Church discussed in his work 'Formal Abstract Design Tools' (1999) this is 'a clear reaction of the game world to the action of the player'.
Giving the player this preconceived knowledge of 'what will happen if they do this' allows them to make more informed decisions later on in game thus allowing them the ability to explore themselves different methods to acheive their goals.
Through play testing we have avoided the design issue of young players not understanding the concept of the game, or not being able to play it all together.

With every game that is created or designed there are a multitude of design issues that need to be ironed out quickly and effectively. Our game was no exception. The way we over came each issue was extremely useful to everyone in the group who for many this was our first experience creating a game suitable for a specific market.
To overcome many of these issues we just looked back at our childhood and considered what we would find 'Fun', using Leblanc's taxonomy we could then relate them to real game situations and then effectively utilize them in our project.
Another method was to actually let the children play our game for themselves. Let them tell us what was broken, or what needed fixing. It was a particularly helpful session finding out our tutorial was too confusing and therefore a design issues arose of how to fix this problem. Looking at what works outside of video games was also helpful to us, to decipher what children wanted in an educational game we looked at successful art styles and other games that appeal to this particular target audience, in other words Market research.

Looking back at all the design issues discussed above and remembering the Tools for creating 'Fun' in a video game can help in my future of games design especially considering how we can overcome any problem that brings itself into existence. Breaking down the issue and tackling it as its own entity and then adding it back into the game as a whole, this is what builds a game up to being as massive as they can become, although our project was small compared to the multimillion selling games of today, this project was a good exercise to practise. The knowledge that all these design issues exist is always good to remember especially when under a deadlined project!

References

Costikyan.G, (2002), I Have No Words I Must Design, Tampere University Press, Tampere

Jay Bolter and Richard Grusin (2000) Remediation: Understanding New Media MIT Press

Todays Gamers, (2009), http://www.tnsglobal.com/_assets/files/Factsheets_UK.pdf

Doug Church, (1999), Formal Abstract Design Tools - Gamasutra, http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3357/formal_abstract_design_tools.php

-----------------------------------

And there we have it, 2009 words and over 5 hours of work later (gladly not in one sitting!) I have completed another essay. I say completed but I am probably just going to have to change a lot of this to reach maximum (or at least a decent grade!)
I hope this was an interesting read, if you managed to read it all...

Ross, Out.

Remediation

2011-04-08T15:35:00.000-07:00

So a blog post based upon one rather interesting and easy to grasp lecture, giving you an insight into the work that I as a games design student will undergo.

The term Redmediation, simply means to turn one idea presented in one media, into an idea that can be used on another type of media. For example Turning a TV show into a Radio Show and visa versa. A typical example would be Ricky Gervais' Podcast [http://www.rickygervais.com/podcast.php] is now a cartoon TV series based on the Podcast shown on Channel 4 and E4.

One medium taking successful conventions from another type of media is not uncommon, a basic and more obvious form of remediation is wide-screen televisions. When the television was invented it was a basic square, however painters and the like could use canvas' to create vast rectangular drawings so why couldn't TV? Thus the wide-screen TV was born. A conevention in drawing used in television, one medium to the next.

Its a simple concept that I could keep going on about however I wont bore you with that, instead I will tell tall tales on Technoludic films as a form of remediation. This term was created by Bittanti (2003), its a link between Technology and Ludus (which is latin for play, see blog posts below).

Now, initially this seems confusing however it is basically Remediation from Games to Film.
An example of this could be easily pin pointed to films such as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Super Mario Bros. However this form of remediation is too simple, too obvious.
A film that we watched during the lecture was one I had never heard of. A film that I quite enjoyed. It was 'Run Lola Run'.
[http://www.zuguide.com/#Run-Lola-Run]
The film uses all the conventions from video games which we have come to recognise, from timers and menu selections to 'cut scenes' and how the backing soundtrack is presented.
Its a film I would highly recommend watching if you ever get the chance whether your interested in gaming or not.

The lecture wasn't just about watching films however as Immediacy and Hypermediacy
Immediacy is a medium such as a film where the writer and producer has attempted to make the audience lost within the media. Make them forget the real world and even think they are a part of the media. Looking at photographs and photo realistic images, there is very little difference between a photo realistic image and an actual photo, however the photo realistic is so life like that the audience is meant to forget what they are looking at is truly just a painting. This is just one type of Immediacy.

Hypermediacy is the opposite. This is where the audience is meant to know they are watching TV or playing game, so much so to the point that the media will make effort to show the audience that these conventions are in use, such as sports news with the scrolling text at the edges of the screen.

So that covers another lecture in the life of a games design student.

Ross, Out.

Girl Gamers and Me

2011-04-02T01:30:00.000-07:00

The game industry is an ever growing market of possibilities and oppourtunities, with over 9000 people employed around the UK in the industry (Prescott and Bogg, 2011)
However with so many people employed there is a very large percentage of male employees against what is only around 4% females working with games.

Now, having gone through a list of the weeks top 40 games, I can deduce that the majority of games are created by men, for men. Games like Crysis, Fallout and Call of Duty all present in the top 40. These are war games, first person shooters, made to give an adrenaline rush, creating set pieces of play to build tension within the game to test the skill of the player. Games stereotypically made for men.
The top 40 did however contain some games for girls. Nintendogs for example would not be expecting a vast male audience however it is still dominant within the top games of the week, Thus suggesting that a large ammount of the female population is buying the game, so much so it can outsell some other titles such as Assassins Creed: Brotherhood or BulletStorm.

So the games industry does have 'girl gamers' with which to claim as a target audience. However with on 4% of females in the game design industry there is very little input with what games to create for girls which they would enjoy. Stereotyping the female market and giving them games they presume they will enjoy, like one website has done (below)
Not sure if the above image can be seen easily however these are games that they have added on http://www.girlgames1.com/
Games including titles such as 'Magic Hairdos house', 'CowGirl', 'Get Married Test' and my personal favourite 'Morning Buns Recipe'
When it comes to stereotyping what girls want in a game, Cooking and How to look good games are just what they desire. I may be wrong in thinking this but I didnt think that girls were obsessed with cooking morning buns so much so that they needed a game to play in between the times when they actually were in the kitchen. My experience of females, when a sexist joke is made, they are not best pleased. So allowing them to be making Buns when they are playing games, I dont know how many people would want to play this game.

In terms of the website itelf, they have aimed it specificall at the female market, not only is the URL called 'Girlgames' but they have designed it to be bright pink.
The actual layout of the site is so simplistic, the navigation is easy and understandable and the categorys explain exactly what the user is chosing therefore no confusion on where to find a specific game.

One thing I found odd, and that backs up that this is a girl gamer website are the category names...
I wasnt expecting 'Kissing' to be a category among the Adventure, Cartoon, Fun and Puzzle categories! Caring was another link that I could not bring myself to click! Im glad i did though or Happy Gardener would never have been found! Caring for Plants and Animals is obviously quite a large aspect of the females gaming desire!
Cooking also played a large role in the female gaming community, sexist games suggesting that girls should always be thinking about being in the kitchen!

That said I will now review the game 'Cake Mania 2' off of all good games sites.

Cake mania is a game in which the player must use timing and efficiency to bake cakes quickly and to a good enough standard. The quicker you bake the more money you gain the more becomes available to you. It is a simple one screen, point and click which builds in pace as the difficulty increases thus enabling the skills and organisation of the player to be tested quite effectively. There is a story behind this game, utilized through a simple non animated comic book style giving the player choices at various intervals to change the game experience. The main difference as far as i can tell between each choice is not only the change in storyline but the change in scenery for each level. The core game does not change all that much. Bake cakes, make people happy.

In terms of challenge the game does have a slow increase however clicking the wrong cake combo can cause a back log in orders thus rendering the player lacking in money to progress eficiently!
The game is still not particularly hard to master, the learning curve is long and anyone could pick the game up and understand what to do and how quickly enough. A tutorial explains everything the players needs to know and the complexity is low.

Games for girls are currently seemingly very sexist attempts to find something a girl may be interested in rather than just pumping out another war game that will ward them away from gaming all together.
How to change this trend in online games?
There is never one difinitive method.

Ross, Out.

References

Prescott and Bogg - Segregation in a Male-Dominated Industry: Women Working in the COmputer Games

www.todaysgamers.com
National gamers survey 2009

London Baby!

2011-03-16T10:28:00.000-07:00

The British museum in London holds many artefacts from recent and distant history.
Swords, Armour, Coins etc all on show for free to the public.
Not only this but there are multiple games related items from the past that have been preserved in time in the museum. Chess pieces, playing pieces et. On the 10th March 2011, we went to see these artefacts ourselves.Looking back at where games would have probably originated can be of great importance to a games designer who may not only be looking for ideas and inspiration but who desires to look back at conventions that are common in gaming now that were invented years back.
Looking at game pieces or, for example the game of Ur, how the player interacts with the game boards to achieve a goal.

Above are a set of chess pieces called 'The Lewis Chessmen. They were made in Norway and now on display in the British Museum. Made of Walrus Ivory and Whales Teeth, the chessmen are a good example of what early gaming pieces would have looked like, with their intricately carved out Kings, Queens, Bishops, Rooks, Knights, and Pawns.

Although not picture particularly well, to the bottom right of the large white pot is a set of gaming spheres. They were dug up in Welwyn Garden City, where they date back to between 55 BC to 45 AD. The pieces are made from glass and were buried with one of the wealthy leaders of one of the local tribes. There are 24 pieces in total and more than likely would have originally been part of a board game, speculation over what sort of game however the varying colours suggested that this was a racing game.

There are so many interesting pieces in the British museum, it would take more than one single day trip to view everything, all I can suggest is to go for yourself and see what you can find. All the pictures and knowledge I have taken away, I hope will help me in future games designing. The British museum trip will help me to not forget where the industry originated.

Ross, Out.

Work... Work... Work...

2011-02-28T04:03:00.000-08:00

Oh no!
Havnt posted for a while again! Heres a quick update from all modules for this semester. Some has been done over the course of two semester but this will be the first look at most of my work for this blog.
Hopefully it will be interesting for you as it is for me!

Firstly, in terms of advances in my 3D moddeling skills, I have created the first inanimate object I could see at the time of creation. Although not perfect this is my attempt at creating a bottle that I was using on the day.
I am quite happy with my creation, the bottom is not perfect but for a first attempt I think it is pretty good.
The 3D modeling module that I am undergoing includes writing a tutorial for creating a 3D model. When deciding what to create for the tutorial I scoured the internet and have landed on creating a pokemon. The only issue being that I need a pokemon to reference. In the post now is a Psyduck for me to picture and use to hopefully create a 3D model of...
Well thats one module.

Another is the creation of our own coded game using action script. I am not the best at coding and therefore am struggling to progress through this module. So far my game that i created in tutorial sessions is looking good however I am not particularly happy with the ammount that I am asking for help in creating this style game and therefore am considering using a different style. Inevitably I will end up using this game. Any feed back would be good and I will try and find a way to share the game so you too can play.
The project is moving on and so I will push forward to meet the deadlines.

Design Methods, the module with Phil Jackson, we are now creating characters for our own story scripts. This will be made using a proffessional storyboarding method which we will be learning about in future weeks. I am quite looking forward to this module, I cant draw as such, but if I need ideas, eventually something sparks and I can create a good story of sorts. I say of sorts...
My storyboard has gone from one idea to the next and I am still to settle on one of the ideas...
I have created various images for each (just to draw inspiration from the idea and create the characters personalities)
I am quite happy with how the module is going and will be updating as I progress.

Otherwise that is all for now as far as I am aware! There is probably more I have missed but being so busy I had better get back to doing some work!

Ross, Out.

A man who's hearing takes a beating daily

2011-02-15T00:03:00.000-08:00

So computer games aren't just Graphics, Code and Storyline (obviously there are many many more elements!), to truly immerse the player into a game it will require a powerful musical score and appropriate sound effects. Matt Applegate is a sound technician who made his fame working alongside artists such as Little Boots by creating music with old computers.

For the next few weeks he was now our lecturer. Teaching us how to use sound in games, how the environment would need to be built up with sound, Looking at examples from Red Dead Redemption and Dead Rising 2. It was straight away we analysed Star Wars the Clone Wars, for its sound had to be completely built up by a Foley artist. Learning about Diegetic and Non Diegetic sound built up previous knowledge i held from doing Media for an A level however the actual creation of the sounds was extremely interesting.

Finding out that a Laser shot from star wars is actually a metal slinky being suspended with a plastic cup inside one of the top rings, then tapped with a stick. It blew my mind, everything I believed about the sounds gone. We had fun recreating these sounds anyway.
The star trek doors opening? A bit of paper pulled out of an envelope.
The sound of skulls crunching? Made using a cabbage hit by a meat clever.
The sound of crackling fire? A sheet being waved, a crisp packet and a rain stick.
The sound of cracking bones? Made using a frozen stick of celery, snapped in half.

Using software on the Uni computers we then edited these sounds to be what we desired for our games. I would give a preview here but I am not too sure how....

Creating sounds was brilliant fun and so it is very tempting to go into the Foley artists line of work. Everyday would be a different film experience!

Ross, Out.

My Return

2011-02-02T00:45:00.000-08:00

Well Hello!
Its been a along time since I put my mind into action instead of my thumbs! After a Summer Holiday in winter (a good month and a bit!) I am back at University for the second semester in the first year.
Having been here a day already I have decided that this blog needs updating and getting back on track. After a day of work I have something to post already. Although it is not my first venture into 3D art (or what I call art) I am quite happy with the result of some basic skills tutoring in the first 3D session...

This task was a relatively fun one, Im not amazingly skilled at 3D (as is obvious) but the creation of a snowman was relatively simple. (Yes the snowman has been working out, thats not a mistake!)

So hitting the ground running is a good start, with any luck the rest of this semester will be similar. Should be a good one.
Consider this blog re-activated and expect more posts soon

Ross, Out.

Ho Ho Ho

2010-12-25T00:49:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas =)
If you're still reading this blog after a long time of stagnant activity, I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

I will see you all on the other side! In 2011!
It's gonna be one hell of a year!

Ross, Out

Reviewing History... Again?!

2010-12-07T15:24:00.000-08:00

For this assignment I have chosen to review Donkey Kong (1981).

When games were first computerised, designers and developers would have had a vast canvas of opportunities for game play mechanics, stunted only by technological limitations. As gaming was a relatively new concept some aspects used in early computer games were taken directly from non electronic games then expanded upon. A lot of other concepts were invented in this early time, concepts which were not possible within board games.

Zegal (2008) states that originally games could be broken down into 5 elements of design, these were:

Interface - How the game interacts with the player
Rules - Restrictions on what the player can or cannot do
Goals - Objectives for the player to achieve
Entities - Objects in the game
Entity Manipulation - How the object is interacted with

These elements when used in board games are fixed and often will not vary throughout game play. As we see in the board game Risk, the game board is a fixed entity, where the players chose to lay their men is what can be altered. The chosen rules set and various elements however will always stay the same throughout the game.

When applied to computer games, there is the possibility for each of these elements to change as the game state develops and when the designers wish to ‘up the challenge’ for optimal gaming experience. In Donkey Kong the rules will generally stay the same however as you progress, new rules are added, giving the player a 'Hammer' ability and extra ways to score points. Although the goal will stay the same, the methodology to achieve the goal will vary dependant on the game state.

In Donkey Kong, similar to the rules, the Entities in the game advance as the player plays through the game, suddenly the way in which the player interacts with these objects changes dependant on strategies to achieve their goal. For example gaining or ignoring bonus objects, or deciding to avoid a barrel by jumping or [instead] climbing a ladder.

The actual game interface will also change as the player advances through the levels. This introduced new possibilities to game designers, described as 'Spatial Segmentation'. ‘Spatial segmentation results from the division of the game world into different spaces that also partition gameplay’ (Zegal Pg 182)

Zegal goes on to explain that the varying levels in a game can be distinguished by having multiple subspaces within the game world. These break up gameplay and may even include an individual rule set and varying navigation methods to achieve goals. The idea behind ‘Spatial Segmentation’ is to make the player believe they are participating in a virtual game world which is built up with more than just what is shown on the screen.
Donkey Kong has been acclaimed one of the earliest 'Platform' games and therefore it could be argued, the beginning of Spatial Segmentation. Donkey Kong is considered to have very weak Spatial Segmentation however due to the relationship between each game screen being relatively unclear, if only shown by a short animation at start and end of levels.

Zegal explores how levels were one of the many early inventions in gaming, along with Waves and Bosses. Creating new game play divisions like these added new possibilities for games designers. Zegal deduces that as a player plays through the levels, the difficulty may increase thus extending game play time. There is however games such as Mega Man where the player gets to choose the level they wish to attempt next. Depending upon previous levels completed others may become easier to complete as new abilities are gained. Another meaning for ‘Level’ is to express ‘Order’ within gameplay, whereby you are required to defeat one level before you can attempt the next level and so on with increasing difficulty levels. Zegal uses Donkey Kong as an example of Challenge within levels, he states ‘The sequences of levels exemplify a form of challenge segmentation because the levels become harder and it takes longer to get to the top to defeat Kong.’ (pg 184)

The levels are a method used in Donkey Kong to keep giving the player a new challenge on every game screen

Donkey Kong is a typical example of a Ludus, rule bound style of play which Frasca (1999) explored, describing the process in games as:

Beginning
Development
Result
Triumph [or] Defeat

Frasca describes this as a ‘rule bound’ system where the player goes through the various levels under the game creators rules set to achieve goals, which is the opposite to a Paidea style of game where the player creates his own goals and uses the tools provided by the game creator to achieve them.

Newman took the Ludus theory and pushed it further with his understanding of the player’s behaviours. Where by the games creator can only suggest possibilities for play and can only push the player towards victory or defeat. The methods of achieving can be highly flexible; as Newman explains (pg21) ‘it is ultimately the players that decide which activities will be performed’, ‘it is the job of the player to deduce (or even impose) rules through exploration’

Donkey Kong therefore, as a prime example of Ludus game play, is one where the victory and defeat options are made very clear (reach the top of the platform/game screen) however the methods to achieve are left relatively open and after time a seasoned player could predict patterns in the opponents play. Less experienced players however may struggle to complete levels due to a steep difficulty increase.

The game could be argued as one of the many Nintendo games that made the term 'Nintendo Hard' a phrase used among gamers to express the immense difficulty of a level or wave in a game. This term can be broken down to denote one of the 8 terms in LeBlanc’s Taxonomy that games designers will use to provoke an emotion from the player and therefore create a compelling game play experience.

Greg Costikyan explores Marc LeBlanc’s 8 terms:-

Sensation

Fantasy

Narrative

Challenge

Fellowship

Discovery

Expression

Masochism

When studying Donkey Kong one subset came up repeatedly, this was challenge. Or as Costikyan denotes; struggle. ‘A game requires players to struggle interactively towards a goal’ (Costikyan Page 17). Games need struggle to keep the player engaged, to keep them thinking and predicting their next move. A challenge can take many forms, be it competition among players, obstacles in games or NPC’s, even exploration of a game world and even various puzzles to challenge the player.
Donkey Kong successfully utilises Challenge, using various obstacles and a challenging Ai (or a difficulty set that increases drastically every level).

Donkey Kong has successfully utilised goals to create purposeful interactivity between the player and the game interface giving the player reason to continue in their attempts to complete the game. With the goal always achievable, the player must respond to the game state with snap decisions, for example to either jump or climb to avoid barrels or fire balls, in a struggle to reach the top of the level. Using this structure dictates how the player will attempt to complete the game as not only is timing required but the use of perceivable consequences of the player’s actions.

Back to basics game play concentrates less on the graphical interfaces for the player to focus on, but more on actual game play mechanics, or in simpler terms, how the game works. This means we can discover how the game is built up easier as there is less focus on the aesthetics involved in the game and more upon how the game is actually making play more engaging.

Refrences

Jose.P Zegal, (2008), Rounds levels and waves: The Early Evolution of Gameplay Segmentation, http://gac.sagepub.com/content/3/2/175

Paul Brownlee, Nintendo Hard vs. Easier than Easy
from his blog 'Scramble Dash'
available online at:
http://www.scrambledash.net/?p=52

Newman.J, (2004) What Is A Video Game, Routledge, London and New York

Frasca.G www.ludology.org
Finnish version originally published in Parnasso#3, Helsinki, 1999

Costikyan.G, (2002), I Have No Words I Must Design, Tampere University Press, Tampere

Murray, J. H. (1997). Hamlet on the holodeck: The future of narrative in cyberspace. New York: Free Press.

If at first you don't succeed, redefine success

2010-11-28T14:20:00.000-08:00

This weekend has turned out to be very eventful, events of which I will discuss... now.
So firstly one of my friends from sixth form who abandoned me for a better life in Lincoln came back to Felixstowe this weekend for a 'photography session' but I know he came back to see me.
So Friday evening was spent re-establishing and catching up with each other over a friendly game of Call of Duty: Black Ops. This time was used to test the various multi-player set ups that we could find including expanding our knowledge of the new Zombies maps. Its safe to say we aren't as practised as we used to be and failed miserably only hitting round 9.
A night in with an old friend on Black Ops is a night well spent I believe.

Saturday, I have work in the mornings at a well known DIY store that sells items for your Home, or as some may call it your Base.
On a 10% day the shift flies past and generally due to the bustling customers and amount of work I end up doing, I don't even notice my shift ending. Saturday was however the light switch on event in the local town. Now I spent most time with Amy in the scouts tent keeping warm, or as warm as possible in such weather.
Pictures to follow when I get the chance to upload, the lights switching on was epic as ever.

Sunday, the reason this post begun. Spending the day with Amy, for her birthday she got a silicone cup cake mould, only it was 25 times the size of an normal cupcake.

Having dabbled in a bit of cooking during the previous summer holiday I fancied my hand at creating a huge cake... We viewed a few recipes and decided the one that uses only 4 eggs (instead of 10) would be the easiest and cheapest recipe. After a quick trip to Morrisons and taking advantage of their chocolate deals, we had all the ingredients for the cake.

After a very messy hour in the kitchen we finally had two half's of the cupcake mould filled and in the oven. I quickly found out that putting chocolate in a blender is a bad idea as it doesn't grate the chocolate but in fact creates little balls of sweet goodness.
After an hour cooking the two half's were "cooked" or burnt... your choice. It was at this point that making the cake into some form of Mario Mushroom style cake went out the window due to the fact it was a mess...
Nothing a little bit of icing cant handle and so the below image is what we were left with.
After a quick count, 6 or so layers of chocolate were used in various forms
Having handled chocolate all day however neither of us could stomach actually eating a piece. We have been informed it is 'very nice' and having eaten most of the cut off's, I can agree with them.
So at first we did not succeed, we just made a sextuple chocolate cake... and that's success!
The only problem now is we have to eat it....

Ross, Out.

A day of lecture

2010-11-24T14:36:00.000-08:00

So today, for the first time in a long time I had the day off work long enough to attend some extra lectures in the Wednesday afternoon session. There were two lectures to attend both with varying degree of possible interest.
The first was a representative of the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification)
Talking about his job in classifying every film, game and tv show available, from the obscure anime's to the highly anticipated upcoming releases.
The main aim was to explain what each classification would allow, so where an 18 may allow sexual scenes but only if they are justified by context, a 15 rating can only portray sexual activity with no 'strong detail'.
Using various clips from films etc, the lecturer showed scenes from 'Batman -The Dark Knight', 'The Ketchup Effect', a strange anime whose name I forget and multiple others.
We were then asked to classify these clips to a specific rating. Each with varying degrees of violence, sex or bad language the calls for these films were tight and bought up a heated debate.
The Batman film in particular, the opening scene and another in which one character 'stabs' another with a pencil. Using the BBFC guide to classification we can deduce that the film deserves a 15 classification due to the fact that although there are scenes of violence they do not 'dwell on the infliction or pain or injury' (to quote the guide itself).

So after the first interesting lecture we moved on to the second of the day. This was the Machinima lecture with, lets face it, the inventor of Machinima (or one of its founders at least) Johnnie Ingram.
Writer of 'Machinima for Dummies', he set about helping the audience understand what Machinima is and how it works in the film industry. Although not a huge factor at the moment, Machinima is slowly becoming more renowned in the gaming world as various creators use engines from the likes of World of War craft and Halo to create short entertaining films for people to view on the internet.
Red vs Blue is one Machinima which I used to watch (heck I still do - even if Johnnie reckons its for 14 year old sweaty kids...)

I have always been a fan of editing movies and or just silly video clips of me (with a lightsaber obviously) and this introduction to Machinima mixes two areas in which I am interested. Gaming and Filming/ Film editing
Now on a games design course I chose the more interesting (to me) option for what to study however my second choice would have been media production. So Machinima caught my attention in the industry in which I wish to study and soon be a part of.

I have noticed a very common similarity between all external speakers in the industry who have been running our lectures.
To get a job in a company that you wish to be a part of, Spam.... 'Spam the hell out of them' to quote Pixelh8, A sound producer in Ipswich, he basically invented Chiptune and is currently a huge part of the music film and gaming industry.
So taking this knowledge with me I can safely say I have learnt something new for the week
Or is the saying to learn something new every day?

Ross, Out.

Horses Are Nature's Dominos

2010-11-07T04:23:00.000-08:00

Its been a while since my last post and this space I believe will be used for an update on my recent goings on.

So now our group projects are in full swing, we are making assets for our game 'Circuitry absurdity' and we are slowly making progress. Having created a board game version of the game, to strip back the visual niceness and concentrate on actual game play, the game has been adapted in many various ways. From the original 'Drag a piece and place it to make a circuit', we now have a randomly generated 'piece' pile, a points system, various appliances to connect to each valueing differently dependant where they are on the game board, 'hazards' (for example water). A recent iteration that changed game play entirely was the 'bridge piece'. Where originally your circuit could not cross wires, this piece opens up multiple options for the player to extend play time and to incorporate more of the appliances during the game. Although this concept may make the game more confusing for the child (after all it is a key stage 1 game) this new tile creates various issues in the way of 'possible' and 'illegal' moves. On a computer game these 'ilegal' moves can easily be found and error message appear however in the board game, inexperienced players may forget or not see where an illegal move has been made thus rendering the game impossible to complete. Iterations are being incorporated with new concepts at the same time taking concepts out when they don't work. Using the '15 minute method' as I like to call it, we can test game 'updates' quicky and efficiently without loss of vast amounts of time.
Screen shots or scans of our board game may appear at a later date on my blog, however keeping everything in uni, I don't have access at all times...

To practise the 15 minute method a board game concept for an off-line RTS style game was provided with a hexagonal board and a quick set of rules for movement and firing.
Initially, playing the game was required to understand the rules and get to grips with all possibilities and problems that might arise within the pre existing rule sets.
A move, move turn, turn and shoot card were originally available to the player, each turn consists of the player laying one of their cards and then in the aforementioned order, the turn plays out. (so players who laid their move card take their turn before players who laid their move turn card and so on and so forth)
As we were working in groups, we first came up with iterations to edit the movement sets to help or hinder players when attempting to 'shoot' each other. This meant easier movement but also meant that when the players went to shoot each other one could more easily step out of the way. This made the game more tactical and also meant that players were more inclined to be offensive than defensive.
Another iteration was a 'Sniper card'. We changed the 'Fire' card so that it could only reach 5 hex's and then made this 'One use' card that could span the entirety of the game board. This opened up problems of players being killed instantly when the game starts however as they could not avoid being shot (as they were all facing each other to begin with as a tactical ploy to get the first kill)
In an effort to stop this instant kill issue we created 'Spawn points' these were designated hex's that when you begin instantly face you the opposite ways to your opponents, thus you need to turn and move before you can kill anything.
This process went on for a little while however we managed to iterate 5 or 6 new concepts into the game (some better than others) relatively quickly in around an hour.
The 15 minute method is extremely useful to not become attached to the game itself as you havn't spent hours trying to iterate a single concept which may turn out to be a flaw/failure.
Once again scans and images are not currently available... I may be able to edit them in later...

Along side Uni work I have had an offer for a bit of extra design work. This opportunity arises from the use of this blog! I have been in contact with Games producer, Mo Touman who has given a brief for me to consider, creating concepts that might eventually go into production if the idea has any possibilities behind it.
So hopefully I could be involved in my own game concept coming to life in the near future which is very exciting. I have always been the player of games, getting the opportunity to finally be the creator is astounding. I joined my uni course looking for this possibility, for it to come so soon is a god send. I'm itching to get involved in this new brief.

Well these were my recent, memorable and notable activities for the week and so rounds off my blog nicely.

Oh and the name of this blog isn't so random...
http://www.qwantz.com/comics/comic2-228.png

Ross, Out.

Reveiwing History...

2010-11-05T07:03:00.000-07:00

Sometimes whilst playing our visually attractive and overly technical computer games, it is hard to remember where it all began. With modern titles releasing in greater numbers every year, each with new technologies, updated graphical interfaces and game play mechanics, are the games of past years forgotten?
For my next task in Critical Games studies I am to create a 'review' of sorts using all the terminology and knowledge in which I have been studying the past few weeks.

This is a draft for an essay which will be used to generate my final grade.
(I am currently not sure as to how good this essay is, it is my first time writing about and reviewing games in this way)

For this assignment I have chosen to review Donkey Kong.

When games were first computerised, designers and developers would have had a vast canvas of opportunities for game play mechanics, stunted only by technological limitations. As gaming was a relatively new concept, only explored via board games, some aspects used in early computer games were taken directly from non electronic games then expanded upon. A lot of other concepts were invented in this early time, concepts which were not possible in board games.

Originally games could be broken down into 5 elements of design, these were:
Interface - How the game interacts with the player
Rules - Restrictions on what the player can or cannot do
Goals - Objectives for the player to achieve
Entities - Objects in the game
Entity Manipulation - How the object is interacted with

These elements when used in board games are fixed and often will not vary throughout game play. When applied to computer games, there is the possibility for each of these elements to change as the game state can be changed as and when the designers see fit for optimal gaming experience. In Donkey Kong the rules will generally stay the same however as you progress new rules are added, giving the player a 'Hammer' ability and extra ways to score points. Although the goal will stay the same, the methodology to achieve the goal will vary dependant on the game state. Similar to the rules, the Entities in the game advance as the player does through the game, suddenly the way in which the player interacts with these objects changes dependant on strategies to achieve their goal. For example gaining or ignoring bonus objects, or deciding to avoid a barrel by jumping or climbing a ladder.

The actual game interface will also change as the player advances through the levels. This introduced new possibilities to game designers, described as 'Spatial Segmentation'.
Donkey Kong has been acclaimed one of the earliest 'Platform' games. Using various inspirations from film and television, Shigeru Miyamoto (lead games designer for 'DK') used cut scenes and animations to advance a simple plot. This meant that multiple screens could be included thus creating 'Levels'.
Levels were one of the many early inventions in gaming, along with Waves and Bosses, creating new game play divisions like this added new possibilities for games designers. As a player plays through the levels, the difficulty may increase thus extending game play time, or as Mega Man games explored, the player choosing the level, depending upon previous levels completed other may become easier to complete as new abilities are granted.

Donkey Kong, folowing a Ludus, rule bound style of play, pushed gaming to new bounds. The game could be argued as one of the many Nintendo games that made the term 'Nintendo Hard' a phrase used among gamers to express the immense difficulty of a level or wave in a game. This term can be broken down to denote one of the 8 terms in Leblancs Taxonomy that games designers will use to provoke an emotion from the player.
Donkey Kong successfully utilises Challenge. This makes the game re-playable as for only the most skilled players could use effective timing to overcome the final level of the game.

Donkey Kong has successfully utilised goals to create purposeful interactivity between the player and the game interface giving the player reason to continue in their attempts to complete the game. With the goal always achievable, the player must respond to the game state with snap decisions, for example to either jump or climb to avoid barrels or fire balls, in a struggle to reach the top of the level. Using this structure dictates how the player will attempt to complete the game as not only is timing required but the use of perceivable consequences of the players actions.

Back to basics game play concentrates less on the graphical interfaces for the player to focus on, but more on actual game play mechanics, or in simpler terms, how the game works. This means we can discover how the game is built up easier as there is less focus on the aesthetics involved in the game and more upon how the game is actually making play more engaging.

Refrences

Paul Brownlee, Nintendo Hard vs. Easier than Easy
from his blog 'Scramble Dash'
available online at:
http://www.scrambledash.net/?p=52

So hopefully this has covered enough criteria for a decent grade. As I write I feel as though I go off topic a lot so I appreciate any criticisms or guides upon where I could go with the final essay.

Otherwise thanks for listening =)

Ross, Out.

Halloween?

2010-11-02T15:43:00.001-07:00

Being a student, it would seem that I am currently not in the financial state to celebrate such trivial events such as Halloween. Instead my friend and I decided it would be a better idea to buy 4 pumpkins at reduced prices on the 1st November so that we could be creative for a day.

Doing a games design course we decided to theme our Halloween on games (or games of films) we know and love.
Our results are below.
Surprisingly this was the last pumpkin we attempted however Sean broke the 'mouth' as it were thus resulting in a flawed pumpkin design. I don't think I need to say what it was meant to be however it is meant to be a Space invader.

This was an attempt at the Spider-man logo. Although it looks pretty good as an end result, the cello-tape holding it together is not shown.

This was my first attempt at an actual artistic pumpkin design. I am very impressed with the results and I quite like the final image. It is not however the best pumpkin I have created, the next image will show my favourite attempt at pumpkin carving...

There is no need for me to introduce this pumpkin design, for my second attempt I believe it is quite good. This exercise was a very fun waste for a day however and I have never looked forward to the day after Halloween so much.
Trick or treating? Who needs it? The day after is where it is at.

Ross, Out.

Attempt 2

2010-10-29T03:24:00.000-07:00

Bibliography Post attempt number 2
Books
Braithwaite, B. and Schreiber, I. 2009, Challenges for Game Designers, Charles River Media
Ver Hague, J. Jackson, C. 2006, Flash 3D, Animation, Interactivity and Games, Focal press

Contribution to Books

Caillois, R., 1962, The Definition of Play: The Classification of Games, Salen, K., The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology, Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press, pp-00

Simon Cowell, 2006 Foreword, Chris Moyles, The gospel according to Chris Moyles Ebury Press pp-01

Articles

Chun, R., 2004. Design Simple Flash Games. , Macworld, Vol. 21, Issue 4, pp-00

Finding articles and contributions to books is seeming to be harder than I imagined...

My true home....

2010-10-21T15:07:00.000-07:00

This weekend has been a busy one for me, so much to think about and so little that I understand!

To start on Friday Sean and I built a race track for a remote control car using nothing but tape and cardboard. A lengthy task however the results were amazing! For a whole days work it seemed a good result. This wasn't for no reason however as the next day there was an event where general public gathered in a fun fair style set up to watch fireworks and pay to play the side shows in aid of the scouting movement in which I am a part of.

So the Friday evening I packed my equipment readying myself to go on camp in freezing temperatures. 3-5 layers were obtained and I was on my way to Hallowtree, I was going to where I consider, home. Or at least my home from home.
Camping has always been a joy of mine, be it the fire or the back to basics style of life, there is nothing better than sitting by a crackling fire at night, beer in hand and all your daily worries forgotten for just that moment while you are at peace.
I could dwell on this however I fear with a lack of technological input this section could become very tedious very quickly however I did find that the extra time away from my computer allowed me to read a few sections from Challenges for Game Designers (Braithwait.B, Boston, MA. 2009) and this weeks reading, 'A formal approach to Games design and Game Research' (Hunicke.R, LeBlanc.M, Zubek.R)

So I was away until Sunday, when I returned home tired and in need of a good wash. This was not however the end of my day. As me and my colleagues at work did so well last year in Mystery shopper results, we were rewarded with a night of 'magical comedy' at the Spa pavilion. Sitting amongst a crowd of young and old were our works crew, the various acts amazed the masses and rounded of a generally calm and relaxed weekend.

Now to return to working on and pitching our game, back in the real world after 2 days of escapism.

So to start, my teams game, Circuitry Absurdity (Which I believe is still a working title) is going extremely well. So far we have multiple concepts in place for characters and game board etc. So we all have an idea of how the game will eventually look and feel. With tweaks in game play mechanics last week we are honing in on how the game will eventually play.
The initial idea was to teach the student how to create circuits and what appliances could be included safely and effectively. With the added aspect of breaking a circuit with a switch.
One of the weeks tasks was to change the game concept into a working board game and with a high success rate we created a game for 2 to four players where going head to head to strategically out wit your opponent adds the extra aspect of competition to the game. We then made a decision that the board games actual game play could be ported to our final version of the game on flash.
We are still discovering and exploring how our game can become a reality and with the prospect of adding project managers in the coming week to help push our ideas, this reality is getting closer.

Another aspect of this course (along with many others) is the use of bibliographies in our essays and work
In the second paragraph are two texts that I mention however I don't think I have referenced them right mid sentence and will probably need to refine my skills in this respect.

Otherwise this is the end of a hectic weekend. Its been a good one.

Ross, Out.

Busy Times!

2010-10-17T02:22:00.000-07:00

G'Morning!

Recently I feel that I have been cheating on this blog, a sudden increase in workload and increase in activity outside my online life has rendered this blog a second thought. Well this morning I have found a spare half hour to catch everyone up on my recent escapades!

To start, good news!
I teamed up with Sean Edwick a few weeks back to create a new game with the brief outlining to aim at key stage 1 children and to make it educational. This meant scouring the curriculum to find something that'd make an interesting game.
We settled on Science and in particular Circuitry.

Fresh in mind was Bioshock. The game has a 'hacking' system which uses a 'Pipe Dream' style of game play to move onto the next section. Using this idea I thought we could do something with this segment of the curriculum.

Bioshock hacking screen

The good part of this news is that our game has now gone to the second stage in development [or second stage in this process]
With a team of 5 of us we are now working on graphical interface and other aspects to get the game fully on its way.

So that is one revelation that has affected how much sleep I'm getting (the increase in work is very detrimental to sleep as it turns out)

In another module, 'Playtech', [the gambling games company I did work experience with in 2006...ish] came in to set the first years a task to re-skin or re-design one of their games.

With our initial pitches last week, I mocked up my idea for a Mario style re-design. Without knowledge of the actual restrictions in flash I created a game concept that would be interesting to all fans of games. [The re-design could then be re-designed to a skin for another game for example]

So all in all I have a lot of work to do...

I'm not even going to get started on how bad I am at coding!
I did however get a simple game of Pong set up. Granted you cant win, nor does the ball reset but its pong enough for me =)

I have to say I'm really enjoying this Uni malarkey, so far each task set has been interesting and fresh.
Even the reading is fun!

Ross, Out.

The meaning of life...

2010-10-10T02:20:00.000-07:00

A great book (and not so great film) once said, the meaning of life is '42'

Well today is 10.10.10
Where's the connection? In Binary 101010 is 42...
Now I could repeat everything I just read on this website
http://www.fortytwoday.com/
But I wont, instead you should all undergo some fourtytwo day celebrations =)

Yes I did just sit and wait for about an hour to take this screen shot...

Ross, Out.

Good and Evil...

2010-10-10T01:48:00.000-07:00

In a gaming world it would seem there are multiple ways to progress through a story line or narrative. Two examples in which I am currently studying are:

Paidea + Ludus

Both are very simple methods to travel through a gaming environment using confusing words to add to my vocabulary.
A Paidea game can be easily described as a sandbox game which allows players to work through the game at their pace attempting various techniques to 'win' the game. The Sims or SimCity are both examples of this type of game.
A Ludus game however is one where the player is restricted by rules and regulations with clear winning conditions, a more linear style of game play. This could be described as a puzzle where to solve the puzzle you must abide by the rules.

A game which uses both of these methods of game play is Black and White.

A God/Simulation/Sandbox game where you can micromanage villages and raise a 'creature' to help wage war or aid building an empire to control the world through fear and terror or benevolence and belief respectively.

The game allows the player to work at their own pace through the game using a series of 'Gold Story Scrolls' to progress. This means the player can then build up an empire with the time they are given to manage their village or they can focus on becoming the only God in each land (level).

This is a good example of Paidea game play whereby the player is left to themselves in a sandbox mode given the opportunity and tools to do what they want, become good or evil in an alignment system which affects the way the game plays.

These two characters are the players conscience. Good and Evil. They also help push the storyline and guide when needed if the story scrolls are not selected

Although the game allows the player to play on their own making their own decisions, it also has elements of Ludus game play. With Gold story scrolls there are also Silver reward scrolls. These are little mini game/puzzles in which the player has to use different techniques to figure out the outcome and gain a reward.. The game makes the player conform to the rules and regulations to discover the solution.

With Black and White being a good example of both paidea and ludus game play, Sim City is an example of singularly Paidea.
In particular i recently installed Sim City 4.

The game allows the player to create a vast city and so the player can create their own goals e.g. profits, expansion or even 'survive a natural disaster'.

Leaving the player to interact with the game system on their own can lead to a game where the user pushes the system to its limits with the players imagining and creating their own style of play and not needing influence from missions or goals, the wining conditions are to build the biggest, most profitable city. Or as with Sim City 4, the player can create and build their city and then destroy it as they see fit using the built in God mode.

Two very different games, two similar ways of play conforming to the paidea and ludus theories.

Black and white however has always been a favourite game of mine, I expect I will be discussing this game a lot.

Ross, Out

Gaming Legends

2010-10-06T04:01:00.000-07:00

In the gaming world there are countless charcters and personalities that could be considered true 'gaming legends'.
Mario, Spyro, Solid Snake, Crash, Link, Master Chief, Nathan Drake, Soap McTavish, Frog (from Frogger) Rayman and the countless Lemmings who gave their lives for our amusment.
However I dont want to look at them, they have been given their limelight.

Instead I have been wandering the vast interwebs and have discovered that some of the players themselves are legendary within their own rights.

Although I have never followed the Halo franchise hearing that they were to close the Halo 2 servers on April 15th 2010, brought a sad thought. Consider the countless frags that the servers must have seen, the many deaths that ensued for entertainment of all Xbox users and nothing to commemorate.
With gamers hearing the news, 'dozens' logged on and continue playing past the termination date, vowing to continue playing until either 'their Xbox consoles conk out, a power or network outage takes them offline, or Microsoft boots them'.
Halo 2's server finally shut down on the 11th May 2010 when the last player was booted.
Xbox live screen name - Apache N4SIR
The last man in an epic battle of player vs server. A true legend.

http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/214933/dozens-still-playing-halo-2-on-xbox-live/

This news post got me thinking, who else out there is willing to apply their time to push the game systems to their maximum limits, or just play in extraordinary ways.

I then stumbled into this post by a guy called Andrew Reiner, he is following the story of a part time gamer currently playing Modern Warfare 2 under the screen name - 'Mr_No_Kills'.

Pushing a game to its limits can take many forms, this unlikely gamer (real name Glen) is trying to level up to 70 (highest possible level) without actually killing anything.
In this Ghandi style epic; Glen can only gather points by capturing flags and using the passive style to win games.
It takes guts to complete such a task, and patience of a saint. With my Jedi type ability to shoot on sight, I would never be able to complete such epic proportions of gaming mastery.
I believe this guy should be allowed legendary status.

http://gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2010/08/24/modern-warfare-2-player-attempting-to-reach-level-70-without-killing-anyone.aspx

Pushing games to the limits, playing games to achieve greater heights than the average player. Trophies? Achievements? No. Self Actualisation is what this is about.

Ross, Out.

Back to my level

2010-10-05T11:06:00.000-07:00

Maths was never a strong point for me, however I believe there is a game available to teach me the error of my ways and bring my education back on track...

Key stage 1 Bitesize 'Shape Lab' - Linked below
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks1bitesize/

Having recently examined a text by Greg Costikyan, I can break down a game into minimum of 6 basic categories or key areas to explore and write about.
-Interaction
-Goals
-Struggle
-Structure
-Endogenous Meaning
-Evaluation

To start, an analysis of Interaction between player and gamer or in this case, student.
The main interaction is through 3 buttons, each a different option for the student to make when deciding upon the answer to the question posed by 'Pablo'
With limited feedback upon the choice made and little change to the game state there is no actual teaching involved to show a student how to correct themselves in the situation.

Every game needs a Goal to create a purposeful and progressive reason to interact with the game system.
The Goal for a key stage 1 game will be very primitive and in this case, to build a robot.
Short term objectives such as selecting the correct answer and long term to create the robot and get that final sense of satisfaction.

Another category in which Greg Costikyan outlined was a Struggle. A Challenge within the game to give the player a sense of achievement when they get to the end of the game having won.
In 'Shape Lab' there is little to no challenge for a player of higher education such as myself however if I gave the game to someone of Key stage 1 age, they may 'struggle' with the 'Really Difficult' setting.

Nearly every game has a set of rules and boundaries also known as a Structure for the game.
With a very basic interface and the student having a choice of 3 buttons, there is no player freedom. Generally in a game the structure will shape how the player behaves, giving them multiple choices in where to go and how to get there. This is not an example of this structure.

The penultimate category for Endogenous Meaning is one which is simpler to explain first.
A good example in Costikyan's text is Monopoly money.
If someone in the street gave you a £100 note in monopoly money, you'd consider them crazy. But during a game of Monopoly that £100 note would be fought over as it becomes the only thing that matters.
By 'Endogenous meaning' - In the context of the game, game components are important to the player, in the real world they are meaningless.
In this key stage 1 game there is little that can be considered important inside the game and or outside the game. The main bulk of what the user takes away is the knowledge gained.

The final category is Evaluation. Need i explain?
Coming to the conclusion, whilst bearing in mind the game is for key stage one children, it is a relatively simple game/quiz. The structure and interactivity is quick and easy to get to grips with and the challenge can be refined to certain skill levels.
The learning aspect in this game (and the whole series of bitesize key stage 1 games), there are multiple flaws. If a wrong answer is given there is no reason or educating given to the student as to why or to help find the correct answer.

Spoiler alert!!!

Well i beleive that is a relatively in depth view on a game that was never meant to strike up such debate!
I beleive this has been a awasted experience as I still dont know how many sides a square has...

Ross, Out.

Odds and Ends

2010-10-03T04:54:00.000-07:00

Gaming appears in many forms, from online and console to board and gambling. Now I would never consider myself to be addicted to gambling although I do enjoy the occasional dabble in profits.
Most recently the girlfriend (now known as Amy) and I visited the local Arcades with 70p each in pocket. Under the guise that we would compete to generate the most profit, we found the most interesting game in the arcade. We settled on a Pac-Man machine as seen below.

Who doesn't love Pac-Man?

(Insert coins in bottom left and right slot, coin push more coin out. Simple)
Taking a slot each we input coins 'strategically' to win the bonus' available to maximise our profits.
Now the only reason I seemed to think this was worth blogging is that although the odds are against us, we made a profit. We both walked away with £1 in pocket. Granted this is not a drastic increase but a 60pprofit is still profit.

Now the game play is simple enough, the coin input is used to push more coins over the edge and into the winning tray. The addition of bonuses available through the use of a primitive flash game; whereby if a coin lands in a square the on screen game is played. If won more coins are added. This maximises the amount of interaction from the player and gives the impression of better odds to keep the player gambling. To add another sense of interactivity, competition between Amy and I meant that although we pooled our money eventually, we were still battling to gain the most.
With this simple goal of making money, Amy and I were hooked. Using our 70p in a quick flurry of coin throws, all of our winnings were left until the end when a final count took place, revealing our win.

Such a simple gambling game where all odds are set against the player, however we achieved such successful results. For an Arcade machine I believe that in terms of interactivity and actual game play, I would return to play again (if only to lose my £1 profit)

Yes, that is a winners receipt

I am a Winner =D

Ross, Out.