The Error of Game Brain

We've arrived at the third innings and I'm cautiously optimistic

2013-06-04T08:52:00.000-07:00

We've had our second semester feedback session and much like the first time around, my feedback was generally positive from both of my teams. My main strengths remain my commitment to seeing success for my teams and my affability. The main concern area was the length and structure of meetings, and the fall off at the end of the semester in clear direction. I also consider the sorry state of team morale at the end of the project window as a personal failure to inspire the team and keep momentum.

I've learnt a lot about myself and the people I work with over the last four months. I learnt a great deal about what people work for, and how far they will go to realise their potential achievements. I learnt that tough love can be appreciated, and that a healthy balance is possible between good nature and leadership. And finally, I learnt that people will naturally ship off as much responsibility as possible the minute someone steps up to take charge of a state of chaos. This final lesson was learned the hard way through the organisation of the MProf Conference.

One of my main efforts this semester is getting more actively involved in what people are working on. I am required to now take account of attendance and allocated tasks and that only adds another reason to be constantly fully aware of the tasks in progress at any one time. It's a level of awareness that I always strive to have, and I enjoy discovering how people tackle problems in a variety of ways. The more active I become in my project management, the more I feel like a useful addition and the more I find the team responds positively. It makes the whole 'tough love' persona easier to digest, because the team then understands that I am being the person I need to in order to get success for everyone.

I'm remaining with the Fuzzy Dice (Sony Team) and a few changes have been made. We lost Calum and Olympia as artists, and Daniel in code. In their place we welcome Sam, Arnold and Paul in code, and the artists have now formed a 'department' from which we can garner expertise for specific tasks. I think everyone is a little skeptical of this format. I understand this is how it is often done in the real world, and that it will give the artists a true insight into being a professional. However, it is entirely at odds with the pursuit of a solid and beautiful product should this setup not rub right with all concerned. Yes it would be unprofessional not to lump it and work it out, but that won't help development.

To tackle the issue with meetings I will be adding more of them. More specifically, I will be having dailies. I haven't started them this week as we will begin true development on Monday. Right now we are working on getting the design solid and final. All know the design deadline, so it's important that we meet it. My plan is that Mondays and Fridays will have In and Out meetings. Monday morning hosts the In meeting that will discuss the week ahead and agree on objectives. Friday Out meetings will discuss the prior week and where we stand in relation to our predefined goals. The days in between will hold fifteen minute dailies that are used to state what was achieved the day before, what is left over and what the plan is for the current day.

I am also putting a heavy emphasis on communication. Three semesters is long enough for everyone to be comfortable with talking to their peers. As such I see myself as an operator. It's my job to connect up communications and link people to each other when necessary. I also want people being honestly critical of their work, and that of the rest of the team.

Things are in a bit turmoil at the minute as there are two games from the previous semesters being worked on in tandem with this semester's two. The one I'm overseeing is the dancing maths game Showcase the Street. Today and tomorrow are about evaluating whether we can manage to get the Xbox 360 Kinect device to accurately recognise a human's poses when answering the questions presented, and whether it's possible to get that done in a fortnight. If so, Arnold and Sam, with the possibility of Daniel will work on it and get it finished.

Today has seemed to see a fair amount of progress getting a response from the device and, whilst it's by no means accurate right now, it's looking promising. If possible, I'd personally like to get this done and out of the way in a week so that my two coders can get back on Sony stuff.

Our alpha date is set for the 15th July, just under six weeks away, so the pace is going to be fast. I am excited as much as I am apprehensive. But sure as hell I want to make us the team that created a slick and smooth video game experience. It won't be big, it won't be a triple A title by any means, but I am determined to be the project the tutors talk about in future years.

Hopefully I'll be able to keep this blog more frequently this time around!

Tumbleweed Be Gone!

2013-04-22T02:05:00.002-07:00

Ok, so it has been a very long time since I last posted here. My internet activity hasn't been dead by any means, but any posts I've made have been over at innoprofodev.blogspot.co.uk for module reasons. However, as I now near the end of this semester, I found myself craving some blog time to recap on the highs and lows over the last four or so months. To sum it up, it's been rather melancholy.

I ended the last block of study in fairly high spirits. I had done well, with straight B's across the modules I received grades for (as two straddle several semesters), I'd got good peer reviews without any great criticism, and I was still enthusiastic about this industry and what I wanted out of my life.

Cue the second innings, and that has changed. I still have the B's so far, and though I've yet to hear my feedback, I think I've done a better job this time round. I just don't feel as good about things now. It's not the quick shift to disappointment as my rose tinted mirage becomes a less than perfect reality, or the stabbing realisation that my dream job does not exist. Rather, it's been the slow, ever shifting focus of the introspective lens. That is; I have been progressively establishing that I do not care about games as much as I care about people.

My role in a development team is an abstract one. I view tasks to complete from a bird's eye view, keeping track of progress and looking ahead for potential roadblocks and milestone goals. For that reason, my interaction is with people. In particular, that consists of the people who are making the game, and the people who are requiring things to be in the game; the client.

Before I came to Dundee, I thought that it would be a match made in heaven, marrying my love of everything video games, and my passion to work with creative teams that love what they do and look to me to facilitate that ambition. I was ever so ready to provide my skills in order to realise their potential and for the end result to be something glorious, whether it was something for a client, or a personal project.

I will add at this point that I do actually love games, and I enjoy breaking them apart to understand how they work (or don't work as the case may be). The trouble is, I don't care enough to put myself through the shaky ground of the industry, the financial hardship of going it alone, and all the pretension and bullshittery that clutters my every peripheral when I turn to the industry for inspiration. Yes, there are good eggs and bad eggs, but more and more I realise, I can get job satisfaction from any team based job, so long as they are dedicated to what they do.

Much of the trouble for me with this semester has been that the people I've worked with have been broken down by the realities of working in the games industry as opposed to making games. My teams have performed the function of making a game, without the joy and drive of wanting to make it.

On the one hand I have a team focused on working with a Sony client, who have had to create concept pitches for four months. This is in no way unheard of in games. In fact it's common to spend that and longer in the real world. But from an academic and a portfolio perspective, it doesn't do well for morale. As it stands, I've found it difficult to inspire anybody to take ownership of the project. As we approach the deadlines window, we are working on a demo which at least moves towards the main hub for the product itself, to express our expertise in the disciplines. Even in that, all rely on Charlie for how it will look and what he wants it to be like.

I get it, he's the designer, and so on. But at the end of the day, people working on a demo should want to show off their talents. At least from an artists point of view I'd expect to see some level of 'I think this will fit better because...' or 'I'd really like to try...'. People were submitting ideas in earlier meetings held, but now it has just become a functional 'what do you want me to do?' and 'when do you need it by?' Not exactly the facilitation role I had in mind.

On the other hand, I have my internal client team. We are making an updated Spacewar! for Ken. He's our client, and that's what he wants. Now the team are working well, so I don't want to go into anything that might imply they aren't. We are hitting alpha on Friday and, so long as we keep the pace, we should go into the holidays with a feature complete package, ready for polish testing and balance tweaking.

The trouble is, again, there seems to be no soul to it. We are all working on it because the client wants us to. From everything I hear, you have to find something to love if you don't love the concept, but nobody has. If we recap that my love and passion is for fueling people with love and passion for their skill, you find my problem. I cannot create passion if it does not exist. I can help to enhance it, but there has to be a spark of je ne sais qoui.

If we combine the two areas; an experience of teams void of enthusiasm for the project, and my diminished drive to work in games specifically, we might realise that my attentions are looking elsewhere. I understand my desires, and they are simple: job satisfaction with a respectful wage, job stability, a comfortable living, a family and free time. I shouldn't have to work for four years before my wage represents that of a professionally qualified individual. I also shouldn't have to be concerned about whether my employment might unexpectedly terminate due to poor business choices, or simply because they had to 'let me go'. I should be able to take weekends off, without feeling guilty.

The only reason anyone should tolerate the bumpy ride that is the games industry, is if they love working in games more than they love the terms I have stated above. Put simply, I just don't. And given that I am working with a case study of individuals ripe for entering the industry, I can see that the necessary passion doesn't exist by default, despite everyone loving games.

In a strange way, I feel liberated for finding where I stand and for expressing it in written form.

Hello Violence My Old Friend...

2012-10-22T12:18:00.002-07:00

I'm beginning to see a trend in my attraction to the topic of violence in video games. I've done a couple of posts about it in the past, but I want to take this one from a slightly different angle. Today I will be discussing it with regards to the exaggeration of research, the efforts of the media to scandalise its effects on humanity, and how violent video games can be a positive thing, as we can't just have doom and gloom.

I will begin with an observation of my own: The news is generally negative. This is a statement based on (at least) the UK's daily broadcasts of the current topics in Britain. Just typing in 'bbc.co.uk/news', the caption of the first image I see reads, "Men 'planned suicide attack'". My point is that the media exists to sell stories. Journalists are employed to go out of their way to find something unique in the world that will get people watching. The problem with that is that people rarely care significantly about positive news. I'm sure people always wish for 'something good on the news', but the reality is that we almost expect people to act correctly. The real attention comes from scandal, and from people screwing up royally. Phone hacking, for example became a huge hit, inspiring the average Joe to merrily comment away on articles about the outrage, despite it being a problem higher up the chain.

So what does this have to do with violent video games? Well unfortunately, video games are the new kid on the block, and games face the same scrutiny that film has for decades. But there is something unique about the case of video games that brings them closer to the brand of condemnation, and that is simply that the end user is in control of the experience, where as with films, they play out independently of the audiences wishes.

Much of the stigma surrounding violent games comes from media exaggeration, lies and statistical manhandling, whilst a fair portion of it can be attributed to scientific research that is inconclusive, but lapped up by any wishing to hammer the final nail into the proverbial coffin.

So what case studies do we have to analyse when considering the effects of these games? Well, there was the classic media yarn that the brutal murder of Stephen Pakeerah by Warren Leblanc was related to Warren's love of the game Manhunt. This was quickly straightened out by the investigation when it was clarified that the game was discovered in the victim's bedroom. The parents of the victim were quick to blame the game, and spoke out against it to get it banned, stating that Leblanc lent it to him two days before he killed him. Whilst it is believable that the murderer may have played the game, it's a far stretch to say this was his dominant motivation, or even his tutor, and the police were convinced it was an issue of robbery as opposed to imitation murder..

Then there was the case of Kimveer Gill, who happened to open fire on a Montreal campus. This case is interesting, not because of the murder itself, but because he was apparently a fan of the game Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, a game for all intents and purposes designed to highlight the real world massacre and get people considering it in a way that only video games can. I will discuss this game further along when I theorise how violent games and games that document violence can be useful to us. The fact that it has been reported that he wrote such expressions as,

"I hate this world, I hate the people in it, I hate the way people live, I hate God, I hate the deceivers, I hate betrayers, I hate religious zealots, I hate everything… I hate so much… (I could write 1,000 more lines like these, but does it really matter, does anyone even care)." in a Vampirefreaks account prior to the shootings and suicide seemed to count not at all. Nor his fascination with the Columbine Massacre that his 'favourite game' documents.

The problem is, these events are then followed by a wave of scientific research into the psychological effects of extended play, and violent play. More often than not, the research that reaches the masses (via the media) is that of those scientists who 'discover' conclusive evidence to villainise video games.

A study in 2002 by Akio Mori titled the Terror of Game Brain (to which I pay homage to in my blog title) analyses the decrease in beta waves in the pre-frontal lobe of the brain when playing video games. It is an interesting study until the point where he prematurely concludes that extended play can permanently decrease the production of said beta waves, which are required to aid in the performed role of temper control, social skills and creativity. This study was one which was actively slammed by several neuroscientists who highlighted the vast leap from his evidence to his conclusion.

The 2001 article Trained to Kill by David Grossman discusses the adeptness of video games to teach people how to kill. The case in particular question is the Michael Carneal mass murder in Paducah, Kentucky. His tremendous accuracy of eight shots fired, eight shots hit with five headshots and three upper torso is accredited to light gun video gameplay. Though I do feel that games have an incredible knack for 'training' people in particular skills (in this case reflex and accuracy), I have to question whether this makes games bad for giving this level of training. The question that must be asked is; are we asking for people willing to murder to be kept away from the means to develop the necessary skills? That doesn't sound like a remedy to that mindset, but simply a futile attempt to restrict a potential murderers ability to experience life, in which there are a multitude of ways that they can learn to kill.

The study goes on to explain the rise in violent crimes since the 50s, and places the levelling out of the increase in said crimes to the judicial system and the States' ability to incarcerate its criminals. But in an extract from Grand Theft Childhood, Kutner and Olson point out that so few of these crimes are schoolyard shootings and they go on to say that in a similar study to the one Grossman discussed, only one subject in eight of the school shootings actually claimed to be interested in violent video games, whilst one in four were interested in violent films. As we can assume that the industry is only recently extending to the masses, and that it was generally the bedroom pass time of the adolescent male, we can come to the agreement that violent games supposed influence didn't reach most of those held in the prison system.

Though the research is becoming vast, a study by C. J. Ferguson tries to tie together a range of results from different sources to solve the puzzle of whether violent video games (or others for that matter) have any innately negative psychological effects that continue beyond gameplay. Using the 'Pearson r' method to determine effect sizes, Ferguson comes to the conclusion that most sources of research cannot be considered objective in that they are affected by political and media influences. Scientifically, the case studies in question were not found to be scientifically sound and/or complete.

However, despite my perspective being so far removed from believing that violent video games create violent people, I do believe that they affect their users, just like any other form of media. Moreover, I believe that games do this better than anything else. We are a species of learning by doing. The process of play has ever been a way for us (along with most other mammals) to learn the necessary skills for our survival. In our specific case, we develop abstract thought (the ability to separate meaning from object) through role-play. Though tradition dictates that this period of playfulness dwindles as we get older, video games are opening us to a realm of extended play, in which we can consider subjects otherwise removed from our day to day lives, and here's where I get to the part about their ability to benefit us (I will try to remain specific to violent games).

So the game Super Columbine Massacre RPG! is a classic example of such a game. Publicly, it faced wave after wave of abuse from the public and the media. Danny Ledonne, its creator, stands firm that this is an artistic game made to inspire committed thought to the real massacre it depicts. He aimed to recreate the personal experience of conducting those crimes to study the connection to the killing. The parody in the game was the very reason it got slammed so hard by the press, as it seems to trivialise the incident in it's cartoon graphics, levelling up system and use of captions from the evidence. Whilst it did create a massive controversy, the point of the game was realised by the amount of discussion that was generated from its release. People began thinking about the massacre and considering why and how it happened, which is a step in the right direction towards realising the truth of the statement when Eric says in one of the basement tape recordings, "If only we asked the right questions".

Most hold strong to the fact that history teaches us not to commit to the same mistakes over again. We can capture a historical moment in a game that says more words than images and news stories ever could. We can continue to learn from such an event by reliving it in a controlled manner and come to the very rational conclusion that we should avoid this happening. Case and point, Ledonne actively works with teachers and students (twelve and up), demoing his game to them to make them aware of how it can all go wrong. Sharing history in this way is intrinsic to the growth of humanity, and using video games as the mode of presentation allows the end user to make their own interpretations of the event in question.

Simulated violence can also be calming for those under stress. For example, in Kutner and Olson's book, they highlight some misleading information. One piece in particular is this statement,

'Darren had a tough time in school earlier this week [...] a teacher said something that embarrassed him in front of his classmates. When he went home that afternoon, he [...] loaded Grand Theft Auto 3, blew up a few cars and shot a half-dozen people, including a young blonde woman. When asked, Darren admits that the woman he killed in the game looked a lot like his teacher.'

However, the extended confession leads Darren to confirm what I speak of,

'As Darren tells his story about [...] playing the violent video game [...] the other kids sitting around the table nod their heads. It's clear that at one time or another, they have each done something similar. "I guess I got my anger out," Darren says. "Then I sat down and did my homework."'

I have a real issue with how games are looked at when researchers decide to begin study into how games affect our psychology. I feel the need to question why we stop looking at games as tools for relating meaning and experience as soon as we see them as a potential threat to our minds. Logically speaking, IF video games are so effective at spurring a youth of particular mental health to acts of homicide, surely such video games can be used to highlight that youth as a candidate requiring psychological profiling. With the sheer mass of data collected from how we play, surely we can devise a way of preventing these cases if we flip the process around from massacres occurring>blame it on video games, to use video games proactively in schools and the home to find out if our next generation are sound of mind, as there has to be tell tale signs...surely?!

So with all that in mind, I'd like end with a quote from the closing comments of Karen Sternheimer in her paper Do Video Games Kill? which reads, 'While all forms of media merit critical analysis, so do the supposedly “good” neighbourhoods and families that occasionally produce young killers.'

How to Make Old Animation, New Animation

2012-10-14T09:27:00.000-07:00

This weekend I decided to catch up with my animation module. We've been looking at a game called Reach for the Sky over the last few weeks. Well when I say 'a' game, I mean two games as there is a sequel to it. We've had access to the character rigs to play around with, and the prospect at the moment is to try and make our animation cycles better than the original ones used in the final games. So far I think I am doing pretty good.

I've done four different loops, one of which was a generic walk cycle to get myself back into the proverbial swing of it, and the rest were my own versions of the originals. I will note that it wasn't a fixing exercise, and I did these from scratch. I will also note that I've tried to keep motion as basic as possible whilst keeping the nicest extras like overlap and anticipation in to give the character...well, more character.

You can see my attempts below. I would like to play my versions next to the originals to show the difference, but as yet I'm not sure if I can due to IP etc, so it's just mine for now:

Hopefully we are soon going to have a go at dropping the cycles into the engine to see how they fare in there. I suspect we may have some issues to begin with, as the original cycles were about as long as mine in maya, but were much faster in engine.

So we shall see. Now that I have met my own animation quota, I'm searching the interweb for simple but good quality game rigs to try working with for my showreel. If anybody has any suggestions, hit me up :-)

When Making a Model, Polycounts

2012-10-11T15:47:00.004-07:00

So I figured I'd follow up yesterday's post with another source of information that I've had for a couple weeks, but one which I have only just discovered the depths of it's usefulness.

The Polycount Wiki is good for finding out about the texture map types. Currently I know that there are around five common map types. These are diffuse, emissive, normal, alpha and specular colour.

Diffuse in games is more or less the colour map. In some 3D software packages, the two are not differentiated, but in Maya, the diffuse map is a mapping of the diffuse strength, whilst the colour map carries the RGB values, and the two are multiplied in the shader.

Emissive maps are textures that are not affected by lighting in scene. Due to this the pixels show at full intensity. They can be used to create colour glows within the texture.

Normal maps are used to make low resolution models look higher resolution. A high res model can be produced by subdividing the low res mesh. I've yet to work out how to get the normal from the high res mesh, but it is then applied as a texture map to the low res mesh. The normal stores information about the surface slope of the high res mesh, and then each pixel has a normal vector that dictates the direction that they face. When applied to the low res mesh, they then inform the direction of its pixels creating the illusion of high res detail.

Alpha maps are used to inform the transparency of the mesh. It can be used to soften the look of hard edges, or give a sense of translucency. If numerous alpha blends are used together then they will decrease framerate as the pixels are being drawn multiple times to work it out.

Specular colour maps are useful for controlling the highlights of textures from real time lights. If the used shader can utilise the RGB channels, then colour information can be amended as well.

Below is an image I grabbed from the web to show what a diffuse, specular, bump and displacement map (the latter not discussed) look like.

As you can probably tell, my knowledge of shaders, maps and their uses is still very basic. I aim to develop this understanding throughout the rest of this module.

For now there's nothing more to report.

Low Poly Problems

2012-10-10T15:05:00.003-07:00

So today I find myself blogging about my low polygon modelling module. As yet I'm having a few problems picking up the subtleties of good quality topography. I decided to get some practice in working on a little bird character that I created from a few drawings of chickens in various shapes and sizes.

I didn't use any reference images in the view port, which may have made things a bit faster and a little more accurate, but I'm just really struggling to grasp how you ensure deformations are ridiculous when rigged.

Below is a screen grab of my little bird.

As you can see it's far from perfect and I had particular trouble with the correct topology of the beak...beaks are very different from mouths, or at least it seemed that way when I did it. I'm particularly troubled by the inside of the mouth as it just doesn't seem to gel. I am proud of the fact that I managed to get by without any ngons or tris though, so there is an up side to it.

I don't really think I want to take it any further though as it was just meant as a test. At the moment I am considering recreating the mesh of Leonard, the star of Kernel (the short film we made in undergrad). I'd like to improve his topography, make him a good standard of low poly and make him fit for a rig. Whether I will have the chance to rig him is another matter entirely, but at least he will be ready when I am.

It will definitely be a challenge, but if I can look at the current mesh and work out his many misgivings, then I should be able to give him the body he always wanted. His mesh is by no means as detailed as he appears, that was all in displacement mapping, or at least some of it.

My biggest fear is getting to the texturing part. I literally know nothing about texture maps in reality. I get unwrapping, to a very remedial level, and know that there are several types of maps, but what they do/how they work is currently beyond me.

I have found this particular tutorial which is designed for Maya 2009, but will inevitably hold true for 2013, as very little has changed in the texturing department since then as far as I am aware. It is my hope that once I get the basics down, I can begin developing my knowledge of the different types of maps I can use.

For my module, I have to get a low and high poly version of my character, as well as the same for a vehicle of some description, and a small piece of an environment. My thinking is that if I begin with the low poly, I can just add loops to the mesh to round it off and make it look slicker. I'm also hoping that Maya can use the base arrangement of my low poly uvs when I convert to high, I'd not like to start from scratch.

That's all I have for now.

And so it begins

2012-09-27T15:20:00.000-07:00

When considering this post (which I inevitably had to write), I wasn't sure how to tackle it. The reason for this is that I have started five new modules simultaneously and they all cover an entirely different aspect of my time here. Not to mention the social interactions I've been tangled in since the big move. So I suppose starting with the social will probably be best and work towards the academic.

So so far, I've managed to increase my contact list in this new town from zero to around twenty to twenty-five, which for two weeks isn't bad. I've probably spoken to a fair load more than that on the two nights out that I've had, but they don't count!

So I've finally settled into my flat, and have actually got back into my very systematic style of living, which always works to make me more comfortable. I've got two decent flat mates (which is more than I expected not having viewed the place prior to moving) called Steve and Ben who work, play computer games (most notably League of Legends) and get drunk! I can see the attraction to such a life style myself as I consider the shed load of work ahead of me!

I've also been getting to know some people on my course, though it took a while. It was hard to meet people at first because there was no reason to come into uni other than the seminars and lectures. I'd spoken to people briefly, but I wasn't really at the stage of remembering names and finding people I could have a laugh with until mid week last week when I proposed grabbing a coffee at the union shop. I talk to the others in my class as there are only about twenty-eight of us, but I'm beginning to build a group of friends as it were. We are in the process of trying to organise a MProf night out, and it's become Facebook Official, which we all know is the real judge of event/organisation/friendship legitimacy!

In terms of the coursework, all I can say is WOW. It seems a mammoth task right now to get my head around fitting it all into forty hours a week. Whilst I will no doubt be doing more hours than that, I also want to test myself to see how optimally I can work within the working day. If I can manage to get everything I need done between Monday and Friday, I can use my weekends for recharging, or doing personal research. I also have my evenings to use as I see fit.

So basically I have five modules this semester, which include the game development project, innovation and personal development, the game marketplace, 3D character animation and low poly modelling and texturing.

Innovation is much more true to the word this time round than it was in my third year at Falmouth, and I have to be researching innovative products, or uses of them and analysing them in light of my personal production interests. I will be thinking about it from a business model angle and considering the target audiences et cetera, as I feel this will benefit me the most. We have a group presentation coming up next month to start us off, and a group of five of us (three programmers, a designer and me) will be discussing the Wii console. Our group is called The Bonny Wii Five. This is one of two research/writing based modules.

The second such module is the game marketplace. This one is designed to get us studying the industry from different aspects. So far we've been looking at data infographics and facts about the size of the industry. The bottom line, nobody really has any idea EXACTLY what the industry is worth, how many people play frequently from each demographic, or where the industry is heading. There is data of course and guestimates, but then they aren't exactly conclusive. All this research leads to a fuller brain and will be measured by the success or failure of an end of semester examination.

Animation and low poly modelling are optional modules. They are both rather straight forward, and I picked them for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I wanted to brush up on the basic skill set I already have, and secondly, I intended to have them inform my project work as they will both be very useful.

-------Break of a day-------
We received our briefs today, and my group was assigned with the title 'Dogfight'. It's quite a narrow title in that there are select ways that it can be manipulated. As it stands the running idea is to create a horizontal propulsion game where the player controls a Zeppelin, using energy to get further. During which time dog fighting planes will attempt to shoot it down. The player can benefit from upgrades to different aspects like defensive shielding and weaponry as well as fuel bonuses and other enhancers. It is similar in foundation to games like 'Albatross Overload'.

After a new artist was assigned to our group this morning, I have been attempting to have myself detached from this specific group to join my co-student Malcolm in studio managing. The idea is that we two will split the class in half(ish) and guide them in terms of workflow, time keeping, problem solving and presentation planning. I feel this will benefit my progress a great deal more than my artwork in a specific group, as I want to be able to express a production speciality when I come to look for work at the end of it all. So here's to hoping!

I'm beginning to consider my own workflow and it will be a tight squeeze. My current thinking is that I will conduct all my research for the industry and innovation stuff outside of office hours, and manage the projects and my modelling and animating during the time I'm at uni. How I split the hours not in seminars between the three modules is my next pursuit!

I'm sorry this was such a lengthy post, but it has been a stock up of information I've collected since starting so I hope you can understand and that it was interesting enough to keep reading. I promise to update with something more interesting when I find the time. I will certainly be tackling interesting topics through the semester, so it will inevitably find it's way here :-)

Arrival

2012-09-11T08:09:00.000-07:00

I have finally arrived in my home for the year up in the highlands (though they're not all that high) and I'm ready to begin my new adventure into the world of video game development. It's orientation week at the moment, so I've just had introduction welcomes and registration shenanigans so far. I start in earnest next Tuesday.
From what I already know about the course, it's a fantastic breach into the industry. The track record for the last four years it's been running is that around 98% of the students were in relevant employment within weeks of graduating. Add that statistic to the fact that the facilities are top notch, companies like Sony are willing to supply dev kits for their tech and work with us over the year, and top level companies like Rockstar, Rare and so on are keen on keeping tabs on us all throughout our time there, and I'm on for a hell of a rollercoaster ride.

I'm excited about the little things. Setting up my desk space so that I am in a prime location for spidering between team members as I manage the projects is one of the biggest. I'm taking eight modules, four of which are optional (though necessary to get my masters level degree). Two of mine are production focused whilst the other two are on 3D character animation (as I somewhat enjoy this and have done a fair bit last year) and low poly modelling and texturing, which I'd like to get acquainted with. I'll also try to keep up with Python and definitely be honing my knowledge of software development methodologies as well as people management and dispute resolution tactics.

I'm also dead set on turfing out the library to see the depths of knowledge I can glean from years of experience and just filling my brain with everything games orientated. We have an opportunity to present a paper, and I'm tempted to request presenting the paper I wrote on video game literacy that made up my dissertation. Obviously this would have to be more concise and less elaborately worded for a present audience, but to me this sounds like a great opportunity to stretch my presentational legs!

So keep watching this space for more on my journey, and hopefully by this time next year I will be blogging as a professional producer entering the next stage of my life and career :-)

For now I leave you with this image to savour. It is where I will be working for the next year...well that's part of it anyway.

New Beginnings

2012-08-07T04:34:00.003-07:00

So, it's only just dawning on me that I will effectively be beginning my career in the games industry in less that a month's time. I move to Dundee on the 5th (my birthday) September and begin integrating into the University of Abertay on the 10th. From there it is all go for me and I want to hit the ground running. I have allowed myself to get a little excited as I've almost secured myself a living arrangement within my budget and have just filling out my loan application. Travel is all sorted and I just have to arrange the stuff I am initially going to bring with me and hazza!

Particular enthusiasm goes to the fact that I will be in a team making a game from literally the word go. Not only this, but if it's good (and I will drive everyone to ensure that it will be) we will get entered into the Dare to be Digital competition that runs every year and has entries from institutes around Europe, and an interest in a BAFTA category to boot :-)

In light of this move, I hope to be able to keep everybody up to date with my own progress and what I'm learning. I will also be setting up a sister blog from this one when I've built a team and we have a project name to keep everyone aware of our progress with development. I will be getting back on the Python today for a while as I've had a rather busy week or so and haven't had a chance to dedicate my sweet time to it, and I will also start documenting what I'm learning production wise. I don't expect many to find that stuff interesting as only a producer/production manager would, but it's mostly to provide a track back for me as well as anyone else who needs to know something about how to run a game development.

Watch this space!

Laurence

Reacquainting With the Python

2012-07-16T05:55:00.002-07:00

Well it's been a couple of weeks since I last did an entry on my Python escapades and this has multiple reasons. I've just finished with my time in Falmouth and so was preoccupied with the grand pain in the ass that is moving home and location. I've been settling in, seeing old faces and even had a trek to Londinium to attend a networking showcase. I am now well settled enough to return to learning. I fear that I will not be able to apply the amount of time I would like to this if I am successful in finding temporary work whilst I save for heading to Abertay, but I will be doing my best to keep the ball rolling at least once a week if not more often.

Moving on, I have just opened the book to methods of executing scripts. Windows seems to cope with this, generally defaulting the file to open with Python if it has the '.py' extension. However, mine didn't and was stuck in opening it with Notepad as that is where the file was created. So that was simple to remedy by just using 'Open With..' and selecting the right program. The problem with opening it this way (apparently) is that Windows reads this silly, and basically gives you a millisecond to view your code as it reads the script, prints it then exits. A bit frustrating if you want it to stick around so you can read it.

With the script that I created earlier titled 'script1.py', I can add a simple call to the built-in input function at the bottom of the script like so,

This then holds the script with it's printed documentation when opened via it's icon. The reason this happens is that it is trying to read the next line of standard input. If none are available it will effectively pause the script while it waits for another line.

The icon method of opening a script seems to be quite a bad idea when a script is still in its creation stage, as if there are any errors present in it, the console will close without even throwing the errors up for you to deal with. The input trick won't do any good as this is at the end of a script, and the error will stop it running before it gets to the end.

Module Imports and Reloads

So any Python file with the '.py' extension is a module. The contents of a module can be explored by other files if imported. It is a module-based service model that is the central idea for Python's programming architecture. A large program is constructed from a series of modules, and accesses features from importing other modules. One module will be given top level status to launch the program. For the purpose of using a module to run particular parts of a program, it must read the contents of it, and so using 'import' is a way of opening a script as well.

I've found this to be a quicker method of opening the module. Thus far I've not worked out if this is just an issue with my own file locations, or if it's a general thing, but when I attempt to run Python from the Command Line Editor, I cannot simply put c:\...>python script1 as I get the error below,

and so I have to enter the directory as I've shown in a previous post. With import, there is no such issue as you can clearly see in the screen dump above. I think it may have to do with the fact that I am asking the shell to open python and a script at the same time and it's tripping over, where as with import, Python is already open, and I am simply asking it to look up a script by that name, and open it.

However, imports can only be run on each module once in a process. trying to import the same thing will give no results.

The reason for this is that Python needs to locate the file, compile it to byte code and then run it which is heavier duty depending on the size of the script. In order to run the script again without restarting the process, one would use the 'reload' function.

From Python version 3.0 onwards, the reload function was moved to the 'imp' standard library module. Because of this it needs to be imported before it can be used. In the screen above, I have imported script1.py and it has printed it underneath. I then wanted to reload the same script, and so had to make a call to the 'imp' library and import the reload function. Once it was imported I asked it to reload script1. This is useful when changes are made to a module elsewhere. For example, if a module was created and imported into a large program early on in the creation cycle, and was then changed during that process, the reload feature updates the contents of that module to its most recent iteration.

In the example below, I have imported the same script, then changed the second 'print' command from raising two to the power of a hundred, to raising two to the power of twelve.

As a point to remember, the import function does not require parentheses around the name of the script as it is a statement, but reload does as it is a called function.

I will next be tackling attributes and will update this post as it follows on naturally.

So I've run errands, eaten and ready to get back on the wagon. So I have come to understand that we can consider modules as what is know as namespaces, libraries of tools which contain attributes as sub-level variable names with differing values. In this first (very basic) exercise, I have created a module called 'myfile.py'.

In this module I have created an attribute (title) assigned to the module. This attribute has been given a value of "The Meaning of Life" which will be presented when the attribute is called. To access this attribute are two methods (that I know of).

In this method, I have imported the whole module and then instructed it to print out the value of the attribute via the object it's attached to and the result is 'The Meaning of Life'.

Alternatively you can also use a 'from' function to import the 'title' directly and then print out the value of the 'title' attribute as shown below.

In this second method, it is not necessary to give the 'print' command using myfile.title, as the 'from' function specifically focuses on the attributes and their values.

Though this example has been used to show how 'from' and 'import' can both reach the same results with slight variation, you could also simply put the 'print' function into the script itself after writing the attributes value so that as soon as you import the script into Python, it will show the value.

I know I'm jumping the gun a little, and I wasn't instructed to run this test, but I figured that it was a good time to see if I was properly understanding this whole import malarky and see if I could get two different scripts to run from a higher level script, and it worked! I made a new script that is very simple and only contains the 'import' function. As can be seen below I first instructed it to import the contents of 'myfile.py' and then told it to import the contents of 'script1.py' straight after this.

And here is how it looks when I import this script into Python,

When a script has more than one attribute, it is possible to specify which attributes you wish to look up. In the example below I have created a script which lists the necessary attributes for a pants party.

It simply instructs to print out the attribute values listed above it, which looks like this,

If you noticed below that there are more lines that those which are necessary to import the script, it's because I have also specified which attributes I wish to see. This is done (after importing the script) by simply listing those desired in the format of object.attribute (scriptname.variable).

This is obviously a very spelled out way of presenting a script. There may be no need to put in the 'print' function inside the script itself as that is possible do from inside the console. It can be more of a hindrance if there is a vast array of variables available within a module. This is where the 'dir' function comes in handy. Once imported, 'dir' can list the names of the variables available from that module.

In the example below I have used the same script as previous (pantsparty), but have removed the print line from it so that it runs, but shows nothing. I have then used 'dir' to show me the attributes inside it.

PATH Environment Variables, Interactive Prompting and Commanding the Lines

2012-06-23T07:13:00.001-07:00

Today I will start with discussing how to set up a path environment variable for python. I start with this because it stumped me for a bit as I didn't get the significance of the word PATH in the instructions for setting it up. Doing this saves you writing the full directory for python into the command prompt every time you want to open that program which can save a little bit of time if you intend to work in the Windows shell a lot. This can also be worthwhile if you are going to work in other languages other than python (as you could just open up the designated python command line otherwise).

So firstly, go into your system properties. This can be reached multiple ways, but the most obvious way is to go to your Control Panel and select the System properties tab in the classic view.

If you have your Control Panel in "Category" view then you will have to go through the 'System and Security' option, and then select 'System from inside that.

Inside you will see your systems hardware and so on, but the option you are looking for is on the left titled 'Advanced system settings'.

A new window will be opened, and we are looking for a button at the bottom of this window simply labelled 'Environment Variables...'. Press this and you will see two list boxes, one for user variables, and one for system variables. Don't do what I did and assume it's a user variable, else you will only be faced with failure. In the bottom list box, scroll down to the 'Path' variable and either double click it, or press the edit button.

You will be presented with a simple window with two text boxes, one titled 'Variable name', the other 'Variable value'. You only want to edit the bottom box. Scroll to the end of the list which can be fairly large and enter the directory that your python version is saved to. In the example below my version is saved under the C drive and I had version 3.2 (or 32 by the folder name). Make absolutely sure that you entry is separated from the previous entry with a backslash ( \ ) and a semi-colon ( ; ) before entering the directory, then press OK. So now you have that set up you have to close the command line and open it up again for the changes to take effect.

Congratulations, you no longer have to enter the directory every time you open your command line editor, just simply type python and it will look in that directory and run the executable named python!

Ok so with that out of the way I can get on with stuff I learnt for the bettering of my python knowledge. Today I have been learning about how to run written scripts or programs. In python there are a few ways to do it (apparently) but the two that I have thus far covered are the interactive prompt (scripting straight into the shell) and via a text file which can then be run from the shell. There are a few benefits of both methods.

The interactive prompt method allows me to write lines of code and as soon as I press Enter, or double Enter for multi-line codes, I get the feedback. If I've written code correctly it will provide me with the information I have summoned. If I have made an error, it will give me the reason a part of the code failed as can be seen below.

As I practice the syntax, I will be mostly using the interactive prompt to learn what each command does. My learning will take on the shape of reading, and then experimentation so that I get a natural grasp of what the language can do. Beyond the learning arena, the interactive prompt is good for refreshing the memory of what a particular line of code will do. It is generally better not to mess with multi-line code however, and this is usually done in a text editor, where the code is usually written in it's entirety.

There are a few differences with the way that scripts are written between the interactive prompt and the text editor. Firstly, the print command isn't necessary in the interactive method as python can work it out. I suspect that this might be the case for other basic commands. Secondly, in the interactive prompt, when working with multi-line code, one must hit Enter twice to conclude it, else Python believes that this is just another line in that code, and will throw a syntax error at you when it doesn't make any sense. In the text editor, this is not necessary, and probably not advised. Extra spaces are removed when the script is opened with the command prompt.

When saving scripts, it is good practice to always save then with a '.py' extensition. So far that I've read, the only time this isn't strictly necessary is when it's a top-level script, but I've not read far enough yet to determine what exactly that means, and either way it doesn't hurt to be consistent anyway.

When opening the scripts, it is only necessary to type the entire directory of that particular script if it is not in the same location as python (which is likely the case most of the time). If it is in the same location, one only needs to write the name of the file (with it's extension).

Below is a simple script exercise that I was instructed to write. I did this in Notepad. This was saved in the same directory as the python install.

When I opened it up in the command line, I just had to type 'script1.py'. Note that it provides the solutions to the commands in the script, and doesn't just print what is in the file.

If I wish to access a script written and saved to a different directory, I must enter the full directory path after "python" to get it to find the file, as shown below.

If you happen to be working in a different directory to both python and the script, then the path for both must be entered to run it.

When saving the script (if using Notepad or some such common text editor) it's important to be aware of the file types and naming. Windows can sometimes add on a '.txt' format at the end of your script making it then a text file rather than a script. This can really throw a spanner in the works if you try to run it. So make sure that the file type is set to 'All Files' and you type the '.py' extension on the end. A way to avoid this is to use the IDLE editor instead.

That is all for now, I will more than likely update this post at a later point today with more juicy notes.

Modern Foreign Languages

2012-06-22T10:59:00.001-07:00

Recently I have decided to venture into a new path of learning. Whilst I continue my growth and understanding in the production side of the games industry, I am set on learning the Python programming/scripting (depending on who you ask) language and then from there, learn how it can be applied for my own means. I am right at the beginning of my education in this area and purchased a Python Bible simply named 'Learning Python' by Mark Lutz. I feel quite safe in this text as the author has taught the language for over a decade and this book is brought straight from his teaching methods.

I will be keeping a log of my progress here on this blog for a couple reasons. Firstly it will be nice to be able to track how I'm getting on with my learning and reference back to old posts to see how far I've come. It is my hope that it will also serve as a summarised point of reference if there is something mentioned that I know I've studied previously and can't quite remember. Secondly, I find that I have always learnt best from reading material on a topic, processing it then writing it in my own words to make complete sense of it and make it stick with me.

So to begin, I have just been reading over the basic beginnings of the language and why it has become to widely used in a fair few industries with multiple variations.

Its creation in 1992 is credited to a Dutch man by the name of Guido van Rossum, an avid fan of Monty Python's Flying Circus, who is now considered the Benevolent Dictator for Life of the language who gets the final word in any core language changes that pass through the Python Software Foundation.

It became popular for a few reasons, six that are summarised in this text: Software quality, developer productivity, program portability, support libraries, component integration and enjoyment. Lutz claims that the first two of those are the most prominent reasons.

In a chunk on software quality, it explains that the language syntax is much simpler than a lot of languages. It prefers concise code to write programs with minimal ways of doing things. Due to this simplicity it ensures consistency throughout software code written in Python. This makes it easier to learn it and make sense of it, leaving little reason to have to keep referring to manuals after the learning process. It also provides for the end user; that one versed in the Python language can pick up a piece of code and read it with relative ease regardless of whether the reader knows the coder.

It increases developer productivity as it demands less lines of code to write software. This allows programmers to create more with less effort than other more traditional languages. It also internally compiles the written syntax into 'byte code' and analyses this with a Python Virtual Machine (PVM). This cuts out the lengthy code compiling stage at the end of it and means that a programmer can literally execute their code straight after writing it so long as it's correct. This also means that chunks of code can be changed without needing to recompile the whole script.

It's flexibility exists due to its ability to sit in between scripting languages and systems development languages. It has the more simplistic nature of script, whilst having an impressive toolset that makes it useful for larger projects. It can, and has been used for web development, animation, game development, robotics programming, software development and virtually anything digital that can be programmed.

Also, the fact that it is open source means that the online community support for the code is extensive to say the least. The free access to the source code means that any developer can gain complete knowledge of its workings and become adept at implementing it into their own systems and pipelines.

Python can be implemented in specific ways depending on the other languages you might wish/need to work in. CPython is the most standard implementation and communicates with C and C++ which means if you needed the extra speed of the traditionally compiled language, it can be translated. Then there are others like Jython which works with Java script and IronPython that speaks to .NET frameworks. These are only the most common, and there are dozens of variations upon these with developers amending them to facilitate their own development requirements.

It has one downside that is centred on it's execution method. In traditional languages like C++, they externally compile to binary machine language, straight to the CPU which then makes that code marginally faster to run. This is only notable in the likes of numerical programming.

Due to this there are a few execution models that attempt to improve this speed of runtime. First, Shedskin C++ attempts to translate Python code straight into C++ language which can then be made into machine code. This works against the development speed associated with Python (which naturally works without binary compilation). At the time of writing (2009) Shedskin was still experimental.

There is Psycho which is an extension to the standard byte code execution model and works by collecting information about the objects being passed around in the byte code. When the program is executed, Psycho converts object types into machine code so that your program becomes progressively faster and more efficient in runtime.

Then there are 'Frozen Binaries'. Rather than being an execution model, these are more an end product. They work to create executables from '.py' programs. This makes them run more efficiently as the code becomes entirely binary, and also works to aid commercial software developers, as their customer base then needs no knowledge of Python, or even have it installed to run their purchased software.

Beyond this there a few other developments that are working to further increase the runtime execution of Python script including the open source, Google funded Unladen Swallow project that aims to improve the speed of standard Python by a factor of five at least and eradicate the need for the C language in a lot of cases. There is Parrot, which works to create a standard byte code format, PVM and optimization technique for a variety of languages, and finally there is PyPy trying to reconfigure the PVM to accept new implementation methods and create a new faster and more flexible implementation of Python.

I also learned an 'easter egg' command that brings up The Zen of Python that can be seen below. It is an eloquently written list of targets that the Python language aims to achieve.

Well that's all for now. I am continuing my reading and tinkering today, so I will be updating soon with more enlightenment!

Dissertation

2012-06-18T07:19:00.000-07:00

I posted this in my old blog, but figured I'd better bring it on here as well so people who haven't seen it can take a look. I will warn that it is long, but I'd like to think it's interesting as well. It is concerned with the potential use of video games in education, and why we even play at all. When you have a spare thirty minutes, take a peak :)

Update: This piece got me a first :D

Of Terror in Solitude

2012-06-16T22:13:00.001-07:00

Before there were games, there was literature. My creativity has always shown true when I use words rather than imagery. As I am considering a career in video games, that obviously has to be transferred into the visual, but my starting point will forever be my words. My hope is that my own words can inspire me to envision this tale much as my favourite novels always have.

So this is only an excerpt from a piece that will hopefully become much, much longer (so long as I don't hit a wall), and a reader is not supposed to get what's really going on right now so don't worry that it doesn't really tell you all that much! Enjoy :-)

The stillness of the night is shattered by the sudden hammering of rain. An instant of brilliant white casts the all encompassing darkness asunder preceding a ground trembling chorus; the wrath of the gods. That moment of total light burns an image, a body not too far distant, kneeling on a low rise, torso thrown over the legs in a deep bow, the mark of one in prayer...or despair.

The groggy realisation of substance seeps into every nerve, every muscle, as if the instincts of body and mind are long forgotten from lack of use. I know not from whence I came, or why, but I move to rise despite the numbing fear of falling back into the dirt. A stumble. How long has it been since last I used this body?

Blinding, searing light floods the night. A lantern lies half drown a hands reach away, preserved only by its sealed glass panelling. I dare to hope for deliverance from total black oblivion, the tantalising glow of redeeming light, and the safety from the shadow clutching at me just out of reach, like the memories of a different life; haunting, but elusive and unfathomable.

Clutching my prize, I search within for tinder - a fools hope. But the mind becomes sharp, honed by fear and the primal desire to live, fuelled with bursts of adrenaline. Pockets: Breast, sleeves, trousers...tinderbox! An eerie glow holds the talons of darkness at bay, though only just not nearly enough to calm the pounding of a heart hell bent on breaching the confines of my ribs. With only survival as my guide, I set off into the deep.

Flash. Pain, torment, the stalking ghosts of trauma, and then darkness once more as if the moment was but a glimpse of a daydream. Whispers creep into every nook of this eternal blackness breathing life into a wood seemingly just created. The creaking, sighing of branches destroys the sense of caution, sowing the seeds of panic; turning fear to terror.

The Harsh Reality

2012-06-16T20:13:00.002-07:00

There comes a point in a man's ambition when he has to understand that things don't 'just work out'. I have reached that point and it's a huge wake up call for me. Whilst I have been working hard to understand people, how they tick, methods of building bridges of understanding, and running a successful production, I haven't spent the amount of hours necessary to build a portfolio that speaks volumes about my knowledge of how a game works. It hurts, because I now need to readjust to a new way of tackling the games industry. I read a very long and very interesting account by one Matthew Enthoven that basically summed up what I had to do to get to where I want to be.

Now I don't want to sound like I whining. Whilst this has been a major knock to my confidence and I do feel relatively underwhelming to say the least, I am just as driven as ever. Despite the fact that it's a horrible place to be in my career thinking right now, I am glad that it's happening now rather than later, as I can work to remedy my short comings and build from the ground up.

First and foremost, I need to know at least something about the aspects of making a game. If I don't, how can I expect anybody to listen to me? What right do I have to deal out instruction when I have no concept of what it takes to meet those targets? I guess part of me believed that it could work along the same lines as it has over the last three years on my degree; that I could learn as I went along, and whilst I still believe I will be continuously learning, I don't think I currently have enough groundwork to build from, and I have to make tracks if I have any hope of being at the right level to begin my career as an effective producer.

I've always said I want to be the best I possibly can be in my chosen career path, so it's now time to validate that claim and do myself a few favours.

Wish me luck!

Guns Don't Kill People, Pixels Do

2012-06-07T05:23:00.000-07:00

So I already made a post about violence in video games and how it's completely over emphasised as a problem of adolescent gaming, but I wanted to take a specific part of that violence to analyse why we as gamers are so numbed to the act of effectively murdering representations of living beings whether they be human, alien or animal.

I stumbled on this as a problem for me as I watched the E3 conferences along with fellow game enthusiast and student Olly over at the Pixel Crush. Whilst he argued that such a potentially horrifying act could be better portrayed when it is visually closer to the real thing, and that if the quality of the experience of killing a digital being is improved to a sickening standard, then it will have more of an impact on the player, I didn't quite agree, and it soon got me thinking about why we are completely fine with watching and playing at war in a video game, even though it represents a level of violence we strive to avoid in the real world. And when considering this, I wanted to come to a conclusion with how to improve a violent game to the point where the mechanic to kill an individual was present, but that the decision to do or not do would be made much more difficult by more complex emotional triggers.

So to begin, I believe the main trouble with trying to staple any weight to killing in games comes down heavily to the tone of the game. Any action shooter on the market today exists purely for that reason, to shoot. When a genre titles itself in such a way, you know you will be doing a lot of it. So generally speaking, wave after wave of NPCs will flank, front assault, back stab and bombard your every sense throughout an intense adrenaline rush of a single player campaign, and when you head online, it's more of the same with a removal of the back story and the NPCs, replaced with real people who have gone through the same experience.

The tone set by these games is that you are the ultimate badass with any selection of weapons and equipment regardless of what background they give you, and you are very willing to go out and shoot anyone in the face if they so much as charge towards you without so much as a howdy-do. They instantly signify anything enemy worthy as cannon fodder to your wrath and there is not even the hinting inclusion of a surrender mechanic where you can choose to not kill a man.

We as human beings have become very adept at expecting a list of character traits from our fellow man. When these characteristics are lacking, we either shun that individual (if in real life), or we no longer consider it human. If you are trying to represent a human being, you have to include all or at least most of those characteristics. That's not to say all characters would be wooden on a generic model, as humans are still a very diverse species, but they would contain more of what we know as human, therefore giving more access for the player to at least pretend that character is a real person.

Another side to this problem is that the FPS developers still rely heavily on the glory propaganda that the Western World has been using to encourage young men into the military for over a century. Take Call of Duty as an example. It is little more than a corridor shooter, where you run around several limited spaces and shoot whatever comes into your ever so reflexive reticule. It's a spectacle showcase where everything blows up and everybody dies in a huge spray of artery contents. All fire fights are over the span of twenty metres and your enemy is in broad daylight (unless ducking behind a low wall to reload the old RPG).

War by all accounts is nothing like this. The experience is further cheapened by the fact that these developers intentionally avoid any psychological challenges in their war focused games. There is no emotion involved in spraying into a wave of insurgents, there's no horror when outnumbered, with squad mates breaking down. There are no allies to shoot themselves in the head as they freak out at what they've seen. NOBODY REACTS to anything! Bare in mind, in most games you come in contact with many new recruits and inexperienced warriors. Not a one even vomits from disgust, or the sight of entrails. Explosions propel whole bodies across hallways and all they have to show for it is some rag doll physics and a patch of poorly textured blood to signify "dead".

Why is this missing? Who wants to buy a game where you actually care about your doing? Right? Well unfortunately adding in anything which matters to anybody is counted as a risk. For example, Call of Duty: World at War, Treyarch's previous title before Black Ops contained dismemberment. Whilst I don't think this solves many issues with the psychology of warfare, it was at least more believable. This was taken out in following iterations of the franchise. Developers are so scared of actually making a violent game where people have to think about the decision to kill.

Games are trying to move beyond the trivial and shooters are holding the industry back as they work each and every year to add new gimmicks and unlockables to their roster of ways to shoot meaningless pixels, instead of meeting the challenge of creating a meaningful experience in which violence lives at its heart, but doesn't define every action of the player. I believe the time has come for the exploration of violence to extend beyond the surface into the depths of motives and psychology, with more experiences like Heavy Rain to make the player use that juicy blob of matter behind their eyes.

Blog Shuffling

2012-06-07T04:05:00.000-07:00

After a few hours thought, I have decided that from here on in, The Error of Game Brain will become my primary blog. The reasons for this are many. Firstly, I am making a move towards the games industry and I hope to begin my masters in game development in September. Secondly, my last blog is cluttered and I tried to make it more complicated than I should have (as is my nature). And finally I have a website now, which anybody reading should check out, it's got my showreel containing the three films I produced for over the last two years and other bits and bobs about me, so go take a look laurencenairne.com Due to this shuffling, I will now not only be commenting on game theory and news, but also mapping my own progress and thoughts as I make my way into the industry. I hope you can join me for the ride :)

2012-01-05T14:21:00.000-08:00

Hey readers,

Just a short post today. A TED talk by one Jane McGonigal that I'd like to share with you, as she begins to unravel how video gaming can save the world. It's something that sounds quite ridiculous and I say without shame, I was mildly sceptical, but after watching all twenty minutes of it I find my mind going wild with speculative thoughts and hypotheses which only game discussion can inspire in me to this degree!

Needless to say this will vastly aid me in my dissertation!

I hope you enjoy it as much as I have:)

Gamification? Don't Hate the Player OR the Game.

2011-12-29T07:27:00.000-08:00

A fellow student of mine; Mr Olly Skillman-Wilson over at the Pixel Crush recently posted a quite substantial reply to the question "Why do you hate gamification so much?" pitched to him by none other than yours truly. I asked this question because, although I believe it is still in its early stages and still questionable as to whether it is yet necessary, it IS working. I also feel that, if you are to look beyond the corporate whoring of gamification then there's actually a rather large gemstone in the centre.

I will relate this response to my dissertation topic of video game literacy, purely because I feel that education can benefit more from gamification than any other initiative or industry. However, I must first head off certain points my friend made about gamification first of all.

I will begin with the idea of Air Miles, an example used by Olly. This is the system of gaining discounts for flights with specific air-travel providers such as BA. Now I use this example for one reason. It existed long before the term 'gamification' was ever coined. It was derived as a scheme in 1988 by the Loyalty Management Group (LGM). Schemes such as this have existed when video games developers hadn't even realised the ramifications of how addictive the industry could become, and the term gamification is believed to have been first used in 2005. Loyalty schemes were created by big businesses to up sell products that weren't particularly productive, and to bring in more customers as value became more important to the average consumer.

In some form, many of these concepts of loyalty, graduated reward and investment have been around so long as anybody has been trying to sell anything. As the games industry progressed, developers began to understand more about how we interact with systems such as video games and how other business industries increased their profit margins with their wares. Full teams are solely focused on research into this field to provide the industry with an ever increasing flow of customers.

Why is this important? Because I believe two things. One, that the transition between video game features of engagement and those of real life are reciprocal, and do NOT simply come from video games into the business world. Two, I believe that there are elements of games that do have a useful purpose in the real world, simply because they reflect how we as humans interact with our environment and those around us.

I feel that when Olly wrote his 'hate speech' as such, he was considering how cheap it felt in game to be driven forward, or driven to explore, via the use of experience bars, points to spend and so on. However, I pose this reality.

Skyrim is built upon those very principles. You would struggle to get through a world where you never level up or gain experience. Skyrim would suffer incredibly without the ability to train the particular skills you wish to use. And you may say, "but that game gives you the freedom to use the ones you choose to", but it is still the illusion of choice. Whilst you might decide to be a mage, you would effectively suck at being an active member of the thieves guild without some ability to sneak. And if you use an armour perk to do so effectively, that cheapens the experience because it has nothing to do with your chosen attributes. You immediately break the illusion that your effort has been worth something; that you have been working for many an hour honing your abilities in a particular skill, only to have a piece of equipment render that training irrelevent.

I could continue for a long time about games that wouldn't be games without a certain level of attribution to abilities or assets that have no direct link to driving the story forward, but I take this opportunity to move onto their real world counterparts.

Gamification, as I've previously said, works. This is based in the fact that, games target our human desires directly, knowing that, for us as players to be truly satisfied, we need the game to target our needs for real life, and enhance them in a way that makes us feel empowered.

This works in real life. Feedback for example, is something that is becoming more and more important within business and educational systems. Authoritative people are realising that in order to make progress, all parts of that system must be consulted. For bottom feeders to feel appreciated, feel like they themselves are worthy assets, and that they are moving onwards and upwards, there needs to be communication filtering both up and down the chain, and for action to be taken that represents this transition.

I use the specific example of learning, and I will try to keep this a brief as I can, as this directly ties to my dissertation focus. The education system is beginning to see the cracks in the grand scheme of the national curriculum. My fear is that they are not truly aware of why these cracks are there. My secondary fear is that, those in the position to know are too worried about keeping their jobs to take risks in moving the education system forward into the 21st century. Whilst I don't argue that gamification is the saviour for education, I do argue that it has a substantial amount of influence, hence the global scale adoption of gamification principles into software and management.

I think there are specific literacies to be learned from video games that teach about how systems work, how to manipulate and develop those systems to further optimisation and efficiency, and how to navigate them effectively. Gamification can be considered a method for presenting these literacies. By splitting the focus of students, giving a staggered route of learning via minor rewards, undisclosed promise of greater reward, and taking statistics like the Noah Falstein Flow Channel into account when defining difficulty of the lessons taught, I believe that children would find themselves more engaged in those lessons. It becomes less about passing exams, more about personal learning.

Tom Chatfield gave a talk on gamification at the TED conference. He gives seven ways that games reward the brain, with a developing focus on how these qualities can be used for learning outside of the game world. I share this with you below:

I think if I were to summarise this post, it would all come to this. I do not believe that gamification is a fundamentally bad use of game principles. I would never argue against anybody who said that these principles are being exploited by big businesses to further profiteer from consumers who are trying to find the best value they can for their money in a climate that gradually makes each of us poorer. But I don't think that justifies negating it's worth entirely. We don't argue that medication is bad just because an addict might use it to satiate their fix. We don't argue that charity is worthless because governments may or may not withhold those funds from the people who need them the most. Nor can we do this here. Rather than casting it aside, we should be embracing such an opportunity, working to use it in the most beneficial ways, and developing our understanding of how we, as people, think and learn.

Gamers and Animators Unite!

2011-12-05T03:23:00.001-08:00

So this post isn't a long one. It's also not a theory article. I simply wanted to post this link on my blog, because I believe it is incremental to the success of the UK games and animation industries. It is an e-petition which needs yours and everybody you know's signature in order to get it heard in the commons.

The idea is that this petition asks for tax breaks and incentives to drive the games and animation industry forward, as we are lagging behind the rest of the world, and we are beginning to lose studios because of it!

So please click on this link: e-petition

Thank you

Appreciating the Linearity of the Interactive Cinematic Experience

2011-11-28T03:58:00.001-08:00

This is something I have be considering for some time. As games have become more complex and have offered more choice, we are realising the differences between video games, and interactive cinematic experiences. The problem is, we are still calling the latter: video games.

For the purpose of you understanding what the hell I am getting at throughout this post, I will explain what I mean. The market of video games, is basically defined by the principle that these interactive experiences all have rules. However, that's only half of the battle. A game requires two things, a set of rules, and play. A game's set of rules is designed to enhance play, so that one might explore those rules, and create a personal experience based upon them.

The first games we experience in our lives are the ones we create as children. We make the rules, and they become more complex as we grow older. These games allow us to learn how to articulate ourselves in the world, due to the nature of exploration within the game environment. The same must exist within an interactive digital experience in order to be a video game.

Now, this moves me onto linear interactive cinematic experiences. These are titles in which you have little choice in what you do within the virtual space (for want of a more accurate term). You are limited to one path (with some variation from time to time) but have no choice to deviate from the set plan. Now that doesn't necessarily mean only being able to travel in one direction, as some do allow multiple paths, but I simply mean that they don't offer any choice in how you pursue success in that space.

At this stage I feel it's necessary to give a clear example of what on earth I mean so that I don't lose anyone. I will point out that this post is not a hate speech, before I reveal my example, because I've always been a fan.

So, the example is Call of Duty Modern Warfare, the first Infinity Ward warfare title in the modern day era. It was built up of levels carrying us through the experiences of John 'Soap' MacTavish as he, his commanding officer, Cpt. Price and the rest of a small squad work to uncover an uprising of conflicts in the middle east which culminates in a mastermind evil Russian dude (Zakhaev), a lot of American Hoo Rah-ing and lots of nice explosions and gun fights.

As I've already said, I am a fan. Yes it was quite cliché, yes it was West vs. East, and the ideologies behind it were awfully suspicious at best, but it was a good experience to be in from a cinematic stand point. The pacing was impeccable, to the point where I've played through the campaign multiple times and still get a good buzz from it. The set pieces were overly dramatic, but made you near on poop yourself with anticipation and virtual fear, you wanted to know where you'd be carried next and even though it was predictable, you still wanted to be told what was actually going on.

This does not, however, make it a good 'game'. This makes it a good interactive cinematic experience. I did not learn any more about 'Soap', or any of the gang unless the narrative dictated that I should know them. I was fed the information bit by bit, the way you would through any other storytelling medium. It was not at my leisure to uncover their histories, or know what else was happening at the same time we were jetting off to Madeupistan. I was told strictly what I needed to know in order to like, dislike or even kill those around me.

Due to this reason, I wasn't playing, I was performing the required actions I needed to in order to move the story along. Arguably I could stop, do nothing and the pace would have to wait for me, but there would have been nothing for me to do if I had stopped. Therefore I pushed on, working towards the next climax.

This feeling of almost being completely at the will of the narrative made me nervous when rounding corners, not knowing whether to expect twenty odd enemies wielding Klashnekoffs or just a quiet road. This uncertainty worked for this title because I felt much like I imagine a soldier would (without the epic gunfights around every third corner). I got anxious when things went quiet, adrenaline fuelled when things got heavy, and even sad when my whole squad got wiped out (or seemingly so).

I would even argue that the interactivity of this experience made it more meaningful for me than it would have if I'd watched it as a movie. I can only explain such experiences as it being almost like I am in a theatre performance. The script is set, the scenes are laid out in front of me, and I am the activator to bring it to life. I have no impact on the direction, nor the content, I have little room to embellish my performance, and yet without me; the lead role, the story would not see the light of day.

The depth of this experience is increased by the fact that I am also performing it for my own viewing. Others might watch, but as an active member in the performance, I am feeling the emotions and the drama the most. I understand it more as I take each step towards the final act.

So this leads to the question of what I'm trying to get at. Quite frankly, I am trying to explain what an interactive cinematic experience can do better than a video game can. I am tired of people rating linear experiences as crap just because they don't have an open world to explore every nook and cranny.

I appreciate video games for their ability to give me certain levels of control. Yes every video game has restrictions, and that's great, because it challenges us as game players to get the best out of the tools we are given. It also challenges us to exploit those restrictions, to innovatively develop new perspectives within that game world. I love playing RPGs simply because I can explore, find loot, level up, and create a character that I want to, and to make moral choices that define me as a person. We have not reached a level where morality is deep enough to fully allow me to take my own moral path, but we are making progress towards it.

I enjoy real-time strategy, where I have to adapt and counter moves made by my opponent(s) in order to achieve victory, forcing me to learn all there is to know about what roles each asset in my arsenal can perform when under pressure.

But I also enjoy the narrative complexities of an interactive cinematic experience, even though it sacrifices the level of choice available to the person behind the control pad/keyboard. Story telling was one of the driving forces that brought us together as communities. It is how we pass on lessons and morals to our children, and how we develop understanding for complex realities, simplifying them in symbolism.

For us to negate any worth in these experiences, we are simply saying that we don't want to interact with a story that we didn't influence. But I leave this post with this point. For us to create our own stories, we were once influenced by those stories of others. For our imaginations to develop, we must continue to be avid participants in the stories of others. For video games to succeed in providing the freedom to develop your own tales, they need linear narrative experiences to provide the inspiration for the players.

Violence is Stale, Give Us a New Controversy!

2011-11-24T04:26:00.001-08:00

I write this post following a complaint from Activision that was shown on IGN. The pulishing CEO Eric Hirshberg complained that representation of extreme violence in video games is received negatively in the press, and made the point that film and the mass media never receives the same wrist slapping. This debate is not new.

There has always been an issue with violence in games. The argument that violent games make violent people has been in the news off and on since I don't know when. I believe that the first time I became aware of it was when Manhunt was forbidden to be sold in at least the UK. This was due to the fact that a Leicestershire schoolboy named Warren LeBlanc placed his inspiration for killing a class mate, Stephan Pakeerah with this particular title. As a results the sequel was not sold in this country.

However, I will bring to light that many a similar claim has been made about films throughout time. For example, Daniel Gill and Robert Fuller were sentenced to juvenile hall after attempting to murder a bloke named Ashley Murray. They claimed that they couldn't clearly distinguish the lines between reality and make believe after watching the film which led them to stabbing the man eighteen times. However, as is obviously clear, this film was not banned. It's still available today with the others in the series.

Now one could argue that the content of each example are different in extremes, with Manhunt being the most brutal and gruesome, but that's not what would inspire somebody to kill someone. Method doesn't dictate desire. If somebody has an urge to commit murder, I don't believe that it would depend on the methods used in the tool of inspiration. It would simply rely on the intent to kill, or the act of killing to trip that switch which turns someone from a rather worrying individual to a stone cold killer.

There is also the argument that, regardless of what medium is blamed for instigating murder, there are countless others who experienced the same media and carried on living just fine, without any urges to kill a person.

This leads me on to establish the main reason this argument exists. It is simply that a video game is interactive, that you control much of the experience of violence. You are the active party in that event, rather than an on looker.

Well firstly I'll say that if one was to watch somebody murder a person and enjoy it as a source of entertainment, would that make them a better individual than the murderer themselves. So if we say games inspire murder, we must at least say that film inspires a sense of sadistic voyeurism.

However, nobody would claim that as film is beyond the controversy of violence. The days where Psycho was considered a horrific display of violence are long gone, and in an age where violence is part of our daily lives as prolific consumers of mass media, film has managed to duck under the radar.

If we stick on the point of interactivity. it's also worrisome because we as humans learn best through action. We pick up skill by doing more effectively than reading or watching. However, as analytical beings, surely we can assume that not everything we do is taken as gospel matter of propriety. Surely we can come to realise that we deal in metaphor and symbolism day to day as we represent the elements of life. Can we not therefore negate the belief that by playing a game that has a lot of abuse and anger, we ourselves become angry and abusive?

A human being begins to develop the ability to analyse reality as a toddler. It's safe to assume that by the age of adolescence, the difference between a game and real life is fairly clear, especially because they have picked the controller up, plugged the console in, put the disc in and switched on the TV, all before they even started playing.

Yes, games are influential. These influences are generally imprinted when they are subtle. This is why it's a good teaching tool, and I'm not arguing against that. But the way influence in games generally works is by being covert. We are not supposed to realise that these are being fed to us.

Everybody is aware of violence in games, because it is so clearly stamped in every gun fight, every chainsaw massacre, and every Michael Bay moment. It happens so much in action games, like Call of Duty that we take it as a trivialisation of war, which is exactly what it is.

I believe that people in a position to change the view of the globe about violent games generally take a wrong turn in their appeals however. Hirshberg is no exception. He is trying to generalise media. Video games have always been a different ball game to film and mass media. The communcation between developer and player is so far from that of a film director and an audience. I wont go into detail about what those differences are, as that's for another post, but those differences do exist.

The response to that generalisation is "Yes but in a game you are taking part in that violence". As I've already explained, that means absolutely nothing for a stable mind. The enjoyment of that violence becomes clear when it's considered as a trivialisation.

In first-person shooters, the excitement is in the reflexive challenge. It's a faster paced, at range game of tag. If there is a single player campaign, it teaches you how to use the tools at your disposal, while you shoot at programmed 'bots', where as multiplayer allows you to enhance the basic skills you learned in single player. You run around in an arena, with a selection of attributes at your disposal, a knife, a grenade, a main gun and a pistol. You work in a team, or on your own, but essentially you are trying to tag the opponent(s) more than they tag you to express your overpowering mastery of the game. Much of the time it is this egotistical display that dominates the enjoyment of 'violent' games like this.

I would challenge anybody without a pre-considered opinion about video games to play one, and see if they feel like murdering somebody afterwards. One in fifty-thousand might, and they are the one you strap to a table in a padded cell.

From the Perspective of Play

2011-11-22T01:18:00.001-08:00

My inspiration for this post has to be credited to Taekwan Kim at Gamasutra in his post Breaking Skyrim. He basically discusses the unique flavour of the perk and levelling system within the game, which I'll not go into too much detail about here.

I wanted to focus today's ramblings around ludism, and I think it is only fair to explain what I mean by that term. It basically concerns the 'play' aspect within a game space. Emphasis within a game is usually separated between ludological intricacies and on the narrative impact of plot and character development. You generally find that one of these elements will receive more attention.

Most multiplayer elements of video games are purely ludological, in that they require no back story, and often have no real reason to have you running around. This is particularly apparent in first-person shooters. Not to say that they lack of an experience because of this. Simply put, they are all about the doing rather than the why.

Single player experiences generally require some tangible narrative in order to pull you through the game. Even in open world titles there needs to be a central drive in order to make you want to explore the world. Not only that, but the character you are playing as needs to be engaging, either as a reflection of your own preferences, like in RPGs, or a character that acts as an alter-ego for your normal personality. In the latter case, it requires heavy work on the part of the developer to make the player want to be this character for the duration of play. Recently, in titles like Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and Infamous this has meant overpowering the character to the ultimate badass.

So, In sticking with single player, it might seem as if the narrative overcomes the need for engrossing play mechanics, but that would be facing in completely the wrong direction. Games with strong narrative and deep characters require even more work on the play design. There is nothing more jarring than a game that has a rich story, only to be jolted out of that tale by a clunky control scheme, or the play elements being sparse in comparison to cut-scenes and quick-time events. People play games for exactly that reason; to play.

I've seen a few recent titles heading in the direction of Hollywood envy. By this I mean that they are going down the road of film-like dramatics. I'm thinking along the lines of the recent Call of Duty titles. They try hard to imitate an interactive movie, in which you feel like the lead character. They also pay close attention to making the player feel like the character and not an actor getting into character.

This works fine in terms of immersion, but it doesn't provide much room for a gamer to explore the world they are investing hours in. I'm not by any means saying that all games should be open world at all, but I feel that people trudge through cinematic scenes of awe and wonder, and bolt from location to location when shit gets heavy, but don't ever find the time to establish a connection to the virtual environment that this all takes place in. It becomes more of an adrenaline rush than a rich gaming experience.

Play then, is as much about the player as the game world from the perspective of the developers. When a person invests their time into a game world, they are helping that game to reach it's potential. They are commanding elements of the game to function to their specific requirements. The more control given to the player for this purpose, the deeper the experience that one has.

Surprisingly, RPGs often miss the mark with this when they misuse the levelling system in their games. It's becoming more popular to incorporate smart attribute levellers. This effectively takes control away from the player to use the attributes they want, and I'll explain. By automatically levelling up an attribute, and leaving the other attributes by the way side (due to lack of use), it prevents a player changing their mind later on, when opponents are high level and difficult to beat with the nurtured attributes. It is almost like telling a player that their attributes will level up the more they use them, but the ones they don't use much to begin with will become obsolete a fair way through the game as they'll be completely ineffective against your enemies.

The new Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, does incorporate this system. They did however, put a lot of time into refining it so that it was possible to level these up even in the later stages of the game. For example, as Kim said in his article (mentioned at the top) the attributes can interweave with eachother, meaning that the prolific use of, say, conjuration can bind weapons to make them more powerful, in which case, a low archery rating might be rectified until that rating increases higher. Substituting points in this way makes surviving much more doable, regardless of your chosen path. This is also made possible through the varied levelling up rates of the enemies as well. Some enemies will always be a bitch to destroy (like blood dragons and giants), where as the likes of wolves are a piece of piss after around level 7. This means that you can use your weakest attributes against them and still make progress.

Interaction with other characters is also a biggy! I liked the interaction system in Mass Effect 2 because, not only did it bring an emotional connection to the table, but how you responded to each of your team often had an effect on how others reacted to you. Your interaction with people throughout the galaxy had an effect on your team mates' perspectives of you as well. If you were the ultimate asshole to hard done by people, the angels in your team would see you for the raging dick you are, whilst those without a sense of morality wouldn't give a crap, and might actually think better of you.

So considering these two different elements, I think it's important to note that they exist cohesively with the narratives. Interaction with others relies on the narrative of those others. If they have no personality or emotional impact on your experience, then it's clearly trousers to a fish as to how they react to your actions, unless you are particularly concerned with what other people think of you in a made up world. If the characters around you feel real, and engage with you on a deeper level, rather than spouting random words at you from time to time, it begins to matter to you more how you act, whether you decide to push against that connection, or embrace it and make changes to how you operate. Furthermore, a levelling system that reflects the ever changing focus of the human mind is important. But it becomes more important when narrative elements give you opportunities to use those new found strengths for something that matters. If you levelled up your archery to the maximum, with only targets to shoot at, it would negate any reason.

To sum up then, play is important for any game environment. If we as players are not given certain freedoms to experiment and explore the foundations of the games we play, then the connection to that game is damaged, and the emphasis of the player turns towards completing it and moving swiftly on to another title. It is promising that high profile titles are starting to move back towards allowing game players to have more control. Games like LittleBig Planet; where the idea is to use the tools given to you to go crazy and be creative, are a breathe of fresh air in a shooter heavy industry. They set a standard for other developers to see and raise the bar for ludological interaction. The way we interact with the game world has, arguably, a bigger impact on how immersed a player is in a game, and no amount of narrative genius can make a good game if there's no depth to the play.

Cast a Pod of Pacing

2011-11-20T18:05:00.001-08:00

A few course mates an I have began recording a podcast. It forms along the same principle of exploring the many facets of video gaming. It is still in it's vital infancy stage where we iron out the creases and refine the working model, but it's beginning to look more promising.

Tomorrow we record our third (my second) cast, and we are centring the episode around the theme of pacing. This will explore the more linear realms where pacing is entirely dictated by the developers through the use of cutscenes, quick time events and more recently interactive cutscenes, as well as staging gun fights and so on. But we will also tackle the issue of pacing within open world titles, where you are often encouraged to set your own pace. It becomes more important to create a world in which pacing will still exist beyond the complete control of the developers when it is unknown how the player is going to act within the game space.

I am particularly looking forward to this topic, because a fair few of my favourite 360 titles highlight this topic nicely. It's also an area that most gamers don't consider as good pacing is rarely overt. If you notice the pacing (without intending to analyse it) then there is something wrong! We are still working out how to distribute them to the online community as they are 30 minute episodes, which are fairly large in file size. However, once we find a host to put them on, I'll begin embedding them here as I'm sure my fellow co-hosts will do as well.

The Journey to Skyrim

2011-11-20T08:32:00.001-08:00

Though a very popular topic, I hope to add a few interesting insights into this game and give my incomplete, but fairly fleshy experience with it.

I'll start by saying that I briefly played Morrowind and played Oblivion to exhaustion. Though both were repetitive beyond a certain point and left little to do once the main campaign was completed, I was always in awe at the life in the worlds that Bathesda created. This life isn't down to character animations or dramatic dialogue and body language. It's not even in overhauling VFX. It was more subtle than that, but it did wonders for my engagement within the game space.

What I'm discussing is none other than the fact that the world existed without your input. NPCs went about their daily lives whether you hassled them for side quests and purchases, or you simply walked by them as they bustled about the streets. I am very glad to say that this exists once again. Skyrim is more alive than ever. It doesn't really seem like the wanderers outside the cities are just on a loop. They just crop up once in a while heading in their own direction, when a wolf or sabre tooth might smash ten bells out of the poor soul. This carries into the wildlife. There is an abundance of predator and prey, which interact with eachother the way you'd expect them to. Not only that, but they are there for your right to hunt, and in often cases with wolves and sabres, defend yourself. This isn't just for the sake of the hunt. You can use the meat to replenish health, or sell it to merchants throughout the world (though the pay out is poor).

Another small difference that I've noticed could be considered debatable, but at the stage I am at, I think I can comfortably assume I am correct. With Oblivion (and what I know of Morrowind) the levels of the enemies would increase at exactly the same rate as you did. This meant that levelling up never made you feel special in any way. You felt that you were growing up, but everything was just as hard as before. Now before you think I'm whining about difficulty, I'm not. I see a great need for increasing difficulty, but in this type of game, there needs to be balance. If you start off fighting bandits that you find relatively difficult at level 1, and they carry the same weapons, armour and abilities when you reach 20, but they still remain incredibly tedious to beat, even in low numbers, you start wondering what the point of levelling up is, and moreover, lose your immersion within the game world. It's jarring, and makes you very aware of the game mechanics at work when they are fighting against you.

So, gladly Skyrim has toned it down. The enemies still increase their own levels. This is good because then it doesn't contradict the point I previously made about the world existing without you. They still progress, but it's more natural, and gives you the feeling that you are the ultimate badass, levelling up at the alarming rate that you expect the world's only dragonborn to do! There are enemies at vastly different levels, even amongst the dragons, which means that you never really know what to expect.

I will, for the sake of this explanation, give two examples. I've fought a fair few dragons to this point. Some relatively easy to cull, others more troublesome. A recent encounter led me to fighting a blood dragon just outside of a little town called Riverwood. I died at its...claws many a time. I grew angry, frustrated, started swinging my mace wildly and unrelenting forcing its face all over the park until finally, only through stubbornness, I defeated my enemy.

My second example came today. If I have fought a lot of dragons, I am on first name terms with bandits with the amount I've faced. They come carrying various weapons, most of which are generally shit made of iron or steel, and their armour of hide, studded or leather if they are lucky. So I generally don't expect much trouble from them, and never really get any. My biggest challenge with them is really when there are a whole cohort of them. So little did I expect one greatsword wielding battle-maiden to come at me with the ferocity of several dragons, taking blow after blow of TWO maces directly to the face with all the strength I could muster. She killed me so many times I couldn't count. What started off as me saying 'I'm just not concentrating' turned into 'what is this demon?!'.

I probably wouldn't admit to this if I didn't eventually overcome her in the same relentless frustration filled fury that took me to the defeat of the blood dragon earlier, but these are two different experiences, giving me two different challenges, attacking me in two different ways, and yet I probably found fighting a fur wearing, iron sword wielding maiden slightly more difficult that the big roaring fire breathing dragon.

In line with difficulty, I've still not once defeated a giant, or a mammoth, single handedly. I'll admit to refraining from trying since my early levels because I know they could destroy me with little effort. As much as I've not tried recently, there is little doubt in my mind that I would have to commit a great deal of effort in order to even scratch the surface on the thick skin of one. This is another feature I like in a really odd way. I love the fact that, when I started, I jumped into it and started exploring. I figured, I'm sure pretty much everything will start at my level because I'm a newbie in this world. Surely they'll all go easy on me. Little did know I was rock bottom wrong. I wandered into a giant's encampment just to have a look around. Around the corner runs an angry giant wondering why I've just trespassed into his/her/its crib. I thought, to hell with you, I'm the dragonborn. I didn't come looking for trouble, but I don't take kindly to intimidation. So I slashed my sword at the beasty's crotch. That was the last thing I did before I died. Without any fee-fi-fo-fumming, the bastard cracked me on the skull and that was that. One half-assed swing and I was dead. But that makes sense to me, because, even though I died, my head told me, you deserved that for acting like a pride stung teenager.

At this intersection I will move on to discuss my connection with this game. I've started realising that I have, on many occasions, related this world to real life subconsciously. The aforementioned expression of self reflection in light of my rash actions is quite a mild one in comparison to an experience I had when I was attempting to find a man to help me find an elder scroll. I got caught under some ice whilst swimming to this man's grotto. As the seconds went past I knew I was going to drown if I didn't find a way out.

I experienced panic for the merest instant. It wasn't a panic directly related to my health bar or any kind of meter. In game, after a few seconds of being under water, your health bar goes down steadily and you have a fair amount of time to get to safety, which I already knew. It was a panic more associated with the fact that I was trapped. For that instant, I believe I actually came close to believing I was in that place. For me, this is a first, which is why I struggle to see eye to eye with game theorists who believe complete game immersion is possible.

Surprisingly, I'm not afraid of being underwater (though I'm sure being trapped under water would be horrifying). I also haven't experienced any other moments of feeling realistically vulnerable at any point throughout playing. It's quite peculiar, and it's something that I will be looking for as I make progress through the game.

I could talk for hours about specifics and how great a time I'm having exploring both as an amateur analyst and as a passionate gamer, but there are simply not the hours in the day for me to write it all, and for you to read it all. So for me consider this to be me signing out!

Thanks,

Laurence