Week 6

Game Review:
Deus Ex: Human Revolution [Xbox 360]

Story:
Deus Ex: Human Revolution is set in the year 2027 the Biochemistry of limb replacements has advanced far beyond basic prosthetics, In this cyber punk dystopia where corporate empires have more power than governments, humans are now able to improve themselves with these "augmentations".  They have become so effective that people with perfectly normal limbs will have them surgically removed and replaced with "upgraded" versions.

Adam Jensen is an ex-SWAT officer who is hired by David Sariff who is the CEO of Sariff industries a bio-tech company that specialises in augmentations, after Sariff industries is attacked by mysterious black ops soldiers Adam is left almost dead and to save his life he undergoes a "six million dollar man" style operation fitting him with almost every augmentation they could fit into his body.

The newly augmented Adam must find and stop these extremists and uncover a conspiracy that will change the world forever.

Mechanics:
One of the core themes of Deus Ex is choice this is core to not only the story which there is debate over the ethics of the augmentation technology and in game-play, navigation, weapons upgrades and social interactions.

The game is primarily a first person shooter but whenever the player takes cover the game switches to a third person view same for take downs the player can choose to go in guns blazing or play stealthy or any mix of both, each style has its own consequences and reward where stealthy and non-lethal options yielding the most points towards levelling up however this style can be more difficult.

The player can acquire praxis kits by levelling up or other means and these can be used to
upgrade and acquire augmentations, the player has complete freedom to choose whatever augmentations (or none) to upgrade provided they have enough praxis kits.

The only real downside to all the choices that the players are given is in the boss battles which force the player to kill them which means that some players can be at a severe disadvantage, because I had already read reviews I prepared my character for this situation.


Aesthetics:
The aesthetics have a combination of cyber punk with definite blade runner influences and refreshingly, elements drawn from the Italian renaissance because this was another time when grave robbers and surgeons were working together to dissect and study the human body a very ethical issue of its time.The art for draws from this like the design pattern on Jensen's coat and varilouos furniture and architecture.

Mis en scence is used expertly with lots of items some useable others not, many civilians walking around the hubs and plenty of computers with email conversations (some of which greatly enrich the story)  This effective use of Mis en scence makes the world feel very lived in and thus easier to immerse into.

There is also a clear black and gold colour pallete and the almost the entire game is set at night to make Adam feel more like a "bad-ass" predator whose voice almost makes him seem like a future version of batman.

Technology:
The technology of the game is quite good detailing many things in the environment, all the guns handle well and most animations look really brutal and well done.

However there are some issues like in the social interactions where the same movement animations and facial animations when speaking seemed be stiff and also reused movements breaking the immersion. Not to mention some long loading times but it does have little story reminders to help you if you forgot what had happened previously.

Overall a fantastic game with great minute to minute combat/stealth, RPG elements and fascinating story and environments

week 5

Game Review:
Alan Wake [Xbox 360]

Alan Wake is a third person action thriller.
Story:
The plot follows Alan Wake once a very successful (fictional) thriller author who has been going through a drought of inspiration and believes if he gets away from it all (the big city) and relaxes, he can eventually get the inspiration he needs to write his next big seller. He and his wife Alice go to the sleepy town of Bright falls.

Alan is getting his cabin set up for the night when Alice starts to pressure him into writing a new novel. Alan and Alice have a fight, Alan decides to go outside into the dark knowing Alice will not follow him because she is petrified of the dark. To his horror he hears her screams and sees something dark and vague dragging her into the lake and then he dives in after her...

Next thing he knows he wakes up from a car crash and into a nightmare, eventually discovering that he has missed a week with has no recollection of the event and nobody believes him that the darkness and shadows that had taken his wife are is also taking some of the towns folk.  

He must fight the darkness to save Alice.

The story of Alan Wake is a doozy... although it follows the 5 act structure it is designed to feel like a tv show where Alan Wake self narrates the story and there is TV show like endings,  along with the mechanic of finding the collectible manuscript that strangely is describing the exact events of the game (future and past) that he mysteriously wrote but can't remember. These are unusual story telling mechanics and techniques which is refreshing but somewhat strange at the same time.

 Yet the quality and style of the script gives more of an intense thriller novel feel. The horror influences can not be ignored.

This is a game that relies heavily on its narrative and quality of the story and the voice actors which when all of these things have combined they have done a phenomenal job.


Mechanics:
The core mechanics of Alan Wake, are the minute to minute game-play of Combat, minor puzzle solving and minor platforming. The combat relies solely on the light v.s. dark theme where Alan must burn away the shadow before he can kill the enemy by shooting them or use a variety of light based weaponry such as a flare or flash-bang grenade etc. Alan can also ignore the fight and just run to the next safe zone this also provides an intense situation where the player must take care not to let Alan run out of breath before he gets to the next safe zone.

The controls are very tight and responsive and although there is no aiming reticule unlike most third person actions the use of the torch works well as the aiming mechanic and helps bring an extra level of immersion.

The platform and jumping can be a bit awkward at times where it is hard to judge a jump but it is not too frustrating. This puzzles are very simple which was annoying however they weren't the main focus.

Aesthetics:
The aesthetics of Alan Wake are above average as the characters are all very interesting and some areas have been very carefully detailed with lots of "mis en scene" giving these areas a lived in feel adding to the life of that environment however much of the game is spent in the forest environment
where all the trees and rocks look pretty much the same and although it can be argued that the designers wanted the players to feel lost and alone, this setting is used too much.

One interesting decision was the addition of a very minimalist mini-map which although it is very helpful it does break the immersion when they have already cleverly weaved your next goal (travel towards the nearest safe light) so into the environment i.e. You are in the forest and see a lit up petrol station, combine that with the narration of the main character "I needed to get to the gas station it was the only safe place I could see".

I guess this was added in for players who lost there way I believe this should be turned of by default and allow the player to turn it on if they choose.

There are a lot of interesting collectibles in the game raging from the items that are purely for the achievements(coffee mugs) all the way to the expertly voiced (night radio shows) these add an incredible sense of atmosphere.

Technology:
The technology (by the most recent standards) stacks up quite good with excellent lighting and shadow effects which is essential in this game and spectacular particle effects of the sparks, flares and explosions. Which is best seen when the game goes slow motion after a successful dodge.
What is lacking however is the sometimes lacklustre facial animations with the current technology of games like Mass effect and L.A. Noire it is sometimes irritating to be broken from the rich immersion with strange facial animations.

Overall:
A very refreshing spooky, intelligent, mysterious action thriller.


Make Game: (Twist a Nursery Rhyme)
Humpty Dumpty Remix

1.   Define the SPACE
Similar to snakes and ladders except we have modified it to  be the players must climb a wall and use vines to climb up and yolk to slide down.

2.   List the OBJECTS (and their attributes)
Objects are Yolk, Vines and wall

 

3.   Define the player ACTIONS
Players move up the board and hope to gain the boosts and avoid the pitfalls to reach the end first.

4.   List the RULES
Players use 2 dice to move forward and if they land on a (start of) a vine or yolk they must go up or down respectively, If a player lands on a Blue square they must pick up a card, they then have the choice to give the card to another player or take it themselves. These cards have a variety of positive, negative and game changing effects. If a player lands on another player the player who was in that square originally must 

5.   List the SKILLS
There is no skill as this game is purely about chance.

6.   Clarify the unpredictable aspects – is there any CHANCE in this game?
The game is purely based on chance this is primarily to do with the dice roll followed by the cards and although the player gets the choice to take or give the card to another player there is no skill in this action it is still based of chance and luck. 

7.   Sketch a SCREEN – visuals communicate

8.   Present the concept
   The concept is a brand new twist on the classic snakes and ladders using the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme as the backdrop. 

Escape Game Continued:
We finished writing the room description but we soon realised that until we got a play-test of players who had never played the game we couldn't  really get a proper feel for how it would work and also the replay value.

Week_4_escape_game_part_1

Game Design

Week 4

Workshop

Activities:

1. Admin
2. Playing and reporting
3. Design challenge

Activity 1 Admin

Supervisor will check the design journals are all being maintained.

See if anyone continued development of the “territorial acquisition” design challenge

Assignment One

More detail next week but students might want to make a start on sourcing potential works that are candidates for a game and either bring them in or make notes in their journals

Games to play this week require PLUGINS, some may require DOS and / or INSTALL

Useful: DOSBox: http://www.dosbox.com

Activity 2 Playing and reporting: ADVENTURE and exploration held together by story

The main point of play this week should be taking note of the 4 DESIGN ELEMENTS in each game and the way that they work together – students must consider how the STORY element is evolving as a mechanic in its own right and as an embedded narrative

Text Adventure

Play Colossal Cave / Adventure http://www.ifiction.org/games/play.phpz?cat=&game=1&mode=html

Infocom games – Zork I, II, III : http://www.ifiction.org/games/index.php?cat=2

ZORK I: Dungeon

My initial play through of ZORK gives me a very mixed review as it was a lot of fun to see the game work with certain commands that seemed logical at the being able to interact with the world and having to form the picture from the story was engaging however it became very frustrating only having a very limiting knowledge of the language or "acquisition" (I had to look at  a wikipedia page to figure out how to move) I believe more practice with its system I might learn the language but that could be part of the game is to start with nothing and self teach yourself the game discovering new abilites and commands along the way.

As a modern and young gamer this became very frustrating and eventually unplayable as all games that I play currently clearly lay out the boundaries, rules, movement etc. Whereas ZORK feels to me like a lot of trial and error and because of my knowledge of programming  and user's interactions with computers and frustrations that users have that computers can't fill in that extra piece of information to understand. 

For example if a person incorrectly phrases or spells a word. "pick-up mat" will work whereas "acquire mat" does not.

Lack of communication between the game and the player makes this frustrating which is why it became a "cult" hit.

Early Graphic

Adventure: http://www.2600online.com/adventure.html

Adventure: http://www.simmphonic.com/programming/adventure.htm

“Adventure's fun comes from the way all of its simple objects interact to produce complex behavior. Carried objects continue to operate, whether it's the bat or player who holds them, so the bat might carry the magnet through a room where the player is using the bridge, moving it out of position and forcing him to find another way back. Or, carrying the sword, the bat might brush it across a dragon on his flight, killing it. This is possible because all of the objects in the game function automatically, which they have to be anyway since The Button is devoted to dropping stuff. A lot of the fun in Adventure comes from the unintended consequences of the player's actions.”

LucasFilms Adventure Games

Secret of Monkey Island (sampler) http://www.classicdosgames.com/online/sampler.html

More classic DOS games: http://www.classicdosgames.com/online.php

Activity 3 Design Studio (Workshop weeks 4 & 5: see slides)

Challenge: Design an escape game

Materials – large sheets of paper, pens, post-it notes, A3 graph paper

Step 1: Understand the escape concept – this is one of the simplest exploration concepts but it can also get complex very quickly. Essentially you are creating a setting that the player can wander around – they will probably need to find items and use them to UNLOCK the exit / dig a tunnel

So in terms of the four elements – you need to deal with SETTING / STORY (what kind of space is it) – OBJECTS and PROGRESSION (what does the player need to find and use to achieve the goal)

The essential functional rule is IF (the player has the key) THEN (they can escape)

The trick is to make the key finding dependent on a list of other objectives or object combinations

Step 2: Decide on the THEME (there are many ‘escape the room’ games – the theme dictates the aesthetics and perhaps the objects).

Step 3: Decide on the objects and keys … the GOAL and the setting should present a coherent game reality

Step 4: Decide on the RULES or the order / combination in which the objects will need to be used by the player to make their escape

Step 5:  Map the world and place obstacles and useful objects

Step 6: Design HOW the player will collect and use objects in the prototype version (dice, cards) – is this design ONLY appropriate to the digital realm – if not, HOW could you achieve the basic mechanic?

Into digital:

Simple exploration games are fairly rare as they quickly evolved into games with complex quests and or combat and action. However, the Escape the room games still maintain the exploration – collect and use gameplay.

You can make a simple escape the room in Power Point

http://pptheaven.mvps.org/tutorials/EscapeTheRoomGameTutorial.html

Or in Flash

http://hubpages.com/hub/Flash-Tutorial-Introduction-to-designing-Escape-the-room-games-in-flash

Info-literacy – basic skill sets

IF appropriate you may wish to support this challenge by using basic photo-shop and introduce students to some very simple editing skills so that they can use images in their power point games

Week3-territoral_acquisition

Game Design

Week 3

Workshop

Activities:

1. Admin
2. Playing and reporting
3. Design studio

Activity 1 Admin

Supervisor will check the design journals are all being maintained.

See if anyone continued development of the “race to the end” design challenge

Games to play this week require PLUGINS – check your browsers

Activity 2 Playing and Reporting

Play the reversions of the 80s games, discuss and report in journals:

http://www.classicgaming.cc/classics/pacman/play.php
PACMAN

Interactivity – what is the CORE game mechanic?

The core game mechanic of PACMAN is eating the dots, avoiding the ghosts and then once the big dot has been eaten then eating the now vulnerable ghosts.

Genre – the genre labels used for the list of games below were taken from the descriptions – you may disagree with some of them – Why?
Action - I agree with this genre as it requires quick reaction time and short term planning and you must avoid the enemies trying to seek you out.

I also believe it might have elements of a strategy game as many strategies could be formed to get the highest score or avoid the ghosts.

Concept – what is the BIG THEME (playing tennis, being in space etc)
Not really much of a theme however in this game there is a clear distinction between   protagonist (Pacman) and antagonist (Ghosts). 

Often concurrent to the concept, what form of spatial arena is present
Due to the lack of theme I am unable to find the form of spatial area.

Goal – the overall point / outcome of the game
The overall goal of Pacman is  to get the greatest score/beat the most levels. To do this players must eat all the dots or pellets on a level while avoiding the enemy ghosts. If the player eats other objects like the cherry they can gain extra points. If the player eats the large dot this transforms the ghosts into something that the player can eat for extra score. 

Challenge – the manner in which interactivity is designed to be difficult / unpredictable
Pacman is challenging because of the speed, number and unpredictability of the enemy ghosts. This can also increases incrementally by level increasing their speed.

Narrative: is the narrative part of the gameplay (for example a Quest) or is it merely an introduction to set the scene or wallpaper?

Apart form the player knowing that pacman is the protagonist and that the ghosts. 

Games

Platform

Donkey Kong        http://www.classicgaming.cc/classics

Pitfall                    http://www.free80sarcade.com/pitfall.php

Action

Pac-Man                http://www.classicgaming.cc/classics/pacman

Kung-Fu                http://www.free80sarcade.com/kongfu.php

Shooters

Asteroids               http://www.atari.com/arcade/asteroids   

Battlezone             http://www.atari.com/arcade/battlezone

Role Playing

Zelda                    http://www.free80sarcade.com/zelda.php

Strategy

Rags to riches       http://c64s.com/game/1454/rags_to_riches

Spy vs Spy            http://c64s.com/game/1620/spy_vs._spy

Simulator

BMX simulator       http://c64s.com/game/420/bmx_simulator

Open World (ish)

ET: the extra terrestrial:

http://www.consoleclassix.com/atari-2600/et_the_extra_terrestrial.html

(console classics requires a client download and registration)

Haunted house:

http://www.consoleclassix.com/atari-2600/haunted_house.html

(console classics requires a client download and registration)

Jungle Hunt: http://www.consoleclassix.com/atari-2600/jungle_hunt.html (console classics requires a client download and registration)

More:            http://c64s.com/toplist/more

And more:    http://www.free80sarcade.com/index.php

Discussion:

Crystal Castles (Atari 1983)

http://www.atari.com/arcade/crystal_castles

Noteworthy for being one of the first arcade games with an actual ending, in Crystal Castles the player controls Bentley Bear, who collects gems located throughout castles while avoiding enemies out to get him as well as the gems.

What is the core mechanic and what genre would you call the game?

Does it matter that Bentley is a bear?

Consider The Legend of Zelda (1986) – does it matter that Link is a young boy? What mythos does this game call on?

Activity 3 Design Studio

This design challenge is adapted from “Challenges for game designers” – it is actually all about USE OF SPACE and effectively evolves from the previous design challenge

Materials – paper, post-it notes, index cards, pens etc

Optional – A3 graph paper

Organisation – pairs or small teams

Challenge - Territorial acquisition game

Another ancient game concept – territorial acquisition underpins chess, tic-tac-toe and can be seen as a basis for ancient ‘cup and bowl’ games like Mancala and Oware.

Step 1: understand the basic pattern. In territorial acquisition, players start with assets X at point A and must finish with the most assets / land to be declared winner

We knew the very basic concept  however we wanted  as story/theme to be able to propel us forward with our thinking.  

Step 2: decide on a principle theme / concept / narrative: What are the players acquiring?

I asked the question to the group what kinds of themes/ stories had we been watching recently. To which the group all replied Science-Fiction which then brought with it ideas of planets to capture with resources. Many different resources on exotic planets, spaceships and space battles.

Suggestion for concept generation: Use a recent film or even a random story theme generator: http://www.seventhsanctum.com/generate.php?Genname=quicktheme

(lots of other useful generators via this site)

Step 3: HOW does the acquisition happen – the game mechanic that allows players to move forwards / claim spaces?

The acquisition/game-play was difficult to determine because it is a more complex system however eventually it was worked out with various input including some previous games of similar design. 

What was decided that we wanted the game to be simple enough so anyone can play but complex enough for players to have to develop strategies. A player would draw a random card from a shuffled deck (we only had a few cards therefore we kept shuffling)  It would either be a resource or an effect card.  

If a player gets a resource they must place a unit "piece" of their "species" (colour) on that type of resource on any planet, If a player has the majority of resources on one planet they then lock that planet down, kicking other players of it. We decided that the player with the most planets at the end of playtime is the winner.

Step 4: HOW does conflict between players affect the gameplay?

The conflict comes from the effect cards and the way that the players use them for example a "NUKE" will remove any other players unit in that territory or the "Persuade-atron" which allowed the player to assume control of any enemy player's units and place their own piece. 

Each of the player's must both try to build their planets all while stopping other players from doing the same.

Step 5: When you have a rudimentary game – let others playtest and watch them - Where is the game working? Where is it failing?

Once we began to play-test the first thing we noticed was that players were getting effect cards before they or anyone had any pieces on the board which wouldn't work. Then the players suggested a few ideas for fixing that problem:

"You could make two separate piles one for resources and one for effects then each move the player can choose which type of card they want."

Although that might fix the problem there has been issues with allowing the player to have this power last week where they had a move that meant if you sacrificed your move you could impede a fellow player's move however in practice it turned out the play testers never sacrificed their own moves due to the player always sub-consciously looking for the easiest/fastest route to solve a problem. I personally would like to play-test this idea before it was implemented.

Another quote:

"You could just double the resource cards so that you are more likely to get a resource card also making the effects seem more rare and powerful. "

I personally believe this would be a much better idea as it would be able to follow with our current design. 

I however think it would be best to do some isolation and play-test both of these changes and decide which works better.

There were also complaints that there wasn't much variety in the effects cards ("Oh this card again...")  
There also was questions about what types of resources did anything special to which we replied that they did not which now seems strange to attach a resource name implying many different things instead there was no difference between them (Gold, coal, water, unobtainium and Minions) in hindsight I believe that this could be expanded to have many interesting effects for each of the resources adding another layer of depth and strategy.

Apart from that they seemed to have fun  by evidence of laughing, yelling and (playful) smack-talk.      

Have you designed for yourselves or your players?

Initially for ourselves then modified from the feedback of the play-testers.

Step 6: Write a report on the game in Design Journals – practice communicating design concepts.

Optional step 7: Consider audience – how could you re-version your game to different audiences (eg children), could you make it educational – could you make it into a docu-game?

Audience types (very generic for exercises only)

·         Primary school children

·         Teens

·         Young adults

·         Women

·         Pensioners

·         Other culture

The game could be remodelled into an educational context for primary/secondary students to educate them about what the real minerals and environments are in our solar system/ or around the world  and what they are used for in today's society thus give students a greater understanding and appreciation of their environment and where things come from.

Homework

Complete your journal entries for the 80’s game

OTHER GROUP

Step 1: understand the basic pattern. In territorial acquisition, players start with assets X at point A and must finish with the most assets / land to be declared winner.

The goal of the groups game was to have the most area at the end of the time. 

Step 2: decide on a principle theme / concept / narrative: What are the players acquiring?

They told us that the theme was about pirates That had to acquire different islands... However there was no story suggestion for the end game (end of moves or time runs out) I suggested that Davy Jones would rise at the end of the game and the player with the most booty(points) would be spared and all the other players would be forced to join Davy Jones's crew. 

Step 3: HOW does the acquisition happen – the game mechanic that allows players to move forwards / claim spaces?

The acquisition/game-play was a dice roll where each player had a group of pieces (ships) and could use each roll of the dice to either distribute the moves of multiple ships or single ones.   (player rolls a 6: they can move 1 piece 6 spaces or 6 pieces 1 place and everything in between)

Step 4: HOW does conflict between players affect the gameplay?

Conflict occurred when different players had ships on one square this would cause a battle between the different players where each player rolled the dice for the number of ships they had and the highest roll would be recorded and the player with the highest roll would win, if tie then roll again until winner. 

(Player 1 has 1 ship and rolls a 6 but player 2 has 3 ships but the highest they roll is a 4 therefore they lose the encounter and their units must be sent to the start.)

Step 5: When you have a rudimentary game – let others playtest and watch them - Where is the game working? Where is it failing?

When I played the game I found it to be fun but it was not without issues for example apart from a reinforcements against other ship battles there was not incentive when capturing each of the territories i.e. when it came the end of the game player 1 with 1 ship on a 10 point area has the same score as player 2 with 3 ships. 

Choosing to multiply the reward might drastically change the game style as when I was playing (much to the surprise of the designers)  I was exploiting this loophole and sending out very fast singular units to areas with the trade-off of no reinforcements I believe further play testing would be good to analyse which method is more fun and how it affects the game.

When talking with a colleague (Jacob) he told me an issue that he could possibly arise with there spawn system because when a ship dies it re spawns at the beginning however this area is supposedly a large point area for other players therefore asking the question what happens if a player captures a spawn... Where does the player re-spawn their ships. 

Based of this dilemma however comes an interesting change to the game-play... a permanent death for the ships thus raising the stakes and the game may change significantly where the winner might be the one left standing or points if the time/number of moves runs out.

This could be modified to have the territories be changed to be reinforcements rather that arbitrary points.   

Have you designed for yourselves or your players?

Initially for ourselves then modified from the feedback of the play-testers.

Step 6: Write a report on the game in Design Journals – practice communicating design concepts.

Optional step 7: Consider audience – how could you re-version your game to different audiences (eg children), could you make it educational – could you make it into a docu-game?

Audience types (very generic for exercises only)

·         Primary school children

·         Teens

·         Young adults

·         Women

·         Pensioners

·         Other culture

It could possibly be redesigned to educate children about the current pirates/navy/asylum seekers situation current in our society