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