Ice Climbers Review Draft 2

Hey guys,

This is my second draft of the Ice Climbers review that I am doing as a part of my assessment for my university work. This version has a few more sources on which the content of the article is based on and draws information from and therefore has a better academic basis behind it. Here it is:-

----
Ice Climbers is platforming developed and published by Nintendo made in 1985 for their Nintendo Entertainment System (commonly know as a NES). It is a game with 25 years behind it and as such can be considered a ‘Retro Game’ and in comparison to mainstream games that are made today can be considered very basic. However, it is because it is basic that it is a good starting point to review a game critically, analyse its key gameplay aspects and see what makes them good or bad.

There are several ways that Ice Climbers could be analysed as games have been analysed in different ways by numerous writers. However, due to the sheer number of works that there are, to apply them all would make this either a very long review or one with too many unexplained points. Therefore, I have chosen to review Ice Climbers primarily using the work of Greg Costikyan’s article ‘I Have No Words & I Must Design’ and back it up now and then with other authors works. Costikyan breaks down all games into 5 key areas, ‘Interaction’, ‘Goals’, ‘Struggle’, ‘Structure’ and ‘Endogenous Meaning’ and it is this basis with which I will begin my review.

Costikyan begins his article talking about what Interaction means within a game and ultimately he defines it as the player’s ability to make choices. He says about games that “If it isn’t interactive, it’s a puzzle, not a game.”, therefore saying that a game must have good interactive choices to help shape it otherwise it will be something you just have to work out and then you can do it all the time, any time. If a game has choices it means there are elements of chance, it adds replayability and this leads to the game being good fun.

So how does interaction link in with Ice Climbers? Well the most obvious way is that the player controls their character and chooses their path up the mountain. The path up the mountain is whatever the player wants; they can break through any part they wish to get to the top, making it easy for themselves by avoiding enemies or deliberately heading towards them to challenge themselves – it is their choice and thus interaction is present in the game.

This is the limit of the interaction in the game as the player does nothing else except climb up the mountain avoiding the enemies – other elements of the game change but this doesn’t effect the interaction. Ice Climbers does an OK job of giving the player a choice but ultimately there could be more in this regard, they could choose different characters to play as, different difficulty levels, etc.

The interaction cannot be completely criticised though as moving up the mountain is the key mechanic of the game and, as outlined in ‘MDA: A formal approach to game design and game research’ by Robin Hunicke, Marc Leblanc and Robert Zubek, mechanics lead to dynamics and aesthetics which, in their terms makes up a game. The authors state that designers work this way around but the player sees the game in the reverse order. Therefore, although moving up the mountain is the only main mechanic in the game, as it has so much attention on it the end look of the game will benefit too and draw the player in.

Onto Goals, Costikyan defines goals as something that gives choices purpose: he says ‘But what makes A better than B? Or is B better than A at some times but not at others? What factors go into the decision? What resources are to be managed? What’s the eventual goal?’ Goals links into interaction, it takes the players ability to choose to do something and put a purpose behind it.

Ice Climbers is a strange game really in regards to goals as, unless you are playing with a friend, there is only one clear goal in the game – get to the top of the mountain. The player’s choices in-game are so restricted due to the simplicity of how the game works that ultimately Costikyan’s definition of goals being choices with defined outcomes never comes into effect. If there were two set routes up the mountain with one being better than the other or a choice of character with different abilities then the player would have a choice with an outcome that would affect the gameplay. As there is not this, Ice Climbers is a game where the player ultimately does the same thing over and over with the only variable being determined by the game itself – there is no freedom.

Next comes ‘Struggle’ which is apparent even before we look at what Costikyan makes it to be – the challenge the player experiences. Costikyan specifically says ‘We want games to challenge us. We want to work at them. They aren’t any fun if they’re too simple, too easy, if we zip through them and get to the endscreen without being challenged.’ It can’t be clearer than that – games should be challenging to make them enjoyable, this however, should be within boundaries (not too hard).

Ice Climbers is a game with a strong sense of struggle and is, in my opinion, the main driving force behind the game. What Ice Climbers lacks in its goals and interaction it makes up for in the elements of the game that make it a struggle for the player. As like many games, it has enemies and these are the main components that the player must try to overcome to complete the game. Ice Climber incorporates them well into the struggle of the game, giving the enemies variety in what harm they can do, increasing the numbers that appear as you progress up the mountain and altering the stage layouts to make the enemies appear in more hazardous locations. These enemies are the only real components for struggle in the game but they help make the game what it is as a whole, a challenging race to the top of a mountain.

An article by Doug Church entitled ‘Formal Abstract Design Tools’ details his own 3 design tools that appear in games and help make them work; perceivable consequence, intention and story. Intention and perceivable consequence tie in very closely with struggle, perceivable consequence is where the player can see that their actions have an outcome and intention is the player planning ahead and thinking about their actions. This appears evidently in Ice Climbers through the player overcoming the game’s enemies. It is clearly shown that if the player touches an enemy, they will hurt them and the player will lose a life – the loss of lives is a part of struggle but also structure, the next part of this review.

The fourth part of a game as defined by Costikyan is Structure, which he says as ‘To think of a game’s structure as akin to an economy, or an ecosystem; a complex, interacting system that does not dictate outcomes but guides behaviour through the need to achieve a single goal’. What he means by this is that structure is not the story of a game but rather the rules and restrictions that guide the player to the goal. If a game has no structure the player is allowed to use any means to beat it which not only removes the challenge but also the fun and everything that goes into it from a development point of view.

In Ice Climbers the structure is defined by the levels themselves and the elements of the game such as lives and continues. There are clear stages within the game as each new layer of the mountain is clearly separated from the other through the use of numbers and colours – this gives structure to the way the game progresses. This works well as it gives the player a clear sense of whereabouts they are and how much they have progressed, it makes it easy to see and recognise their achievement which can be very crucial to some players to getting the full enjoyment from the game.

Lives are a crucial part of almost any game as it makes it so the player can’t try endlessly at a game – this would remove any element of challenge that could be easily created this way. In Ice Climbers this is a key mechanic in increasing difficulty and adding challenge to the game as other than the enemies that can hinder the player’s progress of the game. Basically, in Ice Climbers the components of structure contribute to making the game work and enthralling players in the challenge of the game.

Finally, Endogenous meaning in a game means that something in the game creates its own meaning – it has no relevance anywhere but in the game. Costikyan attributes this to possessions or currency in a game, achievements or anything else related – they don’t exist in the real world and therefore hold no meaning or value. This is therefore a part of making games fun and making them work, a game must have components that players want to reach or obtain however these will ultimately not exist.

This is true in Ice Climbers, getting to the top of the mountain is the key sense of achievement one can get from the game, but the player has nothing to show for their efforts in the real world and doesn’t gain anything from doing it. Another gameplay element that holds meaning in-game but no meaning otherwise is the in-game score, the player will try to get the highest possible score for their own satisfaction and sense of enjoyment. The fact the player wants to do this though proves that the game works and has enough components and rewards that serve them some form of meaning.

As a whole, using the works of Costikyan as a base, Ice Climbers has all the elements required to make up what he defines as ‘a game’ and does so in such a way that the player can challenge themselves to beat the game and do better each time. What it lacks in certain areas (interaction and goals) it makes up for in other areas, particularly as this is a retro game which are known for their simplicity, and the game is ultimately fun to play through as a result of this.

As a final note on which I will end this review on, the simplicity of retro games is why they work. Modern games have numerous gameplay mechanics and in-game achievements, so much so that the reason people play them is different. James Newman in his book ‘What makes a videogame?’ sub-divides games into 2 types ‘Paidea’ and ‘Ludus’, the first being games the people play for fun alone and the second where people play games for an outcome. Retro games such as Ice Climber work despite their simplistic nature because, due to their simplicity, they are mostly paidea – people play them for fun. The player want an outcome but more often then not they do so purely because they enjoy it and nothing makes retro games more appealing than this.
----

So, 'til next time - that's all folks!

Narratives - The things I love most about games

nThe area of readings that we've looked at for the past two weeks have been to do with the stories in games and the story of the hero within the game - this is good for me as this is the part of games that I love the most. When some people buy games they think 'How's the online?', 'What's the gameplay like?', 'What achievements does it have?'; when I buy games I think 'What's the story of the game?' and 'What's the single player like?' - so looking at these readings I found to be quite a joy.

The first reading was 'What every game developer needs to know about story' by John Sutherland who covers the whole story within a game and the second was 'Into the woods: A practical guide to the hero's journey' by Bob Bates which focus more on the character/s in the story. As I'm gonna talk about both these things in detail (as it interests me) I'm gotta separate the articles so it's easier to see where one starts and the other ends.

------
So in the first article, the main point the writer mentions is that 'Story is conflict' which is true - no matter how big or small, or what style (an external battle or internal emotional conflict) there is always conflict in a story. He breaks this down into 3 types:- internal conflict, interpersonal conflict and external conflict. Internal conflict is about mental conflict, interpersonal is conflict between people, and external is conflict between physical things (2 countries destroying each other) - the writer then goes on to say that, for the most part, these types of conflict seperate themselves depending on the media.

By this, he means that conflict happens in stories but depending on how the story is told changes which one arises. For example, a story in a book will heavily feature internal conflict as the book details the story in first or third person, talking about the character's thoughts and feelings. In a play, the conflict is interpersonal, the watcher of the play sees the conflict through the characters on stage talking to one another. And finally, external occurs in movies and games, the story unfolds before our eyes and we watch it happen and is shown thorugh the act of seeing people fight each other. This is not to say films can't feature internal conflict, etc, it just means that these are the most common ways of splitting conflict.

Stories in games in my opinion do mostly focus on the external conflict, however, I feel that the genre and type of game also affects the conflict. For example, take a shooting game or a fighting game, most of the time people buy these games for competition with other plays and the gameplay, not the story - it is there and focus on external conflict between the combatants but as it is not the focus there doesn't need to be more than this. On the other hand, if you take an RPG, where story is more central to the flow of the game, there are more types of conflict as the characters take more to the stage and we see their interactions with each other and hear more about their lives and internal conflicts.

He also mentions other things in his article, he says that the actions of a character define him in the story and that it is down to the writer to create a character that the player can empathise with. He also goes on to say that dialogue is needed to contribute towards this, however, as I have said, the amount needed varies with the genre and style of game.

The final noteworthy part of this article is what he considers to be 'the classic story structure'. The writer breaks the strucute of stories into the following points:-

• Protagonist
• Inciting incident that triggers conflict
• Gap opens between hero and normal life
• Hero tries normal actions to overcome gap and fails
• Hero begins to venture out and take risks to try and overcome gap
• Reversal happens that triggers something new that the hero has to overcome
• Hero takes a greater risk to overcome new gap
• This cycle repeats until the hero resolves the conflict

I both agree and disagree with this summary - I don't think it boils down to being that simple and not all points are necessary for a story but I agree that the beginning and end ultimately start and end in the same way in most game stories; normal ,conflict, (middle), resolution.
----
The second article I preferred somewhat as character development occurs more in RPGs and similar genres of game than others, so as I love these games the most it is more appealing. Anyway, the main point that the writer makes in this article (initially) is that stories are linked to myths - the stories told reflect good and bad moral decisions (as made by the characters) and the player plays the game to see and reaffirm these myths. He then goes on to state, what he believes the key steps are in creating the hero's journey.

The myth thing was interesting but not entirely accurate in my books - I agree that games show good and bad aspects of people and the choices that they make, but I don't agree that people play them to reaffirm this or that they get influenced at all by the games they play (it CAN happen but not often). There are things that are put in a story to get the player thinking about actions in real life but they don't guide us or anything and that isn't their purpose or why we play them - we play them for fun and because we enjoy them.

The steps that the writer outlines for the journey are as follows, 2 of which I will go into detail on as they are the most crucial part of this article in my opinion:-

• Step 1 - Pick your premise (theme, myth)
• Step 2 - Create your hero - match hero to premise*
• Step 3 - Create a villain*
• Step 4 - Show hero's regular world
• Step 5 - Disrupt hero's world
• Step 6 - Enter the mythological woods
• Step 7 - Confront the evil one
• Step 8 - Aquire the prize
• Step 9 - The hero's return

Steps 2 and 3 are the ones I wish to draw attention to as they appear most relevant to this article which focuses more on the hero than the story. The writer breaks down what he considers the key traits of the hero and villain to be (they don't need all these traits, but these are the most common ones that appear), the reason why I want to highlight these is that I think most of them are not perfectly correct or are just wrong.

I'll put next to each trait my thoughts on it. First is the hero's:-

• The Hero has courage -> Not always the case, sometimes the hero develops it in the game or gets by on dumb luck or just plain curiosity.
• The Hero is clear and resourceful -> This shouldn't be a trait, the hero can do what they want and sometime be the complete opposite of this.
• The Hero has a 'special' talent -> Again, not a trait; it sometimes adds to the story if the Hero is just an ordinary person that is driven to greatness.
• The Hero is an outlaw who lives by his own laws -> Kind of understand this one, but still...
• The Hero is good at what he or she does for a living -> What if the Hero has no job?
• The Hero is a Protagonist (leader) -> This one is just obvious...
• The Hero has been wounded -> This one makes sense, it can often be a drive and/or motivation.
• The Hero is motivated by idealism -> Comes up, but not necessarily true - the hero can be selfish but still ultimately be good.
• The Hero is sexually potent -> Um...no...

Finally, the villains traits:-

• Traits similar to the Hero -> This makes sense, the villain is often similar to the hero but better and on the opposite side.
• May be full of hubris (Pride, arrogance) -> Very often the case, can see where this comes from.
• May be an outlaw -> Again, often the case; a rebel against society.
• Traits dissimilar to the Hero -> Also makes sense, the villain can often be so unlike the hero that they contrast and conflict.
• Motivated by greed, avarice, lust for power, vanity and narcissism -> Similar to pride and arrogance, it happens a lot and makes sense.
• Never acts out of idealism, but may have an evil cause that they believe in -> Strongly disagree with this, if it had said 'Most of the time' I'd agree but as it is says never it is wrong. The villain can be a villain simply because he is on the other side of a conflict - both sides may have a just cause or just be fighting because they can, it depends on the viewpoint.
• Is often cruel -> Same as motivations.
• May win by luck -> Disagree here too, the villain is often better than the hero's and gets overcome due to the hero's actions - luck doesn't enter it...
• Is not forgiving -> Same as motivations.
• Might quit -> It can happen but I disagree, normally the villain tries to the end or ends up reforming themselves... they never just quit... not really...
• May whine and grovel, unlike hero -> Only disagree with 'unlike Hero'; hero's can whine if they wish...
• May not be stoical -> Can see this, the villain often doesn't show pleasure or pain, but it also works if they do.
• May not be loyal -> More often than not this is true.
• Usually not physically superior, sidekicks can be though -> VERY STRONGLY DISAGREE WITH THIS! The villain is normally more powerful than the Hero and the Hero struggles to overcome them as a result, sometimes the sidekick is more powerful and the main villain is weak I admit but normally if that is the case the villain will somehow empower themselves or reveal themselves to be more powerful than they let on... A weak villain? Psh...
• No special birth or destiny, though they may claim one -> Disagree, sometimes the birth or destiny causes them to be villainous...

So there we go, what allegedly makes up a hero and a villain and the hero's journey...
----
I love stories, if I could write well and I didn't love video games as much as I do I would probably be better suited to being an author than a designer; my sketches aren't brilliant pieces of art, I can't code, I can't use digital drawing software but the one thing I can do is think up stories.

Stories are why I love the games that I do (half the time at least) - most of the games that I buy and play are RPGs because of their beautifully thought out stories, histories, worlds and characters, I also enjoy playing through these stories though which is why I prefer games to films (they last longer too, a film is over after 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours but a game can span 40 hours).

I also play games that don't have much story and they are fun too, but normally for different reasons and I never like them as much my RPGs. A game that has epic cutscenes full of emotion, feelings, and action, that convey the reality of a world that actually isn't real - they are the games that truely work; obviously they have to function as playable games too, but games like Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid and Dragon Age have shown that cutscenes and story are just as important and gripping as any gameplay mechanic. Below are some videos of some of the best game cutscenes ever made, purely because they are gripping and envoke an emotional connection to the player...









The stories I think of are inspired by games I play and due to my love for games I make games up, thinking of the characters, the plot, everything about it - it's why I do games design. I have 4 completely full sketch pads of an RPG series of games that I have thought of the stories for from start to finish and I am currently working on the 5th - I also have ideas for another 4 in my head and, in all honestly, I have had them in my head for the past 4 years, I stopped thinking of more than this because... I had too basically.

Now these games may never get made, I obviously want them to but I know that in the games industry I will most likely work on other people's projects rather than my own but I don't care. I will always create and have the ideas of stories, especially as more and more nowadays games are coming out with a focus on on-line multilayer gaming.

The story in games are taken for granted, they need work to grip players but when done right it can connect more with people than any movie could and make for more of an experience than any gameplay mechanic could...

Anyway, 'til next time - that's all folks!

Long Blog Post - Full Ice Climbers Review

This is the first full version of my Ice Climbers critical game review - by that I mean I've reached almost 1500 words... It needs work, as would be expected, but I need to go back and change bits regardless as I don't talk about variety of people's work - I purely use Doug Church's article, etc. In that sense i'm not happy with it...

This post is purely to show the basic structure of what I am writing and see if I am doing is on the right track - if it is I know I don't need to re-write the whole thing and just need to edit it and clip and trim bits to make it work.
 So... here it is... it's not brilliant as I've said but anyway...
----

Ice Climbers is platforming developed and published by Nintendo made in 1985 for their Nintendo Entertainment System (commonly know as a NES). It is a game with 25 years behind it and as such can be considered a ‘Retro Game’ and in comparison to mainstream games that are made today can be considered very basic. However, it is because it is basic that it is a good starting point to review a game critically, analyse its key gameplay aspects and see what makes them good or bad.

There are several ways that Ice Climbers could be analysed as games have been analysed in different ways by numerous writers. However, due to the sheer number of works that there are, to apply them all would make this either a very long review or one with too many unexplained points. Therefore, I have chosen to review Ice Climbers primarily using the work of Greg Costikyan’s article ‘I Have No Words & I Must Design’ and back it up now and then with other authors works. Costikyan breaks down all games into 5 key areas, ‘Interaction’, ‘Goals’, ‘Struggle’, ‘Structure’ and ‘Endogenous Meaning’ and it is this basis with which I will begin my review.

Costikyan begins his article talking about what Interaction means within a game and ultimately he defines it as the player’s ability to make choices. He says about games that “If it isn’t interactive, it’s a puzzle, not a game.”, therefore saying that a game must have good interactive choices to help shape it otherwise it will be something you just have to work out and then you can do it all the time, any time. If a game has choices it means there are elements of chance, it adds replayability and this leads to the game being good fun.

So how does interaction link in with Ice Climbers? Well the most obvious way is that the player controls their character and chooses their path up the mountain. The path up the mountain is whatever the player wants; they can break through any part they wish to get to the top, making it easy for themselves by avoiding enemies or deliberately heading towards them to challenge themselves – it is their choice and thus interaction is present in the game.

This is the limit of the interaction in the game as the player does nothing else except climb up the mountain avoiding the enemies – other elements of the game change but this doesn’t effect the interaction. Ice Climbers does an OK job of giving the player a choice but ultimately there could be more in this regard, they could choose different characters to play as, different difficulty levels, etc.

Onto Goals, Costikyan defines goals as something that gives choices purpose: he says ‘But what makes A better than B? Or is B better than A at some times but not at others? What factors go into the decision? What resources are to be managed? What’s the eventual goal?’ Goals links into interaction, it takes the players ability to choose to do something and put a purpose behind it.

Ice Climbers is a strange game really in regards to goals as, unless you are playing with a friend, there is only one clear goal in the game – get to the top of the mountain. The player’s choices in-game are so restricted due to the simplicity of how the game works that ultimately Costikyan’s definition of goals being choices with defined outcomes never comes into effect. If there were two set routes up the mountain with one being better than the other or a choice of character with different abilities then the player would have a choice with an outcome that would affect the gameplay. As there is not this, Ice Climbers is a game where the player ultimately does the same thing over and over with the only variable being determined by the game itself – there is no freedom.

Next comes ‘Struggle’ which is apparent even before we look at what Costikyan makes it to be – the challenge the player experiences. Costikyan specifically says ‘We want games to challenge us. We want to work at them. They aren’t any fun if they’re too simple, too easy, if we zip through them and get to the endscreen without being challenged.’ It can’t be clearer than that – games should be challenging to make them enjoyable, this however, should be within boundaries (not too hard).

Ice Climbers is a game with a strong sense of struggle and is, in my opinion, the main driving force behind the game. What Ice Climbers lacks in its goals and interaction it makes up for in the elements of the game that make it a struggle for the player. As like many games, it has enemies and these are the main components that the player must try to overcome to complete the game. Ice Climber incorporates them well into the struggle of the game, giving the enemies variety in what harm they can do, increasing the numbers that appear as you progress up the mountain and altering the stage layouts to make the enemies appear in more hazardous locations. These enemies are the only real components for struggle in the game but they help make the game what it is as a whole, a challenging race to the top of a mountain.

The fourth part of a game as defined by Costikyan is Structure, which he says as ‘To think of a game’s structure as akin to an economy, or an ecosystem; a complex, interacting system that does not dictate outcomes but guides behaviour through the need to achieve a single goal’. What he means by this is that structure is not the story of a game but rather the rules and restrictions that guide the player to the goal. If a game has no structure the player is allowed to use any means to beat it which not only removes the challenge but also the fun and everything that goes into it from a development point of view.

In Ice Climbers the structure is defined by the levels themselves and the elements of the game such as lives and continues. There are clear stages within the game as each new layer of the mountain is clearly separated from the other through the use of numbers and colours – this gives structure to the way the game progresses. This works well as it gives the player a clear sense of whereabouts they are and how much they have progressed, it makes it easy to see and recognise their achievement which can be very crucial to some players to getting the full enjoyment from the game.

Lives are a crucial part of almost any game as it makes it so the player can’t try endlessly at a game – this would remove any element of challenge that could be easily created this way. In Ice Climbers this is a key mechanic in increasing difficulty and adding challenge to the game as other than the enemies that can hinder the player’s progress of the game. Basically, in Ice Climbers the components of structure contribute to making the game work and enthralling players in the challenge of the game.

Finally, Endogenous meaning in a game means that something in the game creates its own meaning – it has no relevance anywhere but in the game. Costikyan attributes this to possessions or currency in a game, achievements or anything else related – they don’t exist in the real world and therefore hold no meaning or value. This is therefore a part of making games fun and making them work, a game must have components that players want to reach or obtain however these will ultimately not exist.

This is true in Ice Climbers, getting to the top of the mountain is the key sense of achievement one can get from the game, but the player has nothing to show for their efforts in the real world and doesn’t gain anything from doing it. Another gameplay element that holds meaning in-game but no meaning otherwise is the in-game score, the player will try to get the highest possible score for their own satisfaction and sense of enjoyment. The fact the player wants to do this though proves that the game works and has enough components and rewards that serve them some form of meaning.

As a whole, using the works of Costikyan as a base, Ice Climbers has all the elements required to make up what he defines as ‘a game’ and does so in such a way that the player can challenge themselves to beat the game and do better each time. What it lacks in certain areas (interaction and goals) it makes up for in other areas, particularly as this is a retro game which are known for their simplicity, and the game is ultimately fun to play through as a result of this.
----

Short blog - Game review begining

Okay, this blog post is literally going to have the opening couple of paragraphs of my retro review in it - I've got myself stuck with a bit of writers block; I know what to write about but I'm having trouble getting it down so I thought I'd stop, think about it and put what I've got so far down here. It's not much and it doesn't even begin to go into gameplay, just introduces the game and my review.

So here it is:

-----

Ice Climbers is platforming developed and published by Nintendo made in 1985 for their Nintendo Entertainment System (commonly know as a NES). It is a game with 25 years behind it and as such can be considered a ‘Retro Game’ and in comparison to mainstream games that are made today can be considered very basic. However, despite this its development process would have been one that was well thought out and every gameplay aspect designed in relation to what the player could get out of it. It is with both these things in mind that retro games are for looking critically at how games are made and related design issues and this is the basis on which my review of Ice Climbers is written.

One way to look Ice Climbers is to break down the game and look at it in game defining terms as outlined in Greg Costikyan’s article ‘I Have No Words & I Must Design’ – the terms being interaction, goals, struggle, structure and endogenous meaning. The first thing to discuss in terms of gameplay is the basis of the whole game and its unique defining gameplay feature (at the time of its development) which is that it is a vertical platformer.

This one feature of the game essentially is the basis for the ‘goal’ of the game as the objective of the game is to get to the top of the mountain, avoiding enemies (though they are another element that will be discussed later) along the way.

-----

So, 'til next time - that's all folks!

BBFC and Machinima

Okay, I admit, this blog is somewhat a bit belated as the events in question occurred a week ago but I thought 'I'll do a blog about it at the weekend' and then my life was lost in a world of Photoshop and Illustrator annoyance preventing me from doing it - so here we go.

Last Wednesday we were lucky enough to have not one but two guest speakers come in to our university and talk to us about what they do. There is normally one guest speaker that comes in on a Wednesday afternoon to give their talk which we are 'advised' to go and see for the sake of 'broadening our influences' but most of the time the speakers are for things I really don't care for, thus why I haven't been before - may seem lazy but that's just me, I won't do something that doesn't interest me.

Anyway, one of the speakers this week was a man (who's name I never learnt...) from the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) that provides age ratings for films and, until recently at least, video games in the UK and a man called Johnnie Ingram who is the product manager at a company called Moviestorm that makes Machinima movies. The one I was most interested in was the Machinima one as that tied in closer with video games as  Machinima is basically making movies using game software and engines, however, the BBFC one was a lot more interesting than I would have expected and, at the end of the day, everyone loves films.

The first talk was from the BBFC so I'll talk about that first. The man talked for a couple of hours about who the BBFC were and why they exist - basically they are a group of independant individuals who watch films as they are made and want to be released in the UK and give them an age rating (U, PG, 12, 15, 18 or R18) so that we as consumers know what to expect in the film and are restricted from seeing the film if we are not the appropriate age. It is now part of the law in the UK that EVERY film that wants to be released, at the cinmea or direct to DVD, HAS to have received a certified age rating from the BBFC - so they are quite important - and this is how they make their living as a company; film makers and companies give them a fee to watch and rate the movie.

The BBFC has become a necessity in the British entertainment industry so their work is very crucial and must be carried out in a logical and accurate manor so that films are given the ratings they deserve. To this end, the man told us and gave us copies to look at of the BBFC guidlines that they follow when rating films - if soemthing for an age rating comes up they can check to what it applies to, such as what level of violence can be displayed at a particular age rating.

To round off he then proceeded to show us some film clips and ask us to rate them, this allowed us to see what we make of films and, once we were informed what the age rating was, learn why the decision was made, etc. In summary, the lecture was informative about learning the amount of work the BBFC have to do each year and also how critical they must be at almost every moment of a film - it also works in reverse; how critical film makers must be if they are trying to achieve a particular age rating for their movie.

Now onto the Machinima speaker... well... it was different to say the least. Johnnie Ingram only had an hour to talk to us which made it more difficult right from the off but let's just say the guys a tad eccentric to say the least - in a good way mind you, it made the talk a lot of fun and easier to listen to and take in. Johnnie first explained what Machinima was and how it developed, as said above it is basically making movies using game software, engines, models, etc - they've been around for years but only really picked up in the past 5 years or so.

The thing to make clear is THEY ARE NOT GAMES, you don't play them, you watch them, they are just like any other CG movie (such as one by Dreamworks or Disney Pixar) except they LOOK like games because they are made from the same engines and models as them. We then watched a couple of these movies, one was about World of Warcraft and was made using the creator software for said game - I didn't really like this movie if I'm honest, I dunno why, I just didn't... maybe the pacing of it was off, the plot... I dunno. The second one though was... well brilliant. It was a gangster/noir film made using the Half-Life 2 engine and models about a man who was forced to become a gangster due to his skills and need for money but ultimately couldn't handle all the killing, rebelling and killing his old boss as an act of retribution for the slaughter of his sister. It was something you could imagine could be a film made in any other media but that's why it worked, just because it was made using game engines did nothing to harm it.

He then talked about himself and how he got into Machinima (which was a funny story in itself) and then moved onto his current position with Moviestorm, a Machinima movie making company. He demonstrated the companies software which was interesting to watch - I wouldn't get it personally because, although I find watching Machinima can be good and interesting I could never find the devotion to make one. This was ultimately the full one hour talk.

It was good to hear both these talks as they left me walking away knowing more than I did - knowledge is always a bonus - and they got me thinking more about the processes that all people go through when making... well anything. You have to consider so much, how the viewer might react to stuff differntly to you, how the production of games and films a collaboroative process that even ahs parts out of your control going into it, how games can ultimately lead to more things than the game alone can envisage.

So anyway, that's my post on these talks... they were fun. 'Til next time - that's all folks

Memorabilia and the success of games and franchises

Random Blog post time! This post is in context to games design but it can be in regards to any franchise in any media.

Basically, I am going to talk about the ability of franchises to draw people in so much and immersing them that people will buy items about the franchise simply because... it's about the franchise. There are endless franchises in games, books and film that we all like and are drawn to for various reasons, however, once a franchise has the power to make us as consumers buy items that aren't the main focus (something not a game in a game franchise or a film in a film franchise) it proves that the franchise is successful - something that any designer, creator, writer or otherwise hopes to achieve.

The reason that I am talking about this is because recently I purchased 2 pieces of memorabilia for a particular gaming franchise; doing so doesn't help me in any way in terms of entertainment and derives from the main media of the franchise. This got me thinking about how much stuff I have about related to particular franchises and how much contribution I have made (and others obviously) to the overall success of these franchises and their creators - this ultimately is what the creators (and companies) must want for their franchise, that it is so popular and becomes such a success that people want to immerse themselves as much as possible in the world they have created.

In particular, a franchise that I have invested much in, is the Final Fantasy series of games. I have purchased several pieces of memorabilia for the series, nearly all the games in the series and several versions of them therein - I would not have done this if I did enjoy the series and get as much from it as what the creators of the games wanted me to get. As a potential designer with games ideas floating in my head, if they were ever to be made that is the kind of desire and devotion I would want my fans to have.

I believe designers should strive to make their games in this fashion, so that they can make it as big and immersive as possible and should get the satisfaction that people want to buy the game and related products - if a game reaches that level you know you're good.

Anyway, for reference the following is a list of all the final Fantasy related stuff I own or have owned - proof that games can have success and the level of success that can be achieved. So, 'til next time - that's all folks.


Currently Own - Main Series
Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls (Game - GBA)
Final Fantasy III (Game - DS)
Final Fantasy IV (Game - DS)
Final Fantasy V Advance (Game - GBA)
Final Fantasy VI Advance (Game - GBA)
Final Fantasy VII (Game - PSN)
Final Fantasy VIII (Game - PSN)
Final Fantasy IX (Game - PSN)
Final Fantasy X (Game - PS2)
Final Fantasy XII (Game - PS2)
Final Fantasy XIII: Limited Collector's Edition (Game - PS3)

Currently Own - Spin-Offs & Sequels
Final Fantasy IV: The After Years (Game - Wiiware) 
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete (Film - Blu-Ray)
Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus (Game - PS2)
Final Fantasy X-2 (Game - PS2)
Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings (Game - DS)
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (Game - GBA)
Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of Rift (Game - DS)
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Game - Gamecube)
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates (Game - DS) 
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King (Game - Wiiware)
Final Fantasy Crystal Defenders (Game - PSN)

Old Versions I have Owned
Final Fantasy Origins (Game - PS1)
Final Fantasy Anthology (Game - PS1)
Final Fantasy IV Advance (Game - GBA)
Final Fantasy VI (Game - PS1)
Final Fantasy VII (Game - PS1)
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (Film - DVD)
Final Fantasy VIII (Game - PS1)
Final Fantasy IX (Game - PS1)

Guides/Walkthroughs
Final Fantasy VIII Official Guide
Final Fantasy IX Official Guide
Final Fantasy X Official Guide
Final Fantasy X-2 Official Guide
Final Fantasy XII Collector's Edition Guide
Final Fantasy XIII Collector's Edition Guide
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Official Guide

Other Memorabilia
Final Fantasy VII Silver Sephiroth Ring
Final Fantasy VII Sephiroth Wall Scroll

Yup, that's a lot of stuff :)

MUDs

This blog post basically sums up an article that we read as a part of our reading and am mainly doing it as, personally, while the article was interesting, I feel that it was long and drawn out and could be summed up much better. The article in question is 'Players Who Suit MUDs' by Richard A. Bartle where he discusses the different types of players in MUDs (Multi-User Domains) - the early form of game that would later become MMORPGs.


So... here goes the summary of the article. The article breaks the people who play these games into 4 categories; Killers, Socialisers, Explorers and Achievers and talks about how they interact with the game world and how they interact with each other. Achievers are people who play the game to get something out of it in-game such as getting the strongest weapons, the strongest armour, finding something really 'rare'. Explorers are people who play the game so that they can see the world the game is set in and experience the story of the game. Socialisers are people who like playing games to interact with others and chat with them - they prefer the people in-game rather than the game itself. Finally, Killers are people who enjoy going round and killing other players and duelling with them - this can be linked with 'griefing' people (annoying them).


So that's the 4 types of players the article then talks about how they interact with each other and how the numbers of each type of player changes the number of another. It basically says that Killers and Achievers go hand-in-hand and as one goes up the other goes down and vice-versa but can also go and down with each other at the same time. Killers and Socialisers also go hand-in-hand but more dramatically as socialisers can easily get annoyed as their fellow players kill each other and socialisers can easily overwhelm killers. Explorers and Killers interact but less and it causes a more minimal outcome in the number of players, however, Explorers will have more of an effect on killers than the other way around due to explorers not caring how they do and rather on just playing.

The best way to show all the relationships is by the diagram shown below. Red is for decreasing numbers and green for increasing.

 

Ultimately, this is the entire article in a nut-shell - the writer simply goes into more longer explanations but generally as long as you understand the 4 types of players and what they do how they interact and compliment and annoy each other should be apparent.

So anyways, that's my blog post on people who play MUDs so 'til next time - that's all folks!

New Games Journalism and Old Games Journalism

Two Blog posts in one day again - yep, you can tell that I'm taking today to get my work done and catch-up can't you...

Anyway, this post as the title suggests is about new and old games journalism. But what is games journalism and how can there be new and old versions of it without a present journalism (yes, I know Present Games Journalism would sound stupid but I'm making a point here...), well to answer that lets break down the title into 2 sections, new and old.

New Games Journalism
What is new games journalism? It is games journalism, which can be anything from a review of a game to talking about its development, written in the style of what is know as 'New Journalism' - see it all makes sense. New journalism was a writing style that developed in the 1960s-1970s where the writer of the article is writing more about there personal experience with what they are writing about rather than the the thing they are supposed to be writing about - for example, if they were supposed to be writing an article about a football match rather than writing about the game and how it was played by the players they would write about what they felt watching it.

In my opinion, new journalism seems a bit stupid - I can understand writing about how you feel watching or playing something but for its purpose, which like traditional journalism is to inform people about something, it seems really annoying. Anyway off my hatred of new journalism, lets get back to new GAMES journalism.

As a part of this exercise I am going to blog about 2 NGJ articles that I have read, one called 'Bow Racist-word-that-begins-with-the-letter-n' by Ian Shanahan and another called 'Dreaming in an empty room (a defence of Metal Gear Solid 2)' by Tim Rogers. Basically I'm going to be putting my thought about them and how effective the articles are.

The first article, Bow N***er, talks about the writers experience playing Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast on-line and how people can be disrespectful and talks about it brewing into a battle between good and evil. The article is written in the style as if the writer is his character in the game and such is the style of new journalism, trying to get the reader to connect with how he is playing the game.

The second article, Dreaming in an empty room, talks about the writers experience playing Metal Gear Solid 2 and defending it from the criticism it gained from being different to the first game. This article isn't written in quite such a NGJ way but as it talks about the writers experience playing the game it is still considered such. The article tries to get the reader the understand the writers way of thinking about the game - the best way to describe how it's written is to say that it is as if two friends with different view points are discussing their opnion on the game and the article is about one of their view points.

The two articles are very different as I said, one is very informal and somewhat aggressive, talking from the character in-games' point of view, making the article almost seem like it could be a diary extract of the person in-game talking about their last epic battle, the other is more formal and simply written as means of a discussion about a game but from their point of view of playing it. Ultimately though, they both portray the opinions of the writer and expect the reader to perceive and get a view of the game based on this.

In my opinion NGJ is not very effective, I'm sure that it can be to some people, I can see how they might be able to read the article better and understand it more if it talks about the experience you get from the game rather than how you play it and how it was made, but I just don't get it at all. I can't get anything from reading the articles that are written this way, I like to know how the game plays, I like to know its combat mechanics, the visual style, how long the game takes to play, if there is a slow build-up of tutorials and so on - I don't care how some guy I've never met feels when he nearly lose when fighting someone on-line; tell it to someone who cares.


Old Games Journalism
Old games journalism is something that I like - traditional writings about a game, almost like reviews written in classic magazines that I used to buy such as the Official Playstation magazine. They can still be informal but they cover aspects of the game and talk about that rather than what the reader experienced playing it - yes at times they may voice their opinion but it's different from NGJ.

Anyway, in this case the two articles I am looking at are as follows:- a Half-Life 2 review by Kristan Reed and a Gran Turismo 4 review by Nik Dunn. Both are just standard reviews written as if you would find them in a magazine or elsewhere.

The first article is instantly recognisable as an article written in OGJ style, it talks about the visuals of the game and how the game was developed and evolved over time, it then moves on to talk about the player and their interaction with the game world around them, moving then onto the story and style of gameplay and then onto in-game combat and so on. This is what one would expect from OGJ - it doesn't talk about them playing it and if it does it is in context or to back-up a point they have made about the game to better help them explain it. It is still written informally, not exactly in a silly way but rather in a way that simply makes it easier to read - it still covers all the points and goes into detail about them. All-in-all it is a very detailed review of the game and gives the reader a clear overview of what does and doesn't work about the game in terms of its mechanics, aesthetics and otherwise.

The second article is very similar to the first but actually has something that to me makes it better - it has a seperate section of the article for the writer to discuss his personal thoughts  and experiences playing the game. This shows it is not NGJ but still acknowledges that opinions can be an influence on decisions made by the reader about the game they are looking at. The article talks very much about what is in the game, such as how many cars and tracks there are, what game modes there are and the interface between the player and the game itself. Again ,this article is what one would expect from OGJ.

As should be clear, I find OGJ articles to be every effective about what they do - they clearly tell the reader what  is in the game and what is good and bad about these different aspects. They cover everything one would consider about a game - the look, the gameplay, player interaction, different features, etc.

Final Opinion
After what can be considered a long rant against NGJ and for OGJ I will now sum them up - I can see a point for both of them, I really do but not in the right medium. OGJ is really the best way for someone to find out about a game and influence whether they think they may like it or not. NGJ is more about looking for reassurance in my opinion, if I had looked at a game review and thought 'that game looks good' and then happened upon a NGJ article I could use that to see whether the game is gripping and how it draws you in - I couldn't solely base my opinion on the game on it.

So there we have it, you now know what New Games Journalism is and what Old Games Journalism is and what my thoughts on both of them are. So 'til next time - that's all folks!

Battleships Iteration

Okay, I know it's been a while since I've done a blog post but I can assure you that I'm on form and not missing any - I am keeping on top of it, was just having a break while I could in my reading week. Anyway, on with this blog post on Battleships.

As a part of my lecture last Tuesday we all were told that we would be iterating the classic game of battleships, a game of strategy or luck is debatable (I'm more inclined to say luck which is why I personally don't like the game that much), where the objective is to sink all of your opponents ships on a 10x10 grid - one ship of 5 in length, one of 4, two of 3 and one of 2.

Anyway, to start with we were told simply to play the game just to familiarise ourselves with it in case we'd forgotten and just to see if we could think of anything that did or didn't work very well about it - this was the real point of the exercise; to see if we could iterate an already existing and established game and also to see, as a class, how different our ideas of iteration were.

Matthew Jarvis and I were a pair that did iterations and our iterations were quite basic as we didn't want to overcomplicate the game - I personally wanted to try and do iterations that would remove the random luck elements of the game as I feel that a game that relies on luck to be fun, while it can be enjoyable and tense, has no learning curve or skill which is what I prefer - I like to call myself a master of a game. The first iteration we came up with was being granted another move if your found get a hit on a ship (only for the first hit, not every hit otherwise you could completely destroy a ship in one go) - this worked well as it gave a person a chance to recover if they were heavily behind, it sped up the game as well while retaining all the tension that already existed.

Our second iteration was essentially an undo button - if you got hit you had 3 'repairs' that you could use to remove the damage to the ship; this was basically the opposite to our previous iteration and allowed the player to lengthen the game and give them a chance to find more of the opponents ships before they lost the game.

Other iterations that people came up with were missile attacks that hit everything along a row, radars for finding ships, power-ups that strengthened your ship or weakened enemies and the ultimate square of death which would cause you to lose if you hit it. As you can see there was plenty of diversity with the iterations which proved that two people, even on the same course and similar wavelengths can have their own unique ideas.

This exercise was good fun to do and proved to be very useful for us - it showed me that any game can be iterated, even if it works perfectly fine and you think its a good game, if you want to you can put your own spin on it and make it your own. It also showed me that iterating is a very personal process as demonstrated by the assortment of ideas generated over a simple game like Battleships.

Anyway, that's it for this blog post. 'Til next time - that's all folks!

Retro Games

New Blog post after what could be considered to be my first 'proper' lecture and possibly one of the only ones of its kind. Today I'm gonna talk about our lecture on Retro games and gameplay 'Segmentation' as well as which game that I have chosen to review as my first assessment of the year.

The Retro Games lecture was based on the article 'Rounds, Levels, and Waves : The Early Evolution of Gameplay Segmentation' by José P. Zagal, Clara Fernández-Vara and Michael Mateas and basically covered the concept that games nowadays take things for granted that were developed as a result of the existence of retro games, the key aspects of which can be covered with segmentation.

Gameplay segmentation can be basically broken down into three different types all with their own areas of a game that they cover. These segments are the following:-

• Temporal Segmentation - This covers gameplay elements relating to limiting factors, synchronising and/or co-ordinating player activity over time.

• Spacial Segmentation - Covers all aspects relating to 'virtual space', e.g levels.

• Challenge Segmentation - Self-explanatory; covers areas relating to challenges within the game.

Temporal Segmentation
There are two main aspects covered in this area which are temporal co-ordination and temporal resource.

Temporal co-ordination is about turn-taking, rounds, etc, basically it is talking about how time progresses and flows in a game. Temporal resources are about gameplay elements that are restrictive of game flow, such as time limits or time trials.

Temporal Segmentation is generally quite simple to comprehend, however, without retro game development the term wouldn't even exist - generally speaking, most board games aren't time restrictive (though they do have rounds/turns) so these had to be developed on their own when video games were made.


Spatial Segmentation
As explained, Spatial Segmentation covers the game world itself and its elements such as levels and possibly things such as checkpoints within those levels. Other than this there isn't much to say about spatial segmentation (in my opinion) - it is quite a broad topic but ultimately stems down to the way the level has been made; even the components of it aren't necessarily included (obstacles, etc) aren't included as they are a part of Challenge segmentation.

The easiest comparison to make with spatial segmentation is level structure, aesthetic design, and the type of background (static with a moving player or the player progressing along a moving path). As before, these things had to be developed in retro games - in board games the only level was the game board itself but in a video game there may well be more; hence we owe retro games for this.

Challenge Segmentation
Out of all the segments challenge is the one that I personally feel retro games have had the biggest impact on in modern game development. There are so many elements that appear in challenge segmentation that couldn't have been developed from board games - waves, bosses and bonus stages all owe the retro game thier existence.

Challenge segmentation boils down to 4 main areas: Waves, Puzzles, Bosses and Bonus Stages. All these things are parts of a level that may or may not appear but when they do they add challenge to the game which makes players strive to pass them and win. They are all quite self-explanatory so I won't bother to go in-depth about them.

In a board game you don't get bosses, waves or bonus stages - there may be puzzles though - and as a result these were developed specifically for retro games and as a result is the reason I consider them to be crucial to the development of games today.

Retro Game Review
Anyways, that's the main things that I personally got from today's lecture - more critical games vocabulary and ways to look at game development and design so now to finish up with I will briefly talk about the game that I have chosen to review for my assessment.

The game in question is Ice Climber made by Nintendo for the NES console in 1985. In essence it is a very basic platformer with a slight twist to the norm in that it is a vertical platformer as opposed to the traditional horizontal ones. At this stage I haven't looked or started reviewing it yet but basically I will be looking at it using the vocab and guidlines that I have gained from the first few weeks at university.

'Til next time - that's all folks!

This parrot is no more! It has ceased to be!

Random Blog Post Time!

Those of you in the know should realise where the title of this blog post comes from and those of you that don't should really learn as you are missing out on a very great piece of British comedy. I am of course talking about Monty Python's Flying Circus and more specifically the 'Dead Parrot' sketch but for the sake of this blog post I am going to be talking about Monty Python in genreal.


So why am I doing this blog post you may ask, well first it is something that is interesting and not completely irrelevant from design work and second we are required to do blog-posts from outside sources other than games. The inspiration behind this post comes from the fact that I was recently lucky enough to purchase the complete flying circus box set on DVD and, while I knew about the most famous of their sketches (Dead Parrot, Cheese Shop, Kamikaze Scotsmen, etc), there were plenty that I never knew about. This got me thinking about the Pythons as a whole and what inspiartions and ideas they must have had when working on the series, hence leading me to think about design and thus games design.

The Python's work is regarded as some of the most random, extravagant and nonsensical comedy ever made but also some of the most funny comedy ever made. At the time that it was being thought up I'm sure that there were certain BBC executives that thought it couldn't work, people wouldn't take to it and the series would fail - how wrong they were.

When the series first aired in 1969 it was a huge hit and the Python's style of comedy became renowned world-wide, even being know to this day as being 'Pythonesque' - yes, the style of comedy has it's own word. Now, this got me thinking about games design and how there are games that come from a similar situation as the flying circus series - I'm sure there were, are and will-be games and game series that the publishers don't think will sell or get picked up but they soon become shining gems.

There isn't much to look into on that statement, I am merely saying that I personally believe that and I guess, in some ways, it is what keeps me going in games design - some of the more radical and unlikely ideas can become best-selling works and those ideas have to come from somewhere - why not my ideas, or the ideas of anyone I know.

In essence, this blog post is doing 2 things, it is both praising the Python's for the brilliant series (seriously, if you've only seen the films go on youtube and look for Dead Parrot, Lumberjack Song, Kamikaze Scotsman, Cheese Shop, Argument Clinic, Self-Defence with Fruit, Dennis Moore and Upperclass Twit of the Year - you won't be disappointed) and showing that there is always hope for people with ideas and a vision.

'Til next time - that's all folks!

The Bibliography Task

Today's blog post isn't specifically related to games - it comes from something we learnt in one of the lectures.

So without further delay, let's begin. This week we learnt how to assemble and write a bibliography. Why you may ask would we need to learn to do that, however, it is in-fact a very crucial tool and something that not just Games Designers but in-fact everyone should take the time to learn how to do properly. Citing people's work and research when writing an essay is crucial as it shows that you actually aren't some form of super-genius who is able to do everything on their own with no outside help whatsoever and it also shows that you are deeply analysing and looking at what it is that you are writing about.

Part of making sure that this citing is done correctly is learning how to actually style a bibliography and as it turns out there is more than one way of doing such a thing and there are different ways to do it depending on what you are citing - for example, citing a book is different from citing a magazine entry. The most common way to cite (and the way in which I do) is the Havard way - this in my opinion is the clearest and easiest way to see where exactly the work is coming from, below are the ways in which Havard cites different sources.

Books
Author or Editor Surname, Initial., [Subsequent author(s) or editors] Year of publication. The full title of the book: italicised or underlined to indicate it is the title. Publisher: city of publication.

Contribution to a Book
Author Surname, Initial., [Subsequent author(s)], year of publication. The full title of the article, without inverted commas. In Editor Surname, Initial., [Subsequent editor(s),] The full title of the containing work: italicised to indicate it is the title. City of publication: Publisher. page span of the work cited.

Journal/Magazine Article
Author Surname, Initial., [Subsequent author(s)], year of publication. The full title of the article without inverted commas. The full title of the journal: italicised to indicate it is the title [volume and part if given and/or] Month, or Season, or volume/part number.


TV Programme
Episode title: Series Title. Year. [TV], Channel, Date.

So there we go... it's not that difficult, especially if you are properly using the source to it's full extent and should have full access to all the required elements to properly cite the material. As a part of a task we had to undertake I have made 6 bibliography citations, 2 for each type of written source, on games design books and articles. Below are the books that I found as proof that I looked up these various books and have cited them correctly.

Bibliography

Books

Perkins, T., 2008. Nintendo Wii Flash Game Creator's Guide Design, Develop and Share Your Games Online, New york: McGraw Hill.

Van der Spuy, R., 2009. Foundation Game Design with Flash, Berkeley (Ca.): Friends of ED.

Articles

Chun, R., 2004. Design Simple Flash Games. , Macworld, Vol. 21, Issue 4, pp 62-65.

Stevens, C., 2004. Custom-build your own flash game: dip a toe into the ocean of Flash possibilities--without getting out of your depth.(flash games). , Internet Magazine, Vol. 118, pp 72.

Contribution to a Book

Barrett, K., Harley, J., Hilmer, R., Posner, D., Snyder, G., Wu, D., 2003, Pseudo Interactive’s Cel Damage, Grossman, A., Post-mortems from Game Developer: Insights from the Developers of Unreal Tournament, Black & White, Age of Empire, and Other Top-Selling Games, San Francisco, CA, pp 41-50.

Caillois, R., 1962, The Definition of Play: The Classification of Games, Salen, K., The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology, Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press, pp 122-155

So there we go, this ends this blog entry. 'Til next time - that's all folks!

Paper Based Group Game

Another Blog Post Begins

Not going to be a lengthy blog post this one, just explaining stuff that I've (we've) been doing and why. Basically, now that I'm several weeks into the course the main group project is starting to pick-up and influence certain aspects of other lessons so, as a part of this, we have started iterating and looking at a paper based version of the game we are making.


The game that we are making is called Circuitry Absurdity which is going to be a flash game that helps children to understand certain aspects of the science curriculum by assembling circuits for various appliances. As a starting point I believe that this is good as our game doesn't include 'quiz' elements that have appeared in other game ideas and makes our game more unique - i don't like to just say 'it's good' but at this stage there isn't much to say...

Anyways, the paper based version of our game is slightly different to how we envision the final flash game to look but it does show us the basic concept of what we hope to create. As I mentioned in my Iteration blog post, iterating the game this early on using paper is very helpful and helps us separate the good ideas from the bad before we get too far in.

At the moment we are still very early on in development so expect more in-depth posts about the game as time goes on.

But for now, that's all folks!

Design Tools... wait, two posts in one day - yep I'm on form this weekend

Blog Post Number 5 is about to begin...

More notes about various articles and seeing what we can take from them in this blog post. This time there are two articles in question 'Space of Possibility and Pacing in Casual Game Design - A PopCap Case Study' by Marcos Venturelli and 'Formal Abstract Design Tools' by Doug Church. Both of them talk about a vocabulary for talking about the ways in which we should design and things that we think about designing, however, Venturelli focuses on the emerging 'Casual Game' market whereas Church talks about games design in general. So without further delay, here we go.


Doug Church's Article
To be perfectly honest, a lot of Doug Church's 17 page article was waffle - he went into a lot of detail explaining certain things that he didn't really need to and ultimately we can't take anything from. However, the key design tools that he mentions are very important and very interesting - these are 'Perceivable Consequence', 'Intention' and 'Story'.


Perceivable Consequence
Perceivable Consequence is the player's understanding that their actions in the real world will ultimately effect how they play the game and it's outcomes. An example of this would be in a platformer, when the player comes across a hole that they must clear they realise that they must press the jump button to clear the hole, else they will fall into it and die - in laymen's terms, perceivable consequence is realising how the game works and what dangers there are; this leads onto the next design tool 'Intention' that will be discussed shortly.


As a designer, we need to think about perceivable consequence, we need to make sure that the player knows that something they do will have an outcome of some sorts, whether it is good or bad or even, in some aspects, obvious - as a gamer you should know that falling down a hole is a bad thing but that is because the designer makes it so. An example given to me of a case where perceivable consequence isn't given is if the player has to go through a choice of 2 doors not knowing that going through the left one will instantly kill them - the player needs to know that there will be good and bad consequences for their choice but in this case there isn't. It is due to this that 'Perceivable consequence' (I'll call it Peco from now on) is a crucial design tool.


Intention
Intention is very closely linked with Peco, intention is the player planning ahead and thinking about their actions and the outcomes and therefore planning how to overcome obstacles, etc. Using the same example as before, the player knows that they will die by falling down the hole and therefore they plan to run and jump over it to avoid this outcome.


As a designer, intention is something we should think about and help to implement but ultimately it is the player that makes their own intention, we cannot affect how they plan to overcome issues - if the player wishes to repeatedly fall into the hole and die, that is their choice and their intent. As designers, what I think we do is give the player the choice to make their decisions regardless of how much they control the rest of the game - this leads to the next tool 'Story'.


Story
Story is exactly what it says on the tin, it is the narrative thread of the game. Whether this narrative thread is directed by the designer and the player is merely progressing along a pre-determined path or the player has more direct influence on the story, the story is the main thing that drives the game forward and gives then player a goal to reach.


In my opinion, all games have a story that the designer wants the player to see or achieve but it is down to the player to follow it - even in a very linear RPG such as Final Fantasy XIII where the story will unfold how the designer wants it to as you progress, the player can choose to simply die and fail in fights and therefore not proceed and see the story. Obviously this is just stupid and no one would do it but the point is the player should be able to see that they have a choice, plan accordingly and know what will happen based on those choices - as designers it is down to us to design games that allow players to do this.


Marcos Venturelli's Article
Venturelli's article is about one specific games company, PopCap, but it generally talks about all casual games and casual game developers. PopCap is a well renowned casual game developer which is naturally why they are the subject matter for finding what makes casual games and tools we can take from them. From the article there are two key tools that we can take 'Pacing' and 'Possibility'.


Pacing
Pacing is essentially how quickly or slowly the game flows and how the game is affected as a result. The best way to describe this is is to say that casual games are quick and more mainstream games are slow - there is a reason for this though however. In casual games, there is little story, little choices for the player to make and as a result to make casual games appealing they are very fast paced, making the player make quick decisions that increases the tension and thus makes them more fun. In more mainstream games this wouldn't work as well because the story and planning would be lost, defeating the purpose of making the game detailed and in-depth.


Possibility
Possibility is the number of options that are available to the player - the more options available to the player, the slower the game pace. The two basically go hand in hand and as a result in casual games there are more limited possibilities to help keep the pace up - the reason why the pace goes down otherwise is that with more possibilities there are the more the player has to think about what they are doing and ultimately slows the game down.


Pacing and Possibility
As designers I feel that it is our duty to find the right balance between the two when we make a game, this can be affected by genre and other aspects, but ultimately once we find the balance we find the type of game we want to create and then we use Church's tools to form the basis of how the player plays our game.


Anyways, that was a LOOOOOONG post so 'til next time - that's all folks!

Iterate, Iterate, Iterate and Iterate some more

Blog Post Number 4 - Might be a little shorter than previous entries, but here we go anyway.

Basically in Tuesday's lecture we learnt what it means to iterate ideas and had a go at doing it ourselves. Iterating an idea is basically where you take your idea and make one change to it to try and improve it, test that idea with independent persons and see how it pays off - if they like it and think it works then the idea is kept, if not it is discarded as useless. Regardless, this process continues until your idea is full of changes that work towards making it a better game.

The most crucial thing to remember is that when iterating is the fact that you must change only one thing! While this may seem inefficient and you may think 'Surely I can iterate quicker if I do several things at once' this is not the case, the reason why is that if you implement 2 changes at the same time and then have them tested to see how they work you can't tell which of the changes it is that is making your idea better or worse. If you change just one idea at a time you know that it is definitely that one change that is helping or hindering your idea and not a combination of two things that on their own may be both helpful and a hinderance.

Iterating is a very useful process, it helps you to develop your ideas (sometimes at the expense of 'killing your babies') and wean out the good and the bad to make your idea as good as it can possibly be. In all fairness, iterating is one of the best and safest way to think of ideas and test them before they are taken too far into development - you don't want to make half a game only to be told that one 'tiny' thing ruins it that you should've removed earlier on in the thinking process.

Anyway, with iterating in mind we iterated our 15 minute board games - we roughly did 2-3 iterations in the time we had left and from doing so I already feel that my game has been vastly improved and had aspects removed that didn't work well. At the same time, I also feel that I helped to improve others' games by telling them how well their iterations have worked - it's a shared process of design that helps us to help each other be the best that we can be. Iteration is also a very quick process and can be done in very little time, which helps get through various ideas very quickly.

Anyway, that's all for this post on my thoughts about iteration, 'til next time - that's all folks!

Paidea, Ludus, Agon, alea, Ilinx and Mimicry - words I've never used before (well, except mimicry)

Well, in today's Critical Game Analysis lecture we learnt about a lot of what makes up a game and the way that games can be defined... some involves using the words that are in the title. The question is what do these words mean and how do I personally understand them? The best way to answer this is to take examples of games I play and compare them to the words.

So without further delay, here we go!

Paidea - Play for pleasure
In the lecture today we learnt how to separate 'game' and 'play' and paidea is playing a game purely for pleasure - there is no ultimate outcome as to why you play, no goal, no end, you play simple because you want to, "mucking about" as it were.

One of the best examples of games like this is 'The Sims', unfortunately though I don't play The Sims so I have to choose another game which has posed a bit of a challenge as most of the games I play do have a purpose (such as winning). Ultimately then I have settled on a game that you are suppossed to play for an ultimate goal but I play just for the sake of it which is the Valve game Team Fortress 2.


Team Fortress 2 is a team-based, class-based first-person shooter with various game modes, such as arena or capture the flag - it is a game with an outcome. When I play it though, I ignore the game mode and simply go around killing people because I can, I don't get anything out of it and neither does my team as I haven't contributed to ultimate goal yet it is still fun to do. This is paidea, playing for pleasure.

Ludus - Playing with rules and/or an outcome
Most games that I tend to play (and find others to play) are games that have a sense of an outcome, whether its playing to watch the story and see what happens or playing to beat our opponents, etc. This is effectively a ludus game.

The example of game that I am going to use as a Ludus game is an SRPG (Strategy-Role Playing Game) made my Nippon Ichi Software called Disgaea. I won't go into the entire mouldings of the game, but it is basically a game where you are a Demon Prince named Laharl and you are trying to take control of the Netherworld to become the Overlord.

Now, this is a game where you can't play it for the sake of it, when I play it I do it either to progress through the story, defeat strong bosses, find strong weaponry and level-up to level 9999 (and no that's not a typing error), etc. I do get pleasure from doing so (or else I wouldn't do it) but I can't just put the game on and play it for an hour killing enemies for no reason. This is ludus, playing for an outcome.

Opinions on Paidea and Ludus and how they contrast
paidea and ludus are defined almost as opposite types of games, but in my opinion I feel that I game can't work without a bit of paidea and a bit of ludus. Some games have both of them in an obvious sense, Grand Theft Auto for example where you can run around stealing cars (paidea) or do the missions and progress the story (ludus) but most are more subtle but I believe they are there.

Using my games as examples, I've already stated for Team Fortress is 'supposed' to be a ludus game but I play it otherwise and personally I feel that you are meant to look at the game that way, you can choose to muck about or try to be the best. As for Disgaea, it is a very ludus game where you wouldn't think of just playing it for fun, yet there have been times where I have loaded it up just to see some 'over-the-top' attack animations or some funny cutscenes (when you have Prinnies in a game, how can you not laugh) and then stopped playing having progressed no further, again though I feel that the game gives me that choice and allows me to choose what to make of it.

Ultimately, paidea and ludus work together and it is up to us to play the game in the way that we so wish - no matter what game it may be.

Agon, Alea, Ilnix and Mimicry - Competition, Randomness/Chance, Movement, Simulation
I have grouped these together as they are all types of game that more often than not are melded together anyway - you rarely get a game that is purely chance or purely competition. These four words often end up getting conformed to by games, by which I mean the developer will try to make sure that their games have at least one or more of these aspects and that without it they won't work.

An example game that I am going to use to illustrate these points is Street Fighter IV by Capcom - a fighting game. As is obvious with it's genre, there is a clear sense of agon trying to be achieved - a fighting game won't work if there isn't competition between other players or the AI opponent to win the fight - and that agon is what it is trying to conform to. At the same time though, there are elements of randomness (who you end up fighting (when against AI) as certain characters are better against some than others due to their fighting styles) and this will affect the game, there is the way in which you move and control the characters (what moves you use to defeat your opponent, ducking and blocking, etc) and there is an element of simulation (you get to see what it could (and I say 'could' very loosely with Street fighter) be like to be a fighter). Therefore, I feel that agon, alea, ilnix and mimicry aren't the best game defining terms.

Ultimately, these four terms are good at defining types of game and how developers conform to develop a game in a particular style, but in terms of they separate games and define them I feel that they aren't useful purely as most games contain all of the four elements.

Final Word
So there we go, 6 new words I have gained to define a type of game and I personally feel none of them are perfectly accurate. I feel that games contain elements from all over the place and ultimately they are shaped the based on which ones are more focused (fighting games being more agon, The Sims being more paidea, etc). In all honestly, the best way to define games (even though this too has problems that I may go into in another blog post) is genre.

Anyway, 'til next time, that all folks!

Goals, Structure, Struggle... what makes a game a game?

Blog Post number 2, this time I'll be talking about a BBC bitesize Key Stage 1 revision game that I'll analyse using Costikyan's definition of a game. The bitesize game in question is one that is suppossed to teach children how to recognise shapes and various aspects of them (such as lines of symmetry), not something that I would normally play but it is interesting to look and see how the game has been made and how to improve it.

In my opinion, the game was quite badly flawed and this will most likely be demonstated in the following paragraphs.

Interaction
Interaction in a game is how the player sees the game and how they change it, such as making decisions and the different outcomes from each of thier decisions. In this key stage 1 game there is a limited ammount of interaction - the player is given a choice of 3 shapes to choose from and they must choose the right one based on the description given to them by the computer - and this limited interaction is a hinderance to the quality of the game.

Goals
The goal of the game is to successfully identify 5 sets of 3 shapes, ultimately from which (in the game) a robot invention is made. The player will most likely get a sense of achievement and victory from getting 5/5 and creating the robot but ultimately there is little reward for completeing the game and fulfilling the goal - this too is a hinderance to the quality of the game.

Struggle
Struggle, in regards to a game, is about the challenge of reaching the goals or competing with others to get to the goal first. In this game however, there is almost no struggle mainly due to the fact that there is no chance of failure - even if you get the shape wrong you have an infinite ammount of tries to get it right, you will ultiamtely reach the goal. On a positive note, there are various levels of difficulty but without the chance of failure this is almost meaningless.

Structure
The structure of the game is almost non-existent, you pick the shape, you either get it wrong and have to try again or you progress to the next choice of shapes. The only rule of the game is which shape is right and which is wrong and ultimately it is a very linear path and your choices don't change this - something which in a game you would expect.

Endogenous Meaning
Endogenous meaning refers to things that have meaning in the game world but hold no significance in the real world. In this game the only thing that is endogenous is the invention that is made - the player tries to get 5/5 to get the invention made but the invention isn't real and ultimately the player gains nothing. In this regard then the game is actually how one would expect it to be (did I just put 'how one would expect it to be'..? how posh...).

My overall evauation of the game and possible improvements
Overall, I think that the game does satisfy the requirements needed to class it as such but its a different matter to say if it is any good or not. The game is flawed in almost every aspect (I don't need to say why, it's all explained above), even endogenous meaning where I praised it as ultimately it is an education game and will benefit people in the real world by teaching them. Asa result of this I think I can come up with several improvements that may not neccessarily make the game perfect, but will improve it to a suitable standard.

Interaction - The player should be given feedback on thier decisions, why are the decisions right and why are they wrong, etc. The game should do this to try and help the player learn; the KS1 pupil will never learn from thier mistakes if they aren't told why the mistake has been made.

Goal - The reward for completeing the game should be greater, even if the struggle was improved by giving an option to fail would imporve the game greatly. On an independant note though a good potential improvement would be to reward the player for getting 5/5 for playing as the invention they make or something fun like that.

Struggle - The simpleist way to improve this is simply to give the player the option to fail, give them lives that when they run out they have to try again. Or another suggestion, give them a points reward system for right or wrong answers that allows them to compete with other players for the best score.

Structure - This is a difficult area to suggest improvements to as if the structure is changed to much (such as rules) you change the concept of the game and it becomes something new. However, one improvement would be to allow progression of the game's difficulties - at the present, when you start the game you have access to all the difficulties - so that as you complete medium you unlock hard, etc.

Endogenous Meaning - This actually doesn't need improving, the player knows what is real and what isn't, they know the creation isn't real and, even though it goes against endogenous meaning, the game helps the player in the real world to further thier education.

So there we have it, my second blog post is done. Hopefully you'll see that I have a good understanding of what makes a game a game and have the ability to analyse it as such.

Til next time, that's all folks!