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 :)
Tuesday 23 November 2010
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.
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!
Friday 12 November 2010
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!
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!
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!
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