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!