La Decima Vittima

La Decima Vittima is a film based around a fictional reality in which killing is the game and anyone could be playing. The game focuses around a world that treats killing like a competition, a gracious sport to reward the victors in. The game bares similarities to more recent films such as 'The Hunger Games' and I also felt there were fair similarities to an Asian movie called 'Battle Royale'. The winner of the event becomes some what of a hero amongst the world; a glorified celebrity. The film clearly aims to raise questions amongst society and force generations to question how different this reality is from our own. While we may not condone killing, it soon becomes clear that the underlying message of this film is in relation to the way in which we compete with each other in every day life, sometimes to the point of near death. The costs are obviously higher in this movie and the human nature is bewildering in some cases. I thought about it from a historical point of view though, and what I came to realise is that this was simply a modernised version of the Roman coliseum battles. 

The game sparked a lot of controversy around its time; it not only aggroed certain groups of people, but it also inspired others. While some people shunned the film as condoning violence, others chose to perceive the game as a bible for a world in which to immerse themselves; and thus was born 'Assassin' a game in which the 'players' enact themselves within the real world to eliminate their opponent in a mock assassination of one kind or another. Everyone is assigned a target and everyone is a target, it's defined as a pervasive game; games that take place across several media; also known sometimes as transmedia or alternate reality games. Simply put; it's a game played in real life. The essential ideology behind the game is that all humans are out to win, and that games are an instinctive part of life, and in some cases are life.

Trip to the British Museum

On the 22nd of November (2012) we began an arduous journey to London, to the British Museum to indulge our curiosity of all games ancient.

There were many a fascinating exhibits demanding my curiosity, but knowing my task; to study ancient games, I pushed on to see what I had come to see.

The Royal Game of Ur

Before arriving, I knew what the main thing I needed to study was. It was this! The Royal Game of Ur; a game of old, very old infact. The board seems to have held very well given its age, and although uncertain, I am sure the pieces provided with it are all genuine also.

The rules of this game had been found on a clay tablet dating from 177BC. This tablet is not only a crucial part of gaming history, it's also infact the oldest set of rules known to gamers.


Senet

This game has always interested me and I always meant to look more into it, the game is called Senet. It is an Egyptian variant of the Ur, at least that is what some think. The games rules itself have been lost to time, and there are many debates on how the game is infact played.

Okay Maybe I lied a little; most of us couldn't wait to go exploring London, so perhaps we could have spent more time surveying and studying the ancient artifacts on display.

Games Britannia - Part 2 & 3

Games Britannia Part 2

In this episode of Games Britannia Woolley traces the surprising political and social impact that board games have had in Britain over the last 200 years. Britain was the first nation to come up with the concept of board games as a means of education, these ideas later found themselves exported to America where it saw thriving success economically. 

This episode also looks deeply into Monopoly and its incredible success, it also takes a jab at the game by revealing its roots are actually tied to Communism, the irony is quite entertaining when you discover it was in fact based on a Communist game but focuses itself on a Capitalist overview of the world. It also shows how games like this, while distasteful in the eyes of some, are still incredibly popular to this day. Monopoly is not alone in this either; games such as Scrabble, Connect-4 and Cluedo have somehow lasted a surprisingly long time and still exist in the modern family home to this day.

Wooley also surveys the way board games have evolved, how they can move beyond the tangible pieces and into the realms of fantasy and imagination. A perfect example of this is Dungeons and Dragons or Dragon Age. These games have become just as popular thanks to their ability to free the player of the physical shackles and many constraints presented by a board game.


Games Britannia Part 3

Part 3 focused mainly on video games and how they've progressed over the years.

The first game of note that is covered is Elite; Elite is an old retro space exploration-trading game in which the player uses a ship to try and reach elite status through either trade or combat. It's quite interesting to watch when you come to realise just how pivotal such old games have been in paving the direction for modern games; many mechanics present then are still used thoroughly and efficiently to this day. Even though the game hasn't survived the test of time, the ideals, features and mechanics it introduced have.

Lara Croft also featured in the documentary; she was described as a really revolutionary point in game characters; finally we were starting to focus on the character and the importance of their story. Games were beginning to structure them self around the character, not the adventure. This was the beginning of the change. Some people opposed to Lara's appearance however. She had the body of a supermodel and was simply thought of as a 'Pamela Anderson solving problems'. Some people disagree with the statement, feeling she has moved beyond this and become something more.

Another big point for the documentary was moral choices and the impact they have on the overall experience. Black and White is talked about deeply here, it's unique take on gaming at the time; allowing players to indirectly or directly influence and mess with anything they choose, meant the players own judgement was responsible for whether something was right or wrong to do, and how they would act was decided by them. It was a matter of choice in intricately high amounts. Grand Theft Auto done something similar; it allowed players the free will and choice to perform whatever actions they desired, how they wanted to. Decisions in games such as these become policed by the players; instead of forcing them into something that the developer defines as morally correct, the player is challenged to decide for themselves. More and more games now do this, you could even argue games with restrictive mechanics and rule sets still give the moral choice; for example in an mmo, 'trainer killing (TK)' is when a pvper attacks and kills other players who are training. In many mmo's this is frowned upon and will usually result in the player being named and shamed, and as a result; hunted! This is the players choice; they don't have to hunt him, but they've made the moral choice, the moral obligation that it is the right thing to do.

Group project - end of sprint 1

So seeing as it's the end of the first sprint for my group project I thought I'd go over what we got up to, the ins, the outs, the successful and the sucky.

So to start off with in our initial pitch we came up with the idea for a dungeon crawling adventure game with RPG elements called Searching for Celia, in short it was a classic Zelda clone, and in shorter; it was a disaster waiting to happen. The idea was shot down in our pitch and logically for good reasoning, so back to the drawing board we went!

One of my group members was working on a concept idea he had for a side scrolling shooter where you defend a girl from being attacked, it would all be in silhouette form because that was easier to create then a fully detailed game. I liked the idea, it was simple, it could work and it had the potential to be fun.

It was at this point I threw in the suggestion for a mechanic to challenge the player; an aura. The game seemed to repetitive and simple in its current state so I suggested an aura, created by the girl that would grow or dissipate dependent on a variable. Originally it was suggested that variable be that damage taken = smaller aura. I was however against this idea; I felt it was increasing the gap between good players and bad players and making it harder for less skilled individuals to proceed. So in the end after some debating we came up with the idea to make the aura get smaller as you move, and recharge when stationary, this way we could reason that the aura gets smaller because the girl is exhausted from moving.

So we had our new concept, and an interesting mechanic. work was delegated between us all. Wayne handled the code while me, Jake and Giselle did concept art. We three were each tasked with creating a background, menu, main character, girl, monster and boss. While Wayne worked on coding the minimal viable product.

So lets have a look at what I personally came up with;

• Background - The background idea I created was basically a desert like theme where the player would be moving across the screen while a sandstorm brewed in the background, this background also left room for the possible inclusion of scorpion type mobs that crawl out of the ground.

• Menu - The menu idea I had was one similar to a lot of games pause menu, the idea is that the menu is simply overlaying the game itself so that when you click 'Start Game' the menu fades revealing the game in all its entirety.

• Player - The player design I did was basic but kind of shoddy and dodgy, the best part I'd say of this design was the gun, the gun would make an aesthetically appealing addition to the game, as for the character; I feel others may have outdone me.

• Girl - The girl concept here wasn't exactly the most lively silhouette, and the detail here was poor. But the idea was to convey the simple concept that as the girl character loses health, the change in health would be clearly visible, indicated by how full of blue she is.

• Monsters - The monster design for the spider was quite simple and original; giant spiders, where would we been without them right? The idea was that at a later date we could implement a bit more detail to the way they spawn; having them come down vertically then move along horizontally.
  The second design was sort of a cross between a panther and leopard; this mob would be a straight forward horizontal moving mob that has more durability than the spider.

• Boss - Going on from the previous idea, I decided to develop the scoropard (hey it's my creature, I'll give it a cross-breed name if I want too!) into a boss type creature by adding crystals to its form that are meant to bolster its abilities and make it one tough cookie! I'm considering animating the crystal to glow blue to signify its status as a boss.

Overall the pitch went well, the lecturers seemed impressed and I left quite happy with how interesting they found my aura idea. A successful contribution I think.... now for the next sprint, I hear animations is heavy on the agenda.

Tools for creating dramatic games dynamics

Tools and techniques for storytelling are becoming a more desirable feature to games designers given the extensive progress of technology in providing movie similar experiences. However storytelling is no recent and new idea. It is visible in many kinds of board games; D&D, the royal game of goose, or even ancient games such as Senet. Through this we can see that stories are visible in games and have been for a long time; the digital age has just allowed us to refine the way the story is delivered. The story doesn’t rely on the metaphor of the game, but on the events encapsulated within it. Through this we could say the play of the game becomes a climactic struggle that builds to a satisfying conclusion, in layman’s terms; the game is dramatic.

Drama is a desirable quality in games, in some cases players seek out games for the drama alone, for this part we can say drama is a feature of game’s play content; it’s kind of fun. For this reason it can be important for us as game designers to imbue drama into our creations. Creating drama in games however is difficult; games will never be played the same way every time, people’s opinions and emotions may vary and we can’t control every element of the story’s creation unless we’re the only ones present to create it. It’s for this reason we need to remember we can’t create drama, only create circumstances from which drama will emerge.

Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics;

Mechanics refers to the necessary pieces we need to play the game. This consists primarily of the rules of the game but can also refer to things such as equipment, location or anything else that is an absolute minimum to play the game. For example; Basketball’s mechanics aren’t only the rules of Basketball, but also the physical laws such as gravity and energy. A perfect example of venues importance would be surfing; you can’t go surfing on a road or up a tree, you require water. Consider a game is a system; the mechanics are the complete description of that system.

Dynamics refers to what could be defined as the behaviour of the game, the actual events that occur as the game is played. In chess the dynamics might include tactical concepts like the knight fork, as well as structural concepts like the opening and the endgame. When viewing a game through its dynamics, we are simply asking ‘what happens when the game is played?’. The relationship between dynamics and mechanics is one of emergence; a game’s dynamics emerge from its mechanics.

Aesthetics are a games emotional content, the desirable emotional responses, and the fun that results from playing a game. Games aesthetics emerge from dynamics; how the game behaves should determine how it makes the players feel. Understanding how certain dynamics will evoke specific emotional responses is one of the greatest challenges a games designer can face.

Mechanics always exist; we might not be playing the game, but the pieces still exist. Dynamics only manifest when the game is played; you can think about a tactic, but can’t carry it out unless you initiate the game. Of course from this you can easily deduce that aesthetics, requiring dynamics to evoke the responses, can only come into being when the game is played.

Games designers and players travel in opposite directions along this pipeline; designers start at aesthetics, emotional responses we hope to invoke, from there we determine what dynamics will accomplish these aesthetic objectives, and from there we can determine which mechanics will create those dynamics.  From this we can see that game designers work backwards.

An aesthetic model for drama

We want drama to be part of the games emotional content, but first we need to define what drama is and how it happens, this is an aesthetic model; these can help us know when we have achieved an emotion, and if we’re headed in the right direction. It’s important to remember however that not everyone will agree with our model of drama, nor is drama a quintessential key element of every game, this is simply an example.

Our aesthetic model of drama;

This model imagines a dramatic tension in quantity that can accumulate or discharge as time progresses. However it’s important to know that we don’t mean general quantity, quantity of dramatic tension cannot be measured, it can only be analysed in terms of quality. It’s important to remember that the dramatic arc isn't a universal fact of all stories, but rather a desirable property of a dramatic story. But why so specifically this shape? It’s hard to say. Perhaps it’s to do with the human psych, the way in which we think and are appeased. This model compels us, slowly drawing us in over time until we reach the peak waiting for the final climactic event, of course you have to have the climax at some point, otherwise the story will eventually become dragged, and lose its sense of wholeness.

What’s dramatic tension? Think of it as our level of emotional investment in the story’s conflict.

However our job as games designers isn't as easy as this model may appear; we must assure a game will be dramatic, even without direct control over narratives. A narrative that isn't scripted in advance, but rather emerges as time progresses and the events of a game are played out.

All drama originates from conflict, conflict comes from competition. But how does tension emerge from a contest, and how does that tension change over time? Dramatic tension is the product of two different factors:

Uncertainty: the sense that the outcome of the contest is still unknown. Any player could win or lose.

Inevitability: the sense that the contest is moving forward toward resolution. The outcome is imminent.

Both of the above are independent of each other, they’re evoked using different systems and dynamics, which make it easier for a designer giving better control over each element separately for tuning and adjusting. When uncertainty and inevitability intersect, this gives rise to the peak of dramatic tension.

Most techniques that imbue dramatic tension use two main approaches, 'force' and 'illusion';

Force is manipulating the state of the contest itself. We make a game close because we limit how much advantage one player can have over another. For example giving both players the same weapon.

Illusion is manipulating players to make the game seem closer than it actually is. An example of this might be something such as Yu-Gi-Oh card game, player A has 5 monster cards down, player B only has one, but player B’s one card is more powerful than player A’s five, however he doesn’t know this and will no doubt attack believing he has the better position.

The feedback system used in conjunction with uncertainty has four main parts;

The Game State – for example the game save or the time left to complete a level.

Scoring Function – Quite straight forward to understand, this could be things such as kills, or captures that indicate to a player who is winning and who is losing.

The Game Mechanical Bias - the rule of a game which gives one player an advantage over another.

The Controller - the rule of the game that decides which player receives the mechanical bias with the decision being made from the scoring function. For example kill streaks in an FPS.

Negative feedback systems could be seen as those that strive to keep the scores as close and close to zero as possible. Positive feedback on the other hand would be a system that strives to separate scores by larger quantities usually resulting in a decisive winner.

The negative feedback system is a powerful tool in creating dramatic tension as it keeps the game uncertain; players won't know the outcome of the game as the scoring difference would be as close to 0 as possible, therefore creating dramatic uncertainty. This allows you to keep all players immersed in the experience for longer. It avoids players ‘rage quitting’ because going on seems pointless. When aiming towards the end of a game, using the positive feedback system is useful for dispelling uncertainty, bringing about the climax and a sense of finality, every game needs an endpoint, and endpoints are more enjoyable with a victor. Using only the negative feedback system can cause games to stagnate so positive feedback systems are needed for breaking the equilibrium and moving a game forward.

There are but a few of the feedback systems, and there are many more. For example;

Pseudo-Feedback is a mechanism used to create game dynamics that make a game appear as though it is being driven by a negative feedback system, however there is no actual cybernetic feedback system at all. In simplicity; the game deceives the player into thinking it’s interfering, when in fact it isn’t at all.

Escalation is a game mechanic used to make the score gain faster and faster as the game progresses so more points are at stake at the end of the game than there were at the start. Because of course who doesn’t like bigger numbers! It makes you feel better, feel like you’re doing better!

Hidden Energy is another tool used, an example of this could be 'turbo fuel' on a racing game, each player has an equal amount of hidden energy at the start of the game but the timing of using this fuel can change the outcome, think of the Need for Speed the film, where the main protagonist almost beat his opponent, but inevitably failed due to his poor choice of timing to use his hidden energy. This mechanic creates dramatic uncertainty by manipulating the players incomplete understanding of the true score of the game.

Fog of War is a mechanic used to create dramatic uncertainty by limiting the information available to players. As a game progresses, more information becomes available. Generally any RTS can usually be called upon as an example of this systems use. It is quite important because that uncertainty causes intrigue, which pushes the player onward.

Decelerator is used as an obstacle that slows down players later in the game, making it seem that the game is closer than it actually is by changing the scale and pace of the game. Look at the game show gladiators; the player who won earlier events would be given the lead, however as that player progressed, obstacles got harder. This allowed the other player to catch up, creating the illusion the game is closer that it really is.

Cashing Out is another mechanic used. An example of this would be if a player wins a round of a particular game, the start of the next round both players start even, but the first player to get three wins will win the game. This shows that the player who wins the first round will not necessarily win the game, however it does give them a greater chance at winning as they are one win closer than the opposition. For example capture the flag.

Out of all these in terms of the least used, I felt pulled between Decelerator and Cashing out. In the end I feel Decelerator is the least used. Cashing Out can be seen in many forms of gameplay now; a perfect example would be any game that has capture the flag, or a game mode such as Call of Duty’s Search and Destroy. Decelerator on the other hand is more difficult to incorporate or notice in a lot of modern day games. Hence why I had to resort to the example of the old game show gladiator. In fairness it becomes clear how subjective these systems uses are. For example one could argue that both cashing out and decelerator are both visible in capture the flag; cashing out in terms of the next round, and decelerator  in terms of the difficulty a player may have getting the flag back to their base, or perhaps the nature of the game mode is likely to result in an opposite force, and instead speed the game up the further in you get?

MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research

MDA (Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics) – A formal approach to understanding games, attempts to bridge the gap between game design and development, criticism, and technical game research.

Design methodologies guide the creative thought process in all steams of development and help to ensure quality work. Iterative, qualitative and quantitative analysis helps in two ways; to analyse the end result, which allows you to refine the implementation which in turn allows you to refine the result. Using both allows you to consider a wider range of possibilities. This is especially important in computer/video games, where interactions between subsystems create complex and sometimes sporadic behaviour.

Game design and authorship happen at many levels, there are many different roles and fields in game research and development, however all must at some point consider issues outside their area’ base mechanisms, design goals, gameplay etc. No discipline or role is acceptation to this rule, if one element becomes ignorant, the whole game may suffer.

Games differ from other media sources as their consumption is unpredictable; the events that occur in gameplay and the outcome of those events are unknown at the time the product is finished.

MDA framework formalizes the consumption of games and breaks them down into distinct components:

Rules   >   System   >   Fun

It also establishes their counterparts:

Mechanics describes the particular components of the game, at the level of data representation and algorithms. 

Dynamics describes the run-time behaviour of the mechanics acting on player inputs and each other’s outputs over time.

Aesthetics describes the desirable emotional responses evoked in the player, when she interacts with the game system

Fundamental to understanding this framework is the idea games are artifacts, more so than media. This is because the content of a game is its behaviour, not the media that streams out towards a player, in other words it comes down to an experience unique to the player themselves, that is created by them, unlike films for example that portray a specific, scripted story with certain emotions plotted and weaved within it. In lamens terms; games build behaviour via interaction.

MDA identifies that the player and the designers perspectives are reversed; a designer identifies the mechanics which give rise to a dynamic system behaviour which in turn leads to aesthetic experiences. However the player sees it as aesthetics setting the tone, which is born out in dynamics and eventually mechanics. It’s important to always remember the player’s perspective in order to avoid falling into feature-driven design traps, when you should really be aiming for experience-driven design.

Aesthetics:

It’s important to move away from generic terms like fun and gameplay, so let’s move towards a more directed vocabulary, here are some examples;

·         Sensation - Game as sense-pleasure

·         Fantasy - Game as make-believe

·         Narrative - Game as drama

·         Challenge - Game as obstacle course

·         Fellowship - Game as social framework

·         Discovery - Game as uncharted territory

·         Expression - Game as self-discovery

·         Submission - Game as pastime

Examples:

Quake: Challenge, Sensation, Competition, Fantasy

Charades: Fellowship, Expression, Challenge.

Different games require different elements to take priority, for example Quake centres its main element as challenge, while fantasy is important too, it isn’t the core point of Quake, and the fantasy is simply a supporting element to the challenge of the game. Something such as Final Fantasy however will rely heavily on the fantasy as the element, and while challenge would still be important, it isn’t as important. There is no key golden rule to element focus, it’s all dependent upon the game itself and many different outcomes can lead to the fun factor.

These aesthetic definitions must then be refined and used as the foundation of aesthetic models, in simplistic terms its basically expanding upon the feature and how it is incorporated in the game. For example Quake incorporates Competition by pitting teams of players against each other.

Dynamics models work to create aesthetic experiences, for example challenge is made through things such as opponent play, where as fellowship can be encourage through things such as sharing information. Through these models we can create and identify feedback systems within gameplay to determine how particular states or changes affect the gameplay overall.

Mechanics

Various actions, behaviours and control mechanisms afforded to players within a game context. These can be things such as shuffling, betting, weapons, spawns etc.

Adjusting the mechanics of a game helps us fine tune a games overall dynamic. For example allowing a player who has been killed 3 times in a row to see their opponent through a wall might help to keep the losing player immersed and having fun, if the person knows that inevitably they have no chance and will lose, the dynamic fails, and players lose interest.

This involves tuning, tuning are the steps we take to slowly iterate new mechanics and change the overall gameplay, it’s important to record changes one at a time and make sure they have a beneficial effect upon the overall experience. In short the whole process is about prioritising the core feature on the first pass, and then as you go through each pass afterwards you should be adding more features to add depth to the game. The areas of choice could range between gameplay, story etc.

In an overall conclusion; MDA supports formal iteration approaches to design and tuning, in allows up to reason logically about design goals and to review and analyse the impacts of different features and aspects of the framework and implementations. Using the three levels of abstraction we can conceptualize the dynamic behaviour of game systems, understanding the game in dynamic systems form helps us develop techniques for iterative design and improvement over time. This in turn gives us control over the outcomes and allows us to tune the product to achieve desired behaviour. This also allows us to make informed decisions about gameplay impact upon the end users experience and we are then able to decompose these experiences effectively and use them tio fuel new designs, methods, research and criticism.

The Royal Game of Ur - The divines demand I change you!

So today we had a look at an ancient game known as The Royal Game of Ur. The game in basis is a race game coupled with a war game I guess. The idea is to get your pieces to the end of the board, you have 5-7 pieces depending on the version, and each opponents units can remove each others from the board, forcing them to start again. The first person to get all pieces to the end of the board wins. Here are the basic rules (as assumed by Irving Finkel;

1. Throw the dice to decide who plays first - highest score goes first, if it's a draw, throw again.
2. Players take turns to throw three binary lots and move one of their pieces. 
3. Only one piece may be moved per throw of the dice and pieces must always move forward around the track.
4. If a counter lands upon a square occupied by an opposing counter, the counter landed upon is sent off the board and must start again from the beginning.
5. If a counter lands on a rosette, throw the dice again (and again if another rosette is landed upon). The same piece need not be moved on the additional throw.
6. Pieces can be moved onto the board at any stage of the game as long as the square that is moved to upon the first turn is vacant.
7. A player must always move a counter if it is possible to do so but if it is not possible, the turn is lost.
8. Exact throws are needed to bear pieces off the board.

Simple enough, so we started off by playing the game with its general rules, or at least some of them. You see on our first go we hadn't really paid full attention and thus we missed out the importance of the rosette squares beyond the use as a safe zone. Fair enough, I won, game set and lets go again.

In our second game we decided to start iterating (we're meant to be doing that in a few weeks, but now seems good enough). So we began by adding the ability to stack units on a square, and in doing so the units then moved as one, this had its benefits quite clearly, however you did need to waste time stacking them up. Fair to say however, the time spent stacking them up did not outweigh the time saved travelling, the game was indeed much faster, but much simpler; there was no real challenge, no risk associated with grouping your units.

Thus came game 3 after another win. This time we decided to add some variables to the gameboard, so many squares are not used in this game because they're simply not understood, but I've never been known to neglect a square simply because its different! Neigh I turned one of the types of squares into a creation to be hated; an insta-kill square, this imposed a greater risk on moving all your units into a single consortium, because in doing so you only ever had one unit to move and should fate decide your next move would land you on the kill square; you had no choice but to advance to your death! This definitely made the game more fun, if not at times longer. Not a bad thing at all though, it simply added depth to the play in general, tactics became more important, like Battleships before it, the game became about tactic just as much as chance.

With my win streak still safe and growing, onto game 4 we went! Our next iteration; the introduction of an add unit to group square; this square would allow you to move any unit (or group if multiples are on a square) up to the other units square, an effective and handy square, luckily a limited one in its appearances too. However, if you look more closely this square is either a help of a hindrance  For example if your only other unit is back near the start, then back you go. Once again the game remained fun and more important did tactics become. Another reasonably successful iteration I think.

After that win came the idea for an iteration involving a fall back square; if a unit landed on one of these, then it would be forced to fallback to the closest unit, whether forward of backwards from the position.

Once again this iteration causes the player to consider tactics even more, it was fair to say at this point we had started to shape a derivative of Ur that relied not so heavily on chance, and more so on a mix of chance and skill. The game already possessed choices to accompany its chances, but these choices had little variety or variables to them. By the end of our iterations (we had room for more (but had run out of time)) I felt that what had been created was a product better refined to tactical play than its predecessor.

Well on that note I think it's about time you all tried this game if you haven't already, and remember; if you don't win then it's probably because God doesn't love you, this is a game of divinity and fortune telling, not just based on pure chance! *casually whistles.

Gamasutra – Formal Abstract Design Tools

Design is the game, in basis it could be defined as the superglue holding together all aspects of development (code, art, levels, etc). However it tends to lag behind the technical aspects that consist of a game, its less developed, less explained, harder to understand. The main reason for this issue is that design has no fixed vocabulary, no generic mean by which to communicate, we lack an elaborate code that can be understood and juggled between different designers. Fun or not fun, that’s all we have.

That’s what design needs; if we had a generic vocabulary, a means by which to define, relay and analyse, then design as a branch of game development would see vast progress. Because of this, relating elements of a game to design becomes difficult; we can see if animators have done their job well, or if code has been done well by whether the features work or not. However when the crowds break apart, and it’s all said and done, few observe the design steps evident in the game, people are less likely to identify and analyse good unit balancing, however they’re more likely to notice bad unit balancing.

Formal Abstract Design Tools (FADT) – an attempt at creating a shared vocabulary between designers. I think the article explains this quite well so let’s reference it;

Examining the phrase, we have: "formal," implying precise definition and the ability to explain it to someone else; "abstract," to emphasize the focus on underlying ideas, not specific genre constructs; "design," as in, well, we're designers; and "tools," since they'll form the common vocabulary we want to create.

"Design" and "tools" are both largely self-explanatory. However, some examples may help clarify "formal" and "abstract." For instance, claiming that "cool stuff" qualifies as a FADT violates the need for formality, since "cool" is not a precise word one can explain concretely — various people are likely to interpret it very differently. On the other hand, "player reward" is well defined and explainable, and thus works. Similarly, a "+2 Giant Slaying Sword" in an RPG is not abstract, but rather an element of one particular game. It doesn't qualify as a FADT because it isn't abstract. The general notion that a magic sword is based on — a mechanic for delivering more powerful equipment to the player — is, however, a good example of a FADT, so the idea of a "player power-up curve" might meet the definition above.

So in basis we can summarise anything added to this vocabulary must be;

·         Precise and explanatory

·         Generic to games as a whole, not specifically

·         Relevant to design

·         Usable in design

It’s important to understand that this vocabulary alone, these tools are not the answer to a good game. They are simply stepping stones for refining a game, they can help you discover a game but you still have to journey the rest of the process with your own capabilities, with your own relevant approaches to producing fun.

This vocabulary isn’t set In stone, it may come from others analysis and breakdown of games but at its core the vocabulary is concocted around the actual playing of games and their reviewing. A good way to break this down is to briefly look at how things work together; study their impact on the experience and how design decisions in general push the player deeper, immersing the player more in the game world. After reviewing these things, we can come up with some FADT’s for our vocabulary;

INTENTION: Making an implementable plan of one's own creation in response to the current situation in the game world and one's understanding of the game play options.

Or in a simpler way of stating it; the process of accumulating goals, understanding the game world, planning and acting on it. This works to allow/encourage the player to do things intentionally.

PERCEIVABLE CONSEQUENCE: A clear reaction from the game world to the action of the player.

The idea of perceivable consequence is to basically teach the player right from wrong, or true from false in the game world.

The issue with this is avoiding situations where the designer forces a player into a consequence, this can be a difficult trap to avoid and a very easy one for designers to fall into; if you are to be punished for your choices, a player expects those choices to be their own, not pre-determined. This is sadly something many games fail to understand in modern games, this sacrifice of player control is performed to improve the flow of a story, but at what cost to the players immersion and experience? It’s hard to tell whether the positives of choice outweigh the negatives, or vice versa. Thus we are brought onto another world for our vocabulary;

STORY: The narrative thread, whether designer-driven or player-driven, that binds events together and drives the player forward toward completion of the game.

It’s important to remember different tools work better (or worse) with certain situations. Dependent on your game, it might be more or less relevant to close off player choice in order to give a more critical story. This does make the outcomes more linear, but it also improves the narrative and flow of the story as a whole, in most cases at least. This is a hard decision for game designers; do we choke choice and provide depth to the story, or expand choice and sacrifice intended reactions by players.

RPG’s tend to approach this dilemma in an interesting but relevant method given their genre. Many RPG’s tend to fix choices throughout the story, but they open up intention to the player through their leveling, their skill trees, their equips etc. This gives the player a feel that their involvement warrants merit, that they have choices at their disposal and these choices have consequences. They story is still driven by the designer, but the experience is theirs to have, and they feel pushed to advance it.

Depending on the game, and usualy its genre, the method by which you mix these tools is different; a game like NHL can successfully incorporate story, intention and perceivable consequence all as one, however this doesn’t work for RPG’s in general, so they usually have to have a splitting point for the two, such as combat providing the intention, being driven by players choices and tactics, while still holding a fixed story, neither tend to contaminate each other negatively if done correctly.

It’s always important to remember that games are unique from books or films, such things tend to drive the viewer/reader to a preset expected outcome, an action is produced with a specific and planned reaction. Games are different, games are about empowering the player, you have to surrender to the possibility that a players interpretation may be different from your own, that a player might use weapon A instead of weapon B. Perhaps you wanted them to use weapon B, but you had to plan for the possibility that weapon A would be chosen even if you didn’t desire that outcome.

In conclusion it’s important to remember that FADT is subjective, it, like gaming is not written in stone. The choices are yours to make, things may be interpreted differently from designer to designer, and so may their relevance. But it cannot be questioned the validity of simplicity and understanding that something such as FADT could bring to designers as a whole.

I realise that a lot of this may seem boring to you readers, and for those that feel this way I might suggest starting off where we define FADT, that’s only a suggestion though, feel free to start anywhere really…. Huh will you look at that, it’s an article of choice.

Note: if you read this article backwards, it’s a story about how we started off with a reasonable generic vocabulary for designers, started to throw different definitions into the pool and then decided we preferred being primitive.

Iteration, implementation and creation - Battleships reborn

When reviewing or analysing a game, there are many questions you have to ask yourself, to truly capture the essence of the game this may be simple, or quite difficult. Below are some questions you might ask yourself to start to get to grips with what makes a game tick.

• What challengers do the players face, what actions do they take to overcome them?
• How do players affect each other?
• Is the game perceived by the players as fair?
• Is the game re-playable? if so why?
• What is the games intended audience?
• What is the "core" of the game, second by second minute by minute the things you do over and over that represent the fun part?

Let's start off by looking at these in relation to the game 'Battleships';

What challengers do the players face, what actions do they take to overcome them?

There are many different ways to approach what the players challenges are in this game, but I guess in pure simplicity it could be summed up as a nebulous challenge, a game of hit or miss once you've totally stripped it down. While there may be ways and tactics in which you search for ships, it none the less can end up coming down to either how well you know your player through multiple battles, or it can be something as simple as pure luck.

How do players affect each other?

They affect each other through randomly attacking squares on each others side of the battlefield, unknowing to the location of their opponents ship, once they find one they may still be in the dark on which direction the ship is facing.

Is the game perceived by the players as fair?

It has to be, there is no favouratism or handicaps either way, whether you have one ship or three left you both end up taking a turn, and taking a shot. I'd say the most you can go to making the game unfair in its original state is if you are up against someone with Amblyopia(lazy eye) or other factors that might alter a persons bodily functions, because one way you might try to catch your opponent off is by their body language. 

Is the game re-playable? if so why?

Yes, every game can end up playing out very differently, due to the freedom players have when placing their pieces, and players behavior.

What is the games intended audience?

It's hard to say really, the game due to its nature would seem intended for children, however at the same time you could argue the game requires some patience and is a time passer requiring little skill or knowledge to pick up. So it could be said that this games intended audience could either be children or more mature/elder people who aren't as bothered by straight up skill based competitive games, and simple wish to pass time.

What is the "core" of the game, second by second minute by minute the things you do over and over that represent the fun part?

In a very dumbed down and visually unnoticeable way, it's about the thrill; the excitement of whether you hit or miss. It's fun element comes from the cloak and dagger nature of the game, 'did I hit? Did I miss?' and when you find out you missed you become more determined to find a ship especially when you realise your opponent must be closing in on yours.


Our job was to take this well known game and iterate it, adapt it rule by rule into something new, testing it each iteration along the way to see if that element of 'fun' still remained or was improved upon.

We started off by throwing a couple of ideas around and then decided to begin by adding in a feature of retaliation, doing this would in essence make the game quicker, more interesting and would add more depth to play then what usually seems like a basic tennis rally. The idea was that different ships would be assigned gun blocks on them, when a ship gets hit, depending on how many guns are still operational on that ship, the ships weapons fire back the number of functional turrets left on the engaged ship. If the retaliation shots hit an opponents ship, after those shots are taken the other player would take their retaliation shots. In basis, there is a possibility (a very small one though) that the game could be over in a single turn.

So if for example player A took his shot, and it hit player B's 5 square ship, then player B will fire at 3 squares in retaliation due to the 5 square ship having 3 guns. However if the initial shot from player A hit one of player B's gun squares, then player B would only fire back 2 shots.

Following on from this iteration we then began to consider expanding on a few other elements of the game, for one thing grid size came into question, and the possibility of making it larger or smaller. Smaller might be more fast paced, however it might detract from the mystery of the game and your opponents actions. Making it larger however might extend the length of the game, making the possibility of boredom more likely to crop in, which you never want with a game.

One thing I considered was the inclusion of the devils object; DICE! I considered the inclusion of dice in a 'double or nothing' scenario, the idea for implementation I had was simple; if you hit a ship, you have the option to double up, by doing so you must obtain a 5 or a 6, doing so will give you a second follow up shot before retaliations can occur. The cost of this is however, that if you fail to obtain a 5 or a 6 then your first shot becomes null, and your opponents ship makes 'repairs', this means you have to waste your next turn attacking that square again. The good thing about this is it adds an interesting risk-reward element to the game.

A thought I liked was the idea of a 3 layer grid, with a new theme for space. The idea would require a lot of iterations to make sense with the inclusion of certain functions like special 3 layer piercing shots versus 1 layer 3 square shots. The game would become quite different in my opinion and would give more choice to the player.

The most interesting and hectic thought for iteration though would probably be movement, movement would make a game like Battleships quite ridiculous to play. It would probably remove a lot of tactical elements and make the game more luck ridden than dice could make sense of. For this reason, such an iteration would require some heavy thought to either grid size, or attack capabilities. Maybe players could be given an increased number of shots dependent on operation boats, however as realistic and straight forward as this may seem, if would more than likely deduct from the balance of the game, which could quite easily ruin the game completely for a lot of players.

All in all there're some interesting thoughts for consideration there. When you think about it it becomes quite intriguing how different a game as simple as Battleships could become without deducting from the basics of the game. But when we think about it; could we still believe a person if they walked up to us and said Company of Heroes was derived from Chess? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But once we begin to analyse a statement like that, it's interesting to see the comparisons we begin to make.

Bibliography - how to

This post is to cover bibliographies and their use to reference books, contributions to books and journal articles. All given examples shall be formatted using the Harvard referencing.

Referencing a Book is simple enough:  

Author, Initial (Year of Publication). Title of Book. Place of Publication: Publisher. 

For example:

Adams, E. (2010) Fundamentals of game design. New Riders.

Schell, J (2008) The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses. CRC Press

Referencing a Contribution to a book requires a bit more specificity as you'd expect:

Author, Initial (Year of Publication). Title of Book. Place of Publication: Publisher. Page number.

For example:

Bittanti, M (2003) "The Technoludic Film: Images of Videogames in Movies" In Nakatsu and Hoshino., Entertainment Computing: Technologies and Applications. Springer. 307-312

Rettberg, S. (2008) “Corporate Ideology in World of Warcraft”. In Corneliussen, H. & Rettberg, J.W. eds, Digital culture, play, and identity: a World of Warcraft reader, MIT Press. 19-39.

Then finally we have Journal articles, which slightly differ from the previous:

Author, Initial (Year of Publication). “Full title of the article in inverted commas”.The full title of the journal [volume + part if given and/or] Month, or Season, or volume/part number.

For example:

Keighron, P. (1993) “Video Diaries: What’s Up Doc?” Sight and Sound. October. 24-25.

Gonzalez et al. (2013) "Learning to Stand in the Other’s Shoes: A Computer Video Game Experience of the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict" Social Science Computer Review. 31. 236-243

Games Britannia – part 1

Here are the notes I took after watching the first part of 'Games Britannia' the documentary seems to delve well into our past and pose good questions while giving relevant insight into the pure essence and origins of games.

Interesting how people approach working out games origins and mechanics and how they work.

Games are a human specific thing. Different from play, which other species would have experienced across the ages, for this reason it could be argued that games are one of the things that makes us human (take that nostalgic critics of the game industry!).

Perhaps the Stanway game is not a game board, but in fact a tactical map layout? With different stones resembling units within an army.

Refers to video games as being played by teenage boys; that is subjective/ stereotypical; there are many girl gamers and mature gamers.

alea evangelii – game seems like it could possibly be more about extensive patience of slowly moving your whole defence across in a direction, at first look at least, this could be proven wrong; by the look of it the removal of pieces operates in such a way you might be forced to rush. Personally I would have to do play it to truly understand it, as is the case with many games.

A game that mixes both the elements of skill and luck; this type of game would be the perfect analogy of life itself, as life involves both skill and luck. The game that was used to represent this was backgammon.

Games are essential to the homosapien due to our inherent nature that animals do not possess; a nature to get bored.

9 mens morris – essentially noughts and crosses. Although on a bigger scale, kind of like when playing noughts and crosses you try to play on a 4x4 grid, but it doesn’t work. 9 mens morris was a vastly played game used repetitively in medieval times to pass time.

Hazard – a basic gambling game and thus considered a game in service of the devil in the times of its creation. Reason being that dices are considered a thing of evil, demise and deconstructive to civilization. The game simply incorporates betting on the roll of a dice, each round you must bet more and more to stay in.

Faro – gambling game of 50/50 chance to win, it became very addictive, and was very easy to become submerged in debt.

But all of these gambling ‘games’ raises the question; do gambling games really count as actual games? Don’t games involve fun, challenge and no tangible direct material gain? In fact the dangers and aggressions in gambling seem to have a negative stereotype on games as a whole, they seem to promote nonsense that games encourage violence, and simply not the attitude of the player themselves.

18^th-19^th century dice were replaced by spinning tops in children games as dice were still more than ever hit with a stigma of being ‘evil’.

Goose – a game about the moral and virtue choices in life. The virtues were harder and more challenging, leading to the point that life is about overcoming hardship to be virtuous, whereas greed and morally wrong decisions might be easier, but may have incurred issues later on. This game in fact could be considered the origin of the games industry, the point where it all began to kick-off.

Snakes and ladders – based on a Hindu game that’s objective is to achieve enlightenment, the objective of the game isn’t to be fun or challenging, but to understand the religion and to give a true insight into what enlightenment is. Snakes and ladders straight away removed the moral elements and over time snakes and ladders went from circle to square, from complicated to less complicated.

Ludo – a perfect example of another Asian game altered into simplicity, this becomes an issue with games, oversimplifying can pervert the true experience of complication that presents a true challenge to the player.

Chess – origin in Asia again, but from country to country each played the game differently, possibly one of the best examples of this is the Egyptian version; which in comparison to most is a very thin board. Chess is possibly the most skilful and evolved form of gaming ever, there is no chance, no messing around. It is simply incredibly unique. There’s a theory that chess started off as a method of developing tactical skill. The game is essentially a game that anyone can get into, but a game that is incredibly hard to master. These sort of games are incredibly hard to produce, a game that anyone, absolutely anyone could learn fairly quickly, but you could take years upon years to win!

What is a video game? Rules, puzzles and simulations.

So on Thursday we took the time to tap into this thought mainly through the work of Newman J. (2004) Videogames Routledge: London. It raises some fair points and while there were some smaller documents up for discussion, this seemed to be the one most chose to stick too.

For anyone interested in games design it might be worth a look, here's some points from different segments that I felt the need to break down and dispute or agree with;

What truly defines a videogame? Surely things such as Furby and Tamagotchi can be considered to be computer games due to their electronical nature and use of technology?

Not true, while they do involve playing and have similarities to a videogame the essence of the device is subjective; video games primary function from a designers point of view is to deliver an experience through the median of a game, I would argue electronical devices for play such as Tamagotchi are the experience themselves, and while they may be using a median for the experience, it’s a wholly different kind of experience. Video games that create experiences from scratch immerse the player, removing them from their plane of existence, and throwing the player into another. Something like furby does no contribute the same outcome. At the same time the generic and broad concept of the word 'video' at its origins as a Latin word shouldn't be overlooked, for if we scope that far back we can see the word is in fact derived from the word see, this ensues an argument about terminologies and their ability to change definition over time and whether their original description is mute or of relevance.

Are video games an extension of a certain industry?

I personally consider them to be a combination of many different industries, and each industry will inspire ideas and innovation in one another. While you could compare a good narrative to an interactive movie, the difference between watching the movie and playing the game is the freedom, a film is set on a linear sequence of events that once seen once, will continue to happen. A game however is a variable, you can choose to do everything the exact same way, or you can vary your choices, even games that have very little split from a linear story technically still have decisions, even if it is something as simple as should I kill or be killed?

Classifying videogames

Genres might simply be a way of labeling a game within a generic category, but there are constantly new categories being created, more to the point the definition and embodiment of a genre will change over time, most peoples definition of a shoot ‘em up now would be along the lines of a Call of Duty game, where as someone like me would immediately identify it with something like Space Invaders, while my identification of the genre is technically correct by categorized standards, to someone from a different, younger generation, something like Space Invaders means nothing to them, and they instead immediately relate the genre to something they've grown up with, this would once again have to bring in to argument the point of whether a words origins still should be taken into consideration after the generalized use of the term changes.

The point about the importance of a celeb game designer being tagged with a project is contemporary and subjective, it can have an effect on people’s drafted opinions before a games release, but will it make the game better? Or worse? Most sequels never live up to their former because they fail to innovate enough, but if you were to identify a celeb dev with a project at for example its third game in a trilogy, people suddenly start paying attention and either view it in a different light or lose faith in their favourite celeb dev. 

In relation to the point about making a game you want; It is important to make something you feel comfortable with, something that you actually enjoy, everyone wants that and thanks to the indie market boom it can work. But in most cases, especially after your first major game… you have a market to appease, you have to consider other peoples thoughts and opinions of a game, what they will feel, what they will think. When you enter the business side of the industry and aim to make money, it is no longer about your wants. PLAYER PLAYER PLAYER, the customers have to come first, that’s a sacrifice you have to make, only a few celeb devs can have it their way because people respect them, most devs don’t have that luxury.

Coin-op

Coin-op games have to deliver reasonable experiences in small quantities to engage their players, they need the social interaction along with the competitive edge support by the aura of the area of play to actually function. Without these features the whole thing becomes null. The difference is that video games at home don’t need these parts to be successful, you can pace yourself according to your choice, and the game is yours, no one elses, you can choose to share, when to play and aren't hindered by any requirement past the purchase. Also in terms of challenging, surveying and learning from players; with the big move towards online gaming, these elements can now be provided from the parameters of your own house, you no longer need physical, tangible socialising to analyse a players style because most of it is visible in games thanks to the way they are laid out, this further deducts from the need for coin-op games anymore! Also with recordings being a consistent and notable thing, and games creating their own systems that allow you to monitor yourself or others performances (such as COD elite) coin-op’s unique experiences become of even less care to the player.

Why players play

The problem with true immersion is it isn't technically possible, while we may become immersed in a game, we still know it’s a game. Small things make this obvious to start with, which escalate into bigger things, because games are all about mechanics, rules and limitations it stands to reason that we will eventually be hit in the face by the realisation that it is a game because it can’t do a barrel roll or eat a chocolate bar, silly things matter to a person, I've personally seen so much entertainment out of something as simple as a slide to cover system that lets me trip over enemies, small things tend to make the difference, you learn over time that people will pay much more attention to the small defects in the long-term than the large ones. I know it sounds insane, but next time you're nit-picking a game, think about it.

Rules, winning and losing

All games have rules, with digital games these are usually set in place by the limitations of the software, the program created. However limitations still exist even in real world games, a six year old could be playing super heroes, and the child can change the rules of the game all they want, but there are limitations to rule changes that can occur; a child might say they’re superman, but they know they aren't really flying, they’re simply immersing themselves in their imagination to pretend they are, the fact is their movement on a Y axis will still be limited whether immersed or not.

Paidea and Ludus

Ludus (rule based) rules are important, more games are focusing on paidea (freedom) as their primary pivot for innovation; players are less bothered about flashy features and more worried about play time, games such as Minecraft, SimCity and DayZ are the logical path for the games industry to proceed. They offer limitless player time because the player creates their own story, their own choice, and while they’re still controlled to a lesser degree by the rules and mechanics, the games possibilities are huge in number because for example Minecraft is all about the players interpretation of the experience.

Types of game: Puzzles are not games!?!

Not at all; Puzzles are more generic a thing than most realise, a puzzle could be induced as the game as a whole. It presents a mess of a kind, something that needs fixing or breaking, whatever. The point is it creates a challenge you have to overcome, that you must solve or resolve. A puzzle is simply something created to test someone, and a game in general is a test, because there is a challenge to passing it.

Also another way that games have been categorised in the past is Agon (Challenge), Alea (Chance), Mimicry (Simulations, RPG's etc) and Ilinx (Movement). Some of these categories are more or less generic than you'd actually expect and the degrees to which they are Ludus(Rules) or Paidea(Free 'play') is varied.

Minecraft - Minecraft is by far one of the most Paidea games out there at the moment, it provides you almost limitless freedom (especially thanks to plugins/mods) in a seemingly limitless world (most peoples computers give up before the world generation does). I'd say this one can prove fairly hard to categorise into one or two of the four above as it's quite varied; For one thing I might consider placing it in Mimicry due to its RPG elements, it's ability to be who you want to be, and its focus on doing tasks others would in a similar way (dumbed down mind you). I would also place it in Agon; even if you're playing it in peaceful you could be challenging yourself; for example 'I made building A, now let's see if I can make building B even more impressive. It's very subjective but then again so are most things!

XCOM: Enemy Unknown - A more recent game XCOM is more central between ludus and paidea; it offers you freedom within a degree to the choices you make, but there are many choices and you can choose the speed everything progresses. XCOM fits into Agon; you have to defeat the enemies and survive to win, Alea; 90% chance to hit yet you miss? Perfect example of chance, and lets not forget random generation of enemies at map entrance, and last but not least Mimicry; you can customise and modify your characters in a whole bunch of ways, change their equipment and level them up.

just two more and then I'll let you go back to your own copy of XCOM or PayDay. ;)

Tony Hawks games - These games focus mainly on movement and thus they're Ilinx games, they can present Agon when you compete with friends or proceed with the story, but the fact is this is not required; you could choose to free roam in an area never having progressed therefore the games main focus makes it an Ilinx mainly Paidea type games.

Mirrors Edge - Right away you're probably thinking it's a paidea games right? Wrong, while the game might involve parkour or 'free-running' as it is referred to in game, there isn't a whole lot free about the experience; your missions while fun and varied in approach are basically linear, you're set on a linear path with a few small branch offs that eventually bring you back, there is no free roam in this Ilinx game it simply drives you on in a story based environment.

Well I think that about covers it for this post, we've covered a lot here and if your head has exploded then don't worry we'll be sending Ramone around with the dust pan and brush and he'll mail it back to you in a doggy bag, toodle pips old chap and chaperettes!