Friday, May 20, 2011

T-T-T-TODAY JUNIOR

BotSec - Game Prototype

THE GAME SITE

THE GAME :O (Made some changes, no more random crashing)

Before you play:

The screen will be white for a while at first, this is normal. It's basically a pre-loader with no graphics (to be fixed later)
The Controls:

Movement: Arrow Keys
Jump: Z or Space
Shoot: X (if you can find the gun)
Action: C (Interact with switches, save game, etc)
Suicide: R

Have fun :)

The Gameplay

This is an action/adventure, puzzle centric platforming game. A platforming game is only as good as it's platforming elements, here are the elements that I had time to implement, and ones that I want to add to the final game

Present Elements

Static platforms

You can jump on top of them.
The player does not collide unless approaching the top of it, moving down.
The player can pass through a platfom by pressing down + jump.

Moving platforms (horizontal)

Same as static platforms, but they move!

Doors

Either horizontal or vertical.
Doors can be locked or unlocked.
Doors can have their status switched by Triggers and Switches

Switches

You press the action key next to one to send the appropriate signal to the target entity
Can be told to fire only once, useful for making irreversible changes.

Triggers

The player walks into the invisible box that is the Trigger, and it sends a signal to the target entity.
Can also be specified to fire only once.

Electric Hazards

The player hits this, and they die :(
Can have their on/off state changed by Triggers and Switches.
Can be initially on or off.

Enemies

They move about, and don't fall from the surface that they are on.
You touch it and die, don't do that.
Their HP can vary, for when the player eventually gains offensive abilities.

Gravity Lifts

You enter the field's loving embrace, jump, and are gloriously propelled upward.
Lifts can have their status changed by Switches and Triggers.
Lifts can be spawned initially on or off.
Lifts can have their speed and size altered, allowing for fun stuff.

Future Elements

Pressure Buttons

Just like a switch, except it sends it's signals based on whether or not a solid is on top of it.
Anything could trigger the switch, including the player, enemies, and anything else that makes sense.

Movable Blocks

A solid block that the player can move around. These can be used to build escapes, or press Pressure Buttons.

Timed Electric Hazards

Just like Electric Hazards, except their on/off state changes based on a timer.

Friday, May 13, 2011

MMOG Play Test - WordSquared

The game is WordSquared, and it is what I would call a casual MMOG. It basically Scrabble on a global scale, with a seeming infinitely large playing field. It's way too addictive, so consider yourself warned.

1) What is the player experience

The player experience is very much the same as that in the board-game Scrabble, except with the added excitement of seeing the progress viewed by anyone and everyone, both on a scaled back world map, and up close with their individual words.

2) What is the nature of interaction within the world?

One the scrabble board, players can place words with the seven random letters they have been given, and are rewarded with score. On the world map, players are able to place markers about the field to share on Facebook or Twitter, allowing them to showcase their efforts to friends. If the player feels they can't spell anything with their set of tiles, then they can sacrifice a 'life' and receive a new set at random. Spread across the board there are extra lives that you can acquire by spelling a work with a letter placed on top of the life.

3) How do players communicate?

That is where the game doesn't quite fall in line with the typical MMOG standards, there is no way for players to directly interact with each other. There are however some indicators letting you know that other people are playing alongside you. Once, you can in real time see words being placed on the board, with scores flying about. Another is an omnipresent leaderboard to remind you of your spelling impotence. The last such indicator is the world map, where you can see what must be miles of words spread across a blue matrix of pure word.

4) How do players socialize?

Again, the only such mechanism is the ability to send world map locations no your friends via Facebook or Twitter. Implicitly though, you can consider the collaboration of everyones word efforts as socialization.

5) What happens if/when players logout or are dropped from the game?

They really want to start it again. Other than that, there are no consequences, since it is designed to be a casual, 1 minute or 1 hour experience. The only problem that can arise is if you had a word placed on the map, but not committed yet, if you closed and reloaded the page, your word tiles would be back in your 'inventory.'

6) What do you have to do within the game?

Spell words, accrue points, and show off your bulging literary muscles.

7) What do you think of the game?

It is a game that I can always get into, which is already very familiar to me, and is engineered incredibly well (i.e it's not made with Flash). Every time I load it up I find it very difficult to not play until I place some awesome words.

Main screen, where the action takes place.

The world map. All that white stuff is words, and the yellow box is the
viewport for the above screenshot. That is a lot of words.

Me about to show off my mad skillz to my Facebook friends.

Unnecessary MMOGification

Today, the gods of gaming smite me, forcing me to hypothetically force my game to be an MMOG. Watch as I tear it to shreds.

1. How do you plan to deal with the issue of new players arriving in the middle of
a long game? Get rid of the victory condition, or ﬁnd a way to make sure that players are matched with those of similar ability?

The nature of my game actually makes this fairly easy. The player is just an anonymous drone, violently tossed out of tubes into the world. Adapting this method of entry to an MMOG is easy, just spit out multiple drones. My game currently centers itself around exploration and puzzle solving, so making it non-linear is a bit out of the question, so instead, I would just adapt the puzzles to require more than one player at times, and to be more difficult, making players work together to reach a victory condition. Due to the fact the player can cooperatively win the game, they would essentially be running through instances of the game over and over, so to achieve persistence, the players gain experience used to slightly modify stats, or unlock small cosmetic changes to their avatars.

2. What will happen to the gameplay when a player vanishes? How will it affect
the other players’ experience of the game (what they see and hear)? Does it disrupt
the balance of the game? Will it make the challenges easier or harder? Is the game
even meaningful anymore?

Again, since players are just drones, they can simply explode and de-spawn upon disconnect, they're going to re-spawn the same way, whether they died or are connecting to the server again. Since puzzle difficulty and complexity would scale with the number of players present on the server, if the player count drops to a level where the current puzzles aren't possible, I would either design the game such that puzzles can be dynamically changed, or force the current instance of the level to die and reload once suitable for the amount of players. Dynamic puzzles would be more difficult to design, due to their restrictive nature, however reloading the world and having the present players lose their progress can get annoying. If I were an engineering god, I would go with dynamic puzzles/worlds that change with player count.

3. What happens to the game’s score when a player vanishes? Is the game still fair?

Fairness doesn't change as players leave/enter, since they are cooperating rather than competing, if you disregard griefers and non-active (AFK) players for a moment.

4. Does your game offer a player an advantage of some kind for intentionally disconnecting himself (whether by preventing himself from losing or by sealing his
own victory)? Is there any way to minimize this without penalizing players who
are disconnected accidentally?

There would be no disadvantage to player death, or failing to solve puzzles, so they have nothing to gain by intentionally or unintentionally disconnecting. The only way of increasing experience is to complete world instances, which is only used for cosmetic changes, and insignificant stat boosts (for example, maybe a 3-5% speed increase, just for fun). Accidental disconnection means that a player potentially misses out on this experience, which doesn't make the game easier or harder, just creates a feeling of persistence.

5. In a turn-based game, what mechanism will you use to prevent a player from
stalling play for the other players? Set a time limit? Allow simultaneous turns?
Implement a reasonable default if the player does nothing?

My game would be real time, since a turn based platforming/adventure/puzzle-solving game would be confusing and incredibly unentertaining. Hypothetically though, if I were designing a turn based MMOG, I would implement a time-limit to player actions, but allow them to make these actions simultaneously. Once both players select their actions, they are executed at the same time, so the longest amount of time a turn can take is a single time-limit, not the sum of the time-limits of each player.

6. If you offer a chat mechanism, what features will you implement to keep it civil?
Filters? A complaint system? An ignore system? Or will your game require moderated chat spaces?

My chat mechanism would be two-part. The immediately present system of communication would be a set of predefined action requests, such as "Press this lever," "Destroy this enemy," or "Open this door." When a player performs one of these, all other players see your requests, and don't have to put up with a bunch of people saying "open the door fagz." Of course, people often need direct communication to get ideas across to each other, so players would be able to request permission to chat with one another, then each would be presented with a text-based chat interface from where they could call one another "fagz" all day long.
7. Is your game designed to prevent (or alleviate) collusion? Because you can’t prevent players from talking to each other on the phone as they play, how will you
address this? Or can you design your game in such a way that collusion is part of
the gameplay, as in "Diplomacy"?

By nature of the game, collusion wouldn't be too large of an issue, since players can't actually attack each other, but there are still plenty of ways for them to mess with one another.

One such case would be locking players out of rooms with doors that can only be locked one-way. This gives one person too much power over others, they could literally lock everyone but themselves out of a room, essentially stopping the game from moving forward at all, so, this is a big issue. The only real way to deal with the problem is to eliminate doors with such behavior, making doors permanently remain unlocked, via switches that can only be thrown once. This still allows for interesting puzzle solving, without giving one player the ability to screw everyone else over.

Another possible greifing opportunity arises from players just refusing to help everyone out and solve the puzzles. Remember how I said that puzzle complexity scales with player count? If the player count is at the minimum value for the current puzzle to be instantiated, this means that some puzzles can require every single player to work together at some points, which is a big problem is someone feels like annoying others (and this is the internet, assume EVERYONE wants to do this). To resolve the problem in an easy way, I would implement vote-kick system, so that other players can kick the problematic player from the game, thus throwing the game into a puzzle complexity state one notch below its current level. The more interesting solution to this issue would is to use the vote system again, but to allow a selected player temporary control over the problematic (or non-problematic) players drone. This kind of opens up a new griefing opportunity, so I would make the required vote count either unanimously yes, or very close to it (of course the griefer would vote no, and the player being nominated to take control votes yes, so just don't let these two players vote).

Friday, May 6, 2011

War Games 2: War Harder - Google Maps Gameplay Fun

In our game concept, the bay area finds itself under attack by the might of the Chinese naval fleet! (They built a second aircraft carrier, and a ridiculously large battleship, oh no!) The blue ships and aircraft are the attacking forces, and the red marks and blue lines are the defenders assets and lines of defense.

Stage 1:

The attackers approach, the defenders are prepared to attack, but waiting for the opportunity to do so. The attackers bring forth two aircraft carriers (the first and third ship, from top to bottom), and a mid-short range destroyer ship (in the middle).

The attackers are trying to reach an important military base on Angel Island, and the defenders are ready to put up a fight to protect the valuable information inside.

Stage 2:

The attacking aircraft carriers are in position, and aircraft disembark. The destroyer ship, in its infinite might, shrugs off all incoming fire, and plows through the golden gate bridge, inspiring fear in the defenders! The defending forces prep for attack.

Stage 3:

The attackers move in relentlessly, losing some of their air fleet to the defenders anti-aircraft guns, but their numbers are great and they push through. The destroyer ship approaches the island, with victory soon in its grasp. The attacking bombers destroy a military camp in golden gate park, oh no!

The attackers completely overpower the defenders, and win the battle.

Cultural Issues Essay

Games serve a very important role in our lives, which isn’t necessarily obvious at first glance, but they, amongst other things, help to keep us sane in an otherwise mundane world. Games and video games have brought something new to the entertainment medium, they blur the line between work and play, which creates something far more entertaining and captivating than either of those on their own. This explosive new market changed its inspirations and competition, namely television and film—when someone can play a game and make the events in a story happen, the static events in movies can lose their edge.

Video games, most obviously, differ from movies and television in that the player can interact rather than observe. When you watch movies, sometimes you find yourself frustrated with the events that unfold, and the actions that characters make. “No dammit! don’t open that door!” You know that you have yelled that out loud during at least one movie, don’t lie. This trick is called suspense, and it is the only thing holding some films together. What if you could interact with the story, and make the story unfold in a way that makes sense to you? This is exactly what video games allow their players to do, and it changes the way players think—they may no longer be captivated by suspenseful movies, but rather annoyed with them.

So, game players are annoyed with the lack of control they have other the events of films, what are screenwriters doing to fix this? I have noticed a couple of trends in films lately. One, there are many films centered on familiar characters, which perhaps don’t yet have their own epic green-screen adventures. Gamers love their characters, especially the ones with fantastic powers and abilities, and they love it when those characters act the part of a bad ass. Take the movie Thor for example: a comic book character, identifiable only by the comic-book reading, likely video game playing teenagers and adults. The main character, Thor (surprise), the Nordic god of thunder, is thrown into the modern world to save humanity. Something like that. He seeks out the bad guys leaking into the world, and kills them with a hammer. There is really no room for drama in this film, the character is simply presented with challenges, and then kills those challenges, just like a video game. Many movies are following this trend of reviving known characters, likely identifiable by the video game playing demographic, and making them beat things up and make them explode.

More generally, the increased amount of computer-generated graphics infused in movies can also be partially attributed to the attempted ‘gamification’ of films and television. Now, special effects have been in movies since the very beginning, and have been evolving over time, but they don’t have to be computer generated to look good, even in modern films. CG is obviously very similar to the graphics in video games-- in fact, the 3D models and software, as well as the techniques used by animators, basically stem from the same starting point, and often run parallel. When a film-maker can have their special effects literally be anything they want, they can make Nordic gods whack any manner of demons with his gloriously animated hammer. The same kind of thing a gamer would likely do. You simply can’t accomplish the same type of feeling through real-world special effects (not CG), because neither Nordic gods nor demons are real.

Another characteristic that video game players develop is a diminishing amount of patience. This isn’t only caused by the amount of control over events a player has in video games, but also from the Internet and its child-technologies. Today, the ability to instantly learn anything, no matter where you are, is taken for granted. You can literally read up on the battle of 1812 on top of a mountain, just because you thought it would be funny. If you told someone that you could do this 50 years ago, they would look at you funny, laugh, and then call you a pinko commie and report you to uncle Sam. Video games don’t necessarily give you instant access to information, but rather instant access to story elements. If you’re playing a game, walking through a town and suddenly decide that you want to play the evil genius and murder every single person in the town, go for it. Want to pick up that chicken and throw it at the annoying person you are supposed to save? Why not—whatever you want to do, you’re creating the story, and can change what happens instantaneously.

Another important aspect of video game design, and any electronic entertainment medium for that matter, is audio. Again, like special effects, audio has always been present and important to films and television, but video games use sound more functionally than artistically. For example, in earlier video games, where the visuals consisted of pixel art, which wasn’t always immediately obvious, sound provided the tactile feedback that the graphics lacked. Even as the graphical capabilities of video games evolved, sound was still used in a very functional sense, to emphasize actions within the game world, making them immediately obvious simply from an audio cue. This is especially important in a 3D game, where many of the actions occurring are likely out of view of the game’s camera. In films, something happen out of the view of the camera is kind of pointless, but video game like audio cues are absolutely present. Watch practically anything on film or television, and listen for when an important person, item, or event presents itself. Perhaps the music distinctly changes, or a shining metal sound happens.

Given how much influence video games seemingly have on their competitors in the entertainment arena, is it going to engulf the market? No, they are not, and not only due to the fact that not everyone plays them. Think about the things you entertain yourself with, are they all of the same medium? You probably have a favorite band, favorite TV show, favorite board game, favorite bar, and so on. We use entertainment to escape from our boring, day-to-day routines, even if just briefly, so if you entertain yourself with the same thing every day, how is it any different than the routine you were trying to break away from? We always want something new, and video games are very good at providing this, due to their dynamic story telling abilities. They haven’t eaten up the entirety of the market, nor will they ever, but they have definitely taken their fair share of it, so of course other forms of entertainment will look to them for influence and possible success, wouldn’t you?

Friday, April 29, 2011

Tetris Deconstruction

The Tetromino

To formally define the tetromino, it is an arrangement of four squares into various shapes, and each shape variation has its own distinctive color (the cosmetic attribute).

Player Actions

Under the players control, the tetromino can rotate 90 degrees left or right, and can be accelerated downward more quickly. By rotating the tetromino, the player effectively arranges the 4 constituent blocks into different formations. So, the possible formations of the tetromino's four blocks changes with each type of block is falling.

Scoring System and Dynamics

A popular scoring system increments the player's score based on the lines that they clear by filling an entire row with tetromino blocks. Variables scaling the added score are: Number of simultaneous lines cleared (up to four), and the current level number. Typically the player is allowed to select their starting level if they desire the game to be more difficult immediately (or get higher score faster). The levels progress, regardless of starting point, when a fixed number of lines has been cleared (most commonly 10 lines). As the levels progress, the blocks fall faster, and in some versions of the game (Tetris DS, for example), the blocks don't even fall at a certain point, they just appear (but you can move them around for a few seconds on top of other blocks).

Design Practice Questions

1. What entities and resources will be in the game? Which resources are made up
of individual entities (such as a resource of airplanes consisting of individual planes
that the computer can track separately) and which are described by mass nouns
(such as water, which cannot be separated into discrete objects)?

Individual Entities:

Player, weapons, enemies, doors, save-points, respawn point, switches, platforms(moving and static), bullets

Broader Entities:

Ground(organic and non-organic), sky.

2. What unique entities will be in the game?

Described above.

3. Which entities will actually include other entities as part of their deﬁnition?
(Remember that an avatar may have an inventory, and an inventory contains
objects.)

The player has an inventory which contains references to other entities.
Weapon entities spawn bullet entities
Enemy entities can have references to Weapon entities, which in turn can spawn bullet entities.
Respawn entities create the Player entity at their world location.

4. What attributes describe each of the entities that you have identiﬁed? Which
attributes are numeric and which are symbolic?

Movable base class:

Position, velocity vector, graphics.

Item base class:

Respawns (true if it re-spawns in the world when re-loading room),

Bullet base class (subs Movable):

Speed, spread, hasGravity (bullet affected by gravity)

Player (Movable):

Inventory, current spawn location, current world location, currently equipped weapon (null if none).

Enemy (Movable):

Currently equipped weapon, move pattern(s) (AI), lethal (determine if it hurts player)

RangedWeapon (Weapon):

Bullet type (class reference), rate-of-fire

Door:

Locked, open (door currently open)

Save-Points:

isActive (it's the currently selected save-point), initialSpawn(true if it is initially set as spawn, for game start), respawner (Respawn-Point class ref)

Respawn-Point:

graphic

Switch:

target (the object that the switch activates), locked, room (the room that the switch is in)

Platforms(Movable):

moving (true if it moves), nodes (the movement nodes, accepts 2 for linear motion), moveVector (the vector describing the platforms movement), speed

5. Which entities and resources will be tangible, and which will be intangible?
Will any of them change from one state to another, like the resources in Age of
Empires?

Tangible entities:

World, platforms, doors, bullets, switch

Intangible entities:

Weapons (after they are collected from the world)

6. What mechanics govern the relationships among the entities? Remember that
any symbolic entity requires mechanics that determine how it can get into each of
its possible states and how other entities interact with each possible state.

The Player changes the state of:

Enemies, Doors, Items (Weapons), Bullets, Save Points, Switches

Enemies change:

Player, Bullets (depending on enemy type)

Doors change:

nothing

Switches change:

Doors

Bullets change:

Player, Enemy, World, Switches (possibly), Doors (possibly)

Save Points change:

Respawn points, Player

Respawn Points change:

Player

Platforms change:

Player (add to player velocity if it moves)

7. Are there any global mechanics in the game? What mechanic governs the way
the game changes from mode to mode?

There is a global mechanic governing changes to individual rooms, as well as the switching in between the rooms.

8. For each entity and resource, does it come into the game world at a source, or
does it start off in a game world that does not provide a source for additional entities or resources? If it does come in at a source, what mechanics control the
production rate of the source?

All entities spawn at set locations (which are set in the level editor). Certain items are set to spawn every time the room is loaded, and some are not.

9. For each entity and resource, does it go out of the game world at a drain, or does
it all remain in the game world and never leave? If it does go out at a drain, what
conditions cause it to drain?

All entities are unloaded when the room is changed, but their states are saved for reference when that room is loaded again.

10. What conversion processes exist in your world? What trader processes exist? Do
any feedback loops or mutual dependencies exist? What means have you provided
to break or prevent deadlocks?

Some enemies drop out of their idle movement loops and enter action loops based on varying conditions, usually based on the Player position. For example, one enemy type's action loop is to move directly toward the player at a greater velocity, and this is triggered if the player collides with the enemies vision cone.

11. Can your game get into a state of equilibrium, static or dynamic? Does it include
any form of decay or entropy that prevents states of equilibrium from forming?

No, the game is constantly in a state of inequality, since enemies will always spawn and will always impede the players progress in certain parts of the game. At any instantaneous moment, there me be a state of equilibrium (a room is loaded that has no enemies), but this is not global.

12. How do mechanics create active challenges? Do you need to establish any
mechanics to detect if a challenge has been surmounted?

The game's challenges will consist of various platforming elements, the avoiding of enemies, and sometimes both simultaneously. There is no need for an explicit mechanic to detect whether or not these challenges are surmounted-- the player getting farther in the world and saving their location at a save point accomplishes this implicitly.

13. How do mechanics implement actions? For each action that may arrive from the
user interface, how do the core mechanics react?

The player is provided a movement, shooting, action, inventory, and map interface.
Movement:

Change the players velocity after checking for collisions.

Shooting:

If the currently equipped weapon is not null, then trigger the Weapons fire method, which in turn spawns Bullet objects with the correct position and initial velocity

Action:

If the Player is next to an interactive object, then pressing the action button will cause that object to activate.

14. For autonomous entities such as nonplayer characters, what mechanics control
their behavior? What mechanics deﬁne their AI?

Their actions are determined by defined movement patterns pertaining to enemy type.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Donkey Kong Ragefest 2011

Well, the game isn't actually THAT enraging, however, it is definitely difficult, and brutally unforgiving. What makes the game so difficult is the degree of randomness that is present, and the lack of air control of the avatar. However difficult this makes the game, the simplicity of the controls and obviousness of the goal make it very inviting to players.

From my quick interaction with the game, it seems that timing is a very important skill to get down, without a quick reaction time those damn springs will get the best of you. If you want to get good, you should also have patience, and an alarming amount of free time for practice.

Here is my game, my totally awesome high score has both Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe weeping with jealous hatred.

King of Kong Questions

1. Mitchell is unabashedly cocky and fond of self promotion, proclaiming himself the "Sauce King" of Florida for his successful line of homemade hot sauces. Next to his family, Mitchell considers his arcade scores his greatest achievements in life.

How typical are these types of values and attitudes among 'core' gamers and how important is it to understand these values if you are a game designer? What are these values, exactly?

Many core gamers consider their scores and progress in games as real accomplishments, whereas non-core gamers just see them as numbers on a screen. Their attachment to their scores can vary, but every single one feels something when there is proof that they have done better than someone else. Understanding this addiction is absolutely crucial knowledge to the game designer if they are making a game for the core crowd. If the core gamer cannot use their skills to make consistent progress in a game, they will move on.

2. Steve Wiebe has been laid off as a Boeing engineer, and now spends his time as a science teacher. His friends and his wife, Nicole, describe him as a tragic figure who always comes up short, despite being proficient at music, sports, art, and mathematics.

Is Weibe's 'tragic' aspect typical of core gaming 'types'?

What role does self esteem (high or low) play in the culture of hard core gaming and such subcultures as competitive vintage or 'classic' game playing? How would you best describe the relationship between low self-esteem and videogame mastery?

I think core gamers come in all shapes and sizes of character. Self esteem doesn't matter so much, it doesn't change the euphoric feeling gained by core gamers when they accomplish a high score, which is what drives them forward. This couldn't better be represented by Mitchell and Wiebe, polar opposites in terms of self-esteem, yet competing at the extreme core-gamer level.

3. Despite Wiebe's protests that his own first score was disqualified for being submitted via unsupervised videotape, Twin Galaxies accepts Mitchell's score over Wiebe's and proclaims that Mitchell is still the record holder.

How valid do you think videotaped gameplay should be in establishing videogame playing records?

If valid, why? If not valid, why not?

Perhaps 15 years ago this would be viable, however it's too easy to seamlessly edit video with modern software.

4. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, wondering "Who would have guessed that a documentary about gamers obsessed with scoring a world record at Donkey Kong would not only be roaringly funny but serve as a metaphor for the decline of Western civilization?"

What do you think of the film?

Is it an accurate portrayal of what makes videogames so compelling for those who play them?

It doesn't really explain the characteristics of an addicting game, just that there are people addicted to them.

5. On November 10, 1981, Walter Day opened an arcade in Ottumwa, Iowa called Twin Galaxies. Though it was a modest arcade of merely 22 arcade games, it soon became known as the International Scorekeeper for the burgeoning video game industry. Under Day's direction, Twin Galaxies set rules for gameplay on hundreds of games, while maintaining a records database of competitive high scores. Twin Galaxies is considered by gaming historians as being the first organizer of professional gaming, putting competitive electronic gaming on the world map.

How important do you think organizations like Twin Galaxies are in the vintage arcade gaming community?

Could such communities exist without such organizations?

What role does Twin Galaxies play ultimately, and why is this significant to the film and its story?

Considering how competitive core gamers get, an organization for official score keeping would eventually rise out of necessity, or the gamers would just pummel each other over whose score is legitimate. Twin Galaxies acts as the goto place for core gamers wanting recognition (in vintage games), which adds much more significance to the scores, since they are officially validated.

6. The film depicts Wiebe's skill at Donkey Kong being linked to his ability to deeply understand the title's game mechanics, particularly the way that rhythm and timing work to ensure a successful outcome.

The film in one scene compared his love of drumming and his abilities at basketball as well as his musical talent as part and parcel of his gift at playing Donkey Kong.

How would you best describe this set of inter-related skills?

Have you experienced anything like this yourself when playing games? Have you been able to associate the skill of playing games with similar related skills and talents and how would you best describe the nature of this set of inter-relationships between skills/passions/abilities?

Dexterity and pattern matching and recognition absolutely ties into serious gaming. When you get into that trance state of gaming, where your skills are challenged, but you are still making progress, it's a great feeling.

7. In the film, Wiebe, while playing the game says hello to Mitchell. Mitchell didn't respond. As he's walking away from Wiebe, Mitchell says, "There's certain people I don't want to spend too much time with." Mitchell offered no explanation for his behavior towards Wiebe but did later explain that at the time of filming, he had not played video games for "more than a year", and that the filmmakers had not given him enough advance warning to train for a public record-breaking attempt. Seth Gordon, the film's Director, in referring to Mitchell's character says that Mitchell "is a true puppet-master", "a master of information-control".

What do you think Gordon means by this? What role does such behavior play in general terms in videogame culture?

Gordon is saying that Mitchell is extremely obsessed with his public image, and knows exactly how to control it. Mitchell is able to sacrifice other individuals to better himself-- without a second thought he would have 10,000 people killed in front of him to save himself. The typical core gamer may exhibit such behavior when playing a game, but not carry it over into their real lives.

8. What did you think of the film? Is it really only about the game "Donkey Kong" and those who seek to hold the highest score or is it really about something more?

The film is more about the clash of two skilled competitors, who come from opposite ends of the narcissist spectrum. It is basically played as a typical good versus evil plot.

9. Have you ever played "Donkey Kong"? What was your memory of playing it? Where were you, when was it?

Yes, and I failed miserably. I played it at one of my cousins houses, about 10 years ago.

Final Project COUNTDOWN

Deadlines loom, and I shit bricks.

My final project can be found here, in its currently incomplete state.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Design Questions

1. What types of challenges do you want to include in your game? Do you want to challenge the player’s physical abilities, his mental abilities, or both?

Both physical and mental challenges will be present. The challenges will be: Enemies, Doors/Switches, Exploration, Memorization, Platforming.

2. Game genres are deﬁned in part by the nature of the challenges they offer. What does your choice of genre imply for the gameplay? Do you intend to include any cross-genre elements, challenges that are not normally found in your chosen genre?

The challenges will take cues from platforming games, as well as action games. Pretty standard fair for an action-adventure game.

3. What is your game’s hierarchy of challenges? How many levels do you expect it to have? What challenges are typical of each level?

The game will take place over one large world, divided into 4 sub-sectors. The player will only be able to progress to new areas of the world as they gain new skills, so there is still a linear progression.

4. What are your game’s atomic challenges? Do you plan to make the player face more than one atomic challenge at a time? Are they all independent, like battling enemies one at a time, or are they interrelated, like balancing an economy? If they are interrelated, how?

At most, the player will be fighting enemies, platforming, and puzzle solving simultaneously, but only at the most hectic moments of the game. The challenges are basically independent though.

5. Does the player have a choice of approaches to victory? Can he decide on one strategy over another? Can he ignore some challenges, face others, and still achieve a higher-level goal? Or must he simply face all the game’s challenges in sequence?

The player progresses linearly, having to overcome the area of the world they are currently in before moving on to the next one. Inside of an area though, the player is free to explore at their own will.
6. Does the game include implicit challenges (those that emerge from the design), as well as explicit challenges (those that you specify)?

The overarching goal of the game is implied at the beginning, then hinted at through level design and enemy type as the player progresses. There will be no explicit goals, to make the game feel more open and encourage exploration.

7. Do you intend to offer settable difﬁculty levels for your game? What levels of intrinsic skill and stress will each challenge require?

I didn't plan on implementing difficulty levels, but it would be easy to vary the damage taken by the player to accomplish this.

8. What actions will you implement to meet your challenges? Can the player surmount a large number of challenges with a small number of actions? What is the mapping of actions to challenges?

The player will unlock 3 different weapon types, as well as the ability to double jump. The three different weapon types will do different things to the world and to enemies. Any more than three weapons and it turns into redundant gun porn (which is fine, but not fitting of an adventure game) Most of the actions will have a single use, but some will have multiple uses.

9. What other actions will you implement for other purposes? What are those purposes—unstructured play, creativity and self-expression, socialization, story participation, or controlling the game software?

The player may deformate the world, perhaps blow up a wall here and there. Other than that, nothing else.

10. What save mechanism do you plan to implement?

Saving will automatically be done at checkpoints (which are also your respawn points). Checkpoints are activated by the player, and only 1 can be active at a time.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Pinball Wizardry

In general, a good pinball game is one that constantly provides feedback to its players, making them feel as if their every action is meaningful and exciting. They should feel as if they are making accomplishments, whether or not they are skilled at the game.

A pinball table designer creates excitement for their game by spicing up the game with flair. All pinball tables are essentially the same hardware and basic gameplay, so the real thing that attracts players is how entertainment they think the table will provide them. The successful table designer adds lights, screens, and sounds that constantly run, which will get the prospective player to look at the table. Once their attention is had, the table itself has to have lots of interesting looking challenges-- not necessarily difficult ones, but ones that the player wants to make happen (explode a castle, run ball through intricate tubes, etc.)

Starsky & Hutch