Week 13 - Assignment 2 Game Design Progress

This should be my final entry for Assignment 2 Game Design.

I spent the last couple of days (outside of my normal 50 hour working week) fine tuning the design document a little and working on the power point presentations for the demonstration.

I originally started working in Microsoft PowerPoint 2011 on my Mac Book Pro (I think I just vomited in my mouth a little for admitting that :P). After spending some time in PowerPoint I remembered coming across a PowerPoint alternative / augmentation application for natural teaching / delivery of presentations called Prezi: http://www.prezi.com/. After spending some time watching how to tutorials I must say this is a fantastic product which is free for educational purposes. Hopefully I will impress the team and the class with my basic yet imho snazzy PowerPoint presentation.

I met with my team today and showed off our PowerPoint / Prezi presentation. We also did yet another play-through with some others external to our team in order to garner some final feedback and decide upon how to tweak our presentation for tomorrow given the rather limited amount of time offered to demonstrate our game.

The team seemed quite happy with the presentation and everyone is clear what their role is. We are all a little concerned that the play-through demonstration may not be long enough to clearly demonstrate the game concept and mechanics however we are going to preset our game board in such a fashion as to trigger most of the different mechanics and hopefully impart on the audience what we are trying to achieve with our game.

I am both a little nervous and excited for tomorrow but now that we have come up with a fairly unique and enjoyable product and hopefully all will go well with our presentation tomorrow.

Week 13 - Assignment 2 Game Design Progress

I spent some of the weekend working on the design document for our project and also completed my level design for a digital rendition of the game. I notice too that the guys are also working on the document which is awesome to see.

I forgot to mention in an earlier posting that I somehow managed to sink a few hours into a flow chart for our game. I am not sure even until this day how I spent so much time on it but at least we have a good flow chart now.

I have shared the flow chart out with the others and asked for their input.

Week 12/13 - Assignment 2 Game Design Progress

Once again, silly me I do not have a picture but will be sure to get one as the game board is now in it's final state.

We met again on Friday, outside of class in order to put some extra time into our assignment given that is only a week away from submission.

The game board as I have mentioned has now been complete. After I left on Thursday, Tom coloured the starting zones for each player and darkened some of lines on the game board that I had done the day before.

We then proceeded to laminate the game board and I drew up the different game squares with permanent marker for the final game board low-fi prototype. I also took the time to go shopping in Overflow for various odds and ends for the game and came up with some multi-coloured notepad paper, some magnetic strips and finally some double sided tape (grand total of $7.00 :D).

Mark assisted me with making up some new tokens and player pieces using the coloured paper, magnets and double sided tape. Tom was able to redo the game cards with a nice custom Stainless Steel Rat backing. Russell assisted Tom and also did some more work on our documentation. 

After another play-through and some third part consultation we decided to meet yet again on Wednesday (this conversation took place over a couple of tankards of ale!). Wednesday is unfortunately the earliest we could do due to other uni and work commitments.

Week 12 - Assignment 2 Game Design Progress

I forgot to take a picture today however if one of my other team members has done so I will be sure to upload it at a later date.

This week involved yet another redesign of the game board. Last week we were happy with the outer ring but had not yet finalized the structure of the inner ring. I also brought up the idea of having a shipyard adjacent to each player's starting zone were we could build the ship. The idea being that this are could be sabotaged and parts could be stolen from this area rather than having an area off board where the ships are built.

Furthermore we decided that there should only be 3 ship parts rather than 4 in order to speed up the game. We decided to adopt one other recommendation from Colin from last week which was to always have a player acting as an agent even from the very beginning of the game. This coupled with having only 3 ship cards and some reworking of game rules has resulted in a much more fluid game which is slightly faster paced and much more interesting to play.

I spent quite a great deal of time re-drawing the game board by calculating the size of each game board element meticulously in order to maximize the size of the board within the margins of the A2 canvas. I also created a digital game board on Google Docs that we could edit as we like in order to try different things without effecting our 'production' game board.

After spending a few hours drawing the game board I had to leave however the rest of the guys from my team mentioned they would continue on without me, go team!

Week 11 - Assignment 2 Game Design Progress

A view of the ship cards

The latest iteration of the game board

Progress! As can be seen from the above pictures we re-worked the design of the game board which Russell then kindly drew up neatly with a ruler. Tom did some more work on game and ship cards whilst I worked on the concept document online and tried to determine the amount of cards of each type and a list of current game rules etc.

We then proceeded to perform a couple of more play-through's of the game in it's current state to determine what other tweaks may need to take place. 

Colin was kindly able to provide some of his time a sat through a play through of the game and provided some invaluable insight from someone external to the development team. It was concluded that tokens would be preferable to agent cards when placed as a trap on the board. It was also concluded that we should create a cheat sheet indicating some very basic game rules and give them to first time player's rather than let a player discover the game without any prior knowledge.

Week 10 - Assignment 2 Game Design Progress

A week of from Uni and yet for me whenever there is a lecture recess I feel as if there has not been a break (side effect from working on campus full-time).

I tried to organize two assignment 2 group sessions for this week. I discussed my desire with the team to meet in the study break on both Tuesday and Thursday in order to work on our group based project. On Tuesday Nobody showed up at all and I sat twiddling my thumbs in E1.015 for a few hours whilst waiting. This time was not entirely wasted as I got some work done on the assignment individually and then decided to work on this blog as I have not been giving it attention of late.

The Thursday session on the other hand was an entirely different matter and I was able to get 3/4 of my team assembled together. During this session we mainly worked on refining game mechanics and started to plan a new game board. 

Another great thing that came out of this assignment session was the creation of a shared Google Drive and some associated collaborative documents so that even though we can not always meet to work on our assignment in person we can chip away at it individually in our own time.

I have to admit, this is my first exposure to Google docs (although I am familiar with other solutions such as Microsoft SharePoint. I have to say, Google Docs is a fantastic tool, especially for Group based work such as this. All of the group has now been given full access to the G Drive so we can continue to collaborate on our group project. (Great Idea Russell).

Week 9 - Assignment 2 Game Design Progress

Early Game Board Prototype

Whilst we have only been working on our game for a short period of time, I am surprised  at both how much and how little has changed. Many of the core mechanics of our game have changed dramatically since it's first iteration and overall it is still distinctly the game we set out to make from the start.

Now that we have the game mechanics roughly fleshed out we started doing some internal play-testing to determine the current state of the game and what areas need to be re-worked or enhanced in order to improve player experience.

The game it it's current state is a roll and move style game with a nice amount of strategic elements and race to the end elements. From the beginning there have been some features that we have identified that we would really like to see in the game but at the same time we are being careful as to not be rigid in our thinking and not adapt the game as is necessary through the development process.

From our play-testing so far we have learnt that current basic game board needs to be heavily reworked and the distribution of game cards needs to be reworked as some cards are too powerful / appear to frequently whilst others that are not as useful seem to not be played much (note, this could be due to Tom's infamous shuffling skills).

Week 8 - Game Review - Path of Exile

Path of Exile

This week I decided to do a review of a game in development by New Zealand based developer: Grinding Gear Games.

I stumbled across this game some time ago whilst it was still in an early alpha stage. The developers offered ongoing access to the game in it's current state and access to every succeeding build through to game release for a nominal fee. By doing so they offered incentive for early investment by the gaming community whilst sourcing crowd based funding in order to continue development of the game (an increasingly common practice for Indie studios). Note the game will be free on release and will be supported by an ethical micro-transaction system.

Whilst it is important to research games that have come before in order to find inspiration for future titles it is also important to research the current market, PoE is a product of such research. Grinding Gear Games was formed due to the distinct lack of modern offerings in the Action RPG genre of games; from a small group of ARPG enthusiasts, GGG was formed.

As is typical of an ARPG, PoE involves real time interactivity in a hack and slash style of game play. The player is presented with a user-interface containing pertinent character and status information (health and mana globe, action bars, mini map etc). In so far as the interface is concerned it is very typical to the genre and is reminiscent of many such games categorised by this genre (Diablo Series, Titan Quest, Dungeon Seige etc comes to mind). 

The player is an escaped convict stranded on a remote continent home to criminals and dangerous monster and beasts. Hey this sounds familiar, doesn't it? The player, now given a new lease on life with their freedom must complete trials of ever increasing difficulty and face opponents of ever increasing strength whist traversing the continent and progressing through the story. This is achieved by obtaining powerful magical items and developing class based skills in order to survive this challenges.

The goal of PoE differs a little from that of traditional ARPGs. Whilst at first the game follows an act based structure (only two acts), end game content is served by finding and  completing maps (which are found with similar item qualities and affixes as items have). It this way there is no definitive goal condition, only continuing mindless hack and slash that some of us gamers love.

This game offers a number of challenges for the player. As the game progresses the opponents become more difficult to best, on top of this the game may be replayed with harder difficulty modes and finally with increasing difficulty map drops. To further offer more challenge the game may be played with a variety of different rule sets (permanent death, harder monsters, world player-vs-player etc).

From what I have played (only a few hours so far) the game offers little in the way of narrative but this is typical to the genre and is not really all that necessary for this style of ARPG.

What sets PoE apart from the myriad of ARPG games that have preceded it, is that it takes everything commonly found in ARPGs of the past and puts its own twist on it. The developers have taken what everyone loves about ARPGs and packaged it into a nice neat title. The game offers everything one would expect in an ARPG and more.

Below is a screenshot of the skill tree from PoE showing the amazing complexity and the literally endless character builds that one may design (some would say this is far too complex, I love it!).

This game has highlighted to me once again the importance of not deterring too much from the standard path / genre of a game. As has been mentioned to us in class, humans like something to be both new and yet familiar. PoE is a great example of this. There are far too many examples of what sets this game apart, too numerous to list in this review to be certain.

On that note, I might just have to fire up PoE and play some more :D 

Week 7 - Game Review - Fruit Ninja

This week I decided to do a game review on the now famous: "Fruit Ninja" developed by Halfbrick Studios in Brisbane, Australia.



Ashamedly although I had heard of Fruit Ninja I never really knew much about it or had played it until I was fortunate enough to actually meet Jason Harwood, Producer of Halfbrick Studios. This was largely due to me personally but really being a fan of games on smart phones however Fruit Ninja completely changed my opinion of the platform and it's viability for gaming.

Fruit Ninja is a game that was completely designed around the interactivity with the user. Until Fruit Ninja came along there were games that exploited almost every gesture that the iPhone's touch pad offered bar one (swipe). With this in mind Halfbrick set out to produce a game that revolved around the swipe feature and did so in a way that was both unique and ingenious.

Fruit Ninja is an arcade style game that involves the player continually slicing an array of fruits as they are "thrown" up from the button of the screen. The game is typical of many side show alley style shooting arcade games that have come before it but differs in  it's interactivity using the swipe mechanic.

The spatial arena involves a a simple, static back-drop with the only movement involving the randomly generated fruits as they are thrown into the player's view.

Whilst the game offers a few modes they are all virtually variations of arcade mode. The  player must slice all of the fruit on the screen (preferably in a single swipe for additional combo points). If a fruit is missed the player looses a life, once all lives are lost, the game is over with the score presented.

Challenge is mainly provided in the form of trying to outdo your previous high score and by trying to avoid randomly generated bombs that are substituted for fruits whilst attempting to slice all fruits currently visible in a single motion. Difficulty increases over time which ensures that a player will not easily beat their previous high score.

The game lacks little in the way of story. As the game is an arcade style of game intended to be played casually on a portable device it does not require it, nor to I believe the addition of narrative have any benefit to the game.

All in all Fruit Ninja proves that one can take a tried and true formula of which numerous games have been developed by in the past, add a slight twist and become an instant success (well over 300 million units have been sold across all platforms to-date).

This further re-enforces what I have learnt in this subject; whilst humans like change, they do not like too much change. Rather than aiming to produce a radically different game that is in no where similar to anything that has ever come before it, there is usually more chance of success in looking to the past for sources of inspiration and adding a new twist to revitalize the concept.

Week 6 - Game Design - What do you see?

This week's Game Design workshop involved a group based activity. We were tasked with defining a list of around 20 objects and items appropriate (mise-en-scene) for a famous / infamous person (real or imagined).

The list was then ordered in such a manner that the least obvious mise-en-scene associated with the person's name given to us (Hitler) were listed towards the top with the most obvious towards the bottom.

A game was then played with other groups from around the class with each group member attempting to 'guess' the identity of our person as we revealed increasingly obvious mise-en-scene associated with him.

The goal was to make guessing the identity of the person achievable before the 20 mise-en-scene had been revealed without making the mise-en-scene too obvious (challenge aspect).

Despite Hitler's place in world history we actually found it hard to construct a list of 20 mise-en-scene without making it too obvious whom the person is. It was an interesting design challenge which emphasised the importance of appropriate mise-en-place in games.

Week 6 - Game Review - Dear Esther

I've decided to do this week's review on a game called Dear Esther, originally released as a free mod for the Source Engine in 2008 and then with the help of Indie Fund remade and released commercially in 2012.

Before I break down the constituents of this game it is worth nothing that the categorization of Dear Esther as a game is debated even now as Dear Esther whilst offering some traditional game elements lacks many others and plays through as more of a semi-interactive narrative.

When "playing" Dear Esther it is soon apparent that there is is little in the way of interactivity with the environment. This game does not offer the standard exploratory formula of find item x and use in conjunction with y to progress to location z. The game plays out entirely as a kind of visual audio book with the narrative told out in at times disassociated, fragments chunks triggered randomly as the player explores the island setting.

Whilst at first it would seem that Dear Esther ascribes to the exploration genre due to lack of interactivity with the environment, lack of goals, decisions, repercussions and direction it can not really be categorised in this manner. The game was created as a narrative experiment utilizing a first person game engine to tell out a story.

The player takes the role of a man that has lost someone he cares about in a car crash. As the player explores the island, fragments of letters written by the player to Esther are narrated. Due to the story unfolding randomly as fragments are revealed whilst the player explores the island, the story is mostly envisioned by the player with the narration acting as audio queues to drive forward the player's imagination.

The setting takes place on a relatively desolate and uninhabited island. The environment is mostly sandbox but can at times be annoyingly linear. As there are no objects you can interact with and no apparent goals in the game the player tends to take in the surroundings as you would if you really were on an island rather than looking for items to use, way-points to progress towards etc. Due to the lack of these from the game it can be disenchanting to find a small steep slope that can not be traversed even though this would be easily possible in real life.

Dear Esther does not really offer any goal, whilst the player can explore the island and eventually find the radio tower at the island's summit which triggers a final monologue and scene the game is more about the experience and not about reaching an end condition or goal.

Just as this game offers no goal is also offers no challenge. This game is entirely about experiencing the character's feelings and emotions and his fragile state of mind as he offers letter fragments to Esther in order to come to terms with his loss. The only challenge which you could attempt to undertake would be to hear all narrative fragments by exploring all areas of the island however this would be a player driven challenge and not one intended / directed by the creators.

As can be seen from above Dear Esther does not fit into the mold of what would typically constitute a digital game. Whilst Dear Esther was created as an experiment in story telling using a game medium as a means to progress the narrative it has turned out to be a success with over a quarter of a million units sold on Steam.

I have particularly enjoyed reviewing this game as it has taught me that not all games need to be created with traditional formulas and expectations in mind. This game shows that the game medium need not just be used as an entirely interactive medium for story telling. Perhaps this is an indication that as mature as game development is there are still other avenues to explore in regards to how games are used and their role in society.

Week 5 - Design Challage - Jack and the Beanstalk

Hand drawn "Screen shot" of what the game could potentially look like

Our second task for this week's workshop was to take a short story and unpack it in terms of the three act structure and story grammar. If the story could lend itself to being transposed into a game we had to further decide what elements should be removed or what elements should be added using a little "creative license". 

For this week's design challenge we chose to base our game on the well known English folktale: "Jack and the Beanstalk". For a background on the version of the story used please refer to the following link on wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_and_the_Beanstalk)

We decided quite early on that a top to bottom scrolling platform genre would be ideally suited as a game adaption for this story. With the game taking place on the beanstalk as Jack traverses it's height to the top. 

The game will have several objects both beneficial and detrimental to the players progression. As the vine grows the player will be forced to jump between platforms (mostly composed of leaves extending from the vine itself). Whilst the player is jumping between platforms, the player will come across various creatures (giant caterpillars, bugs, wasps etc) that will attack the player. The giant residing on top of the cloud which will be the game's eventual end boss will also intermittently drop various objects from the land above down onto the player in order to inhibit the player's progress (a slight twist on the original story, in the game the giant is defending the hen that lays golden eggs).

The player will also come across beneficial objects such as the golden harp (which can temporally put the giant to sleep, which stops falling objects), along with various seed pods which may provide a temporary benefit.

A list of currently proposed objects is listed below...

Beneficial objects

Red Bean           Adds Fire attack to Jacks Axe / Berserk mode for Jack

Green Bean       Enables Jack to jump higher

Blue Bean         Makes Jack invulnerable to attacks for a short period of time

Golden Harp     Temporarily puts the giant to sleep

Golden Egg       Increases player's score by a large amount

Bag of Gold      Increases player's score by a small amount

Plate of Food   Restores player's health

Detrimental objects

Purple Bean      Causes Jack to become ill, slows movement speed

Vine Spikes       Causes small amount of damage to player

Falling Objects  Causes small amount of damage to player

Rain Cloud        Causes platforms to become slippery

Storm Cloud     Random lightning bolts that may damage player or enemies

Hail Cloud        Causes small amount of damage to player + slowness condition

Fog                  Obscures portion of screen with fog

To progress through the level and either avoid or pick up objects the player may jump in any direction (up to a higher leaf, down to a lower leaf, left / right to the other side of the vine). Whilst a player may drop down to a lower level if necessary to avoid an obstacle / enemy the player must be cautious to not touch the bottom of the screen else they will lose health from the spikes growing out of the beanstalk.

In order to combat enemies Jack may use his axe however the player must make the choice of either avoidance or confrontation based of Jack's position on the screen relative to falling objects and the spikes a the bottom. If the player is struck by an object or an enemy the player will lose health which may be recovered from falling food plates or slowly due to regeneration.

The game is full of unpredictable elements. Ideally everything will be randomly procedurally generated with leaf and branches randomly sprouting, monster placement and object placement all randomised. Also to obtain a bean the player must break open a randomly generated bean pod when it sprouts which has a random chance to be a good or bad bean (75% good, 25% bad).

Finally once the player traverses the progressively difficult levels Jack will be forced to confront the giant for the golden hen. This will involve similar mechanics to the rest of the game and will act as a conclusion point for the game.

Week 5 - Game Design - Escape Game

A quick prototype of the Escape Game's Game-board 

A must say that this week was a vast improvement over last week. Throughout the course of the week I was a little worried about this week's workshop. I even thought that perhaps I should contact and sit down with the other members of my group before the workshop in order to have more time to work on the design.

As it turns out I did not need to worry; the team was much more cohesive this week and worked together much better than the previous week. So much so that we were able to finish an initial prototype of the game and were able to do some preliminary play testing before the second task in this week's workshop.

Whilst I will most likely elaborate further after next week's workshop has concluded the game as it currently stands in on a space station. You wake from life support along with the other players and find yourself in a critical situation. The space station is damaged beyond repair; however upon inspecting the nearby escape pods you notice that several key systems are damaged / missing.

The aim of the game is to traverse the board collecting the four missing parts from the escape pod: "Micro Fusion Cell", "Life Support Module", "Quantum Computer Module", "Quantum Vacuum Reactionless Drive" (yes I know I am a nerd). These modules may be collected by either traversing to each sector of the station by dice roll or by landing on another player's square and dice rolling to steal a missing module from them.

Once all four modules are collected the player needs to make their way to the escape pod before they are caught by other player's who may be short a part. Whilst the game requires further work we certainly have the beginning of what could be a good escape game here.

Week 4 - Game Design - Escape Game

An early concept picture of our space based escape game.

Thoughts on brainstorming and this week's workshop

During the week 4 workshop the class was segregated into groups of three, tasked with the design of a game built around the escape exploration concept. 

This task is to take place over the next couple of weeks with week 4 focusing on the setting and story, the theme, objects / keys and some of the initial rules and constraints utilising brainstorming techniques in order to design the prototype of the game.

Whilst I have done some brainstorming in the past and did indeed (at least to some extent) realise the importance of not criticising the the ideas brought forth by others, and to encourage differing views and approaches this became even more apparent as my team's brainstorming session continued. 

I felt that although we spent the better part of two hours working on a prototype our progress was artificial hindered due to constant interruptions, objections and complaints to every idea that was raised. Quite often the person raising the objection would be objecting to something that was already thought of with a solution literally only a sentence or two away but such solutions were never conveyed due to constant interruption.

One especially frustrating and discouraging point was that quite often when objections were raised and ideas and thoughts were interrupted the person doing the interrupting would only comment on the negatives but not on the positives and would be focusing only on the problem and not on the solution. Whilst it is frustrating to be interrupted mid sentence during the delivery of an idea it is even more frustrating when the person interrupting offers no solution / advice or support only a complaint.

Thinking of the experience above it was still a valuable experience as it further reinforced that during a brainstorming session you must not interrupt, discourage and criticise the ideas of others but instead encourage and build upon ideas offered. In some ways today's brainstorming session reminded me of work meetings as the exact same situation can be a frequent occurrence...

Week 4 - Game Review - Adventure

Adventure above is a screenshot of the game in all of it's textual glory


Playing adventure was for me a nostalgic trip back through time to my gaming roots. I have many fond memories of playing text based games and MUD's in my early childhood and indeed some of the very first digital games that I have ever played were text based.

Adventure is mostly typical of the genre, a text based adventure game (the first of it's kind) and a form of interactive fiction, where Adventure sets itself apart however is in it's relative ease of use due to the game's understanding of standard English rather than key words and also in the accuracy of the game setting. Adventure also makes use of abbreviations to be further approachable and was written at the time to be usable by people whom were relatively inexperienced with computer usage.

Adventure takes place in a fictional world that has been heavily influenced by the Mammoth Cave system in Kentucky and is known for being so accurate that cavers whom have played the game have been able to easily navigate their way through parts of the Mammoth Cave system on their first visit due to the game's accuracy. The game world is further augmented by fictional elements such as mythical creatures inspired by the works of J.R.R Tolkien's "The Hobbit".

Upon launching the game the player is presented with a console in which the game outputs a descriptive summation of the player's surroundings, the player may than parse in commands to the game through the prompt such as: "Walk north". Whilst this game obviously lacks in aesthetics and is entirely dependent on descriptive and well written narrative the game can be quite immersive as it allows the player's imagination to envisage the game environment.

As the player delves into the world of Adventure they may come across various objects that will help them in their travels. Eventually as the player progresses through the game they may stumble across treasures within the cave system with the game accumulating a score dependent on the player's progression throughout the game.

Games such as Adventure were born largely in part due to the limitations of hardware at the time, this genre of game however still lives on in present day both as emulations of previous games and as newly created games with the genre often used as a means for new programmer's interested in game programming to utilize their programming knowledge in a practical manner.

Having an interest in game design and development in this day and age and wanting to develop games can seem be both approachable and seemingly unachievable. On the one hand we have almost unlimited resources both from a knowledge base perspective and a hardware perspective however on the other hand most gamer's these days are only content with A+++ titles with multi-million dollar budgets. Thankfully independent video game development is currently experiencing a resurgence with digital distribution networks and development tools simplifying the creation of, improving the quality and increasing the exposure of indie games. 

Week 3 - Game Review - C&C Tiberium Alliances

 Command and Conquer Tiberium Alliances (due to being a browser based game it is available on all platforms including Linux).



One of the interesting developments taking place in the gaming world of late is due to the upcoming release of the Windows 8 operating system. A few very prominent game development studios and publishers such as Valve have even gone so far as to say: "Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space."

Valve is an American video game development and digital distribution company which was ironically founded by two former Microsoft employees: Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington. Due to both Valve's general disagreement with the direction and functionality of the Windows 8 operating system and Valve's commitment to the Linux platform Valve have decided to port their digital distribution platform (Steam) to Linux in particular the Ubuntu distribution. 

Valve is of an opinion (of which I am in agreeance with) that one of the primary hindrances to the further proliferation of the Linux operating system is due to absence of games. With Valve porting both Steam and it's in-house games over to Linux this could be the catalyst needed to improve the popularity and adoption of the Linux operating system.

I have "played around with" quite a few Linux distributions in the past but these days I predominantly use Ubuntu and it's derivatives (such as Mythbuntu for my HTPC). Although I do not boot into Ubuntu as often as I should I though I would do a game review of a game that is available on Linux and indeed all platforms as it is browser based Command and Conquer Tiberium Alliances.

Interactivity:

Tiberium Alliances is a blend of turn based and action point based territory acquisition through offensive and defensive tactics, research and resource management.

Genre:

Tiberium Alliances is formally categorized as a military science fiction massively multiplayer online real-time strategy video game however as resources are slowly gathered in 1 hour "ticks" and a player accumulates "command points" over time as well which are utilized for territorial acquisition the game may also be considered to have turn based and action point characteristics.

Concept:

This game is purely about territorial acquisition, ladder based competitive game play leading to eventual world domination. The theme is not defined as this game relies upon previous games in the franchise for this. The setting is in a future version of Earth were aliens have infested the planet with an extra-terrestrial substance known as Tiberium for transformation purposes.

Spatial Arena:

Tiberium Alliances takes place in a large world map with each player assigned a "territory" clearly indicated by a border. As the player progresses they may colonize more territory and form alliances in order to increase their territory.

Goal:

The goal of this game is to acquire resources and territory through offensive tactics against hostile computer controller and player controller bases with the eventual goal of world domination.

Challenge:

As this game takes place in a massively multilayer setting the player is under constant threat not only from computer controller enemies but that of other players as well. The game offers various avenues for advancement through the use of offensive, defensive, research and resource management and key location tactics. As the player only has so many command points at any given time a player must plan their attacks appropriate and be careful not to over commit. 

Narrative:

This game is almost entire absent of any form of narrative. There is no story, no reason why you are fighting the enemy, no history as to why this situation came about. As mentioned earlier this game relies heavily on the pr-existing universe setup by earlier games in the franchise along with it's competitive ladder based /ranked tactical game play to keep the player engaged. Simple browser based graphics and sound prove to be more than enough to achieve the effect.

Week 3 - Game Review - Donkey Kong

During the week I had the opportunity to play Donkey Kong found on the following site:

http://www.classicgaming.cc/classics/donkeykong/game_flash.php

My observations are as follows...

Interactivity:

The core game mechanic for Donkey Kong is avoidance of obstacles by jumping and scaling up and down ladders.

Genre:

Donkey Kong is described as a Platform style of game; this is an apt description given the core mechanic of this game involves traversing each level from platform to platform (steel  girders in this case) and jumping to avoid obstacles whilst doing so.

Concept:

The theme of Donkey Kong revolves around the protagonist "Jumpman" which later became known as Mario and the antagonist, a giant ape called "Donkey Kong". The game takes place in an industrial setting (a building site) with the protagonist (Jumpman) jumping and dodging various obstacles in order to save the damsel in distress from the clutches of Donkey Kong.

Spatial Arena:

The "spatial arena" in this game is constrained to the steel girders and ladders from the bottom to the top of the screen which comprise the entirety of each level.

Goal:

The goal of this game is to attempt to rescue the "damsel in distress" in each level whilst avoiding any obstacles within the characters path.

Challenge:

The challenge in this game lies not just in reaching the goal which it itself can be difficult (especially in later stages where there are less ladders and more barrels) but also in how you avoid the obstacles. The player may earn bonus points for jumping over barrels rather than avoiding them by use of ladders. The barrels themselves are also capable of dropping down ladders rather than just rolling down the steel girders which adds an additional timing element to the game.

Narrative:

Whilst the narrative is limited and is not told in a verbal or written manner it is clear from the moment the game is started what has happened and what the aim of the game is. Given the simple core mechanic of this game any further narrative would only detract from the game play itself.

Week 2 - Game Reveiw - Canabalt

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Interactivity

 

The core game mechanic of Cannabalt is the avoidance of falling between platforms (predominantly rooftops) and enemies / obstacles.

Genre

 

Cannabalt is known as a side-scrolling platform style of game and is true to the genre.

Concept

 

Cannabalt's theme is based around the idea that your character is escaping from what appears to be an attack on the city. The setting congruent to the theme is based in a sprawling industrial metropolis overshadowed by giant mechanical constructs which appear to be destroying the city in the background. As the player attempts their escape the must constantly be vigilant to avoid fallen between the rooftops or running into enemy, either of which results in the game ending with the player's distance run displayed.

Spatial Arena

 

As is to be expected in a side scrolling platform style of game the spatial arena in constrained to a two dimensional image which constantly scrolls from right to left as the player traverses the level. Some perception of depth is achieved with use of perspective and animated backgrounds.

Challenge

 

Cannabalt whilst being very simple in concept and execution offers a simple yet adequate challenge by speeding up the player's avatar increasingly as the level progresses. This is furthered by the use of randomized obstacles and structures so that the player can not utilize their knowledge of the terrain and must instead "read ahead" and try to anticipate upcoming obstacles. A strategic element exists as well as the player may hit minor obstacles in order to slightly decrease their acceleration in order to make further progression easier however there is always the risk that the player will slow down their avatar after the proceeding platform has already been generated and the player will no longer have the velocity require to clear the next obstacle.

Narrative

 

This game offers little in the way of story and relies on the fast pace of scrolling to draw the player in. Simple, addictive game mechanics with monochromatic yet surprisingly suiting graphics accompanied by basic yet apt background music and effects are the game's strong points.

Week 2 - Game Design Review - CTF (Capture The Flag)

Play-testing Report of CTF

 

During the Week 2 workshop the class was broken up into small groups of 3 - 4 people with each tasked with the creation of a Race to the End style of game taken from Brenda Braithwaite's Blog: (http://bbrathwaite.wordpress.com/2008/07/09/the-easiest-game-design-exercise-ever-really/ )

I had the opportunity to play-test a CTF (Capture The Flag) style of game created by one of the other groups with my review and instructions for the game as follows...

As is identifiable in the image above the game is a CTF style of game and is suited for four players.

Each player is represented by a coloured token with each player assigned an initial starting area as well which is denoted by an identically coloured "flag". The goal of this game is to capture an enemy's flag and return in to your base.

Each player in turn rolls a die and moves in either a clockwise or counter-clockwise direction with the number of intervals moved determinate of the number rolled. 

If a player is able to land on an opponent's flag they must then attempt to return the opponent's flag without being intercepted. Should a player be intercepted they must defend the flag by rolling higher than the opponent. 

The first player to return to their home base with an opponent's flag wins the game.

Whilst I was told of additional rules to handle other situations such as two players occupying a non-base location at once and various other scenarios these rules where not elaborated upon nor did such situations present itself during play-testing.

During the workshop I was able to play two rounds of the above and was able to make the following observations about the game which I will brake down into pro et contra.

Pros

 

The game concept was a little hard to grasp at first and needed to be "seen" in action however once the core mechanic was understood and the rules clearly defined the game proved to be easy to play.

The gave offered plenty of conflict and also an element of strategy which I enjoyed. Being able to chose direction of movement and whom to attack made this possible.

Cons

 

Once the first player has won the game is over, this can result in a very brief match with other players feeling as if they had little if any interaction or participation.

The game rules were hard to grasp at first without a demonstration from the designers.

Suggestions for Improvement

Whilst I enjoyed the game during play-testing a couple of ideas came to mind as to how this game could be further improved.

The current victory condition is met when any player returns to their home base with an enemy flag but as mentioned above this can result in brief matches with little interaction from participating players. This could be mitigated by having a "last man standing" victory condition rather than first flag to base. Whilst this would result in eliminated players being unable to participate until the game is won, the time between each elimination would drastically shorten as the number of remaining players diminishes.

Rather than the "every man for himself" style of game-play offered a 2v2 mode could be offered. Each two man team would attempt to defeat the opposing team. When a team mate is removed from game due to their flag being stolen the remaining team member could either choose to "revive" his fallen team member with a flag captured from the enemy or have that enemy removed and attempt to take on the remaining player by himself. This would add further depth to the game and prevent other players from becoming bored whilst waiting for the game to be won. The problem with this however is that it could potentially result in a rather protracted game.

Final Verdict

 

All in all I found it to be a fairly enjoyable game and an ingenious use of limited time and resources. Whilst some cons were observed during play-testing it is likely that the game designers would have noticed the same had they more time to test the game.