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.