Tweaks on the Royal Game of Ur

Today in Eddie's lecture we were tasked to play The Royal Game of Ur and then add our own tweaks into the game to see how they would affect it play out.

So we were first given a sheet of paper with the newer board shape on of the Royal Game Of Ur. As it is a two player game we then had to get into pairs and then get two sets of four dice and then two sets of five pieces to play the game with.

We then had to get some tipp-ex and use it to cover over two of the triangle dice. This was so that when we rolled the dice if it landed on a corner with tipp-ex that counted for one move space and each dice that landed that way up meant the amount of spaces we got to move on the board.

Me and my partner thought that it was best to play the game first using the basic rules just to refresh ourselves with the game. Once we had finished the game we started to think about what iterations we could add to the game without taking away from the basics or breaking the game. Our first iteration to the game was change the rule on the Rosette square from being able stay on it for as long as you want without the chance to be knocked off to being able to stay on there for three rounds before getting knocked off.

At this time we also added the rule that gave you the choice to group your pieces together and then move them all at once. With these two iterations we played the game. Once we had finished the game we had found out a few interesting advantages and disadvantages to the iterations. So the iteration to enable you to group your pieces together gave the game a extremely high tension to it. This because if you moved all of the pieces at once and did not make it to a Rosette square your had the chance to knock all of your pieces off in one go. We found that this work extremely well giving you the advantage to get more than one piece off the board at a time; but also having the disadvantage of having all the pieces removed if your opponent landed on that square. We found that we were constantly on edge and engrossed into the game after this.

Our second iteration was quite interesting as well as it made us have to think about our moves move carefully a remember how long we had been on the Rosette square for. We found that the advantage to this iteration was that it gave your opponent the chance to remove your pieces if you forgot about the round limit of staying on the square. The disadvantage to this though is that it was very easy to forget how many rounds you had sat there for. To solve this problem for our third iteration to the game we added two boxes on the side of the board with three circles in. We then used another counter each and put the counter on the circles for each round we have sat on a Rosette square. We found this helped us a lot to keep track of the rounds.

After playing this and adding the iterations i have found that almost any game you play you can change the rules of to either make the game better or break it.

Space of Possibility and Pacing in Casual Game Design - A Pop Cap Case Study

What are the Design Components that are important for the Creation of casual games and how can they work together to provide a space for great User Experiences?

When it comes to the design of casual games there are a few different design components that are important to have within the game to create a great user experience. A few of these components are Pacing, Space of Possibility,  pick-up and play, levels, and Time.

Pacing

Within game design "Pacing" is the concept of the over all rhythm of the game; the speed in which all the different moving parts of the game are put into motion. With the use of Mechanics, Aesthetics and Dynamics to create relaxation, tension and repetition the designer can "pace" the game. Pacing is built up of four elements which are Movement, Tension, Threat and Tempo which occur in the Lower Arch of Pacing and the Upper Arch of Pacing. According to (Venturelli 2009 p3)  "Tension is the perceived danger that a player might become the weakest side on the conflict; where as Threat is the actual power of the opposing forces on the conflict".A good way to increase and decrease tension is through the use of Aesthetics; this does not work the same way for threat. The third element Movement is the desire of the player to move forward through the levels and how the player can make advancement decisions. Then the final element in pacing is the Tempo which is the time between each important decision made by the player. A Higher Tempo means that the players decision making is slow waiting for change in the game or thinking about his movement ; where as a lower Tempo represents an frantic decision making by the player.

Space of Possibility

To design a game is to design a Space of Possibility's. In the words of Zimmerman and Salen (2004 cited in Venturelli 2009 p3) " It is the creation of a structure that will pay out in complex and unpredictable ways, a space of possible action that players explore as they take part in the game". In the game Assassins Creed it covers all the possible movements by using Parkour to vault over obstacles and climb buildings and well as all the fighting, swimming and so on. It is all these collection of possible actions and outcomes inside  designed space of a game; which are all artificially made by the system. When we play games we are always trying to work out the patterns of it; our brains are always trying to get as much information as it can and then simplify it so it can then put it into boxes in our head. This is no different when it comes to playing games; for example the game  Space Invaders . You as a player are constantly trying to work out the patterns of the enemy ships movements and the trajectory of their shots so you can figure out the best way to destroy the first row of enemies as quickly as possible.

The problem with this is that if our brains work out all of the patterns and the game does not do anything to change or add to the game  it runs out of surprises and becomes not fun to play and uninteresting. A example of this type of game would be Tic-Tac-Toe; with Space of Possibility very small with not many patterns that are obvious so becomes boring very quickly. Where as the game of chess has almost a infinite amount of moves and counter moves, short and long-term strategies  and people from lots of different cultures have tried to master the game for centuries.Although thinking that just by giving a game more patterns will make the game a good experience is not correct. What can happen is that the player will become frustrated with a hard game because they will not be able to play it right because they are not working out the patterns that are needed by the system to advance the experience. This means that you need to get a balance between the complexity and simplicity to make a casual game.

Pick-Up and Play

A Pick-up and Play game is what you sometimes think of when you talk about Casual games. What this means is that when designing a Casual Game you must pace the experience to provide the player with the time to learn and time to play Zimmerman (2008 cited Venturelli 2009 p4). In these type of games all of the learning is done while playing the game and they do not generally have the player invest a large amount of time learning patterns.


With every game that is made the designers no that eventually their patterns will be mastered completely by the players and then become boring. Although if the pattern is to hard to master then the player will become very frustrated and again the experience will end. Some of the newer games like Plants vs Zombies have started to have this new system where they  have their  basic patterns for the game which are very seductive  but after a while like all games eventually get boring and starts and ends the seduction and experience. So what they do is just before the game loses its tempo is add in or replace some of the mechanics and patterns within the game. This then gives the game the sense of the game being impossible to stop playing. The key to this i trying to find the balance between the familiarity and the newness; this is is done by keeping the core mechanics and changing the peripheral ones.

One of the main companies that are responsible for the rebirth of these casual games is Nintendo. They are however not the only ones out there as there are many pick-up and play and family friendly games that are also on Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC.

So in conclusion our new Casual Games are not so much a revolution but a reboot back to games like what we used to have before the AAA games we have today. This does not necessarily mean its smaller in complexity,  in there mechanics or production. I have found that this very interesting and has given me a lot to think about like making sure that the game is not repetitive and introduces new mechanics fai 

My 3D Model

This is my 3D model so far. I decided to do this because i thought it would give me a chance to learn how to use some new tools in 3Ds Max as well as give me a slight challenge. I now have the task to texture it which i haven't tried yet but looking forward to attempting it.

Main Character For My Own Game

This is DOT and he is my main character for my game that i am designing.

Main Enemy For Group Project

This is the main enemy that i designed for my group project.

Main Character for Group Project

This is the main character that i have designed for my group project game.

Robs Lesson 06/11/2012

In yesterdays lesson we were given this list of rules with a board that was subdivided into hexagons (hexes)  and was asked to play a game and then afterwards put some of our own iterations into the game.

After we played about 10 minutes of the game it became quite clear to us that the rules had been rigged so that you would not be able to die as the players could always move out of the way before they had a chance to shoot. This meant that our first iteration to the game was very clear what we needed to do, we simply just made the fire mechanic go first before the others. This made the game a lot more enjoyable and gave the game a more strategic as you had to think about where you where going to move first so that you didn't get shot in the next round. 

Our second iteration to the game was adding some random weapon pickups to make the game slightly faster paced and to be able to shoot the other players faster. You started with a pistol that could shoot 5 spaces in front of you and some of the weapons we added were:

Shotgun- which had more of a spread affect to the shot so that you could shoot someone with having to be directly in line with them

Sniper- so that you could shoot someone that was on the other side of the map to you and shoot through the walls that were on the board.

Rocket launcher- which once shot would hit and affect a bigger area of the map in a flower shape

Machine Gun- this weapon enabled you to shoot in twice in two different directions 

We found that this made the game a lot more fun to play and more exciting. If we had more time our next iteration would have been to add some sort of co-op play to it so you could work together with someone. whi

MDA: A Formal Approach To Game Design And Game Research

MDA stands for Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics and is a formal approach to understanding games and tries to bridge the gap between game design and development, game criticism, and technical game research.


The MDA framework formalizes the consumption of games by breaking them into their distinct components:

                                                and establishing their design counterparts:

The meaning of theses three components are:

Mechanics - Describes particular components of the game, at the level of date representation and algorithms.

Dynamics- Describes the run-time behavior of the mechanics acting on player inputs and each others outputs overtime.

Aesthetics- Describes the desirable emotional responses evoked in the player, when she interacts with the game system. When you think about aesthetics you don't think about fun or game play but more of some of these:

1. Sensation
  Game as sense-pleasure
2. Fantasy
  Game as make-believe
3. Narrative
   Game as drama
4. Challenge
  Game as obstacle course
5. Fellowship
  Game as social framework
6. Discovery
  Game as uncharted territory
7. Expression
  Game as self-discovery
8. Submission
  Game as pastime

Games are more like artifacts than media because the content of a game is it's behavior not the media that streams out of it towards the player.

This image shows the difference in perspectives from the designers and the players; showing that players first see the aesthetics then dynamics and finally mechanics. Where as a developer works from the opposite way concentration on the fundamental parts of the game first.

Looking at this feedback system  in the game monopoly shows that the leader/leaders of the game become more wealthy they can penalize players with increasing effectiveness so that the poorer players become more poorer. Using the understanding of aesthetics and dynamics, we think of ways to fix Monopoly either rewarding players who are behind to keep them within a reasonable distance of the leaders, or making progress more difficult for rich players.

Robs Friday Lesson 26/10/2012

In today's lesson we were given these point to think about:

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

- How do players affect each other?

- Is the game perceived by the players as fair?

- Is the game re playable? If so why?

- What is the games intended audience?

- What is the 'CORE' of the game, second by second, minute by minute, the things you do over and over, that represent the fun part?

We were then asked to pair up and play the most basic versions of the game Battleships. Once we had played through it the once we were then tasked to make some iterations to the basic game to see how it would effect it. You have to only make one change at a time so that you know if that one iteration has made the game any better or worse then change it again. Our first iteration was to add a second shot once you managed to sink one of the ships which you could use straight away or wait to use it later in the game. I found that this worked very well within the game.

Our second iteration was adding more grid space by adding the rows K and 11. We found this not to be very useful and decided to just forget about that. The third iteration which we thought was a bit different but worked surprisingly well was adding different shaped ships to the bored like the triangle shaped ship, three across and one down, and the one box ship. We found that this made the game more interesting and worked very well with our first iteration.

Thinking about the points we looked at first i would say that players affect each other by taking shots at each other; but as you don't know where there ships are placed which brings the strategy mechanic to the game. I would say that the game is very fair as you both have the exact same amount of chance to hit each others ships and the rules work very well to make it fair. The game is highly re-playable as games can be quite quick and once you have played the game you want to play again to try and beat your opponent; especially once you had added the iterations to the game.

The game audience would be anyone that likes to play games, but would probably be played by mostly children and family's. The core parts of Battleships is placing your ships within the grid and then trying to shoot the opposing ships, trying to to use a strategy so that you do not miss the ships and get them to miss shooting your ships.     

Jesse Schell (2008) The Art Of Game Design A Book Of Lenses

What are the skills required of a game designer?

Animation - Most games now days have some sort of characters that need to seem alive and the word animation means to give life.

Anthropology - You have to work out what your audience "desire" so that your game can meet that.

Architecture - Having an understanding of the relationship with people and spaces will help building game worlds as you will be making more than just a building; you will be making cities.

Brainstorming - Will have to come up with new ideas by the dozens if not the hundreds.

Business - In the end of the day its a industry which needs ti make money. So a better understanding of the business side of it the better chance of making the game of your dreams.

Cinematography - Every game now has some sort of movie animation to it; this is for it to be able to tell better stories.

Communication - Have to have a good communication so that you can resolve any disputes or problems that come up as well as finding out what the audience think about your game.

Creative Writing - Going to have to come up with fictional worlds;  as well as the people and events within them.

Economics - Need an understanding of economics and how they affect games.

Engineering - New technology is always being developed and you need to know both the limits and powers of it as modern games are some of the most complex engineering in the world with having millions lines of code.

History - Need to have an understanding of our history as a lot of games are based on historical events.

Management -All teams need some sort of management working towards a goal.

Mathematics - Games are full of math so will need to delve into it time to time.

Music - To truly touch people with your game you will need to have music within it to embrace them.

Psychology - The goal of your game is to make the audience happy; so a understanding of the mind works is a must.

Public Speaking - You will regularly have to present your ideas to catch peoples attention and put your game out there. If you are not confident, clear, natural and interesting then they may not listen to what you are saying.

Sound Design - Sound is what convinces the mind it is in a place.

Technical Writing - Will have to create documents that describe your ideas without leaving any gaps or holes.

Visual Arts - Games are full of graphics and you must know graphic design so that you can give the game the feeling you have for it.

These are just some of the basic skills needed in the games industry according to Jesse Schell. There are some others like creativity and logic which are second most important but the most important skill needed within the games industry is listening.

You have to be able listen to everything to make right decisions about your game. The five things to listen to are:

- Team

- Audience

- Game

- Client 

- Yourself

You have to listen to all these things so that you know how people are and how the game is going. It not just enough though just to listen to what they are saying; you have to listen the way they say things their tone of voice, their body language, and their facial expressions. This is because they could say one thing but mean the complete opposite and its your job to be able tell.   

PAIDER and LUDUS

In today's critical game study lesson we looked into Paider and Ludus and the differences between them. Paider is a free activity where there is no goal or profit to be gained; so effectively you "play" for pleasure. Where as Ludus has clear constraints like rules and will have a clear outcome, for example winning. Within these you also have four different types of game which are: Agon- competition, Alea- chance/randomness, Ilinix- movement, and finally Mimicry- simulation/make-believe/role-play.

We were then looking at games that would be a Paider or Ludus game or both as well as having aspects of the types of games. From looking at different games I found that most games have both Paider and Ludus aspects and could fit into more than one of the types. So for example the Assassin's Creed series fits into both as it has the sand pit styled free roam where you can just go around the city's climbing the buildings and doing whatever you like as well as the story line and time challenges. They also have a part of ilinix in them as its all about movement doing the art of parkour.

A example of game that's heavily based on Ludus would be the Call of Duty series as they are all based about boundaries and having rules and not doing exactly what you want. These games have a lot of agon within them has it is all about competition on the multi-player to see who is the best. Then just as a few more examples of other games that fit into these types of games; there are:

Agon - Need for speed, Quake
                                   -Tetris is a bit of Agon as well as Alea
Alea - XCOM, FTL

Ilinix - Mirrors Edge
                                 -Tony Hawk's games are a bit of both Ilinix and Mimicry for playing as famous skaters
Mimicry - Sims, RPG Games

First Board Game

Yesterday we were given the task to come up with a board game in 15 minutes. Which at first I was a bit shocked on how long we had to make it as it didn't sound like would have enough time to make it. So in the 15 minutes I had I made a very basic board game which up to four players could play. We were then asked to play each others game and give each other at least 1 piece of  feedback that would help us make our game better. After that we had to go back and change one thing in the game that was not working properly to see if the game improved. I thought that this technique works very well as you can work out quickly if a game works and is fun to play; if not you can scrap it and start again with little time wasted. Looking forward to what we do next week.

Introduction Task to Critical Game Studies

Today we had a task to do a interview with another member of our group to find out a bit more about each other and then give back our own answers to see what we answered to the questions. These are the questions we had and my answers to them: 

1. What is the title of the book (fiction) you are currently reading (or the last fiction book you read)?

The books that I have been reading most recently are the Darren Shan's The Demonata series. These series of books are made up of 10 books which I read 7 out of the 10 in 2 weeks. I have three left to read which I have bought but yet to have finished reading.

2. What is the title/topic of the book (non-fiction) you are currently reading (or the last non-fiction book you read)?

At first I was not sure what would count for this but after talking to the group the last non-fiction book I read a part of is the Action Script 3.0; telling you some of the basics for coding.

3. What is the last live performance (music, drama or dance) you attended? 

The last live performance I attended was the Ventriloquist  Paul Zerdins. It has to be the best live show I have seen and what made it better was I got seats right at the front.

4. What is the title of the last film you saw at the cinema/online or watched on DVD?

Well for me there where two movies that I have mostly recently seen as I watched them both on the same day. The first one was the new Resident Evil Retribution 3D in Colchester cinema which I was slightly disappointed with but thought the 3D was good. The second movie was Prometheus which I bought on blu-ray. I thought this movie was amazing and very engaging and stunning visual effects. 

5. How often do you read a newspaper? (Which one? online or physical?)

I read the newspaper quite often; about 3-4 times a week as I read them as sort out the papers at work. I read lots of bits and pieces from a few different papers like The Sun, Daily Mail, and Daily Star. 

6. Which art gallery / museum / exhibition did you last visit?

I have been too lots of different gallery's, museums and exbitions over the years. For example I have been to the Tate Modern for a Photography trip for my A-levels. As well as the Natural History Museum, Science Museum, and Victoria and Albert Museum. The most recent exhibition I have been to would have been at Earls Court for the Euro Gamer Expo 2012.

7. How many hours a week  do you spend playing video games?

As mostly a console gamer I used to play games a lot; all day everyday as I didn't have much else to do because I worked mostly evenings so had the whole day from about 10am-5pm to do what ever I wanted. As I am now at University I do not have the time to play games as much any more. I would say I play them for a couple of hours on a Monday and Sunday.

8. How many hours a week do you spend playing games other than video games?

I don't play many non-digital games other than card games like cheat and rummy with my brother and sister. I would spend about 2-3 hours a week doing this. 

Start of Blogging

Hi my name is Harry and I have just started Computer Game Design course at University Suffolk. As a part of the course we have to create a Blog and frequently update it with my work and ideas. So I will be using this a lot more over the next three years. Please feel free to leave your feedback on what I do; even if it is negative as this will help me to improve on my work. Thank you