Narrative and Games

Story: All the elements which end up being depicted, not every event which happens, many things can be implied but never shown properly.

Plot: The chain of causation, these are the things which actually happen within the story.

Narrative: The order in which events are revealed.

Events in a narrative can be revealed either first hand or second hand. When a story is revealed first hand it is shown to the viewer by the character from their perspective as the event unfolds to them. When an event is shared second it is by characters who were at the event and directly involved but not about themselves.

Narrative form, however, can be linear or non-linear. The sequence of events will inevitably include diversions and delays to help create dramatic tension or elongate the intended emotion evoked in a viewer.

Jenkins argues that this means that aspects of narratives tend to be  isolated from the computer gameness of games. They may be delivered in the form of cut scenes. However not all games tell a story e.g. Tetris or Minecraft.

I feel that Tetris and Minecraft do in fact have narratives although they are player driven narratives which are unique to each player. A story still unfolds around tetris, eg. "I was so close to losing and then that piece I'd been waiting for all game appeared! I cleared so much stuff and beat my previous high-score"

Sound in Computer Games

Within most games there are different types of sounds, the main kinds of sounds you’ll hear in games are; dialogue, music and effects.

There are two main types of dialogue. The first type is narration; narration is an off screen and out of scene piece of dialogue relating to the scene. The main purpose of narration is to tell a story which can’t be fully explained though visuals. In Gears of War narration is used to great effect at the end of the games when the Queen of the Locust talks and shares her side of the fight, something which wouldn’t have been obtainable by following the main protagonists due to the fact that they never see the Queen. The second type of dialogue is script dialogue, for this example I’ll stick to referencing Gears of War because there are many cut scenes throughout the Gears of War games in which the Characters talk to each other as well as a lot of scripted interaction throughout actual game play.

Within Dialogue there is also diegetic and non-diabetic dialogue. Non-diegetic dialogue is out of scene sounds so things like narration. Diegetic sounds however is any sounds which are in the scene, even if the sounds are radio sounds. If the character can hear it, it’s diegetic. If the Character can’t hear it and only the player can hear it, it’s non-diegetic.

Foley sounds are the types of sounds you hear every day. Things like footsteps and rustles of trees are Foley. Foley is incredibly hard to pull off well for video games because you hear them during everyday life so they need to sound almost identical. Recording these sounds is usually the best way to successfully recreate Foley sounds for video games. A footstep sound might also be layered with something else in a multi-track manner in order to get the exact sound required.

Music within games is becoming more frequently present with time because games are becoming more and more immersive. Music in retro titles was simple due to hardware limitations although they still gave a sense of atmosphere within the game. In an action packed part of a game the music will normally pick up in pace and fit with the action packed scene to stimulate excitement from the player.

Theory of sound

The wavelength is the length between 2 points on a sound wave. A sound wave is a change in air pressure which the ear receives and the brain interprets as sound. The longer the length of the wave and lower the peak is, the lower pitch the sound produced will be.

If the peak of the sound wave is taller and the length of the wave is narrower, the pitch of the sound will be higher. A humans hearing range is from 20 Hz to 20 KHz

How sound is used in video games

Games all use sound differently. For instance ‘The Impossible Game’, a simple arcade style game based around navigating a square through an obstacle course made of triangles and squares uses a single sound track for each level which is just to give the player a beat to play the game to. Through playing this game myself I noticed how the beat and melody of the song matches the actions the square you control makes. The melody helps you get through the game because you can follow the song to ensure you’re jumping at the right time to complete the course. However, I’ve also noticed that as you progress through the level and the level becomes more difficult the song picks up in pace. The song becomes a distraction to the player due to the increased tempo and pressure to keep up. The effect of this is that the player feels more under pressure and becomes tense. This is something I noticed more when I played the game with no sound as I actually got further as I could just keep a steady beat by tapping my foot. 

Starcraft uses sound in a very different way; the game does have background music although that’s really all it is… background noise… Something to flesh out the sound of the game in order to keep the player immersed in the experience.

Most of the appeal in the audio from Starcraft, being a real time strategy game, comes from the in game sound effects. Most of the sound effects come from the player making an action and the game giving the player audio feedback for their actions. Whenever an in game unit is created it will say a scripted line of some sort to make the player aware that they have another in game unit to use. Other sound effects include alerts on the mini map when a player is being attacked, confirmation that a building has reached completion, sound effects when units fight each other. Marines shoot rifles, zerglings attack using melee and stalkers shoot lasers, to name just a few of the sounds effects that are present in the game.

Notable audio alerts in Starcraft are useful to the player, because keeping track of the multiple commands can be a difficult task, and the scripted audio prompts can make gameplay easier, as it reminds the player what they need to do. If you’re trying to create units but don’t have enough minerals you will hear a voice tell you that ‘you require more minerals’ or when you need more supply a voice will tell you to ‘spawn more overlords’ or their race equivalents. 

I'll admit my fear. Amnesia is horrifying, easily the most unsettling game I’ve ever played. A door swinging open could possibly be a clue to where you’re supposed to proceed; doors however could fly open as an indication that a monster is charging through. I literally couldn’t stop fidgeting while playing this game. Amnesias sound design is incredible. Cleverly used subtleties reinforce the horror extremely well. The main immersive subtlety I noticed was the character's breathing: you hear your characters breathe at most point and as you become more afraid your breath becomes more heavy and unsettled. The Character you play as sounds really terrified, he sometimes screams or moans when he's particularly freaked out. When a monster appears though is where the sound design gets slightly more clever. Scary things come and go in games and conventionally when the scary thing is gone the music will stop to give you an indication. In Amnesia, the unsettling music doesn’t end until you leave your hiding place and ensure the monster has left. It’s super effective — even if you’re hiding in a relatively safe spot. Because of this, you feel like you’re in constant danger until you find out if the monster is gone or not.

My examples all contrast heavily although they all use sounds in different ways to force the playing into feeling a certain way. In the impossible game the music makes the gamer feel tense and under pressure. In Starcraft the sound gives the player awareness and makes them feel more in control of what’s happening within the game because they’re being given constant in formation via audio notifications of what’s happening within the game. In Amnesia the player is forced into feeling terrified due to a clever use of eerie and unsettling sound effects. Overall I feel that the important thing that sound does within video games is force emotions from the player and help them play the game. These 3 games all utilize sound very well.

Job Roles In The Computer Games Industry

Publishers - What do they do?

Publishers are companies which fund projects developers put forward to them. There are many ways they fund their projects, producers will put money initially into the development of the game itself and market research to ensure the game is profitable. Publishers are sort of the overseers of the games industry in the sense that they watch over the developers and make sure their productions are running smoothly and will be profitable Activision interfere a little more than other games publishers in the sense that they make sure their product will 100% sell, they mostly just make sequels lately and have lost their originality over time. Publishers also put out ads and market the product the developers are creating, Microsoft marketed Halo 3 on release with TV ads although some other developers will use youtube to make people aware of the release of their product. Another responsibility for publishers is the distribution of the product; large production companies will distribute products themselves whereas smaller production companies will hire other distribution companies to distribute their products.

Developers - What are the different types of developers? What do they do?

There are hundreds of development companies around and all of these companies are a little different. These development companies are split into 3 categories. There are 1^st party developers who produce games exclusively for one publisher, 3^rd party developers who produce games for publishers to openly buy them and independent developers who develop and publish their own games. Independent developers are few and far between although they do release some gems occasionally. Bungie who started as an independent developer signed with Microsoft to expand the Halo franchise into the video games industry. They then became 1^st party developers for Microsoft before they moved on to join Infinity Ward and Treyarch under Activision. Infinity Ward is best known for the Call Of Duty franchise along with Treyarch.

Independent developers such as Jagex develop and publish their own game, Runescape. Quite a few gaming gems have come from independent games developers. Runescape for instance has been around online for over 10 years and is still played by a large community of loyal players.

The Dispute – Developers vs Publishers

General disputing publishers and developers has always happened since the start of video games design. The reason for this is that although both parties share the same goal of releasing great games they also have different goals to reach. Developers want to come up with new ideas and create fresh games all the time that they would enjoy to play and they would enjoy making. Publishers want money from the game that the developers make. Often times this will result in compromise to get a great game released. Sometimes however Publishers won’t respect the creativity and knowledge of games that the developers possess and will look at games purely from a marketing perspective.

Activision and Infinity Ward have a big dispute issue within the Call of Duty franchise. Activision want to keep pumping out the same title with minor tweaks because it’s proven to be profitable and the game has generated a lot of success whereas the developers of Call of Duty would rather make a lot of drastic changes to really evolve the game and unleash their creative freedom on an already successful title.

Gaming Industry Roles

Producers Average pay:  $82,905.

The responsibilities of the producers are to ensure the game meets the standards of the publisher distributing the game. Since most development teams are 3^rd party developers working with publishers to get their games released the publisher will often assign an executive producer to a specific title to handle contract negotiations including licensing deals. The producers act very much as liaisons between the development team and the publishers to ensure a good relationship and make sure everyone are getting what they want from the titles release. The biggest job I would say a producer has though is managing how time and resources are spent within a project. Their main job is to maintain budgets and schedules to optimise productivity while also overseeing the technical and creative development of the title. The time management is all based around getting the developers to reach their milestones on time for alpha and beta testing with the quality assurance team. Producers are also responsible for arranging focus groups and localization which is the process in which the software is given different languages or regional differences to fit the target audience. There’s no point in having a game work in American NTSC format if it’s going to be published in Europe on a PAL format. ­­­_­

Games Designers Average Salary: $55,600

Game designers are usually the people who come up with the initial idea for the game, they decide how the game plays and what it consists of. Combinations of skills are required for games design because it is such a complex activity. These skills consist of –management, design, scheduling and research etc.  Designers also require an understanding of all of the games aspects. Documenting their vision and being able to communicate it with the members of the development team is another skill required.

Usually games are large projects in which a number of people share responsibilities for a section of the game or ‘level’. Allocating level designs to team members is one of many responsibilities for game designers.

Mapping, detailed layout and building of the environment are all processes within the Level Design process.  Placement of interactive objects and assets within the environment are also a part of Level Design, another responsibility of Games Designers. The majority of modern games are 3D meaning Designers work with 3D modelling software in mind to ensure the Artists are able to develop the models required to make the game aesthetically pleasing.

For larger projects there will be multiple Games Designers within the team with each designer being responsible for their own part of the game, a Lead Designer or Creative Director takes overall responsibility and will allocate designers with tasks to complete or ‘milestones’.

Animators Average Salary: $46,700

Animators take 3d models and add motion; they give the models life and work within animation software such as Maya, 3Ds Max Flash to create animations. Animations are created using key frames to create fluid and life-like animations for the video game. Theatrical ability is essential as an animator because you need to be aware of the sort of movements characters would make in certain situations. Knowing how people talk with their hands etc.

Storyboarding is another responsibility of the animators since they need to plan out what they’re going to do before starting as well as express their ideas to the rest of the animation team.

Concept Artists Average Salary: $41,000

Concept Artists come up with ideas and draw them. The responsibilities of the artists are to take what’s in their head and put it on paper, usually using traditional materials as opposed to software. Sharing their ideas with the rest of the games development team is their main responsibilities. They are responsible for sketching ideas for environments, characters, vehicles, clothing, furniture and other content within the game. They also suggest how the game would feel to play in specific colour schemes.  The ideas of the concept artists determine a lot of how many of the aspects within the game will look aesthetically although they’re not really involved in the actual creation of the game art.

Programmers Average Salary: $50,000

This seems the most mysterious. From the outside, of all the game development areas Programming is the most misunderstood. Programming is the heart of the development process. The programming team are the people who write all the code which makes the game mechanics playable. It’s all fine and good having pretty graphics but without programmers those visuals would be just that, visuals.

Programmers are separated into numerous sub-categories within the department of programming. These disciplines include character control, artificial intelligence, graphic rendering engine development, middleware tools development and gameplay programming. All disciplines are more often than not monitored by a Lead Programmer who is responsible for keeping the team on the same page regarding the out-come of the game they’re creating. The Lead Programmer strategically manages the code development process. In order to create great mechanics and make things work the way they’re supposed to, programmers require good problem solving skills, strong team-work skills and communication skills on top of programming ability.

Sound Engineers

Sound engineers are responsible for the sounds you would hear within a game. They record foley sounds to be used within the world. Things like footsteps on various surfaces need to be recorded in high quality on top of multiple other real world sounds. Sound engineers will oversee the recording of music and voiceovers too since they are the most knowledgeable and have extensive experience with both the hardware and software used in industry.

Quality Assurance

Games testers or quality assurance specialists only need limited knowledgeable of the games design process because their job is literally just to find glitches. Quality assurance within the games industry requires patience due to the tedious nature of the work. Games testers also work with the design team to change mechanics in order to make them function correctly or balance them properly with the rest of the game.

Computer Game Story Development

Traditional Story Telling

Traditional story telling methods are things like myths, legends, fables and fairy tales. These are all stories spread by word of mouth. Hieroglyphs and cave paintings are also traditional but only really because they are old although they are recorded.

Recorded story telling started back in ancient times with cave paintings and Hieroglyphs. Cave paintings were a ways for a caveman to tell a story about something he has done such as killed a huge beast or win a battle. Hieroglyphs were images carved or painted onto walls to tell the story of an Egyptian royal. These story telling methods are different to the legends and myths of the Grecian and Roman times because they were recorded for future generations to see rather than stories being told through generations and being exaggerated even more every time they’re told.

Myths are completely false stories; the main characters in myths are usually gods or supernatural heroes who will have never existed. The story will have been exaggerated to make them more interesting to listen to. Legends on the other hand are based on a real person but the story about them and the core elements of the story will have been changed through exaggeration or being lost in translation. Hercules is a legend, the story of a demi-god is probably all a load of lies but a man probably did exist called Hercules and he probably did fight some big animals but not to the exaggerated size of how the story tells them to be.

A fable is a story told using animals as characters who carry out human like actions. The

story element of fables are normally simplistic although each will contain a moral to take

from them. Normally told by adults to teach children the basics of right and wrong and to educate them on how they should live a good life. The fable of the Hare and the tortoise for example showed that the Hare may have been faster than the tortoise but because he rushed and got cocky the tortoise came through in the end and won the race which teaches a few morals, 'Slow and steady wins the race' being the main one that people take from it but personally what I take from that story is that hard work and dedication pays off and you can work hard for anything that you might want.

Traditional fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm were gruesome stories told of horrible creatures and magical things that are all trying to kill and eat little boys and girls but as they became more commercialised by Disney Fairy Tales have become inspirational stories for children to tell them that they can do whatever they believe they can do If they believe in themselves and what they're trying to do. The story of Cinderella for example, the poor girl with the wicked family marries the prince in the end. She got what she wanted despite her setbacks.

Contemporary Story Telling

Contemporary story telling methods are things like Radio, TV and Books. Things that have developed to make the same story widely accessible to more than one person.

Books, those things made of paper which really revolutionised story telling because it allowed all the fables, fairy tales, myths and legends to be written down and recorded so they didn't get exaggerated and changed any more. With books though came a new way of telling stories. Non-linear story telling where you could make decisions while reading to change the path you go along to reach the end of the story.

Radio was the first form of technology which was used to broadcast live storytelling. The war of the worlds broadcast is the most iconic story ever told on the radio. The broadcaster said that aliens had come down from the sky and started killing people which sent people into a state of panic. This is because nobody had ever heard a story on the radio before, only the news so when this was told everybody went crazy. The war of the worlds was later developed into a film.

Television is another contemporary story telling medium. TV allows directors to read stories and show their depiction of what they've read to other people. Films and live TV broadcasts have really changed the way stories are told today, on TV you can watch movies which tell stories which are separated into genre's and even on TV you have a lot of different channels dedicated to showing different shows. Soaps, dramas, action, adventure, romance, comedy. All of these story types which are all shown on a screen to many people. They all see the exact same thing as each other.

Stories in Games

Stories in games are told in multiple ways though, sometimes the story is told based around the environment and world that you set your characters in. Other times the stories are told around the characters and in the case of some games like Mario and Sonic the entire story is just one big McGuffin. If your world is set in the 1920's and your character is a futuristic space robot then that just won't make sense on its own although If you include a time machine in the story and maybe a McGuffin of 'An evil villain took you're girlfriend back in time with his minions' then it would make sense. Anti gravity battles could happen anywhere with the help of an anti gravity grenade or anything like that.

Game stories are pretty much split into two separate ways of telling stories and the kind of story you want to tell depends on the genre of game you're trying to create. For example in a shooter like call of duty or gears of war you're not going to want to make decisions or change the path of a character. You just want to blast through everything and be the hero. In a game like fallout though, a role playing game (RPG), you're going to want to change how the story plays out depending on the actions you make and the decisions you make. The enticing aspect of an RPG is that you can role play and live in a surreal world changing it as you make decisions within the game.

With games like Mario though there isn't much call for a story because it's the game elements themselves that are fun. You enjoy jumping around, collecting mushrooms and bouncing on peoples heads to kill them so the fact that you're constantly chasing the princess is fine. It's just a McGuffin, a story element to keep the game moving, In Mario the 

Gender in Games

It's pretty obvious that there is a huge imbalance between genders in gaming which has led to segregation in a male-dominated industry.

The imbalance between genders is very easily shown when you look at the statistics of men and women working in the games industry throughout various roles both in development and outside of development.

The number of women who play games and how often compared to men though is very close, this leads me to believe there are some psychological factors effecting which games they play and how women see these games.

Men and Women on Playing Games

I read a rather interesting article from The Daily Mail by Deborah Arthurs who finds that women would "rather spend time playing on their gadgets than having sex".  That isn't really important as far as this article goes. The key points I took from her article were that she found women to play games more for relaxation whereas men would play for competition. The fact that men compete and women relax, to me implies there are some genetic and instinctual traits coming out from both genders when playing video games. Males in almost all mammal species' are competitive because in nature, that's how a male would acquire a mate. Women however, just need to chill the fuck out! (I'm just kidding, nobody sue me for sexism! I was joking, sort of.)

Women naturally experience more stress than men and chronic stress can lead to a breakdown in health. This could be why women consciously or subconsciously seek methods of relaxing themselves. Women statistically play more casual games, collectively, than any other game genre.

Segregation in The Market

The type of games played by each gender effects how we design games for each target audience. If we know women prefer games to be relaxing we would create games with soothing soundtracks, simple goals and easy to pick up gameplay.

With men looking more towards competition in games we would have to look at creating a more aggressive feel to playing the game. Aggressive soundtracks to get players 'pumped' for playing and get more blood flowing is a popular thing in male dominated titles such as Call of Duty, Gears of War and Halo. What makes a game competitive though? Massively played games such as League of Legends, Starcraft, and Halo (2&3) all have pretty huge skill gaps between players and as such, ranking systems.

As soon as you introduce a visible ranking system to a game, players will always compete for the highest rank.

I remember playing a game called 'Puzzle Pirates' which I feel hit the nail on the head when it comes to drawing in both male and female players. The game had a visible ranking system which held experience and skill separate very well. The game was casual enough with all the puzzling and simple games which really were easy to pick up and play although it allowed players the opportunity to compete with eachother. Puzzle PIrates offered brightly coloured, cartoon styled graphics and a soothing soundtrack. As a male, I would love sailing around, taking over other peoples boats and stealing their 'booty' although I can see how you could enjoy the exact same action purely because the entire game is based around puzzling. Sword fights, ship fights, fist fights and anything aggressive in the game was all dictated by your performance in comparison to your opponents puzzle abilities.

Deborah Arthurs (2011) Women play computer games just as much as men - and they prefer gaming to sex, survey reveals. In: Daily Mail 14th July 2011: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2014821/Women-play-games-just-men--prefer-gaming-sex-survey-reveals.html

BLOG TASK: Critical Games Bibliography

• Three full-length books (use the UCS OPAC)
• Three contributions to a book (use the UCS OPAC)
• Three articles in refereed journals (use the Summon searchtool)

These are the references for my bibliography:

Costikyan, G. (2002) I Have No Words & I Must Design: Toward a Critical Vocabulary for Game. Proceedings of Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference, ed. Frans Mäyr, Tampere: Tampere University Press.

Adams, E. (2003) Break into the game industry; How to get a job making video games. Emeryville (Ca): McGraw Hill/Osborne.

LeBlanc, M. (2006) Tools for creating dramatic game dynamics. In: The Game Design Reader: A rules of play anthology. MIT.

Jacobson, J. Hwang, Z. -Unreal Tournament For Immersive Interactive Theater Volume 45(1), pg 39 - 42, 3p

Nieborg, D. B., and Van der Graaf, S. (2008) "The mod industries?" European Journal of Cultural Studies, 11(2), pp.177-195.

Finkel, I. L. (2008) "On the Rules for The Royal Game of Ur". In I. Finkel ed. Ancient Board Games in Perspective. London: British Museum Press. pp. 16-32.

Turner, M.C., 2006. GAMES PEOPLE PLAY. Black Enterprise, 36(10), p.53

Wei, H., Bizzocchi, J. and Calvert, T. (2010) 'Time and Space in Digital Game Storytelling', International Journal of Computer Games Technology 2010 1-23

Williams, S.M, 1992. Simulation/Games for Learning : Journal of Sagset, Volume 22 , Kogan Page Ltd/Sagset.

Games Britannia: Part 2

The first part of Games Britannia was intriguing and opened my awareness towards a lot of interesting old ideas which shaped how games are designed and played today. Games Britannia: Part 2 was focused more, towards the beginning, on how board games can be used for educational purposes and teaching children manners.

Commercialized games such as 'Mansion of Bliss' and 'Mansion of Happiness' were aimed to bring children out of their juvenile minds and help them mature quicker through playing board games.

Monopoly

Monopoly is a great example of a modern board game based on an older game called 'The Landlords Game', designed by Elizabeth Magie, which was a game designed to show and bring focus to the land grabbing and renting system. The theme of money, property owning and taxing players for landing on your properties, however, actually drew people in as it was a great way of escaping and playing the role of one of the land owners they were almost slaves to.

War on Terror

Probably my favorite segment of this part though was the cover on the commercial moral board game 'War on Terror' in which the aim of the game was to obtain global domination through the liberation of other countries. In the game, players can choose to either fund or fight terrorism. Funding terrorism is obviously the easiest way to quickly conquer countries. The game wasn't designed to justify the funding of terrorism but to help people understand that funding terrorism causes other complications. People began to understand the choices which lead to the decision to fund terrorism. A soldier actually sent a letter from Iraq to one of the designers in the show questioning why he was a part of the war once he'd played the game.

Games Britannia - Part 1: Dicing With Destiny

Part 1 of Games Britannia takes us back to the roots of gaming with some exploration into modern board games and their history. To understand modern board games the show first explores ancient board games.

The influences of games can always be derived from religion, wars or just generally life. Even in ancient times games were a way people could explore a world in a very similar fashion to how computer games today allow us to escape and do things we usually can't do.

The Stanway Game

The Stanway Game is the earliest complete set of a game ever found. It was excavated from a quarry in the town of Colchester. Nobody knows the games ruleset but the pieces of the board were frozen in place.

The Stanway Games discovery suggests that Ancient Britains were further advanced than thought previously. The game was thought to be a game of pure strategy as no dice were with the set, similar to chess although metal rods were found along the game which led to the belief of the game being used for divining purposes.

Alea Evangeli

This game feels similar to Counter Strike as each player would have their own role. The aim of one of the players would be to escort the king to the corner where the other player would need to prevent them. The game was played on a grid using the crossed line as spaces rather than squares which is also uncommon in todays board games.

Backgammon

Backgammon is a popular game today which has definitely lasted the test of time as it's described as having a perfect balance between skill and chance.

Nine Men's Morris

Similar to Naughts and Crosses as it's appeared throughout history having been known to be etched into buildings and rocks. Nine Men's Morris is a "medieval Game Boy" in that it's something that people have seemed to do to pass time when bored.

Hazard

Frowned upon massively by the church as dive were thought to be products of the devil, Hazard is a dice game of pure chance in which the player must bet more and more money each round.  It was an easy way to lose a lot of money for the purpose of constantly having to raise your bets.

Faro

Faro was another pure chance based gambling game where players would bet on cards, described as being simpler to play than roulette.

Game of the Goose

Variations of this game kick-started board game commercialization. Instead of dice which were considered 'evil' the game used a spinner which basically does the same thing. The purpose of this game was to educate players on life morals.

Gyan Chaupar

The board design for Gyan Chaupar, the HIndi game of knowledge and enlightenment was themed. Each square on the board related to something in life such as rebirth, kings and ultimate bliss. Similar to Snakes and Ladders which was actually based off this game with the original board for Snakes and Ladders being circular, there is no competition or fun in the game. Gyan Chaupar becomes very tedious very quickly when trying to get exact rolls to end the game.

Chess

Chess is the pinnacle of board games in my opinion as it gives players so many options which leads to very skill based strategy gameplay. The game itself isn't hard to play but very difficult to play well. "Chess is the highest evolved example of a board game produced by the human race".

The game originates from 8th Century India and became popular around Europe by the 13th Century. Chess is a war game used possibly to teach and learn battle tactics.

La Decima Vittima

La Decima Vittima has a very common concept. It means 'The Tenth Victim' and is an Italian film produced in 1965. This film has very much of a 'Hunger Games' feel to it. Violent personalities are chosen to partake in 'The Big Hunt'. There are 10 event rounds in 'The Big Hunt' for each player, 5 for the hunter and 5 for the victor. The survivor of all ten rounds is the victor. Participants will be playing for $1 million with the winner also being seen as a national hero.

The story of the hunters and their victims are strongly focussed on. The rules and justification for the games are revealed at the same time as the characters are explored a little more in depth with romance and mind games becoming a the main focal point of the film.

It was a great film and really got me engaged from the start. The only thing I would change about my experience watching this film is that I'd have much rather watched it in class to be able to discuss with other people what they thought and really try to develop a further understanding of the film. Instead, I chose to watch it in my own time and I feel like I've lost out a bit from that.

Iterations to The Royal Game of Ur

The Royal Game of Ur: Iteration 1

For the first iteration we used 4 Tetrahedral Dice made of paper which were very interesting to make, I played using the route suggested by Bell with the middle area being used as the battlefield. To take a capture a piece and send it to the beginning you would have to land on the piece, very much like chess. No pieces could ever occupy a single square.

Initially playing the game there felt like there was not really a lot of strategic options for the player to take. The player would simply race, there was not very much in the game to offer the player any real choice or sense of control over the game. Dice always add an element of luck to a game but I really wanted to enhance the 'war game' aspect of the game. To get around this I thought it would be a good idea to add a 'king' style mechanic from 'checkers' involving the rosette squares.

The rule I first introduced was that if you land on a rosette square you are given the option of either a second turn or the ability to 'king' the piece on the rosette square you landed on. This added an aspect of perceivable consequence to the game. Players were left with a choice of either moving across the board quicker or controlling the board more. A player could only acquire a 'king' piece if a piece had already exited the board. A 'king' piece could move backwards as well as forwards on the board to allow a player more strategic options. My reasoning behind offering the choice between a second turn and a 'king' piece means that players could opt for a conservative 'race' strategy or an aggressive 'war' strategy.

The goal of the game is always to move all of your pieces to the end of the track although adding a 'king' mechanic allowed for the dynamics of the game to completely change. You could make conscious decisions to move backwards in order to put your opponent further behind. Having a 'king' piece on the board to control the middle area while you let your other pieces travel to the end. The game became more about controlling the middle to gain safe passage for your other pieces.

The Royal Game of Ur: Iteration 2

The first iteration was broken to the point where if you got a 'king' piece before your opponent you almost had a guaranteed win by controlling the entrance of the 'war zone'. The player would be free to allow his other pieces safe passage while the other player would struggle to get a piece past the king unless they captured it and even then, that player would need to be lucky to get a 'king' piece.

In the second iteration I undertook on the Royal Game of Ur, we decided to look more into balancing the dice and how pieces could enter the board because the first iteration although fun I don't feel like there was enough action happening in the middle. Instead of playing rules where pieces could enter as they please, I decided it would be good if pieces could only enter if either you already had a piece in the 'war zone' or you had no pieces on the board. My intention was to create more conflict and give the player with board control at the point in the game the option of either trying to obtain more board control with more pieces or get more of their pieces around the track quicker. If you added another piece to the board through having a piece in the 'war zone' already you would sacrifice your roll and the new piece would be placed on the first square. If you had no pieces and were introducing a piece to the board you would be allowed to roll to attempt to progress.

This added a feedback loop which meant that players who had less control of the board could quickly try to take control back within a couple of turns. The game became less about racing and more about controlling the board and getting as many of your pieces in the fight as possible to capitalize on a lead, for me at least anyway. I always opted for an aggressive game style where my opponent would opt mostly for the speedy route across the board. Racing at the start seemed to give the player an advantage but as I got more pieces on the board and gained control of the board with a 'king' piece I would be able to even the game out and even get ahead.

Most of the capturing of pieces would happen towards the end of the board because an exact roll would be required to exit the board. This made every journey for each piece exciting for both players as this acted as an illusionary feedback loop. Pieces would all reach the end of the board, 'king' pieces really were 'king' pieces at that end of the board and became crucial towards the middle and end of the game.

Conclusion

In conclusion I feel like I achieved what I set out to achieve in forcing a 'war' aspect within the game. The mechanics I introduced shifted the game away from a 'luck based' race game very much towards being a war strategy game where the player is faced with decisions to make every turn. Unfortunately I can't think of any way to take the dice away and make the game all about decision making without really overcomplicating the rules to give certain pieces a set number of squared they can move, in a similar manner to chess.

The issues I faced while iterating this game were definitely more towards keeping the pace of the game up. I wanted the game to feel fast paced as it is a 'race' game. To achieve a fast pace required a lot of careful thought about how the dynamics would shift due to the mechanics being changed.

The end game felt a lot like a checkers/chess hybrid with a race aspect. The game isn't primarily about fighting but racing however with the new mechanics I added the dynamics completely shifted and you really needed to fight to get your pieces to the end of the board, especially with multiple pieces on the board due to the iterated rule regarding pieces being introduced.

THOUGHTS: Caillois's Terminology

Paidea - Play for pleasure

'Paidea' is to play a game for the sole purpose of enjoyment or pleasure. When looking at games played purely for pleasure you need to look at games with no goal and no end. To properly understand this term we would need to think about games which have no specific in game goals such as Sims, Gary's Mod and other creation based games. Players can set their own goals within these games of course but you can very easily play with no goal and just have fun without trying to achieve anything.

As a naturally competitive gamer who gets the majority of their gaming thrills from winning I can't say I experience this sort of feeling too often although when I played a lot of Halo I remember using forge mode a lot and messing around. We would experiment with the physics in the game by quickly rotating a large grid with collision and driving tanks off a cliff and into the spinning grid to launch them miles across the map.

Ludus - Playing with rules and/or an outcome

The majority of the games I enjoy playing are games with a decisive outcome where the winners and losers are all very clear. Many people will play games with a story to watch the unfold and experience that but personally I drift far more towards multiplayer. A ludus game is a game with a definite outcome a player will aim to manipulate into their own favour.

As a Ludus game I will use Starcraft as an example. There are tie games extremely rarely in Starcraft due to the nature of the RTS title being similar to chess in the sense that it's very rare that there are no more options left for the player to make decisions which may lead them closer to the outcome which a very high percentage of the time is either winning or losing.

Starcraft is a game you can't really play with a paidea mindset. There is so much to constantly think about within the game when playing that even if you do play the game 'just for fun' you will always have the goal of winning. Players will often try outlandish strategies to 'mess around' while playing but their goal is still always to win. They are only adapting the goal, not taking it away.

Opinions on Paidea and Ludus and how they contrast

Paidea and Ludus are complete polar opposites. Roger Caillois sought to systematically classify games although I feel that it's difficult to seperate a lot of games so strictly into these categories. Modern computer games often give players a lot of freedom to do what they want and gain the experience they're looking for within the games they play.

I feel like Paidea and Ludus would be better to describe the state of mind a player is in when they sit down to play a game because a lot of games now are versatile and although many games with a goal will be played to their goal, if a player isn't engaged in the game the way the designer envisions them to be, they may find players taking on a more Paidea way of playing the game.

Agon, Alea, Ilinx and Mimicry

Agon - meaning Competition.
Alea - meaning Chance or Randomness.
Ilinx - meaning Movement
Mimicry - meaning Situational, Make-Belief or Role-Play

Examples of Paidea Games:

Agon - Sims
Alea - Snap
Ilinx - Playing catch or other physical games with no goal.
Mimicry - Dungeons and Dragons (Live acting version where people act out the story)

Examples of Ludus Games:

Agon - Chess
Alea - Poker
Ilinx - Football, Tennis and other physical sports
Minicry - World of Warcraft

NOTES: Richard A. Bartle: Players Who Suit MUDs

What is a MUD?  A MUD is a Multi-User Domain (or Dungeon, depending on the source).

In the article written by Richard A. Bartle, he describes his research of player types and the four main things players typically enjoy within a gameplay experience. The four main things are achievement within the game, exploration of the game, socialising with players and imposition upon other players. In abstract we are left with; explorers, socialisers, killers and achievers.

Achievers - set game related goals for themselves and set out to achieve their goals.

Explorers - try to figure the game out. Explorers explore the mechanics and the game world by means of experimenting with the way the world works.

Socialisers - May enjoy role-playing in context with players and will make use of the communication tools within the game.

Killers - cause grief and distress to other players by using the tools within the game world or in occasionally help other players.

Players mostly drift between all four gameplay styles, players usually tend to have a primary gameplay style though and will only change their style to continue with their main interest. For example an explorer in Skyrim may only achieve goals within the game and go on quests just so that they can see more of the game world.

Bartle then explains which dynamics and mechanics we can use as designers to  drive these different types of players within the game world.

Space of Possibility and Pacing in Casual Game Design

Marcos Venturelli of Kranio Studio wrote an interesting case study of PopCap games called: Space of Possibility and Pacing in Casual Game Design. In his case study he looks specifically at the multiple approaches to designing casual games by PopCap.

To discuss the entire design process of a casual game in one article would be ridiculous so this paper focuses mostly on the in depth aspects of pacing in a casual game. This paper aims to build upon a vocabulary towards casual games as well as discussing what makes a 'Casual' game.

A casual game is considered 'Games that offer the possibility of pick up and play experiences that can be enjoyed in small bursts and interrupted by players without penalty of perceived penalty.' despite casual games being labeled as 'Games that generally involve less complicated game controls and overall complexity in terms of gameplay or investment required to get through the game'. Casual games aren't all less complex mechanically and often implement difficulty ramping as the player progresses through the game.

Pacing - The pace of the game is set by the designer to indirectly craft the player experience and is the speed at which the game will physically move. The designer of the game will create relaxation, tension and repetition through manipulating the mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics.

Restricting the Space of Possibility - Creating the rules, designing a game is designing a space of possibility. The creation of a structure that will play out in complex and unpredictable ways and a collection of all possible actions and outcomes inside the design space of the game - all actions and outcomes artificially made possible by the system.

Player Experience - Our brain, according to Raph Koster [2005], is pretty good at figuring out patterns while playing games: "the destiny of games is to become boring, not to be fun. Those of us who want games to be fun are fighting a losing battle against the human brain because fun is a process and routine is its destination (...).  All of this happens because the human mind is goal driven". This takes the definition of "fun" as being "pleasure with surprises" [Schell 2008]. When the player stops being surprised, the game stops being fun. If all the patterns in the game have been figured out, the game loses its replay value as it is no longer difficult and engaging.

Concepts of  Pacing

Movement Impetus - Movement Impetus is the will or desire the player has to progress forward through a level. It determines how willing to make 'advancement decisions' the player is thus representing their interest to keep playing and continue their progression.

Tension - Tension is created using danger the player can perceive that may put them at a disadvantage. Aesthetic resources such as graphics or audio may be used to affect how the tension is increased or decreased in order to create enjoyment for the player through the manipulation of tension.

Threat - Threats are generated within the game mechanics. They exist as the power struggle constantly trying to put the advantage in favour of the players opponent(s).

Tempo - Tempo is the 'Intensity' of play and is a word used to explain the time between each significant decision made by the player.

A simple game will get boring very quickly as the player discovers the patterns within the game they will move on to another game or activity which will offer them a challenge. Making the game more complex will force the player to spend more time learning and then mastering the patterns in the game. This consequently slows the tempo and reduces Player Impetus if the player feels overwhelmed by how complex the game is to play.

Perceivable Pattern of Continuous Learning - Players must be seduced into the game and then continuously seduced into staying with the addition or replacement of mechanics. Peggle uses a very nice replacement mechanic as you progress. After each 5 levels the player will progress to using a different 'special ability' triggered by a green peg. This keeps players interested as the patterns in the game change and the player is constantly introduced to new 'special abilities'

Chance

To explore chance in games I was asked to read chapters 5&6 from "Challenges For Game Designers" by Brenda Braithewaite and Ian Schreiber.

Delaying or preventing solvability

Games become solvable once all the possibilities in the game are shown to the player to make the game able to be figured out completely by just looking at it, when nothing is hidden a game is solvable. Tic-tac-toe is an easily solvable game due to the lack of possibility and options to the player and so the game will play out similarly each time resulting in many tied games.

A game such as Chess or Checkers are solvable games since everything on the board is visible to the player. Since there are so many more options open to each player it remains entertaining due to replay value through the large field of possibilities allowing each game to play out in a different way.

Competitive for all players

Games such as chess and checkers are unsuitable for casual play due to the huge skill gaps between each player. For high intensity and dynamic competitive play this is perfect as it's easy for the player to see why they lost and how they can improve for the next game, adjusting their strategy accordingly. For casual play however, players will often choose to play a game driven less by competition by skill and more by randomness which would allow for children and less skilled gamers an equal chance in winning giving everyone an enjoyable game experience.

Increasing Variety

Variety in games can be increased by adding random elements, games with no random elements always start the same way and exposes players to similar situations each time the game is played.

Players must cope with a wide variety of situations once random elements are introduced such as in the random setup of 'Settlers of Catan'. Random battles in Risk force players to change their strategies depending on the outcome of the battle thus forcing players to make new strategic decisions and adding variety. Variety increases the replay value of a game.

Dramatic Moments

Dramatic tension is easily created by using the outcome of a random dice roll to determine an important part of the game. The more at risk over the roll the more tense the moment will feel and the more excited or anxious the player might become.

Enhancing decision making

Decisions in games are far more interesting when there are more options available for the player to choose from and those decisions all have very clear outcomes. Random decisions and obvious decisions aren't very fun for the player as it denies them a lack of control over the game and gives them a feeling of the game playing itself out.

Mechanics of Chance

Dice

When you add a dice mechanic into a game you're always going to be adding randomness. 1 dice is the most random you can get as the chance of a player rolling any number from 1-6 is equal. Once you add a 2nd dice there becomes more of a chance of rolling numbers towards the middle of the dice roll and less chance of rolling numbers at each extreme. This is due to a 7 being able to be made by 1+6, 2+5, 3+4, 4+3, 5+2 and 6+1 whereas a 2 is only obtainable by 1+1 and you can only roll a 12 with 6+6. Similarly the more faces on the dice, the more random it becomes.

Cards

Cards are great for adding randomness to a game. They can be shuffled, randomizing their order and then dealt out to be used as the game instructs. Cards can be used in many ways, a standard deck of 52 cards is used in many ways and unlike a dice is a finite resource. You can roll a dice infinite times although cards run out which can make a great ticking clock mechanic.

Cards can be used in other games without using the standard deck of 52. Cluedo uses cards as a way of exchanging information between players. Monopoly uses cards as a way of managing properties. Chance and Community chest cards act as random elements within Monopoly to add dramatic moments.

Pseudo-Random number generators

Pseudo-random number generators are complex algorithms used to create a close enough random number for games purposes on a computer.

Hidden Information

RTS games often implement a 'fog of war' mechanic to conceal information from players, this makes the hidden information random for the player but not for the opponent. When playing against a human opponent this adds to the games enjoyment in my opinion as it adds strategy. Players must know all the possibilities which may come out of the 'fog of war' in order to defeat their opponent. A 'fog of war' mechanic gives players incentive to find out what the opponent is doing and forces action as there is never certainty that you will be safe until you know what if going on within the game.

Completely Random Games

There are two main types of completely random games. Childrens games which are designed for the game to play itself such as 'Snakes and Ladders' and gambling games. Although not all children or gambling games such as 'Roulette' or 'Craps' are completely luck based there is a high chance that if you find a 100% luck driven game it will be one of the two.