A Game to play at the Park

My game idea to play next time you go to the park is Capture the Fort. The Game is played by first having 2 teams 1 to attack the fort and raise the flag to win and defenders who have to tag and jail all attackers or stall until the end of the time limit to win.

Within the two teams a single Captain needs to be elected to co-ordinate strategies and organize the team to try and win. The attack HQ is purely a re-spawn point for freed tagged attackers to return to before they can attempt to capture the fort again.

How it's played:

• 2 equal teams 1 to defend and 1 to attack
• 2 Captains 1 on each team to co-ordinate attack and defense
• If an attacker is tagged by a defender they are taken to jail
• If a jailed attacker is tagged by their team mate they are freed and need to escape back to attack HQ
• Time limit of 10 minutes per round after which the teams change objectives

Objective:

• Attack: Sneak and infiltrate the defended fort and raise the flag
• Defend: Attempt to tag all opposition and get them all in jail

What every Game developer needs to know about story

This was an especially interesting read for me and very helpful, what better example to talk about how story is written, formulated and implemented into games then referring WAY back to the 1920's and the beginning of cinema.

First of no matter how similar games and cinema are they also couldn't be more different just as movies are similar to plays but different. It needs to be said just as John Southerland put it.

"Games aren't movies and movies aren't plays."

Now that's out of the way to understand the success of movies we first need to know how and why they failed, because there can be no progress without failure, that's how we learn from our own and the mistakes of others, and it's just the way the world works.

So why did movies fail? the reason is simple. It's because at the time movies were seen as nothing more than a recorded play, I mean why would anyone want to pay to see a recorded show that is the same as going to watch a real play, people want to experience things and at that time you could always experience a play but never a movie. Why is this? well it's because the camera would be set in the centre of the audience would sit and the camera would "roll". However directors weren't aware that the human eye is always observing everything in their line of site and because films were made like plays the audience eyes would always wonder around the screen because there was nothing to keep their to focus on. Generally speaking they hadnt discovered what this story form was good at.

Until the arrival of ingenious camera angles, with camera angles in play such as panning, zooming and close ups the audiences eyes became focused on what was happening on the screen because the images were always changing, and later became used to enhance the emotional connection between the audience and the on screen characters.

Why are movies such a massive hit now? There are 2 reasons.

1) They are a form of story.

2) Their particular form of story differs from all previous forms of story.

The same thing is true for games.

So how do we form a script? We use the 3 act classical story.

Act 1.

1) He/She gets their life turned around by an exiting incident, coincidence or a twist of fate.

2) A gap opens up between an orderly life.

3) The hero tries to bridge the gap with normal means. It fails and the world pushes back to hard.

4) The hero then has to take a risk to overcome the obstacles pushing back.

Act 2. (Reversal)

5) Something new happens or the hero learns something they didn't know before and the world goes into chaos again. ( a second gap opens up)

6) The hero has to take a bigger risk to overcome the second gap. ( There is another reversal that opens a third gap)

Act 3.

7) The hero takes the biggest risk of all to prevail over the third gap and claim their reward.

Now that we have the formula to make a script I'll now explain what's happening.

After the first act we have a reversal and there are two types of reversal action and revelation. These are required to make reversals in order for the hero to progress.

Action- Someone gets shot and forces the hero into action.

Revalation- i.e. Darth Vader tells Luke Skywalker that he is his farther. (This is more powerful)

As well as reversals what's a story without conflict? There are 3 types of conflict internal, inter personal, and external.

Internal Conflict, which is what's going on in your head.

Inter Personal Conflict, which is between people.

External Conflict, which is conflict with society or the physical world.

Players who suit MUD's

To start with what are MUD's (Multi User Domain) and types of people in them?

Well a MUD is an interactive computer based text or virtual reality game that the players can use to interact with one another and the world around them.

There are 2 types of people related to the world and there are 2 types of people related to other players. The 2 types of people related to the world are "achievers" (diamonds) and "explorers" (spades), and the 2 types of people related to other players are "socialisers" (hearts) and "imrose" (clubs), but what do these 4 types do?

Achievers (diamonds): These players play the game using goals and objectives, they explore little bit the levels.

Explorers (spades): These players find out as mutch information as possible, so they can assort the game world.

Socialisers (hearts): These players socialise with other players. Communicating a lot, the world becomes a backdrop.

Imrose (clubs): These players use the tools provided to cause distress to other players causing havoc. These guys are also known as Killers.

On top of all this there are 2 types  of playing styles:

Interaction where the players focus on the in game world and environment.

Action when the player is focused on game-play.

Space of possibility and pacing in casual Game Design

For me I found this article to be quite interesting, we all know what pacing means but what does it mean to pace a game, what does it do that's so important to make a game "fun"?

The answer is that by pacing a game it allows the designers to indirectly make the players experience through mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics to create relaxation, tension and repetition. However this is just a simple way to describe what pacing does in a game; there is more to it then that.

So how do designers work out how to pace the game? With the two arches of pacing, the upper arch and the lower arch of pacing.

Now imagine two circles one big circle and one smaller circle.

The large circle is the upper arch of pacing and this represents the long term relation between the player and game, and how much time he/she is willing to invest before becoming frustrated or bored and abandoning play.

The smaller circle is the lower arch of pacing and within that are movement impetus, tension, threat and tempo, but what do these things do?

Movement impetus is the will or the desire of the player to move forward through a level, and how willing the player is to make advancement decisions.

e.g. Movement impetus in plants vs zombies represents the players will to keep planting his defences and waiting for the outcome of the play session either defeating the zombies or the zombies eat the player characters brain (how lovely) instead of abandoning play out of frustration/ perceived defeat or boredom.

Tension is the perceived (fore sight) danger that the player might become the weaker side of the conflict.

Threat is the actual power of the opposing forces in the conflict.

Tempo is the "intensity" of play, it is the time taken between each significant decision made by the player. The slower tempo provides greater space of possibility, where as if the tempo is faster the space of possibility gets less.

As helpful and interesting as this article was there is one thing I don't quite agree with. Venturelli states that when a game is finished it becomes boring. This is not always true in many cases games can still be fun after finishing with re-play value. Although re-play value is completely dependant on the player and how much they liked the game can add hours of extra enjoyment and gives the player a feel of continuation as if the characters  story isn't finished just yet.

There are several games from my own experience that I have finished, but I still enjoy playing them such as:

Fable (The Lost Chapters)
Gauntlet Dark Legacy
Gears of War
God of War (trilogy/hand held games)
Kingdom Hearts
Kingdom Hearts 2

and these are just a few of many.

Tools for creating Dramatic Game Dynamics by Marc Le Blanc

To start this new blog I have to say that it's important to note that Le Blanc credits Doug Church and his work on formal abstract design tools (FADT) and how these tools are important for creating dramatic content in games.

The tools that are used to do this are aesthetics, mechanics, and dynamics and through the process of utilizing these tools we can create an on going sense that the contest is still undecided and there are many techniques to do this,howeverthey all take the same approach.

Force the approach of creating dramatic tension by manipulating the contest or story (manipultating gameplay directly) and illusion the approach of manipulating the players perceptions so that the game seems closer to the climax than it really is without changing the game state. Now by using the force and illusion tools we can make and only make the circumstances from which drama can accure with positive and negetive feedback loops.

Gamasutra by Doug Church (Weekly Reading 3)

What is a modern computer game made of?

"It Fuses a technical base with a vision for the players experience. All of the disciplines involved (design, art, audio, levels, code and so on) work together to achieve this synthesis."

In other words what Mr. Church is saying, is to make a good game all aspects of the various disciplines must be utilized for the product to fully flourish . There is no area that is more important than another they may be created by different divisions, but in the end it all comes together.

Industry evolution is talked about which is a key point to mention.
Doug church basically goes on to write "as long as the machines that are used to develop games and the machines the games are made for continue to advance, (or how he puts it "evolve" which probably wont stop) the way games are made will also advance."
The two sides of future game design walk down the same path of advancement together.

Design is what gives a game its' experience. It's the accumulation of all the different skills and makes the vision reality.

"It actualizes the vision, puting art, code, levels and sound together into what players experience minute to minute."

Doug Church continues the article by going deeper into why games design isn't viewed as an achedemical subject by saying that their is a need for a vocabulary not just because all other subjects have one, no it's deeper then that he's trying to form a framework of comunication so that it becomes possible to express ourselves fully and be able to understand the feed back you may recieve, instead of describing a game as simply "fun" or "not fun".

"Formal Abstract Design Tools" (FADT) is an attempt to create such framework for such a vocabulary and a way to go about the process of building it.

Formal- Implying precise deffinition and the ability to explain it to someone else.
Abstract- To emphisize the focus of underlying ideas, not specific genre constructs.
Design- As in you guys and us we're the designers.
Tools- Since this will form the base of the vocabulary we want to build.

In the beginning there is a Game Designer (Weekly Reading 1)

The article to me came across as encouraging constantly reassuring the reader who would be game designers.(Who else would read an article about game design?)

" If only game designers can design games, and you can only be a game designer by making games, how can anyone even get started? If this is how you feel, the awnser is easy. Just say the magic words:

I am a game designer, I am a game designer, I am a game designer."

Game designers need a deep understanding not just about designing games, but an understanding about everything they take on that includes fellow team mates.
There's more to designing games than just that you must be able to understand and communicate with others by listening to your team, client audience and self.

The 5 kinds of listening


Team
Audience
Game
Client
Self

Introduction/Interview

It's taken me a while to get this blog up and running, but better late than never.

My name is Glen Symns and im currently studying computer games design at UCS Ipswich. I like video games and that's all you guys need to know. What can I say im a mysterious guy at least until our interview assignment was given out.

I paired up with Mark pretty cool guy we had ask each other a series of simple questions pre written on a handout sheet.

What fictional book are you currently reading?

Well at the moment I'm not reading any fictional books, however I do like to read manga though I don't know if that really counts as it's more like a comic or graphic novel than a book, but in any case it's fictional and I am currently reading several to name a few: History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi, Bleach, and Tri-Gun.

What Non-Fictional book are you currently reading or last read?

The last book I read non fiction would be Nintendo mounthly it has all the latest info on everything that's Nintendo or Nintendo involved.

What is the last live performance you attended?

I used to be in a band called Troll Master before I came to uni and we were asked to play a set for the people who lost their homes in the London riots.

What was the title of the last film you saw at the cinema, online, or on DVD?

Star Wars: Episode 6 - Return of the Jedi. Nothing more need be said.

How often do you read the news papper?

Not very often in all honesty and thats exactly why I dont read them, it's good to keep up to date on world news, but you cant trust everything a news papper says there build on facts twisted into lies to sell as many copies as possible.

Which gallery/museum/exhibition did you last visit?

The Last exhibition I went to was the Euro gamer expo held in London, Earls Court.

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

I used to spend about 40-45 hours a week just playing games however now I spend considerably less time playing games so i'd have to say i spend about 20 hours a week playing games.

How many hours a week do you spend playing games that aren't video games?

I'm not personaly a big fan of board games although i do enjoy the odd mouse trap, or pictionary, or the classic monopoly games though about 5-6 years ago i got really involved in dungeons and dragons to many hours were spent playing that game.