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.