Ludus and Paidia

A book called What is a Game Designer was published by James Newman, in this book he talks about the differences between two types of games. Games that have a clear outcome and games that have no set objective or outcome, these types of games are called Ludus and Paidia.

Ludus:

These types of games are linear and the outcome is easy to predict, games such as Pac-Man travelling around the map eating dots and avoiding ghosts or dying and trying again and Dynasty Warriors a hack and slash game where you aim to conquer all the regions and march under one banner.

        


Paidia:

Paidia is the term given to games with no clear outcome, they are played for the sheer enjoyment of seting and meeting there own goals and doing something new. a good example of this is Minecraft, you set your own goals to create whatever you want to create, there is no limit.

Gender and Games

Now it doesn't take the brain of a rocket scientist to tell that the games industry is a male dominated environment and this shows through in the video games we play with the majority of the time the main protagonist being male, this isn't to say there are no heroins amongst them.

This reading made me aware of the influences of gender on a game (genders of the designers). I also discovered how it is possible for a game to be aimed at both genders, yet the designers may consist of all one gender.

Although the number of woman in games industry may be lower than men, women have had just as mutch influence and success. It is true that the majority of games have a male protagonist, but there are many female protagonists that are household names. Games such as Tomb Raider - Lara Croft, Heavenly Sword - Nariko, and yes even Metroid - Samus Aran.

    

However there are some games that allow you to choose the gender of your character, this often involves RPG's such as Fable 3 and Dragon Age.

Fable 3:

Dragon Age:

Narrative and Games

Story: All the elements which end up being depicted, this is not all the events that happen, much in a story might be implied and never explicitly stated.

Plot: The chain of causation- which dictates that these events are somehow linked and are therefore to be depicted in relation to each other. This is often linear causation but it doe not have to be.

Narrative: The order in which events are revealed. This is certainly not the same as the order in which any real world events may take place

Events can be revealed in many ways. Even within traditional Media such as films, they can be revealed.

First hand: Showing- acted out by individuals in real time, in the correct chronological order, or in a flashback.
Second Hand: Revealed by characters who were either directly involved in the event, in chronological order or not.


Sequence: But narrative form is not often straightforward, it inevitably include delays and diversions. These are the elements (detours) that help to create suspense.

Jenkins argues that this means that aspects of narratives tend to be isolated from the factor of games. often they are  shown through cut scenes. However not all games have story take Bejeweld or Angry Birds for example, the only goal in these types of games is to acquire as many points as possible.

Heavy Rain



Heavy Rain is a story based game where the outcome of the game is based on the way the player acts. It is an interactive story where you are able to respond to the AI and in return they will reply accordingly. I really liked this feature its exiting to see a game with so many versatile reactions and outcomes. You have to be wary of your option you choose other wise you may end up killing one of the four characters or all of them.

Remediation

Remediation is the term given to the representation of one medium in another. In the article written by Bolter and Grusin they describe of how new mediums use remediation from their predecessors'.

Immediacy:

• Media that aspires to the condition of transparancy.
• The aim is to try to make the viewer forget they are watching a film.
• Immersive virtual reality.
• Photo realistic images.

Immediacy is a form of media that tries to create a transparency over the viewers eyes. The transparency is used to try to make the movie viewer forget their actually watching a movie by drawing you in with story telling and keeping you fixed with immersion techniques. You find these techniques are used well in films like the Godfather, drawing you in with the narrative and story and then immures you in the film often done by creating an emotional or personal connection with the characters and the more you find out about the characters the more you will be drawn in and immersed in the film.

Hypermediacy:

• Artefacts that are aware of and wish to display their own constructed nature.
• They call attention to themselves and their constructed nature.
• www.
• Game HUD's

Hypermediacy are objects or artifacts that are aware of their existance and want to display the way they fit into the world and not be blurred into the image. E.g. www./HUD's. You can find good examples of this in films like Silent Bob where he sometimes he looks toward the viewer(s) with a puzzled look or bright idea, and old cartoons such as Wacky Racers and The Flintstones did this when the characters would speak to the viewer, this technique is even used in comic books the best example would be Deadpool, who often has dialogue of him talking to the writers of the comic or the readers. This technique is called breaking the fourth wall, the boundary between what's on screen or page and the reality of you watching what's on screen or reading a comic book.

La Decima Vittima (The 10th Victim)

La Decima Vittima is a movie about two assassins who fall in love and work to kill one another for a cash prize not unlike Battle Royal. It also appears to me that this film was the basis of Mr. and Mrs Smith (staring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jo Lee) a film about two assassins working for separate agency's who gets married and then discovers the target is their spouse.

   

I liked La Decima Vittima it was humerus and kept true to the action sequences. my favourite scene is when the love triangle reaches its climax and the jilted ex-girlfriend seeks a personal vendetta on her love and his new woman.

Shot Zotero Bibliography

This is a short bibliography I compiled using a Fire Fox add on Zotero. The authors are arranged alphabetically and consists of two full length books, two contributions to a book, and two articles in refereed journals.

 Adams, E., 2010. Fundamentals of game design, New Riders.

Allen, G., 2011. Artists’ Magazines: An Alternative Space for Art, MIT Press.

Jaeger, N.L.V., 2007. My Moving Activity Journal: Activities, Games, Crafts, Puzzles, Scrapbooking, 

Journaling, and Poems for Kids on the Move - Second Edition 2nd ed., Soaring Moon Books LLC.

Pringle, J.J., 2008. Twenty Years’ Snipe-Shooting: Extracts from the Daily Journal of the Game-Books of the 

Snipery, Kessinger Publishing.

Queiroz, R. & Wiedemann, J., 2004. Animation now!, Taschen.

Thompson, J. & Berbank-Green, B., 2007. The Computer Game Design Course: Principles, Practices and 

Techniques for the Aspiring Game Designer, Thames & Hudson.

Royal Game of Ur itterations

After playing several rounds of the game of Ur I found it didn’t involve much skill to play and was very heavy on the luck element side of things, this made it boring to play.  I thought certain mechanics of the game of Ur worked really well specifically I thought the rosette squares served a good purpose it allows you to pull ahead of your opponent catch up to them or if you’re “lucky” you might knock their counter off the board. However it is still just a race game requiring little if not no skill or strategy to win.

By adjusting the mechanics of a game it helps fine tune the games overall dynamics and by applying changes to the fundamental rules of play I might be able to keep players interested for longer periods of time and the game will be more fun (MDA).

The first change I made was the addition of trap squares located at both far sides of the middle row and when a player lands on a trap square, that piece cannot be moved for two turns. This rule works as a double edged sword, on the one hand it can offer a huge disadvantage if you land there on the other hand however it can be a huge advantage to the other player, allowing a chance to catch up, knock a piece of the board (at the price of getting your piece getting caught in the trap) or win it all. With the use of this positive/negative feedback loop, the game progresses faster and creates a more sporting chance if one player is doing well and the other is behind, this made the game more competitive. (LeBlanc;2006)

When playing through the game of Ur again with the newly added rule of the 2 trap areas the game became more competitive, making the games we played have closer conclusions to decide the victor. This made the game more fun to play, but there are still no skill mechanics to test the player’s ability to play strategically. To change this fatal flaw so for my second iteration I made an adjustment to the moving rule by allowing the player to move more than one piece by dividing the amount of spaces you can move by how many pieces you move (E.g a player rolls a four he can either move one piece four spaces or move two pieces two spaces). This allows the player more control over their pieces and can determine what the most beneficial or safest move is for them to make.

The final iteration was if the player landed on the rosette in the middle row that counter had to finish off on the opponents side of the board giving the small opportunity to catch an opponent’s counter before it finishes. This rule didn’t come in to play very often, but I can say the rule is sound it gives a player a glimmer of hope that they can still catch the opponent, and if their lucky they just might.

Games Britania-Part 3: Joystick Generation

In this part of Games Britannia Benjamin Woolley talks about the modernising of Games Britannia from classic board games to the first fantasy RPG Dungeons and Dragons, to the move from board games to 3D entertainment.

Benjamin Woolley talks about the importance of fantasy games in Britain in the 70's "the winter of discontent" no electricity, no heat, and uncollected rubbish lying in the streets. People needed an escape from reality and thanks to a group of Californian gamers in 1973 Dungeons and Dragons was created. Dungeons and Dragons was revolutionary for games as we know it, the use of narrative and the choices determining whether to enter conflict or avoid it and dealing with the consequences of your choice.

It was these aspects of Dungeons and Dragons that allowed video games to kick off. These games gave players power and control the likes you wouldn't see in a board game, but after playing games as a character in a story or narrative came about God games. God games give the player even more control and limitless possibility's however when playing God games although you have direct control over what happens in game you still have a responsibility to take care of your people, ironically this makes you more like a slave than a God.

As time went on and video games continued to advance and because of the narrative you now see in games players have more emotinal ties to the character. You learn there story and make a conection, you want them to succeed, you want to help the character accomplish their goal. It's the feeling of responsibility for the character that draws out the emotion and feelings of the player, it is a connection that you can only find with through games.

Games Britania-Part 2: Monopolies and Mergers

 In this part of game Britannia Benjamin Woolley talks about how it was the British who in the 18th and19th centuries developed the idea of the board game as an instrument of moral instruction by playing games such as the Mansion of Bliss in which when a player lands on a square they must reed out a small homily to find out whether they will be rewarded or penalised.

E.g.

"Reflect when you enter this place;
For here none but the guilty are found;
While the rest of the players turn thrice'
In confinement you are to be bound."
(Miss three goes)

The kids who played this game enjoyed finding out what the outcome was going to be by reading out poems, rather than knowing already what's going to happen. It was a suprise element to this game that they seemed to enjoy, they knew the rules of rolling and moving, but not knowing the consequences of each square looked like it was a small thrill of its own.

Throughout the rest of the show Benjamin Wooley talks about how games were used as a moral compass and how games would reflect reel life conflict. These conflicts were normally economical or political.

He also talks about the irony of games, e.g. Woolley talks about the history of monopoly and how it was originally meant to deter monopolization, however that's where the fun of this game lies and is why people play it, because it gives them economic power that you don't get in other games.

Ed Bryne - Building a Simple Level

Basic elements of level design:

• Concept
• Enviroment to exist
• Beginning
• End
• Goal
• Challenge to overcome between the player and the goal
• Reward
• Way of handling failure

These are the "building blocks" to designing a level that Ed Bryne talks about. He also mentions that for a long and enjoyable play experience it is sometimes necessary to add more of everything, more goals, more challenges, and frequently multiple endings however these things are generally found in larger games such as Little Big Planet, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Mario. There's a whole list of games, but I wont go through them all.

Ed Bryne used these building blocks to break up Tettris, I applied these steps to Kingdom Hearts to break it down a little.

• Concept - Adventure to different worlds in search of your friends Riku and Kairi.
• Enviroment to exist - Travelling through space to unlock new world levels.
• Beginning - Sora's (Main Character) best friend Riku sets you challenges to complete, after which Riku and Kairi dissapear into the darkness and Sora sets out to find his friends again and return to their island home.
• Ending - Sora, Riku, and Micky need to close the "Door to Darkness" on both sides, so Sora remains in the realm of light and continues to try to find Riku again, while Micky and Riku stay behind in the darkness to keep it at bay.
• Goal - Open the paths that connect the worlds to find Riku and Kairi
• Challenge to overcome between the player and the game - Defeat different types of enemies and boss' and complete challenge mini-games.
•  Reward - New abilities are unlocked as you level up and new and more powerful Key-Blade upgrades become available through completing worlds.
• Way of handling failure - Checkpoints and Save areas.

These are just the basics of the game broken up and categorised, the story is what makes things more complicated through keeping certain infomation a mystery. However games don't have to have a stories. Ed Bryne Says in this article " A story can enhance a level and give the players infomation about what they are expected to do, what they might need to avoid and what they may seek... game-play is what drives games"

And I couldn't agree more, without the joy of playing the game the player will just get bored and shelf it, and as games designers that's something we need to avoid at all costs, because it means we would have failed.