VIII Games Britannica - Ancient games

Recently watched an interesting show titled Games Britannica which looked through the ages at some ancient games. It talked about how some games had already existed before the roman conquests showing how Britain was already quite developed, however these games were not for fun or amusement, they were generally played by fortune tellers and druids to predict future events.

A pre roman game was found, without rules among various different surgical items of the time, showing it was a learned man, with some form of medical experiences. It is thought that the man was a druid who practiced fortune telling, the two sides of the board were used perhaps to predict the outcome of battles or things of such nature. However it is all speculation without the rules, but it more than likely had some abstract more than life meaning.

There are also remains of marks people had carved into the stone of medieval churches, while they were waiting they used these carvings to play games and pass the time trying to get through that human only trait of boredom.

There are many examples of where other ancient games came from and how they have evolved to this day and age, however the only one that stood out to me, was a game named The Game of Gospels. This is a very tactical game, which is the reason it stands out to me, the general play method is that one player is light, the other is dark, the dark player’s counters surround the light players, the objective for the light is to get his king counter to any corner of the game board, which represented a saint. The aim of the dark colour was to stop him. This was a war game, and thus each counter represented soldiers, either protecting their king or trying to stop the king, you could remove your opposition by getting 2 of your counters either side of theirs. 

I really admire how these people made their own games to pass the time; it shows how anybody can make a good successful game. These people did it without any other games to draw ideas from, it would have been a lot harder for them and they already had good functional games, even if they were used for other means. The first episode is interesting and the next instalment of the show moves further along the timeline discussing newer British games, when I get around to watching the rest of the series I will be sure to keep this blog up to date with its various topics.

SM – iHK

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VII – Gamasutra ^,^

This article by Doug Church is about how game design has been trailing behind in its evolution, which he believes is due to its lack of a common language to be employed when analysing games. In his article titled Gamasutra, he states how “the primary inhibitor of evolution is the lack of a common vocabulary”, their needs to be a shared language of games design that can be applied to any game of any genre. 

Specific genres are still coming along in leaps and bounds, but it gets stuck there, the new design techniques and styles don’t get transferred across the full field of games design and this led Church to develop the idea of FADT – Formal Abstract Design Tools. He believes that we can pick apart games, get down to the core reason of what was good / successful and what was bad / failing and that knowledge can be applied to future games design and allow better, greater games to be developed, he also makes a note to say that although some tools / features that are successful in one game, may not be so great in another. 

He lists a few tools that are common in most games, however there are many more that are not included and that as time progresses the list of tools will increase. Controls are a major tool that shapes gameplay; he states how you can play one game with one set of controls and another, similar game with a completely different set of controls. It’s these controls that shapes player behaviour in a game, once they gradually get to understand the games consistent controls, they will start to develop their own game play styles, experiment and take risks with the games physics and laws, planning on how to reach the next area for example. 

These controls involve the player in the game world, providing just a few actions in a game like Mario and giving them a lot of opportunities to use these abilities causes the player to start and understand the mechanics that makes up the game. Once they are involved in the game world they can take attempt to take control over their own path and play with how to get from one point to another. It’s when they start to experiment that the games mechanics need to be in top shape so that it can anticipate all of the player’s actions and have the character and world respond in a way that is cannon. Even if it all plays out and the player fails in whatever task they were performing, let’s say it was jumping from one tree to another, they will understand why it failed and may attempt again, however if they failed because the next tree wasn’t climbable then it won’t fit into the game state, the illusion of realism that the game was aiming for has been vanquished and the player will feel lost and confused. This ends in the player getting frustrated at the game and possibly having then quit. 

Perceivable consequences can make or a break a game. A game reacts based on your actions and input and moreover, you understand why it reacts the way it does. The player can take a chance, take the left or right road can be totally random, only to find that they took the wrong path and are now dead. This can leave the player frustrated as, how could they have known on a random decision? But in that form of free roaming game, it is that element of surprise and not knowing that can make a game great, but they draw heavily from storyline which is another tool that defines a game.

Story can often take a lot of control away from a game if it is incorporated too heavily. To compensate for this, the player is given more control over small areas of a game. Any fan of the traditional RPG genre will usually enjoy the task of going through the games set paths and getting to the end of the story, as that is one of the most thrilling parts of the game. It’s an interactive story that you control, even though control is limited. The work around for this limitation is to make each area of the game a game in its own right, such as the item system becoming a collection system, the cut scenes becoming interactive, etc.

Story has a massive effect on a game; it’s hard to play any game without a theme and story behind it. Even generic sport games are based on real life which has its own unique story to it. Intention and perceivable consequences can often take a backseat with a heavily scripted and story driven storyline, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In recent open world sand box games, the same situation of going left or right is still in the game, and you have to guess which is the best, but you have that other option to explore the game world provided for you and finding that hidden manuscript that details the movements of a gang or rogues so you know that they are down that right path. This can add a huge sense of realism to the game, the option to research everything and go into every situation totally prepared or take to the unknown – the faster path to just complete the storyline with a harder path set before. Giving that option, the player can use intention to choose their own path through the storyline of the game.

Intention is another tool that Church talks about. The player will have some means by which to complete the tasks set before him, planning ahead with the intent of being able to pass any future obstacles with ease, moving forward with a purpose. Accumulating goals is a great away to give the player an option on how to move ahead, planning ahead on how to accomplish each goal. 

There are many other tools which Church doesn’t go into great detail about, such as cooperation, conflict and confusion, but the three big ones he talks about is intention, consequence and story. They are involved I would say most if not all games of the past decade and are only going to be so much more over used now that the topic of games design is being more precisely researched with more and more people discussing the topic.

SM – iHK

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VI - Building Blocks of a Game.

I recently read a few extracts related to the parts required to make a game, in these writings, topics are listed and evaluated on how they help to make that game good and how they can be translated to other games. In “Challenges for Games Designers”, there is a chapter titled Game Design Atoms. This chapter of the book is all about the parts that make up a game, all the ‘atoms’ that are made separately and then added together to form the full entity that is the game.

It starts out with the Game State, which is a collection of all the relevant information in the game which is subject to change. It not only includes the current, but possible as well, so every possible move, every previous change, every score and stat change all that sort of information makes up the game state. Game state decides how the world works and what the player can do, the player isn’t aware of the entire game state, even in older games; all of this information is readily available to an enthusiastic gamer but isn’t required to play. In modern games, understanding the game state, even if only partially can enable the player more control over the game world and give him the ability to predict and influence the games actions the way he wants.

The Game View is what the player can see; it is defined and caused by the game state. The game view is an immensely important aspect of a game as it shows the player what he is seeing, instead of reading a book to understand the state of the world the game is set on, the player is shown. It is a much more powerful way of conveying a view and meaning to the player than having them read it as if they were playing D&D. 

Game Space is the entire area of the game, including all the areas the player doesn’t get a chance to see. It includes every area in a game, accessible or not. Game space provides a fantasy setting, giving the option for the player to get involved in a game and believe in it. If there is more than what the player can see at one time, then it can seem interesting as it is natural to want to know the unknown, see everything that’s out there. 

Avatars are the digital representation of the real life player. Some games have no visual avatar in which case it usually has the player being in control of something, so they are managing the world as a behind the scenes leader of an empire, or city builder etc. 

Game Bits make up all the items inside a game world. Everything that the player interacts with is a ‘game bit’, npc’s to swords to rivers. It all comes under the category of things that fill up the world and make it more believable.

Game Mechanics are the rules to which the world and the player must abide. If the game world does not follow the same set of rules that the player does, then they will feel cheated and that their efforts are meaningless as the enemy only needs to work half as hard. This can be very frustrating in the newer 3D games when you move around an object one way, and the enemy can run through half of it, it makes the world feel broken and the player wont adjust to the rules in the correct fashion. Getting game mechanics incorporated into a game correctly can be a very long daunting task, as they each must compliment the other – if they clash then things won’t work well. 

A metagame is everything outside the game state, things that happen in real life or in other media forms like a forum. These things can add a social aspect to a game; even things like a fighter where there is no need for a large universe, or a thrilling storyline. It gives the chance for players to talk and discuss the game state and its various mechanics.

This is a list of all the different aspects that make up a game. Without going into too much detail in each point as they can all be broken down for any specific genre, this list is compatible for any game. In my next blog post I will discuss Doug Church and his view on a very similar topic.

SM – iHK

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V Greg Costikyan – I Have No Words & I Must Design?

I recently read through Costikyans “I Have No Words & I Must Design: Toward a Critical Vocabulary for Games” in which he evaluates what a “Game” is. He says how the word game has become overused and plastic as it relates to so many sub topics that can fill multiple pages, it doesn’t just relate to the digital but also the physical and mental aswell.

The word game is adaptable to many different types of mediums and that the best way to understand a game, is to understand the gameplay, all the different areas that make up a game. This way he hopes to find things that all these games have in common and build the ability to define why a game is good or bad by discussing its core mechanics.

He goes on to list some of the major areas of gameplay, without going into too much technical detail:

Interaction – This is an obvious element of any game, but just saying that it has good interaction isn’t enough, you need to be able to define it and discuss why it made the game good. Costikyan says that you need to understand the different between a game and a puzzle. A puzzle is static; it has a logical structure with clues to help you reach the goal. A game is not static; it is constantly changing depending on your interaction.
If every choice and decision was already made for you, it only leaves you to play through that one method of play, which is a core puzzle mechanic. However if your left with the option to analyse the situation and then respond instead of taking the obvious set path, decide on the best course of action, that’s making it a game. If you’re interacting with a purpose, trying to reach the goal through your own means, the way you want to play, that makes it a much more enjoyable experience.

Goals – That leads us onto goals, interaction alone isn’t enough to make a game enjoyable. You need to have a goal/aim/objective that you are constantly trying to achieve. It’s the entire point of playing the game, you want to have the satisfaction of saying – I did A and I got Y for it, or instead of doing A and getting Y, I did B and got Y, X and Z.

It is all about decision making, goals can be built into a games core, i.e. tag – catch the other person, but it is up to the players whether they play solely by that rule or not. As a child you notice how you easily get bored with the simple game of tag, so the rules often changed, one person catches another who will help you catch the rest, or how it gets split into teams etc. This way the players set their own custom goals, but the core game mechanic is still there and it easily allows these new rules to be added and modified.

This option for user created goals can be a big factor in whether a game is good or not, as a player you will notice if the option is there from the early stages of play. Although not every game needs user goals, having something that the player can choose to aim for whether it’s something simple like collectables or not, builds upon the games main mechanics and adds a hidden sense of a built in mini game.

But many games don’t have the capacity to allow something like this; fighting games for example are a lot harder to work user goals into, yet they are still successful and that based on the complexity of the game. The option to fight how you want, you can choose whether you want to hinder yourself and only use one style, or finish your opponent off in a particular way, making the game much harder for yourself, but the satisfaction of completing your own task makes it all worthwhile.

Struggle – Goals ultimately lead to struggle, you need to fight your way to the end or else it will seem too easy. If you’re just given a victory then it won’t seem earned and you will not appreciate it.

Whether it’s a competitive or co-operative struggle to the goal it matters not, as long as the player is satisfied with the resolution and feels like they earned the goal / reward then it will enhance the gamer’s experience.

Structure – Costikyan quotes Eric Zimmerman “Games are structures of desire.” By this he means that the desire is the want to reach the ultimate end, the goal is wanted and important to the player. Structure refers to the rules, components of the game that allow the player to reach and obtain that desire. The structured rules and mechanics of a game guide player behaviour to obtain their goals, after they get to understand the structure they will start to experiment with it, they know what they can and cannot do.

Structure differs from game to game, Mario has players jumping over trees and going down water pipes, but in tomb raider the mechanics of the game are much more realistic, the player knows the characters limitations and they will play by those rules. But they are still able to play with the games structure.

Using tomb raider as an example; there are usually multiple paths the player can take to get on top of that ledge. They obvious paths are things like, walking up a path to the top, climbing it etc. But there is also the much harder option of jumping from one pillar to another and make it across. It can usually take many tries, and there is no particular reward for doing so, but just making it possible makes the game seem much more alive and immersive.

Endogenous – The definition of endogenous is ‘Caused by the factors within the system’. This means that the game creates meaning and value to the player, and this can be unique to that one player based on their experience through the game. If the games structure is immersive and the player enjoys their time playing the game, then the games items and materials can be important to the character, things that are meaningful within the game.

Ultimately all games are a fantasy, they are not real. Every aim and goal you make in the game has no physical real world meaning. But success in a game can mean a lot more to the player, items in the game shape the way it is played, the player always has a preference to how they like to play and if given the option of choose what item to play the game with, then they will grow attached to it as they spend their time through the game.

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All these create the core of a game; define it in a way that it is its own unique entity that only relates to a game, so “A game is an interactive structure of endogenous meaning that requires players to struggle towards goals”. I think that sums up what a game is pretty well.


SM – iHK

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IV Battleships – Playing with fire

A few days ago we were given the task of modifying Battleships. It’s one of those great games that everyone has played; in fact only one person in our class had never played the game. The task, at first, seemed pretty daunting as it is not just any old game were playing with here, it’s a game that has a big history and has been tried and tested for a long time.


We started off by playing the game first, getting a feel for the game and understanding what we enjoyed about it when we played. After a few turns the game ended and we started to draw up our conclusions. We discussed how the game perhaps suffered from a quick nature, once you hit a ship it is quite obvious were your opponents ships are going to be due to their shape, it’s only a matter of time before its sunk. So we thought about the best way of changing this rule and decided to make it so that we could place the ships in any pattern we wanted, so instead of placing them in a line, we could place them in an L or U shape etc.

We tested this new iteration of the games rules and the game lasted quite a bit longer, as new strategies came into play and the games elements started to grow. Battleships, in my eyes has two modes, the single player stratagems of placement and attack style, as well as the mental, or poker themed control over your opponent’s actions. With this one new change, both of these areas of the game became a lot more in depth. You had to read your opponents eyes and actions as they read the board and understand what way they were going to place their pieces so much more drastically than before as now it isn’t just the chance that they are in the straight line and they will find the path within 1 or 2 turns, but now each move is full of risk and chance requiring you to really try to outthink your opponent.

We played a few games with these new rules and I lost each game, but the enjoyment was so much greater than from the original game that I think the new rule definitely made the game evolve into something so much more. However even though the games seemed more fun and enjoyable, the one major downside is that the games seemed to last a lot longer now, and something definitely needed done in order to add pace to the game. We came up with two solutions which we decided to add one at a time, a ‘missile’ attack which we could use to attack 1 entire row at any time in the game, left – right, up – down or diagonal. The other was that after each successful attack you get another go, which had the potential to could create a combo that you could ride all the way to victory in one turn, it could be a good chance to get a ‘come-back’ from some bad luck in the game.

We started off with the missile iteration and it went down pretty well. There was some pre-game diplomacy / bluffing which had effects on the gameplay, then we went in game, the first missile didn’t get any hits and the second got 1 hit. This ultimately didn’t help in the finding of ships, but it did remove 10 squares for us to have to explore through which made the game quite a bit faster.

Although the game was faster, the pace hadn’t improved from the last game and thus our final iteration game into play which fixed up our little bug and made the game quite a bit faster. The final game was quickly played at home and looking back, a pretty good addition to the game. I’m not sure if it would be better than the original, it surely is more enjoyable to me, whether or not anyone else would agree is up to the player. It’s now up to you to play with these new rules and test them out for yourself:

1. You can place your ships in any formation you want, as long as all pieces of a ship are touching a straight section of the ship, i.e. no diagonal placements. 
2. Add a 1 time only, missile attack that attacks each square along the board; vertically, horizontally or diagonally. 
3. Succession attacks, if you get a hit you’re allowed another attack.

III A man-flu’s best friend

I haven’t blogged in a while, using a cliché excuse of a man flu which, to the utter enjoyment of my peers has had me coughing and snivelling in class since last Friday. I have not let it keep me away from my studies, or my classes, meaning my notebook is full of exciting information and new methods of thinking that I will stretch over a couple of blog entries;



Paidea Vs Ludus – Who reigns supreme?


In one of our classes a while ago now, we were introduced to; “Videogames” by James Newman. Newman tries to define what a digital game is, with talk about how scholars of media and film would evaluate a game as an ‘interactive narrative’ and how those who study videogames would describe them much differently – showing how they are unique and separate from these other forms of media, even though they do indeed borrow heavily from those media types.

There is also a lot of discussion on what can be called a computer game, furby for example. It is computer controlled and you do indeed interact with it, fitting a lot of the criteria’s required for what would be classified as a computer game. It is more of a computer toy as it is controlled by pre-set information to respond based on your interactions, in the same fashion a game would, it is limited to those actions. You can only do what it wants.

However this is also different from a game, as you have the option of how to go about your tasks, the option to play the game how you like and do things the way you see best. Unlike with a furby, the only option you have is to allow it to do its thing, leaving you to watch it perform for you – which is a different type of interaction.

It continues to talk about developer stamps, how a game can look unique to that designer, how the role of videogames has evolved and grown from arcades and penny pushing gameplay, the sole goal of being the best, to the home consoles, with a much grander range of win conditions and more. However the topic of paidea and ludus stand above it all.

Ludus is an obvious element in any form of game. A structured method of how you can achieve the win state, rules that define how the game is played - how the player acts and reacts to situations. Ludus is obvious in any game imaginable;

• Tag – One person is the chaser and has to catch everyone else. The only way to lose is to forfeit, but it’s the opponents you play with that will entice you to play harder, they will goad you into chasing them, getting closer to you and taking the risk of getting caught.

• Chess – You have a game board and units that each have their own rules. You cannot deviate from these rules, they must be followed or else the game breaks. One simple goal – take their leader and nothing else matters.

• Sonic – You have 4 controls; left, right, jump and spin. You’re on a set track and the only goal is to get to the end.

• Supreme Commander – You have a leader unit, capable of building everything else. Your goal is to use whatever resources are available to you to destroy the enemy utterly. There’s no option to go off on your own and make sand castles, no choice to call it a draw or move off the game field.

All these games are great examples of Ludus, and there are many more. Paidea may seem like it has no place in games. In a sense, it’s like free play in primary school, the choice to do anything that pleases, make up your own game with any system of rules, do what you want to do whether you have a foreseeable outcome or not – All for fun / pleasure.

That way of thinking about paidea, makes it seem like it can have no place in a game. When can you make up your own rules, or play a game without a goal? In recent times, games have certainly evolved to allow the player free will. It’s a highly sought after goal for games developers – adding immense replay value.
Newman uses SimCity as a good example, but it has been called more of a software toy than a game and personally I think there are far better examples, although they were made with a sandbox setting in mind. Games are now being created with a large, living and persistent world. Real world politics and economics are being developed into these games and are having an effect on how the AI reacts to the player. It makes it seem like paidea, free choice to do as you please.

A great example would be the X series of games, X3: Terran Conflict being the latest and most advanced instalment. Like SimCity, there is debate about whether or not this is a game; it could be a software toy or just a simple simulation with the player thrown into the middle. But no, it’s a game, following rules with a full universe or mythology build around it.

There is a main storyline or quest to the game and once that’s completed the game is finished. Although you are free to continue your exploration of the universe, that’s the game over, the goal you set out to complete has been finished. That’s the ludus side of the game. However they haven’t stopped their, theirs the inclusion of hundreds of mini quests each with a background storyline to it that have nothing to do with the games main quest and you won’t find them if you don’t deviate from the games set paths and rules.

Other than that, there is a full universe for you to interact with. Trading for example has a big effect on the game. You can decide to build your own empire, your own trading can change the prices of items, cause the casual npc to respond differently towards you or other npcs. You are given the free will to do almost literally whatever you want to the universe that they created. You can choose whether or not to follow the path the designers set, or veer off and do your own thing – randomly start shooting people, talking to people.

And yet, I cannot stop thinking how, it’s all an illusion. It is easy to say – I played SimCity and I made a city to look this way, or that way. But in the end, the game is made for you to follow X amount of rules to get to that destination. Its free play, but there is always an objective; otherwise there would be no moving forward. At all times you know what you’re aiming for, and you create your own structure, your own form of ludus to get that custom victory – and indeed you can fail against your own rules.

Quite likely I just over analysed the meanings, or missed the point entirely, but if ludus is the following of rules to get to a goal, and paidea is the free will to do whatever you want at any time, and then paidea will always create ludus. Looking at it that way, any game built with a rules in an environment where you can choose how to use those rules to play the game your way – has obvious paidea qualities. But will always remain a ludus game. You’re just following the rules a different set of rules that the developers left, hidden in the game for the player to discover.

Now it seems like I am just going in circles so I will leave it here and blog up the rest of my notes at a later date, as this blog is so much bigger than I had planned 

SM – iHK
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Second!

Read, Read and Read some more

During my first week of UCS Games design we were given a few small documents to read over to get us thinking like a games designer. To know what it is to be one, as well as what it takes to do it successfully.

Some key facts that we walked away with came from Jesse Schell and the book called ‘The Art of Game Design’, in which, Schell stresses the importance for having a passion for what you do. There is a lot of talk about, whether or not we are born talented, or if it is bred into us at an early age.

Personally – I believe it can be both. I think that some people are indeed born with immense talent, some of those people go on to use these skills and abilities to their fullest, while others wilt and don’t push themselves to their maximum potential. I also think that, anybody can grow into any role possible. There is a reason that the saying mothers are so fond of ‘You can be anything you want to be’ is so universally used and accepted.

The general idea being this, if you have no love for the work you do, you will not apply yourself with all the skills and abilities you have acquired, instead you will scrape by without showing that potential talent you have.

It’s made quite obvious, that the book is centred with a strong theme of being confident in your own abilities. It talks about how, as a novice games designer you will think things like, I have never done this before, people are so much more experienced than me. Also experienced games designers will be thinking along the same paths, perhaps I got lucky, maybe I just fluked my way through the past few years. It then moved on to even the most seasoned games designers and their doubts. How they may think the world has changed and they can’t get back into the way things run. But basically, it says that these things are normal, but as long as your enjoy what you do, they don’t matter.

Schell goes on to talk about many things, lack of ridicule, a deeper sense of listening, key skills that make a games designer, but it’s the confidence that stood out to me. I have never particular had a lack of confidence, or been overly confident in myself either, but the way that its said, anyone has the potential to be a games designer is a very positive thing to walk away with and fuels us on to strive to do our best. Proving to ourselves that we can do it, born with it or not!!

SM – iHK
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First!

My first Blog - Computer Games Design =)

I have been on the UCS Computer Games Design course for just over 2 weeks now and so far, so good. Although no actual work has started – we are getting the guided tour of what a games designer IS and what is expected of them before we jump into the technical lectures.

Sum up of my first few weeks of University

We have had a lot of great introductions from the team – who are very skilled and credited themselves which is a great boost to confidence and moral for the entire class. At the moment everything has a calm feel to it, we have all been sitting around in classes talking and whispering to each other as we get to know one another. As the classes have been progressing and the introductions are all over, it seems as though we are starting to form an atmosphere of  – Wow were starting to design games here and everyone is itching to get started on our training.

During this initial ‘Get to know your peers’ week; we completed a series of tasks and challenges to get to know everyone and their mind-sets. Things such as questionnaires, games which turned into tasks and small scale experiments that acted as a guide of what’s to come all fitted in and got us communicating among each other.

One of these little events was to get a questionnaire with some basic questions, and complete it about anyone else. Then get them to do the same for you and swap your answers. Although you could simply fill in your own answers – it was a great way to break the ice and get to know the people you’ve been in class with the past few days. Chris interviewed me and my answer sheet went a little bit like this . . . . .

The Stef Interview

-          Q1: What is the title of the book (fiction) you are currently reading?

o   A Song of Ice and Fire – Started to read it after I watched “A Game of Thrones”

-          Q2: What is the title/topic of the book (non-fiction) you are currently reading?

o   He looked at various books in disgust, lack of images

o   Although that’s the answer I gave at the time, the answer would likely be a gaming / media magazine I read on the plane over from Ireland.

-          Q3: What is the last live performance (music, drama or dance) you attended?

o   Ozzy Osbourne and BLS in Belfast, fantastic.

-          Q4: What is the title of the last film you saw at the cinema/online or watched on dvd?

o   At the time of writing, it was Jurassic park …. Again! But it was being re-released into the cinema and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

o   Now the last movie I watched is Bunraku – ace cast, an unexpectedly good movie.

-          Q5: How often do you read a newspaper?

o   As often as my girlfriend gives me one, which is seldom at that .

-          Q6: Which Art gallery/museum/exhibition did you last visit?

o   Well this answer is probably the same for everybody in my class, EuroGamer 2011!!! Which was amazing.

-          Q7: How many hours a week do you spend playing video games?

o   Well it varies, especially since I started Uni as I am now doing a lot more reading and tutorials online. But roughly it was 5~ hours a day. Now it’s whenever I have time – I imagine that that time is only going to dwindle as the week’s progress.

-          Q8: How many hours a week do you spend playing games other than video games?

o   Generally I turn everything into a sort of small mini game. Whenever I am sitting alone waiting at a bus stop or for a friend to turn up, I sit and stare at my environment and things start to mesh in my mind and I take pieces and I imagine how they can be digitalised and made to what I think of as ‘cool’.

o   However I suppose that’s just a really cheap way of getting out of saying zero.

-          Custom Question: If you could be a Game Character, who would you be and why?

o   Duke Nukem!! He was such an iconic character that stood on his own. The comedy overshined everything else in the game that made it a treat to play. The difficulty made it so that it wasn’t too hard to get from one catch phrase to another.

o   I also like how – even if it takes 13 years to be released, it can still hold a fan boy community.

Another project we did a few days back was ‘You have 5 minutes to make a board game – GO’ which was an intense adrenaline rush. A lot of people went for the tried and tested follow the path games with obstacles to get through to complete the game – most of which were fun to play and completed in time. Some others went for a different style – with cards and the numbers needing to match.

I went off the deep end and took advantage of that full 5 minutes and tried to make the best game ever! I wanted it to have risk or warhammer elements – in the sense that you have pieces / units and a game board to work with. To simplify matters I made the rules as basic as possible. After the 5 minutes and the testing began my game started to show its cracks – at first bugs appearing and then game breaking situations.
After that I redesigned a couple of rules and replayed it and things went smoothly until I found a couple of loopholes which gave too much of an advantage to the first player to get to point X. By the end of the class I and I had got around to the other games I didn’t get to perfect my own and get it into a workable enjoyable state. With the positive feedback I have received I want make some time to try some solo work on it for future use – perhaps to digitalise the game. Thinking back, I realise I should managed my time better and designed a game that was a little bit simpler so that I could have had it finished within the initial 5 minutes, then I could use the rest of the time to add details and extra features.

Looking up through this post I can see I have yet again nattered on about every little detail that potters into my head. I’ll leave it off here and pick it up again next time something epically shockingly amazing happens worth noting.

SM – iHK

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