Design Docs and Accompanying PR Material:
Friday, May 20, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
MMORPG's Online
http://browsermmorpg.com/
http://www.freebrowsergamer.com/
1) What is the player experience
The player experience is that of an open world crime game in the vain of Grand Theft Auto presented in a browser-based interface. The player chooses from a list of actions while in the same game world as other players
2) What is the nature of interaction within the world?
The nature of interaction with the world is handled through selecting from a list of actions through a web browser and consequences are dealt with accordingly.
3) How do players communicate?
Players communicate through the use of a mini-chat menu on the website.
4) How do players socialize?
Players socialize primarily through chat. Players may also work together to commit crimes.
5) What happens if/when players logout or are dropped from the game?
The game world still continues through the action of other players who are still logged-in.
6) What do you have to do within the game?
The player has to work their way from the bottom to the top of the criminal underworld and accumulates wealth, power and skills along the way.
7) What do you think of the game?
The game is pretty funny. I kept trying to steal candy from a baby, but my skill wasn't high enough and I kept going back to prison.
8) Screen Capture of the game.
http://www.freebrowsergamer.com/
http://www.urbanjunglegame.com/
1) What is the player experience
The player experience is that of an open world crime game in the vain of Grand Theft Auto presented in a browser-based interface. The player chooses from a list of actions while in the same game world as other players
2) What is the nature of interaction within the world?
The nature of interaction with the world is handled through selecting from a list of actions through a web browser and consequences are dealt with accordingly.
3) How do players communicate?
Players communicate through the use of a mini-chat menu on the website.
4) How do players socialize?
Players socialize primarily through chat. Players may also work together to commit crimes.
5) What happens if/when players logout or are dropped from the game?
The game world still continues through the action of other players who are still logged-in.
6) What do you have to do within the game?
The player has to work their way from the bottom to the top of the criminal underworld and accumulates wealth, power and skills along the way.
7) What do you think of the game?
The game is pretty funny. I kept trying to steal candy from a baby, but my skill wasn't high enough and I kept going back to prison.
8) Screen Capture of the game.
Answer these questions & post to your blog for each of the three games.
http://wordsquared.com/
Design Practice 2011.05.13
Imagine the game you developed for your item to submission was online in a massively multi-player mode.
Agera: Factions
1. How do you plan to deal with the issue of new players arriving in the middle of
a long game? Get rid of the victory condition, or find a way to make sure that players are matched with those of similar ability?
New players arriving in the middle of a long game, the persistent world, will undergo the basic tutorial missions. The tutorial missions will guide the player through the basic gameplay mechanics and mission structures and types with an ease-in pace. In the tutorial missions the areas that the player will transverse through will be instanced, they will be free from the intrusion of other players more accumulated into the world. Player grouping is a social game mechanic that will keep players evenly matched in PVP. As the player moves through the world, only other players in a similar range of level will be allowed to fight each other. A similar process will be used and calculated in groups.
2. What will happen to the gameplay when a player vanishes? How will it affect
the other players’ experience of the game (what they see and hear)? Does it disrupt
the balance of the game? Will it make the challenges easier or harder? Is the game
even meaningful anymore?
When the player vanishes the persistent world will still go on. When disconnecting from the server the player will fade out of the game world with a pixelated effect that will be reminiscent of older game's glitches. Other players' experiences will continue to go on. When a player vanishes it might disrupt the balance of gameplay if the player is in a group and the group is in a mission, dungeon raid or PVP battle. The challenges will become harder depending on the group's players' levels. PVE opponents' levels are initialized to the original group's levels. A similar process occurs in PVP. The game becomes more or less challenging and the game's meaning changes.
3. What happens to the game’s score when a player vanishes? Is the game still fair?
When a player vanishes, the game's score still continues as is to the remaining players. During a solo experience the game keeps track of the player's progress, and the player can continue where left-off, within the boundary of non-combat areas. In a single one on one PVP situation the remaining player gains an automatic win, and the vanishing player forfeits the battle. In a group PVP battle the game's fairness is dependent on the skill of the remaining players.
4. Does your game offer a player an advantage of some kind for intentionally disconnecting himself (whether by preventing himself from losing or by sealing his
own victory)? Is there any way to minimize this without penalizing players who
are disconnected accidentally?
The game does not offer an advantage to a player that intentionally disconnects them self. Players who are disconnected accidentally receive an indication in the disconnection stat instead of a loss stat indication during PVP to minimize the penalty of accidental disconnection.
5. In a turn-based game, what mechanism will you use to prevent a player from
stalling play for the other players? Set a time limit? Allow simultaneous turns?
Implement a reasonable default if the player does nothing?
In a situation where the game is turn-based, there will be a timer for the players complete their actions before the next player's turn to prevent stalling. When the timer is complete, an default auto-action will occur.
6. If you offer a chat mechanism, what features will you implement to keep it civil?
Filters? A complaint system? An ignore system? Or will your game require moderated chat spaces?
In the text chat system, there will be a built-in profanity filter that will be updated as necessary by the development team. The filter may be turned-off by players. To regulate player behavior there will be a complaint system that will be vigorously over-seen by a special task force of the development team, referred to jokingly as the thought police. There will also be an ignore system.
7. Is your game designed to prevent (or alleviate) collusion? Because you can’t prevent players from talking to each other on the phone as they play, how will you
address this? Or can you design your game in such a way that collusion is part of
the gameplay, as in "Diplomacy"?
The game is designed to alleviate collusion by player behavior complaints. The thought police also handles these complaints and distributes punishment accordingly. Bad complaints will be noted and that player's credibility and priority will diminish slightly with bad complaints. The opposite will happen with good complaints. Because players are able to talk to each other on the phone as they play, there will be in-game chat features to make the game fair.
Agera: Factions
1. How do you plan to deal with the issue of new players arriving in the middle of
a long game? Get rid of the victory condition, or find a way to make sure that players are matched with those of similar ability?
New players arriving in the middle of a long game, the persistent world, will undergo the basic tutorial missions. The tutorial missions will guide the player through the basic gameplay mechanics and mission structures and types with an ease-in pace. In the tutorial missions the areas that the player will transverse through will be instanced, they will be free from the intrusion of other players more accumulated into the world. Player grouping is a social game mechanic that will keep players evenly matched in PVP. As the player moves through the world, only other players in a similar range of level will be allowed to fight each other. A similar process will be used and calculated in groups.
2. What will happen to the gameplay when a player vanishes? How will it affect
the other players’ experience of the game (what they see and hear)? Does it disrupt
the balance of the game? Will it make the challenges easier or harder? Is the game
even meaningful anymore?
When the player vanishes the persistent world will still go on. When disconnecting from the server the player will fade out of the game world with a pixelated effect that will be reminiscent of older game's glitches. Other players' experiences will continue to go on. When a player vanishes it might disrupt the balance of gameplay if the player is in a group and the group is in a mission, dungeon raid or PVP battle. The challenges will become harder depending on the group's players' levels. PVE opponents' levels are initialized to the original group's levels. A similar process occurs in PVP. The game becomes more or less challenging and the game's meaning changes.
3. What happens to the game’s score when a player vanishes? Is the game still fair?
When a player vanishes, the game's score still continues as is to the remaining players. During a solo experience the game keeps track of the player's progress, and the player can continue where left-off, within the boundary of non-combat areas. In a single one on one PVP situation the remaining player gains an automatic win, and the vanishing player forfeits the battle. In a group PVP battle the game's fairness is dependent on the skill of the remaining players.
4. Does your game offer a player an advantage of some kind for intentionally disconnecting himself (whether by preventing himself from losing or by sealing his
own victory)? Is there any way to minimize this without penalizing players who
are disconnected accidentally?
The game does not offer an advantage to a player that intentionally disconnects them self. Players who are disconnected accidentally receive an indication in the disconnection stat instead of a loss stat indication during PVP to minimize the penalty of accidental disconnection.
5. In a turn-based game, what mechanism will you use to prevent a player from
stalling play for the other players? Set a time limit? Allow simultaneous turns?
Implement a reasonable default if the player does nothing?
In a situation where the game is turn-based, there will be a timer for the players complete their actions before the next player's turn to prevent stalling. When the timer is complete, an default auto-action will occur.
6. If you offer a chat mechanism, what features will you implement to keep it civil?
Filters? A complaint system? An ignore system? Or will your game require moderated chat spaces?
In the text chat system, there will be a built-in profanity filter that will be updated as necessary by the development team. The filter may be turned-off by players. To regulate player behavior there will be a complaint system that will be vigorously over-seen by a special task force of the development team, referred to jokingly as the thought police. There will also be an ignore system.
7. Is your game designed to prevent (or alleviate) collusion? Because you can’t prevent players from talking to each other on the phone as they play, how will you
address this? Or can you design your game in such a way that collusion is part of
the gameplay, as in "Diplomacy"?
The game is designed to alleviate collusion by player behavior complaints. The thought police also handles these complaints and distributes punishment accordingly. Bad complaints will be noted and that player's credibility and priority will diminish slightly with bad complaints. The opposite will happen with good complaints. Because players are able to talk to each other on the phone as they play, there will be in-game chat features to make the game fair.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Virtual Values Made Real, Video Game Cultural Issues
Fontecha, John Phillip
Game 100
6 May 2012
Cultural Issues Essay
The world of media is headed towards a common convergence points. The old traditions of media is that a film and television and advertising were their own separate entities. As time passes the lines continue to blur and the various types of media from film to games to even print are all integrated and interactive with each other. Single films are not created today, but the idea of franchises are planed from the very inception of an intellectual property. Films or television series of games no longer are single separate types of segregated media but are instead mixed together into a multi-media experience. Games and video games are affecting contemporary mainstream media such as television, film and advertising in that people expect properties to manifest themselves through a game, through film and they expect advertising to be interactive like a game. Game-like mechanics are no longer restricted to pure board games and video games, but game mechanics are even showing-up in stores and even simple life tasks.
Films are not limited to one market and isolated, but rather one film from Hollywood gets translated into various languages, and different cultures from all over the world see Hollywood films. Films are a transmission of culture and culture is transmitted the other way also and films start to reflect the world’s various cultures. The same interaction of cultures even happens between films and the culture of video games. There is a large cross-over of both movie-goers and video game players, a base that grows larger with each generation. This has led to a culture of fans that expects that there will be an accompanying game with major action movies and summer block-busters. When a major action film comes out in current times, it is an exception rather than a rule that the film does not has some kind of accompanying game. Furthermore; the consumer base expects movie-based video games to release day-and-date to coincide with the release date of the film, if not earlier. In the early days of video games during the time of the Atari 2600, video games came much later than the film. Empire Strikes Back for the Atari 2600 came three years later,1983, from the release of the film, 1980. The E.T. game came months later in December from the film’s release, June. In today’s market the games based on films come out at the same time as the films, Enter The Matrix and all The different iterations of the Harry Potter stories. Major films are not released today, multimedia experiences are released today.
With the popularity of video games, it is natural that there is a demand and want for films based on the stories of video games from fans. It is a great dismay that there are very little good films are translated from video game material. Game elements; however, have found their way into advertising. The old way of Hollywood was to have television commercials and print ads, but because the world is changing due to influences such as video games. The audience moves towards playing games and old advertising techniques have become less effective and efficient. Viral marketing or augmented reality games are a new type of advertising products from films to television shows to pretty-much anything. What makes viral marketing effective is that it is essentially an game. Viral Marketing has interaction, goals, and game mechanics, such as only the next stage of the game will only unlock when a certain amount of people complete a task. It is an interesting concept that viral marketing presents an opportunity for players to feel like they are apart of the film’s world in that they sometimes get to interact with a film’s characters. Examples of successful viral marketing range from The Dark Knight’s Harvey Dent campaign and Tron’s Save Flynn campaign. There are even alternate reality games based on television series like Heroes or Lost. Advertising is no longer advertisers dictating copy from Madison avenue, but rather modern advertising a grass-roots interactive game.
Advertising has changed in other ways due to the influence of video games. The market has changed and company’s have realized that in order to sell products they must go where the market is, in games themselves. There are many instances of real-world products appearing in virtual video games. There is the benefit to the suspension of disbelief in a video game if the names of company's and branding are real. On the other hand there is the detriment of in-game advertising in that it may be distracting and can take you out of the experience if it is not a good fit. An good example of advertising beneficial to both a game and the product is in the use of real cars in a racing game. People do not want to drive fake brands, but many instead delve into the fantasy of driving the super exotics, or even cars they can afford. There are times when advertising may leaning towards the bad side. In the game Dead Space 2, there is advertising for Dr. Pepper; luckily it comes in the form of armor in the Dr. Pepper color scheme. Bad advertising would be if the main character had to open a new Dr. Pepper can every time in order to restore health. Video games are greatly influencing contemporary advertising. The video game market contains a large segment of the overall young consumer population. Video game players are the target market of advertising.
In contemporary society there is a convergence of media, and video game and video game mechanics are at the forefront of media. Created stories are no longer restricted to one type of media, but rather the idea of creating an interactive experience is the norm. Everything is essentially becoming a video game. Films, television, advertising and video games are not going to diverge, but instead film, television and advertising will come closer and closer to each other and in the future it may be hard to tell the difference.
Game 100
6 May 2012
Cultural Issues Essay
Virtual Values Made Real
The world of media is headed towards a common convergence points. The old traditions of media is that a film and television and advertising were their own separate entities. As time passes the lines continue to blur and the various types of media from film to games to even print are all integrated and interactive with each other. Single films are not created today, but the idea of franchises are planed from the very inception of an intellectual property. Films or television series of games no longer are single separate types of segregated media but are instead mixed together into a multi-media experience. Games and video games are affecting contemporary mainstream media such as television, film and advertising in that people expect properties to manifest themselves through a game, through film and they expect advertising to be interactive like a game. Game-like mechanics are no longer restricted to pure board games and video games, but game mechanics are even showing-up in stores and even simple life tasks.
Films are not limited to one market and isolated, but rather one film from Hollywood gets translated into various languages, and different cultures from all over the world see Hollywood films. Films are a transmission of culture and culture is transmitted the other way also and films start to reflect the world’s various cultures. The same interaction of cultures even happens between films and the culture of video games. There is a large cross-over of both movie-goers and video game players, a base that grows larger with each generation. This has led to a culture of fans that expects that there will be an accompanying game with major action movies and summer block-busters. When a major action film comes out in current times, it is an exception rather than a rule that the film does not has some kind of accompanying game. Furthermore; the consumer base expects movie-based video games to release day-and-date to coincide with the release date of the film, if not earlier. In the early days of video games during the time of the Atari 2600, video games came much later than the film. Empire Strikes Back for the Atari 2600 came three years later,1983, from the release of the film, 1980. The E.T. game came months later in December from the film’s release, June. In today’s market the games based on films come out at the same time as the films, Enter The Matrix and all The different iterations of the Harry Potter stories. Major films are not released today, multimedia experiences are released today.
With the popularity of video games, it is natural that there is a demand and want for films based on the stories of video games from fans. It is a great dismay that there are very little good films are translated from video game material. Game elements; however, have found their way into advertising. The old way of Hollywood was to have television commercials and print ads, but because the world is changing due to influences such as video games. The audience moves towards playing games and old advertising techniques have become less effective and efficient. Viral marketing or augmented reality games are a new type of advertising products from films to television shows to pretty-much anything. What makes viral marketing effective is that it is essentially an game. Viral Marketing has interaction, goals, and game mechanics, such as only the next stage of the game will only unlock when a certain amount of people complete a task. It is an interesting concept that viral marketing presents an opportunity for players to feel like they are apart of the film’s world in that they sometimes get to interact with a film’s characters. Examples of successful viral marketing range from The Dark Knight’s Harvey Dent campaign and Tron’s Save Flynn campaign. There are even alternate reality games based on television series like Heroes or Lost. Advertising is no longer advertisers dictating copy from Madison avenue, but rather modern advertising a grass-roots interactive game.
Advertising has changed in other ways due to the influence of video games. The market has changed and company’s have realized that in order to sell products they must go where the market is, in games themselves. There are many instances of real-world products appearing in virtual video games. There is the benefit to the suspension of disbelief in a video game if the names of company's and branding are real. On the other hand there is the detriment of in-game advertising in that it may be distracting and can take you out of the experience if it is not a good fit. An good example of advertising beneficial to both a game and the product is in the use of real cars in a racing game. People do not want to drive fake brands, but many instead delve into the fantasy of driving the super exotics, or even cars they can afford. There are times when advertising may leaning towards the bad side. In the game Dead Space 2, there is advertising for Dr. Pepper; luckily it comes in the form of armor in the Dr. Pepper color scheme. Bad advertising would be if the main character had to open a new Dr. Pepper can every time in order to restore health. Video games are greatly influencing contemporary advertising. The video game market contains a large segment of the overall young consumer population. Video game players are the target market of advertising.
In contemporary society there is a convergence of media, and video game and video game mechanics are at the forefront of media. Created stories are no longer restricted to one type of media, but rather the idea of creating an interactive experience is the norm. Everything is essentially becoming a video game. Films, television, advertising and video games are not going to diverge, but instead film, television and advertising will come closer and closer to each other and in the future it may be hard to tell the difference.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Pinball
Pinball game links:
http://www.onlinepinball.net/
http://internetgames.about.com/od/webgames/tp/freepinball.htm
http://www.thepinballzone.net/game.php?id=online_pinball
http://www.guzer.com/games/pepsi_pinball.php
Pepsi Pinball
http://www.onlinepinball.net/htm/games/pepsi.htm
1) What is "good gameplay" when it comes to pinball game design?
2) How do pinball playfield designers create exciting experiences?
Ratatouille: Rat 'N' Roll
2) How do pinball playfield designers create exciting experiences?
Short Circuit Pinball (Favorite)
1) What is "good gameplay" when it comes to pinball game design?
2) How do pinball playfield designers create exciting experiences?
Friday, March 18, 2011
Excercise 1 3/18/2011
Game writers often find themselves asked to write content with very limited
information, and they have to make it up as best they can. This is an exercise about
writing dialog in such a situation. Assume the following scenario: An adventurer
arrives at an old ruin. The main entry gate is guarded by a huge stone golem that
has to be convinced to let the adventurer pass through. The player might take three
different approaches to the conversation at hand: intimidation, admiration, or subterfuge.
TASK
Write a scripted conversation for this situation in which, at each menu, the
player has a choice of three options corresponding to each of the three approaches.
Your conversation must include no fewer than four exchanges, counting introducing and parting dialog lines. If the player chooses a consistent approach
throughout the conversation, the golem opens the gate; if the player does not, the
golem refuses and the conversation ends.
Post your completed set of menus plus the conversations that stem from each as separate branches as a diagram to your blog. You may use freemind (on the applications folder of the macs in room 474) or some other tool such as google draw or photoshop or illustrator - any tool that lets you create a diagram of possible branching path options - a flowchart, basically.
Click Here For MindMap
information, and they have to make it up as best they can. This is an exercise about
writing dialog in such a situation. Assume the following scenario: An adventurer
arrives at an old ruin. The main entry gate is guarded by a huge stone golem that
has to be convinced to let the adventurer pass through. The player might take three
different approaches to the conversation at hand: intimidation, admiration, or subterfuge.
TASK
Write a scripted conversation for this situation in which, at each menu, the
player has a choice of three options corresponding to each of the three approaches.
Your conversation must include no fewer than four exchanges, counting introducing and parting dialog lines. If the player chooses a consistent approach
throughout the conversation, the golem opens the gate; if the player does not, the
golem refuses and the conversation ends.
Post your completed set of menus plus the conversations that stem from each as separate branches as a diagram to your blog. You may use freemind (on the applications folder of the macs in room 474) or some other tool such as google draw or photoshop or illustrator - any tool that lets you create a diagram of possible branching path options - a flowchart, basically.
Click Here For MindMap
Friday, March 11, 2011
Today's in class exercises - based on Chapter 5 of Ernest Adams
Today's workshop
part 1:
Go to:
Hero Machine - make your own hero
In class exercise number 1 - create three different kinds of hero for an imaginary videogame - e.g. RPG, MMORPG, FPS, etc. Consider scale, gender, body type for each of the three and try to vary them as much as possible.
Source Code: http://www.ugo.com/games/heromachine-ordinary-joe-edition?txtName=Kai&varLoadString=CEA66B,d,F7EBE7,b,FF0000,m,00B2F0,b,FFFFFF,0,AC8ABC,n,FFFFFF,0,FFFFFF,d,00B2F0,0,FFFFFF,v,FFFFFF,d,333333,0,333333,a,00B2F0,a,000000,h,AAAAAA,m,
Kai: Kai has several meanings in Japanese: change, the action to correct, taker and receiver. Kai lost her family to a tragic building fire. With no other family she was picked off the streets and raised by Zaibatsu members. As the game's story starts she is given her first assignment to prove her loyalty to the gang and their cause.
Cosmetic Attributes: Shirt
Functional Attributes: Shoes (modifies movement speed), skirt (modifies agility), coat (modifies defense), bandanna (modifies stealth), sword (modifies melee damage)
Players can modify the character through her cloths and choice of weaponry.
part 1:
Go to:
Hero Machine - make your own hero
In class exercise number 1 - create three different kinds of hero for an imaginary videogame - e.g. RPG, MMORPG, FPS, etc. Consider scale, gender, body type for each of the three and try to vary them as much as possible.
RPG - Zaibatsu
Zaibatsu is a Japanese term that refers to the businesses in the Empire Of Japan that controlled a significant share of the national economy before the end of World War II. A newly created street gang has taken the title Zaibatsu to warn rivals of their power and their destined future. This RPG places you into the shoes of a up and coming member as you climb the gang's ranks and make your name known in the criminal underworld.
Kai: Kai has several meanings in Japanese: change, the action to correct, taker and receiver. Kai lost her family to a tragic building fire. With no other family she was picked off the streets and raised by Zaibatsu members. As the game's story starts she is given her first assignment to prove her loyalty to the gang and their cause.
Cosmetic Attributes: Shirt
Functional Attributes: Shoes (modifies movement speed), skirt (modifies agility), coat (modifies defense), bandanna (modifies stealth), sword (modifies melee damage)
Players can modify the character through her cloths and choice of weaponry.
- Shoes mainly determine player movement speed in the game. The player might pickup different types of shoes to use in the game. Heavy boots provide a defense boost, but also restrict speed. Wearing high-heeled shoes boost kick damage during combat. Players might find special shoes that allow silent movement that draw less attention to the player during assignments.
- Bottoms mainly effect the agility of the player, the allowable amount of actions per turn in combat. Choosing a skirt instead of pants allows more actions per turn, but reduce defense compared to pants.
- Outerwear mainly determines defense stats and inventory. Wearing a large trench coat allows for more hidden weapons to beat carried, but having too many weapons encumbers the player and effects movement speed. Leather jackets greatly effect defense in combat.
- Bandannas are used to modify stealth. Wearing a bandanna during assignments reduces the chance that rival gang members will recognize the player out of combat and start a fight on the streets. On the other hand, wearing a bandanna out on the street will attract the attention of police.
- The choices of weaponry are numerous and modify the amount of damage dealt. Players can chose different martial arts styles. There are several types of katanas and knives. Shurikens are available for more distance stealth kills. For more modern geared players there are various guns, some with silencers or some without for times when damage is preferable over stealth.
- Tattoos later play an important customizable aspect in the game. As the player rises the ranks in the Zaibatsu organization they are given their own crew. The markings that you chose to wear identify your crew within the organization furthers player choice and creativity.
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