Zotero and Bibliographies

The Thursday before last I was introduced to the E-resources section of the UCS Wolsey portal via a lecture. the lecture also covered using Zotero to create bibliographies. As on any academic degree course, referencing the work of previous academics is a must to lend work credibility. Zotero allows a user to save pages into categories, the benefit being that Zotero automatically extracts information such as, author name, item type, publisher, date of publication etc, surrounding the book/article or film.

To underline this point, we were tasked to write a bibliography using the Harvard Formula which covers books, book contributions and journals. I've never written a Bibliography using the Harvard formula for referencing before, so it's likely I will make some mistakes. Please bear with me since this will be a learning experience.

Books

Harvard Formula for books: Author or Editor Surname, Initial., [Subsequent author(s) or editors] Year of publication. The full title of the book: italicised or underlined to indicate it is the title. Publisher: city of publication.

Gunter, B. 1998. The effects of video games on children : the myth unmasked. Sheffield Academic Press: Sheffield.

Poole, S. 2000. Trigger happy : the inner life of videogames. Fourth Estate: London.

Articles

Harvard Formula for journal articles: Author Surname, Initial., (subsequent author(s)), year of publication. The full title of the article without inverted commas. The Full title of the journal: italicised to indicate it is the title (volume and part if given and or Month, or season, or volume part number.

Miller, L, C. 2008. The video game industry and video game culture dichotomy: reconciling gaming culture norms with the anti-circumvention measures of the DMCA.(Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998).

Texas Intellectual Property Law Journal Mar 1, Vol. 16, Issue 3, p453.

V, D, G. 2009. Usefulness of Video Game Experience for Students Learning and Creating Digital 3-D. Visual Arts Research Jan 1, Vol. 35, Issue 2, p109-21, -87p.

Contributions

Harvard Formula for contributions: Author Surname, Initial., [Subsequent author(s)], year of publication. The full title of the article, without inverted commas. In Editor Surname, Initial., [Subsequent editor(s),] The full title of the containing work: italicised to indicate it is the title. City of publication: Publisher. page span of the work cited.

Pereira, J, 5/21 2004. Atari, Sega and Pac-Man Are Back in Retro Splendor. Wall Street Journal - Eastern Edition Volume 243 Issue 100.

Mckelvey, D, R. Palfrey, R, T. 1992. An Experimental Study of the Centipede Game. Econometrica Jul 1, Vol. 60, Issue 4.

I experienced quite a lot of difficulty trying to find contributions to books and articles using One Search. Maybe I didn't use the correct search terms. This concludes my attempt at creating a bibliography using Zotero. Feedback would be amazingly helpful since I think I did bits of it wrong.

Formula 1 Sportswheel Re-design/Re-skin

In the Design Methods module we have been tasked to re-design the look and layout of Playtecs Sportswheel game. I have chosen to use a Formula 1 racing theme for my re-design. I chose the F1 theme since it has a massive audience, several million people watch F1 around the world. I hope this will result with a large potential player base for the game itself.

I plan to replace the wheel in the game with a racetrack, possibly a real F1 track if I can re-create it to my satisfaction. I plan to enclose buttons in objects you'd see on an F1 track, a traffic light for instance. I quite like the idea of making the different coloured betting chips into F1 wheels, with different coloured tires to tell them apart.

This is a quick sketch I drew to help visualize what my re-designed game would look like. The art is very bad, but drawing this helped me to create the computerised sketch below.

 This is a computerised version of the sketch, which I created using PowerPoint. I believe this picture shows a rough outline of what my game may end up looking like. In the picture you can see I have contained the 'Go', 'Reset', and 'Exit' buttons in the green, yellow and red lights on the traffic light respectively. You can also see a representation of the grand stand complete with circles to symbolize the crowd. I plan to make the crowd hold up a banner via an animation when the player wins. The banner will say something like; "Congratulations! You've won £15!"

This concludes my brief summary of my re-design. As I continue the re-design process I will periodically update my blog with images of my re-designed game as it is being developed.

Board Game and Iterative Prototyping

Intro

This Tuesday our class were given the chance to continue work on the board games which we started on the first week of the course.

What is Iterative Prototyping?

We were introduced to the concept of 'iterative prototyping' and were shown how it was used in game design. Iterative prototyping is made up of 4 different processes; design, implementation, play-testing and evaluation.

Design: The first process is to choose an idea that I wished to incorporate into my board game. In this example I will talk about adding 'trap card' squares onto the game-board.

Implementation: The second process is to physically create the basic assets needed to put the idea into the game. If I was implementing the idea of 'trap cards', picked up by landing on trap card squares for example, then implementing the idea would require me to make the 'trap cards' out of card, write descriptions on them, and then write out the' trap card square' spaces onto the game board.

Play-testing: The third process is to actually test the idea. The ideal way of doing this is to get a group of 3-4 people together and play through the game with the new idea or rule being used. After these play sessions it should be fairly easy to get opinions and thoughts on the change which brings us to...

Evaluation: The fourth process is to think about the idea, decide which aspects, if any, worked and come to a decision as to whether you should keep or scrap the new idea. Once this decision is reached then a single cycle of the iterative method has been completed and a new one can begin anew from the first process, design, thinking of a new idea for the game.

It is important to remember that only one change to the game can be made at any one time using the iterative process. If multiple changes are implemented and tested at the same time, then the evaluation process becomes impossible, since the player cannot see what effect any single change would have had on the game, only the effect that all three changes had at the same time.

I shall now explain the two iterative changes I made to my board game.

Iterative Change 1: Re-drew game board.

My original board design had all three players in the game starting at different positions on the board, and treading different paths that didn't overlap much. I couldn't recall this approach being used in many board games I've played, so I decided to try it as an experiment. I discovered that the multiple starting positions, and lack of entwining paths caused a very low level of interactivity in my game, since the player was hardly ever in a position to land on the same square as another player.

With this in mind, the first iterative change I decided to make to my board game was a large one. As I said above, I wasn't happy with the board design I drew out in week one of the course, so I decided to start again and completely redraw the game board.

This time I made sure that all the players started on the same square, and that multiple paths were kept to a minimum. When I play-tested and evaluated the change, I found that it worked slightly better, but that my game still noticeably lacked interactivity between the players.

Iterative Change 2: Added 'trap card' squares to game board.

This realisation gave me an idea for the second iterative change I made to my game, adding 'trap card squares' to the game board. If a player landed on an 'trap card square' they would receive a 'trap card'. Each 'trap card' has different statistics such as; throw distance, number of uses, effect on enemy player etc.

The basic idea was that the player could use the 'trap cards' to slow players down which would allow players that are behind to catch up. When it came to testing the new idea, I realised that the player that who was winning could further slow down the losing player by using a 'trap card' against them, since some 'trap cards' like the Quicksand, could be used up to a distance of 6 game squares away.

My overall evaluation of the idea was that it added interactivity between the players, the caveat being that it had too much of a deciding factor on the outcome of the game. A single 'trap card' used on a player on the opening turns was enough to make them lose the game.

If I get another chance to change my board game, I'm going to have to re-think how the trap cards work.

This concludes my blog entry on my Board Game and the Iterative Method. Thanks for reading. :)

Game Elements: Agon, Alea, Ilinx and Mimicry

The below 4 elements have been adapted from Huizinga by Caillois. I will use them to describe two of my favourite games, Unreal Tournament 2004 and Super Smash Bros Brawl. I will also point out where each element is used.

Agon: competition

Alea: chance/randomness

Ilinx: movement

Mimicry: simulation, make believe, role-play

Unreal Tournament 2004 (Agon and Ilinx)

Intro

Unreal Tournament 2004 (UT2004) is a fast paced FPS that comes packaged with a variety of maps (too many to name), game modes (deathmatch, team deathmatch capture the flag, assault, bombing run and domination), and of course, weapons; Shield Gun, Link Gun, Mini-gun, Rocket Launcher and Flak Cannon to name a few.

Ilinx

The Unreal series is unusual compared to many FPS' since it gives players the ability to dodge incoming projectiles via several different types of jump. The player has both the standard jump (space) and double jump (space once in mid-air) but they can also execute a fast dodging manoeuvre by double tapping any of the 4 directional keys. These jump types can be chained together to create the 'dodge-jump', which is a useful technique that allows the player to move around the map quickly and easily.

When these jumps are applied to a combat situation it becomes apparent that the simple movement tools the game gives the player are versatile enough to make combat interesting and engaging. A typical 1v1 fight in UT2004 goes something like this; Player A has ambushed player B and fired a volley of rockets along a narrow corridor. Player B reacts by jumping over and around the rockets whilst aiming the long range Lightning Gun at player A. Player B fires the Lightning Gun and scores a direct hit to the torso causing major damage to player A, who then retreats along the corridor and around a corner. Player B realises the fight is going his way so he switches to the Mini-gun and dodge jumps along the corridor after player A... Directly into player A's direct Flak Cannon blast. Victory for player A. This example shows both that; there is quite a lot of depth to the combat and movement systems within the game, and that ilinx (movement) is a big part of how UT2004 plays.

Agon

The agon in the game is provided by both the AI opponents within the game and human players when the game is played online. The AI in UT games is traditionally accurate and uncompromising and UT2004 is no exception. Thankfully UT2004 comes with 8 different difficulty setting ranging from 'Novice' for players new to FPS games all the way up to the incredibly challenging 'Godlike setting, which can effortless dodge the majority of player projectiles, whilst somehow managing to be incredibly accurate with any weapon at the same time.

The online mode is a welcome change of pace from the offline battles against computer bots. In the online section of the game a player can play against thousands of players all of whom have varying skill levels. Sometimes the player will join a server when everyone playing is very experienced at the game, whereas other times they will join a server full of people who have never played the game online before.

Technically this is an element of randomness, of alea, but this doesn't effect how the game mechanics work, only the skill of those you'll play against.

Super Smash Bros Brawl (agon, alea and ilinx)

Intro

Super Smash Bros Brawl (SSBB) is a 4 player 2D beat-em-up game where the player can control a large variety of Nintendo characters. The character list ranges from the obvious inclusions of Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus, Pikachu, Kirby and Fox, to third party characters like Sonic (Sonic the Hedgehog) and Snake (Metal Gear Solid) series'. In total the character list comes to a staggering 35 playable characters.

In SSBB players have two attacks buttons, A and B, one jump button Y, L&R buttons to shield, plus directions on the control stick to move. On paper this set up sounds extremely limiting but in-game this movement set opens up a lot of strategy for each character. Each character has 4 ground moves, 4 mid-air moves, 4 smash attacks, and 4 special moves.

The aim of SSBB is to knock your opponent or opponents off of the stage (KO) whilst staying on yourself. Each time your knock a player to their doom you'll receive a point (Time Mode), or the player will lose a life (Stock Mode). Every time you attack a player a number representing his or her 'damage count' will rise below the screen. The more damage a character has accumulated the lighter they are when attacked, and thus the easier they are to KO.

Agon

The agon (competition) in SSBB comes in two forms; the AI within the game, and human players. The AI has 9 different settings ranging from, 'weak' the easiest to 'tough'; the most difficult. This allows the player to learn the controls and mechanics by playing against the easier settings, and then ramping up the difficulty when they want a challenge. The 'tough' AI for example will attack you when your vulnerable and defend themselves effectively when you try to attack them. The player must gain a good grasp of their chosen characters move-set in order to defeat a 'tough' computer especially in a 1v1 stock battle.

The challenge when playing against a human or group of people depends entirely on how much the person has played the game. Someone new to the series is unlikely to stand a chance in a stock match against a veteran, since the new player will not know the move-set of their opponents chosen character and thus not understand how to counter and effectively dodge the moves.

Alea

The Super Smash series has a noticeable element of alea (randomness) if items are enabled in the game options. When items are enabled, crates, barrels, swords, poke-balls, Ray Gun, the SuperScope and the Smash Ball to name a few, will spawn onto to the map at random locations. The way these items change the fight depends on the item, some items such as the Ray Gun give one player a slight advantage, since they can keep a player back using the ranged lasers it fires. Other items such as the Smash Ball can completely change the flow of a fight, since once broken open, it will allow the player that destroyed it to use their ultimate 'Final Smash' attack, which varies from character to character. This attack when used correctly will often instant KO whoever it hits.

Ilinx

Unlike many fighting games mastering the movement options in SSBB is absolutely fundamental should you hope to achieve victory. Every character in the game can jump and double jump, but many characters can also use their 'up' special move ('up+B') to recover longer distances. Some characters such as Kirby can execute multiple jumps in mid-air while others like Charizard and Pit have the ability to glide.

Recovering (getting back to the stage after being knocked off) is a huge part of the game. If a player doesn't understand how to recover then fights in SSBB can be over in seconds. Ilinx (movement) also takes the form of different types of dodges that can be executed by holding down either of the two shield buttons (L or R), in conjunction with a direction. If left or right is pressed, the player will roll in that direction, passing through any opponents as if they were not there. The speed and nature of the roll will vary from character to character. If down is pressed the player will temporarily step out of the foreground and into the background of the stage for a second, just long enough to dodge an enemy attack when timed correctly. As you can see, learning to dodge and move correctly in brawl is a essential skill the player must learn in order to stand a chance vs. the game's challenging AI.

I enjoyed writing this blog entry about two of my favourite games.

Thanks for reading. :)

Game Study Principles: Paidea and Ludus

As a gamer I have played many different types of game. In this blog entry I am going to describe two games I have recently played. One game fits under the ‘Paidea’ category the other, ‘Ludus’.

Paidea: effectively play for pleasure.

Ludus: more constrained by rules, with a clear outcome.

Paidea Game: Just Cause 2

Just Cause 2, the sequel to Just Cause, is a sandbox game set in a truly massive open world, made up of a collection of large and small islands. The player controls the protagonist an FBI agent named Rico Rodriguez, and travels around the environment, completing missions for 3 rival gangs. The ultimate aim of the game is to destabilise and eliminate the evil dictator, one "Baby Panay", by causing chaos throughout the game-world.

Rico can cause chaos in a large number of ways; by attacking military bases, destroying pipelines, wind turbines, oil rigs etc or by completing a variety of missions for 3 rival factions. Each faction has an 'area of influence' which encompasses a segment of the game's map. Each time the player completes a set number of missions for a faction, the 'area of influence' will grow and the player will receive a substantial boost to their chaos count.

As you can see the game does contain ludic elements, but the appeal of the game is the tremendous freedom it lends the player. Rico is armed with a deadly combination of an all purpose grappling hook device; which can attach itself to any surface, be it metal, human flesh, or a mountain, and a quick deploying parachute, perfect for sky diving off of mountains and buildings in the game world.

When these tools are used together the player can perform a technique called the 'slingshot', firstly the player must grapple towards a solid surface, secondly the player must engage the parachute in mid-air whilst Rico is being pulled towards the surface. If executed correctly the player will 'slingshot' into the air, maintaining the momentum gained from the grappling hook, the player will now be free to glide around using the parachute, and can speed up their flight by grappling onto the terrain as they fly past. This method of transport is both thrilling and fast and is one of the best ways to move around the gigantic world the game contains. Alternatively the player can drive several different types of vehicles ranging from cars, to motorbikes, to helicopters and finally planes, both military fighter jets, and commercial airliners.

Ultimately I believe that Just Cause 2 is a Paidea game because it gives players all the tools they'll need to explore and destroy the game world, yes they can complete the missions, but the real appeal of the game lies within the sandbox setting and the tools the player is given to interact with it.

Ludus Game: Portal

Portal is a puzzle/platform game created by valve to be packaged with the Orange Box. (The Orange Box contains; Half Life 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal, Half Life 2 Episode 1 and lastly Half Life 2 Episode 2). The player controls the protagonist Chell and guides her through a series of progressively difficult rooms in the aperture science underground laboratory. The player accomplishes this by using the 'Portal Gun' the games namesake, to create portals, one blue and one orange. The player can only create two portals at any one time.

The portals act like doorways and exits, so if the player enters the blue portal they will exit from the orange portal and vice versa. Here is a simple example from within the game; the player needs to get past a high wall that is in their path. The wall doesn't extend to the ceiling allowing the player to see over the wall. One way to get past this obstacle is for the player to first create a blue portal on the ceiling of the far room, next the player creates an orange portal on the wall next to them. If they look through this orange portal they will see the room on the other side of the wall, from a birds eye view. The final step simply requires the player to walk through the orange portal, whereupon they will exit the blue portal in mid-air and land in the room. This sounds complicated but in practise it is easy to grasp.

As the player moves throughout each room, they will receive information from GLADOS the AI entity that runs the aperture science facility.

The ultimate aim of the game is to complete each room and end the testing process. In this way I believe the game is ultimately ludic in nature.

I found it interesting to look at games using the 'paidea' and 'ludus' terms.

Thanks for reading. :)

Bibliography

Just Cause 2 (Xbox 360) Avalanche Studios, Eidos Studios

Portal (PC) Valve

Video Game Analysis: KS1 Bitesize Games

Introduction

Today in small groups of 4-5 the class decided on a critical vocabulary for games, comprised of the below 5 gaming related terms. Below I have written the descriptions that my small group and myself came up with.

Interaction: If a game lacks interaction it is a puzzle and therefore not a game.

Goals: One or more goals are required or the game will lack purpose and the player will then lack motivation to play it.

Struggle: Every game must have an element of struggle, without a challenge there is no sense of achievement when victory occurs. (At the same time, a game shouldn’t be too difficult; a game where it is impossible to progress due to its difficulty will not be fun to play).

Structure: Is required in the game to present rules to the player which will influence how the game is played. A small change to the rules of a game can have a significant effect on player behaviour within the game.

Endogenous Meaning: All objects, components, etc. within a game only have meaning within the game. This keeps the game separate from reality so it has no impact on real life.

I have used this vocabulary to analyse two educational Bitesize KS1 games I have played. The mini reviews have been posted below.

Game 1: Shape Lab Math Game

Link to the first game I am analysing: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks1bitesize/numeracy/shapes/index.shtml

Game 1 Interaction: The interaction present in this game is basic; the player can only click on the 3-4 shapes on screen. When the player wins or loses, there is limited feedback, the game simply says, “I don’t think that’s right!” “Try again”, if the player picks the wrong shape. If the player gets one question right an animation plays and they get a ‘thumbs up’ as a reward. If the player gets all 5 questions correct the game says “You’ve completed the medium level! Want another challenge?”

This feedback does not help children to learn since it does not tell them what they did right, or wrong, only if they succeeded or failed.

Game 1 Goals: This game has one single goal; to pick the correct shapes based on the properties the game tells you, e.g. symmetry, number of sides etc. The player sees two different animations, the failure animation shows the scientist character being electrocuted since you handed him the wrong shape, the success animation shows the scientist with his thumb up since you handed him the correct shape.

The player cannot get any other outcome other than success or failure.

Game 1 Struggle: This game contains a limited element of struggle. The player receives no penalty whatsoever for getting a wrong answer so potentially; the child can easily guess each answer, since there are only has three shapes he can click. if he uses this method he gets the right answer but won’t have any idea why.

The player cannot lose the game even if they get 100 wrong answers in a row, the game would just tell the player “I don’t think that’s right!” “Try again”. Since there is little element of struggle the game ceases to be exciting, and there is no ‘thrill of victory’ when the player wins the game.

Game 1 Structure: This game has a very strict set of rules and structure. The player either gets the right answer or the wrong answer; there is no freedom to choose a different path through the game. This gives the game very low replayability, since the player knows how the game will end.

Game 1 Endogenous Meaning: The information that very young KS1 stage children learn from this game may be useful in the real world, e.g. amount of sides certain shapes have, how symmetry works etc. Therefore this information is not endogenous to the game. The flash animations however have no real value outside of the game.

Game 1 Evaluation: Overall I believe that this simple shape recognition game partially achieves what it’s designed to do: to teach KS1 stage children about shapes. I also believe that with some simple modifications such as, a longer animation reward  when you win, a greater element of struggle created by giving the player 10 ‘tries’ to guess the correct answers, and finally an improved feedback system that tells the player why they got an answer right/wrong; that the game could be made much more appealing to younger children.

Game 2: Kung Fu English Sentence Game

Link to the second game I am analysing: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks1bitesize/literacy/sentences/index.shtml

Game 2 Interaction: The interaction in this game is once again limited. The player has to create the correct structure for a sentence by clicking on 3-4 sections of a sentence in the correct order. If they succeed they will be treated to a fast acrobatic animation, when the person balancing on a rock, spins a stick very quickly while leaping over it. This animation may entertain young children but it is the same animation for every sentence that is put into the correct order. In contrast there are three different failure animations in the game. This increased variety may make some young children purposely lose the game just to see every failure animation.

Game 2 Goals:

There is a single goal in the game, to put each of the 5 sentences into the correct order. Once the player does this they have won the game. If they get an answer wrong they can try again as many times as they like, but there is still only two outcomes, success and failure. The player can play this game on different difficulty settings; normal, hard, very hard. In a way this creates a new goal for the player, to beat the game on the hardest setting possible.

Game 2 Struggle: In this game there is very little struggle because there is no penalty for getting the sentence order wrong. This makes the game very easy, and the player could potentially complete the game by guessing, if they play enough times. If they do this they won’t learn anything and thus the purpose of the game, to teach children about sentence structure, will have failed. Furthermore there is no satisfaction in victory, just like in the first game, because there is no element of struggle.

Game 2 Structure: This game has a very simple structure, the player must click on words in the correct order to form a sentence. This is a very strict rule set and it gives the player no freedom to do anything other than win or lose. If more words had been selectable the player could have at least formed multiple sentences on successive play-throughs; I believe this would add a bit of variety and replayability to the game.

Game 2 Endogenous Meaning: As with the first game, the information gained,  from the  Kung Fu Sentence Structure game may be useful to KS1 children in the real world. Therefore the information is not endogenous to the game since it has meaning in real life. The flash elements such as the art on the other hand, have no meaning in real life.

Game 2 Evaluation: Overall I believe this game to be slightly superior to the Shape Lab Math game in terms of graphical design; the miniature roaring waterfall in the background looks powerful and cartoon-like at the same time. I also think the animations in this game are also more interesting to watch since more movement happens in them. In terms of the actual game mechanics however, this game leaves a lot to be desired. Once again I think the game would benefit from a fleshed out feedback system, that tells the KS1 student what they did right, and what they did wrong. Furthermore I believe a "tries" system could be added. This would give the player a limited number of attempts to put the sentence in order, once all tries have been used the game would return to the first question. This would give the game an extra element of struggle, which would become satisfaction once the player bests the game.

Conclusion

In conclusion I found this exercise entertaining and interesting. It allowed me to put the critical vocabulary we'd created in class to the test against two basic games to see which elements they used or lacked.

Once again, thanks for reading. :)