Guest Speakers John Wagland from BBFC and Johnnie Ingram on Machinima

Last Wednesday I attended two different talks from two different guest speakers. Below I will recount my experience of listening to the talks, and discuss the issues they raised.

Intro on the British Board of Film Classification Talk

The first talk was from John Wagland one of the examiners from the British Board Film Classification (BBFC), and was about their purpose, methods and how they classify films and video games. The BBFC have been around a very long time, the organisation was set up in 1912 under the original name of the British Board of Film Censors.

The talk focussed mainly on film classification, but did briefly talk about games.

The BBFC is composed of 16 examiners from wide ranging backgrounds. These are split into two separate teams, one team examines films, and the other examines video games.

Film Classification

Near the end of the talk, Wagland showed us clips from various films, and asked us what age rating we would classify them as, based solely on the clip.

One such film clip was from Disney’s Rocketman film, which was aimed at all audiences (U rating). The clip we were shown was the original intro to the film, in this intro a child is pretending to be an astronaut… using a washing machine as a fake spacecraft. The washing machine starts and the child gets slightly knocked around before it opens. His parents seem to think it’s perfectly normal for him to be doing this.

The BBFC felt that this scene could be harmful to children if they copied the actions from the film. Some of the examiners felt it might have been suitable if the parents had reprimanded the child for the behaviour, since children watching would realise it was a “bad” thing to do. Part of the problem then was that the parents treat the incident so normally, barely even commenting on the child’s dangerous behaviour.

The BBFC ordered Disney to remove the footage, in order for the film to be re-assessed and later re-classified as a U rating. I wholeheartedly agree that child safety must come first, but I also think its a shame they had to cut such a humorous scene. Almost every person in the room seemed to be laughing at this particular clip, which shows that the humour did in fact appeal to all ages.

Game Classification

John Wagland also talked about games and how they are classified.

When examiners play through any game, they are given access to cheats/save states that allow them to easily and quickly experience everything the game has to offer. In this way, they do not play through the entire game from start to finish; instead they sample the mechanics of the game being examined.

Wagland admitted that games sometimes seem to receive harsher examination than film. He attributed this to parents being very concerned with the interactive nature of games. He also cited the repetitive nature of games, since this allows the player to freely repeat violent or offensive sections of the game, whereas in a film, a specific violent action will likely only be seen once in a single sitting.

Interestingly, the BBFC will lose their authority and ability to classify games on April 1st 2011. This change was prompted by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, after they ruled in favour of solely using the PEGI (Pan European Game Information) system to rate games and other types of software.

Intro on the Machinima Talk

The second talk was from Johnnie Ingram and focussed on machinima.

The word machinima stems from, machine & cinema. machinima uses games as a tool to tell a story, in this way machinima is essentially the act of making a film within a game world.

Sometimes machinima is created directly within a game engine, with game players acting out different characters in the film in real time. An alternative is for machinima to be created using developer tools such as Half Life 2's model viewer, to view and manipulate character models. A limitation of this method in the case of the HL2 model viewer, is that anyone that has played the game will know all the original HL2 characters being used in the machinima, and so it may feel odd when they see the same character models, acting completely differently to the role they played in HL2.

Brief History of Machinima

The initial machinima videos took the form of recorded instructions within a game, such as a replay. This greatly limited the potential audience for initial machinima, since only those people who owned the game the machinima was made in, could recall the recorded instructions and thus view the film. The very first machinima movie was Diary of a Camper. http://machiniplex.net/classics.php?id=6

In the present day machinima is usually saved as an ordinary video file such as a AVI file. This allows any computer user to view the file as long as they have downloaded the latest media plug ins for their chosen video playing software.

Examples of Machinima

After explaining what machinima was, Ingram showed us two lengthy examples of it in practise.

Firstly we watched "A Warriors Dream", which according to Ingram, was filmed entirely using in-game footage from World of Warcraft (WOW). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5JuypAbBH8

The films premise is that a WOW warrior character falls asleep and has a dream that they are in fact, a shape shifting shaman character. The shaman travels across the world, shape shifting each time he meets a new enemy. Eventually the dream ends, and the warrior wakes up and continues his day to day business of killing monsters.

The second example we watched was a film called Clockwork, which was created using the HL2 model viewer and HL2 assets. http://machiniplex.net/?id=22

Clockwork was made in the style of old black and white films, this really gave it a film noir vibe. The film focuses on a group of gangsters and how one particular gangster decides to attempt to redeem himself as a human being after sinking so low. To say much more would spoil the plot of this excellent piece of machinima.

Moviestorm

Machinima can also be created using specialist software such ash, Moviestorm, Iclone, Muviu, Voovees, Xtranormal and Zencub3d.

Ingram gave us a quick demo of his Moviestorm software. Firstly he loaded up a basic park-like scene, and then created a quick character to be the 'star' of the film. Next he used a microphone to record a basic sentence for his character to say in the software. When Ingram tested the sentence, he demonstrated that Moviestorm featured automatic lip syncing of recorded voice lines. Next Ingram used the Moviestorm interface to make the character give some simple gestures such as waving. Finally Ingram modified the camera settings to create two shots, the first shot shows the character from a distance, the second shot is a close up and allowed us to see the character speaking.

This brief demo showed us that basic scenes could be created very quickly and easily using Moviestorm.

Career of Johnnie Ingram

The final part of the talk focussed on Ingram's career. By his own admission, Ingram has had a very interesting career path. He began by studying Drama and English, dropped English, and then abandoned drama and decided to study films and media. Eventually he applied to a local company via email, and worked with them for a number of years, before applying to Moviestorm. He joined Moviestorm as a software tester, and ultimately he worked his way up the company to a very senior position. One of his new duties is to give talks about; machinima, his career and Moviestorm to universities and students.

Conclusion

I'm glad I attended both events. Each event offered something different, the BBFC talk taught me a lot of interesting information about movies, games and how and why they are rated.

The machinima talk was also very entertaining. Ingram's method of timekeeping was amusing; since he kept overrunning the set period of time each segment of the talk was supposed to last.

Before attending the talk I knew almost nothing about machinima. I'd watched a few episodes of Red vs. Blue a Halo machinima, and a few other random videos online, but that was my entire experience of it. I left the talk with more knowledge than when I entered it, realising that some videos I've watched in the past were actually machinima without me realising it.

This concludes my recount of both talks. Thanks for reading. :)

Films Referenced

Rocketman (Walt Disney Pictures, Caravan Pictures).

Machninema Referenced

Diary of a Camper (United Ranger Films).
Available online at: http://machiniplex.net/classics.php?id=6

A Warriors Dream (Slashdance).
Available online at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5JuypAbBH8

Clockwork (Amorphous Blob Productions).
Available online at: http://machiniplex.net/?id=22

Red Vs Blue (Rooster Teeth Productions).
Available online at: http://redvsblue.com/archive/?id=88&v=trending

Formula 1 Sportswheel GUI Mock-ups & Adobe Illustrator Practise

I am now halfway through the development time period for my Formula 1 sportshweel re-design.

At this stage I am required to have started creating some basic mock-ups for my re-design. Below I have posted images showing each mock-up, and explained how the interface elements are positioned.

Mock-up 1 - as you can see, the track is positioned at the bottom of the screen. All other interface elements, the betting chips, the grand stand and the traffic light, are positioned above the track.

Mock-up 2 - this is the only design where the track is placed on the upper portion of the screen. I thought this would be something interesting to try in my design. I positioned the betting chips around the bottom left edge of the track.

Mock-up 3 - in this design I have positioned the track in the centre of the screen. I like this design since the various elements fill most of the screen-space which stops the game screen feeling empty. Visually I like the position of the betting chips, but the spread out nature, might make the game difficult to play.

Mock-up 4 - in this design I decided to try something different. I decided to move all of the interactive elements in my game, betting chips, traffic light play, reset and quit buttons, onto a single horizontal row. I think this will facilitate the making of bets, when players play the game.

Colour Scheme Grid - this is the colour scheme grid I created. I chose red, yellow and orange to be the predominant colours in my game. I feel that these colours complement each other well and lend the game a "warm" feeling.

 

Adobe Illustrator Practise

This Thursday Phil gave us a quick introduction to Adobe Illustrator. The interface of Illustrator is very similar to Photoshop, many of the same tools and options are in both programs.

The biggest difference between the software is Photoshop is a bitmap program, while Illustrator is vector based. Vector based images can be resized infinitely without 'pixelation' occurring and blurring the details of the image. Similarly lines don't become jagged when enlarged.

I spent the majority of Thursdays lesson having a play around with Illustrator since I had never used it before. Andre challenged me to draw a video game character, and eventually I decided to try and draw Nintendo's Kirby character, since design-wise he is fairly simplistic.

Needless to say, drawing Kirby proved to be much more challenging that I'd have imagined. I didn't realise how much effort went into even a simple character design such as Kirby before trying to draw him.

Eventually, with a little bit of help from both Andre and David, I was able to create the below image. Mainly I used the pen tool, combined with ellipses to form Kirby's body, feet and hands. I used the convert anchor point tool to move the various sections of the ellipse to create the shapes I wanted.

Kirby - This is my attempt at Kirby. I'm pretty proud of it. I might edit it sometime to add light and shadow to the image, this should make Kirby look much more 3D.

 

Kirby Reference Image - I based my attempt on this picture of Kirby.

It's not perfect but I think it's pretty good considering I'd never used Illustrator until earlier that day.

Overall it was a very enjoyable lesson. I learnt about the program while doing something that interested me, creating a video game character using various tools in the program. Thanks for reading. :)

Natural Funativity

This week we were asked to read an article titled ' Natural Funativity', an interesting title to be sure. (The title is a pun on natural selection). In this blog post I will summarise and discuss what I think are the important points of this article.

Intro

Fun in itself is not a useful term when critically analysing a game, the term 'fun' is too subjective and not specific enough. This article written by Noah Falstein attempts to remedy this by looking back at the past of our human existence to determine why we like to partake in certain activities and find them 'fun'.

In the article fun is broken down into 4 distinct types these are; physical fun, social fun, mental fun and blended fun. Below I will describe what each type of fun involves and where it likely evolved from. The article also mentions something the author calls, refined sugar syndrome, below I will explain what this means, and how it relates to the different types of fun.

RSS - stands for Refined Sugar Syndrome. It is the act of wanting more of something, even though we know it is bad for us. It is the act of refining something to make it more extreme, e.g. a person’s love of fast cars may date back to when we needed to move faster and faster to escape hungry predators. The modern car can be seen as a more refined version of that original love of speed, which helped us to survive. It's the same principle, but taken to a much greater extreme.

Physical Fun - is very likely to be linked back to the pure survival skills, such as hunting and gathering that our ancestors possessed. Hunting skills can be seen in a large variety of games, including but not limited to; racing games (chasing down the 'prey', or escaping from the 'prey'), FPS games, where the player physically runs after the enemy player in an effort to destroy them, or conversely, when low on health, attempts to escape from the enemy player. Physical fun is not just limited to tool use. The mere act of interacting with the game itself; whether it's by using a game controller, mouse and keyboard combination, or one of the various new motion sensing technologies, (Wii, Kinnect and Playstation Move), this interaction and manipulation of the input peripheral is in itself an act of physical fun.

Gathering skills can also be seen in many different types of games. This type of skill likely dates back to our time as berry and cherry pickers, once again an essential part of our survival. Here are some examples of collectibles from a variety of different video games; Pacman - dots, Mario - coins, stars, Zelda – heart-pieces, weapons, tools, Final Fantasy - different weapons, potions, etc. Collecting is also a large part of MMORPG's (massively multiplayer online role playing games). In most MMORPG's the player must acquire better items in the form of progressively better 'loot' as they continue to fight monsters which get increasingly more difficult. The new loot keeps the player powerful throughout their time playing the game. The Pokemon video games were entirely based around the idea of fighting and catching hundreds of different monsters, as the games catch phrase, "Gotta catch em' all!" states. As you can see, the act of collecting is crucial to many video games.

Social Fun - can be traced back to our need to survive as a species, via reproduction and living as part of a larger tribe or clan. Just as important is our development as a species with our love of storytelling. The earliest form of story was a way of imparting information and lessons to future generations. Stories can impart knowledge even if the author of the story has long since passed away. Stories then, are one way we record events throughout the ages.

In games social fun can take many forms, here are a few of the most common ones; in most MMO's; especially those that discourage or disable player vs player killing, the impulse to help out other players especially if they are new to the game, exists. Players often travel around the world in clans, to complement each other's individual skills, and stand a better chance against the majority of monsters and quests throughout the game. This type of play is very reminiscent to how we as human beings behaved back thousands of years ago when we lived as part of a larger tribe, in order to stand a better chance of surviving.

Mental Fun - can be traced back as an alternative to always hunting. Instead of instantly going outside again after returning from a successful hunt, one of our ancestors could have taken a break from hunting, and played a simple game using a piece of wood and stones. The single piece of wood would be balanced on a stone, and the ancestor would throw other stones at the wood to try and overbalance it. In this fashion the ancestor is improving his mental abilities, whilst in a safe environment. This also has the added benefit of helping his muscle tone, since he is getting a miniature workout by throwing the stones, even when not actively hunting for food.

Intelligence itself is sometimes defined as the ability to find and manipulate patterns. Imagine if you will the importance of our ancestors recognising the difference between a normal field of grass and a field of grass occupied by a Sabre-tooth tiger, lying in wait. It's not difficult then to see how mental fun would have been essential to our ancestor’s survival.

In games mental fun can take many forms, puzzle games such as Bejeweled, are perhaps the most obvious example in video games.. Jigsaw puzzles and the ever popular Rubix Cube are two common examples of non-digital mental fun. I imagine most people will at some point in their lives, have completed a jigsaw puzzle or grappled against a Rubix Cube.

Blended Fun - Most modern entertainment is made up of a mixture of the above categories.

A common sport such as football for example, uses elements of; physical fun - kicking, throwing and catching the ball, social fun - team work, communication throughout the game, and mental fun - the actual overall game-plan and tactics throughout each minute of the game, e.g. when to put more of an emphasis on attacking, when to shift that emphasis largely to defence etc.

Rayman Gold

Video games also use a blend of the different types of fun listed above. Consider the 2D platforming game Rayman Gold. Rayman contains a large element of collecting. In Rayman the player must collect all 100 'tings' (balls of light), in order for the exit to the next level to appear. To accomplish this, the player must practise playing the game, learning the controls as they go, along with learning how to execute certain moves effectively. This is another aspect of physical fun.

Rayman Gold also contains mental fun. As the player plays through the game they will encounter a variety of different enemies, based on each environment in the game world. Many of these enemies use specific attack patterns which need to be memorised, in order to effectively defeat them. This mechanic is most prevalent in the many Boss stages throughout the game. The player must fight each boss several times before they will be able to effectively recognise and exploit the weaknesses in the attack patterns that each boss utilises. Only then will the player be able to triumph and move onto the next environment of the game.

Rayman Gold: Mr Skops Boss Battle

Rayman Mapper

It could also be argued that Rayman Gold contains social fun through the use of the built in Mapper. The Mapper program allows the user to create complex, 2D single player levels, much like those that were included in the game. The player is, in fact, given the exact same tools that the Developer (Ubisoft) used to make the levels in the game, and so can create levels nearing or even surpassing the quality of the Ubisoft levels.

The learning curve of the level editor is almost non existent, I should know since I was able to make fairly complex levels back when I was only around age 7-8. The level editor is comprised of two main screens; the first screen is the 'level' being constructed itself; this will start of as a completely blank background.

The second screen is a 2D template image containing all the individual elements of one of the 'themes' from the game. The themes are, Dream Forest, Band Land, Candy Chateau, Picture City, Blue Mountains and The Caves of Skops.. To start creating a level, the play simply needs to drag a box around an element from their chosen template that they want in their level and then use the ‘Ctrl C’ and ‘Ctrl V’ hotkeys to copy and paste the element onto the other screen. (Fun fact: The Rayman Gold level editor taught me those two extremely common hotkeys. Before playing the game, I didn't know of them).

Rayman Mapper Dream Forest Template

Anyway, back to how it could be classified as social fun. After a level has been created, it can be uploaded to the internet to allow other Rayman Gold players to experience it. Sometimes the players may give the level author feedback, thus communicating with them. This is a simple form of social fun. The author can use this feedback to improve their level, and then re-upload it to get more feedback. This iterative process of improving the level may overtime produce something of great quality that many people will enjoy playing.

Conclusion

In conclusion I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article. The possibility that fun can be linked back to our evolution as a species, and can then be broken down into four sub-categories is an intriguing one.

Bibliography

Falstein Noah, "Natural Funativity", 2004.

Available online at: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2160/natural_funativity.php

Games Referenced

Rayman Gold (PC, Playstation) Ubisoft

Video Game Journalism Old and New Styles and the Differences Between Them

Last Thursday I received a lecture on journalism, primarily games journalism, and the differences between old games journalism (OGJ) and new games journalism. (NGJ).

For many years now I have followed the video game world, mostly by using the internet to read articles, reviews, previews etc about the latest games. Until Thursday I never really knew the difference between each type of journalism, and what effect that had on each review/article I had read.

I will now define OGJ and NGJ and discuss specific examples of each type of journalism which I have read.

OGJ - In this type of journalism the author seeks to evaluate the different elements which make up a game, typically: graphics, gameplay, sound, presentation, and replayability are all graded, or at least mentioned in the review.

Pros of OGJ:

• Often gives the reader an in-depth analysis of the game and it's strong and weak points. This allows the reader to do research by reading reviews before purchasing a game. (It's worth noting that although most reviews give each game an overall 'score' out of 10, this is really just a summary, and a much better impression of the game is gained by reading the entire review).

Cons of OGJ:

• Ultimately, it's only the article authors personal opinion on whether the game is good or not. When a reader plays the same game, they may have a very different experience and like or dislike the game for different reasons.

NGJ - In this type of journalism the author writes an article about their personal experience with a game. The purpose here is to tell the reader a story about the game. Sometimes a specific event is recounted in great detail.

Pros of NGJ:

• Allows the reader to sympathise with the author.
• Well thought out examples of NGJ can make the reader actually think about the article they just read and it's implications on them and the world.
• May prove to be more entertaining to read, especially for people who like fiction.

Cons of NGJ:

• Often doesn't give the reader much information about the game itself.
• Some people may find NGJ articles long winded, case in point, the people who run the 'UK Resistance' website.

Now I have defined NGJ, OGJ and the pros and cons of each, I will discuss specific examples of each type of journalism below.

Examples of OGJ

The UK Resistance website has helpfully provided me with 10 examples of OGJ. Sadly the link to the 'Project Rub' review is broken, so I was only able to read 9 of the examples. I have chosen to discuss the Half Life 2 review, and the Die Hard Trilogy review.

Half Life 2 Review (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/r_half-life2_pc)

I decided to discuss this review, because,

a. I believe it to be well written

and

b. I recently played through and completed Half Life 2 (hereafter referred to as HL2), and HL2 Episode 1, so I should have a good understanding of the game itself.

This review is in effect, two reviews in one article, since each of the two pages of the review is written by a different person, thus the reader gets two entirely different perspectives of the same game. (Albeit the second page is shorter).

Page one of the review is split into 8 separate sections, these range all the way from, the validation issues the game had with Steam upon release, up to the different elements that make the game unique in its genre, e.g. the attention to detail, the body and facial animations of the characters in the world, etc.

I felt that these sections successfully broke HL2 down into manageable segments, allowing the author to discuss all the major parts that make up HL2.

As I re-read the review I tried to put myself in the mindset of someone who has never played HL2 before. As I did this I realised that although the game being reviewed is very complex and multifaceted, that the author talks about almost anything the reader could wish to know about the game including: weapons, sounds, AI, characters, mission structure, the overall feel of the game, puzzle elements, physics, the game story, the combat and voice-work. All of this information is covered without giving the reader major spoilers about the game or its story. There is one spoiler warning in the article itself, which briefly talks about the Gravity Gun weapon and the effect it can have on the game world. The spoiler warning allows the reader to skip the rest of the paragraph and continue at the beginning of the next, if they wish to discover all the weapons in the game as they play through it themselves.

Overall I believe this was an excellent review for UK Resistance to cite in their '10 Best Examples of OGJ' list, since it covers all the important aspects of the game, gives the player an idea of what they actually do in the game, and does a good job of persuading people to actually play the game.

Die Hard Trilogy Review (http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/saturn/dhtrilog.htm)

I decided to discuss about this review because I was intrigued that the website, UK Resistance, decided to link to one of their own reviews to show the benefits of OGJ. To me this seemed like an unprofessional path to take, unless the quality of the review was very high...

After reading this short review through several times, I am puzzled as to why UK Resistance chose to include this on their list of '10 best examples of OGJ'.

Before we begin, it's worth noting that I've never played any of the Die Hard games, or even seen any of the movies, so my perception of the game is based entirely on this single review.

The review itself is broken down into 5 short sections; Graphics, Sound, Control, Gameplay, and Overall.

The main issue I have with this example of OGJ is that it doesn't tell the reader enough about the game itself. The information contained in each category is short and tells the reader next to nothing about the game. At no point does the review actually explain the overall objective of the game, and what the player does throughout the game experience.

The only information I was able to gather from this review was that the player has to shoot people, using the lightgun as the game's controller. The review mentions one weapon, a machine gun, references a driving section several times, and very briefly refers to "villains" in the game. the review also touches upon, again briefly, the games music and voices.

In all honesty this is the kind of review where I finish reading it, and end up with more questions about the game than I started with. Here are some of my burning questions: Are there multiple enemy types?, different weapons?, does the game use an objective based level structure, are the levels well designed?, is Die Hard Trilogy an on-rails-game, or does the player have the ability to freely move around the environment?

I sincerely believe that I could have learnt more about Die Hard Trilogy by reading the back of the game box, at least that would give me a vague idea of what the player actually does throughout their time playing the game.

Another issue I have with this review is the repeated and constant use of words such as; COOL!, SUCKS!, ACE, fairly crap and fun. When the author of the review uses these words he never backs up his point with actual evidence. Here are some examples taken from the review:

"Just make sure you set gore levels to max, as the blood splats on the windscreen are COOL!"

"Despite all the shortcomings listed above, this is still an ACE game"

"DH2 is fairly crap really, but I guess it does give you something else to do with your Light gun."

The overall impression I got after reading this article, was that the reviewer should have spent more time expanding the information contained in each section of the review.

In conclusion I honestly think this is one of the worst game reviews I have ever read, it barely tells the reader any information about the game, and since I've never actually played the game, it makes the review almost entirely pointless. After reading the entire review, I know next to nothing about the setting, characters, or mechanics in the game.

The thing that strikes me the most is that the UK Resistance website cited this, this, abomination of a review as one of the "10 best examples of OGJ". Granted it's a review on their own website, but if they actually wanted to sway peoples opinions and make them think, then they wouldn't have linked to this particular 'review'.

Examples of NGJ

The Guardian Gamblog has helpfully provided me with 10 outstanding examples of NGJ. Sadly only 7/8? of the these articles work, the rest are broken links. I have chosen to discuss the, Bow N*****, Possessing Barbie, and Dreaming in an Empty Room articles.

Bow N***** Article (http://www.alwaysblack.com/blackbox/bownigger.html)

BN is an article recounting the authors experience playing the FPS/action game Jedi Knight: Jedi Outcast 2. JK JO2 is an unusual game since it mixes first person shooting with 3rd person lightsabre based combat. Since the BN article focuses on the lightsabre based dual mode, I shall do likewise.

The rules of dual mode are simple, two players take it in turns to fight to the death using lightsabres. The winner stays on and fights the next opponent, and the next, until eventually, he is defeated, and then joins the other players at the back of the 'queue' of people waiting to dual.

The article itself was enjoyable to read; a classic tale of good, the article author, vs evil, the swearing, racist opponent. I've played enough online games to partially understand the authors situation, unless a player is extremely lucky then after a few years of online play, they are likely to encounter a similar situation in the online world.

The last such incident I can currently remember is far less dramatic. As far as I can recall, I was playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare with a friend on Xbox Live, probably playing either Team Deathmatch, or HQ, (moving king of the hill). Me and my friend were chatting casually, about the game itself, which points to capture next and which points to defend, and occasionally about other random topics. Eventually either, one of our team mates or possibly an enemy, started to speak to us, mainly me over voice chat. The conversation went something like this:

"Hey there are some damn brits in the game!" - Some Guy

"Yeah we're from the UK, so what?" - Me

"Damn, you've got a posh accent" - Some Guy

"Just because I don't pronounce 'water' as 'warer' doesn't mean I've got a posh accent." - Me

"I bet you know the queen" - Some Guy

At this point I was getting irritated by the chat, just because I try to pronounce things properly, doesn't mean I have a posh accent. I don't think I sound like some sort of cartoon British Jeeves butler character. So I decided to try a bit of sarcasm to vent my irritation at the speaker.

"Indeed, I often have tea and crumpets with the queen, old chap" (Sarcastic voice).

- Me

That's about all of the conversation I can remember in detail. After that, my friend replied defending my accent/the UK in general, the other person started properly insulting us, and then the game ended and we joined a different server.

It is a sad fact of the internet and online games, that being anonymous seems to give people the courage to act differently than they likely would in real life in a face to face conversation. In real life, people give each other respect, whereas online people hide behind their avatar/alias and hurl insults at one another without fear of retaliation.

This is particularly common on internet forums, especially if the forum is too large and has too many members to be moderated effectively.

Possessing Barbie (http://www.alwaysblack.com/blackbox/possessingbarbie.html)

I found this to be a fascinating article. It recounts the authors experiences in an online chat room, mainly focussing on a one on one encounter with a woman, and how the real life experiences of both parties impact on the online experience.

Halfway through the article the woman, nicknamed Babydoll, asks the author if "You wanna to see something crazy wild?" He replies "Always", and prepares to follow her...

She led the way through the little house, up a flight of stairs to a closed door. I plodded along behind curiously and just for instant I had the faintest glimmer of a memory of another woman who bade me follow her through her real house a long, long time ago.

As the author follows Babydoll through the house, it recalls a faint memory somewhere in the depths of his mind...

Behind the door was a bedroom, neatly decorated and furnished, the bed a detailed custom model I hadn’t seen before. There allows a talented player to create their own assets to sell for Therebucks, providing an additional way to… Jesus Christ, what is she doing?!

BabyDoll has changed her outfit. The catsuit is gone to be replaced by a plunging open-fronted camisole, barely pinned in front. Lacy French knickers complete the transformation. 
“Sit there.” she says. My heartbeat quickened and my face flushed

At this point the game has become something much more real to the author. Playing the game is evoking involuntary actions, quickened heartbeat, flushed face, that would also occur in the real life equivalent of this situation.

And in the hallowed halls of my Inner Court of Morals all fucking hell broke loose. My perception cracked neatly into three separate and mutually exclusive shards. In one, I was engaged in a consensual act of intimacy with a woman I'd only just met and hardly knew. I was alone with this woman in her bedroom while she stripped for seduction. The verdict was announced with the hollow boom of a giant gavel. Guilty! 

In the second, my advocate jumped to his feet bawling 'Objection!’ frantically quoting legal technicalities. "It's not real!" he yelled, "It's only a game!"

In the third, in the real world, my ears pricked straight into raw, primitive survival mode, straining for the ominous tread of my girlfriend’s foot on the stairs. A wave of panic shot down my spine, my bowels turned to water and I alt-tabbed like a sonofabitch to something harmless.

By this point the feeling of guilt finally hits the author. He is experiencing the exact same emotions that he would display in real life if he was in the same situation. The guilt turns into panic and he temporarily escapes the moral dilemma by alt tabbing away from the game.

It’s been a long time since I struggled with the difference between basic ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. The filing cabinet of my mind fluttered with fragments of memories as I desperately searched for a previous experience with which to compare the event unfolding in front of me. The results were pretty grim, reminding me remorselessly that I haven't always been a paragon of virtue. It took an effort of will to push the comparisons out of my mind, to quash them with self-reassurances based on the words I had typed just a few moments earlier; that this wasn't real, that I wasn't responsible. I returned cautiously to the There screen.

"Sit there, on the bed." said BabyDoll and I sat wordlessly, pushing the moment along, feeling for the precipice where my conscience would call a halt.

"Not there," she said, "There's another spot further down." I found the hidden place and sat. Some shadow moved at the back of my memory, ghostly and ill-defined, an echo of another bedroom long ago and gentle instructions whispered in the dark. "Now lean forward." she said and I laid my head on her breast.

Once again the game evokes another long forgotten memory of the author, which makes the game scenario seem much more real.

"Tea!" my girlfriend shouted from the foot of the stairs.
I fucking jumped, I admit it. Electricity in my spinal column and then a whole new hand of paradoxical emotions were dealt. Now I had to make my excuses and leave the little virtual bedroom. Right now.

When his girlfriend calls to him, the reality of the game situation finally hits home, and the author is struck with an entire gamut of different conflicting emotions. He realises that he's overstepped his moral boundaries and most leave the situation immediately.

“I have to go.” I typed.
“LOL!” said BabyDoll and I realised she thought I was running away. And I realised that I probably was. 

“No really,” I protested. “I have to go and eat.” I wanted to convince her that I wasn’t chickening out of this encounter because there it was again, an overlay of emotional reality onto crudely rendered image. I didn’t want her to question my nerve; I didn’t want her to question my worldliness. My virility.

Now the author is trying to convince Babydoll that he is not "running away' from the intimate situation due to a lack of nerve, a lack of worldly experience. The author is in fact, "Possessing Barbie" that is to say, projecting his real life image, his experiences throughout the world, throughout life, onto his avatar.

A little while later after finishing tea, the author chooses to return to the game to talk to Babydoll about the situation.

“Well what do you think, now that you've seen the alternative seating arrangements?” She said.
“I think I’m confused.” I replied.
“About what?” she said.
“Before,” I said, “When you showed me the bedroom… That was a little weird for me.”
“Of course, it was!” She said, “You hardly knew me!”
“It caught me off guard…” I said.
“It was a li’l thrill though, huh?”
“Well, yes… but it was more the shock. I think… I mean… I dunno.”
“But it’s ‘just a game’ LOL!” she said and that animation kicked it again, knee slapping riotous laughter, mocking.
“No, well I dunno now.” I said. Because I didn’t, I really didn’t have a clue.
“See?” said BabyDoll.
I’m smarter than this, I thought, work it out and make a fucking point or something. Say something.
“Out there,” I said. “In front of all my friends, it was just manipulating animations for laughs but before, in the bedroom, it wasn’t.”
“Exactly. Dear god, I think you've got it.” she said.
“So what’s the difference?”
“The difference is because we were alone and you were beginning to know my mind. I wasn’t just an avatar.” she said. “I was a person.”
“I think it reminded me of something that happened for real once.” I said. “It’s the only way I can explain having real physiological responses. I mean, like embarrassment and heart rate and god, the guilt.”

The author finally comes to terms with what was happening, he was automatically projecting his real life experiences, onto his avatar, so when he entered into being in a situation in the game he would he uncomfortable in, in real life, he experienced the real emotions and reactions he would experience if it happened for real. This is where the title of the article, Possessing Barbie, stems from.

“Ha, I win!” she typed.

From this sentence, it seems that Babydoll was trying to prove a point to the author, I'd say she succeeded.

“But you can only win if it's a game.” I said.
“Yes, that’s true.” said BabyDoll. “It’s both. It’s a game but it’s also real. People are affected by other minds, it’s unavoidable. You bring your own morals with you and you set the limits.
“Kids can’t do that. They have fewer warning systems, because they have been hurt less and they are more open. But they want to explore and there are people who will take advantage of that innocence and curiosity.”

And that was just the final answer. I didn’t have any way to argue, embroiled in my own moral quagmire how could I deny the point she had made? I left the house a little later and headed elsewhere. As I surfed my hoverboard across the green hills I wondered, if There is not a ‘game’ then why did I feel like I’d just been comprehensively owned?
And in the distance I thought I heard the sound of a tree falling in the woods. Maybe I imagined it.

And so in the end, Babydoll won the debate against the author, about how real life experiences affect how the user plays the game online.

Dreaming in an Empty Room (http://www.insertcredit.com/features/dreaming2/)

Now I must confess that I got a bit lost while reading this article. Partially this is because I have never actually played MGS2 (I never owned the original MGS and only played it a few years ago, whenever I next buy a Sony console I'll purchase and play all the MGS titles, I feel I owe it to myself as a game design student to experience a series so beloved by fans, anyway back on topic).

But mainly I think I got lost in the deeper implications of the article, and how the author seems to think that Hideo Kojima, created the world and setting of MGS2 after being inspired by how dreams work, e.g. some elements of dreams are completely normal, while others make no sense at all, and within the dream world, these can exist simultaneously. Even though I haven't played the game, I still know a bit about the over-arching story of the MGS series since I'm a keen gamer,  and I've heard that MGS2 has a reputation for being 'wacky' compared to it's predecessor, MGS1.

I found this to be a deeply philosophical article, since it talks about the nature of dreams, how they work, and how they are different from real life.

It also talks about MGS2 being one of the worlds first post-modern games that is, a game that moves boundaries, does the unexpected, and doesn't necessarily make sense, or have to make sense. Here is an extract from the article.

MGS is not easy to understand. It gets downright bizarre. It’ll make you throw up your hands and scream, "What the hell?" 

Metal Gear Solid 2 in the beginning: A lone vigilante spy jumping off a bridge, boarding an ocean liner, and beginning a mission. 

Metal Gear Solid 2 in the end: A giant robot, a super spy in chains, a guy with a sword, Doctor Octopus, a lady with an enormous gun, all standing on the deck of a ship within viewing distance of the New York City skyline. 

As you can see, this isn't a typical game.

The author then goes on to define what he calls, a 'dream' and an 'empty room'.

By this model:
Metal Gear Solid 2 is a "dream."
Ico is an "empty room."

They are both postmodern masterpieces in their own right.
Now, if your dreams are more like Ico than Metal Gear Solid 2, well, more power to you. The term "dream" doesn't apply to your dreams, or anyone's dreams, in particular. When using a term to describe something postmodern, expect the term to be used postmodernly. 

The empty room is a clean slate. You can put anything in the empty room.
Even a horned boy leading a princess through a castle. Even a language that doesn’t exist.
A dream, however, is always grounded in reality. Dreams have . . . well, not rules. Not constructs. Not even "logic." All they need to keep us from waking up is a sense of the real.
Dreams have terrorists. Dreams have presidents, hostage situations.
Ever dreamed you witnessed a bank robbery? I have. 

Dreams, sometimes, even have terrorist/hostage situations involving vampires.
Dreams mix the real, and the unreal. Dreams mix whatever is in our minds. We can drift off to sleep in a recliner while half-reading the Lord of the Rings and half-listening to the NBC nightly news. Tom Brokaw can be talking about a hostage situation in Israel one second, and a breakthrough in health care the next. We can fall asleep, and hear his voice say: "Ninjas officially kidnapped the president at six o'clock this morning." That happened to me, once. (Except I wasn't actually reading Lord of the Rings.) 

Do your dreams resolve, without fail, before you wake up?
Mine don’t. 

This part of the article got me thinking about my own dreams. When I was much, much younger I remember having a dream or more likely a nightmare, about musical notes. It was a very odd dream as far as I can recall, I think I was a musical note watching all the other musical notes being carried away by a train. I suppose I was left behind. As you can see, this dream isn't really grounded in reality at all, okay, I suppose the train was realistic, but I'd still classify that under the 'empty room' category, e.g. absolutely anything can happen, without reality intruding.

That's the exception though, most if not all of my dreams in recent memory have taken place in real places, with real people, and so contain many elements of reality, thus being classified in the model above as a 'dream'. I used to have the ability to realise I was in a dream and then 'force' myself to wake up getting characters within the dream to throw things at me. Having control over the dream itself and it's characters, meant I could wake up when I wanted to. A few times I have experienced a dream within a dream, that is, thinking I've woken up, while in 'reality' still being in a dream. I find this to be a very weird and not overall pleasant feeling.

Games are a young form of entertainment. The children who grew up with games are now adults. Many of them are as blind to the idea of the artistic videogame as our parents are to Eminem, as our parents' parents were to The Beatles, as The Beatles' fans were blind to the conceptuality of Yoko Ono. God bless the children of today, for seeing the genius of Pokémon. One of them is the first Tolstoy of videogames. 

That, however, is for another day's installment.
Here, at the end of this ridiculous, postmodern "editorial," I’d like to take a stance: I am a strong advocate of New School Gaming. Yes, I can beat Gradius III in one life. Yes, my favorite game is Super Mario Bros. 3. Yes, I do play Street Fighter II Turbo Hyperfighting and Gunstar Heroes at least twice a week. Yes, I like Landstalker more than Final Fantasy X. That doesn’t matter. I have hope for the future. Maybe more hope than you have. 

Or maybe I just have a thing for the Colonel. 

TURN THE GAME CONSOLE OFF NOW! 

Finally the author discusses that games are still a young form of entertainment, so its likely that in the future, their will be more game developers who are willing to push the envelope, to create more post-modern games. Games which challenge peoples perception of what a game should be, should contain, and how it should play.

This concludes my blog entry on OGJ and NGJ. I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of the examples provided, and discussing the examples I chose. Thanks for reading. :)


Bibliograpy

Church, Doug, "Formal Abstract Design Tools", 1999. Available online at: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3357/formal_abstract_design_tools.php 

Kristan Reed, "Half Life 2 Review", 2004. Available online at: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/r_half-life2_pc

Pete Edward, "Die Hard Trilogy Review", Pre 2000. Available online at: http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/saturn/dhtrilog.htm 

Always Black, "Bow N*****", Post 2000. Available online at: http://www.alwaysblack.com/blackbox/bownigger.html

Always Black, "Possessing Barbie", 2004. Available online at: http://www.alwaysblack.com/blackbox/possessingbarbie.html

Tim Rogers, "Dreaming in an Empty Room", 2002, edited 2004. Available online at:http://www.insertcredit.com/features/dreaming2/


Games Referenced 

Half Life 2 (PC) Valve

Die Hard Trilogy (Playstation) Probe Entertainment

Star Wars Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast (PC, Gamecube, Xbox, Playstation 2)  Raven Software

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of the Patriots (Playstation 2) Konami Computer Entertainment Japan

Ico (Playstation 2) Team Ico

Quiz Night 6th November

Last Saturday on the 6th November, it was my dad's 50th birthday so we held a 'Quiz Night' event to celebrate. The main quiz was created by myself, my mother and my sister over 3-4 days.

We each chose to write questions for categories which we were knowledgeable about. I predictably chose Gaming, and Literature, my mum chose History, Sport, and Geography

My sister, Sarah, did cartoons and animation, since she loves to draw, and bits of general knowledge.

Thinking of the gaming questions was particularly challenging because I was aiming these questions at my relatives, most of which have barely played a video game in their lives. As such the questions had to be simple and generally about older arcade games like Pong and Space Invaders, so at least there would be a chance that they may have played the games in the questions before.

Below I have taken some screen prints from the PowerPoint Quiz document:

 I figured this would be a good question to get the ball rolling. I'm confident that most people got this question right. :)

 Once again another easy question. I hoped that Pong was a very recognisable game. I think some people wrote down Ping Pong, but we still gave them the mark, since they were almost right.

 On reflection this question was much too difficult for the audience I was aiming the questions at. To get the question right, you had to know the difference between a game Developer and a game Publisher. Many didn't so they answered Nintendo mostly. Still, the question gave me an excuse to get some screenshots from Goldeneye, one of my favourite N64 games of all time. ;)

 After the question about video game developers, I decided to throw in another easy question. The bonus question gives people a chance, since they could simply use the full name of the character, Sonic The Hedgehog, since that's the title of Sonic's first game.

 This is one of the literature slides I created. You may have noticed that the above picture only shows 8 members of the fellowship, as opposed to the full 9. Originally the full 9 were visible, but my sister persuaded me to crop the far left of the image (Legolas) to make the question more difficult. I felt guilty about this later on, since I saw some people counting the number of people in the picture. This slide also contains a bonus question, which is much harder than the normal question.

This is one of the 'Cartoons and Animation' questions my sister created. Most fans of the Simspons cartoon will know that Bart Simspon is in fact voiced by a woman rather than a man, as most people would suspect.

 This was a very difficult and clever question my sister came up with. I didn't get the answer right, even when she showed me the picture.I'd never noticed that before, although it's been several years since I regularly watched the Flintstones.

 Another interesting question. I got this one right on my second guess. First I guessed Pluto (Mickey's pet dog), then I thought for a bit and said Donald Duck. After seeing a picture, it is much more obvious. (As on many of the questions, the picture is animated and only appears on a separate answer slide, to keep the questions difficult).

Okay well there are many more slides I could show, the slide total was in fact a whopping 165 slides. ;) But showing more slides would be a bit pointless I believe the selection I have chosen shows off the Quiz nicely.

Overall the Quiz Night was a success, me, mum and Sarah put a lot of effort into it, and we only just got it done on time, since we were all busy with other things, me and sarah with Uni, and my mum with feeling really ill. :(

I think my relatives enjoyed the Quiz Night, they seemed to like getting answers right. ;)

This concludes my fairly brief account of the Quiz Night we created for my dad's 50th Birthday.

Suffolk New College: Celebration of Student Achievement Night

Yesterday on the 10th November it was the Suffolk New College: Celebration of Student Achievement Night, an upbeat event where all students are invited to the college to watch and take part in the award ceremony, plus a few singing and dancing acts to act as breaks in the award giving.

2008

Now before I recount the event I'm going to cast my mind back to 2008, where I attended the same type of event, after finishing my first diploma course in IT with a Merit grade. On that night, I remember feeling ill and not really wanting to attend. Somehow my parents persuaded me to go, since I'd been told in advance by one of my Suffolk College tutors, that I'd get some sort of award, likely some sort of commemorative pen, and probably be congratulated by my tutors in a classroom somewhere.

I was therefore very surprised when I realised I would have to stand up on stage in front of 150+ people. At this point in my life, I'd never actually won anything due to academic achievement, so it was a truly special moment when I received my award (Outstanding Effort and Commitment First Diploma ICT) statue on stage, and got my photograph taken for the evening star while shaking hands with the person who represented the sponsor of the award, EdExcel. When I look back on it afterwards, it actually felt like a dream... But it wasn't a dream, for the first time in my life I was being recognised for doing well academically. For that one special night, I felt like I was on top of the world...

2010

Now, fast forward back to the year 2010, and I was about to attend a similar event. This time, I hadn't been told in advance that I would receive an award, but sadly that didn't stop me hoping that I'd get one anyway. When I arrived with my parents, I entered the building via the zone reception, since I had to get my seat number registered, while my parents entered via the main entrance. Soon after I was shown to my seat, in the front row, and I met a friend from last years ICT course, Chris. We talked for a while, mostly catching up on how our summers went, and what we were doing now. Chris had decided to take a gap year in forensic computer science, and was looking for a job in the meantime. I told him a bit about my Game Design course.

We also spoke to two of our tutors from last year, once again about how our lives were going and what we'd been doing since we finished our college course. Shortly after this Renee arrived and the three of us talked for a bit, once again catching up. It soon became obvious about 10 minutes before the event would begin proper, that me, Chris and Renee were the only people from our course that decided to attend, 3 out of a class of 30! In the last 10 minutes I started idly flicking through the programme for tonight's event. The programme included a list of everyone who would receive awards, divided by year and course. I was quite disappointed when I realised that my name wasn't on the list for our course. Ah well...

Finally the main event began, and Suffolk New College representatives took to the stage to present the awards. The awards were divided into courses, with each course having a different sponsor to present the award. After about 20 minutes a break was had, taking the form of a group of dance students singing rehearsed songs. After 5 minutes of this, the awards continued. Eventually the last award was given out, and each group of students was asked to stand up on stage as a class, and have a group photo taken. This felt quite odd considering Me, Chris, Renee and Linda, one of my tutors, were representing the entire class of 30 people.

Soon after this I met up with my parents and we went home...

This concludes my account of the event.

So, was I disappointed that I failed to receive an award this year? I'd be lying if I said I wasn't slightly disappointed, I worked harder the last 2 years, and at the end of the course, I got a better grade, in fact, I got the highest grade DDD, overall distinction. Of course, I wasn't the only person to do this, and since only one award was given to my course, it was unlikely I would be the one to receive it.

I don't regret going though, the event itself was fun to attend and it was hard to believe it had already been 2 whole years since the 2008 event, it certainly didn't seem like that much time to me.

Thanks for reading. :)

Doug Church and Venturelli on Game Design Tools

Intro

Last week I read the Doug Church, Formal Abstract Design Tools article, and Venturelli's Space of Possibility and Pacing in Casual Game Design - A PopCap Case Study article.

In this blog post I will discuss the design tools highlighted by both articles.

FADT

Doug Church uses the game design vocabulary, FADT, to look at existing games and extract tools from them. FADT stands for; formal, abstract, design, tools.

Formal - Precise definition, explainable to someone else.

Abstract - Underlying ideas not specific game elements, such as a +2 magic sword. The FADT in this case would be a player power up curve.

Design - The process of design, because we're designers.

Tools - Tools are what we use to put the building blocks of game design together.

Tools

Doug Church focuses his article on talking about Mario 64, and partially about the Final Fantasy series.

Intention: The Player makes an implementable plan of their own created in response to the current situation in the game world. The player can create plans on both large and small term scales. A small scale plan in Mario 64, for example, would be to navigate across a series of tricky moving platforms to reach the other side. A long term plan in Mario 64 could be to collect every star in world's 1-3.

Perceivable Consequence: The game world reacts to the player and gives them immediate feedback. If for example in Mario 64, the player tries to jump a bottomless pit and misses the other side, they will immediately fall to their doom, and realise that next time they need to try a different kind of jump to get more distance.

Story: The narrative thread of a game. This can be both designer-driven and player-driven. An example of a designer-driven story is the Final Fantasy series. In Final Fantasy 8 (FF8) the player always starts off the game at a set location, the Ballamb Gardens, and will finish the game after defeating the main villain, Ultimecia. Every time the player plays the game fundamental aspects of the story remain unchanged, they will always occur.

An example of a game that can use player-driven narrative is Worms Reloaded. The worms games have traditionally always lacked complex stories. A reason why the worms wish to wage war and destroy each other is never made clear. Instead the games story is told by the players, typically across the single player and multiplayer modes. The worms series always provides a great deal of customisation to the player, and Worms Reloaded is no different. In Worms Reloaded you can change the standard options of, team names, worm names, worm voices, victory anthem, flag, with new additions such as the ability to give your team hats. The game contains a massive variety of hats ranging from; cowboy hats, space helmets, knight helmets, a crown and even a Boba fett-esque hat.

In Worms each player takes timed turns, with the goal of navigating the landscape to attack and eventually kill enemy worms. The story of Worms is whatever a player does on their turn. If for example player A lobs a grenade across the map, and it bounces off a mountain and lands next to one of the worms belonging to Player B, this becomes part of the story. Player B's injured worm could retaliate by using the jetpack utility, flying over the map to Player A's worm and using the baseball bat to knock it into the water, equalling an instant kill. This action also continues the story. In this type of game, the story is determined by the players actions. Worms being what it is, the story can also be effected by semi-random factors such a the fuse-time of mines, the contents of crates, but it is still ultimately the players choice whether to risk moving past the mine, or which crate to collect.

Longer term stories are also possible in the game, to explain this I'll use an example taken directly from a succession of Worms Reloaded matches I recently played. When people play games they develop their own style of play, unique to the person. Sometimes in tabletop games such as Warhammer 40K a player may grow attached to certain units in their army and not want them to fall to the enemy in battle, sometimes due to their usefulness. My friend uses similar logic when playing Worms Reloaded. He has one Worm, Sir Battenberg (nicknamed the Berg), who he tries to keep alive at all costs. If the Berg dies he loses all his morale and willpower to play strategically, and thus is much easier to defeat. (He also does his best to get swift, brutal revenge on the Worm responsible for the Bergs demise).

It has gotten to the point where I 'honour' the berg' by killing him only with an interesting weapon, or combination thereof, so at least if he dies, he dies in an interesting fashion, this appeases my friend somewhat. I suppose I should point out he doesn't really mind when the Berg is killed, he only pretends to, since it adds an interesting new mechanic to the gameplay, and keeps it interesting. This situation is similar to an on-going 'story' in the game. It's a game within a game if you will.

That's enough about story, now onto the Venturelli article.

Venturelli PopCap Tools

Venturelli has detected different tools than Church, I believe this is because he chose very different games to examine, mainly Plants for Zombies and Bejelwed.

Tools

Pacing: This is the time between every major decision the player makes. Tension, Threat and Movement Impetus are all used to control the pacing of the game.

Tension: This is the possibility that the player might become the weaker side of a conflict; might become weaker than the opponents that they are required to overcome. If the tension keeps increasing it is possible players will reach a state of 'perceived defeat', that is to say; thinking they have no chance to complete the objective or level, and thus giving up before they are physically defeated.

Threat: This is the power of the directly opposing force, in the conflict which is taking place within the game. In an RTS game such as Command and Conquer Zero Hour for instance, this is the base, army and competing player controlling them. In an FPS such as UT2004, the threat is other human players, or AI (artificial intelligence) depending on the game mode being played. In a platform game such as Rayman the threat would be the different types of enemies and bosses Rayman has to overcome to complete the game. These examples show that the form the threat takes will vary depending on the type or genre of game.

Movement Impetus: This is the players desire to beat each level or world within the game, and ultimately to continue playing. If movement impetus is low it is possible that the player will lose the will to continue playing the game, and so may quit the game out of boredom, before being defeated.

Tempo: This is the intensity or speed of play; it is the time between each significant decision made by the player. A lower tempo, for example, represents quicker decision making by the player, since the 'time' between each decision is small. A higher tempo by contrast is slower, since the 'time' between each decision will be longer.

Space of Possibility:  This is the space of possible action that players will explore as they play the game. By space of possible action, I mean any and every action the player can carry out throughout the game. In a game with a defined rule-set like Football, the space of possibility covers the movements of every player and every possible position of the ball. It also includes the different types of fouls, goals etc. Basically it is every action that can be carried out in the game.

As the above example shows, the game of football has quite a wide space of possibility. Lets look at another game, Tic Tac Toe. Tic Tac Toe is a very simple game, the player can draw a circle or cross depending on which team they decide to play. Either way the player can only draw their shape on a very limited number of squares. This causes the game to get boring quickly, and have little replayability.

Restricting the Space of Possibility: Venturelli also talks about the importance of restricting the space of possibility, the importance of artificially limiting a players options to stop them feeling overwhelmed. Going back to the above example, Tic Tac Toe is extremely simple and can be learnt in minutes by small children, whereas Chess is complicated and takes a lifetime to master. This is worth keeping in mind, particularly if the developer is making so called 'casual' games; since this type of game is typically quite easy to pick up and play, the rules of the game are simple and obvious to the player.

These two examples show that there should be a balance between difficulty and complexity. This balance can be achieved by restricting the space of possibility, by limiting the number of moves the player can make, you automatically make the game more simplistic and thus easy to understand and play.

This got me thinking about games I've played recently and how big the space of possibility is in those games.

As a general rule I don't play so called 'casual games' very often. (I own a Nintendo Wii, but mainly for the 1st party Nintendo titles, the Mario's, the Zelda's the Metroid's etc. This deep, immersive style of  game is what I enjoy playing the most).

That said, a few years ago, I thoroughly enjoyed playing Pop Caps, Heavy Weapon, a 2D side-scroller game. The premise of the game is relatively simple, the player controls a customisable tank and must move from left to right through each level blasting all the enemies, usually, planes, helicopters, blimps, tanks etc, to reach the exit.

Heavy Weapon didn't strike me as a 'casual game' when I played it, it was challenging, fast, and gave me, as the player some freedom, allowing me to choose which weapons I wanted to use and upgrade for each level of the game. I found that this customisation was the most appealing aspect of the game, since every level played differently with a different set of armaments.

The space of possibility in Heavy Weapon is small, often when the player is playing the game, the enemy planes are dropping so many bombs, and firing so many missiles, it's usually a case of moving to a specific 'safe' spot on the screen to dodge them. Alternatively the player can shoot down enemy bombs and missiles, before they reach the tank. I've found that a combination of constantly moving while shooting will ensure the player stays alive, at least until the end of the stage where the player must fight a massive boss to advance to the next level.

This concludes my discussion of FADT and the different design tools which you used in PopCap games'. Thanks for reading.

Bibliography

Church, Doug, "Formal Abstract Design Tools", 1999.

Available online at: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3357/formal_abstract_design_tools.php

Venturelli Marcos, "Space of Possibility and Pacing in Casual Game Design - A PopCap Case Study", 2009.

Available online at: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MarkVenturelli/20091107/3497/Space_of_Possibility_and_Pacing_in_Casual_Game_Design__A_PopCap_Case_Study.php

Games Referenced

Mario 64 (Nintendo 64) Nintendo EAD

Final Fantasy 8 (Playstation) Square Enix

Unreal Tournament 2004 (PC) Epic

Command and Conquer Generals: Zero Hour (PC) EA Games

Rayman Gold (PC, Playstation) Ubisoft

Worms Reloaded (PC, Steam) Team 17

Heavy Weapon (Xbox Live, Steam) PopCap