Year 2

This is the parent category of all courses taken in year 2.

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Games as Paratexts and Products

What is the diegetic language of your game? The paratextual language? Are they different? How can you use them to support one another?

In Burrow the narrative and emotion behind the game is very important, and the environment needs to be able to support that context. Because our diegetic language is so heavily focused on the contrast between survival and comfort, our paratextual language in the game’s two scenes its made to emphasize these different emotions. The bunny’s burrow includes interaction with family members and a homey environment that provides comfort, and the outside forest is a hard environment, with more obstacles and a darker atmosphere that further pushes the sense of danger.

Write about one arcade/cabinet game and explain the relationship between the paratext (cabinet art) and diegetic elements. Did early game developers rely more on paratext to set context?

Pong is an example of how paratext and diegetic elements can work together to create an aesthetic. While it may look like the creators of Pong simply didn’t pay attention to aesthetics or paratext when creating the game due to its simplicity, this only makes the point of the game stronger. The mechanics and main goal of the game are very simple, with the object only being to hit a ball back to another player. Pong’s aesthetic/paratext simplicity goes hand-in-hand with this and rather than making up for mechanical simplicity with complicated imagery, Pong’s simplistic design is paired with simplistic art that stays away from over-complication.

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Code 2 Midterm Deliverable

Concept Statement

My game is going to be exploration based, most likely taking place within a castle in the woods. I will use several different states in order to allow the character to enter the castle and explore different areas. Each scene will be a different type of room with different ways in which the character can behave and interact with their environment such as collecting objects and unlocking text/ information.

Precedent Analysis

The game will be similar to other games such as Gone Home and Bioshock where the environment plays an important part in the narrative and the player has very little initial knowledge, having to play through the game in order to find out more about the game’s setting. The data model will be based on the character’s movement through the states and their interaction with certain objects and clues, such as books or letters.

State Diagram

Data Model example

see github repo

Github link

Github.io

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What are Game Mechanics?

 

Doki Doki Literature Club

● What are the game mechanics?

Because DDLC is a text based game, the core mechanics are just clicking and pressing space in order to read through dialogue between characters and make your personal choices to affect the outcome of the game.

● List 3 examples of feedback loops. Describe them.

  1. A main component of the game is the creation of poems, where the player is simply asked to choose words from multiple lists. The player then finds that each choice is favored by a specific character and can use that knowledge in the future to cater toward their favorite player(s) when creating more poems. This ultimately affects your player’s interaction with said characters in the end.
  2. The player can choose who to talk to and show their poems at many points throughout the game, and as the game progresses they will realize that their choices on which characters to favor in this sense affects their interactions with surrounding characters. This can also be used to influence the direction of the game and the tones of interactions with each character.
  3. The player can also choose at a few points in the game which character(s) they wish to interact with outside of the main story setting (the literature club at school) and are often asked to choose between two specific characters. These decisions are just as important and again, will affect future character interactions.

● Discuss the relation between narrative and feedback loops.

The feedback loops are directly related to and directly affect the narrative and the direction that the story is headed in. This particular game has more than one ending, and the player finds throughout the gameplay that their decision making can affect character interactions and eventually the overall narrative itself. The way that the feedback loops are set up allows the player to create their own story to an extent and directly affect the narrative while playing, if they are aware and deliberate with their decision making.

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Platformers

Camera angles are very important to the way players interact with scenes and can change their experience in the game. This is a concept I have been thinking a lot about while creating my platformer and designing the platforms themselves as well as background scenery. Deciding on what type of camera movement works best will also help me to decide where to constrain my main playing area and expand on or limit my character’s world. Although I had thought of climbing vines in order to get to higher tree branch platforms within my game, one thing this brought up that I hadn’t thought of was swinging, which could be beneficial to implement into my game as an added form of maneuverability rather than restricting the characters motions. Moving platforms are also something I will have to think a lot more about, as my current form of platform is a tree branch which must remain stagnant. I will definitely look into other options for passing platforms in order to avoid such a stiff scene with more restricted movement and interaction. My mechanics will most likely start out very simple with just running and jumping in order to establish basic rules for the player such as how high and far they can jump or how long it takes them to travel certain distances for future scenarios when they are avoiding enemies. They can then be built up by adding swinging motions and actions such as shooting or defending that still use the same basic rules to allow the player to predict what will happen rather than guessing at the new mechanics.

Leave a comment Posted on Core Studio Environments: Game, Year 2

Game Production Cycles and What Makes a “Good” Game

Game Production and Development Cycles:

How does this process relate to smaller, indie productions? The work you’re doing?

No matter what the scale of a game, following the production/development process is crucial to creating a good game. All game developers need to plan properly and playtest early on in order to catch bad decisions and bugs at the beginning of the process, rather than later on when they are affecting multiple elements of the game. Having a clear plan of what needs to be done, mapping out major decisions and creating deadlines for yourself is an important part of any developer’s process and will do nothing but help them in the long run, even if they don’t have a large team to communicate with.

What Makes”Good” Writing?

Discuss the difference between knowing a good game when you play it vs having the insight to describe WHY a game works:

Anyone who has played many games can go through a particular game and pick our parts that don’t work and tell you if the game is good based on what they liked or disliked about the experience. However, it is still very important to develop the skills necessary to know why certain choices are good or bad, rather than just going with a gut reaction, even if your gut reaction is correct. Not only does this knowledge allow you to communicate with people who may not be able to tell as easily what makes a game good or bad, but you will be able to make important decisions in the planning process rather than having to reiterate and tweak ideas later on down the production process when they don’t work quite right.

How can Anna Anthropy’s analysis of Mario Bro’s influence the game you’re working on now?

Because we are currently working on 2D games with limited screen movement, many of the design decisions Anthropy discusses can serve as inspiration for the creation of more game components. For example, having two states for a player, each with different abilities and being called in different situations, can add an interesting dynamic to a player’s gameplay and keep a game from getting too static with repetitive abilities and play patterns. Anthropy also brings up the simplification of ideas and how they can give players the ability to infer what is going to happen in the game. She uses the example of creating a simple pyramid shape within a game in order to get the player to think about pyramids and the possibility of treasure being located inside. Creating game components like this can also create more dynamic play and lets the reader think about their decisions and what might be coming more carefully.

 

 

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Dark Forest Shmup – Character Rankings

The Protagonist: A young adult who somehow has ended up in a dark creepy forest and needs to find their way out past oncoming monsters.

Their competence ~ 5/10

Their likability ~ 7/10

Their commitment to the cause ~ 10/10

The Antagonists: Enemies and boss enemies that are variations of mutated plants taking on a monstrous form.

Their competence: Small Enemies ~ 4/10 vs Boss Enemies ~ 8/10

Their likability: Small Enemies ~ 6/10 vs Boss Enemies ~ 3/10

Their commitment to the cause: Small Enemies ~ 8/10 vs Boss Enemies ~ 5/10

How Does this Affect the Game?

Because the smaller enemies are cuter and more likable with a lower competence level, the player may sympathize with them and underestimate their abilities. However they are very committed and can possibly band together which will make them more powerful. The boss enemies are very powerful but don’t seem to care very much about the cause, so they could be easily distracted or avoided instead of facing such a challenge. The player is being thrown into an unknown environment for unknown reasons, so it will be hard for them to figure things out at first, but their commitment will help them to persevere.

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Core Studio Environments – Shmup

As a designer, what most interests you about a Shmup as a design space?

I really love the simplicity of what makes a shmup a shmup, in that all that is required is a similar style of movement and obstacles or enemies to defeat and pass. Although many people think of games that take place in space with the player being a ship of some sort, the true definition of a shmup is very open for creativity. This allows for designers to really make each game their own through the addition of power ups and their obstacles and enemies. I am really interested in being able to explore my own narrative as a shmup and develop a type of game that I normally wouldn’t have been drawn toward.

Write up the rules of your shump. What are you prototyping? How? What do you expect to learn from prototyping and what ideas will you test?

In my shmup the player begins in a dark forest, unsure of how or why they got there, with finding a way out as their purpose. The plants and wildlife around them then begins to mutate and take on monstrous forms, moving and attacking the character. It will be a side scroller, allowing the player to scan their environment for oncoming enemies as they attempt to make their way out of the forest. I expect to learn how well my narrative comes across and how it can be further developed. I will be testing out mechanics mainly, and how well the player understands the overall concept and narrative of the game.

Choose a narrative and deconstruct the plot based on the model described:

Narrative: Fullmetal Alchemist

  1. You: The storyline’s main protagonist is Edward Elric, a young skilled alchemist. He is introduced with a shot of him and his brother, another important protagonist, followed by an action scene in which many of his characteristics are introduces such as his automail arm and military status.
  2. Need: It is soon made obvious through a scene depicting a military briefing that something is not right within the country, as there have been criminal incidents and possible corruption within the government, and Edward is determined to create peace.
  3. Go: It is later revealed that Ed and his brother Al have a dark past, and committed an alchemy taboo that left Al’s soul without a real body and Ed missing an arm and a leg. The characters are determined to do whatever is necessary to get Al’s true body back, as his soul is bound to a suit of armor and he cannot feel, sleep, or eat.
  4. Search: Ed and Al learn that at an unknown point in the future Al’s soul will reject the suit of armor as a body and he will be pulled back to his original body which is in another world, similar to heaven/hell. This makes the need to retrieve Al’s body that much more pressing.
  5. Find: Ed and Al have been searching for a philosopher’s stone, which can enhance alchemy and make any alchemist much more powerful, in order to get Al’s body back. They then learn from a fellow alchemist that the stones are made from many living souls and require multiple sacrifices to be created. Because of this the brothers refuse to use something so evil for their cause, and are forced to search for their answers elsewhere.
  6. Take: A secondary storyline has been the corruption within their country’s government, and the government’s plan to create a philosopher’s stone. Ed is swallowed by an immortal being on the opposing side of this fight, and is transported into a failed portal to the same place in which Al’s body has been taken. At this point it seems that there is no escape from this abyss for Ed and that Al has been left on his own.
  7. Return: Ed find remnants of transmutation circles which can be used for alchemy and discovers the way out of the place he has been trapped in. Along the way he also passes through the portal once again where Al’s body is being kept, and learns that it will be possible for Al to reach it in the near future.
  8. Change: Ed and Al along with the rest of the military continue their fight against the immortal beings’ creation of another philosopher’s stone, and in the end they win the battle and reunite with their father. The pair is also able to send Al back into the portal to retrieve his body and they head back home to be reunited with their friends.
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Riot Games Business Report

Employee Count: 2,500

Locations:

Headquarters in West Los Angeles

Additional locations in Berlin, Dublin, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Mexico City, Moscow, New York City, Santiago, St. Louis, São Paulo, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, Taipei, Tokyo

How They Started:

Riot Games was founded by Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill as an indie games company in September of 2006. Their first game became their most popular, League of Legends, and was released to the public two years later.

Major Works From Recent Years:

Astro Teemo (March 2013), a mini game/ arcade game for pc

Cho’gath Eats the World (April 2014) a mini game/ arcade game for pc

Blitzcrank’s Poor Roundup (August 2015) a mini game/ side scroller for iOS

Ziggs Arcade Blast (August 2017) a mini game/ side scroller for pc

Mechs vs Minions (October 2016) a co-op strategy tabletop game

Subsidiary Companies:

Radiant Entertainment, a smaller games company founded in 2013 that primarily developed fighting games and released them for pc on steam.

How Much Money They Make:

Their estimated revenue as of 2015 was $1.6 billion.