minthwinkhant

[minthwinkhant]

Learning Reflection on CS108 Intro to Game Studies

I have to drop this first - CS108 is the most fun, engaging, somewhat daunting and most of all rewarding class I have had throughout my SJSU career. Not only do professor Morgan (James) personality and presentation style in class keeps me actively participating, they also motivate to come to class even though this class's the last class on Mondays and Wednesdays for me. The nature of assignments significantly help in building up relevant knowledge, skills and context towards milestones throughout the semester -- from boardgame and Unity prototype to the final project. I particularly liked crafting session reports, not game reviews, on different play sessions of various games. And all these buildup tasks lead to a culminating final exam which involves composing a session report on cool arcade games! (seriously can't ask for more)

If anything struck to my memory, it'd be MDA framework and Jenkins' narratology-ludology analysis take on games. Now, every game I play, I feel like I have more analytical approach to games than just blindly playing it for fun. Another thing that interests me is the efficacy of games as a medium and post-DuChamp take on art as a concept; how media red-flagged Super Columbine Massacre RPG while the other media equivalents such as videos and documentaries were hitting the screen across decades without any criticism at all does beg for deeper cultural analysis of games and their roles with us. This concept relating to games as art and art as a concept in the contemporary era also enlightens my computer science background with a different road towards exposure and appreciation of certain elements in my life. Finally, I loved our last discussion -- where is the Shakespear of games? -- because it challenges me to redefine certain normalized concepts of 'classic' in a given niche or industry as well as the comparative analysis of games as a medium along with other well-established media such as photography, films, sculpture and literature.

Oh yes, I did a lottt of readings, writings, playing and designing games. You know what the best part is? I did not know I was trying because I was enjoying it through the semester.

Although I didn't spend much of my life playing games, I was fond of the arc of Arthur and the Lich King from Warcraft 3. So here's an a cool art by MalakBT of the Frozen Throne to mark my rentry to games and gaming after the end of this semester!

[minthwinkhant]

ZERO DAY SINCE LAST ACCIDENT

How many days has it been since the last accident at this construction site? You said what - zero? Help `Joe the Working Guy` to navigate his way through the disastrous and constant fall-down of construction gizmos as Joe escapes through the excavated pit hole! Will he make it out alive? You get to decide!

Utilizing royalty-free music from Pixabay – `Retro Game Arcade` by moodmode for my gameplay’s background audio, `Best Game Console` by DJARTMUSIC for my game’s welcome scene audio and `Retro Game Music` by moodmode for game-over audio – Zero Day Since Last Accident (ZDSLA) walks the player through arcade-style construction-themed time-crunched 2D platformer gameplay experience.

The initial product prototype of ZDSLA included the main avatar, Joe the Working Guy, along with the platforms and contraptions; however, it lacks the welcome menu as well as winning scheme. Playtesters also commented that adding matching audio throughout the game should significantly boost the gameplay experience, and to add a background complementing the theme of the construction site.

Fig 1. Initial Prototype of ZDSLA

Not only has the final product resolved the lack of welcome menu and winning scheme, it has also added a variety of audio for different phases of the player’s experience. The welcome menu is added as a foreplay to future developments to integrating different menu items such as high scores and settings configurations as well as to expanding the game into increasingly challenging different level designs than currently available single level design. The exit door at the top of the platform layout was also added as a checkpoint to mark Joe the Working Guy’s successful attempt to escape the trembling construction pit site in under 90 seconds with added timer at the upper-right screen corner.

The final product ZDSLA also includes clamping and playfield limitations so that the avatar cannot jump over undefined areas of the game outside the platforms. In addition, different audios were added independently for the welcome scene, gameplay and game-over panels so that the audio elevates the contextual and emotional experience of the player; the selected audios share a 90s arcade style theme so that it also brings back the much cherished nostalgia for the player.

Fig. Final Product of ZDSLA

The current version of ZDSLA has certain sticky bits including Joe being able to make double jumps midair – although my current design has taken advantage of this effect, I would like to incorporate level designs that do not allow Joe double jumps. It also lacks the play menu that could potentially show the user of static tutorials such as which key sets to use to move Joe around as well as to allow the adjustment of gameplay volume. Extending into audio setup, the current ZDSLA version does not support any audio associated with the avatar’s motion or movement such as jump or being hit by falling objects. Since these sticky bits do not critically impact the gameplay experience, I have them in the product development backlog for low priority, compiling steps for future development.

For any further development, I am considering to add a variety of contraptions with corresponding mechanics to disrupt Joe's movements to challenge the player and incorporate more skills component to the game. I would also like to add tokens that Joe can consume to create power-up situations such as being immune to object falls for a short period of time or level-screen-wide fall freeze of objects. 

Click here to take a look at ZDSLA on github.io website and here to check it out on itch.io website.

[minthwinkhant]

JackBox Games

The structure of JackBox as a platform of games, each of which is internet-oriented session-based game, compels the players to have more connected experience with peers or other players. All four games played - Tee K.O., Champ'd Up, Trivia Murder Party 2 and Dodo Re Mi - deploy a creative mix of colors, animations and graphics along with context-relevant mood-setting background audio and sound effects, which altogether contribute immensely towards the players' game feel. In addition, all these games have audience connections, which are kept busy not only with consumption of in-game ongoing events but also with compelling engagement mechanics such as wager or vote on such events. Out of all the mechanics, my favorite is a short stylish animation of band members' reintroduction in Dodo Re Mi while the gameplay data by each player is being processed!

Playing with an audience 'breaks' the wall between the players and the audience against the game; I participated in three of the four games as a player and in the remaining one as an audience member. While I cannot see much of how I engage with the game on the screen in a similar limelight as the players, I can pretty much enjoy many mechanics and some audience-exclusive actions such as wagering and voting on the side. As an audience member, such mechanics empowers me to partake in the ongoing events along the gameplay as well as pulls me closer to the players. As a player, I feel the synergy of the players amplified with the enthusiasm and cheers of the actively engaged audience in a class-wide camaraderie.

[minthwinkhant]

MVP - Fire And Ice

The title of our team's product is FireAndIce.

In terms of art, we have incorporated the background music by Jordy Music, the racing cars' engine audio by spinopel on pixaba and corresponding drift audio by olenchic on pixabay. This concludes our team's integration of external creative content in our project.

Our product prototype has indeed improved considerably from our last version during alpha testing. The track rims are fixed -- added with invisible layer of paddings -- to smooth the racing cars' motions while blocking the vehicles from penetrating through the rim into the blocked areas off the track. The vehicles' sizes are slightly increased in response to our previous testplayers' recommendations, and their speeds are adjusted accordingly to maintain the vehicles' motion fluidity along the track. The timer is now updated to stop after the winner has emerged while the score table gets a new look with three attributes - 'lead' tells which vehicle is leading the race, 'green lap' shows the number of laps the green vehicle has completed, and 'blue lap' shows the number of laps the blue vehicle has completed. Each vehicle's motion keysets along with the game's winning scheme are also added at the bottom of the track field for players' information. The engine audio and drift audio of vehicles are also configured for both vehicles in this version in addition to the tropical background audio of the gameplay.

Our current version of the prototype has an unsolved possible 'hack' -- although the clock is designed to start ticking when the first player crosses the start line and to stop ticking when the first player crosses the finish line. Despite stopping as designed, the clock resumes ticking when a player crosses the start line again. Since this error is post-winning error, we have considered this to be non-critical.

Our product prototype is designed and implemented with simplicity in mind. Whoever picks up the green car uses arrow keysets to move long the track, and the other WASD keysets. The player who completes the track three laps first is the winner!

For any further development, I will consider adding traps with corresponding mechanics to disrupt the race car's dynamics to challenge the player, adding more skills component to the game. I also plan add tokens along the track to either speed up or slowdown to create the track racing more compelling through rewards and punishments. With these additions, I might just have to consider expanding the track and the background altogether.

Click here to visit and enjoy my team's product MVP of FireAndIce

Fig. Screenshot of FireAndIce Refined after Alpha Testing

[minthwinkhant]

First Playable

My team's project is a game called "Fire and Ice". The project is contributed by Jonathan Sim, an artist and designer, and by Edward Khant, myself as a programmer and producer, under professor James Morgan, the product owner.

Being a novel to game dev, I took an ample time to make sense of certain concepts. MDA framework assisted me in organizing my understandings and thoughts on what I want to do, while my programming background contributed in realistically setting up what I can accomplish in the given timeframe for the product prototype. Despite the abundance of tutorials online, I find it difficult to feed myself consistent versions of certain implementations across different Unity iterations while digesting the syntax and abstractions of Unity's C# built-in functions is much as challenging.

Intra-team communications, I have to say, is decent at minimum; while I was able to keep ourselves on our toes through deadlines, I was surprised to learn the amount of correspondences between the designer and myself to have a compatible artwork's format, size or composition with our digital prototype.

From the two playtests, respondents commented on the vehicles' relative size and speed, the game's winning scheme and bugs in the game's track. We also got positive reactions on the inclusion of tropical background music, and received great feedbacks on the color scheme of our product: our respondents complimented on the calming and speedy aesthetics of the choice of colors and geometries used for our product's background.

Based on these feedbacks, mechanics-wise, I plan to minimally increase the size of the two vehicles -- this should compensate for the perceived high speed of the vehicles, but I'm trying to keep the speed relatively high as it's a racing game. I will also have to adjust the score table to show the leading player along with the ordinal number of laps the player is currently in during the game -- the player who first completes the three laps wins the game. I plan to fix the bug in track's rims as well so that players cannot accidentally go off the track when bumping the rims at certain angles. Suggested by playtesters and the product owner alike, I will also add certain tutorials on which keysets each player use to navigate the track as many testplayers have trouble intuitively figuring out which keyset moves their race car. If permitted by the timeframe, I'd love to fix the racing cars' engine and turning speed sound.

Fig - screenshot of our digital prototype

[minthwinkhant]

Lab03: Video Game Lab

During the lab, I had a chance to play four games - This Is The Only Level, Interview A Cat, and Don't Shit Your Pants: PICO 8th Edition, and Fragments.

Both Interview A Cat [game01] and Don't Shit Your Pants [game02] are text-based games. Game01 engages with the player through displays of textual options, prompting the user to choose which question to be asked to the cat - and the cat answers rather witfully! Game02 attract the player through demanding creativity through conversational style command-issue to the avatar to *shit. This mechanism of employing text to uncover responses encourages curiosity and active engagement, putting the player's input front and center throughout the play.

In addition, both games are built around a sense of humor. Game02 provides the player with nine whopping ending scenarios, and playfully flickers the player for creative combination of responses and word choices through trial-and-error. Game01 leverages humor through its whimsical premise of interviewing a cat with quirky cat's responses.

This Is The Only Level [game03] by itself inspires the player's problem solving and creativity through constantly changing control sets of the elephant's movement and certain physical characteristics of the platform such as slow gravity, spikes and spaces. This constantly changing control keeps the game challenging, appealing the player through aesthetics of challenge and dynamics of problem-solving techniques.

Out of six total games, I had a chance to observe two other games - Sylvie RPG and Underfell - and Fragment as well. During the gameplay and observation of Fragment, I have to say that the main difference is the ease of certain aesthetics like colors, character animation styles and background music during observation while some other aesthetics such as challenge, expression and discovery are more evident during the play.

Fig 1. Playing the game This Is The Only Level

Fig 2. Playing the game Interview A Cat

Fig 3. Playing the game Don't Shit Your Pants

[minthwinkhant]

WelcomeToHell!

Game Description:

WelcomeToHello is a 2-3 player hell-themed board game where players, in a race, attempt to place all blocks assigned to them. The player whose cubs have all been placed and is in possession of no Fire cards first wins the game.

Game Rules & Play:

The board is a square loop, consisting of 50 grids altogether, 37 of which are block-deployable by a player. Each player is assigned the number of blocks equal to the quotient of 36 divided by the number of players. The minimum number of players is two, and the max is three. Each grid has a capacity of max three blocks, which each player can put max two blocks per grid. There are altogether of 10 Fire cards, chancing the player(s) with misfortunes or blessings. Please refer to the end of this section to view the card descriptions.

Upon his/her turn, the player rolls a die and moves his/her token the same number of grids as the die's top surface value along the grid sequence in a clockwise direction. If the player lands on the die value of six and subsequently onto an undeployed grid that no player has deployed a block before, the player may deploy two blocks on the grid.

There are certain labeled grids on the board that no block can be deployed - Start, Fire, H, Heaven, Earth, +1, +2, +3 - but instead provides a player with a chance or an event. Upon landing on a Fire grid, the player draws a Fire card, which must be utilized immediately. Upon landing a H grid, the player's token is placed in the Heaven grid, and the player submits his/her next turn. Upon landing on Earth grid, the player submits his/her next turn while drawing a Fire card, which must be utilized immediately. Plus grids - +1, +2, +3 - adds the corresponding number of blocks to the player's block pile.

Overview of FIRE Cards

[Blessings!]

full description: Blessings! All players lose ONE block from the block pile.

count: 1

2. [Disaster!]

full description: Disaster! All players add ONE block to the block pile.

count: 1

3. [Retro-Generosity]

full description: You are feeling generous! Take ONE block from an opponent of your choice and add it to your block pile.

count: 1

4. [Takeaway]

full description: Take ONE block away from an opponent to your left/ right. No need to add this to your block pile!

count: 2

5. [FreeBlock]

full description: You get ONE free block!

count: 2

6. [GoToHeaven!]

full description: Go to Heaven ..!

count: 2

7. [SubmitIt!]

full description: You have to submit a turn for your sins, and start your next turn from Heaven grid.

count: 1

Game Core Mechanics Summary

Lose a Turn

Track Movement

Roll and Move

Chance Card

Game Log:

Session 1

Play session 1 took a whopping 8 minutes from start till finish. The gameplay was between two players with 13 starting blocks per player, and each player took at least 11 turns till the game's end. Comments received are summarized below:

to increase the probability of Fire grid

to diversify Fire card instructions

lowering the maximum number of blocks per grid

Fig 1 : WelcomeToHello Play Session 1

Session 2

Play session 2 took a total of 12 minutes from start to finish. The gameplay was between two players with 18 starting blocks per player, and each player took at least 14 turns till the game's end.

In this iteration, the triangle shape is converted to a rectangle to accommodate more grids and subsequently such more trigger grids as Fire and H grids while introducing +1 grids, upon landing of which one block is added to the player's block pile. Now with 37 available grids, raised from 27 available grids in iteration 1, players can have more estate to deploy more blocks.

Comments received are summarized below:

introducing +2 and -1 labeled grids in addition to +1 grids

to again increase the probability of Fire grids

introducing Earth grids that has the compound impact of Heaven, submitting a player's turn, and of Fire, drawing a Fire card whose instructions are executed immediately

introducing Deep Hell, a side of the board dedicated with significantly more event triggers than the other three sides

Fig 2: WelcomeToHello Play Session 2

Session 3

Play session 3 took a total of 38 minutes from start to finish. The gameplay was between two players with 18 starting blocks per player, and each player took at least 55 turns till the game's end.

In this iteration, the board is added with FIRE and H trigger grids to enhance the probability of a player drawing a FIRE card. +2 and +3 grids are also added to introduce more variety to Plus grids. Finally, the EARTH trigger is introduced so that the player landing on it experiences trigger impacts of both FIRE and H - draw a card and submit a turn! As can be referenced in the Fig 3, the last side of the board before returning to START is trapped with significantly more events and triggers to excite the playing field with imbalance.

Comments received are summarized below:

it is easy for a player to have 30 or 40 plus blocks after almost half an hour into the game, and the gameplay is prolonged

FIRE card descriptions are sometimes confusing

Fig 3 : WelcomeToHello Play Session 3

Future Update

Future updates will include clarifying existing FIRE card descriptions as well as adding more variety to the card deck. Terminate the +3 trigger and randomly yet evenly distribute +1 and +2 grids only across the board. Design the actual physical medium of the board game - instead of currently modeled wireframe boards - and play more with my friends and family members!

[minthwinkhant]

Session Report: Unspeakable Words

This is my session report on the gameplay Unspeakable Words. Player names are abbreviated as AND (Andrei Espiritu), JOR (Jordan Baba), QUO (Quoc Vuong) and EDD (Edward Khant) while I use the notation of "PLAYER -> <X, Y, Z>" to describe each player's status per round throughout the gameplay, where PLAYER refers to the player at hand, X as the unrepeated word of three or more letters as chosen by the player, Y as the total score of the player up until the round, and Z as the total number of Cthulhu pawns the player possesses until the round. A special value for X is "__fold__" indicating that the player has folded his/her turn during that round due to the lack of enough word-building cards at hand. The gameplay took place as follows:

Round 1:

AND -> <PALE, 13, 5>

JOR -> <SIN, 6, 5>

QUO -> <SIT, 6, 5>

EDD -> <HISS, 8, 5>

Round 2:

AND -> <PAL, 22, 5>

JOR -> <SEW, 13, 5>

QUO -> <GAME, 20, 5>

EDD -> <BAND, 22, 5>

Round 3:

AND -> <YEAR, 38, 5>

JOR -> <BANK, 28, 5>

QUO -> <FLAT, 31, 5>

EDD -> <HOP, 29, 5>

Round 4:

AND -> <DIRT, 50, 5>

JOR -> <__fold__, 65, 5>

QUO -> <BOUND, 40, 5>

EDD -> <HAG, 40, 5>

Round 5:

AND -> <RUM, 57, 5>

JOR -> <TIN, 36, 5>

QUO -> <BOOM, 48, 5>

EDD -> <WOO, 43, 5>

Round 6:

AND -> <TEN, 65, 5>

JOR -> <YOU, 39, 5>

QUO -> <BIO, 57, 5>

EDD -> <KITE, 56, 5>

Round 7:

AND -> <__fold__, 65, 5>

JOR -> <VEX, 48, 5>

QUO -> <MID, 66, 5>

EDD -> <LOVE, 62, 5>

Round 8:

AND -> <CAT, 72, 5>

JOR -> <LAW, 57, 5>

QUO -> <FID, 75, 5>

EDD -> <__fold__, 62, 5>

Round 9:

AND -> <FUCK, 78, 5>

JOR -> <__fold__, 57, 5>

QUO -> <POKY, 84, 5> // QUO out

EDD -> <TRIM, 75, 5>

Round 10:

AND -> <HEAR, 95, 5>

JOR -> <BLANK, 73, 5>

EDD -> <ROT, 81, 5>

Round 11:

AND -> <ZIT, 103, 5> // run sanity check, and lost

JOR -> <FAUD, 83, 5>

EDD -> <GAY, 91, 5>

Round 12:

AND -> <DRUM, 98, 1>

JOR -> <BIN, 94, 2>

EDD -> <HOPE, 102, 1> // run sanity check, and won; winner, winner, chicken dinner

The game was fun, and the four player session hits the class timeframe of 75mins on the spot as well!

Unspeakable Words Deluxe Edition, courtesy of boardgamesgeek.com