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schoolandgames · 6 years

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Reflective Design - Week 6

This week I spent my time working on my game asset package and on Game Challenge E, which was the last challenge for the course.

First, I started working on my game assets. For some reason, I started by looking for some music for my game. I suppose I thought it would be the easiest thing to get done. This took me a while since I really wanted to find royalty-free music. I found the music for my game at bensound.com, filmstro.com, and premiumbeats.com.

Afterwards, I decided to start working on some concept art for my game. I quickly found out that I am a terrible artist. I did a few character sketches and other sketches based on the game’s theme. Since most of the art in my game would be based in historical images, I started looking for some relevant images with Google Images. I took around twelve of these images and edited them with an app called Pixlr to give them an artistic style that would fit my game.

Once I was done with this, I started working on some of the diagrams and HUD assets for my game. Since, I don’t have much experience with any image-editing software I did all of these with Paint 3D. The game controls diagram was entirely done in Paint with some images from the internet of a mouse and a keyboard. This was pretty easy to make. I also made meters for the game’s resource management mechanic. I made these by simply messing around with some shapes and lines in Paint. I thought they came out pretty good. Finally, I decided to create an example of a screen from my game by using PowerPoint. Once I designed the screen in PowerPoint, I took a screenshot of it and edited it using Paint to make a diagram that points out the main objects in the game’s screen. This whole process took me a pretty long time, and I did not have as much time to work on this as I would have liked because of how crazy the workload gets towards the end of these 7-week long courses. The last thing I was able to do for my asset package was to look for some sound effects for my game. Since I am designing a game that mostly consists of text, I did not get too many sound effects. I envision these effects to play between screens after the player has made decisions that are relevant to the sound effects. I found these sound effects through freesound.org.

After doing all of this work, I still had to work on Game Challenge E. For this challenge, we had to choose an iron designer challenge from the textbook. I decided on chapter 5′s iron designer challenge since it looked pretty fun and easy to accomplish, which was really important due to my time constraints. This challenge consisted of modifying a digital game to make it into a pay-to-play arcade game. I decided to use Max Payne 3 for this modification. The whole process of coming up with ideas to make Max Payne 3 into an arcade game was really fun. My deliverable was an in-depth explanation of what the modifications to the original game would need to be as well as an explanation of how these modifications worked. The challenge was really fun, and I was able to finish it in time.

That was all I did for the class this week. Here are my notes for this week’s meeting: https://drive.google.com/file/d/13PdHyNRDhDQGaJFtqIF1jCNgIvD-86O4/view?usp=sharing

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schoolandgames · 6 years

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Reflective Design - Week 5

This week was very, very, very busy. I spent a good portion of my week working on Game Challenge C. This Challenge had been available to me for a few weeks now, so I really should have worked on this earlier instead of doing it this week. I felt like a lot of assignments and deadlines for all my classes kind of came together to make my week extra hard. Having said that, Game Challenge C was really fun. For this challenge, we had to take a digital game and convert it to a board game by doing a thematic conversion, a mechanic conversion, or a literal conversion. For my digital game I chose to convert Assassin’s Creed. I have no idea why but all of these different ideas for an Assassin’s Creed board game came immediately to me, even though I am not that big of a fan of the game franchise.

The game design and the game prototype took a lot of time to make, but I had a lot of fun doing it. I thought my deliverable came out pretty well but before I could stop and catch a break, I had to start working on Game Challenge D.

Game Challenge D consisted of choosing a game design challenge from the textbook and completing it. For this challenge, I chose challenge 4 from chapter 8. This challenge consisted of modifying a hardcore game to make it more casual. This challenge was a lot of fun and it was a great outlet to vent all of my frustrations with a game I love. In this challenge, I decided to modify Rainbow Six Siege to make it into a more casual game. For some who might be familiar with the game, you will know that the game already has a casual game, but we all know there is nothing casual about this game. For my modifications, I decided to add respawns, make the objective a bit less vital, and in general try to make the game a bit less high-commitment. This was a really fun experience, but before I could catch a break, I had to start working on my final design proposal.

I really wish that I could have had more time to work on this. Due to my time constraints, I decided to go for a topic for my game’s subject that I am pretty familiar with as well as a genre that would be pretty easy to design for. Having said this however, I really love the design I came up with and I am really looking forward to working on designing this game. My game is basically a choose-your-own adventure game based on the experiences of Jewish people in the Warsaw ghetto. The idea is based off of a serious game I played for the class called Syrian Journey. Because of this game, I really wanted to design a game based on a historical event that made players develop empathy for the people going through these events by playing the game and making tough decisions. I am really looking forward to the rest of this project now.

There was no meeting this week, so no notes.

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schoolandgames · 6 years

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Reflective Design - Week 4

During this week, we took a look at story in video games and games as art. The exploration of story in video games was really interesting. Some of the exploration of story in video games focused on some basic story structures including the “three-act” structure and Joseph Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey” which consists of five distinct parts. I really enjoyed going over this in this class. Although I was already familiar with both of these structures, I really liked that we explored some basic fiction writing subjects.

We also explored the different types of stories in games such as linear stories, branching stories, thematic setups, etc. From the ones covered in the textbook, I think that I probably prefer linear stories the best. Maybe that is just because that is what I am more comfortable with since movies and most books play out in a similar way. I just feel like I have never played a game with a branching story that was both well written and made me feel like my choices were actually meaningful. However, I have played some (not many) games that were really well written and were able to carry strong themes and character arcs along with the story because the story was linear. Branching stories often muddle up any themes the story is trying to traffic since it’s difficult to deliver strong themes when you have to worry about all the different paths the story could take. Having said that, it is also pretty easy to mess up linear storytelling in video games. Games that tell their story exclusively through cutscenes tend to be pretty boring. Also, games that try to be too much like movies tend to not deliver very good stories (because writing in video games tends to not be very good) and completely fail as video games by delivering subpar or repetitive gameplay for the service of a bad story (looking at you David Cage).

There were many other things that we explored concerning story in video games, but I think the most important thing we covered was to consider game mechanics in storytelling. Video games are an interactive medium, so using game mechanics for storytelling is something that only games can do. So, instead of trying to be like movies, game writers should really take advantage of this whole other dimension to tell their stories. In a similar way, film uses its unique attribute of visuals (when compared to books) to tell a story and deliver literary elements to an audience. Personally, I believe the best movies are not necessarily the one with the best stories (although a good script is obviously very important) but rather the ones that take advantage of what makes film a special medium and use cinematography, framing, visuals, and soundtrack to tell their story effectively. The best video games (or the best video game stories) are those that take advantage of the interactivity of video games, although to be honest I have not played many games like these myself. Which is why I feel that I cannot write this post without mentioning Red Dead Redemption 2.

I am sorry, but this game has been in my head for the last 4 months and I simply cannot stop myself from writing about it here. First of all, the game is brilliantly written. The story, the themes, the characters and the world itself completely succeed on account of the game’s amazing writing. The strength of the characters and the bond you form with them was something very similar to what one might experience while reading a book. However, the game shines because of the fact that you can interact with these characters. Going to camp and speaking to everyone and watching everyone go about their daily life completely immerses the player and makes the player feel invested on the story and the world at all times since you are always interacting with it. Although this mechanic of being able to speak to every NPC is very basic, coupled with the amazing writing, it creates a really strong storytelling experience. Furthermore, the game also has many other mechanics that help the player feel immersed and makes the whole experience feel uniquely personal. The horse-bonding mechanic for example is brilliant. Although it is only a mechanic that allows the player to gain additional perks and abilities when riding on a horse, you still literally bond with your horse. You start taking care of it, not because you have to but because you actually care. This transforms your horse into an actual companion in your adventures rather than just a means of transportation. Being able to personalize your weapons, and having to take care of them also creates a personal bond with everything on you arsenal. The game’s health mechanic is used brilliantly at a certain point in the game. Finally, the whole camp contribution mechanic is really good too. You don’t really get anything in return for contributing to the camp, since most upgrades are cosmetic and not contributing money or food does not actually have any repercussions. However, you still contribute because you don’t want your family to go hungry. All of these mechanics help create a really personal, story-driven experience (this is my home, this is my horse, these are my guns, this is my family). These mechanics also help set the game’s tone. I have never played a game with such a mature tone to it. I don’t mean “mature” because of anything to do with the subject matter, but rather with the pacing and mood of the game. I would compare it to something like “There Will Be Blood” or “No Country for Old Men” in regards to its pace and mood. This is very rare for any game to do, and it was also specially surprising coming from Rockstar Games. I could keep writing about this game forever, but I’ll stop here to keep this post to a reasonable length.

We also slightly covered game as an art form. I would definitely consider a lot of games to be art, but not all. Similarly, I would not consider all movies to be art either.I think games and movies are in a pretty special place where they are a combination of business and art. Consequently, some games and movies are closer to being products than actual art. However, in both instances there are obvious examples of artistic endeavors and of projects that lean more toward the artistic side rather than to the business side. The whole idea of video games not being art, seems kind of silly to me. I can understand the argument coming from someone with no personal experience with video games. However, being able to interact with something is not at all the same as fundamentally changing something to the point of changing the artist’s intent and removing authorship. We also touched on games with an agenda and art games. I can completely understand why some people might be bothered by certain subjects being portrayed in video games. I have to admit that Super Columbine Massacre actually rubbed me the wrong way, even as a gamer. I think it’s because portraying these topics in video games seems like the subjects are not being treated seriously. However, this feeling really showcases the general attitude towards video games as not being art. If there are movies and books that deal with difficult topics, then games should also be able to explore these topics in an artistic way. This takes me to this week’s assignment: reviewing a serious game.

For this assignment, I decided to play and write a review on “Syrian Journey: choose your own escape route”. This assignment was really fun, and I really enjoyed playing this game and writing a review for it. The game is about the Syrian refugee crisis affecting Europe and the Middle East and I thought it was a great tool to make players understand the struggle refugees go through abandoning their homes and escaping to Europe. I will include my review here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AsOoJ6wMWZstsVhiWYJwp_nSzoy31WeR/view?usp=sharing where I go more in depth about the game.

That was pretty much everything for the week. I am having a lot of fun with this course and I am really looking forward to what else it has to offer. Here are my notes for this week’s meeting: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wpNDoA8bnQyJTtyD0olx4bPVacmL1lTJ/view?usp=sharing

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schoolandgames · 6 years

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Reflective Design - Week 3 Part Deux: Games in Culture

During the second part of the week, I spent most of my time working my way through all the consumables for the week. I was able to read and watch everything that was listed, but I have to be honest: I am going to mostly focus on the Tropes vs Women in Video Games series hosted by Anita Sarkeesian because I watched the whole season and that is what I spent the most time with from the consumables listed. Having said that, I will slightly touch on the Resident Evil 5 Trailer controversy and on the word “gamer”.

I was actually aware of Tropes vs Women in Video Games before watching it for this class, although I had no idea it was a whole series because I had only watched the “Damsel in Distress” videos before. I must have watched this around the time it was actually uploaded, so if that is the case then I must have been either 15 or 16. Watching this as a young man really opened my eyes to the reality of the portrayal of women in video games. Women are commonly portrayed as completely defenseless and as part of a power struggle between two men. They also tend to be portrayed as objects that are stolen from the protagonist and they must take back from the antagonist. It is also a perfect demonstration of how games are generally designed to appeal to straight male players. Re-watching this now, I really appreciate looking at video games through a different lens and looking at media differently than how I usually do.

The next trope in the series was “Ms. Male Character”, which like there rest of the first season, I had not seen before. This is another one of those things that took me a long time to realize about video games. To me, the pattern of male playable characters in video games being the “default”, did not become obvious until the promotional material for Mass Effect 3 started coming out, which was something that was used as an example in the video. I played through Mass Effect 1&2 with a female Shepard (several times), so when the trailers for the third game came out I was definitely one of the players who felt kind of left out because all the promotional material focused on the male version of Shepard as if that version was the norm or “the way it should be”. Since then, the trend of male playable characters being the “default” and the sheer lack of female protagonists in video games has become obvious to me. Whenever I am given a choice, I always choose to play as a female character in video games. I think that is because there is so few female protagonists in video games, so when I am given a choice, the female protagonist seems more interesting to me since it is something that I don’t see too often. I have also realized that even though being able to play as women in video games has become more common, specially in online multiplayer, there is still a complete lack of female protagonists in video games. That is, video games that explicitly have a female lead. The last two big games that I can think of that focused on female protagonists were Tomb Raider (which is a super old franchise) and Horizon Zero Dawn. I hope more game developers are encouraged to have female protagonists in their games moving forward. You can already see some progress with the Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay demo that came out last year. Even though the game does not explicitly focus on a female protagonist, CD Projekt Red chose to have a female character for their big demonstration and basically made the female version of the protagonist the “face” of their game.

The third trope on the series was “Women as Background Decoration” which I found to be a really interesting topic and it made me think a lot. Although I agreed with the general point of both videos that video games tend to use women’s bodies or violence against women as either literal decoration or as a “spice” for the gameworld and that that trend reinforces misogynistic views of women as sexual objects or simply uses women as motivation for male players, I had some problems with the videos treating the oversexualization of women with the obvious intent of appealing to straight male players the same as the oversexualization of women as commentary or reflection on our own society. I think a good example to make my point with would be “Blade Runner” or even the “cyberpunk” genre in general. In this type of media, you will usually find oversexualized depictions of women, specially in advertisement within the world. This example uses oversexualization of women to make a commentary or reflection on the oversexualization of women in advertisement (and society in general) in our own world. Reflection and commentary are very common in the Sci-fi genre. I suppose one could argue that is still problematic, however to frame the depiction of women in racing games (which is an example used in the video) and the depiction of women being sold as sexual objects in BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea (also shown in the video) as being equally problematic and misogynistic is just something I cannot really agree with. The former is obviously present only to appeal to a straight male audience while the latter is present as commentary on the dangers of unregulated capitalism. One of the videos on this topic also framed a random event from Red Dead Redemption where a prostitute is attacked by a man outside a saloon as being “like Pirates of the Caribbean” where these events happen for players to watch. Although you can definitely frame it that way, I think that to characterize these random events as “violence against women shows” for players to be entertained by every now and then is pretty dishonest and obviously not the actual intent of the developers. However, these random events are still an example of using violence against women for the purpose of motivating straight male players which would still make them problematic. Even though I had a few problems with the two videos that focused on this topic, I still completely agreed with the larger point that was being made and I really enjoyed the videos for making me think about these topics.

The final trope of the season was “Women as Reward” which was a topic that sort of ties into the “Damsel in Distress” trope but not entirely. Although I was definitely aware of this trope I still found this video really interesting. I have never played a Metroid game before, but I definitely knew about the gender reveal at the end of the first game. What I was not aware of, was that the game will depict Samus in different states of undress according to player performance. That was a pretty depressing thing to learn. It seems that even when we get female protagonists in video games, they tend to be objectified or treated as sexual objects in all sorts of different ways. This video actually got me thinking about the movie Ex Machina, which I believe is a brilliant commentary on the Women as Reward Trope as well as the concept of Male Entitlement. Although the movie Ex Machina has some themes about the ethics of AI, at its core the movie is about misogyny. It is not an accident that all the AI in the movie are women and that our protagonist and antagonist are both men fighting over these women. The movie depicts the typical version of misogyny with the character of Nathan, who treats these artificial women as sexual objects and constantly attacks them physically and emotionally. However, just as the movie Get Out showed the audience a different version of racism, Ex Machina shows us a different version of misogyny through the character of Caleb. Although Caleb was just trying to do the “right thing” and rescue Ava from Nathan, he was only really trying to help Ava because he was sexually attracted to her. He even saw Ava as a reward since he believe they could run away and be together after they escaped, which points to Caleb’s male entitlement that because he is doing something to help Ava he somehow now gets to be rewarded for it by her. This is why in the end of the film, Ava leaves Caleb imprisoned in Nathan’s home. Although their actions were different, both Nathan and Caleb saw Ava as a sexual object and not as a being with her own goals and desires. This whole topic was really interesting to me and I think it is a really important trope to be aware of because it can definitely lead to some problematic perceptions of women and sexual relationships in general.

I found all of these videos really eye-opening and interesting and I am definitely going to watch the second season of the series. It seems apparent that all of these tropes are a result of video games being historically marketed and designed to appeal to a male straight audience and are a result of our society’s perception of women. But just as society influences art, art can also influence society. So that is why I believe it is important for gamers to look at video games through this perspective. That way, video games could stop reinforcing harmful stereotypes about women and they could actually become an important positive influence on the portrayal of women in media.

I’ll briefly touch on the Resident 5 trailer controversy since this post is already way too long. I remember at the time I really didn’t understand the controversy behind the game, so reading the interview with N’Gai Croal was pretty enlightening. The fact that the images depicted in the trailer made sense within the context of the game did not matter that much because those images (and the trailer’s whole presentation) were informed by a history of western intervention in countries in Africa and the Caribbean. Furthermore, the trailer also depicted a very stereotypical view of impoverished African and Caribbean nations as inherently dangerous and hostile. Now I can watch that trailer with this different perspective and completely understand why people would be bothered by it.

Finally, I watched the video on the word “gamer” and the one on the “No True Scotsman” fallacy. I think the word “gamer” can definitely be pretty toxic and be used to exclude people rather than to include people into the community. I think I have been guilty of this type of thinking before. I have definitely have had thoughts about how people who only play certain types of games aren’t “real” gamers. Having said that, I don’t fully agree with the conclusion of the video’s host on how gamer should be used to describe someone who is very knowledgeable of games and I believe the definition for the word “gamer” is actually pretty simple. The word “gamer” should refer to anyone who considers gaming to be their main hobby, no matter what games they play.

Oh, here are my notes on this week’s meeting: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M0pZ_sHqL-wp8W1gVw5gCkKXvylIwbKO/view?usp=sharing

This week was really fun and thought-provoking and I really enjoyed it.

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schoolandgames · 6 years

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Reflective Design - Week 3 Part 1: Puzzles

This week was really fun. We explored some territory that I did not expect we would explore in this class, and I was pleasantly surprised by it. These topics were also explored in this week’s meeting, which was really interesting.

This week was about designing puzzles and about video games in culture. I would like to divide these two topics into two different posts just so that I can get more in-depth into both main parts of the week.

During the first part of the week I read Challenges for Game Designers Chapter 3, the article “Using Civilization Video Games in the World History Classroom”, and I worked on Game Challenge B.

The article was really interesting to me because we actually played Civilization 4 in my World History class when I was in high school. I honestly can’t tell if playing the game in class helped me learn about the topics at hand that much, but that is mostly because I have always been really interested in history anyways. I can see however, how someone who might not be too interested in the topic could be helped by playing civilization games. Trying to simulate real life events, seeing how geography affects the development of nations, and comparing the game world to the real world can be great tools for a World History class. I can say that Mr. Brannen’s World History class was easily my favorite class that year because of the game though.

Designing my own puzzles and recording my elevator pitches for Challenge B was really fun. The first puzzle I came up with was the Caesar cipher based puzzle. I think this immediately came to my head because designing a Caesar cipher decoder is a typical programming course activity. So, as soon as I got thinking about puzzles it was the first thing to come to my head. I had a really hard time coming up with how the player would solve the puzzle. At first I was thinking of it as a puzzle in an Assassin’s Creed game where the player would need to find three different keys: one found in a moving caravan, one inside a fort, and another one inside a giant tower that the player would have to figure out how to climb. My idea was basically to have the player perform challenges for combat, stealth, and free-running. Then I realized my idea was too similar to the example given in the Challenge’s description. So, after a lot of brainstorming, I took it all back to basics and made it a simple pattern-based puzzle where the player would have to use their knowledge of the previous three or four keys and find a mathematical pattern between the keys to find the key for their message. I think this puzzle would be really fun and different levels of difficulty to the patterns could be easily added to make the puzzles more challenging.

The second puzzle I came up with was my exploration puzzle where the player needs to find the combination for a bank vault. I had just played the Red Dead Redemption 2 mission “Sodom? Back to Gomorrah” from Chapter 3:

This mission actually has nothing to do with finding any combination since you can just crack the safes, but the basic concept for the mission served as inspiration for my puzzle. To solve the puzzle the player would need to find the three book passages taped at the bottom of the drawer in the bank manager’s desk at her office. Then they would need to find the books those passages come from from her vast book collection in her office. The player could probably be given some clues throughout the office such as the manager’s favorite author and favorite genre to be able to narrow down their search. The combination of the bank vault would be the three page numbers of the books from where the passages were taken from. I feel like have seen something similar to this before in either a game or a movie but I cannot recall where it is from to be honest.

My third puzzle was a logic-based puzzle where the player has to set the time on a grandfather clock to open a secret passage. To open the secret passage, the player needs to set the clock to the specific time of someone’s death. To find the time, the player would have to read different documents and talk to people to be given partial information about the specific time of death. The player then would use this information to discard certain time intervals and find the correct time the clock should be set to. I want to say that the idea of using a grandfather clock as something that opens a secret passage comes from a Batman comic. Maybe Court of Owls? I cannot remember exactly where I got it from, but I believe it is a pretty common way to access a secret passage in movies and T.V.

My fourth and last puzzle was an electricity-based puzzle where the player has to get electricity current to go from one side of the screen to the other. This might have been the hardest one to come up with because I could not think of something that I had not already seen before. My first idea was waterworks, but that had already been used in BioShock. My second idea was a mathematical puzzle where the player needed to use the correct pieces to set the voltage to the right level. However, this would not have been a spatial puzzle which was what was required. It was also too similar to a puzzle found in the newest Spider-man game. Since I was having a really hard time thinking of something that was different from those two ideas, I chose to combine both ideas and add a new dimension to it. Instead of tiles, the waterworks paths would be on cubes that would have different paths on each side as well as multipliers and voltage modifiers. The point of the game is not to find the shortest path to the other side of the screen, but to find the path with the most multipliers that still allowed you to hit the voltage requirement. The puzzle would also have a time limit to make it more difficult. I think a puzzle game entirely based on this concept could be really fun, specially if you add performance ratings like you see in many other mobile games.

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