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GameDev Days Tallinn 2018

The 16 and 17 of April I attended several speeches:

- the opening talk of Vladimir Funtikov

- Kimmo Kari, that talked about general facts about the management of a gaming company and showed nice trailers of new games of his company. The summary can be:

Be clear on the goals - Be clear on the time-line - Provide good tools for the team - Do not micromanage, it kills autonomous work - Facilitate fair and psychological environment - Try to manage egos of the team and to coach individuals to manage their direct emotional reactions if needed - Make people feel they want to do it, instead the have do to it - Be humble and fair - Protect your team from external interference.

All this things helps to create a clear and safe sandbox where the team can do their magic.

- Leonardo Ortega of “Work in Estonia” explained with channels to use to find a job here and about the startup funds.

- Alexey Izvalov that had a talk called “What would Capitan Obvious say about indie game development”. He emphasises as the graphic does not really matter in these games, sometimes a simple art style is even better if there is coherence.

- Akim Kasabulatov of Metalbear that told the path of his company to reach the first place in Android store. The game was a simple platform with over 100 levels and had 100.00 downloads the first day and over 500,00 in total. It was made by 4 people. After he talked about the different way of Monetization. About Marketing he said to talk with mobile press, write a lot in forums ( Pocket Gamer and TouchArcade), press list ad Redditt and press release.

- Etai Edry funny presented a game about sausages that have to escape from deadly traps in the kitchen. He started to explain from the initial idea of the game, feeding his kids by making puppet with food, through the different step until the final version. He also explained to pay lot of attention to the details of the game in order be kids friendly and not to offend any ethnic group of genre. He also shown some selling tricks, example create specific characters for holidays.

- Mariusz Szypura from Poland talked about his decision to quit is previous job and start, without enough experience, to make games. He said that he was always working and studied and at the end is game was unfortunately a failure.

- Arja Martikainen from Finland made an overview of the jobs in the game industry:

She gave some advises for newbies in the searching job phase. I was also able to talk with her later and exchange linked profiles. Some tips were:

Time is valuable, use bit of time for prescreening the company and their products - Look and feel when you finally meet - Try to relax and be present - Do not bubble, stick to the issue - Tell the truth - Remember to sell yourself - Have passion - Training and practise - Look for help and feedbacks - Make a Portfolio - Continuous learning - Play games, the more the merrier!

- Niklas Wallgren and his colleagues explained the system for add advertising in games in AR and VR of their company “Adverty”. They said that thanks to realistic games the ads are perceived as not intrusive, and so are more accepted by the users.

- Game Village Award Ceremony

Winner of the contest: “Eon must die” (fighting games)

During the two days I was abled to try most of the games presented and met lot of people, also because I participated to the GDD Quest. In particular I talked with:

- Arja Martikaine

- Leonardo Ortega

- Jens Brännback

- Liliya Shakhova

- Hatch

- Zagrava Games

- Vidloonnya

- DeV9k

My favourite game of the event: Sayri Adventure.

I would like to find a job as consultant or trainer in projects related to educational video games or continue with a PhD in Italy.

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IGDA April Gathering

- What was the topic of the gathering?

Epic fails in the Gaming Sector

- Who were the presenters?

• Ott Madis Ozolit, Founder of Lootbox Studio • Antonio Scacchetti, Founder of Dev9k • Jaanus Jaggo, Professor at Tartu University - What did you learned?

Don’t copy other games

Pay well the programmer

Check well the gameplay before proceed with graphics

Don’t launch the game before the weekend

Don’t make the party right after the launch

Check well the bureaucratic requirements for each countries  

- What contacts you created?

I talked and exchanged contacts with Antonio Scacchetti and talk with Ott Madis Ozolit. I tried the demos of two games.

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Training Course: Digital Storytelling with Erasmus+

In November 2017 in Evora (Portugal) I was able to partecipate to a very interesting training course about the use of Digital Storytelling method with people with fewer opportunities. 

Description: This project is to teach youth workers and young leaders who work with youth with diverse cultural background how to encourage their beneficiaries how to interact more by creating and sharing their digital stories. Everyone has a story to tell, and those digital stories are always very powerful, since in many case they describe very important issues, such as violence, discrimination or a struggle to find one’s place in the society.

https://www.salto-youth.net/tools/european-training-calendar/training/once-upon-a-story-digital-storytelling-for-intercultural-dialogue.6812/

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Finnish National Curriculum (Summary) 2014

Trasversal Competences:

(T1) Thinking and learning to learn

(T2) Cultural competence, interaction and self-expression

(T3) Taking care of oneself and managing daily life

(T4) Multiliteracy

(T5) ICT Competence

(T6) Working life competence and entrepreneurship

(T7) Partecipation, involvement and buildings a sustainable future

Literature

(C1) Acting in interactive situations

(C2) Interpreting texts

(C3) Producing texts

(C4) Understanding language, literature and culture

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Serious Game

The term Serious Game was coined by Clark Abt in 1968, this definition refers to  virtual simulations and graphical user interface with not only a pure entertainment intent but also the can be used as: corporate training, education and awareness campaigns, advertising etc. The same Clark Abt writes: "In education, games are used by teachers for classroom instruction in social studies, sciences, and humanities, and for guidance counseling. [...] The abstract representation of real life in game form does not render the game any less capable of teaching "false" knowledge. "

When I was working in Primary School, I used sometimes a serious game called Tux, of Math Command. It’s an open source game developed by Tux4Kids, which goal is to combining fun and learning into an irresistible package.

TuxMath is an arcade game that helps kids practice their math skills. It’s possible to play alone or in multiplayer and set the level of difficulties:

Once that the player chose the level, the game starts. Tux, the mascot of the Linux operating system, is the main character and controls a laser beam that is capable of destroying incoming  meteorites, but to do so kids must answer correctly the operation. Every level has a different scenario (landscape of planets and galaxies) and presents calculations of  the same type. If the player leaves a comet to hit the igloo at the bottom of the screen, first time it damages the igloo, second time the meteorite destroys it and the penguin run away from the screen. The game end when all 4 igloos are destroyed. Every time that the scenario change the calculations become more difficult.

If player hit a red comet at the end of the level he will receive a bonus. A cloud arrives and repairs one of damaged igloo.

I tried this game before show that to my students and to be honest I find it a bit boring, because it seemed to me a repetitive school exercise well dress up as videogame. Also it’s difficult to set well the proper level because it pass very quickly to be too easy at to be too hard. However due to the fact that the skills that the game want to improve, are still worthy (increase the speed of calculation, use tricks to calculate and elaborate strategies) I decide to play it the same at school.

I discovered that at first kids were really excited and they really like to play the first one or two levels but after they become very anxious and more than one ask me to change game after only 5 minutes of game. So I propose to play in couples and I can say, on the contrary, that multiplayer mode can be very engaging because kids like more interact with each other, someone  cooperatively and other couples competitively. I think that kids after some gaming session actually improved their calculation skills, only one session it’s not enough. Today I try to play again and I still agree with my initial thought: in order to learn more it’s necessary to engage more the players, and so it will be useful to add more variety to the game, example alternating 3-4 types of different mini-games, in order to extend the longevity of the game experience.

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Game Classification

Game: Caesar III

Platform: Microsoft Windows - Mac OS

Genre: City-Building (Strategy, Business-Simulation)

Interfaces: Input: Mouse + Keyboard Output: Monitor and speakers

Number of players: 1

Interaction model: Omnipresent model, typical of Strategy and Simulation games. Players have full control of the city, buildings, activities and incoming enemies.

Graphics and Perspective: The game developed in 1998 present a simple 2D graphics, set to a fixed magnification level that can be rotated, but only by ninety degrees.

Game mechanics: Caesar III is the third edition of the original Caesar and is a simulation-business game in real time of Sierra Online. The game system is similar to that of the SimCity, but it is set at the time of the Roman Empire, also focused on creating a city and related services. Players use an interface system to design a city, including buttons for different aspects of building such as Housing, Religion and Security, amongst others; for some, an additional menu is provided of buildings available to the player. After an initial training the players will have to achieve certain goals if the want to finish the level/city. Besides the construction of the buildings, the player is required to manage also the production system and sales with near cities, it's also possible to fight in some scenarios.

Distribution/financing models: Single purchase.

Part 2. I think that the game for that period worked quite well, despite a few bugs. But if I have to create a new positive gaming experience I think that I would change:

Interaction Model: Transforming the game in Party-based, it will be possible to be more involved in the game, and it will be also easier to manage the different area of the game because each character should personify a certain sector.

Distribution: It will be good also to change the distribution model because actually is not produced anymore. So a freeware model should be perfect for this game and maybe it can be add in a website with others abandonware games.

Number of players: A new multiplayer option would permit to online players to still play in real time but togheter with the same scenario and goals. The winner will be the first that reach them all.

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Formal analysis of gameplay

I Part

Digital games engage the player in complex behavior, and there many possibilities to evaluate a game experience. A typology which excludes the player feedback to focus more on the game system and features is the Formal Analysis and Petri Lankoski and Staffan Bjork offer a useful guide to approach it. A Formal Analysis of a video game requires to studying carefully its specific elements, and to examines in detail the game’s mechanics. Formal analysis is used for understanding the mechanics of the game and can be considered one of the more used method. Usually it’s a starting point also for further additional studies.

It’s necessary to have a proper vocabulary in order to be able to write a Formal Analysis.

Primitives are the basic types of building blocks of games:

Components (characters of the game, moved by player or game system)

Actions (that can be divide in player action, component actions and system actions)

Goals (results that player have to achieve in short or long period, example: levels or finish the game)

To conduct a formal analysis researchers must follow a strict procedure. It’s necessary to know the game, so it’s required to play for several hours. Then the researcher has to describe how the primitive act and how they relate. The description must be more accurate as possible because other researchers should be able to follow the researcher’s description and result without knowing the video game. Step number two describe the principles of design and at the end what is the role of the primitives and principle of design in the game.

It’s also possible to add some comparison with other games in relation to a specific primitives or in general.

In order to maintain validity and reliability of the description, the researchers must divulge it in order that other people can check, and also is important remain updated about game categories.   

II Part

The Secret of Monkey Island is a game of LucasArts published in 1990. It’s the first episode of five graphic adventure games based on point-and-click system that ran on on the Amiga, MS-DOS, Atari ST and Macintosh platforms (2D Graphic).

The protagonist of the series, Guybrush Threepwood, is a young man with a dark past who arrives on a small island in the Caribbean, the island of Mêlée with a dream to fulfill: to become a pirate. The game is permeated by a strong vein of humor.

In this single-player game, the player controls only one character, Guybrush. The game is represented in third person, it’s possible to move the character through a cursor via mouse, keyboard in the scenario and to change it with horizontal scrolling. It’s suggested to use the map of the island to move Guybrush over long distances. At the bottom of the screen, it’s possible to select different type of actions in order to interact usefully with tools or people in the scenario and also to combine them and create new objects (example, to pick up an object will select the "Get" verb and then the object real). Even the inventory of owned objects is shown in the form of clickable text labels as the actions. It’s possible to speak with some of the people in the scenario and during the dialogues the text appears near the characters. Player can chose between some options of answer and it conditions the continuation of the game. There are also sword fights: the victory depends only by choosing the correct selection of witty and offensive responses to the opponent.Guybrush can’t died and the game is designed in order that in every situation is still possible to find a solution and finish the game. It ends when the player solves all the puzzle.

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Rules Assignment

Name: PLAGIO Year of Publication: 1999 Game Designer: Antonio Lupica Publisher: Venice Connection Category: Board Game, Humor, Party Game, Word Game Material: 132 cards and 250 slips of paper

Rules: This game is played in turns, in each one a player become the Master and read Half of a famous book's sentence. After the players must complete secretly on a sheet the famous phrases from letterare works, making sure that their version is credible. The Master write his sentence too (also if he knows already the real ending of the sentences) and collect all the sheets. Then he reads all the possible continuations of the sentence given by the players, plus the real one in a random order. Players have to guess the version of the writer of the book and who indicate the correct sentence gains 3 points. If players bet on the sentence of another player, that player will gain 1 point also. The game finish when all participants did at least one time each the Master role.

Game properties: - Competive game: Each partecipant plays for himself - Symmetric game: Everyone has the same rules, except for the person who is the Master, but every player has this role during the match - Non-zero sum game: players just can gain points - Sequential: The game follow precise game-phases, only in the second phase players play simultaneously - Imperfect game: You don't know what other players write - Infinite game: The game is infinitely long, on depends by players choice decide to stop the game - Plagio is not a resources-game based, the object is to convince the other participants that your sentence is suitable using only your creativity skills.

Winning strategies: Plagio is a game of creativity, so the suggestion is to use your fantasy but there are some tips: - write short ending sentences (usually the right ones are very short) - know the writing style of the writer - know or pretend to know the topic of the book (you can put inside name of some characters) - write in beautiful calligraphy, or the master will find it hard to read

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Game Design Proposal Sketch Activity

Group Assignment - Scientific Website Serena Obert - Monika Pahla - Mariina Prikk - Marieh Sayadchi

Purpose:

This game aims to:

A) bring “ learning through playing ” to the subjects and areas from STEM education - scientific concepts and real life practices are hard to teach in schools- so our educational game brings them to classrooms through digital gaming. Through our game pupils are studying different kind of scientific principles concerned with physics, biology, chemistry etc. There are lots of limitations for STEM concepts and processes that can’t be brought to classroom. Some of these limitations are:

● The time scale: for example it takes a very long time to see how trees turn to oil in real life! but in game world with appropriate you can turn thousands of Years into minutes to see the process.

● The scale of the material in discussion: molecules are not visible with eye to see the reactions;

● The practicality/danger of such experiments in the school or home settings. Such as chemistry experiments and experiments involving expensive materials.

B) Encourage sense making process among students with active content making. Students will be asked to read science news/articles and make educational contents for their peers under supervision of their teacher -through our scientific game they can make cognitive maps, to measure, to ask specific knowledgable/important/ meaningful questions.

C) Strengthen the spirit of teamwork- skills to communicate, analyze, offer some new ideas etc. and promote healthy competition by new content generation in class in groups (as mentioned in B)

D) Improving students’ STEM related reading and comprehension skills by tying games, motivational elements and points mentioned above to their text comprehension. For example the first step for point B is to read and understand the text.

Summary Description by Year:

Year 1:

The main goal of the first year is to create a kids friendly platform, where it will be possible to study science concepts, definition and to make them observable to pupils eyes and minds by using different type of tools, so that each student can find the effective methodology for his /her learning process. We would like to create a section for all the most important topic of science curricula. In each section there will presented a text associate with type of tool that better fix the topic. In the first years we would like to select text for all the subjects and create some activities for the most important topic. In this process it would be very important to involve also kids and teacher to obtain feedback and suggestions.

Year 2: 

Second year it’s for planning a first initial phase of testing in order to fix bugs, define graphics details, observe reactions of kids and collect feedbacks. After the implementation of the website it will be release in beta version (without users resources). We will start an advertising campaign with the purpose of let know the website at the teachers, and to start with them a process of co-construction of a scientific point of reference for the community.

Year 3:

This year the time when the platform will be released to larger actual use other than test groups. The platform will be constantly used by student throughout the school year. The social and content making part of the platform will be added and activated for users’ generated content. Contests and competitions in regard to self generated content will be organized. This year is also the time for advertising and bringing more schools on board with using the platform.

Year 4:

In this year the development of the system will be concluded and finalized. Fixing minor errors based on the feedbacks, scaling the system to its final capacity and adding to and maintaining the content will be other tasks to address during this year. In addition the platform will be released to global use to any school that is interested to join the system.

Project Team ● project manager ● two teaching and education researchers ● two game designers ● two developers/development managers ● a graphic designer ● a group of elementary teachers as content consultants ● child psychologist

Learning Scenario

Provide a description to give the reviewer an idea of the look, feel, and process of your environment. Each student will create their own avatar, who will gain points for every activities done. In addition when the player feel to know enough a topic, he/she can try to pass the quiz, and obtain the medal of the topic or some tools that would be visible on the avatar. The text will be present in all the the pages because it represents the most common tool used in school, and also the starting point of research. In the text it will be possible to highlight significant keywords, and print a document with a summary. An example can be:

In this case we decide to sustain the text with explanatory video of the subject and a videogame. But with time and especially, users created resources, we hope that we will be able to offer a complete learning experience able to conform to different cognitive learning styles. The same subject can be studied at different levels in order that also kids with special needs will be able to participate at the same lesson of classmate.

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Scienfic-game Website

Assignment for: Self-Regulated Learning in Serious Digital Games

We will create a website that allows teachers and kids be active builders of the scientific content. Every class can open an account on the web and create short video about a subject (max 10 minutes). If the quality of the video is good it will be uploaded and available for others students. The class will earn points and a printable certificate for the new video. The developer of the web will create a mini video game related to the video (like a quiz). Other classes will have the possibility to watch the video. Each student have to answer the quiz with their own account and every time that they complete a subject the avatar will be with a new tools and again a certificate. If the kid fails he has to watch the video another time and then try again with different questions.

If there are many videos about the subject, it will be first visualised the one with the best score, but the others will be still available. It can be very motivating experience because kids will be actors on the video, and they can also see in first person the progress of their knowledge. In order it to be an enjoyable experience from the launch of the website there will be already some videos done by developers that with time will be replaced by the class-made ones.  

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School Trip - Game Concept

Field trips give children a welcome break in routine, they can learn in a more hands-on and interactive manner than they do in school. Students are energized by the excitement and anticipation of leaving the school environment for new and unknown experiences. They can look forward to and prepare for the field trip for several days or weeks. Usually the parents take care of the preparation process of the backpacking but it should be important to do this together. Until one day they will be completely responsible for.

The aim of this game is to amuse them and develop certain skills through the motivational push and enthusiasm of the kids regarding school trips. It’s for kids of Primary school (6-11 years old) and it can be used at home or at school.

The Rules

The single-player after choosing a character (with different skills and weak points) and a room, has to read carefully the school trip description and to find all the items hidden in the room. The school trip change every time, different place or in different conditions. Examples: museum, mountain excursion, zoo, archeologic area, workshop, sports camps, cinema… Later he/she has to decide which tools will be more useful for the school trip, and add these in the backpack. He/She must pay a lot of attention in this phase because the backpack can’t contain all of them. When the backpack is ready the school trip begins, and the player will follow the avatar in a little map and can interact with the game with the tools. There will be ironic feedback about the choices and a final rating of the trips.

Game elements

Mystery: because the player don’t know every details of the school trip and also some random situations may occur.

Challenge: although is not a multiplayer game, the player will be pushed to optimise his strategies in order to obtain a good final score. It will be possible also to play some fixed scenarios and then compare the final score with other players.

Involvement: because the player will be engaged in the matches, following the avatar in all the process: first choosing the setting and the specs of the avatar, then in the preparation phase and finally during the trip. 

Risk: during the packaging phase the player will have to select some items instead of others. Or to chose to travel lighter and so giving up to fill completely the backpack.

Feedback: during the preparation phase it will be possible call a relatives and have a small hint. After during the school trip, there will be lot of feedback related to the situations and used items. Mostly with ironic tone.

Storytelling: the school trip will be present a story, with a starts, some events occur and it will end at school again.

Luck: always in the last part of the match the player will meet some obstacles, situations and advantages that it would be impossible to predict.

Story

The game starts when the avatar is at home and he/she has to prepare the backpack for the day after. When the player is ready, he/she clicks the button “go to sleep” and the PC process the info for a new trip. The school trip begins and it will be possible to follow the avatar during the experience. The player is called to interact sometimes and to face the situations and random events with the right items. It’s essential to offer different stories by variating starting points, quests and challenges in order to give an absorbing experience not at all repetitive.

And here an example of the first phase of the game:

(searching phase)

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Assignment II (ICT Based Learning Games in Learning Environment Formation)

1) Why game producers need to think about their purposes?

Game designers must investigate a lot about the purposes and the tastes of the chosen target, players very often don’t like short and easy games but instead they like to learn something from them. James Paul Gee said “If a game cannot be learned and even mastered at a certain level, it won’t get played by enough people, and the company that makes it will go broke. Good learning in games is a capitalist-driven Darwinian process of selection of the fittest”. So developing a good video game is not just a ethically issue for video games producers but affects also the sales.

2) Digital media are evolving rapidly. How does that affect your target group?

As teacher and person interested about games development I have always been aware of the importance of continuously upgrading my ICT skill, knowledge and new tools. It’s very important analyse critically the change instead of live it passively. So for me the need to constantly be up-to-date in Informatic technologies is very strong and therefore I am always thankful for any opportunity, as conference or workshop dedicated.

3) "Everything must be be educational " - Do you agree or not? Why?

About this challenging question I agree with the thought of Professor Patti M. Valkenburg. Most of the time people that don’t appreciate multimedia products demand them to have an educative value, but they forgot that also fiction books as some cartoon were created mainly with entertainment purposes.

4) What are the main characteristics of good games? Do you agree? Would you add something more?

According to the James Paul Gee into good video games, are incorporated important learning principles: 36. These educational principles were identified through the study of comparative different games and are usually used designing new video games. In some cases these principles anticipate innovations that could enrich the current teaching practices, developing practical and theoretical skills. One of the most important principles is the “critical and active learning principle”;  the learning environment that is created by game designer want to lead players to a critical and active approach, which makes the users active and fully accountable for their gaming choices. The second one basic principle is the “design principle” video games in fact want transmit the taste for aesthetics and composition. Fundamental is the “principle of Semiotics”, learn to decode and to put in relation different symbolic channels as images, words, actions and sounds.

Good video games provide information, but avoid that these are released all together. It is basically a release of information that people require from time to time according to their needs. This is a very useful strategy to help our memory to operate in a functional way.

5) How do serious games engage with pedagogy?

A video game with educational intent, is properly called Serious Game. In order to be a significant game experience, in planning phase, game designers must choose the pedagogical model that better match with the dynamics of the game, and the learning objectives.  For example earlier games tended to be based on a behaviourist model. But after games try and incorporate experiential, situated and socio-cultural pedagogical models.