Retro Game Review - Hopefully Hopefully Final!

Retro Game Review

I am going to be doing a retro game review on Zaxxon, this was originally released as an Arcade game in 1982 by Sega. It was hugely popular on release as it was one of the first games to try and create a 3d look rather than a top down 2d approach. Zaxxon is both single and multiplayer, Players could take it in turns to play and the person with the highest score at the end of their turn would be the winner.

The purpose of reviewing a retro game is they are fairly basic which will allow me to examine the core mechanics of the game without getting carried away with the complex Aesthetics’ which are more predominant in current games.

To start with I think it will be a good idea to explain the basic concept of the game, The player controls a spaceship and must navigate their way through an isometric castle world, whilst doing this the player must defeat numerous enemies, dodge attacks from turrets and shoot fuel canisters to replenish their fuel level, on top of all this the player must adjust their height so they don’t fly into any obstacles, there is a small break in between the 2 different sections where the player would be put into a space shoot out and must struggle to stay alive against hordes of enemy ships. The game is over when a player has lost all their lives (by dying, for example being shot, running out of fuel, crashing into a wall) or they have beaten the giant robot at the end of the second section.

Intention

“Making an implementable plan of one's own creation in response to the current situation in the game world and one's understanding of the game play options.” (Doug Church, 1999, Page 4)

My understanding of what Doug Church has written is that a player must have everything presented to them, so they know what they are and aren’t capable of within the game world, Zaxxon does this fairly well, upon first playing it is obvious that you continually move forward on your own and that you must control your height and your movement left to right. The player will either realise this when they see the height level metre on the left hand side of the screen, or when they crash into the first wall and die. I believe the first part of the game was created like this so that the player learns quickly what options they have open to them and so they can therefore advance through the game.

I believe that the mechanic of the ship moves forward on its own is good since it is 1 less thing for the player to focus on as adding too much may make the game too difficult, however it would be interesting to see how much the game experience changes if the player was able to control their forwards and backwards movement.  

Perceivable Consequence

“A clear reaction from the game world to the action of the player.” (Doug Church, 1999, Page 4)

I like what Doug Church has written and I think it is one of the most interesting points in his article, a player must understand when they do something correctly that it was correct, also they must understand that when they do something wrong that it was wrong and it has a negative effect on their ability to play the game. Some things in Zaxxon are very clear on effects they have to the game play, a player will quickly find out that when they get hit by an enemy that they will die and lose a life, this is obviously a negative effect that the game is presenting to the player as if to say “don’t let that happen”

However I have another view on what Doug Church has written, I agree that a game having Perceivable Consequence is a good thing however, in some cases I believe it can add to the player’s experience if the game doesn’t clearly state that what they did was wrong, I believe that if a player figures out that something was wrong or a bad decision on their own then they get a higher sense of accomplishment.

Story

"The narrative thread, whether design-driven or player-driven, that binds events together and drives the player forward towards completion of the game" (Doug Church, 1999, Page 5)

Placing Story into something like Zaxxon is slightly difficult however thanks to Doug Church’s description of Story I believe I can explain it, there isn’t a Story in the sense that character’s say dialogue and the game plays out because of this, that would be Design-driven story, it would be built into the game, however Zaxxon has a more player-driven story, the decisions the player makes alter how the rest of the game will play out, so the story in Zaxxon is how and why the enemies are killed, the path that the player takes and the way the game unfolds because of the actions of the player.

I think that the fact Zaxxon doesn’t have a design-driven story is a bit negative, Zaxxon doesn’t explain anything to do with the ship or the environment, In my opinion it would be better to have a small amount of narrative, not necessarily spoken but something explaining a little bit about the ship, the character flying it or the world which you are in.

Challenge

“challenge is created by things like time pressure and opponent play” (Robin Hunicke, 2004, Page 3)

My understanding of what Hunicke has written is that a game doesn’t have challenge, it has elements and mechanics which add challenge to a game, for example in Zaxxon challenge arises from controlling your fuel level, killing your enemies and getting the maximum amount of points that you can. To remove something such as the mechanic of fuel level would remove a lot of the challenge of the game, the player wouldn’t have to decide whether they should go for this fuel canister and miss out on killing the enemy or they could opt for skipping the next fuel canister in order to kill X amount of enemies and get more points.

Zaxxon is basically spot on with the difficulty of the game (the amount of challenge) if Zaxxon was too difficult it would be frustrating, however if the difficulty level was made a lot lower (providing an easier game) then the game would be seen as too simple and boring. In this respect I think Zaxxon has done it just right.

Interactive Entertainment

““game”: an interactive structure of endogenous meaning that requires players to struggle toward a goal.”(Greg Costikyan, 2004, Page 24)

The above statement made by Greg Costikyan is (in my opinion) brilliant however it doesn’t make much sense unless I can relate each point to the game Zaxxon, relating the statement on its own would be too difficult so I am going to break it down into the key words and points.

-Structure

“the interaction of the game’s rules, components, software, etc. create a structure within which people play.” (Greg Costikyan, 2004, Page 17)

The structure of Zaxxon is a collection of some of the points I explained earlier (but not limited to what I have said) some of the different components are; the different enemies, the fuel canisters, etc. There are the rules of Zaxxon (what the player is allowed and not allowed to do) the rule of maintaining your fuel level, the rule that if you crash or get shot you lose a life.

-Endogenous Meaning

“A game’s structure creates its own meanings. The meaning grows out of the structure; it is caused by the structure; it is endogenous to the structure.” (Greg Costikyan, 2004, Page 22)

Costikyan makes an interesting point and to my understanding he means that something that is vital, has value or meaning in a game doesn’t mean anything outside of the game. For example the fuel canisters in Zaxxon are vital to the game and the player, they need them to progress, but when taken out of the game they don’t mean anything. In the real world the fuel canisters in Zaxxon don’t mean anything so they rely on the game to give them meaning.

-Struggle

“Competition is one way of make a game a struggle.” (Greg Costikyan, 2004, Page 15)

Zaxxon includes struggle by having competition, the competition is the enemies, the navigation of the world, etc without these there would be no competition, and therefore no struggle, this would make Zaxxon an interactive story, but not a very interesting one.

Competition is also added because of the 2 player aspect (1 player sets a high score, the next player has to attempt to beat it)

“there can be no game without struggle. A game requires players to struggle interactively toward a goal.” (Greg Costikyan, 2004, Page 17)

I believe this quote backs up what I have already said about Struggle, however I need to explain one final point for this to fully make sense.

-Goal

“The basic transaction we make with games is to agree to behave as if achieving victory is important, to let the objective guide our behaviour in the game. There’s little point, after all, in playing a game without making

that basic commitment.” (Greg Costikyan, 2004, Page 12)

My understanding of what Costikyan has said is that when we play a game our decisions and actions should be made with the intent of reaching the goal, with Zaxxon there is 1 main obvious goal which is to beat the robot at the end and finish the game. However I think there is another goal which can also change how the game is played, A player may decide that they wise to break a high score or gain a certain amount of points, the obvious way to do this is to kill as many enemies as possible and to use every available mechanic to gain points, since you gain a large amount of points from killing the robot at the end and thus ending the game, you could say that this is part of the main goal of the game. I however wanted to raise it as a separate point as I think it has a dramatic result on how the player experiences the game.

To finish I would like to repeat myself and Greg Costikyan from earlier in this review;

““game”: an interactive structure of endogenous meaning that requires players to struggle toward a goal.” (Greg Costikyan, 2004, Page 24)

Now I can hopefully explain that;

Zaxxon is a game where you control your spaceship through different sections of a space landscape, the key elements which are important to the game are; maintaining your fuel level, killing enemies, advancing through the landscape without crashing, killing the final robot and maybe even getting the highest high score.

Bibliography

Author: Robin Hunicke

Article Name: MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research
Year of Publication:  2004

Author: Doug Church

Article Name: Formal Abstract Design Tools
Year of Publication:  1999

Author: Greg Costikyan

Article Name: I have no words, I must design

Year of Publication: 2004

Retro Game Review - Hopefully Final!

Here is what will hopefully be my final version of my Retro Game Review, this will be edited depending on feedback
Thanks
Luke

Retro Game Review

I am going to be doing a retro game review on Zaxxon, this was originally released as an Arcade game in 1982 by Sega. It was hugely popular on release as it was one of the first games to try and create a 3d look rather than a top down 2d approach. Zaxxon is both single and multiplayer, Players could take it in turns to play and the person with the highest score at the end of their turn would be the winner.

The purpose of reviewing a retro game is they are fairly basic which will allow me to examine the core mechanics of the game without getting carried away with the complex Aesthetics’ which are more predominant in current games.

To start with I think it will be a good idea to explain the basic concept of the game, The player controls a spaceship and must navigate their way through an isometric castle world, whilst doing this the player must defeat numerous enemies, dodge attacks from turrets and shoot fuel canisters to replenish their fuel level, on top of all this the player must adjust their height so they don’t fly into any obstacles, there is a small break in between the 2 different sections where the player would be put into a space shoot out and must struggle to stay alive against hordes of enemy ships. The game is over when a player has lost all their lives (by dying, for example being shot, running out of fuel, crashing into a wall) or they have beaten the giant robot at the end of the second section.

Intention

“Making an implementable plan of one's own creation in response to the current situation in the game world and one's understanding of the game play options.” (Doug Church, 1999, Page 4)

My understanding of what Doug Church has written is that a player must have everything presented to them, so they know what they are and aren’t capable of within the game world, Zaxxon does this fairly well, upon first playing it is obvious that you continually move forward on your own and that you must control your height and your movement left to right. The player will either realise this when they see the height level metre on the left hand side of the screen, or when they crash into the first wall and die. I believe the first part of the game was created like this so that the player learns quickly what options they have open to them and so they can therefore advance through the game.

Perceivable Consequence

“A clear reaction from the game world to the action of the player.” (Doug Church, 1999, Page 4)

I like what Doug Church has written and I think it is one of the most interesting points in his article, a player must understand when they do something correctly that it was correct, also they must understand that when they do something wrong that it was wrong and it has a negative effect on their ability to play the game. Some things in Zaxxon are very clear on effects they have to the game play, a player will quickly find out that when they get hit by an enemy that they will die and lose a life, this is obviously a negative effect that the game is presenting to the player as if to say “don’t let that happen”

Story

"The narrative thread, whether design-driven or player-driven, that binds events together and drives the player forward towards completion of the game" (Doug Church, 1999, Page 5)

Placing Story into something like Zaxxon is slightly difficult however thanks to Doug Church’s description of Story I believe I can explain it, there isn’t a Story in the sense that character’s say dialogue and the game plays out because of this, that would be Design-driven story, it would be built into the game, however Zaxxon has a more player-driven story, the decisions the player makes alter how the rest of the game will play out, so the story in Zaxxon is how and why the enemies are killed, the path that the player takes and the way the game unfolds because of the actions of the player.

Challenge

“challenge is created by things like time pressure and opponent play” (Robin Hunicke, 2004, Page 3)

My understanding of what Hunicke has written is that a game doesn’t have challenge, it has elements and mechanics which add challenge to a game, for example in Zaxxon challenge arises from controlling your fuel level, killing your enemies and getting the maximum amount of points that you can. To remove something such as the mechanic of fuel level would remove a lot of the challenge of the game, the player wouldn’t have to decide whether they should go for this fuel canister and miss out on killing the enemy or they could opt for skipping the next fuel canister in order to kill X amount of enemies and get more points.

Interactive Entertainment

““game”: an interactive structure of endogenous meaning that requires players to struggle toward a goal.”(Greg Costikyan, 2004, Page 24)

The above statement made by Greg Costikyan is (in my opinion) brilliant however it doesn’t make much sense unless I can relate each point to the game Zaxxon, relating the statement on its own would be too difficult so I am going to break it down into the key words and points.

-Structure

“the interaction of the game’s rules, components, software, etc. create a structure within which people play.” (Greg Costikyan, 2004, Page 17)

The structure of Zaxxon is a collection of some of the points I explained earlier (but not limited to what I have said) some of the different components are; the different enemies, the fuel canisters, etc. There are the rules of Zaxxon (what the player is allowed and not allowed to do) the rule of maintaining your fuel level, the rule that if you crash or get shot you lose a life.

-Endogenous Meaning

“A game’s structure creates its own meanings. The meaning grows out of the structure; it is caused by the structure; it is endogenous to the structure.” (Greg Costikyan, 2004, Page 22)

Costikyan makes an interesting point and to my understanding he means that something that is vital, has value or meaning in a game doesn’t mean anything outside of the game. For example the fuel canisters in Zaxxon are vital to the game and the player, they need them to progress, but when taken out of the game they don’t mean anything. In the real world the fuel canisters in Zaxxon don’t mean anything so they rely on the game to give them meaning.

-Struggle

“Competition is one way of make a game a struggle.” (Greg Costikyan, 2004, Page 15)

Zaxxon includes struggle by having competition, the competition is the enemies, the navigation of the world, etc without these there would be no competition, and therefore no struggle, this would make Zaxxon an interactive story, but not a very interesting one.

Competition is also added because of the 2 player aspect (1 player sets a high score, the next player has to attempt to beat it)

“there can be no game without struggle. A game requires players to struggle interactively toward a goal.” (Greg Costikyan, 2004, Page 17)

I believe this quote backs up what I have already said about Struggle, however I need to explain one final point for this to fully make sense.

-Goal

“The basic transaction we make with games is to agree to behave as if achieving victory is important, to let the objective guide our behaviour in the game. There’s little point, after all, in playing a game without making

that basic commitment.” (Greg Costikyan, 2004, Page 12)

My understanding of what Costikyan has said is that when we play a game our decisions and actions should be made with the intent of reaching the goal, with Zaxxon there is 1 main obvious goal which is to beat the robot at the end and finish the game. However I think there is another goal which can also change how the game is played, A player may decide that they wise to break a high score or gain a certain amount of points, the obvious way to do this is to kill as many enemies as possible and to use every available mechanic to gain points, since you gain a large amount of points from killing the robot at the end and thus ending the game, you could say that this is part of the main goal of the game. I however wanted to raise it as a separate point as I think it has a dramatic result on how the player experiences the game.

To finish I would like to repeat myself and Greg Costikyan from earlier in this review;

““game”: an interactive structure of endogenous meaning that requires players to struggle toward a goal.” (Greg Costikyan, 2004, Page 24)

Now I can hopefully explain that;

Zaxxon is a game where you control your spaceship through different sections of a space landscape, the key elements which are important to the game are; maintaining your fuel level, killing enemies, advancing through the landscape without crashing, killing the final robot and maybe even getting the highest high score.

Bibliography

Author: Robin Hunicke

Article Name: MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research
Year of Publication:  2004

Author: Doug Church

Article Name: Formal Abstract Design Tools
Year of Publication:  1999

Author: Greg Costikyan

Article Name: I have no words, I must design

Year of Publication: 2004

Retro Game Review - Attempt 1

Here is my work in progress Game Review

Enjoy!






Retro Game Review

I am going to be doing a retro game review on Zaxxon, this was originally released as an Arcade game in 1982 by Sega. It was hugely popular on release as it was one of the first games to try and create a 3d look rather than a top down 2d approach.

The purpose of reviewing a retro game is they are fairly basic which will allow me to examine the core mechanics of the game without getting carried away with the complex Aesthetics’ which are more predominant in current games.

To start with I think it will be a good idea to explain the basic concept of the game, The player controls a spaceship and must navigate their way through an isometric castle world, whilst doing this the player must defeat numerous enemies, dodge attacks from turrets and shoot fuel canisters to replenish their fuel level, on top of all this the player must adjust their height so they don’t fly into any obstacles, there are small breaks in between different sections where the player would be put into a space shoot out and must struggle to stay alive against hordes of enemy ships. The game is over when a player has lost all their lives (by dying, for example being shot, running out of fuel, crashing into a wall)

Intention

“Making an implementable plan of one's own creation in response to the current situation in the game world and one's understanding of the game play options.” (Doug Church, 1999, Page 4)

My understanding of what Doug Church has written is that a player must have everything presented to them, so they know what they are and aren’t capable of within the game world, Zaxxon does this fairly well, upon first playing it is obvious that you continually move forward on your own and that you must control your height and your movement left to right. The player will either realise this when they see the height level metre on the left hand side of the screen, or when they crash into the first wall and die. I believe the first part of the game was created like this so that the player learns quickly what options they have open to them and so they can therefore advance through the game.

Perceivable Consequence

“A clear reaction from the game world to the action of the player.” (Doug Church, 1999, Page 4)

I like what Doug Church has written and I think it is one of the most interesting points in his article, a player must understand when they do something correctly that it was correct, also they must understand that when they do something wrong that it was wrong and it has a negative effect on their ability to play the game. Some things in Zaxxon are very clear on effects they have to the game play, a player will quickly find out that when they get hit by an enemy that they will die and lose a life, this is obviously a negative effect that the game is presenting to the player as if to say “don’t let that happen”

Story

"The narrative thread, whether design-driven or player-driven, that binds events together and drives the player forward towards completion of the game"(Doug Church, 1999, Page 5)

Placing Story into something like Zaxxon is slightly difficult however thanks to Doug Church’s description of Story I believe I can explain it, there isn’t a Story in the sense that character’s say dialogue and the game plays out because of this, that would be Design-driven story, it would be built into the game, however Zaxxon has a more player-driven story, the decisions the player makes alter how the rest of the game will play out, so the story in Zaxxon is the enemy that are killed, the path that the player takes and the way the game unfolds because of the actions of the player.



Challenge

“challenge is created by things like time pressure and opponent play” (Robin Hunicke, 2004, Page 3)

My understanding of what Hunicke has written is that a game doesn’t have challenge, it has elements and mechanics which add challenge to a game, for example in Zaxxon challenge arises from controlling your fuel level, killing your enemies and getting the maximum amount of points that you can. To remove something such as the mechanic of fuel level would remove a lot of the challenge of the game, the player wouldn’t have to decide whether they should go for this fuel canister and miss out on killing the enemy or they could opt for skipping the next fuel canister in order to kill X amount of enemies and get more points.

Bibliography

Author: Robin Hunicke

Article Name: MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research
Year of Publication:  2004

Author: Doug Church

Article Name: Formal Abstract Design Tools
Year of Publication:  1999

MUDs and Liar's Dice

MUD's
We were asked to read an article by Richard A. Bartle called Players Who Suit MUDs, this was an interesting article as it was written by Richard A. Bartle who created MUD's (Multi User Domain's, which are more commonly known now as MMORPG's)
Here are the notes that I took;
There are 4 different types of players who play MUD's
1. Achievers - point gathering, advancing in levels
2. Explorers - Expose the game by exploring, look for features and bugs in the game world
3. Socialisers - Interested in Socialising with players
4. Killers - Enjoy killing other players for their own benefit


As game designers we have to try and make a game that will fit all these different types of people.
The 4 categories aren't set as to each type of person, for example a Killer will need to do some Achieving so that they have a level and strength advantage, Explorers will probably need to Socialise to get information about locations.


There are 3 major factors which separate a MUD from an adventure game;
- A MUD is not goal-oriented; it has no beginning or

  end, no 'score', and no notion of 'winning' or 'success'.
  In short, even though users of MUDs are commonly called
  players, a MUD isn't really a game at all.

- A MUD is extensible from within; a user can add new objects

  to the database such as rooms, exits, 'things', and notes.

- A MUD generally has more than one user connected at a time.

  All of the connected users are browsing and manipulating
  the same database and can encounter the new objects created
  by others. The multiple users on a MUD can communicate with
  each other in real time."

The different types of players will also see a MUD from a different view

1. Achievers - Games

2. Explorers - Pastimes

3. Killers - Sports

4. Socialisers - Entertainment

Liar's Dice

Today we played a game called Liar's Dice

We played with 6 people but it can be played with less

Each player starts off with 5 dice (standard 6 sided) Every player rolls their Dice but doesn't show them to each other, players then take it in turns to "bid" with how many Dice they think there are of a certain number on the table, 1's count as a wild card and are used as any number so for example if person A has 2 3's a 1 and a 5, they could call "7 3's" the next person then has to either raise on that or call a "challenge", if challenged all players reveal their Dice and see how many of the called number they have, so in this example all the 3's and 1's (1's being a wild card) are added up, if there are 7 or more the person that calls the challenge loses 1 Dice, if there are under 7 then the person that said "7 3's" loses 1 Dice, so you can bluff to try and trick people. If a player doesn't challenge they must Raise, this means that they must increase the called number some how, so for example is "7 3's" is the current call, then the next person can either go "8 3's" or "x 4's/5's/6's". The game continues until there is only 1 player with Dice left, as the number of Dice gets lower the more tactics become involved as there are less overall Dice so a lower chance for high numbers.

We added a small implementation that if someone made a perfectly accurate call, so for example they call "4 4's" and on a challenge there are exactly 4 4's. they are rewarded with an additional Dice but only if they don't already have 5.

It was fairly enjoyable, the game had a positive feedback loop as once you were ahead you always had an advantage (you controlled most of the Dice so you could calculate the probability easier) We added our iteration to try and make a negative feedback loop (so a player that is behind can catch up again)

I learnt something very valuable from this, never try and read Garry's poker face

i41 Insomnia LAN

On the 11th on November, me and 800 other people traveled to Newbury Racecourse for another Multiplay LAN, Multiplay LAN's are the biggest LAN parties in the UK with 3 events a year, Obviously this event was the winter event, due to the cold weather me and my friends decided to stay in a hotel as camping when it is -4 outside is not fun.
We went to play in the Team Fortress 2 tournament, as it was the winter LAN there wasn't a huge turnout, this meant that the real competition was between 4 teams, TwistedPlay 1, TwistedPlay 2 (the team I was playing for), Team Coconut, and NervousEnergy. The original prize money was set at;
1. £1000
2. £500
3. £250

However unfortunately half way through the tournament the 3rd place money and 1st place were combined, so this meant only 1st and 2nd place got money, we knew we had to pull our socks up as we we're seeded 3rd and we knew we could achieve that, however we really would of liked 2nd place as this would mean playing on the main stage, unfortunately we couldn't do it, we put up a good fight however we just couldn't break Team Coconut.

However TwistedPlay 1 (who were predicted 1st) managed to pull it off, in a very close and energetic final, they walked away with £1250 and 6 free tickets to the next event!

Here are some pictures from the event

TwistedPlay accepting their over sized cheque

A few moments after winning

A Spec being taped to his chair by some people in the Exhibition hall

Retro Game Review - Pre 1985

As part of our course we are going to review a retro game, the reason for this is as they are fairly basic we can focus on the core mechanics and use the vocabulary we have learnt so far on the course.
The task was to review a game which was released before 1985, much to my annoyance Bubble Bobble, Alex Kidd and Double Dragon all failed to meet this criteria being released in 1986 and 1987, however after a bit more research and getting a bit more nostalgic I found Paperboy

I originally watched my brother play this when I was around the age of 3, I presume that I also played it at this point however I can’t remember if I did or not however I seem to vaguely have an idea about the game so I must have played it at a young age somewhere along the line.
So by the 17th of December I shall have written an incredible 1500 word review of the core mechanics and game play style of Paperboy… hopefully… I will honest.


Maybe

Bibliography - Nothing to do with religion

This blog post is going to be slightly different to my others, no don't worry it will still be poorly constructed and not actually make much sense, I am going to be detailing and demonstrating that I know how to do a Bibliography.On Thursday we were shown the different ways of doing a Bibliography and had it explained to us by Eddie.
For my own personal benefit but also for yours I am going to get the definition of a Bibliography;
Bibliography : a list of writings with time and place of publication (such as the writings of a single author or the works referred to in preparing a document etc.)
For this task I am going to be using a couple of different resources which are available to me as a student to demonstrate this.

Below you will find these wonderful and probably incorrectly formatted examples!

Books:
DOVEY. 2006., Game Cultures: Computer Games As New Media. [online]. Open University Press

Ver Hague, Jim; Jackson, Chris. 2006., Flash 3D: Animation, Interactivity, and Games. [online]. Elsevier Science & Technology.

Articles:
PC Dome Magazine, Hungary.,Computer games are fun? On professional games and players’ motivations., Jun2005, Vol. 42 Issue 2, p117-124

Hecker, Chris. Communications of the ACM, Jul2000, Vol. 43 Issue 7, p34-39

Contributions:
Kotler, Philip; Wong, Veronica; Saunders, John; Armstrong, Gary. 2005., Principles of Marketing. . Pearson Education UK

Namkee Park;  Kwan Min Lee;  Seung-A Annie Jin; Sukhee Kang. . International Journal of Human - Computer Studies, Nov 1, 2010, Vol. 68, Issue 11, p822

And that's it for now
I'm not completely sure I've done this correctly but I can always have another go at a later date

Making Pong Flash

Today We worked on making a basic version of pong with flash, now I've done this before at college using ActionScript 2.0 but we are currently using ActionScript 3.0 which is annoyingly very similar and different at the same time so I've spent most of the time getting confused as I try to get out of the habits I had in AC2 and get used to the different syntax of AC3.
I royally messed up with my game and with a lot of help from Chris (as in he nearly remade the whole thing) I (Chris) got it up to a standard that it actually did something! next week I'll hopefully manage to add scores and make the trajectory random with a speed increase.

Here it is in all its basic glory!
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1935579/pong.swf

Another thing I have done today is make some the elements I'm going to use in our reskin/redesign of Sportswheel
I am most pleased with the planet I made and here it is below;

We also met up with our groups and had a little mini meeting about our group project
I am in a group with
Ross Fraser
Sean Edwick
Tom White
Adam Woodhouse

and together we will be working to create Circuit Absurdity (a concept design by Ross and Sean) which will be a Key Stage 1 game to teach children about circuits.

Paidea and Ludus in Videogames

Paidea and Ludus

Before I begin writing about Paidea and Ludus I thought I would firstly just explain what they mean so that I myself know but also you reading know.

Paidea: effectively "play" for pleasure

Ludus: more constrained by rules, with a clear outcome (eg "winning")

I'm now going to talk about games which I am familiar with which use both Paidea and Ludus,
A game which I played fairly recently so it is still fresh in my mind is Mafia 2 so I will cover this first.
At a glance Mafia 2 is a similar game to the grand theft auto series, you run (or drive) around a city, completing missions, progressing through the story and by doing so, causing mayhem with guns and explosives.
One of the great appeals of these games is you can really choose how you play it, if you want to you can explore the city, go on rampages slaughtering everyone, collect money and buy new clothes. This is a more Paidea approach to playing the game
On the other hand you can follow the story which will take you towards the end of the game, it will unlock new areas, new cars and new weapons, you'll still have the occasional rampage but it will apparently be part of the story, this is a Ludus approach in that the game is saying, here is your mission, you must get here, find some way of getting there.
The above approach is fairly interesting in that you have the Rules of the mission (which in my example is going to be get from A to B) which provides the Ludus approach, however since you are free to get there how you wish you can have a more Paidea approach to it, you can choose to walk or drive, to kill people on the way or not, the choice of how you do it is up to you.

My second game which is 100% Paidea is Minecraft
Minecraft is difficult to describe, in essence it is a block world sandbox where you collect rocks, sand, trees or water and you can build just about anything you want with it, there are no objectives, goals or set tasks, Since it has single and multi player it can provide some interesting results, when playing with your friends you make up your own rules, ("if you break my stuff I'll break yours") but apart from that you are completely free to do whatever you like.
However thinking about it a bit more Minecraft does have some Ludic elements, they aren't exactly rules but more an agreement (going by the "if you break my stuff, I'll break yours") if the rules are broken chaos would ensue just like in other games.

Agon, Alea, Ilinx, Mimicry

Agon: competition
Alea: chance/randomness
Ilinx: movement
Mimicry: simulation, make-believe, role-play.

I'm trying to think of a game which would cover all of these elements and I'm not sure if it will but I'm going to talk about Quake, Quake Live to make it easier for me.

One of the large elements of Quake Live is the ability to duel people, a 1 on 1 competition to see who can kill who the most, this is very competitive as it is a test of skill between you and your opponent, This is the Agon element of Quake, The Alea element is slightly difficult to cover but I guess it is in where players spawn, each spawn point is decided on where players are at a set time and then a random one in the appropriate section of the map is chosen (usually the other side of the map to where combat just happened). Ilinx, movement is key in Quake, it means you can survive and dodge and also beat your opponent to weapons and armor, Mimicry is slightly difficult to place into Quake however I believe it is there because you buy into the role of killing your opponent, you believe that is your goal and you play the role of your character in achieving that goal.

And thus ends another boring blog post :)

I have no words & I must Design - Greg Costikyan

We have recently read a section from Greg Costikyan's book, "I have no words & I must Design"

From this we took notes and tried to summarize each section into a few key points.

The Text in White is what our group came up with at first and in Green is what the class agreed on

Interaction: Costikyan talks about the relation of Puzzles to games, Puzzles are static, Games are interactive.

A Puzzle needs purpose for a player to successfully interact with a game

Players choices and Interaction shape the game state

Goals: A player needs a goal to achieve otherwise what are they playing it for?

Create purposeful and Progressive interaction

Struggle: A game needs to the correct level of struggle to involve the player in the game, without struggle a game would be too simple and the player would have no challenge, at the same time a game can't be impossible.

Every game must have some struggle, without this there is no sense of achievement and victory, however it can't be impossible

Structure: A games structure filters the players through so they can achieve their goal, structure adds to the struggle.

Players need rules within the game world to add challenge, make it more interesting and influence behaviour

Endogenous Meaning: Something in value in a game doesn't have value in reality.

Things have a value and meaning within the game,  keep the game fiction

Evaluation: Interaction, Goals, Struggle, Structure and Endogenous Meaning are all needed to create a game and all required by each other to work correctly

The elements do appear to be linked together. All these elements do not necessarily mean fun

After this we then applied these to a Key Stage 1 flash game on the BBC Bitesize website

The game we applied this to was Clock Works and is used to teach children about telling the time

Interaction: The interaction comes from trying to solve the question which is asked.

Goals: To select the correct answer from the 3 options given

Struggle: Working out the time on clock, adding the time stated in the question and getting the correct answer. The times to be added to each other aren’t always simple.

Structure: The structure of the game is basic however it is there in the 3 options that the player is given, this provides the structure to answer the question and therefore progress.

Endogenous Meaning: The values which the player must use to get the answer don’t have any meaning outside of the game, however the skills they will learn will.

Evaluation: All these elements are needed to create the game and hopefully make it fun for the players


A link to the game is below;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks1bitesize/numeracy/time/index.shtml

I'm not good at things like this

Interview Questions

- What is the title of the book (fiction) you are currently reading (or the last fiction book you read)?

 Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring, I don't really read too often however this book was defiantly worth the time, it is only after reading this book again I realize just how much the films miss out.

- What is the title/topic of the book (non-fiction) you are currently reading (or the last non-fiction book you read)?
Banksy - Wall and piece, This book wasn't exactly a "read" as such more a look at the pictures and read their description, however I really enjoyed this book and constantly look back at it, some of the art is incredible and the quotes and explanations have a deep meaning

- What is the last live performance (music, drama or dance) you attended?

Not too sure if this counts but I will put it anyway, (it includes a stage and a lot of shouting) I went to a LAN event in August 2010, we played in a few tournaments and went to watch the finals which were on the stage, there was roughly 300 people watching the Team Fortress 2 final and it was such a close game that the shouting and screaming towards the end was deafening

- What is the title of the last film you saw at the cinema / online or watched on DVD?

American History X - This is a film I had been meaning to watch for a while as my friends had said is was fantastic, I finally managed to get my hands on a copy and was incredibly impressed by it, its a very difficult film to describe but it focuses on racism, I wouldn't recommend watching it if you don't have a strong stomach and are easily upset

- How often do you read a newspaper? (Which one?)

I very rarely read the paper, however I bought the East Anglian daily times every Wednesday for about 8 months while I was looking for jobs and used to have a quick flick through the articles

- Which art gallery / museum / exhibition did you last visit?

Valencia - As part of a school trip we went to an art gallery in Valencia, we only spent a little bit of time here and then went shopping for about 3 hours.

- How many hours a week do you spend playing video games?

Far too many, I play a huge range of games, mostly on the computer, the main game I've played for about 3 years is Team Fortress 2 which I play competitively, other games I play for fun with a little bit of competitiveness on the side are CounterStrike:Source, Call of Duty 4, League of Legends

- How many hours a week do you spend playing games other than video games?

I Don't really play any games that aren't on the computer, I suppose I play board games with my family at Christmas but that's about it