Dekonstructor: FTL

FTL: Faster Than Light is a game that I've recently started playing and it is a pleasantly surprising and addictive experience.

Story & Setting

FTL is a top-down real time strategy game set in space. Players manage a crew on a ship who are on a mission to deliver important data to the allied Federation fleet. The data will supposedly save the Federation from the attacking Rebel forces. Players must deliver the data before the Rebel fleet intercepts them or attacks the Federation base.

Players travel between different randomly generated sectors of space. Sectors of space could include different ships, civilizations and space objects such as asteroid fields and nebulae. Within each sector of space are nodes which the player travels between every turn. Each node presents the player with a story, and could be the specific location of enemies, space stations, distress calls, quests or stores.

Players

FTL is a single player game, using a player versus the game system.

When starting a new game the player picks a ship from a list of ships they have unlocked from previous play-throughs, otherwise they are given a starting ship which they can play with. Each ship has different weapons, systems and augmentations as well as different capabilities such as a teleporter. From the ship selection screen the player can see the augmentations, systems, weapons and crew that the ship comes with. Players can also select the layout of their ship once they unlock the layout. The ship and crew members can be renamed to a personalized choice.

Objectives/Goals

The main objective of the game is to reach the final sector and defeat the final boss. To do this however will require a ship powerful enough to defeat the final boss, meaning it's almost impossible to complete the mission in one play-through. Players will have to play the game multiple times, with deaths, to unlock new bigger ships with different capabilities. Players will also have to take the time to explore each sector of space such that side quests are revealed that could potentially reward them with new weapons, augmentations, ship parts for upgrades, and even new crew members. There are also personal goals that players can set for themselves, such as having a weapons focused ship versus an extremely fast ship.

Resources

Crew Members:

Each crew member has the following attributes

• Race: Human, Mantis, Rockman, Zoltan, Slug, Crystal, Engi
• Health: All races have 100 health except Zoltans (70), Crystal (125) and Rockmen (150)
• Movement speed
• Skills:
• Piloting
• Engines
• Shields
• Weapons
• Repair
• Combat

Ship Systems:

A ship can contain several systems:

1. Shields: powers the ships shields. Each shield layer can absorb one attack. The shield systems can be upgraded to increase the number of shield layers. Shields can be manned by a crew member to increase recharge times.
2. Engines: Powers the FTL drive and allows the ship to dodge. Upgrading the engines increase the rate that the FTL drive charges at and increases a ship's dodge chance. Engines can be manned to increase the ship's dodge chance.
3. Oxygen: Refills the oxygen in the ship. Upgrading increases the rate of refill in the ship.
4. Weapon Control: Powers the ships weapons. Upgrading the weapon control system allows you to power more weapons at once. Weapon controls can be manned in increase the charge times for weapons.
5. Drone Control: Powers all of the ship's drones. It can be upgraded to support more drones.
6. Artillery Beam: This system is a high-powered beam that pierces all shields and does one damage per room hit. It can be upgraded to reduce the cooldowns.
7. Medbay: Heals all crew members within the Medbay. Upgrading increases healing speed.
8. Cloaking: Cloaks the ship and increases your evasion chance, and prevents the enemy ship from locking on with their weapons. Firing weapons while the cloak is active will reveal your ship. Stealth weapons can negate this effect.
9. Crew Teleporter: Gives the player the ability to send crew members to an enemy ship. Upgrading reduces the cooldown.

Subsystems:

1. Piloting: Allows the ship to travel between node and dodge during combat when piloted by a crew member. Upgrading adds a level of auto-pilot, increase the ship's evasion chance. This requires a crew member to function
2. Sensors: Reveals the interior of your ship, and can give information on enemy ships if upgraded.
3. Door System: Allows remote opening and closing of doors, and can be upgraded to stop fire spread, and slow down enemy intruders.

Reactor: 

The reactor provides power to all of the ships systems. Power is represented by power bars and a ship's systems cannot consume more power than what is in the reactor.

Consumable resources include:

• Scrap: Used to purchase weapons, upgrades, augmentations, new crew members, fuel, ammunition, drone parts, and repairs
• Fuel: Used to travel between nodes and sectors.
• Missiles/Rockets: Used as ammunition for bombs and missiles.
• Drone parts: Used to deploy drones.

The final resource in the game is the hull integrity, which is essentially the ship's health.

Rules/Mechanics

Travel:

The player travels between different levels known as sectors. Each sector has a map composed of nodes within which the player travels between. Sectors and node maps are randomly generated. Nodes may have special events such as combat events, distress calls, or quests. Between each node the player "waits" for their faster than light (FTL) drive (the engine in their ship) to charge at which point they can travel to the next node, which consumes one fuel. If there is no special event at the node, usually there is no actual wait.

If the player runs out of fuel, they can turn on their distress beacon and wait for help, or for the rebel fleet to intercept them and engage them in combat. Both give opportunities for the player to regain some fuel.

There are also special regions in space that have different effects on ships. Nebulae disrupt a ships sensors. Asteroid fields will damage the ships hull. Suns will blast solar flares at the ship and damage the hull and set it on fire.

Combat:

Battles are played in real time, although the player can pause the game any time to plan their attack, manage the distribution of power in their ship or manage their crew members. A battle is over when the a ship is destroyed, when it's crew members are killed, if they forfeit, or if either the player or enemy ship escape using their FTL drive.

A ship is destroyed when its hull has been destroyed. The hull integrity is represented by a bar, and is essentially the ships health. Ships also have shields that can absorb certain attacks, at the expense of depleting the shield.

During battle, ships target each others' systems. Each system is separated in a ship and systems can be damaged. The player targets an enemy's systems by clicking on the specific room or rooms they want to target. Some weapons allow the player to place a line across several rooms, or target a specific number of rooms at once. Bombs and other ammunition based weapons will of course consume ammunition resources and cannot be used without ammunition.

Different weapons have different effects on the enemy ship, and some weapons can even target the player's own ship. For example there is a heal bomb that can be used to heal all members in a specific area of a ship.

When system or subsystem has been damaged, the player can move crew members to that room to repair it. When an area of the ship is hit by weapons there is a chance that it will be set on fire, or even a chance that the hull breaks and begins draining the oxygen. Fire will spread if it isn't put out and damage the systems in a ship and drain the oxygen in those rooms. Fires and hull breaches must be repaired before systems are repaired. There is no option given to the player here.

Crew members also begin to lose health when oxygen levels start depleting.

Upgrades:

Players can upgrade their ships systems any time except for when they are in battle. Upgrades cost scrap.

Random Events:

There are many random events that appear in the game. The most important ones however are the ones that offer choices. For example, you may have a conversation with a passing ship and you choose what to say from a few options. These conversations have completely unclear consequences and could result in positive or negative consequences for the player.

Perma-Death:

Death is permanent for that play-through of the game, and the random elements ensure that overall, your experience will not be the same.

Game State Information

Most of the state information is related to resources and position:

• Hull integrity
• Shield levels
• the state of each system and subsystem in the ship
• Whether or not it is disabled, damaged, on fire, or has a hull breach
• How much power it can support
• How much power is allocated to it
• The players fuel level
• Number of scrap parts
• Number of drone parts
• Number of missles/rockets
• Total reactor power they have
• Crew member health
• Crew member skill levels
• Crew member positions
• Ship position in space

The game also tracks statistics such as how many times you dodge an attack, how many ships you've destroyed and so on. These statistics are only revealed at the end of each play-through however.

Sequencing

As I mentioned before each sector is randomly generated. The first and last sectors are predetermined however. Players can set their own pace in terms of how quickly they travel from sector to sector, however there are many random events that stops any predictable patterns from forming. As such the sequencing is difficult to explain or estimate in any other way other than saying it is random.

The only thing that is certain in terms of sequencing, is that the player travels from sector to sector, and within sectors the player travels from node to node in a more turn-based style of gameplay. Upon arrival at each node, the game goes into more of a real-time strategy mode while giving you the ability to pause at any time.

Theme

Finally the theme of the game is space exploration. The game thrusts you into the role of being the captain of a ship and gives you a be all end all mission to save the Federation from extremist rebels.

How these game atoms come together

The simplest way to describe how these game atoms come together is to say that the game presents the simulation of being a captain of a spaceship in a very good way, giving many opportunities for choices to be made and strategy. the random and ambiguous elements of the game leave the player wondering what exactly they could have done differently, and ensures that every play-through is different.

PVP Fight: Patrick Wawrzoszek

For this PVP fight I'm up against Patrick Wawrzoszek for his side-scroller.

Core Mechanic

The core mechanic of the game is centered around shooting special blocks to make them opaque or transparent. The player can move through transparent blocks and opaque blocks are solid so the player can stand on them.

A secondary mechanic that is important to mention is that fact that special blocks have no mass until they are transparent.

Finally there is a rainbow block that will teleport you to a specific location when you collide with it.

The mechanics of this game are simple to understand and can make for some very interesting puzzles in terms of level design.

Triggers/Enemy Placement

There are no enemies in the game, however there are spikes throughout the level. Spikes kill you when you touch them and will return you to the nearest checkpoint.

The placement of all special blocks is very precise, and everything is exactly where it needs to be for you to complete the level. It is up to you as a player to determine which blocks to shoot and in what order you do so. The placement and level design does a good job of teaching you the various challenges you may encounter in the future. There are also checkpoints located at the beginning of each challenge area, which are good because I don't even know how frustrating it might have been if I had to restart the whole level right before I got to the end.

A simple puzzle section from the game

Challenge

The pace of the game is relatively slow, but for this game it's a good thing. The level begins and it is not possible to fail or die. After being introduced to the main mechanics, the challenge goes up slightly with the introduction of spikes, however it is still relatively easy to navigate. As the game progresses, it gets slightly more difficult. Overall the progression is very smooth and the difficulty scales at a very nice pace.

I only died a few times due to some silly mistakes I made like jumping and missing a shot at a block at the same time then falling to my death. The challenge in this game is mixed between overcoming your own impatience by thinking before you act, and some areas involve a little bit of twitch gameplay.

I think these two types of challenge make for a nicely balanced level and caters to people who enjoy puzzle games, and traditional twitch sidescrollers.

Aesthetics

The aesthetics in this game are purely there to represent different objects. There isn't really any juiciness to it, but the game definitely doesn't need it. I do have to mention that the main character is wearing a fez though. Fez's are cool.

Fez reference? Doctor Who reference? 

Kinaesthetics 

The controls are easy to use and I did not experience any frustration whatsoever in relation to them. You use the arrow keys to move and the 'C' and 'V' keys to shoot transparent and solid bullets respectively. You can shoot downwards by holding down the spacebar then shooting.

The downward shooting took some getting used to as I would press the keys in the wrong order, but it only took a couple tries to realize what I was doing wrong.

Overall Design

I think the overall design is quite good. At the end of the level I definitely wanted to play more and I wanted to experience more challenging levels.

The core mechanic is simple but interesting and I can see a lot of potential for some very intricate puzzles. The only problem I found was that after a couple of play throughs I realized I could just shoot both types of bullets at once in certain areas of the level and get through them very quickly. I think that the addition of new block types such as perhaps timed blocks that only stay transparent or solid for a certain period of time would solve this problem later on as well as introduce new challenges for the player, although for the sake of this demo, it may have been too much to throw at the player all at once.

My favourite part was the last sequence where you are falling down into a void and you have to shoot the blocks to drop into the void. I found this part exciting mostly because of the fact that I was curious as to what was below. There was a certain sense of suspense as well because of the death traps that were placed within the void, and it made for some pretty exciting gameplay.

Blog Quest 2: Design a Game Item - Dr.Mario

For this blog quest, I have designed a game item for the classic Nintendo puzzle game, Dr.Mario.

Dr. Mario is a classic Nintendo tile matching puzzle game where Mario plays the role of a doctor, and he throws medical capsules into a bottle to clear viruses. The gameplay is similar to Tetris. The puzzle area is represented by a bottle, and the viruses are represented as colored and animated tiles. Mario throws new tiles into the puzzle and the player can rotate and place the pieces medical capsules to match their color. To clear tiles, the player has to match 4 tiles horizontally and/or vertically. The goal of the game is to clear puzzles which is done by eliminating the virus tiles in the puzzle. The player fails if the capsules cover the bottleneck of the puzzle area. Below is a video of the gameplay.

The item I am suggesting for this game is essentially a Power-up tile. The power-up tile appears when a player matches 6 or more tiles.

These are the following features of the Power-up tile:

1. The Power-up tile will only take up one space, unlike the capsules which take up two.
2. The Power-up tile will have a color.
3. The Power-up tile will have to be matched like any other tile in the game.
4. Once matched, all the matching tiles in that line will explode and destroy the tiles one space adjacent to them.

The main idea behind this item is to add some variety to the puzzle in general while adding a new element that changes the strategy behind clearing virus tiles.

As I played the game again today, and even when I played the re-release on Game Boy Advance when I was younger, I found it especially repetitive and dull. All the tiles look the same, and the strategy is pretty straightforward. I got bored very quickly. Another problem I had with them game is that you aren't tangibly rewarded in some way for clearing a large amount of tiles. I also found that I could actually get a virus tile stuck and spend way more time than I should just trying to clear one virus tile.

The power-up I am proposing will hopefully change this with its effect of destroying adjacent tiles. I can mostly see it being used to clear areas that may be blocked off such that you can restart a small area of the puzzle. A tile can still get stuck - it can even be caused by using the power-up tile - but players can always get it again by matching 6 tiles and get another shot at clearing the viruses without feeling like their time is wasted.

Given that the tile only appears when a player matches 6 tiles or more it will challenge the player to actually match more tiles at once, a feature that is supported already but not rewarded. Players won't necessarily be focusing on getting the minimum amount of tiles to clear viruses, as they may be able to use the power-up to clear multiple virus tiles in one go.

Knowledge Keeper: Digital Prototyping

There are two types of prototypes when it comes to video game prototyping; there's the physical prototype and the digital prototype. The physical prototype would be something like a board game. Physical prototypes are used main to test the core mechanics of a game. A digital prototype expands on what was tested in the physical one, and also prototypes elements unique to the digital prototype such as the kinesthetics and technology of a digital game.

There are four areas of digital prototyping: game mechanics, technology, aesthetics, and kinaesthetics.

Prototyping Game Mechanics

Game mechanics are features of the formal aspects of gameplay. We prototype game mechanics when we have a gameplay question or design goal that we want to model in the game world.  For example, let's say wewanted to prototype the mechanic of being able to travel at superhuman speeds without losing control of a character. The first step would be to create multiple prototypes of this mechanic. Perhaps one would simply slow-down all other entities and make the player slightly faster. Another may just speed up the player without changing the game world. The prototypes would be tested and tweaked until they answered the design question or met the design goal.

The main thing to remember when prototyping gameplay, is that we want to keep it simple and focused on a specific design question. We don't want to include all of our questions in a single prototype when we first start the prototyping process. The separate features can be integrated at a later time.

Prototyping Aesthetics

Aesthetics are the visual and aural elements of a game. Prototyping aesthetics can be done through storyboarding, concept art, animatics, interface prototypes and audio sketches. All are rough or early drafts of how things will look or sound in the final game. Prototyping aesthetics can help us express our game mecahnics. Generally we don't have to worry about prototyping aesthetics, although there are some situations where aesthetics can directly affect gameplay. For example, if you have a fighting game (e.g. EA Sports MMA) then all the kicking or punching animations will have a direct impact on gameplay. The timing and speed of those animations will change how the game is played and how players interact with each other and/or the system.

The important thing to do when prototyping aesthetics is to focus on the function of the aesthetics as opposed to the style.

Prototyping Kinesthetics

Kinesthetics are the "feel" of the game. This includes types of controls available to the player, how those controls feel and even the responsiveness of the interface. Kinesthetics must be prototyped digitally, since they are a unique element to the digital game. The feel of a game is directly affected by the type of controls that are available to the player. Playing a game on using a motion controller will feel different than playing the game with a mouse and keyboard or gamepad. It is important to think about the controls that you want to design for in advance since it will change the way your game feels.

Prototyping Technology

Technology prototypes are made to test all the software to make the game work on a technical level. Technology prototypes include graphics engine prototypes, AI, physics engines, and anything else necessary for a specific game. Even the production pipeline can be prototyped. Prototyping technology is about testing the software, debugging any development tools, and the workflow for developing content for the game.

The important thing to keep note of when prototying technology is that all code created for the prototypes is not final, and it may not even be yours. Using existing or unoptimized code when prototyping is important to get the prototype working and to get the idea across. Afterwards, the code should be rewritten using the same algorithms and concepts, such that it is optimized and fits your game perfectly.

Conclusion

The point of prototyping is to learn whether or not your ideas are good or bad. Without prototyping, you could waste time and resources developing something that is just not good. A good prototype can convey the core idea behind it without having to spend too much time or resources to get that idea across.

Grind Craft: Digital Prototype Feature Treatment

Introduction

For this year's GDW game, we decided that we will be creating an arena fighting game in the same vein as games like Fat Princess, and Ragdoll Kung-Fu. The core gameplay mechanics simple in concept and will be simple in implementation as well. We have chosen to do an arena fighting game to stay within the limits of our time and scope constraints, as we will most likely have only a month and a half to work on the implementation of our first prototype. Our game will be most similar to Fat Princess in terms of the melee combat gameplay and possibly the aesthetics as well. For our first prototype we will most likely only support team deathmatch.

Gameplay

My main concern regarding the gameplay is with balancing our game. By balance in this case I mean how fast players should die. Should it differ based on the game mode being played or should it be constant regardless? In either case, how much health do we give players such that they can play for a good amount of time without becoming frustrated and still feel challenged.

In terms of gameplay modes, we hope that our final prototype will feature multiple game modes past the simple team deathmatch. We want to include new game modes we haven't seen played before as well as other traditional competitive multiplayer game modes. Getting interesting game modes implemented is my secondary concern. We are trying a couple new game modes that are inspired by combinations of other genres and game modes. They are simple to explain, however these game modes simply increase our scope and in turn workload. We want to include something different and unique to set our game apart from traditional multiplayer games, but at the same time we'd like to get our game done.

Aesthetics

In terms of aesthetics, our main concerns are with the functionality of animations and models. We will have characters swinging weapons, jumping, sprinting and blocking. This means that our animations and even physical sizes of objects and characters will directly impact the gameplay. This is a major concern for us as our artists will have to focus on balancing these elements. None of us have worked with this type of pipeline where the artists' work can affect the gameplay functionally. Everyone will be involved in the balancing of the game, and deviating from the plan will most likely result in imbalance. We hope that through prototyping aesthetics, we can avoid these problems.

Kinaesthetics

The controls for our game will be similar to most 3D platformers. We would prefer that players play with a traditional gamepad such as the XBOX 360 or PS3 controllers although given that we are releasing the prototype on PC we will have to include keyboard and mouse support. Our main concerns regarding the controls are with the keyboard being used for locomotion as it is no where near as accurate as a joystick, which will be used for locomotion on a gamepad.

We want a very lightweight HUD, and as such the HUD will only include health and scores. Characters' names will hover above their heads along with an icon beside their name displaying their weapon type, although the weapon type should be discernible without the icon. We have three categories - slash, blunt, and pierce - and we plan on making it obvious what weapon falls into its corresponding category.

Technology

This is the greatest concern we have. This year, as opposed to working from scratch, we have to use 2LOC, a custom engine written by one of our TAs. Unlike previous years, where we may have been building an engine, we are working with someone else's code base. The biggest problem with this is that we actually have to learn how to use and code in that specific engine before we can begin production of our prototype. We have to explore the limitations and features of the engine and then once we have learned how to do the basics, we move on to integrating our own code with it. At this point, we know very little about the engine still, and it will require a lot of experimentation before we can begin working on our prototype.

Our game is designed to be as simple as possible, so as to avoid suddenly running into a technological limitation, however we could very well be forced to redesign our game if we find we are unable to carry out our plans.

Conclusion

For this semester, we will be focusing heavily on gameplay and technology. We have to make sure we have our main game mechanics work, that the controls are accurate enough to test the gameplay, and also make sure that our prototype code works. We will also have to make sure our 3D models are all functional within the game itself, they don't necessarily have to look good this semester. In other words, we have to give attention to all prototyping areas as they are tightly tied together.

I hope that we are able to at least complete a functioning prototype by the end of this semester, and next semester focus on the polish.

Grind Quest: Skills, Goals, and Feedback

According to our textbook, Game Design Workshop, "feedback implies a direct relationship between the output of an interaction and a change to another system element. Feedback can be positive or negative, and it can promote divergence or balance in the system."

For this quest, I have chosen to list the feedback, goals and skills for the three following games; Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's competitive multiplayer, League of Legends, and Batman: Arkham Asylum's challenge mode.

Call of Duty

Reinforcing Feedback

• Kill = Points 
• Kill streak bonus
• Kill Assist = Points
• Complete objectives, gain points
• Score streak bonus
• Crosshairs hit indicator + Blood
• Lose health when hit
• Lose kill streak when you die
• Losing death streak bonus when you die
• Respawn timer; waiting to get back in the game when you die.

Balancing Feedback

• Death streak bonus - gives bonus to players who die too much

Goals & Skills 

The goals in Call of Duty: MW3 vary based on the game mode being played, however in general, the main goal is to beat the other team by killing other players, surviving and completing objectives depending on the game mode.

The reinforcing feedback rewards players for working to achieve the goal of killing others and completing objectives, and also reinforces the consequences of failing to achieve your objectives. If the player kills other players, their score increases, and they also earn perks for completing multiple kills without dying (kill streaks). Players are also rewarded for kill assists; they earn points that contribute to their score, and in turn rewards players with score streak bonuses. A player also receives feedback when they damage other players; blood comes out of the player, and a hit indicator on the crosshairs on the HUD.

When a player loses health, they are usually forced into cover and can't complete objectives. When a player dies, they lose their kills streak, lose their death streak bonus, and are forced to wait to get back into the game. This reinforces the fact that when you die, you can't achieve objectives, and you lose the perks you earned before.

The only balancing feedback is that when you you die several times, you earn death streak bonuses. This can even the playing field when the player respawns.

The main skills needed to achieve the goals are control mastery and map awareness. Players need accuracy to successfully kill other players. Map awareness means knowing where your teammates, enemies, and objectives are. Map awareness also means knowing where all the best vantage points are in a map, the shortest routes to objectives, and even knowing common hiding places.

League of Legends

Reinforcing Feedback

• Gold earned from kills (last hits only)
• Gold earned from champion kills 
• Gold earned from champion kill assists (50% of  gold earned from kill is split between players who assisted)
• Gold earned from destroying turrets (all players earn 150)
• Gold earned from destroying inhibitors (last hits only)
• Gold from wards
• Stacks, buffs, or effects earned from attacks or items
• Earning XP for being involved in game in general; attacking NPCs and enemy players, supporting team
• Respawn timer.
• Loss of stacks, buffs, or effects upon death or with time
• Losing health when attacked

Balancing Feedback

• Spending gold for items
• Skill cooldowns
• Skill costs

Goals & Skills 

The goals in League of Legends vary based on the game mode being played, however in the traditional mode, the main goal is to beat the other team by destroying their nexus.

The reinforcing feedback relates to the following goals: To destroy the nexus, players must destroy the towers defending it. To destroy the towers, players must push the enemies away to destroy their towers. To push enemies away from towers, a player must level up and earn gold to buy items to become stronger. Players earn gold and level up by killing enemies, wards, inhibitors and towers.

When a player loses health, they are usually forced into cover and can't complete objectives. This reinforces the fact that when you die or lose health, you can't complete objectives, and you can lose buffs, stacks or effects you earned before death. When a player dies they are forced to wait before re-entering the game. This respawn time increases with multiple deaths, meaning if you die more, you give the enemy team more time to destroy your towers.

The main skills needed to achieve the goals are control mastery, strategy and map awareness. Players need accuracy to successfully kill other players. Map awareness means knowing where your teammates, enemies, and objectives are. Map awareness also means knowing where specific enemy types are, where hiding places and bushes are. The strategy comes based on how other players are behaving and the current state of the game. Strategy also comes in when buying items for a character build, as you can counter-build based on an enemy's build. Strategy also means knowing when to use a specific skill.

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Reinforcing Feedback

• Successful hit adds to increase your combo counter; increases score
• Special moves from increasing the combo counter
• Variation of attacks and gadget use gives higher score
• Combo breaks after getting hit or missing 
• Losing health when shot or hit

Balancing Feedback

• None could be identified

Goals & Skills

For this quest I focused on the challenge mode in Batman: Arkham Asylum. The goal is to get the highest score possible. This is achieved by getting a high combo counter.

There doesn't seem to be any balancing feedback. All of the feedback is reinforcing in terms of the challenge mode. Players are rewarded with a higher combo counter for successful hits. A higher combo counter results in special moves, which continue to increase the combo counter. Using a variety of attacks will increase your score even more at the end of the level. 

If you miss or are hit by an enemy, your combo breaks, which results in a lower possible score. If you are hit by an enemy you lose health. Both of these reinforce the consequences of performing poorly.

The skills to play the game are relatively simple. Control mastery is most important. The combo's are strung together by pressing an attack button and pointing in the right direction. One necessary skill is rhythm to time hits properly, as well as basic aiming to point your attacks in the right direction.

Conclusion

To answer the question of the assignment, of what other skills people enjoy, my opinion is that people generally enjoy control mastery in games. The reason for this is that control mastery can be practiced and practiced until a player reaches the limits of the game. Classic arcade games focused entirely on control mastery, and even the multiplayer games were about who had mastered the controls better than another person.

Blog Quest 2: Design A Game Item

For this blog quest I have designed a building type for one of my favourite games in the past few years, Sid Meier's Civilization 5.

Civilization 5 is a turn-based strategy game where players lead their civilization from the stone age into the future, on a procedurally-generated map represented by hexagonal tiles. The player can win the game by eliminating other players, through diplomacy, technology or culture. The element of the game I'd like to focus on specifically are cities.

When a player starts the game, they must first establish the location of their city. They guide their civilization's first settlers (a unit that has the ability to found cities) to the desired location (represented by a tile) and establish a city there. Once a city is built, a player can start creating buildings and units that each have their own function.

The item I am proposing is a Terraforming unit.

As a player plays through the game, they research several technologies that give them access to new buildings, units, and resources. The final technology in the game is Nanotechnology, at which point the player can research Future Tech any number of times to simply increase their score. I am proposing, that in addition to Future Tech, the player can research Planetary Engineering which will allow the player to produce a Terraformer unit. Planetary Engineering can be researched up to 5 times (details below).

Details for the Terraformer:

1. The Terraformer will allow players to alter only the resource tiles within their cities' limits. 
2. The Terraformer will terraform the tile it is on. 
• An upgrade detailed below will allow it to terraform an adjacent tile.
3. The Terraformer will be able to change the tiles to any of the terrain types featured in the game.
4. When a tile is terraformed, there is a chance that any of the resources featured in the game may appear on that tile.
5. The Terraformer will be consumed after 3 tiles and must be attached to a worker unit (the worker unit won't be consumed). 
• The unit may be upgraded by research Planetary Engineering again. The upgrade will add 1 more use every time it is researched up to 7 tiles.
• The 5th upgrade (after the 7 tiles limit is reached) will allow the Terraformer to alter a tile adjacent to it, as opposed to the tile it is on. The purpose of this is to allow terraformation of a mountain or water.
6. The worker unit will have to pick up, place, and then operate the Terraformer. Each process will take a specific amount of turns.
7. Once terraformation has begun, it cannot be stopped.
8. Should the worker unit be destroyed by battle during terraformation, the tile is automatically pillaged.
• Should the worker unit be taken by an enemy, the Terraformer will also be taken with it.
9. Any improvements that were made or resources on the tile will be destroyed once terraformation has begun.
10. While the unit is terraforming a tile, the resources on said tile will not contribute to the city.
11. Every time the Terraformer is used, it will permanently add unhappiness.
12. Every time the Terraformer is used, there is a chance a random number of your citizens may die.
13. Every time the Terraformer is used, there is a chance that a building in your city may collapse.
14. While the unit exists, it will cost gold to maintain.

The unit introduces new military strategies. For example, a player could terraform the outskirts of their cities to be mountains, and leave one space open. This would limit enemy land units from surrounding the city as they would be forced to enter from one tile. 

It also gives players a chance to shape the land to his/her civilization's needs. Civilizations can demand specific luxury resources, or a player may need a strategic resource. A player could terraform a tile and take a chance at gaining a new resource.

This would also enable, a growing practice in our world today known as land reclamation, which is commonly used in real life when a county needs more land for its people, or perhaps simply wants to add more land to sell to others. In Civilization 5 this would be mostly used for the former, as you can run out of room for a civilization if you don't have enough land.

I hope to actually create a mod for Civilization 5 that enables the use of the Terraformer to spread awareness of the effects of artificially created land and water masses. The inspiration for this unit came to me when I watched a film (which shall not be named so as to not ruin it if you haven't seen it) in which the villain begins to terraform the earth to match his/her civilization's planet. The film reminded me of the practice of land reclamation, and the creation of artificial lakes and land masses. I thought it was an interesting concept to have the ability to reshape the land, but realized that countries around the world do this already, and it can have both positive and negative effects on the ecosystem.

Reverse Scrowdriver Crafting - Pac-Man

Pac-Man is an arcade game considered a classic by many. The objective of the game is to eat all the pac-dots in the level to move on to the next. There are 4 enemies that roam around the level trying to capture Pac-Man. If one of them touches him, he loses a life. In each level there are power-up pac-dots that give Pac-Man the ability to eat his enemies for a limited amount of time. The power-up also slows the enemies and they reverse direction to avoid Pac-Man. Below is a sample playthrough of the first level in Pac-Man.

The purpose of this blog is to take a rule from Pac-Man and change it to reflect a new mechanic.

Rule: When Pac-Man eats a power-up pac-dot, he can eat his enemies.

Rule Change: When Pac-Man eats a power-up pac-dot, he becomes both invisible and invincible to his enemies.

Effects on Gameplay: Without knowing the location of Pac-Man enemies would resort to randomly moving about the level. The player would be able to eat pac-dots free of immediate danger. However, because enemies are moving randomly, the player may become visible near an enemy and suddenly find themselves in danger. 

Grind Quest: Objectives

For this quest, we have been tasked to list ten of our favourite games, and name the objective for each, describe the similarities between them, and then define the types of games that appeal to us.

So my current 10 favourite games are, in no particular order

1. Batman Arkham City: Forbidden Act, Outwit, Solution, Exploration
2. WipEout: Race
3. Assassin's Creed 2: Forbidden act, Chase, Escape, Exploration, Solution
4. Grand Theft Auto Series: Forbidden act, Escape, Exploration, Chase
5. Journey: Exploration
6. Flower: Exploration
7. Kerbal Space Program: Exploration, Construction, Solution
8. Little Big Planet: Solution
9. Dishonored: Forbidden act, Chase, Solution, Outwit, Escape,  Exploration
10. Civilization 5: Capture, Construction, Exploration, Outwit, Solution

Based on the above games, and my own personal preference for games I can safely say that my favourite games start by being open world. I love being given the freedom to explore a world and most of all a world where I feel I can make meaningful choices. I love venturing into new lands and discovering what is there, and I often enjoy just looking around at the environments and the characters that inhabit it.

Secondly I enjoy a good challenge in the form of a puzzle. I've always enjoyed problem solving, and I've found that games that incorporate this really attract my attention. I don't necessarily enjoy solving a Rubik's cube though. I prefer optimizing a small system to make it work the way I want it to or need it to. Kerbal Space Program, a game in development and available on Steam Greenlight is a game that I lost myself in for hours on end just trying to build a jet-plane. Discovering the right set of fuel tank, engine, wings, nose and tail kept me going for hours and hours through all my sessions. The game put me in the deepest state of flow I have ever been in.

Thirdly, I enjoy a good Forbidden Act. The thrill of doing something completely wrong, outrageous, or illegal brings a thrill like none other. The ultimate game series that does this is of course the GTA series. The ability to do so many wrong things whenever I want and get away with it is adrenaline pumping. Even if I don't get away with it in game, I obviously won't get arrested in real life. Seriously, when was the last time you got to steal a helicopter, get chased by the army, jump out of the plane and parachute to the top of a building where you proceeded to engage in a shootout with every cop in the city. The forbidden act also tends to give me a sense of empowerment over the world I play in. As Batman, I can disappear into the shadows and take down my enemies one at a time, or I could swoop in and fight a horde of them all at the same time.

I think what I enjoy most in games is being given the ability to do what I want in general. I like being given a lot of choice. Puzzle games that allow for multiple solutions give me a lot of choice in that here isn't just one way to solve a problem, and so I can explore different solutions to the same problem until I find one that works best. Exploration means getting to go where I want, when I want, and I like having that freedom. I want to be able to get to the peak of a mountain and look out on the world and just see what's happening. I want to be able to discover ancient ruins and caves and such. The ability to commit a forbidden act, for me, is more-so about having the option to commit the act as opposed to just committing the act itself. Just like in real life, we always have the choice to do the wrong thing, but we choose not to. In the same way, games that have the option to commit a forbidden act aren't necessarily forcing you to do it (although most do).

Now some may debate my view on the objectives of these games so I have included an explanation below describing the objectives in each of my favourite games.

1. Batman Arkham City
• I have classified the objective primarily as Forbidden Act because in reality I wouldn't be a masked vigilante beating up thugs, psychopaths, and mutated villains because of a promise I made to my dead parents. In fact, even in the context of the game Batman is breaking the law by taking the law into his own hands.
• The outwit portion and solution objectives of the game are in the detective aspect of the game, which in my opinion takes a backseat to the combat. You gain new information about the environment as you travel within it and can use the environment against your enemies. By gaining new knowledge of the environment, you can also figure out how to take out your enemies faster. The outwit and solution objectives are secondary, and tertiary, respectively. 
• Exploration is the quaternary objective; players can explore Arkham City at any time. Exploration is encouraged through easter eggs and collectibles.
2. WipEout HD
• It's a futuristic racing game.
3. Assassin's Creed
• The AC series puts you in the shoes of an assassin and allows you to kill almost anyone at anytime and is the primary goal in most in-game missions, as such I see the primary objective as being a Forbidden Act. 
• The chase and escape objectives are secondary and tertiary, respectively. Most of the time you have to go after your target, then escape the chaos that ensues. 
• Exploration is the quaternary objective, as you are able roam wherever you please within the cities' limits and discover easter eggs and collectibles.
4. GTA Series
• The GTA series is built on the objective of the Forbidden Act, giving you the ability to kill everyone, all the time at any time. Not only that but the most recent releases in the series allow you to pay for prostitutes, go to strip clubs, drink and drive, do drugs and drive and so on. T
• The secondary objective is Escape as a byproduct of the Forbidden Act, since police or even enemy gangs may chase you or flat out attempt to kill you. 
• Exploration is the tertiary objective; the most recent GTA, GTA V has a city so large you can literally fly a plane to get across it quickly. There are also tons of random and dynamic events that occur as you travel through the city to encourage exploration. The scenery in it's own right is enough reason to explore.
• The chase objectives is a quaternary objective. Frequently missions involve chasing targets to eliminate them.
5. Journey
• Exploration is the primary objective in Journey. I have determined this based on the fact that scarves are hidden in several areas of levels and although they are not necessary to finish the game, a player that explores will find these scarves and be able to jump higher.
6. Flower
• Exploration is the primary objective in Flower. The player begins by controlling a single petal. Through their exploration of the environment they can add more petals to their control and bring life back to the areas they discover, although as far as I know this is not necessary to complete the game.
7. Kerbal Space Program
• Exploration is the primary objective in Kerbal Space Program. The game is centered around traveling to other planets and moons in the solar system. 
• Solution is the secondary objective. As an example of a problem one most solve: you have to assemble a spaceship that has the ability to exit you home planet's gravitational pull, land on another planet, and return home safely. Finding the best configuration of ship parts is the most time consuming activity in the game.
• Construction is the tertiary objective as you have to build and manage ships and satellites that are in orbit. Ships that are in orbit require manual staging and must be kept track of.
8. Little Big Planet
• Little Big Planet is a platformer and traditional levels focus on puzzle elements. The primary objective for the pre-packaged levels is finding the optimal way to complete them, hence the game's objective is Solution. 
9. Dishonored: Forbidden act, Chase, Solution, Outwit, Escape,  Exploration
• Similar to the Assassin's Creed series, the main objective of Dishonored is the Forbidden Act. 
• The chase is the secondary objective as you have to find your target to complete a mission. 
• Unlike the AC series, Dishonored allows for several different paths to eliminating a target. In my opinion there is an optimal way to eliminate targets and as such, Solution is the tertiary objective. 
• Outwitting your enemies seems to be coupled with the Solution objective, as some missions involve you possessing others to listen in on conversations to gain new information which in turn aids you in your solution. 
• Escape is the quaternary objective as you usually have to escape the scene of the crime once you are complete. 
• Exploration is the quinary objective; as you explore a level, you gain new information into how it is constructed, and as such it aids you in your solution.
10. Civilization 5
• Capture is the primary objective of Civilization 5. Players are competing for territory, food, military power, science, culture, and money
• Construction is the secondary objective as you build and manage your cities and units.
• Exploration is the tertiary objective. Exploring reveals more of the map, new land and potential resources, revealing unmet players and city-states, ancient ruins.
• Outwitting is the quaternary objective. When you explore and reveal more of the map, you gain more tactical knowledge of the world, that your enemy may not be aware of; this gives you an advantage.
• Solution is the quinary objective. Due to the cost of having large cities, and several units, often you must enforce abstinence in your cities to reduce overpopulation and you must cut down on your number of units to reduce maintenance costs.

System Dynamics

This week we discussed the topic of game systems. A system in general is a simply a set of components or elements that work together as a whole by communicating with each other and acting on those communications. A simple example of a system is a management hierarchy in a department store chain.

In the example of a management hierarchy, as shown in the diagram above, retail employees, department managers, store managers, the district manager, and the headquarters are all objects.

Objects, in this case every box in the diagram above, are the foundations of any system. Without objects, there is nothing. But objects alone are not enough to create a system. Objects need to do something.

Every object has properties and behaviours. Properties are any physical or immaterial attribute. For the sake of simplicity, we will say that every employee has just one property; their job title/description. Behaviours describe how an object acts in a given state. In the case of the department store, assuming everyone is a robot, the behaviour of every employee is defined by their job title/description.

Now our objects - err, I mean employees  - can actually work! But there's just one thing missing that is keeping these objects from becoming a system. Sure every object on its own works and can do something, but they are all just individual components doing things on their own, and a system requires that these components work together. This means we have to define the relationships between employees and their managers. To wrap this example up, we can simplify the relationship between all employees too say:

Retail Employees----Report to--->Department Managers--->Store Managers--->District Managers----------->Headquarters

Headquarters----Assigns jobs to-->District Manager--->Store Managers--->Department Managers--->Retail Employees

And there we have it, the relationships between employees is defined and we now have a simple system (assuming the product is always there to be sold).

Now in games, the only difference is that the system is designed for entertainment purposes. The theory behind system design doesn't change, but the system's primary objective should be to entertain players in the system. Another factor in games is that we concern ourselves with how players will be interacting with the system. Players require information about the system to make decisions, and will require feedback as they interact with the system to learn more about the system and be able to master it. Players are of course, just another object in the system, and as such have behaviours, properties and have relationships to other objects in the system defined and/or restricted by a designer.

The final comment on game systems is that they need to be complete, balanced, and fun but challenging.

We can't leave a system with a big gaping whole in it, it must be finished. For example, creating a mandatory unsolvable puzzle that eternally locks the player in a room.

The system has to be balanced otherwise it could create frustration or lack challenge. An example of this is in PvP multiplayer games that match newbies with experienced players; the newbies have a stick while the veterans have machine guns, grenades and armor that makes your stick obsolete.

Lastly, if your system provides no challenge and isn't fun to play, then people will stray away from it. You can make sure your game is fun through playtesting, with friends, family, and best of all strangers.

Blog Quest 1: Emotional Contagion - Journey

Of the many games that I have played I'm glad to say that most, if not all, were enjoyable and in some way made me happy to have played them. But of these games I enjoyed, I can only truly say that one game managed to truly touch me and make me feel something I have never felt in a game.

Journey by thatgamecomapny, whose games include the ethereal flOw and the thought provoking Flower, is hands down the most emotionally gripping game I've played to date.

Journey is an adventure game, driven by story, exploration and platforming. The game takes place in an ostensibly endless desert. In the distance we can see a large mountain and its peak is glowing. As you move towards the mountain you eventually discover that you are the last of a lost civilization and you are its only hope of restoring it. The story is presented to you using only visuals and music, no words whatsoever. This allowed me (and probably other players) to interpret the story for ourselves and discover our own personal meaning for this game.

Everything in this game meshes together so well that it truly feels like a single piece of art. The visuals, music, story, and gameplay were all very compelling, and quickly allowed me to immerse myself into the world of Journey. Everything feels organic and real, and it makes you believe that you are indeed a part of this world. The visuals are beautiful and lend themselves well to the game's story and soundtrack.

This is one of my favourite scenes in the game. The stylized nature of the graphics combined with the amazing lighting captivated me. Sometimes I would just stop and look around just to admire the scenery.

The music is a paragon of music in games; the music on its own tells a story and perfectly reflects what is happening in game. At any point in the game, I could close my eyes and know what was happening around me.

The gameplay is very simple and includes mostly platforming, with progress being shown by the length of the player's scarf which also determines how high a player can jump. The story in Journey follows the Hero's Journey story framework as described by Joseph Campbell, but the way in which we experience this journey, and play through is very organic, and doesn't feel forced.

But even with the immersive aesthetics of the game, there is one thing that took me completely by surprise; the multiplayer. When I first started the game, I was on my own, fully immersed in the world and determined to achieve the the goal bestowed on to me by my people. Then out of nowhere, I heard a faint noise. It was similar to one of the noises my character was able to make. I followed the noise and looked around. And there they were, floating through the sky. They were just like me; another one of my people. But not like the quest-giver - large and dressed in white - but like me, dressed in red and much smaller.

I met this companion early on in the game and we had an unspoken mutual agreement to stay with each other. At that point, I began to care more about keeping my new friend alive than I did simply trying to get to the mountain as fast as possible. We tackled everything together, and we never moved on without the other. It became a cooperative experience, and I think my favourite thing of all was the fact that our communication was limited to just one button. We only had one real word to say, but that was all we needed.

When one of us got lost, the other would simply make enough noise until we found one another and continue moving forward. It got especially nerve-racking in the levels where danger was present, as we were being attacked and neither of us knew how to protect the other. We would try to coordinate our movements so as to not be seen by our enemy, but sometimes we would lose each other in our attempts to get past our enemy. When this happened, whoever had gone forward without the other would come back to guide the other to safety. Even though it was dangerous to back track and take the risk of being hit, we felt it necessary because it was our journey, and we weren't about to leave a fellow member of our civilization behind.

These stone monsters would fly around scouting the area like helicopters. The amount of tension one experiences here is reminiscent of some horror games.

As we neared the end, we reached the point of the Master of Two Worlds as described by Joseph Campbell and I lost my companion. They had fallen behind while I swiftly moved ahead unaware of the fact that they weren't with me anymore. When I reached the final point, the peak of the mountain, I waited. I was so worried that they had disconnected, or that they had quit because they thought I purposefully left them. We had started our journey together, and I didn't want to finish it without them. Finally, I watched as they glided down from above, landing beside me and the snow puffed up slightly and I could tell we were both relieved to see each other. We finished the game together and it was done.

This was my first and only playthrough of the game, and I loved it. The game itself was so beautiful, but I never expected that when another player entered my world that I would care so much to finish the game with them. I think the fact that the game had made me feel like I was the last of my civilization, and then to find that there was actually another just like me made that bond between this anonymous player and I seem even more important than I would have ever imagined. While I was playing, my only thought was "This person is like me. We are the last of us. It is up to us to save our civilization. We cannot lose each other again, and so we must stay together and finish this together," and I believe this feeling was mirrored in my companion that played with me.

Week 1: The Concept of Play

This week our lecture was conducted using Adobe Connect, an online tool which allowed the lecture to be recorded. Adobe Connect also happened to have an integrated chat panel which allowed everyone in the class to hold discussions about whatever they liked; this week the class talked about the concept of play.

The conversation started when someone used reading as a form of play. Unfortunately I can't remember their explanation of how this was play, but regardless of why, I don't believe reading is playful.

Since then there has been at least one blog that I've read that questioned whether or not reading is playful, and commented on the fact that perhaps it has to do with a user's state of mind. They used a loading screen that displayed lore, or reading the information displayed by a text-based game as an example of a blurred line between something being playful or not.

My personal view on the matter is that reading in and of itself is not a playful activity. It may be an immersive activity that elicits an emotional response, and it may be intrinsically satisfying to read, but the reality is that the reading material is there for your consumption or it is being used to provide feedback in a creative or literal way. Even when the reading is contained within the context of a dynamic environment in which you control, the activity of reading is not playful. There is no interaction with the words on the screen and you cannot change them by interacting with them. The content is there to immerse you further into the game and make your playful actions more meaningful.

Text-based games require you to read because otherwise you would have no idea what is going on when you tell the game you're going west. In the same way you have to look at a video game to know what is happening on screen. Same thing goes for sound based games that require you to listen for feedback.

In terms of games like Mass Effect where you decide what to say in conversations, or Heavy Rain where you "change" the ending of the game, this is still consumption of media. Control of said media doesn't make it playful activity. The media is just being presented to you in a different way or different order. Like a movie being edited right in front of you.

I think the reason why there was so much discussion is that play is often confused with the idea of "fun". The lines become blurred because often playful activity is "fun" or "enjoyable." For the sake of anyone reading this, I won't get into what I believe "fun" is exactly. For now I'll just define "fun" as intrinsically satisfying experience.

The concept of play, in my opinion requires interaction to achieve a goal, whether the goal be made up or given and we must be careful not to confuse a playful activity with an "enjoyable" one.