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.