Games Britannia Part 2,3

Games Britannia Part 2

In this episode of Games Britannia Woolley follows the political and social impact that board games have had in Britain over the last 200 years. Britain was the first nation to come up with the concept of board games as a means of education, these ideas later found themselves exported to America where it saw thriving success economically. 

This episode also looks deeply into Monopoly and its success, he also links the games origins to a game called Communism, the irony is quite entertaining when you discover it was in fact based on a Communist game but focuses itself on a Capitalist overview of the world. It also shows how games like this, while distasteful in the eyes of some, are still incredibly popular to this day. 

Wooley also surveys the way board games have evolved, how they can move beyond the tangible pieces and into the realms of fantasy and imagination. A perfect example of this is Dungeons and Dragons . These sorts games have become just as popular thanks to their ability to free the player of the physical shackles and many constraints presented by a board game.


Games Britannia Part 3

Part 3 focused mainly on video games and how they've progressed over the years.

The first game of note that is covered is Elite; Elite is an old retro space exploration-trading game in which the player uses a ship to try and reach elite status through either trade or combat. Many mechanics from this game are present then to this day. Even though the game hasn't survived the test of time, the ideals, features and mechanics it introduced have.

Lara Croft also featured in the documentary; she was described as the real revolutionary point in game characters; finally we were starting to focus on the character and the importance of their story. Games were beginning to structure them self around the character, not the adventure. This was the beginning of the change. Some people opposed to Lara's appearance however. She had the body of a supermodel and was simply thought of as a 'Pamela Anderson solving problems'.

Narrative and Games

the main parts of the narrative in a game can be broken down into five main sections as shown below:

A protagonist
A conflict
A struggle
A moral
A resolution

These are all necessary components that are required in order to establish a well structured narrative. This teaches the first lesson that is to follow the requirements for a story structure.

The second point is that people are the most interesting thing in stories so focus upon this. However this reference does not have to be absolute. There are films that apparently 'revolve' around items but instead they are about the story of the person holding the thing, such as Frodo and the ring in Lord of the Rings.

There is always a conflict in a story, whether it is a major conflict such as a war or a minor conflict such as being late for a bus.

Games also involve puzzles, however the third lesson is that puzzles are not necessary to a story.

Choices are an important and often a story is built up around the idea of the protagonist making the single key choice.

Spectacle is another method of telling the narrative, utilising exotic imagery to allow the viewers to enjoy the sight. Lesson number four is learned from here and that is how spectacles do not make a story this is more noticeable in modern day first person shooters.

games Brittania episode 1

This is the first part of the series of three with Benjamin Woolley

In this first part of the series he focuses on the history of modern board games and their evolutionary path from ancient board games.

is is shown that many of the early game where influenced by war and religion. It was a way in which ancient civilisations could play out war strategies which they could not do in real life.

the games shown in the documentry where:

The Stanway Game
The stanway game was discovered in Colchester, Essex and is the earliest known discovery of a complete game set found. As no dice were with the game it was thought to have been a game of strategy like Chess.

Alea Evangeli
In this game each player had different roles, One player had to escort the king piece to the corner while the other player attempted to stop him. The game was played on a grid however unlike modern games you played on the lines rather than within the grid spaces.

Gyan Chaupar
This game was very interesting and it gave birth to the bland and derivative game of snakes and ladders. It was the Hindi game of knowledge and enlightenment. It plays just like snake and ladders except different parts of the board had different and deep meanings

Pervasive Games and La decima vittima

A pervasive game is primarily a location based game where either by ariving at location or completing a task there will allow you to progress in the game there are some of the popular and well known genres such as: Treasure Hunting, LARPs (Live Action Roleplays), AUGS (augmented reality) and Assassination. Out of all pervasive games the one that has got the most media attention has to be the game of assassination/killers this would be mainly down to police misinterpreting the game when seeing people with a plastic gun and thinking it was real.

All pervasive games are played outside of a console or artificial environment and instead are played in what could be considered the real world. Often they involve tools that relate to the game such as a GPS for treasure hunting, 'weapons' for assassination or maps and instructions in sports and adventures.

In the movie, 'La Decima Vittima'. it gives an example of how a publicly known pervasive game could potentially act out. In the movie the world is full of killers and targets. The 'game' of sorts is common knowledge to the point where outright murder is allowed as long as a player can identify that they are taking part.

New vs Old Games Journalism

Old Games Journalism:

This form of journalism is the type I expected to find regarding games, this method focuses and analyses the separate parts that form the video game such as graphics, gameplay, interface and control. This would be seen as a more factual style article. You would normally see this type of article written as a 'pro's and con's list' or in paragraphs of text in an overview.

New Games Journalism:

This would be best described as an article written by the writer/player responding to the thing they have experienced in the game world including interacting with other players online. this primarily shows the personal opinion of the game and can often be heavily biased depending on the  players preference/ability to enjoy that genre of game this sort of journalism can often be found on areas of youtube.

Remediation

Remediation, it is to use one form of media for another purpose and that remediation is the defining characteristic created from that new purpose.

Forms of Remediation:

Immediacy - The aim to make a viewer be wholly drawn into the experience making them forget seeing or watching. Examples could be immersive virtual reality or photo realistic images.

Hypermediacy - Items/media that purposely calls attention to their own constructed nature all the time. Examples of this could be video game HUD's.

 Why Remediation is Used:

There are multiple reasons. It can take a long time for a new medium to develop new forms of content.

Another reason is to improve upon an existing media, an example of which could again be computer games. Computer gaming is a relatively new form of media when compared to music or film. They stared out as 2D simplistic games on a screen but have since become 3D and increasing more complex. Companies are still taking computer games further and further examples of this can be seen in devices currently in production such as the oculus rift this is a virtual reality headset.

Technoludic Films:

Technoludic films are a mix of Technology and Ludus (Latin for Play).

Technoludic Film as Commentary - Video games are subordinated to the film. Example movies would be 'The Lawnmower Man' (1991), 'Existenz' (1999), 'The Matrix Triology' (1999ff).

Technoludic Film as Quotation - Games appear in the film for illustrative purposes. They are not central to the theme of the film but form part of the fictional world the film is trying to create. Example movies would be 'Blade Runner' (1982), 'Clockers' (1997), 'Inception' (2010).

Technoludic Films as Remediation (1) Adaption - Films using a direct adaption of games as a source of text for the film. Example movies would be 'Super Mario Brothers' (1993), 'Lara Croft: Tomb Raider' (2001), 'Dead or Alive' (2006).

Technoludic Films as Remediation (2) Incorporation - Films that incorporate the narratives and/or style traditionally found within computer games. Example movies would be 'Groundhog Day' (1993), 'Toy Story' (1995), 'Run Lola Run' (1998).

Paida, Ludus, Agon, Mimicry, Alea and Ilinx

Paida or the idea of 'Free Play'. This can range through different games that do not require set up rules to be played,. A good example of a game is minecraft as there may be physical restraints however there is no real end goal or rules for winning.


Ludus is the opposite, it is the 'Rule oriented play'. This is any game that has a pre-arranged rule set that must be followed to play the game. This differs from Paida because the rules are changeable in Paida and do not affect the outcome of the game, whereas if the rules are changed in Ludus games then it becomes a different game entirely. 


The above are two general terms for describing games that can be further broken down. expand  upon these terms with the further classification of Agon, Mimicry, Alea and Linux.


Agon is the idea of a game based around competition and would apply to the competitive sports or any score based game, 


Mimicry is the idea of a game based around simulating a real life environment. This includes the obvious simulator games, such as train, plane, farm etc.


Alea is the idea of a game based around chance. This can include games such as tetris, which would offer you random pieces from a pool or even games that are centered around gambling, such as blackjack or roulette.


Ilinx is the final topic and is related to games based around the idea of movement, horizontal and vertical. This can also apply to a game such as racing, because it involves moving but can be extended to most sports.

a game does not have to be limited to one or even two of these aspects but can often incorporate nearly all of the above for example tetris would apply to ludus, agon, alea and llinx.  

Gender and Games

In an article on Gamasutra, there was a discussion about triple-A games being designed  specifically for women. Ernest Adams suggests that while women may play small or free games, not many women will not pay out for triple-A console games for themselves.

He then goes on to question Brandii Grace about her founding a company to make triple-A games for women. during this interview many key points where maid about the main differences between female and male game ideals i have made a list of these points below:

Current triple-A games on the market are custom maid to suit men more than women. The themes and executions of these games don't support the needs or attitudes of female audiences, (Difference between Twilight and Underworld in films). male orientated games focus mainly on combat or realistic graphics/physics, where as female orientated games focus on character based relationships.

A successful game that did attract a lot of female players was 'The Sims' this was due to a focus on interpersonal conflicts between AI characters within the game. These types of mechanics in-game would include deception and manipulation.

Men derive fun from overcoming challenges within games, however in many cases women can be deterred by tough challenges as they are averse to the risk of failure. Only 10% of women play for the challenge.

Advertising and distribution show the key differences in how companies approach the issue of gender in video games. The examples given are to advertise women's games in women's magazines or cooking games in cooking magazines, and to distribute games including PoS (point of sale) in related areas such as cooking games being sold next to recipe books etc.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/171567/the_designers_notebook_triplea_.php?page=1

iterations of the royal game of Ur

During this essay I will be discussing the history and background of the Royal game of Ur and the problems encountered in tweaking the dynamics and game mechanics in The Royal Game of Ur. 

The royal game of Ur was originally found within a collection of other game boards during a excavation at the royal tombs at Ur in Mesopotamia, at that time it was estimated to date back to 3000 B.C. One issue that arose was that no rule set was known at the time, this lead too many variations of the game being created as people only had the board to work out how the game was played. (R.C.Bell, 1979,  p. 23) (H.J.R.Murray, 2000, p. 20)

There were many variations of the board these ranged from a more elaborate variation in which the board is completely covered with shell plaques inlaid with lapis lazuli and red limestone, and is divided by lapis lazuli strips. (R.C.Bell, 1979,  p. 23)

This recovered game board was 8 by 3 squares. It was played using four sided dice, with two of their sides having a jewelled corner, and the other two being plain. The layout of the board found in Ur is shown below. (R.C.Bell, 1979,  p. 24)

R.C.Bell first suggestion for a rule set for the royal game of Ur were that each player had seven tokens and three dice, the players would bet money before the game. Both players' tokens would all start off the board and would enter onto the tile indicated on the image. Each player each player then takes turns at rolling their 3 dice.

scores:

3 Jewelled corners up - 5

3 Plain corners up - 4

2 Plain corners up - 0

1 Plain corner up – 1

A score of 5 is then needed to get a counter onto the board the players would then move there counter towards the first rosette, once it got to the 5th square it risked the chance of it being removed from the board by having the opponent landing on the same square. The final objective was to reach the end and get your counter over the end but you had to roll exact number to finish. Other rules included you can have as many pieces on the board at one time but they must not be on the same square. (R.C.Bell, 1979, p 25)

A later iteration of the game was found in Egypt dating to around 1500 years after the creation of the royal game of Ur however many thing had change by then was the board layout, it had been modified to allow for a longer combat phase this would of increased the tension whilst playing the game.

According to Finkel the designs on the board show ether a individual or neutral style the only exception of this is the five rosettes which always appear in the same place on the board this would indicate that the rest of the board’s designs are independent of game mechanics. (Finkel, 2008, p 11-12) 

In 1880, a small Babylonian stone tablet from 177 BC was excavated, and this tablet then appeared in a 1956 journal article. In the same article was another tablet which was very similar, and upon closer inspection by Finkel, they were both in fact the rules for the Royal Game of Ur. When compared with the tablet Bell’s rules seem to closely match the description of the rules on the tablet. Finkel states that the squares in the battle ground are linked with astronomy. This supports Becker’s theory that the game could be used for divination purposes like many games of that period. (Finkel, 2008, p 14, 17-20) 

Throughout this next part I will be referencing to mechanics dynamics and Aesthetics

Mechanics describes the particular components of the game, at the level of data representation and algorithms.

Dynamics describes the run-time behaviour of the mechanics acting on player inputs and each other’s outputs over time.

Aesthetics describes the desirable emotional responses evoked in the player, when she interacts with the game system.

(Robin Hunicke, Marc LeBlanc, Robert Zubek, 2004, p 2)

Are first iteration was the ability to group units together this modifies the dynamics of the game by increasing the speed it takes to win but adding a risk reward mechanism into the game, the reward being that you could get all your counters finished a a short time however could be sent back to the start with all five pieces (Brenda Braithwaite & Ian Schreiber, 2008, p 86-87) this shortened the run time of the game making it a more fast passed game.

According to Braithwaite trade-offs are when a player must make a choice to gain something and lose another, none of the choices are entirely right or wrong, but it is up to the player to decide which one to make. This principal can be applied to the risk reward mechanic we input into the game.

After play testing for a few times we found that the risk reward function wasn’t properly balanced. The risk was to weak and made it a simple decision to group all your counters together

For are second iteration we decided to modify a mechanic by adding another event that happens on certain squares around the board. The change we made was to add a death square where if you landed on it and counters you had on that square would be taken out of play, This reinforced the risk factor in the game from grouping making the game more balanced.

After play testing the game with the new iterations it was clear that the game had become tenser and that by having your units got sent back to the start a few time made the player more cautious and went away from grouping it was clear at this point we had made the risk too great for the reward. 

For the third iteration we decided to focus on the context but continue to balance we did this by changing the mechanic again, once again we added a different event this one stayed within context of a battle by adding a fall back mechanic that your counter would have to move back to the nearest previous units on the board. This added a bonus for grouping all of your counters together as you would be immune from that event thus getting an advantage.

After play testing the iteration we found this had improved the balance of the game and that the risk reward mechanic was working as intended.

For the fourth iteration we decided that you were not landing on each other enough and that the board was sending you back a lot more that the other players and that this got rid of the competitive atmosphere between the players. We changed the rule from landing on the square sends the enemy back to simply overtaking those sends there units back.

After play testing this new iteration we discovered that this had improved the competitive nature of the game. Also the difficulty of the game and the likelihood of failure made the game often open ended till the last move as on bad dice roll can send you back this kept people interested as the game was a lengthy one.

For the fifth iteration we were considering if being able to split your move for example you rolled a 4 you could move to independent counters 2 spaces each. From a theoretical standpoint we assumed it would add more strategy to the gameplay.

However after testing it for a few games we found it had the opposite effect, we found that it had unbalanced the risk reward system and had made the previous iterations obsolete and lowered the tension in the game for those reasons we decided not to implement them into the game.

In conclusion when compared with Bell’s rules and the ones Finkel managed to recover from the tablet I feel that the iterations made above have improved the competitive nature and also increased the gameplay speed and made the game tenser. However I feel that the context surrounding divination purposes has been ignored and deemed as not important. I still feel that the game needed to include more conflict. 

Bibliography

Bell, R. C. (1979) Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations. Revised edition. New York. Dover Press

Finkel, I. L. ed. (2008) Ancient Board Games in Perspective: Papers from the 1990 British Museum colloquium with additional contributions. London. British Museum Press.

Hunicke, R., Leblanc, M. & Zubek, R. (2004) MDA: A formal approach to game design and game research.

Brenda Braithwaite & Ian Schreiber, Challenges For Games Designers, 2008

H.J.R.Murray, A History of Board-Games Other Than Chess, 2000 ,

Bibliography task

Bibliography Task.

Contributions to books: 

Salen, K. (2002) “Telefragging Monster Movies.” In King, L., (ed.), Game On: The History and Culture of Video Games. London: Laurence King. 98-111.

Gustafson, J. (1990) 'Design a Character', The Reading Teacher  86-87'.
Full-length books:

Dovey, J (2006) Game Cultures: Computer Games as New Media. Open University Press

Schell, J (2008) The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses. CRC Press

Articles in journals:

Adachi and Willoughby. (2013) "Do Video Games Promote Positive Youth Development?" Journal of Adolescent Research. 28. 155-165.

Gonzalez et al. (2013) "Learning to Stand in the Other’s Shoes: A Computer Video Game Experience of the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict" Social Science Computer Review. 31. 236-243

Formal Abstract Design Tools

Thoughts on 
"Formal Abstract Design Tools"

Gaming fuses a many forms of media such as art ,audio ,level design ,code etc. Most of these areas are evolving. Design however is not evolving anywhere near as fast as other forms of media.

Doug Church suggests that a lack of technical vocabulary plays a significant part in this. This is because designers have trouble discussing design on a complex level. The vocabulary must be able to describe common concepts in very different games. Formal abstract design tools are an attempt to create a framework for such vocabulary.

'design tools' is straight forward. The Formal abstract rules out terms that are too nebulous such as this game has good gameplay because without further information on what type of genre the game is good gameplay is irrelevant when used as a comparison to other games.

These tools are not like building blocks. You cannot add a bunch of these tools to a game to make it good. you must make sure it goes well with the experiences the game is trying to create and whether it clashes with any of the other mechanics a good example of this is Mario 64. It gives players a lot of choice of what to do whilst stopping the player from either becoming stuck or losing interest in the game. It does this by giving players multiple goals in each world. Often the earliest one has the player travel through most of the world showing them points that will be important in later levels as well as allowing players to learn the way around.

With Mario players are made to feel control and encouraged to set goals for themselves. This is as a formal abstract design tool(FADT) is known as intention. Another example of a FADT is perceivable consequence this is When the player performs the action and fails it is very clear why the action failed.

RPGs often use perceivable consequence by stating why a story event has occurred. However RPGs also make actions that are direct results of a players actions seem random. often RPGs have choices in which the consequences are perceivable but the player has no way of knowing which choice will have the negative effect.

Perceivable consequence is often sacrificed for story by giving the designer a greater control over the narrative. Story doesn't quite mean the same thing in video games as it does in books. In games the term means the narrative thread of the game. While some games have a predetermined story much in the same way as a book. Yet in sports games the narrative of the game is how the match went.

I Have No Words & I Must Design

Thoughts on 
"I Have No Words & i must design"

Costikyan says:- 

'A game is an interactive structure of endogenous meaning that requires players to struggle towards goals'

At the start Costikyan discusses the concept of gameplay and how it had become a ubiquitous term when in reality it means nothing. This is because by itself the term “gameplay” is irrelevant without context for example, if I was to say that battlefield 3 had good gameplay without background knowledge of it being a FPS what would you define gameplay as, only be narrowing the context does it give the term meaning as with a FPS you would expect realistic gun control, precise movements however you wouldn’t expect easy unit control like you would with most RTS.

Later in the article Costikyan discusses how a game needs to be interactive and the differences between puzzles and games. Crawford describes puzzles as static entities, and is just a logic structure which requires solving. He compares this to the text-adventure "game" Zork.
While not defining simply as a puzzle, Costikyan thinks Crawford's idea is a basis to improve upon puzzles are static with a logic structure; games need interaction.

Endogenous is defined as substances that originate from within a body. When you apply this to games, we discuss the idea of games creating their own meaning. This sounds obvious when you think about it, but the point is most people often don't. Costikyan cites monopoly money and a weapon in an online RPG, and it can really apply to anything that would have no value to anyone outside of the game, including goals and enjoyment. For example in simcity until you add your own goals and meanings it is just a toy only when you give it a goal such as I want to destroy the city with natural disasters.

In the beginning, There is the Designer

Thoughts on

"In the beginning, There is the Designer"

The chapter begins by discussing confidence and a lack of fear in the designer, in order to succeed within the industry. Utilising a method of self motivation as one of the opening paragraphs sets how the rest of the chapter will pan out, in an informal method. I think that the point of self determination is shown best by  'Some of the greatest inventions have only come from people who only succeeded because they were too dumb to know what they were doing was impossible'. The chapter then continues prepare the reader for a career in the games industry as a designer by making it clear that they will fail in design. But it is shown that your faliures shoud be used a an experiment for iterations and also to be as a tool in order to fuel the success of becoming a designer. This sense of trial and error is pushed upon as a necessary tool to become a successful games designer and I agree, learning from mistakes and using these lessons at a later date in future projects is the only way to progress as a better designer.

The chapter continues by listing multiple skillsthat are needed for a games designer. These skills vary from Animation to phycology, and history to Visual Arts. This list is broad and varied, with some obvious and yet others most would not associate with games design.

The following section within the chapter mentions the single most important skill that a Games designer requires: Listening. The chapter continues to mention this skill and engages the reader with a mention to how listening can be developed in a method of even deeper listening, utilising a story that involves body language and deeper meanings.

There are five types of listening, as stated in this chapter of the book and they are as follows:

The first is listening to the Team, ensuring that the team has a good spectrum of skills and opinions that can be mixed together in order to form a good team and create a good game.
The second is to listen to the Audience, they are the gamers who will be playing the game and therefore the ultimate goal of game design and making is to make the gamers happy.
The third is to listen to the Game,  a more vague form of listening, this involves listening to how the game runs and deciding if it is ok or not; not disimilar to a mechanic and a car engine, to quote the book.
The fourth type is to listen to the Client, the moneybags, the provider, the sponsor, or pretty much the person paying for the game to be made. If the game is not what they want, when they want it they may choose to stop paying for the game.
The fifth and final type is to listen to your Self, this is an important type because it involves working within yourself, and discovering exactly what it is you want.

 The chapter concludes with a talk about gifts. Gifts are split into two types, Innate and Major. The Innate gifts are natural talent in an action, such as piano or designing a game. The major gift is to love your line of work, and to enjoy what you are creating. What is the point of entering a long career line without any interest in the career itself? Without this love of the work you will never be able to use all of the minor skills you may possess to their full potential and then create good games.

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

The last fiction book that I read was lord of the rings return of the king

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

the last non fiction book i read was stephen hawking a brief history of time 

What was the last live performance you attended?

the last performanc i was at was jon bon jovi down in london 

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

the last film i saw was the avengers

How often do you read a newspaper?

i don't very often read a physical newspaper however i do check the bbc news website a few times a week

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

The last exhibition I visited was Eurogamer Expo at Earls Court

How many hours a week do you spend playing computer games?

if including i usually play around 40-50 hrs a week. 

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

 i dont very often get a chance to play non-digital game now so about 1-2 hrs a month