Ancient Games: Tafl games and The Stanway Game

Tafl or Hnefatafl

A small insight into ancient games which aren't Chess takes us back to 400 AD. A game known as "tafl" which has grown to be known as hnefatafl or The Viking Game. H.J.R Murray suggested that it was the "only board game played by the Saxons" (Murray, 1952 p.52) Which I think cant be true. Many board games must of existed, but not documented. The game is played on a square checkered board which has to have odd numbers of squares on each side (11x11, 13x13). The game was played on whatever the played could create, often the games were embroidered onto cloth or linen so it could be transported. The defending player stats in the middle with all their pieces placed symmetrically in the centre of the board or cloth. The central piece was often larger and was known as the "king" piece. The attacking players are placed around the outside and outnumber the defending player (king) by 2:1. The object of the game was to move the defending "king" to the outside of the board where the attacking player must intercept and surround the king in order to defeat the player. The object of the game for the attacking player is to eradicate or remove all of their opponents pieces (or the king) Pieces can be taken by both sides as long as a piece is sandwiched between two opposing pieces. However the king can only be taken by being surrounded by all four sides. Each piece can move as many places as they want in one turn, but can only move in a straight line. There has been many variations of this game which varies from changes of rules to scale of board, but one of the most famous variations is chess, you may have heard of it.

The Stanway Game

This was a game recently excavated in our region just outside of Colchester in the 1980's. It was discovered in a quarry and was believed to be buried around AD40-AD60. This particular excavation brought with it alot of attention and enthusiasm as the items contained within the burial were rather unusual compared to a range of artifacts usually found within burials in Britain. The game consists of a 13x9 squares with 13 different coloured pieces for each player. Similar to Tafl, the proposed rules to the game are that the players have to capture all the opponents pieces by surrounding a piece on two sides. The goal of the game is to capture all of the enemies pieces.



Murray
, H. J. R. (1952) A History of Board Games Other Than Chess. Oxford. Clarendon Press. See "Ancient Games" and "War Games".


http://www.gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/VirtualExhibits/Vikings/Tafl/viking/overhead.jpg

http://www.aerobiologicalengineering.com/wxk116/Roman/BoardGames/stanlat.jpg

Remediation from Bolter and Grusin

Remediation is a term used from the work of both Bolter and Grusin. Remediation is the term given to the representation of one medium in another. They describe that how new mediums often use remediation from their predecessors.

The article shows a spectrum as to how new media 'remediates' old media.

Immediacy is a type of media that aspires to create a type of transparency over the viewers eyes. The aim for this type is to make the viewer 'forget' that they are indeed watching a film by using such immersion techniques. Using virtual reality throughout the media confuses the viewers mind as to thinking if the things they are seeing are in fact real, and during the watching is can be hard to pull the person away from such immersion. Using photo realistic images also has the same effect and are another technique used.

Hypermediacy are objects or artifacts that are aware of their existence and want to display the way they fit into the world and not be blurred into the image. Examples of this would be the WWW or video game HUD's.

An example here of remediation is that of photo realism. Photo realism uses aesthetic conventions which is of its predecessor 'photography' however it is not actually its replacement as they both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Another example of remediation is the of the perspective of 3d shapes on a flat surface. This feature dominates contemporary computer games and were first worked out, pioneered and explored during the renaissance. Since then many media have used the same techniques as the conventions of perspective within are now standardised. Technology that is considered fairly new would be the invention of the wide screen television, however this size and aspiration was explored by 17th century artists such as Van Gogh. Van Gogh was an artist known for his odd and experimental perspective, he was a pioneer of cubism which affected his aspects of artwork. One of his main objects of study was large open landscapes, using thousands of tiny purposeful strokes he practically developed landscapes and wide canvases into being within the art industry.

Conventions of a media are usually successful remediation's of a previous medium. It would take time for a new medium to produce its own unique convention, but this would just simply be remediated by another media in the future. A phrase known as survival of the fittest comes to mind at this point. The remediation is similar to the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin. Remediation is a constant development process for media.

From this read, it has brought to my attention how common practise it is for new mediums to 'use' conventions of similar alternative mediums to gain an advantage with the development process. I see this now in computer games more than any other media. The use of conventions from storytelling, film and moral human interaction.

Narrative in games: Chris Crawford

Looking at an article by Chris Crawford (2005) On interactive storytelling : New riders I have seen a new light on the way story is told throughout games. Crawford suggests that gamers who play games that include a storyline don't complain about being jerked around through wild dramatic syrations as they don't actually see these storytelling conventions as protocols of storytelling. Many people don't see the storytelling part of the game to be the most important, however in my opinion the storytelling for me is actually very important depending on if the game is of a specific genre of course. Arcade games don't necessarily need a storyline, although containing a brief story doesn't hurt as long as the reason for playing is apparent from the start. But with games such as adventure game, I play many games such as Assassins Creed by Ubisoft for the storyline. The narrative that trails through their whole series captures my enthusiasm partly because I've always loved history and architecture, but back to the article.

Stories are about people, or personificated items. Items used can sometimes represent people as they would act within a narrative as a human being would do, or would seem to do. This is because the original story is created and told by a person. Stories can also have objects as their central components such as Lord of the Rings. The narrative suggests the story is about rings, however rings are the central object but the story is about the people who interact around the object as such.

Chris Crawford describes many of the games characters within games as Cardboard people and suggests that:

"The cardboard people in the games do for drama what inflatable dolls do for sex"

This obviously suggests that the acting within games are a pitiful attempt as to imitate proper storytelling instead of actually creating a deep and compelling narrative. As with any story in any language or genre The protagonists and antagonists contain these basic conventions:

Good guys: White clothing, handsome and noble.
Bad guys: Black clothing, black hats, missing teeth, bad breath.

Games are typically good at using the most direct form of stories and conflict, THIS IS VIOLENCE.

Puzzles are mentioned through the article as not being stories. But puzzles are often used as part of a story, or to unlock part of a story. Often used within hidden object and mystery games, puzzles can be used as a theme to extend the depth of a story, however your outcome of a puzzle never usually directly manipulates the games narrative.

Throughout a narrative, choices of the characters are an important aspect of the actual storytelling. In most stories, the story builds up in tension and revolves around a key decision or action from a person.

The is also stories which rely mainly on a spectacle. By providing exotic imagery for the viewer to immerse themselves within the game, this type of story tends to be a dominator in the movie/film industry. However computer games have mostly been dominated by the request for evermore realistic graphics, yet these graphics often contain huge spectacles. We are currently in a period where it is: Rise of the image, fall of the words. Storytelling is now being eradicated by visual thinking, but this should not be the case as storytelling gives us humans a purpose that has lived on throughout time.

Games need to pay more attention to the way in which they convey a story to the player, especially if the game is story-based.

Games Britannia: part 3 of 3

Diving deeper into the games Britannia series, here we learn about the Joystick generation, the birth of the commercialisation of video games we know today. Benjamin woolley starts us off by talking about his childhood ant how he loved Tolkiens: Lord of the Rings book, the fact that he loved the idea of adventure and the map in the back of the book. This thirst for adventure brings him to playing a game called Dungeons and dragons, where he first experiences a taste for this adventure. He suggests that these games are appealing as "they open up a story" "add an interactive dimension which allows you to explore a fictional terrain."

The first computer game Woolley encounters is a game called Elite, it was a pioneering videos games. its opened up the way video games were made. The programme then explores Black and White, a game based on compulus, where you play as a god role and use a hand to control the world, however this may be the case, you may be the god and control everything, but the little people are actually the controllers as they all need homes, something to eat, somewhere to live, they need your help with most things, so really the people roaming the game are in charge.

Lara croft was one of the most revolutionary games of the time, it was one of the first games to put a personality and a face onto a game character. This games makes the player feel responsible, similar to a god game, it makes you feel and care for the character you are playing.

The typical Grand Theft Auto is also reviewed by the programme, suggesting its moral destroying behaviours. Woolley suggests that this game blurs the morals of us as human beings. This game relishes its role as a rebel, it draws from many other famous games and their niche features.

The development of Multi-User Dungeon paved the way to social gaming, many games are mostly multiplayer. All gamers enjoy playing games, but enjoy playing games with other people even more. The multiplayer games market is the equivalent of the the way board game brought players together. Socialising and playing together is the most effective form of gaming.

Gender and Games - J Prescott and J Bogg

The reading concerned with gender and games this week was that of J Prescott and J Bogg. Segregation in a Male-Dominated Industry: Women.

From reading this whole article I discovered how unproportional and under represented women are within the games industry. However occupational segregation is illegal throughout the EU and the UK,  although it clearly happens throughout the Games Design industry. Both horizontal and vertical segregation  occurs within this male-dominated industry, the females employed are underrepresented across the whole of the industry within all job types, as well as the managerial roles from these jobs. There is around 9000 employees currently in the games games industry and which 4% of those are women.  6.9% of those are in the creation and development of the game other than the typical administration and marketing, which many people believe is more suited for women. So all of that adds up to 24.84 women out of 9000 that are heavily involved in the development process withing a computer games design company. This is quite a small number of influential roles women occupy to the development process of games. Many of these companies claim to be gender neutral companies which is what the law wants to enforce, however these companies can sometimes be known as gender-blind companies or do not act upon their gender inequalities.

Under-representation:
The under-representation of the women in the games industry has resulted in a stereotypical female character in the game world, mainly because the characters are designed by men the stereotypical character are either one of 3 things:

1. Helpless female
2. Sex kitten

Girl power figure

Women attitudes:

Within a male dominated industry the job opportunities for women can be minimal, however when a women is employed into this masculine game world, the women can adopt masculine behaviour just to fit into the workplace. This could be trying to take interest in male activities etc...

454 women in the games industry were given a questionnaire and from this questionnaire the majority of participants tended to be young, single or living with a partner, childless and spent most of their leisure time playing computer games. This is definite evidence that the modern games industry has effected the younger generation than the older.

Traits from both genders by Schein:

Feminine: Warmth, kindness, selflessness and sympathy.
Masculine: Aggression, forcefulness, rationality, competitiveness, decisiveness, strength, self confidence and independence.
                                                                                                               (Schein, 1973)


A larger number of females in the workplace would create a more welcoming environment because of the above traits BUT it could easily create a female-dominated area and sub fields. This area of the industry could also get quite aggressive.

La decima vittima

La Decima vittima or The 10th Victim is an Italian/French science fiction film based on Robert Sheckley's 1953 short story "Seventh Victim"

The film was a subtitled Italian film based upon a set of individuals who are plying in one big game known as the Big Hunt, where ten competitors have to murder 5 other victims and survive 5 murders to win the largest prize. The Big Hunt then comes down to two competitors Caroline Meredith and Marcello Poletti, who typically as in most films, become romantically involved. Caroline still wants to kill marcello so she can get the money all to herself. The ending however leaves the film viewer baffled as they don't know whether they get away together or kill one another.


I found that this film had a good concept and story behind it. It would do well in the box office now if it was converted or remade into a modern style film. However the storyline reminds me of Jerry Zucker's, Rat Race (2001). The plot is similar to La Decima, however the characters are in the race to the finish line to grab 1 million dollars. It's full of comedy similar to La Decima.

I did however discuss this film to one of my work buddies at University who is also Italian, and he suggested that the film has too much crammed into it. He explained that Italian film makers always have a tendency to cram many different film genres and styles into a film. I also feel the same, there are too many genre styles involved in the film however the comedy does split the film up from being a constant blood sport, to an enjoyable film, if you don't mind subtitles.

A 3D spacecraft that just went nuts :P

So heres a spaceship I designed in 3dsmax. (Click to enlarge images)

Scott Kim "What is a puzzle?" In T.Fullerton (2008)

Scott Kim "What is a puzzle?" In T.Fullerton (2008) Game Design Workshop: A placentric Approach to Creating innovative Games pg 35-39.

Scott Kim is a Puzzle designer  at a games design company called Shufflebrain since 1990. He has influenced some of the most popular puzzles of all time, including Bejeweled, Colapse and Tetris.

Scott also contributes monthly to a magazine called Discover. In which he produces 3 puzzles of increasing difficulty for the magazines readers. The subject of the magazine is of maths and science, so he claims to base the puzzles around these subject areas and not something irrelevant such as fashion.

So what is a puzzle?

A toy or contrivance that can be solved by ingenuity or patient effort? A simple task with a bad user interface?

Stan Isaacs mentions the best definition suggests Kim.

1. A puzzle is fun,
2. and it has a right answer.

Puzzles are also a form of play, these are then classed as a form of games and toys. One of Scott Kims puzzles included within the article was a visual letter puzzle. It included a image of a letter of the English alphabet folded only once. The only clues we are given is that the letter is NOT the letter L. However it does not state that the letter is upper or lower case, it could be many different solutions. How many can you find? There is one answer at the end of this blog post...

So is it fun?

One of the most important parts of designing a puzzle is knowing if its fun or not. Here there is 3 different types of fun mentioned, these are;

• Novel - Invites you to be playful by turning familiar objects and giving them a twist.
• Not too easy, not too hard - These sorts of puzzles are very selective, a puzzle that is too hard can discourage people from participating in the game if easy discouraged, whereas if the puzzles is actually too easy, then the player could become bored quickly and lose interest.
• Tricky - These puzzles are about shifting the perception of the players with an image.

This however leads to us mentioning that different people have different preferences when it comes to puzzles and games as well as different motivations.

Subjective nature: For some individuals, a simple everyday task can be a load of fun to someone else, and finding the mid range to keep the puzzle aimed at as many people as possible is a hard task.

The big difference between games and puzzles is that games don't appear to have right answers, but revolve around the player making decisions, however puzzles have certain answers.

To summarise, what was learnt from this article that there is a clear difference from games and puzzles, and that there is differences in what puzzles other people like.


One answer to the puzzle:
(F)

What every game developer needs to know about story: John Sutherland

Week 10 reading was a Gamasutra article describing to game designers the basics of story, and what is consists of. Throughout the whole article a line was being constantly drummed into the readers heads; story is conflict. As with the constant advancement of technology, the quality of the games designed are also following suit. The game standards bar is rising and this is increasing the amount of interaction us as players want with our games. Stories are one of the features within games that are being influenced, story and storytelling is a human experience and is part of our ancestry, an item i mention in my most recent post on 'funativity' by Noah Falstein.

This article stresses that Games aren't movies!

Movies were the first of their time, as are game currently. Movies have had their time of experimentation and have had their time to refine what they do best, storytelling in the medium of picture and sound. However games have their own tools and features that make them stand out from movies, and that is player interaction. This conflict in these stories used have to be planned out from the start, many of the classical stories use a basic layout which if kept too can makes your story passable, but not exceedingly good. The structure goes like this:

First, there's a protagonist, a hero.
His or her world is thrown out of order by an inciting incident. (Look at the sabotaged dope deal in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for a good example of this.)
A gap opens up between the hero and an orderly life.
The hero tries the normal, conservative action to overcome the gap. It fails.
The world pushes back too hard.
The hero then has to take a risk to overcome the obstacles that are pushing back.
Then there is a reversal. Something new happens, or the hero learns something she didn't know before, and the world is out of whack again. A second gap has opened up.
The hero has to take a greater risk to overcome the second gap.
After overcoming the second gap, there is another reversal, opening a third gap.
The hero has to take the greatest risk of all to overcome this gap and get to that object of desire, which is usually an orderly life.

So now we move onto characters and why characterisation is important within a game. Character is not what the person looks like but it is how the hero/villain acts towards situations and scenarios. This character should be revolved around by the other characters in the storyline. The article suggest that the game world should always be antagonistic towards the character to increase the amount of struggle the player has to endure.

Reversals:

John Sutherland suggested the use of reversals are paramount to creating conflict. He says that each act within the story are driven by reversals. These reversals Can lead to 3 different types of conflict:

Internal conflict (typically novels) - Inside your head

Interpersonal conflict (typically plays) - Between different people

External conflict (typically movies/games) - Society in general/outside world.

Plays are 80% Audio 20% Visual

Movies are 80% Visual 20% Audio

Sutherland goes on to say that within games, if you are able to make the player do something the see the story, then that is the up most priority, however showing the player is second priority, and then telling them in last.

DO - SHOW - TELL

Why we play games: Natural funativity. Noah Falstein

'Fun' is a word used to describe a source where we can receive enjoyment from. Fun can be hard to describe, but we know when we have experienced it, regardless of how hard it is to describe.

Paleolithic pastimes:

As humans, we have a strong dependency on social interactions with one another. This also leads to another dependency that we need. An establishment in our families and the ability to maintain this place in our families.

(RSS) Refined Sugar Syndrome is a theory that considers the way we behave towards things that give us pleasure. As humans in our past history we have always strived to get more of the things that taste sweet in this world. Sugar being a natural substance found in fruit, as ancient beings we found the sugary fruits and treasured them. However nowadays we have been able to produce a concentrated form of this substance. This is now true with the act of play, we have taken the simple act of playing and turned this into a concentrated source that is a video game. Our ancestors played games as a form of entertainment and as a way to keep their survival and hunting skills sharp and a constant improving.

Physical fun:

One of our primary urges as human beings is the survival instinct, anything that threatens our survival automatically commands our full attention and awareness. Games tend to tap into this theme to capture players and immerse them further into their games. As this urge is an automatic instinct, players find it hard to ignore, its built into our mind set. This can be considered to the whole mass entertainment media. Even films put viewers in a state of mind of survivability to capture their attention. This physical fun relies on strong muscles and good coordination. A theory as to why sports are popular, these often focus on physical strength and team cooperation. These activities go back in our history as they are similar to the hunting and surviving instinct of our ancestors.

The article mentions why many game items can easily be relevant toward our ancestry.

Casinos - Berry picking
Collectible games - Gatherers
RTS,RPG,FPS - Travellers/discovery
Weapons/hand tools - Stone tools

Social fun:

Games bring people together, it creates a ground for us to build social interactions and increase the development of language. It has also given us an indirect way of learning and increasing the ability of our process of improving our survival instincts. The existence of storytelling shows that our ancestors enjoyed or at least had the desire to communicate and socialise with each other.

MMO's can create the basis of socialisation from many different features in the game. Chat rooms can open up where people discuss experiences and such they have had in the game. The media is constantly expansive which then create more social interaction. A reason why many people play these games and a reason why many game developers focus on this aspect of their games.

Mental Fun:

Games that challenge us mentally, lure some players in just for that challenge.  We have developed as human beings to have a large brain that holds so much information and this has given us the advantage of learning to survive and adapting over time. The constant expansion of our brains has given us quicker reactions, recognising patterns and important decisions.

Blended fun:

These games are smart as they use more than one of these natural funativity 'types' in their games to lure or attract in more than one type of gamer. Different gamers prefer different types of funativity, and so tapping into more than one type of funativity, they can gain a wider audience for their games.


All these types of funativity need to be considered when designing an original game that can be fun. However i never took the time to think how deep in history our instinct to have fun and entertainment were.

Games Britannia Part 2 of 3: Monopolies and Mergers

Following on from the previous episode, here Benjamin Woolley shows us the influences of board games over the last 200 years on British society and how they have developed into game that can become a moral teaching for many people.

One of the games that stood out for me in the programme was a game titled The landlords game, it was a board game invented and patented by Elizabeth Magie in 1904. The game was supposedly designed to explain to people how the 'land grabbing' and renting system worked. It was also used to provoke children to gain an awareness over unfairness, hopefully taking this new awareness into adulthood. This game was first published in Great Britain in 1913 with the title Brer Fox an' Brer Rabbit, this game later was the major influence that then created the most popular board game in history - Monopoly. The similarities can easily be seen, but the versatility of this game was that each place on the board can be changed by naming them differently, a feature that has made the current monopoly so successful. Depending on the place of sale, the board can have specific place names that are popular to the place of sale.

After this point, family board games were being produced to bring families through the Great depression, Cluedo and scrabble became a popular family game during this time, these them started to form the biggest game companies at the time, some even are around now, producing the same games.

But since then not much has changed in the content of board game, but they are just not as poular as they used to be. New board games such as War on Terror by Trrorbull games have similarities to Brer Fox an' Brer Rabbit as they both contain content in which relates to the current world, it was designed to give people the chance to see why countrys do what they do to acquire countries and land, and how much cheaper it is to fund terrorism. This is mainly just a play on satire, but the game company are finding it hard to find suppliers that will stock such a sensitive game.

The final part of this series, Woolley will be looking at the 'Joystick generation' and viewing how videogames have affected us as Britains.

Why We Play Games: Four Keys to more more Emotion without story

Why do we play games? Well we play games to change or structure our internal experiences, these experiences create an emotional impact on ourselves as the player. Emotions are important to human beings as it is a way of expressing ourselves and to communicate to other human beings. Many games use tools in order to create challenges for player to overcome, as these challenges are attempted it can create a variety of emotions such as frustration and anger, but the reward of completing these challenges can be relief and happiness. This happiness can be that breakthrough people play to step into their own fantasy world and escape their everyday life. XEODesign are a company the specialise in player experience research and design for mass market interactive entertainment. Here they have constructed a field study upon 30 different players of many different games in order to find out what makes them tick and what makes them want to play games. Over playing a variety of games they came up with a set of Keys to emotion with story:

1. Like: What players like most about playing
2. Emotion: Creates unique emotion without story
3. Games: Already present in ultra popular games
4. Theory: Supported by psychology theory and other larger studies

The research carried out showed that each key is a reason why people these games.

Hard Fun:

Players mostly players as an attempt to overcome obstacles. Hard fun is a way of creating emotions by structuring the players experiences towards them pursuing a goal. This mainly focuses on the reward factor of the goal is achieved. This technique can amplify frustration and passion for completing goals, players enjoy the relief from frustration and this one reason why people play. Hard fun can attract people who enjoy a challenge and often say things like:

• I play to see how good I am
• I play to beat the game
• I play to have multiple objectives
• I prefer using strategy rather than luck

Easy Fun:

This type of fun attracts players who just play for the sheer enjoyment of the experience of playing the game. This enjoyment often uses the sense of curiosity which entices the player to delve deeper into the game world. The sensation of wonder and shock often lures these players into the game. They often have a short attention span so adventurous games keep them satisfied. These players often use these words to describe their reasons for playing:

• I play to explore new worlds with intriguing people
• I play for the excitement and adventure
• I play because I want to figure the story out
• I play because I want to see what happens in the story, even if I have to use a walk through
• I play because me and my character are one
• I love the sounds of the cards shuffling
• I play because of the growing dragons

Altered States:

These type of people play games that generate emotion with perception, thought, behaviours and playing with other people. A majority of people confess they play games because it makes them feel better about themselves, these games are used to move players from one mental state to another. Players who receive enjoyment from these mention that:

• They enjoy letting the game clear their mind by clearing a level
• They feel better about themselves whilst playing
• They play to avoid boredom
• Being better than someone at something that matters

The people factor:

These games create opportunities for player interaction and competition. These players often play just for the social aspect of the game. Players will even play games they dont like just because they enjoy socialising with the people who play. Tempers can flare and jokes can be thrown but its all part of the game. These players often feel that:

• It's the people who play that are addictive, not the game itself
• I want an excuse to invite my friends over for some games
• I don't like playing games, but its a fun way to spend time with my friends
• I don't play, but it's fun to watch.

Why some people no longer or never want to play:

Some people don't want to play games as they value other things in life with a higher valued responsibility such as jobs or raising families. Some never want to play again because they know that games can become addictive and develop bad habits. Some even regard games as against their morals.

"I won’t play his games, because someone has to take care of the kids!” –Wife of a Hard Core Gamer

My iterations of The Royal Game of UR

Recently I had to write an essay about iterating an ancient board game from the 2600BC period. This is the oldest known game to man and I found this one of the most interesting games I've had to study. The game consists of a set of nets which combine to be the game board which the players have to manoeuvre around to get the end to score a piece. The players roll a set of 4 D4 dice with 2 sides marked in order to move around the board, this gives the game an element of chance with these game bits. The game board was found to have specially decorated cells and consistently throughout there was found to have a rosette square believed to have importance with the game play.

My task was to iterate the current mechanics of the game to improve the games overall playability. But before we can iterate the rules, what were the rules?
 The most basic rules are currently considered to be these:

• Using four sided dice, each players moves their pieces around the board, the player must roll the exact number to leave the board.
• If a piece lands on a marked rosette square(one with a star on it in this case) the player receives another go.
• If a piece lands on a square with an opposition piece on it, the piece is removed from the board and must restart.
• A piece on a marked rosette square cannot be taken.
• First player to get all 7 pieces to the end wins the game.

Board diagram:

My iterations of these rules were and why:

Players were able to stack two game pieces on top of one another and move them simultaneously, the player was only allowed a maximum of two stacked, this was because when we played by the original rules the game lasted too long and so we iterated this so that we could speed the game time up.
Players who landed on the rosette square were not allowed to stay on there, they had to roll and move that piece instantly, this was iterated as players began to 'camp' on the rosette squares and it became frustrating for the other player.
Because of both these iterations, it created another problem with the game dynamics, players began to put stacks on rosette squares which gave them the ability to move their stacked pieces up the board too fast, so we made a mechanic which stopped the players from putting stacked pieces on rosette squares. From these iterations we found the game ran faster, yet not too fast. It made the game more enjoyable to play.



Game board image: http://www.britishmuseum.org/images/ps121289_m.jpg

Large group game idea for unlimited players

My game idea for an unlimited amount of people doesn't need any specific equipment, just people with two arms and a judge (Rob Kurta). The aim of the game is to be the last man(or woman) standing with their arms parallel to the ground. The rules are:

All players must stand facing each other in a circle formation
If the players arms stop being parallel with the group they are out.
The people who are out can distract the players who are still in game, but no contact is allowed.
The last person with their arms still parallel is the winner. 

Warning: Keeping arms up for a long period of time, or even short period of time in this position can hurt a lot.

Players Who Suit MUD's (Multi-User Domains)

Richard A Bartle: Players who suit MUD'S. This article was an old one. However the points that were drummed out constantly through it do, in my opinion still relate to the current game world and community. We we're asked to look at how the different styles of players related to us as well as the game world. Also to look at how this article was relevant to our own actions as players in our own game-play sessions.

MUD's are Multi User Domains and are typically text based role playing games, which have a chat element to them as well as online interaction between players. This type of game has evolved into becoming the now known, MMORPG's. Bartle described two types of playing styles, this included:

Action (world orientated) Vs Interaction (player orientated)
Bartle then splits these two types of players into 4 groups. These groups were know as: killers, socialisers, achievers and explorers.

• Achievers: See point gathering and levelling up as their main goal. They tend to give themselves personal goals and are constantly on the look out to improve their character in any way

• Killers: Are players that use killing other players as their main goal. They often just want to cause distress to other players. The more distress they causes, the more joy they get out of their playing experience.

• Socialisers: These types of players base their gaming around talking to other players. They tend to play just because of the aspect of inter player-relationships and often don't care much about the actual game-play as such.

• Explorers: Explorers want to know everything about the game terrain around them. They often try to find and explore the game mechanics and to find interesting objects and artifacts within game. they get a buzz out of knowing they are the first person to find a specific area of item.

A metaphor was given by Bartle to describe these different players. He used the suits from a pack of playing cards to describe them.

• Hearts (Socialisers care about players feelings)
• Spades (Explorers tend to dig up strange and new places)
• Diamonds (Achievers want to have the best of the best in terms of score and items)
• Clubs (Killers club people to death) 

Relationships

Socialisers: Tend to socialise with every player type but mainly other socialisers. They will take an interest in the game just so that people will talk to them.

Achievers: These see other achievers as competition and often want to outrun them in status within a game, the game is very important to this type of player.

Killers: They target achievers as their prey. Because the game means so much to the achievers, the distress caused can be maximised.

Explorers: Never usually want to fight back with killers, but when they do, the killers may need to be cautious as all the exploring could of turned up with a super powerful weapon

Throughout the article, Bartle kept on telling us that the balance of these players are very important as they all have a relationship within the game with each other. If the amount of one type of player was to drop, then the result was to see another side drop dramatically, resulting in another.. and so on. For example, Killers tend to want to kill achievers more than any other player, this is because achievers take the game very seriously and if killed tend to get very distressed. This is exactly what the killers want, and if the achievers get killed to much they may leave the game. This means a reduction of achievers within game, and less players for killers to hunt. Less achievers = less killers.

Conclusion

Throughout this article I learned about the different player types which i never knew about before but found extremely interesting. I would consider my own playing style as an achiever. However I do sometimes like to cross over to the killers playing style also. I feel that now in modern games, they have developed methods in which they force players to experience different player styles. They often have different areas of the game world where specific players enjoy lurking around. Such as a combat arena for killers or a high score leader board for achievers. This article may be dated, but I found that it is still relevant in present time.

Week 7: Casual games design

For week 7 we we're asked too look at an article about casual game design, dedicated mainly on the success of the game company Popcap Games. This case study was titled Space of Possibility and Pacing in Casual Game Design, by Marcos Venturelli.

A casual game is that of a game that can be given to a player of any skill and can sit down and play without much difficulty at all and receive short bursts of enjoyment out of the game. These features are some, which Popcap Games focus on, and will be described later on.

The case study started by addressing how readily available casual games are now becoming, by the advancement of portable devices and wireless Internet, casual games are within a arms reach away. This being said, the fact that the games should be easy to play to a wide area of players, is becoming one of the main goal of game designers, keep it simple to begin with. One of the main reasons why Popcap games has produced successful games is because their games focus on pacing the players through the game predicatively. Pacing is responsible of creating complex interactions between the player and the game.

Pacing:
These elements build up to create the games pace

Tension:  Is the perceived danger that a player might become the weakest side of the opposing forces within the conflict

Threat: Is generated on the level of game mechanics existing as the power struggle tips in favour of the system/players opponents

Tempo: Is the intensity of play. It is also the time between each interaction between the player and the game e.g. the time between clicks.

Movement Impetus: Is the will and desire of the player to progress through the game.

Space of possibility:

As game designers we create a space for possibility, this space is the area that we can limit to create a desired effect on the player. Raph Koster [2005] "The destiny of games is to become boring, not fun"

What he means is that our brains are programmed or enjoy to work out patterns in everything, especially games. We are always trying to master and discover these patterns, and its only a matter of time until these patterns are all used. Whilst designing casual games, we want the game to have a restricted space of possibility so that the game will be easy to play for everyone, but not a large space so that there are too many patterns that it becomes a hard game. Creating a game is within a game itself, its all about creating the right balance.

To keep the players movement impetus stimulated, the game must keep the player interested. Popcap have done this by adding certain elements of mechanics every few levels in their games. A game i am very fond of Peggle, is a game where every 5 levels the game introduces to you a new character to play as, which in turn gives the player a new mechanic to play with. Whilst doing this in the background, the game is also increasing in difficulty slowly, by introducing more obstacle to work around, the players movement impetus is continued.

This is the reason why Popcap are seen as one of or the best casual game designer company at this current time. They focus on giving the players a enticing and exciting experience that thrills the player even in short bursts. This element I will be trying to work into my own group game I am produces currently. We are introducing a new weapon every few levels to entice the player to play even more to increase the movement impetus. The players will continuously be rewarded with death animations of the enemy in a humorous fashion. As well as having the difficulty and Tempo of the game gradually get faster.

Chance and Skill

For week sixes reading we were advised to read Brenda Braithwaite & Ian Schreiber (2008) Challenges For Games Designers. Chapters 5 and 6. These chapters were specifically about luck and chance, and the importance of how and why they are needed in game. Here I will be describing just that in more detail.

Chance is an element used in board games and even digital games to keep the player interested in the game for a longer period of time. This is done by the chance element giving the player a more varied experience during game play. Therefore increasing the replay value of the game in hand. By also giving a variable experience every time, the game designers can prevent players from mastering the game. Chance can be appealing as to also create tension in games. Lets take Texas Hold'em Poker for example, the longer the players bully each other into submitting more money into the kitty, the higher the dramatic tension factor; however there is skill involved with this, its all down to the luck and chance of the cards drawn. This tool that anyone on the board could potentially have a winning hand causes this dramatic tension.

Chance is needed in many games; games which do not have an aspect of chance at all can become very boring very fast. It then leads the games mechanics all down to skill; let’s take Tic Tac Toe for example. It’s a game that is based purely on skill, and because of the small range of possibility, it can easily be mastered and is easily done. If the game was to have on chance element incorporated into the game then this game would have more replay value as well as be more challenging and fun. So what are the tools we use to create chance in a game? Well here are some:

· Dice (There can be many different outcomes depending on the number thrown, there can also be more dice involved giving a higher chance outcome and no matter how many are rolled, the previous roll will never influence the future roll).

· Cards (Cards can be randomised by shuffling, they can be used as resources and they can also be hidden from other players, or not.)

· Pseudo-Random number generator (This is a digital chance producer and can work for most games, must be made sure that the outcome is not bias in any way.)

And now I will talk about the aspect of skill in a game. Skill gives a player the chance to actually improve the way they play games as it doesn’t revolve around a chance element. These games are usually more competitive as the dramatic tension can be high if two similarly ranked players are matched together. The good thing about skill is that it creates many chances for the player; a player of a game that must make decisions based on information given is a skill. There are many decisions that can be used to create an aspect of skill and here a few:

Meaningless Decision:

• These can become frustration for the player if they do not affect any part of the game and should be removed if this is the case

Blind Decision:

• This means the player has a very limited viewable information, or even none at all
• These decisions are usually connected to gambling

Obvious Decision:

• An obvious decision is pretty obvious. One way will have an extreme positive and another will have an extreme negative. Hey player will always go with positive, if these rules exist in games, the game designer should make them rules instead of decisions

Trade-off decision:

• When a user has a hard decision between two choices that are pretty much equal in stats.

Dilemmas:

• This tool gives the player a sense of danger in every possible way
• The prisoners dilemma is when two players must choose the same answer together without contact and if they both get it right, they share the reward, if they don’t, one can take all the winnings, or they both lose dramatically

All in all I thought this was my favourite reading so far as it has made me think more about games and how hard it is to balance a game between chance and skill

80's comic book style painting

Friday 4th of November we we're shown how to create an 80's comic style art piece. We focused on a portrait of a typical comic style person. Heres how my artwork came out:

Tools that can be used to create dramatic game mechanics

This evaluation upon these tools will be based upon a contribution by Marc LeBlanc from Salen and Zimmermans The Game Design Reader p438-459. This post will be a continuation from my previous post about the MDA framework. Marc LeBlanc explains that he has studied games using this framework and bases his work around the mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics of game design. In this blog post i will be focusing on how we (as game designers) can create dramatic dynamics in our games.

Okay, so mechanics of a game is what the game designer has ultimate control over, these mechanics influence the game dynamics and how it runs as a whole, which then these dynamics influence the player to receive an emotional response. therefore in order to create an emotional response from our player we must focus on creating a set of mechanics that when constructed would give out a dramatic feel. From this reading i discovered a powerful quote from LeBlanc himself: "We cannot create drama; we can only create the circumstances from which the drama will emerge" This is an absolute truth when it come to game designing and to help us construct these circumstances we can use a tool called a Dramatic Arc. Here is the diagram of this arcs structure:

The opening (in our case, the story's conflict) rises up dragging the player into the game with it, giving them increased tension and emotional responses where at the top the climax, the story and then therefore the dramatic tension cuts dramatically and resolves. LeBlanc notes that the point at which the climax occurs is important as executing it too early could make the player feel the resolution was rushed as it needs to be in proportion and rewarding in my opinion. This drama and tension all depend on two main factors in games design: Uncertainty and inevitability.

Uncertainty and inevitability can be controlled separately by individual game mechanics, these game mechanics much be balanced in order to acquire the dramatic feel inside the game. During a game of lets say Chess, the inevitability is designed into the game in the form of a ticking clock. The ticking clock is that of the amount of player pieces the game has, this element creates a feeling of counting down to the dramatic finish to the game e.g the rise of tension and drama can easily be seen here. This game mechanics cannot create drama unless uncertainty is in the equation. Uncertainty in a game is the tool for the lack of foresight in a game so that players cannot immediately see the outcome of the game. The best way to do this is to stretch the games uncertainty for as long as possible. An example of this would be StarCraft II's fog of war, by limiting the amount of information a player has of the game, this increases the uncertainty of the game. However i must stress that these both don't work alone. If you use one without the other, the dramatic effect is not sustained.

Another set of tools that create dramatic tension is using force and illusion. I have mentioned one of these already (fog of war) but here are them explained. Being a game designer you can force the player to change the game state in a game in order to change their perception of the games situation. Using this force technique we can 'force' the games dynamics and making the player feel dramatic tension.  Illusion also creates dramatic tension by changing the players perception of the game state. By keeping something hidden such as previously mentioned, the fog of war, the player can believe that the game is ending sooner than it is, or ever later.

LeBlanc also mentions positive and negative feedback systems. These mechanics are used to manipulate the game by changing the way a player reacts to the game.

• Positive feedback is when the leader of a game gains a larger advantage than the other players which then creates tension. An example of this would be Liars Dice. A game in which rewards the winning players with the ability to see more dice in their hands than their opponents thus gives them a larger advantage over the opponents,
• Negative feedback is when the losing player gets a hidden boost or handicap towards the game which then decreases the gap between the players which then leads to increasing the uncertainty of the game outcome, resulting in dramatic tension.

This is were I will end my contribution and opinions on some tools you can use to create dramatic tension in games. Toodle pip!

LeBlanc, Marc (2006), Tools for Creating Dramatic Game Dynamics, 438-459, in:     The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology. MIT Press.

Zotero: A trial and error story. REVISED

Here is the result of a task from my lecturer Ed to construct a bibliography using the programme Zotero. Here's how it turned out:

Books

Heather Maxwell Chandler (Author)

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Chandler, Heather Maxwell, Chandler, Rafael (2010), Fundamentals of Game Development. Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Inc.

Dillon, Roberto (2010), On the Way to Fun: An Emotion-Based Approach to Successful Game Design. A K Peters/CRC Press.

Journal Articles

Jin, Seung-A Annie (2011). "I Feel Prsent. Therefore, I Experience Flow: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach to Flow and Presense in Video Games",  Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media. Vol. 55 Issue 1. 114-136

Martínez, Katynka Z. (2011). "Pac-Man meets the Minutemen: Video Games by Los Angeles Latino Youth",  National Civic Review Vol. 100 Issue 3. 50-57

Contributions

Lowood, Henry and Nitsche, Michael (Eds.) (2011), Lowood, "Video Capture: Machinima, Documentation, and the History of Virtual Worlds" The Machinima Reader. MIT Press: 3-21

This has been recently updated to meet Ed's standards of the Harvard System. Hopefully it is fixed now.