Quite a while back we had a guest lecture from John Wagland from BBFC (British Board of Film Classification). Here are my notes and what I personally thought of said talk.
First and foremost he explained that BBFC is non-government organisation which grades films and games. Local authorities can overrule the rating if wanted too. Everything that is on the blu-ray's or DVD's have to be rated through the BBFC to make sure nothing slips through, I have noticed this a few times when it says movie rated 15 but the DVD is rated 18 due to bonus content. Rating content on the DVD itself is a good idea I think as behind the scenes or extra pieces of film which may of been cut to bring down the rating before could appear on them.
The details of how many people work there have probably changed since he came and gave the talk but according to my notes there are 16 full time examiners, with various backgrounds and some obviously being able to speak foreign languages. There are 3 senior examiners too and these examiners are all split into 3 teams. Thought there would be more people as the amount of films they would have to watch must be staggering, I will touch on the amount of hours a day later on.
Duties for the examiners are obviously viewing the film, having meetings along with some team projects and pretty much the usual stuff. They have to watch over 5 1/2 hours per day of films, the order, this may seem cool to some and even as a movie buff it sounds like a decent job but the examiners log, post view guidelines and policies along with the reports to be done amoungst other things its does sound a bit harder.
BBFC don't just rate films as I said before they also rate some games. Just managed to find an example almost straight away as there is a copy of the new Mortal Kombat game rated 18 by the BBFC. When they rate the games they are given usually given game saves, level skips and the cheats, this makes the rating process quicker generally. The interaction element has to be taken into account as driving around smashing into building and shooting people in a game is different then watching it in a movie, well it is in my opinion anyway. Repetition of an event or of the same action is also a vital factor to remember when they rate games, sometimes there may only be 1-2 major blood scenes in a game rather than some which are completely filled from head to toe with blood and gore.
Here is a list of the stuff they look out for when rating films and games:
-Violence
-Foul/abusive language
-Sexual references
-Sex
-Sexual Violence
-Weapons
-Horror
-Offence
-Theme of the film/game
-Discrimination
-Drugs
-Story
-Audience
-Morals
-Artistic/educational
-Possible harm
-level of offensiveness
-Context
A long-ish list and im sure there are many more things they look out for but I only noted these down and I don't actually remember him saying any more. Obviously they should be fairly self explanatory for ratings when it comes to violence, sex drugs etc.. It is interesting to see what exactly they look out for and after having the lecture I seem more aware of the rating on games and movies. Personally the best lecture of the year for me as I am thoroughly interested in this sort of thing.
Thursday, 5 May 2011
Bibliography, bit late but hey its here! :P
Book items.
Braithwaite, B. & Schreiber, I., 2008. Challenges for Games Designers Non-Digital Exercises for Video Game Designers, Boston: Course Technology.
Trefry, G., 2010. Casual Game Design Designing Play for the Gamer in All of Us, Burlington: Morgan Kaufmann.
Contributions
Corneliussen, H.G., 2008. Digital Culture, Play and Identity A World of Warcraft Reader, Rettberg, Walker J. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press.
Wolf, M.J.P., 2003. The Video Game Theory Reader, Perron, Bernard,. London: Routledge.
Articles
Venturelli, M. 2009. Space of Possibility and Pacing in Casual Game Design: A PopCap Case Study. VIII Brazilian Symposium on Games and Digital Entertainment.
Anon, Playstation hack: timeline of huge security breach. Telegraph.co.uk. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/sony/8495072/Playstation-hack-timeline-of-huge-security-breach.html [Accessed May 5, 2011].
Anon, Samsung to launch Chrome OS laptops at Google I/O. Telegraph.co.uk. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/8493947/Samsung-to-launch-Chrome-OS-laptops-at-Google-IO.html [Accessed May 5, 2011].
I think these are all correct havn't really used Zotero too much before.
Braithwaite, B. & Schreiber, I., 2008. Challenges for Games Designers Non-Digital Exercises for Video Game Designers, Boston: Course Technology.
Trefry, G., 2010. Casual Game Design Designing Play for the Gamer in All of Us, Burlington: Morgan Kaufmann.
Contributions
Corneliussen, H.G., 2008. Digital Culture, Play and Identity A World of Warcraft Reader, Rettberg, Walker J. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press.
Wolf, M.J.P., 2003. The Video Game Theory Reader, Perron, Bernard,. London: Routledge.
Articles
Venturelli, M. 2009. Space of Possibility and Pacing in Casual Game Design: A PopCap Case Study. VIII Brazilian Symposium on Games and Digital Entertainment.
Anon, Playstation hack: timeline of huge security breach. Telegraph.co.uk. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/sony/8495072/Playstation-hack-timeline-of-huge-security-breach.html [Accessed May 5, 2011].
Anon, Samsung to launch Chrome OS laptops at Google I/O. Telegraph.co.uk. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/8493947/Samsung-to-launch-Chrome-OS-laptops-at-Google-IO.html [Accessed May 5, 2011].
I think these are all correct havn't really used Zotero too much before.
Wednesday, 4 May 2011
Formal abstract design tools notes
Doug Church’s article ‘Formal Abstract Design Tools’ is certainly one of the more helpful readings I have read this year. These are my notes regarding the article which has been expanded on and written up. Church talks about intention, story and perceivable consequence within the article, as well as some other stuff which I will cover too.
Firstly ‘intention’, in his words ‘Making an implementable plan of one's own creation in response to the current situation in the game world and one's understanding of the game play options.’ He describes intention within games as important tool to draw the player in along with perceivable consequence. Church sums up by saying when the player attempts a task and it fails they are likely to realise why they screwed it up.
Perceivable consequence follows up on this as it is used to show the player what the game would do if a certain action is performed, he says the feedback is generally visual e.g when you shoot your gun in Battlefield if you are pointing towards an enemy you know the game will react by killing the enemy once you press the button to shoot. Games which use this all the time wouldn’t be much fun just as Church said. Some outcomes need to be random or unknown in order for the player to be more involved, the example of ‘the player may decide to stay the night at an inn, and the next morning he may be ambushed. Now, it may be that the designers built this in the code or design of the game. ("We don't want people staying in town too much, so if they start staying at the inn too often, let's ambush them.") However, that causality is not perceivable by the player. While it may be an actual consequence, to the player it appears random.’ As he describes here designer may often include some outcome which are an actual consequence of the players actions but are completely unknown to the player therefore randomness is playing in the mind of the user. In role playing games players actions do not always have the same consequence as there are generally so many tasks and other things to do. This is common place within role playing games as it keeps the game fresh and is needed for the certain game genre.
Story is next on the list, This may seem obvious to be a main tool to use when making a game since a usually a good story makes a good game. Church talks about two methods of narrative one which is designer driven that binds events together in a certain sequence making the game linear, and the other player driven narrative which is when the story can change depending on the player actions within the game itself. When the story is well made and superbly done it as I said before lead to a fantastic game. When reading through my notes and the article itself again I was thinking about sandbox games and how these could be rendered under player driven stories if there is no actually story to them at first glance but the players makes a whole story up themselves. The Mount and Blade series is an example of this, in single player you are allowed to roam around capturing castles and slaying whoever you want. You can choose to make your own kingdom or join one already made, there is absolutely no story what so ever but it is so easy for imagination to set in and you target certain parties or do other stuff to flow with the story or your game.
Church at the start of the article explains some of the thinking behind making some games, he says designers often think if old ideas can be transformed into a 3d simulation and whether the game is actually going to be fun or not. As well as saying they don’t use words like fun or not fun they dissect the word and go into depth about what makes the game exciting for a certain range of people.
Overall this is an excellent article to read, and I thoroughly recommend anyone interested in games development to do so. I do understand I am crap at taking notes and writing up my ideas on an article but I hope this is ok :P It may be a bit old but I feel it can still relate to the current day.
Said article can be found here:
Doug Church, (1999), Formal Abstract Design Tools, Gamasutra
Firstly ‘intention’, in his words ‘Making an implementable plan of one's own creation in response to the current situation in the game world and one's understanding of the game play options.’ He describes intention within games as important tool to draw the player in along with perceivable consequence. Church sums up by saying when the player attempts a task and it fails they are likely to realise why they screwed it up.
Perceivable consequence follows up on this as it is used to show the player what the game would do if a certain action is performed, he says the feedback is generally visual e.g when you shoot your gun in Battlefield if you are pointing towards an enemy you know the game will react by killing the enemy once you press the button to shoot. Games which use this all the time wouldn’t be much fun just as Church said. Some outcomes need to be random or unknown in order for the player to be more involved, the example of ‘the player may decide to stay the night at an inn, and the next morning he may be ambushed. Now, it may be that the designers built this in the code or design of the game. ("We don't want people staying in town too much, so if they start staying at the inn too often, let's ambush them.") However, that causality is not perceivable by the player. While it may be an actual consequence, to the player it appears random.’ As he describes here designer may often include some outcome which are an actual consequence of the players actions but are completely unknown to the player therefore randomness is playing in the mind of the user. In role playing games players actions do not always have the same consequence as there are generally so many tasks and other things to do. This is common place within role playing games as it keeps the game fresh and is needed for the certain game genre.
Story is next on the list, This may seem obvious to be a main tool to use when making a game since a usually a good story makes a good game. Church talks about two methods of narrative one which is designer driven that binds events together in a certain sequence making the game linear, and the other player driven narrative which is when the story can change depending on the player actions within the game itself. When the story is well made and superbly done it as I said before lead to a fantastic game. When reading through my notes and the article itself again I was thinking about sandbox games and how these could be rendered under player driven stories if there is no actually story to them at first glance but the players makes a whole story up themselves. The Mount and Blade series is an example of this, in single player you are allowed to roam around capturing castles and slaying whoever you want. You can choose to make your own kingdom or join one already made, there is absolutely no story what so ever but it is so easy for imagination to set in and you target certain parties or do other stuff to flow with the story or your game.
Church at the start of the article explains some of the thinking behind making some games, he says designers often think if old ideas can be transformed into a 3d simulation and whether the game is actually going to be fun or not. As well as saying they don’t use words like fun or not fun they dissect the word and go into depth about what makes the game exciting for a certain range of people.
Overall this is an excellent article to read, and I thoroughly recommend anyone interested in games development to do so. I do understand I am crap at taking notes and writing up my ideas on an article but I hope this is ok :P It may be a bit old but I feel it can still relate to the current day.
Said article can be found here:
Doug Church, (1999), Formal Abstract Design Tools, Gamasutra
Issues faced when designing a Key Stage One game.
This is my essay for the 2nd assignment, just thought I would post it on here as I already have my draft on here too.
With particular reference to the readings you have undertaken this year what are the major design issues you have faced in developing a game for Key Stage 1 children
There are many ideas and methods I gathered from the earlier readings in the year to go forward with the key stage 1 game, for instance weather the game play mechanics are suitable for the sort of ‘fun’ a child would look for in an educational game and if it too easy that there is no struggle. I will go into depth on these along with some more readings which correspond with the struggles and design of our key stage 1 game. I will be using Greg Costikyan ‘I have no words I must design’ (2002), to reference about the design issues we faced along with Noah Falstein’s article called ‘Natural Funativity’ (2004)
Firstly the game we made had some constraints such as it being targeted towards key stage one children. When my particular concept of an archer shooting down balloons with letters in them to spell a word was put into where the design faze started and I thought it would be easy to create the game as I already had the idea but there were some major design issues which we came across. I will start off by looking at the Costikyan article where he writes about that Goals, structure, struggle and endogenous meaning. One of the many things he says in the article is ‘The structure, like the plot, is invented as needed – but kids do feel the need for structure, at times ’ (Costikyan, 2002) we took this and a lot of what he said about structure in the article to make sure we have a well-structured game, we decided that a decent structure backed up by an important story will be important for the game so that it becomes an enjoyable game which children would like to play rather than some of the educational games which can be lacking in uninteresting to some children of that age. The structure was going to be obvious from the outset and this problem was ironed out fairly quickly after some discussions over how it would be done. We decided on keeping it simple but try to keep the children entertained at the same time, so one item clicked and the bubbles coming down to spell the words was the final idea we went with along with background which should draw them into the game.
When Costikyan writes that Goals, structure, struggle and endogenous meaning are all needed when constructing a successful game we obviously took all the points into consideration. I have already spoken about the structural issue we faced so taking into account of the other points we did have some issues surrounding the goals of the game. The goal of the normal levels of the game was clear at first but after going into more detail with the coding we came across some simple things like how many words should be spelt in order to advance to the next level and others like I said before if the goal is actually achievable for children in the lower age bracket of Key Stage One. We had to come up with some answers to these problems and for the words we simply mixed them up so there are enough 3, 4 and 5 letter words on each level therefore hopefully allowing a child to spell a 3 or 4 letter world if they cannot spell the 5 letter word. Adding the variety in the words so children from 5-7 can all play the game was key as it’s designed to be for the whole of Key Stage One rather than just 5 or 7 year olds. The overall goal/final boss goal was to shoot the evil wizards name which in-turn ended up destroying him, his name would be jumbled up in bubbles floating around him. We wanted to have a climatic ending that made the game finish off on a high along with it being more on the game and fun side of things rather than just a flashing “Well Done for completing the game” at the end. For the child to have a slight change in game mechanic to avoid being bored of the same thing level after level was another aim for the boss level and final goal, at first we even wanted a simple mini boss to break up the game play too with the possible goal of having to knock him off a bridge. The mini boss goal would have been to knock him off a bridge into a lake or something which seemed child friendly; this would have the same goal of just scrapping the education side of things to break up game play as the mechanic would be changed just for one level. Time constraints however hindered the progress of these extra two levels, the mini boss was cut not too long into development as it just simply didn’t add too much in terms of how much work was need to put it in. The final boss was cut fairly near the end after some hiccups with the code, it did go from being still on for development to being scrapped quite a few times but about a month from the end as it just didn’t seem possible after some other bugs came up.
Seeing the two boss levels cut strengthened the cut scenes importance in order for the story to come across still. This didn’t cause too many problems apart from the script which was made slightly earlier in production being edited slightly to compensate for the bosses.
Struggle within the game was fairly important too as it was designed for Key Stage One children learning to spell. We didn’t want extremely easy words which they all knew as we thought it may bore the children getting the words spelt every time and it being an educational game we wanted to challenge them so they could perhaps learn a new word which is the goal of the game after all to teach children how to spell 3, 4 and 5 letter words just using the game medium as a method of doing so. The issue we faced with struggle was how to find some words which where a range from fairly easy to somewhat hard we think for a 5-7 year old. Being adults all over the age of 18 made this even harder, the thinking and research became incredibly important as we needed to get the correct item as the whole game depended on spelling and the children need to know what they are spelling. After many days of deliberation we started jotting down some words here and there trying to come up with some suitable ones, luckily we could test some of the words as another group member has a child at the age of 6 which was ideal. Once we heard this news thinking of some words became a bit harder as some of the suggestions seemed to be tricky. This is where the research came into play; we looked at similar spelling games which were aimed at the same age range to help with the sort of words which could be used.
Another issue we faced was the idea whether or not the child would actually find the game fun and enjoyable as we wanted to come up with something that didn’t feel like an educational game to play but in the end it was. In ‘Natural Funativity’ by Falstein he goes on to say under physical fun ‘Our primary urge is the survival instinct. Anything that directly threatens our survival automatically commands our full attention. It's not surprising that games, and in fact most of entertainment, use themes of survival to similarly capture the attention of players.’ (Costikyan, 2002) And under the heading mental fun he states ‘Even though we use our intelligence with physical and social fun, there is an entire set of entertainment activities including quite a few video games which focuses primarily on mental fun. We practice and improve our mental abilities in our leisure time just as we exercise our muscles and build social relationships’ – (Costikyan, 2002) The idea of having turning the concept of an archer shooting game which would come under the physical fun means the primeval instinct of shooting something and attacking, which seems to be more so in males into a mental challenge and mentally fun was a good idea. Mental fun is perfect in making the game a decent educational game that seems to be enjoyable at the same time, crossing physical and mental fun to make a game which rekindled some of the primeval instincts of fighting and those of mental challenges. Obviously being a children’s game we could have anything too dangerous or inappropriate so even something simple like when you click on the dog or a bird so you can spell the item an arrow doesn’t fire which may seem trivial but had to be done for a children’s game. Lots of issues about the game being suitable for children while still having some of the physical fun elements to it was thought about as no one had paid much attention to games of this sort before. This was probably was the biggest issue we had when designing the Key Stage One game as if it too dull or just not actually suitable for the children we would have failed. Reading into what Falstein said we decided to go along more of the mental route and keeping the physical fun to just the archer and some of the backgrounds in being adapted to that. Due to the game being a spelling game the mental fun is a big issue we decided on having 3-5 letter words because the research done had shown us they should be comfortably is able to spell those words. Having some 3 letter words and some 5 letter words in one stage was important for the fun too otherwise if a young Key Stage One child played the game and could only spell either 3 or 4 letter words that would be fine too.
In conclusion the articles we read throughout the year were a huge help in finding the solutions to some of the issues we faced, this may have been because it was the first proper game which we all worked on so some of the issues may be realised second time around. In particular though the Greg Costikyan article called ‘I Have No Words I Must Design’ was the biggest help in terms of games design in my eyes as it stated what successful games all have and what sort of things make up every day games. I felt the ‘Natural Funativity’ article was also a good read and help as I never thought of how fun the game concept was or if it would actually appeal to children. Luckily along with reading the other article from Costikyan we were able to figure out from our initial design if it was viable to make an education game which was actually fun as after we played some of the other education games they seemed just question based and to be frank fairly boring. We wanted to stray away from the traditional education game to make it fun as well as being educational so hopefully they would learn while they play.
Greg Costikyan, (2002), I Have No Words I Must Design, Costik
http://www.costik.com/nowords2002.pdf
Noah Falstein (2004) , Natural Funativity, - Gamasutra
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2160/natural_funativity.php
Wordcount 1919
With particular reference to the readings you have undertaken this year what are the major design issues you have faced in developing a game for Key Stage 1 children
There are many ideas and methods I gathered from the earlier readings in the year to go forward with the key stage 1 game, for instance weather the game play mechanics are suitable for the sort of ‘fun’ a child would look for in an educational game and if it too easy that there is no struggle. I will go into depth on these along with some more readings which correspond with the struggles and design of our key stage 1 game. I will be using Greg Costikyan ‘I have no words I must design’ (2002), to reference about the design issues we faced along with Noah Falstein’s article called ‘Natural Funativity’ (2004)
Firstly the game we made had some constraints such as it being targeted towards key stage one children. When my particular concept of an archer shooting down balloons with letters in them to spell a word was put into where the design faze started and I thought it would be easy to create the game as I already had the idea but there were some major design issues which we came across. I will start off by looking at the Costikyan article where he writes about that Goals, structure, struggle and endogenous meaning. One of the many things he says in the article is ‘The structure, like the plot, is invented as needed – but kids do feel the need for structure, at times ’ (Costikyan, 2002) we took this and a lot of what he said about structure in the article to make sure we have a well-structured game, we decided that a decent structure backed up by an important story will be important for the game so that it becomes an enjoyable game which children would like to play rather than some of the educational games which can be lacking in uninteresting to some children of that age. The structure was going to be obvious from the outset and this problem was ironed out fairly quickly after some discussions over how it would be done. We decided on keeping it simple but try to keep the children entertained at the same time, so one item clicked and the bubbles coming down to spell the words was the final idea we went with along with background which should draw them into the game.
When Costikyan writes that Goals, structure, struggle and endogenous meaning are all needed when constructing a successful game we obviously took all the points into consideration. I have already spoken about the structural issue we faced so taking into account of the other points we did have some issues surrounding the goals of the game. The goal of the normal levels of the game was clear at first but after going into more detail with the coding we came across some simple things like how many words should be spelt in order to advance to the next level and others like I said before if the goal is actually achievable for children in the lower age bracket of Key Stage One. We had to come up with some answers to these problems and for the words we simply mixed them up so there are enough 3, 4 and 5 letter words on each level therefore hopefully allowing a child to spell a 3 or 4 letter world if they cannot spell the 5 letter word. Adding the variety in the words so children from 5-7 can all play the game was key as it’s designed to be for the whole of Key Stage One rather than just 5 or 7 year olds. The overall goal/final boss goal was to shoot the evil wizards name which in-turn ended up destroying him, his name would be jumbled up in bubbles floating around him. We wanted to have a climatic ending that made the game finish off on a high along with it being more on the game and fun side of things rather than just a flashing “Well Done for completing the game” at the end. For the child to have a slight change in game mechanic to avoid being bored of the same thing level after level was another aim for the boss level and final goal, at first we even wanted a simple mini boss to break up the game play too with the possible goal of having to knock him off a bridge. The mini boss goal would have been to knock him off a bridge into a lake or something which seemed child friendly; this would have the same goal of just scrapping the education side of things to break up game play as the mechanic would be changed just for one level. Time constraints however hindered the progress of these extra two levels, the mini boss was cut not too long into development as it just simply didn’t add too much in terms of how much work was need to put it in. The final boss was cut fairly near the end after some hiccups with the code, it did go from being still on for development to being scrapped quite a few times but about a month from the end as it just didn’t seem possible after some other bugs came up.
Seeing the two boss levels cut strengthened the cut scenes importance in order for the story to come across still. This didn’t cause too many problems apart from the script which was made slightly earlier in production being edited slightly to compensate for the bosses.
Struggle within the game was fairly important too as it was designed for Key Stage One children learning to spell. We didn’t want extremely easy words which they all knew as we thought it may bore the children getting the words spelt every time and it being an educational game we wanted to challenge them so they could perhaps learn a new word which is the goal of the game after all to teach children how to spell 3, 4 and 5 letter words just using the game medium as a method of doing so. The issue we faced with struggle was how to find some words which where a range from fairly easy to somewhat hard we think for a 5-7 year old. Being adults all over the age of 18 made this even harder, the thinking and research became incredibly important as we needed to get the correct item as the whole game depended on spelling and the children need to know what they are spelling. After many days of deliberation we started jotting down some words here and there trying to come up with some suitable ones, luckily we could test some of the words as another group member has a child at the age of 6 which was ideal. Once we heard this news thinking of some words became a bit harder as some of the suggestions seemed to be tricky. This is where the research came into play; we looked at similar spelling games which were aimed at the same age range to help with the sort of words which could be used.
Another issue we faced was the idea whether or not the child would actually find the game fun and enjoyable as we wanted to come up with something that didn’t feel like an educational game to play but in the end it was. In ‘Natural Funativity’ by Falstein he goes on to say under physical fun ‘Our primary urge is the survival instinct. Anything that directly threatens our survival automatically commands our full attention. It's not surprising that games, and in fact most of entertainment, use themes of survival to similarly capture the attention of players.’ (Costikyan, 2002) And under the heading mental fun he states ‘Even though we use our intelligence with physical and social fun, there is an entire set of entertainment activities including quite a few video games which focuses primarily on mental fun. We practice and improve our mental abilities in our leisure time just as we exercise our muscles and build social relationships’ – (Costikyan, 2002) The idea of having turning the concept of an archer shooting game which would come under the physical fun means the primeval instinct of shooting something and attacking, which seems to be more so in males into a mental challenge and mentally fun was a good idea. Mental fun is perfect in making the game a decent educational game that seems to be enjoyable at the same time, crossing physical and mental fun to make a game which rekindled some of the primeval instincts of fighting and those of mental challenges. Obviously being a children’s game we could have anything too dangerous or inappropriate so even something simple like when you click on the dog or a bird so you can spell the item an arrow doesn’t fire which may seem trivial but had to be done for a children’s game. Lots of issues about the game being suitable for children while still having some of the physical fun elements to it was thought about as no one had paid much attention to games of this sort before. This was probably was the biggest issue we had when designing the Key Stage One game as if it too dull or just not actually suitable for the children we would have failed. Reading into what Falstein said we decided to go along more of the mental route and keeping the physical fun to just the archer and some of the backgrounds in being adapted to that. Due to the game being a spelling game the mental fun is a big issue we decided on having 3-5 letter words because the research done had shown us they should be comfortably is able to spell those words. Having some 3 letter words and some 5 letter words in one stage was important for the fun too otherwise if a young Key Stage One child played the game and could only spell either 3 or 4 letter words that would be fine too.
In conclusion the articles we read throughout the year were a huge help in finding the solutions to some of the issues we faced, this may have been because it was the first proper game which we all worked on so some of the issues may be realised second time around. In particular though the Greg Costikyan article called ‘I Have No Words I Must Design’ was the biggest help in terms of games design in my eyes as it stated what successful games all have and what sort of things make up every day games. I felt the ‘Natural Funativity’ article was also a good read and help as I never thought of how fun the game concept was or if it would actually appeal to children. Luckily along with reading the other article from Costikyan we were able to figure out from our initial design if it was viable to make an education game which was actually fun as after we played some of the other education games they seemed just question based and to be frank fairly boring. We wanted to stray away from the traditional education game to make it fun as well as being educational so hopefully they would learn while they play.
Greg Costikyan, (2002), I Have No Words I Must Design, Costik
http://www.costik.com/nowords2002.pdf
Noah Falstein (2004) , Natural Funativity, - Gamasutra
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2160/natural_funativity.php
Wordcount 1919
I have no words I must design "notes"
These are my notes which I took while reading the article.
Costikyan talks about struggle, structure, endogenous meaning and goals within this article. Firstly is the goals and these are important to some games as the whole game revolves around completing tasks and goals. Some of the most obvious in games are in MMO’s as the goal is to advance levels and become the best player online, in online fps the general goal is to stay alive and kill everyone else usually. Games like Sim City and Football Manager don’t have true goals set with the game like go to this place, collect 100 coins or something like that or even goals which can be obvious like kill everyone. These are called ‘pointless games’ which can seem a bit harsh but you do create the goals yourself so it may seem pointless. As a huge Football Manager fan I think even though simulation games do not have clear goals they can still have user created goals and are enjoyable for some. He also goes on to say players always want something to do and players should be allowed to pick their own goals in games. This is evident in most simulation games and along with rpg’s as there are usually so many side quests and goals the player is able to choose what ones to do but they still have to complete the main ones to finish the game.
He then talks about struggle in games and how a game without struggle is dead. Struggle in games are vital as without it they would be boring and the player would leave after 5 minutes. He also says struggle isn’t always good in games players want a sense of achievement or mastery eventually so they feel something has been accomplished. I believe this to be true of course as players always want to feel they have completed something in a game rather than just play through everything with ease.
Structure is the next thing he talks about and how a good structure is pivitol for a game to be successful. Good structure allows the player to take many possible paths and methods of playing the game and this can appeal to a wide audience therefore making the game more popular which can also mean it’s better. I agree with what he is saying, I just think of an rpg or mmo and how boring it would be if you only done one task at a time and everyone had to be the same character or class, for example in Dragon Age 2 it would be less appealing if everyone had to be a rouge, warrior or mage.
Last but not least he talks about endogenous meaning, which is when something is important in the game but not elsewhere for example someone buying a super duper fantastic sword of doom on ebay so they can use it in game. Personally I never thought about these sorts of things beforehand but there are tons of examples if you think about it, just take the hugely successful valve hat store for tf2 along with the weapon store they have. Allowing players to buy something which customises the character is clearly something which appeals to games companies as Costikyan says as it is important factor to look into when making a game, as it adds replay ability when characters are customised as well as making the player more involved and drawn in.
I will be adding my notes from quite 5-6 other readings/guest lectures I have experience over the last 8 or so months in the coming days.
Costikyan talks about struggle, structure, endogenous meaning and goals within this article. Firstly is the goals and these are important to some games as the whole game revolves around completing tasks and goals. Some of the most obvious in games are in MMO’s as the goal is to advance levels and become the best player online, in online fps the general goal is to stay alive and kill everyone else usually. Games like Sim City and Football Manager don’t have true goals set with the game like go to this place, collect 100 coins or something like that or even goals which can be obvious like kill everyone. These are called ‘pointless games’ which can seem a bit harsh but you do create the goals yourself so it may seem pointless. As a huge Football Manager fan I think even though simulation games do not have clear goals they can still have user created goals and are enjoyable for some. He also goes on to say players always want something to do and players should be allowed to pick their own goals in games. This is evident in most simulation games and along with rpg’s as there are usually so many side quests and goals the player is able to choose what ones to do but they still have to complete the main ones to finish the game.
He then talks about struggle in games and how a game without struggle is dead. Struggle in games are vital as without it they would be boring and the player would leave after 5 minutes. He also says struggle isn’t always good in games players want a sense of achievement or mastery eventually so they feel something has been accomplished. I believe this to be true of course as players always want to feel they have completed something in a game rather than just play through everything with ease.
Structure is the next thing he talks about and how a good structure is pivitol for a game to be successful. Good structure allows the player to take many possible paths and methods of playing the game and this can appeal to a wide audience therefore making the game more popular which can also mean it’s better. I agree with what he is saying, I just think of an rpg or mmo and how boring it would be if you only done one task at a time and everyone had to be the same character or class, for example in Dragon Age 2 it would be less appealing if everyone had to be a rouge, warrior or mage.
Last but not least he talks about endogenous meaning, which is when something is important in the game but not elsewhere for example someone buying a super duper fantastic sword of doom on ebay so they can use it in game. Personally I never thought about these sorts of things beforehand but there are tons of examples if you think about it, just take the hugely successful valve hat store for tf2 along with the weapon store they have. Allowing players to buy something which customises the character is clearly something which appeals to games companies as Costikyan says as it is important factor to look into when making a game, as it adds replay ability when characters are customised as well as making the player more involved and drawn in.
I will be adding my notes from quite 5-6 other readings/guest lectures I have experience over the last 8 or so months in the coming days.
Friday, 22 April 2011
Issues faced when designing a Key Stage One game.
With particular reference to the readings you have undertaken this year what are the major design issues you have faced in developing a game for Key Stage 1 children
There are many ideas and methods I gathered from the earlier readings in the year to go forward with the key stage 1 game, for instance weather the gameplay mechanics are suitable for the sort of ‘fun’ a child would look for in an educational game and if it too easy that there is no struggle. I will go into depth on these along with some more readings which correspond with the struggles and design of our key stage 1 game. I will be using Greg Costikyan ‘I have no words I must design’(2002), Doug Church’s ‘Formal abstract design tools’(1999) to reference about the design issues we faced along with Noah Falstein’s article called ‘Natural Funativity’(2004)
Firstly the game we made had some constraints such as it being targeted towards key stage one children. When after my particular concept of an archer shooting down balloons with letters in them to spell a word we were put into where the design faze started and 6 people who have barely met before certainly would have difference of opinions so getting an overall concept which everyone was happy with became a problem at first but after research and some of the reading we remembered helped us such. Costikyan states ‘The structure, like the plot, is invented as needed – but kids do feel the need for structure, at times’ we took this and a lot of what he said about structure in the article, we decided that a decent structure backed up by an important story will be important for the game so that it becomes an enjoyable game which children would like to play rather than some of the educational games which can be uninteresting to some children of that age. The structure was going to be obvious from the outset and this problem was ironed out fairly quickly after some discussions over how it would be done. We decided on keeping it simple but try to keep the children entertained at the same time, so one item clicked and the bubbles coming down to spell the words was the final idea we went with along with background which should draw them into the game.
Another issue we faced was the idea whether or not the child would actually find the game fun and enjoyable as we wanted to come up with something that didn’t feel like an educational game to play but in the end it was. In ‘Natural Funativity’ by Falstein he goes on to say under physical fun ‘Our primary urge is the survival instinct. Anything that directly threatens our survival automatically commands our full attention. It's not surprising that games, and in fact most of entertainment, use themes of survival to similarly capture the attention of players.’ And under the heading mental fun he states ‘Even though we use our intelligence with physical and social fun, there is an entire set of entertainment activities including quite a few video games which focuses primarily on mental fun. We practice and improve our mental abilities in our leisure time just as we exercise our muscles and build social relationships’ The idea of having turning the concept of an archer shooting game which would come under the physical fun means the primeval instinct of shooting something and attacking, which seems to be more so in males into a mental challenge and mentally fun was a good idea. Mental fun is perfect in making the game a decent educational game that seems to be enjoyable at the same time, crossing physical and mental fun to make a game which rekindled some of the primeval instincts of fighting and those of mental challenges. Obviously being a children’s game we could have anything too dangerous or inappropriate so even something simple like when you click on the dog or a bird so you can spell the item an arrow doesn’t fire which may seem trivial but had to be done for a children’s game. Lots of issues about the game being suitable for children while still having some of the physical fun elements to it was thought about as no one had paid much attention to games of this sort before. This was probably was the biggest issue we had when designing the Key Stage One game as if it too dull or just not actually suitable for the children we would have failed. Reading into what Falstein said we decided to go along more of the mental route and keeping the physical fun to just the archer and some of the backgrounds in being adapted to that. Due to the game being a spelling game the mental fun is a big issue we decided on having 3-5 letter words because the research done had shown us they should be comfortably is able to spell those words. Having some 3 letter words and some 5 letter words in one stage was important for the fun too otherwise if a young Key Stage One child played the game and could only spell either 3 or 4 letter words that would be fine too.
Costikyan writes that Goals, structure, struggle and endogenous meaning are to be considered when trying to make any successful game. I have already spoken about the structural issue we faced so taking into account of the other points we did have some issues surrounding the goals of the game. The goal of the normal levels of the game we obvious at first but after going into more detail with the coding we came across some simple thing like how many words should be spelt in order to advance to the next level and others like I said before if the goal is actually achievable for children in the lower age bracket of Key Stage One. Mixing up the words so there are enough 3, 4 and 5 letter words on each level was key. The overall goal/final boss goal was to be to shoot the evil wizards name which is jumbled up in bubbles floating around him, this also goes back to the physical fun and hunting or destroying something evil. We wanted to have a climatic ending that made the game end on a high along with it being more on the game and fun side of things rather than education just to finish off. For the child to have a slight change in game mechanic to avoid being bored was another aim for the boss level and final goal, at first we wanted a mini boss to break up the gameplay too with the possible goal of having to knock him off a bridge. The mini boss would very much tone into the physical fun again which was a popular idea at the time, as the overall goal for the game was to have something exciting to play while being educational at the same time. Time constraints hindered the progress of these extra two levels, the mini boss being cut not too long into development but the final boss was cut near the end after some hiccups with the code. Therefore getting the goals and story of the game would have to be played out in another method.
Seeing the two boss levels cut strengthened the cut scenes importance in order for the story to come across still. This didn’t cause too many problems apart from the script which was made slightly earlier in production being edited slightly to compensate for the bosses.
A big issue we faced from the beginning actually was what items we were going to have for the children to spell; this being a huge issue certainly would halt development if not done quickly. Being adults all over the age of 18 made this even harder, the thinking and research became incredibly important as we needed to get the correct item as the whole game depended on spelling and the children need to know what they are spelling. After many days of deliberation we started jotting down some words here and there trying to come up with some suitable ones, luckily we could test some of the words as another group member has a child at the age of 6 which was ideal. Once we heard this news thinking of some words became a bit harder as some of the suggestions seemed to be tricky. This is where the research came into play, we looked at similar spelling games which were aimed at the same age range to help with the sort of words which could be used.
Greg Costikyan, (2002), I Have No Words I Must Design, Costik
http://www.costik.com/nowords2002.pdf
Noah Falstein (2004) , Natural Funativity, - Gamasutra
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2160/natural_funativity.php
Doug Church, (1999), Formal Abstract Design Tools - Gamasutra, http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3357/formal_abstract_design_tools.php
This is still a draft of the essay and i will include more quotes and expand on a few more points over the next few days.
There are many ideas and methods I gathered from the earlier readings in the year to go forward with the key stage 1 game, for instance weather the gameplay mechanics are suitable for the sort of ‘fun’ a child would look for in an educational game and if it too easy that there is no struggle. I will go into depth on these along with some more readings which correspond with the struggles and design of our key stage 1 game. I will be using Greg Costikyan ‘I have no words I must design’(2002), Doug Church’s ‘Formal abstract design tools’(1999) to reference about the design issues we faced along with Noah Falstein’s article called ‘Natural Funativity’(2004)
Firstly the game we made had some constraints such as it being targeted towards key stage one children. When after my particular concept of an archer shooting down balloons with letters in them to spell a word we were put into where the design faze started and 6 people who have barely met before certainly would have difference of opinions so getting an overall concept which everyone was happy with became a problem at first but after research and some of the reading we remembered helped us such. Costikyan states ‘The structure, like the plot, is invented as needed – but kids do feel the need for structure, at times’ we took this and a lot of what he said about structure in the article, we decided that a decent structure backed up by an important story will be important for the game so that it becomes an enjoyable game which children would like to play rather than some of the educational games which can be uninteresting to some children of that age. The structure was going to be obvious from the outset and this problem was ironed out fairly quickly after some discussions over how it would be done. We decided on keeping it simple but try to keep the children entertained at the same time, so one item clicked and the bubbles coming down to spell the words was the final idea we went with along with background which should draw them into the game.
Another issue we faced was the idea whether or not the child would actually find the game fun and enjoyable as we wanted to come up with something that didn’t feel like an educational game to play but in the end it was. In ‘Natural Funativity’ by Falstein he goes on to say under physical fun ‘Our primary urge is the survival instinct. Anything that directly threatens our survival automatically commands our full attention. It's not surprising that games, and in fact most of entertainment, use themes of survival to similarly capture the attention of players.’ And under the heading mental fun he states ‘Even though we use our intelligence with physical and social fun, there is an entire set of entertainment activities including quite a few video games which focuses primarily on mental fun. We practice and improve our mental abilities in our leisure time just as we exercise our muscles and build social relationships’ The idea of having turning the concept of an archer shooting game which would come under the physical fun means the primeval instinct of shooting something and attacking, which seems to be more so in males into a mental challenge and mentally fun was a good idea. Mental fun is perfect in making the game a decent educational game that seems to be enjoyable at the same time, crossing physical and mental fun to make a game which rekindled some of the primeval instincts of fighting and those of mental challenges. Obviously being a children’s game we could have anything too dangerous or inappropriate so even something simple like when you click on the dog or a bird so you can spell the item an arrow doesn’t fire which may seem trivial but had to be done for a children’s game. Lots of issues about the game being suitable for children while still having some of the physical fun elements to it was thought about as no one had paid much attention to games of this sort before. This was probably was the biggest issue we had when designing the Key Stage One game as if it too dull or just not actually suitable for the children we would have failed. Reading into what Falstein said we decided to go along more of the mental route and keeping the physical fun to just the archer and some of the backgrounds in being adapted to that. Due to the game being a spelling game the mental fun is a big issue we decided on having 3-5 letter words because the research done had shown us they should be comfortably is able to spell those words. Having some 3 letter words and some 5 letter words in one stage was important for the fun too otherwise if a young Key Stage One child played the game and could only spell either 3 or 4 letter words that would be fine too.
Costikyan writes that Goals, structure, struggle and endogenous meaning are to be considered when trying to make any successful game. I have already spoken about the structural issue we faced so taking into account of the other points we did have some issues surrounding the goals of the game. The goal of the normal levels of the game we obvious at first but after going into more detail with the coding we came across some simple thing like how many words should be spelt in order to advance to the next level and others like I said before if the goal is actually achievable for children in the lower age bracket of Key Stage One. Mixing up the words so there are enough 3, 4 and 5 letter words on each level was key. The overall goal/final boss goal was to be to shoot the evil wizards name which is jumbled up in bubbles floating around him, this also goes back to the physical fun and hunting or destroying something evil. We wanted to have a climatic ending that made the game end on a high along with it being more on the game and fun side of things rather than education just to finish off. For the child to have a slight change in game mechanic to avoid being bored was another aim for the boss level and final goal, at first we wanted a mini boss to break up the gameplay too with the possible goal of having to knock him off a bridge. The mini boss would very much tone into the physical fun again which was a popular idea at the time, as the overall goal for the game was to have something exciting to play while being educational at the same time. Time constraints hindered the progress of these extra two levels, the mini boss being cut not too long into development but the final boss was cut near the end after some hiccups with the code. Therefore getting the goals and story of the game would have to be played out in another method.
Seeing the two boss levels cut strengthened the cut scenes importance in order for the story to come across still. This didn’t cause too many problems apart from the script which was made slightly earlier in production being edited slightly to compensate for the bosses.
A big issue we faced from the beginning actually was what items we were going to have for the children to spell; this being a huge issue certainly would halt development if not done quickly. Being adults all over the age of 18 made this even harder, the thinking and research became incredibly important as we needed to get the correct item as the whole game depended on spelling and the children need to know what they are spelling. After many days of deliberation we started jotting down some words here and there trying to come up with some suitable ones, luckily we could test some of the words as another group member has a child at the age of 6 which was ideal. Once we heard this news thinking of some words became a bit harder as some of the suggestions seemed to be tricky. This is where the research came into play, we looked at similar spelling games which were aimed at the same age range to help with the sort of words which could be used.
Greg Costikyan, (2002), I Have No Words I Must Design, Costik
http://www.costik.com/nowords2002.pdf
Noah Falstein (2004) , Natural Funativity, - Gamasutra
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2160/natural_funativity.php
Doug Church, (1999), Formal Abstract Design Tools - Gamasutra, http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3357/formal_abstract_design_tools.php
This is still a draft of the essay and i will include more quotes and expand on a few more points over the next few days.
Monday, 4 April 2011
Flash game update!
I didnt plan out every level as planned but instead I decided on making a background and new skin for the character. I done these so it added a bit more style to the game as it was looking rather bland. There were some bugs when i changed some of the code too so it may run smoother too, but its a project which will be on the go for about a month more so everything should be finished soon.
I have noticed it loads up full screen and bugs about a bit as its designed for 700x500 instead of the high desktop resolution you have, so i will try to get it so the game wont be able to resize but for now enjoy.
The embed hasnt worked for some reason so i will just post the link for the game instead.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/24968932/flashgame.swf
I have noticed it loads up full screen and bugs about a bit as its designed for 700x500 instead of the high desktop resolution you have, so i will try to get it so the game wont be able to resize but for now enjoy.
The embed hasnt worked for some reason so i will just post the link for the game instead.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/24968932/flashgame.swf
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)