Reflection on "Zip" - The Inspiration

With a strange and uncanny sense of deja vu I look through the snaps I have taken of my portfolio, three and a half years ago, my teacher looked through it in the class I am now sitting in as a mentor, of course I am focused on mentoring the students who haven’t quite turned up yet! The main page is the initial one where I try to describe my whole idea with pictures that serve as my inspiration and quick sketches drawn on the back of a worksheet. All in all, I really enjoyed putting it together but starting off was a challenge as I did not pick a target audience, which is how I learned the importance of having a brief, knowing who you are making it for. Even though this was a personal task for university admissions, I felt that the idea needed focus. This focus was in the form of my intended target audience.

Target audience

As women in games is a decisive, inherent and constant argument in games design, culture, history and marketing, I felt it was important to speak about this through my design, not a no-holds-barred shout against the injustices of female soldiers in nought but battle bras, but a subtle reminder that there are more to women than that. Additionally, young children who are impressionable like moulded play dough can sense when a toy or game is not meant for them. Games can be seen a boys’ toy, without going into a discourse about girls’ games being about animals, cooking and fashion designing, I wanted to create an idea which a girl could play and aspire to be like, a brave, bold and fun character that does not perpetuate female stereotypes but push them aside for more important things. One of my most favourite design moments was creating a mission where she saves her male friend.  Simple as it sounds, it spoke volumes to me when I played as Jade in Ubisoft's Beyond Good and Evil.

Released in 2003, the game was always marked as a “hidden gem”, however, my brother picked it up for a tenner, I began the game and got stuck, I couldn’t leave the lighthouse which was the safe haven for the orphaned children on the water planet Hillys. Eventually I got outside and took in the tranquil cel-shaded and cute scenery, the characters tottered along the greenery and a floating assistance mech gave me a message about a potential new story: Jade was a journalist. She may not have had an occupation much like the Battlefield characters, but as a journalist, this was an open minded decision to have an investigative, intrigued lead that rooted out injustices.

So as the story goes, the planet has been attacked by aliens who ravage the land and kidnap citizens. The alpha section, the military, had failed to stop the attack. Jade’s uncle, a friendly but abrasive pig, Pej’y, scolds the military for arriving too late. Face to face with the aliens who had kidnapped the children from her shelter, the player sees a ferocious Jade who fights tooth and nail to save them, maternal, moral and right. Years later as I reflected on the game I could see the messages they sent, whether intentional or not, this character was an inspiration for me as a teenager because she was moral, right and fought for the citizens’ rights. That she happened to use a short bo staff, shuriken like disc projectiles and sneaking kick attacks had everything to do with it too!

Reflection on "Zip"

After graduating and becoming an academic mentor, I have had time to reflect on my ideas, my development process and myself, without trying to sound to epic; hindsight is 20/20. I scrolled through my blog and found myself laughing at the content, the quirky designs my team and I had, I made small changes here and there, would have done this or that. This reflection spurred this post, I would like to look back at my portfolio that I used in my university interview, it was an exciting and ambitious time, no deadline, no constraints, just exploring my imagination with a cool as ice character called Zip who would leap off of bookshelves on a book and float to safety, dodging naughty imps and saving a kidnapped teddy bear.

I worked on the portfolio for about 6 weeks during my last year at college, I looked through it with my tutor who mentored and guided me, we spoke about games culture, media and the wider context of things like escapism, feminism and ethnicity in games. I remember struggling to pick an idea to stick with, but this one character I had doodled with on holiday in India, left an impression with me, maybe the heat of the Indian summer seared the little character onto my brain mush. I had designed a world of conspiracy and struggle, a character who was flawed much like us, it was dark and dangerous and felt close to home, but Zip was an escape from that, the design was lighthearted, fun and had scope for so much more. It was not what I had expected to spend my spare time creating, but I enjoyed every moment of it, concocting new ways Zip could escape her enemies and defeat them in nonviolent and often clever ways.

I explored how a female character would be perceived, I made sure not to fall into the pitfalls of over-sexualising the character but to instead give her an edge that made her interesting and unique, although my portfolio idea had no audience, I understood the importance of a female character being a kind of role model, like Jade from Ubisoft's Beyond Good and Evil, for impressionable young players. I drew out level plans and made sure to play them out on player, I found many flaws and knew that although level design is not my forte, it was exciting to hash and rehash the playing field.

However, after I started university I abandoned her and only now have I realised how bad I feel, after all, she got me into uni.
Alas, here is my reflective and restorative piece on "Zip".

Development of 'Dinner is Served'

The fifth game of my course started of with a scrutiny of the given brief: ‘environments with hidden information’, so me and my buddy, a 2-person team made up of awesome, figured out how other games used hidden information. We discussed games we had been playing at the time, Flash games online, ones on our phones and saw how information could be held from the player in order to make it a challenge and to create a whole new game. For example, a terrible example perhaps; playing chess without seeing the opponents' pieces! It would be a completely different (and strange, and possibly broken) game!

It was interesting coming up with an idea and either hiding a bit of information or coming up with an idea that already has those hidden elements, in the end we went with a social interaction game, using facets of people's personality to link them together to create a harmonious dinner party. The hidden information was in the form of their interests and hobbies, these would be revealed slowly, players had to remember them when deciding on the seating plan.

The idea was inspired by Kevin Bacon (hear us out) and his dancing shenanigans, nah kidding, however it was inspired by the concept of 6 degrees of separation, where everyone is connected to everyone through the connection of 6 other people. In this idea the connection goes full circle, however, we needed to find a way to connect people and this is because we pitched our idea to our class and found that remembering hobbies would be unsubtle, so we needed an intuitive system, so I looked at Myers-Briggs Personality Types and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Software Choice

We decided to use Flash ActionScript 3 as we had used that before, so not a brave choice, but a clever one! I had animated in Flash before and although we discussed using Unity, we decided that our strengths would be doubled if we used Flash. However, I would love to use Unity for my next project, it would certainly be exciting using 3D software again!

Screen Size

We decided to make the Flash screen full size so the party guests would not be crammed in a small space where the player may have difficulty clicking on them, we also thought if the space would show several rooms, like a kitchen, music/media corner and living room then we would need a larger space to convey it all.

Initial Ideas

Above is a story board I drew up for our pitch, it was all about selecting the matching hobbies, it did not pose enough of a challenge so instead of using it as the sole idea, we kept the mechanic and altered it to make it more of a struggle for the player. The feedback is clear here and I really wanted to show that because past projects have shown that feedback is super important and greatly affects the player experience, making it worse if they have no idea of what happened or if there was an output to their input.

The picture above shows how all the characters can be connected by their hobbies, this left issues with how challenging it could be if the information was hidden completely and if just hiding part of it would still present enough of a challenge.

Introduction from our Game Design Document

I think this sums up the original game idea best:
The game followed the brief of imperfect/perfect data as the characters’ set of hobbies are not entirely revealed in the first instance they are seen. In the first round only one hobby is seen, in the second round, two are seen and in the third round, all three hobbies are seen. This added a dynamic aspect to the game and mirrors how sometimes people find out more about each other and then discover they get along. The hobbies would have been gradually shown to the player only when they interact with them, so they must memorise the information. This is essential when seating the guests at the dinner table, at this point, there is no information regarding hobbies available and the player must rely on the information they remembered from the characters’ latest interactions.

High Level Concept

Guests have arrived for a party but as the host it is up to you to find those with similar interests and connect them all together so you get through the three-course dinner unscathed!

Create an amicable atmosphere by discovering who gets on with whom!

Moodboard

The pitch we presented had a picture of Kevin Bacon, but this moodboard was far less extravagant! Our aim was to summarise the game with a few images: people, socialising, connecting people and dining.

Goals

Short Term – To put characters together in the party so they get along.

Medium Term – To seat people at the dinner table so the get along

Long Term – To end the game with the majority of people enjoying the day and interacting with those they get along with.

Challenges

• Remembering who gets along with who is essential – this begins with trial and error.
• Figuring out that characters have to get along with those adjacent and opposite to them – the player will be learning about each person’s hobbies.
• Not having any information of hobbies when seating the characters for dinner.
• There is a timer when connecting characters in the main room.
• There is a timer when seating people at the dinner table.

Increasing the Challenge and Engaging the Player

The initial game idea included the player only seeing one of the character’s hobbies, so the player has to remember one hobby. After the first course, two of their hobbies will appear, so the player must now remember them both. After the second course, three hobbies will appear and the player will need to memorise all three in order to pick someone who has a similar hobby. The challenge increases when memorising who may be seated adjacent to someone else, so now the player must not only be aware of the pairs that match, but of the other potential matches that can be seated adjacent to each other.
However, the idea was left out die to time constraints, so the dinner setting is not used, although, there is a solid mechanic which we could further develop. Having to cut this part of the game out was a tough decision but in turn allowed us to focus on the main game mechanics and taught us about prioritising and making timely decisions.

Player Choice

We kept it nice and simple, un-intimidating, players can drop in quickly and play:

The player uses the mouse and the left click to select characters and place them around the party and to seat them at the dinner table. The player can seat them at the table and move them about before pressing a ‘confirm’ button to have the score calculated.

Verbs

•       Remember what the person’s interests were

•       Pick another person to see their hobbies

•       Connect the people together

•       Seat them at the dinner table near people they will get along with

These were useful for making the finite state machines and also for communicating with each other so we know exactly what part of the animation is needed, for example, and what is left to be coded and what we need to clarify, this reminded me of all the game design theorists asking for a proper vocabulary for the theories, very true, language is power!

Storyboards

Have I mentioned that I really love storyboarding?! I didn't? Well, I love storyboarding, I really do, it's a task I take on with self-motivated determination, knowing it will be on my teammate's table while they are programming, a really important document that will be depended on, broken apart, corrected and altered, sometimes in real-time! Taking on that task for every game I have made has improved my ability to visually communicate ideas, mechanics, tactics and player choices. It is challenging too, having to draw the same thing over and over and making sure the focus of the action is clear to the reader/programmer/examiner. Both my teammate and I used storyboards to communicate how the game will work while in early development, but I put my ones up just to give an idea about how the game looked at first glance.

Paper Prototyping

This is an essential part of the development process and ensures the game rules and player choice are workable mechanics. It makes sure the game can be won, lost and also that the player does not get stuck within the games rules. The game logic is stringently tested here as play testing participants are usually urged to break the game somehow, so letting our team mates wreck our game was a priority in the development process!

First Paper Prototype

The first paper prototype was a basic test to see if the mechanic would work and if it posed enough of a challenge. It was also useful in seeing which criteria the characters should be matched alongside, some ideas being Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, personality types like introversion, extroversion, pessimism and optimism.

The image above used optimism, pessimism, introversion and extroversion as the matching criteria, however, it seemed to be subjective whether an introverted person would get along with an extroverted person. Adding pessimism as well made people wonder if they would get along with introverted people; this subjectivity added an unwanted challenge in the game as it would depend on individuals’ ideologies.

Second Paper Prototype

Below, the second prototype used the criteria of hobbies and interests; however they were conveyed with letters of the alphabet for clarity. The graphics were improved to show two separate states for each of the eight characters, bored and interested, with the drink levels in their glasses and tumblers conveying their level of engagement as well as a visual cue.

Below is the art work I drew up in order to use for the play testing session, it was quite fun creating these party-goers! It involved a lot of imagination and I needed to get facets of their personality across with their clothing and body language. The first row of characters are bored while the second row is interested and happy, these are the early examples of the state changes: happy and bored.

The first play though of the second prototype allowed the player to see all three hobbies throughout the game; this allowed the player to figure it out very easily and did not match the brief as the data was effectively perfect and available for the player to see. So the game had to be modified in order for it to retain a challenge.

In the second play test; before the starters during the first round, the player would only see the first letter and would have to match them up to another character, this was implemented to increase the challenge and to match the brief. When they picked a character to pair up with, they would be told whether they get along or not. After the starter, the players would be given the second letter/hobby and after the main course, all three hobbies/letters would be revealed.

Lessons Learned and Issues Solved

-      Hobbies had to be gradually revealed in order to allow the player to learn and to make it more challenging.

-      A timer had to be implemented after the first play test of the second prototype because it seemed to allow the paper to try every possible combination and effectively break the game.

-      The issue of not allowing the player to reseat a seated character had to be rethought as it could make the game significantly difficult and a nuisance, a ‘confirm seating’ option was considered to make it fair.

-      To add to the challenge it was considered to decrease the timer for each round, so the dessert course would only allow the player 40 seconds, instead of the original 60 seconds, however, this would make the challenge too high as the player has to remember a set of three hobbies as well.

Ideas: Possible Criteria to Match Characters Together

The main issue while making this game was choosing how to link characters together. Having the same hobbies did not seem to be enticing enough and I drew the above image to try and develop the idea. I used different levels in triangles to convey Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, so someone with a low level would want the necessary: A drink, shelter, warmth, while a middle level would show the person wants idle chatter and a high level meaning the person wants an intellectual discussion. In addition, I also tried to use the two personality types of introversion and extroversion, so by hiding this, it would add a whole realm of challenge, the unknown of whether two people will get along even if they seem to want idle chatter.
However, the criteria proved quite challenging to code and we decided to use the original method: the hobbies, this was a safer but less intuitive idea, however, I think it still retains its unique selling point.

Designing, Creating and Animating the Assets

I did mock ups of character studies using the continuous line technique and had a few ready for critiquing, a chat with a tutor pointed me in the direction of other artists like Julian Opie, Patrick Caulfield and Lichtenstein, which was really useful as I saw how each artist used bold colour and line. I had initially used Patrick Heron as inspiration, and I used a pastel colour to inline (as opposed to outline) the characters so they would stand out from the background. I used pastel colours of nude and pale hues to separate the black outline and their clothes, skin and hair so that it did not look part of it, but instead a stylistic artistic choice.

I thoroughly enjoyed using line in strange ways to create the contours of the character's body, clothing and features, it went against everything I was taught in Art! But it was a process I liked because it gave ordinary clothes additional interesting lines and shapes, like a suit with its distinct lines being given a twist to make it intriguing and inevitably adding to the game's sophisticated theme and aesthetic.

The Characters

Each character had the following states for their programming and animation:

Idle - front and back of the character as they chat with another person or stand around by themselves.

Walking - Left, right, up and down

Chatting - This is activated when characters are selected, when that happens; speech bubbles pop up.

As much as I will talk about the character design, I love fashion illustrating so I need to talk about their clothes too!

Guy 1

Guy 1 sports a slate suit, understated yet stylish and a turquoise shirt to add bizazz to the outfit! I used a pink shade to inline his profile.

Lady 1

Lady 1 is draped in a floor length pink gown which made it surprisingly challenging to animate her walking, not being able to see her legs meant I had to show ruffles in her fabric which was interesting as I used strange zigzags to show the creased fabric. I used a   peachy colour to inline her profile.

Lady 2

Lady 2 keeps it classy in a flattering summer dress with sophisticated pleats running from her shoulder to the hemline, the royal blue is offset by the intense colour of the shoes. I used a pale blue colour to separate the outline and clothing colour.

Lady 3

Lady 3 schuzzes up the party with this high-waist and one-shoulder ensemble, the yellow and red is bold while the neutral grey settles this! I used a pastel orange to separate the outline and clothing colour.

Guy 2

Guy 2 is decked out like a captain in royal blue, rounded collar blazer and steel blue trousers with a smart white shirt as well as brown loafers. I used a pale pink colour to separate the outline and clothing colour.

Guy 3

Guy 3 keeps it simple yet sophisticated with dark grey trousers, smart black shoes and blue shirt. I used a pale mint green colour to separate the outline and clothing colour.

Background and Setting

This was an exciting and very different setting that I had to create, although it was ordinary. We see our houses and rooms everyday, but I had to design it in ways to create an open space that did not look strange to the player yet allowed the characters to move about freely and not get stuck between assets (movie clips).

Paper Prototype Setting

To get the creative juices flowing I made the above setting using PhotoShop to be able to visualise the look of the game. The half see through wall of the garden was drawn so I could see how it would look, I thought it looked a bit segmented from the rest of the area, also this added a difficulty of having characters walk through the door and issues with them being hidden behind a wall. So these issues were sorted out before I began on the final prototype. This task also helped me decide the art style that I would adopt and refine, I ended up not using this style, although I have used it for years, I wanted to use a different approach and that's when I decided on continuous line drawings, which I came across in Art and Design: Textiles in college.

Mock up of the Digital Prototype Setting

Firstly I checked that the continuous line drawing technique would look aesthetically pleasing, I made a quick mock up, drawing things I saw around my house from two angles to capture a cubist look too, however I dropped the cubist impression and focused on continuous line.

Development of the Setting

Above, I started off designing the setting by drawing out lots of bits of furniture like DJ decks, kitchen units, windows, a fireplace and potted plants, I also scaled them down to the size of the characters. I did a few of these IKEA-inspired-interior-decorating-collages and then composed them roughly and showed my team mate, below is a section of the setting.

The furniture, we decided, needed to be spread out a lot more to ensure the characters could pass by. After using Photoshop and setting each bit of furniture on a separate layer, so I could move them easily if need be, I consulted with my teammate, we gave the go ahead and I began colouring it and giving the setting a sense of depth.

The Finished Setting

I really liked colouring this, picking matching colours and making the place look like a sophisticated home filled with books, trendy sofas, a gramophone and even an easel with canvas! However, the depth looks a bit strange which makes me feel I should not have drawn the perspective lines free hand and should have looked at the room size and the furniture size, but I feel I got the idea across without too much of a graphical error.

The Speech/Character Interests

These assets were not used in the final game because due to a hitch in communication, but a lot of hard work, both my team mate and I created these assets at the same time! As I transferred the assets, he already had them drawn out. We used his work because it was more concise with colour being used in the images. I think the black and white would have worked with simpler shapes, I drew a saddle on the horse when really there was not a lot of space to draw it, so I made it too detailed for the purpose it would serve. We discussed the types of hobbies our characters should have to keep the theme cohesive.

Feedback/Termination Screens and User Interface

An important part of the game theme is the user interface, I aimed to make it simple yet effective, no nonsense; so the player can take the information they need and dive straight into making this dinner party great.

Title Screen

Initially I wanted it to be inspired by fancy restaurant menus with the italicised typography, beige, cream, brown hues with hints of richer colours, however, after trying to get the colours right I realised it did not match the tone of the game with its simplified continuous lines and faceless characters. So instead I decided on black and white with a very faded motif, like the one you would find on a fancy restaurant menu, I thought it looked great but should not be the focus of the screen so I had its transparency turned almost all the way up.

I thoroughly enjoyed using the continuous line technique to draw the assets, so I used the same for the title screen, a slice of cake and two glasses, I think it is simple, fresh and conveys the tone of the game, sophisticated, different and not-shooty! And this is from someone who really enjoys a good shoot-em-up game!

Help Screen

I wrote a few drafts of this page, it was challenging trying to condense all the game's goals, aims, rules, choices into a few concise sentences so that the player could read quickly and begin playing. Upon the fifth or sixth iteration I managed to shrink it down considerably and tried to imagine myself as the player, trying to capture the important fundamentals from the screen: 
What am I doing? 
And what button do I press?
I think this style of thinking was super useful here and I believe the help screen does its duty!

Termination Screens

Conveying the feedback of 'win/lose' is important and I needed clear imagery to show this to the player.

Lose Screen

I just thought about how a terrible party would look and I imagined the host looking at them through their front door as they walk out mumbling "this time could have been better used looking at funny pictures of cats on the internet". It is quite a negative image, seeing the backs of people from a window so works effectively as negative feedback.

Win Screen

Since the characters had very neutral expressions in the actual game, I altered them and used the original high resolution images to compose them all standing together toasting their amazing host! I quite liked this picture! I designed the lose screen first, which told its negative message quite well so I needed really positive imagery for the win screen, I think the screen succeeded in that endeavor.

Evaluation and Lessons Learned

• Time constraints disallowed the game to have the dinner setting game three intended rounds; the starter, main course and dessert, in this prototype the player can only match up the characters in the party setting. 
• The characters’ faces remain the same during the game, and could have been an effective canvas for emotions; this would be useful in showing the consequence of the player’s actions. 
• Another change suitable addition for the game would be to have added a timer to increment the challenge.
• The game’s mechanics are in place, however fine tuning them as well as setting out the dinner seating rounds would have made the game significantly more challenging and engaging and a way for the player to use the imperfect data. 

Overall, the games’ tone and look is aesthetically pleasing and the assets and animations of walking guests look great and are all cohesive in style, the busy background does not pool all of the attention and the depth offered by the simple lines give an illusion of perspective. The mechanic is engaging in its simplicity and the aim; to be socially aware of the characters; is unique as it is much like using real-life instincts in a controlled environment which offers two possible outcomes: Everyone leaving, bored at the so-called party or everyone having a fantastic time, as determined by the players ability to match up the hobbies of the party-goers.

Communication - Our little team communicated really well, we made use of a social networking site to transfer assets if we could not meet in person. When meeting in person we would set about prioritising issues that needed to be dealt with. At the start of development we would play test games on a sheet of player and discuss how it worked or didn't and these impromptu game testing sessions were really useful in working out our final game.

Timing - It could be argued that our game was too ambitious, however, with better time handling we could have included the original idea of having to seat the players at the dining table. We could have made use of the time plans more and adhered to them more effectively. However, the lesson learned from this hiccup is that when things needed to be axed from the game, we need to be careful in our risk calculation and if we feel the game will not suffer from the loss, then it is an acceptable one.

Next time, I need to use time more efficiently and be more willing to come to a decision quicker, sometimes it can be quite daunting setting things in stone! However I understand that it is a crucial part of the process and by having the ideas there and chosen, it makes it easier to make decisions about other ideas on the hierarchy.

End Note

I had a blast making this game, I was the assigned artist, my team mate was a great artist too, and having reasonably free reign of the art was exciting and in turn I am really glad I used the techniques to create a fresh looking game with intriguing characters. I think our little team were a great game making war machine! We communicated well, had lots of ideas and were motivated, in fact I think my next post on 'Why I Love Games' should be in honour of the humble teams I have worked with over the last three years!

Stay tuned and thank you ever so much for reading!

References

McLeod, S. (2012) Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. [Internet] Available form: <http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html> Accessed: 24/11/2012.

Briggs, M. (2011) Understanding the MBTI test – the mental processes of the MBTI personality type. [Internet] Ross Reinhold & Reinhold Development 1997 – 2011. Available from: <http://www.personalitypathways.com/16-personality-types2.html> [Accessed 24/11/12]

Why I Love Games, Part 1

Every week or so, I would really like to explain why I love games with examples of ones I have played and ones I have made with the fantastic teams I have had the honour of working with. Depending on university work I hope to update fair regularly, thanks for reading!

I have just submitted my dissertation; it was an exciting critical analysis of how videogames use mise-en-scène to convey narrative within a game space. I was first intrigued by this subject by Henry Jenkins’ amazing paper: Game Design as Narrative Architecture (2002), he spoke about how games use the space to convey a story and not just through cut-scenes but with the environment itself.

Since the first year of university, I knew my dissertation would focus on narrative because it is really important to me, I like being spellbound by a game story, beating the game just to find out about the characters, their predicament and the resolution. However I didn’t know I would focus so much on the visuals until I read Henry Jenkins, Jesper Juul and Gonzalo Frasca’s brilliant papers, I began to think “there must be some way of not using cut-scenes, I mean; I think they are great but they are usually not interactive and integrated narrative would be great too!”

Another thing which stirred this idea of visual communication as narrative was a few moments in games that I could point out to my friends and say “yeah, that was unexpected/clever/intriguing/surprising” even though I didn’t do anything, it was something I had seen while playing.

Gun fire everywhere, it is a cacophony of noise and I’m looking over the balcony railing to see my team being gunned down by the enemies. I am being shouted at to head downstairs. Down stairs?! Goodness! So I creep along the corridor to the stairs, readying myself for the ensuing battle, reloading both primary and secondary weapon, when to my right I see a figure by the empty staircase. He is a teammate, knees up to his chest, hands clasps around them, his head is down. He is broken. What has he seen?

These were my thoughts while playing a particular level in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2011), so while I was playing the role of a battle-hardened soldier, fighting for glory, I was hit with this reminder, a very clever and subtle one, of the brutality of war, quite poignant I think. And all of this was created with visual communication, I didn’t need to be shown it, I just saw the figure as I ran down the stairs, so it was placed in a particular place for the player, to evoke a certain emotion.

I thought it was incredibly effective and I applaud the decision to include that. Another game moment which comes to mind is Quantic Dream’s Heavy Rain (2010). Beware of spoilers please! The game certainly knows how to pull at the player’s heart strings by way of emotional pleas of help, suffering and friendship, dialogue and animation that makes you want to find the Origami Killer, however the simple placement of some cardboard boxes evoked an array of emotions for the main character Ethan Mars.

Cardboard boxes did she say?  Yes, boxes. Not just any boxes. Cardboard boxes. Ethan Mars, as you know, separated from his wife, you didn’t know? Beware spoilers! Not many games give you a loving family, perfect home and great job, but Heavy Rain hands them to you on a plate, how kind, however, tragedy strikes and Ethan now inhabits a dingy house, it’s dreary, dark and sad. By using the thought mechanic, whereby I can listen to the inner monologue of the character, I could hear that he has his son for a few days per week. I walked around the house and did a few missions, making your son some dinner, finding cough medicine, helping him with his homework. But as I was traversing the home, I kept noticing the boxes. Yes, those cardboard boxes.

I wasn't sure when the character had left his old and more awesome home, seriously check it out, great set design, but I could see the remnants of the character’s life in the boxes. I must have analysed too much I suppose, but I felt quite sad for him, almost pity, of course boxes aren't bad or terrible things to have in a home, but the juxtaposition of the dark surroundings, drab interiors and the subject matter of his eldest son’s death had created a connotation of despair and that was effective as I had associated the boxes with his downward spiral, the designers were clever, all that over some boxes!

Well that’s it for today, next week: more exciting insights into my dissertation, mise-en-scène and Why I Love Games, Part 2, thank you very much for reading!

Below are the games and articles I wrote about and mentioned.

References

Heavy rain. (2010) Directed by David Cage. Quantic Dream: France. [Videogame: Blu-ray].

Call of duty: modern warfare 3. (2011) Directed by Jason West. Infinity Ward: U.S.A. [Videogame: Blu-Ray].

Frasca, G. (2001) Simulation 101: simulation versus representation. [Internet] Available from: <http://www.ludology.org/articles/sim1/simulation101.html> Accessed: 16/12/12.

Jenkins, H. (2002) Game design as narrative architecture [Internet] Available from: <http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/henry3/games&narrative.html> Accessed 15/12/12.

Juul, J. (2001) Games telling stories - a brief note on games and narratives. [Internet] Available from: <http://www.gamestudies.org/0101/juul-gts/> Accessed: 18/12/12.

Moo - The development of the second game of my course

This post will discuss and outline the development of the second game of the first year on the course. The team consisted of a total of 4 members and there were two briefs to choose from. One was to create a game that could be used in social networking and the other involved designing a game with viral marketing in mind.

Initial Ideas

Initially I went with the social networking game idea because although I do not play them often I did understand that the connectivity with friends make these games intriguing and added another level of interactivity t them with team work, giving friends gifts, making new friends and the way the turns may take up to a few days instead of the usual instantaneous feedback games usually supply. An example is Farmville, which I played for about two months a few years ago, I really enjoyed the competition and the cooperation the game allowed and how you had to wait a wait for the crops to grow, allowing the player to return to the game later and see how things have changed;  sometimes not in your favour; crops die if not picked soon enough.

However, the viral marketing brief allowed the team to make a quirky and unique game with the sole player's experience in mind. We picked this brief and were on our way with brain storming.
For some strange, or brilliant, reason, we wanted to go with a food theme and our love for ice cream carved the way for our viral marketing game.

The game was based on making ice cream, selecting flavours as shown and making sure the correct ones are chosen and in the right order. Our aim, as per he Game Design Document, was:

We plan to create a game that could be used be used by an ice cream company to promote their product virally, we plan to do this by making the game challenging so they are played again and recommended to friends. Also, we will use quirky graphics to portray the tone that some ice cream companies utilise to appeal to a certain audience. While some companies use muted colours, sophisticated graphics, images and typography to appeal to a mature audience, our game will depict a more colourful, vibrant and fun brand, also exploiting the association of ice cream being comfort food to one audience as opposed to a fancy dessert to another audience.

The High Level Concept

There are a bunch of sad and depressed people who need cheering up, the player will have to utilise their ice-cream making skills and more importantly timing to whip up a perfect freshly-made ice cream for the freshly-dumped customers.
Players have to pump the right ingredients in ice cream cups on an increasingly speedy conveyor belt. 

Verbs

And the verbs used to describe the actions taken by the player and the game were as follows:

Players have to time the positioning of the ice cream cups and funnels and click on the right ingredient in order to have it drop into the cup. Shape/colour recognition will be used to get the right ingredients in the cup. If the player misses the cup, the ingredients will fall onto the conveyor belt and jam it, a cleaner will have to be dispatched to clean it up. The conveyor belt’s speed will also increase, so ingredients will have to be matched and picked faster.

Mood board

Above was our moo board, spelled deliberately wrong in order to convey the theme of ice cream and cows! We thought that was really clever and decided to name our game Moo!

The moo board portrayed the basic ideas we were to implement in our game; a timer, a conveyor belt, flaours of ice cream and vending machines dispensing different ingredients. The colours uses allow reflect the theme we were aiming for; quirky and vibrant, this was to keep the idea fresh and bold and striking.

Paper Prototyping the Game

Above is our paper prototype we used to see if our game had a legitimate challenge and if there were any loop holes and inconsistancies in the game. There were only 4 flavours available for this prototype. One person, acting as the computer, would pulled the paper conveyor with the contaienrs on it and the player would simply tap their finger on the flavour for it to be selected, making sure the container was below that particular machine. The first container only has two flavours while the second one has three, this shows the incrementing challenge in the game so the player is learning and being challenged throughout.

What we learned from paper prototyping

1. The ingredients need to clearly convey the flavours, some people will match the colours together and some will not, so they have to be clearly defined.
2. The challenge has to increase, we need to consider speeding up the conveyer belt too in order to keep the game dynamic.
3. Negative and positive feedback is essential so we need to make sure we give the player information when they succeed and fail, so sound effects and animations or visuals indicating the feedback will be super useful.

Finite State Machines

The finite state machines were detailed enough for the programmer to refer to when coding, the ice cream cups states are indicated and the chart shows decisions and options available and the actions when the decision are taken.

The conveyor belt is shown to have a 'broken' state which did not make it into the completed game, this feature involved the conveyor breaking when too many ingredients missed the containers and fell on the conveyor belt; consequently jamming it. The player would them have to press a button on screen in order to free it, taking up valuable time where they could be making ice creams. his was a good example of negative feedback, however, time constraints meant this could not be implemented.

Storyboards

I really enjpy drawing up the storyboards and this game with its unique use of space was an interesting one to visualise and draw and soon I was an expert at drawing various ingredients and flavours! The art style carried onto the finished game, with added colour and vibrancy too.

Below is a depiction of good and bad play, the player here drops some flavours on the conveyor belt. The storyboard shows what happens, ingredients are seen on the belt. However, it does not show that ingredients have actually gone into the cup which showed us that we need to have clear containers, this was basic stuff but was overlooked, teaching us to look at the fundamentals first before stepping to the more difficult and complex matters.

The defeat conditions involve using the wrong ingredients a number of times creating the wrong ice creams.

Below was another initial idea which let the player control the conveyor belt and dispensers. The left and right buttons would control the conveyor and the space bar would dispense the one flavour available. this idea implemented timing and space. In the end we took that control from the player which actually increased the challenge in a natural way and caused the player to rush to find the correct ingredient and select it in time as the container travels below.

Below is a storyboard which involves some grim ideas about food health standards, there were to be spiders which which would fall into the ice cream containers, the player had to dodge these by not moving forward when a spider was seen descending. Sludge had to be dodged too, it gave the game an interesting but unneeded dynamic. We removed it because it was not appropriate for the age group and mainly for the theme, this would make it less quirky and jovial.

Below, a basic portrayal of how the final idea would be used and how much choice the player has and how timing is crucial. It also shows the ingredients falling into the container, a basic but important visual for the player.

Below is a storyboard showing how the conveyor belt can become jammed. Once the player drops a certain amount of ingredients on the belt, the belt will jam and the player will need to hit a button on screen so a worker can come along and clear it all away to get the belt restarted. This idea was scrapped, however it would be a great way to negatively reinforce ideas so players learn.

This storyboard shows the basics of the input and output which was scrapped, now more than one ingredient is available. This idea was mainly about timing as well as recognition and selection.

The Final Game Screen Shots

Below, we can see the player has not successfully made the ice cream and has dropped a lot of the ingredients onto the conveyor. This will affect the player's overall score.

The vibrant and bold colours and clear ingredient images make the game a visual feast and if it can make players want an ice cream in reality*, it has technically achieved two things, the viral marketing and making the player continue to play the game!
*Unless the player does not like ice cream!

The idea of having the factory be in a field with grazing cows in the background was the artists idea, we loved how it looked and immediately used it, it lent an airy, free and peaceful glow to the game which would not have been possible if the interior and background was a grey warehouse setting.

The Termination Condition Screens

To reflect the game's theme throughout the game, we decided to make the ending screens humorous with the cow complaining about the icecream if you lose and the cow complimenting you if the player succeeds. The visuals were simple and quirky and got the theme across nicely and effectively.

The Title Screen and Menu

The title screen reflected the game's theme before the player jumps into the game, its funny and simple and the 'Help' button is integrated into the setting of fields and hills. The minimal colour keeps the visuals striking and aesthetically pleasing.

Conclusion and Evaluation

The game is really polished, looks great, plays great, I am really happy with this game because it reflects the themes we wanted it to and is challenging and keeps the players on their toes. Th game has humour and is quirky and would be effective as a tool of viral marketing as it would be a talking point. The potential of the game means it could be re-wrapped for different themes, so it could be about breaking up and having the ice cream serve as comfort food. Or it could be aimed at children with the aim to create new flavours of ice creams.

We were all pleased with the finished game and believe it follows the brief and keeps the players engaged with the increasing and dynamic challenge.

Lessons Learned

To clearly label the challenge and see if it is challenging enough by making a paper prototype and even a digital prototype if the former does not properly demonstrate it.

To make sure there is enough time to implement all features and to manage it more effectively by handing out tasks and co-operating with assets and content so programmers are given finalised art work instead of lots of placeholders.

To effectively play test the game to find loop holes and see what peole think of the game and see how it can be improved.