For the final week of class we discussed what our final game was going to be and we had to come up with a pitch for it. Nothing too big, just a two minute elevator pitch about what our game was about to our classmates.  My pitch was “ This is a very relatable game that a lot of people can resonate with during this time. A great way to pass the time as you wait for news on what is going to happen next with the pandemic and the rest of this horrible year. And this is a game to bring some laughter in your day. It is a twine based story game where you can pick and choose how to spend the day. There is no real object, it is just something to take your mind off of things and make you smile”. We learned that pitching a game is an important process for developing a game, because you want to market your game as good as you can so people will want to buy it and play it, you have to pitch your game to publishers so they can sell your game. If students are trying to continue making games and pursue a career in this industry it is good practice to start pitching games. On a side note I would just like to say how much I have enjoyed this class and I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to meet so many wonderful people in person, and be able to bond and share so many great conversations about something we all have a common love and respect for.

In week nine, we discussed Fullerton’s chapter on player viewpoints and immersion. In the chapter, Fullerton explains the first person and third person’s perspective. She also talks about the overheard perspectives in games. She mentions how they all provide different views and angles to the game. And this is important to most games because of the advantage and disadvantage each view has. “The controls, viewpoint, and interface all work together symbiotically to create the game experience and allow the player to understand and have agency within the system” Fullerton mentions. This goes for many games like first person shooter, strategy games, adventure/story games. Camera angles matter a lot to the player for their ability to move in game. This affects the player’s experience. If the game’s camera angles make it difficult for the player to move around the map it will make for a bad experience. In games like Call of Duty or Rainbow Six Siege first person is important to be able to see your opponent better and any obstacles in front of you. It helps you focus more on the objective in front of you. The disadvantage is that you are not going to be able to see behind you or to the sides unless you turn around. It mimics that real life feeling by forcing you to move your body in game to look around, unlike third person where you can just move the camera to see around you. I personally enjoy first person way more than third person, but third person is a great way to show you the entire map, and everything in it. Overhead camera angles are perfect for real time strategy games. It allows you to see everything in the game so you can properly adjust to what is happening. No one camera angle is better than another, each one has their pros and cons, it just matters about what kind of game you are trying to make.

This week talked about the narrative in games. Narrative is very important in my opinion. Yeah some games are fun when you can just go and mess around in the world and do whatever you want without having to worry about following a type of storyline. But when you play a game with a story it brings you in and introduces you to its world. In the video presentation that we watched in class that was given by Tracy Fullerton, she mentioned how some gamers like games to be “Formal, abstract, rational, and challenging”, she mentions how gamers crave games that are “Dramatic, narrative, meaningful, sublime”. I agree with both of these statements, because as a gamer I love to play games that can challenge me and make me work towards a goal or reward. Like escape room games. I love escape room games and any puzzle type of game. On the other hand I also love to play games that have a narrative where you immerse yourself into this fake world that the developers have made and makes you learn about the places and characters in it. Games like these build a bond between player and character so when something happens you feel it. For example I played the campaign for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare when in came out a few years ago and when I finished I begin to cry, because at the end of the a lot of main characters die, and  while the credits were rolling you got to hear every one of the main characters voice letter they left behind for their family for just in case they died. And yes I know it’s not real, but it made me sympathise with the fake families of those characters. Speaking about Call of Duty, they do a great job at combining both types of games. People play both the campaign and multiplayer and some just buy the game only for multiplayer, this is perfect for gamers like me who love to play both. I agreed with Fullerton when she said that “…if we’re better able to describe the meaningfulness to our play to ourselves and others then they will have a deeper resonance for us…” There are a lot of games that have resonated with me.

This week in class our professor played through a game called When Rivers Were Trails. The game explains through gameplay the life of the indigenous people and their communities during the 1890s. This game was made for educational purposes, said the developer of the game Elizabeth LaPensee. I loved the idea of this game and the intentions for it. It’s a great way for people to drop stereotypes and certain profiles they had about Native Americans. The game has a very simple mechanic, you just have to drag your mouse around and click. A game that is related to When Rivers Were Trails is Oregon Trail another educational computer game about 19th century pioneer life on the Oregon Trail. But When Rivers Were Trails are just about the life of the Indigenous during this time. You are about to see both perspectives of life in the 19th century. 

Games like these are amazing and help teach people new things in a different way than just sitting down and reading a book. I know that I was the type of kid that had and still does have trouble learning something new if it just requires me to read or listen to a lecture about the subject. I learn better if I’m able to do it myself or see it. So video games like these were great for me while growing up. And it shows that games aren’t just made for entertainment purposes. They can help to be a great educational tool. And on a side note I have to do an essay for my Indian image on film class and talk about how they are represented in cartoons, animations, and videos, so this is another game that I can talk about. I really didn’t think there were any beside some games that just feature them. But this game will help with how well the culture and lifestyle of indigenous people is presented in the game.

This week for class we spoke about a topic that kind of gets overlooked on a daily basis, at least to an average player like myself, is the accessibility in gaming. Something that most players forget about is the people who play with disability or who aren’t able to play because of them. Our professor asked us how many times while playing have players told us about their disabilities? I answered with “Never”, and responded with  “because it’s something that internet trolls would take advantage of and abuse”. Before developers probably didn’t really think about something like this, but now game developers are trying to make games more accessible to those with disabilities. There was a commercial we watched about Xbox’s new adaptive controller for people who aren’t able to hold a normal control in their hands. It was amazing to see how Xbox decided to help include people who love to play, but had a difficult time doing so. Games have also out in color blind modes in their game for people who aren’t able to see a certain color in the game. Things like this can impact how well the player can play the game, because if there are certain colors to highlight something important or combos on the control to defeat a boss it will be hard with whatever disability they have to provide them from doing it and without something to help them perform better. They will lose interest and drop the game, and when they drop the game it will affect the developers and cause them to lose customers. It’s good for developers to be inclusive and make games more accessible to diable people. We played a game that we had to rely only on our hearing. While staring at a black screen and listening to the sounds around me put me on edge and always had me thinking something was going to pop out and scare me. This game put us in the shoes of people who don’t have the ability to see like we do, and poking around in the game and not being able to find something was frustrating, so made me realize how lucky I am that I’m able to see to go about my everyday life.

This week we spoke about unbalanced games and how to deal with them. There are many different things that go into a game or when you make changes to one. When reading the Fullerton Chapter about functionality and balance there was a section that spoke about a problem with the respawn spot and how to stop players from being spawn killed over and over again. The solution that the designers come up with has to be enough for the player to be able to spawn back in without dying again immediately, but have to find a way that it also doesn’t mess up the game or ruin the player experience. An example of one of the solutions that Fullerton came up with is having the same number of spawning points on a map should be equal to the number of players in the game. A pro that came out of this is that players have at least one safe point on which to spawn. I liked this because there are many games that kind of use this concept already and it works sometimes. But a con is that you have to design the maps arena specifically to the number of players that are gonna play. Fullerton goes on to explain how maps can’t facilitate a fluctuating number of players compared to other FPS games. In class we watched a GDC video on the balancing for league of legends. Listening to Greg Street talk about the balancing of characters in League of Legends, helps give me an understanding of what developers are thinking when making or balancing characters. I’ve never played League, but I have played other games where you team up with a group of people and you pick a character/champion/operator to play for that round to help your team win. I have run into situations where I see a character and say “Wow that’s not balanced. They’re way too overpowered”. Greg says that balance isn’t everything and that many people have their own reasons for playing specific champions. So just cause they see people playing on champion a lot doesn’t mean that should nerf them cause that will upset players. This week really helped me see what a developer has to take in account when trying to balance a game.

This week for DMS 462 we spoke about both system and information dynamics in a game. We spoke about how some games have information displayed to better improve the dynamic and your experience while playing the game. The game that I have been playing a lot recently and just finished was the remastered version of Resident Evil 2. In this game there are a lot of things in the game that inform you on certain things in the game. For example and I said this in class is when you check the map which is one information dynamic in the game, the rooms that are in red are rooms that you haven’t searched and cleared or rooms where an objective has to be done. This lets me know what rooms to search and it will show a little picture of the item that I didn’t pick up. In class we watched as three of our classmates played Fortnite and won the first game they got in. It was awesome to watch, but anyway on to what I’m really here to talk about. In Fortnite there are a lot of ways of information the game gives you to let you know where you are at, what weapon you have, where you are getting shot from and more. These things in games help improve the players’ experience because it makes it some much more enjoyable. Also the things you are able to do in the game changes the dynamic of it. The building and destroying in the game creates and destroys opportunities for the players who are trying to win and one-up their opponent(s). These things also help in games where you have to communicate with other players. Knowing where the enemy is and where to go all help in that. Without any of these things the game would not be enjoyable or would require you to work harder to play as well as you can. Even with one of these things missing, it changes the dynamic of the game.

In game design this week we were taught about team based narrative games. This week we learned about both the developer’s team and the publisher’s team to make and sell a game. The relationship between the two teams are very important. The publisher’s jobs are to fund the game, market it, get QA testers and more. While the developers come up with ideas and demos for the publisher and make the game. These two teams work together to put out games that will apply to their targeted demographic. They are a perfect example of what team based games are about. We played and watched three different games, a board game, Overwatch, and Fire Emblems. On Tuesday we separated into groups of four and played four different board games that made us play in teams to work towards one goal. And on Thursday we watched a gameplay of Fire Emblems where the player had to use his characters special set of skills to defeat the enemy in front of them. We later played Overwatch, and what Overwatch and the board game we played had in common is that each player would choose a character with a special set of skills and communicate with one another to defeat their enemy or achieve a goal. Team based games are easier with people you know, because it makes communicating with each other easier than communicating with random people who might not understand how you play or think in-game. Good thing about online time based games is that if you can’t talk over your headset then you can still use game text or dialogue to communicate with your teammates. In my opinion I love team based games because even though it can be toxic at times with people on the other team or your own teammates it is still fun to be able to get on a game and work with your friends or others towards one thing. I know I get very hyped and amped up whenever my guys and I hop on a game of Siege and win a game that we thought we had no chance of winning. It’s one of the best feelings ever and being able to share that with friends makes it even better.

In class this past week we have been focusing on what makes a game dramatic or what are the dramatic elements that go into a game. We discussed some things that can go into what can make certain scenes in a game dramatic or intense. One of the things was the music. Now in my opinion the music is probably what plays the biggest part in making something feel more dramatic. You know when you are in a boss fight and the music begins to speed up and change tone. It gets you amped up and ready for the fight or motivates you to do better in the fight. Or in some games when the music just abruptly stops and you are left with just the sound effects of the game or an eerie humming noise. That really builds tension. Another factor that plays into it is setting. The setting of the environment or the play area can build up tension and make a scene in a game dramatic. The combination of these two things along with just a dramatic narrative of course makes for good tension filled scenes in games or just games in general. We started playing a game in class called Virginia and in this game there is no dialogue just music, sound effects, and visuals. It’s a detective, mystery, type game and it’s filled with a lot of intense dramatic moments. For example there is one scene in the game where you are dreaming and begin to wonder around and you see things from that day in your dream overlapping and at the end of your dream you’re in a car with the director of the FBI driving until you hit your partner with car. The scene cuts before you hit her, but the abrupt stopping of the music and cutting to black makes you sort of jump a little. 

This week in class for DMS 462 we spoke about prototyping games. We were assigned to watch Mark Barrett’s speech on rapid prototyping. In the video Mark spoke about his first time being a part of a game jam. After his first game jam he really got into making prototypes for games which helped him work for a gaming company where he can improve on his skills through prototyping. I found it very interesting because prototyping is something that everyone does when coming up with something new or testing out a new way to do something. This goes into the activity we had in class, which was playing a steam game and showing our prototypes of our games to each other in class.

The game we played on steam is called The Beginner’s Guide. So in this game you just play through unfinished games that were made by the narrator’s partner. All the different games were unfinished prototypes that made you think about why he started it, why he stopped working on it, and what was the thought process while making it. That was something that I was trying to pay attention to as I played through a few of the games that were made. It was something that had me thinking for my prototype game and for others prototypes as well. We moved on and began to play my other classmates prototypes that they brought into class. There was one game that I played in a group of 5 including me. I was like a mixture of Apples to Apples and Cards Against Humanity. The prototype was actually pretty funny depending on the type of people you play with. One of the other guys showed me his prototype for his game that he is making on Twine just like me,  but his work was way more organized. My prototype just has one or two pages done, but I will be trying to take somethings from the other prototypes I played or saw and think about certain aspects of my game to see what needs or doesn’t need to be in the game.