This week we discussed the value of games in education, in addition to gender roles, sexual orientation, and romance options in video games. To begin the week, we talked about “When Rivers Were Trails” and how it was designed to be used in classrooms to aid in education of native american culture and history. The developers of the game took special care to make the game most accessible to the learning demographic, being elementary to high schoolers, and worked with “indigenous contributors” to make the game as historically accurate as they could. This is just one instance of a genre that was once much bigger in the video game industry, and ruled classrooms and personal computers alike. Games made for the sole purpose of education are nothing new, but are much more scarce than when I was young in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. I remember seeing and playing so many different games aimed towards kids back in the day, educational or otherwise, but this market has seemed to diminish. I’ve had fond memories with these educational games in and out of classes, with games such as the “Putt-Putt” series, “Math Blasters”, “Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing”, “Zoombinis”, and various licensed games, such as “Winnie the Pooh” educational games. While these games vary in their educational content and teachings, they were all meant to cater to small kids. Although these games once existed in abundance, they dwindle in numbers as the years go on. It may be that developers are tending to find them as “Not profitable” when compared to regular games, but in my opinion, all games can have educational value. For instance, playing card games like “Hearthstone” for so long has taught me to think ahead when playing games, and has improved my problem solving. “Luigi’s Mansion” taught me how to play video games in general, as it was one of the first games I beat without any help. Additionally, we discussed the role relationships and romance mechanics take in games, as well as the role of gender and sexuality in games. One example we specifically talked about in class was with the “Fable” series, which allows the player to see the sexualities of all NPC’s on their character descriptions. While this can be seen as a step forward when compared to most games, it also seems quite disingenuous that a character is labeled as their sexuality. At the same time, a game like “Mass Effect” allows you to romance anyone you want, with almost no limitations. This can also seem disingenuous, as not everyone is a pansexual romancer in real life either. It seems to be a gray area in games as of right now,  but the idea of “romance” evolves everyday. Games should follow suit in this evolution, and find a perfect middle in how to handle the relationship.

This week we discussed accessibility in video games, meaning not only how people can access your game in order to play, but how people with disabilities can access your game. To begin, we played The Jackbox Party Pack during class, a game that only requires one copy to play online with friends. Additionally, the game is played through a browser window on any internet device, including computers, phones, and tablets, thus no extra components are required to play with up to 10,000 people online. I have personally been supporting the Jackbox Games company ever since their first party pack, and have always been amazed at the way these games can bring people together due to their simplicity and accessibility. These games are (as the name implies) great for parties, and I have played these games with friends and family many times. People I know who aren’t too keen on video games, such as my aunts, uncles, and even my grandparents love these games, and they have practically become a staple of family gatherings. Nights go by quite quickly when playing these games with friends, and having introduced these games to many friends and meeting people through playing these games has convinced me that these games are the closest you can get to accessibility to everyone. The small cost and insanely high replayability factor of the games is something to be admired and studied by the games industry, and from a strictly gameplay perspective, is a perfect example of how to make something everyone can enjoy. On the other hand of accessibility comes making the game available to play by people who may have disabilities or otherwise may have trouble playing video games. We can see this exemplified by most games having subtitles for the hearing impaired, such as with The Jackbox Party Packs, which also have family friendly options that remove the raunchier options from the games. While these accessibility options don’t affect me personally, it is always wonderful to see gamers playing games in any way they can, making accessibility a big factor for game developers and studios. Some examples that pop into my mind are the multitude of color blind options in “Overwatch”, which accounts for several different diagnosed variants of color blindness, such as Deuteranopia, Protanopia, and Tritanopia. Another example is with the Xbox Adaptive controller which we discussed in class, which is a large, programmable controller that allows the user to map their buttons onto the controller in any way they please. On top of this, some highly dedicated players with disabilities have found their own ways to enjoy their favorite video games. Just one of these players, known as “handi” on twitch, plays “Counter Strike: Global Offensive” using special key bindings despite being born without arms or legs. Accessibility doesn’t stop with the players either, as sometimes developers honor and embrace their community of disabled players by adding items or characters to their games that acknowledge disabled players. This can be seen with “Overcooked!” featuring a chef character that works in a wheelchair, and in “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” with the wheelchair item, helping some players feel more at home in their virtual world. Accessibility of video games can mean many different things, but is incredibly important to consider in order to reach the widest audience.

This week pertained mostly to balance in games, as well as how to design a game that is fair for everyone. We touched on many games this week, but we specifically talked about two games near and dear to my heart, being “Hearthstone” and “League of Legends”. These games both have had their issues with balance, but exemplify the importance of balance in online games as a whole. To begin, “Hearthstone” is a card game made by Blizzard Entertainment based on the Warcraft universe, and has garnered a massive audience since its launch in 2014. I have been playing this game since the first year it was released, after the game had already received its first three expansions. I can remember ten times off of the top of my head when this game was imbalanced. It is incredibly difficult to get balancing right the first time, especially in a card game, and Blizzard is usually quick to responding to feedback, now more than ever. Just recently, Blizzard added a whole new class to play as in Hearthstone, the Demon Hunter. This class is based on the class of the same name in “World of Warcraft”, and features a play style similar to the MMORPG as well. Rushing the enemy down with low cost cards, attacking with weapons for extra utility, and healing while dishing out damage is what Blizzard imagined when designing the Demon Hunter. This playstyle is similar to the Hunter, who relies on taking control of the board and keeping it with powerful Beasts and spells, with a hero power that helps whittling the enemy’s health down. However, Hunter has little to no healing, with Hunter relying on a control or midrange playstyle. Demon Hunter on release could do everything other classes could do, but better. An incredible early game with sticky low cost minions and spells? That beats the zoo playstyle of Warlock. Playing tons of cards in one turn while drawing through your deck for amazing tempo swings? Demon Hunter’s draw still rivals the Rogue. Massive minions to seal out the game with, as well as massive spells? Mage and Shaman wish they could have some of that. It was almost insulting how powerful Demon Hunter was on day one, and it was solely based on the Demon Hunter’s most powerful cards. The 10 most powerful cards of the class found their way into every deck, making Demon Hunter have the highest winrate in Standard play, Wild play (which allows for use of all cards ever printed in the game), and Arena play (which gives the player a semi-randomly generated deck to play with against others). A class that had been in the game for one day was dominating the entire card pools of other classes which had been in the SIX years. Blizzard, however, acted accordingly and hotfixed the game on day two of the expansion, making the game much more fair for all of the other classes. This, among many other stories in the history of “Hearthstone”, have shown the importance of balance. When it comes to Riot Games and their MOBA “League of Legends”, Riot is notorious for having issues with balancing. They have said that they like releasing champions to the game strong in order to shake up the meta and then act accordingly, but this has led to some very sticky situations. For example, at one point in the game’s 10 year lifespan, a certain champion, Kassadin, had a 95 percent ban rate in all competitive play. At this time, Kassadin was running away with games, effortlessly destroying anyone who would face him, and could easily “1v5” an entire enemy team. Today, Kassadin still has a very strong late game presence, but is quite weak during the early game, making him much more balanced than he was during his “reign of terror”. To conclude, balancing is incredibly important in any game, no matter what the genre or audience. If intense care isn’t taken to balance, players will find how to break your game. While sometimes things can slip through the cracks, testing is of the utmost importance.

This week, we talked about perspective in video games, as well as nostalgia, using the game ‘Night in the Woods’ as a framing of both. To begin, perspective is crucial in games, as it determines the nature of gameplay as well as setting up what role you, as a player, take in the game itself. For example, If you are playing a game like “The Legend of Zelda”, you control Link throughout his adventure from a third person perspective. While you play no part in the story, you are controlling a character that the story revolves around, making the player an omniscient guide to victory for Link. Originally, when the playable character was being designed for “The Legend of Zelda”, many different names were considered, but Link was chosen in the end because originally, the character traveled to the past and future, becoming the “link” between time. Shigeru Miyamoto also designed Link to relate to all players and “have the opportunity to be heroes like the character”, making him the “link” between the player’s imagination and the game. Another example of perspective in games is the “first person” perspective, where you see the events of the game unfold in front of you, and characters around you address the player as if they are the protagonist. For example, the recent “Doom:Eternal” sees players take the role of the “Slayer”, a gun wielding super-being bent on eliminating the invading forces of  Hell. Throughout the vast majority of the adventure, you see through the eyes of the Slayer, are referred to as the Slayer, and more or less become the Slayer through customization options, whether that be decorating your ship or decorating the Slayer himself. Perspective can differ greatly not only from genre to genre, but from game to game as well. A good example of this is with battle royale shooters such as with “Fortnite”, in which you control an avatar of your choosing from a third person perspective, and with “Apex Legends”, in which you play from the first person perspective of a fleshed out champion with special abilities and voice lines. The second part of this week focused on nostalgia, and its prominence in our everyday lives. “Night in the Woods” plays on a different form of nostalgia, one that is deeply personal. The game plays on the setting of a small mining town in Pennsylvania, giving nostalgia to those with that very specific past, such as the developers. That would be like if I made a game about suburban Buffalo life, it’s something that I remember fondly, but something that gives others completely different feelings. Nostalgia for a time period is certainly seen a lot now, but this subtle form of nostalgia feels much more inviting, like a look back through a window of time you never saw before.

This week in class, we discussed information systems and dynamics in games, and how these systems can differ in games to convey what a player can and cannot do, or what a player is meant to do. These systems can be utilized to enhance a game with more information for the player, or can be intentionally taken away to give the player more of a sense of urgency or “being in the dark”. Some information systems can be quite simple, such as with checkers. Each space on a checker board is color coded, to show where players can and cannot move their pieces, and conveys the idea of diagonal movement through its layout. Some information systems, however, can be quite complex, such as with a game like ‘World of Warcraft’. This game tasks the player with using several sources of information at once to overcome their obstacles, such as knowing your spells and how they are cast using your hotkeys, what is nearby on the minimap, what your opponent is capable of, where your teammates are in relation to you, among other resources (quest log, quest markers, etc.).  These information systems become dynamic, however, through several elements of game play. A good example of a dynamic system comes from the popular Battle Royale games of the past few years, such as ‘Fortnite’ and ‘Apex Legends’. These games have very similar information systems to begin, such as sharing a markable map and minimap, but diverge from the genre’s staples in gameplay differences. In ‘Apex Legends’, a valuable source of information comes from the expansive in game ping system, in which a player can ask the team to move to a certain position, warn of enemies, or alert teammates of certain items they find. While ‘Fortnite’ has also implemented this system, ‘Apex Legends’ goes further in its information system by giving the player choice of using an incredible amount of pings, such as “Looting here”,  “Defending this position”, “This area has been comprimised”, or the option to take back a ping, in case a mistake is made. This system changes dynamically as fights are had, showing grenade warnings, ability cooldowns, options of healing items found on the map, and the variety of characters to play as, with, or against.  Dynamic systems apply to not only information systems, but other areas of games, such as random events, or an evolving world such as in Animal Crossing. One day, you might find a perfect peach hanging on one of your trees, or perhaps Gulliver will wash up on the shores (again). Without a little variety in games, every round or match would start to feel the same. Making a game feel truly alive can just take a little random chance.

Dynamic and Engaging Music

This week in class we played the highly narrative driven game, “Virginia”. This game continues our discussion on narrative in video games, while also showing a different kind of gameplay, more similar to a “walking simulator” or “interactive movie” type of game. The game tells the story of a newly appointed FBI agent named Anne Tarver, who is sent to Kingdom, Virginia to investigate a missing persons case, as well as investigate her partner, Maria Halperin. The game begins with a cinematic opening, showing locations throughout the game with an opening credits sequence and dramatic music accompanying the visuals. This is an interesting choice for a video game, as it makes the experience immediately feel more like a film rather than a game. Gameplay itself is pretty simple in this game, as it mostly consists of walking around as Tarver, taking in the surroundings and clicking on interactive objects to progress the story. There are no hidden collectibles, no levels, and no lives or even real danger. Everything in the game is scripted, and will happen every time no matter who is playing the game. The only variance in gameplay is how how long the player decides to take to move on with the story. In addition, the game is one fluent narrative, and has no real checkpoints or “levels” as I stated before. The game is segmented in “scenes” in the games menu, much like a DVD for a movie would display scenes. Truly, this game treats itself quite differently from other narrative driven games, such as “Half-Life”, “Portal 2”, or even “The Beginner’s Guide”. While these games each center on gameplay in a different way, a story is weaved into the experience, making for a memorable playthrough each and every time. “Virginia” is different in that it is almost a piece or art stuck between two mediums, game and film, yet still executes it story in a meaningful way. Earlier in the semester, we discussed how games can be played and what makes every game different because of these modes of play. For example, a game like “Hearthstone”, or a player versus player game, wildly varies from a game like “League of Legends”, or a team versus team oriented game. “Virginia” is hard to define, as it is a single player game, but there are no obstacles, nothing to fight against, it is just the experience you take from the story itself. It is truly something to think about when creating a game, and a narrative as a whole. Will the story benefit from being virtual? What hardships should a player face, if any? Telling a story through gameplay or environments certainly isn’t impossible, but “Virginia” certainly approaches this in a strange way.

This week we talked about environmental storytelling and the importance of showing rather than saying. While it’s true that many games tell their stories through extensive cutscenes, dialogue, and lore, some games put the story in the back seat, and let the player find the story themselves. During class, we looked at the games “Half Life 2” and “Firewatch” as examples of narrative architecture, with both of these games having a blend of narrative in dialogue and narrative architecture. Both of these games have masterfully designed maps that aid the story beautifully, helping with world building and telling the player so much about the game without saying anything. A good example of this blend in storytelling comes from another game made by Valve, “Portal 2”. The Portal series is a puzzle game series that was built in the Source engine, the same engine in which “Half Life 2” was built in, and features a world much different from the world of the Half Life series. The setting of the first “Portal” is an underground lab known as Aperture Laboratories, a sleek white series of chambers with puzzles built by the facilities AI overseer, GLaDOS. The game does not tell you much, other than that you are a test subject in GLaDOS’ lab, and that you must work towards the reward of cake (which turns out to be a fiery furnace in which GLaDOS tries to kill you, but to no avail). After seemingly destroying GLaDOS and escaping to the surface world at the end of the first “Portal”, “Portal 2” begins with the player back in a holding chamber in the lab. This chamber is modeled after a regular hotel room, but keeps the player character, Chell, in cryostasis until she is needed for testing again. It is revealed that Chell has been in this chamber for an extraodinarily long time (the exact time is never revealed, as the chamber states “You have been asleep for: 99999” before cutting out) before being broken out by an Aperture Core named Wheatley. Whaetley comes to player claiming that he needs help breaking out of the facility. When you first leave your chamber, you see that the facility has become run down without a robot AI keeping it efficient and clean. Everything is on the brink of collapse, nature has begun to reclaim parts of the chambers, and the sleek white walls have been dirtied by the sands of time. After accidentally reawakening GLaDOS, Wheatley and Chell are separated, and GLaDOS goes back to her old ways, using you for tests. Almost immediately, GLaDOS begins removing the trash from the labs and rebuilds test chambers with the old white walls from the first game. It is a return to normalcy, but it comes as a bit unwelcome in the context of the events of the first game and the second game up to this point. Once GLaDOS is defeated once again with the help of Wheatley, Wheatley is installed into the main control center of the lab. GLaDOS then reveals that Wheatley was an “intelligence dampening core”, made by Aperture scientists in an attempt to “slow her down” and “feed her bad ideas through the voice inside her head”. Wheatley becomes so enraged by being called an imbecile, that he literally pushes you down to the old Aperture labs, which was below the Aperture labs that GLaDOS had built the whole time, forgotten by time (and intentionally by GLaDOS). This Aperture is much less sleek, looking and feeling much older, using more primitive and dangerous technology, and reflecting the period of the crumbling company. As a last hope, Aperture scientists scraped together they could to attempt to save the founder’s life, Cave Johnson. Cave Johnson’s last request, however, was that they use his life saving AI upload on his assistant first, a girl named Caroline. GLaDOS then remembers her past, and becomes more sympathetic towards Chell. When you return to the original lab, you find that Wheatley has turned it upside down with his terrible ideas. For one, he neglects to cool the nuclear core of the lab, causing it to slowly melt. This is also reflected in the scattered buttons and walls of Wheatley’s test chambers. In addition, Wheatley creates cube hybrids with the game’s turrets, creating growling, walking abominations. Lastly, Wheatley attempts to kill Chell and GLaDOS, making it quite obvious that he is going to do so, and designing poorly designed traps.

I think this game is an excellent example of narrative architecture, and how a story can be driven by your surroundings. Not only is the environment imperative to solving puzzles, but it tells an entire story in itself, of a scientific facility slowly losing its way.

This week in Game Design led us towards creating more solid ideas and foundations towards our first projects. It was quite interesting to see some of the rough drafts that people presented, and their thought processes behind the projects themselves. This perfectly exemplified for me the creative process, and how everyone tackles their abstract ideas in different ways. For example, most of the games presented in class tackled a certain idea or mechanic in general, instead of encompassing many broad ideas or difficult topics. This makes sense due to the nature of all of our beginnings, and the exercises we practiced last week in class. My project tackles the idea of tier lists, and the competitive and opinionated nature of the form itself. Tier lists originated with the competitive fighting game, but online personalities have taken tier lists in a new direction, creating tier lists for fast food restaurants, movies, entire games, and even mascots that they could beat in a fight. This idea captivated my friends and I, becoming a pastime we would enjoy during late weekend nights. Therefore, I took this idea and started to play with it, envisioning a playable game around this phenomenon. It seems as though tackling small gaming challenges such as this can prepare you for more challenges ahead, and improve your critical thinking skills when it comes to designing games.

This ideology came to me in part due to playing “The Beginner’s Guide” during class this week. It tells the story of a mysterious and, perhaps misunderstood, amateur game developer known as Coda. The narrator, Davey Wreden, tells the story of his relationship with Coda, and how they were driven apart over the years. Each “level” showcases a different game that Coda created, starting with his first creations, and progressing through his journey of creation. While every game is different in its own way, it seems that each game encompasses one single idea in a flowing narrative inside Coda’s mind. One game might focus on puzzle solving, one might play with the idea of player interaction, some are just small corridors or rooms with little gameplay. It is hard to say what each individual project means, but each one certainly meant something to Coda. It seemed he hated the idea that every game needed a narrative or gameplay that serves the player, which Wreden tried to force upon Coda, eventually driving them apart. Wreden even tries to force meaning in the game through his narration, and intentionally skipping past portions of Coda’s work or manipulating his work. I think the most important take away from this game is that everyone thinks very differently about their projects, and envision ideas completely differently from others. While some may not see things the way you do, it is important to visualize your own success and seek to solve the problems in your own mind. While our projects have to be PLAYABLE in their final iterations, I hope to learn more from the entire process of creating a game, and how to fine my abstract idea into a fun and lively product.