This week we talked about dealing with unbalanced games. There are different aspects that we have to take into account when we want to make changes to the game. One example that we talked about was the spawning system for a shooting game. I personally find the GDC video interesting. I understand now why every new Dota heroes that Valve release tend to be overpowered then underpowered. In a sense, it’s better to create overpowered elements and then have to scale it down later than to do the opposite. Another thing that I realize is that, online games tend to have more changes than physical games such as card games or tabletop game. I think it’s because it’s easier to send those changes to the players online, since all they have to do is update the game. The company also keeps releasing updates to keep the players interested in the game.

In Fullterton’s chapter 10, she also talked about symmetrical and asymmetrical design. Symmetrical games are games in which each player has the exact same starting conditions, resources and states. On the other hand, players in asymmetrical games do not. For example, chess is pretty symmetrical since the white has the same 16 units as the black, however it is still not 100% symmetrical since it’s a turn-based game which means one has to go first. I would say most of the games out there are fairly asymmetrical, especially video games. When it comes to asymmetrical games, I think it’s harder to make them balanced because we have different kinds of elements that we have to balance. For example, in games such as LoL, Dota, or Overwatch, how do we know that this specific healing character is better than the other one. Although in game such as Overwatch, even if there is an underpowered character, both teams still have access to all the characters so it’s still fair and balance in that sense. However in Dota, a hero cannot be picked twice and be on both teams.

So it’s good to notice these differences in the design so that we can balance or make changes to the game accordingly.

Works Cited:

Fullerton, Tracy. Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, 4th Edition. 2019.

This week we focused mostly on working on our group project. We also got to see iterative design came to play which includes iterative playtests, continual design, and survey for the play testers. In Fullerton’s chapter 9, she writes “The common misconception is that playtesting is simple—just play the game and gather feedback. In reality, playing the game is only one part of a process that involves selection, recruiting, preparation, controls, and analysis“. She also talks about how playtesting is a concept that most game designers understand the least about. If you read further, you can see how playtesting plays a crucial role in our game design process.

It was cool to see different survey methodologies this week and to choose the best one that fits our game design the best. Last week, our team designed the prototype of the game, but the game still had elements that were unbalanced. The only thing that can check if the game is balanced is playtesting. Sometimes the actual the game does come out as good as the theoretical design that we have in mind. After playtesting our monopoly-like table top game, we realized that there were elements that were not useful or too overpowered. Playtesting also does more than just checking the balance of the game. It can check other aspects such as how long it takes for players to learn about the game, how clear the rules and instructions are, and the overall enjoyment of the game. We used the information we got from the survey questions that we sent to our playtesters on Thursday to redesign our game better.

With our current schedule and situation, I think most of us do not have much time to playtest the game as much as we want to. I think if we keep playtesting our game, I think we will find the ideal balance of the game.

Works Cited:

Fullerton, Tracy. Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, 4th Edition. 2019.

In the Fullerton chapter from this week, she writes “The interface for a digital game is a combination of the camera viewpoint of the game environment and the visual display of the game status and controls that allow the user to interact with the system” (pg 260). This week we talked more specifically about viewpoints and perspectives in video games. They determine a huge part of the overall experience in video games. Game designers choose certain viewpoints to achieve certain experience. For example, most story games will usually have either 1st person or 3rd person perspective, unless it’s a text based game. On the other hand, top-down perspective are used for MOBA games or strategy game. However this is just a generality. Pokemon uses top-down viewpoint but it’s not a strategy game. Top-down viewpoint allows the player to see a wide area. This is useful when the game designer wants the player to control multiple units at the same time which is the case in most strategy games. On the other hand, 1 person or 3rd person perspective allow the player to be closer with the character.

One game that I find interesting is the old Resident Evil sequels. The game shows a static angle at a time and when a character goes to another section of the room, the angle changes. This design really increases the horror and surprise elements. For example, due to the fact that players sometimes can’t see ahead, players have to listen to sounds. There are rarely any games like this. We also have games that uses side view perspective such as Night in the Woods that we played on Tuesday. The side view allows the designer to use 2D arts to achieve the overall mood of the game.

So in general, it’s important to think about what kind of game that we want to make. We need to choose the best perspective to achieve the effects that we want. Not to mention that how the mechanics and the kinesthetics work in that perspective also matter a lot.

Works Cited:

Fullerton, Tracy. Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, 4th Edition. 2019.

This week we looked at dynamic elements and how information is displayed in games.

It’s interesting how information in games should be easy to understand so that players who have not played the game yet can guess what they mean. The use of colors is also crucial. For example, red is always associated with danger or the enemies. On the other hand, green or blue can be associated with allies. There are more examples that we discussed in class such as map, symbols, tiles/squares, environment, and more that show how the game works. So how the information is displayed help the players understand the game and the dynamic system of the game which brings us to the next topic that I want to discuss.

In Fullerton’s chapter 5 “Working with System Dynamic” it is mentioned that “if you can take components away from a system without affecting its functioning and relationships, then you have a collection, not a system. A system, by definition, requires that all elements be present for it to accomplish its goal”. It is important to notice that removing the information that we talked about in the above from a game does not affect the dynamic system of the game. However, it will affect how the players understand it. In Fornite, the game shows that we can destroy objects to get materials and this is accomplished by showing that we have the amount of resources displayed and making material signs appear as we destroy something.

So in designing a game, it’s important to evaluate how the dynamic system works. A game should be developed with as minimum elements as possible, because the more element there are, the harder it is to keep track of the overall experience or the balance of the game. This minimum state consist of the base rules and design of the game. From there, we keep incrementing more dynamic elements to the game. So if we were to make a game like Fornite, it should start with basic 3rd person shooting elements, a simple map and from there, maybe we can add more elements such as materials for building, a more complex map, different kinds of weapons and more.

Fullerton, Tracy. Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, 4th Edition. 2019.

Last week I learnt about how important it is to have a diverse team in making a game. Each person has his/her own skill set to bring to the table and we need to utilize those skills to the maximum. How we utilize them efficiently is the main topic that we talked about. In general, when we work in a team, there is always a role assigned to each person. For example, we have different roles such as UI/UX Designer, programmers, visual artist, audio engineers, writers and many more. I think getting the most out of everyone in terms of technical skills is really important, however doing the same when it comes to creating meaningful narrative is more challenging. For example, Virginia 2016, in order to create this fictionalized Virginia that takes place in 1992, they need people who has some knowledge about the cultural context and historical context of Virginia around that time. In week 6, we already talked about some of the details such as the ratio between male characters and female ones. So now the main question is how do we get those people. First, I think we need to have people with related backgrounds in the team and second, we need to get to know them. One thing that is really important is getting to know your team members and understanding where they are coming from. If we want to represent a minority in a game, it’s crucial to have someone who represents that minority in your team.

Then we also played Overwatch in class on Thursday. This game really showcases a teamwork-based game. It’s really hard to win in Overwatch if the team is lacking a role. If you take out the healer from the team, the team does not have any sustainability. The game also relies on team communication whether that be by voice chat or by visuals. The game designers use certain indicators or marks to help the team to communicate to each other. One example would be the healing notification when one of your team member is low in hp.

So to conclude, last week we talked about the importance of teamwork both in a game and in a team that produces games.

Overwatch, Blizzard Entertainment, 2015

Virginia. Variable State. Published by 505 Games. 2016. 

This week we dived deeper into dramatic elements and how they contribute to the overall experience of a game. In Fullerton’s chapter “Working with Dramatic Elements” it is mentioned that “Dramatic elements give context to gameplay, overlaying and integrating the formal elements of the system into a meaningful experience“. Some of the elements are characters, challenges, story, visuals, music, environment, premise, pace, and many more. Depending on the game, some of the elements are more emphasized than the others. For example, in games such as Dota 2, Overwatch, and Counter Strike, challenges and mechanics are the main dramatic elements that contribute to the overall experience of the games. On the hand, games such as Virginia (2016), Firewatch and The Beginner’s Guide focus more on story, visuals, environment and music instead.

This week I got to see in depth how visuals, music, environment and characters come into play as we played Virginia (2016) in class. In Virginia, we can see how the game designers use lightning, coloring, contrasts, and environment to give certain effects. One example would be using the color bright red in dreams to give this mysterious and vivid vibe. The game also starts with a dramatic music in the background and movie-like manner cut scenes that were short and quick. Last but not least, the design choice have a strong impact on the overall message and experience of the game such as having male characters as the majority or having our character silent during whole game. I think it’s interesting that most of the characters in the game are male but the ones that we can related the most are the female characters, the main character and her mother. Even though I have not played the whole game, I believe that there are good reasons behind all of these specific design choices.

Another game that comes to my mind is Batman: Arkham City. Besides progression and story line, I enjoy its uses of environment, space and dramatic music to improve the gameplay. This game is an open world game and it requires sneaking around to takedown enemies. The challenges and the open world design give this “loss of self consciousness” described in the Fullerton’s book, as I play the game.

To conclude, most of these games use story, progression, visuals, environment, music and challenges to create a game with meaningful experience. These are the important things that we need to take into account when we design our own games.

Works Cited:

Fullerton, Tracy. Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, 4th Edition. 2019.

Virginia. Variable State. Published by 505 Games. 2016. 

On Tuesday, we talked about Game Design as Narrative Architecture by Henry Jenkins and in fact, I get to experience some of the author’s concepts when we played The Beginner’s Guide , Half-Life 2, Firewatch and even on Thursday when we get to play the solo project games.

The author mentions that not all games have stories and I can see that in The Beginner’s Guide. In The Beginner’s Guide, the narrator talks about how most of Coda’s games have no stories in them, not to mention that they all seem to be unfinished. However, I do enjoy the game and the reason for that is because the narrator, Davey Wreden turns his relationship with Coda and all Coda’s games into a single work of art or game that has story in it. His relationship with Coda gives a lot of context to the game. Without it, Coda’s games have no stories in them, however it is good to note that they are still considered as games.

On the other hand, we also have games where the stories are huge parts of the games. For example, both Half-Life 2 and Firewatch use stories to appeal to our emotions or previous narrative experiences as Jenkins would describe it. I love how Firewatch uses flashbacks to give more backgrounds to the character you are playing. It gives this sense of solitude in the forest, showing that the character perhaps wants to be alone. Another example would be from today. I played this ladder-like board game that has a Pokemon theme in it. This is an example of evocative space in which as I play the game, all of my experiences related to Pokemon come back to me.

All of these are useful when it comes to prototyping or designing the game, which we talked about last week. When prototyping and designing a game, we should ask ourselves questions such as: Will there be a story in the game? Will it be the main part of it? Even in developing the story, we can use the concept we learnt from Mark Barrett’s speech. We should design the overall story in the beginning and make it more in depth and add more details as we progress.

Barrett, Mark. “Hitchhiker’s Guide to Rapid Prototypes!” GDC, YouTube, 6 September 2017.

Jenkins, Henry. “Game Design as Narrative Architecture”, Electronic Book Review, July 10, 2004, .

This week we explore more about the structure of games and their procedural rhetoric through reading Fullerton’s book and playing games in class. In her book, The Structure of Games, Tracy Fullerton describes about the underlying structure that all games usually have. In her book, she lists all the elements that games usually have which include players, objectives, procedures, rules, resources, conflict, boundaries, and outcome (Fullerton, 32-38). In this blog, I want to focus mostly on players, procedures and rules. What distinguish between games and other forms of media is player. Players are required in games and due to this, users of games are more active compare to users of other media. Procedures and rules are also important because all other elements of games rely on them. Without procedures and rules, the game can’t have a good outcome, game play, and become meaningless in a sense.

We also talk about procedural rhetoric, how rules and procedures can have meanings and lessons behind them. On Tuesday, I was playing Secret Hitler. This game is similar to Werewolf in which deception and persuasion are key to winning the game. Secret Hitler can teach people that persuasive speaking or speech can convince someone to believe something that wasn’t convincing in the first place. It also have some aspect of luck in it, for example, each player will either be a liberal or a fascist and in each turn a player will have to draw 3 cards and choose 2 cards out of the 3 for another player to choose from. Those cards can be either liberal or fascist. In short, a liberal would want to choose a liberal card out of the 2 cards given to him/her, thus it would be unlucky for a liberal player to draw 3 fascist cards. The procedural rhetoric of the games shows that there are aspects that we cannot control. Sometimes, we already know who the Hitler is and know how to win the match, but we simply can’t win due to these unlucky draws. This is also true in our daily life too. We can make wise decisions but essentially these aspects are out of our control.

I guess all of these above allow me to have a better grasp of the structure of games and use that understanding for the solo project. The most important questions to ask are: how do players engage in the games? what are the rules? are they balanced and making sense? Is the procedural rhetoric relevant to certain audience?

One the most interesting topics that we had this past week is the one about Audre Lodre’s Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women redefining Difference. In her text, she mainly talks about how differences and how we perceive them affect our lives, for the most part, negatively. In any society, differences are inevitable. Ignorance is usually the main reason why differences separate us, just like what she mentions on page 115, “But it is not those differences between us that are separating us. It is rather our refusal to recognize those differences, and to examine the distortions which result from our misnaming them and their effects upon human behavior and expectations“. After thinking about it, I think this is true to a certain degree because most people tend to stay in their comfort zone and be “ignorant” to anything that they are not used to. Most people grow up according to the mythical norm set in that society. Another problem she mentions in the text is that ignorance to see differences still exist within a group that is fighting for other differences. For example, within a group of woman who fight for woman’s rights, sometimes white women fail to see the differences between them and black women. She also goes on to talk about how men also play a role in this whole situation etc.

While reading her text, I keep thinking ‘This type of issues are apparent in a lot of countries and we have been dealing with this in America for quite long. Will there be any point of time where we reach a decent understanding about differences and not just simply ignore them?’ Maybe yes, or maybe it’s just the nature of who we are. I guess the main key to this problem is acknowledging these differences first. In order to do so, sometimes it requires effort, such as reading article like these or getting to know people who are different to you. I think effort is needed because in reading Lorde’s text, there are a lot of things that she mentions about black women, white women, and men that still seem abstract to me because I never have any first-hand experiences of it. The very least thing that we can do is try to accept and understand these differences.

Lorde, Audre.  Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference.  Received from https://learn-us-east-1-prod-fleet01-xythos.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/5e00ea752296c/5328871?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%2A%3DUTF-8%27%27Lorde-Age-Race-Class-Sex.pdf&response-content-type=application%2Fpdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20200206T022754Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=21600&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAZH6WM4PLTYPZRQMY%2F20200206%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=22e1d1f6fa8f59e70fdcfb7571f83c25d59ff18eb34ff6d89d016b41995fd991