During this week we discussed system dynamics, along with concepts of emergence and possibility space. I have been playing a lot of Hollow Knight recently and I believe that it captures all these aspects we spoke about in class.  Hollow Knight allows you to discover new areas of the game in a very unique way.  The only information that is presented on screen when playing is the players health and currency. Unlike most games, there is not a mini map on screen at all times to let the player know where they are going.  Instead, if the player wants to know where their location is, they first need to explore the area blindly until finding the creature who will give them the map. Even when you have a map of the area, you still have to stop what you are doing to pull out the map from your pocket and look at it.  I believe that this tells a lot about how the designers of the game wanted people to experience Hollow Knight.  Players are encouraged to blindly explore different areas and even get lost frequently.  A mini map not being shown in the corner of your screen as you play shows that it isn’t a central part of the experience.  The game lets you know what is possible through the design of the areas. There are certain areas that seem to just be out of reach, hinting that the fact that there is a certain ability needed to get to the next area.  When looking at a map, it is clear that there are more to certain areas when the paths look unfinished.  There would be an opening at the end of a path, showing that there is more to be discovered. I believe that the whole game is one big example of emergence due to the fact that each new area is unknown.  Every turn has the possibility of a new enemy attacking or a new area discovered.  Most boss battles happen unexpectedly when walking through an area. The experience of the game changes when new abilities are discovered which changes the way the player can move and approach new areas and bosses.

Works Cited

Fullerton, Tracy. Game Design Workshop: a Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games. CRC Press, 2019.

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.

This week in the class we talk about two topics. The first one is system dynamics. The second one is the information systems of games. In class, we look through games on the slides, and we try to identify what elements is in that game to guide us through to discover the space and environment of the game. For example in league of legend there is a mini-map on the left-hand side bottom corner for us to see where are we at right now in the game. Also in class, this week 3 of our classmates stream the Fornite game and play in front of the class. It is interesting to talk about Fornite this game, the space of the game will keep getting smaller and smaller as the game progress through time. And one other interesting thing we find is it may seem like it is a survival third-person shooting game at the beginning. But this game also has the other aspect when playing this game. Which is you can collect material and later on use them to build up building for hiding or attacking.  The system dynamic in Fornite plays a huge role. Without keeping shrinking the battlefield and if the player can not collect things and build up things from those resources. This game will just be a normal third-person shooting game. It is very interesting to see that if you change one aspect of a game as a game designer. The play style of a particular a game and the feeling message the game tries to tell the player will be totally different messages. Fornite this game gives the player a feeling like you are really on a battlefield, and you are forced to act, can not just keep hiding in one spot, because the map will shrink throughout the time. In the future, as we design games, we need to think about the system dynamics of a game, because you will never know what kind of interesting game will be designed when you just changing one aspect. For the information system of the game, it is important that can give the player some kind of ideas about what is going on in the game. For example when my classmates are playing Fortnite before the map starts shrinking there will be a timer running down and you will see a circle in the minimap. Without this kind of things the newer player of the game will get lost and confused, need a longer period of time to figure out how the game works.

This week in class we discussed system dynamics and the information systems of games. I know I am going to beat a dead horse here but I am going to discuss these two topics in the context of Animal Crossing: New Horizons since that is what I have been playing the past week nonstop. It was really interesting to have discussions in class looking at other games and how system mechanics looked in each game. I had never really noticed how much information the system gives the player visually. In Animal Crossing the boundaries of the game are clearly defined in the beginning of the game. You are on an island and there is nowhere else you can go. As you progress through the game, the boundaries expand. An airport opens up on the island and you can now visit other islands that the game provides or you can visit other players, making the boundaries of the game virtually endless. The player in Animal Crossing is lead through the progression of the game through interactions with other characters, mainly Tom Nook. Nook will tell or hint at the player what they should do next to progress. If the player does not understand what the next step is they can simply ask Nook “What should I do now?” With his guidance, the player builds more and completes tasks to further their island. Along with the information gathered from interactions with Nook, the player can also gather a lot of information from their pocket and their Nookphone. In their pocket, they can see all the items they hold, some of these items allowing the player to perform certain actions like fishing or digging. In the Nookphone players can see many things such as what creatures they have already encountered and what goals they are working towards.

Although Animal Crossing is a relatively relaxed and predictable game, there are some elements of the game that are unexpected. As my group discussed in class on Thursday Animal Crossing supplies a few emergent elements. The biggest one we could think of was the wasps and tarantulas on the island. These are the only elements of the game that actively attack the player while the rest are neutral or helpful. Other emergent elements could be balloons that randomly appear that you can collect gifts from and interactions with other characters in the game where they offer up a gift to the player.

P.S. Tom Nook is a good man and I will die defending him

Works Cited

Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Nintendo, 2020

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

               Something Fullerton mentions during this week’s chapter, ‘Working with System Dynamics,” is the relationship between objects leading to their roles as systems, with the lack of relationship resulting in the objects being a mere collection rather than a system. “…systems also have relationships among their objects. This is a key concept in design. If there are no relationships between the objects in question, then you have a collection, not a system.” This is something that resonates with me, as I have played several games, some of which I have played for years, that doesn’t seem to understand this. Using a game that I am familiar with, Warframe, as an example; the game has many resource pools to draw from, and with each content update the pool of resources grows larger and larger still. DE, the developers of the game, states that this is done to prevent veterans from being able to trivialize future content with their hoard of resources. However, this serves to detract from what the community has been asking for to change, as the community has been advocating for the merging of content with new uses for old resources, allowing for the interaction (relationship) between old content and new content. This cannot be further from reality however, and every new piece of content provided by the developers only serve to alienate old and new further, creating much less of what would be a “system” and more to what Fullerton deems as “collections.”

                While on the topic of Warframe, it is also a good example of a bad information structure. The game has been touted as not new player friendly, and rightly so. Warframe is a game where majority of the information provided to the player is hidden beneath a multitude of drop-down menus and out of the way screens, or even outside of the game on wikis rather than in the game. While it retains information structures one might expect from many games, such as on-the-screen keys indicators and objective markers, much of the information on statistics, personal quest information, or even something as basic as intuitive item pickups are not present. An even more apparent example of bad information structure within Warframe is that ITEM LABELS, you know the thing that tells you what each item is, is turned OFF by default. Warframe is a good game to highlight the importance of systems and information structures, as while it has its moments with the good in both categories, it’s also a perfect highlight of all the bad. It exhibits good examples of “collections” rather than “systems” and what should theoretically be incorporated within good information structures.

                Sources

Fullerton, Tracy. Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games; Third Volume

Every game has an information structure. This is defined by Fullerton as “information about the state of the game objects and their current relationships to each other.” However, the way that the information is displayed to the player is different for each game. A common display would be the UI. There might be health bars, a mini map and an ammo tracker in the bottom right hand corner. 

These few pieces are normally what we think of, but we forget about the info that isn’t shown. “Many games use a mixture of open and hidden information so that players are given some data about the state of their opponent’s game, but not all (Fullerton).” This point is definitely key to a lot of games. When playing horror games like Dead by Daylight or Friday the 13th, the players do not know where each other are on the map with some exceptions for both games. Regardless, this means the player has to be alert to their surroundings, especially when other players might need your help. The information that you aren’t given can cause another player to die, due to your absence. With the killer in mind, one must keep track of sound cues and the absence of sound cues. However, there can still be moments, where if the player is not paying complete attention, they can be caught off guard, due to the lack of mini maps. 

The information structure determines how the game feels. If you don’t know something, it can be mysterious or scary or maybe even intense. It also changes the overall fluidity of the game. In a first person shooter, if there was no ammo tracker, the player would be constantly rationing bullets. Ammo would become a delicacy. Gameplay would shift drastically. In the same way, if there is no map, a player must be more cautious and focus on their surroundings to guide them to their goal. The more complex the game, the more information has to be explained. Sometimes the information structure is too much for a new player and tutorials are needed. Overall, the information structure is dedicated to helping the player become more immersed, understand their objective and give them more complex feelings towards different parts of the game.

Works Cited

Fullerton, Tracy. Game Design Workshop: a Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games. CRC Press, 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.

In class, we discussed a lot about the dynamics of gameplay, and how changes and variances in game information and rules can affect a player’s playing experiences. For example, Wright brings up the concept of mapping, where players respond to boundaries either introduced by the game itself or by other players. While boundaries can be seen as limiting, these boundaries can also give emergence to a variety of strategies that players may come up with in order to work in tandem to these boundaries. Emergent gameplay, where new changes or possibilities are discovered within the game as the playtime progresses, also serve to keep players on their toes, giving them or taking away mechanics they can work with, and as a result springing forth new strategy possibilities. 

Having a game that can introduce changes into its system may create a more enjoyable gaming experience overall. In competition-driven games, this keeps the gameplay from becoming monotonous and forces the player to be alert and continue to adapt to the changing phases of the game. In story-driven games, this is useful in hammering in the stakes or weight of a scene or a consequence of a player’s choice within the story, and they can be useful in combination in adding to the surprise of a twist. 

I think in some games, the developers also strive to constantly change the feel of the gameplay and the strategy through consistent patches and introduction of new agents. This, I feel, is to prevent the game from falling into a state where players eventually only start playing the “best” strategy, making gameplay stale and invariant between games. In League of Legends, new characters are regularly introduced, as well as large yearly patches where new gameplay rules are introduced to throw off the mainstream strategies that were established in the past year.

Some games thrive on players actively seeking out all the possibilities that exist within the game. One particular game I can think of is Undertale, where a multitude of videos exist of players and fans documenting all the ways the game changes based on specific actions they take, some of which seem to be very specific and obscure.

I feel that I’ve learned a lot about how emergent gameplay works and can be utilized to create greater freedom and impactful actions for players. 

Sources:

Wright, Will, director. Dynamics for Designers. Vimeo, 2003, vimeo.com/193267720.

In this blog I will be talking about chapter 5: Working with System Dynamics. In this chapter, it talks about objects, properties, behaviors, and relationships of the basic elements of systems in games. In the textbook objects “are the basic building blocks of a system. Systems can be thought of as a group of inflated pieces” (Fullerton p. 130). An example of this would be individual chess pieces such as the kings and queens. “Properties are qualities of attributes that define physical or conceptual aspects of objects. Generally, these are a set of values that describe an object” (Fullerton p. 130). In the book, it talks about checkers and how it has only three properties: location, color, and type. Checkers have a set color, they can change locations and depend on where your piece is, it can turn from a normal piece to a king. The behavior has to do with the potential actions that a piece could make. For instance, in chess, a bishop can only move diagonally, and a rook can only move up, down, left, and right. The final one he talks about is relationships amongst objects in games. Ms. Fullerton said that “relationships can be expressed in a number of ways” (Fullerton p. 131). For instance, the progressive spaces from the board game Monopoly. This game has a fixed linear relationship that restricts your possibilities while the game Sims has a loose relationship where your character can freely interact with objects that they want to interact with.

In my opinion, the most interesting element is relationships. Recently I have been playing the Animal Crossing on the Nintendo Switch and it reminds me of a loose relationship. In Animal Crossing you are able to interact with pretty much anything you want. In the game, you can talk to anyone on your island. You can fish, catch bugs, pick up items, and even dig up items! You can customize your clothing and your home to whatever you want it to look like. The game has an endless number of possibilities that a single player can do. It is exciting every time I get to see other friends islands because the map layouts are different and the way they play the game is different.

Fullerton, Tracy. Game Design Workshop: a Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games. CRC Press, 2019.

Information in a game determines many of the decisions that a player will make. My experiences in gaming is far different than what was discussed in class. With the strategy games being most similar to first more mainstream first person shooters. This is because most of the information is available. Everything has a reason for its current value which is able to be looked up to gain an understanding of the current situation. This would be analogous to the current amount of health a player has. It is up to the player to act or react to the opposing players. The only thing that is really terra incognita is where the enemies are which is also the case for many games on the market. This complete control of displaying information can be fun but is not the only way games are able to be made.

During class, we did not talk about what happens when removing information can affect the game play experience. Such as removing a HUD all together to have no feedback on the players health of the character or amount of ammo. Subtracting elements of information can make the feeling more immersive since it is reliant on the player to count shots or move more cautiously if they know death is less forgiving. Terra incognita is still there with player movement but it is also there with their death especially in long range encounters since there is no way to know if the player actually killed their enemy outside of seeing them rag doll or they are no longer shooting. All these make the games more realistic and a better experience for it. It hurts the accessibility of the game as there is a steep learning curve but that does not make it less valid of a way to design games.