Dusting Off The Graphics Tablet!/ Bartle Article...or Barticle - MUD's

      Something less work orientated now, I dug out my graphics tablet which I brought down to Ipswich with me however forgot I had and thought I'd put it to some use. I was actually waiting for one of the overpopulated servers on WoW to free up a space for me to play which forced me to think about what I could do for 20 minutes to occupy myself. I recently bought a months subscription to try out the new expansion Blizzard have developed, Cataclysm. The whole theme of the expansion is based around a dragon named Deathwing, so with that in mind I just started drawing some kind of dragon...thing whilst I waited. I ended up missing my space in the queue because I got slightly engrossed and have just spent the last 2 hours messing about in Photoshop! Anyway, I've got this so far:

(Click image for bigger picture)

     I've ended up taking it a bit further than I was planning so I thought I'd carry on with this and make it a little project for myself to cover the whole canvas, add a background/colour eventually. If you google 'Deathwing'  you'll see one or two resemblances, the jaw mainly, but i'm not so fussed, it was more a chance to draw something cool and get used to using a tablet again. That's all I want to say really! I'll post up another version when I get more done! I'll keep saving at stages and keep jpegs of my progress. As I get further I'll update this image above.

 (This was the image I referred to from time to time)

    Whilst around the subject of WoW, it's a good opportunity to talk about the article I read a few weeks ago regarding MUD's and different player types that play them by Richard Bartle. MUD's, which stands for 'Multi User Domain' (or Dungeon) are the foundation upon which games like World Of Warcraft sit, consisting of numerous players playing in the same environment, for example Dungeon's and Dragons. MMORPG's like WoW are an evolutionary form of this. Bartle opened the article with the question 'Are MUD's social or gamelike?' and breaking them down into four different ways of perceiving them; games, pastime, sport or entertainment.

    The jist of the article was that whilst carrying out research into MUD's Bartle discovered that there were four distinct different types of player styles; Achievers, Explorers, Killers and Socialisers are the names he gave to those groups. I don't think this part Bartle's theory can be disputed, as anyone who has played MUD's or MMO's for a while could quite easily establish which of these groups they fit into, or combination of. Achievers strive to simply achieve goals set by the game and seek the most efficient way of doing so ('grinding' in some cases). Explorers favour exploring game environments and collecting, possibly then moving into exploration of game mechanics (which can lead to the discovery of glitches/bugs). Killer's find pleasure in causing distress to others and hindering progress, in the example of WoW this is often done by means of 'ganking' in which stronger players will kill weaker players for no gain. Finally Socialisers who play for the communicative elements of the game to  converse with other players. This may seem as a slight generalisation to some, however from experience, I can testify that these groups do exist.

    Bartle then progressed to talk about the interaction between these groups and the game world. I won't talk about all of these as it was a pretty long article and this is meant to be a summary. However in a nut shell he spoke about how an unbalance between player types can lead to players leaving the game, for example too many killers could cause the population of explorers to reduce. He suggested methods of introducing different in game facilities to ensure balance between player types, a possible solution to the just mentioned problem could be, increase the world size. He also explained how some player types act on each other and others act on the world and the differences between those. There is an understable logic to ideas like these, however there were a few points that Bartle was making which to me seemed more like assumptions that weren't really based on any evidence. An example, when discussing inter-player relationships Bartle says "Achievers tend to regard explorers as losers: people who have had to resort to tinkering with the game mechanics because they can't cut it as a player.". I'm not sure if Bartle is having a laugh here and at this stage in the article on page 600,001 my sense of humour was wavering or if he's making a serious point. I was told to cut Bartle some slack because at the time this was fairly new stuff he was suggesting so it might be sketchy in places, so I won't be pedantic about it.

    Despite me being slightly picky, I thought it was an interesting article nonetheless as I had never really directly thought about these ideas and as an occasional MMO player it was fun to see where I fell into these these categories.

Retro Game Review: Frogger (Final Edit)

    In this review I will be exploring the classic retro game Frogger. I will be focusing primarily on the various mechanisms Frogger employs and discuss how they consequently affect player dynamics. I will also be using the writings of various authors to support the points that I will be making. This will include articles such as Marcos Venturelli’s writing on casual gaming and Doug Church’s piece on design tools, feeding them in when necessary to explain how their ideas apply in the example of Frogger.

    Frogger (1981) is an arcade game created by Konami in which the player must navigate their way through and around various obstacles, which take the form of cars and logs and other sprites that are introduced in the later stages of the game as the difficulty increases. The aim of the game is to make your way across a road and a lake towards five bays in the quickest time possible for maximum points. Frogger and other retro games released around the 1980/90’s make for good case studies when attempting to analyse game mechanics as well as dynamics due to the simplicity of their nature and generally basic controls, which is something that Zegal makes testimony to, stating that “…Classic arcade games are the ‘primordial soup’ from which many of the future conventions of games design were proposed…” and later going on to describe them as the ‘building blocks’ for contemporary games, which is very much the case with Frogger.

    Frogger is a simple game using basic controls (left, right, up, down) and a basic point scoring system. This mechanic reinforces the ‘pick up and play’ element of Frogger, which Marcos Venturelli states in his article ‘Space of Possibility and Pacing in Casual Game Design – A PopCap Case Study’ are “…experiences that can be enjoyed in small bursts and interrupted by the player without penalty…” The game’s rules and mechanics are very much understandable within the first play through before the player exhausts their three lives, which are given at the beginning of each wave game. The ‘lives’ that players are given initially allow players to begin establishing patterns in the game and discover tactics with which they can beat each wave before they get a ‘Game Over’.

    This is a topic that Koster [2005] touches upon, saying “…the natural instinct of a game player is to make the game more predictable…” During the first wave, players can begin to do just this, however on the second wave new obstacles are introduced to prevent the game from becoming solvable too quickly, this is done by increasing the speed at which the cars move across the screen thus making the game more difficult. Further waves continue to do this, on wave three snakes that navigate the pavement, which by this stage players would have established as a ‘safe zone’. These patrolling snakes take lives depending on whether they hit the player. Some logs that are needed to cross the lake are also replaced by crocodiles, which incur a similar penalty. This forces players to quickly change their patterns and adapt to these new obstacles.

    What works well with this method of keeping the game fresh is that these obstacles aren’t forewarned, adding elements of surprise to the game. This puts emphasises on the ‘struggle’ aspect of Frogger and begins to increase the importance of decision-making. In Costikyan’s article ‘I Have No Words & I Must Design: Toward a Critical Vocabulary for Games’, he states “…putting other obstacles in a game can increase its richness and emotional appeal...” I think what Costikyan means by ‘richness’ could be interpreted in a few ways, with regards to Frogger; the ‘richness’ is gained in terms of challenge by increasing the speed at which the obstacles move, adjusting the spaces between the obstacles i.e. Decreasing the space between the cars making it harder to reach the lake or decreasing the amount of time the player gets to reach the bay.

    By this stage in the game players now understand the rules and mechanics of Frogger, establishing what is considered ‘good’ and ‘bad’ moves. In Doug Church’s article on ‘Formal Abstract Design Tools’ he mentions, “…The key is that when the plan doesn't succeed, players understand why. The world is so consistent that it's immediately obvious why a plan didn't work.” This is regarding visible feedback and creating game responses that indicate to the player whether what they did was right/wrong and why this is the case. Frogger’s simple mechanisms communicate to the player what they should and shouldn’t do. For example, due to the consistency of the logs and cars that scroll across the screen players always know that running into a car is a ‘bad move’ and not jumping on a log when trying to cross the lake is also a ‘bad move;. The subtlety at which Frogger introduces new mechanics gradually over waves i.e. snakes on wave two and crocodiles on wave three, allow players to adjust to and understand them. The easy to grasp controls; that were mentioned previously, aid the player adapting to these mechanics, players know how fast and where the frog can hop allowing them to quickly adjust to new challenges.

    However, these new mechanics are all exhausted within the first few waves. The challenge of attempting to cross the screen becomes slightly repetitive and players are met with the same scenario wave after wave, which unless the player is enjoying trying to achieve the high score; can get dull. As simple as Frogger’s mechanics are, they are mechanics that are given away too early on in the game however adding bonus bugs and harmful sprites slightly as well as a possible urge to beat high scores increase the games longevity.

  

   That aside, the obstacles introduced in the first few waves cause changes in the pacing of the game and consequently increase tension. In Venturelli’s article, he states “…to create relaxation, tension and repetition the designer “paces” the game.” The time limit aspect of Frogger is one of the main means that the game does this. Players are compelled to attempt to reach the bays quickly as possible as score is partially determined by the amount of time it took to do so. If the time limit runs out, players also lose a life. It’s also worth mentioning that when the time limit is running out, fast paced music begins to play which again builds up tension. Other elements of the game contribute towards the pacing, like the bonus bugs which will randomly appear on passing logs that start to create different dynamics and paths the player can take towards the goal. Do I hop across this path of logs that has conveniently appeared for a quick and easy score? Or should I backtrack across logs and try and grab the bug before it disappears and earn myself some extra points? It’s the frequency of these decisions that keep Frogger entertaining and well paced during the beginning waves.

  

    What also works well with Frogger, as well as other retro arcade games like Pacman (1980) or Asteroids (1979), is the scoring system. Generally speaking it is considered bad design when games have no ultimate goal or end to a game. Costikyan states in his article, when talking about goals that “…most games have an explicit win state, a set of victory conditions…some games do not have explicit goals…” The ‘Hi-Score’ system used in Frogger is in it’s own way a primary goal. Players continually attempt to overcome the obstacles each wave presents in order to beat scores set previously either by themselves or others. The small bug bonuses could also be considered microcosmic goals within the game. This turns Frogger into a survival game as opposed to other retro games around the time like Galaga (1981) in which a player typically plays to complete the game. This however is only the case if players see this as a worthy reason to play Frogger and accept that this is the case. In ‘Challenges For Game Designers’, by Brenda Braithwaite and Ian Schreiber, it is mentioned that, “Goals typically provide rewards that motivate players…” Translated in the case of Frogger, the only real rewards gained by a player from playing Frogger is the satisfaction of knowing that they have beaten a high score, which also the motivation, which for some may not be enough.

    In conclusion Frogger is a fairly solid game in places, containing obstacles in the form of harmful sprites and time limits, short and long-term goals as well as a few bonuses thrown in for good measure. The replay value of Frogger is essentially only determined by a players’ desire to beat high scores and nothing else. Players who aren’t concerned by this may probably find Frogger a fairly pointless game. I suppose adding a narrative to Frogger may overcome this however I think that may be desecrating something that is considered somewhat of an arcade classic. I personally find Frogger enjoyable for a while, playing it through two or three times in attempt to find out what the later waves contain however after a few ‘Game Over’ screens, I find it hard to bring myself to start up another game. Perhaps this may be an aesthetic issue? Could Frogger be more exciting with a new skin? Or have I become a victim of contemporary gaming?

Bibliography

Venturelli, M. , (2009) Space of Possibility and Pacing in Casual Game Design – A PopCap Case Study, Gamasutra. [online] Available at: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MarkVenturelli/20091107/3497/Space_of_Possibility_and_Pacing_in_Casual_Game_Design__A_PopCap_Case_Study.php

Costikyan, G.  , I Have No Words & I Must Design: Toward a Critical Vocabulary for Games. Costik.com [online] Available at: http://costik.com/

Church, D. , (1999) Formal Abstract Design Tools, Gamasutra [online] Available at:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3357/formal_abstract_design_tools.php

Braithwaite, B. , Schreiber, I. , (2008) Challenges For Game Designers. (USA): Cengage Learning.

Zagal, P., Fernández-Vara, C., Mateas, M. Gameplay Segmentation in Vintage Arcade Games, Games and Culture (Vol 3 No 2 April 2008 175 – 198)
http://facsrv.cs.depaul.edu/~jzagal/Papers/Zagal_et_al_Gameplaysegmentation.pdf

Retro Game Review: Frogger (Draft 1)

      Frogger (1981) is an arcade game created by Konami in which the player must navigate their way through and around various obstacles, which take the form of cars and logs and other sprites which are introduced in the later stages of the game as the difficulty increases. The aim of the game is to make your way across a road and a lake towards five bays in the quickest time possible for maximum points. Frogger and other retro games released around the 1980/90’s make for good case studies when attempting to analyse game mechanics as well as dynamics due to the simplicity of their nature and generally basic controls, which is something that Zegal makes testimony to, stating that “…Classic arcade games are the ‘primordial soup’ from which many of the future conventions of games design were proposed…” and later going on to describe them as the ‘building blocks’ for contemporary games, which is very much the case with Frogger.
 

    A typical version of Frogger

     Starting with mechanics, Frogger is a simple game using basic controls (left, right, up, down) and a basic point scoring system. This mechanic reinforces the ‘pick up and play’ element of Frogger, which Marcos Venturelli states in his article ‘Space of Possibility and Pacing in Casual Game Design – A PopCap Case Study’ are “…experiences that can be enjoyed in small bursts and interrupted by the player without penalty…” The game’s rules and mechanics are very much understandable within the first play through before the player exhausts their three lives, which are given at the beginning of each wave game. The ‘lives’ that players are given initially allow players to begin establishing patterns in the game and discover tactics with which they can beat each wave before they get a ‘Game Over’. This is a topic that Koster [2005] touches upon, saying “…the natural instinct of a game player is to make the game more predictable…” During the first wave, players can begin to do just this, however on the second wave new obstacles are introduced to prevent the game from becoming solvable too quickly, this is done by increasing the speed at which the cars move across the screen thus increasing the game pace as well as the difficulty. Further waves follow this trend, on wave three snakes that navigate the pavement (which by this stage players would have established as a ‘safe zone’), which will take lives depending on whether they hit the player and some logs which are needed to cross the lake are replaced by crocodiles, which forces players to quickly change their patterns and adapt to these new obstacles. This consequently creates a change in the game's state, keeping players engaged. In Doug Church’s article on ‘Formal Abstract Design Tools’ he mentions, “…The key is that when the plan doesn't succeed, players understand why. The world is so consistent that it's immediately obvious why a plan didn't work.” This is regarding visible feedback and creating game responses that indicate to the player whether what they did was right/wrong. In the case of Frogger, incorrect choices/'deaths' are highlighted using small animation that shows the frog disintegrating and being placed back at the beginning when they accidentally fall in the water or get struck by a car. Also a little sound clip is played every time the player dies which also indicates that whatever they attempted to do was wrong. Right choices, being successful hops across the screen or grabbing a bonus bug are indicated by increases in score and again by a more upbeat sound clip.

    Back-tracking to the introduction of new obstacles in Frogger; what works well with this method of keeping the game fresh is that these obstacles aren’t forewarned, adding elements of surprise to the game. This emphasises on the ‘struggle’ aspect of Frogger and begins to increase the importance of decision-making. In Costikyan’s article ‘I have No Words & I Must Design: Toward a Critical Vocabulary for Games’, he states “…putting other obstacles in a game can increase its richness and emotional appeal...” I think what Costikyan means by ‘richness’ could be interpreted in a few ways, with regards to Frogger; the ‘richness’ is gained in terms of challenge by increasing the speed at which the obstacles move, adjusting the spaces between the obstacles i.e. Decreasing the space between the cars making it harder to reach the lake or decreasing the amount of time the player gets to reach the bay. 

    Whilst I’m around the topic of pacing and tempo, and referring back to Venturelli’s article, he states “…to create relaxation, tension and repetition the designer “paces” the game.” the time limit aspect of Frogger is one of the main means that the game does this. Players are compelled to attempt to reach the bays quickly as possible as score is partially determined by the amount of time it took to do so. If the time limit runs out, players also lose a life. It’s also worth mentioning that when the time limit is running out, fast paced music begins to play which again builds up the tension. Other elements of the game contribute towards the pacing, like the bonus bugs which will randomly appear on passing logs that start to create different dynamics and paths the player can take towards the goal. Do I hop across this path of logs that has conveniently appeared for a quick and easy score? Or should I backtrack across logs and try and grab the bug before it disappears and earn myself some extra points? It’s the frequency of these decisions that keep Frogger entertaining and well paced during the beginning waves. 

    What also works well with Frogger, as well as other retro arcade games like Pacman (1980) or Asteroids (1979), is the scoring system. Generally speaking it is considered bad design when games have no ultimate goal or end to a game. Costikyan states in his article, when talking about goals that “…most games have an explicit win state, a set of victory conditions…some games do not have explicit goals…” The ‘Hi-Score’ system used in Frogger is in it’s own way a primary goal. Players continually attempt to overcome the obstacles each wave presents in order to beat scores set previously either by themselves or others. The small bug bonuses could also be considered microcosmic goals within the game. This turns Frogger into a survival game as opposed to other retro games around the time like Galaga (1981) in which a player typically plays to complete the game. This however is only the case if players who see this as a worthy reason to play Frogger and accept that this is the case. In ‘Challenges For Game Designers’, by Brenda Braithwaite and Ian Schreiber, it is mentioned that, “Goals typically provide rewards that motivate players…” Translated in the case of Frogger, the only real rewards gained by a player from playing Frogger is the satisfaction of knowing that they have beaten a high score, which also the motivation, which for some may not be enough.

    With regards to the game structure, Frogger generally speaking proves to be fairly entertaining, with a slightly increasing difficulty as waves progress and introducing new obstacles, however; these elements new mechanics are all exhausted within the first few rounds. After a few rounds the challenge of attempting to cross the screen becomes slightly repetitive and players are met with the same scenario wave after wave, which unless the player is enjoying trying to achieve the high score; can get dull. As simple as Frogger’s mechanics are, they are mechanics that are given away too early on in the game however adding bonus bugs and harmful sprites slightly as well as a possible urge to beat high scores increase the games longevity.

    In conclusion Frogger is a fairly solid game in places, containing obstacles in the form of harmful sprites and time limits, short and long-term goals as well as a few bonuses thrown in for good measure. The replay value of Frogger is essentially only determined by a players’ desire to beat high scores and nothing else. Players who aren’t concerned by this may probably find Frogger a fairly pointless game. I suppose adding a narrative to Frogger may overcome this however I think that may be desecrating something that is considered somewhat of an arcade classic. I personally find Frogger enjoyable for a while, playing it through two or three times in attempt to find out what the later waves contain however after a few ‘Game Over’ screens, I find it hard to bring myself to start up another game. Perhaps this may be an aesthetic issue? Could Frogger be more exciting with a new skin? Or have I become a victim of contemporary gaming?

SportsTarget With Background

    I managed to drag myself out of bed this morning despite having some form of mega flu and knock up a background for 'SportsTarget' (my named version of SportsWheel). I'm pretty happy with it, I had to down the transparency of it because it was too vibrant with the chips, target etc. it was distracting. I also managed to get a few arrows in for aesthetics which I think help. I was tempted to add a few bits to the background however, again I don't want it to distract from the main elements of the game so here's what i came up with. I've got two different versions as I thought the upper example was a bit messy with the castle behind the chips, it just made that corner a bit too busy, so I moved it out of the way in the lower example:

(Click image for bigger picture)

SportsWheel Update

    I've spent the last few hours just polishing off and finalising some of the aspects of my SportsWheel assets. I'm pretty much there now, I've managed to finish my actual target board design (which is going to act as the sportswheel), made the few changes to the chips that I mentioned in the previous post and create my 'fire' button. Whist playing about with the assets in Illustrator I also decided on a new layout which works just as well as my previous idea however saves me some time and effort. I'm going to post up what I've got so far so you can all have a look and also I've got a backup method of showing them if my jpeg's decide to cock up in tomorrow's presentation...

(Click the image for a bigger picture)

    So here are the coins, the '100' coin has slightly changed in colour to keep it disimilar to the '10' coin.

(Click the image for a bigger picture)

    Here is my 'Fire Button', which was surprisingly tricky to do as I didn't really have too much reference to go by, so after playing around with strokes and colours I came up with this. The standard button on the left is what the player will see normally, however once clicked it will change to the example on the right, just to give the effect of them actually pressing something, also it's for practical reasons to, allowing the player to know when they've hit the button.

 (Click the image for a bigger picture)

    And here is my 'SportsTarget'. Essentially it's the same as the original SportsWheel design with regards to how the numbers, coloured/numbered sections are laid out. I didn't really feel the need to change too much of it as it works quite nicely anyway and also I didn't want to over complicate the design. I did change the centre of the design to that kind of 'X', quartered style to make it slightly more similar to a archery target, actually I think I could probably emphasise that more. The stand behind the target and simple wood grain effect I've added are just for aesthetics again to emphasise that it's meant to be a archery target. I'm also thinking about adding a few arrows sticking out of the ground when I come to design the background, which won't be too hard, again to add to the archery theme. The image below is the breakdown of the parts I used to make the target, basically it was all done using shapes that I drew using the pen tool in Illustrator. I tried to avoid using the premade circle shape tool where possible mainly because it would make the style different to the rest of the game. The number seperators were done just using the line tool, it actually took alot less time than I thought it would. I drew out the lines on one side aiming to get 15 different sections and if there was one less/one more section i woud just make the spaces between the lines smaller/bigger. Once I've done the background and balance/stake box I'm pretty much done. I don't think I'll be able to code the game to a working model however hopefully I should be able to do a few basic animations showing how the game plays out.
    And that's it so far! I think the deadline is in a few weeks so I've got plenty of time to finish the few bits I've got left.

Sportswheel Redesign Asset: Betting Chips and Font

    Here are examples of the initial chip ideas I've produced for my sportswheel redesign. The theme is a kind of 11th/12th century archery setting, so I did a bit of library research into some of the the styles of the time, found a few examples of tapestries from the time as well as illustrations which helped me to begin settling on colour palettes and general styles. I also found some examples of 12th century coins which I thought would be pretty much ideal to use as betting chips for my sportswheel theme. To the right is an example of one of the coin styles I found which i used as a reference and template to create my own chip vectors. You can see a few similarities between the two like the rough, uneven edge and text around the edge of the coin. Even though these are initial designs I think I'll probably stick with them, maybe change the colour of the bronze coin to a different colour to avoid confusion with the gold one.

    I may need to change the values shown on the coins to match the amount players are actually betting on. Apart from the chips, I also have to produce the archery target (sportswheel), shoot button, archer animation and background. Which won't be to difficult, I managed to knock these up in an hour so if the rest of it is as simple I shouldn't have any problems. Also I've just remembered I had to create the text used on the coins, which again was made using pictorial reference from the books I picked up. In the image below I've shown the original research, a font that I made just using the found font style as a guideline and then the vectors which I used on the coins:

    The font is slightly cartoony which I wasn't really aiming for, however it fits with the general style of the coin so I don't think it matters too much also text isn't going to be a massive part of the final game so I decided to let it go.

BBFC Post (Rated 12A)

    Before I got to the BBFC lecture I was admittedly slightly curious as to how an hour and a half talk could be made on age certificates, I was expecting someone explaining to us how the age classifications work in film and games and not too much more. However I thought the subjects covered and the way it was presented was really well done. I hadn't really thought about age ratings previously apart from the odd occasion when you see a 15 film where there's a one off graphically violent scene and you come of the cinema thinking "Cor that was a bit heavy, that should have been an 18!", so it was interesting to find out from someone who directly decides the age certificates how it works. There were a few cool facts I picked up which i previously didn't know about, for example cinemas have the right to show films with a different certificate to the one the BBFC has decided on.

    Another thing that I found interesting was that the games industry have been fighting for rights to have games age classified independently of film, arguing that 'games and film are two completely different media'. Thinking over the texts we've been advised to read whilst on the course and also it's my personal opinion that this is the case, film and videogames are whilst similar in some aspects i.e. theres a degree of narrative, usually protagonists or some kind of main character involved, there's a strong importance for visual content in both... they cannot be considered essentially the same. However with regards to age certificates, I think the talker did a pretty good job of justifying why they can be rated by the same guidelines. He admitted that what you see is what you get with a film, everyone sees the same thing, however with a videogame, people don't always share the same experience, it's partially down to the player what kind of content they are exposing themselves to. An example he used which is this in a nutshell was when playing Grand Theft Auto (pretty much any of them), players have the CHOICE to pick up a prostitute in a car that they've stolen, do whatever with them, kill them afterwards and get their money back and then perhaps put a few bullets in the body, watching blood spray over the pavement for some kind of sadistic enjoyment. This is a pretty dark example however I think why he used such graphic imagery was to emphasise the fact that with games like Grand Theft Auto; severity of content in terms of violence/level of trauma is subjective. Another player could just have easily bought a car perfectly legally, and driven about sight seeing whilst abiding by speed limits and having general good manners. Either way the content still exists and the possibility for these pretty grim incidents are there. It sort of goes without saying that because of this kind of content, GTA's are 18's. Now if this happened in a film, it would also get a certificate 18. The point I'm slowly making is that regardless of whether this kind of content is obvious... it still exists, the mechanics are there to carry out these actions, meaning that the designer has deliberately decided to allow this kind of behaviour. So as long as this is the case, whether a games designer has allowed for players to kill prostitutes in such a graphic way or whether a writer has included a scene depicting the same thing in a film, that both media can be age rated by the same set of regulations.

    These leads on to topics like, what is considered offensive/acceptable, what may be influential to younger audiences in films/videogames? Which again is subjective to the viewer/player. I was reading Kayleigh Mizon's post on her blog, the link to which I'll put at the end of this post, regarding a boy of young age shot and killed his mum thinking she would respawn, this was in relation to whether 'violent' videogames are considered damaging to young minds. Could it not be the case that boy could have just as easily watched a film or cartoon where someone falls a long distance only to land with a comical 'BONK" and a sore head, causing the boy to go and throw himself off a cliff? The Coyote and Road Runner cartoons spring to mind when making that example. The reason I mention this is just to support the arguement that again content is subjective, what one person may consider OK, another may not. A more stable minded boy of the same age could have played the same games that that boy did and carried on life as normal. I'm going slightly off topic here but I'm just saying that it's hard to give a film/game an age certificate that everyone in the world will be completely happy with.
    So just to end this post I've decided to give myself a little test to gauge whether I've grasped the age classifications about right. The talker mentioned Manhunt, a game that was extremely controversial when released due to it's graphically violent content. So I was wondering how someone would go about redesigning (or I suppose it's more a case of reskinning) the game to make it acceptable for each age category. To do this I've got a little Youtube clip of Manhunt showing one of the various execution's possible in the game, watch this first (if you're not too easily offended) before reading my adaptations: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEDQgoFb07g

Rated 18: Man sneaks up behind goon strangling him with a baseball bat, whilst blood spatters over his shirt, then proceeding to aggressively whack his head in causing his head and brain to explode.

Rated 15: Man sneaks up behind goon giving him a knock on the back of the head, causing him to fall to the ground, not necessarily killing him and showing no blood.

Rated 12A: Man sneaks up behind goon and giving him a dead leg which then leads to a Scooby-doo-esque chase seen in which the goon chases him waving his fist angrily.

Rated PG: Man sneaks up on less menacing goon without tattoos, perhaps wearing a nice brightly coloured shirt, giving him a cheeky slap on the bum before apologising afterwards and making friends.

Rated U: Man and goon run together with expressions of intense happiness on their faces, in a flowery field, dressed as muffins, jumping together and cuddling then proceeding to sit down to have a tea party with plastic cutlery. Followed by more cuddles and friendship. Possibly rename the game from Manhunt to Manhug.

    I think I'm about on the mark here, let me know if you would have done anything differently! I think the 'U' version might be a bit heavy actually, containing elements of homo-eroticism, which might be hard for a 4-8 year old to handle and cause offence to their parents...

(http://kayzsblog.blogspot.com/ <<< Kay's blog)

Animal Frenzy Progress Update

    I thought I'd change this post to an update on how we're getting on since my last Animal Frenzy Progress report as a fair bit has been developed. Basically now we're at the stage where we are starting to create all the assets for the game, which includes more animal vectors, environments, sounds, scripts and any interface elements needed. Each group member is working on a different task, I'm still producing animal vectors as there's still quite a few to do and I've just written a draft version of the script for our Europe level which is what we are all focusing on at the moment. Our milestone at the moment is to have all of the assets ready to go and start scripting by tomorrow, currently we've got enough animal vectors and I've sorted out a task bar for the bottom of the screen which we can use for now as well as the script however I'm not sure whether some of the other assets needed are complete.
    Just referring back the the vectorising process, I'm comfortably bashing them out now, I've got my head round Illustrator and have sort of made a template on how to make them based on what Dan explained to me as well as a few tricks I've figured out in the process. Here are the vectors that I've produced so far which were done in preparation for tomorrows deadline (excluding the whale):

(Click the image for a bigger picture)

    Another aspect of the game that has been sorted since last time is how the animal choices were going to be displayed. We initially had the idea of animal icons but were unsure on how to show them in a way that would be obvious to a player what they were but also without taking up too much screen space. So we discussed the idea of simply having the heads of the animals in small icons so here are a few examples of the icons that may be used. Basically all they are are two different sized/coloured circles with a section of the animal tucked in between. The create the slight border overlap which you can see I just cut a the section of the animal that was overlapping and pasted it onto its own layer on top of the others and moved it about until it lined up. There's probably a better way of doing it without having to do that but it seemed to work ok for now.  If you can figure out what animals they are then I've done my job!

(Click the image for a bigger picture)

    On the level objective/mechanics issue we were having, that has also been resolved. We took a few hours in one of the group meetings to just sort it out once and for all what was going to happen and produced a new level structure. What we came up with was a sort of alternating level objective scheme, where one level would simply be place the animals in their right environment and the next would have an objective which would change the mechanics slightly and with it a new objective. For example putting out a bushfire on the Australia level by clicking on fires to make it safe for the animals before proceeding to start placing them. This reduces the amount of vectorising we previously thought we had to do whilst also keeping the varying level objectives in, it will still be a fair bit of work however on a manageable scale.

    That's really all there is to report, everything's going fairly smoothly at the moment so I can't see any reasons why Team Frenzy won't succeed!

Animal Frenzy Asset: Whale Vector

   (Click the image for a bigger picture)

This is my first attempt at vectorising for Animal Frenzy using Illustrator CS5. I started with a scanned drawing and began creating shapes to create the components of the whale like the fins, tail, eye and body. The middle image is showing the outlines of the shapes used which were then filled with colours and gradients to create the final image on the end. It was important to keep the different sections of the whale like the fins and tail as separate objects as when they are imported into Flash they can be moved about and animated. I won't be uploading images for each vector I do and spamming up my blog but I might post at the end of the vectorising process showing all of them together, this is just to briefly explain the proccess. I'm quite happy with my attempt, just about 25 more to go!

Animal Frenzy: Animal Concepts So Far

 Just a few of the animal designs for Animal Frenzy to be vectorised, more to come soon.

Thoughts on Prisoner Dilemma and It's Implementation

    Earlier we were discussing our notes on chance and skill from the Challenges for Games Designers book and we covered something called the 'Prisoner Dilemma' which really interested me. This was in the midst of talking about dilemmas in games in which a player is forced to choose a path from several, all of which will damage them in some way. I think this makes a nice change from the ordinary 'choose the strategically 'right' option in order to win the game'. Giving a player a decision in which there is no obvious clear answer I think introduces other non-game related factors into the experience, for example morality or personal preferences. Just referring back to my risk experience, there was a dilemma I faced during my table-sized international conquest in which I had the choice to pull back some troops from a country that was inevitably about to be taken by an opponent with far superior numbers to me or keep them there and thus weakening another region which was also at risk. I think when a player is faced with unavoidable loses they begin to react in different ways, some might keep the ultimate goal in mind and choose the decision which they consider least damaging to their progress, some might begin getting reckless due to a sense of lurking defeat, I for example starting getting sentimental over which country I prefer (in the example of risk) and which troops I liked best, which again I think is a really nice feature of a game, when a player has to begin getting emotionally involved in the experience.
    The famous Prisoner Dilemma example used in the text book was this, two players must either choose to cooperate with each other, often meaning a minor penalty to each, or both defect incurring a major penalty to both, or if one chooses to betray the other by defecting whilst the other is willing to cooperate, then the defected is rewarded (materially, perhaps not morally) and the cooperative player is then punished. I played a videogame recently called 'Kane & Lynch 2", which is the videogame equivalent of this. One of the online multiplayer modes puts this problem into practice, in this mode one team play as the 'robbers' attempting to shoot past the cops, break into a bank, grab as much money as possible and then proceed to the getaway vehicle which leaves after a certain amount of time, whilst the other team plays as the 'cops' attempting to protect the cash. I wasn't a massive fan of the game for a few aesthetic reasons, however this game mode kept me investing hours into it for a lot longer than I would ordinarily put into a game which I didn't like as much as this one.
    This game mode works for numerous reasons, initially the struggle is the shootout which occurs whilst proceeding to the money stash between attackers and defenders, however it slowly becomes apparent that players from your own team are attempting to race ahead in order to begin grabbing money before you, turning into into a race against allies and beginning to create a sense of rivalry. Once the cops have been killed they then respawn near the getaway vehicle, awaiting the robbers' escape. Players are then free to begin looting the bank. A nice touch implemented which is worth mentioning is the amount of money that a player has taken is indicated on screen, allowing everyone on your team to know who has the most dosh. This is where the Prisoner Dilemma comes into play, attackers can then decide to cooperate with each other in fighting off the next wave of cops and each gain a small cash bonus for making it out with other players or alternatively they can decide that they can take down a fellow team member and escape with their as well as their own loot. It would be common for a player to appear loyal, assisting team members to the getaway van only to put a bullet in their back as soon as it arrives.
    This is why I particularly loved this style of dynamics, players are challenged initially by more twitch based mechanics in shooting past the cops, which then gradually develops into a more cerebral game, using knowledge gained from previous rounds on player behaviors and weighing out your chances and the possibilities of success, which then turn back into twitch mechanics.
    Playing this game mode with the same seven/eight people for a few rounds certainly creates a lot of tension when alliances begin to form and people become wary of greedy players. I was playing a round the recently where paranoia had set in so bad, that players were backed up against the wall, each pointing their gun at each other without the balls to shoot due to fears of becoming branded as 'The Traitor', whilst waiting for the getaway truck to turn up. The time limit aspect of the game mode also contributed significantly to the drama and tension of the game, causing players to make quick decisions before the getaway vehicle drove off, often resulting in people making rash decisions that come back to bite them in the arse in later rounds, this consequently created a great sense of relief when you were sitting safe and sound in the van being taken away to safety.
    Just to round this post off, I'll just echo what I previously mentioned that the Prisoner Dilemma is such a good tool to be used in a game purely because it varies from some of the standard dynamics that players experience in attempting to progress towards winning, it's just a nice reminder that it's not just about racing to the finish but making vital choices, which emphasises that games are just as much about creating an experience as well as achieving victory, I feel anyway.

Components of Retro Games: Segmentation

    It was quite interesting to have a lecture earlier in the week regarding how gaming had developed and advanced in a transition between boardgames and videogames. However even though technology had introduced a tonne of new possibilities in terms of mechanics as well as aesthetics, I think a lot of the concepts remained the same but were just allowed to be explored further with the arrival of videogaming. There was a quote that was used during the lecture which sums this up quite nicely from Zegal saying "Classic arcade games are the ‘primordial soup’ from which many of the future conventions of games design were proposed". This would explain why we've been urged to play boardgames (I suppose retro games would also help), in order to understand basic mechanics and ideas, which are then layered up in 'aesthetic' clothing by modern videogames, obscuring some of the core elements which compose them. I was thinking about this after the lecture and wondered if videogaming would ever get to a stage where it was so far away from boardgames that the study of them would eventually become irrelevant and games design students would be looking at the games we consider modern now in order to educate themselves, however I cant see this being the case (not in the near future anyway).
    One of the design elements that was talked about in the lecture was 'segmentation' in retro videogames. This was dissected into a few subcategories like challenge segmentation, level and wave and spatial segmentation. Wave segmentation being a good example of a mechanic born from videogames. Before the arrival of these retro games waves in videogaming was unheard of, however I don't think it would be too difficult to implement a wave mechanic into a boardgame, for example perhaps after a certain amount of player turns or if a player progresses to a certain point in a game new challenges are introduced. Wave's being similar but not the same as level segmentation, in which certain aspects of the game are reset i.e. shield/health bars. From experience waves tend to just throw more challenges at a player, making it into more of a game of 'survival', whereas generally speaking levels tend to advance narratives and almost create chapters of the game.
    Spatial segmentation was basically something that related to aesthetics and to my knowledge doesn't affect game mechanics. This would be where a player can move through the game visually, which is something that modern videogames rarely go without however in various retro games like pong, environments are static. I was going to use Frogger as an example but I'm not sure that it wouldn't be debatable, as even though the background always stays the same, the layout of the obstacles and 'spaces' used to get to the other side of the river change, so essentially there is a spatial movement during the game.
    Challenge segmentation was also mentioned during the lecture, which links in to difficulty and creating new obstacles that differ from the last. I think this again is something that videogaming brought about, creating challenges using time limits, difficulty settings, checkpoints etc. Boss battles were also mentioned during the lecture and the Dungeons and Dragons boardgame sprung to mind, which was initially a thought in response to boss' being introduced with the arrival of videogames although upon further thought it also has spatial and level segmentation. So I did a quick bit of internet research just trying to find out when D&D was created and according to Wikipedia (so i may be wrong...) it was invented in 1974, a few years before games like Pacman (1980) and Asteroids (1979) were released. So if my research is right, then videogames may not have been the first emergence of challenge/spatial/level/wave segmentation, Dungeons & Dragons has all of these (albeit dependent on a dungeon master), however nowadays they are features you would find most commonly videogames.
    So that's a brief overview of some of the topics we looked at during the presentation.

    For my retro game review I'm hoping to look at Frogger (1981) mainly because it's a game I'm fairly familiar with and also it's mechanics are fairly basic but with a few added extra's like the time cap between levels and bonus points/extra lives, which would make it more interesting to write about.

Also whilst I was doing some research I came across this on Youtube which was pretty cool, give this a watch if you've got five minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6mu5B-YZU8

Harvard Referencing

    Last week we were given the task to create a small bibliography composed of two books, two articles and two contributions to a book. This is in preparation for any future writings we may do, enabling us to correctly reference resources from which we may use information i.e. quotations. This is essentially to give credit to any respective authors' who's work you are using in your own.

For the sake of me remembering here's the breakdown of Harvard referencing...

...a book:  

Author – surname, followed by initial(s) 

Date of that edition  (in brackets)

Title of the book, underlined and followed by a full stop  

Edition of the book  if given (other than the first), followed by a full stop

The place of publication followed by a colon

The publisher’s name followed by a full stop

...an article:

Author – surname, initial(s) 

Year of publication (in brackets) 

Title of article, followed by a full stop.   If the article has a subtitle, it is separated from the main title by a colon   Do not underline the title 

Title of the journal underlined 

Volume number followed by a space 

Part number in brackets followed by a space 

Page numbers followed by a full stop  Use p. for a one page article or pp. for a range of pages

...contributions to books:
Author Surname, Initial., [Subsequent author(s)]
The full title of the article, with inverted commas
Editor Surname, Initial., [Subsequent editor(s),]
Year of Publication
Full title of the containing work: italicised to indicate it is the title.
City of publication: Publisher. page span of the work cited. 

So here's my attempt at a bibliography:

Books:

Van der Spuy, R. (2009) Foundation game design with Flash. Berkeley (Ca.): Friends of ED.

Griffith, C. (2009) Real-world Flash game development: How to follow best practives and keep your sanity. Oxford: Focal Press.

Articles:

Dickey, M. (2004) Game design and learning: a conjectural analysis of how massively multiple online role-playing games (MMORPGs) foster intrinsic motivation. Educational Technology Research & Development Vol. 55 Issue 3, pp 253-273.

Gros, B. (2007) Digital Games in Education: The Design of Games-Based Learning Environments. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, Vol. 40 Issue 1, pp23-38.

Contributions to a book:

Rettburg, S., World of Warcraft As a Playground for Feminism, Corneliussen, H. G., Rettberg, J. W., (2008) Digital Culture, Play, and Identity: A World of Warcraft Reader, Cambridge (Mass.) : MIT Press, pp 19-39

Herman, L., Company Profile: Atari, Wolf, M. J .P., (2007) The Video Game Explosion: A History from Pong to Playstation and Beyond, Westport : London : Greenwood Press, pp 59- 63

Photoshop Excercise 2

Just had another play around in Photoshop today again using shape tools, colours, brushes and different opacity's as a development of what we did last week. I tried applying some of the techniques Phil explained to us to recreate the Facebook icon used on my iPhone as it uses some basic shading and gradients. Here's what I came up with:

Mine:

Original:

 

 It's not identical however I was pretty pleased with the outcome.

AF Group Progress cont.

    Had another meeting with my group today where we started to address some of the real grey areas of our game before we got too far in. Our main issue at the moment is the objective aspect of our game. The problem we're having is that the main focus of the game is to match the right animals to their environments, however we decided that simply dragging animals onto a background for six levels may get repetitive so we are currently trying to implement different objectives per level. This is only an aesthetic issue of our game however trying to create objectives that don't dilute the main purpose of the game was proving tricky.
    The idea that we've been running with throughout the concept stages is the 'Igloo' example, for our Antarctica level we are thinking about using the objective 'Help build the igloo' and the player would still have to select from the eight possible animals the three correct animals that go with the environment. However there's a problem with that...now the player may be confused as to whether they are picking animals that belong in the Antarctica or whether they're choosing animals that may be best at building. So at current our best solution is to really emphasise the former, by having instructions at the beginning of the game and also perhaps a quick reminder from Mickey/Mandy at the beginning of the level saying "Remember to pick animals that can cope in this environment!". Again this is only an issue that effects aesthetics although if it begins to jeapordise the whole purpose of the game it could become a problem.
    Our other nemesis in having a stress free and smooth design process is what happens when the player places the animals on screen?
    This is a pretty graphics heavy project so any chances to reduce work regarding vectorising and animating that don't detract too heavily from the game experience we are taking. We've got twenty-six different animals to design and vectorise, as well as environments, layouts, Mickey and Mandy, the bonus level as well as things like pre-level stills giving information etc. Players drag animals out of the animal library and place them on the environment. However this evokes certain questions like: What happens if the animal is the right/wrong choice? Do they run off screen? Or just vanish? Are they going to be animated or static? Are they going to be designed to fit around the level objective? For example will the penguin be holding an igloo block when he is dropped on screen or will he just be 'there'?...
    All these contribute towards the amount of vectorising/animating that we are going to have to do, which is a fair bit anyway. Steve solved the 'What happens if the animal is the wrong choice?' dilemma fairly simply earlier by having Mickey's net/bag being thrown over the animal after being placed on screen followed by a remark telling the player to try again. The bag would cover the animal and then get pulled off screen, like a magicians trick covering the penny with the handkerchief sort of thing... This way we can just have one animation which can be applied to any wrong answer as a template, which will save us a lot of time having to animate every animal if they are the wrong choice.
   We are still addressing the 'right animation' issue at the moment but it's early days so I'm not pulling my hair out quite yet. Today's session was really beneficial just because we started to actually sort out any potential problems, I think sometimes the temptation is to brush them off under the carpet so today was pretty constructive.

Animal Frenzy Group Progress

    I haven't really documented our group progress up to this stage so here's a rundown on our efforts so far.

    We began by expanding on what Nic and Rob had already produced for the Animal Frenzy game concept. We started looking at possible gameplay mechanics, thinking about the 'drag and drop' aspect of the game and how that might work. We came up with ideas relating to what happens when the player pulls an animal out of the animal library and how they could be placed and animated on screen depending on whether it was the correct animal or not, for example if the player picked the penguin in the Antarctica environment, when dropped he would place a section of an igloo down, whereas if a lion was chosen then he could run of screen/tunnel off etc. We thought that the objective aspect (such as 'Help the animals build the igloo') was a fairly important aspect of the game as just added a slight narrative and purpose to the game, in that you (the player) are traveling the world helping the animals.
    We also decided to include a bonus level after completing the first 5/6 levels, which could include moving a net along the bottom of the screen in order to catch falling animals, just to act as a reward for completing the main game. We also thought about varying the difficulty of the bonus round depending on how well the player did during the game, for example if they got the answer right first time on a level then that would increase the net size, making it easier to catch the animals.
    Dan produced a few sample vectors of possible animal designs in keeping with the research and referencing that we had done on our group discussion page on Wolsey. We looked at a few existing cartoon animal designs (the links to which are on Wolsey) as a means of communicating to each other what kind of styles we had in mind. I was thinking of styles along these lines, which I then suggested to the group:

http://www.heroturko.org/vectors/2220-cartoon-animals.html
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-illustration-9614223-cartoon-safari-animals.php
http://www.vromansbookstore.com/life-on-farm 

    We also began thinking about possible environments, creating an initial list of areas around the world to which the player could be visiting, we were aiming to keep it quite varied in terms of environment to give implement some variety. Again we used a few websites to do some research into what types of animals live where, here are two that Nic linked during discussions:

http://www.animalsoftheworld.ecsd.net/
http://www.kidsplanet.org/factsheets/map.html

    After having another look at the national curriculum for KS1, we found that 'care for the environment' was something that we hadn't addressed in too much depth. So we came up with the idea to have litter or some form of pollution on each level that the player would have to find as an optional objective. We decided that this also could contribute towards the bonus round again, so if the player found all bits of litter then the animals would fall slower/bigger net etc.

     We also began experimenting with different layouts that would support what we were trying to achieve, we agreed that the visual elements of the game were fairly essential so we were trying to maximize the environment space and keep interface elements such as the animal library, help text and any other relevant information at a minimum. We each contributed different ideas and finally settled on a basic layout which I knocked up quickly. As shown on the example below, we are thinking about having the animal icons along the bottom which the player would drag out and drop onto the environment area, as well as Mickey and Mandy figures in the bottom right which upon hovering over would give help like the current objective or telling the player when they have done something wrong/right.

    The next image was a basic concept that we had had regarding interactive environment objects, the player would hover over an object and a popup information box would appear or Mandy/Mickey would say something about it. I used colour to highlight the object the text was referring to although upon discussion we decided that perhaps creating a border around the object would be better.

   
    By this time the foundations of the Animal Frenzy game were pretty much made, we had settled on environments and the basic objectives as well as graphical styles. So today we met up and just finalised some of these ideas by establishing colour schemes, definite environments, animals and interactive environmental details, the list of which I posted on our discussion board.
    So now we are at a stage where we are just developing the core features of our game, like beginning to create graphical assets and discussing how we can go about achieving some of the more script heavy aspects of our game.

    And that's it! Any further discussions had/progress made we will posting on a group blog although I will be updating this blog as well on a less regular basis.

My First Risk Experience

    Ok today I decided to head out to the nearest toy shop and grab a copy of Risk. I've always heard amazing stories of games lasting hours on end and friends becoming foes over, what seemed from an outside perspective as petty. I gathered a few willing chums along with a substantial supply of beer to last the duration and unknowingly prepared myself for the most intense four and a half hours of hardcore boardgaming action that I've experienced in my naive nineteen yearlong life.
    We spent a good hour just attempting to play the game correctly, frequently referring to the manual in confusion, I'm pretty sure that we didn't start the way we were meant to although we carried on anyway. In case you haven't played Risk before the main objective is to dominate over your enemies to conquer the various divided sections of the globe, using 'troops' to attack and defend your territories, whilst strategically attempting to read opponents' moves and plan your route to victory. The version we had had an alternative method of winning in which a player has to achieve three main objectives, for example 'Control 11 cities' or 'Control 2 enemy capitals', although I'm not actually sure whether this is the same in traditional Risk. 
    From our understanding we each rolled the dice to decide who gets first pick over which territory to place their capitals in, again I'm not sure if this was right but after an hour of deciphering the manual we just wanted to get invading so we cracked on. I placed my base in South Africa, a pretty central position, which in hindsight was a bad move... 

    We each began slowly expanding our empires throughout the globe watching each others movements, I started creating hypothetical situations in my head in which I ripped through Asia and South/North America around into Europe before launching my final assault on the somewhat 'tucked away' Australia....unfortunately reality had other plans. 
    Driven by a lust for power and a new found hatred for my friends turned enemies, I began taking Africa...Central through to East and North, whilst sending a troop or two to sit on Egypt and Madagascar. Things were going fairly smoothly up to this point, I'd managed to comfortably settle myself in my continent, picking up a troop bonus card along the way, I was feeling pretty optimistic, I'd even managed to slip a few compliments to Jack who was building up his territories in Australia about the size of his army in an attempt to create an early alliance, "Pretty big army you got there Jack..."
"Cheers Tom, your's is pretty impressive too."
"Thanks very much..."

    However without me realising the Brazilians had managed to blitz through America and were over in Greenland putting their feet up and tucking into a plate of freshly grilled whale steaks, getting ready to skip over to Iceland. It's probably worth mentioning that the more territories that are in your possession the more troops you recruit on your turns, which turns Risk into a game where having momentum helps. Australia was somehow starting to look pretty crammed with troops as well, however I wasn't worried, as after all I assumed they were on my side... 
    Out of nowhere the Brazilian's had flown across the South Atlantic and were arrogantly setting up their deck chairs on the coast of my North Africa. War had begun. At the same time the Japanese had begun a tiny invasion on China, trying to force back the Australians into Indonesia whilst the Russians were sitting, waiting impartially trying not to piss anyone off.
    I realised that I had to defend myself or risk being trapped in my own continent. The attack and defend system in Risk works like this, the attacking player rolls the same amount dice equivalent to the amount of troops he/she's using to attack (a maximum of three), the defending side does the same (although with a maximum of 2), the highest rolls on each the attacking and defending dice compare, the lowest loses and thus a troop from the defeated team is discarded, as with the other two remaining dices as well (or so we played it). I was annihilated humiliatingly and my fears became reality as my board space became smaller. Again, due to my lack of attention the Russians had snuck through into Southern Europe and were poised for a hefty attack on my Egypt, I was heavily outnumbered and prepared for the worst. They attacked, rolling three dice each showing decent scoring numbers but I struck back with a six roll on my single dice. This happened consecutively for about three turns, each time my single troop marker fighting off the Europeans, overcoming the odds and surviving, it was a one marker army, so I named that particular marker Rambo.
    Meanwhile Asia was becoming swarmed with black and green markers, South and North America were covered in red and yet I was stuck in Africa just trying to keep hold of my borders...then my empire began to crumble. The Brazilians had once again turned their greedy eyes to my shores and were back in the north, Rambo valiantly fought off another attack from the Europeans until he was eventually defeated. 

    I here faced two options, I could flee into the Middle East with the few troops I had left or create a defiant final stand in Madagascar, I chose the latter (mainly because I was running out of beer and we had reached the 4 hour mark so I started to feel pretty reckless). The Australians who i previously thought allies had dropped a few troops into South Africa, now splitting my army, I slipped Jack a look of disgust and disappointment. The original Europeans and Japanese had now been totally wiped out and were now occupied by the Americans. Black and red troops now dominated the board and I had to sit and watch on my little island as they closed in around me. In a desperate attempt I tried dropping a few bonus troops into the heart of Australia, however I was knocked aside by superior numbers.
    I think again luck was on my side for a turn or two and I defended Madagascar from the reds, however inevitably I was eventually out rolled and was forced to leave the game. Shortly after the reds and blacks settled on a truce and the game was ended, the board split it two. 

    I'm not sure how we managed to play for four and a half hours without realising but we did and surprisingly my enthusiasm didn't begin to dwindle as much as it would with other boardgames, even video games. On a more academic note thinking about the articles I've looked at recently, I'd say the Movement Impetus/pacing aspect of Risk was pretty much spot on, players are constantly forced to make significant decisions as the state of play is constantly changing, I think this is actually the strongest part about the game, along with the intense competition and conflict factors.
    This was my first go at Risk and it most probably won't be my last and I think whenever I here or see the word 'Madagascar' (or Rambo) I'll be reminded of my feeble efforts of global domination....

Here's a link to Jack's blog if you want his version of events... http://jstal.blogspot.com/