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.