I'm not an ad man however this is still pretty good, worth a watch!
Rory Sutherland: Life lessons from an ad man | Video on TED.com
Friday, 22 October 2010
Light/Shadow Photoshop Excercise
Yesterday we had a lecture on creating 3D shapes in Photoshop using some simple techniques. There were a few small tricks that were worth remembering like using complementary colours to create shadows as opposed to black/greys and creating a small area around the perimeter of the shape to create an environmental glow effect. I'd played around in Photoshop before using basic tools like the pen tool, messing around with opacity's to create shades etc. although it was nice to be able to learn a few methods which were effective if used properly. I spent 20 minutes this morning just to give it another go and I came up with the picture below. I was feeling adventurous so I tried creating a kind of over shadow effect on the smaller ball, it doesn't quite look right although I'm sure time, trial and error will help me improve! (Also I'm not sure why but depending on the angle that you look at this, there's a weird glow around the edge of the spheres, I'm doing this on a laptop so I have to tilt my screen back to see it normally or stand back a bit...)
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
Doug Church on Game Tools/Venturelli's Article on Casual Gaming
I recently read the article by Doug Church regarding how games differ from books and film and what he considers the tools (or 'Formal Abstract Design Tools, FADT's) used to create games are. I'd actually never really considered how much games compare to either of these media so this article was pretty interesting. Again we had to condense the article into a less wordy nut shell, taking note of the key tools that Church mentioned. So, here are the tools that I found (in bold):
- Control: to allow player expression
- Low/High level Goals: to get players invested and involved to create intention
There was a quote which I took out of the article to better explain intention...
"...making an implementable plan of ones own creation in response to the current situation in the game world and ones own understanding of the game play options..."
And as a side note I mentioned Perceivable Consequence : a reaction from the game world to a players actions
- Visible Feedback: Allows players to learn and adapt to shape their play style (which naturally creates a form of learning curve)
- Cooperation, conflict and confusion: I think this was generally talking about adventure games however I think that they can be transferred into other games
- Punishment and Reward
I don't think there's much to dispute with Church's toolbox, these elements I think it's safe to say are fairly exclusive to games. We also looked at Venturelli's article about the 'space of possibility and pacing in casual game design'. A term was used in the article which I'd never heard before, 'Movement Impetus', which I believe essentially meant a players motivation to continue playing a game, Venturelli linked this in with 'space of possibility', which made reference to the 'pacing' of a game or tempo in which a player has to make significant decisions in order to advance. He touched upon creating small/large spaces of possibility, larger 'spaces' possibly diluting the movement impetus element within a game due to boredom for example on behalf of the player and smaller spaces, increasing tempo however allowing the player to establish play patterns and create methods for overcoming the struggles that a game presents, thus again causing a game to become less stimulating. I read in one of the previous articles, the author I've forgotten now, I'll come back and change this if I ever remember, that the more a designer wishes to create an experience for a player by attempting to control it, he/she is progressively hindering the room for possibility and consequently defeating the point in what they're trying to do, which I thought was a point worth remembering!
Venturelli moved on to urge that balance is essential, creating a system in which a player has a chance to explore a game however not for too long by presenting them with something new, to prevent 'perceivable patterns' , which I suppose thinking back is what Church was talking about when he mentioned 'confusion'.
Venturelli also mentioned 'Arches of Pacing', involving an upper and lower arch. Upper I believe referred to long term goals and the longevity of a game in terms of player interest, the lower arch consisting of Movement Impetus, Tension, Threat and Tempo, which sort of all backs up what Church was saying previously.
The final point on my list was the 'Pick up and Play' aspect of a game, meaning how quickly a player can sit down, learn the rules and play comfortably before it becomes a chore and they lose interest, I think the last time I experienced getting frustrated at a game before I even made my first move was attempting to play Dungeons and Dragons years ago, sitting down to read the instruction manual only to find myself half an hour later sitting there with a blank expression on face with small plastic goblins and board tiles scattered everywhere, perhaps it's about time to give it another go...
In conclusion I think the tools that Church and Venturelli mentioned are all pretty essential, if not worth remembering in the future in my quest to make badass games.
- Control: to allow player expression
- Low/High level Goals: to get players invested and involved to create intention
There was a quote which I took out of the article to better explain intention...
"...making an implementable plan of ones own creation in response to the current situation in the game world and ones own understanding of the game play options..."
And as a side note I mentioned Perceivable Consequence : a reaction from the game world to a players actions
- Visible Feedback: Allows players to learn and adapt to shape their play style (which naturally creates a form of learning curve)
- Cooperation, conflict and confusion: I think this was generally talking about adventure games however I think that they can be transferred into other games
- Punishment and Reward
I don't think there's much to dispute with Church's toolbox, these elements I think it's safe to say are fairly exclusive to games. We also looked at Venturelli's article about the 'space of possibility and pacing in casual game design'. A term was used in the article which I'd never heard before, 'Movement Impetus', which I believe essentially meant a players motivation to continue playing a game, Venturelli linked this in with 'space of possibility', which made reference to the 'pacing' of a game or tempo in which a player has to make significant decisions in order to advance. He touched upon creating small/large spaces of possibility, larger 'spaces' possibly diluting the movement impetus element within a game due to boredom for example on behalf of the player and smaller spaces, increasing tempo however allowing the player to establish play patterns and create methods for overcoming the struggles that a game presents, thus again causing a game to become less stimulating. I read in one of the previous articles, the author I've forgotten now, I'll come back and change this if I ever remember, that the more a designer wishes to create an experience for a player by attempting to control it, he/she is progressively hindering the room for possibility and consequently defeating the point in what they're trying to do, which I thought was a point worth remembering!
Venturelli moved on to urge that balance is essential, creating a system in which a player has a chance to explore a game however not for too long by presenting them with something new, to prevent 'perceivable patterns' , which I suppose thinking back is what Church was talking about when he mentioned 'confusion'.
Venturelli also mentioned 'Arches of Pacing', involving an upper and lower arch. Upper I believe referred to long term goals and the longevity of a game in terms of player interest, the lower arch consisting of Movement Impetus, Tension, Threat and Tempo, which sort of all backs up what Church was saying previously.
The final point on my list was the 'Pick up and Play' aspect of a game, meaning how quickly a player can sit down, learn the rules and play comfortably before it becomes a chore and they lose interest, I think the last time I experienced getting frustrated at a game before I even made my first move was attempting to play Dungeons and Dragons years ago, sitting down to read the instruction manual only to find myself half an hour later sitting there with a blank expression on face with small plastic goblins and board tiles scattered everywhere, perhaps it's about time to give it another go...
In conclusion I think the tools that Church and Venturelli mentioned are all pretty essential, if not worth remembering in the future in my quest to make badass games.
Costikyan's I Have No Words & I Must Design: Toward a Critical Vocabulary
A few weeks ago we looked at Costikyan's article and his statement that a game is "...an interactive structure of endogenous meaning that requires players to struggle toward a goal". I really liked this article, it broke down the statement into the factors from which it's composed, like interactive, structure, struggle, goals, endogenous meaning and quite clearly explained through his thought processes and references how he came to his conclusion.
We had to boil the article down into brief bullet points so I'll quickly regurgitate the summary of my notes...
Interaction - A player's(') interaction with a game changes the game's 'state', puzzles and games will always be present together.
Goals - Gives an incentive to the struggle, objectives shape player behaviour and choices, needs to be a chance of failure as well as success.
Struggle - Without competition/struggle there's no sense of satisfaction/achievement, difficulty needs to be in keeping with a player's(') ability level.
Structure - Mutual player agreement that a game's rules/goals bear significance creates a structure. A games structure shapes player behaviour, it doesn't determine it therefore players have freedom to choose what they can do with the rules.
Endogenous Meaning - Factors that only have relevance within a game.
I pretty much agreed with all the points that Costikyan was making although whilst reading the section on endogenous meaning I began wondering if online gambling games could still be considered games, despite the fact that they don't conform to the endogenous meaning part of Costikyan's definition of a game, seeing as players benefit in real life from playing. I'm pretty sure that online gambling games wouldn't fall into the puzzle category, although I'm not entirely sure that they are considered games at all as there's no real struggle either. That was my only real query with the article, so if anyone can explain that to me that would be cool. I also found it interesting that the elements of a game that Costikyan was bringing up all seemed to tie together in some way, for example a struggle is required to create a goal of some kind and the struggle is determined by how the player interacts with the game's structure, which I thought was quite a nice thought.
We had to boil the article down into brief bullet points so I'll quickly regurgitate the summary of my notes...
Interaction - A player's(') interaction with a game changes the game's 'state', puzzles and games will always be present together.
Goals - Gives an incentive to the struggle, objectives shape player behaviour and choices, needs to be a chance of failure as well as success.
Struggle - Without competition/struggle there's no sense of satisfaction/achievement, difficulty needs to be in keeping with a player's(') ability level.
Structure - Mutual player agreement that a game's rules/goals bear significance creates a structure. A games structure shapes player behaviour, it doesn't determine it therefore players have freedom to choose what they can do with the rules.
Endogenous Meaning - Factors that only have relevance within a game.
I pretty much agreed with all the points that Costikyan was making although whilst reading the section on endogenous meaning I began wondering if online gambling games could still be considered games, despite the fact that they don't conform to the endogenous meaning part of Costikyan's definition of a game, seeing as players benefit in real life from playing. I'm pretty sure that online gambling games wouldn't fall into the puzzle category, although I'm not entirely sure that they are considered games at all as there's no real struggle either. That was my only real query with the article, so if anyone can explain that to me that would be cool. I also found it interesting that the elements of a game that Costikyan was bringing up all seemed to tie together in some way, for example a struggle is required to create a goal of some kind and the struggle is determined by how the player interacts with the game's structure, which I thought was quite a nice thought.
Thursday, 14 October 2010
KS1 Game Group Developments
Earlier we were given the task of removing the 'quiz' aspect of our educational game concepts, which means taking out the 'get asked a question and pick the right answer' element. At first I thought that we would find a solution, however one that wouldn't be better than what we already had. Althought after not long at all ideas began arising that were beginning to seem more effective than our current concept. We began thinking about aspects like narrative and ideas that involved some exploration of the game as opposed to simple instructions. It was in relation to the Marcos Venturelli's article about casual game design, talking about pattern and creating a 'space of possibility', which we found actually easier to create once we removed the quiz/question and answer restriction on our game. It's hard to explain accurately in words how our game concept works but as soon as we begin uploading assets and start having group discussions I'll make reference to give a better idea of progress.
Initial Concept Sketches
Here are the sketches that I was hoping to show on the concept presentation that frustratingly wouldn't show.
Hopefully they explain what I was talking about during the presentation about layout. Just to recap, similarly to the few examples I showed, I ideally would like to keep the game fairly vibrant for aesthetic reasons, I may knock the background back a bit in terms of colour perhaps to distract less from the target board, chips and other relevant information on screen. I'm not entirely happy with the colour scheme on the target board, I think i could make them fit the theme a bit better. I've thought about how the Unibet tab which is currently on the sportswheel game could be placed, perhaps down in the bottom right. This was basically a test of possible colours that could be used and layout, if you've got any feedback just whack a comment up, any suggestions positive or negative would be appreciated.
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