Games Britannia “Dicing with Destiny”:

The the first part of Games Britannia narrated by Benjamin Woolley investigates how the instinct to play games is both as universal and elemental as language itself. The episode discusses how Ancient and medieval games were not just fun, but a fundamental, and significant part of  military tactician (It was used to train upcoming leaders in battle formations and tactics). In the Middle Ages games revolved around spirituality but this spiritual element in games began to be lost as gaming became increasingly associated with gambling. Dice and card games abounded, but a moral backlash in Victorian times transformed games into moral educational tools.This was also the era in which Britain established the world's first commercial games industry, with such classics as the Staunton Chess Set, Ludo and Snakes and Ladders leading the way, all adaptations of original games from other countries.

Further Bibliography

Castillo, T. Novak, J. (2005) Game Development Essentials Game Level Design. Clifton Park, NY. Cengage Learning.


Bogost, I. (2011). How to do things with videogames. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.


Brathwaite, B. (2009) Challenges for Games Designers , Boston , course technology .

Voorhees, G., Call, J. and Whitlock, K. (2012). Dungeons, Dragons, And Digital Denizens: The Digital Role-Playing Game. New York: Continuum.

Becker, A. (2007) "The Royal Game of UR" in Finkel, I.L. Ancient Board Games in Perspective:

Defining Videgames: Caillois's terminology

Banished, of which best suits Paidia is a city-building strategy game in which the player is in control of a small band of exiled people whom need to set-up a new village. The game takes real world ideals in farming and the different seasons to have meaningful effects on the players progress. Its a steep learning curve, and the game can punish you for something you did wrong 30 minutes ago, for example when you choose to build an extra house over another farm. This balance element within the game is crucial to surviving and growing a populace, with the players juggling labours and having to make choices as to whether to add that extra worker into the farms, to get more food before winter, or put that person within a forester hut to ensure you have plenty of wood, preventing people dying from the cold. this produces a really rewarding feeling when you get a good village going, but again it can all go wrong with a placing of an extra house without resource backing, as its occupants will draw allot on the villages food supply.

Fifa games mainly conform to Ludus, in which there are many rules that are placed upon the player, The pitch area for example limits movement, the offside rules prevent players from just having a striker behind the defensive line,etc all of these rules would seem to be weigh the player down, but this is what adds pleasure to playing, as it takes more skill to be really good at the game.There of course has a clear outcome to the game as you either win,lose or draw a match.

Dayz is really a mix of all of Caillois's terminology, as a little background to the game Dayz is a After-apocalypse survival game, in which the player has to survive by looting abandoned houses looking for food,water and clothing. Agon comes into play as the game is an online game, this can cause really fierce competitive play in which this survival element means that if you die you lose everything, this makes people less friendly in random encounters with other players with normally everything culminating in a quick gun battle and a player dead. Alea is not massive within the game as something like the map is fixed and not randomly generated, but the one thing that is random/chance is the spawning of objects in houses and farm buildings, some of the more sort after gear can be found in military establishments, this however is where most players lurk, Movement is a key element in the game also and players can spend up to a few hours traversing the map in order to get to different towns and cities, this is very much a factor of Ilinx. finally Mimicry as Dayz is in part a simulation game in basic surviving, the players can also become involved enough/ invested within their personal character that role-playing can take effect, with people forming teams or local police forces in order to protect some of the newer players.

Surgeon Simulator is a game which sits within the Mimicry category, as you see your self role-playing a surgeon, the interesting thing is the player only controls the fingers/arms of the surgeon via keyboard and mouse controls, this produces really interesting and funny game-play as you struggle to pick up the bone saws and other equipment in preparation for the operation, of which generally gets messy quickly as you swing a saw wildly around. A form of Alea creeps into the game also, not in the form of online competition but against yourself in trying to beat your previous and most likely really bad operation.

Bibliographies

T.Castillo & J.Novak (2008) Game Development Essentials: Game Level Design. New York. Delmar.

Schell, J (2008) The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, CRC Press, Florida

"The Definition of Play" (eds) Salen, K and Zimmerman E, The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology, MIT Press, Cambridge, pp 123-128 

MyFirstBlog 04/10/2014

What is the title of the book (Fiction) you are currently reading, or what is the title of a fictional book you have read?

              I have to hold my hands up that question and say that the last book was “Of Mice and Men” back in high school, bad I know.. There of course has been educational books a plenty but if we're strict about entries then this doesn't count, going back a fair few years, the like of the Anthony Horowitz’s, Andy Mcnab and good old Biggles books by "W. E. Johns" were books I always loved reading, maybe it’s time to delve back into them perhaps.

What is the title/topic of the book (Non-fiction) you are currently reading, or what is the title /topic of the last Non-fiction book you have read?

          I haven't really got into reading non-fiction to my knowledge.. Yes lots of historical books but nothing to the tune of autobiographies.

What is the last live performance (Music, Drama, Dance) you attended?

The last trip to the theatre was at the Regent in Ipswich in which the whole family went to go see “I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue” a live panel game recording for radio 4, Seeing the recording done live and all the outtakes which followed was extremely funny, the host, Jack Dee, at the time was also excellent.

What is the title of the last film you saw at the cinema/online or watched on DVD?

            Being a bit of a geek when it comes to seeing lots of films it comes as no surprise that only yesterday I saw the “The Equalizer” a film starring Denzel Washington as a normal guy who works at a Home depot store who turns out he’s got a  slightly troubled past, he takes it upon himself to take a stance against a Russian lead prostitution ring who had beaten an acquaintance of Denzel’s character, being a 18 rated movie a large proportion of the movie contains long choreographed fight scenes with big muscly men with lots of tattoos being beaten to a pulp.(Note not for the young or faint hearted)

How often do you read a newspaper? (Which one? Online or Physical)

              I've always read newspapers, but given the ability to view them online, it’s always been preferable over a physical one, but I guess that’s the way of everything nowadays with games and music being more preferable on an online-digital format. But keeping up with all the political matters is a must to insure your opinion is well balanced, from that I can then be confident in my argument for any case and point.

Which Art Gallery/ Museum/Exhibition did you last visit?

The British Museum and the science museum are probably the last ones I’ve been to, This came about when my younger sister at primary school was offered the trip to London, I of course wanted to go and so after a long bus journey we arrived, me and a friend then headed off to have a look around the city, getting lost a few times and ending up asking armed policemen where the nearest tube was to get back. In terms of the actual museum I preferred hanging around in the science museum just for pure interest in all of the space and massive steam engine exhibits.(Definitely the coolest)

How many hours do you spend playing video games?

Honestly not that many nowadays, sure I still play maybe between 4-8 hours in a week but it now takes allot for me to get into a game given that many of the games I enjoy have story drive single players, meaning that allot get chalked of the to-play list, games such as mass effect and fallout have depth and draw an emotive response but with both series still in development for a 4th game ill have to wait, and in the meantime I’ll find other ways to spent my time.(Doing work is high on that list)

How many hours a week do you spend playing games other than video games?

 In terms of the question I take it as non-digital board games, and as far as that’s concerned it’s really hit and miss, some weeks I can play a few hours while others zero, while much of the time playing with younger siblings with monopoly and a somewhat dusty game of life. Moreover I will generally be cycling.. As that's were my sporting traits lay, With almost 200 miles a week on the clock.