Matthew Applegate

Today we had a really interesting talk presented by Matthew Applegate (Musician, developer, lecturer, game designer, animator, teacher, hacker , author, ), He gave us a really good insight in to how you should prepare yourself for working for not necessary games companies. He mentioned several times that games development isn't the be all and end all, and that you can do choose different lines of work within programming or 3D modelling, this of which will continue to help you along the way when you can finally become that games dev.

He also went on to talk about getting yourself noticed by businesses and how important it is if you want someone to buy your game or listen to your product, one of the many ways he mentioned was to go to as many of the GamesJam and games conferences such as E3 to just get the opportunity to get people business cards and resulting email address, from there you can email people with the interest of asking for thought on a game or idea.

It was his personal opinion that final year students should go Indie development rather than rush for AAA title games companies, as he believed that people became frustrated and burnt out after a few years as you'd of felt like you've given so much, and hadn't progressed partially far within the company. Whilst with Indie you can see the whole process take shape and get a greater respect for how long things take.

He works alongside younger teens at the Creative Computer Club in which he teaches them the basics of computer programming, along with hardware programming, using devices such as the arduino and raspberry pie, This club is something which is missing from the main curriculum at the moment and gives kids an excellent opportunity to get into the world of computing.

Pervasive Games

Pervasive games are a popular form of more larger social games played outside, it is the blending of the fictive world, something like that of assassins and hunters, with the physical world, Giving the game a greater sense of realism, This is what Johan Huizinga would call the magic circle in which the boundaries of play are changed and expanded. A Example of this type of game would be a game called Assassin in which players try to eliminate each other from the game using mock weapons in an effort to become the last surviving player, This type of game is most popular on college and university campuses with many having there own guilds devoted to the upkeep and control of the games progress, It is one of the most interesting parts of the game as the game never stops until 1 person is remaining, that means a player can be assassinated on the way to work or getting lunch, it really creates a sense of paranoia for all the players involved.

Workshop Session with David Parlett

Last Thursday we had a workshop session with David Parlett, in this presentation we got allot of food for thought when it comes to race games with David asking questions like: what it is actually a race game?, what determines movement?, what is the goal of the game?, We were presented with many of the games we had covered in Eddies lectures games such as The Royal Game of Ur and Senet he had explained how many of these ancient games evolved in to the ones we know, he also covered games which i hadn't seen or played before, these being Liubo and Pachisi. He also went onto show us his own board game Hare and Tortoise which used a more unique movement mechanic rather than the normal dice, in which players had to pay carrots (the currency in the game) to move forward.

Visual Design For Board Games

For the second assignment we have to focus on the visual element for one of the iterations we wrote about in the first assignment, So this assignment does not fixate on the writing skills, more so on the ability for the person to create game pieces which accurately depict the time and place the board game is centered around. My Game uses Tablet as a foundation, it is from this i have chosen iterations which i feel to alter the game dynamics and mechanics to suit my thinking of how the game should play, Again though, this is something we have already discussed, and so as a setting my game takes place in the open seas, in Ship to Ship combat based on the chase of the German battleship Bismarck. I have then proceeded to use mood boards and reference images to help with creating game pieces which suit this scene. This involves pieces of wooden construction with tiny flags denoting which side they belong. I have also brought in extra mechanics and pieces such as the use of Sea-mines and Abandoned ships which act as extra obstacles for the players as well as added benefits.

The Music Behind Interstellar

I've done a few blogs on soundtracks within games now, and i find no better composer than Hans Zimmer in my opinion, he manages to create these crazy powerful emotions for both his work in cinema and games, Now soundtracks are one of the things are think are really important to a memorable game for me, that's why i find it so fascinating that when Interstellar came out it mixed two major interests of mine, great topic (Space and black holes) and great musical soundtrack, also the usual great actors,director so on and so on. But it was watching a behind the scenes clip of the making of the INTERSTELLAR Soundtrack which made me think about the lengths Hans goes to to create his pieces. It all started when director Christopher Nolan approached Hans, Nolan asked him for 1 day of his time and to produce what ever came to mind, Nolan gave him limited information about  genre and dialogue to allow free rein and creative process. It was only after this that Nolan had told Hans on the project, this close Father Daughter relationship, Temple church in London was set up as mobile recording studio, the Church organs played a heavy presence in the score (Played by Roger Sayer), with Nolan saying how they were used to create a sense of religiosity even though film isn't anything to do with religion, but more to represent humanity's attempt to portray the mystical and something beyond earth. The Organ is also something which stays true to revolving closely around this human relationship between Father and daughter as the organ can only make the sounds it makes with air and that it needs to breath, and with each note you hear the breath. The Film was amazing and best watched in IMAX screens where the sound is best felt.

Hans Zimmer - making of INTERSTELLAR Soundtrack:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_8t2VlwK4w

Games Britannia : Joystick Generation

This week saw us watch the third and final part of the Games Britannia mini series narrated by Benjamin Woolley. This part was very much based around the rise of video games consoles and the games which were developed in the following years. notably the games which had caused the most outrage. For example games like Carmageddon

which saw the players goal to complete races with bonuses awarded to running over as many people as possible. the game at the time was so controversial that it was censored, replacing humans with zombies and blood with oil slicks. In an attempt to gain attention to the game, the developers sought after an 18 certificate rating from the BBFC, something which wasent needed due to the fact the game included no video. This application however, was blocked and turned down, and it took a further year for the original game to be reinstated with the uncensored version available the public, not before it had gained world wide attention. Another game which to this day still causes people to blame violent video games on real world crimes is that of GTA. GTA was born up in Scotland by devs DMA Design in (Again) 1997, it allowed players to Free roam the map doing missions such as robbing banks and hits on drug barons. DMA took no liberties with the game allowing the player to be involved in reckless murders on police, civilians, car jackings. Not limiting the player as to what they could do was one of the many reasons the game became this hit with gamers, it is this formula that has made every GTA since a big success, and one of the biggest selling games, it is without it critics though, as some believe its just a murder simulator with there being many new additions of GTA 4 such as the ability to drink drive. Many times have RockStar been taken to court over the series from people like lawyer Jack Thompson and groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) whom have attempted to raise the game age required to play 18+ rather than the 17+ of some of the older games. I don't hold the view that from the actions of a very few amount of people that games such as GTA should be banned, for the 99% of us its just a game to play with your mates and it ends in that..

La decima vittima

The Film La decima vittima has to be one of the strangest films I've seen in a while, this had the effect of making the film generally quite funny, if not always intentional. this maybe due to the dubbing into English, as the original was in Italian. The basic plot of the film revolves around a game system in which victims must escape their assassins, various none important characters in the scene are killed in broad daylight since the game is within the confines of the law. this builds up to our main characters one of which is the victim (Marcello) and the assassin Ursula Andress. throughout the film they confront each other on many occasions in the attempt to successfully pull of the assassination. but since they spent so much time with each other they find the act of killing the other harder.

Iterating Ancient Games

Tweaking Ancient Games : Some of the oldest known games are still played while others are all but forgotten With some of those board games excavated like the royal game of Ur are over 4,500 years old, so it was about time they got some iterating, iterating games is a really good thing and it was what many tribes and people did to games who where not so familiar with the rule base, this created very localized versions of the game, but as games have rule sets attached to them this has diminished with the exception such as monopoly in which most family's have different rules for the bank and the free parking squares, this is not bad thing and is seen more as diversity in game play. something which we did with many of the older games, messing around with the amount of game pieces and enlarging the game board are all sure fire whys of swapping up the dynamics of the game, for good or bad.

British Museum : Ancient Board Games

There was allot of the Museum to do with  Ancient Board Games, we had started of the day with a specific tour of the these ancient games, including tafl the viking game, Chaupat, The Royal Game of Ur and many others. some of the games used dedicated wooden games table while some had been carved into the rock of town guard posts. in which guards would play a board game whilst working. It was really fascinating to look at some of these games and how they played, many of the games featured in he museum were the real original setup, while some were on loan to different museums around the world and had be replaced with copy's. The Museum like most days was extremely busy so we took leave and went round in smaller groups looking at the other exhibits. we had met up with another group later that day of whom had brought a tafl board game, we had then proceeded to play for several hours mixing up the game play mechanics, with for example the addition of extra players. Overall the day was interesting but very tiring.. but would definitely go again.

Bleep Bleep Bloop

Another Radio 4 program (30 minutes) this week brought another Sound discussion within the games industry and the progress of video game scores, though it was recorded in 2010, some of the stats have changed a fair bit, but just to be clear.  One of the underlining factors in the program was that game music was coming of age, even though gaming has been around a relatively small amount of time. In comparison to film, sound wasn't even in use, and was still in the silent era. It is said that around 14 hours per week per household is spend playing video games making it bigger business than film and music.
      One of the many people interviewed was a composer working on scores for games, he generally gets a set of framework from the developers giving a description of the scene/mood/atmosphere etc, it would then be up to his team to compile a soundtrack best suited to the given description, one of the examples used was a scrap yard level with a game, this composer used tools such as mood boards and the like to create a really interesting eerie and ghastly metal tinging piece for the game, he also then creates several different copies of this piece with different ones incorporating the tempo which is set by the players play style, via stealth or combat.
      Game music does have it problems, for example many pieces often seem very loud and that's because they need to create this sense of ore and excitement for the player, this is all well and good, but in isolation it can sometimes fall apart due to the soundtrack needing the game component to function correctly as imagined, In my own opinion though, I often listen to these in isolation anyway, due to fact they bring these emotions anyway, without the need for game.

      Following on to a different interview, the question lays around the fact of "Is making the score easier for the in-game stuff or for a rendered cut-scene" From the reply its easy to see why the cut-scene is the easiest to work with, this is very much like film in this regard as the composer has direct and full control of what the player should feel, giving it a sad or heroic part in the game, While with in-game work the composer cant control the player, and so has to best offer the music on which the developers framework tasks him with.

      One of the interesting pieces which i totally agreed with, was the coming together of two apparent separate groups, of which are gamers and classical concert goers. Due to the rapidly growing market of gaming, big names such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Hans Zimmer (Big Film Composer) compose and perform video game music, this brings people from behind their T.Vs and into this concert environment, were they can experience there in game moments, which is very much driven by the music, live.
      People within the orchestra however, have not always thought it was at the standard of the normal music which they might of played, from the likes of Ludwig van Beethoven to "Sonic the Hedgehog" or "Mass Effect" but their minds are wonderfully and suddenly changed when they see the thousands of  people who have evoked such passions when they hear their favorite game soundtrack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyvwODEjmXw   (A link to the Live perfomance of the above)



                          (Hans Zimmer [Below]- A few of the many scores, Superman/ Gladiator
                                               and Modern Warfare 2 (A Video Game)

Sissyfight 2000

Sissyfight 2000

                   This was the game played in Robs lecture last Friday..the game involved using a set of cards which included the likes of (Team,Defend and Solo) you also got a set of colours, of which indicated the player you wanted to attack, So one of the main mechanics, is this hidden information factor, players only know for sure when the cards are reveled on the table, any successful attacks/ defends get a set deduction from their counter pile, this tension caused by the mechanic can be changed via player engagement with each other, to either work together to eliminate another player or double bluff someone and then go attack someone else, creating a sense of backstabbing.

                 Iterating our game after the first match, brought about some changes in the way the first card turn over was played, we had it such that all players had to first use a team card, this enabled a rapid start to the game as most people targeted the one person through communicating with each other, this meant that one player would get crippled in the first round, but if played correctly can still fight on since hes a lower threat.
                Also we added a deflect card this was very much to counter the above or attacks later in the game, it could be used for maximum effect when multiple players are targeting someone, if the deflecting player gets his colour chose correct he can successfully deflect all incoming damage on to someone else, this created a real plot twist and can really turn a game around. My thoughts were, I really enjoyed the game it got everyone really involved in the game, creating new friends and enemy's if you were un-dully targeted, jokes of course.

Games Britannia “Monopolies & Mergers”

For the second part of Games Britannia, Woolley traces the surprising political and social impact that board games have had in Britain over the last 200 years, being a British idea of using the board game as an instrument of moral instruction, they had it exported it to America. Once it had arrived on the shores of America it was altered to concur with the whole American dream and philosophy, making allot of money. Woolley goes on to demonstrate this effect of money transferring hands on the board game with the best-selling game in history Monopoly - which celebrated wealth and avarice in the wake of the Great Depression. Ironically, this most capitalist of games was derived from a radical socialist game first published in Britain in 1913. He goes on to further show how a holy trinity of British family board games came about including Cluedo, Monopoly and Scrabble. These Games although of which have a very real sense and life within them. games such fantasy role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons an American invention. British games continued to play on the niche political games like War on Terror which plays on satire.

The Sound of Fear: Halloween Special

Radio 4's The Sound of Fear Broadcast last on Wed 19 Oct 2011 16:30 has been made available on the iplayer-radio app in the run up to Halloween, of which is a very interesting listen. "A door creaks, footsteps echo, someone's breathing - and we are terrified. But why? Sean Street investigates the psychology of fear" This was one of the random programs i had playing whilst doing some university work, and it got me interested enough to create a quick blog on the subject matter.. This program has some strong connections with the gaming industry as well as other forms of media, such as films and news outlets. One of the many interesting points was the universal process of hearing with our ears, but listening with our imagination, this is almost certainly true during the dark when our imaginations go crazy with suggestions as to what that creak or noise was, is someone approaching me? or was it just the house settling down?, this fear is a somewhat basic emotion of humans a point proven when a tribe deep within south america of whom had had minimal interaction with western people,  are played a recording of distress/crys of westerners, these tribes people automatically got a sense of heighten awareness as to possible danger, the experiment was repeated the other way round and when distress/crys of tribe members were played to westerners, the same response was received.

           An interesting segment on silence or the lack of sound, also played into this fear of something is going to happen.. films regularly use this as a scare tactic to suddenly spring a large bang or set-piece, causing audiences to succumb to natural reactions and jolt in there seats. it is also common for people to use radios/TV to fill the void of an empty house without the full intention to listen to it, just to feel that there not alone.
       Any sound though can be thought of as frightening given the context it was heard in, for example, footsteps are a common sound of day to day life, but within the context of being dark and say in bed, the sound can take on a whole other meaning and again our imaginations run wild with possibilities until we gain an understanding of what it was.. I recommend a listen to the program before its removed again from the service.

BattleShips

Iterating Battleships:

Our task within Robs lecture was to play the well known game of Battleships, nearly everyone had played the game before, and so we pretty much all negated the need to read the rules.. so with a quick non-iterated game to become familiar with the mechanics again, we then began a process of iterating the game with our own ideas and mechanics to produce different play styles or Aesthetics.

My own ideas began with giving the 4 or so ships that the player was given, a set of specific cards that the player could use against the opponent, for example the largest ship or "BattleShip"

that you own had an ability to carpet bomb a complete row on the board, this produced a feeling of pleasure as it was possible to completely wipe out an enemy ship, but utter frustration on the other side,

this card however was a one time use only card due to its "OPness" this gave the game a boost in game speed if you became almost bored by the constant misses on your opponent, so doing a mass revealing of information on the board, even though its still an educated guess, helped along play making it more exciting. 

The following were also used as bonus cards:

-Hospital Ship(Repairs a ship)

-A ship which could move 1 space

-A double fire shot card 

(The feeling of using a BattleShip Bonus card"

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.