Game Design as Cultural Practice Fall 2009

POV - Final Design Document

Team Rose

November 2 2009

LCC 4725

POV Design Document

POV – A Flash-based game based on perspectives

I. Game Overview.

1. Game Concept

POV is a platformer game where the player controls a small, oddly-shaped alien that wanders around the level gathering information on the human population. To do this, it sucks out a person's eye in a fairly comical manner and is able to perceive new obstacles and objects.

2. Feature Set

   1. 2D levels that scroll vertically and horizontally.

   2. The ability to change the level by using other people's eyes.

   3. A unique and/or stylish art style that changes with the eyes.

   4. Puzzle-solving using different perspectives.

3. Look and feel

Whimsical and organic, subject mostly to the perspective of the eyeball in use at the time to a great degree.

2. Project scope

   1. Number of levels – At least 1.

   2. Number of settings – 2, apartment complex and basement

   3. Number of Non-playable characters – 3, whom the main character takes eyes from.

   4. Number of eyeballs – 3

II. Gameplay and mechanics

1. Gameplay

   1. Gameplay progression – the player starts out with no eyeball (or a very simple one) that is unused to the light, colors and appearance of Earth, therefore making everything seem grey and dull. After finding people's eyes to take and use, the world takes on different colors and appearances, allowing the character to progress through the level in areas which were previously inaccessible.

   2. Puzzle structure – platforms, eyes and areas will be inaccessible normally, unless a certain eye is used in a particular way. For instance, the eye from a gardener will allow the player to see a vertical vine that allows him/her to climb and reach that area. Some areas may diverge to allow different eyes to be used, as perhaps the architect's eye may reveal an underground passage while the artist's eye may allow the player to hop up on squiggly clouds to progress.

   3. Objectives – For now, the objective is to explore the levels by finding the different eyes, and find an 'exit' point at the end of the level.

2. Mechanics

   1. Movement - The player will walk along the ground with the left and right arrow keys, with the ability to climb by using the up arrow key. Jumping is debated.

   2. Objects – eyeballs. These will be found and taken from NPCs whom the player encounters, whom will likely have curious or harmless reactions at first upon seeing the main character. A comical action to steal a person's eyeball is in the works.

   3. Actions – The player can switch between different eyes to view the world differently, talk to NPCs and then steal their eyes, climb and navigate through different areas so far.

3. Screen Movement Flow (To be determined)

4. Replay value – the game may have branching paths that allows the player to take a different route to achieve the same goal, reach the same area. By replaying, the player can explore other options that were previously missed.

3. Story and setting

   1. Story and Narrative – To be fleshed out more later, but the basic concept is that the main character is an alien that has arrived on Earth to observe the species dwelling here and learn more about them. As their species possesses only one eye, they assume that human beings only need one as well as they steal them and assimilate the memory, perception into their own.

   2. Game world – starts around an apartment complex where the character finds first human contact, and promptly begins 'intelligence gathering'. Bleary and dull at first, the character soon finds that humans perceive the world in astonishing variety compared to themselves.

      1. A basement level is being debated that is attached to the apartment building, optional and accessible only by certain means.

   3. Characters

      1. Main character – a first time scout for the alien race described above, it has yet to contact other sentient species and is fairly ignorant on how to treat the natives. Other scouts gather information by communicating with native species, but he has found another way to get that data more clearly, faster. Indifferent rather than malicious about stealing eyes, very curious.

      2. NPCs – an artist, architect and gardener, all of whom have varying personalities and perspectives. The artist may be highly curious of the main character by his appearance, the architect might try to become Earth's ambassador to the alien race, and the gardener might be very friendly, unassuming at first, or be too focused on his garden to worry. Needless to say, they all react differently, but fairly perturbed at having an eye stolen (though not painfully, more comically)

IV. Interface (TBD)

1. The interface will be completely reliant on the keyboard. The directional arrows will control the movement of the alien, allowing the user to move LEFT, RIGHT, and UP (jump). To steal a characters eye, walk up to the character and press SHIFT. Either SHIFT key should work so the user can pick if its easier to keep one hand on the arrows and the other on the SHIFT, or if they prefer to
   use one hand. The bottom of the screen will have a dock showing all the eyes the alien has collected. To scroll through the eyes, press Z to move right, and X to move left.

V. Technical (TBD)

A. Object-oriented ‘level’ design — The entire game world will be broken up into so-called “blocks” very similarly to the way other “Metroidvania” games do it. Each block will have a background associated with it for each different eye. Anything within each block that can be interacted with (this includes walking on, climbing up, etc. Anything that will collide with the player) will not be defaulted into the background, but rather indicated via an XML file. Each interactive item will be a symbol who’s location will determined by an XML file. In addition, there will be a separate XML file listing each item/symbol type which will detail which eye it can be seen with and how the player can interact with it. Basically, anything the player interacts with will be treated like an object.

B. Other details

1. The player character will have animations for standing still, walking, climbing, and jumping (if included). The animations are all neutral in that they do not depict the character moving across space so that this is still determined by the player.

2. There will be global Boolean flags for indicating when a player has possession of each eye.

3. The game’s interaction has been limited to keyboard-only for both ease of use and to make the programming task easier.

4. The object-oriented level design method is used so that the code should be able to execute with as little information about game state and player location as possible. The idea is to make everything as context-free as possible. Also, the use of XML files for object and block details should also allow for designers without programming knowledge the ability to change the game world without having to touch the code. The only context-sensitive parts of the code should be concerning the points in the game when the player acquires a new eyeball.

VII. Game Art (TBD)

1. Backdrops

   1. No Eyeball (or default alien’s eyeball) – When viewed through the default eyeball, the background is shown in a black and white monochromatic format. The other aspects of the level, from the items to the platforms will all be in this style.

   2. Architect’s eyeball – As the main character picks up other eyeballs, the level elements change to reflect this new style. In the architect’s perspective, the background is reminiscent of an architectural blueprint with rigid, neat lines and blue coloring.

   3. Gardener’s eyeball – The gardener’s perspective is bright, painterly, soft and thriving. The background will be saturated in color and filled with flora. The platforms and other level aspects will also be displayed as such.

   4. Child’s eyeball – The child views things as bright and uncorrupted. The elements in the background will be textured as a crayon drawing and have elements such as toys and crayons. The coloring will change to reflect a messy, coloring-out-of-the-lines aesthetic.

2. Characters

   1. Main Character – the main character will be whimsical and brightly colored, with a constant style throughout the game despite having other eyeballs equipped. He will have a set number of animation cycles, including running, jumping, climbing, and taking of eyeballs.

   2. NPCs – The NPCs will include an artist, a gardener, and a child. They will keep their same appearances despite the main character equipping different eyeballs, and will be drawn in the same style as the backdrop of the Default Eyeball. They will be brightly colored like the main character. The gardener is an elderly woman, the architect is a middle-aged man, and the child is grade school aged.

3. Eyes and other objects of interaction

   1. Eyeballs – The eyeballs will each have a different color and style and will not change. The architect’s eyeball will be in the style of a blueprint, the gardener’s in an impressionistic painting, and the child’s in crayon drawing.

   2. Platforms – The platforms will also change depending on the eyeball equipped. The equipped eyeball will determine the type of platform, the placement, and the appearance. Certain structures and buildings will be visible with the architect’s eye, flora will be visible with the gardener’s eye, and crayon drawings and toys will appear with the child’s eye.

VIII. Management

Weekly meetings to discuss progress, checkpoints to be finished by this time. Weekly e-mails are sent out to remind members of tasks and checkpoint dates.

Incidents and Accidents: Social Spaces and Interactions in Virtual Worlds and MMOGs

For this assignment, I decided to compare the designs of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR), the only MMOG I've ever subscribed to, and Second Life (SL). While my experience with the former is much greater than the latter, from what I was able to divine from my studies (both within SL and from the readings), the ways in which I (and, presumably, other players) interacted within each digital environment were quite distinct. While many of the readings dealt with gender, one of the things I found the most fascinating about virtual worlds (as opposed to MMOGs) was the importance of user-generated content, and the increased sense of embodiment that users of virtual worlds seem to experience. For the most part, I will draw on specific ideas from SL and WAR where appropriate, but for the most part want to deal with the high-level concepts of virtual worlds and MMOGs as a whole.

It's clear to me that the act of construction is much more important in SL than it is in WAR. The architectural puzzles that are described by Fullerton et al in There.com (2007,p.7) are present in SL – players create items, avatars, and buildings solely for the joy of creating, but SL takes it a step further. Players often buy and sell items, allowing some players to actually make a business out of their game-like creation activities. There is an economy in WAR as well, but it typically deals with illicit activities such as selling characters and gold farming, and is somewhat less meaningful than the actions of many of the inhabitants of virtual worlds. The SL economy is an example of a breakdown of the “boundaries between play and production” (Pearce,2006,p.2), as is the recreation of Uru by the diaspora Pearce describes (2006,p.4-7). These players are actually manufacturing new creative assets as part of the “game”, rather than simply playing (or cheating) to be the best, as one does in almost every MMOG.

The value that SL places on identity is very apparent from the outset. Like the designers described by Taylor (2003), it is clear that Linden Labs consider the importance of “responsibility, accountability, and community” alongside their promotion of freedom of choice (p.30). True, the user can customize their avatar almost endlessly, but the character's name remains constant (or, at least, it does as far as I could tell), thus tying a definite personality and entity to that particular name, most likely to prevent “troublemakers” from avoiding “public censure by changing identity” (Taylor,2003,p.31), and possibly to prevent such hooligans from infiltrating the well-defined communities of SL to cause mischief.

Taylor (2003) talks a lot about the online socialization structure of MMOGs, but in my experience it rarely goes beyond the level of “simply talk[ing] to people in the digital environment” (p.26). Typically, in WAR, the only times I talked to people was to organize quest groups, or to get people together for an RvR (Realm vs. Realm) large-scale assault. Social interaction was somewhat incidental and far from the focus of the game. Perhaps I am an anti-social monster, but some of the rich social interactions Taylor (2003,p.26) describe in EverQuest I have never witnessed or experienced in WAR. Indeed, even the idea of “identity play” Taylor (2003,p.27) describes has not been my experience with MMOGs. I have several fraternity brothers who play WoW, and none of them treat their characters as new identities, but merely as playing pieces in the game. The social interaction is, once again, incidental.

The sense of community in virtual worlds seems much stronger than in MMOGs. Once again, the formation of social groups in WAR (and WoW) seems primarily due to convenience and necessity – you need guild mates to go on the larger raids to get the better loot. In WAR, there are public quests that are virtually impossible for solo characters, but are one of the best ways to level characters and gain treasure. In virtual worlds, however, you seem to get clear social groups that form from simple common interests, such as the Uru diaspora described by Pearce (2007,p.5). Pearce describes MMOGs and virtual worlds as analogous to theme parks (2007,p.5), and I feel this comparison is partially correct, and applies mostly to MMOGs. The amount of control exercised over the user by the game space is as constraining as the controlled experience of most theme parks. Virtual worlds, on the other hand, give the users a degree of freedom that raises them above mere theme parks, to “new cities” complete with their own cultures and subcultures.

One of the interesting things about virtual worlds is their treatment of social order. While there may be actual hard-coded rules implemented by those running the system, they are typically less strict than they are in MMOGs. True, one can get in trouble for swearing too much or posting threats in a chat, but for the most part, one is in an MMOG to play the game, and the game's rule are part of the software, and can't be broken except through glitches. An good contrast is the difference between rules about violence. In WAR, you can kill other players in designated PvP realms, and that's it. It's part of the game. No one questions it. But in a game like Lucasarts' Habitat, as Farmer and Morningstar (1990/1991) describe, the nature of violence, even when moderated by rules, was still an issue because the experience, like SL, is a community, not a game. The Order of the Holy Walnut, which did a lot to influence violent actions even in the areas where it wasn't moderated, is an example of how communities within virtual worlds establish their own rules and social order (Farmer & Morningstar, 1990/1991), as opposed to solely relying on the game and it's masters as they would in an MMOG.

As a quick aside, I would like to address the point the Ludica article raises about "kombat lingerie" (Fullerton et al,2007,p.3) applies very directly to WAR, and indeed to most MMOGs in general. While it is true that some of the inhabitants of SL do have scantily clad female characters, they do not have to wear such clothing – it's a conscious choice. In WAR, the female characters' armor (especially the Witch Elf) are always skimpy. It may be linked to the mindset of many male players that they want to look at something sexy while they're playing (something I've heard many, many male MMOG players say), and it is clear that the sense of embodiment and personal connection to one's avatar is much, much less in most MMOGs than it is in most virtual worlds. This will be dealt with in greater detail momentarily.

Further extrapolations about the power of “player” implemented social order in virtual worlds is evidenced by Dibbell's (1993/1998) analysis of the Mr. Bungle incident in LambdaMOO. While eventually the “wizards” did step in, the action was initiated by the inhabitants themselves, and the debate over whether or not to “toad” the offending party was held by the inhabitants as well (Dibbell,1993/1998). In WAR, such an incident would be handled as follows – someone files a violation report, offending player is banned, the end. And there would be little debate. I believe this is because most MMOG players are not inherently connected to their avatars or virtual identities – they are not truly embodied by their characters. Losing an account represents the loss of a game, not the loss of an identity. In a virtual world, however, the sense of embodiment is the entire point of the experience. Take the idea of gender, for example. As I mentioned above, many male MMOG players pick female avatars because they want to look at eye candy. They feel no identification with the avatar. However, in LambdaMOO, players described the choice of their gender as something “of great consequence and forethought” (Curtis), because they were creating a true virtual identity, not just a playing piece in a game. This sense of embodiment also elevates virtual world, and the actions of those who inhabit them, above mere gameplay. As Mnookin (1996) succinctly states, “LambdaLaw is superfluous if LambdaMOO is merely a game”. Replace LambaMOO with any other virtual world, and the statement's value is the same – if these are just games, and not new spaces for people (or at the very least, identities) to interact on a meaningful level, why should there be anything more than the GMs and software rules that traditional MMOGs employ? The answer is no. This is because virtual worlds like SL and LambdaMOO are not games inhabited by players – they are spaces inhabited by people, and the necessity of new forms of social order in such a space is much greater than it is on the virtual tabletops of modern MMOGs.

Bibliography

Curtis P. Mudding: Social Phenomena in Text-Based Virtual Realities.

Dibbell, Julian. (1993/1998). A Rape in Cyberspace.

Farmer, R. & Morningstar, C. (1990/1991). The Lesson of LucasArts Habitat.

Fullerton, T., Morie, J. & Pearce, C. (2007). A Game of Ones Own: Towards a New Gendered Poetics of Game Space. In Proceedings, Digital Arts & Culture 2007, Perth, Australia. 1-11.

Mnookin, J. (1996) Virtual(ly) Law: The Emergence of Law in LambdaMOO. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication: Volume 2, Number 1: Part 1 of a Special Issue, June 1996.

Pearce, C. (2007). "Narrative Environments from Disneyland to World of Warcraft." In Space, Time, Play: Computer Games, Architecture and Urbanism: The Next Level. 1-6.

Pearce, C. (2006). "Productive Play: Game Culture from the Bottom Up." Games & Culture. Volume 1, Issue 1. 1-8.

Taylor, T.L. (2003). Intentional Bodies: Virtual Environments and the Designers Who Shape Them. International Journal of Engineering Education Vol. 19, No. 1. 25-34.

Taylor, T.L. (2003). Multiple Pleasures: Women and Online Gaming. Convergence, Vol. 9, No. 1, 21-46.

The Representation of Space and Gender in Borderlands

Released only a few weeks ago, Gearbox Software’s new title Borderlands has already become a smash hit amongst popular video game circles. With a highly stylized, cell-shaded art style, exaggerated voice acting and a preposterous plot, Borderlands is a game which doesn’t go to any great lengths to take itself seriously.  Rather, it focuses on its gameplay elements and the somewhat-casual overall experience.

Borderlands is a typical product of Fron’s ‘hegemony of play’ containing classic elements of both the first-person shooter and the dungeon crawler. The game epitomizes a very male, very typical take on the modern video game with killing, plundering, and conquering being core themes throughout the narrative. The advertisement for the game consisted mostly of touting the number of guns and the female characters' figures. There is a clear lean towards the traditional video game audience in nearly all of Borderland's features. Neither is it the cultural innovator as portrayed by the works in Utopian Entrepreneur. In some sense, the beauty in Borderlands comes from its naivety. It is mindless in all the ways which modern video games tend to be mindless. Although, it does seek to confirm Laurel's concerns on the nature of the industry at large and the genre of media it has taken to. The real enjoyment from Borderlands (like so many other video games) comes from the space in which it is set.

                From bleak deserts to alien ruins in the remote mountains, Borderlands takes the user through a variety of spaces. The primary theme to these spaces is the conventional post-apocalyptic wasteland (albeit no  apocalyptic event is alluded to throughout the course of the game). As with Jenkins’ ‘evocative spaces’, the user is left to fill in most of the gaps about this setting using the genre that has been laid down by so many other stories (Fallout, Mad Max, etc). Complementing this space is a number of conventions of this genre: bandits in the wasteland, gun-toting renegades, make-shift towns in the desert, and so on. The spaces in Borderlands are somewhat prototypical male spaces, with enemies to killed, treasures to be found, or objectives to be completed. The more nuanced, feminine aspects to the space lie in its vastness. Towns, for example, have large, concealed spaces to explore and inhabit. Or in other instances, missions ask the player to scour a particular outpost or cave in order to find some particular items, the result of which is an intimate familiarity of a small space in the game world. I felt these tasks in particular resonated with Fullerton’s writings on ‘secret spaces’; although they fell within the linear progression of gameplay and the storyline, they provided a respite from the monotony of killing and conquering that takes place throughout the rest of the game. After spending nearly an hour on one such task, I felt more familiar with one particular outpost in the middle of the deserts than I did with the central town in the game.

                Cultures play a role in the space in Borderlands as well. The main segregation found in the game lies between the civilized survivors and the degenerate bandits who inhabit the wastelands. This dichotomy plays into the spaces each group inhabits: survivor towns are somewhat organized with larger buildings and somewhat intelligent layouts. The bandit towns on the other hand are disheveled and bleak. While perhaps not a critical, game-altering factor, these differences tend to help when the desolate, barren art aesthetic is carried between both places.

                Beyond the spaces in Borderlands, the representations and game mechanics of gender is more profound than what appears at the surface. The first obvious of such representations is that all of the bad guys (with one very important exception) are male. This is perhaps an effort to conform to the aforementioned conventions of the post-apocalypse world. The male villains in Borderlands are all degenerate, often insane figures. The single female villain (and the primary antagonist) is actually a military commander and employee of the most esteemed weapons manufacturer. In fact, women portray very empowering positions throughout Borderlands. The leader of the largest civilized haven in the game is female as well as the leading archaeologist (and primary quest giver) in the main storyline.

                One such notable woman and one of the playable characters is Lilith. At one point human, Lilith has since become a supernatural being capable of extraordinary powers. As such, her gameplay mechanics revolve around these exotic abilities. Rather than killing enemies as is the forte of her male counterparts, Lilith’s combat is more nuanced, focusing on dazing or stunning opponents. Although this may be an example of Simone de Beauvoir’s woman as “other” inhabiting a “masculine universe”, I felt her divergent play style was enough to note the gender difference.

                Overall, Borderlands is a pretty typical title in this day and age. It is not particularly known for any radical or creative design, but rather its’ aesthetics. These aesthetics, however, have nuanced representations of gender and space that I feel set it apart from the archetypal shooters that accompany it in the popular game market.

Sources Cited:

Fron, J., Fullerton, T., Morie, J. & Pearce, C. (2007). The Hegemony of Play. In Situated Play: Proceedings of Digital Games Research Association 2007 Conference. Tokyo, Japan. 1-10.

Fullerton, T., Morie, J. & Pearce, C. (2007). A Game Of Ones Own: Towards a New Gendered Poetics of Game Space. In Proceedings, Digital Arts & Culture 2007, Perth, Australia. 1-11.

Jenkins, H. (2004). Game design as narrative architecture. The Game Design Reader, 670-686.

Laurel, B. (2001). Utopian Entrepreneur. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

NO MANA

Chances are if you are playing a game in a medieval fantasy setting you will find that all the guys are buff, grizzly chest hair wielding badasses while the women have a chest size that even Pamela Anderson would be jealous of. If you are like me and find absolutely nothing wrong or abnormal about this then you are part of the problem demographic explained in Fron et all’s “Hegenomy of Play”.  The paper details the gaming clichés and standards that dominate the game industry and dictate how most games are made and appear. That’s not to say that these game developers, companies and enthusiasts are the root of all evil, in fact, Hegenomy of Play comes about simply because the majority of the demographic that enjoys a particular genre and theme of gameplay just dominates the industry

 

“We are not trying to suggest that game publishers or

developers are insincere. Rather we are trying to call

attention to the power structures that surround game

technologies, game production and game consumption.

These power structures perpetuate a particular set of values

and norms concerning games and game play, which tend to

subordinate and ghettoize minority players and play styles.” (Fron et all, 2)

 

Champions of Norrath is probably the staple for their argument. In it you can choose between five races, typical of a D&D setting, and are dropped into a world to kill hordes and hordes of enemies. It does have a story, but I’ve never followed it. However I do know that it is something along the lines of “Those guys over there are bad, go kill them.” All of the males are so muscular they are almost square in shape, while the women are so well endowed that they even released a calendar with images of them for every month for nerds alike to geek out about them.  In Laurel's Utopian Entrepreneur she talks about the advertising techniques of most companies and how these techniques are typically offensive to women. This is largely because most companies believe in the phrase "Sex  sells". Champions is not excluded from this population. The cover of the game features a female dark elf, and pretty much any feminine character you meet in the game will wear scantily clad clothes and a large chest. One npc in particular seems to zoom in on that area when you go to talk to her. Sony even released a calendar of the game featuring the scantily clad characters for each month of the year.

Gameplay is pretty rudimentary as well, press x to attack, square to loot and occasionally the circle and triangle buttons to use spells. If the aesthetics weren’t unappealing enough for most demographics, the loot system allows for one player to be able to pick up absolutely everything if the other players aren’t fast enough. That means that magic users and bow users who aren’t anywhere near the enemies they are fighting have very little chance compared to say a barbarian who is in the thick of the fight to pick up items. For players who like to share loot, take their time to explore or stay on an even playing field as others, this is not the game for them. Yet all of these aspects of the game are very typical of most games today. Champions of Norrath provides a very linear experience. Players are dropped into the world, and expected to go through a gauntlet of enemies. This style of gameplay tends to be a very masculine notion. As Jenkins explains in "Complete Freedom of movement" males prefer a very focussed experience, one with goals and objectives. On the other hand, females prefer open spaces, with no other objectives other than to explore the environment and make one's own fun. Unless you forgot which direction you were heading when you get out of a cave or something, Champions of Norrath is a very on rails experience.

While Fullerton et all focus mostly on the male fascination with first person shooters and sci fi settings, they do manage to describe the mood of Champions of Norrath very well as a masculine game,

 

“Thematically, these games revolve around narratives of warfare,

anti-terrorism, invading aliens, zombies, science fiction, combat

with robots, etc. Aesthetically, their settings tend to be highly

rectilinear, typically manmade spaces, often the bruised and

embattled remains of an urban environment, warehouse, office

building, space ship, space colony, or high tech laboratory gone

horribly wrong. They are typically constructed of hard materials:

cinder block, metal grid work, HVAC infrastructure, with

heavily mechanical components, reinforced by the sound effects

of footsteps echoing on metal or concrete floors.” (Fullerton et all, 3)

 

Champions of Norrath, while in a fantasy setting, focuses on a post-war filled world where evil prevailed and it is your job to set things right. Through barbarian moves like slam, you can send enemies flying and in pieces with a simple push of a button. Coming from someone who likes that sort of thing, yes…it is very satisfying…well, at least for me. But not everyone is into that sort of thing, in fact most aren’t and are therefore left in the dark for the majority of games currently released.

But if big chested women and buff mcmanly men in video games completely baffle you, you have to go back when games were young and look at the people who played them. The guys sitting behind their computer monitors 35 years ago weren’t interested in Sims or Barbie goes to the zoo. In fact, most could recite more lines from the D&D rule book than the names of women they knew and talked to. So of course the games that they made would be about their interests. As we have progressed through time however, this group of people is becoming smaller and smaller compared to the overall market of people who want to play videogames. Yet these structures, genres and clichés are still the most dominant. As Fron et all explain in the paper, this narrow scope of gameplay and genre makes the industry very difficult for minority groups such as women to get into. Its a double edged sword. On the one hand, the games that companies make are what they enjoy doing, and in this sense I think they have every right to continue doing it. Its like telling RL Stein that he's not allowed to make children's horror stories anymore. You can't force someone to change their artistic style (yes I mentioned art in a games blog, your move Roger Ebert). On the other hand, the most popular intellectual properties have always been the most risky. Who could have known that wii sports with its simplified graphics and gameplay would be so successful? Because of this, the constraints are more of the economy itself than the industry. Producers don't want to invest in games that they don't know how well they perform. Each game released by a company at this point is make or break. Because of this, in order to dilute the market with genres for everyone I believe it first needs to start on a smaller scale. People are able to get into the game industry now much easier than ever before thanks to distributing platforms like steam, psn, xbla, etc. With so many ways to let indy developers get their game out there, it is only a matter of time before the successful small scale games get picked up by bigger developers due to initial success. With bigger developers backing different styles of games, hegemony of play will slowly dissipate, it is only a matter of time.

Bibliography:

Fron, J., Fullerton, T., Morie, J. & Pearce, C. (2007). The Hegemony of Play. In Situated Play: Proceedings of Digital Games Research Association 2007 Conference. Tokyo, Japan. 1-10.

Fullerton, T., Morie, J. & Pearce, C. (2007). A Game Of Ones Own: Towards a New Gendered Poetics of Game Space. In Proceedings, Digital Arts & Culture 2007, Perth, Australia. 1-11.

Jenkins, H. (2004). Game design as narrative architecture. The Game Design Reader, 670-686.

Laurel, B. (2001). Utopian Entrepreneur. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

 

Animal Crossing Genders

When I first heard of Animal Crossing I didn’t want to play it. I get ragged on enough as it is for playing “girly” games, and this game felt like I was just asking for it. The cartoonish graphics, the cute animal neighbors, the simple goals and tasks…it was just not hardcore enough to keep my tenuous membership to the men’s club of gaming social circle. A couple of months after release, I started to notice it popping up in peoples Nintendos. Tentatively, I asked my guy friends what they thought was appealing about it, and they said it was so immersive it was hard to resist. It was enjoyable for them to take control of the town, keep it in order, get achievements, and invite other people to enjoy their town.  I was called crazy for not jumping at the game sooner.

 

After reading Jenkins paper, the allure of Animal Crossing to both genders makes perfect sense. According to Jenkins, now that most kids live in urban or semi-urban environments, they get no real imaginative place to call their own. There are no backyards in the city, and finding an abandon lot usually means vying with hobos for claim rights. Jenkins says that while a child can go to a park, it is still laden with rules and regulations of what you can do. There is nowhere for a kid to build, or create their own space. Playing videogames allows this claiming of space. Animal Crossing is a great example of this. The player is invited into the town. They get to name the town, and get taken to their own house. The town is completely shaped by how much effort the player puts in. The relationship to other characters, the landscape, and even the museums are only affected if the player decides to interact with it. The game provides many avenues for exploration which appeals to both genders. Fullerton’s article “points out that a key pleasure for women is exploration (pg 7).” Exploring is rewarded in the game by discovering new secrets about the town. Jenkins mentions that girls enjoy discovering secret things. He says that classic stories that girls enjoy are based around uncovering things that were supposed to be hidden. He uses examples such as Secret Garden, and Harriet the Spy. In Harriet the Spy, Harriet creates her own town based on the one she’s in, and names all the characters and their personalities. That entire passage is what reminded me of Animal Crossing to begin with. In the game, the player is supposed to snoop around other people’s houses to learn more about them. The interaction you have with the character is really what shapes them.

 

Another point that draws women to Animal Crossing is that socialization is rewarded. Fullerton mentions that “Socializing, also of high value among women, is seldom scored and sometimes inadvertently penalized (pg. 7)”. This is simply not the case. The more you interact and socialize with the NPCs, the more you learn about the town and the people. This furthers the retrieval of secrets, and sucks you deeper into the world. The game also encourages you to invite friends in to your town by unlocking more for you to discover. These are the same morals that Laurel was trying to instill with her games. She wanted a game that believed in social responsibility, and actually helped girls with their problems. A lot of the NPCs in the game have a fantastic back story to them (like Mable and Sable, who had lost their parents and now only had each other). The game also doesn’t give a caricature look to females. Whether you choose to make a boy or a girl, the game is completely unaffected. One of my favorite things about the game is you do not choose what your character looks like in the standard “avatar creation” way. The game asks you a series of questions about yourself, and then generates your character. Even later in the game when you want to change your hair, you can’t simply state you want pink hair, or blue hair. You have to say you want “creative, flirtatious hair”, or you want “a subtle, but fiery look”. This fits very well with Lauren on the way women are being viewed. She wrote about her hatred for Barbie, and how she will never forgive Barbie for what she’s done. Barbie was a person that 95% of women will never be, but marketed to them all equally. In this game, you are the only human. The NPCs can’t be intimidating because they aren’t even your species, and your looks are so cartoonish that they really don’t matter. You can design whatever clothing you want, and it’s easy to create a completely unique character.

 

The game was a big hit across all genders, ages, and demographics. While the game itself is great, I must give credit where credit is due. Girls never really had the courage to pick up a game system because they didn’t feel it was appropriate. Part of the games success is due to Nintendo’s new advertising strategy. Nintendo is the only company showing commercials of girls playing their console, and as Fron said, “It may turn out to be a pretty good bet, as Nintendo is the only one of the three console companies currently turning a profit on its new system. [22] (pg. 10)” . One downside to this is that most gaming magazines are saying that Nintendo has sold out, and now creates video games that are pointless or are just party games to pander to women. While Nintendo has stripped down a lot of their game play, I hope they see the success of Animal Crossing and continue to make immersive and extensive games.

Bibliography:

Fron, J., Fullerton, T., Morie, J. & Pearce, C. (2007). The Hegemony of Play. In Situated Play: Proceedings of Digital Games Research Association 2007 Conference. Tokyo, Japan. 1-10.

Fullerton, T., Morie, J. & Pearce, C. (2007). A Game Of Ones Own: Towards a New Gendered Poetics of Game Space. In Proceedings, Digital Arts & Culture 2007, Perth, Australia. 1-11.

Jenkins, H. (2004). Game design as narrative architecture. The Game Design Reader, 670-686.

Laurel, B. (2001). Utopian Entrepreneur. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

Daydream - Final Design Doc

Overview

• Daydream is a visual-oriented casual game where the player takes on the role of a bored
  student daydreaming in class. Throughout the course of the lecture, distractions and
  waking hallucinations will try to lure the player into interaction. If engaged, these 'minigames'
  will cause the room and its inhabitants to change, ultimately drowning out the
  professor and the classroom setting. At the end of gameplay, a test will be administered
  who's difficulty will be determined by how much attention was paid to the lecturer.

Prototyping and Testing

• For prototyping, we chose to work with a projector and paper cutouts to simulate the
  final frame of the application. The main peripheral for this testing was a laser pointer,
  used to emulate a mouse cursor. We paid close attention to how the user interacted
  with each element, where their focus in the frame tended to lie, and how space was
  utilized.
• We used ‘Wizard of Oz’ prototyping techniques; there were no concrete rules or
  frameworks at this stage.
•  

Design Development

• Art Direction

• Initially we started with a spread of different art styles to choose from. We
  narrowed this down to three distinct styles: paper cut-out, live action, and stick
  figures. Upon reviewing some further material from these styles, we settled
  upon live action.
• We plan to take apart live action material and animate it segment by segment.

• Gameplay Development

• The mini-game concept came after our brainstorming session yielded many
  broad but insufficiently complex game ideas. We decided to implement a lot of
  these concepts as the transformations in the scene, or smaller portions of an
  overall game.
• We eventually came up with the Daydream concept as a framework to
  implement and connect all of these different gameplay experiences.
• In order to experiment with the concepts of ‘losing’ and ‘winning’, we also
  introduced the idea of the player participating in a lecture. While the user still
  has agency, this gives the game a definite end point and lose condition.

• Monty Python’s Complete Waste of Time Case Study

• Upon reviewing this similar game, we found that sounds played an important
  role in the overall experience of these art games. As such, we plan to spend
  some time researching and collecting appropriate sounds for each mini-game
  and interaction.
• Complete Waste of Time also incorporated random, spontaneous events as well
  as elements of interaction. We felt this was a valuable asset and as such, we will
  be implementing random daydream effects beyond the mini-game interactions.

Gameplay

• The Setting
• • The game will take place in a lecture hall. Gameplay will start as soon as the
    lecture is introduced and the discussion is underway.
• Random Events
• • From a neutral lecture state, various events will occur in the game space. Some
    of these are related to mini-games (such as pop-ups occurring on the computer)
    or totally self-contained (such as the students’ heads floating around).
• Mini-Games
• • The mini-games will encompass the entire game space upon their initialization.
    As they are further interacted with, they will become more and more intense,
    ultimately shutting out the lecture entirely.
  • There are three of these games to be played within Daydream, each starting
    from some key object in the room: a poster of flowers, a rock-and-roll t-shirt,
    and a computer monitor.
  • Flowers
  • • After beginning this game, the world will start to take on a more lighthearted
      feel. Flowers will spring forth from nearly every surface and
      colors will become more saturated and vibrant. Eventually, cheery music
      will overcome the lecture, the frame of the application will become rosy
      and tinted, and the lecturer will turn into a giant, smiling, sun.
    • Interaction: To begin the flower mini-game, the user must click inside the
      poster on the wall. This will cause a person inside the poster to frolic to
      the mouse’s location. Upon the mini-game taking full effect, other
      interaction such as clicking on any point in the room to grow a flower will
      take place.
  • Internet
  • • Once this game is started, the world will take on the aesthetics of popular
      internet culture and web browsers. Pop-ups containing popular YouTube
      videos will appear randomly around the room. A scrollbar will appear on
      the right-hand side of the frame and the lecturer will turn into a voiceover
      pop-up ad. Students in the class will start to spawn IM bubbles
      containing text over their heads.
    • Interaction: To begin the internet game, the user must start by clicking
      off pop-ups in the computer monitor. Further interaction will come in
      engaging the animated pop-ups around the room.
  • Rock Out(!)
  • • Once this game is started, the world will take on the aesthetics of a rock
      show. The lecturer will turn into a member of KISS, lighting will become
      spotted and colorful, fog machines will turn on in the corners, and heavy
      metal music will begin to play.
    • Interaction: To begin the rock out game, the user must click on the t-shirt
      then begin pressing up and down to head bang. As user continues to
      head bang, the music will get louder and the cursor will turn into a devil
      horns hand gesture.
• Exiting Mini-Games
• • In order to leave a mini-game, the user must rapidly click on the lecturer or some
    element of the lecture. You can only engage one mini-game at a time, and you
    must do so from a neutral lecture state.
• The Quiz
• • At the end of gameplay (once the lecture has finished), the user will be given a
    quiz. This quiz’s difficulty will be based on how much time was spent in a neutral
    state listening to the lecture. Upon failing the quiz, the game will be reset.

Implementation Plan

• New Roles
• • Our designers will be shifting to a more production-oriented role by creating art
    assets, programming, and other tasks.
  • Anton Sigety will be moving from concept art to art direction, overseeing all of
    the assets.
• Rough Timeline
• • Programming
  • • Create the neutral state of the game. Implement frameworks for random
      events and hook-ins for interactions.
    • Begin working on the video importing. We need in-frame video (such as
      YouTube) as well as a video setting (the classroom).
    • Begin programming the specifics for each mini-game.
    • Program the quiz and its ability to reset the game state.
  • Art
  • • Find an actor to play the lecturer whom we may take billboarded
      pictures. This is so we can dynamically animate him as we see fit.
    • Take video pictures of a lecture setting to use as the backdrop.
    • Begin finding or producing the assets for each mini-game (pictures and
      sound).
    • Break down the art assets in Illustrator in order to animate them.

PDF

• A copy of this design document can be found here.

T-Totaler - Final Design Docs

Game: T-Totaler

Team: T-squared

Our Presentation: Download Final_Design_Presentation

Additional Documentation: Download Final_Design_Documentation

Interfaced, by The Jewish Mothers

You can download our Formal Design Document here.

If you just can't get enough, you could download our presentation here.

Some more Level Design Pictures:

Crackdown: A Gender Anomaly?

    To be honest, I don't really know a whole lot of women who play "hardcore" video games. I mean, my mom's been known to play Solitaire on her iPhone for hours, but I'm talking about games made for gamers. My little sister is actually the only woman I know who owns and Xbox 360, which has to be the most testosterone-laden console of the big 3 right now. She even has her own $50/year Xbox LIVE Gold membership (which she mostly uses for Netflix streaming). So, what kind of Xbox games does she own? Well, she has Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, staples on any 360 collection, but she doesn't play them very often. She tends to play a good amount of Fable II and Tiger Woods PGA Tour '10 (not that she likes real-life golf), but I'd have to say that her favorite game has to be Crackdown. This game is all about non-stop shooting, kicking, and blowing up faceless gang members, so why is it so appealing to her (and I'm just going to assume that she's not just some weirdo and that there are other women who enjoy this game)?

    Crackdown definitely requires those quick reflexes and spatial abilities that Fron and friends say are tough for women to master. However, unlike your typical Haloz, Crackdown has a very intuitive (so nothing like GTA) lock-on system that I'm sure eases that difficulty. In fact, I'd probably have to say that it has the best lock-on system I've seen in a sandbox game. Throw in the fact that explosive rounds have huge splash damage, and the difficulties of aiming are greatly reduced.

    Jenkins says women like to explore games at their own, gradual pace. I would say that Crackdown epitomizes that in its genre. It's a sandbox game, a genre popularized by the Grand Theft Auto series. These games are built around exploration. Crackdown does separate itself in this regard, however, by not really even having missions. Unlike other sandbox games where you're free to do anything until you start a linear mission, Crackdown just has three gangs in its city who's leaders you must kill. These leaders are placed in stategic parts of the city and have a lot of gang members protecting them, but you never have to tell the game, "Okay, now I'm going to try to kill this leader." You just go do it. In fact, you can get through half of that leader's health, and then just leave if you want and try to go kill someone else. When you come back, he'll still have half of his health gone. You really do beat the game at your pace, in (almost) whatever order you want.

    One aspect of the game that does go completely against what women typically look for is the existence of a story. Laurel says women typically enjoy deep stories, rich character, strong values, and all that other stuff that makes them think The Notebook is better than Die Hard (which it's not). Crackdown has none of these things. The story is pretty much non-existent, it's just, "Go kill these bad guys, agent," and "Skill for kills, aganet. Skills for kills." You play as a nameless, faceless, agent who is easily replaced. It's easier to identify with Pac-Man than The Agent. As the "story" goes, when you die, another one of you is just cloned and sent to keep on cleaning up the city. 

    Just about the entire game is full of those dangerous and contested spaces that Fullerton et al. say women don't typically enjoy. I think the big difference here between Crackdown and other vertical sandbox games like [Prototype] and Spider-Man 2 is that you never really die. Or rather, you die all the time, but you're never really punished for it, just inconvenienced. When you die in Crackdown, you just respawn as a whole new agent at a checkpoint of your choosing (a checkpoint simply being a spot on the map, not a spot of progress) and the world is exactly as you left it. If you had taken off half of a boss's health and killed half of his guards before you died, it'll be just like that when you come back. I feel like this aspect is key for getting women into hardcore games, and you're starting to see it more and more. Even some of the most critically acclaimed games of the past few years, like Bioshock and Fable II, use this philosophy. While this kind of reward-without-punishment system can be frustating to people like me who feel that beating a game like this on the hardest difficulty means nothing, it's almost a must-have for my sister. I understand why developers would want to do this, too. Beside the fact that it'll appeal to more people, these developers spend years working on these games and they want you to finish it. They're not making revenue a quarter at a time anymore. But I digress...

    I'm not really sure whether or not Crackdown was in any way designed for women, but I would probably guess that it wasn't. While you can choose from several character-models to play with, they are all overly-macho men. The game does have a nice, kinda cartoony art style, but I'm betting that was used to make the game stand out in a crouded genre (games with guns). While I doubt many women picked the game up themselves out of curiosity (my sister never would have played it if I hadn't encouraged her to), I do think it lays down a nice foundation for a game that can be enjoyed by both sexes.

Fron, J., Fullerton, T., Morie, J. & Pearce, C. (2007). The Hegemony of Play. In Situated Play: Proceedings of Digital Games Research Association 2007 Conference. Tokyo, Japan. 1-10.

Fullerton, T., Morie, J. & Pearce, C. (2007). A Game Of Ones Own: Towards a New Gendered Poetics of Game Space. In Proceedings, Digital Arts & Culture 2007, Perth, Australia. 1-11.

Jenkins, H. (2004). Game design as narrative architecture. The Game Design Reader, 670-686.

Laurel, B. (2001). Utopian Entrepreneur. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.