The curious experience of SOMETIMES YOU DIE

Created by the developer Philipp Stollenmayer, SOMETIMES YOU DIE has become the surprise hit of 2014, despite (or perhaps because of) its unusual take on life, death and the meaning of video games.

In this game you control a simple square and the challenge is to reach the exit of each stage. But there’s a important detail: you need to die to achieve your missions; by dying you leave a previous “corpse” to use as a ladder or to block some spikes, saws and other dangerous artifacts. You can understand the main idea of the game in the image below:



It’s possible to die many times to create solutions for the puzzles. The game still uses some interaction with your smartphone, like rotating the device to change gravity rules and some special elements like the very clever advertising box below.



With a minimal design and a disturbing soundtrack, SOMETIMES YOU DIE is an awesome gaming experience for mobile devices. Check the trailer with the gameplay and mechanics:



This kind of game explains the procedural rhetoric idea proposed by Bogost (2007, p.3). This author says that procedural rhetoric is the practice of using processes persuasively.

And, finally, this kind of ludic experiment gives us clues as how the gaming market is increasingly diverse and full of possibilities.

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Reference:

BOGOST, Ian. Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames. MIT Press, 2007.

Google Maps Smarty Pins: putting trivia on the map

Google is well known for using different strategies of entertainment in its various sites and social networks. The latest company's creation is the Smarty Pins game, a trivia challenge that uses Google Maps to solve enigmas.

Before playing, you can select some categories for the questions like “arts & culture”, “science & geography”, “sports & games”, “entertainment” etc. The main idea of Smarty Pins is to answer as many questions as you can before you run out of kilometers (the “energy” of the game); you need to submit answers by dropping a pin on the map at the correct location and kilometers are lost by placing the pin incorrectly (bonus kilometers are gained for quick thinking). There’s a cool gallery of trophies and badges for advanced players.

In the example below – in the category “sports & games” – the system asked “Which city hosted all FA Cup finals between 2001 and 2006 while the new Wembley Stadium was under construction?”. You have little time to drop the pin on the correct location.



After choosing a place and dropping the pin, the system returns the right answer and the difference between your tip and the correct place.



With this tool, Google is teaching – in a fun way – how to use various Maps tools.

Click here to play >>

T-shirt

"MISSPENT YOUTH" by the Paper Crane.

More information here.

Talking about my new mobile game DOMINAEDRO

Last week my new game, DOMINAEDRO, landed at the App Store. The game is a strategic puzzle that mixes dominoes and tic-tac-toe. It’s is an abstract battle between two players that uses pieces of domino as weapons.

The game, originally, was analogic and was launched as an independent title in the beginning of this year. After lots of positive reviews from Brazilian (and even European) sites I decided to transform the analogic version into a digital game.

The game is very simple and I will share the main idea of the rules below. The game’s grid is arranged with nine numbers randomly selected by the system. In a decreasing order: the highest number will be allocated in the center, intermediate values will be around the highest one, and lower values will be on the corners.



Your starting hand has 3 domino pieces. The player with the lowest sum of numbers in a single piece starts the game. On your turn, you must try to put a single piece in the grid respecting the following rules:

1) A number in a domino can only touch a piece with the same number, or lower, in the grid.
2) Like in a domino game, pieces connected on the grid must have the same numbers.
3) Every time you choose a piece, the system will point out the spaces allowed for allocating on the table.



You earn points by dominating a sum on the grid. For that, you should be the player with the highest sum of numbers around a value. In case of a tie, the sum of the second values of dominoes sets the winner. In case of a tie in both sides of the dominoes, the winner will be the player with more pieces.

The game ends when you cannot allocate more pieces on the grid. Each piece not allocated is worth -1 point. Values of the grid that were not completely surrounded by pieces are scored normally.

If a player has dominated all values in a row, column or diagonal, they win 4 extra points for each line. The player with the most points wins the game. Check a short video demo with the game mechanics below:



You can download DOMINAEDRO for free. Click here for more information. I’m waiting for your suggestions, critics and improvements.

Go gamers!

Monument Valley: business model and creativity in mobile gaming industry

Independent games for mobile platforms are a path for creativity and innovation inside the current gaming industry. Mobile stores like App Store (Apple) and Play Store (Google) changed the ways to distribute and stock digital content. With a few clicks and a Wi-Fi connection, it’s possible to download a great amount of data, including games and other kinds of entertainment.

Few weeks ago, a puzzle game named Monument Valley (Ustwo, 2014) debuted, causing a huge buzz in specialized sites/blogs. The game uses the “error” of perspective from M.C. Escher’s paintings to create visual puzzles and enigmas. Check the gameplay and game’s aesthetics below:



It’s not a new resource in gaming mechanics. Even God of War used this kind of “visual error” to create puzzles for the mighty Kratos. So what’s new? It’s a new way to tell an old story. The minimalist aesthetic along with the zen atmosphere of Monument Valley creates an unique experience to solve Escher’s illusions on a smartphone/tablet screen.



The gaming concept is another good feature; the slogan of Monument Valley is “an illusory adventure of impossible architecture and forgiveness”. Because this game is not a simple abstract puzzle game, there’s a mysterious plot in each chapter and it’s exciting to advance each stage and discover new aspects from the world with such impossible geometry.

Quickly, the game became a phenomenon and balanced with mastery some questions like aesthetics, screenplay, gameplay, and advertising on the Internet. Some players complained that the game is too short, but it is understandable that a small studio chooses to release a game with fewer stages, but with high quality in the right time. Ustwo Studio now has a huge player base to increase the dissemination of new games or expansions to Monument Valley.

Mobile platform is a way to a new gaming market. Especially in countries like Brazil, that doesn’t have a formal gaming industry. Even small productions are gaining space in this huge market. One thing is certain: to innovate and be successful in mobile gaming is necessary a lot of training. It’s important to create games, put them online, observe weaknesses, improve good features and exchange experiences with other publishers. To better understand the creative process of an independent game like Monument Valley, check out the mini-documentary below:



I think the most interesting area for studies inside the wide gaming industry is mobile. With the advances in smartphones and tablets we have awesome platforms to develop new experiences. Let’s discuss more and more this sector through here.

From the past: ICO

Ico is a 3D adventure game developed by Team Ico (2001) and published by Sony for PlayStation 2. I played this game many years ago and am, at this moment, playing the HD version for Playstation 3.

I really like to replay some games years later to observe things that I didn’t notice the first time. From 2001 to today, I have read many books and studied a lot about gaming concepts and game design, so this is a singular opportunity to discuss some important features of this game with an updated view.



The story of the game is about Ico, a boy who was born with horns, which among his people is considered bad omen. Ico is locked in an abandoned dark fortress, where he must explore and run out from. During the exploration, Ico encounters Yorda, the daughter of the castle's queen. The queen has an evil plan to possess the body of Yorda for eternal life and Ico needs to take the girl out of the fortress. The main mechanics of the game is created with puzzle-solving and some combats against demoniac shadow creatures (it’s truly creepy).

You can check the gameplay and game’s intro below:



The game breaks a paradigm of the gaming industry by presenting an interface devoid of tutorials. By controlling the character, the player must try the buttons and add knowledge from other games he/she played for solving puzzles and traversing the scenarios.

Sometimes it is quite difficult to visualize how to solve a puzzle or what sequence of commands must be clicked. However, this is not a defect, it is a gaming feature. Ico works with the idea that we must explore the environment and learn from it. The game operates on a very strong procedural logic/rhetoric inside its interface.

As Bogost says (2007, p.3) “just as verbal rhetoric is useful for both the orator and the audience, and just as written rhetoric is useful for both the writer and the reader, procedural rhetoric is useful for both the programmer and the user, the game designer and the player”.

So, it’s good to have a chance to discuss old games with new observations. I’ll try to do this more frequently from now on.

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Reference:

BOGOST,Ian. Persuasive Games. The MIT Press, 2010 (paperback) http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/persuasive-games

Rymdkapsel: a new way to observe tower defense games

Today I played a ‘meditative space strategy game’ named Rymdkapsel. Rymdkapsel is a game in which you take command of a space station and its minions. You will have to plan your expansion and manage your resources to explore the galaxy. In its essence, it’s a tower defense game with a minimal interface created using isometric perspective.

As Nitsche says (2008, p.99) “isometric views eliminate any distortion of the depicted shape caused by the perspective. (…) True isometric views are an artistic construct and always include a level of abstraction, because the real world is not perceived in that way”.



In the game mechanics you need to manage the different random pieces to construct the scenario (very similar to Tetris). It’s necessary to construct corridors, extracting devices, food providers, cannons etc. It’s important to explore the space attaching your ship to other platforms. You have few minions in your ship, and a good management is essential to keep it working.

The game has a unique and immersive environment structured with a relaxing soundtrack, minimal sound effects and simple colorful graphics.



Check the gameplay below:



Rymdkapsel is a mobile game (for iOS and Android) by Martin Jonasson with music by Niklas Ström. Click here to visit the official site.

Reference:

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NITSCHE, Michael. VIDEO GAME SPACES - image, play and structure in 3D worlds. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2008

Sound as a gameplay element

As in movies, sound is an essential component for videogames. Games like God of War even using an orchestra to record its soundtrack, and war games like Call of Duty recreate each detail of sound inside a battle camp. But some games like Beat Sneak Bandit (Simogo Games, 2012) use the sound design as a component for the gameplay.



In this very fun game, created for smartphones and tablets, the player is invited to control a bandit trying to invade different houses in a fixed screen interface. The idea is to move the character tapping the screen to the rhythm of the beat. One music beat equals one tap on the screen, so it’s important to be careful not to go off the rhythm. And here's a hint: try to beat your foot on the floor simultaneously with the beat of the music; this helps to keep your concentration and not miss a move. You can check the gameplay below:



Another good example that we can bring into our discussion is Zapp Zerapp, a board game with a curious sound component. In this example, players roll two dice for numbers from two to thirteen and simultaneously start picking up one of the thirteen wooden containers and shaking them. Inside the containers are one to thirteen lead pellets. Players are trying to select the container with the highest number of pellets, so long as it doesn't exceed the result of the dice. (source: Boardgame Geek)



Games that work auditory and tactile stimuli are even widely used with visually impaired children. Therefore, it is important to observe more carefully this kind of playful experiment. And this will be the subject of a future post.

Wait for it.

Game ideas in 6 easy steps

Source: http://www.sociallonerstudios.com/

Beyond Two Souls

I put away GTA V (for a while) to start playing BEYOND TWO SOULS (2013), that is the new interactive drama action-adventure video game for PlayStation, developed by French publisher Quantic Dream.

In the publisher’s site is the plot of the game: “Born with a connection to a mysterious entity (named Aiden) with incredible powers, Jodie was different. In an adventure spanning 15 years of her life, your actions will determine Jodie's fate as she faces extraordinary challenges, danger, and heart wrenching loss on a journey to discover the truth of who she is. Beyond promises an emotionally-charged journey unlike any video game before.”



As the publisher's previous project, HEAVY RAIN (2009), in BEYOND TWO SOULS the player is invited to experience a kind of a movie with special commands. The game works in what we can call “decision trees” and the narrative is driven by choices the player makes.

The idea of these “decision trees” is to offer the players some choices to create uncertainty and unpredictability among the narrative. Sometimes you have time to choose what to do, sometimes there’s time pressure to choose one way and at moments you have to choose some actions just to add charming flavour to the universe of the game.

To create a perfect balance between game and interactive movie, Quantic Dream brings real famous actors to the production, and you can see Willem Dafoe and Ellen Page acting side by side, but in a different interface. It’s not new; we have lots of games with famous real actors, but BEYOND TWO SOULS brings a new experience in using this cast to create the atmosphere of the game. Check the trailer below:



The narrative is the main point of the game and in BEYOND TWO SOULS players have a chance to use a second screen experience downloading an special app in mobile phone that gives some complement interaction to the story. The connection between different narrative elements give to the game a unique kind of experience.

As Dille and Platten (2007, p.52) remind us, there are a pallet of media elements (voice, sound effects, music, cinematic, text, graphics, commands, etc.) to tell a gaming story. The authors also say “think of them as story elements. Don’t forget – story in video game is anything that helps you immerse yourself into the game-playing experience. Story isn’t just characters and dialogue. An interface element can be a storytelling device”.

In the last year, we saw many games with a focus on the narrative and I’m very excited with the evolution that kind of game will have in the generation of consoles.

Now on to your opinion.

Reference:

DILLE, Flint; PLATTEN, John Zuur. The ultimate guide to video game writing and design. New York: Skip Press, 2007

F.R.O.G (Future and Reality of Gaming) Congress - Vienna, September 2013

Last week I was at Vienna (Austria) presenting a poster at the F.R.O.G (Future and Reality of Gaming) congress. Awesome keynotes and fantastic content in three days full of games in this beautiful city.



Vienna’s annual Games Conference offers an open and international platform for leading game studies researchers and scholars, game designers, researchers and scholars from various other fields, education professionals, and gamers from around the world. The main objective of FROG13 was to explore the “Context Matters” in regard to questions of player communities, challenging or problematic play settings, game theory and development, impact of games and cultural facets of play.

And now I would like to share the content that I presented at the congress. I hope you enjoy.


ECOLOGICAL CONCEPTS IN A BOARD GAME: How to discuss serious causes using ludic interfaces

Author: MsC. Vicente Martin Mastrocola (ESPM/Brazil)
E-mail: vincevader@gmail.com


MINI-ABSTRACT

In this presentation we seek to analyze the use of game mechanics for serious causes. We discuss, using a brazilian board game named Climate Game, how we can use a playful and ludic interface to cast a message for a serious cause and how a game could work with ideas about global warming in a fun/educational way. In this context, we use the idea of magic circle proposed by Johan Huizinga, author of the book Homo Ludens, in which the author explains how a physical space could be a place for playing, meaning and experience.

In this presentation we also discuss the impact of a ludic interface in the mediatic scenario, the gaming culture and how important it can be for the contemporary world.


SLIDES




TEXT

Homo Ludens, entertainment and games

First of all, the notion of homo ludens, introduced by the dutch historian Johan Huizinga, is the conceptual backbone for this work, where we seek to analyze the use of game mechanics, ludic concepts, and game thinking applied to a brazilian board game with ecological theme named Climate Game. This game uses a playful and ludic interface to cast a message for a serious cause, and works with ideas about global warming in a fun/educational way.

In his book "Homo Ludens" (1955) Huizinga discusses the possibility that playing is the primary formative element in human culture. The author also presents the idea of the magic circle, one important subject for our discussion.

As described by Adams and Rollings (2009, p.8), Huizinga did not use the term as a generic name for the concept: his text refers to the actual playground, or a physical space for playing, meaning and experience. As the authors says, inside the magic circle, real-world events have special meanings. In the real world you kick a ball into a net but in the magic circle you score a goal.

Huizinga (1955, page 10) wrote that the arena, the card-table, the stage, the screen, etc, are all function playgrounds. They are all temporary worlds within the ordinary world, dedicated to the performance of an act apart.

As Ehrmann says (1968, p.55) in an antropology of play, the latest cannot be defined by isolating it on the basis of its relationship to an a priori reality and culture. To define play is, at the same time and in the same movement, to define reality and culture.

The Climate Game

The Climate Game is a production from a brazilian company named Games For Business that works in the area of serious games, that, following the thoughts of Nick Iuppa and Terry Borst (2007), may be explained as games with a professional, educational or pedagogical use. Climate Game is a game that challenges its players to save the world from global warming. This game is both of competition and cooperation. It promotes competition because the player who emits no carbonic gas at all wins. But the integrated work of all the other participants is essential in order not to exceed the gas limits of the greenhouse effect.

Therefore, participants have lots of puzzles to solve together and, as Juul says (2005, p.8) games are usually well-structured problems, and this has led them to be used in several other fields.

This kind of game will not transform a player into a specialist in ecology or in global warming, but it can reinforce important concepts about the planet’s health. This game can teach basic ideas and stimulate the players to search for more information about the theme.

By this brief overview we can conclude that game mechanics can be a meaningful space for significative experiences. It seems that these ideas are essential to study and understand the gaming universe and the impacts of the game culture in the contemporary world.

Poster

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REFERENCES

ADAMS, Ernest; ROLLINGS, Andrew. Fundamentals of Game Design. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009

EHRMANN, Jacques. Homo Ludens Revisited. Yale French Studies, No 41. Game, Play, Literature (1968). pp. 31-57. (click here for download)

HUIZINGA, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Boston: The Beacon Press, 1955.

IUPPA, Nick & BORST, Terry. Story and simulations for serious games: tales from the trenches. Burlington: Focal Press, 2007.

JUUL, Jesper. Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds. USA: MIT Press, 2005.

Climate Game english site >> click here.

4 Minutes and 33 Seconds of Uniqueness

Is game art? Well, it’s a very wide discussion and I think a simple blog post is not sufficient to debate this, but, undeniably, games use lots of things from the art field. This post is about a very curious ludic experiment that mixes art with games. In 2010, the Nordic game designer Petri Purho took the main idea of John Cage’s composition 4’33’’ and transformed it in a ludic interface.

4’33’’ (pronounced "Four minutes, thirty-three seconds" or just "Four thirty-three”) is a composition by American experimental composer John Cage (1912–1992) and the idea of the performance consist of NOT playing any musical instruments during that period of 4 minutes and 33 seconds. The sounds of the environment is the only thing that the listeners hear while it is performed, although this composition is commonly perceived as "four minutes thirty-three seconds of silence".

In the digital gaming experiment 4 Minutes and 33 Seconds of Uniqueness the user needs to look into a white screen with a black progression bar for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. To reach the end of the experience successfully, the “player” must be the only person in the world looking into the screen. You’ll win the game if you’re the only one playing it at the moment in the world and the experiment works online only.



The creative mind behind this ludic interface said in his website that 4 Minutes and 33 Seconds of Uniqueness is “an exploration to what actually defines a game. You can win or fail in the game, but there is no user input or interactivity of any kind. I was tempted to leave the graphics out completely, but I figured that the white progress bar is abstract enough.”

You can play the experiment by clicking here.

And you can see a live performance of the John Cage’s composition in the video below:



Now on to your opinion.

The delicate balance between challenges, narrative and rules

At this moment I’m playing again ALAN WAKE (Xbox 360, Remedy Entertainment /Microsoft Game Studios, 2010). The game is a third person psychological horror thriller about novelist Alan Wake, as he tries to uncover the mystery behind his wife's disappearance, during a vacation in the small fictional town of Bright Falls. During the game, Alan is transported to a kind of dark dimension where stories from his horror books become real.

The game is one of my favourites and it offers an awesome experience to the player with a perfect blend between the puzzles/challenges/enemies, the narrative and the rules/mechanics.



In ALAN WAKE the ammo is limited, the creatures are in great number and, frequently, you need to run instead of fight. The game dynamics creates an atmosphere of tension all the time and in the end of each chapter you can relax a little bit enjoying the game's good soundtrack (‘Up Jumped the Devil’ by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds is included). The transition between the chapters is very creative and uses a language of TV show to create immersion for the player.

ALAN WAKE’s experience offers to the players a very special way to enjoy a good narrative inside a game. But it is important to remember that this experience is commanded by rules that create bounds in the game’s universe.



Jesper Jull (2005, p.5), in his book ‘Half-Real’, says, “the rules of a game provide the player with challenges that the player cannot trivially overcome. It is basic paradox of games that while the rules themselves are generally definite, unambiguous, and easy to use, the enjoyment of a game depends on these easy-to-use rules presenting challenges that cannot be easily overcome. Playing a game is an activity of improving skills in order to overcome these challenges, and playing a game is therefore fundamentally a learning experience.”

And this ‘learning experience’ is fundamental in games like ALAN WAKE because it generates the process of immersion required in good horror stories like this one.

On the other hand, Linda Hughes (1999, p.94) says that “Game rules can be interpreted and reinterpreted toward preferred meanings and purposes, selectively invoked or ignored, challenged or defended, changed or enforced to suit the collective goals or different groups of players. In short, players can take the same game and collectively make of it strikingly different experiences”

One thing is certain: to create balance between challenges, narrative and rules, a lot of time* is necessary for beta testing sessions. Patience and deep research are the pillars for good game design.

Check the game trailer below:


*ALAN WAKE took five years to be produced.

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References:

HUGHES, Linda A. Children’s games and gaming. IN: SUTTON-SMITH, Brian; MECHLING Jay; JOHNSON, Thomas; MCMAHON, Felicia. Children’s Folklore. Utah: Utah University Press, 1999. (93-119)

JUUL, Jesper. Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds. USA: MIT Press, 2005.

Game design process: a graphic approach

A good graphic reference for game designers from the Jesse Schell's book "The art of game design" (2008, p.463). Check the content below (sorry for the bad resolution):

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SCHELL, Jesse. The art of game design. Burlington: Elsevier, 2008.

Last of us

Recently I’ve finished the fu**ing awesome LAST OF US (Naughty Dog, 2013) for Playstation 3. LAST OF US is a survival horror action-adventure game where the player takes control of Joel, a character trekking across a post-apocalyptic United States in 2033, in order to escort the young Ellie to a friendly resistance group, the Fireflies.

During the long path to the Fireflies base, the characters must defend themselves against zombies contaminated by fungus spores, bandits, soldiers and a great sort of other enemies. Briefly that’s the main idea of the game.



Why the game is awesome in my opinion as a gamer and game designer? Check some points below:

1) The game balances action, tension and emotion in a unique way. Sometimes you need to solve a little puzzle, sometimes you need to run like hell, and sometimes you have little ammo and lots of zombies around you. LAST OF US puts the player in a kind of ‘wave’ of content and you stay attached to the narrative of the game (a great feature to comment, by the way).

2) The narrative is a good mix between gameplay and cinematography action. It’s not an open world game but the player can experience moments of free action around the scenarios without loosing focus on the main mission. As Bateman (2007, p.107) says “many games now combine open and closed storytelling. They offer the player a chance to play a series of defined story missions alongside the chance to explore a world in whatever order that player wants”.

3) Good characters. As Dille and Platten remind us (2007, p.65-67) there are major types of characters that can exist within a game: the main hero (in that case Joel), the allies (the girl Ellie and others), neutral characters (the background characters), and the enemies (LAST OF US doesn’t have final stage bosses, only packs of enemies all the time). The characters, even the evil ones, are well structured and create empathy with the player.

4) A good end. Some people loved and some people hated the end of the game. I’m on the first group. I don’t want to give out any spoilers but the end is awesome in my opinion. It works with the personality of the hero (Joel) in a rare way we can see in modern games.

It’s immersive. It’s violent. It’s an epic product for a videogame platform. Prepare to be surprised. Make every bullet of your ammo count in this game, and prepare yourself for new ways we will massively have in the new generation of consoles.

Check the game trailer below:

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References:

BATEMAN, Chris (editor). Game Writing: narrative skills for videogames. Boston: Thomson, 2007.

DILLE, Flint; PLATTEN, John Zuur. The ultimate guide to video game writing and design. New York: Skip Press, 2007

About Jane McGonigal presentation at Cannes Lions 2013

Few days ago I was in France at the Cannes Festival of Creativity (A.K.A Cannes Lions Festival) and watched an awesome presentation by Jane McGonigal, an American game designer and author who advocates for the use of mobile and digital technology to channel positive attitudes and collaboration, in a real world context.

Jane talked about how games could change the quotidian and bring positive effects to the contemporary world. The author also spoke about how games make us resilient and could be used in non-gaming context.



McGonigal brought an excellent case to the audience about how, in clinical trials, casual games outperform pharmaceuticals for anxiety, depression and other health disturbers. To illustrate that interface between games and healthcare, Jane used as an example the game Re-Mission (HopeLab, 2006). In that game the player is inside the bloodstream of a cancer patient as his/her mission is to destroy the cancer cells with a special weapon. The video below shows the gameplay of Re-Mission:



This game is used in the treatment of children with cancer. As Jane said, in the behavioral side the patients tend to have better chemotherapy adherence (20% higher blood chemo levels), and in the psychological side patients tend to have higher rates of self-efficacy.

There’s so much to research in this area but I think authors like Jane McGonigal are doing a great job.

And I recommend the book “The reality is broken” from this author to start a new discussion about the use of ludic interfaces in non-game contexts like health, politics, serious causes and education.

The importance of feedback loops (infographic)

Immersion, image & games

Last week we had the announcement of the new Microsoft's console, Xbox One. Few weeks ago we saw the presentation of the Playstation 4 and Nintendo launched the Wii U in the beginning of the year. The new generation of video games is here and gamers are curious about the enormous possibilities of this new communicational ecosystem. Undoubtedly, the graphics are one important piece to analyze in this process.

What I want to highlight in this discussion is the evolution of graphics on video games, since the first electronic games until today. We had a great leap from the first textual games (like Zork) to the modern first person shooters (like Call of Dutty).

Graphics on video games are important pieces to a player’s immersion. And I’m not talking about realistic graphics only, because all we know that an abstract game like Tetris could create a strong immersion in the players. A textual game could be immersive too, but it seems that images can be more determinant in this complex act.



As Aarseth remembers (1997, p.102) “images, specially moving images, are more powerful representations of spatial relations than texts, and therefore this migration from text to graphics is natural and inevitable”.

I think it’s possible to say that the main object of the graphics on a game is to be a kind of “bridge” or “portal” to the immersion. A kind of facilitator/translator to the player to get totally inside the game interface.

As Nitsche says (2008, p.44) “evocative narrative elements encourage players to project meaning onto events, objects, and spaces in game worlds. They help to infuse significance. Their value is not realized on the level of the element itself but in the way players read and connect them. Creating these connections, players can form narratives that refer to the game world. If this meaning assignment becomes very strong, the virtual items themselves can leave the rule-based space, fictional space, social space, and even the play space”.

In a world full of possibilities of connections and full of screens all around it’s important to study ways to create better immersion process to our players.

Now on to your opinion.

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References:

AARSETH, Espen. Cibertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. The Johns Hopkins University Press: Maryland, 1997.

NITSCHE, Michael. VIDEO GAME SPACES: image, play and structure in 3Dnworlds. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2008

TÍZ

Today I’ll talk a little bit about a recent independent work. I’m a researcher/teacher in a communication university from Brazil but also a game designer. I recently started a partnership with my friend Rafael Verri to develop mobile games, and I would like to talk about our first project: TÍZ, a game for iPhone.



TÍZ (“ten” in Hungarian) is a dice rolling puzzle with ten sided dice (D10). It’s a very simple game with very intuitive interface. In TÍZ, the player can play alone versus the computer or versus a friend. The goal is to arrange the dice in lines on the board to create sequences. A sequence without connection between the numbers (like 2, 5, 9) is worth 1 point, an ordely sequence (like 5, 6, 7) is worth 3 points and, finally, a sequence with equal numbers (like 7, 7, 7) is worth 6 points. The player who gets 18 points first wins the game.

The video below is the game tutorial where it explains the mechanics and dynamics of TÍZ.



I was responsible for the game design and creation of aesthetics. The original version of TÍZ is an analogic board game with real dice and the whole idea started with a simple prototype -- my attention was focused on the core mechanic.

As Fullerton says (2008, p.188) the core gameplay mechanism, or “core mechanic” can be defined as the actions that a player repeats most often while striving to achieve the game’s overall goal. Fullerton (2008, p.189 and 190) also stresses the importance of creating prototypes to see the “soul” of the game.

The core mechanic was the starting point of the project, but we have some additional features that complete the whole game. I want to highlight some important details about the creative process of TÍZ:

1.The internal logic of creating lines with three dice and a sequence of numbers came from tic-tac-toe, Sudoku and poker.

2.The score was created from the logic of triangular numbers (click here to learn more). This resource is very helpful and lots of games use this idea for scoring.

3.The layout was designed based on minimal abstract arts from the artist Josef Albers (link here).

4. The balance of the game was made with many playtests. I insist that this is a very important part of the creative process. (check this previous post about this subject here). It’s necessary to have multiple views on the gaming dynamics to detect errors.

There's no secret or mystery. We need to play and study a lot of games to create new ludic experiences.

Download TÍZ now! Go gamers!

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Reference:

FULLERTON, Tracy; SWAIN, Christopher; HOFFMAN, Steven. Game design workshop: a playcentric approach to creating innovative games. Burlington: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2008.

The experience of YEAR WALK

Year Walk (2013) is a weird game. Better yet, Year Walk is a weird ludic experience.

The game is the fourth project developed by Simogo, the publisher that was responsible for launching the wonderful Beat Sneak Bandit in 2012. Year Walk is a double screen mobile interface: you can play the game on your iPad and there’s a free app for iPhone called “Year Walk Companion” (a kind of illustrated guide for the wandering monsters of the story). Both are enjoyable in their own way, but together they create an experience that is greater than the sum of its parts.



The narrative of the game is about an old Swedish folklore legend and the gameplay is a first person adventure about glimpses and visions of the future with a very unique touch screen interaction. Year Walk tries to create an aura of supernatural feelings where you need to solve cryptic puzzles, touch and listen in search to foresee the future, and finally discover if your loved one will love you back (!). But wait, it’s not a beautiful saga with a happy ending. As I said in the begging, it’s weird (and freaky).

Check the trailer below to understand the atmosphere of the game:



And why talking about this game? Year Walk is a good example of how such a strong narrative/story can complement the idea of gameplay. The game design and gameplay are very important in this case, but the narrative is the core of the ludic experience.

As Richard Dansky says (2007, p.2), in the context of game development, story is often confused with design. The story is what happens, the flow of the game that can be separated from the game mechanics and retold as a narrative. To complement this idea, the author says (p.5) that on the most basic level, narrative strings together the events of the game, providing a framework and what can alternately be called a justification, a reason, or an excuse for the gameplay encounters.

As its best, narrative pulls the player forward through the experience.

Now on to your opinion.

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Reference:

BATEMAN, Chris (editor). Game Writing: narrative skills for videogames. Boston: Thomson, 2007.