Video Game Cultures & The Future of Entertainment Conference (Oxford – July 2014)

Last week I was in Oxford (UK) at the Mansfield College for the “Video Game Cultures & The Future of Entertainment Conference”. The event is part of the Oxford’s University inter-disciplinary program, a global network for dynamic research and publishing. There were 3 days of full immersion inside the gaming research universe with excellent content presented by people from 15 different countries.

On the first day, we had a very interesting discussion with René Schalleger about how game designers create interactive experiences that let players explore complex issues of identity, free will and agency. Another highlight from day 1 was Teros Pasanen’s presentation about the Hobbesian state of nature in the game DayZ.



The second day was intense and focused on mobile gaming, gender in video games, serious games, educational games and game design.

On the third day, I presented my paper “Health, consumption and entertainment: the Nike brand embodied as a playful experience” that I wrote with my friend Marcelo Vasconcellos (click here to download).

This kind of event is perfect for networking and to improve our researches. For more information and the complete conference’s content access the official site of inter-disciplinary.net by clicking here.

Another good badge for my character’s sheet. =)

Go gamers!

The shell

We are always looking for graphics, mechanics, dynamics, information architecture, gameplay, writing and many other features of a game. But, there is one aspect of them that is always overlooked: the shell.

As Omernick says (2004, p.248) “the word shell describes the initial screens and menus a player encounters when first starting a game. The most basic purpose of a shell is to act as an introduction and a doorway to the gameplay. By offering options like Save and Load, controller configurations, and a good old Start button, you are allowing players to choose how and when they want to play the game”.



The first contact with the game is fundamental to establish a dialogue with the player. It’s simple, but the initial menu is the primary access to the gaming world. Keeping it simple and intuitive is a key factor for a good experience. Even for casual games, the shell is an essential thing to capture the user’s attention to the gameplay.

In your next project, take time to watch the first steps of the player within the game.

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Reference:

OMERNICK, Matthew. Creating the art of the game. California: New Riders, 2004.

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

Horror games

I love horror games. Since the primordial experiences, like Haunted House (Atari, 1982), Friday the 13th (Atlus, 1989) and Splatterhouse 2 (Namco, 1992) to the sophisticated Outlast (Red Barrels, 2013), I’ve always had a special interest for this particular genre. Maybe because I’m a big horror movies fan or maybe because fear is a good kind of element to be used in interactive narratives.

Sounds weird, but unlike other game genres, e.g. role-playing, first person shooters, puzzle, action, sport games etc., horror games focus on stimulating the player in a negative way (NIELSEN; SCHØNAU-FOG, 2013, p.45). Nowadays it’s not unusual to find a horror game as frightening as a horror movie, and one key feature in them is the player-narrative interaction.



In the context of horror game design, it has been possible to identify three specific elements as Nielsen and Schønau-Fog (2013, ps.52-53) propose: 1) a deep narrative that allows the player to invest emotions into the character; 2) a deep sense of freedom to establish a connection and a deep grade of immersion on the player; 3) and – finally – the player should feel like a victim rather than a contender. Another point to highlight on horror games is the use of “illogical architecture to turn houses, gardens and streets into great mazes which would make no sense in the real world” (NIELSEN; SCHØNAU-FOG, 2013, p.45, 2013, p.45).

The love for this subject, the inspiration on the words of Nielsen and Schønau-Fog and many other authors led me to write a book about horror games. It’ll be launched in April and the title is “HORROR LUDENS: FEAR, ENTERTAINMENT AND CONSUMPTION IN VIDEOGAME NARRATIVES”. Check the book’s cover below with Marcelo Braga’s illustration.



The main idea of my new book is that fear is one of the most ancient feelings that surround the existence of man, and, historically, it was a fruitful base so that writers, filmmakers and many other narrators could grow inspiration for their pieces. And the game universe pertains this ground. In this book, we seek to discuss, through an empirical look, the horror games panorama in contemporary times, while promoting a reflection over the billionaire worldwide industry of games, the horror genre intake and its many mediatic ramifications.

The book is in Portuguese, but I intend to publish some parts in English here on the blog. Make sure to visit for more news. Go gamers!

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Reference

NIELSEN, Danny Langhoff; SCHØNAU-FOG, Henrik. In the mood for horror: a game design approach on investigating absorbing player experiences in horror games. IN: HUBER, Simon; MITGUTSCH, Konstantin; ROSENSTINGL, Herbert; WAGNER, Michael G; WIMMER, Jeffrey (Eds.). Context Matters! Proceedings of the Vienna Games Conference 2013: Exploring and Reframing Games and Play in Context. New Academic Press: Viena, 2013.HH

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.

Using fear as narrative in video games: origins

In the last few years we had lots of iconic survival horror games launched around the world for video game consoles. Just to give a few examples, we can bring to our discussion Silent Hill 4: The Room (Playstation 2, 2004), Slender (Parsec Productions, 2012) and Alan Wake (Microsoft Game Studios, 2010). All these games are very scary and possess sophisticated features in their narratives but it’s important to look to the past to understand the origins of horror in video games.



One of the first horror narratives in video game was used in an Atari game named Haunted House (Atari, 1982). With very limited interface and resources, the game creates a classic horror movie atmosphere with a house full of bats, phantoms and traps. The player commands a pair of eyes in the dark trying to find pieces of an ancient ark.

You can check a game play video below:



The game is very simple and there’s a fundamental detail that puts the player inside the gaming reality: the illustration on the cover of the box. The drawing dialogues with the player about the ambient of the game, and it’s possible to understand better the game mechanics (a good text about this subject could be found here).

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

The History of Video Game Consoles

A very entertaining documentary full of good references. Enjoy.



Go gamers!

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

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

A quote from Espen Aarseth

Sometimes I like to share some good quotes from great authors of ludology, narratology and gaming concepts areas. The quote below is from Professor Espen Aarseth, and wit as said during his presentation in Brazil last December.

"Video games are neither narratives nor games, but software that may contain both.”

Let’s think about it.

Read an interview with Mr. Aarseth by clicking here.

Advergaming with Doritos

Doritos launched a few years ago one fictitious Hollywood studio named Snack Strong Productions. The main idea of the studio is to promote the brand with some ludic interfaces like Internet games, interactive stories on YouTube, video games and viral campaigns.

A successful case of the fictitious studio is the game named Doritos Crash Course (Wanako Games, 2010). The game is a 2.5D side scrolling plat-forming advergame developed for the Xbox 360's Live Arcade service. It is free for download and has an awesome and intuitive interface.

Crash Course has two good features to highlight: first of all, the game is an experience sponsored by Doritos and the brand appears in the beginning of each stage. The second important feature is the in-game advertising possibility inside some floating outdoors in the game interface. As you can see in the image below, the outdoor is displaying an ad for Crash Course 2 (the second game of the franchise) and it supports many kinds of advertising.



The social strategy is very important here and players with an Xbox Live membership may compare records with friends or play head-to-head against online opponents.

Doritos is investing heavily in business strategies with entertainment. Definitely, the brand seems to have understood how to adapt itself to the ludic context that permeates our contemporary world.

Game industry & fans

The global game industry is a colossal and powerful juggernaut. There's nothing new about it. The world video-gaming industry is predicted to record 9% yearly growth through 2013, to exceed $76 billion, according to the site Report Linker. Yes, there's a great amount of money and a wide industry such that requires strategies to engage consumers with more and more meaningful experiences.

It seems that game publishers need to understand how to create characters, challenges, sequences, rewards and a wide chain of derivative products to transform players into fans. A fan is an important piece in the contemporary culture for many entertainment brands.



A fan is a person who is enthusiastically devoted to something, such as a band, a sports team or a entertainer. Fans have a special role inside the enormous game industry. A community of fans that surrounds a specific game becomes a fandom, and this audience deserves special attention.

A well-structured fandom could be an effective marketing tool for a game publisher, so good as advertising in television. Companies must understand how to motivate the fandom audience with meaningful experiences and how to bring the player to its side.

As Jenkins (2006, p.148) says, successful media producers are becoming more adept to monitoring and serving audience interests. The game industry, which sees itself as marketing interactive experiences rather than commodities, has been eager to broaden consumer participation and strengthen the sense of affiliation players feel towards their games.

In a big business like this, companies must understand games as well as understand marketing.

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Reference:

JENKINS, Henry. Fans, bloggers and gamers: exploring participatory culture. New York: NYU Press, 2006.

The relationship among achievements, rewards, and power

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Source:

ADAMS, Ernest. Fundamentals of Game Design. New Riders: 2009. p.385

Essential questions to answer during a game design process

Regardless of the platform, every gaming project has some common elements that need special attention. The authors of the book Game Design (reference at the end of the post) created a good list of essential questions (2007, p.86-87) to a game design project.



These questions are important in order to give you a concept form as a game and avoid a poorly defined idea. Let’s check this useful content:

1.Can you describe the game concisely in one paragraph? Keep in mind that you need to explain the main idea of the game in less than 30 seconds. Try to describe your favorite games in one paragraph to exercise.

2.Can you summarize the story? You can find excellent references on the back cover of video game cases.

3.Which platform? Playstation or card game? Xbox or board game? Remember: a good idea can be multi-platform, sometimes.

4.Does it fit a genre? First Person Shooter, puzzle, 2D platform, survival horror, etc. What kind of game we are talking about?

5.What’s the target audience? There’s a difference between creating a horror game for adults and an puzzle game for children. You need to knowyour target audience deeply. This is very important: you’ll create a game for a specific audience, not for you.

Think about that in your next game design project.

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Reference:

THOMPSON, Jim; BERBANK-GREEN, Barnaby; CUSWORTH, Nic. Game Design: principles, practice, and techniques - the ultimate guide for the aspiring game designer. New Jersey: Wiley, 2007

Reinventing games

What happens when you mix Bejeweled with elements of medieval fantasy? The answer is Dungeon Raid (2011), a puzzle roleplaying game.



Dungeon Raid was created for mobile platform (iOS and Android) and it is a challenge to your strategy skills. The game interface is very simple/intuitive and the only thing you need to do is trace a path, match the tiles to collect the treasure, buy and upgrade weapons and defeat monsters. In the video below we can see the gaming dynamics and mechanics:



Dungeon Raid is a good example of how such a classic game idea as Bejeweled can gain a new skin for a new audience. So, we can notice the importance of a good repertory to create a game. Even casual games like this one.

Besides good dinamics and mechanics, Dungeon Raid has a very important narratological component: each time you play the game a new short story is presented to explain your motivation to enter the dungeon.

As Bissel reminded (2010, p.93), a good game attracts you with melodrama and hypnotizes you with elegant gameplay.

Now on to your opinion.

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Reference:

BISSEL, Tom. Extra lives: why video games matter. New York: 2010, Pantheon Books.

A little bit about THE UNFINISHED SWAN

The Unfinished Swan (Giant Sparrow, 2012) was a great game launched for Playstation 3 platform last year. Hands off, one of my favorites from 2012 and a game from which we can learn many things.

The Unfinished Swan is about exploring the unknown. The player is a young boy chasing after a swan who has wandered off into a surreal, unfinished kingdom. The game begins in a completely white space where players can throw paint to splatter their surroundings and reveal the world around them (you can visit the official site here).

The game has many positive features and I believe it is possible to extract valuable lessons from its interface. First of all: like Portal (Valve, 2007) it's a first-person puzzle-platform, but here you shoot paintballs around the scenery to solve enigmas. A great part of the game is made of a completely white screen and the challenge is to discover the paths to move along. The video below shows the basic dynamics of the game:



Another important point about the game is a good balance between storytelling and gameplay. You are an orphan trying to find the painting of an unfinished swan made by your mother. The swan gained life and escaped from the frame to a mysterious world of fantasy, and it's your mission find it and bring it back with you. Inside this narrative the game offers a very clever dynamics of puzzle solving using ink to paint parts of the ambient.

The game has good procedural rhetoric embedded in its interface. You learn gradually how to interact with the interface and how to use different kinds of special powers.

Finally, The Unfinished Swan is an indie game that managed to draw attention of a large producer (Santa Monica) and was launched with support and good advertising.

Undoubtedly, The Unfinished Swan is a living example of another kind of configuration of the gaming industry. A creative independent game launched by a small studio, supported by a great publisher, with many mechanics/storytelling innovations and focused on a casual player. I'm happy that the gaming market today has also room for this kind of initiative (it's a great incentive for game designers all around the world).

Three levels of player enjoyment

Good visual idea from the author Stewart Woods.



Source: WOODS, Stewart. Eurogames: The Design, Culture and Play of Modern European Board Games. McFarland, 2012.

A little bit about playtest

Few weeks ago, the famous game designer Reiner Knizia (@reinerknizia) tweeted a very good point about the gaming creative process. Knizia said: "even if you are a great mathematician, the lifeblood of game design is playtesting, playtesting, playtesting!".

I think Knizia pointed out one crucial feature about game development in his post. I use to say that playtesting is not about playing alone your own game ten times, but putting ten players to play once and get feedbacks.



A good playtest shows the game's aspects of weakness and positive attributes, and can be an important tool for future ideas on your game design projects.

My advice is: put different kinds of players to play your prototype, watch each movement inside the game dynamics, take notes of everything and, finally, improve your game to a higher ground.

Another important thing: always try to play new games to create a better repertoire and a good critical view.

Go gamers!

Level Design

I'm an old school gamer. I started my gaming activities in the early eighties with the Atari console and pocket electronic games. Since then, I've played a lot of games in many different platforms, and there's a common element in all these games that attracts my attention: the "level design".

From simple to complex games, level designing is an important piece and essential component for a good (and immersive) experience to the player.


(Image source: BarryHevan's Game Design Blog)

As Adams and Rollings point out, level design is the process of building the experience that will be offered directly to the player, using components provided by the game designer. Level designers create the space in which the game takes place, the initial conditions of the level, the set of challenges the player will face within the level, the termination conditions of it, the interplay between the gameplay and the game’s story and the aesthetics of the level. (2007, p.399 & 400).

As Fullerton says, games that are organized into levels will need someone to actually design and implement each level. If your project is very small, you might design all the levels yourself. On a larger project, however, the game designer often leads a team of level designers who implement their concepts for the various game levels, and sometimes come up with ideas for levels themselves. And an important point: level designers use a toolkit or “level editor” to develop new missions, scenarios, or quests for the players (2008, p.361 & 362).

The Pac Man game for Atari (1982) has only one level. The ghosts get faster as each stage ends, but the maze is still the same. On the other hand, the God of War game for Playstation (2005) has huge screens where there are multiple challenges and a more complex level design with puzzles and many enemies.

An important point to highlight is: games can have simple level design and be as good as extremely complex games. Remember: the focus is on the player and how much fun he or she gets from the game.

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References:

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

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