Analysing the Gaming Experience Development Log(wk27)

Case Study

Metro Trains Melbourne (2014) Dumb Ways to Die 2: The Games [Video game]. Available at: /https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.au.com.metro.DumbWaysToDie2&hl=US (Accessed: 4th of May, 2021).

Dumb Ways to Die - Apps on Google Play

Dumb Ways to Die 2 is a charity game created to promote rail safety in Melbourne, Australia, where almost 1 thousand people fall off the tracks in a year. Metro Trains, a Melbourne, Australia-based rail company, created the game as a reminder that there is no dumber way to die than to “die without paying attention around trains”.

The game has been a huge hit since its launch. It’s a bit like Made in Wario in that players can play it over and over again for a high score, so it’s more fun. But few people knew that it was designed to promote rail safety. So the impact it had on player behaviour was somewhat lacking.

I’ll take a look at the different aspects of games to see what needs to be done to make serious games more fun without losing the seriousness.

Research

This week I have read some references:

One of the most useful, in my opinion, is Reality is Broken, which tells the story of how games have become mainstream and have the potential to change the world in the new century from all angles.

‘We have been playing good games for nearly as long as we have been human. It is now time to play them on extreme scales. Together, we can tackle what may be the most worthwhile, most epic obstacle of all: a whole-planetary mission, to use games to raise global quality of life, to prepare ourselves for the future, and to sustain our earth for the next millennium and beyond.’ — J. McGonigal, Reality is Broken.

Change of Topic

After the first pitch, I thought it would be a good idea to synthesise the themes I had explored into a more integrated and specific topic, to talk more clearly about the issues I wanted to investigate and to produce more practical results.

I took the advice and combined the origin few topics explored into one. So the topic became How to use games to improve social and environmental issues and make serious games fun?

I currently have 3 case studies that represent 3 different directions very well. I will make a further table showing the differences among them.

I have a number of references, a selection of which is below. I will add or subtract depending on the length of the essay. And I have found many useful cases and directions, but I still need to learn how to use them, and how to integrate them.

But the definition of ‘fun’ is so subjective, vague and broad that I had to think about how to choose a clearer and more specific term to limit it.

I will propose a more objective topic next week.

Wizard Dungeon -Experimental Development Log(wk25)

Confirmation of Gameplay and Background

After much trial and discussion, we intend to make a dungeon breakout game that is on the hardcore side of action. The story is about a trainee wizard who faces monsters in the dungeon and grows to destroy them.

  • The wizard will be able to acquire a large variety of staffs from the game and will be able to upgrade them. At the same time learn new moves to fight more powerful enemies.
  • The wizard’s main method of attack is to switch between different staffs and attack with different effects to deal with various types of monsters. The wizard will have a blood tank, magic level and stamina level. Use your resources and attacks well to get further.
  • The dungeons will have various types of monsters, each with its own behavioural tree. We will add a boss, a flying dragon with a two-stage attack pattern.
  • Players will encounter various NPCs throughout the game to unlock more hidden plot lines later in the game.
  • The game comes with an online feature that allows players to play as different wizards and cooperate to break through the game.

Basic Mechanics Build

As Hanyu has a lot of experience with UE4, he will be the main person to build the base system. We have implemented character movement and several attack modes, and plan to add an online multiplayer mode.

I was responsible for further building the levels, designing the different staffs and balancing the values in the game.

Item diversification

We want to further diversify the types of staffs in the game and increase the number of models. This would give the player a fresher feel. So I have contacted a 3D student and we are working together to design a range of staffs.

We plan to design 3 different parts for the staffs. By randomly combining the different parts together through a program, a large number of staff models can be created.

Case Study

During my experience of It Takes Two, I came across a level.

This level had two characters – a wizard and a knight. The wizard is set up much like the game we are working on, with different attacks to help solve puzzles, destroy enemies and reach the end. Of course, the map for It Takes Two was designed in advance. This game helped me with how to design the pacing of the levels.

Another game is Helldivers.

I used it to learn how hardcore games design level difficulty, and the mechanics of teammates working together and hurting each other, as well as out-of-game farming.

Analysing the Gaming Experience Development Log(wk25)

Research

Trista, P. (2019). Playing for the planet: how video games can deliver for people and the environment. UNEP. Available at: https://biblioteca.semarnat.gob.mx/janium/Documentos/Ciga/libros2018/CD004283.pdf (Accessed: 10th of May, 2021).

The United Nations document already gives some detailed guidance. You can find initiatives on a number of environmental issues, including Helping parents to engage with their children around gaming. There are also some game references. I found that there were a lot of notes for me to study. I think I can find something useful.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 17 new development goals, continue to guide global development efforts for 2015-2030 beyond the expiration of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for 2000-2015. Headquarters, where the 193 UN member states will formally adopt 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs aim to move towards a sustainable development path by thoroughly addressing the three dimensions of development – social, economic and environmental – in an integrated manner between 2015 and 2030.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will guide global development policy and the use of finance from 2015 to 2030. The SDGs make a historic commitment: the overarching goal is to end poverty forever in every corner of the world.
The 17 SDGs aim to shift towards a sustainable development path that addresses the social, economic and environmental dimensions of development, specifically: poverty eradication; hunger eradication; good health and well-being; quality education; gender equality; clean water and sanitation; affordable and clean energy; decent work and economic growth; industry, innovation and infrastructure; closing the gap; sustainable cities and communities; responsible consumption and production; climate action; underwater life; terrestrial life; peace, justice and strong institutions; and partnerships for the achievement of the Goals.

Case Study

Here are two games that are good examples of how to make the seriousness part fun! One is City: Skyline and the other is The Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle DLC.

Cities Skylines

The latest DLC for Cities Skylines called Green City. Give mayors even more ways to build your city and make your city an eco-friendly city. This DLC adds around 350 eco-friendly assets: eco-friendly houses, organic shops, electric cars and new services that will allow your city to say goodbye to pollution forever. This DLC allows players to create multiple types of city zones and, of course, to build purely eco-friendly cities. New services and housing assets reduce noise and ground pollution, make the sky bluer and make little Jojo feel safe.

The Sims 4

In The Sims 4 – Eco Lifestyle DLC players need to improve the environment in which their characters live by acting environmentally friendly. This type of simulated life play will have an impact on the player’s real life.

The game has 4 features on low carbon living initiatives and education：

  • Sustainable Living
    • Three key points: save, recycle and reuse. Try growing crops in a vertical garden or picking up supplies from a rubbish truck – just remember to take a good shower afterwards.
  • Co-operative groups
    • Your greatest resource is your community. Vote weekly for community action plans to encourage recycling, volunteerism and other initiatives.
  • Change the world
    • A small act of kindness can make a big difference. Remember, your actions have a long-term impact on the environment around you.
  • Recycle and transform your decorations
    • One person’s trash can be another person’s lightweight furniture. Decorate your home with second-hand items, or make your own items from recycled materials. Either way, it’s a cutting-edge fashion for recycling and remodelling.

By simulating low-carbon life, is very immersive for the player. At the same time, it serves as a good guide to the player’s real life. The inclusion of serious content doesn’t detract from the gameplay itself, so it’s fun to play.

Analysing the Gaming Experience Development Log(wk24)

Search for Topics

Using games to create positive social value is one of the aims of my postgraduate Games Design degree. Therefore I set several themes related to it and analysed which one was more appropriate.

Q1. How to make functional/serious games fun?

In China, Tencent Games Dreaming Plan has launched a number of serious games. Examples include Seeing, and Dark Shadows in the Long Sky. Seeing is designed to give normal players a taste of everyday life as a visually impaired player – by tapping on a cane to judge the way forward. Shadow of the Long Sky, on the other hand, is a game made for visually impaired players, where the player chooses to dodge a missile based on the direction it is coming from.

The serious games currently on the market are highly targeted, mainly for science, and have a monotonous gameplay. Only a few games are interesting, while most are boring. This makes them accessible only to those who are interested in serious games and therefore the audience is small and not well advertised. I hope that by looking at various types of creative games and combining them with serious games, I can make serious games more fun to further their purpose.

Seeing
Seeing

Q2. How to use games to improve social and environmental issues

I made a light game based on social media app when I was working on my undergraduate portfolio. It was designed to help players exercise and also to help sell fruit in poor farming areas. Some famous organisations such as NASA and (United Nations) have also made games related to environmental conservation. I hope to explore the role games can play in this, in conjunction with research in sustainability or other disciplines.

Sports Farm
Playing fot the Plant

Q3. How to add educational meaning to commercial games

Games, with their unique interactive nature, are more suitable for educational use than traditional media. There are already a number of games on the market for medical education, aviation education, physics education and other directions. Exploring the consistency of these and concluding a workable solution can help games realise their educational value more efficiently.

Foldit

Choose a Topic

All these themes have their limitations and the feedback from the first pitch: ‘How to use games to improve social and environmental issues?‘ is a more appropriate one. I will revise it further in my subsequent research to better fit the theme I am exploring.

Wizard Dungeon -Experimental Development Log(wk23)

Choosing a Direction for Research

I originally wanted to explore in the area of XR (AR/VR), but I had already made a VR game at term 2, so that idea was put to rest. After browsing through the mini briefs reference given by David, I listed a few directions of interest.

  1. A two-player co-op or confrontation game in the thief genre that uses sound to play. Player A cannot look at the screen but can use his voice to send commands to control NPCs in the game, e.g. guards, organs, to stop Player B from acting. And player B will make different noises when he acts to indicate the current game situation of player A.
  2. Machine learning based AI.
  3. Shaders.
  4. Roguelike like The Binding of Isaac, containing procedurally generated dungeons. Emphasis on the replayability of the game.

Specifically, I want to learn how to use the Unreal Engine in preparation for my future job search.

Since Hanyu has a lot of experience in using the Unreal Engine, we decided to collaborate. Initially, we set out in two directions: one was to use the AI learning plugin that comes with the Unreal Engine to do machine learning, sample learning. I expected to be able to train the AI so that it could simulate the player’s actions and thus replicate the player’s behaviour in the game, and thus give the player the feeling of playing against themselves at all times and the level of difficulty that matches their own level of play. Such a goal is obviously impossible to achieve in just a few weeks and with the equipment and numbers available.
Therefore, we set our sights on something more realistic – a roguelike with an emphasis on replayability, diverse monster AI, multiple attack modes and effects, and rich dungeon generation (preferably procedurally based).

Defining the Theme Style

This week we discussed the art style we needed to adopt for the game and Low-poly became our first choice as it allows for easy level building in preparation for procedural generation. It also makes it easier to improve on the modeling.

We, therefore, opted for the low-poly style.

Setting up a Cloud-based Collaboration Server

I learnt how to use Helix Visual Client (P4V) to upload and sync Unreal projects. Compared to Unity collaborate, P4V has much clearer and less error-prone control over versioning.

Next Week

We will start building the basic mechanisms in Unreal Engine, and discuss the specific gameplay of the game.

A Game -Critical Play Game Development Log(wk21)

Last Playtesting

I finished all the levels I could and wrote the save function. This way players will be able to get back into the game quickly when they accidentally quit. The game will unlock levels one after another to make sure players know where they are.

Then I have had my final playtest. This time the feedback has helped me to further improve the game’s interaction with the player and the player experience.

David gave me quite a bit of feedback to help me make each level of the game as good as possible.

Tester feedback:

  • Struggled on level 7 ‘Deja vu’.

The player eventually solved the puzzle after I gave step-by-step hints. I gave clues to the idea of solving the puzzle both in the option button and in the narration. However, these clues are too cryptic and overwhelming to allow the player to understand the correct way to play the game. At the same time, the theme of the levels is so similar that the player loses sight of the meaning of Déjà vu.

As the puzzle involves the interaction of two levels, it is necessary to strengthen the connection between the two levels. In conjunction with David’s suggestion. I decided to rebuild the theme of both levels to make it distinct from the others and to be able to give the player a greater sense of Déjà vu the second time they see it. I chose the background of the Wheel of Transcendence option as the game’s setting as a way of suggesting that the player be aware of the time jumps. At the same time I added narration to further hint at the game’s solution. But again, it can’t be too obvious. I abandoned the idea of copying the option menu into a new level, as the steps are the same but the player is thinking from a completely different starting point.

  • In the fruit ninja game, the player missed clicking start because he tried to slice it, and not sure if start appeared again.

This is really something I took into account when designing the level, the fruit and buttons are currently randomly generated at a certain rate, so the start button could appear at the beginning, or it could appear again dozens of times later. I didn’t fix this further at first, but I didn’t expect the problem to be so prominent that players would worry about whether the start button would reappear after they missed it.

Following David’s suggestion, I have added a count feature to ensure that a start button is generated at most every 15 times. Also when the start button appears, the player is prompted that they need to cut it to trigger the function.

  • Jarvis voice recognition is limited

After the player tries to make a sound, the level doesn’t respond in kind. I assume that the voice recognition has been reduced after I enabled the volume pickup feature. I decided to add a few similarly pronounced words to the thesaurus to make the speech recognition function more responsive. Also in the previous revision, a narrator has been added in case the player doesn’t know what to say.

Final Version

After a few final changes, I have exported the final version of the game. Although it is missing about 5 or 6 levels compared to what I expected to design. However, the levels that I have so far all work harmoniously and the voice narration and actions fit the game logically. Apart from the artwork, which could do with further polishing (which is not my strong point), the remainder of the game looks well finished. At the same time it’s fun and meets my expectations of making a competent critical meta game.

A Game -Critical Play Game Development Log(wk20)

First Playtesting

This week the 11 levels that have been developed were put together. A brief playtest was conducted. And got some pretty useful feedback!

Tester feedback:

  • The microphone level doesn’t seem to work.

In fact it does work as long as the computer has a microphone function. But the player did not receive a clear message that it was working properly. I will add a real-time volume alert to tell the player that it is working properly. And give further voiceover prompts when the player doesn’t realise what they should be saying.

  • The default theme looks awful

It does suck because I thought I wouldn’t have time to deal with the aesthetic effects. So I had decided to focus all my efforts on the game mechanics. But the art style is also part of the gameplay, so I’m going to abandon some of the levels. Instead, I will finish the artwork for the levels that have already been completed.

  • The game is likely to rudely take the player out of the game when they inadvertently hit the QUIT button.

My original intent: this game is played from the start screen, so hitting quit should exit the game. However, when more levels are added, this can greatly disrupt the player’s experience. Now that I have a more subtle way of punishing the player for closing the game in later levels, I need to remove the excessive punishments in the previous levels. This would be done by adding a judgement box to cancel the exit.

Modify Game Themes

This time I added themes to the games so that each game looks different and the themes are more in line with their gameplay and storylines. I used the game themes as a hint to the player’s play style, so that at first glance the player can get a sense of how the level will be played.

Second Playtesting

As I continued to develop, I followed up with another round of playtesting.

Testers’ feedback.

  • Players had difficulty returning to a previously played level after passively closing the game because there was no indication of the current level being played
  • When the player returns to the game, they want to be able to locate the previous level. (Archive function)

As the number of levels increases, it can be difficult to remember which level you are in, and even when I was programming, I had to constantly check my excel sheet to see which scene corresponded to which game. This is why the archive function is necessary. I decided to tweak the logic when running the game so that the player can only play a later level if they have unlocked the previous one. And in the event that they are accidentally kicked out of the game, they can also quickly go back to the previous level. This is to ensure that the player can quickly locate their level.

Thanks for the great feedback from Jacky!

Development of the remaining levels

Due to a change in strategy, I have focused on optimising the current levels. Instead of continuing to develop those levels that are not yet complete. I won’t have time to implement them and work out the bugs. The levels in black are the ones I gave up developing for submission.

A Game -Critical Play Game Development Log(wk19)

Further Level Design

Level11

Draw a wire and switch the different coloured lights on and off by pulling the wire to make the opposite coloured buttons appear on the screen.

Level12

Hit the bricks, the player controls the platform to bounce the ball and hit the top Start button to start the game.

Level13

Tetris, where the bricks fall in a specific order. If the player places them correctly, the word START will appear and they will be eliminated.

Level14

A Final Fantasy RPG where the Miss/ -Start button appears on the opponent after the player has attacked them, or from the loot obtained after defeating them.

Level15

Pokémon. Start is a sprite to be captured and the player needs to catch it by throwing a Poké Ball to get it.

Level16

A simple but painful journey to find the start button from a pile of buttons.

Level17

Fruit Ninja. This level was hard to make! I didn’t want to simply split the buttons in half, I wanted them to be sliced at the same angle as the player cut them. So I learned to write the corresponding shader to achieve this. I also consulted with authors who had implemented similar functionality, but the overly difficult mathematical requirements dissuaded me.

Source: https://inkwalker.itch.io/astro-loading

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGL6SffDeVU

Level18

Fez. The player has to rotate the main screen to get the Start button step by step. The most difficult adjustments are the camera view and the buttons. Because Fez is based on a 3D game, and I am running it in 2D functionality. To make a 2D game produce the effect of a 3D game, it took a lot of calculations to make sure that the camera had the right angle and that the objects were rotated just right.

Level19

For DLC missions, players need to find and access the DLC purchase screen from the game download screen. Enter the corresponding code to unlock levels and eggs.

Rest of Levels

I also had initial ideas for themes such as Bejeweled, Bubble Bobble, Mario, Silent Hill, and Plumber, but did not go into further detail about how to play them.

This week has been focused on level design and I’ve been on a near frenzy to learn something new for each gameplay style. It was quite a lot of work. I’m glad I was able to get to grips with them quickly.

I put all the level designs into an Excel sheet. And in blue to indicate the narration that will appear in the game. Red indicates the key mechanics of the game design. When the levels are developed, I will turn them green.

A Game -Critical Play Game Development Log(wk17)

The Things That Give Me a Headache

At the beginning of trying to make a metagame, I had a hard time. I was at a loss as a creator – if I just added different gameplay to a game with a different theme, it felt like I was just carrying the gameplay and playing with it, even if the system served my game. I still think it’s just copying the gameplay and lacking innovation. I think it’s important to explore and innovate in a particular direction while still having fun with the game. It’s painful to think this way, and I’ve tried many directions that I’ve rejected myself, and I don’t think it’s developed its own style.

I’m even thinking of changing direction to a critical play game, since all three of my directions have proven ideas.

Second Pitch

During the second pitch, I raised my confusion and David’s affirmation was a good solution to the problem I had been having. My idea was interesting enough and different enough. This gave me the confidence to continue with the meta project.

Design of a part of the levels

This week I have conceived 10 levels. These levels have a similar or uniform style and I want the player to feel like they are playing the same level over and over again but encountering different situations each time. Later on, I will be designing levels with different styles to add to the richness of the game.

Level1.

The player opens the game for the first time. The well-known meme from The Elder Scrolls V is used here – “Hey, you. You finally awake.” When they see the start button, they will definitely try to click it to start the game. But they are told that this is just part of the background. The player needs to press Enter to start the game. When the player is directed to press the Enter key, they find out that the phrase means that they need to manually enter E-N-T-E-R in order to start the game.

Level2.

The second level uses the same theme as the first level to imply that the START button is still part of the background. When the player discovers this, they try to enter e-n-t-e-r to start the game. However, it is found that the mechanics of the game are already different from the first level. Eventually they can find the start button at the QUIT button.

Level3.

The Start button has disappeared and the player needs to open it via the option menu.

Level4.

The Start button escapes and the player needs to control it via other buttons and elements.

Level5.

All the buttons are fragile and the player needs to put them back together to unlock the corresponding function.

Level6.

Add gravity to the mouse to make it look tired. This allows the player to try and make it move. Combined with Angry Birds gameplay.

Level7.

I learned how to add voice recognition to the game. The player based on a few previous levels. Was able to think that the game has three buttons to control. So shouting out the corresponding button would enable the corresponding function.

Level8

The game would fail during the loading process. This causes the player to find a way to fix the loading box. After fixing it a new feature should have been added, but for time reasons it was not done.

Level9

Should have interacted with Level8, but did not do so due to time.

Level10

Déjà vu Scene. Once again the players encounter a scene where the start button disappears. They can’t enable the start button from here, so they need to turn the start button on again from Level3 to Level10, as the two levels are designed to overlap with Levels 8 and 9, which can cause confusion for the player. I will therefore bring this level forward.

Level20

A simple prank. Make the player’s computer pretend to be dead.

Case Study

The Henry Stickmin Collection

The mechanics of this game are very simple, it is based on flash animation. The gameplay is simply a matter of clicking on the branches that appear on the screen and then the game plays different animations depending on the player’s choice. However the narrative is very strong. The game is full of memes from start to finish, so much so that the whole game feels like a gaming festival fest.

This suits me perfectly, as my game will be an homage to and emulation of various classic games. So it was important to incorporate classic elements into a unique design. I played through all the levels repeatedly and took 400 screenshots. Trying to fully grasp every single sticking point in the game. It’s a case study, but it’s really fascinating to me.

Source:

PuffballsUnited (2020) The Henry Stickmin Collection. [Digital Download]. Windows. England: Redmond.

A Game –Critical Play Game Development Log(wk16)

Defining the Direction of the Game

After last week’s pitch, I have reconsidered three design directions.

  • My New Family is the most finished and has excellent artwork. Given that I had already spent two weeks developing it. I could produce the finished product more easily. But it still lacked a plot compared to my standard for a good project (I started with a story told from both cat and human perspectives), and I didn’t have any more sources of artwork to help me expand it further.
  • Mr.President has a complete and clear design logic, as well as a prototype, and I have spent some time collecting a wealth of audio clips; the difficulty of designing a game lies in the values, which was my strength as an undergraduate. At the same time, my work so far has not involved much numerical balancing. I hope to enrich this aspect. Adjusting the balance of the game will be a difficult task, but not too demanding on the programming. At the same time it is addictive enough to play over and over again.
  • A Game gives me a feeling of both excitement and fear. Since its launch it has received a lot of praise. I actually started out with the idea of a metagame as a horizontal 2D platform jumping game. The process of trying to start the game was only a small part of it. But since I didn’t have any more time to implement the features I had in mind, I gave it a simple extension. Designing the game was the most challenging as it needed enough levels to sustain the experience, and each level played differently, which meant I had to rewrite a whole new system for each level and only use it once.

Because of the excellent feedback the meta game has received, I decided to develop it further. I always want to set goals that are slightly above my ability, which forces me to learn and improve my design skills.

Case Study

There Is No Game

This is definitely one of the most creative games I’ve played this year. The game is full of meta elements and the narration guides the player through the game as if the game is alive and talking to the player.

Also the gameplay changes with the theme of the game and incorporates the developer’s take on free-to-play and other aspects of the game.

There are also a number of eggs and memes in the game, which will make you smile when you discover them while playing the game.

Of course, most importantly, I learned how to communicate with the player through the narration. I was also inspired by the fact that there are parts of the game that prevent the player from starting the game. My demo was also designed with the intention of moving towards a There is no game

and my demo was designed to be a similar gaming experience.

Source:

Draw Me A Pixel (2020) There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension. [Digital Download]. Windows. France: Villeurbanne.