Friday, 26 October 2012

Game Play, Theory & Practice Notes (28/10/2012):

  • My feedback on our platforming board game 'SUPER PLATFORM BROS SUPER ULTRA EDITION' -
    • I loved the design that my team came up with (Micheal, Jon and I). 
    • I felt that our idea was very creative as it was a throw back to numerous old platforming games.
    • Unfortunately the board game suffered due to numerous reasons:
    1. My group's internet wasn't working and thus we could only communicate by text. 
    2. When it did come to meeting up early before the lecture they ended up being an hour late as they had spent most of the previous night working on the game. Thus we didn't nearly have enough to time to go through the rules that we needed to add to in order for our game to work probably. 
Therefore those that played the game found it very hard to understand, especially since some of the rules were missing. 
  • Peer feedback on our groups game -
    • Felt original. 
    • Good silly stories and character backgrounds.
    • Hard but fun. 
But...
    • Felt broken due to the lack of detailed rules. 
    • Moving around was clear but fighting wasn't. 
    • Wasn't clear if you were meant to be a team or not. 
    • Not sure where to start. 
    • The squares you moved on needed to be a lighter shade of colour so as to appear on the board more clearly. 
    • Too many fights occurred in the game's journey.
  • My group’s feedback on the peer game 'Power Up!' -
    • Too much falling down.
    • Less caps would make the game easier and pleasant. 
    • Rules were not 100% clear.
    • The power ups in question were more often disadvantages and not advantages as the name suggested them to be.   
    • Very evil game for being so difficult, and yet so satisfying to win it.
  • My personal review of 'Power Up!' -
    • In this game you start at the bottom of the board and had to make your way to the top in order to win. Sounds simple right? Well stopping you are a magnitude of pit falls that, if you fall down make you lose one of your five lives. Unfortunately this happened far to often as not only were there too many pitfalls, but the so named 'power up' cards that you could collect hindered you almost all the time. Therefore the first time we played the game we didn't even make it half way as we either fell to our deaths or had power ups that made us fall through the pits. After relishing that it was such a hard game we as a group then decided that that was part of the game's charm as despite it being so hard it was so satisfying to try and beat and therefore became fun. Incidentally one of us did win near the end of our trial run.Overall, if the group who made the game wanted to make it fairer then the power up cards need to be balanced and the board needs to contain less pit falls. However, if they were to advertise it as a super hard game then maybe it would work to their advantage.
  • My group’s feedback on the peer game Tower Climbing Game -
    • Good fun.
    • Felt fair, as in anyone could win it. 
    • Was the group's favorite.
    • Rules not 100% clear. 
  •  My personal review of the Tower Climbing Game -
    • The second game my group played was the game that we dubbed the 'Tower Climbing Game' as it had no name. In this game you started at the bottom of the board and had to build platforms in order to reach the top of the tower and thus win the game. However, in order to make things more difficult the game included a lot of strategy with shops that could only be used by certain players and within these shops abilities that could be bought in order to slow down the other players. This game ended up being our group's favourite board game as it was both fun and surprisingly tactical, as by the end of it when you realised you were running out of platforms to place. This was especially true when I almost won the game and was one platform away from winning, but in the end lost when the others in my group ganged up on me and used abilities that stopped me from taking my turn. Now granted, the rules were not totally clear and therefore we had to start over when we realised we were doing things wrong, but apart from that we had a lot of fun with this bright and colurful game that I could easily see being a success.   
  • My group’s feedback on the peer game Lego adventure -
    • Rules not 100% clear. 
    • Far too many pit falls! 
    • Needed balancing.
  •  My personal review of Lego adventure -
    • The final game our group played was the game we also had to name as it had no name 'Lego adventure'. The reason we named it this was because you used little Lego figures in order to move around the board, and the fact that the board itself looked like a prymaid from a bird's eye view made for a nice visual touch. In this game you had to place your character's token on the board depending on the cards you picked up and then collect that piece whilst making your way around the board before reaching the top. Sounds simple right? Well sadly this is not the case due to the fact that they were a number of broken platforms that made you fall to the ones below. When I say a number I mean far too many as we kept falling down these and thus found the game too difficult as every time you fell you had to return to previous spaces, thus making the game overly unfair. This along side the complicated and contradicting rules didn't help either as my group were trying to figure out if we could steal the other players' tokens or not as at the same time the rules said you started off with them and then later contracted it.  

Thursday, 25 October 2012

UDK session 1 (24/10/2012)

  • Question: Can a video game map/environment tell a story? The answer: Yes it can!
  • When designing a map for a video game make sure that each area is practical and fair. In short, make sure that the map contains numerous vantage points. If you have any areas that are wide open or away from where most of the action happens then make sure that both these types of areas have a worth while reward for the player's trouble e.g. a power up or powerful weapon, otherwise most of the map won't be used as it should have been and therefore players may not even want to use that map. This could even lead to the downfall of the title and possibly its company! 
  • When creating a map for a RPG make sure that it is open, easy to navigate and contains numerous paths in order to get from point A to B. After all, an RPG is meant to give the player a sense of freedom. If we punish players with unclear destinations and ways to get to them then the player will probably not enjoy the game as much as they could. It is also a good idea to fill the journey from point A to B with numerous sights and locations that the player can visit so as to keep each venture interesting and fresh. 
Controls for UDK:
  • When using UDK you move around more easily by using the mouse and arrow keys. 
  • On UDK you move more quickly by clicking the camera speed icon. 

Thursday, 11 October 2012

Game Play, Theory & Practice Notes (8/10/2012):



  • Defeat is a positive feedback.
  • In order, a game is normally created with the Mechanics in mind first followed by Dynamics and then finally how the game looks (Aesthetics).  
  • The definition of game mechanics and dynamics are as follows:

Mechanics (Action):
    • Mechanics refers to both the simple and necessary things that a player needs and can do when playing a game. For example, how the game plays e.g. jumping or moving the character using dice or a controller. And how the rules affect the game’s functionality and / or play.
Dynamics (Reaction):
    • Dynamics is how the game behaves and how the player can drastically affect a game with his or her actions. For example, killing off a quest giver will then remove that quest from the player in a video game, or buying a street in a board game such as Monopoly may lead to increased revenue.

In simpler terms, if the Mechanics of baseball are to throw and hit the ball then the Dynamics would be the type of throw and swing.

Task for next week:
Come up with a board game based on plat forming with my group.

Tuesday, 9 October 2012

Game Play, Theory & Practice Notes (1/10/2012):



  • What is needed in a game? – Rules, feedback system, goals and voluntary participation.
  • Munchkins is a highly recommended card game that may be good for me to get.
  • Everyone seemed to love my game! :D
  • Peer feedback on my groups game –
o   Slow to begin with but becomes good fun and combative when you have to decide on strategies to beat the others.
o   Wasn’t 100% clear on whether you got eliminated when next to the dungeon’s walls e.g. 3 lines next to one.
o   Pieces (figurines) were too big compared to the board.
o   Door blocking wasn’t clear.
o   Liked the D&D feel.
  • My group’s feedback on the peer game ‘Square-opoly’ –
o   Landing on a Train Station does not result in anything. Maybe they could teleport you to other stations on the board?
o   Parts of the rules were not very clear.
o   Scoreboards are confusing.
o   Jackpot did not do anything.
o   A small nit-pick, you only really need one dice, otherwise you constantly miss locations on the board.
o   Unlike Monopoly which obviously inspired this game, landing on ‘Go’ did not result in anything.
o   Also unlike Monopoly there is a ‘Jail’ space. However, it was not clear if the rule in Monopoly ‘Just visiting’ still applied or not when you landed on it.  
o   Goes on for a little too long due to the amount of points you need. Therefore maybe change the points needed to twenty points instead of forty.
o   Overall, it was a bit of a drawn out game but otherwise it works.
  • My personal review of ‘Square-opoly’ –
o   The first game I played was basically Monopoly but called itself Square-opoly. However, instead of buying properties you drew a line when you landed on one in order to try and create a square. Once a square was created you would own the property and thus collect points (the replacement for money in the game) whenever a player landed on it. Rather like Monopoly it was long but, I personally did not find it as much fun as I hoped it would be due to how long it took to acquire forty points. This was because it took a long time to secure a location and the one point tax that was on each property. Thus it was very hard to get to own a property in the game, let alone have a player land on it. Overall, I would say that this game would make a good prototype as it contained the supports for a good interpretation on the game squares. However, the issues above combined with rules that were not 100% clear pulled the game back from making it a recommendation. If the game can improve its faults then I would be very happy to give it a second shot. Also maybe if each property had different taxes on them as in Monopoly then this would not only make it easier to win the game but also add a bit more variety.     
  • My group’s feedback on the peer game ‘Mr. Square’ –
o   Could maybe start on a block instead of a corner.
o   Pen colours or background colours need to change so as the pen marks show.
o   Good simplistic fun.
o   Starts a bit slow but gets very competitive and more engrossing as the game goes on.
o   As everyone had the same paths it soon became a game of chance with the dice when players discovered the best path to take.
  • My personal review of ‘Mr. Square’ –
o   The second game I played was called ‘Mr. Square’. In this game you have to roll a dice and draw the equivalent lines in order to create squares. Once a square was made you could reach the square after it and so on. The aim of the game was to connect squares to the four items on your side of the board before reaching the middle and thus winning the game. It was a bit slow to begin with but as the game went on I found it became a lot more fun due to the fact that it got more and more competitive just as the other players neared the middle of the board. However, it was also primarily a game of chance and therefore once everyone found out the best route to take, as each player’s side of the board was the same, it soon became a race of who could roll the highest and thus reach the middle first. Perhaps if square tiles, that you could flip over were introduced to add a risk or reward to players then this would perhaps convince them to take risks and not just go on the same path again and again and again.  

Game Play, Theory & Practice Notes (24/9/2012)


  • Look up Jane Mc Gonagall’s ‘Reality is Broken’ (book).
  • Work on the rules for our game of squares and then email them to Jim. Needs to be no longer than a paragraph so as to fit on the bottom of the page. Also try and find some figurines for each player to use.