3.3: Interaction Patterns (p62)

           1. Single Player v. Game

                      Inside because the player is running away from enemy AI.

           2. Multiple Individual Players v. Game

                      Halo

           3. Player v. Player

                      Sonic Adventure 2: Battles

           4. Unilateral Competition: 2 + vs. 1

                      Dead by Daylight

           5. Multilateral Competition: 3 + directly compete

                      Exploding Kittens

           6. Cooperative Play

                      Knights and Bikes

           7. Team Competition

                      Dota 2

 3.4: Objectives (p71)

Night in The Woods: Find out where the chopped arm came from and the secret of the town.

Life is Strange: Find where Rachel Amber is and who took her.

Pinstripe: Save your daughter who has been kidnapped.

Inside: Get out of the facility you are trapped in.

Oxenfree: Find a way out of the island and save your finds from the ghosts.

Don’t Starve Together: Survive the night.

Fran Bow: Escape the mental institution and find you cat, Mr. Midnight. P

Pokémon: Catch as many Pokémon as possible and defeat the legendary Pokémon.

Firewatch: Figure out what is happening to you on this as a fire lookout in Wyoming.

The Last of Us: Bring Ellie to the hospital where they can reverse engineer a vaccine. Then save Ellie from the Fireflies.

 3.5: Procedures for Blackjack (p73)

The objective of the game is to beat the dealer. The players then have an option to bet depending on if they can get a higher total than the dealer. If they think they could win they bet more. The dealer then deals two cards to each person. The dealer gives each player starting on the left self the option of takin another card or hit. They can leep on taking more cards until they are satisfied or until they go over 21. Once every player has gone the dealer then hit until at least 17 then they will have to stand.

Chapter 10 - Functionality, Completeness and Balance: Symmetry & Asymmetry (p319—324):

Asymmetrical games are games that consist of players with different abilities, resources, or objects. Games such as League of Legends is asymmetrical because each player has different abilities. Some shoot long range and some are built for close combat. Each character is unique and some work well together in order to make a strong team. I think this idea of abilities for the asymmetrical game is a good concept to use in our game we are making.

10.8: Symmetrical versus Asymmetrical (p321)

The game we are working on is asymmetrical. We want the game to be 2+ players versus the game, and the players, who are kids, have different roles and each have a different ability. You all will be versing a stronger monster and with you abilities and cooperation combined, you will be able to have a chance of winning.

Chapter 12 – Team Structures (p383 – 410)

The reading on team structures and communication was interesting and very informative. Communication is key in any team, from the programmer to the visual artists, though very different roles, need to generate ideas and inform each other their thought process behind each idea. For our game we are making, I am taking over the visual artist role, but, because we are a small group, I will also be helping a little bit in programming and level design. Ways on communicating and to organize our roles is conducting meetings, creating a spreadsheet with out roles, the priority of it, and our progress of that goal. Furthermore, our team also made a slideshow in order to present the mood of the game as well as inspiration, sketches, and ideas for UI elements. Discord has also been a key tool in order to communicate with each other because we are able to send ideas, criticisms, and pictures of our ideas. Our team communicates a lot so we can make the game manageable for the time we have as well as making a good, fun game.

Research – Crawl:

Crawl is a multiplayer arcade action game consisting of up to 4 players. It is an asymmetrical game in which one player is the Hero while the others are the monsters who tries to trap and kill him. Once you slay the hero, you take their place. This game uses a Unilateral Competition method where the monsters are all after one player, the hero. The players in this game, both hero and monsters, progress in the game with XP. The balance of the game is when the hero can then unlock new attacks and spells and the monsters can unlock new and stronger monsters they can possess. It is a unique and fast past arcade like game with stunning pixel art visuals and UI.

3.6: Rules Restricting Action (p77)

Rules that restrict players’ actions are the games all being turn based. Like in Twister, you are only allowed to move once per turn, restricting how many times you can go.

3.7: Rules for Blackjack (p77)

The objective of the game is to beat the dealer. The players then have an option to bet depending on if they can get a higher total than the dealer. If they think they could win they bet more. The dealer then deals two cards to each person. The dealer gives each player starting on the left self the option of taking another card or hit. They can keep on taking more cards until they are satisfied or until they go over 21. Once every player has gone the dealer then hit until at least 17 then they will have to stand.

6.6 Do It(p177)

- building block game in AR

- AR game for storybooks

- text game about burning out

- walking simulator for calming down and anxiety

- horror adventure game about an outcast in high school

3.8: Utility and Scarcity (p78)

Ammo and health is a resource that is scarce in Call of Duty. In Scrabble, it is letters to put down on the board. However, like in Call of Duty, ammo is also very helpful in order to kill your enemies and health always keeps you on you toes. With Scrabble, the limited resource of letters keeps the player to always be thinking and makes the game entertaining and challenging.

3.9: Resource Types(p83)

In the game Don’t Starve Together, time, lives, and inventory as the basic resources that are presented to the players. In Don’t Starve Together, you can only be active and roam around the forest until night time. That means, collect as many resources such as food, wood, and health to stay alive, or, the monsters will kill you at night if you don’t build a fire. Lives are also a limited resource in this game. You have two lives, but after you die once, you are now reincarnated as a ghost. The ghost doesn’t do much, but you are still able to explore the world. Inventory space and important resources to survive like food and firewood are all limited. This is what make Don’t Starve Together so challenging. Your hunger can decrease dramatically depending on how much activity you have done, then you have to hunt and gather food. Furthermore, wood, for example, is important in order to create light at night. But, you need to find stone to create an axe which has a limited lifetime. The downside to the numerous trees available is that the stones for axes are scarce too. But, the limited resources is what makes this game fun to play.

Chapter 5 – Sidebar: A Conversation with Will Wright (p150 – 154):

What was interesting to read about the developer of The Sims and SimCity is why he creates the games he creates and the thought process behind it. He states that he creates games because it enabled the creativity of the player. This is obviously shown in his works like The Sims as he pushes the players to create a world and a story within that game. The simulation based games are also very unpredictable and I think that is the beauty of these games and why it became so successful. Playing The Sims a lot, I agree what he says when you have a set plan on what you want your character to do but then they suddenly start to disobey. Its frustrating but also super entertaining to watch and see what happens to your Sims character.

Chapter 9 – Playtesting (p271 – 272), (p283 – 288), (p302 – 304):

The tips given to us about playtesting made sense and will be useful in the next playtesting event I go to. Often at times, when the class has to go to NYU to playtest, I freak out thinking my game has to play well, not be as broken as it previously was, and that it looks presentable. However, this reading debunked everything that I had thought and had the habit of doing during playtesting. I also found that I should keep quiet when they are playing the game, take notes, and answer back with more questions to be really interesting and useful methods to improve your game. It does make more sense to do that instead of explaining everything to the player because then they probably won’t find bugs or you won’t notice issues when the player is playing.

Research:

Killer Queen(Arcade) by Nik Mikros and Josh Debonis

Killer Queen is a 10 player strategy game and each player has one button and one joystick. The game is a competitive team vs team, the Blue and Gold. One player in a team is the Queen and the other players are Workers. The role of the Workers is to collect berries, ride snails, or use the gate. The workers have infinite lives and respawn at the give after they die. The workers can also evolve into warriors by bringing a berry to the gate. This allows you to fly and carry a sword that you can use to kill opponents and the Queen on the opposing side. However, if you die as a warrior, you are brought back as a worker. The Queen has all abilities that the workers have to fight for in which they are able to fly, have a special attack of the dive, turn gates into their team color and carry a sword. The Queen however does not have unlimited lives and has 3 lives instead.  

3.10: Conflict (p84)

Tetris: The conflict revolves around obstacles. Since it is a puzzle game, if your block that is given to you doesn’t fit, you lose. 

Frogger: Dilemma and obstacles are the conflicts in this game. You have to decide when to jump so you don’t get hit by obstacles such as traffic or get eaten by an alligator. 

Bomberman: The conflict in this game involves obstacles, dilemmas and opponents. The gameplay involves you placing bombs down to destroy players, enemies and obstacles which are things that are in your way to win in the game. 

Minesweeper: The conflict in the game are obstacles. You have to strategize so you don’t click on a mine or bimb that will make you lose the game. 

Solitaire: The conflict of solitaire is a dilemma because it is the player’s choice and strategy that will suggest whether you win or not. 

● 3.11: Boundaries (p89)

The boundaries of Dungeons and Dragons depends on the story the player tells. The DM, who is the narrator of the game, can set those boundaries such as a locked door or a blocked pathway

● 3.12: Outcome (p90)

Zero-Sum:

1.  Battleship

2. Connect Four

Non Zero-Sum

1. Don’t Starve Together

2. Mario Kart

The Main difference in the outcomes of these games is that in a zero sum game, one players loses while the other wins. However in a non zero-sum game, a player can lose but doesn’t mean the other player will win.

● 3.13: Revised Rules and Procedures (p90)

The chance part of the game is due to rolling the dice because you move the checkers based off the numbers on the dice. Instead of using a dice, you can move based on how many checkers are in one space. Similar to how mancala works.

Chapter 7: Prototyping Your Original Idea: (210 -232)

Exercises:

 4.1: Making Checkers Dramatic (p97) 

In this game of checkers, a kingdom is protecting its kingdom from evil monsters like dragons and goblins from taking over their territory. Having a backstory like this makes the other players more intrigued by the game instead of just a game of checkers. However, considering I didn’t change if there were abilities of each piece except when you turn the player into a king, not much happened. It was still a game of checkers but with a more interesting backstory to it. If the game of checkers also changed visually, that would have helped too.

 4.2: Dramatic Games (p97) 

1. The Last of Us: The connection and bond between Joel and Ellie made the story compelling and players are easily emotionally invested in the story of this game.

2. Alice Madness Returns: The dark and gruesome twist of the story Alice in Wonderland made it intrigues me because it strayed away from something magical and made it completely messed up.

3. Inside: Without any dialogue, your actions and the environment tells a dramatic and sad story of this kid you are playing. The player keeps guessing what is happening around him but ultimately, we are able to figure out the gist of it.

4. Oxenfree: Bringing in a coming-of-age with classic 80s horror film tropes, we get an entertaining and unique game that focuses on drama and survival within a small group of teens on an isolated island.

5. Night in the Woods: The rebellious and carefree college students solving a small town’s mystery was a great combo in order to make the game dramatically interesting.

4.4: Goals and Feedback (p100) 

1. Candy Crush: The feedback of this game would involve points, explosions of candy when they disappear or match, and vibrant text appearing on the screen. This feedback relates to the goal because it tells the user to keep on matching candy in a certain amount of time/moves. The more you match, the more points you get resulting in flashy feedback.

2. Pokémon: The feedback during a battle includes dialogue, HP, and the movement of the Pokémon. During a battle, you know you are doing well if a dialogue appears saying, “crtitical hit” or when the HP of the opposing side goes down. This is how the player knows that they need to fight the Pokémon in order to progress in the game.

3. PacMan: The feedback of PacMan are points, speed of the player, and how the ghosts react. To progress in the level you have to eat all the dots on the screen, this will be the point system as well. But if you eat a cherry, for example, you are faster and the ghosts are able to be eaten, thus them running away from you.

 4.5: Player Types (p104) 

Though I haven’t touched this game since middle school, a game that comes in mind that touches upon a lot of these different types of players is Minecraft. Being a massively multiplayer game and an open world game, it is easy to invite all kinds of players. For example, in survival mode, you have the collector, explorer, craftsmen, and probably the joker. You need these types of players in order to survive in this game. But Minecraft allows you to play in creative mode that involves almost all of these players too. In this game, I remember I was the explorer, and in many different open world games such as Horizon: Zero Dawn, I still explore throughout the game and become the collector as well.

Research: BaraBariBall by Noah Sasso 

This game is a competitive sports game that consists of two to four players. In order to score, you have to dunk the ball in the opposing team’s goal. But, you also lose a point if you fall into the water. You also gain a point if the ball falls into the water on the opposing team’s side. Each character has its own special attacks and techniques making it an asymmetrical game. To make this game challenging though, jumps are limited. But, jumps do recharge once you are on the ground. However, if you do run out of jumps you are considered helpless and are more vulnerable to taking more damage. This game also consists of combat. Combat includes stunning and knocking the player back in order to steal the ball from them.