Beyond the game...

Think back to the very start of the semester, when we talked about the concept of meaningful play, which occurs when "the relationships between actions and outcomes in a game are both discernable and integrated into the larger context of the game" (from Salen and Zimmerman, Rules of Play). When the game is an alternate reality game such as The Beast, where the game does not have any explicitly declared actions and outcomes, and in some cases does not even acknowledge its own existence, is it possible for there to be meaningful play? Does this type of "game" require us to rethink our definition of games?

For a game to become a game, the attitude you bring to it really matters. For this question, it goes down to the point of identifying what is this attitude one brings to the environment to make it a game. For now.. let's call this attitude the 'lusory attitude'.

Looking at the beast, yes it is still a game, it was meant to be one... one can tag it a reality game, a game that goes beyond the game and whatnots... but at its very core lies a game mechanic which can still be discerned... it is but a cleverly devised puzzle/mystery game!

I personally feel that it is actually easy to 'brainwash' somebody into believing that something is not game, it is something else. When we play games, we somehow experience an immersion into it, some sort of like a flow experience. At that point of time one doesn't feel or care that he or she is just playing a game, he or she would concentrate on doing things right.

Back at my very first entry here, I talked about how to make everyday life like a game... there was a comment that says that it would be tiresome if every single matter was treated like a contest... right now I'm confused between the word 'contest' and a 'game'. Contest suggest a form of competition, where two or more people competing against something, for some form of reward. Game... well... aren't they competing too? But games can have some intangible reward while a contest would almost always have something tangible to be rewarded out? And ... aren't games supposed to be fun... why the stress factor?

Going into the definition of game:

A game is a voluntary interactive activity, in which one or more players follow rules that constrain their behavior, enacting an artificial conflict that ends in a quantifiable outcome.

Right, so the suspicious part of the beast (or my example) would be the term 'artificial conflict' and perhaps 'voluntary'. Seriously, a game would not be 'voluntary' only when players are pointed with guns, forcing them to play. Otherwise most people would pick up the game on their own accord. The players of the beast are obviously into the hype that's going on within the premise of the game. And thus would be engaged in the game which claims not to be a game.

So now is the idea of artificial conflict. Well... once again it is based on the attitude that one brings to the game. Let's take for example a soccer game played by two rival nations. They can play as though it is an all out war with each other. The conflict is as real as it gets... but still it is bounded by the artificiality of the rules. The soccer game would be played be a ball and eleven players on each side and nothing else... there wouldn 't be guns and rifles ablazing! Now this is where the attitude comes in, soccer... we all agree that it is a game... but it can become a battleground. It's all about the attitude...

So do we consider the world cup as a game.. the olympics as a game... EA Sports... it's in the game? ( ok last one's irrelevant! :P )

Nah... it's simply about players possess that lusory attitude.

Hence I conclude... one can really play the game of life, if one treats life as a game. It can be said as living as some sort of fantasy, but does it matter to the person living it? Life can be a game, and a game can be your life... all it takes is which magic circle you had defined. :)

Get into the System!

1. Creating mods (modifications) to existing games is a common practice, not just for computer games, but for any form of games. Does this imply that any game can be considered a game system? Why/why not?

To answer this question, let us think of the simplest game that one can think of... tic-tac-toe. The objective of the game.. connect 3 in a row. So how many modifications can one make to this game? Maybe you can carve it on rocks, trees, use 3d graphics.. but the game will remain the same. But is tic-tac-toe a game system? Depends really, on how we define a 'system'.
From dictionary.com:
A group of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent elements forming a complex whole.

Ok, so the elements of tic-tac-toe would be cross, knot and the hex grid. These are definitely game elements as they do not have any meaning outside the game of tic-tac-toe. They are interacting within the hex grid, related due to the fact that they are direct opposites of each other and they form the system known as a game of tic-tac-toe.

Wait a min... I can modify the game such that I do not use crosses and knots... but other things such and rock and paper, turtle and hare... just about anything. But the tic-tac-toe system would remain. Hmm... so hence it is somehow true that any game can be a game system? Since virtually even the simplest of game can be modified?

I just thought of this game called the 'staring game'. The objective is to stare at your opponent until someone else blinks. So is there any other way to play this game? Any ways to modify? Pretty much limited. Even golf games.. it may be true that it's played under close system, but the weather itself I feel modify certain elements of the game. If golf is played on a wet ground, the golfer would probably need to adopt a different strategy to tackle the situation.

Some is the staring game a game system? Hmm, main element of the game would be... eyes? I have perhaps discovered a game even simpler than tic-tac-toe!


2. Consider a game which you feel could be successfully modified. How could this game be generalized into a game system? How much of the unique character/flavour of the game can be retained? How generic can you make the game system? How easy will it be to create new, unique games from the game system?

For this question, warcraft 3 instantly came to mind. From the ever popular DOTA to the numerous 'tower games' in battlenet, WC3 is one of those games where mods are infinitely possible. It is best to look at the game system within the WC3 editor, where all the elements are clearly defined.

So we have the basics.. terrain, playable characters, NPCs, spells, items, structures... that's about the main elements of the game. One simple way to see this as a game system is that all these elements can be 'strategically placed' to make up a real time strategy game.

One things about the elements is that they are not fixed, one can give them various properties.. for eg, the dwarf, which is traditionally a non-magical character, can become a powerful wizard. (Or in DOTA, become zeus!) The towers in WC3 take centre stage when it comes to playing tower games.

So how easy to make completely new games? Take the elements, create a new map, mix them up and you get a new game with new objectives...

But yet one would still feel they are playing a WC3 game... well, asthetics wise it will always remind players they are playing the WC3 game, unlike games like counterstrike which is modified based on game engine rather than game asthetics. All in all... players and designers still got to work within the constraints of the Editor, and thus still bounded by rules as defined in the game.



3. Describe one new game designed on top of the game system you proposed in question 2.

Well, the ever popular DOTA is one game designed which is radically different from the main strategy game. Here the emphasis is on the 'heroes' inside WC3 where you control one single character instead of a horde.

Your character together with other player controlled character will try to push towards the enemies' zone and eventually finish off the vital installations of the base. Actually this gameplay is similar to the normal WC3 games, but the experience of having to control one instead of many differs. Here one can feel that YOU are the character, you and the character are heading as one. But in the normal way of playing, you are just the omniscent being controlling an army. The experience is more of an overseer than an transpresence into the game world. Yet this does not necessarily means one don't get immersed when playing normal WC games.

Maple Again! (Well it's the only digital game I play these days)

Try to find an example of a digital game which truly takes advantage of the traits of the medium, and could not be successfully implemented in a non-digital form. In particular, think about the traits of digital/computer games as listed by Crawford. Describe the game, and identify the core gameplay mechanic. What is it about the core mechanic that makes the game truly a digital game?
Ok time to talk about this kiddy game again... but as kiddy as this game is, it is at its very core a MMORPG. Massive... Multiplayer... Online... these words alone make such genres a near impossiblity to be implemented in a non-digital form (but there's WOW the board game! hmm... ) Let's further explore the game mechanics.

Alright... the game mechanics... jump, attack, pick up items, move, use items. As basic as that... stripped of all the complex multiplayer elements... this is the core basic of any game which involves action. But the game is played with many many players.. all happening at the same time. Imagine transferring all the players' actions online to real life... picture a place where everybody's doing something... how to control this game? Ahh... the computer gives that very medium to put everything in order. A networked game, with all the bits and bytes flying around cyberspace to create this multiplayer experience.

So.. gotta be responsive eh! Only the good old computer can provide that high level of responsiveness to the game. Everything happens real-time in the game. What is interesting to me are the times where the game masters of maple put out special online events. You'll see people from over the world of maple gather at the special event map to play the events. Literally thousands of players are going to that map... imagine the same scene taking place offline. Well... perhaps an event like a marathon, run or similar sports event would offer the similar experience. But lots of manpower and road marshal are needed, while an online counterpart... perhaps just a handful of game administrators to ensure the server is running in order.

Hence in Maple and MMORPGs, many things are going on, there must be some level of automation be carried out to ensure the virtual world is running in place. Hence computer is deifinitely the main moderator here.

Expectancy

Just a quick note which I suddenly thought of about expectancy of games. As playing through the examples of the 'serious' games, I realise I expect a certain kind of results, experiences from playing the games. In McVideogame, since this game is more or less a typical flash game, I find that I expect little from the gameplay and depth. But yet I'm kinda satisfied with the amount of choices you can make and how it would affect the overall gameplay. But for games like food-force, with a large file size and good audio and graphics, I expected much more. Yet there was great disappointment as seen in my previous post.

Same goes for racing academy, which was a total disappointment. The game was all about choosing the right engine and tire to race. The race itself was bland and uninspiring. And I learn absolutely nothing about real car racing physics. I could have gotten a better lesson from the Grand Turismo series!

SodaRacing was abit of a novelty, but being a non-physics person it doesn't appeal to me and it's more or less a simulation rather than a game.

Overall I find myself playing games expecting for a certain result, and when it failed to deliver, it fail to either educate me or entertain me. The verdict? It really takes lots of creativity and fine balance to create a game that entertain and educates.

So far, I find the only game that fulfilled my expectancy was the Carmen Sandiego series. With a healthy dose of geography and history, the game is highly educational in this aspect while not forgetting itself as a game. At that time of play, one would feel like being a time travelling detective. And I recall myself having to go read the atlas after playing the game! This is how educational games should be... not as a standalone educational software, but a tool that is part of a total learning package. Gooooo activity theory! :P

Food For Thoughts

Alright, I played through all six missions of this so called game, and some of the games I even tried it a number of times to see if I can acheive a high score. Overall this game is pretty low on entertainment value but beyond the gameplay lies some informational value which I realise the game is trying to enforce. Let me go through the missions to see what the game is really all about.

Mission One
When presented in lecture, this game is wayyyyyyyy boring! I was like circling the mouse around while the helicopter moves. It provides no challenge at all. The game tries to keep up with the serious atmosphere by having nifty cut scenes and good background music. But the gameplay simply don't cut it. Way crap gameplay! But yet after the game I was given a video of an actual scenario of a real life WFP copter in action. So the reward for completing the boring mission is a video... ok... fair enough, and the video did taught me somethiing about heliborne actions.

Mission Two
Alright, I took quite some time figuring out the right combi for this. This game is fairly fun but absolutely no replay value. But it did taught me abit on balancing economics! Again I was enticed to see the next video, and it got abit frustrating trying to balance out the rice, oil and whatnots. Overall this mission contains abit more gameplay than the brain dead mission one.

Mission Three
This mission is more 'arcade' in nature, requiring some reflexes to get the food drop at the exact area. Overall this mission contains the highest replayability and the score do give some meaning to the game. But yet the interest diminishes quickly after playing for a few times, as the mission will not change dynamically.

Mission Four
I thought it would be a good economics lesson, but the execution of food supply is poorly done. Overall I find myself randomly picking out the countries that are providing aid and hope that it will fall into a nice pattern. I tried to play it more strategically, but the countries appear all too randomly and even if I use careful planning, I would get the same cut scene, same results. Moving on...

Mission Five
This food truck game looks promising at first, but after what was seen to be having some choices to make. It all boils down to some simple click to get past mission. At one point of time there's this changing of wheels game... a total waste of time! Click and hold on to the mouse button to screw and unscrew the nuts in the wheels.

Mission Six
Again a mission that looks promising but failed to deliver. But it was the most informative mission as I find myself listening to what the in-game character has to say about each area. Though what I did was simply dumping food bags into all areas without thinking, at least the information got me interested to know about food planning and helping the country produce food on her own. The final video did capture my attention.

Alright so it would be best that I use conventional game review criteria to assess this as a game:

Graphics: 7/10
Not too bad as a free game. The videos are perhaps the redeeming features of this game as it provided a certain incentive for players to continue playing. The characters were rendered pretty well.

Sound: 8/10
Sound effects in game were pretty good. In-game conversations were clear and characters had distince audible accent.

Music: 9/10
Captures lot of attention and make it feel like a action packed game

Gameplay: 3/10
Yet... the game failed to deliver in its all too simplistic stale gameplay. Most of the missions started with a captivating introduction, but the gameplay mechanics are simply boring. One can just randomly click and not feel any sense of achievement in it, resulting in meaningless play.

Replayability: 3/10
Except for perhaps mission 3, all the games have absolutely no redeeming features to make players come for more.

Overall: 3.5/10
Poor execution of gameplay really plagued this game, as though all efforts have been put into creating content and visual/audio effects.

Yet... as an educational game, I find myself learning something about the operations carried out in WFP. But then again, I can learn it solely through the videos. Most of the time I find myself just clicking my way thru just to get to the next video. So the gameplay elements isn't really substantial.

However, if you listen carefully to what the characters said while playing the game, you find that they do teach you some real life facts on what you are actually doing while playing the game. The missions can somehow co-relate to actual operations. Yet the oversimplified boring gameplay distracted the learning process. And I believe if it was just an interactive flash it would have done the job too.

Overall this game examplifies how not to make a game. Too much focus is on the content, and it is apparent that the producers emphasise on basing the content as real life as possible. But the gaming element is weak and execution is poor. So the game feels 'neither here nor there'. Perhaps with an open mind, and a higher inclination to learn more about WFP, I would appreciate the in-game mechanics and how the missions are blended to represent an actual food operation. Then again, the website would have provided me with all the info I need, without spending time on meaningless play.

Serious games links

Just to prep myself up for the upcoming topic.. time to get serious!

http://www.watercoolergames.org/

http://www.socialimpactgames.com/index.php

How to make fun social games?

Observation 1: All social games are UNORIGINAL
Meaning it's based on a pre-existing game, be it pointing, cards, doing some actions... I personally find that the social games that most of us have come out with has to be based on a certain familar element. My group attempted to create something really original.. but to no avail yet.

Observation 2:Most social games are about LYING CHEATING AND STEALING.
I don't know, it seems that when 'strategy' is being talked about in social games, it usually means 'lie and cheat your way to victory'. For lil' max, if you perfected the lying technique, you can get past the game. Mafia... you gotta have a poker face of sorts to remain undetected. Tell me if there's a social game without the need to cheat as strategy? (maybe mass scissor paper stone?)

Then.. some quick notes on social games:

If it can be played by one person, then it's not a social game.
If it is not noisy, it is not a social game.
If it does not have some fun penalty of sorts, it is not a social game.
If it is LAME, it can be a social game... (er, thinking of all the games played in pubs)

A Social Mafia?

1. Describe the social interactions which you observed during play. In what way did these interactions emerge from within the formal elements of the game?

Mafia, a game of survival, outwit and outlast. The primary objective of villagers is probably to pray not to get killed, and to correctly identify the mafias... while for mafias their goal is to survive and kill off the villagers. One word to describe all the social interactions that are going on... make belief!

The notion that social interactions are all internally derived is definitely true in mafia. You 'kill' and 'accuse' as a mafia and villager only within that magic circle. The moderator has absolute power, but only within the game.

It is interesting to look at the different interactions between the roles in the game, hence let us look at each individual role and how they behave in the game.

Villager: ahh.., the poor innocent victim. In the game, especially during night time, they have no control over the game at all. They are simply sleeping, waiting to be killed. Come daytime they have to utilise collective power to kill off the murderer. But often is the case where the murderer is not spotted during the first 'daytime'.

When observed carefully, one realise that villagers themselves have no special powers to change their circumstances. And once dead... they remain... dead. No revive potions or anything... just 'ghosts' that have no effect on the outcome of the game. (very much like 'dead players' in coounterstrike and its likes) So what gives them some form of control? The externally derived role they brought in... notice there would always be one person who is first to be killed off? It's no mere coincidence... something must be going on prior to the game, such that the decision is made to kill off this person first in every game! Hence the idea of pre-existing friendship, rivalries, do play a large part here. It can be said... villagers are essentially playing the role of themselves, though limited in power within the magic circle, but themselves nevertheless. That is to say, if I were a villager... i am zhonghao the villager, not samwise gange the villager of kydor or something.

Mafia - It's fun being Mafia man! Killing in stealth, accusing in day... it's the most interactive role in the game (or maybe it's the moderator? It depends... again.. externally derived role of whether the 'mafia' is loud and brash himself!) Mafias must make use of the interaction in the day to keep themselves alive. They can choose to be the cold silent killer, or the loud accusing 'villager'. But whatever it is, they use interaction as a strategic tool to outwit and outlast the game. Hence this verbal killing is an interesting aspect of the game and emerges from the survival instinct of the mafias.

Moderator - He's ominicent about the whole thing and keep all interactions within context. It would be chaotic if the players bring in 'personal vendetta' into the game (although this could possibly be more fun!) but the moderator is the keeper of the magic circle. One thought I had was about his presence. Yes, it seems the game mechanics do need a moderator of sorts, but I felt it somehow broke down the 'surreal' aspect of the game. Meaning within the context, the moderator isn't suppose to be existing, but yet he is interacting with the role players in the game. It reminds me of those strange literary context where certain authors might insert themselves into the plot when he's not supposed to do so. (I read this book, The French Lieutenant's Woman, during EN1001E and yeah, such a case happened) So the moderator is really a unique role in the social interaction, a somewhat inbetween of a internally and externally derived element.

2. Using Sutton-Smith's categorization of social play roles, discuss how the players' roles changed during the course of the game.

Basically it's a matter of attack and defence, under a verbal jujitsu. The role of the mafia is more of the attacker, pyschologically killing off the villagers. He would be in a counteractor position during daytime, but he would do so by 'defensive attacking'. That is he would try to divert attention away from him and continue killing off innocent villagers even during daytime.
In a way, this game doesn't have much role changes, simply due to the fact that villagers are essentially powerless against their own fate. I see this as a flaw in the game, and killing off of people during the daytime is often due to external driven reasons rather than internally driven. Perhaps question 3 would properly answer question 2 too.

3. Suggest a modification to the game which will alter the social dynamics that emerge during play.

What the group "carmikaze" did is perhaps the best modification to the game - Vampire. The bitten villagers are given some power of sort (though it's evil powers they're having.. but, power nevertheless!) There are more role changes as villagers don't simply die when they are killed. One thing that I do not like about most social games are that the first one to be out of the game, stays out. Yes, the winner enjoys the most out of the game, but the loser? He would have to sit through the whole game, essentially stoning. Not exactly fun for this guy.

I believe if a game can incorporate on the fly role changes of the players as characterised in Sutton-Smith's, the game would probably sustain more player interest.

As of now I'm not sure if the vampire mod works well as I have not play tested with the group... but I believe it will surely make the game much more fun!