Theme Parks

How would you make a modern theme park sim or management game? Blue sky: an endless runner, or maybe a post-apocalyptic strategy game?

A theme park sim where you have to make an underwater theme park for mermaids where you have to chose what ideas will work best underwater and will be the most enjoyable for the mermaids etc, and live with the decisions you've made even if they don't work. Fish will often destroy your work if they pass in hoards etc, or shark will eat your guests so you have to accommodate for all of that.

Board/Card Games

Can you think of a video game you could emulate in cards, how would you go about it?

Fire Emblem would be an interesting one as its a tactical turn-based game with stats and different classes, and also has the weapon triangle which shows whats good against what. You could have some sort of real life turn-based combat system, and have different coloured cards better against others. They would have the characters have a card each, similar to the Pokemon card game.

Mazes - Multicursal and Unicursal Games

Think of ten video games which involve mazes (in any capacity: level design, mechanics, narrative etc.). Sort them into multicursal and unicursal.

Multicursal Games

• Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor (confusing world where you have to follow different arrows to find different areas, lots of ways to get around)
• Pokemon Series (maze-like map, once you get certain moves you can go different ways to get around)
• Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (massive world, as well as paths inside the dungeons where you can go different ways)
• Life is Strange (the narrative is multicursal)
• Mirrors Edge (lots of different paths to take to get to your destination)

Unicursal Games

• The Banner Saga (has linear path in where you go/end up)
• Journey (linear path when it comes to where you're going)
• UnderTale (linear path to take)
• Never Alone (linear path 2D sidescroller)
• Final Fantasy 13 (mostly linear until a certain point when the game gives you way too much freedom)

If you wanted to make a narrative or expressive game, how could you use kinds of maze to tell the story?

I would have a game with multi-choice questions that heavily impact the story/where you're going to go etc so that depending on what choices you make you're going to have a different experience in the game. 

Accessibility in Games

For this last task we were told to write about a game that made us aware of our bodies. The game I have decided to write about is Wii Sports Resorts. Each sport in the game involves some movement of the body, which keeps you alert and motivated. There is also an extra part for the wiimote that comes with the game, the motion plus adapter, which allows the wiimote to record more complex and precise movements. Some of the sports include canoeing which involves you moving the wiimote like you would using oars in a real canoe, sword play which involves swinging the wiimote like a sword, or frisbee where you twist the wiimote the way you'd twist a real frisbee. These kind of games, with their kinaesthetic way of learning, make you very aware about what each part of your body does when doing these motions in real life. Especially with ones like the frisbee movement, where you clearly cannot launch the wiimote across the room so have to make your movements more exaggerated.

Ludo-Narrative Dissonance

We were told to write about a game with mechanics that compliment its story. I am going to write about Journey by thatgamestudio, one of my favourites. Everything about this game is fluid and minimalist, aiding the beautiful clean aesthetic of the game. Even the start screen simply tells you to press X for a new journey. It tells you almost immediately with a simple image of the ps3/4 controller and arrows that you can tilt the camera with the controller, or use the stick. The use of the controller to move the camera I think augments the fluidity of the game, you're moving yourself whilst moving the character around the sand. The character moves flawlessly, fluid, you feel like every touch on the controller/every movement will send it exactly where you want it. The game allows you an almost 'sandbox' like feeling throughout the game, but you cannot go too far or you'll fall in the sand. This makes the story feel more real, like you could yourself accidentally fall upon all these magical ruins, fix bridges or fly on carpet jellyfish. The character design itself works well with the whole fluid feel of the game, with the robe flowing almost freely around, moving whenever the tiny pointed legs move. Every game mechanic works perfectly with the story, and the design of the game. The game is a piece of art in itself.

Gender and Intersectionality

Peggy McIntosh - White Privilege and Male Privilege:

Even though its an old paper, I think it still has a lot of relevance to today. People are still not taught about their privileges, and especially as a white cis male it is important that they know about it and what they can do to help work on the inequality of the world. You don't even need to specify one game to show that this is relevant in the video games industry, as the percentage of white cis male protagonists is vastly higher than anything else. Assassins Creed, Red Dead Redemption, Uncharted, GTA - what do they all have in common? White cis men, stubble and all. This is something that has to change, and it won't change until more people know about their privileges and WANT change. 

Laura Mulvey - Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema:

This article, although clearly out of date with ideas, does have points that are relevant and can be worked off of. For example the male gaze, and how women are objectified from this. Many triple-A games often, having white cis male protagonists, use women as mere sex objects or 'a reason to fight' in a story. They're not often needed for a story progression, something 'on the side' such as prostitutes in GTA. They're just for the male gaze, for them to feel powerful if they save a woman in dangers life, or get turned on by having sex with a woman then found on the street. It makes these characters not feel real, they're just objects for the male consumption. 

Studios and Studio Roles

In our first CS lecture of this new term, we were told about roles in the games industry and different studios and their way of working. At the end we were told our task, which was to research two studios and two studio roles, and find out as much as we can about them.


Studio roles -

The first studio role I am going to look at is one that I hope to go into myself, Games Artist.
This role splits into various different jobs, including concept artist, 3D modeler, pixel artists, and 2D/texture artists. This a job where you create the visual assets of a game -  the characters, environments, etc. This is a very important job as the look/graphics of a game can be very important and can often be a selling point. As a Games Artist you are supervised by a Lead Artist, who create the assets according to the game and make sure the Games Artists are following the right path in terms of style, as it could range from pixel art to extremely realistic.

The second studio role I chose to look into is Narrative Copywriter.
Simply put, Narrative Copywriters write for video games. They have to make sure that the story works with the design and aesthetic of the games. Almost all of the written content of a video games such as the tutorials, speech of characters or menus will be written by a Narrative Copywriter. They are also responsible for shaping and helping with what the characters say and the story in general.

http://creativeskillset.org/creative_industries/games/job_roles

Studios

The first studio I have decided to look into is Square Enix. Square Enix is a Japanese video game publisher, developer and distribution studio. Their best known games include Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts and Dragon Quest which are all Role-Playing games. The company was formed from the two studios, Square Co. and Enix combining together to form the well known games company we know today on April 1st of 2003. Enix was founded on September 22nd, 1975, and Square Co. was founded in September 1984. Final Fantasy, its biggest and most popular game franchise, has sold over 92 million units worldwide, and Dragon Quest, as its second, has sold 52 million units worldwide. Final Fantasy is well known for its beautiful soundtracks and graphics, as well as immersive story telling. Its no wonder its one of the most popular game franchises. Even this year they are releasing plenty of games, including Final Fantasy XV, a new addition to the main Final Fantasy franchise.

Final Fantasy XV (x)

http://eu.square-enix.com/en/aboutus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Enix

The second studio I will look at is thatgamecompany, thatgamecompany is an American independent games company founded in 2006. They are a company that strive to make emotional and accessible games, and its obvious with their games Journey, Flower, Cloud and flOw, they have so far succeeded. Their first game was Cloud, created in 2005, before the studio had been founded. They received a a $20,000 grant from their university, the University of Southern California, to make the game. They released it as free to download in the October of that year. By July 2006, the website that had the free download of Cloud had received 6 million visits and the game itself had been downloaded over 600,000 times. Their first official game released under the company name was a remake of the flash game flOw, created by Jenova Chen and Nicholas Clark, released on the PS3 store in 2007. Their second game, Flower -'a video game version of a poem', was released on the PS3 store in 2009, and their latest and most popular game, Journey - 'an anonymous online adventure' was released March 2012.

http://thatgamecompany.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_(2012_video_game)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thatgamecompany
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_(video_game)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_(video_game)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(video_game)