GAME STUDIES

Luisa Audrey / 0348741 / Bachelor of Design in Creative Media (UI/UX)
Game Studies 1

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LECTURES

GAME STUDIES

What is a game?

A game has "end and means": an objective, an outcome, and a set of rules to get there. (David Parlett)

A game is a "voluntary effort to overcome unnecessary obstacles". (Bernard Suits)

The essence of competitive play:

• Play to win
• Play to gain
• Play to understand/learn
• Play to stay alive
• Not dependent of a complex narrative
• Challenge the rules

Multisensory:

• motivation
• engaging
• appealing
• replay-able
• social

Why games mattered?

- Celebration

celebrating times of the year especially harvest, battle victories, tributes of gods, festivals of cultures

- Distraction and Escapism

To inculcate a sense of optimism and hope, to look at different perspectives and not at the problem, to provide entertainment

- Strategy and Education

One earliest form of simulation, substituting real battles with strategy games. Educational value to teach and explain religious and philosophical values.

The power of each other our lives, experiences, culture, confronting our paradigms

Studying about game creation and gameplays from:

• The nature of games
• Theoretical and conceptual perspectives
• Cultural perspectives

Post - Modernism (cultural critique)

- Everything in question

- Uncertainty

Post - Structuralist views (critique)

- Critique of structuralist views

- Cultural conditioning - biases

Simulacra and hyperrealism (redefinition) - Jean Baudrillard

- models of real without origin - a hyperreality

- hyperreal world - e.g. 'Disneyland'

Games in context 

1. Creation of the domain of the symbolic. e.g Ideas vs reality, real vs imaginary, 'suspension of disbelief'
2. Local or Positioning
3. The idea of understanding differences, borders patterns of life, authority
4. The relationship between structure of society with the imaginary and reality
5. The structural existence based on commonality/agreement which defines or perceives a reality
6. Space and 'empty position'

Three-Dimensionality since Early-1990s

Game Violence Debate:

• Violent games (as well as cinema, comics or rock music) have been blamed for violence, but it has been hard to demonstrate a clear, cause-and-effect relationship between media violence and real violence.
• Contemporary research is most often interested in particular contexts for media use, and looks for e.g. games' positive 'effects' as well as possible detrimental consequences of digital play.
• Debate around violent games continues and many countries have introduced games-related legislation.



Towards Three-Dimensional Technology

• High attention to games' visuals was related to advances in audiovisual technology.
• Most contemporary digital games require real-time three-dimensional image synthesis.
• The increase of available memory and computing power is reflected in how 8-bit gaming technology was replaced first by 16-bit and then by 32, 64 and 128-bit systems.
• Home computing devices capable of real-time three-dimensional graphics became widely available in the 1990s.
• Some notable gaming systems are introduced next.



Civilization: PC Strategy Game

• Civilization (Microprose, 1991) was designed by Sid Meier.
• A turn-based strategy game, Civilization involves taking the role of controlling a civilization, building cities, developing new technologies and competing with other civilizations.
• Historically-themed, extensive game (years 4000 BC - 2100 available for gameplay).
• Long game sessions usually break into several smaller play sessions, with breaks in between.



Components of Gameplay Immersion

Three main components:

• sensory immersion in the sounds and interactive images of virtual
• space challenge-based immersion in the actions of play (sometimes close to an optimal, 'flow' experience)
• Imaginative immersion in the world of fiction in a game (this immersion can be created e.g. by text alone).

Controversy Continued

The violent, adult-oriented themes of FPS style games continue to evoke debate.

• FPS action has become part of 'family games', like those in the Harry Potter franchise (produced by Electronic Arts).
• Popular contemporary games like Grand Theft Auto V and its follow-ups often feature FPS style of gameplay, but combine it with quests familiar from adventure games.
• Also Grand Theft Auto III-V has created controversy with its violent and sexual content.



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INSTRUCTIONS

Exercise 1 task:

Personal Gaming History

For my personal gaming history, I made it in canva and I tried to make it look as appealing as possible. Since it is a personal game experience, I didn't plan that much and just mostly had fun telling story about my own journey.

Here is the presentation:

https://www.canva.com/design/DAFMIV1I6os/P8AA9ErRwH0A04ESrE94bg/view?utm_content=DAFMIV1I6os&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton

Exercise 2:

Cultural influences in Games

• Identify games with cultural influences
• What culture?
• How does it connect to players?

For exercise 2, we decided to talk about Genshin Impact because this game influences the players with lots of cultural information. I got to talk about the experience of the game. Here is the end result:

Some more thoughts to assist you in your exercises

• Benefits and disadvantages of three-dimensional: find a game that has appeared in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional versions; compare, and give grounds for whether three-dimensional is beneficial or not in games. Real-time and turn-based:
• pick a game with either real-time or turn-based action; describe its core game mechanics and explain how the player experiences them temporally during play.

Exercise 3:

Remediating the Non-Digital Game

• Identify a non digital game which has been successfully been converted into a digital version and was or is successful.
• Discuss this in your video

For the thir exercise, we decided on talking about the FIFA Gameplay. Here is the end result:

Exercise 4:

Digital Games Evolution and Revolution

• Choose a digital game which you think has undergone transformation or developed into a game which has very high ratings today.
• Real-time and turn-based
• Discuss why and how in your video review

For exercise 4, since it's about evolution and revolution we decided to talk about Age of Empires game. I got to explained on why and how it has improved since the first version. Here is the end result:

Exercise 5:

Games in Extended Realities

• The age of extended realities is here and is changing our digital experience
• Review a game which has VR/MR support.
• Do you think games in VR or MR is here to stay? Discuss this in your video review

For the final exercise, we talked about VRChat and how it affected the players. Here is the end result:

GAME DEVELOPMENT:

For the group game development, I was in the same group as Esther, Michelle, Hansel and Kian. We named our group "stormbreaker". At first when we were trying to find ideas for the game, we just joked around and laughed at memes. Until when we came across an idea thanks to the meme.

There's this joke where it says "papa never comes back after buying milk" and that's how we started our project. We decided on making a game inspired by this idea. Starting from getting chased by cow, dogs, until girls.

Here is the game story that we came up in the end:

To fend for his children, Dad had to go to the grocery store to buy a jug of milk. Unbeknownst to him, a woman has been eyeing him since he left the house and tried to make advances towards him. This woman kept flirting and tried to seduce the man when all he wanted was to get the milk then get back home with the milk in hand. 

After plotting the game, we came up with a problem statement:

Design a game that involves two people competing against each other to work towards two different goals for each player that consists of puzzles (problem solving) and quick thinking

The game is about the girl chasing after the daddy and the daddy that has to run away from the women while collecting some milk from grocery stores.

We decided to make it a platform game where we can only move back and fourth and jump. The reason for this is because we only had 1 coder which is Kian, and we didn't want to burden him.

As for the game design, we also decided on making pixel game because we think its adorable. We were very much inspired by Stardew Valley's art.

As for the character building, we decided to make daddy wears farmer clothes while the girl wearing flashy sexy clothes. Here is how it looks like the first time I designed the character:

I made all the arts in my tablet using procreate. I started drawing digital manually and used certain settings to change the art that I made into pixel art. Although maybe the result wouldn't be as authentic as creating it pixel by pixel, I think the result still looks pretty good.

We decided to make 64 x 64 pixel art so it might look a little bit more realistic.

Here is the progression on how we made the characters and elements:

Ideating the concept of each element was not easy at all especially the animating part. Since we were making simple game, I animated it in a simple way as well, which is using procreate animation.

Here is the progress:

This is the moment where the woman was seducing the dad. After creating all the art, I pixelated them and here are some of the results:

After I was done with the art, I transferred everything to Kian and tried to instruct him on how I planned them to look like.

The voice were all taken care of by Kian, Hansel took care of the map, while Esther and Michelle helped with the drawings and documentation. Here is our document:

https://sites.google.com/d/1E72B8XANIpN8c7i1Fu4OEmlWVj4_Wn1k/p/1aX7rNB1DirA0xxJy78FM7DVRHDai_M0I/edit

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FEEDBACK

Mr. Charles told us how the game had good potential and it was a good idea. However, we needed to focus on the reason on why people will play this game aside from the multiplayer. Mr. Charles also recommended us to make the sound sexual and make the scene more bloody to make the game more interesting.

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REFLECTION

This was one of my favorite module at first. I was so excited on how it will come out and we had a pretty good start until everything went a lil bit downhill because we were all busy. However, I still enjoyed being part of this team and enjoyed by drawing part. I got to explore more about games and learnt how to create one, not only for me but for the players. I learnt to consider the users point of view. The good part was, the idea of the game was really good and the result was not bad even though it could've been better. But I think there was also a downside in terms of our communication. Most of the time I noticed how the designers and the coder didn't communicate well and I felt wrong for that. I just hoped that from this I will learn to communicate more often to create better teamwork.