Group Project - Fall for Me

Group Project

Fall for ME

So our group decided to go for a game called Fall for Me. In this game we decided on going for an avoider type game. After doing our character concepts we decided to go for flying squirrels as they seemed like a good choice for our target audience age. Craig Knights did the character concepts of Syril and Sally the squirrels. 

This is Syril

This is Sally

I particularly like how Sally's wings look like a dress in this pic at the bottom. I also like the nice cartoon look of the squirrels also.

So in this project we use a task delegation system called Jira and we set our work out in one week sprints. In one of the first sprints I was tasked in creating some place holder art and code a background into the stage. Now they are only actually concept art and is not what we decided to use in the actual game. Just so I could get the code in place and also get a rough Idea what the game may look like with some art in. 

This is the art I created for the place holder. I basically put a variety of different size tree trunks in there and some pine trees in the distant background. It was to create the effect that Syril was falling down from a tree within the forest.

Here I simply extended the length of the background to be larger for the game

This is a very quick concept on what I thought the background scene may look like

This was a rough art for the avoidable branches that would spawn randomly on the left and right of the screen.

I then coded this in and created the place holder with background. I was then tasked in creating some code so that the character place holder would be able to move around the stage. 

For now the character place holder art is a red box MovieClip that responds to Boolean values of key presses to move the character smoothly. 

So on the next sprint the group was tasked with creating more background concepts and some asset design. 

Glen made some art but it was art more suited maybe for game cut scenes

This below is Glens asset designs for avoidables within our game.

Craig made some background art as well and it seemed to fit in with what we wanted quite well so as of now it is the art we are using for our first level.

As you can see the layout of this level worked rather well with the player being able to move in and out of the branches as well as avoiding the leaves that will be coming up also.

I then worked with Chris to code in some parts to get the game place holder functional.

A working place holder is available here http://www.waterfrontgames.com/game/index/47

In the next sprint I was tasked in creating a tutorial screen and some more coding tasks. Now Craig had already created A start menu screen so when I created a tutorial screen I wanted it to follow the same art style so I removed some of the layers in Craig's title screen and replaced it with tutorial relevant information. 

Lastly in this sprint me and Chris coded in some alternate movement for the character like mouse movement and added in some down and upward movement.

Robs Weekly Reading - Chance

Chance

Delaying or preventing solvability

What is meant by solvable? Solvable is when you can see all the possibilities of a game in front of you. Games like tic-tac-toe can get boring quickly because it is easily solved. Chess is another example of games with a solvable outcome exept that the field of possibilities is so large that it remains entertaining.

Competitive for all players

When playing  games like chess it is unsuitable for  family gaming because a player who is sufficiently skilled in chess would generally always win. This would be ok for some players as they would want compelling gameplay and the satisfaction that they played a better match. If all games were based around skill then it would result in allot of bored and frustrated children. With games like chess when a player looses he or she can see how they lost and where they made mistakes and not because of a random roll of the dice.

Increasing Variety

To increase variety in games you can have elements of random. Games like Settlers of Catan have a random setup and numerous ways in which you can build and in risk the random battles which the dice will mean you will have to change your strategies depending on the outcome.

Dramatic Moments

Dramatic tentions can be created when a players strategy and game outcome come
 down to say roll of the dice or another random element.

Enhancing decision making

 When a choice is clearly the right choice then it is not always exciting but enhancing the decision by having the chance of increased risk as well as payoff will make it much more exciting.

Mechanics of Chance

Dice

Dice come in various shapes and sizes  ranging from 1 to 100 sides. Dice add a good element of chance into a game with each throw of the dice having an equal chance to land on one of its sides. However when you start adding multiple  dices thats when the chances of getting certain results change. Getting eith a low result or high result with multiple dice becomes less likely and the result of rolling a middle number more likely

Cards

Cards are great for adding elements of chance and other mechanics into a game. They can be reshuffled randomizing their order. They can be placed face down on the table making their information hidden or only players can see what cards they have giving the player priveliged information.

Pseudo-Random number generators

Pseudo-random number generators are used by computers. They are complex algorithms used to create a close enough random number for games purposes

Hidden Information

Whe nonrandom information is concealed from players it is still random to the player just not the opponent. Similar to an RTS games fog of war.

Measured Randomness

When elements of randomness are known and can be planned for by the player.

Completely Random Games

There are two main types of completely random games.

Childrens games and gambling games

Generally these types of games have no skill at all and is completely random

liars dice

Liars dice

Ticking clock

The ticking clock is represented by the reduced number of dice in play.  Rounds will also start to get quicker.

Uncertainty 

The uncertainty in liars dice is represented by the fog of are essentially as people can not see each other's dice. You also don't know for certain if a players lying and what is actually there.

Inevitability

The inevitably I  liars dice is when a player holds the majority of the dice and knows roughly the true answer.

Feedback loops

This game features a positive feedback loop which is making the easier forth winner to win and the looser to then loose. Things done as mentioned before by a player in the lead having a majority of the dice and having a wider knowledge of what dice are in play.

A constant question players are asking is how many dice are in play. Now if people are not keeping track of the dice overall that information become essentially an advantage for a player. You can lie and say you have a certain amount dice or less than what you have and then your opponent will try to calculate the rough odds off that call being genuine however you have extra dice the opponent has forgot about.

Tools for creating Dramatic Game Dynamics

Tools for creating Dramatic Game Dynamics

Digital games have bought games and stories closer together then ever before.

Egyptian game of Senet which along with go is one of the oldest games known to humanity.

We cannot create drama directly, the way a storyteller scripts a story. Our task is a more indirect approach.

Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics

Mechanics are the program code and all its equipment

Dynamics is essentially the behaviour of the game.

The relationship between dynamics and mechanics is one of emergence. A games dynamics emerge from its mechanics.

A games aesthetics are its emotional content.

Aesthetics can challenge our intellect or physical prowess. It can foster social interaction. It can stimulate our imagination. It can provide us with a vehicle of self-expression. A games aesthetics come from the games dynamics. So how the game behaves is how determines how a player feels. A games mechanics exist all the time even as the game is not being played. However a games dynamics manifest when the game is played. 

When playing we flow from mechanics to dynamics and then aesthetics.

Following the three tools that govern game development allows us to refine the motivating questions of our inquiry into drama in games.

• How does drama function as an aesthetic of play?
• What kinds of dynamics can evoke drama?
• From what kinds of mechanics do those dynamics emerge?

The dramatic arc: Aesthetic Model for Drama

An aesthetic model of what drama is and how it happens.Tools used to formalise the design objectives.

Drama however is only one aesthetic from many.There are many more aesthetics to play a game each needing and with their own aesthetic model.

Dramatic arc

The dramatic arc is an aesthetic model for stories.

Drama as an Aesthetic

The dramatic arc is not a universal fact of all stories, but rather a desirable property of dramatic stories. The dramatic arc creates a frame of mind where individual moments become meaningful, powerful and relevant. 

Drama in games

All drama originates from conflict. Without conflict we will never have dramatic tension.

Dramatic tension is the product of two different factors:

Uncertainty: the sense the outcome of the contest is still unknown. Any player could win or lose.

inevitability: the sense that the contest is moving forward toward a resolution. The outcome is imminent.

Tension relies on these two factors in a combination-neither is sufficient by itself. So without uncertinty players merely become spectators and the outcome of the game merely becomes a forgone conclusion. Without inevitability on the other hand the outcome of the conflict seems distant. players are given little incentive to invest their emotions in the contest. 

Tension relies on these two factors in combination. 

Feedback Systems as Sources of Uncertainty 

Game State The complete status of a game at that particular moment i.e the data contained within a save file or the position and places of checkers pieces.

Scoring It is the rule of the game that gives us a numerical measurement of who is winning and by how much.

Game Mechanical Bias It is a rule of the game that gives one of the contestants an advantage over the other.

Controller It is the rule of the game that decides if the player receives the mechanical bias.

A good example of feedback systems used to alter the games dramatic feel and keep conflict interesting and uncertain is handicaps. Lets take a racing game fro example. If a player is loosing their top speed is increased so that they may have a chance to catch up to the player in front. This closing the gap and creating a much more dramatic feel.

Other sources of uncertainty

Pseudo-Feedback

Mechanics and dynamics that create the perception of negative feedback where one player takes the lead and the other players catch up however when we inspect the games mechanics no such cybernetic feedback system  are present.

Escalation

Dynamic scoring rate where more score is gained at the end of the game then at the start.

Decelerator

Attained by creating a slow part of a game where it gives the loosing players the illusion that they have closed the space between them and their opponent where in time measurement or score measurement for example their opponent is still in the lead by the same amount its just that they are closer to the player. As an example imagine a race with speed bumps both cars are racing around and one is clearly in the lead but gets to the speed bumps. Now the car in the front slows down to go over the speed bumps allowing the player behind to get close and feel they have caught up however then they also have to slow down and so the amount one is leading the other is the same in time in this instance however the distance is reduced creating the illusion of catching up though this still creates tension.

Cashing out

A method of scoring a game where the players are scored on best of say seven for example. Though each of these games have scoring also it makes no difference on the performance of ones score in a particular one of these games it is only a means of determining a winner for that stage. The loosing player still has an equal chance of winning overall no matter how bad they played in that previous round because it is just 1 of 7. Where as if that player had just one their forth game then that would be the win.

Positive and negative feedback

Positive

Helps bring the game to a climax. Preparing the winners to win and the looters to loose

Negative

Helps the loosing players reinvest their emotions. 

Feedback systems of real and illusory

Real are mechanics that affect how a looking player gets bias

Illusory 

Gives the feeling of a handicap however no mechanics actually in place to facilitate 

Iterating an RTS

Rob's lesson notes

Creating a paper RTS

Our set reading for this lesson was all about a games MDA and I have notes on it in an earlier blog. The main point we focused on from the reading for the class task was to design a game but focusing on the aesthetics first instead of the mechanics. So we decided what we want a player to feel when playing our game then design a game round those aspects.

So we were handed a game to play test. In this game we had a hexagonal grid 

We played with four player with one player playing from each corner. 

We would also place various obstacles on the grid for players to manoeuvre around.

Now the main part of this game was the RTS(Real Time) aspect how this was accomplished was to have four types of cards

move

turn/move

turn

shoot

Now each player would have a set of these cards in their hand and would pick one and place their card face down. Now everyone would turn over their cards at the same time and reveal their move. So for example a player can move two places with a move card but only in the direction of their counter is facing hence the turn cards also a player can only shoot in the facing direction. We played this game for about 20 mins and realised that it was broken with its current set of mechanics. 

We found that players were camping and continuously shooting to not move now there was no way another player could get near them with the moves at their disposal and kill them so it left players in stalemates. Also the game went on way to long and conflict was very slow if it happened at all.

So after this we decided to iterate and make changes on an aesthetic start point. So we picked challenge.

To add challenge to the game we decided to give each of the players four troops to command each with their own different abilities

1. - Soldier - 6hp, 3 range
2. - Sniper - 4hp, 7 range
3. - Medic - 5hp, 2 range, half damage, AOE heal
4.  - Air - 7hp, 3 range, jumps over cover.

We played this iteration for a little while but quickly figured that with keeping the old move amounts the game dragged out again and we needed to speed up a player getting into conflict situations. We could of done this in two ways. One by reducing the size of the play board and two by increasing the amount of moves. We decided to increase the amount of moves you could make by adding counters. So players could pick up to three cards or play a single card three times or two cards and use one twice and one once etc. We made players show this by placing counters on top of the cards to how many times they want to use that card before turning it over to stop people just saying what they wanted to move depending on what their opponents picked.

We also added more strategically placed obstacles and a capture the flag system to create a point on the battlefield that all players would head for and make a nice conflict zone in the centre. 

We play tested this several times and it was definitely successful in adding the challenge aspect to the game however the game still lacked anything concrete to keep you interested. It is hard to play a good real time game in a non digital format but other things we could of added in any future iterations was the way the units moved or to go back to a single unit for a player and implement random weapon drop location that maybe gave players different types of shots. I believe also that this game would of played allot better in a turn based way with slightly different mechanics. 

design methods blog

Robs Weekly Reading MDA: A Formal Approach

MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research

Robin Hunicke, Marc LeBlanc, Robert Zubek

MDA - Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics 

MDA is a formal approach to understanding games and development. Closing the gap between games design, development and game criticism.

MDA will help to make the iteration process stronger and making it easier to clarify. As this would be a formal understanding then this will work for all parties ensuring they can decompose, study and design over a broad range of topics.

Iterating helps support the designer in a number of ways. They help you analyse the end result before implementation and to analyse the implementation to refine the result. Being able to study from both perspectives you can consider a wide range of possibilities and interdependencies.

Using this tool is especially helpful when working with high end video games where the interaction between coded subsystems creates complex and dynamic and unpredictable behaviour. Designers and researches bust study the areas carefully and consider all of the mutually dependent areas before implementing changes.

Toward a Comprehensive Framework

Everyone in the games industry at some point need to focus and consider issues outside of their area. Such as the base mechanics, overarching design goals and the desired results of gameplay.

Even AI coder for example who deal with complex code and algorithms will still need some form of these formal design tools as it will trickle into their work and shape the final gameplay. So as games continue to get more complex these tools allow AI and game design to merge.

Systematic coherence comes when its conflicting restraints are satisfied.  So when each part of a game   parts can relate to each other as a whole. Understanding and creating this coherence between all levels of the game from sytems to code, to content and play experience.

Games are described as consumables as the user will buy use and eventually cast away like most other consumable goods.

The difference between games and other entertainment products is their consumption is unpredictable. The events that occur during user playing and the outcome of those events are unknown at the time the product is finished.

The MDA framework formalizes the consumption of games by breaking them into their distinct components.

and their counterparts

Mechanics describes the particular components of the
game, at the level of data representation and algorithms.


Dynamics describes the run-time behavior of the
mechanics acting on player inputs and each othersí
outputs over time.


Aesthetics describes the desirable emotional responses
evoked in the player, when she interacts with the game
system.


MDA as Lens


Each component of the MDA framework can be thought of
as a "lens" or a "view" of the game - separate, but causally
linked. [LeBlanc, 2004b].

When designing games it is useful to see it from the players as well as the designers perspective. It helps us see changes made on one layer can have an effect other layers.

Aesthetics

When trying to describe what is specifically fun in a game it isn't easy due to a lack of definitive vocabulary. We cant really use words like "fun" and "gameplay" because they lack specific definition.

Now what we can use is a more directed vocabulary.


1. Sensation
  Game as sense-pleasure

2. Fantasy
  Game as make-believe

3. Narrative 
   Game as drama

4. Challenge
  Game as obstacle course

5. Fellowship
  Game as social framework

6. Discovery
  Game as uncharted territory

7. Expression
  Game as self-discovery

8. Submission
  Game as pastime

For example take games like Charades, Quake, The Sims and Final Fantasy now they are each fun however that word lacks a better definition and means so many different things. So it is much more informative to consider a breakdown of its aesthetic components and then what you are left with is:


Charades: Fellowship, Expression, Challenge.

Quake: Challenge, Sensation, Competition, Fantasy.

The Sims: Discovery, Fantasy, Expression, Narrative.

Final Fantasy: Fantasy, Narrative, Expression,    

Discovery, Challenge, Submission.

While there is no grand unifying theory on what makes a game fun these tools definitely help you break down a game to its bare aesthetic qualities that make the game fun in its own right.

Dynamic Models

Dynamics work to create aesthetic experiences.

Challenge can be created by adding time pressure and opponent play
Fellowship can be encouraged by sharing information between players or coming together to tackle an obstacle impossible for a single person to do like capture an enemy base.

Expression comes from games that allow players to leave their mark, systems for purchasing goods or earning in game items.

Dramatic Tension comes from the dynamics that encourage a rising tension, a
release, and a denouement (final resolution of a plot)

Mechanics

Mechanics are basically the player limits. A set of rules that limit the player to act within its rule set or various actions, behaviours and control mechanisms afforded to the player within a game context. Mechanics mixed in with the games levels assets etc supports the games overall dynamics.

So examples of mechanics affecting dynamics would be the mechanics of shooters for example which include the weapons, ammunitions and spawning the dynamics of camping and sniping come into effect.

So adjusting a games mechanics can help us fine tune the dynamics.

Interactive Storybook Test Project

Interactive Storybook

Test Project

I decided to start a test project yesterday to help me learn some code. I am very new to the AS3 coding  scene and as allot of my course modules require some coding it is the least I can do. 

I decided to do the interactive story book from Rex Van der Spuy's Foundation Games Design with Flash.

So to start off I got used to Flash's easy to use Vector graphics. Now there are allot of really easy tools in flash that make vector graphics very malleable. If you for example put two shapes of the same colour on top of eachother they become one shape that you can adjust to get your desired affect.

Now on this picture I used two green rectangles in an L shape then with the selection tool I sculpted the edges to form a hill. For the water I made one small blue rectangle and sculpted the top in to a concave curve then copy and pasted more of these and when I put them together they formed one single shape that can be moved about easily. Now Flash has the ability to convert text into vector graphics which is useful as what I did here is actually use a Text Ding bat called Saru's Flower Ding and all those flowers are actually the ding bats upper-case E. All you do after is convert one of them to a graphic and drag them from your library as you need them. The clouds are 3 white Ovals overlapped and converted it to a graphic symbol then dragged what I needed from the library. The clouds that you can see behind the hill are actually on the same layer but in Flash the layers themselves have what is called a stacking order. This means you can send objects behind one another in a single layer and as you can see this is very useful. The buttons are so easy to do in Flash as it most of it is automatic. When you create a button it automatically gives you a timeline that will give you an UP, Over, Down and Hit state. The Up state is what the button looks like with no interaction. The Over state is how the button will look when you have a cursor hovering over it. The Down button is what it will look like when you have clicked on the button. The Hit state is the hit box of the button. This is an invisible box that you click to activate the button.   

Now I used the same techniques as mentioned before to create these last two levels and for the buttons I simply duplicated one and changed what I needed to on it.

Coding

So as you can see by the buttons the code I used in this project. It is very basic beginner code however it was fun to do and easy

The Hill, Pond and back to start buttons were pretty straight forward to code because each of these three levels are there own movie clip which contains all of its objects within which makes coding far simpler. 

To start of with we need the FLA file which is where all your assets are saved and the AS file which is where all your code is saved. You work from it like this:

What you can see in the picture is the two tabs near the top on the right. One says InteractiveStorybook:InteractiveStorybook and the other says Main. The Main file is the AS file as you can see in the project window on the left and the Intera....file is the FLA you can also see in the project window. So all you do is basically switch the tabs at the top.

Right what you can see above is the start of my program that contains the package, class defenition and then the constructor method.

In this program the main things I am going to be working with are event listeners and movie clips. So I start by importing them into the program for future use.

next is the class defenition. Here I am declaring my variables and  also you will notice it is called Main which is the same as the AS file it is saved as and also is the document class of the FLA file as you can see here

However back to the previous diagram you can see that the class main will need the help of MovieClip to work and is why Main extends MovieClip.

Now underneath I am creating my variables(fancy containers) and by putting a colon and either StartPage, PondPage or HillPage means that these variables can only contain information from these assigned labels. So I now have 3 empty containers labelled up and ready to go. Now I need to put stuff in them.

So now I am in the constructor method here is where I make everything work

So in the first variable I created called pageOne you can see that only objects relating to StartPage may go in so I am going to put an instance of StartPage inside the variable which means it contains all the symbols/objects from the StartPage you can see as the first picture in this blog. So whenever I use anything within the StartPage in my code including the objects within I simply call up the variable I created before pageOne!

The last bit of code you can see there is straight away I am adding pageOne variable onto the stage as it is the very first page hence pageOne. I do this with the addChild command which will add the variable pageOne onto the stage. 

Getting the buttons to work

Event listeners are a commonly used part of Flash. You want your game to respond to anything you do you are going to need event listeners. Now once you get used to these they are pretty straightforward to use. So on the first page I have two buttons. The hillButton and the pondButton. Now as the StartPage and all its objects(including the buttons) are contained within the variable pageOne I will first need to direct Flash there, then I will will say what I am talking about within that variable in this instance the hillButton so Flash

if you would be so kind as to go to pageOne variable and get the hillButton I need you to put an event listener on that please then I am going to tell you what I want you to listen for and what to do whan you hear it. so it will go like this

pageOne.hillButton.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, onHillButtonClick);

so the last two arguments contained within the parenthesis are what type of event and then what I want it to do. So now I have to create the event handler which will be called onHillButtonClick.

So the function I want carried out when the hillButton is pressed is to display the hill level and remove the start page from the stage.

so.... function onHillButtonClick(event:MouseEvent):void

        {

          addChild(pageTwo);

          removeChild(pageOne);

          trace("Event regeistered CLICK")

         }

So I am adding a new variable to the stage and removing the old one and with trace telling Flash to tell me the event was registered in the output.

So that pretty much covers what he buttons that direct you around the book do.

There is now some more buttons on the hill page they all follow the same principle as what I have written before but the functions they carry out on there event being registered are different.

up button

//event handler up button

function onUpButtonClick(event:MouseEvent):void

{

pageTwo.cat.y -= 15;

pageTwo.cat.x += 10;

if(pageTwo.cat.y < 67.35)

{

pageTwo.cat.y = 67.35

}

if(pageTwo.cat.x > 524.55)

{

pageTwo.cat.x = 524.55;

}

trace(pageTwo.cat.x);

trace(pageTwo.cat.y);

Here I am saying on the press of the up button keeping in mind that yes the cat is going up but also he is going up a hill so I need to adjust the x axis as well as the y axis. So on hearing the event move the cat that is in the pageTwo variable minus 15 on the up scale and + 10 on the across scale. Now the grid in flash is Zero at the top left so down is a y increase and right is an x increase. Now to stop the cat being clicked of the screen for eternity I have put a limiter on it. So

if the cats registration point is less than 67.35 then make sure it isnt! So if the next click would put it beyond that point then what this does is say whoa no you said if I was to go passed that point to say no you can go up to but not over this point. The same for the x axis.

Down button is the same so I wont explain it.


//event handler down button
function onDownButtonClick(event:MouseEvent):void
{
pageTwo.cat.y += 15;
pageTwo.cat.x -= 10;
if(pageTwo.cat.y > 334.35)
{
pageTwo.cat.y = 334.35;

}
if(pageTwo.cat.x < 294.55)
{
pageTwo.cat.x = 294.55
}
trace(pageTwo.cat.y);
trace(pageTwo.cat.x);

Grow Button

//event handler grow button

function onGrowButtonClick(event:MouseEvent):void

{

pageTwo.cat.width += 15;

pageTwo.cat.height += 15;

}

Here it is increasing the cats width and height by a set amount, now depending on the shape of the object this can have undesired results. If it is an uneven scaled object then you will want to use scaleX and scaleY as this will increaese its size by a percentage and not by pixels but it works on 1 is 100% so for a 10% increase you would use 0.1

Shrink Button

//event handler shrink button

function onShrinkButtonClick(event:MouseEvent):void

{

pageTwo.cat.width -= 15;

pageTwo.cat.height -= 15;

Vanish Button

}

//event handler vanish button

function onVanishButtonClick(event:MouseEvent):void

{

pageTwo.cat.visible = !pageTwo.cat.visible;

}

So on the vanish button is basically a boolean(true,false) statement but instead of putting false for example we put ! before itself again which means the opposite value of its current state. So it becomes a toggel button.

Link to the swf so far

http://swfcabin.com/open/1352062476

Rob's lesson notes 02/11/12 Snakes and Ladders

Rob's lesson notes 02/11/12
Snakes & Ladders

Snakes & Ladders breakdown FADT

Intention                                             Perceivable consequences                               Story

No intention                                       the consequences are perceivable               an over reaching narrative

Game is completely random               So you know where but not when                 player journeys from 

                                                                                                                                 start to finish

You have no control       

our task is to is to iterate the game of snakes and ladders to give it the elements it is missing in the FADT. So for this iteration we could do by giving the game intention and maybe a story. To start of we focused on iterating intention into the game.

When making changes or making a rule you need to stick with that one rule when testing and not continuously adding new rules during playtest. You need to play it to see if that rule is balanced. so for example on implementation of that rule who kept winning. so one person sticks to one play style and the other person to the other play style like defensive or offensive.

So on the first iteration we decided that if a player lands on a snake then they get the option to move the other player forward or backwards a space and to turn a ladder into a snake. This played rather well but made the game rather long . However it didnt really tackle the intention FADT because as far as the player playing for himself he still has no choice.

We then tweaked the rule for ladders that if you take a ladder then the other player gets an extra turn. so you must decide whether or not to take the ladder as if the player is near or ahead of you then they would have an extra roll and would progress further.

We play tested this a bit but felt we could do more for intention.

For our last iteration we did in class we scrapped the first iteration completely and went for an iteration that focused on intention.

Firstly we gave the players  three lives each then what we decided was to give the players an equal choice on the ladders. where the chance of taking the ladders equally can be good or bad. we added fight cards to the game. If you decide to take a ladder you would have to draw a fight card. On this card it would contain a monster to fight in a roll a six in two rolls sort of way. Now if you failed the fight it would mean not only you fail to climb the ladder but you also loose a life. Now if you lost all lives and failed a ladder fight you die and go back to start.

We play tested this numerous times with one player not taking the ladder challenges and the other taking them all. This game however needed more playtesting as we found it played differently most time because of the squares players landed on for example the player who was playing the ladders was not landing on the ladders enough to test the fight mechanic enough. We combated this by adding a few extra ladders. What we found was the ladders were too much of a gamble but because of the difficulty of the fights. Which is another possible iteration of adjusting and balancing the card fights more to not make it too risky. Another possible iteration was add lives for snakes aswell as this would work well as do you waste your lives on a small snake or save them for the large snakes. Or do you save them for your ladder fights?

Story
We could also add a story to snakes and ladders which would affect how the board looks for example make it a car race track and the snakes become oil slicks and the ladders become shortcuts. Also that the car has to move the amount of places the dice sets. This adds a reason for adding a have to land on finish to win because if its three away and you roll a six you would have to come back three spaces.

                                                                                    

Robs Weekly Reading Game Design Atoms

Robs Weekly Reading

Game Design Atoms

The game state and game views

Game state - A collection of all relevant virtual information that may change during play.    

Game view - The game view can represent the game board, game level or the whole world as in an MMO. The perceivable area of play for the player.

Players, Avatars, and Game Bits

Players set the rules in motion.

Avatars are how the player is represented in the game. i.e In monopoly for example Though players can also represent them selves as in Poker and Risk.

Mechanics

Mechanics are essentially game rules. So mechanics are the rules that act upon players.

common classes of mechanics that are found in games:

Setup - You need a rule to describe how the game begins.

Victory Conditions - There also needs to be a rule to explain how the game ends. There is some games out there without any win conditions however some designers do not see these as games.

Progression of play- Mechanics that govern how the game progresses like who goes next or how players interact with each other during certain moves.

Player Actions - What players can do to effect the game state.

Definition of game Views - Mechanic governing game information. What a player knows and when.

Dynamics

A pattern of play that is formed from the mechanics. So examples of these are race to the end or territory acquisition

Metagame is used to explain interactions that are formed outside of the game and mechanics like players forming alliances or trading with each other.

Goals

Goals usually incorporate the victory condition. It gives the player incentive to beat the game or go certain areas.

Theme

Information that sets the mood of the game. In itself it isn't necessary for the game to work but provides the aesthetic. 

What comes first?

Say you start with a dynamic like resource collection. The question that comes next is one of mechanics like how does one go about collecting these resources. Then there is also a question of the game theme to then think about. Also what is being collected and the motivation for collecting the resources. Most of the time you will think of a theme first then design a game that fits in.

 Putting it all together

So you start with a theme, for example a car building game and you draw cards in turn to eventually build a car as each card has a small piece of the card on it. Now as it is it isnt much of a game however all games start off like this and you add other elements and mechanics to make the game more  dynamic. Now some example mechanics that can be added to build the game up are

• A production pipeline
• production pricing that would force players to allocate workers, parts and the like, to determine optimum output
• Sabotage, so that one player could affect another production pipeline
• Random cards that introduce luck into the equation by causing production break downs, price drops, favourable publicity, and so on.