Blog Tasks - Remediation

Blog Tasks - Remediation 

So in this session we watched an old film called Run Lola Run. The film is a good example of remediation from one source of media to another. In this film for example it had some very strong similarities to video games. 

The film in itself was quite strange with occasional and random elements of animation thrown in. So the overall plot of this film started with Lola receiving a phone call from her boyfriend stating that he was in financial trouble with the wrong people and that if he didn't turn up with a large amount of money by a given time that he would be killed.

Lola then finds herself in a predicament of where is she going to find this money. It then follows her on her journey to get this money to her boyfriend within the time limit. She fails on numerous occasions however the film simply resets to the phone call and she does it all again until she gets it right.

So to break down this movie into bits that seemed to resemble something out of a video game. So right of the bat we are greeted with an animated Cut scene showing Lola running and closely resembling an intro cut scene to a video game. Throughout the film we see these cut scenes pop up. So right after the opening cut scene Lola receives the call from her boyfriend she is panicked and needs to think about who she is going to ring. Up pops this Heads Up Display (HUD) showing portraits of people that could possible help her and she moves through them until she finds a the selection she wants. At the same time the camera is rotating around her like it does in a character selections screen. She then bolts off out of the house on her adventure. 

Now another point to note that is similar to something you would find in a video game is Time Limit/Time Pressure represented by the time she needs to get the money to her boyfriend. We then see her first failure in the film with Lola being shot and killed which represents Lives in a video game as when she dies she simply Resets back to the start ready to Try again. As you can see I have just highlighted two more factors in which it is something you would see in a video game.

 The film also distinctly has Obstacles in Lola's way which she needs to avoid in order to progress. Many video games employ obstacles for players to overcome.

So when you see this film its hard not to notice similarities that you would find in video game and you start to thing where did the director get his ideas from?

Blog Tasks - Games Britannia 2,3

Blog Tasks - Games Britannia 2,3

Games Britannia Ep.02

He goes on to point out that it was the British who developed the idea of the board game as an instrument of moral instruction and exported it to America. Benjamin Woolley follows the last 200 years and how board games have had a political and social impact. Once board games hit America they were used to promote the American dream of capitalist success.

So we see the board game Monopoly and how it was the best selling game in history. The game celebrated wealth and avarice after the great depression. However even though Monopoly is very much the capitalist game it was actually derived from a socialist game from Britain 1913.

Along with Monopoly we have Cluedo and Scrabble which were the three top games for British families and is still the case today.

Games now have advanced allot since Monopoly and we have full blown RPG games emerging like Dungeons and Dragons which originates from America. The British on the other hand tend to make games that resemble political and war games.

Games Britannia Ep.03

Once again we are back with Benjamin Wooley and on this episode we are following board games progression to the digital age and on our screens today. It reflects the rapidly changing history of modern Britain.

It started off back in the 80's when we started to see games like Elite, which was a space sim that game the audience their own space adventure. We then started to see bigger and better games appearing like Lara Croft in Tomb raider. Where we started to see big 3D enviroments that a player could explore and traverse immersing them in their own worlds. 

Woolley then follows how the morality in us is tested with games like GTA in which activities like prostitution, fornication, murder and armed robbery are all fun activities that are encouraged and enjoyable. Lastly we visit online games like World of Warcraft and Runescape where millions of players play in a virtual world together .

Blog Tasks - Pervasive Games

Blog Tasks - Pervasive Games

In this session we covered pervasive games. What does Pervasive mean? Pervasive means :

(esp. of an unwelcome influence or physical effect) Spreading widely throughout an area or a group of people. So in short Pervasive games are games that are generally spread widely throughout an area or group of people. Lets take the Pervasive game Killer as an example. In Killer a group of people give their information (address, work, appearance etc) to the organiser. The organiser will then mail another members information to the other. All information is secret and no member knows who has their information. Once everyone has the information the game will then start. The aim of the game is to kill your opponent (pretend) by any means necessary. Now as members have each other work and home address they can wait for one another near these properties however all people in the game are aware they are playing and so will be on the lookout for anyone acting suspicious. Now the prey can also attack and kill their assassin however if a member happens to kill the wrong person for example an assassin that isn't after them then the killer is disqualified and forfeits . Once someone has killed their target they can then request a new target. This game is widely played around the world with budding enthusiasts coming together to participate. Especially in universities. The game was actually invented following a film called the seventh victim or La Decima Vittima. The plot of that film was as follows: In the near future, big wars are avoided by giving individuals with violent tendencies a chance to kill in the Big Hunt. The Hunt is the most popular form of entertainment in the world and also attracts participants who are looking for fame and fortune. It includes ten rounds for each competitor, five as the hunter and five as the victim. The survivor of ten rounds becomes extremely wealthy and retires. Scenes switch between the pursuit, romance between the hunter and the victim, and a narrator explaining the rules and justification of the Hunt. Caroline Meredith (Ursula Andress) is the huntress armed with a high caliber Bosch shotgun looking for her tenth victim. Marcello Poletti (Marcello Mastroianni) is the victim. He is reluctant to kill Meredith as he is not sure whether she is his hunter, but then later because they become romantically involved. To maximize financial gain, Meredith wants to get a perfect kill in front of the cameras as she has negotiated a major sponsor from the Ming Tea Company. The 10th Victim (2013). Available from:<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_10th_Victim> [12 March 2013]

Blog Task - Gender and Games

Blog Task - Gender and Games

I'm not sure if its obvious but there isnt as many women in the games industry as there are men. The women that do work in the industry tend to fill the roles of administration and marketing and occasionally managerial roles. A figure as low as 7% represent the female designers in the industry. When we take a look at the technical jobs like coding and engineering we see less still with barely 5% of women doing these jobs. 

We try to think of a reason why this is so and come to the conclusion that maybe women take jobs where they believe it is commonplace for a woman to work. As the industry is at the moment when we think of the stereotype for a coder we think geeky boy with thick rimmed glasses and a bad case of acne lol. Obviously we know this isn't the case and most people are not that biased towards stereotypes but we do know they play a small part in there.

The other thing we have to think about is the few women that do work in these jobs, instead of making it more women friendly are actually changing themselves to fit in and allowing the male dominance in the industry to thrive. What is needed is a surge in women technicians who can come in and make the workplace more diverse in the sex tense.

Another problem that could be deterring women from entering the industry is feeling of being less than equal, believing the fact that if push comes to shove and they are going for the same job as a man and equally skilled that the man would automatically be chosen in keeping with common practice and what seems like industry standard as the man could be pictured more easily doing the job than that of the woman. Maybe even worried about the thought of the employer if they were a key person in the production of a time pressure game release and they fell pregnant and would need to leave the project halfway through?

However we can see in the stats of gamers that now there is nearly just as many women as men playing games and wont be long before women want to come in with their own ideas and start putting their touch on the gaming industry.

As you can see above nearly as many girls as boys play games right trough the ages until 50+ where more women than men actually play :D

Blog Tasks - Games Britannia 1

Blog Tasks - Games Britannia 1

Games Britannia Ep.01

So this is the first part of the series with Benjamin Woolley taking us on a three part series as we follow the journey from ancient board games to the games we see today.

In this first part of the series he focuses on the history of modern board games and their evolutionary path from ancient board games.

See we visit what influences the games we play today and we see that most games were influenced by war and religion. It was a way in which ancient civilisations could play out war strategies which they could not do in real life.

Some of the games that were mentioned were:

The Stanway Game
The stanway game was discovered in Colchester, Essex and is the earliest known discovery of a complete game set found. As no dice were with the game it was thought to have been a game of strategy like Chess.

Alea Evangeli
In this game players each had different roles, One player had to escort the king piece to the corner while the other player attempted to stop him. The game was played on a grid however unlike modern games you played on the lines rather than within the grid spaces.

Gyan Chaupar
This game was very interesting and it gave birth to the bland and derivative game of snakes and ladders. It was the Hindi game of knowledge and enlightenment. It plays just like snake and ladders except different parts of the board had different and deep meanings

Blog Task - Narrative and Games

Blog Task - Narrative and Games

Narrative

What is a narrative? Well the narrative is effectively the story or the connection between various events. Most games have narrative and very good narratives at that. See you need a good narrative in storyy driven games to keep the player engaged with what they are playing. Without a consistent and well implemented narrative players can start to loose interest or loose a connection to the game. A narrative helps players build a relationship with the characters and care for what happens to them and what choices they make. It can effectively make what would be a boring and monotonous into a deep and meaning task that they want to complete for a certain character because they have built this emotional connection. 

Especially with today's high end games the narratives become complex structures with branching storylines and multiple endings and consequences for player actions. You can follow good paths or evil paths even build families all in a virtual world but without that narrative it would be a sequence of button presses and character movement. Its the narrative that brings things to life.

What does a good narrative need?

Well there are three important parts to think about when we talk about a good narrative:

• Protagonist
• Conflict
• Conflict resolution

So we need a protagonist, a character that players can connect with, where players care what happens to them. Then we need conflict for our characters. The story would soon take a turn for the worse if everyone got on all the time and there was no conflicts between our characters. However we do eventually need a conflict resolution and not to leave the player hanging and waiting around with no resolution. The conflict however doesn't necessarily need to be between people you could have indirect conflict like the struggle between man and machine for example. 

Its also good to use narrative to imply things and allow a player to paint a picture of what they think it may bee like themselves.