Students Blog

Formal Elements of Scotland Yard

Movement Ledger for Mr. X

Due to the inherent nature of the game being unbalanced, with multiple detectives facing a single Mr. X, the game introduces a mechanic to help balance out the opposing sides. Mr. X is allowed to move across the playing board in a stealthy fashion. This is accomplished by keeping a hidden written record of his movements. With the movements of Mr. X being recorded in the ledger, a game piece is not constantly needed on the game board to represent Mr. X’s whereabouts. To keep the game from being too unbalanced in Mr. X’s favor, he is required to reveal his location every fifth turn after the third turn. These particular turns are conveniently marked on the same leger that Mr. X records his movements in. On those turns Mr. X places a special game piece on the game board that represents his location during that turn. There is one final important function to the use of the Ledger. After Mr. X has made his movement for the turn, he then places a ticket on top of the record
ed destination to make secret that location, but reveal the mode of transportation he took to get there.

Three types of Transportation Tickets

The detectives, in their pursuit of the elusive Mr. X need clues to help them track him down and then apprehend him. The first clue is his occasional appearance on the game board as an actual game piece. The next clue is the type of transportation that Mr. X is using to move between locations. This information is recorded and made known to all detectives by placing the tickets that Mr. X used in the appropriate spot on the Ledger. There are three main types of tickets. The first one is the yellow taxi ticket. These tickets typically let you move only between two connected points that are adjacent to each other. Next there are the green Bus tickets. In most cases these will let you travel a greater distance than the taxi tickets by skipping one or more connected points. Lastly, there are the red subway tickets. These allow the players to travel the greatest distance in a single turn, and can be the most versatile when it comes to zeroing in on Mr. X’s location. The
number of tickets that the detectives are provided with is a diminishing resource and they must coordinate and use their combination of tickets efficiently while tracking down Mr. X.

The game board with crafted movement paths.

Certainly the mostly intricate and detailed design element of the game is the layout of the game board that represents the central map to London. On the game board are approximately two hundred travel points or nodes. Each point is connected to other nearby points by color coded lines that represent the paths that can be traveled between points. For example, a green path can only be traveled by spending a green bus ticket. A player who is traveling along the path, must start and stop and the correct nodes which are color coded as well. The overall arrangement of the nodes is not random. The spread of the different color nodes is mostly consistent across the whole board. However, the physical layout is made to fit within the context of the city map of London, where nodes are set up to reside at known street intersections and other prominent pathways. This creates variety across the board by placing several obstacles, like the main park with its few paths through it, a
nd choke points, like the bridges that cross the Thames river.

Dramatic Elements

Scotland Yard is based on the basic belief that everyone wants to catch a criminal. Three players know he is out there, but only one knows where he is. Sometimes it drives you crazy beause he could literally be one spot away and the game could end in a single move, but it rarely does. What adds to the tension is the mechanic that the Mr. X emerges once every few turns so that the cops get a glimpse of where he is. This helps the detectives know the general location of where Mr. X will be for a few turns afterward but soon the possible routes become exponential and the detectives are forced to fan out or risk it by closing in on one area. During the game, players are constantly trying to think like Mr. X and where his best move would be, which sometimes leads Mr. X to do the opposite. It is Mr. X's job to keep the detectives guessing where he will turn up and then quickly taking a route as far away as possible. He is in control of the game so toying with the detectives is crucial to making them run out of tickets and therefore losing. The most important dramatic element of the game is the fact that the detectives know generally where Mr. X is but there are so many variables that definitely tracking someone down is impossible. Like most good cop movies, the players have to rely on their instincts and on hunches.

Dynamic Elements of Scotland Yard

When the game begins, the players are dropped down in London as if by parachute. The first moments of the game are characterized by immediate excitement and planning, as the positions of the detectives are laid out for players to see. The detectives are observing which areas of the map they have well-covered, and which areas are more open for travel. Meanwhile, Mr. X enjoys his veil of secrecy and safety, at least for the time being.

The dynamic elements of Scotland Yard vary greatly depending on the player’s role: detective or Mr. X. While the detectives are trying to corner Mr. X, block his routes, and eventually catch him, Mr. X is simply trying to get away. However, some aspects of the game are experienced by both players. Mr. X’s position is revealed after his third, eighth, thirteenth, eighteenth, and twenty-fourth moves. As these are turning points in the game, especially for the detectives, who no longer have to guess where Mr. X is, it’s important for all players to be aware of them. Players also try to read each other’s minds and guess the other’s plans. The travel tickets give the detectives a hint as to where Mr. X is, especially when they are closing in on him. If he only has a few available routes, the detectives may be able to figure out exactly where he is given the form of travel he has taken. At times like these, it’s helpful to Mr. X if he has his “2x” pieces and black tickets. They can allow for a quick escape when he is close to being captured. Thinking ahead, thinking backwards, control of the major routes and teamwork become the primary means for winning the game for the players controlling the detectives.

Scotland Yard is simple to play but genuinely exciting. Tension rises as the detectives close in on Mr. X. They can be right next to him and not even know it, and the excitement only ends when he is either caught or escapes for good!

Play Experience (Zack)

The two most interesting moments in the game happened right before Jay (Mr. X) was caught both times. In each instance the detectives had just fanned out because there were so many possible routes he could have taken since submerging into the underground. Luckily, we had kept the bridges to the mainland well guarded so Mr. X would have had to just slip by. When he emerged again we had guessed correctly that he hadn't left the island and immediately converged onto his location but as soon as we had done so he went underground again. We were able to block off most of his routes and narrowed his possible moves to two or three. In both instances where we caught him we could have easily chosen both spots to move. If we had gone one way we would have played it safe and blocked off another escape route, but he could have gotten away. The other way we might have gotten him, or lost of move if nothing was there. In both instances we gambled and luckily caught him.

Playing Experience (Jay)

As Mr. X, I had to do evade the detectives at all costs. What led to my capture, I think, was that I was forced onto the side of the river with the smallest area. I didn’t have much room to maneuver, and the detectives just kept coming closer and closer. I wanted to get off of the island, but they kept the subway routes closely guarded. I felt somewhat like a sitting duck because of good teamwork on the detectives’ side. Still, the game wasn’t frustrating, and I always felt I might escape up until the final moment when I was captured.

Posted by Zachary Keller at 4:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Modern Art
Formal Elements
Tre, Dave, Herb, and Eric played Modern Art. The game is played in rounds. each player is given $100,000 at the beginning of the game. The amount of money a player has in total is meant to be hidden from other players, so everyone is given an art galler (cardboard cutout) to hide their money. The game is meant to be played with three or more players. In the first round each player is dealt 9 artwork cards. None of the cards are owned by any player, but each player can enter a card into auction at each turn.

Auctioning is the main mechanic f the game. There are several types of auctions available to the players. Open auctions are just that, open to all the players and the art card goes to the highest bidder. There are single bid auctions where each player makes a single bid, in turn, and the highest bidder wins. Closed bids require each player to select a certain amount of money from their pile and present it to all other players at the same time. the highest bidder wins. Set price auctions happen when the player holding the art card sets a price, and in turn other players can buy or pass. each card is stamped with the type of auction required for that card. All players have a chance to purchase paintings, even the player presenting to auction.

The objective of the game is to acquire the most money buy owning paintings that are more valuable and selling them to the bank at the end of each round. Painting Cards become valuable the more of them are bought in each round. there are only five available artists and several paintings from each. the nore paintings of a single artist are sold in a round the more valuable that artists paintings become. If that artist contnues to sell well in subsequent rounds, his paintings appreciate in value. After 5 paintings of a single artist are played the round ends and values for eachartist are determined. The painter with the most cards sold in the round gains $30,000 in value for his paintings for that round. Second place gets $20,000, 3rd place gets $10,000, and the other painters get nothing.
After four rounds, whoever has the most money wins.

Dramatic Elements
The drama in the games comes form the auctions. Each player is angleig to buy certain paintingsin each round. Because the turns are specific, ther are advantages to being the 1st turn in a certain auction and advantaged to being the last turn in a different auction. If u played well in earlier rounds then u might have a monetary advantage that allows u to drive up the cost of paintings, but even then a different player might have a lot of a valuable artist in his hand that he can play strategically to increase the value of an artst. the game becomes a continual cat and mouse game in this way.

Dynaminc Elements
The dynamic elements in this game revolved around the auction types tied to each card. Because the type of auction is determined by the player presenting the card,there was a lot f strategy invloved in trying to over price or under price certain artist and forcing other players to commit large sums of money to a single artist. In the end it seemed smart to focus on previously established artists, because prices in later rounds were so high that trying to increse value in a lesser artist cost more than it was worth.

Posted by Tre Ford at 1:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have limited experience with first person shooters. That being said, the game that I decided to dig up was an old one that I have not played for several years. That game hails by the name of Soldier of Fortune. My high school friend Jennifer introduced me to this awhile back. As it was multiplayer, we were able to play together. We used to challenge each other to one-on-one matches, one of us hosting the games. This was a nice feature of the game as we didn't have to immediately involve ourselves with the other Soldier of Fortune populus.

One thing about the social aspect of first person shooters worth mentioning is that, in my experiences, unless you're on a team or you know your opponent, there is little reason to talk during the game. You are concentrating on staying alive and any unnecessary chatter would be more likely to get you killed than keep you alive. Unless, perhaps, if you were trying to dig into the psyche of your opponent. That, however, requires that you be able to navigate the map on automatic and devote an excess amount of time to psycho analysis. Not entirely wise. Since your every position in the environment is not known, stealth is a very important skill to learn.

If I recall correctly, neither my friend nor I wanted to try many of the games made by other players. Both fell under the category of "newbie" and were likely to get ourselves in over our heads. The learning curve for first person shooters is, in my opinion, somewhat steep. Tthe people who generally hung around the game were either very hardcore or newbie. I did not notice very many people who were only slightly interested in the game play or those who were "moderately" good at the game. They were either genious or not.

Generally speaking, the general mechanism behind most first person shooters falls under the same cateogory. You direct your character through a 3-D environment, pointing your gun or other choice of weapon at your opponent. Accuracy counts, and if you miss, you risk a game over. Though there are games which involve some forms of strategy or tactics, most are just focused on one thing - survival. If your life bar drops to zero, you die. In order to survive, you must, in essence, have eyes on all sides, and be able to think quickly, react relying on instinct, and be able find out where your opponent might be hiding. If you don't, you'll end up dead.

That being said, I always found it difficult to enjoy first person shooters. This is because I get too involved with the game and become somewhat paranoid (this happens in other similar pvp environments). First person shooters require more player-based skill than other types. Your character does not improve over time. You may gain more powerful weapons, but generally speaking, how you use the weapons and tactics is what matters. In this way, there is no cheap way to become extremely powerful. You are forced to rely on your skills at gaming and only that, maybe a little bit of luck. For this reason, I find first person shooters somewhat frustrating. It was fun for what it was worth though.

If I were to draw a Flow diagram of my experience of first person shooters, I'd likely end up in the Anxiety spectrum. Boredom is not part of the picture. The first person shooters I've played have generally been fun. Sometimes an adrenaline rush is a good feeling. I don't know if what I experienced was Flow, or anything similar to that. I understand how first person shooters can get addcicting, especially if you get good at the game. If you have the skill that I probably lacked, then it would likely be more fun and less nerve-wracking. If I were more skillfull at first person shooters, I'd likely be able to move from the anxiety spectrum to the flow spectrum.

On a slightly different tangent, unlike some of the games that were described in the Flow article, first person shooters are not necessarily cooperative. Not unless you play on teams. In teams, there is more of a challenge. The game is not over when one of your opponents has been wiped out. Instead, you must wipe out the entire team. This also includes the topic of teamwork versus self-preservation. Both are needed in order to survive. The social mechanice would likely improve greatly were this the case.

If you are simply going one-on-one, or free for all, then there is no cooperation except that all players attempt to eliminate the other. If all players are equally matched in terms of skill, then the game may become more interesting. Otherwise, it is likely to be over very quickly. One good snipe and your opponent has been eliminated. Either that or you find yourself staring at the screen... Game over.

Posted by Lara Durant at 7:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

DiPaola's "A Social Metaphor-based 3D Virtual Environment" brings up some interesting points in regards to social interaction and the ways that games can help fascilitate this. For DiPaola, the main goal of any multi-player game seems to be the social interaction first, all else second. Traveler has been built for this exact purpose. From what I've gathered about Traveler, it appears to have limited in-game entertainment except that which has been player created or which can be gained from interacting with other players. This rings true from my general experience with most browser based games.

Games that exist for social purpose generally have few activities that can be enjoyed alone. For example, while there may be a world in which to explore, the main emphasis is not the exploration itself, but what can be gained socially. For example, in several browser based games, your build a character with which to talk to other players with. Through your exploration of the world, you gain items which your character can wear or showcase. By changing your outfit and your social appearance, you change the way that other players view you. Thus, even an activity performed alone is meant to enhance your character socially.

Some basic characterics of browser based games include less of an emphasis on fancy graphics and more on the social interaction. Typical ways that players can interact with each other are through in-game forums, real-time chat, and through personal messaging. Sometimes, in the case of Traveler, communication can also manifest itself in the form of voice and speech.

My experience with NeoPets, however, differs from this. I played Neopets around four years ago. I no longer play NeoPets for various reasons. However, drawing on some of my recollections of the game, I had a somewhat different experience. I don't recall actually making any friends on NeoPets, save which of those I already had. The social aspect was never the main focus of the game to me. Instead, it was simply something that several friends and I would do to pass time. I interacted with my friends outside of the game (such as using one of the chat programs like AIM) and we would compare experiences such as what new items were bought or how many neopoints were won from the latest Wheel of Excitement spin. All of these things, as well as the incredibly large game selection, however, were enjoyed alone.

From what I can remember, though, few to none of the in-game activies were specificially geared towards social interaction other than simple chatting. Though there was always the knowledge that other people were in game with you, such as the shops being constantly sold out or the amount of shops, it didn't seem like this was the focus. And, while an in game messaging system did exist, I don't remember this being emphasized. There was, for example, a clan or guild system implemented, which had a forum like layout. You were able to promote people in the guild as well as kick them out or invite them. I can imagine its purpose was highly social in nature, but I don't remember participating very much or having an interest in this. This may be from personal preference or from the way the game was designed. Either way, the absence of this interactions did not seem to detract from the game. There was much to do alone and lots of games to entertain yourself with.

After some time, more multiplayer functions of NeoPets started to emerge. One of which I can remember was a game of Checkers that was multiplayer. I remember thinking it was fun, but I also remember how slow and laggy it was. Part of the wait was due to the player-based decision making time as well as that the bugs had not entirely been worked out. I'm not entirely sure how that would be fixed, but at the time, there was no simulataneous way to communicate with your opponent. Not as a part of the game itself, at any rate. If the opponent happened to be your friend (like my case), then it was possible to talk outside of the game. Simple things like saying "be right back" or "away for a moment" would have helped immensely.

Regardless, I stayed around NeoPets roughly a year or so, before the game began to become truly multiplayer. It also got very commercialized. At one point in time I also saw a few Neopets merchandise commercials. This is one of the ways that I know how popular the game got. As well, around the time that I was leaving, they implemented a pet versus pet battle system. It reminded me greatly of the ever popular Pokemon series, but for the first time, there was something that bridged the gap between social interaction and taking care of your pet. It provided an outlet for all the training and leveling up that you did with your pet. It was an interesting addition.

Long story short, social interaction seems to be the goal of most games, but some are more focused on the game aspect than the player aspect. I'm not sure what I'd compare the Neopets experience to. The idea of a ghost town comes to mind. You are unable to see much of those around you. You know they are there and are able to explore, but there is no actual visual way of seeing who you're playing with built into the game. There is no user-built avatar system save the pet creation. If Neopets had implemented a way of seeing who was online at any given time or who was hanging out on the map in a certain area, then I believe its social aspect would have been enhanced greatly. Until that day, it remains a depository of games to play when bored.

Nothing more, nothing less. :)

Posted by Lara Durant at 7:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lambda MOO and playing games face-to-face is somewhat similar. Although there are some minor differences, such as Lambda MOO not officially qualifying for the title of "game", there are also a large number of similar problems that must be addressed. For one thing, both in real life and in the MOO requires time. Both are forms of entertainment, both can be somewhat addicting. In each of them, there are have different levels of experience seperating newbies and older players. Generally speaking, people who are new at a game will have different views than someone who might play everyday. There also exist some ways to welcome these new people into the game. There are also lists of rules and conduct for both types. Social interaction and the written word play a large part in both. The main differences are the surroundings and the way through which you communicate with others.

In real life, all one needs to do to communicate with someone is speak a few words of whatever language a person speaks and, given that there is another person there to hear them and that that other person speaks the same language, then they will then be able to strike up some sort of conversation. What this requires is the use of the vocal cords, some common hand gestures or actions, and a change of facial expression. For many people, this process comes naturally and it is something we have hours of practice with. In the case of LamdaMOO, this interaction must be expressed through the written word alone. The MOO equivalents to a complete conversation appear in the form of 'say' commands, emotes, and smily faces.

These differences alone can make up for a large percentage of the experience. Similarly, when in a world such as the MOO, even the room around you is in the form of text. There are no 3-D graphics to help the senses and there is no sound minus that which is in your own room. In my personal opinion, enjoying a game such as the MOO requires more effort on the part of the user than does a game of, per say, dominoes. This effort is because the user interface isn't inherently natural and it is sometimes difficult to stay focused. It is not a bad way of communication, but real-time communication through word alone is a more involved process. One needs to extend a fair amount of effort in order to say even the most simple of things and perform the simplest of actions.

However, the freedom with the MOO is that you can use your imagination. Similar to an ongoing book, you have the option of immersing yourself in a world that does not exist. In this way, you can be who you want and explore new things without ever having left the safety of your home. For some, it is also the chance to break rules, particularly those of common courtesy and etiquette. These are some of the issues raised in the "Rape in Cyberspace" article. Many people say that they feel more comfortable online for several reasons. First, you can be in the company of people who don't know who you are or what you look like. Second, these people won't know who your are in real life unless you tell them. Similarly, you may feel more comfortable telling them things because they will have little to no effect on your real life. In the case of real life games, this is completely different. Except in the rare chance that the other players are wearing masks or sitting behind miniature brick walls, you'll likely know who it is you're speaking to and playing against. They may not be someone you know, but at least you can assume fairly safely that they are who they say they are. After all, lying about your identity in real life is more serious than lying about it online.

In general, both the MOO and real life board games have their uses and their differences. In the end, however, they both end up solving the same problems - entertainment. Both can be fun, and both can be serious. Each experience is different and no one's view of the same game is exactly the same as another person's.

Posted by Lara Durant at 7:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sometimes, when playing Battlefield 2, it’s just really annoying. You’ll spawn, and die almost immediately from an artillery strike you had no idea was coming, and try to spawn somewhere else to defend your flag only to find that 1 second before you can spawn your team loses control of that point, so you have to spawn on the other side of the map and take 3 minutes to get to the field of battle, only to get blown up by that artillery again. That happens.

But sometimes, it’s just really good. And I don’t just mean when I do well.

An example – Maashtur City (those who have played the game might know it’s one of the better-designed maps in the came – close quarters and urban terrain – lots of twisting alleys to set up chokepoints and high buildings for snipers; getting in a vehicle gives you a prominent advantage but also makes you an easy target.) I joined the squad of the highest-scoring player on the server, as did a few other people. And it just clicked. Even though last game we didn’t do spectacularly, this game our skills seemed to complement each other. I was the medic this round, and kept our team alive, while our support unit kept our supplies up, and we had enough firepower to pick off the lone wolves that were running around the map. Our squad leader was smart enough to work with us, and even though we wouldn’t discuss tactics, we’d instinctively surround all the danger points around a flag, and keep our leader alive, so that if we got individually taken out by snipers, we could just form up on our leader and keep our momentum. And so when we careened down the dusty streets of the map in a troop carrier, swerving around mines and barely dodging rockets as the sounds of machine gun fire whizzed by, it was truly exhilarating.

What in the game mechanic of Battlefield 2 provides for such an experience? I believe it lies in the core of Battlefield’s squad/class system and the flag/control point system, which give the game a clear structure for players to operate within, and keep the game experience goal-oriented and specific rather than general and aimless.

In an FPS, the primary determining factor of an individual’s success is the “twitch” reflex – how fast one can identify a threat, move the mouse over it, and click in such a way as to make it die. In this respect I am probably mediocre, as are a majority of the game-playing populace. I would imagine this would lead to anxiety, as when a single player is confronted with another player of a higher skill level, in many FPS games the outcome is almost predetermined at this point – one player has a 3 ms response time, and it’s over. The challenge level in this specific situation remains fairly static and insurmountable within the rules of the game. FPS clans try to turn this dynamic into a group endeavor, by banding together so that players aren’t acting alone, and to develop a tactical connection between players to increase effectiveness.

But for most games, clans end up serving primarily as social groups, because the increase in individual player effectiveness is minimal. After all, everyone can do pretty much the same thing, so there isn’t any multiplication in effectiveness; banding together in say, Counterstrike is only holding up a sign to an enemy “AWP whore” for fast points. Most players are casual players and end up falling below the “hardcore” threshold for interest in joining a clan.

Battlefield 2 short-circuits the process and provides a group gaming experience that a casual player can jump into, by creating a structure in which players are specific, rather than general. To take an example from my own field, which Csikszentmihalyi might consider an example of creating flow conditions: actors can only achieve real freedom if they’re operating within a clear framework. If they are confused or unclear about what they can or can’t do, and what they need to achieve, then they will be afraid to try new things and thus remain stilted. The same applies for players – the beauty of Battlefield 2’s system is the variegated classes, each of which requires different styles and tactics. This is somewhat of an anxiety/boredom valve – inexperienced players who aren’t the best with a rifle or at the controls of a chopper can still contribute and be rewarded for supporting the team by healing, supplying, or assisting in holding ground, and in the end learn the game mechanics while still feeling like they are achieving something. On the other hand, players whose skill in a particular class outweigh the challenges offered by other players in a match can always switch up to another class that is needed, and start tackling its particular problems.

The fact that each class also has a particular role to play also is the foundation of the squad system. The game mechanics are designed to encourage people to group together and form squads to achieve the objectives. (The objectives themselves also set clear goals for the players beyond “kill everyone on the map".) A single player might have the ability to take out enemy tanks; however, they are slower and thus easier targets for enemy gunmen and choppers; a squad combines their members’ strengths and minimizes their weaknesses. Furthermore, each player has a specific focus that they can concentrate on, allowing them to engage with the game further. Because players are encouraged to work together to achieve, this can foster that sense of “CoLiberation” that DeKoven posits, perhaps almost a surprise in a game in which talking is kept to a minimum and most communications are made through a quicklist-menu. However, once you know that someone has your back, the game dynamic changes dramatically. Like the actors I mentioned, because of this support network and framework of specific goals, I’ll feel freer to try new things. As a support soldier, I can lay down suppressive fire and resupply my allies; therefore other players will be more confident in charging down that blind alley or popping off a crucial grenade. Meanwhile, as a special operations soldier, I know that my allies are pinning down a majority of the enemy, so I can feel free to sneak behind enemy lines and blow up their facilities. And none of this stuff has to be discussed – once it clicks, a few choice words are all that is necessary to understand each other.

This, of course, is predicated on the competency of the others playing the game; not necessarily in having skill, as such a threshold is conceivably lowered by the class system, but in just being on the same page as others – playing the same game as everyone else. Jumping into a room of total strangers and expecting some semblance of teamwork isn’t the fool’s errand that some veterans of online gaming might think; however, it just takes a few people to ruin a game experience for many – teamkillers and the like, or even just players that choose not to communicate with their team. They probably experience “flow” by ruining the chances of the same for other players. And in a game where collaboration becomes more crucial to the game mechanic, the more dependent one is on others – the flip side of the coin.

Posted by Oscar Moralde at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From ZDNet Research:

Currently, about 27% of those who own phones capable of playing games use them for such, up from 20% in 2004. 60% of the players are between 13-17. The average mobile gaming session, according to NPD Group, is 11 minutes long, and the primary motivation for playing games on phones is "to kill time or alleviate boredom". Those who spend money on mobile game titles pay an average of 57% more on handsets, spend 22% more per month on wireless bills, and use 48% more wireless minutes. Only a third of mobile gamers would pay for one.

Posted by Bradford Gibbons at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

To start, I'd like to say that I thought the readings for today were excellent. I could immediately understand the concept of flow after glancing at the graph of difficulty/skill. And knowing these readings are so that we can refer to flow in first person shooters, I could recall many situations in which I experienced flow in such games. Before I discuss my flow-conscious gameplay, I would like to mention a few of the situations the readings made me think of. As far as first person shooters go, Doom and Wolfenstein were great, but the difficulty levels were relatively linear, not allowing for long term flow for me. Not until Goldeneye for Nintendo 64 do I remember experiencing flow in a first person shooter. This is true partially for the single player experience, because of the depth of game play, but especially for the multiplayer game. During my junior high days Goldeneye ruled the video game world, and the best part of all was having a couple of friends over for some four player Goldeneye. Since it was such a popular game, all players were experienced in it, even if they didnt own the game or system, and the challenge was always there and strong. In my recent ventures into the world of counter-strike, I have experienced many moments that reminded me of those happy days of my youth.

When I play counter-strike today, I don't have a problem achieving flow. First off, there are always many people to play with, and there are always skillfull players on the field in any larger game. For me, a highly experienced player, the challenge is always there, no matter how skillful you may be. And that challenge is, to kill as many enemies as possible, and ideally you 'control' the gameplay because you personally kill enough enemies that your play alone is the basis of who wins. That may not be the same experience for all players, but those are my personal goals when I play the game. Even for an experienced player, the third, fourth, fifth and higher kills per round are a thrill to complete. The gratification in the game comes in spurts of moments of triumph, when you are able to outsmart or outgun the opposing team and make a real difference in which side comes out on top. Flow comes in those rounds when you are able to eliminate your desired number of enemies and you can truly feel the impact of your gameplay on the outcome. When I played counter-strike : source today I was able to slide into the flow within a few rounds. Besides simple kill count victories, a fun challenge counter-strike players often try is to use a single type of weapon to kill your enemies, whether it be the knife alone, various pistols, or weapons considered "silly" such as the mac-10 and tmp because of their impracticality in typical combat. There are many differant strategies players impose upon themselves to fall into flow. They all have one thing in common: they are difficult, and accomplishing them would bring happiness.

Posted by Dan Anderson at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After playing YoHoHo! Puzzle Pirates, the term “corporate pirate” acquires an entirely new meaning, as the game mechanics and social dynamics of this virtual world seem to replicate the workings of high-stakes corporate finance.

The world of Puzzle Pirates is populated by various player-based “flags” who comprise the governments that control the various islands that make up the game world. These islands contain businesses run by the flag, and whose defense and extension of power are advanced by various Pirate crews who pledge allegiance to the flag. While a good portion of the gold (“pieces of eight”) entering the game world can be obtained by battling NPC brigands, the true profits to be had come from the defeat of an opposing flag’s crews and the invasion of its islands (a hostile takeover, so to speak.) And that is where the corporate model comes in. (Aside: My roommate has informed me that there have been player-owned businesses that have literally been the target of hostile takeovers in the actual corporate sense of the word, making the metaphor a little too literal…)

The profit centers of a flag’s operation come from the warships. A warship can attack brigands, raid other pirates, and blockade other islands, and a fully loaded war frigate can generate a tidy sum for its crew and flag. But to operate a warship requires a sizable investment – first the warship must be constructed at shipyards (abstracted via a sliding-block puzzle game), and it must be stocked with cannonballs and rum for the crew (created via other puzzles). And when afloat, the largest warships require 70 or more people to properly operate. To function effectively, pirate crews demand efficiency – if the bilge pumpers mess up their puzzles, suddenly those pirates at the sail find it harder to generate movement points, which makes it difficult for the navigator to outmaneuver enemy ships, which means the ship takes more damage, which makes life harder for the carpenters, which decreases the rate at which the bilgers can pump, and quite soon this negative feedback loop ends with 2000 hours of game-labor and 25 dollars in real-world money sinking to Davy Jones’ Locker.

With the incentive for effectiveness this high, the social norms of the game world reflect the constant strive for efficiency, matching the metaphor of the game mechanic. Much like how the users of OnLive Traveler adopted the norm of facing those who are speaking even when the abstracted world doesn’t necessarily demand it, the pirate crews become run like corporations, striving for maximum profits. Pirates who are promoted to the upper echelons get the power of the purse, and are able to captain ships (thus in a sense directing investment). On pirate crews, swordfighting or drinking on a ship (personal competition games which benefit individuals but don’t help the ship) is a kickable offense, much like workplace rules about restricting internet and e-mail usage to discourage inefficiency. On my first attempt to “job” [game term] for a player-run ship, I was rejected, most likely because by credentials for the various crew positions were insufficient, while those who have played the game well enough and long enough to specialize in various positions become hired guns who are sought out during blockades. Games like Spades and Hearts which are there “just for fun” accentuate the break-room atmosphere of the island inns, where pirates congregate between “jobs”.

The fact that the highest “end-game” content does not include quests as in other MMOs but singularly focuses on the drive to maximize the output of various profit centers operating with a finite, scarce set of resources, to the point when it becomes viable to take such centers by force, is again reflective of the quasi-corporate dynamic that exists in Puzzle Pirates.

(As an aside, I found Puzzle Pirates seemed to offer great possibilities that other MMOs have ignored or failed to realize properly – an alternative to the RPG loot-based grind/level model used by most MMOs, an alternative to those same MMOs’ predilection with the Tolkien-inspired medieval fantasy milieu, a persistent world which is concretely affected by player actions, and a totally player-based economy in which all player-usable items in the game world are crafted, bought, and sold by other players. More games should take chances like Three Rings Design.)

Posted by Oscar Moralde at 10:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I’ve played many different types of games, and still do. Of these games, I find it on average most difficult to achieve flow in first-person-shooters. Generally I will enjoy turn-based or strategy-based games more than shoot-‘em-ups. Counterstrike, however, is a glaring exception.

There are several more minimal reasons for this within the context of Counterstrike, namely the ebb and flow of the round-to-round team-based tactics and the ability to take a break after every round in which you’re killed to cool down. The reason that I believe this game captures my interest so effectively is the dynamic challenges presented within the gameplay. Within this broad heading there are several aspects of Counterstrike that have an effect: maps, weapons, and most importantly, players.

Play Style
Counterstrike allows for many different types of gameplay within the same general rules of the game. For example: normal counterstrike is round-based (you spawn at the beginning of the round with everyone else, one spawn per round), but if you’re feeling like a more fast-paced game than that you can also play deathmatch, in which you will spawn immediately after you die. The ability to mod the game adds an interesting facet to the game that will allow more people to enjoy it more of the time.

Maps
Within counterstrike there are a large number of Valve-sanctioned and user-submitted maps that one can play with others. This allows for original gameplay of a new map rather often, and combined with the changes in teams from round to round and server to server, this creates a riveting experience time and time again.

Weapons
A round or even a full set of rounds on a map can change very drastically over the course of the two or fifteen minutes it is played. The choices also allow a player to adapt their particular mood to their interaction with the game every time they play. For example, if I’m feeling risky and confident, I might start playing with a close-range high speed weapon that is best used when rushing into the other base. If I’m feeling a little more skill-driven I might play with a sniper rifle and sneak around corners scoped. This allows for the game itself to adapt to the player, thus giving a much better chance of a player experiencing flow more often within the context of the game. This also stymies frustration, allowing you to probe for your most effective weapon in that particular state and round.

Players
I feel strongly that this is the most important aspect of Counterstrike. Each time I sign on and start playing on any one of a number of my favorite servers, I’ll see people I’ve never played before. This allows for a VERY different perception of challenge each time I play. Usually (on a 20-person server), there are a couple of fantastic people on the server, 7-12 average people, 2-3 mediocre people, and one or two people who are obviously less-skilled than average. While creating a dynamic game environment for me, this also allows players of EVERY skill level to enjoy the game, for there will be others with them on the server. That way, frustration can be met by rewarding firefights with people who are at your same skill level. This also balances out the server by switching people who are too good (or bad) from team to team until the teams are balanced, thus avoiding undue team-based frustration.

Overall, the fast-paced and dynamic context for Counterstrike is what keeps me interested. It’s easy enough for the newest player to succeed (hey point at his head and click a lot), or the most experienced to be frustrated (just lob a grenade around a corner when you hear footsteps). The mod that turned into one of the most popular multiplayer FPS games ever is, all in all, one of the most effective self-balancing and enjoyable games I’ve ever played. It's that dynamic challenge level that keeps me playing round after round, and keeps people like me dedicated and numerous. Kudos to its creator.

Also: “But when a group of people embraces goals and norms that will enhance its enjoyment of life there is always the possibility that this will happen at the expense of someone else … slaves …”

It appears that Karl Marx was on to something. Too bad power and money breed power and money, but not flow. I wonder what George Orwell would say about removing peoples' abilities to set lofty desirable goals for themselves and instead rewriting the social context to remove the "social" part of it.

Posted by Peter Van Dyke at 10:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As I wasn’t able to play the board games in class, I’ll rely on my recollection of previous board game experiences in relating how their social dynamics compare to the mediated online experience of LambdaMOO.

An interesting characteristic of good board games are their mutability as a result of their rules really being defined by a shared agreement between the players. LambdaMOO, although constructed entirely on computer networks, shows evidence of being able to serve the same functions but with persistent effects.

I really, really liked Monopoly. It was a good summer camp pastime-sort-of-thing, able to be played whenever access to flashier things like SNESes and Pentium IIs was limited. And whenever I played with people, I always pushed for changing the rules and creating variants. There are house rules many people play with, such as collecting tax money when landing on Free Parking, but we would always do crazier things, such as immunity deals (when you would agree that another player would be able to land on your property a certain number of times without penalty in exchange for a property or something equivalent), hostile takeovers (to keep people in the game, when they’re bankrupted, they don’t lose everything but instead start “working” for the player that beat them), and the like. More extravagant plans of mine, such as simulating models of terrorism and city government within the framework of the game, never came to fruition, but they were interesting to talk about. And arguing for the various variants' viability and application always made for great meta-game discussion.

On the other hand, similar things never happened with Scrabble, which was also played on occasion? Why? Certainly one could create a version where one could only use words found in the concordance of the King James Bible, but that didn’t happen. Why bother – it’s a word game. Monopoly, though, encourages interaction, auctioneering, and trading, so it’s easier to make much more interesting things happen when players agree to create another game concept and apply it, because the effects are multiplicative over all players. Furthermore, it’s a simulation of an aspect of the real world, and thus you can personally invest more into the game (as much as one can invest into a board game). Scrabble’s abstract board lends itself more to relying on internal knowledge and mathematical concepts, which are more difficult to engage in a social manner.

From the readings and seeing what the world of LambdaMOO allows, it seems to be a world that is constructed by the users and is innately changeable, thus being more “Monopoly-like” in its orientation, further encouraging interaction between players – I saw a Rube Goldberg machine that indicated it was constructed by multiple people. The Dibbell article also shows that because the LambdaMOO construct is modeled after a world, it allows more personal investment into the project – the cyber-rape being more like “I was left utterly penniless by the evil landlord” rather than “Jane got a triple word score and used the letter Q twice”. While the world was mostly deserted when I explored it, the capabilities it possessed would seem to offer greater possibilities of a richer social dynamic were it host to a larger population. The fact that these effects are more or less permanent and visible to everyone, rather than disappearing after the game is over, creates an exponential return on the effects of each change and each possibility of change.

The more we’re able to accept a game as having actual ramifications on the players, even if those ramifications are totally artificial, and the more those ramifications are able to be modified by the actions of the players with the world and with each other, the more one can become immersed in the game and therefore have a more engaging experience. A game without a social aspect directly embedded in the game can only go so far.

Posted by Oscar Moralde at 9:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

played by Glenn, Matt, Nick

Formal Elements

Illuminati is a card game played by 2-8 people, although for 2, 3, or 8 people the game probably isn't too fun, but I'll get more into that later. The game set includes eight different Illuminati groups (black cards), 110 factional groups, and a ton of money chits.

At the beginning of the game each player picks an Illumjinati card from a shuffled deck. This becomes the base of their power structure that they will develop through the game's progression. Each Illuminati card has a special power, a certain number of power points, and a certain amount of income they draw in per player turn.

In the middle, between all of the players, lies the deck of factional groups with the first four turned up. These are the "uncontrolled" groups. Each of these cards represents a faction that the Illuminti (players) can try to control. They include such groups as the "Democrats," "Television Preachers," or the "Semiconscious Liberitarian Army." Each group has a power level which is used when attacking another group; there is also a transferable power level which a group can use to aid another group in an attack. Each group has a resistence level that determines how much defense it has in an attack against it. The card also tells you the alignment of the group -- conservative, liberal, straight, weird, government, communist, criminal, fanatical, etc. Some cards also list special benefits that they may have if they belong in a player's power structure.

The cards also have arrows on the borders -- one of them is pointed inward and up to three other arrows can be pointing outward from the edges of the card. The Illuminati card has four arrows pointing outward -- arrows pointing towards the edges of the card. To these arrows you can attach these group cards via the inward pointing arrow. For the computer scientists in the audience you might think of this as growing a tree structure one where each node of the tree can hold up to three additional nodes.

Caption: This is an example of an Illuminati power structure. The card with the black background is the Illuminati card and the cards surrounding it are the groups that the player controls. The chits represent the amount of money each group has.

At the beginning of a player's turn they'll attack an uncontrolled group. That's done by announcing which group in your power structure you will use to engage the uncontrolled one (on the first move it'll be the Illuminati themselves). To "attack to control" another group you subtract your card's power against the resistence of the other card. You then need to use two die and roll less than or equal to that difference. For example if you have a card attacking with a power of 6 against a card of a resistence of 4, then you need to roll a 2 or less, which means your odds of beating that card is incredlby low. To augment that you can use the income that the card generates, or income from the Illuminati to add more power to your attack. So if you hadd 5 "megabucks" then you can have a total power of 11 and you would need to roll a 7 or less to take the card.

If you try to take another player's card this can become more like a poker match. To increase the resistence of a defending card, the player can throw "megabucks" at it to keep the odds low that you can take it over. Aside from using money there's also the ability to use the power structure itself to aid in resisting an attack -- closer you are to the Illuminti core the more resistence. A third player can also interfer with the attack and aid either side (and I'm sure if there are more players they can do the same).

Attacking to control, destroy, or neutralize is the core means of controlling groups and the big action that players take throughout the game. There are also other actions such as transferring money through the power structure or reorganizing the power structure -- to make more room for new groups to be latched into the structure. Each player gets two actions per turn so they can attack twice (not with the same card), or do some other actions. There are also free actions that can be taken such as passing money to a new group acquisition or trying to trade with another player.

The instructions for the game also leave a lot more to the players. The power structure kinda is just a means in which the players engage one another inside of this magic circle, but the meat and fun of the game, I think, is in the actual back stabbing and alliance making that emerges from the play. There are even advanced rules on cheating where anything goes, except knocking over the table.

To win the game there are two means: The first is to control as many groups as possible. For a 3 player game that's 12-13 groups, for a 5 player game that would be less. There are also special goals for each Illuminati. For instance the Gnomes of Zurich seek to control wealth, so if that player has 150 megabucks then they can claim victory. The Bravarians seek to have a total of 35 power points throughout it's power structure; the TV Networks want a high level of tranferrable power; and the Discordian Society wants to control 5 weird-aligned groups. Then there is the UFO Illuminati which have a secret goal that can be choose from one of the other 7 groups (they don't have to tell the other players).

Dramatic Elements

The dramatic elements focus around the paranoid idea that there are conspiracies at work in the world and secret brotherhoods (Illuminati) who are ultimately controlling everything. The game takes this idea and satirizes it with bizarre and real groups that the player can control and try and take over the world. Half of the fun of the game is just saying things like: "I want to use the Federal Reserve with power from the Men in Black to attack the Televsion Preachers..."

Thoughts

I really like the idea of the Illuminati as a game since I've always enjoyed conspiracy mythologies (i.e. X-Files, Da Vinci Code). I like the idea of building the power structure and the configurability of it, even though during play we didn't really get to do much breaking and adding of branches to our power struct. I like that there was a lot of player interaction in the game. The majority of what happens comes down to player choices: who to ally with, where to move money, what to attack and how much money and power to put behind that attack, where to place pieces in the power structure, etc. I also like that the game designers took into account that the players could do more outside of the rules of the game to cheat one another. It gives the game a sense that it's a huge open system That aside there are also a huge number of rules to keep in mind when playing the game, and while we played we kept vocalizing everything, the mathematics in each attack, and trying to remind ourselves what we could and couldn't do. Luckily the designers also includes a cheat sheet on the back with all the rules laid out concisely. It was incredibly helpful.

Play Experience

When we played there were 3 of us so I imagine our game wasn't as fun since there weren't many ways in which we could form alliances or backstab one another. The biggest move in the game was my attempt to take over Matt's "Federal Reserve" group. We kept adding megabucks to attack and defend one another, but in the end the Nick threw in his money on my favor and I ended up taking the Federal Reserve card.

We didn't get into any of the trading or big time backstabbing or rearranging of power structures like the game promises, but we'd also like to play it again with more people -- if we can find the time. I would certain like to play it again.

The game ended when Nick had over 150 megabucks. He played as the Gnomes of Zurich. We were too busy trying to take over groups, meeting our own secret goals, and I think even being to conservative that we eventually let him get away with amassing a ton of money. I played as the Discordian Society and at the beginning of the game we happened to have a huge string of "weird" algined groups. I managed to grab three and Nick took the fourth in the string of cards. I had thought of attacking his power structure for the card, but seeing how it was the "psychologists" card and that they didn't offer much in power or the abiliity to build off of them it didn't seem like a good idea. I knew that if I threw any money into it, Nick could throw a ton of money to resist. Even if I managed to win against him I think the attack would have absorbed all of my money leaving me more defenseless and prone to attacks.

Posted by Glenn Song at 5:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Now, I must admit that FPS’s are my favorite genre of videogames. I can literally spend hours lost in just about any one, and I will enjoy every minute of it. Now, that is not to say that I do not distinguish between different FPS’s nor that I do not have my favorite ones. Instead, it is easy for me to find flow in a FPS upon first trying it. After playing it for a long time though, only a few great ones keep my full attention. That is why I chose to play Battlefield 1942 for this assignment because it is a game that I have been playing for years, and I still find perfect flow in it with great player interaction.

Before I got any further, let me define flow as talked about by Csikszentmihalyi. Basically, flow is the concept that when someone is engrossed in a game and loses all sense of time and “reality.” Great games are designed to make the user achieve flow easily. Flow is achieved by a correlation between skill and challenge. As the skill lever increases, so does the challenge, or as the challenge increases, so does the player’s skill. When there is a direct equivalent of challenge to skill, flow is achieved.

When I went back to play Battlefield 1942 again, I found myself temporarily lost. I had spent so much time play the newer Battlefield games, Battlefield Vietnam and Battlefield 2, that I had forgotten what it was like to play the original. As a consequence, I found myself playing as if I were a nearly new player to the game and trying to re-learn the dynamics of the game. I got the hang of it, but my skills were not nearly what they were before; however, I found that completely irrelevant, as I quickly found myself lost in the flow.

The major reason I rate Battlefield 1942 so high in terms of its flow is because you can adapt the gameplay to fit your level of expertise. Even though there is a myriad of different players online ranging from expert to novice, you can still find a challenge no matter what you do. First, the character selection adds to the challenge. Second, the variety of vehicles and styles keeps the game interesting. Third, the selection of maps makes for a great challenge and variety.

The character selection is a great feature that keeps the game moving. You are presented with five basic types, or kits, each with a separate weapon and fighting style, though grenades, pistols, and knives are standard for all characters. That in itself is enough to keep you engrossed in the game. For example, when you choose to spawn, are you going to take the assault kit and try to take out people in a hail of bullets? Are do you take the scout kit and pick people off from a distance? Or maybe you know you will be facing a lot of vehicles, so the anti-tank or engineer kits might be the best option. These choices provide a great depth of challenge. The novice can learn to take people out with the assault kit. Then, when the player becomes more skilled and wants to spice things up, the player can choose a different kit and is presented with a completely new set of skills to master.

As if that wasn’t enough, the addition of vehicles adds to the styles of gameplay. Tanks, jeeps, airplanes, ships, APC’s, mobile artillery, and more all add an even more in-depth level of gameplay. If the player has become bored of running around on foot, or a little upset at being blown up by a tank repeatedly, then the player can grab a vehicle and is again presented with a whole new set of skills that the player must learn. And combine this option with the player kit selection and the difficulty can increase drastically: does the player take the engineering kit to keep the vehicle at full health, or does the player take assault to run into the enemy with the vehicle only to jump out before the vehicle is destroyed and lay waste to the enemy on foot? And these are just a few options.

Once the player starts to feel comfortable and begins to get the hang of it, the game ends, and a new map is loaded, which really keeps the game interesting. The types of maps are extremely varied and each one calls for a unique style of play. Some almost require the player to enter a vehicle to succeed, while others are best suited for a player on foot. Not only that, each map can be played in different ways. By using the main roads and obvious access points, the strategic points of the map can be reached; however, there are always other ways to reach a point. When a frontal assault fails, the player is forced to explore the map for weaknesses in the enemy’s defenses. All of these options add to the already many layers to make this game truly challenging for any player.

Now, before one gets lost in all of this complexity, let me reiterate again that these options are by choice. The new player will find just as much challenge as an experienced veteran by choosing how to play the game. This is what gives the game such great flow. As your skills increase so does the complexity. Every time the game is played, something new can be discovered, and it is extremely easy to get lost in the game world and ignore reality.

The other players also add to the challenge and skill. By combining players of different skills and placing them on the same team, they work together towards a common goal. All of the players make the teams relatively equal, so a sense of cohesiveness is achieved. This unity is what DeKoven defines as CoLiberation. This oneness and working together to the collective experience and challenge to increase the flow of the game.

When the player logs onto the server and joins a game, the player can instantly feel like they are part of the game and part of a team. As you see your teammates rush forth, you have this urge to protect them and follow along in a common goal. You type to your teammates and strategize to win the game. This CoLiberation makes the game a great multiplayer experience and very rewarding. The player really feels like a soldier doing there small part to win the war for the team.

However, the interaction is not just in the team aspect. When a member of the opposite team does something great, even if it is detrimental to your team, that player is congratulated. For example, one player was flying around and took out three tanks on my team in an extremely beautiful set of rapid moves, and we were more awestruck and inspired than mad at having died; we congratulated the player, and it felt like everyone was working together to have fun and the outcome wasn’t as important.

Battlefield 1942 can be equated to a game of chess: there are different pieces on the board each meant to be played in a certain way. But the truly great players will learn how to use these pieces in truly unique and powerful ways. However, whether you are a novice or a veteran, the game is challenging and fun. Thus, Battlefield 1942 is a time tested game that has great flow because the skill and challenge increase at equivalent rates.

Posted by Steven Prust at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I experienced flow frequently while playing Battlefield 2. One of the biggest tools the game uses to promote flow is the inclusion of a wide variety of vehicles in the game. These serve two purposes. First, they make it easier to travel across the maps and between flags, which cuts down on having to trudge along on foot. The vehicles also vary widely in their speed, weaponry and the skill required to pilot them. For example, a buggy is fast, maneuverable and easy to drive, but is lightly armored and equipped with only a light machine gun. In contrast, an attack helicopter can fly and has a much more powerful armament. However, when neophytes jump in a copter for the first time, they will almost always immediately crash and kill themselves. By making the powerful and fun vehicles more difficult to drive, the game promotes flow by allowing players to set reasonable goals for how improve their skills.

Another game play mechanic that helps promote flow is the game’s class system. When players join a game they choose to play as either a medic, an engineer, a sniper, a special ops character, an assault character or a support class. The roles players fulfill depend upon which classes they pick. For example an assault character is equipped with a heavy machine gun and is designed to spearhead an attack, whereas a medic's is job is to keep other players alive, and consequently they don't use their guns as frequently. This system helps promote flow because, unlike in games like Counter Strike, each class requires a different skill set, so that the game remains accessible to people who aren’t necessarily particularly good at shooting.

Battlefield 2 does a great job of encouraging flow through sheer technical excellence. A key component in experienceing flow is emersion into another world, and Battlefield 2’s graphics and sound design definitely help to transport players into a modern war zone. The models and vehicles are very detailed, the environments are lush, and the bombs and bullets sound loud and crisp.

Finally, the game’s rhythm is well designed to players keep in the game. Unlike in Counter Strike, where death can mean a 2 minutes wait before the next round, Battlefield 2 only requires players to wait usually no more than 10 seconds before respawning.

Posted by Michael Wolfe at 5:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Microsoft gives a free 60 day trial software package for Microsoft Project (the .mpp file). You can download it from the following address. (Or just go to microsoft's website and search .mpp - if this doesn't work)

http://www.microsoft.com/office/project/prodinfo/trial.mspx

This way you can open the "02_CTIN 558 Schedule Template" file and work on it at home, if you don't already have the software.

-Tom Cook

Posted by Thomas Cook at 5:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

“Grrrr” by Honda

Presented by Jonathan Zabel, Todd Caranto, and Joni Cheng
(Note: This used to be a powerpoint with lots of pics in it, but it's too big and I don't know how to put small pictures in...until I figure it out, here's what we wrote in text. sorry it's bland)

Go on a noble quest…of saving the world from unnecessary manmade evils…to get to a BBQ!

And be distracted for 20 min from your problems

Hate it?
Change it!
Make it better!

Dramatic Elements
•Premise/Character/Story: Help a bunny (armed with red ear muffs and a giant mallet) put an end to icky pollution!

•Challenge Level: Tough and confusing, as only Joni was able to reach the end. (The lab didn’t have DSL so the rabbit moved veeeery slowly)

The Score Board!

AUGH my god! 4 seconds left!!!

Game over?! What the $%#&@#$! I HATE this freaking game!

Formal Elements:

Player: Single Player vs. Game

Object: Get carrots, destroy environmental hazards and move on to other environments.

Rules: You can hop only one space at a time and you don’t need to get all the carrots in a stage before moving on

Procedure: Hop from one square to another on grass/sidewalks and some things you smash will transport you to other places.

Resources: Carrots, extra time by smashing waste.

Boundaries: Rivers, plants, fences.

Outcome: Get to the BBQ at the end and dance the night away.

Mmmmm…toxic waste

Let’s SMASH that market basket!

YAY! It turned into an endangered sperm whale!*

*Sperm whales are not an endangered species

BUST that POLE!

There’s even trash in rabbit heaven!

You finally MADE IT!!!

Thank GOD for human BBQs!

Good points: Lots of replay value (esp. on a slow computer since it’s easy to run out of time), the songs were catchy, the art was interesting and made it fun…especially those hot girl bunnies at the end...ooh la la!

Bad points: movement was confusing at times, the songs got repetitious, the instructions are unclear- they don’t tell you HOW to achieve your main objective (which is getting to the BBQ)

Website URL is www.multimedia.hondaeu.com/diesel/game/deploy/game.html, or google search Grrrr!

Posted by Joni Cheng at 6:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As I have a friend who works for Neopets, I chose that gaming community to examine for this week's assignment. Neopets is, as the name suggests, a game wherein the player creates a virtual pet (or several) to take care of. The player can travel throughout the world of Neopia, exploring various areas and playing dozens of mini-games. These mini-games are typically clones of other games (most card games, old arcade games, more recent popular internet games, etc.), with the dramatic elements changed to match the new world. Upon playing these games, players are rewarded with Neopoints, which can be used to purchase items, strengthen a Neopet, or play other gambling-style games.

Though ostensibly the social metaphor for this game would be caretaking, there really isn't enough of a caretaking game mechanic to be compelling in and of itself. The Neopets are cute, but very difficult to customize beyond the initial choice of race and a few basic colors. To transform a Neopet into a pirate, fairy, merfolk, etc. or - even just to change color - requires very expensive and very rare items. As far as the literal caretaking options, beyond feeding the Neopets and playing with them (mind you, 'play' consists of clicking the "play" command on a toy and merits only a one-line response), there is little ability to interact with the Neopets and even less satifaction to be gained from doing so. Although I do like my pirate Kougra -- and the art is good -- the caretaking aspect would be insufficient to fully hold my attention.

Exploring might be another possible social metaphor. Rather than just provide the ability to create a virtual pet, Neopets allows for player and pet to explore the world of Neopia. The world is divided into various regions -- a desert land reminiscent of ancient Egypt, the stone ages, a space station, a medieval realm, an underwater city, a floating faerie castle in the clouds, etc. With each area, NPCs live and fight, creating plotlines and histories for each area. For the most part, however, players cannot influence or interact with these stories, thus limiting the sense of player agency.

The true social metaphor seems to be collecting. Whether the players chooses to collect rare (limited edition) Neopets, items to showcase, items that increase a Neopets various statistics, game high scores, number of different games played, money, awards, or anything else of similar nature, the intent in clear -- to have the most, the highest, the best. Or, at the very least, to get more out of playing the games than the satifaction of having done so. When players explore the right areas or complete games, they earn points, items and rewards. Though these rewards have little real value outside of the Neopets site, it still documents achievements in a way that other casual game sites (Yahoo! Games and the like) cannot match. Add to that good art and the dramatic elements of a cohesive world along with social opportunities for comparing collections and a trading structure... the site's success is not inexplicable. Neopets is what you make of it, and you may fully eschew most aspects of the game with no real loss. It all depends on which game you want to play.

Posted by Jennifer Hollcroft at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Gaming face-to-face and gaming in the relative anonymity of the internet provide very different player experiences -- and elicit very different player styles and responses. Board games provide a great method of social interaction, but they cannot provide the same level of escapism and immersion that online gaming allows.

In class, I played both Set and Scrabble. Neither is a game that forces direct social interaction -- no trading, no bargaining, no bluffing. Yet by virtue of shared presence and a common interest (the game), social interaction is inevitable. The rounds of Set we played were somewhat slow and stilted, as all of us were somewhat new to the game. Social interaction was particularly low for that game, as most were frustrated by the somewhat steep learning curve. Other times I've played Set, or seen it played, it has typically been a much more quickly-paced game, with the greatest frustration being a cheery one levelled at the player who just disrupted your next set. Scrabble provided a much more entertaining experience, as the sole rules question was quickly referenced in the rules and gameplay continued. Clever placing of words and unique words were commended by the group, and discussions over acceptable words (could 'damn' be legitimately extended to 'goddamn'?) caused everyone to dissolve into laughter. (As a sidenote: Thinking back on some of the words we created, it would be interesting to see the players create a story out of the words on the board at the end of a game.)

I logged into LambdaMOO and found a very different experience. Silence. I wandered around the area for over an hour, tried talking to the very few people I ran across, but found nearly no social interaction. Tried creating objects and manipulating them, but quickly grew bored there as well. With that in mind, I'll speak generally of MUDS. MUDS rarely have goals in the sense that board games do. MUDS involve player interaction, often the creation of a community with its own history and drama. MUDS allow players to take on any number of personas and try different styles of social interaction with no direct repercussions. In the relative anonymity of online gameplay (anonymous typically to other users, at least), any irredeemable social mistakes can be corrected by a simple change of user name. This allows for a freedom of expression that there is no real parallel to outside of the game. In standard social interactions, there are consequences for behaving badly or strangely. Unless a player has invested a good deal into creating those same types of relationships online, the player would not need to feel bound by those societal expectations online. This freedom can result in good or ill, depending on the player. Either way, the overall social experience in an online setting has the potential to be (and usually is) radically difficult from dealing with people face-to-face.

Posted by Jennifer Hollcroft at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

1) Top selling/most popular mobile device games/GPS
It seems that the most popular mobile games are clearly derived from big hits on consoles such as Space Invader or Pac Man.

As a result a GPS mobile game called “Human Pac Man” was one of the first GPS location game prototype:
“Where the original 1980 arcade Pac-Man used a joystick to manoeuvre a small, yellow avatar through an energy grid, eating power points whilst being chased by "Ghosts", Human Pac-Man is a real-world-physical, social, and wide area mobile entertainment system that is built upon the concepts of ubiquitous computing, tangible human-computer interaction, and wide-area entertainment networks.
Players interact with each other and the digitised, 3D "Pacworld" environment overlaid on their field of vision through the use of wearble computers, a headset and goggles. One player acts as Pac-Man and the others roleplay the Ghosts, tracking each other down real-world streets or corridors with GPS receivers and motion technology linked to a central computer by a wireless LAN network. Extra helpers are linked to the system through the internet, making it possible for anyone in the world, not limited by her geographical location, to take part in the game and send players messages. Helpers can also"fly" into any part of the virtual world and advise the mobile players on the positions of all the cookies, treasures, and enemy mobile players in the game.”

Two popular GPS location game available now are:
A)“Swordfish”
“Using GPS technology in your mobile phone, your position is determined via a fish-finder so you can see where the nearest school of virtual fish is located in relation to your current position – just like real fishing! The fish finder also features navigational assistance by providing the direction of the closest school of fish and an optional localized street map* of your current location with virtual schools of fish.
Once you hook a fish – the game begins an arcade-style fishing gameplay. You try to reel-in the fish while keeping in mind that too much tension will snap the line and too little tension will lose the fish. And of course, the bigger the swordfish, the more of a fight it will put out

B)“The RayGun”
“A mobile phone loaded with RayGun software emits "spectral" energy that lets you attract and track ghosts. Unfortunately, the energy also annoys the ghosts, so you'd better "ionize" them before they get to you. To aim the raygun at a ghost, you move toward it. Moving quickly increases the raygun's range. You can adjust your beam to long and narrow (good for zapping ghosts while they're still far away) or short and wide (good for zapping them when they're closing in on you). The longer you play, the more ghosts you attract, and the faster you have to move to stay ahead.”

The website http://www.gpsgames.org/ offers downloads for GPS mobile games.

2) Who plays?
The report added that kids between the ages of 13 and 17 (60%) are nearly three times as likely as adults (23%) to be mobile gamers. A mobile phone is the best alternative when video gamers are away from their game consoles, PCs, and handhelds. Consumers who play games on other devices are twice as likely to play on their cell phones, as well. There is some interest in the general cell phone market as well as 27% of wireless subscribers play games on their and another 6% confess
to being interested in playing.

3)Genres that appeal these players
Puzzle and card games appeal the most to mobile device users since they
require less coordinated input. The most popular GPS games seem to involve movement within the real world to collect imaginary/digital objects in the game world, often for little other gain than obtaining the game items (ex: Treasure Hunt, Mogi). Otherwise, some games use the players movement in real space to simulate different attack vehicles movements in a simulated space (ex: Blister’s Torpedo Bay, GPS::Tron).

4) Characters/scenarios that appeal
In general it seems that the trend would be to follow whatever is popular on consoles with probably a bigger focus on games involving more than 1 player, since the GPS allows people to play against each other in real life. On the other hand, the reasons for playing mobile games are different than consoles, as the top Two (2) reason why people are into mobile gaming are to kill time or to alleviate boredom.

5)Activities that appeal these players
In general it seems that simple tasks that require very rudimentary input are the most attractive as can be seen from games like Raygun where simply moving your body creates all the input. The GPS enabled devices also seem to incorporate a lot of hunting and searching in real life as input for the game. This corresponds to the popularity of Geocaching where people use the internet (as a place to post coordinates of prize-filled caches) and the GPS devices in a sort of digital orienteering.

6)My conclusion
Since more and more mobile phones are equipped with GPS, we definitely think that GPS mobile games are part of the future of mobile games.
For now high prices remain a significant issue for mobile GPS gaming, which explains why the industry hasn’t really taken off, while an unoptimized and difficult controls further hampered user experience.
The cell phone technologies are improving relatively fast, and it seems very probable that within a year or two all cell phones may be equipped with GPS as well as bigger screen to facilitate users’ gaming.
Finally, one important advantage of the mobile game is its capacity to introduce games to the big and eclectic market of cell phone users.

Posted by Jeremy Kopman at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Justin Perez

Formal Elements
Carcassonne is played with 2-5 players. We played with three people. Each player gets seven "followers" to place on the map throughout the game. The game board is made up of square tiles. At the beginning of the game only one tile is in play, and every round each player takes a turn laying one tile to expand the board. After placing a tile the player can place one of his followers on the various sections of the board to make him a knight, farmer, thief or monk. Tiles has to be placed to their patterns will correctly match and line up. Points are awarded based on how big an area your followers are in (a knight in a large city or a thief on a long road get more points than those on smaller cities or roads). Once all the tiles have been played the game is over and the most points wins. Score is kept on another side board that has no real gameplay purpose.

Here is a picture of early in the game as the board is just beginning to grow. The board on the right is where score is kept.

Dramatic Elements
The idea of the game is to have your followers occupy the greatest area of the game board, or the areas that are worth the most points. Followers placed in cities are knights, placed on roads are thieves, in farms (big open fields) are farmers and on the church buildings are the monks. Strategic placing of your men can also be used to try and claim the same area as other players to take the points for yourself, but this was a very rare thing to come across.

Dynamic Elements
Points are only awarded upon the completion of things in the environment. For example, thieves only got points once their road was closed at both ends. If you placed a piece on the board you did not get it back until it could be scored (and thus could not use it to gain points elsewhere). Because of the order each turn went through (place a tile, place a follower, tally up any scores) our play experiment brought out a strategy to always try and use your tile to finish a road or town, then place your follower on that completed area, score his points, and then take him back, all within the same turn. This led to a lot of scoring happening quickly, but in small numbers. Another strategy that would arise would be to finish someone else's area with your tile instead of increasing one controlled by yourself just to stop the other players from building larger areas and gaining more points for them.

The yellow piece on the right gets 4 quick points (one for each tile the road goes through) for being a thief on the small completed road on the right side of the board.

Play Observations
It was quite often that you would need a specific pattern on a tile in order to complete a town or road which you control, but if you didn't get it (you pick from the remaining tiles, all face down) you were often stuck with nothing to do but place a more or less meaningless tile on the edge of the board which no one would end up using. So there is a fair share of luck that you need in order to get the right tiles to complete your roads or towns before the game is over. Pieces that are on the board in incomplete areas at the end of the game still score, but not as much as they would had their area been completed.

The yellow piece in the center of the board is left stranded there until a piece that will fit into that last hole is drawn by the player controlling yellow. Only half as many points were awarded for this knight's incomplete town.

Being in this situation often left a player with no more followers to place because they were all stranded on the board, waiting. In order to stop this we would try to each build off onto our own tangents of the board so that there weren't many other pieces around to make it difficult to match the pattern of the tiles to be placed.

Here you can see a road starting to branch off on its own at the bottom of the board.

This resulted in players often concentrating on their own little areas far away from the other players. This pattern highlights what we felt was one of the game's main weaknesses: There is not really much opportunity for player interaction or conflict. Pieces cannot be placed in areas already occupied by other followers, so the only way to have a sort of fight over the same piece of land was for two areas of the same type to become connected. This was another thing that happend pretty rarely because it required a tile to be found that exactly matched all the other tiles in the area. Because of this lack of direct competition we got bored pretty fast and instead resorted to gambling on side games of Connect Four (which can be seen in the edge of one of the earlier pictures).

Posted by Justin Perez at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Illuminati

Formal Elements

The basic rules of the game are to take over the world. Sounds simple. You start with a single Illuminati card representing your own secret conspiracy. During the game, you take over other Groups (represented by other cards). These Groups are added to your Power Structure and do your bidding – unless a foe takes them from you. You may win either by controlling enough Groups, or by fulfilling the special goal of your own Illumnati.

The game is started by everyone randomly choosing an illuminati card and placing it face up in front of them. Each turn is made up of a sequence of actions: 1) collect income (amount dictated by illuminati group) 2) Draw a card (these cards are other illuminati groups which become “uncontrolled”) 3) Take Two Actions (Attacking other players, uncontrolled cards, transfering money, etc) 4) Using Special Power actions

On each illuminati card is an Attack Power, Income, Alignment, and Special Power. When you attack another card (which have the same attributes as above) you win them by subtracting their Resistance Power from your Attack Power and rolling a number (with dice) that is less than that sum. In order to increase your odds of rolling such a number, you may add money to your Attack Power thereby increasing the odds. (Ex: 12-6=6. You must roll 6 or less to win the card. If you add 3 money to it, 15-6=9. You must roll 9 or less which is easier.)

As you gain Illuminati cards your income, attack power, and power structure grow. Each player in turn tries to build up their alliances and attack other players (cards) to destroy them. The game ends by either one player gathering 10 other illuminati groups (cards) or by fulflling your illuminati's special goal (such as collecting 150 income total)

Dynamic Elements

Flipping through the sixteen-page rulebook of Illuminati, we were quite intimidated. The game becomes much easier to understand and play, however, once the cards are on the table. We began playing after we had a clear understanding of the basics, and when we encountered a new situation, we would learn the rules that applied to that circumstance. This way, after the dice had gone around several times, we were rolling along without any difficulty.

When Illuminati is in motion, the bulk of the action most certainly takes place inside the mind of each player. The strategies one can employ are virtually endless and constantly changing with the events of the game. Because there are so many “Groups” in the deck of cards, the game will vary each time it is played. There are always a number of Groups for players to attempt to control, and since some Groups are much more appealing than others, competition is inevitable. On top of this, each Illuminati has specific goals: the Gnomes of Zurich want money, the Discordians want Weird groups, the Bermuda Triangle wants to control every alignment, the Bavarian Illuminati wants powerful groups, and so on.

Special cards also add to the variety and spontaneity of Illuminati. Special cards range greatly in effect and importance, and can often change the direction of the game when put into use.

So as the game progresses, more and more Groups are thrown onto the table for players to either desire or ignore. While players can always see the Groups and Illuminati that have come into play, they are not necessarily aware of the amount of money players have allocated to their Groups, because money can be stacked. This adds an element of secrecy and player reading, so to speak. Meanwhile, players can observe each others’ power structures and secretly plan to attack a fellow player. Another player’s Group can either be destroyed (taken out of the game) or neutralized (placed in the uncontrolled area). When these events occur, the dynamics of the game are quite dramatically altered.

Not only are players trying to accomplish their own goals of gaining and maintaining control of a certain number of Groups, as well trying to reach their Illuminati’s specific goals; they must also prevent other players from winning the game. As such, the Gnomes goal of acquiring money may take a back seat in order for the player to destroy part of another player’s power structure. Players must always be wary and choose carefully how they set up their power structure as well as how they protect different Groups within it.

Dramatic Elements

Illuminati's dramatic elements focus on a group of secret societies (such as the Bermuda Triangle, the UFOs, and the Society of Assassins), who each aim to conquer the world by conquering other organizations. Certain organizations, due to their "alignments" (Communist, Violent, Peaceful, Weird, etc.) have an easier time taking over groups of their alignment rather than an opposite alignment (the KKK, for example, has an easier time taking over the local police forces than they do with the Punk Rockers).

Each secret society has its own requirement for victory, as well as its own special abilities, as a result of the group’s nature. For example, the Assassins, a violent group, can win the game if they take control of 6 violent groups, and have a +4 attack bonus whenever they attempt to neutralize a group. The UFOs, meanwhile, are able to attack twice in a single turn. As this is a game that involves a heavy amount of conspiracy, the rules explicitly state that cheating is NOT forbidden in the game.

Play Experience #1

My illuminati group wasn't very powerful nor did it have any useful special abilities so I tried to achieve my secret mission which was to collect 5 cards of different alignments. This seemed to be much easier than gaining ten random cards but because I was so weak, other players attacked me and kept knocking my groups away. At one point in time I was very close to winning and had a Power Structure with four different groups on it and was about to get another group on my next turn. Unfortunately, Jay saw fit to knock off one of my illuminati groups thereby severing the entire structure (3 cards) and was back to square one. From then on it was impossible for me to win so I just tried to drain Jay of his resources. If I had played the game over, I might have tried to ally myself with Jay so that he couldnt attack me while at the same time I was pursuing my secret mission.

Playing Experience #2

I think the moment that was most significant in determining the outcome of the game was when I was able to gain control of the IRS Group. As the Gnomes of Zurich, my specific goal was to attain money, and I was also adept at managing that wealth because of my special ability. The IRS Group allowed me to take two dollars from each player every time my turn came around. I took control of groups that had relatively strong incomes, and was much wealthier than the other players before they realized it. With my money I was able to ensure my protection from their attacks and begin attacking their Groups. We found ourselves becoming more and more interested in what the various Groups were, immersing ourselves in the unreal world of Illuminati. It may have been good strategy or it may have been my own unconscious desires that caused me to destroy Texas and the Republicans in one fell swoop!

Play Experience #3

Of all of the players, I had the latest start in the game. If a player does not have any groups controlled by the end of the third turn, he is eliminated. I was without any groups after two turns. This resulted in me always trailing behind the leader, who wound up being Jay. Because he chose the Gnomes as his Illuminati, he was able to accumulate a great deal of money very fast and none of us were able to ever catch up with him. I spent my time trying to win through the Assassin condition for victory: accumulating 6 Violent groups. This was a difficult thing to do, especially because the Violent groups that appeared did not have much income, and I was very poor throughout the game.

Since none of us were rich enough to ever attack Jay, he basically picked pieces off of anyone who became a threat, and accumulated more than enough money to win the game. This experience showed me that money is a VERY important part of gameplay, and as such, it is probably a good idea to obtain a group or two with very high income as soon as possible.

I also made the mistake of not attacking other players to either destroy or neutralize their groups while I had the chance. Because we were all too timid in the beginning to attack other players, the player with the best start to the game wound up coming up on top.

Posted by Zachary Keller at 4:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

By Nick Clark, Tom Coppin, and Alex Ceglia

Discussion of Formal Elements
3-5 players -- we played with 3. Each player was dealt 10 cards and $100,000 in chips. Game play proceeds in a clockwise fashion and is turn based. However, unlike other turn based games, all players actively participate in each turn. The game ends after four rounds are played.

Discussion of Dramatic Elements
In “Modern Art”, players compete to gain the most money in a series of art auctions. Each player represents a different auction house. In our case, Alex represented a New York auction house, Nick was Los Angeles, and Tom Chicago. All players take turns running the auctions, based on five different styles of auction. The cards dealt to each player represent paintings by one of the five artists featured in the game. The chips dealt to each player and earned throughout the game are used to bid on the paintings. Whoever offers the top bid buys the painting and must sell it at the end of the round. The price each painting will fetch is based on the popularity of the artist and how well his paintings have sold in the past. The player with the most money at the end of four rounds of buying and selling wins.

CHOICE is the Name of the Game
The game was a bit difficult to pick up initially, the sort of the game you actually had to play to understand. It took us a good 15 minutes to get through the rule book and we began playing with a lot of unanswered questions in our heads. Having said that, within a couple minutes of actually playing, we began to understand the basics of the game. The key word here is CHOICE. Very little is left to chance. Players must, among other things, choose which painting to bid on, how much to bid for a particular painting, which painting to sell and for how much, which type of auction to hold, and when to do each of the aforementioned things. As a result, we were somewhat overwhelmed with the sheer number of decisions we had to make the first time we played the game. We didn’t really understand how our decisions might affect the outcome until the second time around, and even then we were still learning from our decisions (and mistakes). Choice is definitely a good thing, as it ensures that the game can be appreciated on a number of different levels. Choice adds a lot of depth to the game and makes for good replay value.

Emerging Elements, Strategic Choices and Gameplay Highlights
The following are just a few scenarios we came across while playing that illustrate the strategic complexity of the game and some of the choices the players are faced with.

Tom invokes a double auction, ending the round prematurely and to his advantage, before paintings from three different artists have been sold.

The order in which artists' names appear on the board became a factor in the event of a tie, which happened more often that we had originally anticipated. We learned that artists whose name appears on the left side of the board are inherently more valuable than those whose name appears on the right side of the board.

The number of cards of a particular artist you are holding in your hand helps dictate which artist you might bid on.

The longer we played, the better we got at accurately estimating a painting's actual or potential worth, which in turn allowed us to bid more wisely. In this photo, we all calculated that Karl Gitter’s painting would be worth a minimum of 40,000 dollars, provided he finished in the top three this round, because of his first place finish in the previous round.

Alex lost both games in the fourth round, despite beginning the round with a substantial lead, because he did not appreciate the importance of selling paintings to the other players and the dangers of buying paintings from other players. There’s an advantage to buying your own painting: the money you spend goes to the bank and not another player.

In this photo, Alex and Nick formed a spontaneous alliance, ganging up on poor Tom, who had invested heavily in paintings by Yoko. As a result of the alliance, Yoko finished third, causing Tom to lose a portion of his investment.

Posted by Alex Ceglia at 4:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The social metaphor in Puzzle Pirates is a school yard at recess. This is because the emphasis is on cooperative and competitive multiplayer games that can be played in teams or in a free for all.

Wall ball, four square, tether ball and hop scotch are all games I remember playing when I was in grade school. Though the game play in each of these is varied, they all have one factor in common. You can’t play them anywhere on the playground. They’re not like Magic: The Gathering or POGS. If you want to play wall ball you have to find a good wall, if four square’s your game you have to head over the court outlined on the asphalt.

Puzzle pirates contains a similar dynamic. The card games, Spades and Hearts, and The Drinking Game can only be played in an Inn. If you want to work in a distillery or a tailoring shop, you have to move your character into those shops to do the job. And players can only practice seafaring skills, like sailing or navigation, while on a ship. The only game that you can play pretty much anywhere is sword fighting, and for that you need at least one other person to challenge to a duel. Consequently the topography of the game world and your location in it has a real effect upon game play. Unfortunately the integrity of this construct is muddled slightly by the ability of any character to teleport anywhere within an island or from a sailing ship to their home island, where many of the shops and inns required for the games are located. But like in Traveler, certain concessions have to be made for the sake of keeping the game fun.

Another game play element that reflects the school yard metaphor is the way chatting is set up. In some MMOs like World of Warcraft a player type a message into their chat box and everyone in their area or zone of game will be able to read it. In Puzzle Pirates, however, your character must be physically close to the people they want to chat with. In fact there’s a little circle around each player and in order to talk to that player, your character must be within that circle. The exception to this is chatting with people whom you have designated your friends. Friends still whisper each other from across the game world.

Posted by Michael Wolfe at 2:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Playing Scrabble was a very different experience from the other two games. Having played it before, I knew what the rules were ahead of time so I didn’t have to concentrate too much on the game and could interact fully with the other players. I wasn’t terribly concerned with winning the game since the atmosphere was good-natured and fun. Whenever someone would come up with a particularly clever word, the rest of us would be impressed and offer congratulations, or sometimes give mock cries of dismay at having our carefully laid plans thrown off track. All in all it was a light-hearted and relaxing game.

Set definitely a learning experience for me. I played with five or six other people and only one person had played before, so a lot of the game was spent clarifying exactly what a set was or was not. It was challenging, but with the help of other players I eventually began to get the hang of it. Most of my interaction with other players had to do with asking if anyone else could see the sets that I couldn’t. Since I had never played set before I spent much more concentration looking at the game board and less on chatting, but there still was a sense of camaraderie with the other players.

Exploring Lambda MOO was completely different from playing with people face to face. As with Set, I had never played it before, but unlike Set I had to navigate a complete foreign user interface. With the card game, though it was hard to grasp at first, I could at least ask a more experience player to show me what I should do. Unfortunately it was difficult for me to find any players at all in the MOO world. The MOO is massive and when I logged on there were scarcely one hundred other people there. I tried using the in game search engine find people, but the player I came across seemed to be either logged off or “staring off into space”, as the game put it.

Still, it was clear to me from looking around that these players had created a very intricate and expansive universe. Some of the objects were mundane, others were more fantastical. I only wish more people had been there so that I could have a clearer picture of the game’s social dynamic.

Posted by Michael Wolfe at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Puzzle Pirates was the game that I chose because it was the first one I came across that didn’t require an email address to register or play. Incidentally, it was also the first of the games whose website I visited.

I found the initial environment very engaging for a couple of reasons that I was able to put my finger on: colors and the effect that they had on the environment. All of the colors were bright and strong, and the landscape was interesting and well populated with objects and people.

The metaphor of the game itself is pretty easy to figure out. You take jobs, make money, gain items and status. The game continues. You’re playing a job and in place of work you play little games with or against other players. Essentially this game is designed to resemble in concept the real-world job market. You have to work your way up a ladder, getting better jobs with more pay as you become qualified for them based on experience. You get paid more for working more (not just by a multiplier, you will get paid more for being dedicated). You can play alone or as part of a group (read: corporation/office) of people (this is much easier and more fun and profitable as far as I can tell). The group concept really pushes the community aspect of the game, and in itself makes the game a lot more fun and easier to excel in.

So really, the game itself is fun and relatively simple. However, it requires a commitment of time to actually excel within the game environment (a commitment that I wasn’t willing to put out). As a casual player it’s hard to get a scope of how involved the game play is when you’re more experienced and the games become more difficult and important. You can see people who have all kinds of cool clothes and stuff in their houses, so I think it’s safe to assume that the more you play the more involved you get in your virtual environment, just like any community you're a part of.

Posted by Peter Van Dyke at 1:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over the past decade I’ve gone through both my Scrabble and Monopoly phases. The Scrabble phase was decidedly later than the Monopoly one, but that’s just logical due to the more extensive education required to play Scrabble well. However, I have to admit that in my years of playing both games, I’ve never debated over (or even really thought about) the different social dynamics for interaction that each games’ rules create in the game play environment.

Towards the beginning of each game, the social dynamics seem to resemble one another. Each player seems to be playing a game of their own, with the only interaction stemming from the direct actions of other players on each respective board. In Scrabble, you have to make due with the plays of your opponents, creating words off of previously established letters. In Monopoly, you essentially buy everything as long as it’s not already owned by another player. Later in the game when the two boards are more obviously developed, the dynamic begins to shift.

Mid- to late-game Scrabble remains (in most ways) the same as early-game Scrabble. Players play off of their opponents’ words, keeping in mind strategic moves that will open up larger point bonuses. Later in the game this becomes even more important as the board begins to creep outwards towards the triple-word score modifiers. The skill level required in Scrabble at the beginning of the game is largely unchanged throughout, requiring the same clever antics to successfully take advantage of the board that the previous player gave you. Within all of this, player interaction is limited basically to simple frustration and expression of that frustration (or excitement if someone opens up a bonus you can take advantage of). There is no true strategic interaction between players: no deals, no trades.

Monopoly on the other hand changes drastically from the early- to late-game. In the beginning, the game is based on the roll of the dice, which breaks down to luck. Later in the game, once most of the property is bought up and people are thinking about strategic monopolies, trading comes into play. This creates an entirely different dynamic between the players. The goal of the game has changed. Not in the sense that the game itself has, but relating more to the way that the players interact to achieve that goal. People trade, bargain and work towards helping each other in ways that they believe will garner an advantage.

I think this is a good place to segue into a comparison between interacting with people face-to-face and over a text-based consol. I found LambdaMOO in some ways interesting and in some ways very dull. The reason for this is an inherent lack of actual goals for me personally. If I had been a part of the community for longer, probably I would have a different outlook about the game. Things as they are, the most interesting part was actually finding people and seeing how they interacted. Really, it reminded me of a conversation over AIM, but in a text-based simulated world. Because I was not really a part of it, there was a dimension lacking to me that I believe others who were more immersed in the game would understand more. I was not really a part of the game, in my stay I was only a visitor and therefore could not experience what people really enjoy about the virtual world.

I think that the most important differentiation between LambdaMOO and the games that we were playing in class was a lack of restriction on how you interact. With Scrabble and to a slightly lesser extent Monopoly, you’re interacting with people within the context of the game and your specific goals within the game board. In LambdaMOO, there is no previous context for interaction – the entire point of being in the “game” is to interact, and so there is significantly more thought put into your persona and how you act towards others. This opens up significant possibilities for personal interaction that are normally harmless, but can in some cases lead to things such as the “digital rape” situation outlined in the reading last week. And that is the dimension of LambdaMOO that I don’t believe I was able to be a part of as simply a visitor - not immersed in the actual community game play that spawns that type of emotional response. As a contrast, games like Monopoly and Scrabble are single-serving game worlds whereas in LambdaMOO you can actually be a part of a pre-established community where the game revolves around interaction instead of game-based goals. I didn't really have enough time to take it as seriously as would have been required for me to become emotionally involved to a point where I could truly understand the community drama spawned by Jest the reading.

Posted by Peter Van Dyke at 4:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Being both a veteran of VR and RL gaming, I never really paid attention to the differences between the different styles of gameplay. However, after playing Scrabble and then LambdaMOO and paying attention to game dynamics and social interactions, there is a clear difference between VR and RL gameplay interactions.

Scrabble is a board game that was a good icebreaker activity to get to know our new fellow classmates. When we played it in class, there was a lot of laughter and fun competition as each player tried to not only maximize their score but also to out do the other players by creating exciting words. When it was not the players turn, that player would talk to other players and overall the mood was jovial. People were forced to interact with each other and could not escape that aspect if they wished to play the game.

By stark contrast, LambdaMOO was a much different experience where character interaction was much more diverse. First off, it was just that, character interaction and not people interaction. Because we were hiding behind a computer screen miles away from any of the other players, players can take on any persona they wish to portray. While psychologists might argue that any action a player chooses for their character is a reflection of their true personality, the fact remains that anyone can be anyone, or anything. The other main difference was that I simply could not find anyone to talk to. After wandering around the virtual mansion for one and a half hours without running into a single other player, I decided to start sending specific messages to players who were online (paging them). This effort too proved futile, for the few that did respond only wrote a single reply, and then I did not hear from the again.

Thus, two major differences that I saw exist between RL and VR gaming. First, RL gaming forces people to be who they really are whereas in VR, anyone can be anything. Yes, there are some exceptions in RL, such as people who act or pretend to be someone else, but in the games we played, everyone was trying to be who they were and learn about their fellow classmates. In LambdaMOO, I met players who were trying to be tall, mysterious strangers, proud chickens, and other odd personas. Thus, VR has the luxury of not being able to see the other players and thus allows players to exist as they wish to be portrayed.

The other major difference is in the ability to choose your interactions. In the RL gaming, we players could not help but interact with each other. If someone spoke to you, it was difficult to ignore them as they stared at you in anticipation of a response. In the VR gaming, it was easy for the other online gamers to ignore my cries for attention and prodding questions.

While the overall outcomes of both forms of gaming are social interaction, the results are quite different. RL gaming forces players to interact and to be themselves. On the contrary, VR gaming allows players to take on a persona of their choice and choose who they interact with.

Posted by Steven Prust at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For this week’s game, I played “Puzzle Pirates.” The social metaphor for this game seems to be one of an office building or a simulated work environment. The focus is on getting a job, earning money, and socializing with other characters. All of these elements suggest a single, cohesive work environment spread out over a virtual world.

The idea of the social metaphor comes from the paper by Steve DiPaola and David Collins. The paper discusses the game “Traveller” as having the social metaphor of a social party; the users gather around and literally talk to one another. There is not much world interaction but instead the focus is on players interacting with each other and moving around to hear each other better. All games can be described with a social metaphor and game designers tend to have a theme/metaphor in mind when developing a game.

First, the focus is on getting a job. One of the first things you do when you go through the tutorial is learn how to perform your first job: bilge pumping. It is only a metaphor though as the actual act of bilge pumping in the game is similar to a game of connect four rather than pumping up and down on a lever to get water to come out. This concept is identical with all of the jobs in the game. Rather than doing the literal job described, a puzzle is presented instead. There are several jobs to be had, mostly working on ships, such as sailing, bilge pumping, carpentry, etc.

You also have to earn the right to do certain jobs. You must start out doing lower end jobs and work your way up. This is similar to the real life job experience as you cannot simply start out as a manager without proper training and schooling. Eventually, you can man your own ship and pilot it around with a crew of other players, much like managing a firm or office.

All of these job elements reflect the real world job hunt as one earns money. When you perform your job, you get paid. As with real life, the higher on the ladder and more sophisticated the job, the more you get paid. As you work more, you also get paid more. You can take a job and slack off, but you will not be paid as much. While this is more of an ideal in the real world and does not always translate into the working world, the concept is similar as if one were to work harder for a raise or stock options.

The money earned is then used to buy clothing for your pirate. You start out with simple clothes, but then you can buy clothing that fits your style. Like the real working world, if you show up with shabby clothes, other players will not respect you as much. As a new character with the simple clothes that I started with, I was treated with less respect by other players with flamboyant and intimidating pirate costumes in the game.

The aspect of respect and communication brings us to the last point of the game that makes it a metaphor for an office setting: socializing. When a character wishes to socialize with another character, they form a circle with that character that other players can also join. The concept seems very similar to gathering around a water cooler or cubicle to socialize and talk about what is going on. Players can also initiate games to further interact and socialize with other characters. The games are also puzzles that are supposed to represent real life actions, such as drinking and sword fighting. While actions such as sword fighting might not be commonplace today, they do represent the working world of being a pirate.

Roaming around the ocean and stopping at different islands gives one the impression of seeing different business styles as well. The focus of each island is commerce and finding a job, but each island has a different feel. Some are rustic and simple while others are very ornate and high class. I felt like I was going from different shops such as a local store that was rustic and homely to the Beverly Center with posh settings and expensive items. The interaction on these islands seems to be fitting as well with the more rustic islands focusing on tavern games while the more developed islands focused players on interacting around stores, in the street, and in large ornate buildings.

The metaphor of “Puzzle Pirates” is one of a working environment. The player focuses on getting a job and becoming better to get more advanced jobs. The player also tries to get new clothing to reflect their style of play and how they want to be perceived. Last, socialization takes the form of gather in circles to discuss and play games. I felt very much like I was playing the movie Office Space set in a pirate theme while playing this game.

Posted by Steven Prust at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For our next analysis of the multiplayer dynamics of a game, I chose puzzle pirates. This was after a few minutes at each of the games respective homepages, only puzzle pirates was something I really felt I wanted to try. I was surprised with the depth of such a small, unsophisticated looking game. I didn't expect to feel like I was in a different world by looking at these cartoon characters and backgrounds. In the game it is hard to tell much about your fellow pirates without knowing how to operate the menus. This is something I didn't come to a very deep understanding of. While the puzzles had long instruction manuals, the interface seemed quite difficult to read. Perhaps it was because of this that the social interaction in this game appeared limited...

It appeared that there is some kind of crew that can be joined that allows you to go pillaging towns with a group of other pirates. The most unusual part of this game is the method of competition, it is through puzzles, hence puzzle pirates. So rather than having a click fest or strategic battle, you duel your opponent in various means of competition through puzzles, whoever does better wins. To add depth to puzzle battles, your equiptment can affect the way you play the puzzles, for example in swordfighting you can equip a stronger sword that allows you to use a more powerful special move against your enemy. These combative metaphors all feel the same, the drinking game does not feel differant from a swordfight, while in the real world they are conducted quite differently. Because of this "every puzzle is conducted similarly" it feels like playing a board game. Just like some board games are wargames and others are about building a family or collecting money, they all feel the same. I didn't feel a very strong sense of social interaction in my time between the ship and the island, even when I battled fellow pirates at swordfighting, betting one of my silver in the process, the interaction felt no differant than when they force you to practice against the computer. Honestly I don't think I did a very good job at understanding this game, It didn't captivate my imagination, and while the puzzles were fun at first, Its not my kind of game, and dueling puzzles doesn't inspire me to interact socially.

Posted by Dan Anderson at 5:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

During the first class we all played board games, to get a feeling of the social dynamic of mulitplayer games. I played two player dominoes and five player set. First I played set, which was new to me, so I had to learn to play the game. It isn't a horribly complicated game, however since it is a game of pattern recognition, it takes a while to get the patterns burned into your memory for quick recognition. There was little talking during the game besides set verification and rule discussion. Here, the social dynamic was purely in the competition. We all had our poker faces on when we were playing seriously, however the new players would also frequently smile or joke to excuse their lack of skill in the game.

Because of the lack of experience with the game, most of us did not do well compared to the one player who had played a few times in the past. This created a "no fair" attitude about how she was playing, however we all continued to play along nicely, trying to get the sets before the others could. This unspoken competition is what drove the social interactions that occurred, which were also unspoken. This is a very differant game than dominoes, which I played after the conclusion of our game of set. Dominoes is a much simpler game, again I had not played the "game" dominoes before, but had obviously played with them many times. Myself and the other player played the game mechanically, putting little emotion or feeling into the game. This was not because of lack of interest, but because of our vauge understanding of the strategic aspects of the game. The social dynamics of dominoes was more of a friendly partnership of exploring this game, rather than a "i'm gonna annihilate you at dominoes" feeling. In the end both games were entertaining because they were new, however something that we were all a little more experienced with might have brought out more of the true social dynamics associated with the games we played.

Posted by Dan Anderson at 5:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A test to see if this works.

Posted by Glenn Song at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)