Students Blog

Shon-Ting Fu
Tomer Mor-Barak
Lara Durant
Daniel Andersen
Peter Van Dyke

Playtest Report

Overview:

Impressions of our game were generally favorable. The tests didn’t take too long, people were kept busy and were interested in their surroundings. The fact that we had more than one game within the overall system was positive – players enjoyed the changing atmosphere and overlooked how they were related to each other (apart from the particle helm). People really enjoyed the differences between the different games – there seemed to be an appeal for each person in the group depending on which game they had reached. In most cases there would be specific players that would enjoy the entire set of 4 games, but would enjoy one much more than the others. We felt this was good, as it
allowed each player to have a great time without any expense to the others playing. We were unable to include the club because of prim restrictions, but players reactions to seeing it were positive.

Game 1:

There were several more formidable elements that players enjoyed in the first game. The particle helm was of specific mention, as players seemed to react quite well and even feel special when they received them. The entry room was comfortable, relaxing, and not too cluttered. Most players were able to pick up the clues quickly and pass through the level before the atmosphere became boring.

Positives:
1. The particle helms helped players to immediately recognize their teammates, and gave them a sense of importance.
2. The room was simple and relaxing, allowing the players not to be overwhelmed in the first stage.

Negatives:
1. The color-coded hints from the chairs sometimes don’t immediately register to the players that they need to sit down.

Improvements:
1. Another hint or two relating the use of particle helm and the sit down triggers.

Game 2:

Overall, players found the game to be interesting, especially once they figured out that the pumpkins gave them directions. The time it took to figure that out varied. From what I could tell, the more the group communicated, the sooner this realization occurred. The nice part is that no group that tested the game ever asked about the direction puzzle. The only problem is that players did not know what to do with the directions once they figured them out. The players also enjoyed discovering the king pumpkin.

Positives:
1. The puzzle aspect (determining that the pumpkins give directions when they speak) was not too difficult to figure out.
2. Players usually discussed the puzzle making the game social.

Negatives:
1. Players for the most part could not figure out that the pumpkins need to be rotated to solve the puzzle.

Improvements:
1. To remedy the direction issue where players know the direction but not what to do with it, I will have the pumpkins rotate 90 degrees or give specific instructions telling players the pumpkins can be rotated.

Game 3:

For my part of the game, I decided to make a rock-paper-scissors game. Despite its simple design, I believe it was a success. Through the various amounts of play testing, I have revised the design from a more complex one to a simple one.

Positives:
Most of the testers so far have been relieved to find a nice simple game in the middle of the more difficult puzzles they have faced elsewhere. It can provide a more relaxing time.

Negatives:
Some player suggestions to the game have been to possibly add some more complexity to the basic RGB game. There is a chance that the mechanic might be a little bit too simple and not challenging enough. I'm not sure exactly sure how I might go about this, but I may consider adding more options to pick from and make the game based on a two out of three match. It isn't very clear yet, however.
Improvements:
The original game that I had designed resembled a game of musical chairs. I had the layout set up so that players would run around the designated chairs. However, I soon came to the realization that running around actively isn't a good idea in Second Life. After a few small play tests, the basic design was completely revamped.

The game is now set up so that players enter a room and proceed to one of the private rock paper scissor rooms. Players will read instructions from the main bulletin board and learn that the system of rock paper scissors has been turned into a game of colors, mainly Red Green Blue. RGB for short. On the count of three, two players will select their color. The winner will be determined by the heirarchy of the colors. The game still needs to be GM moderated, but in general, the basic mechanic is in place.

Some gameplay suggestions for later would be to add a timer in to make the game more "automated". As well, since I was unable to find the simple script to display the character's name, I ran into some problems determining which player picked what color. Generally speaking, however, players are honest about what they chose. However, that is something I'd like to add in for later to avoid any confusion.

Game 4:

The fourth level was much larger than any of the others, which added much to the desired atmosphere for the game. Because players were not given any clues automatically besides the clue given by the sliding door helped, there was intrigue and this made the game appear to be much more difficult than it was. It also kept players interested and inquisitive, which is exactly the atmosphere that we were going for. Most players very much enjoyed the final level, and while it seemed hard at first, as players uncovered a certain number of clues things seemed to “fall together.” This happened in each Playtest that was conducted – the transition from slight frustration to reward was swift – and we consider that a formidable design win.

Positives:
1. The mailbox outside was cited specifically as being a fantastic setup for this type of puzzle game.
2. The game was intriguing for players.
3. The game was difficult at first and then it became easier, which was a good curve for a 7-15 minute game.
a. While players seemed to be “confused” at the beginning when the first encountered the game, as they realized what the goal was and what was going on, it made a powerful transition from confusing to fun and difficult.
b. Apparently it was quite rewarding to finish

Negatives:
1. People were curious about the particle helm and whether it was related due to similarities between the colors that were on them and the colors that the game dealt with.
2. The lack of a ladder or stairs tended to throw players off, but they got over it without too much trouble.

Improvements:
1. We changed some textures to make the floor more distinguishable and realized a wall was missing that would allow a player to fall, so we added that.
2. Added a few objects in the surrounding area of the castle for scenery.

The Club:

Unfortunately we ran out of primitives during the final stages of development for the club (after several prim consolidation attempts) and the club can currently only be used to give a feel for what we were going for. Due to the ‘emptiness’ of the club, we did not play test it specifically.

Posted by Dan Anderson at 9:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Play Experiment with Tom Coppin, Glenn Song, Eric Spoerner, Vince Diamante, Waylon Fong

Tom, myself, and Eric decided to meet on Friday to have our Magic the Gathering night. We started at 7:00 pm in the IML and the first game was played by me, Tom, and Waylon. By the end of the night, sometime around 3 in the morning, we had an eclectic group of people playing Magic: a philosopher, jazz musician, a computer scientist, and an architect – Eric, Vince, me, and Tom. Between games we also watched our fair share of Arrested Development and Coupling – I’m getting convinced that it’s a good show. Let me take a moment to give my shout out to Arrested Development. It’s returning on television December 5th at 8pm on FOX. FOX is trying to cancel the show again and there are only 8 new episodes left. Please watch.

I’ve never played Magic the Gathering before. The last set of cards I ever tried to collect as a kid was Star Trek: The Next Generation anniversary cards. They weren’t a game, just cards that represented things on the show and I thought that was pretty neat – it’s my favorite show. Before that it was baseball cards, but I only did it since it was the popular thing to do amongst my circle of friends and we played little league and all that. Eventually I just stopped collecting. I knew one or two guys in high school who collected cards and played Magic. The closest I ever got to a deck of Magic cards was the three-ring binder that a Russian kid had brought into our AP Computer Science class; we were bored and checking them out (and making fun of him for smelling like potatoes – he was a good guy anyway).

So, now I’m in graduate school, I’ve found people interested in games, and I’m interested in most aspects of games: the engineering, design, and playing of games. I have what seems to be a whole childhood of games I need to catch up on, Magic the Gathering included. It seemed inevitable that I would play it since the game Rick and I did for our first lab assignment, “Utilization,” involved rules from Magic, and the game is constantly mentioned in class including Chris’ economic breakdown of the game. I pegged Rick about Magic and now Tom, my partner for our last 488 game design project, and decided that I needed to play it at least once.

And the best way to do that was to jump right in…

How to Play

The story of the game goes is that the players are wizards and they use the items in their deck to destroy one another. Each player is given 20 hit points and when that hits zero then the game’s over for that player.

Tom had already formed seven or eight decks of cards with specific styles of play in mind – he didn’t form them for us, he just has eight decks preassembled to play. He had a deck of blue and green cards that focused on creating powerful unblockable creatures; another deck focused on revealing and forcing a player to discard; and yet another deck’s strengths were in trying to destroy an opponent’s land cards. The deck of cards is called your Library and to start the game the seven cards on top of the deck are picked and placed in your hand. You can only have seven in your hand when your turn is over. The order of play is Untap, Upkeep, Draw Card, Main Phase, and then a secondary phase after the battle, and then you discard (if you have more than seven cards in your hand).

On every turn you can play a land card if you have it in your hand and these land cards become your economy. I don’t know all of them but some were forest, water, some blackish card with a skull on it, mountains, and white cards. The other cards in your hand represented spells: summoning creatures, placing enchantments, casting instant spells, and using artifacts, etc. All of these spells require you to “tap” your land resources.

Tapping means that you take each card and turn it on its side to indicate that you’re using one of your resources in your mana pool to cast a spell in your hand. Spells may require you to tap two forest cards and then, say, four land cards of your choice – on the spell card it’s denoted as two trees and a grey circle with the number ‘4’ in it. Once you do you can place the spell card on the table. If it’s a creature card it has “summoning sickness” meaning you can’t play it until your next turn – unless the creature is gifted with haste. You can enchant creatures to have more strength and hit points and transform them with other cards.

Once you’ve tapped your resources to enact spells you can then enter into the main phase of the game: attacking your opponents. To attack you announce to the gathering which creature you’ll use to attack which player. The defending player gets to pick which card he wants to use to block or if he wants to take the damage. Dealing damage is fairly straightforward. Your creatures have two numbers associated with them, their life and their strength. Damage is dealt by subtracting and the guy with the highest number wins the match. There are plenty of modifier cards in the game so things aren’t as straight as they might seem. Both players can play Instants which are quick effect spells that can change the outcome of a fight. There’s this concept of a stack involved with the combat where players can keep layering cards to enchant their creatures and manipulate the outcome of the battle, and then things are resolved starting from the last thing enacted down to the first.

When the main phase is over you have a chance to recoup (a second chance to cast spells if you have resources left) and discard and play continues. Depending how many resources you’ve “tapped” during play – summoned creatures on the board and land, those remain tapped until your next turn. This means that if you’re attacked and all of your resources are tapped, you’re pretty much screwed.

It’s a lot to keep track of. At times I would forget that my creatures had summoning sickness or I would forget to do something, but I’d like to think that I was able to catch on pretty quick. I can see how deep the strategy goes. This game definitely falls under the category of “easy to learn, hard to master.”

Deck Building

I didn’t get an opportunity to build a deck but I asked Tom how he went about it. It follows the game design process pretty closely. You get an idea in your head as to what type of deck you want to build, and then you look through your extended library of cards for things to help you. Tom said that he usually had one land card per two creatures. It makes sense that everything in the deck should compliment one another so that the spells you cast require the land that’s in the deck, that way you don’t have wasted cards. Rick had mentioned to me that he knew a guy who built decks for a living and play tested decks against one another. It’s a very interesting and expensive meta-game.

Strategy

The last game played by our group was a team game. Tom and I played on one team and Vince and Eric on the other. I used a deck of unblockable creatures and Tom’s deck was a massive 90-card deck that forced players to discard. Eric used a deck that dealt direct damage and Vince – well I don’t know what kind of deck he used.

As the game went out Tom was getting attacked the most, but one of the strategies of his deck was that he enacted a spell that allowed him to recover life whenever anyone discarded. Since he could force players to discard, although he was always close to dying, he always managed to regain at least five points of HP every time he played. I was the damage dealer on our side. I would send out my unblockable creatures and Eric and Vince were pretty much always forced to take damage on themselves – I say almost, since Eric eventually figured out that he could do direct damage to creatures and not just the players. Eric’s play consisted of pecking at the players dealing one or two points of damage. It’s not much but overtime he was very close to killing Tom off a few times. I took out Vince first since he had the unlucky draw of the cards – he had a bunch of powerful spells and creatures but not enough mana to bring them into play.

The game ended when I pulled out a 8/8 creature called Mythic Enchantment (I think it was called that). It was pretty much unblockable and unstoppable. I held that card for more than half of the game and kept my poker face about it just in case anyone had any inclination to do something dastardly.

A part of the play does have to do with the luck of the draw – getting the cards you need to enact spells is pretty big since it can put you into a bind. There’s a certain way you can shuffle the deck though to ensure that every so often you’re hitting a land card to increase your economy. You shuffle the deck by separating the creatures and land and stack them together in a certain ratio (2 creatures to 1 land card) and then shuffle. It’s a good way to create a random factor that doesn’t totally hurt you in the end. A lot of the play strategy is on the fly. You choose what cards to put into play and it affects how the game goes. Players also choose who to attack and try to psyche one another out. There’s an element like poker to it, questioning what type of cards your opponent has in their hand and what they’ll do next or what they’ll do when you attack with a creature.

Dramatic Elements

Anything I have to say regarding dramatic elements can be summed up by this video here. (It’s an AVI and hopefully will play on most machines.) Note: The video is ~3 mbs but worth it. The video should play right side up for most everyone else, except me. BSPlayer is my default and it causes the video to be played upside down. That makes it even more better.

The video: Vince took it upon himself to read the flavor text for every creature and enchantment summoned with his best “chronic smoker radio voice.”

Conclusion

We had a great time and I finally got to learn Magic. There is a lot of interesting play mechanics going on, but since this is the first time I’m playing it, I’m lucky if I can just remember the order of play correctly. I think it would take a lot longer to learn the cards, and learn deck building, and be able to really capitalize off what the game offers in terms of strategic play. I’m interested in getting more into strategy games since my poor brain needs more of that to feast upon.

Posted by Glenn Song at 5:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The four of us sat down and played Cosmic Encounters last week and overall it was a very quick game to pickup and learn and a fun game to play. Each player in the game started out with five planets each with 4 ships on each planet. All of the players choose a class card (I don’t know what the game formally calls it) that describes their special abilities. Justin was a Healer which meant that he could save ships from the warp abyss. Joanie (?) was an Amoeba and could add more ships to her initial attack force, and Nick was the Zombie class and could reclaim his ships after every attack. I ended up with a Trader which means I could trade cards any time I wanted with any of the other players – something I regret not taking more advantage of. We were also dealt seven cards that we could use in battle/negotiating.

After Justin went over all of the rules we started to play. Play is done by flipping over a colored marker to determine which planet the player will attack first. The player than moves a number of ships (up to four) into the center warp area to commit to the attack – he also points the big mothership in the warp zone to which planet he wants to attack on the opposing color. At that point the player can ask for allies to join him; he can specifically ask a person or make a general call for help, or just go it alone. The defending player can do the same and the players not involved in the exchange can pick their sides. The battle itself is waged through the use of the cards. The attack cards have numerical values that along with the number of ships and allied ships summed together determine the attack strength or defense strength. Bigger number wins. If the attacker wins they can place their ships on the planet to colonize it; the loser is tossed into the warp abyss.

To end the game one player has to have five colonies on the other players’ boards. One big thing to note is that if you call for allies and they respond, and you win, your allies also claim the planet as one of their colonies. We had a blast just trying to ally with one another, but it got many players four colonies very quickly – except for me, I got trounced a few times. Another key thing to note is that when you have less than three colonies you lose your special ability. So by the time I was clairvoyant enough to understand what my ability was I had lost it.

The game in some respects reminds me of Illuminati. The race/class cards that we all had were like the various illuminati groups in that it granted each player a special power. The battles were similar as well, but instead of pulling resources from your Illuminati power structure, you ask the other players to ally with you. Like Illuminati all of the attack strength is summed together and the result comes down to who has a bigger number.

I had an enjoyable time with this game. I wouldn't mind playing this game again.

BTW, Justin has all of the pictures for our play experiment.

Posted by Glenn Song at 1:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By joe Barnes & Melanie Wider

Goal:
Incorporate typing into an action game. The advantage of using the keyboard is that a large number of people are already familiar with it. An alternative keyboard, with fewer buttons, might also later be a solution depending on the needs of the game. One of the requirements of this type of game (and a feature in our own design) is a highly interactive world – to keep the player’s interest.

A part of our design concept is to make a typing game as fun as possible, because most games which involve a keyboard are strictly for educational purposes (not counting MMORPGs), and do not hold the attention of the user beyond the goal of “teaching” them to type. One of the ways we intend to keep the user’s interest is to include a dynamic feedback system within the game itself which allows the player to immediately see the results of good hand-eye coordination in the way that the game world becomes richer in response to good performance.

The most interesting part of this design is, we believe, the uniqueness of both the interface and core mechanic. Though both of these draw on other, preexisting games for their inspiration, they become greater than the sum of their parts when incorporated into our design.

Descriptive Notes:
The player in our game will be creating a world through their typing in order to further the story and accomplish goals within the game universe. The player will be introduced to the mechanics in a tutorial which is not time-limited. During play, the user will be faced with a time limit to create elements of the world as he battles the antagonist(s) for control of a mind, a soul, and the meta-physical world.

Posted by Melanie Wider at 9:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By: Peter Van Dyke, Shon-Ting Fu, Jonathan Zabel

This will be an MMOG (such as World of Warcraft) that will allow players to input and add to the existing game world. The “Game Creation Engine” will be essentially an ongoing extension to play that will give players the ability go add additional content. An apt (though dated) analogy would be to compare this Engine to player housing in DAOC.

Concept:
A modern MMOG comparable to WoW in terms of gameplay and pre-developed content, The Creation Engine will be in addition to the normal gameplay but will still be intrinsically tied into the experience/level progression. As a player in the world you will have the ability to start taking ownership and editing you own personal parcel of land. As you level and gain more ability and experience you will be able to create more and more complicated and intricate personal areas.

Player Gameplay Example:
Meet Joe. Joe began playing Jonasys several days ago and is currently level 10. At level ten, he was unexpectedly deeded a small parcel of land in the player housing instance. Of course he was curious and so he went to explore. What he found was a bland, undeveloped piece of land. The ingame directions helped him to build a house and when he hit level 25 he was given an even larger area access through his original parcel. He could do even more now, and was able to create something even more interesting…

Overview:
Players will be deeded land based on experience/level, quest completion, and involvement in their previous parcel (ie, if players do not pursue their first parcel, they won’t get their second larger parcel). As the owner of these parcels you will be able to create, for example in the first parcel, an entryway of some sort. The second would be a building to correspond to it. This could be a house or a shop, and you would customize this based on your own preferences.

The breakdown of parcel ownership would go something like this:
- Level 10: First small parcel, low-level editing & object creation.
- Level 20: First parcel. More complicated object design.
- Level 30: Second Parcel, larger, One-room house/shop creation
- Level 40: Second Parcel, expansion of parcel, multi-room buildings and areas, static NPC design.
- Level 50: Second Parcel, second expansion. Skills, crafting, more interactive NPC design
- Level 60: Final parcel. Zone-sized, team-based. You will start this zone with a team of other players and the end result will be of your own determination – this can be a zone, a dungeon, a series of shops or a town... anything that the engine would allow you to create. Expansions to this zone will be doled out based on a case-to-case basis.

This feature is designed to allow players to add to the world they enjoyed playing. It will be a slow introduction to the concept for players, giving them more and more editing power as they experience more of the game itself and play with the feature. By end-game, they will have at their fingertips enough tools and power to create a new zone or dungeon of their own.

Posted by Peter Van Dyke at 6:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Many games today describe themselves as immersive, but we feel that something is missing from these experiences. What we propose to create with our new first-person shooter is the first game of the genre that will actually engage the player on an emotional level. By placing the player in situations in which he is forced to face difficult and morally ambiguous choices, the player will become more and more involved in the character that he plays. To further improve this sense of a real and dynamic world in which the player exists, the other characters around him will react in differing and expressive ways, based on the past decisions the player has made and each character’s individual and unique personality. By creating predispositions for each non-player character and using those to gauge their responses to the player’s choices at each critical point in the game, we will create a “mental fitness landscape” to determine the extent of influence the player has on that character.

The world in which we implement these design concepts will play a large role in the player’s involvement. Without a convincing setting and cast of characters, even the most serious of choices may not seem important or interesting, so we will develop an intriguing and dynamic science-fiction setting in which the player will assume the identity of a lieutenant commanding a small squad of soldiers during a futuristic war. By putting the player in charge of a group, he must take his responsibility to these men into consideration when he makes a decision (following or disobeying unjust or suicidal orders, for example). By combining the high level of agency offered by the choices throughout the game and this flexible character interaction system, our game will offer a more powerful sense of authorship than any FPS before. Since each choice the player makes affects the events and the characters around him, the player truly writes the story.

Posted by Jeremy Kopman at 1:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Rive" by Logan Olson and Justin Lin

The main concept for our game comes off of two innovative influences: Katamari Damacy and Zone of the Enders 2.

Katamari Damacy takes the simple concept of rolling a ball in 3d space in order to roll up anything the character wishes under a time limit. The controls were intuitive and the worlds were expansive. Katamari took simplicity to a whole new level of complexity.

With Zone of the Enders 2, we have a game whereas non-stop fast paced action was an appealing feature. The game basically allowed the robot character in the game to perform "ballets of destruction" via an auto-targeting system that would push the action forward. It provided enough spectacle to wow the viewer throughout the whole game.

By combining the two we came up with a game about a ribbon that would be able to go through 3d spaces and interact with the obstacles within an expansive world with no time limit, while providing a fast-paced visceral experience. Hence we coined the idea: "Rive"

Controlling a free flowing ribbon through a dream-like environment, the player of Rive, French for "strand," travels through the mind of a hospitalized sick child, fighting his internal demons and exploring the depths of his psyche to beat his ailment. The ribbon/strand is innocent, searching for freedom and a better world, fighting through the odd and sometimes evil worlds of his imagination in order to find his better place, in order to come out of his comatose state.

The overall artistic designs are based on movies and artists such as H.R. Geiger, Salvador Dali, Monet, Akira, and the Matrix. These will all be represented in the many unique and differing worlds within the child's psyche.

The most unique and appealing feature of Rive is the player-character and control scheme. Using the Nintendo Revolution controller, the player will guide the ribbon as if playing with a streamer to explore and manipulate the environment, as well as fight the enemies which inhabit it. The player will use the complete control of the ribbon to create his or her own combos, assisted by an auto-targetting system that will make sure that all enemies will be within range to perform attacks with the Revolution's wand. In addition to the self-created combos, there will be in-game combo/skill system that relies on the player performing certain movements with the wands and/or the button, allowing for special moves, actions, transformations, weapons, etc. to appear. The intuitive, physical control of the ribbon and abstract dream world will convey a sense of wonder and excitement to the player in the artistic and unconventional Rive.

Through our combination of innovative control aspects, engaging and unique production design, and hybridization of inventive game schemes, we hope to create a game that is accessible to all ages. We hope that this game will create complexity through the authorship of the player via our simple, but potentially expandable scheme and concept for Rive.

Posted by Justin Lin at 1:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)