Students Blog

In the game Puzzle Pirates, you are given many options to play as a character that you customize and that you create to your personal liking. While I have not played mmog that are browser based for a long time, I found that Puzzle Pirates was very engaging and yet was not all too difficult to learn and get used to. When I first logged on, it briefly asked for simple information and came up with a missions list. From this point on, the game becomes very focused on the social metaphor because while most of the games are individualized puzzles, most need interaction with other people because it requires some sort of a team to run the ship. While the communication is through keyboard and typing out responses instead of the voice communication like in Traveler, there is still quite a bit of communication going on throughout the game. This communication goes on whether it is through playing a game with a NPC or with another human. This aspect was especially interesting when some strangers came inside of my house and were just looking around. One of them even asked if I had a girlfriend. This was quite amusing to me as I told her that I was doing this for a class assignment, after which she left. The ability to interact and chat with other people using avatars that you can dress up and tailor to adds on to the social metaphor of the game. It becomes a part of the game mechanic in that the purpose of the game becomes more of a place where players can just hang out if they choose to not play any of the puzzles and games. It also acts as a possibility for people to play fictional roles should they choose.
Being able to talk plays a key role as players start to become engaged in some of the puzzles. This helps drive the game mechanics because one of the key features of the game is working together in teams on different ships as pirates and traders. There are several key jobs on each ship that are made up of different puzzles so it is pretty important to be successful. There are also ratings for how each player is doing in each puzzle at every checkpoint making it more important that the player does well as to be seen as a competent player and not just some random new player who does not know what is going on.. The way that the social circles where the player’s ability to chat in is also a key part of the game mechanic in that it helps to let people know who they are talking to similar to the feature in Traveler where the different 3D sound and visual effects work. The design of the game is also significant in that the characters and avatars are purposely designed to be like cartoon instead of photo realism giving players a sense of the fantasy world while maintaining a safer environment than real life pirates would be like. There are even bad language filters that change cuss words to words substitutes to keep the environment cleaner for younger players.
The social metaphors relate directly to Lazzaro’s four keys of hard fun, easy fun, altered states, and people factor. In the case of hard fun, players want to raise their experience to become essentially the best pirate with the most skills. However, they face many different challenges like the puzzles and people around them who may have been playing for a longer period of time or are simply older and more skilled of a gamer. While not all gamers on Puzzle Pirates have this goal, some players are drawn in by this aspect and continue to play even as they get older. For the gamers that are looking for easy fun, the fact that there are so many different islands and different types of games and puzzles to explore. The fact that there are so many people around to play with and compete with comes together in some of the challenges that you can do with other pirates like sword fighting. While there may be some players who offer money for beating them, most players simply enjoying the challenge of playing games with complete strangers to test out their skills and take no offence even when they get completely defeated by a college student doing their homework. The third key of having altered states is clearly demonstrated by players who are simply playing for the sheer emotional pleasure. Even as a player testing out the game for an assignment, I felt the pleasure of beating out other poor players and for doing well on puzzles and achieving even the supposed highest rank of incredible on some of the status checks. The fourth key of the people factor was clearly demonstrated in the girl that I talked to who asked if I wanted a girlfriend. She clearly did not know that I was a college student. However, she demonstrates the point that some people are playing the game with other deeper intentions like getting hooked up online or something even though that may be quite dangerous in and of itself.
To conclude, Puzzle Fighters clearly demonstrated many of the social metaphors that were mentioned in the article and appeals to many gamers that are looking for all four of the key features from the Lazzaro’s article.