Pay What You Want for Something Awesome!

A great amalgam of games that go towards a good cause!

This is the third set of games that these good folks have put together to go towards developers, Child's Play Charity, and EFF.

If you'd like some new games for whatever price you want, check this bundle out!

Here's a trailer for one of the games: Trine!

The Appropriate Level of Challenge

Finding the appropriate level of challenge in a game -- especially educational games -- can be quite difficult.

Math Blaster: Rated 'M' for Math (to view the complete comic)

Indie Game Documentary

For those of you not one of the chosen, here's an awesome little documentary about Markus 'Notch' Persson and the development of Minecraft into the cure for cancer an Independent Game phenomenon.

Minecraft Documentary



Enjoy!

-Russell

The Birth of GTA

Just read an interesting article on Rock, Paper, Shotgun about Grand Theft Auto (GTA).

Mike Dailly (one of the designers) just posted the design document for "Race N' Chase", or as we all know and love it, "GTA".



An interesting read, especially the specifications and gameplay sections. It's straightforward and thorough, and it took 2 years to develop. One day, one day perhaps I'll be able to say I worked on a game with a similar scope.

Cheers,
Russell

Pokemon as an "Educational" Game

Russell presented a few game-related blogs and websites at this week's Games Meeting.

Thanks to Digg, I stumbled across this article on a different game blog called Joystick Division.

"Five Things We Learned from Pokemon" - Aaron Matteson, March 15th, 2011.

Maybe any game can be educational?

Actually, if you follow the Pokemon franchise at all, it has a surprising amount of moral development built-in. It really pushes the ideas of personal responsibility, ethics, compassion, etc. Of course, you're also capturing wild creatures and then making them fight duels until they faint.

More educational games (courtesy of my sister, Jessica)

My sister just passed along a site she found with several educational games. I haven't played through them yet, but it looks like there is a variety of both topics and quality.

http://www.mrnussbaum.com/index.html

Enjoy!

Thanks, Jess.

When can something be called a "Game"

So I still have a lingering problem from some of our initial, unresolved discussions. Here's the deal:

We all agree that nearly any activity can be "turned into" a game. I can take boring house chores and then try to complete them within a given time (competing against myself) or before someone else complete's their task (competing against someone else). We can even award points and I can try to get the highest number of points. Regardless, I can still recognize it as a "game". It is easily identifiable, and does not conflict with other concepts, meaning that it does not have to be mutually exclusive (i.e., it can be a chore AND a game, but the game aspect is recognizable in its own right).

So, this leads me to the question of "When does an activity become recognizable as a game?" For example, in iSTART, there is coached practice where students write in self-explanations and receive feedback from animated agents, and the back and forth interaction can change what occurs next (i.e., it can change if they move to the next sentence, if they have to revise, or it could change the feedback from the system). Feedback, animated characters, and interactions that can change the system state are all also features common to games. However, coached practice, on it's own, is definitely NOT a game, and no one would be deluded into thinking that it was.  Then we take that same environment and add points to it, so that students earn point values corresponding to the quality of their actions. Points are another feature common to games. Does the simple addition of points technically classify it as a game? It sure doesn't feel like a game, but could it still be a game by definition? If not, what else is needed to make it constitute a game? Does it require an overarching goal, end-point, or metric of comparison? If the students were told to try and earn 300 points, then it could more easily be described as a game. Or if the point values were used to earn a type of trophy (which the system does), then can it be called game?

So when does the task transition from "just a task" into a "game and task"? Is it a particular feature (i.e., having a goal - either internal or external)? No, it can't just be that, because when I drive to work each day I have the goal of getting to the building, but that doesn't, in itself, make it a game. Is it a combination of features (i.e., goal + enjoyment)? No, it can't be that, because some parts of games are excruciatingly painful and frustrating, yet they are still clearly "games". Could it be goal+affect/emotion? No, because I can get excited, angry, frustrated, sad, or bored about accomplishing a task at work, and that does NOT make it a "game". Are there specific features that inherently make something into a "game", like competition? No, or at least competition, because I can be very competitive about performing better than you, and getting better grades, or getting an article published, but that doesn't necessarily make it into a "game".

So how is it that we can so easily recognize something as a "game"? I think that it has to do with intent. Or possibly attributing intent onto a goal/end-point/metric (either internally or externally). Some games can be created by the intent of developers. Then the players can either follow the developers original intent, or they can create their own. So a player can go outside of the rules to accomplish their own intent. Thereby, any activity can be classified as a game if someone attributes intent onto it (regardless of any features present). This also allows differing opinions on when a task can be described as a "game" or not, though it doesn't provide any a priori, objective measures to do so, but truthfully I'm not sure that any such measures exist.

Turning Work Into Play

This article appeared in February 28th, 2011, on the Wired Magazine website. In brief, the UK Guardian newspaper wanted to process an enormous number of receipts, to investigate potential government fraud or misuse of funds. They turned it into a simple online game that was open to the public... and were able to process a massive amount of data very quickly. The game was simple and competitive.

"How Games Make Work Seem Like Play" - Clive Thompson, Wired Magazine

Further into the article, they discuss Jane McGonigal (not the Hogwarts Professor, but still awesome) and her book, "Reality is Broken." She has developed a game called World Without Oil that pushes users/gamers to explore alternative energy solutions. A similar game, Lost Joules, is another environment-friendly game by Adaptive Meter.

Some of you may also be familiar with Fold It, a game where people "contribute to science" by helping solve protein-folding problems. Turns out, humans are much better than computers at making intuitive leaps involving dramatic or unlikely folds - then computers can take over from there to work out the kinks (pun intended).

I think that the addition of a pro-social or "change the world for the better" aspect to games is an interesting way to attract and motivate players.

Statistics from the SeriousGames mailing list

This popped up on the SeriousGames mailing list.

"With a few of my colleagues we have been working on a project to reference and classify as many serious games as possible. For now, we have a total of 2225 Serious Games. For those of you interested in some quantitative data on this large corpus (e.g. what topics are Serious Games dealing with), we created a small report available here:
http://serious.gameclassification.com/files/articles/sgc_report_03-11.pdf

Our long term research goal would be to reference *every* (or close to) serious game released on a online collaborative database, to create a site like "Mobygames" dedicated to Serious Games. So the 2225 Serious Games we analyzed for the report are available here:
http://serious.gameclassification.com/

As you may have noticed, 2225 is far from being *every* serious games released. So, if you find a serious game we are missing, please help us by referencing it on this collaborative website:
http://serious.gameclassification.com/EN/games/edit.html
(You don't need to create an account to add new serious games, only to edit available games)

This is our first report, so feel free to ask if you would like to see more statistics, or have any comment/suggestion.

Hoping you'll find this kind of report useful,

Best Regards,
Damien Djaouti."

Braid on PC/Mac

It's only $3.00 on Steam! Click the picture for great fun!



Also, Steam is a great digital distribution platform made and maintained by those awesome people at Valve (Half-Life series, Team Fortress 1&2).

If you haven't played it you should definitely check it out and share the happy!

Endeavor

Here's something to think about:

What's a "level-up"? It seems pretty simple at first glance, but games do level-ups in tons of different ways.

In the same vein as Robot Wants Kitty and Level-Up, Endeavor gives you control of a character with a very limited set of abilities and tasks you with a huge goal to achieve.


Each piece you find or challenge you complete gives you the immediate reward of a better character, but your goal is still out of reach.



You "level-up" by finding different parts and training that allow you to access new areas. You don't so much level-up as grow. Check them out, and have fun!

_{Robot says: "I will have you kitty."}

Treadmillasaurus Rex

You should all play this game right now
Treadmillasaurus-Rex

Taxonomy of Game

Today we talked about starting a taxonomy of games that we can develop now and then modify later after some kind of structure is in place.
Slides from presentation here

We started making a sort of hierarchical structure for very general categorizing of games from a Developer's point of view.

Thanks to Russell for writing stuff on the board and others for the constructive discussion.
Some sort of structure form emerging (but not quite there yet).

Aesthetics in games

I gave a presentation today based on an interesting article by Robin Hunicke. It suggests a approach to game design that focuses on Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics as a progression through game development and game "consumption". I focused on Aesthetics for this meeting because of it's position as the first thing that user's see when playing a game. The article and PowerPoint are below, along with a few comments on some of the games I used as examples.

MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research

Presenting a Game (PowerPoint)

Braid was probably my favorite discussion of the day, and I really liked how in depth some of our analyses can go. Mike brought up a good point about many games affording users the ability to completely disregard narrative and focus solely on game-play. If you've got the moo-lah I say check it out, it's a beautiful game.




If you dig rhythm games Audiosurf is a great one to have. It generates tracks based on the music from your computer, so it's a great game to play if you want to turn your brain off a little and get to "feel" your music.





Gregory Weir is one "d" short of Weird, and it's pretty appropriate. His games are deep and very message heavy. He tends to focus on one dynamic and use that to tell his story, whether his users like it or not. If you get the chance play "The Majesty of Colors" and any other game on LudusNovus.

That's it for tonight, Cheers!
Russell

Telling a Story

Amy Ogan's talk on Tuesday got me thinking about narrative (in games and in general). And I'd like to talk a little bit more about this at the next meeting.

I often find myself playing a game "just to see the ending" and I sometimes even reduce the difficulty just to progress through the story at a faster clip. In this case, I think narrative is a detriment to the "game in the game" because I end up being more concerned with watching rather than doing. So is this a flaw in the design of the game or merely a personal preference?

I think it would be cool to discuss the types of narrative that we encounter in games and how they affect the way we play or don't play them.

Here's an interesting example of a game that is quick and will hopefully get you thinking. It's The End of Us and I won't say anything more than it's in space. Check it out and mull it over for a minute or two. I was surprised by my reaction to it, and maybe you will be too.



Another great game to check out is Digital - A Love Story. If you were ever into text-based adventure games then this is a great game to play. It's amazing what you can do with just text and a simple interface.



I'll try to address both of these games as well as some others that I think do a great job of telling a story in one way or another.


Cheers,
Russell

"Best" and "Worst" games of the year

Hey guys,

I was thinking the other day "what makes a game successful?". Yes, we discussed in the meeting that the one underlying feature that is present in every game is the presence of a goal (internal or external). However, I am wanting to take a step back and look at this from a more general view. Every year wired magazine puts out a list of their "best" and "worst" games of the year. I thought it would be interesting for us to look at this list and try to determine what elements are present in these games that make them a hit or bust. In the interest of time, I have only listed the games from last year. As I find older lists I will post them. Discuss.

Gooooooooooal(s)!

I'm going to go ahead and make a strong claim that the one element common to all games is the presence of a goal. There must be some goal outcome, product, state, score, etc. for the interaction. The goal could be to achieve the highest score, draw the fastest picture, last the longest, play all your cards, build the best machine, save the princess, advance to the next level, eat the most donuts, or unlock some secret. The goal provides some context for the interaction. There is some ultimate purpose (whether it be practical or trivial). Each action taken within the game has the potential to advance you towards a specified end (or to lead you astray). With the right goal, you can still have an enjoyable game after you take away the points, leave out the fantasy world, and eliminate the competition (from the design - ha I'm funny). However, simply having a goal does not make it a FUN game. Goal does not equal fun. But anyway, that's my claim. All games have some goal. Who's with me, and who's against?

Fantastic Contraption

I also visit Kongregate on occasion, though not as much as I used to (unfortunately). One of my favorite games is definitely Fantastic Contraption. It is a mechanics creation-based puzzle game. The main goal consists of moving an object from a starting position into a designated area by building some kind of simple machine (vehicle, sling-shot, ramp, etc).

Most of the "typical" game elements are missing: points, time pressures, narrative, competition, and fantasy. Yet, I become completely engaged and persistent whenever I play. There is something about successfully creating a novel device or tool that is inherently rewarding. Even when I had to cheat and check online for alternative solutions, it invariably just gave me another idea to try, and I still had to work through the fine tuning to complete the task.

The Company of Myself

The game that Russell shared ("Glum Buster") reminded me a lot of another game called "The Company of Myself."

It has been consistently of one of the most highly rated games on Kongregate.Com, and has received some impressive praise from users:

• "This game is truly a masterpiece. It is a piece of art. Every level had a good design, and a good meaning. I cried at the ending. 10.10"

• "This storyline is greatly moving and saddening, and provoked a very depressing emotional response from me. I was so touched upon seeing the final report that I was nearly brought to tears. This truly is a masterpiece of a game, and is nothing short of beautiful."

It is similar to Glum Buster in that both introduce a variety of mechanics and puzzles as the levels progress -- some are humorous and others are rather fiendish.

What sets this game apart, as alluded to by the user comments, is the story. Company's story is revealed piece by piece as users move through the game via the commentary of the character. It it worth it to play all the way through.

Glum Buster

Couldn't wait to get this stuff started, so here's a game! If you've heard of it great, if not, play it!



It's called Glum Buster, kind of a puzzle/adventure/art hybrid. It's free to play, or you can tip if you like it. I enjoyed it, and it's got a lot of diversity when you consider the dynamics in each "world". It took me longer than a flash game to finish, but it's a nice break game in between reading or working.

Cheers,
Russell

Basic format

Here's the basic format.

• We can try to meet in 430, so that we can use the projector to display anything.
• The group will meet during lunch on Tuesdays from 12-1 (remember not to speak with your mouthful). This time can be changed later if enough people agree.
• Each week someone is in charge of finding something to talk about. If no one volunteers, or if someone forgets, then I will take responsibility for finding something to discuss (or I will see if someone else has something).
• Whoever is in charge gets to decide how the meeting goes for that day. If they want to wing it and just pull up a random site and ask people's opinion. fine. If they want to send out a link a week ahead of time and ask people to play a game. fine (but you can't expect everyone to play the game because this isn't work). If they want to discuss a cool journal article related to game design or serious game efficacy. fine. Anything goes as long as it relates to games in some way.