Studio 11 - Business rules for developing games

Game Project Triangle

The benefits of using a game project triangle are;

- Can help manage cost, time and quality of a project
- useful for analyzing the goals of your project
- Since a game can only meet 2 of the 3 criteria, it will help you discover what your main focus is
- Helps dicover which of the three things you will need to sacrifice in order to make your game
successful

Questions

What are you trying to accomplish with this game?

I am attempting to implement my games concept into a basic games engine, which is AGS. The game doesn't have to be vast and it only needs to show enough to demonstrate what I can do.

When must you complete this game project?

20th March

what is the project budget?

£0.00 - there is no project fund to help with the development of this game

How many team members are involved?

None - I am undertaking this project alone without the help of any team members.

Ultra Low Budget Games

There are certain things which a developed needs to do in order to achieve an ultra-low budget game.

- the game should be kept simple
- Games should be finished off to a high degree
- Key features need to be completed to high standards whilst others will be left a lower standard
- Easily start off as a hobby and casually progress

Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Features

Primary features - These are the most vital parts of your project, which need to be completed in order for the project to have a decent quality.

Secondary features - These are not as important, these tasks are usually completed when you have some spare time, or when all the primary features are complete. Primary features can be implemented into this category if time is out for the project.

Tertiary features - These are the least important features of a project and can be completely ignored, espcially if project time is running out. If a project had as much time as they wanted, then tertiary features would be implemented which would give the project higher quality, but also costing the project more.

References

Bethke, E. (2003) Game Development and Production, Wordware Publishing, pp 65 - 74.

Studio 8 - Freestyle Blog

Sonic the Hedgehog

Introduction

Sonic the Hedgehog is a traditional side-scrolling 2D platform game. The objective of most 2D platform video games can be characterized by jumping to/from platforms, over obstacles and avoiding contact with enemies (unless killing them, which is often done by jumping on top of the enemy, because from the side will injure the player).

About the Game

The main story of Sonic the Hedgehog is that the game is set on Earth, although lots of contradicting evidence points towards saying that the entire Sonic franchise is set on an alien planet called 'Planet Mobius.' With that said, the animals of Sonic's home planet have been kidnapped and captured by the evil, super genius; Doctor 'Eggman' Robotnik. He uses these animals to build robots, occassionally called 'Badniks' to take over the world but Sonic the Hedgehog is always there to put a stop to him.

Brief History

Sonic the Hedgehog was developed by the 'Sonic Team' and was published by SEGA to be released on 23rd June 1991 for the SEGA Mega Drive console (a.k.a. SEGA Genesis).

"Sonic the Hedgehog added the element of speed to the standard platform formula and introduced other unique elements as well, such as the loops, springboards, high-speed devices, and the rings now permanently associated with the game series."
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_(16-bit)

Sonic the hedgehog became the second greatest ever selling game on the SEGA Mega Drive, selling over 4 million copies and was second only to Sonic the hedgehog 2 which sold over 6 million copies.

The Characters

Sonic the Hedgehog

Name: Sonic the Hedgehog
Weight: 35kg
Height: 100cm
Age: 15 years old

Artist Naoto Oshima, designer Hirokazu Yasuhara and programmer Yuji Naka are generally credited with the creation of Sonic the Hedgehog. When Sonic was implemented into the game he did not have the ability to swim because programmer Yuji Naka assusmed that hedgehogs could not swim. Sonic's boots were inspired by Michael Jackson's boots during the late 80's although those boots were plain black the colour inspiration came from colour inspiration came from Santa Claus as he is known around the world for adopting the colour red. Although a hedgehog, Sonic is no ordinary hedgehog for he is an anthropomorphic (human-stylized) hedgehog, who has the ability to run faster than the speed of sound and when he curls up in a ball he has the ability to attack his enemies at great speeds.

Before 'Sonic the Hedgehog' was born this mostly blue-haired 15 year old hedgehog was simply known as Mr. Needlemouse who had fangs, his own band and even a human girlfriend called Madonna. These were all removed by SEGA to 'soften' the character for an American audience.

Doctor 'Eggman' Robotnik

Name: Doctor. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik
Height: 185cm
Weight: 128kg
IQ: 300

Created by Naoto Oshima, Doctor Robotnik represents evil, machinery and development. He was created to represent these things in order to play on the 'then' (late 1980's & early 1990's) growing debate between developers and environmentalists.

Doctor Ivo 'Eggman' Robotnik is a being of certifiable genius with an IQ of 300. His ultimate goal is to conquer the world and create his own ultimate utopia; Eggmanland (also known as the Eggman Empire and Robotnikland). Doctor 'Eggman' is extremely immature and is prone to childish emotional fits when things do not go his way. He will also never give up his quest to conquer the world and does not care one bit for other peoples feelings or opinions.

Although Sonic has ruined his evil plans of world domination on several occasions, Doctor 'Eggman' secretly holds a great respect for the little blue hedgehogs determination.

Sonic the Hedgehog Usability

In terms of usability my objective here is to apply Nielson's usability heuristics and the 4 fun key factors in order to fully assess if 'Sonic the Hedgehog' is usable according to these rules.

Neilson's Rules

Visibility - This is often referred to as 'feedback,' basically the princple here is that users should always know exactly what is going on through appropriate information displayed to them. Now I believe Sonic the Hedgehog has excellent visibility for the user simply because of the HUD (Heads-up display) that the user can constantly see throughout the entire game. Through the HUD the user can see how many lives they have left, the amount of rings collected, lenth of time spent playing the level and their current score, all of which is exactly the information the user needs to see for this type of game.

Match real world and system - The princple behind this rule is that the game should use real language to interact with the user instead of using system type messages and that information should appear in a natural and logical order.

When we apply this rule to Sonic the Hedgehog we encouter a slight problem because the game does not incorporate any substantial dialogue with the characters or the user except from the menu screens where the first instruction is to simple "Press Start" which comes across as systematical language. This pattern is also followed in the sub-menu sections as well and I believe that SEGA implemented this to keep the dialogue short and simple. So in conclusion I feel that this rule in particular does can not be applied to Sonic the Hedgehog.

user control/freedom - Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked "emergency exit" to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue. Support undo and redo. This rule does not apply to Sonic the Hedgehog.

consistency and standards - sonic the hedgehog has excellent consistency throughout the game and the standards never fall.

Error prevention - I have personally played and completed this game more than several times since 1991 and have never came across an error or a glitch, so the error prevention rule can be applied to sonic the hedgehog.

Recognition rather than recall - The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate. This rule can be applied.

Aesthetic and minimalist design - Dialogues should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely needed. This rules applies to sonic because there is a minimum dialog throughout the game and everything the user can see whilst playing relates back to the game.

Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors - This rule can not be applied to the sonic the hedgehog game because no errors have occured whilst I have tested the game. Although research has indicated that sometimes the game will freeze and there is no error prevention or way to recover from this error except for switching the game off and turning it back on.

After going through Nielson's heuristics we can see that a lot of the rules can be applied to sonic the hedgehog and this means that the can has a good usability design.

References

http://videoonlinegames.suite101.com/article.cfm/sonic_the_hedgehod_a_history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_(series)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_the_Hedgehog
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D9h-4vQUHM&feature=fvsr
http://www.gametap.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_(16-bit)
http://sonic.sega.jp/chara/sonic/
http://sonic.sega.jp/chara/eggman/index.html

Studio 6 - Flow Theory & Fun Keys

Flow Theory Key Factors

1. Tasks that offer a chance of completion

(No-one plays a game for long if it seems too difficult to succeed)

2. Tasks that facilitate concentration

(such that people become so involved in what they are doing that the activity becomes spontaneous, almost automatic…)

3. The task has clear goals

(It is important in any game that the player knows what they are attempting to do, as soon as they lose sight of this their desire to play decreases)

4. The task provides immediate feedback

(Player’s want to know how well they are doing; hence the need for a score or energy bar)

5. The task leads to deep but effortless involvement

(that removes from awareness the worries and frustrations of everyday life)

6. A task that facilitates a sense of control over one’s actions

(People like to feel seamlessly in charge of the experience)

7. Concern for the self disappears during the task, yet paradoxically sense of self emerges as stronger when the flow task is completed

(for example the sense of victory if you do well in a game)

8. The sense of duration of time is altered

(Everyone has lost track of time when playing a particularly good game)

The 4 Fun Keys create games' four most important emotions:

1. Hard Fun: Fiero - in the moment personal triumph over adversity
2. Easy Fun: Curiosity
3. Serious Fun: Relaxation and excitement
4. People Fun: Amusement

(source: http://www.xeodesign.com/whyweplaygames.html)

So now we now what flow theory and the 4 fun keys are all about and what they concern, I am now going to apply the flow theroy and 4 different fun keys to some different games in order to demonstrate how these principles can be integrated into any game.

Game 1 - The Text Express

You can try this game for yourself at: http://uk.games.yahoo.com/d/ztextexp.html

The text express is basically a game concentrated around the user typing or using the mouse to come up with as many words as possible, and it is designed as a race. At the top of the game screen there are two trains (one is AI and one is the users), the more words, and faster the user types using the letters given the faster their train will move across the tracks to the end of the line. The main objective here is obviously to get your train to the finish line as fast as possible, whilst beating the AI train in order to progress onto the next level.

I believe when you apply the flow theory to this game, the game, itself covers all areas of the flow theory with good measure. I can vouch for this because as I personally went to spend 10 minutes giving the game a brief evaluation I found myself being immersed into the game and before I knew it an hour had past. From the very beginning of loading this game the instructions told me cleary what my objective was, how to achieve this task and time was flying past without me even realising.

The only negative thing that I can mention in terms of the flow theory is that the game didn't require effortless input because whilst trying to constantly think of new words that can be made, typing them as fast as possible for an hour long was quite painful to the user's hand.

Hard fun

I believe that this game comes under the category of hard fun mainly because the game over time became more challenging and a lot more frustrating to the user.

One of the reasons that the game became more challenging was because after each level was completed the AI train would move faster along the track which means that the user is forced to think and type words faster in order to complete the new levels. Only after a few levels some users became stuck because on the games language (it uses US English) so when the user attempted certain words they would be incorrect because they were not spelt the American way.

The reason that the game was deemed frustrating was because the user feels like that have achieved something in the game only once they had completed a level. As levels progressed so did the users frustration because of the language barrier and the constant need to type faster and faster each level, which eventually caused pain to users hands.

Other types of fun

This game didn't fit under the category of serious fun because it isn't really an exciting game and the only user satisfaction seems to be derived from completely a level only.

It also did not fall into the category of easy fun because at times the game became quite challenging and frustrating. Easy fun games should be based up relaxed gameplay, easy to understand/pick up from scratch and also have very little challenge to them.

People fun is non-existent within this game because it is solely a single player derived game with no expansion for multi-player. The only interaction the user has when playing this is game is with the AI train (which doesn't really use AI as it is programmed to follow certain speeds for each level), and the keyboard/mouse.

Game 2 - RocketMania!

This game can be found at: http://uk.games.yahoo.com/d/zrmania.html

The concept of this game is that the user has to try to 'fix' a messed up grid of pipes which will connect the flames on the left-hand side to the rockets on the right-hand side. Whilst they are attempting this the user is made aware, that there is a time limit and an objective of a certain number of rockets need to be launched in order to gain access to the next level.

In terms of flow theory I believe that this game can not really be applied to the theory because once you get to a certain higher level most users become stuck, even when the game is set on easy mode. Also because there is a lack of competition there isn't any real incentive for the user to carry on playing the game except for the satisfaction of completing the lower levels over again until the become stuck once more. So once the main factor of enjoyment is taken away the user is left simply to feel frustrated by the game. As well as all this there is also a steep difficulty curve applied within this game which is clearly shown by the user getting stuck on certain levels for long periods of time.

Hard fun applies to the RocketMania! game because it can be very frustrating on certain levels and at certain times throughout the game whilst the user is trying to figure out how to 'fix' the circuit of pipes in order to launch a rocket. Thus meaning that the main enjoyment from this game is when the user manages to complete a level.

Serious fun also applies (to a degree) because whilst the game can be frustrating it can also be quite exciting for the user attempting to complete the connections between flames and rockets against the timer because there is an object to be met or its game over. There is also a good balence of difficulty implemented within this game because it allows the user what difficulty setting they would like to play the game on, these are; easy, normal and hard.

Easy fun obviously doesn't apply to this game because it is difficult and frustrating at times for the user which is the opposite of what the principle of easy fun is.

RocketMania! does not fit into the People fun category because it is a single player game with no outside interaction with other people at all. The main aspect of this game is that it is based around one person playing the game without the need of multi-player versions.

Studio 5 - Exploring Playability

Phil Co: Level Design for Games (New Riders) pp 1-28

Chapter 1 - How do you make a game; summary

The development of any type of game could last anywhere between 6 months straight through to 6+ years from the initial idea to the game completion. The development of games breaks down to two sections; pre-production and production. These two sections are important as each other because they are both needed to develop the intial concept idea for the game, the structure of the game and the completed product.

Pre-Production: In this stage the project will move on from the initial concept idea to a well thought out and organised plan. This is crucial as the production stage will derive each step from pre-production. Group discussion, agreement and designs are very important during this stage as they lead the way for preparation of the design documents, which will be passed through onto the production stage.

Production: This is where the action will take place with the development team taking pole position of putting the plan from pre-production into action. The development team will then take on the events on creating the game and also the technology needed in order to produce the product. Only once the technology, tools and concept art have been created and finalisied, is when the production stage will be fully under way. Development of the game does involve different types of stages within the pre-production and production stage; this is why the development team must consist of: concept artists, graphic designers, visual artists, programmers and game design engineers.

There will always be a 'head document' (blueprint) that will be constantly updated throughout the project, normally by the project leader - this is to ensure any changes can be seen straight away. This blueprint will include all of the following:

• Scope of the Game
• Concept Art (At Top-End)
• Game Levels
• Art & Technology
• Design and Construct of the game
• Visual representation of in-game (characters, halls, lighting, surroundings etc)

Designers will be the people who generally try to keep an equillibrum of the game to ensure everything fits together, there always tends to be a lot of designers who work together on this issue because they also have to deal with the placement of events. All of the artists will work together creating the concept art of characters and enviroment which will then lead the programmers in the way to create a game based on their art as a basis. The programmers will also be required in creating the technology and tools (i.e. character movement, abilities, enviroment, level editors etc) which will then be passed back onto the artists to use.

Once all of that has been done, then the production stage will officially start and the 1st step will be in creating some scripting sequences, intergrating all of the visual elements (i.e. textures) and audio together so that there will be some core gameplay to be used as a prototype.

After a prototype has been created (these are sometimes released to the general public for beta testing), debugging (also beta testing) is needed in order to finalise the product before it goes into gold. Gold is when a product has been created, modelled, developed, tested and finalised it goes onto shop shelves. This is where the project will be finished and the development team may be used to a different project, or sometimes a development team is made up of freelance agents.

Studio 4 - Starting Assignment 1

A concept artist is an individual who generates visual reference for an object (like weapons, armor and vehicles) or being (like a character or creature) that does not yet exist. This includes, but is not limited to, film production, and more recently video game production. - Wikipedia

General Ideas

To come up with a concept of a video game for my assignment 1, I have been browsing through a collection of films and old video games for inspiration. The old video games range from Dizzy the Egg on the Amiga, through games from the sega mega drive, snes, n64, master system 1 & 2, Playstation 1, 2 & 3 and across the spectrum of PC games.

There is such a variety of video games that have been brought out over the decades, that to create something that isn't expanding on another idea and has the originiality to last the ages is extremely difficult.

One of the general concept ideas that I have been coming up with over the past few weeks is the following:

The Final Ascension - The general concept idea for this game is that the user will be able to take control of a civilisation from the history books and bring them alive in the future, ahead of our time.

Background story: The date is 24.04.2666, the Cyanites (a race consisting of only dark matter with the ability to linger in our shadows and in the darkness) have invaded planet earth and left the planet in a devastated ruin with minimal natural resources left.

Only one top secret goverment base survived the attack, barely. Located undergound and with the ability of time travel now possible; the fate of the planet rests in the hands of one scientist, the only remainning human survivor. The only problem is - during the Cyanites attack the time machine was broken and can only bring the far past to the far distant future.

You must take control of the time machine, choose your target location and date carefully to bring back an army to fight off the Cyanites and help rebuild Earth.

More Info: The user of this game would be able to bring back any type of civilization and it's army to try and fight off these dark matter monsters. The civilization could be any of the following: saxons, romans, nomads, samurai, small part of the allied troops (world was 1), renegades (these would be a specialised unit unlocked after completing the game once - the characters would be based on concept art taken of Cloud - a character from Final Fantasy 7)

Studio 3 - Use Cases

A use case is a methodology used in system analysis to identify, clarify, and organize system requirements - TechTarget

I am going to be concentrating on the game Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (A.K.A. PES 2008) and the way in which, the user interacts with the game.

For this, I am going to be showing you 4 individual Use Cases that are completely focused on showing the interaction within PES 2008. These Use Cases are entitled; Player input, Game Object Interaction, Display System and Audion Interaction.

Use Case 1 - Player Input

This use case is to show the steps that a user/player of the game will go through, in order to achieve interaction within the game. If you look at the image below, you will notice that obviously the 1st two steps are simply to turn on the gaming console and select the game in order to start up the game process.

Most game processes are the same these days, by which I mean; selecting single or multiplayer and if a sports type game, then what type of game/match the user will wish to play.

Use Case 2 - Game Object Interaction

This Use Case is being used to display the type of interaction that occurs within the game between all 'game objects'.

Game objects can be anything from the football, players or stadium itself through to the invisible walls (which in this football game would be the lines of the fooball pitch).

Use Case 3 - Display System

Use Case 3 is being used to show the various visual displays that the user will encounter, whilst playing the game. PES 2008 uses a very simplistic menu system as Konami (the game's creator) wish the football simulation game to have an arcade type feel to it.

By giving the display system an arcade style basically means that the user won't need to worry about over complicated menu's and can get straight into the action and play their friends or against the computer itself. Use Case 4 - Audio Interaction

Audio Interaction can be used during gameplay or even just starting up the game; i.e. when a user selects to start the game - they are normally faced with an introduction movie which will normally be accompanied by music. This Use Case is to display the type of audio interaction that a user would face, whilst playing Pro Evolution Soccer 2008.

Studio 2 - Exploring games and identifying games concepts 2

Definition of a games concept

Doom
‘A PC-based first-person shooter where the player controls a space marine in a 3D environment against a horde of bizarre monsters. The gameplay is action based with no strategic or role-playing elements; instead the game depends on bleeding edge technology providing a rush of adrenaline through its aggressive attention to carnage.’ (sic. Bethke, p106)

Pro Evolution Soccer 2009

This game has been around for many years and each new version brings something new to users eyes. It may simply be improved graphics, or gameplay. The last installed (PES 2008) was huge success which as always was caught in a battle against its rival Fifa 08.

These two football simulation games have been going head-to-head against each other for a very long time, and at first Fifa was dominating the football simulation section. Now though, Pro Evolution Soccer games (also known as World Winning 11 as it is originally produced in Japan by Konami) has been beating Fifa sales for the last 5 years, until recently.

PES 2009 bring to the user, a new level of realism as they have tried to make full use of the 'next-gen' technologies (eg: Playstaion 3, XBox 360). One of the original things about Pro Evoluation Soccer titles, is that they have always tried to be as life-like to the free flowing movement of football as much as possible; as opposed to Fifa titles, which tend to have a very 'arcade' feeling to the game. Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 is exhilirating to the user by using a fast paced style to the game of football, allowing the user(s) to have end-to-end action to their desires.

"there’s no doubting that PES 2009 is the most fun football game on the market." - IGN.com

Impact of concept
Using the game 'Pro Evolution Soccer 2009' as the main example, we are going to be looking at how the concept of the game has had an impact on different areas. The concept of the entire game is to be a 'realistic football simulation' game, while the aim is to bring the user into the game, as a team player - rather than having the user as the centre of attention.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 features hundreds of football players from across the world, and they have been designed to look as real to life as possible, as well as Stadiums, crowd chants, football kits and footballs themselves. All of this data needs to be modelled. So we would need concept art of players, kits, balls, boots and stadiums. After this development stage, 3D Modelling, animation and movement would need to be done in order to have the basic concept of the game.

Artificial Intelligence is the key aspect in PES 2009, allowing the user to take control of one player on a team of 11. Whilst the user has control of this one player the AI is taking control of the team, referee and psychics within the game. If there wasn't any AI within PES 2009 the user could take control of a player, but their would be no reactions from his team players or opposing side; they would simply, cease playing football.

How parts of the game are affected by the impact of the concept

Audio
All of the sound effects (Crowd chants, player voices, ball sounds, players tackling, collision sounds etc). Everything plays it's part in PES 2009 and the crowd singing is as much as part of the game as the football itself. The Crowd needs to roar when their team scores, it needs to be big, powerful and raw to make the user feel as if they are standing in the middle of a stadium.

Voices (Player Dialogue, Crowd Dialogue) these are more short sound clips with the volume of voices lowered a small amount, so the user can just hear what they are saying. Real players or supports would be best suited to state the dialogue for realisim.

Music (Menu music, pause menu, career achievements, celebration cut scences) Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 needs uplifting mid to high tempo music for the menu's to keep the users attention. Whilst in cut-scences it will need celebratory music, possibly classical smpthony (eg: The UEFA Champions League Hymn)

An Audio Programmer would be needed for this game to implement chants, songs, sound effects and music that has been recorded by him/herself into the game.

Visual (Art & Concept Drawing)

Texture, Lighting, Skins, Condition (Animation - 3D motion capture(Crowd & Player Movement), Stadiums, weather conditions, kits, player faces, body type, colours etc).

PES 2009 blends tremendous amounts of visual art together to create a life-like footballing simulation to capture the users mind. The enviroment (Stadium, pitch etc) will need a concept artist; they will create the initial drawings of the enviroment to later on be approved and moved onto a 3D modeller/programmer.

A 3D modeller/programmer will use the concept art draw by implementing them into a computerised 3D-designed world involving the stadiums, grass effects, weather conditions and more. Once this has been completed, the 3D modeller will then to capture the movement and facial animations of real-life footballers using specialist equipment. This will then allow the modeller to create a moving computerised version of the footballer and move towards creating the full concept of the game.