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.