24 Hour DevBlitz

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10389021/BowelsOut.zip
We had 24HRs to make a Game in a compition!
1.) Had to be about: Evacuate _________ On the Dance floor.
2.) Theme was: Orange and Retro.
So how can u Evacuate the dance floor? well how bout drinking something wrong and having gas?!

Chap 7 Work

Game Progression

                I’ve can talk best about game progression with MMOs.  One thing that makes or breaks a MMO from me is the progression. I’ve played a lot of MMOs in my time and like every other MMO player will say, WoW is the champion of progression. When it comes to leveling your character you tend to always be upgrading your gear and skills. And there is a visual update for the player to notice their work in play. Then once you’re in the end game. Your get to do dungeons with your friends or guild and Blizzard nailed progression on the head with endgame. I used to stay up till 3am some nights just to get through the next boss. Progression wasn’t just a self-rewarded situation. In WoW if you were server first or even World first it was the biggest thrill to scale that in your head. Saying “Wow I was one of the first people in the world to do this and everyone knows, out of MILLIONS!” it was an adrenaline rush. Progression is a huge deal; you need to keep giving the player a pat on the back and beaning able to show the player what they done and how it effects the world around them. Keep the players Mind and eyes in the game. Keep it fresh.

My Rant on a Day of Opportunities

 

                Yesterday was an interesting day. We had our Programming Project due.  Jon, Jeff and I been working on our project for few months. First month was before the project was assigned we started brainstorming on what to do.  We agreed on since it was a programming class we wanted to go on the heavy programming side. Since we were the only group we decided on we needed to pull out the heavy guns, networking our game. We didn’t know what we were getting into. We are all first year first semester students, we don’t have any experience beside the semester we’ve been messing with code and Unity. So after all the ideas and checklists on our game were completed we began the digital part of our game. We made everything we wanted, everything worked. Rockets, Assault Rifles, and Pistols with full movement, random level spawns and everything we wanted checked out.  We were happy with our game and decided to work on the NetCode. Boy did we learn our lesson. We started putting our code into the engine and well… let’s say if my computer had arms; it would punch me in the face. We get one thing working and then something else would not work, it was a huge circle. The day before the project was due; we got together at 10am and worked on the project till 4am, hoping to get everything working 100%. When we finally turned in or project our game came from a game with a lot of things in them, to a simple left right pistol game with NetCode. Luckily our teacher was very impressed with the Networking we did, so all in all even though we didn’t get to show all the work we did, we did get to show that we worked hard on the NetCode and had it working. 

                Jon, Jeff and I have been working together in all our classes for most of the semester. I see how great we work together, we are not really far in the SGD program we’ve taken a programming, design and Jeff has taken a modeling class, but other than that were still testing the waters of what we're each great at. The reason I bring up all this is because as we worked on our programming game we knew each other’s strength and weaknesses. Without even thinking we were helping each other with things and the other didn’t even need to ask. I see this group of our, to be together for a long time.  Once we all learn what were good and can specialize in whether it been sound, modeling, programming or whatever. I know we will be working together for a while.

After our programming class we headed off to the SGD awards, where they had Steve Reid from Red Storm came down to talk to the people who showed up. He gave a good look at when we need to know to get into the industry and such, really good talk. Our group of Jon Jeff and I always talked about starting a small company or something. During the SGD awards there was a girl can’t think of her name off the top of my head, that asked a question about how to start a company and such. Jeff and I noticed this and hope to start networking with her and other people we believe are qualified to keep the determination of going forward. Even though we are first semester student we are really dedicated to get our feet in all the different waters and find out what each of us are really good at and like to do. Hope to start talking to this girl and see were the business relationship goes.

Movie Madness

 Movie Madness

            I just recently saw the movie Inception. It had one of the most unique ideas I have ever seen or thought of. I can see the in a game format pretty easy. There are two areas of the game. One is real life. In these areas you are working for contractors and doing the missions they give you. The catch is that there is competing companies to buy you out. Now this affects the game dramatically who you choose to help each mission cause the other company will send agents into YOUR dreams to mess with your thoughts and such. Since you are in and out of dreams so much you can never tell whether you are dreaming or working. You will have a totem like in the movie but it will change each zone, and you will have to use the environment to figure out whether it’s real or not. Now when you are in the Dream state it’s like the movies in a way were there are speech choices to work your way through the sub-conscious. Also some client will have a guard conscious and you will meet resistance and then you are free to customized Paradox’s and manipulate the level to help you escape. Also there will be firefights if you please or you can use the environment.

Chapter Six Book Work

Chapter Six Book Work

3 games that I’m hooked on that keep me coming back to every time I try to get away are pretty easy to name. 

1.    World of Warcraft

2.    Starcraft

3.    Halo Series

Let’s start with World of Warcraft. WoW is notorious for drawing people in for long periods of time. I played WoW since release and just recently quit again. I’ve taken breaks from WoW months at a time, but none of them were permanent.  While playing WoW I hit every aspect of the game. I was a HARDCORE raider in Vanilla WoW and PvP Hardcore got my friend up to Field Marshal. In the first expansion I casual raided with some friends then got back into the hardcore scene. The Second expansion I touched base with all of them I started casual then went hardcore pvp. Onward toward hardcore again, top guild on server and top 100 in the US.  The thing I believe that kept me in the game was the fact that there was always something new coming out and the rush to become server or region first was a rush.

Second is Starcraft and third is Halo. I put these together because they have the same reason I stick to them. The aspect of competitiveness and leaderboards drove me to the top of my game. Early days of Halo 2 I and my friend were some of the best 2s players in our state. And once SC2 came out with the ranking system I and a friend raced up to Platinum rank and now in Diamond league versing some of the best players in the Eastern US.  The drive to become the best and to earn respect keeps me going.

Character Development Revisited

Character Development Revisited

“How does the environment in the games affect the character? Think about traits of the character, or abilities that the character demonstrates.” First thing that comes to mind Crysis. I love that game not just for the technology it uses but the fact they make the levels and give you all these amazing power, but never tell you to use them for curtain reasons. They just show you how they work then let you lose. I remember running around the level super-fast then turn on super strength to punch a hole in the building then go in guns blazing. The fact that the environment is not linear but has direction makes the player and the players’ tools make the game itself. There is never a wrong or right way to do anything which makes it an awesome game.

Now if you took the environment they built and turned it into something completely different the game would most likely still be great fun. Let take the polar opposite of the setting of Crysis. They were in the Jungle for most the game. Now let take it to the city. Oh wait Crysis 2 is doing that. So from what I seen of the alpha and beta build of Crysis 2 the game looks just as fun and innovative and the first. Being able to use the speed and jump powers to leap from roof to roof is epic.

Chapter Five Book Work

Chap 5 Work (Fable 3 Spoilers)

One game that comes to mind when I think of games with decisions that affect the whole game is Fable 3. I just recently finished Fable and I can say its one of the first games were I personally felt the weight of the decisions I was making. Throughout the game you are making promises to the people who will help you overthrow the king, Also the small evil or good decisions of helping people or making them worse off. Throughout the game I was doing things to help people, find missing children in the caves or helping someone’s marriage. That all compared to the kings decisions is nothing. Once you become king you find out the evil that is coming to your kingdom. The only way to survive is to have a mass amount of gold to support an army. The king you overthrew knew about this and such had the kingdom in poverty and hard labor to prepare them and make enough money to protect them from the evil to come. You have decisions to make throughout your reign. One that stand out in my head is I had a decisions of making the children going back to work making the necessary thing for war or spend half a million making the factory into a school. That was a lot of money to spend with only a year left till the Darkness comes.  It took me 15 minutes of thinking in real life about it. I decided to sleep on it. Going to class the next day I told Jeff about it. He laughed at me and said “It’s a game don’t worry.”  At that moment I realized that I was so attached to the choices I had to make and the characters in the game that I forgot it’s Just a game.

Design Chemistry

Design Chemistry

       I can relate to this idea, of small teams of people working as a group to make something big. In our class (Design 101) we have a final project of making a board game. Were all in our own little groups of around five. When we all are out of the class are cool with each other. We get along good and share funny story’s and jokes all the time.  When it comes to time that we all work together on a project in class, such as a werewolf game we played toward the beginning of class, we worked together and made an awesome balanced game. Then there are days were we are put into small groups to make separate in-class games. When it comes to these for some reason we get into survival mode. Once our games are made we pass them around for a critic - If u can call it that. I took a college writing class in high school and we did this EVERYDAY! It was done right we all passed our papers around and talked about them freely without the creators input. It was well oiled and all the comments were thought out and were reasonable. But for some reason in Design we get defensive and have an angry tone toward each other. It seems were trying to one up each other when we should be working together to help each other to improve our games in larger terms, help us learn. There are some people who give great feedback, but there are times were I believe people are actively seeking out ways to say that your game is terrible. I understand I want to know when my game is bad so I can fix it, but there come a point the info they are trying to relay back to me is nothing but hate with no back up. Were I’m getting at with this tangent is that even though we are a group of people with the same goal, to learn as much as we can from the class and succeed in the industry. I feel like once were put in our separate group we go hostile on each other. It seems because we become closer to our group mate more so than the entire group. Thus I believe if it’s a large team that they work as one team not many teams.

Prototyping

Prototyping

           

Prototyping is something most people don’t directly think about. Usually the thought process starts at the design process of how the game is going to work and such and people argue or debate on what should be what and such, when time is better spent on testing the ideas in a mock up or a prototype. Why not take all the ideas into a simple state and play them all out. The time spent on bigger project debate what should be in the game or not can be spent on testing the idea on the field or in this case the game. Getting people outside of the development side to test these prototypes is also very important. The developer made the game and has a sub conscious on how the game works. Where an outside mind is coming in with a fresh slate and will tell you out right what they think or saw. It can be scary to put out a prototype to test, but it’s needed. Yeah it’s not finished, so you will get feedback but failing is learning. What better time to fail while your building than when its officially out. I can’t wait for next week’s class, because we get to have our prototype tested by others than our group.

Chap 4 Work

Veelox – “V- Locks”

                Veelox is a bread warrior. As a child his family left him to die as their village was ransacked by savages. Instead of being killed by the savages Veelox was taken with them. The so called ring leader took Veelox under his wing, educating Veelox and teaching him how to fight.  Veelox was one of the few of the group that was well educated and soon grew apart from the rest of the group. He ran away around the age of 14 and soon went vigilante the rest of his life, meeting some friends and enemies on the way.

Jonliu – “Jon-Lue”

                Jonliu met Veelox in the village of Wenz. Veelox herd there was trouble in the town and went there to help out with what he could. Jonliu was also a young man looking to help the world with his skills. Jonliu was a cleaver guy; he was skilled and small talk and thievery. Jonliu jailed as a kid and when he got out he knew he had to give back to the world, since the world gave him a second chance.

Winger – “Wing-Err”

                Winger they called him, cause of his signature mark he’d leave on his victims. Winger would cut the tips of his victims’ finger as if they were bird, making them unable to take flight. Winger was the pigeon keeper of his old village. They used them to send massages to other villages and towns.  He loved his pigeons so much that he didn’t want them to leave and so clipped the one feather need by bird to take flight, which is located at the tip of the wing. His village with no birds able to fly kicked Winger out and now Winger has gone mad without his birds and is going town to town murdering and torturing others.  

Chap 3 Work

Chap 3 Work

Take a game like starcraft2 and make it into a first person strategy game. That’s insane to think of, but also awesome. I remember there was a game that was called StormRise. I was extremely excited about this game. In a sense it was as close to a first person RTS you can get.  After all the hype it turned about to be a terrible game the camera didn’t work well and the game itself wasn’t fun. The idea stuck in my head though. If a good developer had this idea and took the time to do it right, such as Blizzard, I’m sure that this could be much fun.  SC2 fans would hate me for saying this but SC2 as that, a FPRTS, would be awesome to see.

Character Creation

DropBox Link  <--- Click

Game Mechanics Examined

Game Mechanics Examined

Great games have just enough game mechanics to make if fun, but they master these few mechanics. There are games that are amazing games, and have a lot of mechanics and they work. But most games that over throw the ball on mechanics lose it for me. A game with little mechanics but works great is Counter-Strike. You shoot and buy. That’s the jist of CS. A game with a lot of mechanics that work great is Metal Gear Solid 4. You had to watch your moral, health, ammo, money, etc. There was a lot of mechanics that flowed well together and worked out.  Japanese games always seem to have tons of game mechanics. Which is great, but there are games that have so many that it’s too much to hand. In the end it comes down to if the game mechanics flow with each other.

Accessability

Accessibility

            So I decided to try out StarCraft 2 with this assignment, and boy did I piss off my teammates tonight. First I was told to play my game for 10 minutes with no arms. HA! Starcraft 2 with no arms? Well let’s just say, I got carried that match. Since I had no arms I put my mouse and keyboard on the ground so I could use my feet. Well the game went terrible. Half the time was spent trying to get the camera on my base, it was flying everywhere. Other than that I was barely able to make any units I was struggling to do the most basic actions.

            The next challenge was to play with no vision. I turned off my moniter and kept my headphones on. The thing was I memorized all the hotkey, so I was able to hotkey my way through the match with my teammates taking control of my army while I just built with hotkeys. It wasn’t as bad as no arms since the game is based off clicking and hotkeys more that visual play.

            The last challenge was to play with one arm. Just like the no vision the game is playable with just a mouse or keyboard. But best with both of course. SO I used only my mouse to play the game. It worked out just fine. I wasn’t as optimal as I orignaly was, but I was able to function the best out of the 3 challenge. Blizzard did a great job on ease of controls for SC2.

Chalk Free Play

Chalk Free Play

-Challenge

            At first when playing through the tutorial of chalk I was thinking the game would be easy. Well that came back to bite me. The game picked up in speed and challenge. The bosses were difficult enough to be a boss and yet unique on how to defect each one.

-Fun Factor

            This game is incredible addicting. The fun factor is that of I would play this in free time in a computer lab or something of that matter. As you play, you just get hooked. They made it so it gets hard, but the good hard. The hard were you WANT to beat it to yell YEAH I JUST DID THAT!

-Replay Value

            As like in Fun Factor I would play this in the off time. I wouldn’t go as far as playing this at home when I have my consoles and other AAA titles to play. But the Replay Value is there were I would choose this over a lot of other flash games.

-Story

            I didn’t know there was a story in this. If being some magical fairy that flys and paint chalk is a story then I’ve been wrong all along.

-Presentation

            For a Flash game I liked the way it looked. They did a good job making it feel like your floating. It’s smooth and feels real. For flash that is.

-Controls

            The controls were smooth and fit the rolls. I could of played the game without the tutorial, but the tutorial was awesome also for people who were completely lost. It explained everything that needed to be explained.

-Closing

            The game mechanic of the chalk being the weapon was awesome. The whole game was awesome. I would like to see this be made into a 3d game with an open world, because it has a great potential. Overall I give this game 9/10 Awesome-sauces

Journal One

Backstory

       This is the Semptuis cathedral; it has survived ountless wars, were the whole town has been leveled but the cathedral, and has been a beacon to all who still live near. It is the central point of the town and brings hope to all around it.  People walking in, out, and around it see it as a normal cathedral, when really in secret, the cathedral houses the training grounds for the most elite group of assassins unknown to man. These assassins are the army of the Illuminati. Used to kill the leaders of countries without anyone realizing it, killing anyone without a trace, all looking natural.  This building will probably survive more wars magically, but few will know why.

             The tablet of Kurock, it is a story in itself. This tablet was made years ago to tell a story of a brave soul. Many people believe it’s a fable, while others look to it as a story of courage and hope.  The story starts were Kurock is spending time with his family in the meadows. When there child gets sick. So Kurock and his wife ask the gods for help. They send angels down to be put to the task. They asked Kurock and his wife what they would do to save their child; they both responded “Anything”. The angel took the life of Kurocks wife then sent him on a quest. He needed to find the scroll of Infinity and to memorize and do as it says. Kurock finds the scroll and starts to study it. As he reads it he realizes it asks him to slay a fellow man. Kurock decides another man’s life is less of worth than his sons, so he kills the next person he met.  As he begins to head back to the angels he meets a women. Kurock is lost in her beauty and is dumbstruck. He spends the next day with her. As he awoke to head back to the angels he realizes he forgot everything on the scroll. As he approaches the angels he is asked to recite the scroll. He immediately fails and is slain right there.

The door, as the locals called it. It was a treacherous door. It looked non-threating at glance but if you knew what happened behind the doors, you might change your mind. It is rumored that “Big Brother” conduct human experiments inside. People who go in never come out the same, if at all. One man who came out was twitching and itching everywhere, soon after leaving the building he jumped of his roof.

 This is the building that secret treaty was signed by Sanid and Kilas, The two super-powers of this planet. They were planning this movement for years. They decided to join forces and become the dominate leaders of the world.  Dictatorship was the goal. The problem was who would leader the world? They oddly enough played rock-paper-scissor to choose the leader. Ironic thing is the guy with only 2 fingers won.

Genre Vs Type

Genre Vs Type

            When first seeing this I was confused on how this was a big deal. It made sense to me from the start. If someone would ask me before I read this article, what the difference between Genre and Type was, I would of said just what the article said. That a type is something you can do, it’s almost like an action. Shooter, Adventure, Strategy. Those in a way are do-able. Where the Genre is the feel of the game, almost emotion like.  Horror, Mystery, Fantasy. All this are how the game feels and affects the player, not how the player PLAYS.

Catch the Clown

In class Catch the Clown Mod. <-- Click Me!

Player Perspective

Palling ‘Round with God

Player Perspective

                My comrade Biggs is dead, the vodka is gone and I’m running through the field trying to resurrect my wounded fool of a friend. Now my other chum Wedge decides to move through the holy field, once a palace like field that encompassed all in the area with an aura that shined upon the towers and statues built to worship the relationship between Man and God are now almost rubble, and the shine that once was is replaced with a haze that creeps over the land.

As Wedge approaches his waypoint to report back to his teammates, he looks back to see his path became enshrined in a holy aura. With wide eyes and excitement Wedge sends word that the treasure was just stepped over and that it was time to rally and make a break for the treasure.  Thunder struck the sky and the winds howled, God was near and it was evident he wasn’t just observing. It was a sure bet that God was reigning in the troops to protect the treasure, but it would still be a heavy gamble to try and revive Biggs and make our team whole again. God had commanded and his army obeyed, the field is fresh with monsters and I hesitate to move toward the direction of the treasure without my wounded friend beside me. I shake my oracle ball and ask what I will see in my near future, but all lady luck tells me is that I’m not long for earth. I mutter something about manifest destiny to the useless prophet and toss the ball off the nearest cliff.

Surprised that the fates could piss me off even more, I run out to save my fallen comrade. BAM! An ugly Jabberwocky ambushes me and tries to take off my head with his giant claws but only manages to make contact with my shield and knock me into the broken marble floors of a worn away temple. My back is killing me but my pride is what was really wounded, I play dead and wait for the beast to close in, Jabberwockys are so easy to fool. As soon as he is in range I sweep low with my sword and take his front legs completely off and I scramble ahead trying not to get caught in the fall. Before I have the chance to finish him off, the Jabberwocky cries out an awful shriek that dizzies me. I try to run and continue on to Biggs but I don’t get far before the Jabberwocky reinforcement responded to the cries of his friend, who knows what other monsters heard the call.

 I turn and run up a flight of stairs that don’t lead to anywhere to try and get some high ground; the pain in my ass follows and leaves a trail of burnt dust in his rage for revenge. When the Jabberwocky sees me at the top of the stairs he charges like a bull toward me and I use whatever luck I had left to dodge and let his weight collapse the staircase.

 Biggs cusses at me when I approach him, something about taking my sweet time. I punch him in the mouth as I patch him up, don’t need him to talk just fight. By the time Biggs gained his strength Wedge had already been trolling the aura filled passageway always ready to find the treasure with no risk too great, meaning his comrade’s lives. Wedge continued to run through the field block after block scanning the area sans protocol, until he bit off more than he could chew and a monster big enough to wreck a train blindsided him and threw him into a hard marble wall. Great, even before Biggs’s painkillers kick in Wedge is already out of commission because he can’t follow protocol and check in, always a loose cannon.

Biggs runs ahead of me to cut off the monster’s descent upon Wedge and manages to cause the ground behind him to uproot like a damn earthquake. A light even stronger than the aura permeates the space around the earthquake and blinds everything in sight before Biggs could turn around to see what happened. Thank Bill Cosby! The treasure had been located and fully revealed and the strategy had changed, Biggs wasn’t trying to keep the horde from reaching Wedge, now he was playing king of the hill with the horde yelling at me to get to the treasure while he was still conscious.

We had to leave Wedge as a lost cause not because he would have done the same to us in a heartbeat, but that was protocol when the treasure was uprooted and in jeopardy. Our odds of getting to our fallen comrade and getting the treasure are lower than if we made a break for it with only two men standing, we all knew what had to be done. I understood why as I dominated through the passage to the treasure, The look on Biggs’s face holding back the horde was beyond despair, there were more monsters in all directions getting closer and he couldn’t hold them all off.

With God’s army on my back I haul ass to the treasure, but instead get introduced to a one-winged angel knocking me off the uprooted land. I wake up and it’s begun to storm and my reaction is to stop the dagger from being inserted into my face, I must have slept through the boring parts. Lady luck must have changed sides as I maneuver my leg to the angel’s side and use the leverage to kick him off of me. The rain picks up and we stand up and face each other, round two reminds me too much of Lethal Weapon so I shake it off and taunt my opponent by calling him a traitor(Satan). The angel laughs and lunges at me with his wing, the wind speed causing me to lose balance and gives the angel a chance to slice open my side. The blood stains the wet ground and the angel is laughing at me again but I’m laughing harder, at God. Lightning cracks and the one-winged beast falls to pieces, his head rolls toward me and gives me a confused look while I wipe the blood off of my sword.

 I hear Biggs cry out as I limp up the torn earth to the treasure, which makes me fight even harder to stay awake. I don’t know if it’s the blood loss or the treasure, but the closer I get makes everything surrounding the treasure fadeout of view. I approach the treasure and start to grab the orb that is hovering above the ground. When I hold the orb in my hand it glows and the glowing covers my body and heals my wounds, before I can reach for my victory cigar my body tingles and I am transported to the heavens. Looks like Heavens got a brand new God…now where do I hide this orb?

High Concept

Palling ‘Round with God is a 4 player epic adventure of three heroes who are looking for the all-powerful, radiating orb of infinite shenanigan wisdom…which is covered up by gold coins and $20 bills in a steamer trunk hidden somewhere in the world.  The one lucky buck that gets to play God must defend the treasure at all costs.  Sadly, it’s all that’s left worth saving.  The housing market’s crap nowadays.  Television hasn’t been good since 1959.  And your son hates you.  He had the nerve to stay in bed all day on his birthday last year just to spite you and your festive holiday party plans.  Screw ‘em.  You’re the boss.  Your t-shirt says so.  You guide gloomy buffer angels, dirty devil demon crawlers, and a mega-giant of massive meanness to stop a trio of bumbling schmucks from getting your stash.  The three searchers are lost in a vague world.  Slowly proceeding over an empty landscape where untold riches (actually just about $8,020.17) or fierce tooth-to-toe battles await just around the corner.  Movements are direct and the mission is clear.  Steal God’s thunder fund.  Memory and luck will reward the patient, but be careful of your teammates in this quest.  They can choose to revive a fallen comrade as they lay bruised and confused on the path ahead or they can take an extra long step over the carnage, give a thumbs up sign, smile, and keep on looking for that confounded treasure box thing.  And always remember, far, far above - God’s watching it all.  Reveling in the squabbles and near misses with the loot.  One of the heroes walks mere centimeters away from the loot?  Should God have said anything?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  It’s up to God.  But remember, as the result of an old football injury, he can’t move the heavy treasure after initially putting it down.  It’s there forever.  And once it’s discovered - the great big gig’s up.  It’s been fun palling ‘round with you, God, but I’ve got to go!  (fade-up distant angry thunder, wait for electricity to go ou----

Shenanigans!

2 Hours with a crappy camera and what do we do? Make a epic video, enjoy.
 VIDEO LINK

Free Play

Last Scenario

Assignment: download a free game from the site given by teacher, and review it. Well the first thoughts in my head were…well, negative. I told Jon next to me that it’s probably going to be some crappy flash games that we’ll get bored of in 5 minutes.  I’m eating my words now. Browsing through the site a RPG looking picture caught my eye. I downloaded it and gave it a whorl and boy was I impressed.

            Last Scenario is a basic RPG, you start in a small town as a no one and find out that you’re important from some random stranger, and you go off on an adventure and all hell break loose in the world, and guess what? “WHAT!” you’re the only one who can save the world! What’s new?

            -Challenge

The game is on the difficult side once it picks up, like a lot of RPGs out there. You start off killing wolves, and in no time you’re fighting bosses that you are spamming healing potion on yourself to stay alive. All in all it’s a good balance of difficulty and fun level, the challenge is there to keep the game from being mindlessly boring but it’s not diehard to the point that you want to go punch a wall or whatever you do when you rage.

            -Replay Value

I haven’t beaten the game yet, well because it’s a RPG they’re REALLY REALY long most of the time. I’m a couple hours in and I’m still going. So in the case replay value in unknown but the game so far shows potential to be replay ability.

            -Story/Gameplay

The story like I said in the intro has nothing much to it, seen and heard it ALL before. But I honor the attempt to build conflict and problem in the protagonists’ life. The gameplay is what really what sold it to me. It reminded e of FF3 (Jap ver) A LOT. Some people might see that as a bad thing like they copied or something, I say no that’s a great thing. FF3 really set the RPG genre off, with its turn based play style and why fix something that’s not broken?

            -Presentation

The graphic are nice on the eyes. Nothing over the top but nothing so crappy you lose sight in your eyes. The graphics are hand drawn, and done very well. When walking around town and in world map they used a sprite to represent your party, but when battling the hand drawing characters are excellent. The music, like the gameplay, is a kick back to the FF3 days. The music changed depending of the setting, and it was appropriate for the setting also. The first town has a nice rhythmic feel to it, but when I entered the capital prestigious music started to play.

            -Verdict

All in all I’ll be playing this game well after this assignment is over. It’s a great RPG and it long also. It being free just makes it all that much better. The only thing I would change is that I can’t save anywhere, which is a pain when I have to go mid play and can’t seem to find a save stone. But other than that I really enjoyed it and I give it a 7/10 rating

Chapter Two Book Work

FF13 – Minecraft – Gears Of War

                Between these 3 games, they hit most of the spectrum of game design elements. To start off Final Fantasy 13 was a major graphics pusher, I know that’s weird sounding how I put it; but bottom like FF13 pushed graphics beyond what everybody knew. Everyone played a game were they had a beautiful cutscene then it went back to in-game graphics and kind of killed the moment, and the player said “I wish the in-game looked that good” Well that’s what FF13 did. Gameplay wise the linear story kind of killed it for a lot, not much freedom in it but a great game none the less.

                Minecraft was a game to focus purely on game play and addictiveness. I’m not going to take too much time on this since I reviewed it on my blog, but I will say that I am still playing it to date.

                Finally Gear of War, EPIC studios in known for their Unreal Engine; and they put it to use themselves. I put gears of wars under the “technology” aspect of game design elements, EPIC pushed there engine and still are. They produced a great title using their own engine to promote its power and showed that they can make great games, on top of a great engine.

Gameplay & Controls

Game play & Controls

                When I pick up a game, I usually don’t open the little guide they give you and study the controls. I pick up the controller, throw the game in, and start playing. Controls need to be second nature to me; for it to feel right. I want to pick up the controller and push buttons that I expect to do what I want them to do - and they do it. This Tuesday I picked up Halo: Reach. I rushed home and threw the game in my Xbox. I watch the opening cinematic and start up the campaign. As the cadence end and I’m given control of my Spartan, I’m immediately prompted to look around and get use to the camera controls. They throw me off the helicopter and I’m on foot. My instincts kick in, left joy stick is to move, right one to look. The trigger is to fire my weapon and X is to reload, all of these are impulse nothing more. That is what good controls are made of. The controls are of impulse and second nature; I don’t sit forever fiddling with the controls to figure them out. The buttons that I expect to do one thing; do that one thing.

Introduction to the Game Design Document

            Game Design documents can determine a game’s outcome, thus being one of the most important aspects of the design process. It takes the confusion out of the design process, it takes the “was it like this or that” “NO it was like that I swear!” out of the board room. The document is able to help guild the whole team on the right path, shows the intentions of the game. In a big team of designers you would most defiantly need a Game Design document in my opinion. It would be very difficult to keep everyone constantly up-to-date. When someone repeats themselves, it means it’s important what they’re trying to get across. And in this article the author repeats “It’s not a step by step guide, it’s a reference to what the designers want.”  So I’ll be keeping that in my mind.

Chapter One Book Work

Then and Now

Metal Gear solid has to be one of my Favorite series I have ever played. Kojima out does himself ever time.  From the first game till the latest it’s been an epic journey through all. I remember playing the first game and having to consciously keep my jaw closed. At the time the first game released (Metal Gear Solid 1998) the graphics themselves could sell the game. It was new to most everyone who played it. It was no run and gun, it was no racing game, and then what was it? It added an element that not everyone at the time was used to. It added sound into the game and alert AI.  You didn’t want to go guns blazing through the game you would die almost instantly, then again there comes times were you’d have to kill an enemy to get to where you needed go. So you would use the AI to your advantage. You could knock on a wall to attract the attention of a guard, then swoop around and flank him for the kill. For most part the first game was played in a tatical 3rd person view. Another great thing Kojima is well known for that he introduced in Metal Gear Solid was the cut scenes. Kojima took cut scenes to a new height, cut scenes didn’t just help the story it made me want to play more and more. I never wanted it to stop, cut scenes were like movies and Kojima would take that idea onward in his series.

            As the series progressed Kojima added more elements into the fray. These were great additions to the series and added another layer to the game. With the gaming industry starting to grow, Kojima needed to cater to more and more styles of play. In the second game of the series (Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty 2001) Kojima added a first-person mode for firing the gun. Which in all turned out great, but to make it balanced the AI got a boost also. In the third game in the series (Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater 2004) Kojima added MORE to their library of features to the series. They introduced camouflage into the mix of stealth options; it does what you’d expect camouflage helped you hide/sneak from enemies. They added positional damage to Snake (main character) if for instance you were to fall a distance your leg might get broken and you would need to use the jungle and what you have to heal/treat it. If his stomach made a noise you needed to get food, it added a HUGE feeling of realism to the game. Finally the fourth game in the series (Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of The Patriots 2008) is by far my favorite game ever made. It is consider by some to be the masterpiece of Kojima. I can go on for HOURS about this game and everything in it. I would probably make this blogs’ sever explode with the amount of information I would have to type out for how much this game has in it. One of the biggest things that this one brought to the table was the cut scenes the Kojima was so famous for. I felt like I was in a movie at one point. Toward mid-game I hit a cut scene that ended up being over two hours long! Yes, I’d suggest you re-read what I just said….2 HOUR CUT SCENCE! Total this game had hours and hours of cut scenes. Some games use cut scenes to add time to the game, but Metal Gear didn’t. If anything I wish there was more cut scenes. They didn’t take away from the game, at no point did I feel that I was missing out on the great gameplay, they did an amazing job on making the cut scenes a part of the game and not “filler”.

            Metal Gear Solid is by far one of the top series in the gaming world and I will be a determined follower for as long as they continue to produce more.

Metal Gear Solid (1998)

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001)

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (2008) 

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004)

MineCraft Review

MineCraft

Minecraft were to start? Well first off Minecraft isn’t what most people play these days. So in this review I’m going to go thought each aspect of the game and give my two cents about it.

The Graphics 8/10 Goatees

            It’s a throwback to old school graphics, but that makes it better in my opinion.  The graphics make the gameplay stand out more, and the gameplay is the sweet stuff.  It’s a Block like graphics a 8 bit 16 bit style of art. In the end it works for the better. It has the old school feel which I love. But after a while it will strain the eyes.

The Gameplay 10/10 Goatees

            The gameplay is where it’s at. There is no end goal in this game! Gasp! I know right.  It’s a game were you play to have fun not to get to the end credits as fast as possible. The game is about survival. There is a day and night cycles in the game, in day time you are safe to walk around and collect materials to build …well build everything.  You are able to collect everything you can see. From sand, dirt, gravel, stone, ore, wood everything you could think of. You take these raw materials and form them into useable objects. You can take the wood and make refined wood, then take that and make Rods or sticks. Then you take those rods and add a stone to the top and make a shovel. Now the shovel can be used to collect gravel, dirt, sand much faster. The goal with all these is to use them to make a Base or, well whatever you want. But at night time is where the real fun comes into play. At night enemies spawn and their only goal is to kill you! Dun Dun DUUUUNNNN!! They are relentless. There are Zombies, then zombies that have no arms that explode, Skeletons that have Bows, and spiders that can jump a football fields distance and hit you. For the most part you are collecting during the day, making sure u have defenses, (yes you can make weapons) and surviving the night so you can repeat the process.

The Sounds 8/10 Goatees

            The sounds are on par. They’re what they need to be. I consider this when playing a game if I don’t notice the sounds, and then they are doing their job. Sounds are supposed to so immerse, and if you don’t notice the sounds standing out, then that means it feels natural to you and that the sounds are doing their job. So in Minecraft the sounds differ on the different types of material you are ….hitting, wood sounds like thump and stone sounds like stone.

The Learning Curve and Controls 7/10 Goatees

        The learning curve isn’t much if any for me, but to be fair I had seen videos on YouTube of people who played this game before i played. None the less the curve isn’t hard. The controls are what you’d expect from a 1^st person game. WASD and the mouse is to look around Clicking thing adds or collect materials. That’s it very basic but works well once you get it down.

Overall Score 9/10 Goatees

            Overall this game is one of my favorites. The fact that one guy made this game that has had a snowball effect of popularity. It’s a fresh feeling that a game is not focused on graphics or story but purely on gameplay that is fun. It is though a game where you will love it or hate it; there is not much of a middle ground here. So this review was a little hard, but I’m just showing what I know about the game and what I think about it. I’d say give the free trail a try, it’s not like the FULL game were you collect things and what not, but it does show how the building works and what not.