Book/Article Readings - FADT

Gamasutra - Doug Church - Features - Formal Abstract Design Tools

For this week's reading (also my first reading), I had to read from Gamasutra for the topic 'Features - Formal Abstract Design' by Doug Church. For this article, I decided to read the online version from the following website:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3357/formal_abstract_design_tools.php


In the article Doug Church talks about what modern day games are made of - a technical base with a vision for the players experience.

He then explains how industry evolution has grown over the previous years such as more powerful hardware, better screens and audio equipment etc. However, he states that games 'Design' as a specific area has not evolved at such a pace and he believes this is due to the lack of a 'Common Design Vocabulary', such as engineers talking their respective jargon and doctors knowing Latin names for each body part. Games designers would just say 'that was fun' or 'that wasn't very good'.

Doug then moves onto a notion for FADT (Formal Abstract Design Tools) as a way to use particular words to describe the 'Design' of a game, with hopes to help push the advancement and evolution of this area as much as the technical aspects mentioned above.


FADT:

There are four words used in this area:

Formal - Precise definition which you are able to explain to others.
Abstract - Emphasises focus on underlying ideas (not genre specific), such as '+2 Giant Slaying Sword' this would be specific to genre, instead you would say 'Player Power up Curve'.
Design - Self Explanatory.
Tools - Self Explanatory.


Using Tools under FADT:

Doug explains that there are many examples of tools that are used in games and would take and endless amount of time to go through each to explain. For this reason he gives us three examples to give us the understanding of how tools can be used in games to give players overall enjoyment while keeping the designer in control.

Intention - (Intentionally) - 'Making an implementable plan of one's own creation in response to the current situation in the game world and one's understanding of the game play options.'

Perceivable Consequence - 'A clear reaction from the game world to the action of the player.'

(Both of the above two tool types are commonly used in conjunction. Example game provided by Doug Church was Mario 64).

Story - Narrative thread, whether designer driven or player driven, that binds events together and drives the player forward toward completion of the game.

(The 'Story' tool often conflicts with 'Intention' as a lot of control is taken away from the player, sacrificed for the use of narrative which is mostly if not fully designer controlled. Some RPG's such as Final Fantasy maintain a balance of both but keep them separate - Combat uses 'Intention' and Plot uses 'Story').

Doug Church finalises that games differ from books and movies due to the above key core tools used to make players interact and become involved, making decisions to change outcomes.

Battleship Iterations

Week 1

Reading:

For this weeks lecture we were meant to read around a particular statement from Costikyan as follows:

"A game is an interactive structure of endogenous meaning that requires players to struggle towards goals" (2004:24).

Unfortunately I was on holiday from Thursday 18th October until Wednesday 24th October, so I did not read the material required, however I was not alone. Due to this, we exchanged notes with the people who had read and commented on the above statement.

From what I understand, Costikyan had discussed the differences between games and what makes a game, a game. He believed that games and puzzles are completely separate for the following reasons (based on the notes and information taken from Elliot and the discussion with the rest of the class):

• Games are to be 'interactive' thus keeping a player involved and active. 
• An interactive game is a game that changes after players choices or moves. 
• Interactive games must have a purpose or a goal. 
• If a game has no goal or purpose then it becomes a toy. 
• An example of a non-interactive game would be a crossword. 
• Games also require struggle to give a player satisfaction. 
• There needs to be a balance of struggle in a game so that it is not impossible or frustrating. 
• Without struggle a game is dead. 
• The meaning of 'Endogenous' is a meaning within a game that adds value to the game (not necessarily real life value), such as games like Monopoly, or more recently, Facebook games.

From the above information I agree with all items except from point four - 'If a game has no goal or purpose then it becomes a toy', I personally do not agree with this statement due to some games such as SimCity, there are no goals initially and the player creates his own goals and achievements as the game progresses.



Battleship:

For the second part of the lecture, we played a round of traditional Battleships, which I lost. From this we then had to come up with Iterations for this game (one at a time per play through), while maintaining the fun factor and hopefully making players want to re-play again and again.

Our first Iteration was to add in different ammo types, each of which were limited per game. The two ammo types we had were:

1. One-Shot - 2 of this ammo per game, fired like a normal shot but if it hits an opponents vessel then that vessel is destroyed in one with the opponent stating that the vessel was destroyed. However you are still uncertain which spaces the vessel occupied. 
2. Cluster Shot - 2 of this ammo per game, fired like a normal shot aiming for a particular spot, but the shot also pans out forming into a '+' shape with the space aimed at being the centre spot.

Our second play through of the game including the above Iteration, we felt as though it was more fun however we needed a further change.

The second Iteration was to make the game board larger. For our practice round (third play through) we increased the size by an extra 3 columns both across and down due to the limitation of the size of the practice board, however we would look to increase it further if necessary. We also added in extra vessels to this Iteration to counter the size increase of the board so that we ended up with 2 of each vessel.

From our third play through including the second Iteration, we decided that having more vessels made the size increase of the board pointless as you still had the same odds of hitting a vessel. We concluded that we would increase the board size but not add in extra vessels at this stage so this would make the game more challenging as this increases your chances of missing.

From other groups Iterations, there were two ideas that were used which I liked that could possibly be modified and incorporated into our game, they were:

1. 3D board - This idea is quite interesting, I thought about having the board as it currently is but also making it several spaces deep which could represent underwater, water level, and the sky. Next week, if we continue with this, then I may look to implement this idea into our game. 
2. Shaped Vessels - Again, this idea took my interest as it adds a challenge to the game as your opponent would not know the shapes of your vessels.

First Blog Post - Interview

We were doing interviews today for our first session of Critical Games Studies to be used for our first blog post.

Below is the list of pre-picked questions asked (chosen by our lecturer) and responses given, by me, giving a small insight into some of my out of Uni activities. Get ready to yawn....


1) What is the title of the book (fiction) you are currently reading (or the last fiction book you read)?

'Summer Knight' by Jim Butcher, great fantasy fiction. A lot of my ideas for games come from elements of this series of books.


2) What is the title/topic of the book (non-fiction) you are currently reading (or the last non-fiction book you read)?

Possibly the 'Guiness Book of Records', I'm not a huge fan of non-fiction unless the facts interest or intrigue me.


3) What is the last live performance (music, drama or dance) you attended?

This would have to be the Linkin Park concert at the NEC in Birmingham, I think this was back in 2004?


4) What is the title of the last film you saw at the cinema / online / or on dvd?

Cinema - The Amazing Spiderman (I think),
DVD - Piranha 3DD,


5) How often do you read a newspaper? (which one? online or physical?)

I pretty much never read a newspaper other than catching a glimpse over somebody's shoulder, however I have looked online from time to time if I know something big has happened recently from people talking (once every few months).


6) Which art gallery / museum / exhibition did you last visit?

In either 2007 or 2008 I went to see the fireworks display in Norwich - 'Sparks in the Park'.


7) How many hours a week do you spend playing video games?

As this is my biggest and longest lasting hobby and interest, I would guess around 40 hours per week.


8) How many hours a week do you spend playing games other than video games?

Some weeks me and my partner will go her sisters house to play a few boards games, when we do this we normally spend around 6-8 hours - normally playing through to completion.