Games Studies - Projects
28.09.2019Joseph (0336620)
Games Studies
Exercise and Lecture
LECTURE
27.09.19 - 28.09.19 (Week 1)
Today is the first class for Games Studies, we start off the class with the usual brief of the module and were explained what this class is going to be like and what to expect from this class. Our first class was a short one. Mr. Charles (The Lecturer) gave us a short lecture on a few key terms that we have to think about to understand a little bit about game studies. It was presented in slides.
For our second meeting we talked about a few tabletop games. Those tabletop games are called "Monopoly" and "Risk". We talked about the mechanics of the games and how it works. We were then split into 2 groups and were tasked to create a game that uses some of the tools from monopoly, we were given 3 minutes to create a game. Eventually I've come up with a game that discussed with my groupsmates and they were okay with it. Although I don'tt have a name for the game yet, I will explain the rules of the game below.
Rules and Goals:
A BRIEF EXPLANATION ABOUT THE GAME
It is a game about acquiring chairs, there is a total of 30 chairs. Each team will have to CONQUER IT OUT on a game Rock, Papers, and Scissors. Whichever teams that wins the duel will have a chance to roll a dice and whatever value that the dice shows will determine how many chairs that the winning teams get. Teams will mark their chairs with Monopoly dollar bills.
Goal of the game is simple. Acquire every chair before the timer ends.
Rules of the game :
1.) Teams will play a game of Rocks, Papers, and Scissors
2.) Winning team will get a chance to roll a dice one time. Whatever number that shows up on the dice will determine how many chairs they can get.
3.) Teams will mark their chairs with Monopoly Dollar Bills.
4.) Each round of game will be given 15 minutes
5.) Games ends when the timer runs out.
6.) Whichever team that acquires the most chairs before the timer ends wins!
7.) Enjoy!
03.09.2019 - 04.09.2019 (Week 2)
For today we talked about a few things, we were asked to create a gaming channel on youtube so we can start doing some of our game reviews. It's so weird to hear that because I'm used to the idea that studying about games doesn't involve playing games. Mr.Charles showed us his gaming channel and said that we would do something like that. This is the gaming channel.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKFexe0Rfdm5RFVI_S5n3aA
And then we talked about playing some games for the next day which was kinda weird and crazy for me to hear because I haven't had a lecturer that asks me to play games at a cybercafé at all. So the next day we went to the cyber café and spent 3 hours in the cyber café. Since most of us played games for the first time at the cyber café, most people were confused on how to do this and that and I had to be there to help each of them. For me, first it was kinda annoying for me to walk around and help each of them set up their discord and steam accounts, but then I remembered my first time doing this and my friends find me really annoying cause I keep bugging them to help set me up. So we spent 1 hour just setting up accounts and we can finally play the games that they wanted to play.
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| Fig 1.1 |
We played this game called Paladins, its a hero shooter RPG meaning that each characters have special abilities with different weapons but they still hold the same role. We played the game and it was a load of fun.
Week 3 (10.09.2019)
For this week, we played a game that the second group created which was Jason's group. Their group made a game which was essentially Pictogram, but with a little twist to it. They're twist to the game was implementing a face off with each group. Their version of pictogram had rules which will be explained below :
RULES OF THE GAME :
- Game starts by 2 teams, doesn't matter how many.
- The each team will pick 5 drawers and one guesser.
- Each team will be given a word that they have to draw. The word will be given by the game master and only the drawers know.
- Guessers will have to rely on the drawing ability of the their teams to guess the word.
- After the word is given by the game master, each drawers from each team will play a game of rock, papers, and scissors.
- Whoever wins the duel will have 5 seconds to draw whatever is the word,
- This will continue until the guesser can guess the correct drawn words.
PROJECT 2
WEEK 5
In this week, we were asked to create some sort of a prototype of a game that we created. We made a game beforehand without making looking at any references, we were wrong about it, we are supposed to look for references. So with that in mind, we went to look for games that sort of able to relate to the games that we made. Before making this game, we were inspired by a few games but never write down notes about what the game is about. So we revisited these games and this time take down notes about the game.
We played a game called Battle of Polytopia. It was this game about waging war between factions, and the goal is to destroy the other factions. The rules of the game were simple, build an army big enough to destroy the other kingdoms. So we thought to ourselves what sort of elements can we add to the game if we were the game developers. The game had different terrains and different levels, we wanted to make something simple from a rough prototype and see what sort of updates we can put in the game that we created. The game requires resources to build troops or units to win the game. Resources come in the form of stars and it is required to be used as purchasing troops to win. Each turn of the game, players are rewarded with stars or resources to be used and spent on traits that would help players to win the game.
When we thought about the game, we figured we wanted to look for a feature of a game that could prolong the game even longer. We also wanted to give a choice to players that they can work together while they are in a middle of fighting each other. So we wanted to find a feature that allows for that feature to happen. So we were banging our heads against the wall (not literally), it wasn't until my groupmate Chiquita, mentioned about Monopoly where the goal was to out buy other players building so that they would go bankrupt.
So we thought about what features that Monopoly has that allows for competitiveness, and we thought about the answer being the system of making each player bankrupt. So we thought of a feature that can give competitiveness or something that the players have to work for to win. Eventually, for our game, we built a map that or a battlefield to play in. With the information gathered, we decided that we would build a game that's turn-based, it the goal would to claim or steal what others have. We started off with a lot of features to add, we thought about what would make a very fun feature and would turn the tides of the game completely, so we thought of a system that would do that. So we went with a system called the season system, we thought of how the season system would work and the way we thought about is what sort of calamities or opportunities that it could bring that can affect the way players play. We had a lot of ideas and features that can be added to the game, but with new features comes with new rules that have to be set. The longer we thought about it, the more complicated it became, so because of that, we started small and simple. The game became a simple game of snatch, we made it simple enough and try to see if it works or not.
The Goal of the Game :
- First to acquire all of the treasure wins the game. The total treasure is 4.
- Everyone has 1 treasure.
The rules of the game :
- Each player will start with corners within the map.
- Each player will be granted couriers that they can use to move the treasure.
- Each player will start with a King and a Courier.
- Kings act as a leader that controls the troops.
- Couriers act as a unit that can acquire and move the treasure.
- Soldiers and Kings are only allowed to move one box at a time.
- Couriers can move 2 boxes at a time.
- The game is turned based.
- Soldiers and Kings aren't allowed to move the treasure.
- Couriers are only allowed to carry one treasure at a time.
Alright, so we pitched the idea to Mr. Charles and it was sort of rejected, we needed to change the idea of the game because the game had no logic to it, the way we thought about was that there was no need for logic to be in a game. We figured that we can control the logic in the game just because the game deems it to be. We made the game where kings have to steal the treasure, Mr. Charles said to us why kings need to steal the treasure or why did they have to steal, were they bad kings? or were they thieves? These are the small and logical questions that needed to make sense about the game, to us these are elements that people don't care about however they can see to it and consider it as a mistake or something that doesn't make sense. So when we created the game we had this map that was based on a grid since it was somewhat rejected then we needed a new idea for the game. With the feedback that we got, we worked on a new idea.
For our new idea, we thought about making a board game that would promote teamwork while trying to fight for something. After giving it some thought in the end we decided to turn it into a survival game. We wanted something that would promote teamwork, so we thought to ourselves saying why not make a survival game where survivors are stuck on an island and they have to survive based on building and managing resources. With that in mind, we went ahead and look for board games that were based on that, keywords that we took down was "Teamwork" and "Survival". With that in mind, one of the games that we found was Stronghold Games Survive: Escape from Atlantis. It was this Hexagonal shape map where it offers more freedom. We decided to use that as our movement system.
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The hexagonal shape was made for more freedom of movement in the game itself. It fits the well with simulating terrain and game worlds, being a game about surviving in the jungle, we decided to use the hexagonal shape and hopes that it provides more freedom. In terms of resources number and count. We were heavily inspired by open-world survival games like "The Forest" or "State of Decay", mostly games that require resources to survive.
These 2 games require teamwork (If played on multiplayer) or if badass enough play by yourself and try to survive the game. So for the game, we made a set of game rules that was hopefully simple enough to follow through and play. These are the set of rules that we gave for the game.
Board Game Ideas: Survival Game
- A hexagonal based map to experiment with
- Experimenting hexagonal shapes for map movement, the reason being that it offers more sides and offers more freedom than the standard 4 side shape or a box.
- the idea of the game is to survive with a certain amount of turn.
- It starts with 2 Tribe and 2 Survivors.
- Each ending turn they will get a resources card, a dice will determine how much they get.
- The players will start with 10 stamina.
- Each player will get a random set of resources.
- Players can carry a maximum of 10 stacks of resources for each resource
- Players play for a total of 30 turns
-Resources include :
- Stones
- Wood
- Fabric
- Rope
- Fruits
- Flint and Stone
Utilities Include :
- Shelter
- Traps
- Axe
- Fireplace
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Losing Condition :
Survivors lose by :
- Running out of stamina
- Caught by Tribe members
Tribe members lose by :
- Running out of stamina
- Survivors survive until the dedicated turn is reached.
Winning Condition :
Survivors win by :
- Surviving until the dedicated turn.
Tribe wins by:
- Capturing survivors.
However, that idea was rejected therefore Mr. Charles advised us to do a battleroyale game but a table top version of it.
We started with discussing how the game is going to play out, by thinking about how the game will play out, we started first with gathering information of the game genre itself, we looked into different games to fall into the genre of Battle Royale. We started with looking at games like PUBG and Fortnite, two of the most famous games in the year.
Game Design Research
- PUBG (PLAYERS UNKNOWN BATTLEGROUND)
PUBG is a game where up to one hundred players parachute onto an island and scavenge for weapons and equipment to kill others while avoiding getting killed themselves. The available safe area of the game's map decreases in size over time, directing surviving players into tighter areas to force encounters. The last player or team standing wins the round. The plane's flight path across the map varies with each round, requiring players to quickly determine the best time to eject and parachute to the ground. Players start with no gear beyond customized clothing selections which do not affect gameplay. Once they land, players can search buildings, ghost townsand other sites to find weapons, vehicles, armor, and other equipment. These items are procedurally distributed throughout the map at the start of a match, with certain high-risk zones typically having better equipment. Killed players can be looted to acquire their gear as well. Players can opt to play either from the first person or third person perspective, each having their own advantages and disadvantages in combat and situational awareness; though server-specific settings can be used to force all players into one perspective to eliminate some advantages.
Fortnite is a online free for all battleroyale game where 100 players are put in an island to defeat each other until the last man standing wins. The game focuses on crafting cover to gain a better advantage on winning duels against players. Fortnite: Save the World is designed as player-versus-environment game, with four players cooperating towards a common objective on various missions. The game is set after a fluke storm appears across Earth, causing 98% of the population to disappear, and the survivors to be attacked by zombie-like "husks". The players take the role of commanders of home base shelters, collecting resources, saving survivors, and defending equipment that help to either collect data on the storm or to push back the storm. From missions, players are awarded a number of in-game items, which include hero characters, weapon and trap schematics, and survivors, all of which can be leveled up through gained experience to improve their attributes. Fortnite Battle Royale is a player-versus-player battle royale game for up to 100 players, allowing one to play alone, in a duo, or in a squad (usually consisting of three or four players). Weaponless players airdrop from a "Battle Bus" that crosses the game's map. When they land, they must scavenge for weapons, items, resources, and even vehicles while trying to stay alive and attack other players, eliminating them. Over the course of a round, the safe area of the map shrinks down in size due to an incoming storm; players outside that safe area take damage and can be eliminated if they fail to quickly evacuate. This forces remaining players into tighter spaces and encourages player encounters. The last player, duo, or squad remaining is the winner.
After looking at those games, we tried to figure out how can we put that mechanic in a game where players can sort of land whenever they want. So we decided that we were going to put in dice in the game and whoever rolls the highest will get the first turn and get to choose where to spawn in. After deciding on how the game is going to start and how will they get their turns and how will they move. We thought to ourselves how combat is going to work out. Since this is a table top game then continuous movement in real time is going to be impossible, in that case we made the game turn based and in terms of movement we let dices determine the movement of players. After that we tried to figure out how are players going to find weapons, we thought about putting out weapon spot for them to find, but then it would be complicated and players would know where to find weapons every time. So it seems that it would be a problem, we went ahead and ask PUBG and Fortnite players how did they acquire weapons and how did they acquire good weapons from the game. Most of them answered it was based on luck, so that gave us an idea on how players will acquire the weapons, which we would then used luck. We decided to use the dice as a feature. Since it would be luck based, we decided that if players were to roll the dice 2 times and got an amount that’s more than 6 then they would get to draw a weapon card, how rare and how good the weapon is will be random.
The next step for us is to determine how the combat will work, that was pretty simple. However, there were still mistakes that we made while testing it the first time, the first time we tested it was really unbalanced. We made a grid arena consisting of 100 boxes or 10x10 boxes and thought that it was too small.
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| 100 tile Grid |
So we decided we decided to do 200 boxes or 20x10 boxes and use a bigger space instead.
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| 200 Tile Grid |
Having 200 boxes allowed for more space and more freedom. It allowed for more strategic movement and much more longer gameplay. For the combat we had to think of little rules to apply, for example if a player were to roll 6 then are they allowed to attack mid movement and or are they only allowed to attack after a full movement was made. Either way, we tested both of it. We find that the rule where players are able to attack mid movement was a very unfair, at the same time we realized that there was no strategic element towards it. Eventually, we went with the second rule which is before attacking they must finish the move depending on the number that they rolled.
So up until this point we covered attack mechanics, spawns/starting points, movement and map design. The next step is to determine the game elements, that means we have to figure out what sort of weapons are we putting in, what sort of numbers are we putting in, what can we do to simplify the math (health reduction and such). Since its a battle royale game, that means there will be combat, when there’s combat there is a health system or something that you lose. In a battle royale game, that thing is health. Being the person that plays a lot of games, we had a clear idea of what we wanted to add in the game. We added a health system, an inventory system, and a 2 different sets of cards. Those cards include a weapons card and a utility card. When we thought of the inventory system, we decided that players can only have 5 maximum card in their inventory regardless it being utility or weapons card. For the weapons we mentioned that there will be different rarities for each weapons, we added weapons with their general names, weapons that we added include handgun, shotgun, assault rifle, sniper rifle. These are the weapons that we decided to add to the game They were basic and simple enough. We applied weapons with different rarities so colors will determine different rarities will give different stats.
Common Rarity
Rare Rarity
Epic Rarity
Legend Rarity
Grenade, Medkit, Body Armor
For the weapons we had a bit of an issue whether we should like an ammo system for the weapons and after a long discussion of how its going to affect the mood of the players we decided no ammo, instead we made it so that players can only use for a certain amount of time. For example, if people were to have a sniper rifle, then they only get to use it 3 times. To prevent people losing count of how many times they’ve already lost their health or how many times they’ve used their weapons. We decided to use a token to determine quantity, after a few moments of discussing. We decided to use pins to determine quantity. The hair pins will determine how much health a player has left and also to determine how many times a gun has been used. We then continued to put in Utility Cards which consisted of Medkit, Body Armor, and a Grenade. Chiquita did the design of the game board, she came up with a pixel artstyle of the design and used bright colors for the design. She designed a game board that was reminising of a digital arcade game. This was the final game board.
Game Board
User Flow
This is the user flow that we set up for our game.
Finally, with all of the game mechanics and the design done. We established the rules for the game of Ready, Set, Kill.
Game Mechanics and Rules
Goal :
- Be the last man standing
Rules :
- Determine your turns by rolling the dice with the largest number to the smallest.
- Players will draw a weapon card after rolling 2 dice with a number thats larger than 6
- Weapon cards include : Pistol, Shotgun, A.Rifle, Sniper
- Players will draw a utility card after rolling a card thats lower than 6
- Utility cards include : Body Armor, Grenade, Medkit.
- Players are NOT ALLOWED to attack mid movement.
- Players are not allowed to attack diagonally or move diagonally
- If players roll a total of 6, players will get both utility and weapon card.
Inventory System :
- Each Player can only hold 5 max cards (Includes Weapons and Utility Card)
- Players can replace cards of inventory is full.
- Replaced cards will be returned to the stack.
User Testing
Throughout the creation of the game we manage to do some user testing before the finalized game and after the finalized. The first time we did it was with one of our classmates from other specialization. We did our first user testing with ripped off papers and modeled troops for the game.
User Testing
Their reactions was that some parts of the rules were unfair and was a little bit over powered, and then the game lacked features. We used ripped off papers, and modeled troops.
Our second user testing came after the finalized game, the second user testing came from hospitality students, although there was only 3 we still had some data that was clearly not enough. Nevertheless there are still data to be shown.
Question 1
Question 2
Question 3
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