Contextual Studies

First simple computer game I played and why I liked it so much

The first console I owned was the 'Sega Mega Drive' bought for me by my parents. This is a pretty hard subject to think about as I have played and loved so many simple platformers and can't really remember which one I played first. So I will pick one of my first favourite games I played and couldn't stop playing with my brother and mum. The game is called 'Gunstar Heroes' which is so easy to pick up and start playing. The story is about two twins who are fighting Colonel Red and his Empire army in order to stop them from destroying their home planet.

'Gunstar Heroes' was and still is a very addictive game to play even though you have to start the game at the beginning everytime you start playing it as save points were not created back then. Two player was especially fun as you teamed up, practically shooting everything that moved on the screen fighting your way through the amazing but sometimes weird levels. The game always seemed to change everytime you started it again, except from the over the top boss fights where sometimes seem imposible to beat or end, but at the same time very enjoyable to play. I would recommend 'Gunstar Heroes' to anybody as it is a very fun and quick game to learn.    

Above is a digital photo taken by myself of 'Gunstar Heroes' Sega Mega Drive game

Contextual Studies

Do I agree with Caillois' ideas about waste?

I strongly disagree with Roger Callois' ideas about play. Callois states 'Play is an occasion of pure waste: waste of time, energy, ingenuity, skill, and often of money…'  but I believe that playing games can improve your life skills. For example , as I am dyslexic and find it hard to read and write I feel that my reading has improved just by me playing and engaging in games. Also games can be a great way to socialise with others and make new friends. Games also help strengthen your reflexes and eye co-ordination.

Roger Callois states  it's a 'waste of time, energy' but I believe that when a player accomplishes something within a game this helps boost their confidence in the real world. Also many games have competitive sides to them which creates healthy competition. He also states that 'a characteristic of play creates no wealth or goods' but you can win money and goods through gambling in casinos on games such as roulette and card games.  

Project 1: Board art

I've tried to keep a cartoonistic, fun, vibrant looking board which will look eye catching. All these pieces will be combined together to make a final board.

Project 1: Inspiration and research for board art

I got alot of inspiration on the game 'Red Dead Redemption.' I think the game art and designers have really portrayed the cowboy theme amazingly detailed. So I decided to research by playing (it's a hard life) Red Dead Redemption and took photographs of certain parts of the game I would like to incorporate on my board.

All of these picture I took with my camera which are from the xbox 360 version of 'Red Dead Redemption.'

I've got an idea on how to do the art on the board. Obviously I am going to do a cowboy theme and I want to make it look like you are looking down into a wild west scene. I am therefore going to give it a birdseye view angle to start off with on one half of the board slowly panning around to give it a different point of view. (if that makes sense). What gave me the inspiration for this is the 'Simpsons Monopoly board' displayed in the photograph below.

Project 1: The test plays

After having test played the prototype several times we needed to make some changes to the board. The first change was that I needed to create two spaces instead of one where you collect your pieces. This would speed the game up so players wouldn't get bored quickly. The second change, we decided to alter the idea of rescuing the 'damsel in distress.' We felt it was sending out the wrong message when we talked to other people about our game. We are now going with the idea of the chief and the sheriff being held captive in the middle of the board by either sides.

We also made several changes to the game play, for example different cards and more dice to speed up game play.

Project 1: My prototype

This is my prototype I created on cardboard. It consists of eight squares, which have to be combined together in order to create a large board. It also has four turn tables.

Project 1: My final rough sketch

The arrows in this sketch represent the direction in which players can go around the board. I have designed it so the players have to go around the board in one direction to collect their pieces. In a couple of places players have to make the decision to either take the chance on a turn table and risk getting knocked back or go down the short cut where all the enemy spaces are. Not sure what the enemy spaces represent at the minute, but whatever they will be they won't be good!Once they have been around the board four times they then cut through the middle of the board to rescue their 'damsel in distress.'

Project 1: My first sketches

The team felt really strongly about not wanting  to over complicate the game so we decided on going with a set path board. Even though I really like the open board idea, a set path will make it a lot more simpler to understand but what I really didn't want to use was dice to determine how many steps the player's pieces moved. What I decided to do was to add different paths which you could go down, and also add turn tables that could be used to sabotage other players to slow them down by making them go back around a short distance.

After having shown people my sketches their feedback was that the turn tables reminded them of a board game called 'The game of life.' After being told this I researched it using the google search engine on the Internet.

The game of life



Picture sourced from http://www.zoikes.blogspot.com/

Project 1: Research

Some more boards

Here are some boards which I obtained inspiration from.

Above is a photo taken by myself of '13 Deadend Drive.' This game involves alot of strategy to bump off (kill) other players characters so you can inherit the inheritance left by the main character and win.

Above is another photo taken  by myself of 'Cluedo.' A classic game where you have to travel from room to room trying to work out who was murdered in what room with which weapon. This game does involve strategy but I always tried guessing all the time.

Project 1: Research

Set path boards

I personally think these kind of boards restrict the game play too much because of the lack of strategy you can use in them as most of them only go one way around one set path. Some boards however have multiple paths which gives you alot more choice in how you play the game. Most of these game boards have to use dice because without dice you would be landing on the same squares all the time. Below is a photograph which I took myself of disney's 'Trivial Pursuit.'

Project 1: Research

Open board ideas

Here are some of the boards that I really like because they involve using alot of strategy and skill. Boards like chest can be very simple, but challenging at the same time which I think is key to a successful game. It is easy to pick up.

Picture I took of 'Draughts' 'Chest' and 'Othello.'

Project 1: Where do we go from here?

After having had a group discussion most of the group members decided to stick with the game board theme 'Tribes people' and decided to add 'cowboys' which I was a bit disappointed about. I thought that myself and a few other people had some really good ideas but they pretty much got brushed to one side. I also think the theme is a bit out dated which was also pointed out by one of the tutors. Even though board games aren't really played that much nowadays I still believe children and adults would relate better to a more modern day theme.

The group did all agree that the art style should be slightly cartoonistic to create a board game; not taking itself too seriously. Even though I really liked the idea of having an open board which you would not need to use dice, the majority of the team preferred a board with different paths you could take using dice.

The concept

The boards working title at the minute is 'Totems and towers.' The objective of the game is to collect either totem pieces if you playing a tribal person, or a defensive tower if you are playing a cowboy. Once you have collected all of the pieces you require, you then have to make your way to save a 'damsel in distress.' You have to be the first player to get back to the start first in order to win.

Project 1: Second idea

My second idea was an open board where players try to take over as many territories (spaces) as possible in order to win the game. The theme of the board was that each player had a starting territory section and a floating city. Players would move their pieces a set amount of times in a go using no dice. I was trying to go for a game which focused on strategy game play, and not chance. However, dice would be used to determine what cards players would receive and use to benefit them or sabatage other players.

The four different cards players could use were called 'Wishful thinking,' 'Sabotage,' 'Terrain takeover' and 'Forefeit' cards. For example: In the 'terrain takeover deck' there would be cards such as 'Takeover two squares of enemy terrain,' and 'create a revolution and takeover one part of an enemy city.' When players rolled two dices the numbers on the dices would correspond to a chart which would determine what card deck they had to pick from.

The card board

1- Lose a card or pick up a forfeit card
oll a number
2- No card
3. Wishful thinking card
4. No card
5. Sabotage card
6. Terrain takeover card

For example: A player rolls two dices and gets a 2 and a 5 they would only pick up a 'Sabotage card' because number 2 represents no card.

I play tested this will my fiancee and two friends. They really seemed enthusiastic about it and said it was easy to pick up and understamd very quickly. 

Project 1: My ideas

First idea

My first idea was inspired by the x-box arcade game 'From Dusk.'

My idea was that four players are trying to save as many of their tribes people as possible from a city in peril by getting them to a safe mode of transport like a boat or balloon; something along these lines. There would be several different paths where you would have to make a decision of how many tribes people you would commit to that path as one path gradually falls away each turn.

Project 1: Bad times/good times!!!!!

After having had a group discussion with Nigel, one of our tutors, we all felt like we were heading in the wrong direction. We were given guidance to try and stay away from targeting our game board at very young children as none of us really knew whether they would be fully engaged in the game (they may have become bored and agitated too easily). We needed to rethink our target audience and ideas so we decided to take a day to think about knew ideas.

Project 1: Ideas

Ideas

Our group first came up with the idea which focused around tribes and building totem poles. We were focussing on aiming the board on a target audience of young children aged 5+. Here are my first concepts of the totem pole.

Project 1: Designing a board game

Oh where do I begin........How do u make a blog?

I am really new to this so please bare with me as I begin to get my head around the wonderful world of blogging.

We have been given the first project of designing and making a board game. I am in a group of eight people so team work is extremely important especially when we need to commuicate our thoughts and ideas to each other. First we decided on what tasks would be best for all members of the team. My role within the group is to design and make the board. We also agreed that we would concept ideas in different areas so more ideas could be put together.