213CR Concept Development for Games Design - Studio 2 Exploring games and identifying games concepts

213CR Concept Development for Games Design
Studio 2 Exploring games and identifying games concepts 2



Last week we looked at some existing games and their concepts, and gave a small amount of our own insight in to the games main features. This week I will advance further on the game components, and what would be necessary to produce them for a similar game. I will focus on what is distinctive and original about the game, but other key elements will be included for thoroughness.

Here is an example from the lecture:

Doom
‘A PC-based first-person shooter where the player controls a space marine in a 3D environment against a horde of bizarre monsters. The gameplay is action based with no strategic or role-playing elements; instead the game depends on bleeding edge technology providing a rush of adrenaline through its aggressive attention to carnage.’
(sic. Bethke, p106)

These items will be grouped to organise them slightly, else the structure of the games concepts would be chaotic.

Code – which includes game mechanics, 3D graphics, user interface, and mission interactions.
Art ­– which includes 2D, 3D, Character, Texture and Animation/motion.
Audio – which includes Voiceovers, sound effects and music.
Usability – How easy? Level? Meant to be easy?
Context – Demographic, Accessibility, Setting.
Hardware/Platform – PC Keyboard, Console/Controller, Haptic(Wii).
Communications – Multiplayer, VoIP, Text.

Code – The physics of the game need to be defined depending upon how objects and characters interact with them during the general and extreme play of the game. For example “Breakable Walls” need to be defined so that when a user creates damage to the wall that the wall is no longer a division of space, but is passable through by the character. Without such interaction the game would be limited to a less interactive world. The 3D graphics of the game need to be set, including the ambient world, the look of the game, the skins, and the models. The user interface needs to be mapped out including the physical controls, the in-game menu systems and the pre-match game selection interface needs to be created. This means shortcuts will need to be added to enhance repeated play, and the menu systems will have to find a consistent form that is easy for new and advanced users to navigate through.
Art – For 2D work Backdrops would have to be created, but often now even in 2D games there are 3D elements and scenes so also some form of changing to a 3D view from a 2D view. For 3D games worlds must be designed, objects created and character skins made. Character views and the HUD must be designed, persons and mechanical objects. Textures must be made and Animations any motion must be created.
Audio – Voiceovers for game sequences and links must be created, sound effects for all ingame variation of play must be allocated and music for backing must be planned and set out. All these aspects of the game must be considered before production so that they can interlink and produce a consistent fully developed interactive game design.
Usability - Ease of use is paramount, yet difficulty must range progressively so that users are rewarded for playing the game more and becoming more adept at fulfilling in-game objectives. Ideally the difficulty should be at a level where it always demands new levels of ability from the player. On the other hand it is very important that the game is not unattainably demanding.
Context - The game is set in one world from two different viewpoints, that of a D.E.A. assault squad leader and that of a man working against his own agency for the very people he hunts daily as a Loz Zetas Cartel informant. This means that it is likely the game will be desirable to a relatively specific demographic, males ageing between 17-50. This does not have to be true, as one can see with previously released titles such as Grand Theft Auto and Need for Speed 2, but considering the majority of the content within the game is of a grim and violent nature it is unexpected that many housewives will be ordering the game pre-release.
Hardware/Platform - The game could be launched on a console like an Xbox 360 or a PlayStation 3, but depending on when the game would actually go into development, would depend on what platform would best showcase the advanced graphics. The game is reliant on being realistic in order to provide a believable and tense experience, therefore the latest techniques in 3D modelling and graphics should be used, calling on all the power from the next generation graphics cards to launch the game to success. For example if the game was to go into development now, it would call on DirextX10, and therefore end users would have to be using new graphics cards to experience the full potential performance of the game. A keyboard would be most suitable for controlling the in-game action. However a console could easily implement all of the nescessary controls because certain shortcuts that are included as default bindings on the PC edition, could be edited to merely optional shortcut. This gives the users choice about what functions are available via a simple keypress.
Communications - multiplayer and co-operative(if implemented) missions should use VOiP software to enable talking through microphones, however a stable text chat system must also be permanently available for both multiplayer play and single player missions.

213CR - Studio1 - Exploring games and Identifying Games Concepts

In our first studio we were tasked to list a number of games that all group members are familiar with, ascertain which genre they belong to and rate them as a group from 1-5, 1 being outstanding and 5 bad. We were then instructed to identify the game concept for a chosen game from the list and decide what it is about the implementation of the game concept that makes the game good or bad.

The games we chose are below preceded by the ratings we gave them and followed by the genres we've assigned them:

1. Grand Theft Auto - sport/racing

2. Half Life – 1st person shooter/adventure

3. The Sims - simulation3. Commandos - strategy

4. Painkiller – 1st person shooter

The game we chose to analyse in detail is grand theft auto, the basic concepts were agreed to be:

- race

- kill

- survive

- evade police

- make money

in respect of concept implementation, what makes the game good is:

- freedom

- violence

- pace

The game is played on virtually mapped out streets of a real city, bringing it that much closer to the world we know, only in the game there is a slight inversion of the reality we are familiar with, where crimes can be committed regardless of the consequences.
It is also true that this same reasoning could be used to prove this game is bad due to an overabundance of violence and a lack of clear objectives.

Creative Zen:Usability Testing Guide

Golden Rules of Design: Shneiderman

Creative Zen:M Media Player


Strive for consistency:
Ensure that the firmware on the media player stays consistent with its interface, terminology, and shortcuts. For example the media player would be much harder to use if the song selection menu was different when within the “Now Playing Interface”, than in the “Artist” list.

Enable frequent users to use shortcuts:
This means that advanced and experienced users are rewarded with having used the media player frequently enough to memorize certain macro’s and shortcuts. These are often established to transfer a “new user friendly” interface, to a far more advanced UI suitable for users wishing to cut down time taken to complete actions. One example of this that is very obvious on the Zen:M is the shortcut function added to the main control panel in the top left corner as can be seen in the picture above. The shortcut function is noted by the arrow sign.
Favourites and user assigned macros can also be much reward to advanced users. This allows the user to define what a certain button press does (macroing). These altered menus can be problematic however when clashes are made between the user assigned interface and the default UI firmware.



Offer Informative Feedback:
Feedback must be delivered quickly and in a concise fashion. Informing the user of the in’s and outs of errors and alerts would confuse most users, so error messages are key so that the user can get used to seeing certain messages and instantly know what action is required of them to resolve the issue. For example when the Media player runs out of battery, no error message is displayed (presumably because there isn’t enough power to display such a message). This can be very confusing and it can take up to half an hour for the media player to even indicate that it is charging when plugged into a mains adaptor. However during the majority of usage the error messages and display dialogues are concise and informative.

Design dialogs to yield closure:
Dialogs must conclude so that the user is advised as to what their instruction is, these methods of concluding the dialog are often represented by yes, no, stop abort or retry options given to the user.

Strive to prevent errors and help users to recover quickly from them:
Input errors are common place so even small
Validation and checking must be present throughout the system to try and ensure that when input errors have been made, users are alerted to them quickly, but not too disruptively so as to allow them to make amendments without noticing a delay for the error indication to be shown.

Allow undo:
Errors must be reversable to allow for human mistakes. Without an undo button the user may make mistakes, but theoretically no serious errors should be made as long as there are certain precautions made when doing potentially disastrous actions, i.e the fact that you have to press yes three times in order to delete a song.

Make users feel they are in control of a responsive system:
Resource-efficient approaches are needed to ensure that users arent struck with heavy waiting times and sluggish responses from the system. Users should be informed of progress at any wait, and information should be displayed regarding the cause of delays.

Reduce short-term memory load:
The everyday user does not want to be overloaded with information that a. may not be useful to the end user, and b. information that the end user will not understand. For example error messages are key to a user understanding what has occured during a problem. Long strings of code and sequences of numbers and letters will only confuse a user.

203CR – Introductory Research

Introductory Research

Definitions of pervasive computing on the Web:
A ubiquitous, wireless, always-on, networked world.http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=X&start=0&oi=define&q=http://www.dmreview.com/rg/resources/glossary.cfm%3FkeywordId%3DP&usg=AFQjCNFC3pC82__nVfKDJV8hgmL8i1M2Sw
The trend towards an information environment in which users have access to ICTs throughout the environment. ...http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=X&start=1&oi=define&q=http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/SARC/E-Democracy/Final_Report/Glossary.htm&usg=AFQjCNFzKOjReq38vrP2dYy1ypHdaYIE1A
An environment in which computers are taken out of stand-alone boxes to which we are tied and put into ordinary things, in everyday objects around us. Also called ubiquitous computing.www.telecombooksblog.com/telecom-glossary/

Definitions of ubiquitous computing on the Web:
New types of computers invisibly embedded into our everyday environment. Rather than explicitly being the "user" of a computer a human ...http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=X&start=0&oi=define&q=http://www.ortlos.org/code&usg=AFQjCNE19pEhU6REnUgWM1Be2W2TQB2pQg
computers everywhere. Making many computers available throughout the physical envirnment, while making them effectively invisible to the user.mobileman.projects.supsi.ch/glossary.html
invisible, everywhere computing that does not sit on the desktop but lies deep inside the environment we live inhttp://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=X&start=2&oi=define&q=http://www.course.com/downloads/computerscience/invitationjava/keyterms7.htm&usg=AFQjCNFnnK5M07KTfYoDFRgo9_WmtS-lCQ
computing that is omnipresent and is, or appears to be, everywhere all the time; may involve many different computing devices that are embedded in various devices or appliances and operate in the background.http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=X&start=3&oi=define&q=http://www.mansfieldct.org/Schools/MMS/Palms/Meet_the_Team/Glossary.htm&usg=AFQjCNHrLHeUpS4UnEA9bGD02s0YJMLyJw
Ubiquitous computing is a model of computing in which computer functions are integrated into everyday life, often in an invisible way. The model requires both small, inexpensive computers and wired and wireless ("dumb") devices connected to larger computers. ...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquitous computing

Disappearing Computing:
'The vision of disappearing computing is that computing entities become an effective part of our environment, supporting our lives without our continual direction, so that we can be largely unaware of them,' explained Robin to the audience at the BCS' London offices. http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=ConWebDoc.3252
It seems apparent that there are fine lines between pervasive, ubiquitous and disappearing computing. All of these definitions point at the same idea, which is to intergrate computer systems into all aspects of our physical world, rather than localising computer use soley around desktop computers. This ranges from the heavier use of mobile networking to the daily use of computer systems in a normally less automated world (i.e using an automated checkout at the supermarket). Whilst pervasive and ubiquitous computing may be obvious to every day users, the aim of the disappearing computing vision is to make this integration far more transient and smooth.