Assassin's Creed

This continues in the tradition of 'stealth' games popularized by the Thief series, and then later by Splinter Cell, and perhaps Deus Ex if you squint your eyes a little enough. This type of game seems to focus on providing a detailed world simulation, often including localized emergent interactions. It would be interesting to do a more detailed comparison to see if these are a sort of response to "unrealistic" first-person-shooters, since they focus on providing dramatic consequences for straying outside normal behaviours. This does stand in opposition to games where out-and-out gunplay is what the non-player-characters expect and respond in kind, whether intentionally (or with an agenda) or not.

Assassin's Creed, in my short experience with the game, stands out as having great graphics, a very immersive sense of spatiality, but lacking a little in the overall story-line. That may well not matter to most gamers, especially those for whom "the play's the thing." To them, only the repetition in certain quests (eg gathering redundant flags) may damper their enthusiasm. Running and climbing and jumping and kill and hiding like a medieval assassin covers a multitude of sins, as they (don't really, I guess) say.

So from a game-play perspective, I don't have too much to criticize. I especially like the "social stealth" aspects with the blatant mapping of low profile to socially acceptable actions and high profile to socially unacceptable actions. While the initial introduction of these features seemed a little cheesy, these game-play mechanisms served to emphasize the important elements of the game -- staying "hidden." I think making it explicit what people will tolerate made for an interesting design territory. If anything, I think they failed to fully mine this fertile ground. The protagonist's actions and methods could have been questioned and problematic. Instead, efficacy remains your by-word, and instead this seeming spiritual man seems to have no qualms about his actions, something either a ordinary Christian or Muslim of his time might have (and apparently the protagonist descends from a mother who is one and a father who is the other). While I'm truly delving into "you should source this properly land", it appears medieval assassins belonged to an offshoot Muslim sect persecuted as infidels by other Muslims, and whose main quarrels were with them. Nonetheless the Crusaders played a big part in defining them, so I suppose they can be the "big bads" of this game.

Oh well, enough of that. From this game, I derive the idea that explicitly linking your character's maneuvers to narrative goals seems like open design territory. Also, making up a ridiculous and pointless metanarrative that's approximately one micrometer removed from "it's all a dream" is dumb, even if upper management ordered it late in the design process and it wasn't really your fault and hey we've all been there amirite?

Bartle's MUD player types

As an avid player of the online textual role-playing games known by a dizzying array of acronyms (I always liked MU* and don't attach the pejorative sense Bartle seems to give it) during the 90's, this was an enjoyable read for me. While his use of the Hearts/Clubs/Diamonds/Spades metaphor, which he claims will "make the player types easier to remember," seemed contrived (albeit quite punny) and worse yet never mentioned outside the title and the first page, this paper nailed down some good player archetypes while evoking some wonderful nostalgia.

The great part is, that we can look around and still see these player types on MMORPGs, the spiritual (if not in fact, actual) successors to MU*. This makes his archetypes lasting and potentially useful for designers today. It would also be interesting to know whether his useful seeming advice for altering the player type balances would work.

Bartle starts by asking what a MUD is like: Games? Pasttimes? Sports? Entertainment? He concludes by saying that it is like all four, depending on what you're in it for. This is certainly the "big-tent" review of gaming, and is probably a useful way to ask "which is it more like?" Looking at an axis (Bartle presents a lovely ascii one in this paper) is likely a useful way of characterization that helps preclude is-and-only-is debates.

I think the largest take-away here is to know for whom you are designing: achievers, and their quest for accomplishments? socializers and their interest in gossip and relationships? explorers and their search for the new? killers and their constant power struggle? Each type you want to support will require in-game support elements, and Bartle helps provide a heads-up on what kinds of interactions the groups will have, and what kind of equilibrium might result.

The Matrix Online

What fan of the Matrix movie series wouldn't want to live in that world -- Presumably while enjoying the beautiful irony of being a virtual character who portrays a person who had a virtual life in an virtual world, but has opted out and now lives in the real (but still virtual) world, while only visiting the doubly-virtual Matrix world to complete missions?

According to what I've read about the game -- having never actually played this, or any other, MMORPG -- it succeeds at being a relatively fun virtual world to inhabit. At least when Monolith was running live events (before SOE took over), the daily and weekly events and story arcs were impressive and enjoyable (and canonical!) extensions of the Matrix storyline. This level of narrative involvement in that universe surely stands out and the feeling you get when the "actual/unique" Morpheus dies (or whatever) differs greatly from killing some epic mob in an instance that you know will simply respawn for the next guy.

Surely, this use of rich background material stands out. If the joy of playing an MMORPG centers around its immersive qualities (and I suppose this is an arguable stance), then the richer and more involved it is, the better. Of course, having paid (thus quality-controlled, and accountable) players is surely expensive, and I take it SOE has dumbed down the number of live events etc somewhat now.

The game also seems to suffer from strange combat controls (and indeed, imagining just how multi-player bullet time might work made this a concern from minute one) and lackluster PvE (ie the missions are repetitive). I also assume that it's hard to compete for players in the WoW eat dog world of MMORPGS.

Majestic (the proto-ARG)

While not seen as the first actual example of an alternate-reality game ("The Beast" takes that credit, according to the literature), Majestic stands out for its early implementation of many ARG-like features. It almost equally stands out for having essentially failed.

First, let's look at what it did well, or did interestingly. Obviously, the first characteristic is its use of multiple media. Receiving a phone call or fax (perhaps while at work) "from (within) a game" was essentially unprecedented at this point and served to blend the boundaries between life and game quite well. The use of "actual" websites to explore for clues is also a prime precursor for ARGS. Maintaining the ruse that the game is actually suspended and the game actually consists of figuring out why is quite clever and fits the whole Majestic-12 conspiracy theme quite well. Seeing this kind of information posted on "official" websites adds credence for players who aren't used to seeing such obvious falsities online and presented as truth (clearly they haven't perused some of the same web fora as I have).

So where did the game fall down? To start with, it violated the primary rule of ARGs in classic EA fashion: This is not a game. Apparently the game was hyped as a revolutionary game that "plays you." Corporate hype also detracts from the secrecy and specialness of the game, leaving it firmly in the realm of the ordinary. As well, phone calls and the like were preceded in-game with announcements that they were going to occur. This clearly was a game. Finally, the pay model clearly had an affect.

""Majestic" drew such an anemic audience that Electronic Arts abandoned the story half-way through. Of the 800,000 people who started to register for the free, first installment of the game, only 71,200 completed the process. That number fell to 10,000 to 15,000 subscribers when it came time to pay. It was a grand experiment, but one that ultimately cost EA between $5 million and $7 million. – Chris Morris, CNN, “Innovation at Risk?”, December 2001"

Apparently real life interfered even more with the 9/11 incident, causing EA to suspend the game temporarily or at least suffer some negative publicity.

Majestic can be seen as breaking new ground for a video game, however, it doesn't make enough of a leap, remaining firmly in the realm of a "game with innovative mechanics." These mechanics may also have been merely novelties, failing to hold the attention and causing annoyance once one got tired of receiving phone calls and faxes.

Oasis Review

Perfectly anticipating and representing the increasing number of casual games, Oasis is a well-composed strategy/puzzle game released for Windows in 2005. Described as "one-part Civilization" and "one-part Minesweeper", the game allows you to explore different scenarios (eg the Egyptian king's son vows to retake his dead father's kingdom) by exploring random maps in search of powerful glyphs. The 10x10 maps start fully covered by the fog of war, and your goal is not only to find the glyphs, but also to uncover and develop enough cities so that you can defend against the barbarians who want to destroy/capture this glyph. This provides a nice tension between exploration (you only have 85 turns) and development (each act of road-building or mining costs a turn as well).

Each round, a new random map is loaded, full of camp followers, mountains of ore, and the oasis where the glyph is to be found. This provides that useful "reset" feature, where performance the round before affects your score, but does not affect your present situation either positively or negatively. You can then enjoy the puzzle that the current level presents. How many directions will the barbarians come from? How should I spend my turns? No matter what course you take, however, the game provides positive feedback through the discovery of something useful -- battle technology or an improved civilization or extra points. Some squares are blank, but the terrain features do provide a reasonable means of heading towards useful territory. That is, the largest desert has the most followers, cities are surrounded by farms, oases are always on the edge etc. Learning these few rules helps to improve your success at your desired strategy.

Are there flaws in the game? Well, of course, you have to like this hybrid distillation of theme and genre. If you don't like civilization building in any way, even this mild incarnation may bother you. Likewise the puzzler element of finding the richest sections of the map. Since I've only played the demo, I also don't know how well it holds together between scenarios (since the game apparently switches milieus and eras once you finish a narrative arc). Being the casual game that it is, Oasis likely holds up fairly well to the minimal expectations it creates here. The narrative arcs presented seem to provide forward impetus and continuity in reasonable ways, without creating too much expectation for excellent drama.

I'm also a little concerned about the game's difficulty. Even on the easiest setting, it appeared that the number of barbarians eventually overwhelmed anything you could reasonably oppose them with. Further exploration of the game and better strategies is likely the solution here.

In the end, Oasis holds up as an excellent example of a single-player casual game. It's easy to get into, pleasantly addictive, and provides enough complexity and narrative involvement to hold the attention.

Lego Star Wars (Wii)

I finally got a chance to load up this Christmas gift. It's quite fun, and offers a huge amount of content. It has some draw-backs too, flaws that are inherent in the game concept.

To start with, the central concept: you play through the Star Wars movies as the main characters, alone or with a second player. While doing so, you collect Lego bits (in various denominations) by destroying things and opponents, and rearranging the furniture (literal and otherwise). Action starts in the Cantina, where unlocked characters and various bystanders walk around until a brawl breaks out between opposing sides. From there, you choose walk through a portal corresponding to the movie you want to explore. The first time through, you need to follow the story line, but afterwards a "Free play" mode is unlocked, allowing you to use different characters and/or return to find new treasures.

The actual action is the game is directed with both controller and nunchuck, although few commands are used: primary attack (eg light sabre, laser gun), secondary action (eg use the force, use a grappling hook) and switch characters. This is a very important element to the game; since characters abilities don't change (eg as in some roleplaying games where characters develop new abilities, gear etc), switching to a different character with different abilities is key to bypassing certain obstacles or defeating certain enemies. As a result, you'll end up playing as pretty much everyone at some point, even using droids like R2-D2 to open doors or fly across chasms. On the other hand, while not being used, other characters just follow you around with minimal defensive ability. It gets quite frustrating to have a walking armada of armed troopers but being the only one who's actually attacking!

The other detraction here is the bit collection aspect. While destroying built-up legos is at the heart of the fun of this game, needing to try destroy everything and collect the bits that fly everywhere become tiresome for me. I guess I'm not a big enough fan of the "unlock millions of extra characters and secrets" type of game to start with. I do admit, it makes for a huge universe of possibilities -- I'll soon be able to play through the first movie using Darth Maul for example.

Overall, they've created quite a fun game here. You get to drive pretty much every vehicle, and although their effectiveness varies, it's quite a lot of fun. You even get to do Anakin's pod race, for example. Using the force is also instrumental, and things (including enemies) glow to let you know you can push them around at will. The sense of reconstructing the world and bypassing obstacles this way is quite neat and makes the jedi characters feel very special.

It's a game with a lot of story at the heart of it. This is done through by literally letting you play through these well-known Star Wars narrative arcs. Lego cutscenes intersperse the action in logical places to further the story or provide high-level perspective (eg fleet action or something). As well, by starting you at the Cantina, it makes it seem like your characters have a persistent life in this world. Vehicles you unlock live in the parking lot, just as characters live inside the Cantina, creating a very populated feel.

In short this is one of the better transfers of a movie francise into a video game. The play is quite fun, albeit a little simplistic (I guess it IS a lego game, and aimed for not-quite-so-hardcore gamers, including kids -- you can't even die permanently, you just come back with a bits penalty) and somewhat repetitive.

Reflection on Settlers of Cataan

Ah Settlers. I'm not sure it was actually the first "German-style strategy board game" to make it big, but it was certainly among the first. Either way, it's still fairly indicitive of the genre: a fine balancing act between adversarial competition and implementing your own strategies, mostly sans chance. As has been noted, some elements of chance give rise of "variety of outcome" which is obviously quite important for a game. However, there are still games which trend even more towards removing elements of chance, such as "Puerto Rico" -- another colonization game, however one where chance plays the most minial of roles (crop tiles are revealed randomly from a pool).

These games are also interesting in that they become a type of puzzle, whose solution allows you to play optimally. This is opposed to the earlier style of board game popular in North America, the wargame. While obviously a variety of other games were prevelent (Monopoly is an easy counterexample), wargames were probably the genre that "hardcore" board gamers would be playing. I've heard it said, and look forward to seeing what others think, that female gamers are more interested in play experiences that aren't explicitly about mechanisms of shooting and killing. In any event, I'm sure most everyone welcomes the variety.

One thing that came up when we tried to run a distributed session of Settlers was the important of trading. If you haven't played the game before, merely knowing that trading is possible, but seeing the main mechanic of getting resources from the hexes you've colonized, you may not think trading is important. In fact, it is vital. From the first turn until the last, the trades you allow or oppose essentially make the game. That being said, it's hard to know how one should trade. Some people take the easy route, and do basically anything that's not immediately bad for them. Others try use trading to balance their hand size against the incursion of the robber. At other times, trading is obviously used to stymie the front-runner - perhaps others will trade to their own disadvantage if you can take away the longest road from the current top scorer, or else deny trades to that individual.

Still, I have witnessed the interesting dynamics of social behaviour at play. Players seem to feel bad about denying trades. People seem desperate for a certain resource so they can "actually do something this turn" and the turn bogs down while they cast about looking for a move. In the end, I'm not certain whether this reliance on the trade mechanic is good or not. On the other hand, the trade is what actually keeps playing interacting. I'd obviously be remiss in not mentioning that this trading seems like a type of prisoner's dilemma / game theory, the second instance of it within this game, alongside placing the robber (on 7's and the soldier card). I'd be interested to see if one could actually motivate certain kinds of responses through intelligent use of these two mechanics, ie promoting behaviour that helps you win by helping or provoking players with this mechanics.

I guess the other thing that came up during our play sessions was the importance of your starting positions. Missing out on a wood/brick settlement seems truly crippling, as there was rarely enough that other players were willing to trade it. The value of ports also varies, probably depending on how much other players are willing to trade with you. I don't think anyone actually used a port during our last game, except I think I did use my 2:1 brick port once during the game now that I think about it. This is widely different from past games I've played. I think it must be a tradeoff in how much players are willing to trade versus how much one must depend on themselves. I suspect experienced players go for the ports and trade somewhat less.

I look forward to using trade as an impetus for motivating behaviour. I want to see how well it works. :)

Purpose of the Blog

This blog was mostly setup because I'm taking IAT842 - a grad-level game design and theory course at SIAT. However, since game design is one of my interests, I might post on other related topics and keep things going past the course. Mostly what you'll see here for the next three months are posts related to the games we play and reflect on during play sessions for the course. Feel free to browse the blogs from the other students in the course (see the list on the sidebar) for alternate points of view.