GGJ - Global Games Jam 2012

For those of you who are unfirmilliar with what the Global Games Jam is you can take a look at the website: 'here'

On Friday the 27th of January 2012 myself and a team of other first year students gathered in the games labs at approximately 4pm for the Global Games Jam event that was about to take place over the next 48 hours. During those 48 hours we were develop a game the type of game, was entirely up to the team!

Ouroboros

Dictionary Definition: The Ouroboros is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail. The name originates from within Greek language meaning "he who eats the tail".

After a long discussion on the theme in a quiet area we agreed on something. We decided to design something that spacifically plays on the idea of the term 'he who eats the tail', which was the basis for our game idea. We created a simple tile based game where a simple character goes around and feeds the tail to the head end of the snake itself. (Directly linking to the theme)

Our inital idea for the core concept was to be 'like the game snake, but in reverse'. We wanted to take the idea of passing through walls as a mechanic which is required for players to transverse between edges of the puzzle maze in order to complete it. A lot of time and effort went into the level design for snake-a-maze and the judges seemed to like the level progression as a key feature of the game. In the end all of our hard work paid off as our team got one of three awards entitled 'Best Game'.

Week 13 Reading - Ed Brying, Game Level Design - Building a Simple Level

The basic elements of a level are:
- Concept
- Enviroment
- Beginning
- Goal
- Challenge
- Reward
- Way of handling failure
 Complexity is this layered.

Story: Is not a fundamental element of a game - can enchance a level and give the players useful information many gamers do not have many form of narrative elements e.g. chess, tetris, minecraft.

Putting it all together: A simple level to demonstrate how all elements work together and are used.
Concept: Each level the player is perceived a challenge to overcome (A basic story is present in the game).
Enviroment: 3D Gameplay 3rd person, beautiful relative graphics.
Goal: Consistent - Progression being its own reward.

"Simple is a more developed complex"

Post brief thoughts/comments on La decima vittima (Week 10)

"Killer" -

The Seventh Victim (1953, a short story)
It inspired a film made in 1965.


La Decima Vittima (Trailer):
Thoughts?...

Week 12 Reading - How To Write Rules Without Confusing People [J.Seigel] (2007)

- Rules are the most important aspect to convey to a player
- Less written information as possible for written rules.

Writing clear, cohesive rules:

Flavour First: If the game has a narrative within the mechanics, make that narrative clear immediately. The petaphors will be helpful in explaining and justifying the games logic and mechanics.

Get the boring stuff out of the way: List the meterials needed for the game next, followed by any pre-game instructions for setting up. If it gets wordy or over complicated, slim it down and add an Illustration or two to help explain.

Begin with the End: The first rule you should give the players is the winning condition of the game. Tell them what their objective is from a logical standpoint, all the other rules serve the winning condition and will make more sense when described with regards to it. It also makes it easier for players to find when they forget how to win.

Go from General to Spacific: Think of it like a newspaper journalism or an inverted pyramid. After the objective, describe the broad, overarching rules before describing the instances and expectations. If it's Mille Bonner explain the place mile cards before you explain the hazrds and remedies before you explain the saftey cards, and explain the saftey cards before you explain the coup four 'ACs'. Another way of saying this would be to explain the things that happen most often in a game first and the things likely to happen last.

Tell players what they can do before you tell them what they can't: Somewhat related to the previous point you should always explain the least constricting rules before explaining the most constricting. Rules explained earlier there become the primary rules and the rules following are the instances and exception where the primary rules change or don't apply.
- Short sentences
- Low level vocabulary
- Illustrations
- White space
- Bullet point

Be friendly unless style makes it so...
- use light hearted tone with your rules.

This reading was very useful for when I began thinking up rule sets for my developing ideas and for my individual game.

Arty things for 2012

Work produced early this year or later last year in Adobe Illustrator CS5. Things are starting to look a lot creepier in the world of Pick Up The Stick.

For the theme of the latest Artwork I have attempted to differentiate the scenic assets within zones yet at the same time still remain some stylistic relation within each of the zones. I sometimes find difficult to get the balance between consistency and a repetitive looking game right. When I design something I always try to make sure it links somewhat into the rest of the game.

For all things PUTS, check out the latest news and updates here: http://www.facebook.com/PUTS.Game

You can also play the latest version of the game here: http://www.waterfrontgames.com/

Hidden information - Fog of War

"These trees look a tad more 'dead' than before".

"Inside the cave"...

"A convayer belt in a cave, surely not?"