127 SMARTBOMB Chapter One CliffyB and the Dawn of a New Era The Nature of Fun What makes video games...
Transcript of 127 SMARTBOMB Chapter One CliffyB and the Dawn of a New Era The Nature of Fun What makes video games...
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SMARTBOMB
Chapter OneCliffyB and the Dawn of a New
Era
The Nature of FunWhat makes video games fun?
•Games Relieve StressEmotions rise and fall during a game, providing a release from day-to-day tensions. •Games Are EncouragingInteractive feedback with periodic rewards provides a level of self-satisfaction. •Games Provide EscapeImmersion in a high-sensory fantasy world in which the player has a strong sense of control and choice.
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SMARTBOMB
Chapter OneCliffyB and the Dawn of a New
Era
Maintaining the Flow of the GameSuccessful games must tread that fine path
between being too difficult and frustrating and being too simple and boring.
TOO HARDTOO HARD
TOO EASYTOO EASYTHE FUN FL
OW
THE FUN FL
OW
THE FUN FL
OW
THE FUN FL
OWG
ame
Diffi
culty
Player Skill Level
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SMARTBOMB
Chapter TwoIn the
Beginning
Applying Usability to Video GamesRecognizing that game software must be
evaluated by a different set of criteria than other software (e.g., satisfaction is far more important than efficiency and effectiveness), researchers have attempted to define heuristics for gauging game usability.
Microsoft Game Studios Usability Testing Lab
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SMARTBOMB
Chapter TwoIn the
Beginning
Game Interface Heuristics• Controls should be customizable, defaulting
to industry standards• Controls should be intuitive and mapped in a natural way• Control options should be minimal
• The control interface should be non-intrusive• Score and/or status in the game should always be easily identified• Interfaces should be consistent in control, color, typography, & dialog design
• Sound should be used to provide meaningful feedback• Users shouldn’t be expected to have read a manual• Players should be able to save games in different states• Art used in the game should reflect the function of what it represents
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SMARTBOMB
Chapter TwoIn the
Beginning
Game Play Heuristics• The player should get involved with the
game quickly and easily• The game should have a clear overriding goal, which is presented early• The game should have a variable difficulty level• Each level of the game should have multiple goals• The game should be straightforward to learn, but difficult to master• The game should have an unexpected outcome• The game’s artificial intelligence should be reasonable but unpredictable• Game play should be balanced so there is no definite way to win
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SMARTBOMB
Chapter TwoIn the
Beginning
More Game Play Heuristics• The game should be fair and should provide
the player with rewards• The game should provide hints, but not too many hints• The pace should apply pressure to the player without causing frustration• No single optimal winning strategy should exist; multiple paths should exist• The game should have a solid storyline and plenty of interactive props• The game world should seem as if it would exist even without the player’s presence
• Skills that players will need later in the game should be taught early
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SMARTBOMB
Chapter ThreeThe Legend of the Last Toy
Maker
Game Design PrinciplesIs game design a science or an art?
Scientific Requirements •Technical Awareness
Programming ExperienceBasic Knowledge of Platform•Analytical Competence Unbiased Review of Peers and SelfAbility to Detect Unbeatable Strategies
•Mathematical Competence Discrete Problem-Solving TechniquesStatistical Balancing of Game Play
Artistic Requirements •Aesthetic Competence Sense of Style and Visual HarmonyImaginative but pragmatic outlook
•Creative Writing Skills Effective Story Narrative & DialogueUnambiguous Design Specifications
•Drawing Skills Ability to Conceptualize VisuallyCooperation with Concept ArtistsAdditional Requirements
•Imagination Visual,
Auditory, Dramatic Creativity
Lateral Thinking (“Outside The Box”)
•General Knowledge
History, Literature, Art, Languages, Current Events, Science, Pop Culture
•Ability to Compromise
Share Ownership of the Design with Other Developers, the Game Publisher, License Holders, Etc.
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SMARTBOMB
Chapter ThreeThe Legend of the Last Toy
Maker
Inspirational Design: Inspirational Design: Katamari DamacyKatamari DamacyKeita Takahashi’s 2004 game, roughly translated Keita Takahashi’s 2004 game, roughly translated
as “The Spirit of Clumping”.as “The Spirit of Clumping”.•A tiny prince is on a A tiny prince is on a mission to rebuild the mission to rebuild the moon and the stars, moon and the stars, which his father has which his father has accidentally accidentally destroyed.destroyed.
•He rolls a magical He rolls a magical sticky ball (the sticky ball (the katamarikatamari) around ) around various locations, various locations, collecting increasingly collecting increasingly larger objects, larger objects, ranging from ranging from thumbtacks to thumbtacks to schoolchildren to schoolchildren to mountains, until the mountains, until the ball has grown large ball has grown large enough to become a enough to become a star.star.
•The game requires The game requires puzzle-solving puzzle-solving strategy as well as strategy as well as action-game action-game dexterity.dexterity.
Current Diameter: 4.843 meters
Goal Diameter: 30 meters
Time Remaining: 9 minutes
Last Object Picked Up: Streetlight Post
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SMARTBOMB
Chapter ThreeThe Legend of the Last Toy
Maker
Game SettingsHow realistic or abstract should a game be?
• Photo-Realism attempts to maximize the physical resemblance to real objects.• Iconography leans more towards stylized “cartoon” representations of the objects.• “Pure” abstraction makes no reference to visual phenomena besides itself.
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SMARTBOMB
Chapter ThreeThe Legend of the Last Toy
Maker
Abstract Game SettingsDarwiniaFlat-shaded polygons create a bleak landscape representing a virtual theme park.
Hollow Moon
Black & white
graphics with no audio,
creating an
isolated sense of being on
the moon.
MonoAsteroids-like painting game in which colored globules are exploded
to paint the background.
RezModernized low-
polygon aesthetic with visuals and sound
effects synchronized to music.
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SMARTBOMB
Chapter FourDallas: First-
Person-Shooter Capital of the
World
StorytellingThe most common approach to relating a narrative is the three-act circular structure.
Ordinary WorldCall To
Adventure
Meeting With Mentor
Crossing First ThresholdTests,
Allies, & Enemies
Approach To Major Ordeal
Major Ordeal
Reward
Journey Home
Reflect On Lessons Learned
Return With Reward
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SMARTBOMB
Chapter FourDallas: First-
Person-Shooter Capital of the
World
Game StorytellingGames commonly use a variation of the three-act structure.Ordina
ry World
Call To AdventureMeeting
With Mentor
Crossing First Threshold
Tests, Allies, & Enemies
Approach To Major Ordeal
Major Ordeal
Reward
Journey Home
Thrilling Climax
Return With Reward
The first act is shortened in order to engage the user in the more interactive second act, in which multiple mini-crises transpire.
The third act is
usually expanded to include
a major climactic
event, essentially to reward the player
for surviving
to that point.
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SMARTBOMB
Chapter FourDallas: First-
Person-Shooter Capital of the
World
Game BalanceA balanced game is one in which the main determining factor for the success of a player is the player’s skill level.
Fist Chainsaw Pistol Shotgun
Chaingun Rocket Launcher Plasma Rifle BFG 9000
One way to maintain balance is to provide successively greater capabilities as the game’s level of difficulty increases (e.g., the increased firepower of weapons available in Doom).
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SMARTBOMB
Chapter FiveWill Wright and
the Model of Everything
Artificial Intelligence in GamesNon-Player Characters as Intelligent Agents
What do you want the character to be able to do?Sensing•Vision: The agent needs to be able to “see” objects within its field of view, as long as they have sufficient proximity and are not obstructed.
•Hearing: The agent needs to be able to “hear” any audible noise within a certain proximity.
•Recognition: The agent needs to be able to distinguish friends from enemies, and react accordingly.
Thinking•Expert Knowledge: The agent needs to be able to make common-sense decisions based upon current circumstances.
•Search: The agent needs to be able to look slightly into the future to determine a near-optimal course of action.
•Decisiveness: The agent needs to be able to avoid flip-flopping back and forth when the available options are virtually tied for optimality.
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SMARTBOMB
Chapter FiveWill Wright and
the Model of Everything
Command Hierarchy
Imposing a command structure upon non-player characters can facilitate the appearance of intelligent decision-making.
Current Status
Priority
Patrolling +8Searching +16Moving to Location
+24
Guarding +32Attacking +48In Combat +56
Rank of Sergeant
+2
Rank of Captain
+3
Health Low +1Ammo Low +1
For instance, to determine which soldiers should be used for a new activity, the table at right can be used to eliminate those soldiers currently engaged in more important activities, with rank and health considerations also taken into account.
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SMARTBOMB
Chapter FiveWill Wright and
the Model of Everything
Dead ReckoningWhen a non-player character targets another character (or other moving object), dead reckoning is often utilized to determine an anticipated position of the target.Linear interpolation with the assumption of constant target velocity is simple to implement, but less likely to result in successful (or even realistic) targeting, especially if the target is player-driven.
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SMARTBOMB
Chapter FiveWill Wright and
the Model of Everything
Flocking BehaviorWhole groups of non-player characters may be set up with an extreme form of emergent behavior based on simple rules that rely primarily on those characters in their immediate vicinity.
2D Homing 3D Homing Covering 2D Goal Searching
Deformable Object Goal Searching
Shepherding
Rule-Based Narrow Passage
Homing-Based Narrow Passage
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SMARTBOMB
Chapter FiveWill Wright and
the Model of Everything
FormationsA flocking behavior variation mimicking specific military troop configurations.Volley – ranged infantry,
like musketeers, take turns firing at enemies ahead of
them Charge – soldiers walk, then run into combat; cavalry wield sabers; and musketeers fix bayonets. This formation does tremendous damage but makes soldiers more prone to injury
Bombard – soldiers protect the cannons,
while the cannons shell enemy ranks
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SMARTBOMBChapter Six
Virtual Worlds and Alternate
Lives
Networked GamingOne-to-many communication, in which each player’s actions are relayed to all other players, is problematic in networks today.
Peer-to-PeerScalable
High PerformanceLow SecurityLow Control
High ResilienceLow Cost
Client-ServerNot Scalable
Low PerformanceHigh SecurityHigh Control
Medium ResilienceHigh Cost
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SMARTBOMBChapter Six
Virtual Worlds and Alternate
Lives
Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming
Gamers control the client applications, which deploy and run graphics, the user interface, and network communication. The gateway devices are important not only for forwarding messages but also for providing security functionalities for cell servers and cooperating with portals or billing systems.
Each cell server houses, maintains, and executes the virtual world. It also receives players' control commands and verifies, computes, updates, and then forwards new player states to all gamers who will be affected by these commands (for example, a successful move command will generate a player's new position on the virtual-world map).
The database stores periodically updated player states to ensure that players continue to exist in the virtual world.
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SMARTBOMBChapter Six
Virtual Worlds and Alternate
Lives
Network LatencyOne problem with networked games is the lag between one player’s actions and a remote player’s perception of that action, caused by the latency of the network connection.This can cause particular problems in a game when one player perceives a successful hit while another perceives a clean miss.If the server is told to update remote players after the original player fires, the update can appear as a shot that “came from nowhere”.By taking the position,
velocity, and latency all into account, the server can compute the shot as going faster than the original player perceived it, and can tell remote players to calculate it as even faster than that, choreographing the calculations to yield the same end result on each machine.
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SMARTBOMB
Chapter SevenSmartbomb
America’s ArmyReleased in 2002 as an Army recruiting tool, America’s Army has become a top-rated video game franchise.
Basic Training Airborne Training
Combat Medic Training
Ranger Training
Special Forces Training
In response to criticism that the game “trains kids to be killers”, the Army has started promoting the game’s emphasis on saving lives and developing teamwork.
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SMARTBOMB
Chapter SevenSmartbomb
The Three Laws of the Game Industry
IIChannel To Channel To Market Is Market Is
EverythingEverything
• Shelf Space Is Limited• First 60 Days Are
Critical• Advertise in print, MTV,
retailer flyers, etc.• Promise full refunds to
retailers for all copies that don’t sell through
IIIIWhoever Whoever Stands Stands
Between You Between You And The And The
Customer Customer Controls The Controls The
UniverseUniverse• Game Publishers Pay Developers A Percentage Of Gross Sales, Usually About $10 Per Unit (For PC Games, More For Console Games)
• Expected Unit Sales For Most Games: About 50K (For PC, More For Console)
• Expected Development Costs: At Least $2M (For PC, More For Console)
IIIIIIStyle Is At Style Is At Least As Least As
Important As Important As SubstanceSubstance
• Serious Gamers Want Impossibly Up-To-Date Graphics, Incredibly Fast Action, And An Infinite Supply Of Extras (Secret Levels, Bonus Characters, Hidden Moves)
• Anything Less Will Not Sell