Sunday, 28 April 2013

Design Methods: Creating a Main Menu Screen


Design Methods Assignment 2:

Creating a Main Menu Screen for Dark Souls


Looking at the Actual Game’s Menu


Between Fantasy / Sci-Fi or Sports, I decided to go with fantasy as it is my favourite gaming theme and I chose to make the main menu screen for Dark Souls.

I chose this game because I personally felt it has strong aesthetics which immersed me into the game. After having played the game I feel like I had learnt a lot about how to use aesthetics in games; which start from the very first screen: the main menu.

To get an idea of how to approach making a main menu for Dark Souls, I took a look at the main menu of the actual game.

I noticed that it has no image, only a black background representing the dark theme of the game. It also shows the game’s title in the middle, glowing brightly, contrasting with the dark background.

The game title text is given an ominous feel with several odd looking signs scattered around it.

The options are displayed as simple text, and have an orange background colour when selected.

Overall the idea of this menu seems to be focusing on clarity and simplicity while staying consistent with the game’s aesthetics.



Image referenced from: 



Gathering Ideas From Other Fantasy Games

To get more ideas of how to make a game menu, I looked at other fantasy themed games that I know of. I decided to start my research with Final Fantasy VII’s main menu.

The menu is extremely simple, the background image shows only the main character’s weapon under a single ray of light. The menu only has two options, ‘New Game’ and ‘Continue?’

It seems the idea behind this was to show a meaningful object from within the game in the background and have the two options being the player’s focus.

Personally I feel this is over-simplistic, however it is clear and serves its purpose. I like the idea of showing something from within the game which is meaningful to the player. I feel that the menu does not look professional due to the lack of consistency in the two options; one option is in full uppercase while the other is not.


Image referenced from:


* * *

Next I looked at another final fantasy game which was released much later. I chose to look at Final Fantasy XIII’s main menu.

In contrast with the previous example, this game’s menu shows the game’s name, and the game’s logo rather than a game object.

The rest of the background is a gradient from grey to white and the menu options are placed neatly to the side. I noticed that final fantasy like using a pointing hand cursor to show the currently selected option.

This menu has a clean and simple interface; letting the player focus on the few important options, I personally feel this is an elegant style for a menu.


Image referenced from:



* * *

Finally I took a look at Dragon Age Origins; another of my favourite fantasy themed games. The first difference I 
noticed from the previous examples was that this menu has a full screen background image, rather than a single image of a game object or logo.


The image being used gives the perfect feeling of the atmosphere in which the game is played. The focus is on a blood stained sword sticking into the ground, suggesting the battles that lie ahead in the player’s path through the game.

The menu also makes use of a stone coloured custom font for the title and another similar shaped, white font for the menu options.

When a menu options is selected, the text glows brighter and gets a darker background.

I like how it feels like I’m looking at the path that the game’s characters have to go through when I look at the background image.


Image referenced from:

Noticeable Elements

  • A custom font for the game title.
  • A simple interface, with easily readable text for the options.
  • A clear effect showing which option is currently selected.
  • The background image is often related to the something from inside the game world.
  • Consistency looks good.
  • The game title is always above the menu options.


Choosing a Meaningful Background for Dark Souls

Dark Souls is a dark game with aesthetics that are meant to make players mainly feel two things: Loneliness and Paranoia.

Players take the role of an 'undead' being, left free to explore a number of areas of an unforgiving world, with death lurking behind every corner.

Through these negative aesthetics, players get immersed in the experience and learn to appreciate every bit of help they can get.

At several points in their adventure, players find bonfires which act as checkpoints and are also safe zones. Given the nature of the game, it makes bonfires feel an oasis in a desert.

On top of replacing the feeling of paranoia with relief, some of the loneliness is also dispelled as you can only see other players (if playing online) while resting at a bonfire.

All of this gives bonfires a great positive feeling, thus making them an extremely meaningful part of the player's experience.

For this reason I want the background of the main menu to be a representation of the player’s character reaching out to a bonfire while surrounded in darkness. I believe players who are playing the game would relate to and appreciate this image, whereas players who have not yet started are instead left with a mystery as to what the bonfire signifies.

Luckily, I found a perfect image to refer to, for drawing the background I had in mind.


Image referenced from:

Menu Structure & Options

Seeing how much importance has been given to the menu options in the previously mentioned examples, I would prefer to keep them in the middle of the screen for prominence over everything. However if the background image was directly behind the menu options, the text would be less clear. For this reason I think it would be best to have the bonfire to the side, with the rest of the image fading out into darkness.

Depending on how much the background interferes with the menu options, I will have to decide between having them in the center of the screen or at the opposite side of the bonfire which will be completely dark.

The game title will be centered, in the upper half of the screen, with a dark background behind it and will have a custom font to fit the dark theme.

The menu will consist of three options: ‘Continue’, ‘New Game’ and ‘Settings’. An option to exit game would also be required if this game is to be run on an iPad rather than a console.

As Kirk Hamilton says in his post about ‘The Ten Commandments Of Video Game Menus’, it is very important to have the continue button as the first option, and also have it being the default selection. This should be obvious in all game menus since the continue option is by far the one that will be used most.


Concept Work

Concept #1


Comments:

In my first attempt, I placed the menu options to the side, similarly to Final Fantasy XIII’s style. My intention was to have the options completely on a black background to maximize the contrast of the text in order for it to maintain prominence over the background.

I also added a glow effect for the selected menu option that I saw fitting for a light and dark themed game. Next I  used the original Dark Souls title to get a better idea of the menu overall.

Still I was not quite convinced having the menu options on the side would look best, so I shortly moved on to my next concept.


Concept #2


Comments:

In the second concept, I moved the menu options to the center of the screen, and darkened the character in the background in order to keep the options the focus of attention.

Seeing how the background hardly interfered with the menu options, I felt this version looked better and decided to stick with this version, however the bonfire on the left was too bright and was getting too much focus regardless of being on the side. Thus my next step was to make the bonfire look less important.


Final Concept

Comments:


As planned, I darkened the bonfire and made it smaller which brought the main focus of the menu screen back to the menu options.

Next, I did some minor improvements to the background art and slightly darkened the unselected menu options.

Finally I replaced the original game title with a custom font which fits in with the rest of the menu options. As opposed to the actual game’s menu, my concept has a few more things in the background, so I felt it would make sense to take away some of the brightness from the game title, and make it darker to fit in with the rest of the background.



Bibliography

Dark Souls Main Menu Reference

Final Fantasy VII Main Menu Reference

Final Fantasy XIII Main Menu Reference

Dragon Age Origins Main Menu Reference

Kirk Hamilton’s Post: ‘The Ten Commandments Of Video Game Menus’

Dark Souls Bonfire Reference
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Saturday, 9 March 2013

New Games Journalism

New Games Journalism


During our lecture with edd we looked into several articles of Old Games Journalism and one in particular I found to be a very enjoyable. This was:

always_black [Ian Shanahan] (Sept 2003) “Bow, Nigger” 

Reading this article felt nostalgic, as the way Shanahan describes his experience felt similar to what I felt when I used to play my first MMORPG, (Yes, it was World of Warcraft).

If you simply look at the mechanics of a game, that is all you will see, just the mechanics. However it is the dynamics that are brought out that give games their aesthetics, which make them a special experience for players.

From the mechanics point of view, the game Jedi Knight II as is described by Shanahan, is an online massively multiplayer game which makes use of a skill based dueling system and allows all players to communicate through a chat system. This is a technical description of the game, however what Shanahan does in his article is that he paints a story in our head, one you feel invested in, and by the end I felt like I was in his place, hoping for a certain ending to the story.

The author, takes the role of a good guy, while his opponent acts like an ass simply to gain an advantage in the duel. Imagining this makes me understand how the dynamics bring out emotions from the players, creating their own epic stories while playing the game.

***

After having read the old games journalism articles, we then moved on to look into what New Games Journalism look like. These are what I would refer to as technical game reviews. 

This new style of journalism give important details covering all of the game's mechanics, which is quite useful as people generally have an idea of the type of game they are looking for. However reading this style is nowhere as gripping as an old games journalism.

Even though I get a better understanding of what the game does, I am given no images of the possible experiences and emotions that the game might bring out, in a way that the "Bow, Nigger" article did.

***

I would not argue that one is better than the other, I would instead say both are effective in their own manner. Perhaps newer games journalism will adapt to include a bit of both style, then again it may have already happened when you think about it.

As an interested player, I have the option to check reviews to get a technical description of what the game does, and if intrigued, I can carry on over to youtube and watch real player experiences in game. 

Maybe that is why new games journalism has taken over the older style, who knows?


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Remediation

What is Remediation?

Remediation is the representation of one medium in another. This is something that is often done by new digital media.

There are two methods of how new media re-mediates old media;

Immediacy

This tries to immerse the watcher or player into the story and atmosphere, by making the scene feel realistic (even if it is fantasy).

This method would require less interface and more realistic images and graphics.

Example: A drawing that greatly resembles something you could see in real life.

Hypermediacy

 On the contrary to Immediacy, this method makes use of HUDs and constantly reminds the watcher/player that they are using an artifact of a constructed nature, with references to other things outside of itself.

 Example: an online news website, with an interface containing links and references to other things all over with internet.

***

It is interesting that the new technology of wide screen television had actually been inspired from a wide painting canvas, which had to purpose of showing a landscape view.

Remediation takes place because when new technologies have been created, it takes a while to generate content specifically for it, thus existing ideas could effectively be used on a new technology.

The goal of a proposed technology and its actual use a few years down the line are often not the same!

Films and Games often remediate from eachother, films such as the matrix and the tenth victim clearly show gaming elements to them, where as games such as final fantasy and metal gear solid, show a story so deep, that viewers watching players playing the game can actually be entertained just by seeing the story unfold alongside several cinematics and animations.

Sometimes films go all the way and are revolved around a game, a good technique to get fans of a popular game to watch the film, though these have often been critiqued for the low quality of the scripting and acting.
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Gender and Games


Gender and Games

People often look at gaming as something that unsocial males do alone, and only a few odd females play at all. 

In reality, games are becoming more and more social due to the evolution in gaming pushing it towards the internet for multiplayer gaming. On top of that, while it is true that males do play longer than females in general, both genders actually play just about the same amount of games.

This came as a surprise to me as a gamer, I have the mindset that whether an online character is male or female, one could assume it is probably a male player regardless.

Still, while females statistically play almost as much games as males do, when you look at the bigger picture, males still collectively spend the most amount of time playing games (by far). This would suggest that females are rarely attracted to non-casual games, which require a lot more time dedication from the player.

The question is, what is it about gaming that is less attractive for females than for males. On a logical level, gaming itself should be just as interesting for both genders, the main problem seems to lie in the target audience for triple A games. 

It is very common that triple A games (the ones being commonly sold and advertised) are mostly at males, and sometimes at both genders, and almost never exclusively for females. Knowing this information, it is no surprise that women play less overall in comparism to guys.

Think about it, as guys if all the triple A games were all about ponies and shopping for shoes we would probably lose a good part of our interest in gaming as well. (Sorry if that sounds sexist, I mean to say this in a humorous tone.)

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Games Britannia: parts 2 and/or 3


Games Britannia Part 2

Woolley, the person presenting the show, traces the surprising political and social impact that board games have had in Britain over the last 200 years. The British were to first to come up with the idea of board games as a method to teach through, and it was later exported to America, where it was converted into a great economic success.

The this show also points out the irony of the popular game monopoly which is a capitalist game, yet was inspired, or rather - stolen from a socialist game.


Monopoly, Cluedo and Scrabble endured through the past and are still commonly found in people's homes to this very day.

Finally Woolley mentioned that board games have evolved, and are now including fantasy themed games. A good popular example would be dungeons and dragons.



Games Britannia Part 3

In the third part, Woolley talks about how games have moved from boards to screens (ie: digital games)

He also speaks about the phases gaming has quickly progressed through over the recent years;


  • Space adventures were used in the 1980s by early games allowing players to open their imagination.
  • In the 1990s, game characters such as Lara Croft started becoming popular and gaming started reaching into multiplayer gaming.
  • And in the present times we play in whole virtual worlds such as Grand Theft Auto and World of Warcraft.


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La decima vittima

La Decima Vittima (Also known as the tenth victim, in English) is an italian movie from the 60s, about the world in the 'future' where an assassination game was being played.

People taking part in this game had to assassinate their target, (and yes it was totally legal to murder people!)

Due to the movie being old, it had odd ideas of what the future contains, such as 'boob guns', parents hidden behind secret walls, and leather armor (the only one in the world) that prevents harm from bullets.

However it was this movie that inspired real life versions of the assassin game, (even in our own university), where players use fake harmless weapons to assassinate their given targets (other players) who do not know who has them as a target, but have their own target to assassinate. Naturally only one person remains alive at the end, and thus that makes the last person standing the winner.

Assassin games happen world wide, and there is even an event for this real life game, where several people play it in a city mixed with other non-players, sometimes causing a bit of confusion to those not participating.

Though I personally find the movie was terrible when compared to the ones I'm used to watching nowadays, one has to respect how it was one of the building blocks that led gaming to be what it is today.
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British museum trip


On the 22nd of November (2012) we went on a long trip to the British Museum in London.

The place was rather huge and had historical objects at every turn, but being loyal to my main interest which is gaming, I had my eyes set on the ancient games that had survived long years and a couple of them may still be viewed at the museum.

***

Senet

One of the games I saw was a variation of 'The Game of Twenty Squares'. This is an Egyptian variation and actually has thirty squares and is known as Senet.

The image below shows the game as it is on display in the museum.



Some versions of The Game of Twenty Squares are set atop a box with a drawer to store the dice and pieces.


***

The Royal Game of Ur

 Another game that I found was the Royal Game of Ur. This contained the board which is very well decorated, alongside with the several pieces needed to play the game. These can be seen in the image below.


The rules of this game had been found on a clay tablet dating from 177BC. This clay tablet is the oldest known set of game rules in the world, and is on display in the British Museum, alongside the gameboard itself.
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Ancient games

Ancient Games


Games have been around for a long time as it is natural for humans to seek playing activities. (See notes on natural funitivity to explore more as to why playing games has always been important to humans.)

Some of the oldest known games (such as chess) are still played while others are forgotten.

In this post I will give a brief description of one of the ancient games I have learnt of:

The Royal Game of Ur

The Royal Game of Ur is an ancient racing game where two players need to move a number of tokens across and safely off the board before their opponent.

Several examples of this game were excavated from the Royal Cemetery of Ur by Sir Leonard Woolley between 1926 -1930.

The layout of the gaming board consists of what Becker calls a “larger ‘body’” (4x3 squares) and a “smaller body” (2x3 squares), joined by a connecting “narrow ‘bridge’ of two squares” (2x1). 

- Becker in Finkel, ed. (2008) p. 11

Becker also notes the five rosette squares are a consistent feature of game boards from other times and other regions (p. 11).

The game had different variations, however all were based on the same concept.

One of the versions used the following board:


Each player has 5 pieces and starts at the top and bottom rows respectively. Players have to take turn to roll a number of 4 sided dice, and based on their roll score, they move their pieces onto the board, or move a piece which is already on the board ahead up to 4 spaces towards the next rosette tile (determined by the rolls). The first row that players move their pieces onto are safe from the opponent as no player interaction takes place there, however as soon as they go beyond the first rosette square, players must race their pieces along the shared middle row where they can knock each other's pieces off the board and thus have to start that piece's progress from scratch.

When a piece landed on a rosette square, the player gets a few benefits: They get an extra turn, their piece may not be knocked off while in that square and their piece prevents the opponent from landing on the rosette square.

In the end The Royal Game of Ur is a luck based game (due to the dice) with a bit of meaningful (and yet obvious) decisions to be taken by the players based on their rolls, however the game is easy to get into and it is amusing to play simply to watch the dramatic action caused by the competition from the middle row.

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Bibliography Task


This is a guide for how to do a reference to a Book, Contributions to a Book, and a Journal Article using the Harvard Formula...

Book:

Author or Editor Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) The full title of the book. Publisher: city of publication


Contribution to a book:

Author Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) “The full title of the article in inverted commas”. In Editor
Surname, Initial., The full title of the work containing the chapter. City of publication: Publisher. Page span of the work cited.


Journal Article:

Author Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) “The full title of the article in inverted commas”. The full title of the journal [volume and part if given and/or] Month, or Season, or volume/part number.



This site could also help with generating your references: http://www.neilstoolbox.com/bibliography-creator/



***


Using the above guide I will give an example of:

  • Two book items (two full length books) 
Atkins, B. (2003) More Than A Game: The Computer Game as Fictional Form. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Adams, E. (2010) Fundamentals of game design. New Riders.

  • Two contributions to books (two articles in books) 
Salen, K. (2002) “Telefragging Monster Movies.” In King, L., (ed.), Game On: The History and Culture of Video Games. London: Laurence King. 98-111.

Rettberg, S. (2008) “Corporate Ideology in World of Warcraft”. In Corneliussen, H. & Rettberg, J.W. eds, Digital culture, play, and identity: a World of Warcraft reader, MIT Press. 19-39.

  • Two journal articles (two articles from academic journals) 
Keighron, P. (1993) “Video Diaries: What’s Up Doc?” Sight and Sound. October. 24-25.

Clark, L.S. (2003) “Challenges of social good in the world of Grand Theft Auto and Barbie: a case study of a community computer center for youth”. New Media & Society, 5(1). 95-116.
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Game Balancing


Game Balance


-Challenge/difficulty level in single player.

-Asymmetric Games (Possible starting advantages in multiplayer game where players don't have an exact start).

-Following a specific strategy in a game where u can use multiple strategies to reach the goal.

-A game object when compared to another game object, in terms of cost vs benefit. (Such as cards in card games, units in strategy games, and items in rpgs)

...

Single player.

When trying to decide on a difficulty level for a single player game, aim for the middle of the curve, as you will get the most people (the widest possible audience).

Another way to deal with this is to add multiple difficulty levels, handicaps, or alternate rule sets.

...

Asymmetric multiplayer.

In Asymmetric games, balancing the game has to be done through a lot of play testing. The more asymmetric a game is, the more testing it requires.

A player's resources are the ideal measurement to use for testing balance.

...

Balance between different strategies.

Suboptimal strategy are unneccecary parts of the game and would be better off removed than left as "wrong decisions" in the game.

Playtesting, and keeping track of the popular player choices is a good method of balancing different strategies.

...

Balance between game objects.

Try to make all items neither too weak to never be used, nor too strong to always be used.

Give preferance to too weak over too strong if you must.

To balance game objects, get the cost and benefit to always roughly match.

The difficult part is to give a value to the costs and benefits in order to compare them with other game objects.

...

In the reading 3 methods are mentioned to balance game objects:

-Transitive

Give every cost and benefit a value so it can be compared as a value, then take all the costs of an object and add them together and compare them with the sum of the benefits.
When the cost and benefits have the same values, the object could be considered balanced.

-Intransitive

This is better known as a rock-paper-scissors relationship. Some objects are simply better than others but because they are their counter, however all the objects would have their own strengths and weakness.


-Fruity

This means the game objects are so different and unique from the others, that direct comparisons are impossible. This can only be balanced through playtesting.

...

Balancing Techniques.

Maths, Your Instincts and Playtesting are the three techniques one should use to balance a game. They all have their own problems, so using them all probably leads to a better balance.

Changes should be done one at a time or you will get misinformation from results regarding to which change caused what.

Excel is great for keeping track of every detail of game objects, and allows for easy access to compare their values.
Excel can also be used to keep track of tasks and status while designing a complicated game.
Excel can be used to create formulas that let you see scaling values as game objects are manipulated in game. (such as DPS of a weapon, in combination with crit chance in an rpg)

When changing values, doubling and halving is very useful when you are unsure of just how much of a change is required. Doing such a drastic change lets you understand better how much of a change was needed once you playtest.

Write down rules as you're creating the game whenever something feels right.

...

Balancing First Turns in Turn Based Games.

There are a few techniques that may be used to make up for the first turn advantage that only the first player receives.
-Rotate who the first player is. (if the game allows several turns)
-Give extra resources to second player.
-Reduce effectiveness of early game or first turn.
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Monday, 25 February 2013

What is a puzzle, and how do you make a good one?


What is a puzzle and how do you make a good puzzle?

Puzzles are a form of play which require a right answer to complete.

puzzles need to be fun for the player TO solve, not only fun WHEN solved.

puzzles can be combined with these genres: action, construction, story and competition.

Puzzles will often use words, images or logic, or even a combination of some of them.

It is important for puzzles to be easy to learn.

Keep the puzzle simple.

Let yourself be inspired by existing ideas.

Give hints to prevent frustration.

Add sounds graphics animations and story to make the puzzle more amusing.

...

A puzzle is a game with a dominant strategy. This means that once you find an effective way of solving the puzzle, it will always work in the following attempts.

Puzzles are miniture games with one goal: finding the dominant strategy.

Puzzles are no longer being made explicit, instead they are being integrated into games.

10 Principles of Good Puzzle Design

1) Make the goal easily understood - people need to know what they're doing or they won't enjoy it.

2) Make it easy to get started - people should easily be able to manipulate the puzzle.

3) Give a sense of progress - players need to know when they're on the right track, let them see

4) Give it a sense of solvability - The players must be sure that the puzzle does in fact have a right answer.

5) Increase difficulty gradually - Puzzles are often solved by taking a series of actions. It is these actions that need to gradually become more difficult. Controlling the sequence in which the player can solve the puzzle lets you implement this gradual difficulty.

6) Parallelism lets the player rest - Multiple related puzzles as part of a big puzzle will let players try another part of the puzzle if they get stuck at some point.

7) Pyramid structure extends interest - smaller puzzles help in solving the larger puzzles within the whole puzzle.

8) Hints extend interest - Solving the puzzle with a hint is better than not solving it at all, because you gave up.

9) Give the answer - When the player is given the answer, it is satisfying after having given the puzzle some serious thought, even if you couldn't solve it yourself.

10) Perxeptual shifts are a double-edged sword - If the puzzle requires a big leap to gain any progress whatsoever, it could be very satisfying if you succeed or in some cases boring, because the players simply spent their time staring and then gave up.
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