Arvin's Blog

Design idea: Art driven design

arvinarvinarvin — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:54:18 +0000

Pick an art movement that dates from before the 1950s (eg Prehistoric art or ) and design a game idea that would be work with graphics in this style. Try to design gameplay that matches the aesthetics of the art style.

I go with Romanticism, which the art movement during industrial revoluation.

Look at the artwork on that time ( from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism).. it looks very emotional, and elegance. So I would like to have a stroy/novel/rpg game, with this kind of artwork..

Since this kind of artwork, from what i could imagine would not be good for animation, I would use this kind of artwork for the background and environment, but not for the people.

Since I guess this kind of artwork would fit with many history them, I’ll go with france history about Napoleon Bonaparte.. So this would be the story about you as a napolen boneparte. since It would be an rpg game, you can control the napoleon, make decission on how do you want to do the war, how could you win the war, the strategy, also making a decission as a king and so on. as all the rpg games. it would be heavily involve the artwork and video.

Journal Wk12: Serious games

arvinarvinarvin — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:37:18 +0000

Dafur is Dying:

I think the message is about how hard to survive in poor african country, which they need to deal with not only the shortage of water, but also military force. This games have done very good job on conveying the message, but showing the people run to get the water, and do hide-and-seek with military force. also on the village situation, where they use all the water but need to be ready as well for any attacks.

DriverSeat

From what I get, this game try to give the message on how hard we drive. I can not go too far, since i stack on the second level. I think the game play is a little bit hard especially on how to control the steering, it just too hard which very unrealistic, we should be able to do it more quickly.

Super Columbine Massacre RPG

I don’t really get the message, but i guess it’s about teenagers and gun, conveying the consequences of it. The gameplay should be good, since it’s very rpg game, which would be very clear to convey the message from the conversation between people etc.

Oiligarchy

This is an interesting game, I think it tries to show how to manage the Arabian countries which are rich of oil, but has so many problems, such as terrorism. I think the game play is pretty good, showing the stats and demands from stakeholder and so on.

Design Idea Wk10: Art game

arvinarvinarvin — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:03:03 +0000

Design a game that enables and encourages players to make and share some kind of art: story, poetry, music, drawings, etc, etc.

Hmm.. my game ideas i think would be about a music game. As I use to play around with garage to make effect of my instrument, which is fun to choose the effects for my guitar, I want some kind of instrument effects chooser on my game.

So I want a computer game, which could be a multiplayer or single player. It is started that you have a band with your friend that had just formed in your garage. and you can choose what kind of instrument that you want. And not long after some one got ideas of a song to compose. So your task is to help your band member to compose a song by simply clicking the style that you want to play for your instrument, the effects and so on.

You could compose the song base from the scratch (maybe hard for those who know nothing about instrument), but you can let other player that have know how to do it then you help, or let computer to start the ideas of what song to compose.

Also, It would also give you budget of buying your effects, customize your instrument, also you can share the song that you compose and so on… So the band would start the carrier from garage and if the songs become popular, it would become one of the big artist later on..

Journal Wk10: Improv

arvinarvinarvin — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 22:47:35 +0000

The three rules of improv are:

Be fun to play with.
Serve the narrative/
Make your partner look good.

Reflect: How do these principles extend to the design of other kinds of self-expression games?

a. be fun to play with,

I think this exactly correct. I agree with the videos that saying to want all the players to say the word enthusiastically. By having a good atmosphere in the game, it would change everything in the game (aesthetics, mechanics, etc). I use to play simple game with several friends, and i realise if I play with some people is not as fun as i play with others, because they not put the much enthusiasm in the game. So my point is, if you are a game designer, you need to design a game that would be fun to be played with. and it would help to get the atmosphere.

b.serve the narrative

As many self-expression game, narrative is the importance aspect, because the players need to do as what the narration said. so If the narrative sounds very weird (ie not fun, shameful), I don’t think much people would enjoy the game.

c. Make your partner look good

I think this is make sense for self-expression game. If your partner doesn’t look good, there is a possibility that you don’t look good as well :p

because on self-expression game, most likely you need to do some action, so if you/your partner don’t look good, you/your partner would not have the confidence to play it, and it won’t make the game as fun as if your partner looks good

Design Idea Wk 9 — Fairytale

arvinarvinarvin — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:09:44 +0000

Design a game which retells and reinterprets a popular fairy-tale of your choice.

Well.. I would go for cindrella.. I think kind of game for my sister, but if boys want to play it, it is their choice :p

It’s going to be a story-based game, so your choices would affect the outcome of the game.

From the original story, Cinderella were in poor family, and she didn’t treat well by her family. The story change when the fairy comes to cindrella, prepare everything for her, to go to prince invitation.. and at the end the prince marry her…

So in the game, it would be a similar setting (the family, she’s poor, etc), and the player would become a fairy. Her task would be helping cinderalla (at the begining, preparation,the day of party). So depending on your choice during helping cinderalla who is treated bad by her sisters, would affect on the character of cindrella at the end.. Also during the preparation, how you do the make over to cindrella, preparing the ride, the shoes would also affect the outcome of the game. Lastly during the dance party, you would help cinderella on what sort of conversation she would say to the prince and so on, and the game would be wrapped up by who’s the chosen one of the prince, how the prince choice his wife and so on…

Journal Wk 9 — Interactive Fiction

arvinarvinarvin — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 11:50:45 +0000

All of these games are designed to be replayable and have different endings.

Do they work? Yes, I think it works. Well, I guess this is not type of my game but I think for the first time it gives me some sense of curiosity. I got curious on what word do i need to put in, and the outcome of it.. eg: I got different ending for trying ‘Aisle’ many times, but when i put ‘hi’ I got different ending than when i put ‘turn’.. And also it’s a bit challenging. The challenge, for me, is on the outcome that going to be shown at the end, whether it’s according to what i think, eg it’s gonna be good or bad… so Are they enjoyable to play more than once? I guees yes for a while, but not to make someone really get addictive on this game

Design Idea Wk8: A social game

arvinarvinarvin — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:36:12 +0000

Design a social game that makes interesting use of the facebook friendship network. Base it on one of the game-theoretic games we discussed in class.

I think for social game for facebook, it would be good to have game which have some sort of cooperation with other player. So i want something that could make an alliance, but i don’t want it to be a fix alliance from start to end, but instead i want to create that the player get the feel that he need to have an alliance.

So I come out with something like dynasty/kingdom kind of game. which basically you would try to create your own kingdom, which all the good stuff for your kingdom, such as luxury house, education level, military power, etc.

However, you would be placed in a random place, which all the places would have very limited resources for some of things but have more resources on several others compare to other places. So in this case to make your kingdom to be the best on facebook, you need to share/ask resources to other kingdoms. So i would call this game “My Kingdom”

As another social game, it would allow player to chat with other, share the picture of his kingdom to other user, attack other kingdom etc. It would be fun to maintain own kingdom, to be the best kingdom in facebook, or to be greedy by invade other kingdom :p

Journal Wk8: Mafia

arvinarvinarvin — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:18:27 +0000

What makes it work?

I think this game might work first because there is a narrator in this game. I mean without any talkative person in this game, as long as everyone got the role (mafia, police and citizen) and the narrator leads the game, the game would still work. The narrator basically leads the game, bring rules, control the clues.

Another thought, this game work because there is a role for each player which require the social interaction on forum. So event someone very quite in this game, at the end he has a role and when someone pointing at him to die, he would try to defend himself.

What is good strategy?

I think the good strategy for mafia is to follow the crowd instead of making a new target, especially when he try to defend the other mafia. This would help the mafia from being suspicious.

For the police, he needs to remember the pattern . Like who trying to help other for being a victim, again follow the crowd as much as possible.

In general, to help friend, i think better to pick the most talkative persons. normally, they are very suspicious.

Could it work as an online game?

yes, but we need some adjustment.

using something similar to msn, but allow everyone in the game only talk during the forum time. and everyone could see what other people write.

We don’t need narator since computer basically could know the roles, set the time limit for forum.

So it would work, but as it would be a text-based, it guess it won’t be as fun as the real one.

Reflection Wk 6: Player-centred design

arvinarvinarvin — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 11:09:02 +0000

What are your thoughts on this? Is the player always right?

I think if both of those ideas be combined it would be what the player-centred design should be.

So The game have to entertain the player, and it is the job of game designer to make it happen. It means that it the job of game designer to think of what aspect he want to put on the game (educational,political,etc), think of what sort of dynamics and aesthetics for it, and do the playtest, especially for commercial games. It has to have those aspects.

It, therefore, could be said that the player always right. The game with more artistic aspect would entertain player more than just a normal game, which is the plus in the game.

Design Idea Wk 6: Hardware driven game

arvinarvinarvin — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 09:36:41 +0000

Suppose you had a pair of sensor-gloves that could track your hand and individual finger movements. Think of a game that could make meaningful use of this controller.

My Idea is about playing with the shadow. When I was a kid i used to play with both of my hand making the shadow of animal on the wall (eg: bird, dog, etc). So from those ideas, i want to make a game that could capture the shadow of my hand on the wall.

So The game would be somekind of Rock-paper-scissors, but with more variety of hands. so for example we have bird,dog,elephant,bear, tiger, and so on. and if let say the computer show hand of dog, you could run use a hand of bird or beat him use hand of tiger.

Hopefully, from this idea the combination of hand-shadow and rock-paper-scissors give unique dynamics for the games.