[Review] Love Live: School Idol Festival.

It's about damn time I did a game review ^_^

Here we go: "Love Live! School Idol Festival"

This iOS/Android social game has been out in Japan for quite some time now (I think more than a year ago?) and I recently picked it up. The English version was released around a month before this post. I won't go too much into the mechanics of the game as you can try it out for free and read the unofficial English wiki here.

But I'll at least skim through what it's about. The game is really simple, even by social game standards. Basically you use stamina gained over time to play songs (essentially rhythm games) which can give you Loveca Stones (it's the game's cash currency used for paid gatcha), coins (the game's free currency used for enhancing cards), friendship points (used to get more free version of gatcha), and random cards depending on how well you do. If you have no idea what these bolden words mean, then you haven't been exposed enough to social game mechanics. Hopefully I'll write an article about it and link it here in the future.

SO MANY CARDS!!!

The simple layman objective of the game is to collect as many cards as possible. Cards have rarity. The lower rarity ones can be obtained through the free gatcha which costs friendship points which is obtained simply by playing. The higher rarity ones can be obtained through paid gatcha which can be bought using real life cash OR completing one-shot objectives in the game (the game is rather generous at this too compared to other social games). Combining two of the same card will yield a more powerful (and naturally more unique) card.

And of course, better cards in this game will allow you to yield better score in your song attempts. Higher rarity cards will have better stats and have abilities that affect your play. It's really a very simple social game model.

Okay enough about mechanics. Let's talk about why the hell would you want to play this game. If you are a Love Live! fan and not playing this, you are either missing out A LOT or you are just trying to prevent yourself from bankruptcy. If you are NOT a Love Live! fan, give it a shot. It's a simple, polished rhythm game in my opinion. Remember to watch the anime if you actually like the characters! (mwahaha)

Simple Rhythm Game

What makes this game great to me? Firstly, its simple social game model allow players to quickly understand what they need to do. There aren't any overly complicated mechanics or number crunching. Getting better cards and performing better at your songs yield naturally yield better results. Secondly, its polish. Clean art, clear UI, voice acting (I cannot emphasize this enough), this game markets the Love Live characters and franchise really well especially with in-game events and login bonuses that reflect real life events like a character's birthday or airing of an episode. Thirdly, its generosity with Loveca Stones, the game's cash item. Normally in social games, the developers rarely want to give easy access of these cash items to players because...well...it is essentially giving the players money.

Highlighting the third point, I think some of us would start thinking how the heck does being generous to cash items lead of sales. There could be many reasons. It could be that the sales are already SO GOOD that the company can afford giving cash items away, sacrificing profit for happier players (which in turn brings more happy people, which in turn increases chances of them spending money, etc). However, this is a chicken and egg problem. If we assume that this hypothesis is true, there must still be something that allows them to start this cycle.

EVENTS!!!

Okay here is where I talk about what I really wanted to talk about. Events. In Love Live, so far there are only 2 kinds of events that happen periodically. One of them is a grind-fest, the other is PvP. Both have the same objectives: getting points.

The basis of participating in an event is very simple and is already used in some social games. Participating allows you to have a shot at an event-exclusive item, or in this case, a Super Rare card (the only thing higher is an Ultra Rare card). However, this game is generous. If you play the event regularly (regularly meaning if you have enough stamina, you play ANY song and do not lose), you will get the card no problem.

So when to people pay? In comes the infamous simple but powerful ranking system. Every player who participates has a rank depending on how much points he accumulated. Every 'region' of ranking will receive different rewards when the event ends (events typically lasts 10 days). In the japanese version I'm playing, the highest region of ranking reward is 2 free attempts at the paid gatcha and 2 of the event-exclusive Super Rare card. Why would you want another of the card? Remember that combining 2 of the same card will yield another card! So in reality, the event has 2 event-exclusive cards, one of which can only be obtained by being at a certain ranking. Why would you want a THIRD card? Mostly for collection. The 2 exclusive cards are after all, 2 different art. If I really liked that character, I would've gone for it.

Eye catching UI and presentation

It's almost perfect execution in my eyes. After seeing how events are designed, it's obvious that the people behind the events knows how to target their audience really well. It is generally accepted that if 10% of your social game's players actually spend money monthly, the game will be sustainable and rather profitable. I can just imagine that 90% of people playing this game are Love Live! fans, with maybe a quarter of that being HARDCORE fans, and...we know how otaku fans are. When the cash is no question and the thing they want appears right in front of them, it automatically goes to "buy first think later" mode. I'm not really a huge fan of the series but I can imagine that if the event has a character card I really love and there's a thousand me's competing for that card...wow...that game is gonna profit a hell lot.

And it goes back to the franchise as well! Love Live! is one of those idol animes where they would hold concerts in Japan and sell lots of albums. Players who play this game will end up knowing the songs, encouraging them to attend concerts and buy the franchise's goods and albums, and of course spreading the word. It goes a full circle. That's the beauty I see in this game.

If I had an ideal of how a social game promoting an existing IP should be done, this game is a great example I would bring up. Simple, polished, very engaged to the franchise, and effective execution of content release and balancing.

[Game Design] MMO Customization thoughts

I have been playing FF14:ARR for a couple of months now and it was exactly what I expected it to be. It wasn't new  or fresh in anyway. The Armory system is basically multiple characters in one character. FATEs are dynamic events made popular by Guild Wars 2. If I were to consider WoW an EQ 2.0, FF14:ARR would be the WoW 2.0 in a sense.  Get to max level, farm for gear, go PvP or PvE, raiding, crafting...same old song and dance. Some implementations got upgraded, some parts got streamlined, etc. Mostly improvements though in my opinion but I can see why some other people might not think so.

However, what I found interesting is the lack of customization. In FF14:ARR, what you can do as a class is very specialized towards your classes' role in the party. Most people see that as a downgrade...to games in general. It was an interesting thought that I held with me throughout my university days but I never discussed about it openly.

Taking us back in time...

I remember that ever since a decade ago, making games with the idea of 'allowing players to customize' was celebrated notion, both to players and to developers alike. It still is. I grew up playing Black Isle games, Bioware games and PnP Dungeon and Dragons. In these games with small social interactivity, customization was really an awesome thing. As I was studying to become a game developer, the phrase 'let players customize' was often thrown out during discussions and written in game design documents as a very very positive thing. Thinking back, people rarely talk about making or discussing about games with strict-but-well-defined roles. It is much easier to pitch a game to others if you have 'customization' in your games. It is much easier to pique the interest of your friends if the game you are trying to get him into have 'customization'.  Why is it that games that offer 'customization' so alluring? Is it because idea of 'customization' implies 'near limitless possibilities'? "Oh you can create a Orc rogue, that sucks at sneaking but uses magic really well!" Wha-?

So what spurred the idea of having customization in games in the first place (not just MMOs)? Usually, developers just want to throw a, say, skill tree they designed and see what players do to it. In a sense, it's like throwing a bunch of tools at a person and asking him to make a table. The player can then, depending on the restriction of the tools, make a proper 4 legged table,  3 legged table, a dysfunctional table, a round table or even a chair. It COULD be that the designer cannot make up his mind and decided to leave it to the players. *shrug* There are times where I see skill trees in games that made sense, and there are times where I just feel that the designers don't care, don't know jackshit of what they are trying to do, or simply overwhelmed by the decisions they are giving the players.

I think that it is great having customization in single player games or instanced games with small scopes like Diablo or Neverwinter Nights, where the damage you can impose onto others for having crap builds is minimal due to its single player nature (you can test builds in an isolated space). But in MMOs, I start to wonder if it is really a good thing.

Consider DDO, Dungeon and Dragons Online. (Warning! DND jargons below)

It's easily the first game where a character you recruit into the party might not be what you think it is. When I played, it was p2p so we had access to all the now-premium dungeons. We wanted to go to this dungeon called Catacombs and we know for a fact that bringing a level 8 cleric with logically sound stats would easily clear the first few levels of the dungeon with the Turn Undead skill (it starts at level 2!). We saw a level 8 cleric looking for party, grabbed him and went straight into the level 2 dungeon. What we did not know, or rather, it wasn't shown that the cleric has crap for Charimsa stat, causing his Turn Undead to be really crap. I was astounded when I saw a level 8 Cleric casts Turn Undead at level 2 undeads and nothing happens. To prove my point, even the level 8 Paladin, a class with Multi-Attribute-Dependency, has 14 Charimsa and weaker Turn Undead (casts at 1/2 Paladin level I think) manage to fear the undeads. That wasted lots of our time and since it's p2p, money as well.

The thing that irks me is not the skill of the player. Sure, in MMOs, we do run across people with really bad skills that waste our time, but that can be remedied over time and that's one aspect that makes MMOs beautiful; to see other players become better. However, characters with a bad build that no skill can overcome is simply bad and will always be bad. It's like putting points into useless talents in vanilla WoW (like wand specialization) or playing a two weapon fighting dexterity fighter in any form of 3.5 DnD (like DDO). DDO is a really special cdase because players can do things like playing a Rogue without points in Disable Device which can heavily impede the progress of your party. In the end, there exist a 'right' way to build a character, which will progress fine in the game, and a 'wrong' way, which is bring pain to the player and those around him. If so, why not just implement the 'right' way?

That sort of leads to my main point, which is 'Is customization really what it is in MMOs?'. I'm going to throw out a phrase: "Viable Builds".  If you throw 'limitless possibilities' onto hundreds and thousands of players in your game (doesn't really matter what game), viable builds will start to surface. Like during the time I played Guild Wars 2, despite preaching about 'customization', the very versatile Elementalists really only have a finite amount of viable builds (I think Elementalist has 3?). So what is the point of customization if in the end, people are defining these viable builds? In a sense, it's like they are solving a puzzle for the designers. It's like genetic algorithms.

However, there is one thing I love about this 'customization' which I must give credit for, which is the discussion process among the players.  Active discussion among players is invaluable to an online game and is a key aspect of a successful long-lasting community. I just feel that it's a bit funny that players are, for example, drawing DPS statistics for the developers (who might refer to it). You see, in a sense, it's like players working for the developers. What a grey area -_-;;

Now this might seem like a anti-customization rant, but it only is because many people I talked to seemed to be attached to the idea of 'customization' like it's always a good thing to have in a game. It's not always. If games have lack of customization, they are more focused on the role of the players and game content is designed to challenge those roles. I just feel that it is more interesting doing content designed specifically for roles. It would boil down to the execution of the players. It is also one of the many reasons I loved Everquest; because of its simplicity. It is kinda of why I'm enjoying FF14 now. Everyone has the skillsets; just how well they execute it. No nonsense like "I'm a Rogue without Disable Devices" crap.

Seriously, I no longer look at 'customization' as a key feature in MMOs anymore. If I am going to be slipstream-ed into a role, might as well let me choose the role from the beginning instead of taking me for a ride. However, I feel that both can co-exist somehow. Like say for skill trees, we can make the skills only enhance the role of the character, instead of allowing the character to step out of their roles. Much like Etrian Odyssey's skill trees. Just an example..

Mmm, some food for thought =)

Dungeon Keeper Mobile controversy thoughts

Quite some time ago, I downloaded this new EA social game that uses the beloved Dungeon Keeper IP. I played it for a good while, chose not to commit into it and moved on. That's the end of my side of the story.

Months later, I saw waves of hate resonate throughout the internet about this Dungeon Keeper spinoff, both before and after this article went viral.  It seems like the usual hatred towards social games by the same elitist people who believes micro-transaction, endless content and DLCs are evil. What a crazy age we live in now eh? Stereotyping games and stuff. It's almost like racism. Anyway, just a word of warning: this is a rant and my rants are usually devoid of structure and subjected to derailing.

As a Dungeon Keeper fan myself, I honestly didn't find this social version particularly bad. Sure, it could use some balancing, like how long it takes to complete an action. But overall, as a social game, I think the game as some potential and EA is just doing what every big game company is heading towards: social games. Why? Because market is there. There are actually people willing to put money into these social games, and to pay to win. If 10% of their players actually pay regularly, it's good enough. I have no doubt that despite the many hateful Dungeon Keeper fans out there, there are a good amount who think otherwise and play it anyways. We don't 'see' them because they aren't the ones complaining.

But my point is mostly this: Games are evolving and moving into a certain direction, whether you like it or not, whether is it within your tolerance or not. Social games are the money making machines for game companies now and it is really hard NOT to attempt developing them. Making AAA titles is unlike the days of the old. It is getting more and more expensive, teams are getting larger, the market is getting more saturated, players are getting busier, technology is getting more complex and all that for a 'hit-or-miss' design. Compare that to social games which are significantly easier to develop and offer unlimited playtime as long as developers maintaining it comes up with interesting events, it is way cheaper to develop social games.

Why are social games so popular in the first place? It is BECAUSE of people. Back then, we did not have Facebook, Twitter, 9GAG and all that stuff to keep us busy and entertained so we simply play games with no distraction. Phones had only 1 function and that is to call people. Now that everyone carries a pocket computer, and that social networking sites are accessible through it, people will constantly check it for 5 minutes. Thus why not make games that require small attention spans...which brings us to social games.

But back to Dungeon Keeper. I won't dictate what the angry fans should think or anything because everyone has their own rights and stuff. I personally feel a little happy that EA is even bringing life to the Dungeon Keeper IP, which means that they have not forgotten it. If response is positive, EA might even consider making an actual new Dungeon Keeper (using this mobile version as a gauge to see interest levels) but I doubt these haters considered that possibility and prefer to bash and label. The games wasn't THAT bad to begin with. EA could have done a lot worse for a lot more damage, like maybe release a crap AAA Dungeon Keeper title for $60.

Hating goes nowhere, is a waste of time, and is unhealthy. At one point, I hated Mass Effect (save Mordin Solus) and Dragon Age and even Skyrim but that took me nowhere. Mainstream games will never go back to the way it was before. I learnt to accept that these company have to make money before they choose to do what could have been AT MOST a 'cult hit'. That's why Mass Effect was created, because it appeals to the crowd by streamlining RPG elements by adding FPS elements. That's why Skyrim was created, because it appeals to the crowd by removing the intricate RPG elements from Morrowind (including crafting spells!) and focusing on the FPS element of the game. Likewise, because most teenagers who grew up playing games in the 90s are now busy working adults, social games will be appealing to them and were thus created. They don't require long attention span, is free to play and spending money rewards them with good stuff.

I have come to learn and appreciate, instead of hate, the mechanics and techniques they implement to appeal to the masses. It is unsurprisingly not as easy as one would think it is. Seriously, I love me my old school games, but hating on Dungeon Keeper Mobile only shows denial to let go.

And dammit, to top it off, it's a free to play game.

*facepalm*

Just my 2c.

Achievements in Games

Remember back then when you played your good old Starcraft, Baldur's Gate or, for those super old schoolers, Asteroids or Rogue, achievements were defined by you and those around you. Back then, winning was the only goal of the game.

Possible History of Achievements?
Along the way, some genius thought that to keep their games going, player-defined achievements and goals are not enough. So this guy, whoever he is, went ahead and place achievements in his games. Then suddenly, consoles have it compulsory for every game to have it. It wasn't until I got my X360, and a couple of "ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED"s popping up to make me feel really really good, when I realized what an elaborate trap it was.


Achievements are like drugs
That year I was rather hooked onto achievements. It tempts your inner perfectionist self. If you are a casual player, seeing your first virgin "ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED" makes you curious. It's like a hook; you might search all the possible achievements and when you look at ALL the empty spaces, something inside you will feel empty as well. It's like a hook. Casual or not, you will be tempted. If you fall into temptation, suddenly you will leave your life behind and join the ranks of the hardcore players. Thinking about it, it's no different from drugs, just that they shove the cocaine right in your throat before you can start protesting.

Networking made it worse. From a board perspective, it's like an MMO. You achieve -> you show someone -> that someone acknowledges it -> you feel GOOOOOD. As far as PSN or XBL is concerned, well, they saved everyone the trouble since achievements are stored in their server, so everyone can see what everyone else has achieved at all times. You might think they are simple-minded. Well, I would say you are just jealous, elitist or couldn't be bothered. It's natural, not all products are for all consumers, but heck achievements are something most people in the world like. It's like a luxury item...just that it's not so material, so it might not get gals for you. Maybe give gaming a few more decades to grow and we'll see how that turns out.

Utilizing the power of Achievements
I looked through some games' achievements. It became obvious that some games do not fully utilize the system. Ninja Gaiden 2 or Devil May Cry 4, for instance, have almost all their achievements ridiculously hard. It is obviously catered for hardcore players, which is what I don't get. The game is catered to (semi) hardcore-players, so why must ALL the achievements follow suit? Achievements are the easiest bait to draw in the casual audience. Just set maybe 1/3rd of the achievements to be relatively easy to obtain and you are probably set to draw them in. Tweak them a bit (like making all your achievements progressive, or separating them into easy/medium/hard to get) and you are good to go. The opposite can be said for hardcore gamers. They want challenge? Let them have some, but not ALL. Idealistically, this will merge the casual and the hardcore audiences.

The system is so powerful, yet so underused. At this point, I believe that a video game designer should seriously take a look at 'Achievements'. Even better, reward them for it. Rewards are soooooo powerful. EVERYBODY loves to be rewarded. "You killed 1000 orcs, now you get +5% bonus to kill orcs!". Think about that. Would a hardcore player be tempted sink time to kill 1000 orcs? I would. Would the casual players be tempted? They would be tempted. At least they would be tempted. Better than NOTHING. In psychology, this is called 'Positive Reinforcement'. Suddenly those stupid orcs you probably randomly designed as some random encounter would become a key creature to your game. From here, there is another dimension to explore about a designing creature.

And it's not just creatures or mobs alone. Levels, items, weapons, NPCs can all do the same thing. "Talk to NPC_X 10 times? You unlocked a mini game!". This example makes player feel that the world is bigger and more interesting. "Hit 9999 times with a cursed weapon that drains your health? It's now upgraded to a super item!". The possibilities are endless. Knowing this, I do not how FF13 came about in this age and time but that's another story for another time.

My thoughts on an interesting read
Here's an interesting read which talks about how to design achievements:
The Cake Is Not a Lie: How to Design Effective Achievements, Part 2

To dumb it down, the designer who wrote this broken achievements down to two kinds: Unexpected Achievements and Expected Achievements. Basically Unexpected Achievements come about as a surprise to players, especially new players. This is precisely the type of achievements needed to draw casual audiences in, the 'hook' that I mentioned at the beginning of this article. From there, you might want to lead them to easier 'expected' achievements and subsequently harder ones.

In the article, he mentioned having delayed feedback, as players become more experienced. This basically means you should not spoon-feed all your achievements. Give them some, let them work for the rest.

He does raise a good point about games that cause people to 'zone' though, or in my words, enter Flow; a state of mind where an individual is so focused on his task that he forgets the world around him. It really depends on the game. The article mentioned temporary achievements like DOTA's "MONSTER KILL!" which actually doesn't break the flow of the game. On the contrary, the feedback is integral and builds up adrenaline of the player, building up on the state of Flow the person is in.

Aside from that, the others DO break the flow. I still feel that Starcraft 2 shouldn't inform the player of the achievement they unlock in-game; it should be done AFTER the game is over. Immediate feedback, as the article mentioned, is not always good especially for experienced players going for greater challenges. And as far as I know, PS3 lags a bit when an trophy is unlocked while playing MVC3 and that's annoying as hell.

So when do you show the feedback? Does it break the flow of my players? It is annoying? Is it helping? Are they really needed? What am I trying to obtain with them? What message am I conveying to the players? Is it too hard? Too easy? How do I draw players in with that achievement? Is it placed at the right place? Am I expecting the player to achieve this at this time? The questions just go on and on. These are important points to consider when you design achievements into your game. There is so much you can do and if there's one thing I learnt for the past 2 semesters about making a game, is that the most important ingredient in a game is FEEDBACK.

And this one simple flash game simply illustrates some of my points:
Achievement Unlocked

Cheers and happy designing.

EDIT: fixed some grammar @ May 12th 2011

Review: "Portal 2"

Short version of the review:
Portal 2 rocked!

Long version:

More Gameplay Elements
We shall observe Portal 2 as a consumer, a game designer and a game developer. There are so many things done right that I could not possibly list them all out. But first, we must talk about what are we to expect from a sequel of a game which revolves around one and ONLY one mechanic: Shooting Enter and Exit portals. From a game designer perspective, one mechanic can only entertain for so long. The question is not how to find new ways to use the mechanic (it's nigh impossible, too much effort for possibly a dead end), but how to make the mechanic act on other gameplay elements (the easy, fun way out).

So rightfully, as a consumer, one should not expect new ways of using the portal gun as it is. One should look forward to more elements to use the portal gun on. As far as this aspect is concerned, the Portal 2 team came up just enough to entertain us. From the gravity beam, the 3 different gels to the catapult thingies, it's more than enough to mix and match and come up with puzzles that will entertain us.




But of course, just having elements is not enough. Elements are just that: elements. Once an engine is up, elements are easy to implement. In fact, only the level designers and possibly the QAs are having headaches over it. So much more can be done and the team indeed delivered.

Storytelling
The team proceeded to create a more engaging storytelling. Back in Portal 1, it's basically no different from a flash puzzle game only that it is in 3D FPS-style with Glados randomly talking crap at the background. There's no character development at all. Now, in Portal 2, the characters you interact are more alive. Glados suddenly had a history, developed over time and her speeches are more engaging to the character. Same for the new Wheatley character, whose role provided an interesting twist to the game (alright I will not spoil). Even your character received some kind of background.

The team also broke away from just going room to room. There are quite a number of areas that are outside of the testing chambers. Basically, from a designer point of view, the consumer was given another environment to play with. This might seem to be a small change, but it affects the player in a huuuuge way. For one, he does feel that he was given more freedom, and more freedom, fake or not, in any designer or consumer's books, is a bloody good thing.

Anyways, I'll go as far as to say that Bioware has a thing or two...maybe A LOT to learn from these guys.

Graphics
The final thing to note is the graphics. Again, there isn't much I can type about graphics in the blog, but I can say that Portal 2's graphics is amazing. Seriously when you get the game, before every room just look at the surroundings. Dynamic soft shadows, shattered glass, water dynamics, the gel mechanic's decals on different surfaces, light, etc. The best thing is that they wasted no time in showing off their graphics. Right from the start of the game, you get to observe how light and shadow changes around you when things fall apart. It's no joke man.



Overall, Portal 2 is a great game. I can't wait to actually try to co-op mode, which is a brilliant add-on and another ball game by itself. It's really nice to see a novel idea go this far in the games industry. It gives me, and possibly other aspiring developers out there comfort that such novelty is Still Alive, that the game industry isn't just filled with the same old FPS, RPGs and Facebook games.

Review: "Dragon Age 2"

Good god, I don't even know where to begin. Looking back at my Dragon Age Origins review, I keep wondering where did Bioware went wrong with this game. Seriously, there weren't many things wrong with the previous game. The biggest complaints I had were mainly balance issues and a couple of personal opinions which disagreed with the game.

I'll list down the main problems up here first in case I forget as I write:
- Stats, Weapon restrictions/customizing equipment
- Fortitude
- Bugged import feature/ Buggy characters
- Lack of animation cancelling in combat/ Animation in general
- Lack of strategic view
- Incredibly cheaply generated instances
- Plot

From here on, be warned that some sections contain spoilers.


First off, I'll like to briefly discuss the good parts, however few the game has. Dragon Age 2 does has some improvements which I find pretty decent like the new Skill system. I'm kinda in support for the skill tree, although it might be just personal preference. I find it much cleaner and much more fun navigating the trees. Aside from that, there's the improved graphics, which I don't really have much to comment about.

Then everything just went downhill from there...


Stats and equipment restrictions
Bioware, or EA for that matter, I understand that you are streamlining stats for the sake of the masses. It's so obvious: Heavy armor can be worn if you have high strength AND constitution, light armor can be worn if you have high dexterity AND cunning, and mage robes can be worn if you have high magic AND willpower. On top of that, bows and daggers require dexterity, staffs require magic and sword/shield and two handed swords require strength. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out where this is going. It means that as a warrior, it simply does not make sense to try to play a light armor dex-based warrior because if I invest into dexterity and cunning, I won't have the stats to carry warrior weapons!

But why not just pretend to be a rogue then? Can't you carry daggers? Well, apparently Bioware decided to go "Well, what kind of warriors carry bows?" or something and only allowed swords/shields and 2 handed swords to only be used by warriors, daggers/bows to only be used by rogues and staffs to only be used by mages, on top of the stat requirements to wield them. Then what the hell, don't bother allowing me to customize my stats then. If you want to streamline a mechanic, just do it all the way. Why bother my rogue with other stats such as 'willpower' and 'strength'? Already by passing half of my stat gain to dexterity and cunning, I'm finding it a little hard to keep up with the equipment I found and it hard to find the remaining points to spend onto other stats. Seriously, if they are so supportive of restricting important things such as equipment, they might as well save themselves the trouble and restrict us from customizing stats.


Fortitude
This is a wonderful sub-stat that Strength governs. Apparently Bioware found it cool to send your characters flying when they are hit by a mob with higher strength value or something. Apparently, they also find it cool to tell you everytime you die in the loading screen that "All classes have their way of escaping. For instance, Fighter can use Stonewall, Rogues can use Evade and Mages can use Mind Blast". F*** it does not work when you are stunned or knocked back goddammit. What good are such abilities when you can't use them while stunned? Once I recover from my knockback, I'm just gonna WASD my way out of safety instead of spending stamina to enter ANOTHER animation and risk myself getting killed if the skill did not do what it's supposed to do (for mages and rogues, it's reducing aggro) because sometimes it doesn't.

It's gonna stupid to see a random guy or monster suddenly hitting your rogue/mage and he/she is doomed to die unless you somehow manage to stop him. Seriously my rogue have skills like Inconspicuous and Evade and I hardly use them because once I get hit, I'm gonna get chain stunned to death anyway. You may say I lack skillz or something, so then how would you use Evade? You obviously don't use it when you are not getting hit, and you can't use it when you are getting hit. So what, add strength to my rogue? I might as well make another warrior.

And if you are going to say I am supposed to manage the aggro with it, well take a look at the description: "The rogue leaps backward. Enemies within melee range will often seek an easier target instead." The second statement OBVIOUSLY implies that I use it WHEN I AM GETTING TARGETED (which usually translate to getting hit). Well, if I'm targeted and unlucky enough to fail my dodge chance with a 80% defense (to an even mob), what then? The skill don't even make sense at all. Same for Mind Blast: "The mage projects a wave of telekinetic force that knocks enemies back and diverts hostile attention." What good is it if you can't use it when stunned or knocked down?


Bugged import feature/ Buggy characters
There are a few bugs like the horrible Merrill Act 3 quest bug but such bugs are unfortunate since it does require quite a deal of testing to find. But Fenris' and Isabella's friend talent bug? What? This is so damn easy to test. It leaves me wondering if the developers even checked the numbers properly when they implemented the talents. For those who don't know, when you become good friends with Isabella, and if they are in your party, your main character will be hit by a permanent 5% attack speed DEBUFF every time you load the game. Check the video of a victim here:



This bug is rather unforgivable and it's really not that hard to test. This leads to me think that there is something funny about whoever programmed the Save/Load aspect of the game. Maker's Sigh potion also had a bug regarding Save/Load.

On top of that, they screwed those who imported from their Dragon Age: Origins DLC save or Awakenings save. Apparently, romances and other flags are not toggled properly when imported. This is apparent when Leliana appeared in the Exiled Prince DLC and implicitly tells my character that she did not romance with my Origins character. It may seem like a small thing but it has several several implications. Firstly in invokes the wrath of the perfectionist fanboy and people like me who purposely replayed Dragon Age: Origins so that I could port my character over. Secondly it raises the concern about future DLCs and expansions. Why can't Bioware even get something as simple as an import feature or Save/Load right? It feels like they are abandoning this franchise.


Lack of animation cancelling in combat
When I first saw the new animations, I thought it was a change for the better, but I could not be so wrong. During an animation, I am only allowed to perform a command (drinking potions or casting spells) only after the character completed the current animation. As if the Fortitude thing I stated above isn't bad enough. Not only Bioware thinks enemies chain stunning me is a fun thing, they even went ahead to implement self-inducing stun! It was ridiculous to see my mage low on half, pausing the game, switching the camera to his view and see him in the middle of his staff-twirling antics (the last animation for auto-attack that takes 2 full seconds), and realize that he refuses to drink the damn health potion until his animation is done.

It's not like it's even hard to implement animation canceling. Oh wait! If you have coded animations before, you'll know that animation cancels from one to another naturally UNLESS you put code to restrict it. What does this mean? It means that Bioware intended to restrict your characters from cancelling his animation, so that he can't suddenly drink a potion in the middle of his attacks. Yes Bioware, aesthetically it's good. Mechanics-wise, it's horrible, not fun and ruins one of the main features Dragon Age claims to bring (remember they emphasized strategic thinking in combat?). Speaking of which...


Lack of strategic view
Seriously Bioware. The best thing that EVER happened to me in Dragon Age: Origins is the existence of his semi-ingenious mechanic that allows me to see most of the battlefield from a bird-eye view. Why did you take it away? Is it because you want to be in sync with the console versions? Is it because you suddenly decided not to make combat strategy, but instead more arcade? Might as well just turn the whole game into an FPS then. Otherwise, I just don't understand why it was removed. The camera is restrictive and painful enough to control in battles already with all the weird corner issues. If your reason is to make it more arcade-style, it STILL doesn't make sense from the previous reason (animation cancelling). There seem to be almost no direction in the game just by considering these points. It seems that the guys making Dragon Age 2 had no idea what made Dragon Age 1 good.

If they are taking into reference Mass Effect 2, they really are idiots. They are DIFFERENT games. Mass Effect can live without strategic view because it's mostly a point and shoot game. Their enemies are based on that. You are not going to see enemies chain spells of doom on you. In Dragon Age, knowing where each and every mage on the field is important. Knowing where the low-hp mobs are is important. Knowing where the archers are important. EVEN MORE SO when you give me crappy mechanics like Fortitude and restricting my animation cancels.


Incredibly cheaply generated instances
I've gone through instancing and ranted much about it in the past, but this takes it to another level. I wanted to kill someone when I went through all the random missions in Mass Effect 1. All the missions look the same as each other because of instancing. But it's okay. Those are just very unimportant sidequests.

But Dragon Age 2? When I saw Fenris' mansion's layout look exactly the same as the Bartrand mission and MANY MANY other sidequests (the Blood Mage that killed your mother quest, Silent Sisters (?) quest, the list goes on...), I was disgusted. But the worst, the most dirty trick they did was to give me the map of the dungeon and find out that most of the corridors are inaccessible. Like the ONLY difference (aside from minor texture changes and other aesthetics etc) between Fenris' mansion and the Silent Sisters mansion was that different doors are locked, but I was able to see the entire map (which ultimately looked the same). Otherwise, both mansions are EXACTLY the same as far as layout is concerned. It's disgusting. I thought Mass Effect 1 had it bad. This is not even trying. I can't even say that it's called instancing. From what I've studied so far, this is very close to 'cloning'.


Plot *SPOILER ALERT*
Finally we come to the final ingredient. There're so many ways to begin. When I tried to explain how discontinued the plot seemed to my friends, it was difficult. The overall story is actually digestible, but the plot was bad. What I meant was the way the story was told, and how the game lead me through the story. Lemme try to explain.

First you tell me that Hawke was from Lothering, ran away from the darkspawn to Kirkwall, find out that their uncle used up all their money and tells you that you need to find work. Hawke then finds someone to serve for a year in return for allowing her into Kirkwall. Fair enough. It's just a prologue.

Next, time skip 1 year. You tell me Hawke decided to go to the Deep Roads with some dwarves to get rich. After 200000 pointless quests, none more epic than the next, you managed to get enough money to allow the dwarves to let you into their merry party. Then in the Deep Roads, you found a curse idol, the leader of the expedition, Bartrand, stole it and locked you up in the cave where you found it. Obviously, you found a way to leave the cave.

Chapter 2, you tell me that Hawke became rich. Eventually Varric found out and decided to seek his brother Bartrand for revenge. You found him and do whatever. Curse idol cannot be found (or most of it anyway). Qunari attacks Kirkwall, you fight for Kirkwall, you meet leader of templar and leader of mages. Qunari was defeated and you suddenly become Champion.

Okay let's stop here. The next chapter is going to be the FINAL chapter. So after hours into the game, I still have no fucking clue who the BBEG, or what drives Hawke, which ultimately means that the game does not play with my intrigue and feed my curiosity enough for me to continue. To put it simply, there is no hook and no bait. If you are saying that those does not matter, you are wrong. A story without hook is not a story; it's a documentation or a biography. In fact, my companions are more interesting than me. They have their goals and BBEGs. They know what they want. When I played Hawke to this point, I had no idea what Hawke wants. He/She feels like some errand boy/girl running around aimlessly to do everyone's bidding as long as it is within his/her interest.

So the qunari is not the bad guy. So Bartrand is not the bad guy. Suddenly in chapter 3, you are telling me that the leader of the templars is the BBEG? Wtf? I just met her and she had NOTHING to do with whatever I was interested in in the previous chapters. And why she became bad? Oh apparently her sword has the cursed idol crafted into it. My brain just exploded. It reminded me about the crew in FF8 'suddenly' remembered that they are all from the same orphanage in the middle of disk 2. And I thought back than this was bad. I really didn't expect Dragon Age 2 to top it, doing the exact same 'revelation', only this time you tell me at the END of the game. Not only that, you tell me that the templar leader is a possible important NPC only at the START of chapter 3 and confirmed that she is the BBEG ONLY BEFORE the FINAL quest of the whole game. It utter crap.

Compared to DA:O, DA2 had almost no epic moments. In DA:O, the dwarf quest was really epic. The elf quest was kinda epic. The mage quest was awesome. The human quest was also epic...you get the idea. I never complained about DA:O being bad in terms of plot really. The whole playthrough of DA2 was just underwhelming. I can barely remember most of the quests. None of the quests in DA2 tops the DA:O elf quest which I thought was the worst among the main quests in that game (and it was still very well done despite that).

Well, that's about how I felt about DA2. On the bright side, they did implement the cross-class exploit system from Vanguard: Saga of Heroes which I liked alot. But the bad stuff far far FAR outweighs the good stuff. I honestly felt that Dragon Age Origins is a lot a lot better and that Dragon Age 2 was a huge setback. I will still keep it around in case of further add-ons, but as vanilla, it's a huge disappointment.

Starcraft 2: A look at Banshees

Looking at Starcraft 2 from a distance now that I have not played it seriously for quite a while, there are quite a few units that piqued my interest as to why would the Blizzard design team create them.

Today we'll be looking at possibly one of Terran's better units: The Banshee. I'm just going to go ahead and say that I'm mostly a Terran player (booooo) and I'll try my best to be as unbiased as possible. Before we proceed, there is one fact I have to bring forward:

1) Terran can easily tech to Starport

I would love to observe the Banshee on a tier by tier basis but seeing how Terran can access their tier tree really really fast, comparing by tiers immediately becomes invalid. We know that a two port banshee build can come around the mark when a normal zerg player is barely teching to Lair if done right (unless he's fast teching of course). Thus, we must look at how other races can defend against it at the early stage.


VS Banshees Early Game
We know that Protoss won't really have a problem with banshees considering that most Protoss get Stalkers and Sentries early in the game. If they somehow get forge first instead of gateway to get cannons, it shuts down the entire banshee play if they are well placed (not saying that it's a viable high level strat tho). They will easily overwhelm whatever early harass Banshees can do until they get cloak in which the Protoss player would want to go for their Robo for the Observers while on their way to getting their dreaded Colossus. Hmm, doesn't seem to have anything really problematic there. The banshee will just need to catch the Protoss off guard and that is a problem of dynamics, not mechanics. It's the same thing is Terran with marines being the bulk of their army.

Zerg however, has a bit of a problem. They are a reactive race and they will build units mostly based on what they see or guess. If the Zerg gets faked by a factory reactor into two port and cause them to build roaches in fear of a mech army, it's an early gg there. Zerg's tier 1's only defense against air attacks are the rather immobile Queen and considering Banshee's dps, the limited Queen count and the fact that they are usually not together, it's easy to see how two banshees can easily overwhelm a base protected by one solitary queen. Luckily, banshees take a long time to build and are slow to travel so this somehow indirectly 'balances' the issue interestingly. Also one banshee isn't as bad as two. A standard 1/1/1 banshee opener wouldn't scare the Zerg. The 2 port banshee will. Also, I doubt any zerg will build a Evolution Chamber into Spore Colony that early in the game. If they do that early in the game, they are slowing their expansion which they sorely need.

Then we consider the Cloaking Field upgrade. It's really really expensive and getting that upgrade mostly means you aren't getting the second banshee. Again, Zerg has a problem and this time it's their detector options. I'm honestly still not used to seeing Overlords as non-detector units like their SC1 counterparts. I'm not sure how would a Zerg would react to that. Getting Spore Colony means it forces them to build Evolution Chamber instead of rightfully saving minerals for another expansion or tech. And sacrificing even one drone will drop their economy in the long run.

Interestingly though, this MIGHT be balanced out by the fact that one banshee can't really kill anything fast enough to compensate for the cost of the cloaking field AND the banshee itself. Also they need to use energy to keep their field up, so the harass can't last forever. Then again, it might just kill off a queen. Yikes? Is losing one queen bad (which takes quite some time to die, leading to banshee energy depletion)? 150 minerals, and on a separate spawn timer (does not hatch from egg etc). It MIGHT be the case that the trade is not good at all. If I see invisible missiles I'll probably just go "ARGGG LAY EGGS, USE UP ALL MY MANAS AND RUN!!" and start building another queen. It really seems that having more queens is a solution. It gives you decent air defense, it is on a separate spawn timer which does not hinder your main army production, and it helps in spreading creep and more. If 2 port banshee comes into play, I think having more queens than banshees is a pretty good trade. For one, you are not losing gas. A dead queen (if you have many) is nothing compared to a dead banshee. But hey, if you didn't guess the banshee play, what are your queens going to do then when a 3 racks MM ball comes knocking at your door?

From there, it might be trivial if you are going for the normal expand into lair tech whatever. Get mutas and watch the Terran scream and all. Is it balanced? I'm leaning on the 'no' side. Zerg is a reactionary race. What they don't see they guess. Terran's strength lies in their versatility, so right off the bat, it's bad for zerg theoretically IF the Terran manages to keep the Zerg in the dark. I've seen easy wins when the Terran just do a reactor factory fake into 2 port banshees even at high level play (Idra vs someone i can't remember). Zerg sees and react by getting Roaches. Thinking about it, it doesn't really seem fair. Does it really go into a guessing game?

VS Banshees Mid - late game
Moving on, I'd like to talk about Banshees in mid-late game. Think back to all the replays you've watched. It's strange isn't it? It's a late tech unit, yet it's hardly used in the mid-late game. In fact it's suuuuper rare to see banshees late game unless you are going 1/1/2 into hellion drop into lotsa banshees + MM against Protoss (since Banshees rape everything on the ground). However, recently I have seen Protoss going Stargate builds so it's not gonna be viable now (or in the near future at most). Weird isn't it? I know that Protoss uses everything they have when they advance thier tech tree. Just scan their army every minute. Zealots, Stalkers, Sentries, Observer, Immortals, Colossus, High Templar shiz. For Zerg, they only skip units if they have to, but you do see all of them in some matches at mid-late game. It's not like you don't see hydras, mutas, infestors and broodmother late game. They are all being used! Wow, now I feel like switching to Zerg and Protoss. All of them are being used, how cool is that?



But banshees? Tier 3.5 into the Terran tech and no one uses them after they are built? Seems strange to me. Maybe it's on purpose; I mean, there are lots of Terran units like that. It's not like you will get Thor if you are bent on playing MMM, especially against Protoss. I do agree that they are probably meant to be JUST a harassing unit. The high cost, the damage, the build time and the cloak seems to point that direction. Then again, if they are just harass, what about medivac drops? We all know how damn good medivac drops are, so why go through all the trouble of teching just for banshees? If you are spawning close air, would you go for banshees or just medivac drops?

Banshees usage in overall game plan
From here it seems that the Banshees seems a little overshadowed. They are a cool unit, great for harassing to the point of being part of a really solid build at ONE point, but are they worth the trouble when you know there is a cheaper and much more effective? It feels to me that they are hanging dangerously somewhere between "Use" and "Don't use". In other words, I think that they are too specialized and not doing what they do better and more cost effective than a plain old medivac drop. Also, with medivacs you can leave your starport on reactors.

Ultimately, Banshees main strength right now comes from the fact that they can be obtained very early in the game considering how far down the tech tree it actually is. prinnyd00d mentioned that they are early Dark Templars with flight, which is true to an extent. Too bad the missiles are not invisible :p I think that's the only point that keeps them from being as usefulaas Dark Templars (good harassers and good to mesh into the army). Then again, since Terrans get them early, it's definately gonna be too overpowered. Banshees are dreadfully good enough early game. I'm not saying they should be good too mid-late game, but just look at the design of the unit itself. A late tier unit, used in early game but not used late game. Yet it's all fine and dandy. It's quite intriguing.

Thanks for my good friend prinnyd00d for linking this awesome banshee harass.


And a side note, don't banshees look like Orcas from CNC?

Game Design: "Greed in games"

Just this afternoon, I was (somewhat) silently looking at my friend's returned paper and remarked on his 6-11 framework of a ancient Intellvision game Astrosmash. In his framework, he listed the existence of the 'Collection' instinct which leads to the 'Greed'. My lecturer actually circled this section and wrote 'Why?'. The question I ask is, why not? If you looked at the video link on Astrosmash I gave above, you can see clearly why my friend actually wrote 'Collection'; the points. It's not really literal collecting per se...wait, see now I'm confused. Suddenly it seemed very obvious that the player is driven to collect points in this game. Suddenly, when you put it that way, isn't many, if not all, games driven by greed?

That reminded me that I actually have a draft sitting in my blogspot here waiting to be written. I had this idea that games were all driven by some greed because for some odd reason, all the assignments I did about the 6-11 framework somehow had 'Greed' listed somewhere. A game without 'Greed' somehow doesn't cut it. I wish I could list an example but I couldn't! All games, digital or not, computerized or board, have some form of Greed. Which leads to the question: 'What is Greed?'

Is it because the idea of Greed is too broad? In my definition and words, Greed is basically the desire to possess something they don't have. From this simple definition, I believe that there is greed in every human being. I can even say that even monks are greedy in the sense that they want to seek enlightenment. Without greed, there is no drive. What is a human without drive? Without 'want'? Wouldn't they just be an empty shell?

It didn't seem so obvious then as it did now. Why do I play games? What kept me hooked? What kept OTHERS hooked? Why did I lose interest in some of them? Is it true that EVERY game plays with our greediness? Is it true, based on testing my friends' pre-alpha games, that the better games always have a better hook that preys on the greedy nature of humans? In game design discussions, it's always asking what players WANT WANT WANT. The moment a developer does not consider that, a game will just...crumble. If it doesn't and sells well, I think it is an 'Accident'. I think a lot of games are accidents, like 'Everquest' or 'Starcraft'. You can disagree with me on that; it's not the point of the discussion.

We start by looking at the infamous 'High Score'. Back then when Pong was first developed, it didn't have any way to track scores. I find it extremely hard to believe that people find the game fun without tracking the score at some given point of time, whether physically or mentally, consciously or unconsciously. Then came the arcades and High Score was introduced. My lecturer 'forced' me to watch this documentary known as 'Chasing Ghosts' which shows exactly how important it is to the arcade scene.

Whether the game LASTS is based on how difficult it is to fulfill a player's greed and their tolerance. A good example is the Disgaea series. From that game you can draw out 3 main groups of people because of it's extreme grind. Firstly, those who don't have the tolerance nor time to dedicate will just be greedy for the story. When the story ends, the game ends. Secondly, those who have too much time and incredibly tolerance to grind through everything and obtain everything the game have to offer to create the ultimate party/character. Thirdly, those who are greedy enough to try but do not have the tolerance, time nor dedication to continue.

I think it's rather safe to agree that most people fall under the first and third category. I'm not gonna conduct surveys on this; it seems pretty obvious and more so in this generation since people are getting busier and busier. I personally know people from all three categories and the ones fulfilling the second are thought to be insane and usually either have no job, play games during their jobs or in National Service (^^).

But you see, the moment a player loses interest is when it feels tedious to fulfill the greed within the player. If there's an incredibly difficult boss fight that only skilled players can defeat, the player will fight use the greed within him to drive himself to improve. After many futile attempts, they might give up, possibly due to a serious case of learned helplessness. When they give up depends on their tolerance level of such events.

All this leads to why I find the idea of 'Achievements' ingenious. The combination of the simple mechanic of collecting points in game and the fact that you are showing it (usually) to the rest of the world creates a rather powerful effect on gamers. Suddenly, pride and competition comes into play and together they can furiously generate lots of greed until the player chooses to 'let it all rest and move on'.

That choice, by the way, isn't really an easy choice. It means there is an emptiness in you that you find that it's better just to ignore it. It's still a hole in you, in the end, a hole that's difficult to ignore. A hole that will forever be waiting to be filled. How well you ignore it also depends on how perceptively tedious it is to achieve it (again, your tolerance level).

If we have to look at all the genres of games, there is always the existence of preying on the greediness of us. You might be playing RTS'/fighting games and you are greedy for the defeat of your opponent, maybe also greedy to add to your win-loss ratio, be it against him or not. You might be playing RPG's and want to beat all the bosses and secret bosses, and collect the best weapons in the game. You might be playYou might be playing Bejeweled and...well you know how this will go. OR, you can just be greedy for the story of the game.

Greed exists in all games. Card games, board games, dice games, Dungeons and Dragons, Zelda, FPS', Civilization, Starcraft...it exists because it is part of the human nature. Game developers have the be aware of that when they are designing their games, and I believe this will bring them closer to making their games 'Fun'.

The Game Programmer's Trap

What is a game programmer's trap? Let me first state that generally, game designers are programmers than artists. Programmers are naturally curious about applying mathematics into their games so once they learn something, they eagerly want to make a game or a game feature that implements it. That is what I call a game programmer's trap.

We sometimes forget what games are meant for and become solely interested in showing our technical skills. Games have only one purpose: To create experiences for the player, or to put it into simpler terms, to let the player have fun. Mathematics and code are just means of achieving this goal. Ultimately, the most important thing is the content.

I believe that the designers should let the design of the game drive the code and not vice versa. This may seem obvious, but it's so simple to forget. It should not be the case where you learn ray-casting and you want to make a game that utilizes it. No, it should be the case where you want to make a game, and research on ray-casting when you happen to need it. Showing off technical aspect does not make a game; it makes a technical demo.

I cannot emphasize how important content is to a game. You can have 2 fundamentally same games with different content and still capture the attention of the audience. Look at the newer Mario and Kirby platformer games. The player have to go from point A to point B, so fundamentally, they are exactly the same, but what sets them apart is the content and features. Anyway, the point here is that consumers don't care about your technical showcases. Others might, I might, my classmates might, your future employers might, but a regular salaryman most likely don't.

Of course, this doesn't mean that you should abandon all hope in technicality in games. That's not the point I'm driving at here. Yes, having better technical skills allow more options of games to make. The point I'm driving is NOT to let your curiosity on all things mathematical and technical decide the game and its features.

For example, I have a simple Mario-like game. One day I learnt ray-casting and I want to implement line-of-sight to the game. Take a step back and think it through first. Does the game really need it? Don't do it because you CAN. Do it because you NEED it in the game design. Piling up too many unnecessary features to a game will simply destroy it.

It may seem like a really trivial thing to some. I might seem like I'm stating the obvious of the obvious, but when you are learning or formulating implantations as a programmer, it's hard to ignore it because you just figured it out and you want to put it into practice. Go ahead, do it in a separate tech demo. Just don't add it into the game itself unless the game demands it.

[Game Design] Why do we play games?

Looking at the question in the title, the short and simple answer would be "To have fun", which leads to the near unanswerable question of "What is fun?". Some may say that it's simply a positive emotion, which can come in the form of Happiness or Excitement. But it doesn't really answer the question that most game designers look for, which is "How to make our games fun?". We can only show, through past observations, history and experience, what is fun.

I sat through a lecture today which presented me with a model that breaks down what makes a game, which we can get a clearer view on what is fun. Whether it really is fun is something we can not, and possibly can never explain, but it paints a clearer picture of it.


This model is basically called the Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics (MDA) model. It's a very 'obvious' model, some of you may already realized it some time in your life while playing games. Well, this is a documented and formal approach, a framework if you will, so that game designers have a easier time understanding their trade and for future game designers to have a easier time picking the trade up. In other words, a guideline.

For those who have examined games before, we know that games are fundamentally made up of Rules and Tools. Rules determine the dimensions and restrictions, as well as the objective(s) of the game. Tools are given to the players to help them achieve the goal, sometimes by even allowing them to break certain rules. Anyway, that is how I view games until today, so if you disagree and want to tell me, by all means email me. MDA model simply elaborated this point and documented it.

Mechanics are basically the Rules and Tools we designers give the players, which was explained above. Dynamics is basically the grouping of some Mechanics. So let's say the player wants to 'Fight'. 'Fight' is a Dynamic that has the Mechanics...say...'Punch' and 'Kick'. Simple enough.


But the most complicated part is the Aesthetics, which is the emotional feedback from the player. This is where we are most interested in, because this is the place where players journey to find 'fun' in your games. The MDA model suggests that the Aesthetics portion breaks down into 8 different kinds of 'fun':
- Sensation (i.e. Pleasure)
- Fantasy (i.e. Roleplaying)
- Narrative (i.e. Storytelling)
- Challenge (i.e. Puzzles)
- Fellowship (i.e. Social Network)
- Discovery (i.e. Exploration)
- Expression (i.e. Self-discovery)
- Submission (i.e. just to pass time)

Looking at those 8, you might realize that it more or less covers what we humans define as 'fun'. From there, we can probably break down deeper into simpler sections like emotions and stuff like that. My lecturer threw me something called the '6-11 model' to replace the Aesthetics part which I won't go too deeply into here. I'll just go through it.

6-11 is short for 6 Emotions, 11 Instincts. Emotions are Fear, Anger, Pride, Sadness, Joy and Excitement. The Instincts are Survival, Identification, Collecting, Greed, Aggressiveness, Competition, Revenge, Protection, Curiosity, Color/Music Appreciation, and Communication.

As you can see, it is really quite an extensive range of emotions and instincts. It's made by my lecturer so kudos to him for trying to create this framework. Basically you loop between an Instinct and an Emotion. Dynamics-Mechanics come in during an Instinct. So let's take Donkey Kong, the first popular platformer game:


This is my definition of Donkey Kong using the 6-11 model and MDA model. It's not accurate; I don't think it's meant to be. After doing it, I realized that there are probably some small holes to be patched in the model. However, it is detailed and to the point, and I guess it is good to know that there is some sort of good guideline to finding out what is 'fun'.

If you tried to use the 6-11 model, you'd realize that it almost exclusively ends up with either of these 3 emotions: 'Joy', 'Excitement' and 'Sadness'. Then we can go on to ask 'If Joy and Excitement is Fun, what is Joy and Excitement?' which brings us back to an endless loop that can never be answered. But, we can infer from the 6-11 model that 'Fun' is the result of positive emotions such as 'Excitement' and 'Joy', which is a mix of the other emotions and instincts depending on the game. From here, we can paint a rather vague but valid formula to 'What is fun?'.

So in the end, we still can't define the meaning of 'Fun', but we do know how did 'fun' come about in various games. Designers still have to discover how to produce the instincts and emotions required in their games. That will be the content/the meat of the game and most important aspect to making it 'fun'. But thanks to these models, it's probably going to be a little easier.

Frustration in games; find and polish it

We know games are all about fun. And the greatest question that all game designers try to solve is: "What is fun?". It's an impossible question, because everybody is different in many ways. However, we must also realize that everybody is the same in many ways too. The answer to 'What is fun?' is actually not totally impossible.

So how to we answer the 'What is fun' question? The other way to look at the question is 'What isn't fun'? Now that question suddenly seems more answerable. I feel that it's because people remember shitty things more than good things. Human are first pessimistic before they become optimistic. They look at shitty things around them and try to improve it, either by effort, delusion, offsetting pros and cons, etc. Only then they become optimists. This is one of the things I observed in the army.

The main idea is, we usually realize more bad things than good. When the bad starts to outweigh the good, we become frustrated. In fact, as long as we have too many bad things in the game design, we get frustrated.

Frustration exists in so many areas in a video game. Loading screens, unwanted cause and effects, lack of goals and objectives, waiting times, fairness, difficulty, ugly graphics and art design, bad camera angles, the list goes on and on and on. In fact, there are ways to frustrate players that you can't really list in just phrases.

So as you can see, the question isn't really "What is fun" first. For a game to become fun, first it must eliminate what isn't fun. By looking at this perspective, I believe, you will be able to keep track of the bigger picture of your game. By doing so, you will be able to polish your game. You will start to know why companies like Blizzard takes such a damn long time to release their incredibly polished games. There's always something to be done.

Because what (you believe) is fun usually revolves in the gameplay, I find that sometimes designers overlook other smaller aspects of the game like UI, music, sound, menu user-bility, instructions, and other accessibility issues.

If you look at board games, vanilla Catan is fun for the first or second playthrough, until you realize how dependent on luck it is. People will start to slowly become frustrated when they didn't get their stuff when they logically should. Finally when they realize that they are being controlled by circumstances, they quit.

A comic strip inspired by Settlers of Catan's gameplay

Another example, this time a video game, is 'Cross Edge' on PS3. I played through the game and gave it like tons of chances. I know I'm not the most tolerant of gamers, but sometimes almost every aspect of the game turns me off. The music is not fitting, the gameplay is novel but tedious, difficult and has a ridiculously high learning curve, and the controls and mechanics are quite confusing.

More painful to play than it looks

If I weren't a JRPG player, I would've dropped it the first 10 mins into the game. Of course, I'm sure people still play it, but if you look at the package, you know it's going to be, at most, a cult hit. And it's going to be popular only because of its characters.

Sometimes I wonder what some of these devs are thinking. Are they just making games just to hope that fans will love it just because of its popular characters? I understand that some sources of frustration are beyond the game developers' control (like players dying constantly in games like DOTA due to lack of experience, stupidity or bad teammates), but there are sources which are totally controllable.

Everytime I play a game, I would always think what the designers were thinking. Why did they do little things like this and that, from gameplay, to UI, to sound. Sometimes I find some parts frustrating and wonder why the developers overlooked it. Either they honestly did not notice, there was no time to fix it, or they don't give a damn. 'Cross Edge' truly felt like the devs don't even care.

Of course, nothing can be compared to the all famous Big Rigs:


Before you start making a game, video or board game, you must first decide its audience. There is a reason why Catan is designed that way and I believe it's not really for the hardcore people who enjoy scheming a planning like in a chess game. The only reason why Catan was designed that way, I believe, was because it's catered to casual players. If you look at Catan that way, it actually makes a lot of sense.

And then there are the grey areas; aspects of the game where you really need to know how much your target audience tolerate. You have to find out what your audience is able to tolerate. This is especially true for a game that is heavily based on numbers. Not everyone 'gets' Civilization series or the like as the numbers probably overwhelm them. In such games, aspects that could probably be labeled as 'frustrating' to most would become a 'necessity' for the target audience.

However, even if an aspect is necessary, it is still important to make it as un-frustrating as possible. Not everything is perfect, but it can be close to being one.

Game Design: Immersiveness

Immersiveness is a rather difficult concept to implement into a game. Of course, not every game should implement it. Not every game can. It is just a game design direction and preference. A straightforward game with levels as a core design feature, for example, contradicts the whole concept all together.

Gamers, or people in general, look for patterns in a game. Once they figured the structure for your game, the sense of immersiveness is lost. They will start to see your game nothing more than what it really is: A game. If you are reading this, you would probably want your game to be a little more than that.

Feedback
People, being human beings they are, love their accomplishments and works to be recognized. A player does something, he expects something to happen. The more feedback he gets from the world itself, the more he actually 'felt' that he did something.

A good (and rather extreme) example is the Megaton nuke quest in Fallout 3. If you actually did the nuke and blew up Megaton, some NPCs all over the world will start to have reactions towards you when you talk to them (some are good while others are bad).

So the first step is reactions and feedback from the world itself. Feed the player's self-esteem and ego. They all love it. And don't just give them text or UI feedback. NPC, or even better, world feedback is the best. Maybe whatever the player did changes the climate of the area. The sky becomes red and it starts raining blood or whatever floats your boat. Of course, that was another extreme example, but you get what I mean. A simple NPC running up to the player going "omg you killed the vampire, you are my hero!" or "I heard you helped NPC01's garden, eh?" is good enough for smaller deeds.

It's even better if he was given the choice to do it or not, allowing different reactions and feedback depending on the choice chosen, and that brings us to the next point.

Of course, don't overdo it. There's a threshold before players start getting annoyed with all the feedback.

Choice
Another great way of implementing immersiveness is the freedom of choice. Of course, true freedom of choice is impossible. However, if you can implement a choice that hits what the player would really want to do, it gives them the 'illusion' that there is freedom of choice. The more variety of choices available, the higher the chances of them hitting what the player want. Usually you want to have the 'right' choice, the 'evil' choice and a couple of grey choices.

For example, an NPC that refuses to do your bidding. Choices usually goes like:
1) Kill them
2) Pay them
3) Persuade them
4) Preach to them

Of course, depending on the character or the content, you can have more choices that leads to better or more amusing results (like how Malkevians in Vampires the Masquerade can turn people insane).

Again, don't overdo it. It will potentially kill your scripters and programmers. Just have enough to cover most of the areas. Given what I said about feedback earlier, a single choice may result a lot more scripting elsewhere.

Party Memebers
Party memebers should never EVER be silent. They should never EVER only talk at events. In fact, they should be interactive enough to randomly comment on events around you. I think most of Bioware games did this, including the recent Dragon Age: Origins. It not only builds the personality of your party members, but it also gives the player the feeling that his characters are not just tools for battle, thus leading to immersiveness.

It gets even better if you allow your character's actions and dialogs with the party members to change their views on certain things. This can be initiated by either the main character himself, or the party members (like walking around and they randomly open a dialog with you).

Tension between party members creates a bit of drama, and everyone loves drama. Conversations should not only happen towards the main character, it should also happen between party members. Like in Baldur's Gate 2, recruiting Keldorn the Paladin creates a huge tension with Edwin the Mage (results can be extreme though; Keldorn ends up attacking Edwin).

This point should automatically create 2 important points for your party members (unless you really are creatively handicapped, no offense):
1) Interesting character personality
2) Character development

A Living World
This combines music, sound and graphics. This point should go without saying, creating an ambiance that fulfills the area. A bustling city should sound, feel and look like a bustling city.

Not only that, the area must have interesting things to look at, interesting things to interact with, giving the players the urge to explore your contents. A city with just guards walking around and beautiful ambiance, terrain and design wouldn't interest the players at all. Players will just end up getting to where they want to go and do what they want to do.

Create distractions. Distract the players from their goal. Create interesting places of interest and point your characters there with quests. Quests should never happen at a fixed type of location; it should happen ANYWHERE. Use that to your advantage. Give them the feel that they have lots of things to do, preferably in a disorganized way (like quest givers popping up from nowhere...don't overdo it though).

Just remember that you are trying to create a real-life-like situation here. Quests don't always happen selectively by the player's wishes. Quests can come in many many different ways; it all depends on your creativity. It can come in a form of a dream, a paid messenger, or even something your player saw. It can be anything.

Remember that the further you manage to distract the player from the norm, the more the player will fail to see a pattern in your game and thus resulting in the player thinking that your game is 'alive' and hence immerse them into the game.

That's it for Immersiveness. It's not even a word in the dictionary, but it is important to some games. Just my thoughts on it.