The Game Den - Game On!

visual style:

The visual style within computer games makes up the visual content of a video game. Visual styles can vary outstandingly between games, standard 2D to 3D and also graphics wise, from very realistic to a cartoon based style. It is important for developers to accomplish the correct visual style for the target audience that they are aiming for, even though for me and I'm sure most gamers will agree with me that its not just about the graphics of the game.

world (terrain,architecture, objects): 

This is the environment of the game, the landscape of the game and the objects of the game which are their. This can range from rubble on the floor to trees and buildings. For example skyrim has a lot of landscape being a open world sandbox also grand theft auto games all have these elements.

Player characters: 

This is a character in a computer game that can be controlled or controllable by the player, The characters are usually the protagonists of the story that is being told during the course of the game. Some computer games mainly have one player character, other games, especially two player games have two, or in some cases a small number of player characters that they can choose from basically one for each player, a good example of this is Dragon Age 2 even though it was a single player game that one player can switch between many other controllable characters.

perspective:
Aerial view also known as top down is used in computer games basically refers to a camera angle that shows the area that the player is playing in, however the side-scroller camera angle is a viewed as it is said from the side where the characters can mainly move from left and right on the screen. Games with a first-person perspective are commonly avatar based, so basically when you are in game you are basically looking through the eyes of your avatar thus, players cannot see the avatars body but they can usually see the hands or the weapon on their avatar. This viewpoint is mainly used in driver games such as 'Need For Speed Series', although when games have the Third Person perspective, this viewpoint allows players to see their character more as the camera is just behind the characters body. This viewpoint has some difficulties as then the player puts his characters back to the wall the camera will sometimes jerk or end up in a awkward position.

Gameplay Models and Gameplay Features

The features and models of gameplay are mainly made up of a lot of things as they can include the character you play as (avatar), how you play the video game, the narrative of the video game and made up of a lot of game modes such as Single Player, Multi Player etc....

Narrative: A computer game has a narrative this is used as a basis to make the players have a reason to do what they are meant to do, in most megahit computer games in todays society, the narratives mainly tend to be like film and in some cases, games such as uncharted 3 and kingdom hearts the game play is somewhat a back-up as the narrative takes the lead.

Game Setting: Game Settings can be made up from a number of parts, from environmental features to the emotional features. In my opinion without the game setting the game wont be able to build up on the development of the game itself. In the case of Dead Rising by CapCom, the intention of the developers was to make the player get emotional by looking after chucks (main character) daughter katie who needs a medication so the game puts you in a high tension situation and fore-boding.

Goals,Challenges,Rewards: They are all related in a way of such because say for example the goal is to reach.. a military base and the challenge is to defeat all the the armed soldiers in silence avoiding being caught and setting off the alarm and then after reaching the goal of the game/mission you will receive a reward from either a new weapon or money to upgrade your own weapons. This is what I meant by they are all closely related, every developer has to use these as it will keep the player engaged in the computer game as without a goal the game is pointless and without a challenge the goal will be simple to get to and the player will lose interest and then you get the reward which makes everything you've done seem worth while.

The Rules, Difficulty and Mechanics

In computer games there has always been rules, Rules are there to determine what the play can and can't do when playing the game. However, when it comes to computer games the rules are usually hidden behind control schemes but as usual when there are rules, there will be ways to break them as General Douglas MacArthur said “rules are mostly meant to be broken and are too often for the lazy to hide behind”

some players in the gaming indusrty have found ways to use the games rules to achieve a unpredicted effect, then there are hackers who like to mess around witht the games codes although with all of the messing around with all the codes, in most cases they are messed around to make the game easier for others or just plain and simple to make people have a laugh. Now on to difficulty.

Difficulty in games is there to help amateur gamers, intermediate gamers and then the expert/hardcore gamers in most games there are 3 or 4 difficulties starting from beginner then on to intermediate then on to either expert and then to sometimes impossible. With these difficulties the AI (Artificial intelligence) can be killed easier if your on beginner or if your on expert or impossible the AI become more smarter and are harder to kill,

Whereas in some games they will add in rewards to players if they put it on a higher difficulties, such as in the computer game Dead Space by Visceral Games which when your at a lower difficulty the game gives you more ammo and the monsters take less time to kill and when they attack you they don't kill you fast, however if you switch the difficulty to expert the ammo is scarce and it takes more bullets to kill the monsters and they can kill you in two hits so there is a huge difference in difficulty changes.

Basically the mechanics is how the game runs. Its like if we take two games from the company Naughty Dog uncharted 3 and Jak and Daxter, why does Jak use spin kicks while Nathan Drake kills his enemies by shooting them, this is mainly because the games run off their own mechanics it would look a bit weird if Drake was running round doing a spin kick on everyone while Jak shot them all.

Addiction

Most people just play games for fun like saying “oh im going home to play on call of duty” I can admit I have said that and and I can guarantee hundreds of people have said the same thing as me, but then you get the people who get addicted to games start to miss school/college to get to some level or a certain mission in the game, I have known people who have let games take over their lives from such games as Runescape a MMORPG (Massive Multi-player on-line role-playing game) also other MMO's (Massive Multi-player online) such as World Of Warcraft or WOW for short and they literally gave up their whole social life a dedicated it to the games and they all said the exact same thing to me “we are not addicted”

Game Genres:

Game genres is basically a way of categorising the computer games by its theme. For example a adventure would have more freedom than a simulation game therefore the player will experience a different feel for each game. Heres a few game genres and a simple explanation of each of them

• Action: is where there is physical challenges, reaction time challenges. Also this genre has diverse subgenres such as shooting games, fighting games and platfrom games, which are mainly considered the most important in action games
• FPS(First Person Shooter):Is a video game genre centered on gun and projectile weapon based combat throught the first person perspective. The first-person shooter shares common traits with other shooter-games which collides with the genre action game.
• TPS(Third Person Shooter): is a genre very simple to FPS but it is a genre of 3D where the player character is visible on screen and the gameplay consists as well as FPS shooting
• Racing: can either be done in third person or first person perspective,in which the player partakes in a racing competition with any type land, air or sea vehicles. It can be based on real life racing or fantastical racing.
• Adventure: this genre is where the player plays a the role of the protagonist in a n interactive story mainly driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical (for example reflexes) challenges.
• Role-playing: Where a player controls the actions of a protagonist immersed in a fictional world. Many RPG games use much of the same terminology, setting and game mechanics.
• Simulation: basically describes a diverse super-category of video games, generally designed to closely simulate aspects of a real or fictional reality.
• Puzzle: where the video game emphasizes puzzle-solving, the types of puzzles to be solved can test many problem solving skills including logic,strategy, pattern recoginition, sequence solving and word completion.

Interactive story telling techniques:

Cinematics, Cutscenes and Full-motion Video:

Cinematics are used mainly as advertisements as they are not actual gameplay footage for example in the game assassins creed 3 where Desmond (Assassin) is running at the enemy but the graphics are somewhat like a film and human like so they used cinematics on the advertisement on the game. However cut scenes are like cinematics but they are used in game as the player has no control or on occasion has some but limited control of the cut scene, they are used to break up the game and used to advance the plot of the game, progress the main characters development, introduce new characters and sometimes provide background information, atmosphere, dialogue and clues. Cut scenes can also be animated, live-action or pre-rendered computer graphics streamed from a video file. Full-Motion video or FMV is essentially used as a technique for the narration and it relies upon pre-recorded files to show what’s going on the screen in the game. While many computer games feature FMVs as a way to present information during cuts scenes.

Triggered Events:

Triggered event happens in video games when you complete a mission/quest in the video game and then it opens the next mission/quest but if you don’t complete the mission/quest the game will not allow you to carry on. I use the example of the game skyrim by Bethesda Game Studios if you walk into a new village a NPC will walk up to you and offer you a quest you can either accept it or decline the quest, this is a triggered event as you have done something and then it triggered the NPC to come over to the player character.

Approaches to story telling:

Three act structure: has as it says 3 parts to it beginning middle and end. Usually the beginning of computer games starts off with a game opening tutorial or in some cases introducing the setting and the main character, the middle part of the game starts to enter the character into the main missions/quests with the end of the game upcoming the game starts to reach its climax and then when the ending comes it usually ends with the final mission/quest most games use the ending as the final boss, the last person that you are after to kill. A great example of this is the game Dragon origins as the game is focused on the three act structure beginning, middle and end.

Hero’s Journey (12 parts): 

Basically the hero’s journey is set into 12 parts;

• The ordinary world: The hero is not comfortable in their ordinary world, the hero knows something Is wrong, this is one of the reasons they go on the adventure.

•  The call to adventure: This is when the hero gets called on the adventure by an unknown character that will be known at a later point in the game.

• Refusal of the call: In most games the hero will often have fear of the unknown that will happen and tries to turn away from the adventure.

• Meeting with the mentor: The hero meets the unknown person that offered him the adventure and in most games the unknown person becomes the hero’s mentor and the mentor tells the hero that he is special.

• Crossing the threshold: This is when the hero accepts the adventure and sets off to the new world that he is about to adventure in to.

• Tests, Allies and Enemies: During the adventure the hero will encounter their very own enemies or allies that will either help them or attack them.

• Approach: The hero has found allies and sees the challenges ahead in the adventure.

• The ordeal: This is when the hero has to go through a test and then has to over- come an ordeal.

• The reward: After the hero has finished his test and survives, the hero will usually receive a reward that can contain new weapons, gold etc…

• The road back: This is when the hero has finished his adventure and now is starting to return home.

• The resurrection: This is when the hero is tested once more but this time with certain chance of death as this test will be harder than the previous one.

• Return with the elixir: The ending when the hero has won the final fight and completed the game.

Representation and emotional themes in story design:

Characterisation is basically the concept of creating the characters for the narrative.

Sterotypes: the process of characterising the characters with a personality that is associated with a certain type of group, which may or may not be accurate.

Symbolism: representing something that is happening or already happened in the real world.