Game Studies

    Game Studies Profile

             Display Name | Mohamad Irfan

             Username | Freesia
             Student ID | 0326620
       

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RULE BOOK

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GAMER NOTES

Week 2 (12/4/19)
Lecture: Games and Rituals

Understand problems, look at them critically.

1. Gameplay patterns

• Responses
• Target audience, some games appeal more to certain age groups and audiences.
• Replay factor from 

2. Acting out an Event

• Ex. T vs CT from Counter-strike
• Scenario, 

3. Rituals are essentially games with rules.

4. De-ritualization

• Identify patterns and understand it's identity
• Augment reality

5. Element of competition

• Achievement
• Races and Sports
• Last man standing is also a race (like battle royales)
• Compete with others (board-games like monopoly)
• Opposition creates STRATEGY
• Difficulty, games that are too easy pose no challenge and opposition so games have the option to change difficulty depending on what level the player wants to play against
• Same with antagonists, characters, bosses.
• When making a game you should start with the max difficulty, and only after that add in easier difficulties.

6. Themes

• Games have a certain theme to it
• Games that are educational can be based of history and real life events.
• Games can be heavily themed with fantasy and dragons etc.
• Themes are catered toward a target audience. 

7. Create Conditions

• Chess has several unique pieces that each have a condition placed on them (how each piece move, where they can move to)
• This condition makes it highly re-playable.
• Unlocking mechanism - a certain condition has to be met to progress the game

8. Story

• Skeleton/framework ---> Dressing 

A good framework of a game is often reused and "dressed" with better aesthetics or made into different variations. Games such as monopoly getting a Star Wars or Pokemon version can also cater to different target audiences and interests.

or

• Story ---> Game
• Game ---> Story

A concept and story can come before making the game or vice versa. There must be a narrative.

Research

Luddology - Ludus is constructed from the latin word 'ludus' which means games. Luddology is the discipline that studies games. It studies both the games being played and playing them in general. Video games is just a branch of this study, and so is traditional games and board games. Game study should not just be driven by existing media such as storytelling, narrative, drama, etc as most scholars make it out to be, as it is denying the main potential. The main potential a game creates is simulation; the ability to represent dynamic systems. The goal of Luddology is to understand games and videogames, both in a formal way and part of media ecology.

Narrative (story) - A narrative is a story, It refers to the story being told. It is the account of events, experiences, and details. It also refers to the story-telling process. A novel written from the point of view of the main character is an example of a narrative. The origins and lore in a videogame is a narrative as well. 

Week 4 (26/4/19)

This week we had a card game workshop in collaboration with Tarumanagara University. We were tasked in groups to make our own card game. We were introduced to the game of 'War'. It has simple rules where the person with the bigger card gets to keep the opponents card. However if both players have the same card there is a war. There is no winning strategy for the game as the game is based on chance. Based on the concept of war we had to create our own cards and introduce power cards. We also had to integrate Malaysian and Indonesian culture into the cards.

Working with my group to create our card game!

Based on the concept of war we added our own elements to our card game, which were power cards. Both players start with a few power cards in hand. When both players flip over the same card value there is a War for the highest card, which should be more common than the original War card game because we reduced the number of playing cards which was 1-5 unlike the standard Ace to King. When there is a war players have the chance to roll the dice and if it lands on an even number they can use a power card. But we later realized this was a bit unbalanced so we made it so that if two dices add up to 9 or above a power card could be played. 

All the cards

Some of the Power cards we came up with was Plus and Minus, where the player can roll the dice to either add on the rolled number onto their own card or Minus the opponents card value during a war. We also have a Thief card which allows the player to steal a random card from the opponent. The shield, reverse, and reflect cards are self explanatory.

Power Cards

We had to integrate Malaysian and Indonesian culture into our cards. We chose a mix of Malaysian and Indonesian instruments to represent our playing cards 1-5. If we had more time we could have designed famous landmarks onto the Power Cards.

Playing Cards

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TABLE-TOP BOARD GAME DESIGN

Week 6 (16/5/19)

Mr Charles' board games

 Mr Charles showed the board games that he made. It gave me a good idea of what sort of materials and objects I could use or reuse in my board-game.

For this week we had to build the foundation of our own tabletop game. The narrative, the concept, the theme, roughly what the board will look like etc.

Objective of the game:
First to kill all the heroes and the Good King wins.

Narrative:
The players play as 'Dark Mages' who are evil and have been tasked by the Dark King to kill the Good King. The dark mage who kills the Good King becomes the next Dark King. However before the players can kill the Good King they have to kill all of his strongest warriors: the Heroes.

Board rough design

This is the map I quickly made using the method Mr Charles taught which was to have a Point A and Point B and fill in everything in-between including obstacles. The player starts off with limited cards and power. The player has to land on chests or villages to get cards. The player rolls the dice to move and will eventually encounter the first of the 4 heroes on the map. The player can choose to battle the hero, which when killed can drop hero cards, or strategically move on. The point is get stronger and kill the heroes before the other players do. The map also consists of different regions: Fire Region, Water Region, Thunder Region, Dark Region, and Stone Region. The elements of the spell cards also follow these elements and I added these regions to add more variety to the strategies that can be made.

This however created a lot of problems in terms of balance between the players, so I made some rules to counter it:

• Player has 5 hearts (hitpoints)
• Rest - If a player doesn't move they regain half a heart (counts as an action)
• Dying means player loses all hero cards and starts from the beginning
• Player can choose to avoid fighting hero but loses half a heart every time player avoids a battle with a hero
• Player can make 1 action, moving, or choosing to battle if the player is within the hero attack range
• After killing a hero they will drop a hero card, the second time they die they will drop 2 cards, and so on.
• The player who gets the last hit on a hero gets the kill and loot.
• Players can have 5 hero cards at a time
• Heroes re spawn immediately after dying and gain an extra heart. 

Hero and Spell Cards

Here are some of the cards I came up with, Spell Cards and Hero Cards. Spell cards are the main offensive cards for the players as dark mages. Hero cards are power cards and have unique abilities. Some descriptions of the cards:

Spell Card (Elemental)

• Normal Spell cards have 2 uses
• Combine Cards of the same Element to deal more damage (1 turn)

Hero Card

• Invulnerability - Take no damage from a hero attack
• Weather Art - Change the weather of a region for 1 turn
• Necromancer - at the cost of own health give extra heart to a hero that has died once
• Keepsake - keep 2 hero cards when you die
• Avatar - Combine 2 spell cards of different elements to deal the combined damage
• Teleport - use during turn to teleport to the start of any region

Feedback:

Mr Charles gave some feedback. He said that players and battles do not feel balanced and can snowball quickly or get left behind. I should utilize the elemental cards I have and have each element have a strength and weakness against each other. Instead of battling heroes where the player has no chance at all or can easily defeat the hero, there should be requirements to defeating a hero, a 50/50 chance. And these requirements can be obtained by collecting these cards and getting better stats in different elements. Mr Charles also suggested to have 3 tiers to the elements, the first tier (primary) which are the main elements, and then the second tier (secondary) where elements can be combined to make new elements. And then the third tier which is the final form. Essentially these cards need to be crafted to make the requirements to kill a hero. Mr Charles also suggested to make the Heroes a mystery. The first player who reaches the hero can peak at the card without telling the other players. 

Ideas from Mr Charles

Week 7 - Week 14

After receiving feedback I decided to make some changes to my board map design.

Improved board concept

Instead of being a game where the player rolls a dice to progress in a linear path, I designed my the game to be split into 'regions' based on the different elements. This means that whatever number the player rolls, they have to move their Meeple to that region. I decided to lower it down to 5 elemental regions and make them consist of the basic elements rather than have light, dark, and stone.

I showed this concept to Mr Charles and he gave a lot of feedback. He mentioned that the game should have Region, Ability, Spells, and Coins as game items and cards. Mr Charles advised to change it from hero slaying to 'titan' slaying as players used to being the hero and battling the monsters. The 'titan' cards should also be designed so that it is clear and easy to read for the player. These cards should be stacked on each other and the contents can be read with ease. Mr Charles drew some examples of having the element and stats on the top of the card and the 'titan' illustration taking up most of the card and possibly a name and description. Mr Charles also told me to keep it simple with the numbers but also allow the player to do mental math and calculations. There should also be a shop to sell the cards. inventory to keep the cards, and possible territory pieces. Mr Charles also told me to finalize the elemental icons and to change the earth icon which was a mountain to a leaf as it would be more recognizable.

Elemental chart

Aside from the board design Mr Charles also wanted me come up with elemental tiers that have strengths and weaknesses.  I took inspiration from existing elemental charts from Naruto and Final Fantasy and came up with the elemental chart I would use for my game. For now there are only 2 tiers where elements could be combined to produce stronger elements such as earth and fire to make lava. There is some science and educational elements to these charts as well. Before working on the board I designed the icons for the Tier 1 elements, keeping the colours and shapes recognizable and attractive.

Elemental icon designs

Next I worked on the board game map. As mentioned before I wanted to split the board into 5 regions, while designing I thought I could dedicate a section on the board to keep cards on similar to chance cards in monopoly.

Digital Board Design 1

While designing the board I decided with the name of the antagonists of the story to be 'Colossals' rather than titans. The board is A4 size and the rectangular tiles is where the Colossus Cards will be placed on. The dimensions of the cards were taken from different Monopoly card dimensions.

References

The concept of the elemental regions was inspired by Avatar: The Last Airbender. However the different 'town' concepts in the regions was inspired by various fantasy cartoons and anime such as Samurai Jack and Seven Deadly Sins.

Runescape Armour Interface

Initial Inventory, Card, and Shop design

After completing the board design I went on to work on the inventory that each player will have to keep game items such as gold and ability cards. The design is simple and on an A4 Sheet. I also introduced an equipment section which will be able to enhance the defense of the Heroes by acquiring various Armour pieces. This concept was inspired by the equipment interface on a game called Runescape.

Colossus Cards

I designed a few cards that could be used and game tested for the next time I meet Mr Charles. The colossus card are coloured based on their attack element and I left space for future illustrations of the Colossus. There are so far 2 tiers of cards. The 'Storm Colossal'  is a tier 2 which is a combination of the water and thunder element. It has higher stats than Tier 1. The triangles on the right will be used to indicate which players owns which territory on the board.

Ability and Region Cards

The ability cards are simple with a title, image, and descriptions. These cards will be in the Region card stack and possibly the shop as well. Abilities and armour can be purchased and have different perks and stat boosts. Region cards such as the traveller tax mix up the gameplay a bit more where a player is forced to do an action that may or may not benefit them. I planned to make the Necromancer card a crucial gameplay element as it can be used to revive defeated Colossus and can be used by the player to fight other players and players Colossus.

As for the shop, it is fairly straight forward and is called 'Merlins Exchange'. This is where the bank is and where all forms of exchanges will take place. Gold and spell casts will be stored here. I also introduced a Special Offers section where players can purchase armour or ability cards and these offers can be replaced by more offers if they are purchased. As these ideas progressed I printed out these cards and board and showed the progress to Mr Charles. 

Mr Charles gave more feedback. I need to name the different towns I have drawn, develop the world building. I decided I needed to expand the size of my board from A4 to A3. Other changes Mr Charles asked me to make were to make proper Region Cards based off the 5 elemental regions. The layout of the bank and shop sheets could be improved.

Digital Board Design 2

I got around to naming each town and added several new gameplay elements. My main issue was the game flow and how to get the player moving around the map and progressing their character. I tackled this by having the player have to role twice: first roll to go to a region, and a second roll to go to a town. Each town has two dice icons next to them. For example if a player rolls a 1 they move their Meeple to Pyrosia, roll a second time and they roll 2. As indicated by the icon at 2 they go to Embla town and recieve 100 Gold and 1 Region Card. If the player rolled 1 in their second roll they would go to Embla town and not receive anything. I initially had this gameplay element so there would be more of a chance and luck factor to get gold and region cards.

Another gameplay element I added was the Conqueror Points, as indicated by the border of the board with the name of the towns, there is a white crown icon and gold. The gold is the tax for when a player lands on a town which is owned by another player. The white crown or Conqueror Points is how many is required to conquer or rule that town/

Armour Cards

Artefact / Region Cards

I next designed the armour cards. Each piece of armour offers a resistance stat to the element it is made out of. Another region card I designed were the Artefact cards. I was inspired by a table top game called Splendor where these Artefact cards could be kept and used to get resources quicker. I wanted the Artefact card to be somewhat rare and used as conqueror points. Conqueror points can be acquired by defeating Colossus, but Artefact cards from the correct region can also be used as points to conquer a town. I did not make many changes to the inventory or shop. I removed the enhancements section and made the special offers from 6 slots to 3 slots. 

Inventory and shop version 2

Region Cards version 2

For the region cards excluding the Artefact cards I kept them roughly the same, but diversifying the type of region cards. There are the regular region cards such as the player having to pay tax and ability cards such as Bind which stops an opposing player from moving on the next turn. Mr Charles mentioned forcing the player to move around the map and learn about the lore of the game so I introduced a 'Diving Order' region cards where the players must obey the commands.

I showed my progress to Mr Charles and he gave a lot of feedback once again. I needed to get started on my graphics for the final version of the board game. I needed to buy miniatures for the Meeples and Colossus and possibly paint them. Mr Charles also wanted my game to be more exiting and fast paced so the double dice roll element was removed and replaced with 1 Region dice and 1 Direction dice. Mr Charles also said the player should get coins on every turn to make the game more fast-paced. A lot of other elements were changed and added which also meant a lot of rules had to be changed as well, At the same time I was working on the game design documentation.

Game Design Documentation

After receiving the final feedback I got I began working on the final version of 'Colossus Clash'.

Final Board Design

This is the final design of the board. I drew on the terrain, added an old map texture, added a compass, tried to blend in the terrain with where the cards and pieces would be placed. I wanted each region to feel unique and be separated by the terrain as well. I was inspired by Skyrim maps.

Final Colossus Card Design

As I did not have time to illustrate and name 25 different Colossus each card has a symbol on it which is where the Miniatures will be placed on when placed on the board. Mr Charles said Miniatures and props make the game look aesthetically better and immersive. Each card has an AP and HP stat and there are different 3 tiers of Colossus Cards. In the end I only ended up using the 5 tier 1 elements.

Back of Colossus Card Design

While making the Colossus Cards I was also thinking about the back design and the logo of Colossus Clash. This is the outcome and is meant to look like a heart and 2 monsters facing off as well.

Final Region Cards

The region card designs have not changed much aside from the backside of the card which is the Region chest icon. If I had time I could have added more variety in the region cards instead of having duplicates. At first I thought I didn't have enough region cards but it turned out to be more than enough.

Box Cover Design

One of our requirements was to design a box for the game as well. This is the cover design I came up with. It it a clash between 2 Colossus and 2 Battle Mages controlling them and using magical spells.

Attack and Heart Tokens

Another added game element where players can purchase Heart or Attack tokens to boost the stats of a player-owned Colossus. Mr Charles asked me to print out a lot of these.

After completing these designs I worked on the box, the meeples/miniatures, and other game items.

Finished assembling Colossus Miniatures

Painting Ruler Cubes

Painted Colossus

Cutting Cards after Priting

Playing Colossus Clash!

REFLECTION

This was the first time I ever attempted at making my own game and it was definitely a long and hard journey. Before this I always thought about how hard game designing really is and making table top games from scratch. The successful and highly replayable games such as UNO and Monopoly are not concepts that have been finalized over night. Creating a game is a lot of trial and error from what I experienced this semester in Game Studies. There is always a way to improve a game element, improve a design, improve the game rules. All this so that the players have an enjoyable and enriching experience which I believe is the beauty of a good table top game. I chose to do a Fantasy RPG type game because it was the genre I thought I would enjoy making the most. As soon as my game concept was set in stone I knew I had a lot of work ahead of me but at the same time I knew I had a lot of learning to do as well. The study of other games and types of games throughout the semester was more helpful than I thought. Each game have a defining factor to them that makes it unique and innovative. Games copy other games all the time but make the outside appearance different, adding a few unique elements of their own that can change the feel of the game entirely.

I feel like my game has a lot of untapped potential. At the current state of the game there is a foundation with some unique game play elements and story. Mr Charles mentioned a game like mine could be heavily customizable by the player as well in terms of game play. I want the future of my game to be a refined, fast-paced, yet easy to learn Dungeons and Dragons type of game.

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GAME REVIEWS

Week 4 (26/4/19)

Game Review 1 - Fortnite vs Apex Legends

For out first game review we discussed and compared two of the biggest battle royale video games right now. We looked into what was similar, what was different, and why these games are so popular.

Week 5 (26/4/19)

Game Review 2 - Hearthstone vs South Park - The Stick of Truth

In this video game review we will be reviewing two turn based RPG-style games: Hearthstone and South Park - The Stick of Truth. We will be comparing the two games and discussing what makes them unique to the other by covering game-play patterns, game-play mechanics,  replayability, and more. 

Week 6 (3/5/19)

Game Review 3 - A visit to a Board-game Cafe

In this video me and Sam visit our first ever Board-game cafe! It was brand new experience for us and we got to try playing two games, a card game called Ninja Taisen and a board game called Splendor. After this trip I got a glimpse into the world of board games and understand it's unique appeal from digital games.