Games Britannia Part 3

In an earlier blog I spoke about the first part of the Game Britannia programme where Benjamin Woolley Introduced us to some games that had an impact on our society in the past. In part 3 he brings us to the present with how games are and where they originated from. He looked at some milestones in Game Design that have had high influences on what we play today.

Woolley Spoke about Lord Of The Rings as one of his favorite books. He mentions how amazed he was when he looked at the map placed at the back of the book and how he imagined what it would be like to actually live in this world. For me this set up the theme where he talks about how designers have tried different ways in which to Immerse the player into their world.

Dungeon and Dragons back in the 1970's was made in California and revolutionalised board games and the way we play them. There would be a Dungeon Master who carried the narrative throughout for the players and offer them choices within a scenario of his/her choice. One the players made the choice (eg to fight the goblins they have been pitted against) they would then roll a dice to decide the outcome. This gave the feel of actually exploring the world you are in and your choices would ultimately decide your path. People were able to escape their real lives (which were quite hard times in the 1970's) and embark on an adventure using this game and the interaction it encouraged with fellow players.

At this time having a home computer was very rare and so the games we could play at home were usually on a board. This opened the doors for arcades where people would go to enjoy digital games without spending vast amounts on a pc. From arcades we naturally moved on to home consoles in which by today's standards were very basic games but also addictive. 

Woolley then speaks to the creators of Elite, a game that introduced a 3D feel based in space and also had a bartering system in which you buy parts for your ship. This focuses on the players choices in what to buy for their ship, while playing it Woolley decided to buy a load of guns for his ship, in turn this resulted in hostile enemies attacking you.

Another Milestone in Games was made by Lionhead called Black and White. The creator peter molyneux wanted to give players the feeling of being a god in which you can control the entire world and it's inhabitants. This was almost an upgraded version of a previous game he created called populous. Similar to Elite, the choices the player makes has an effect of how the game will play.

From just talking about these games I feel the pattern of what game designers then (and the good ones today) were trying to follow could be not be clearer. From the huge success of Dungeon & Dragons Which asked player to imagine their world and get lost in it, to the digital that give you the world visually to explore in a similar fashion.

Now games wanted to put the player in the driving seat and give depth to the story of the character they are playing as. A good example of this Tomb Raider in which developers had given an amazing 3D environment to explore and on top of that, given reasons for the goals of the character and enemies. There have been similar games to this that have also caused controversy in society because people thought the message being sent to the player was morally wrong. The obvious example of this is Grand Theft Auto, where you can explore the world you are in and the attention to detail in this world is amazing. Although it's realistic, the scenarios of what you can do with your player is not acceptable in society (obviously). For example driving a tank through the streets is not a common site in the real world but in Grand Theft Auto it is almost expected of you.

At present we see many examples of where players can actually design levels  for the game themselves and then publish them online for people to play. This has blurred the line between developer and player but allows the world the developers create to be expanded by the people playing it. We can see that this is similar to the Dungeon Master in Dungeon & Dragons where the possibilities are only limited by the tools and the imagination of the player.

Every game needs a timer and moving platforms Right?

Obviously the answer is no, but it seems like the best mind set to have when creating the mechanics for your game. No one wants to spend hours re-writing the same scripts over and over again and I found myself doing this whenever starting a new project. I have promised myself to try and make my life easier from now on by trying my best to make the code as re-usable as possible and have them stored for a rainy day. I thought I would share a couple scripts (JavaScript) that others might find useful and that follow my new train of thought.

Timer:

#pragma strict

public var scaleOfBar :float;
private var total :float;
private var percent :float;
public var duration :float;
public var horizontal :boolean = false;
public var vertical :boolean = false;
public var minus :boolean = false;
public var adding :boolean = false;


function Start () {

if (minus) // If ticked in unity the bar will decrease in scale.
total = scaleOfBar;
else if (adding) // This will increase.
total = 0;
}

function Update ()
{
percent = scaleOfBar / duration; // How much to Increase/Decrease the bar every second

if (total > 0 && minus)
total -= Time.deltaTime * percent; //Decrease until bar is empty
if (total < scaleOfBar && adding)
total += Time.deltaTime * percent; //Increases bar until it's full

// Statements below check what axis to effect
if (horizontal)
transform.localScale.x = total;
if (vertical)
transform.localScale.y = total;
}

Once attached to your object you just need to change the pivot point so the bar does what you want.
Fill in all the information in the Unity editor (duration is in seconds) by ticking the boxes that you want. Note: If you have a horizontal bar copy and paste the x Scale of the bar into scaleOfBar or the y Scale for vertical.


Moving Platforms:

#pragma strict

public var heightLimit :float;
public var lowLimit :float;
public var leftLimit :float;
public var rightLimit :float;
public var moveUpAndDown :boolean;
public var moveLeftAndRight :boolean;
public var moveUp :boolean = false;
public var moveDown :boolean = false;
public var moveLeft :boolean = false;
public var moveRight :boolean = false;
public var speed :float;

function Update ()
{
if (moveLeftAndRight) // Horizontal movement
{
if (transform.localPosition.x <= leftLimit)
{
moveLeft = false;
moveRight = true;
}
else if (transform.localPosition.x >= rightLimit)
{
moveLeft = true;
moveRight = false;
}
//Move platform back and forth
if (moveRight)
transform.localPosition.x += speed * Time.deltaTime;
else if (moveLeft)
transform.localPosition.x -= speed * Time.deltaTime;


}
if (moveUpAndDown) // Vertical movement
{
if (transform.localPosition.y <= lowLimit)
{
moveUp = true;
moveDown = false;
}
else if (transform.localPosition.y >= heightLimit)
{
moveDown = true;
moveUp = false;
}
// Move platform Up and Down
if (moveUp)
transform.localPosition.y += speed * Time.deltaTime;
if (moveDown)
transform.localPosition.y -= speed * Time.deltaTime;
}
}

Similar to the timer you just need to edit in the Unity Editor once you have attached it to the object.
Tick the movement method you want and put the axis where you want the platform to change direction in the correct limit. Note; You must tell it what direction to start moving on one of the bottom four tick boxes.


Hope this stuff helps and feel free to use them.

Treasure Hunt

Teams went out on an adventure today to find QR codes scattered around the University Campus. Once found we were given directions or clues to where the next code could be found. This is a popular ARG (Alternate reality game) that is played on small or large scales. 

     Unfortunately my team had hit a dead end and misheard the clue. As it was a cold day and the lecture room was only down stairs, I opted for the comfort of warmth.

There are many resources online where you can set up your own QR codes that can be used for many different reasons. They can be used to set up things like treasure hunts, Sending sms messages to your phone if someone finds your keys and scans the code on them, advertising and many more.

On http://www.qrstuff.com/ you are able to make your own Codes and attach files such as:

• Simple text.
• Image files such as jpeg
• Audio Files
• Video Files
• Url Links

You have probably seen Images like the one below to promote things within businesses to take them to their websites.

Game Jam 2015

Nothing sounds more thrilling than a weekend of sleep deprivation, sugary drinks and savory snacks. The week leading up to the jam I was still in xmas mode, I felt extremely lazy and hardly motivated to do anything. To be honest there was a part of me that wanted to miss this one, I think it was the idea of letting the team down that led me to doing it.

Now looking back on that I don't know what the hell I was thinking, the experience of starting with a blank piece of paper and an empty Unity Scene with a 48 hr timer was amazing. My team consisted of first year students, like myself, and a friend of mine who owns his own animation business. We had to use anything and everything we had learned since September to try and make a game worth playing and I think/hope we succeeded.

On the same day the jam started we had Diego ,(Think that's how his name is spelt) a Post-Graduate from UCS who now works for Ubisoft Milan give a talk about the differences of AAA companies and Indie. He also gave us an insight on the kind of attributes and expectations companies like Ubisoft have. A few things I took away from this talk was:

• Game Design (AAA or Indie) can be stressful.
• You must be decisive but also be logical with your decisions.
• Must have impeccable communication skills.
• Have to learn from your mistakes quickly.
• You must be able to take responsibility.

I don't think Diego could have come at a better time, a few hours later we were sitting down trying to think of ideas for our game. The next 48 hours seemed like a crash course for all the points above, except on a much smaller scale. Although these points can look very negative and not very appealing, the pros far out weigh the cons. Watching people play something you have had a part in creating is just awesome.

http://globalgamejam.org/2015/games/unlucky-chucky

Pervasive games

Today we talked about 'Killer' which is a pervasive game that was inspired from a film named 'La Decima Vittima'. The games objective is to assassinate your target using toy weapons as well as avoid the people that are targeting you.

The story to La Decima Vittima involves two main characters that are in a game called The Big Hunt. This involves real assassinations that has been legalised as long as the person is your victim or hunter. When you are a hunter and you kill your target your role is reversed to the victim. If you are able to kill 10 people you are rewarded with 1 million dollars and retire with a title of prestige and honored with many luxuries.

This film was adapted into a short story by Robert Sheckley named 'Seventh Victim' and then adapted into a game by Steve Jackson. This game is often played in college and universities and have set rules of where they can play (be assassinated) to avoid undesired consequences.

     Talking of undesired consequences, there have been many occasions where pervasive games have caused legal issues and fear in the community as people are not aware with what is going on. A good example of this is when a 3 week long game called Street Wars was held in London (rules were based on killer). further details can be found on this story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/5211998.stm

In America there was an event held called 'Cruel 2 B Kind'. This resembles the rules of Killer but to avoid the public outrage that London showed, instead of using water pistols, they hurled compliments or nice sentiments at one another.

Pervasive games are enjoyable as there is an overlap between the real world and the game being played. There is a sense, similar to an inside joke where the people that are involved know what is going on but everyone else just remain blissfully unaware or preferably hugely confused.

Tablut and its varieties

Tablut is a game where each player has a different objective and amount of pieces on the board thus making it an asymmetry type. The goal of the white pieces on the board is to have their King reach one of the marked pieces on the edge or the corner of the board. The black pieces need to defend these squares and also try and have one of their pieces surrounding the king on each side to win the game. both players are able to take a piece from the other by having the opponents piece surrounded adjacently on both sides. Every piece is able to move as many squares as they like in a straight line (not diagonally and similar to a rook in chess) as long as their path isn't blocked by any other piece. 

Now we have the rules and objectives of the game out the way lets talk about the varieties. The image above shows Tablut which we can see has a 9x9 grid with 8 whites and 16 black (all varieties stick with the 2:1 White:Black ratio).

 

Tawl Bwrdd has an 11x11 grid with 12 White and 24 Black.

As we can see from the image to the right their are more ways to take pieces from the beginning and is considered to be more complicated than Tablut due to the increase in the information that the player has to take in and put towards their strategy.

Finally we have Alea Evengelli which has 18x18 with 24 White and 48 Black. This is the game that was played in the documentary Games Britannia. Some people consider this to be too large a version of the game and can take a long time to reach the outcome.

In my lecture we all got the opportunity to play Tablut for ourselves. We quickly introduced a house rule the white piece having to win by getting to the corner instead of the sides as the game is far too unbalanced otherwise. I found that although I assumed it would be simple, you did have to take your time and think ahead with your moves. I also found as the black pieces that I found it difficult to surround the king on all sides. 

Games Brittania

I watched a programme that dived into the history of board games. It focused on their origins and the effects they have had on our cultures over the centuries.

The presenter of this was a man named Benjamin Woolley who started by saying he grew up with board games and some of the memorable experiences he has had based around them.

Benjamin is a Historian and was inspired to look into a game that was found in an excavation in Stanway that was surrounded by mystery. It seemed to appear to be a centre piece of the presentation and their was a piece in the middle of the board when it was found. This has caused some speculation to what the game was and how it was played.

     Benjamin took this to Irving Finkle an expert in this field, he concluded that this was likely to be a war game of some kind involving strategy as their was no dice and only the pieces involved. Irving had the idea the person may have been a priest and used this game to try to determine the will of god eg will the king win a war.

    From this meeting Benjamin went on to explore how games throughout history has had an impact on religion and cultures around the world. They were visual means for looking at abstract thought. A good example is how games commonly used numbers and numbers where a way for people to try and understand the universe. Benjamin comically said how if Hitler had of played Risk he would have realised that attacking Russia while trying to attack Europe would be a bad idea. People often say , "It's just a game", but these revelations about how we have learnt valuable lessons from them would prove otherwise.

There was an interesting section of the programme that spoke about people's philosophy of life and how games relate to them. There was an example using three wise men that have different views on Life and how fate is decided. One of them believed that it is down to luck, he is called a fatalist and therefore dice games are the closest to resembling life. The second believed it was skill that was important and so Chess would be the closest. Thirdly we have the person believed it was the mix of the two and so Backgammon would be a good example.

The main reason the human race play games is that we have the capacity to get bored, we play games to pass time. In a church that Benjamin visited there were markings on the steps where people would play while they had to wait. A popular game that was found commonly throughout these marking was 9 men's morris, this is similar to a naughts and crosses and shows that they haven remained popular throughout the ages.

The way that games effected religion actually went hand in hand with the way it effected culture in the 18th and 19th century. Dice were looked at as things used to try and workout the will of God and therefore should not be used in something as trivial as a game.

    Hazard was a game that involved dice as well as gambling and therefore was highly frowned upon by certain areas of culture at the time. As people were winning and losing money based on the outcome of dice rolls and having to spend more to stay in the game , ways of manipulating the rolls were discovered and many cheaters started to try and win money this way.

Gambling however became a popular genre within the upper class community. A lady Benjamin spoke to theorised that many rich and powerful people were born into the wealth and therefore considered themselves lucky, they were not as accustomed to risk and so they were more likely to gamble and spend vast amounts. There were a few examples of where wealthy people became bankrupt and some had to flee to get away from debt collectors. The popular game of this era was Faro which is considered to be a simpler version of roulette.

   In 1845 a gaming act was introduced as a means to regulate gambling, one of the things that pushed this was a murder case in which the a man was killed by his gambling associate over a £300 bet. Their was a lot of public interest after the man was found guilty and hung. Pamphlets were given out to spread social awareness.

Benjamin went on to talk about Goose. This was a family friendly game that focused on teaching people morality through rewards and penalties. Many people attempted to mimic this game and fueled the industry to become commercialised. Companies began taking ideas from colonies and changed rules and ideas according to what they thought would sell. Snakes and Ladders, Ludo and Chess were all examples of this.

Chess had different rules and pieces throughout the world until a tournament was held with one rule set. These were then used universally and people still compete to this day. As it is strategy based it was regularly used to train troops in the hope it will improve their strategy skills.