Gender in Games

There is a lot of past conceptions that women are not large fans of video games. This conception has also led to a reduced number of female workers in the gaming industry.

Due to games becoming more popular, everyone is presumed to having access to either a pc or console within their household. If we are to follow a graph that was established back in 2009 then it is believed that on average there is an equal number of women to men gamers. This could have potentially increased upon the previous years and may be even more equal than before.

Also, to develop upon the idea of segregation there is clearly a higher percentage of men in the games industry than woman, especially in the programming section. This is believed that it is stereotyped towards the previous connotations that programming and games are 'nerdy' and 'un-cool'.

Below is two charts, the top one detailing the examples of how many men and women play games and the second being used to display the percentage of male to female workers in the games industry.

 

Also, in another note in relation to women in the gaming industry there is a single idea that a woman by the name of Brandii Grace. Grace is hoping to open up a triple A games studio, and by doing so will offer a woman's experience to gaming. Through this she hopes to create more games that will be emotional and offer more to a gamer than violence and excitement through ideas such as being a divorce lawyer and other similar examples.

Narrative in games

Chris Crawford explains multiple features that are crucial when attempting to create a narrative. One of the first topics he addresses is the structure of the media.

The main topics that brings up is how the structure is placed and uses the itsy bitsy spider story to show them off. These topics are:

A protagonist
A conflict
A struggle
A moral
A resolution

These are all necessary components that are required in order to establish a strictly structured narrative.
This teaches the first lesson that is to follow the strict requirements for a story structure.

Games have a tendency to avoid this and as a result do not always have a powerful narrative.

The second lesson is that people are the most interesting thing ever and stories focus upon this. This reference does not have to be absolute, the person could be anything in a metaphorical sense. There are films that apparently 'revolve' around items but instead they are about the story of the person holding the thing, such as Frodo and the ring in Lord of the Rings.

There is always a conflict in a story, whether it is a major conflict such as a war or a minor conflict such as being late for a bus. Games are experienced in the simplest form of conflict which is violence.

Games also involve puzzles, however the third lesson is that puzzles are not necessary to a story.

Choices are an important and often a story is built up around the idea of the protagonist making the single key choice.

Spectacle is another method of telling the narrative, utilising exotic imagery to allow the viewers to enjoy the sight. Lesson number four is learned from here and that is how spectacles do not make a story.

Many forms of media focus on the image, and this is especially so in video games. This idea of visually thinking has conquered the worlds thinking. The lesson involved with this is that visuals do not dominate story telling.

Next up is spatial thinking and the idea of a story being told in the appropriate space. When describing distance it does not matter in relation to the drama, such as travelling for 'days'. In most stories this is not important to the viewer and this leads to the lesson that stories are told on a stage, and not on a map.

Dramatic time will not be the same as reality, often jumping forward or backwards in order to add to the confusion of the drama.

Writing Rules in Games.

Rules are the most important aspect of games design; in a non-digital game if the players are not able to understand the rules then they are also unable to play the game.
The rules need to clarify everything that is found in a game, making sure the players are able to completely understand the game and will not question everything. However, it is also necessary that the rules are as brief as possible, this means that the player will not need to read a tome of writing and get bored before even starting the game.

There are some important things to remember when designing rules :

1. Flavour first. Utilise a narrative if it exists. It will help tie the game rules together.

2.Get the boring stuff out of the way. Always list what the game needs and how it is set up after establishing the narrative, if it is too wordy then utilise an illustration.

3.Begin with the end. Always offer the objective first, as this is the win condition. This will be easy to find so that the players can understand how to win if they forget.

4.Go from general to specific. Similar to an inverted pyramid. Explain the general rules first before narrowing down and going into specifics. A way to think about this is to explain the rules of what is most likely going to happen before explaining what is less likely to happen.

5.Tell the players what they can do before saying what they cannot. The first rules are established as the primary rules this way, allowing the following rules to either change the former or not be in a state where the primary rules are applied.

Finally make the rules less serious and informal, unless the nature of the rules is to be strict and formal.

Utilise short sentences, simply vocabulary and include white space to make the rules easier to read.


Jacob Davenport further develops on the above rules that were written by Scott Jon Siegel.

If we explore Jacob'x writings he agrees with the above to an extent. In his opinion, anything extraneous should not be added to the rules unless necessary. This would contradict with Siegel's writing about being less serious and more fun when writing rules.

Other than the above, Davenport expands upon the rules by writing that your rules should be able to be read out loud to another and then they are able to start playing your game with little confusion. He also brings up that bullet points and white space are important, similar to Siegel.

Get the rules reviewed by people who know nothing about your game, and if they are unable to explain them to another without translating certain points then be prepared to re-write the rules to make them easier to understand and interpret.

Include interpretations of rules to prevent the above issue, such as issuing examples in italics to be read and reinforce the rule.If more clarification is needed then include it later on, perhaps as an appendix.

Finally, be prepared to consider how the rules would be used and write them as necessary. Always review and include the feedback and comments when designing or re-designing the rules in order to make them as accessible and understandable as possible.

Games Journalism

There are two types of Games Journalism, the older version from when Gaming journalism began and the more emerging new version.

New Journalism is an example of experimentation with journalism. This form of journalism focuses on putting the writer 'into' the text through the use of his experiences, whilst Old journalism is more centralised around delivering an objective idea of the experience. If we were to explore an example of this type of journalism then Youtube is an ideal media to examine. Due to the large number of independent game 'reviewers' and lets players there is often a large number of personal reviews that utilise New Games Journalism to offer their independant opinion on the game in the hopes that they will be able to reach out to their viewers and convince them to purchase, or simply enjoy watching, that particular game.

New journalism utilises the idea of having fun with facts and explaining a topic in a more humerous and personal manner. By an extension of this, New 'Games' Journalism focuses more on the writer explaining the game through his own experiences with it and what he achieved or 'achieve.
Old Game Journalism does not explore this personal relationship and instead strives to deliver an objective report on the different parts of a game. Typical examples of Old Games Journalism would be found in certain video game magazines, such as PC Gamer. These reviews are designed to focus upon the technical aspect of video games that are reviewed, and sometimes a small amount of personal opinion in order to enhance the overall article.

These two different types of games journalism offer a very different perspective for the consumers when dealing with journalism in relation to a video game. If a player would like to understand more about the game in relation to the technical issues they should explore an article that follows Old Game Journalism, whereas if you would rather explore a personal opinion and play-test of a game then you should follow New Games Journalism.

Bibliography

In order to further develop within essay writing, we are required to utilise the Harvard system to develop references and utilise them in my essays.

Below are two examples of books that I have read over this course:
Bell, R.C. (1979) Board and Table Games from many civilizations. Revised Edition. New York: Dover.

Braithwaite, B. and Schreiber, I. (2008) Challenges for games designers; non-digital exercises for video game designers. Boston: Course Technology.

Below will be examples of contributions to books that have been made in reading over the past year:
Salen, K. (2002) "Telefragging Monster Movies". In King, L., (ed.), Game On: The History and Culture of Video Games. London: Laurence King. 98-111

Bittanti, M (2003) "The Technoludic Film: Images of Videogames in Movies" In Nakatsu and Hoshino., Entertainment Computing: Technologies and Applications. Springer. 307-312

And finally this will be two examples of Journal entries that I have read over the year:
Keighron, P. (1993) "Video Diaries: What’s Up Doc?" Sight and Sound. October. 24-25.

'Gustafson, J. (1990) 'Design a Character', The Reading Teacher 44 (1) 86-87'.

As it is shown above they all follow a very similar format and each are formatted as follows:

A book is:
Author, Initial (Year of Publication). Title of Book. Place of Publication: Publisher.

A contribution within a book is:

Author Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) “The full title of the article in inverted commas”. In Editor
Surname, Initial., The full title of the work containing the chapter. City of publication: Publisher. Page span of the work cited.

And the reference for a journal entry is:
Author, Initial (Year of Publication). “Full title of the article in inverted commas”.The full title of the journal [volume + part if given and/or] Month, or Season, or volume/part number.

There we have the examples of how a reference would be set up using the Harvard system and a few examples of some interesting readings I have done over the course of the year.

Ian Schreiber on Game Balance

Schreiber uses a simple 2 player game in the beginning of his post to describe balancing. His idea is that a 'balanced' game means that one player does not have an unfair advantage over the other player. He also mentions that sometimes a game can be 'balanced' when it is simply against the game itself, with no second player involved and simply being a challenge. Finally he also mentions the idea of a card game being 'balanced' despite everyone having access to the same advantages.

Schreiber separates these into four sections :

1.Single player uses balance to decide what the difficulty is like and how appropriate it is to the audience.
This difficulty can change based on where the player is in regards to the games plot, for example end-game will have difficult enemies compared to the beginning. This is called Pacing and is done because as a player will explore the game and its mechanics they will begin to become more skilled at playing. By improving the difficulty as the game goes on it allows the balance to remain, without the game becoming too hard or easy.
Perfecting this is often done by utilising hundreds of play testers to create an average difficulty.

2. Multiplayer games with Asymmetry use balancing to decide whether one position is greater than the other.
If a game is symmetric then it does not require much balancing because players will start with equal resources and then the players advantages will come from their skill as a player instead of a game mechanic. An asymmetric game will require lots of playtesting in order to successfully balance each players starting positions.

3. If there are multiple strategies available in game then they must be balanced to prevent one from being more powerful than the others.
If a game has a single powerful strategy that beats all others then this becomes problematic for a game because it causes all other strategies that are worse than the optimal to become simple background noise. This makes it important to develop multiple, balanced, strategies that can effectively win a game in order to allow the players more choice and replayability.

4.Finally in card games each individual card is 'balanced', with its cost/benefit being take into consideration.
'Objects' can relate to different things such as units in an RTS, equipment in an RPG and cards in a CCG. We look at the idea of a 'deck' built with a set number of cards within the idea of CCG. Due to their being a large pool to choose from this requires a large amount of balancing to be done correctly. A correct method for this is to utilise a counter system, making certain cards more effective at others while being weaker against most. The method of balancing an object in a game is to look at its cost to benefit ratio. If two objects share this then they are, in theory, balanced.

To further expand upon the idea of balancing objects there are three different methods:

Transitive Or the Cost Curve
This is the direct method of balancing objects. The basic idea is that an object will have increasingly more beneficial effects the more it costs, or will have less detrimental effects the more it costs. A problem with balancing this is that if the designers math for the curve is incorrect, then it is wrong for every object in the game.

Intransitive or the Rock-Paper-Scissors 
This method follows the game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, in the sense that a unit will be able to beat one other unit, draw against a similar unit and lose to another unit. This method can combine with the cost curve, allowing a certain type of unit to be better than all the others because it costs more, but is still matched by a unit of the same level.  These methods require extensive use of math in order to discover the balance issues and resolve them without the game seeming too much like R-P-S.

Fruity 
This is the most random of the methods given by Schreiber, which involves giving unique objects to every player. The only way to balance this is with extensive play testing.

There are generic methods to assist in balancing games and they are as follows:

Math
Using math allows for transitive and intransitive methods to be implemented into your game, but it is difficult to do math and can be completely wrong which in turn will destroy the balance found in your game. Some abilities and unique units may not work with Math, and require different balancing methods.

Instinct
Utilising your insinct allows you to determine when the game feels right to you. This method is very open to human error and can be argued with other designers because they will have different opinions and instincts.

Play Testing
One of the most reliable methods of balancing your game, this enables you to discover a variety of information in regards to your game. This method relies on acquiring quality play testers however, because the feedback is only as good as the individual doing the play testing.

There are more methods that can be used for balancing your game:

Be aware of the different objects and systems found in your game
For example remember the core aesthetic and remember the interconnections found within the game and be prepared to change more than one thing if you need to make a change.

Make 1 change at a time
By only changing one thing at a time it allows you to time to view what it affects and you will know what it breaks.

Excel
Excel allows you to create charts and graphs which can detail all of the information about your objects whether it involves the cost and stats of units in an RTS, the costs and effects of your cards,  your weapons and gear in an RPG and more. Excel spreadsheets are versatile and useful in game design.
Excel is good at running equations as well, allowing the math side of balancing to be made simpler and is good for showing cause and effect.

Rule of 2 
This rule decides that if a game has a variable that is too high you will half it, and if the variable number is too low then you double it.

Balance the first turn
This involves balancing out the first few turns of the game in order to see how players will go, and to remove any overpowered strategies that will beat all others.

Write down rules as you make them
This gives you a reference point for your rules, so that you are able to call upon them for changes when necessary.

Balance
After reading the article, and calling upon my experiences of playing card games and RTS games I am able to understand more in relation to the effort that is required to balance these games and prevent one player having a huge advantage.

Jesse Schell and Dave Pery on Puzzle games

Jesse Schell uses this chapter of her book to discuss how puzzle mechanics can affect games and how the relationship between the pair is often tricky to explain.

There is an argument that asks the question 'are puzzles really games?' The paragraph uses a rubik cube and crossword puzzles as examples for puzzles that are not games, but explains that they do involve conflict like other games, simply between the player and the system like Solitaire for example.
Schell mentions Chris Crawford and he says that puzzles are not games because they do not respond to players, but Schell argues against this. She also mentions that other people say that games with an ending and a pre-determined outcome that does not change are considered a puzzle, but this would mean that the Legend of Zelda games would be a puzzle and this is not true.
She then relates puzzles to penguins, mentioning how explorers wanted to classify penguins as birds but were unable to because they could not fly.

Scott Kim says 'A puzzle is fun and has a right answer' The issue that is raised is that when the puzzle has been solved it is no longer fun, and relates this to another chapter which mentions the 'dominant strategy' and how this ruins puzzles.

Puzzles are dead?
Schell mentions how students believe puzzles to be 'old-fashioned'. This continues to explain how puzzles are now more woven into the gameplay, instead of being stand-alone sections of games and often take part in the environment of the game. The example given in the book relates to The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, and how it utilises the dungeon environment to inspire the puzzles.

There are TEN principles to remember when designing a puzzle game:

Make sure the goal easy to understand
The idea is to make the player understand what they are supposed to be doing, otherwise they will lose interest quickly and not want to play the game.

Make the puzzle easy to get started
Simply make a puzzle in which it is simple for the player to discover what they are supposed to do in order to begin solving the puzzle.

Give a sense of progress
The player needs to see that they are making progress in the puzzle or they will get bored and quit.

Give a sense of solvability
The player must see that the puzzle can be solved or they will give up in frustration.

Gradually increase the difficulty
Make the puzzle more difficult for the player as it plays. An example to make the puzzle more difficult is to give the player control as to the order they do the tasks in, such as a crossword.

Parallelism is a good thing
By giving players multiple different puzzles that are related. It allows players to continue onto a different puzzle if they are unable to complete one.

Pyramid structure extends interest
By giving the player lots of smaller puzzles it can lead to solving a larger puzzle, this makes it more interesting for the player.

Hints extend interest
By giving a player a hint at a desperate time it allows them to kindle their curiosity and continue playing the puzzle.

Give the answer
The player takes pleasure in discovering the answer to a puzzle, not necessarily from solving it.

Perpetual shifts are a double-edged swords.
The perpetual shift is the idea of 'getting it or not getting it'. If a player 'gets it' they will enjoy the pleasure or understanding the puzzle but if they 'don't get it' they will be frustrated and walk away disappointed.

Below allows me to explain what Pery wrote about and show his understanding of puzzle games. He begins in a similar fashion to Schell by posing the question "What is a puzzle game?" and offers a similar answer to Schell. A puzzle involves a problem and a solution.

Below it lists all of the potential 'Dilemmas' that Pery mentions within his writings, showing off the 'problem and solution' of the puzzles.

Putting pieces together
-Finding the pieces and putting them together
Missing Persons, creatures or things
-Find a person, creature or thing that has been taken or lost.
Hard Choices
-Making an important decision in which the outcome is unknown.
Kill Tasks
-Kill important targets or creatures.
Getting it right
-Making the correct choice of something to say/give/do to an NPC
Unusual Object to carry/move
-An object you can carry around or move in certain ways.
Ordering things
-Putting things in order.
Buttons and Switches
-Utilising buttons or switches to solve the puzzles.
Keys
-Using the keys to open locks that are blocking your way.
Configurations
-Moving things into specific positions.
Sequence of tasks
-A sequence of tasks.
Follow the leader
-Following some form of leader, such as events or NPC
Timing challenges
-Adding time pressure
Obscure Object of desire
-An object you are unable to attend
You cant do that...yet
-Delaying the character to prevent them doing tasks for now.
Barrier
-Similar to You cant do that...yet
Thinking outside the box
-Thinking in an unconventional method
Managing Chaos(too much, too fast)
-Things happen quickly and the player must deal with this
Dilemmas
-Different solutions can deal with different moral issues.
Riddles
-Clues and such.
Signs and Wonders
-Signs and landmarks in the environment
Devices
-Objects to use.
Sudden Responsibilities
-Being told you must do something you dont feel good for something
Sudden Loss of Power
-Having all/some of the abilities of a character taken away
Whodunit
-Discovering who commited the crime.
Mental Puzzles
-Mental effort will be required.



In relation to dealing with puzzle games I understand that as gaming has evolved puzzles need to evolve alongside it. Having played the Legend of Zelda games I understand the integration of puzzles into the game environment.
The chapter helped clarify some aspects of puzzle games, allowing me to understand more about their creation and hopefully make some myself.

Remediation in Games

Remediation is the idea of a piece of media being changed in ordered to be used for a different media and purpose than originally intended. A good example of this was the gramaphone, which was designed with the original number one purpose of recording messages and instead it became a medium to play music as its number one function, leading to the creation of the mp3 player.

The process of remediation has two different forms, they are immediacy and hypermediacy. Immediacy is the idea of creating a new immersive experience that will allow the consumer to forget that it is media and act like they are there. Hypermediacy is the opposite and is used to draw in the consumer into its unique design, such as the internet.

Remediation is not exclusive to a specific type of media.
Bittanti introduces the idea of technoludic film, a play on the idea of technology and play (following a previous blog post where ludus = play)
The technoludic ideas that Bittanti puts forward are as follows:

Technoludic Film as commentary. This idea is that the film is used in order to offer criticism of video games.

Technoludic Film as a quotation. This idea is that video games will appear in the film as a form of illustration towards the plot

Technoludic Film as remediation. The idea that the film uses the video game as a source material, taking its ideas and plot directly from the video game.

A media text that relates to the blogpost is Run, Lola, Run. This is a move which utilises a base video game idea very well. The film illustrates a 'character select' screen, 'checkpoints', 'powers' and 'respawning'. It even goes far to offer the multiple multiple endings and outcomes. This film, whilst lacking in plot and acting, brilliantly displays an example of technoludic film as a quotation.

Pervasive Games and Le Decima Vittima

A specific type of games, such as a game known as Killer, are called Pervasive games.

There are a large explanation of what a Pervasive game is and what it can be classified as. Some pre-existing genres include: Treasure Hunting, Assassination, LARPs (Live Action Roleplays) and AUGS (augmented reality).

There are new, more recent adaptations of pervasive games such as Street Smart sports, Public performances, Urban adventures and Reality based games.

All pervasive games, as is shown above, are played outside of a console and instead are played in what could be considered the real world. Some of them implement tools of course, such as a GPS for treasure hunting, 'weapons' for assassination or maps and instructions in sports and adventures. These tools and 'games' of sorts allow a person to be more sociable because they all involve other people, and are in a simple sense 'word of mouth' games.

The movie, 'The Seventh Victim' or more commonly known as 'La Decima Vittima'. This movie offers an example as to how a publicly known pervasive game could potentially act out. In the movie the world is full of killers and targets. The 'game' of sorts is common knowledge to the point where outright murder is allowed as long as a player can identify that they are taking part.

This idea can potentially translate into the real world when playing games such as assassin or the urban adventure. If a person is unfamiliar with the notion, then they will find it strange that a person is running around with a banana attempting to stab another person or that a group of people are looking around a city block for a specific colour slab.

Upon having participated in a pervasive game myself in the form of Killer, I believe that the games add a spin on reality that cannot be achieved in the same sense as a computer or board game. They are a very enjoyable type of game that I would highly recommend to the general public to at least try once in their life.

Games Britannia (All Parts)

Dicing with Destiny

The first part of this series focuses on the exploration of Benjamin Woolley in regards to ancient board games, utilising tools such as dice and boards.
The beginning of the program focuses on the discovery of ancient games and continues to discuss the meaning behind said games, an example being a game known as 'alea evangeli' which could be considered an ancestor to chess. The ideas that this section promote is that certain games were used in order to understand the universe, or in order to make political choices and reasons similar to these. This idea is based the on the middle ages, when these games were developed for royalty or religious orders such as the church or 'druids'.
The program continues to travel through the different developments and structures of ancient games, going through different areas such as gambling and time passing.

Throughout the episode Woolley investigates multiple games other than Alea evangeli, such as:

The Stanway Game, a game found in a Colchester, was one of the first complete game set found.

Backgammon, it is commonly known today however it was an ancient game similar to Alea Evangeli.

Nine Men's Morris, the original Noughts and Crosses. It was typically found etched onto the side of buildings and rocks to be played.

Hazard, a game where players were required to vote on the outcome of dice and gamble on pure chance.

Faro is the same as Hazard, however the betting is done on the outcome of cards.

Game of the Goose is a game that utilised a spinner to decide where a player will move and was originally intended to be played in order to teach right and wrong.

The ancestor of Snakes and Ladders was Gyan Chaupar, a game which involved reaching enlightenment.

Finally Chess, a game of mimicry that will represent war and originated from India.

Monopolies and Mergers

The second part of the series is a further development upon the first part, which was used to explore the idea of the purpose that games had in the past. In this episode Woolley aims to explore the further meaning that games can hold, however instead of looking into the historical importance he delves into the social and political importance of games and how they eventually became the popular games they are today

This episode explores different game such as:

War on Terror, a game which promotes the satire of war and has players control their own country or region to fight against terror.

Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit is a monopoly-esque game that was released prior to monopoly, focusing on a form of tax system instead of rent. The game was played in a similar fashion to Monopoly.

Monopoly is one of the most popular family board games in the world. Each different version of monopoly follow the same mechanics and layout, making them all synchronous and playable by the nation.

Cluedo is another example of a successful and popular board game, it manages to successfully combine things such as skill and luck in order to create and enjoyable experience.

Scrabble is a board game not dissimilar to the above, it is very easy to pick up and is a combination of luck and skill. However, in relation to Cluedo and Monopoly it was not developed in Britain and was instead created in America.

Kensingtion is a game that was created back in 1979 that involves placing tiles in order to create shapes and then move them across to either a white hexagon and have all vertices of the hexagon taken by your own pieces.

Dungeons and Dragons, or alternatively D&D for short. This game is often acclaimed as the original RPG game and is an evolution of the typical wargames that had been around for so long. This game offered the player a tangible character, or 'Avatar' to control in the world and manipulate as they saw fit.

The evolution of board games is obvious, especially when exploring RPG games, because they are evolving to have more immersion in the form of Avatars and game worlds.


Joystick Generation
This episode further develops upon the evolution of gaming that was established in the previous episode and explores the transition from board to video games.

They explore a large number of different games within this episode, games that range from simple ZX spectrum and BBC Micro games in the 70's and 80's, to the more modern PlayStation and Xbox games.

Games such as Tomb Raider, Elite, Black and White, Grand Theft Auto, Little Big Planet and more. Each of these games pushed the game industry in different methods.

Elite explored the idea of 3D in games, offering some of the first 3D environments ever shown for video games.
Tomb Raider was a game that introduced the idea of 'girl power' and set the stage for the popular woman protagonist or 'last woman standing' narrative that is often found in games and film.

Black and White and Grand Theft Auto are both games that showed a dark side to morality, offering you choices of what you would like to be, making you question your own morality. There is a large issue with the idea that GTA is a game which can encourage people to commit crime outside of the game world as well, which offers material for an argument into video games and violence which is for a different blog post.

Through watching all three of the Games Britannia I have been able to observe and learn more in regards to the history and evolution of board games and computer games.