Category: Game Design Studio 2

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Week 1

Getting Over It review: This game was incredibly frustrating to me. I might have missed it, but is there a backstory to why he is in a pot? Why isn’t he using the sledgehammer to smash the pot he is in? Does he even want to be out of the pot? IDK. I was annoyed that the narrator was rambling, but when he stopped, I missed having something to listen to other than the hitting of a rock. My body was very tense watching the game being played.

Pain station thoughts: I can see what draws people to play this game, but it’s weird at the same time. Is kind of a form of punishment when you do something wrong, but also it’s fun. It’s like touching your tongue to a 9V battery; you know it’s going to send a shock, but you’re anticipating it. (Am I the only one who did this?)

Townscaper review: I can see why this is entertaining, creating stories of who might reside at the houses you are building, but at a certain point I think I’d get bored. I guess that’s what the game is all about: close it and restart another day when you remember the game exists. The sound effects are amazing.

Fair Food Maker review: OMG! I thought this was the best game ever when I was a kid. Tori mentioned playing this game, and I got flashes of memories of this game that I could sort of remember, but I wasn’t positive. You basically select a machine you would see at a fair and make the food. Ex.: lemonade, funnel cake, snow cone, corn dog, etc. This game has no end state; you make the foods and eat them, and you can start over with another food or be done.

Slither.io review: This is another example of a game without an explicit end state. I still love this game and play it to occupy my short attention span. You collect food, grow bigger, and eventually die. Then you start again. There is no progress saved other than a past high score. Every time you die, you start new, as small as everyone else when they start.

What are the issues Ian Bogost raises about social games with Cow Clicker?

  • Enframing- friends are resources
  • Compulsion- psychological manipulation, exploiting human psychology in order to make money
  • Optionalism- the game’s meaning comes from the choices a player makes; gameplay is optional
  • Destroyed Time- “Social games so covet our time that they abuse us while we are away from them, through obligation, worry, and dread over missed opportunities.” It’s the disrespect of time that we could be being more productive, other than wasting it on a game.

How do social games like FarmVille enframe friends?

  • Friends are used as perks. “Get 100 coins by inviting 1 friend”

How do social games destroy time outside the game?

  • “Social games so covet our time that they abuse us while we are away from them, through obligation, worry, and dread over missed opportunities.” It’s the disrespect of time that we could be being more productive, other than wasting it on a game.

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Week 1 Questions

  • Questions
    • What are the issues Ian Bogost raises about social games with Cow Clicker?

His issues were Inframing, Compulsion, Optionalism, and Destroyed time.

  • How do social games like FarmVille enframe friends?

They make it so that friends arent really your friends they are just resourses for you to help yourself and the game developer.

  • How do social games destroy time outside of the game?

In the article Bogot says “Social games so covet our time that they abuse us while we are away from them, through obligation, worry, and dread over missed opportunities.”

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Week 1 Questions and Reviews

Week 1 Questions

  • What are the issues Ian Bogost raises about social games with Cow Clicker? In this article, Bogost specifically lists 4 issues that he has with social games—enframing, compulsion, optionalism, and destroyed time. Enframing is basically like turning your friends and family into a resource that can be exploited by both you and the game developer. For compulsion, Bogost claims that social games prey on humanity’s compulsiveness and how we can easily become obsessed with something, such as a game like Cow Clicker or FarmVille. Optionalism is something that Bogost explains is having the option to actually “play” the game. FarmVille is based on waiting on crops, but you can get rid of that part by just spending your real money. You don’t really have to do much to actually advance in the game. Finally, Bogost claims that social games destroy your time as there isn’t really an objective, it is an endless cycle of playing a rather meaningless game that makes you feel bad when you stop playing it. 
  • How do social games like FarmVille enframe friends? Social games like FarmVille enframe friends by getting you to invite friends to the game so that you can get certain perks or more resources in the game to your benefit. In fact, Bogost states in the article, “In social games, friends aren’t really friends; they are mere resources”. This also helps get more people into the game, it helps build a network that can make the game become “viral”. 
  • How do social games destroy time outside of the game? Social games are neverending, and so, essentially, an infinite amount of time could be spent playing them. Bogost says, “Social games so covet our time that they abuse us while we are away from them, through obligation, worry, and dread over missed opportunities.” Anytime spent away from the game is time wasted where you could be increasing your level on the game, and increasing your progress. It doesn’t help if it is on a game such as Facebook, you can also see some of your friends’ levels and achievements, which may make you feel bad for stepping away from the game.

Bang! Game Review Part 2  

  • Was it fun? Replaying Bang was so much fun, although I played with my family and it took them a little bit to get a hang of the rules and mechanics. It also sucks because I was the first one out, but I still really enjoyed watching them play and rooting for the other outlaws to follow through. 
  • What were the player interactions? Players put other players in jail, shot them, commenced duels, as well as stole cards from each other and forced others to discard cards. My favorite player interaction is when we kept passing around the dynamite to see if anyone would blow up. 
  • How long did it take to learn? Since I was just replaying this game from playing in class the first time, it didn’t take me very long to relearn the rules. Even playing a second time, however, I would say that it was still a little bit of a learning curve to get to know all of the different cards and special rules (like being able to drink beer when you take a fatal hit). For my family, my mom and brother seemed to catch on to the basic rules and mechanics very quickly. My dad, however, found the game kind of confusing, especially with all of the different cards (he would much prefer a game like UNO). 
  • Would you play it again? Yes, I received this game as a Christmas gift because I loved it in class so much. I just need to find enough players!!
  • Analyze the game using the 3 act structure. The first act of the game begins during the setup of the game, including receiving a role and character. Players take their first few turns, each drawing 2 cards each turn, taking any number of actions they wish, and discarding cards. The second act commences as the game picks up speed, when players begin to devise and understand who they may want to “go after” and take shots at them. The third act is when the game is dwindling down, either 2 people are essentially standing off to see who will win, or a key player, like the sheriff, is close to taking a critical hit. The game officially ends when the sheriff dies or is the last one left standing. 
  • What are the collaborative and or competitive aspects of the game? This game has both competitive and collaborative elements. The collaborative element comes from the fact that some players have shared goals, for instance, both outlaws and the renegade want to kill the sheriff, but it’s also competitive because it’s every man for himself and you don’t necessarily know each other’s roles. 
  • What is the game’s metaphor and which of the game’s mechanics standout? Bang’s metaphor is that you are set in the wild west and you are essentially playing as a character from that world. The sheriff wants to keep law and order, the renegade wants to take the sheriff’s place in the town, and the outlaws want to kill the sheriff. The mechanic that stands out the most to me are the unique character abilities that allow you special advantages throughout the game. 

The Graveyard Game Review  

  • Was it fun? I’m not sure if I would call it fun, but more or less intriguing. I liked the aesthetics of the game because it kind of looked like an old black and white film, but there wasn’t much substance to the game overall. But it was still interesting to see if anything exciting would happen (although I presume if I played anything other than the trial version it would be a little more exciting, because apparently it includes death). 
  • What were the player interactions? You can move the old lady in a straight line through the graveyard (very slowly) and have her sit on a bench.
  • How long did it take to learn? Not very long at all because I just had to move her in a straight line and wait for her to sit on the bench, plus the game had instructions that told me to do just that. 
  • Would you play it again? It depends. I think I would try out the non trial version if someone else bought it for me, but I’m not going to spend my own money to see this lady die. 
  • Analyze the game using the 3 act structure. (This may differ because I only played the trial version.) The first act starts when you enter the graveyard where you will see the title sequence and you just slowly make your way to the bench that is illuminated at the end of the path. The second act would be once you sit down on the bench you get a close up shot of this old lady presumingly reflecting on the gravestones around her and the concept of death. She points out how some other people there have died and she wishes that the next time she visits the graveyard she will “stay for longer”. You could choose to stay there as long as you like, but the song is only a few minutes long. You can choose to wander around the graveyard if you really want, but there’s not really many places you can move to, the game sort of beckons you to the bench. The third act would be exiting the graveyard and ending the game when you desire. In the non trial version, I presume that this act would also include the lady dying. 
  • What are the collaborative and or competitive aspects of the game? This game isn’t really competitive or collaborative, it is more of just following a story. 
  • What is the game’s metaphor and which of the game’s mechanics standout? The game’s metaphor is about an old lady who visits the graveyard and she reflects on death and almost wishes for it herself. Since there really aren’t many mechanics, the most standout mechanic is that when you are positioned with your back to the bench, she will eventually decide to sit down. 
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Thoughts on the games we played in class.

My favorite game by far was Townscrpaer. I love it when a game is really simple, yet you can build or do insanely complex things within it. I was dissapointed when I saw it was 4.99 in the app store 🙁

The first game Getting Over It was cool. there was a similar game that blew up last year that was a similar concept of trying to get to the top without falling. I was not a fan of Getting Over It but i do like the one that blew up this year because I am better at that running mechanic.

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Endless Game Ideas

Game 1: Collect cans on the street and go from homeless to rich and try and see how rich you can get. 

Game 2: Amazing Amazon. Fill boxes and complete orders to get cooler boxes and more complex orders. 

Game 3: Unboxing game where you unbox packages and get new tools to unbox it. 

Game 4: you are given a prompt with materials and you have to go out and find those recourses to build that certain thing

Game 5: Pop it. If you do it before the timer runs out then  you get a cooler pop it.

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Endless Game Ideas – Amber, Sara, Beck

  • Plant growing
    • Never ending cycle with propagation
    • Video game or IRL
  • Mark off the people who die in your yearbook until either you die or everyone else dies
  • Endlessly decorating your room (always buying new things, seasons, etc.)
    • This could be a video game too, keep buying and decorating your room
  • Some kind of merging game 
  • Layering clothing game until it essentially fills up the whole screen
  • Buying a hamster, dies in a weird way, get a new hamster video game
  • Squirrel endless falling game, avoid branches
  • Game where you add tiles, take away, and rearrange tiles
    • Maybe where you make an artwork 
  • Tabletop game where you have a canvas where you just keep taking turns building an artwork
  • Neverending grading simulator 
  • Just mixing paint colors
  • Blowing out birthday candles every year, you just keep gaining more and more 
  • Fill a bowl of rice, constant clicking 
  • Making a sauce, with other sauces and ingredients and keep adding ingredients forever but still trying to get it to taste good
    • Based on Good Mythical Morning 
    • Could be a video game 
    • Mixing potions in the bathtub with a million soaps and perfumes 
  • Couch just keeps accumulating toys
  • Endlessly changing your hair
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5 Games Ideas with no ending.

Game 1: Collect cans on the street and go from homeless to rich and try and see how rich you can get. 

Game 2: Amazing Amazon. Fill boxes and complete orders to get cooler boxes and more complex orders. 

Game 3: Unboxing game where you unbox packages and get new tools to unbox it. 

Game 4: you are given a prompt with materials and you have to go out and find those recourses to build that certain thing

Game 5: Pop it. If you do it before the timer runs out then  you get a cooler pop it

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5 Games without end

Brayden, Carson, Tori, Alana

Nightclub Simulator

Whenever you tap, your character dances to the beat. Doing so long enough will reward you with a drink to continue dancing.

Paper Shredder Simulator

The player taps the screen in order to put paper into the paper shredder. Once the bin is filled you can sell the scrap paper to purchase a bigger bin or fancier paper to shred  

Song Creator

User will tap an instrument of their choice to play to the audience. You gain money by getting tips and use that to buy other instruments that pay out more. You can invite your friends to combine the instruments together to make a band that results in a higher payout.

Happy Cat

You tap to feed the cat lasagna until the cat pops. You get money for each cat popped. New cats can eat more and earns more money per click  

Counting Up

The  player clicks their screen, which starts as a blank white with a black “0”. For each time they click, the number goes up in value by one. The game will save your number if you close it, and will continue to go up one number for each singular click you give it. There is no limit to how many times you can click. 

9-5

You are an assembly line worker at a factory. You must work your shift in real time (from 9-5) doing a single monotonous task. The player can choose what point of the assembly process they want to work that day, but are stuck to the position they choose once selected. 

Water Bucket Simulator

You tap the screen for a drop of water to fall into a bucket. Once you fill the bucket up you get a new one and do it again.

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More Games Just Cuz

Dumb Ways to Die

I never played this game as a kid because – as the name suggests – it looked dumb. I understand its objective and how it appeals to the people who would be playing mobile games and using public transportation. But it’s just so babyish. 

Pepsi Man

I’d love to know who the first of the “brand superhero”s was, and why so many brands after thought the morph-suit-with-company-logo on the chest persona was so useful. It was neat to learn that the Subway Surfers format of gameplay is thirty years old.

Sneak King

I still can’t believe that this game made it anywhere past a pitch meeting. The “Sneak King”/”sneaking” pun hardly seems funny enough to develop an entire game for. This had to have been one of those tax writeoff games that they knew would perform poorly.

Chex Quest

Like I’ve said 1000 times before, I don’t play video games. But I know Doom, and I think Doom is awesome. But replacing Doomguy with Chexguy… that’s genius.

Getting Over It

As someone with above-average internet literacy, I know all about this game. Never touched it, never met someone who has, but I could tell you every obstacle in it. I think the little cavern where you have to hook on to the light is the coolest one. You kind of lose me up in the troposphere where you go backwards on all the shipping containers.

Painstation

We played this all the time at my buddy’s house in middle school.

Cow Clicker

I actually did have Cookie Clicker for like a day. I think all games are pointless – imagine how I feel about these ones. I will say, though, some of the cow avatars are insanely creative.

The Graveyard

I would never make it to the mausoleum in this game.

Oregon Trail

I love the Oregon Trail. If I’m on a desert island and you allotted me one video game, it would be the Oregon Trail. It’s so funny and can vary so much.

Townscaper

Is this really a game, or is this more of a drawing tool? I thought this game would be more like one of those ones where you have to make a 2D bridge within a budget constraint. Like with the wood and metal and ropes. That was not the case.

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Sisyphus Game

That’s supposed to be a gif. I don’t know if it plays on here. I hope it does.

I think there’s too many games in the world. I think there’s too many games that are commentaries on that fact.

Even so, I’m in a class where I have to make games. And I exist to please.

Sisyphus game is a game akin to cookie clicker, as there is no end in sight. But, boy, do you want to keep clicking. Every tap inches Sisyphus forward, but every so often fate sends him backward.

You get drachmas for every significant distance you travel, and those can get you new characters and balls to push.

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Symbolects

This was when I started the game.

Originally I wanted the markers to look like little highlighted bubbles, and for a few people to be able to play markers per round.

That was not nearly enough symbols to convey anything fun.

I moved up to 7×7. I think the strongest additions were the body parts.

I did want to see if terms rather than symbols could help, but in actually playing the game, the ambiguity of the symbols allowed them to – interestingly enough – symbolize more than just one word.

I still wanted more symbols.

This is the final board. At least digitally. I thought the mixed up version would look a lot cooler, but having the semi-related symbols by each other did help out. At least in terms of finding the right symbol for what you wanted to express.

The final markers work as “are”s and “aren’t”s. Can you guess which is which? You get to place 6 for any one term.

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Soul Mental Health Campaign 2

This week, I thought I would try to test mechanics for my setting. I drafted a few characters with different mental health diagnoses, and each one gave a different debuff to that character.

Depression: +2 fatigue starting, +1 fatigue on failure.

Anxiety: +2 fatigue on failure. +1 fatigue on success to a random stat. Reaching max fatigue in a stat causes +3 fatigue in 2 random stats.

ADHD: cannot attempt the same thing more than twice in a row without trying something else. Any time a switch is made, +1 fatigue to the previously attempted stat.

Results:

These debuffs relied heavily on the implementation to work the way they did. I may end up scrapping this idea and go with a narrative driven game instead. This had, perhaps due to my modern day framing, perhaps due to mechanics, a bit too much of the desired effect. Players became less interested in trying to play these characters because they felt it too difficult to make meaningful progress.

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Soul Mental Health Campaign Test 1

For this version of the game, I had to rework how non-combat encounter rolls work. Originally, if you failed a roll, that was it, but since I am not going to be present to GM that, I need a mechanic to determine what happens if you don’t succeed.

I decided that when you roll vs the difficulty of an encounter, If you fail by greater than 50 under the required value, this constitutes a critical failure. If you succeed by greater than 50, this constitutes a critical success. This, for our purposes, affects fatigue, which is how tired your character is of trying the thing they’re doing, and it will penalize the stat you’re trying to use until that hits 0.

When you fail, you get 1 fatigue, and -1. When you crit fail, you get 3 fatigue, and -3.

Success means you get to continue. critical success probably won’t have an effect here.

Results:

This system works well in a structured, GM present game. That said, I’ll be interested to try it with my setting in mind and with me absent.

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Week 2 Game thoughts

Pepsi man is fantastic. No flaws.

Chex quest is an interesting game, because it is just a doom fork with well, a fork instead of a shotgun. I can see the appeal to people who don’t have doom, but I also think it would wear off in a matter of seconds after starting the game.

M&M kart racing is a terrible game. This is like minimalist mario kart if you had a nail in all four tires and your engine. The tracks are empty, no life or heart in anything, just corporate shovelware.

America’s Army, say what you will, is actually kind of fun. It’s definitely meant to glamourize the armed forces, but that being said, It is also an entertaining FPS. It doesn’t compare well to things we have today, but for what it is, it’s decent.