FINAL POSTMORTEM
Joynisha Sumpter
POSTMORTEM
In general, I have to say that I am please that I was able to complete my project, but I can’t say I was please with my execution. I feel like my execution for my projects is an on going work in process and troubles me for my entrance into the professional world.
To branch off I feel that the projects strengths was in it’s collaboration with another classes assignment, meaning that it was killing two birds with one stone. Another strength of my project was that I was deciding to take an existing game and work on building my own game off of that, instead of trying to create a whole new one.
I feel that the social interaction I was trying to create between players was strong, I think the new additions I made to the game snake would definitely increase interactions between players but it remains to be tested. I did attempt a user test with my mother an sister and I must say it was quite amusing but not effective enough to document anything useful about the game. A working prototype will be needed in order to test the game in the future.
I feel another strength for this project, was even though I really would have liked to finish attempting to build the game, I had to push that desire aside and build my presentation. I at least had to have something to show and if It wasn’t going to be the game, I wanted to be able to at least show what I was thinking.
Overall, the most pleasing thing about this project for me is the understanding I gained on the difficulties I will face within myself and with the software for building a game in the future. I was made aware of my flaws of thinking and now I understand my weaknesses and I am prepared to work on those.
That brings me into the weaknesses of this project. Though I believed I could built the game, it was a theory based on false knowledge. I had previously made an attempt to built this game in the past with an engine that one of my professors had built. I actually had a product at the end of the day, but it still wasn’t complete. I had hoped to take that knowledge I had gained from that experience and complete the game the way it should be done. Unfortunately, none of the many engines I played around with during the six weeks were nearly as comprehensive as his was, therefore I failed.
I also failed in not realizing sooner that the project was just something that unfortunately within the time limit could not be done. I hated to go back on my word on a project and that is not a behavior I wish to capitalize on in the future whether at thesis or at work. I would like to be able to produce what I say I will produce.
Another weakness of the project was I wasn’t able to user test the prototype. It would have been valuable to test the prototype to gain info on what social interactions worked and what did not, as well as how the user interface worked.
I am planning, as I still have to build this for Thursday since I did not finish, to continue to work on this game straight on into the summer whenever I get a spare moment of time. I feel it will be of great use to me to do this in preparation for my thesis.
Some key moments in the process as I mentioned above was when I had to decide to put down the building of the game and start focusing on how to get my idea across since I wasn’t being successful with the game engines. Another key point was when I had to scrap building in the multi-player part of the game. That was a really hard decision to make for me but I managed to make it even though I really wanted to build it.
Some trouble spots, was the entire week I wasted on trying to get an engine up an running. I feel perhaps if I didn’t have to had spent so much time getting an engine running I might have had a game built. This was valuable information though for my thesis, since now I have an idea of what is out there in terms of building a game. I am still determined to build a successful game if applicable and possible in an development tool other then flash.
To finish off, two new media project that are related to mine are “Video games and Computer holding Power” by Sherry Turkle and “Star Raiders: Dramatic Interaction in a small world” developed by Douglas Neubauer. Sherry Turkle’s project is related to mine because she noticed when video games became a major force in popular culture in the early 1980's that the computer allowed people to enact personae that are different from the ones they use in the non-computing world.
My scenario for my project was just about this very point. My character David was a 30 year old business man who to the naked eye would have never been perceived to go home and spend his time playing casual games, and vice versa. Games and the computer allow him to take on this other persona and have some social interaction with other players.
Star Raiders, by Douglas Neubauer, is an animated action game developed for the Atari in 1979. This game won best video game for three consecutive years, what is similar to my project and this game, is the focus on interaction for the user. This game is focused on actions for the user, whether it is refueling a ship, or defending star bases. The user is doing something and in turn getting a response or feedback for that action.
This was what I was trying to attempt when designing my game, to come up with actions that created a desire for the player to keep playing ,whether it was effecting their opponents game or saving their own. Actions are what makes a game, therefore it has the power to break it as well, if they are useless.
From these projects I can learned how to make my project affect the user more socially, which in turn would help me create newer and better actions that result in greater interaction between players.
Presentation
Here is the link to my presentation I prepared for class today in PDF format
VIEW
Paper Prototype materials
Here are the materials I will use to test my paper prototype of the multiplayer snake game.
I decided to use a chain of paper clips as the actual snake because it is easier to create a sense of growth by just adding a new paper clip to the link.
UNO CARD DESIGNS
I Plan to make the real cards tomorrow in order to test my study as soon as possible. So tonight I made the designs to be printed and cut.
SWAP CARD -COME IN ALL FOUR COLORS (2 of each)
NO UNO CARD -COMES IN ALL FOUR COLORS(2 of each)
SHUFFLE CARD -WILD CARD (4 of each)
Studies & Paper Prototypes
STUDYBefore I paper prototype the game I would like to build I wanted to do some paper studies of games. A game I found interesting to study was uno. Although uno doesn't fit the criteria of being a single player game. It does have room for additions to the game for making it more interactive.
To begin this process of how I wanted to make this game more interactive I first revisited the overall rules of the game. I used this
webpage as a reference.
Here are the basic interactions for an traditional game of UNO.- You can make players draw 2 or more cards.
- You can change the color for the next playable card.
- You can skip your opponent or reverse the order of turns to skip your opponent.
- If your opponent forgets to say uno and you catch them they have to draw 2 cards.
Here are the new interactions I want to include in UNO.- No UNO card, you can make your opponent pick up 7 more cards if you play this card when they only have one card left. It doesn't matter if they say uno or not.
- SWAP card, allows you to swap your hand with your opponents hand.
- SHUFFLE card, allows you to make your opponent place their entire hand back in the deck and pick up new cards equal to the amount they previously had.
Uno interests me because it is a game that you can easily paper prototype and is equally interesting to build as an online multiplayer game, unfortunately for my project purposes it doesnot fit the design criteria of being a single player game.
PAPER PROTOTYPEAfter looking online and trying to run through, board games, online games, and card games that are single player such as Tetris, solitaire, Bejeweled, Sudoku, free cell, etc. I realized that none of these games peaked my interest to build and would be particularly challenging to build as a game with my current expertise.
The game that stuck out to me from the being was the game snake, but I looked at other games to make sure I was not limiting myself to this game and had a good reason as to why I choose it.
Snake is not a particularly easy game to paper prototype, but it does offer avenues where multiplayer capabilties can be added in.
I choose snake because it is a game based on a very simple concept and allows room for me to add my own multiplayer capabilties to make it more complex.
Snake Rules(Original Game: Single Player Rules)- Guide the snake to eat food. The more food you eat the bigger your score and the longer your tail gets. Do not hit the walls and do not run into your own tail or you die.
PRECEDENTSnake Rules(Revised Game: Multiplayer Rules)- Guide the snake to eat food. The more food you eat the bigger your score and the longer your tail gets. Do not hit the walls and do not run into your own tail or you die.
- You are playing against a timer the opponent with the highest score, when the time is up wins.
- For each item of food you eat a solid block gets sent to your opponents side. If your opponent hits this block they will die.
- Random explosives appear on each player screen if you eat the explosives the solid blocks placed by your opponent are destroyed.
- Random items appears on each players screen, that allows you to increase the tail length of your opponents snake by 2.
- Possiblity of an item that will allow you to swap your game for your opponents. Score does not swap. What swaps is the snake length and board.
Next Steps for Megumi's Multiplayer Melee
I would like the next step for this project to begin over the break by analyzing more live multiplayer experiences. I am interested in capturing the peak of social interaction between players. So avenues I may take are:
- Family play spades during holiday break record interaction between them
- Playboard games
- I would like to attend another NYCLAN event and get more footage of actual peak of social interaction
- What is interaction like between players on online games? get footage of that.
- Finally make a video collage
Lastly think about how I can take a simple card game and change the dynamics of the game slightly to encourage even more social interaction between players. Prepare for user testing.
Think about persona and scenario ideas more throughly. Two persona ideas I have thought briefly about are:
- A hardworking male, top player in halo, finds relief from stress of work playing this multiplayer casual game.
- Female player passes herself off as a bad gamer because she loves to trick other male players into believing that see sucks to see their reactions when she beats them.
Current precedent ideas are:
Multitris www. spogg.com
Halo 2
Research or discover more precedents
Lastly, Think about building my project with Torgue Gamebulider, I want to combine my C++ project of making a simple game called snake and just add the functionality of it being multiplayer to the project.
Research
I decided that I wanted to focus on the social aspect of multiplayer games.
I would like to capture some of the interaction between players in a video. I think this medium is the best way to capture to dynamics of multiplayer gaming much more than any one could ever explain it to an audience.
This weekend I went to a gaming event at NYCLAN for Halo 2. I was really intrigued and greatly inspired by the interaction between the players. I was never a fan of Halo but after playing in that environment it changed my whole perspective.
One aspect of multiplayer gaming which I feel is important is that it is strongly based on competition. This competitive air is what brings a player back to the game because the want to get better if they are horrible or they want to maintain their honor if they are good.
You can look at Halo and think it is not a casual game but there are two sides to the coin. Halo does have a serious side where you can follow a campaign, or a story from being to end either alone or with another player but it also has a casual side. Which for a gaming environment like NYCLAN is what people want. Example: The game Marvel Ultimate Alliance a fairly new game on the market wasavailable to play the same night before the halo event started. Of course people wanted to play it because it is a new game, but I noticed the satisfaction level for that game quickly decreased when players realized how serious the game was or how much time they would have to dedicate to the game to get any feeling of achievement from it.
In these environments people turn to games like gituar hero II because there is a quick satisfaction achieved and quick gaming experience, they don't have to invest to much time or brain power inorder to win.
Halo as a casual game is a strong precedent because of it important characteristics.
- Allows players to be able to rate their skills against others (How many kills you have, how many medal you gained at the end of the match)
- Allows players to taunt each other mostly outside of the game but also they found ways to manipulate characters inside the game to do things to each other.
- Players create names that have meaning to them, either they are ridiculous just to be funny, or signify some characteristic of the player they want to point out about themselves as a person or as a player in the game.
- Allows players to see who killed them, by popups on screen making players seek revenge.
- Allows for players to form 2 teams and battle against each other encouraging more social interaction because each team must work together to win.
- Reaches all age levels. We totally got own by I am gonna guess the boy was at least 12 years old he may have been younger o_O?!
I believe NYCLAN's Motto is the essence of what multiplayer gaming is all about which is
"The best experiences are those shared by friends face to face in a fun and safe setting"
This hits on the head what interested me about the experiences created at NYCLAN or at an arcade or playing any type of game where you need more then one person. The dynamics that are created, the way people respond when they are losing or winning, the rules or boundaries they create, the tension or competitive air. Its all about the experience, and that is what I am looking for when trying to create my own multiplayer game.
Final Project: Anything we desire
My initial thoughts for what I would like to do for my final project revolves around multiplayer casual games. I haven't before I came to this school ever been interested in building a game at all especially a casual game. I have always been leaning to making the graphics for console games, but at this point my views are changing.
So I see this project as an ample opportunity to try out this desire and see will it will lead me. My MTV collab class has been a great inspiration to getting me to this point, as well as my C++ class.
So my idea is to study Multiplayer casual games for this mini-thesis project because for my thesis I am thinking about doing a downloadable casual game or a multiplayer casual game.
My first initial questions I feel I want to research are:
What are the characteristics of Multiplayer Casual Games?
Example: What basic components need to be included?
-Chat?
-Attack Items?
-Viewing other player Progress etc?
How are they built?
What makes them interesting?
How do you prototype these types of games in other interesting ways other then technology based?
What are some precedents?
-Examples:
Switcheroo Spogg Rampage Smash Tv **sidenote: Two player coop games are great
The return of simplicity is important
Who are the target audience?
For this project I don't feel I should attempt to create my own original game because it would truly be impossible within the time period. I am toying with the idea of taking a game that people usually play alone Example: Diner Dash, what happens when that becomes a multiplayer experience?
So the possible goal for this project would be to take a well known game, make it multiplayer and determine from user testing what makes the experience good or bad. What can be done to improve the experience or game interaction between player or make it special? What keep players coming back for more?
I think what I love about multiplayer casual games is the interaction that sometimes forms between player much like the interaction that forms in an arcade when you have a challenger. I learned that I much rather play a fighting game away from home or with actually opponents then against a computer because the experience is much grander.
Hopefully, I would like to use the information gathered and prototypes gathered as the begininings of research needed for my thesis next year.
Social Interface:Final Presentation
Here is the link to my partner and I final presentation for our social interface project. It is a zipped pdf file because the pdf was too big to host unarchived.
For our final presentation my partner Albert created a flash presentation showing how our interface would work within the environment. He used visuals we created prior for user testing along with some additional visuals created on the fly.
Lastly, I put together the pdf slide show to help along our verbal/presentation.
FEEL MY PAIN PDFFEEL MY PAIN FLASH MOVIE
User Testing - Continued
There was some helpful feedback from the user testing. We provided two tests: one from the perspective of the spectator sending messages,
and one from the perspective of the gamer receiving messages.
Perhaps the most unexpected response was the notion that these text messages could be used to provide helpful hints. However, even with providing hints, the messages could be seen as either helpful or annoying, depending on whether or not the gamer wanted to receive those hints. Similarly, a spectator could provide a "false" hint, which could subvert the gaming experience in a different way.
The testers also noted the following
- the audio that played in sync with the appearance of the text message windows was easy to ignore, so we may want to consider removing the audio entirely
- displaying who the message is from may increase the likelihood that gamer might take the time to read the message, especially for messages that appear to the side of the action
- fullscreen messages are the most destructive
- consider having the windows disappear after a few seconds of time so that they don't completely end the game
- instructions for texting and sending a message to a window are clear and simple to follow
- a quick tutorial might be helpful for first-time users, especially if they fall outside our target audience of heavy texters
- a consensus that receiving messages is disruptive to the gaming experience - all testers said that they would try to get back at the person who disrupted their game
