Beer + arcade = Beercade

The McKinney Ten Percent, the ad agency's incubator that encourages all employees to devote 10% of their time to focus on new applications of creativity and technology unrelated to current client business, has found a way to breathe new life into both beer tasting and arcade gaming. The agency created the first-ever beer-dispensing arcade game for Big Boss Beer brand, that puts two players against each other in a simple fighting game, developed with Adobe Flash technology.



Players choose one of five characters, each one representing one kind of beer from Big Boss Brewing Company. The fight begins and the winner receives a glass full of beer from the arcade machine. Check the video case below:



This kind of advertising action is called advergame. Advergame means "advertise" + "game". It’s a strategy for marketing communication that uses mainly electronic games to advertise brands and products. That includes a large range that goes from games that are developed specifically for advertising purposes, to common games that have ads in its interfaces.

It’s always good to see gaming language hybridizing with other areas of knowledge, like advertising in this case. If you like this subject I strongly recommend this site (link here).

The awesome experience of DEVICE 6

The end of 2013 brought a great ludic surprise to my iPhone: DEVICE 6, a very different game from publisher Simogo Games.

As described on the game’s official website, DEVICE 6 is a “surreal thriller in which the written word is your map, as well as your narrator. DEVICE 6 plays with the conventions of games and literature, entwines story with geography and blends puzzle and novella, to draw players into an intriguing mystery of technology and neuroscience”.



Check the game trailer below:



The gameplay is a creative combination of scrolling screens with puzzle solving. As the player scrolls down the screen, texts and images arise, creating the experience of the gaming narrative. One important detail: the player can go back and forward in the maze of words as a map. So let’s check the gameplay in the video below to understand this feature:



This game reflects clearly the idea proposed by Aarseth (1997, p.1-2) of ergodic literature. As the author says, ergodic literature is derived from “the Greek words ergon, meaning ‘work’, and hodos, meaning ‘path’. In ergodic literature, nontrivial effort is required to allow the reader to traverse the text. If ergodic literature is to make sense as a concept, there must also be nonergodic literature, where the effort to traverse the text is trivial, with no extranoematic responsibilities placed on the reader except (for example) eye movement and the periodic or arbitrary turning of pages”.

DEVICE 6 creates a perfect balance between many cultural elements. It’s a unique experience to play and study. Go ahead, download the game and have fun.

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Reference:

AARSETH, Espen. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. The Johns Hopkins University Press: Maryland, 1997.

Sound as a gameplay element

As in movies, sound is an essential component for videogames. Games like God of War even using an orchestra to record its soundtrack, and war games like Call of Duty recreate each detail of sound inside a battle camp. But some games like Beat Sneak Bandit (Simogo Games, 2012) use the sound design as a component for the gameplay.



In this very fun game, created for smartphones and tablets, the player is invited to control a bandit trying to invade different houses in a fixed screen interface. The idea is to move the character tapping the screen to the rhythm of the beat. One music beat equals one tap on the screen, so it’s important to be careful not to go off the rhythm. And here's a hint: try to beat your foot on the floor simultaneously with the beat of the music; this helps to keep your concentration and not miss a move. You can check the gameplay below:



Another good example that we can bring into our discussion is Zapp Zerapp, a board game with a curious sound component. In this example, players roll two dice for numbers from two to thirteen and simultaneously start picking up one of the thirteen wooden containers and shaking them. Inside the containers are one to thirteen lead pellets. Players are trying to select the container with the highest number of pellets, so long as it doesn't exceed the result of the dice. (source: Boardgame Geek)



Games that work auditory and tactile stimuli are even widely used with visually impaired children. Therefore, it is important to observe more carefully this kind of playful experiment. And this will be the subject of a future post.

Wait for it.

Game ideas in 6 easy steps

Source: http://www.sociallonerstudios.com/

Observing level design in Gauntlet

I’m an old school gamer and, occasionally, I like to play NES cartridges from the 80’s. One of my favorite titles from this time is Gauntlet.

Gauntlet (1985, Atari Games) is a fantasy-themed hack and slash game, originally created for arcade with versions for NES, Master System, Mega Drive and other consoles. In the NES version, players could select among four playable characters: Thor the barbarian, Merlin the Wizard, Thyra the Valkyrie, or Questor the elvish archer. Gauntlet’s levels are full of orcs, spectres, skeletons, treasure chests and other classic elements from medieval Role Playing Games.



Each character has unique abilities, powers and weaknesses. So, it’s possible to explore different ways playing the game solo or combining different powers with a friend on the second joystick.

The gameplay is set within a series of top-down, third person perspective mazes where the goal is to find and scape through the exit in every stage. The video below shows Gauntlet’s mechanics.



Despite the simple interface and limited resources of this time, Gauntlet is a good example of level design management. The game has 100 stages and each of them is unique and works with the limited boundaries of the TV screen. The game uses the player’s memory with complicated mazes and has a life meter that works as a time pressure component.

The 100 stages are divided among five worlds, each one with special technical features. In Gauntlet it’s possible to see a well-constructed difficult/learning curve by passing the stages. The game hybridises the levels with the mechanics to offer the player a positive experience.

In this context it’s possible to say, “games consist of stages, or levels. As the player progresses through a game, the levels generally increase in difficulty and the story develops. The designer must create a series of challenges for the player as he progresses through a level. This means that the design of individual levels is closely linked to the design of the game mechanics” (THOMPSON; BERBANK-GREEN; CUSWORTH: 2007: p.93).

I think it’s important to analyze ideas from the past to establish new connections today. The beginning of the 80’s is a perfect frame to observe some conditions that are patterns of today’s gaming industry.

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Reference:

THOMPSON, Jim; BERBANK-GREEN, Barnaby; CUSWORTH, Nic. Game Design: principles, practice, and tecniques - the ultimate guide for the aspiring game designer. New Jersey: Wiley, 2007

Gaming experience and social network: how games can be funnier with RAPTR

In this post, let's figure out how to engage an audience in a deeper entertainment experience using a digital social network. I’m taking about RAPTR, a social networking website and instant messenger, targeted towards video game players launched September 3rd, 2008. The site allows users/players to import their Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, and Steam accounts. It also includes other features such as trophies and achievements tracking, and this is a point to highlight in our discussion.



With RAPTR, you can compare your in-game statistics, level of engagement and collection of trophies/achievements in a wide mode. This is possible because RAPTR allows users to explore/connect a world broader than the console network.

As an example for this post I’ll use the game “Batman: Arkham Origins”, that I started to play recently. When the playing experience starts, automatically the game appears in your RAPTR dashboard with your level of engagement and list of achievements. The most interesting feature of the system is the possibility to view your performance against other players of the same game. In the image below we can see these features and the ranking on the bottom side (I’m 5th in the ranking, but I'm working to get a better position.).



With social networks like RAPTR we can have a parallel contest involving a large number of players fighting for symbolic rewards and ranking. In other words, it sounds like a game inside the game and it’s important for publishers to stay alert with this kind of social tool. In this scenario, companies also need to understand how to survive in times of media fragmentation defined by Lord and Velez (2013: 223) as the “increasing availability and consumption of different types of media across channels”.

Among the players, to be well-ranked in a gamer ecosystem is a very important reward and an essential component of social capital construction. As Santaella (2013: 43) says, by creating a profile on the social networks, people start to respond and act as if this profile were an extension of the self. Like an extra presence of what constitutes their identity. These profiles become flags that represent the people who hold them.

In this context we define social network sites in the words of Boyd and Ellison (2007) as web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site.

The new generation of consoles promises interactions involving increasingly sophisticated games and social networking. Definitely, this is a matter for further discussion and deserves more attention.

Now on to your opinion.

Note: Unlike “Batman: Arkham Asylum” (Rocksteady Studios, 2009) and “Batman: Arkham City” (Rocksteady Studios, 2011), this game will not be developed by Rocksteady Studios. Warner Bros. Games Montréal, co-developer of “Batman: Arkham City - Armored Edition”, created Arkham Origins, with additional development by Splash Damage for the game's multiplayer feature. Check the trailer below:



Go gamers!

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References:

BOYD, D. M., & ELLLINSON, N. B. Social network sites: definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), article 11, 2007. URL: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html (last access: August, 2013)

LORD, B.; VELEZ, R. Converge: transforming business at the intersection between marketing and technology. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons, 2013.

SANTAELLA, L. Intersubjetividade nas redes digitais: repercussões na educação. IN: PRIMO, A. (org). Interações em rede. Porto Alegre: Sulina, p. 2013.

What is a game?

Researchers of gaming studies field are always discussing this subject. One thing is certain: there’s no absolute answer for this question. A game can be defined in many ways and videogames – specifically – become so complex platforms that is very difficult to reach one single idea about “what is a game”.

The good point is: there are lots of good visions about it. In an excellent presentation made at DiGRA’13 keynote named “The Ambiguity of Game Studies: Observations on the Collective Process of Inventing a New Discipline” the author Janet Murray discusses (among other things) what is a game.

The graph below, from the book “First Person" shows one (of many) interpretations of this subject:



I strongly recommend the complete reading of this presentation. You can find the slides HERE.