The art of making friendly enemies

I participate in a group called Board Game Tuesday (or BGT). We meet weekly to play and discuss board games. Our primary focus is the playing, but we always set aside a time to analyze the structure of the games (mechanics, dynamics, art, components etc.).

However, I quite like to analyze the behavior of players during matches. I like to observe the nervousness to roll the dice for something important, the glory in the eyes of a player with a well-structured combo of cards, the malignant partnerships between players and – of course – arguments and "fights" because of the final results of a gaming experience.


(Playing ISLA DORADA. Big, Vince & Snow. Pic: Estevão)

This last feature, particularly, impresses me. The “magic circle” of a game has the power to transform friends in enemies with established social rules (and gaming rules). As Juul says (2013, p.11) “when playing a game, a number of actions that would regularly be awkward and rude are recast as pleasant and sociable”. So, we can say that a game can generate a kind of friendly enemies during the time of a match.

About this context Juul (2013, p.14) also says that, to play a game is “to make an emotional gamble: we invest time and self-esteem in the hopes that it will pay off. Players are not willing to run the same amount of risk – some even prefer not to run a risk at all, not to play”.

The gaming ecosystem is a complex and privileged field of studies. But we must never forget that behind a game there are human players full of feelings and this is an important part of the experience to observe, analyze and discuss.

At this moment, I’m reading again Jesper Juul’s “The Art of Failure” and Bernad Suits “The Grasshopper”. I’m full of new ideas about the role of the player inside the gaming universe and I count on this inspiration for a “wave” of posts with this subject this semester.

Keep your radars alert for that.

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Reference:

JUUL, Jesper. The Art of Failure: an essay on the pain of playing video games. Cambridge/London: MIT Press, 2013.

SUITS, Bernard. The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia. EUA: Broadview Press, 2005.

One truth about game design

The delicate balance between learning curve and meaning on games

Videogames are, undoubtedly, leading and intertwining landmarks of contemporary culture. From countless consoles/devices, gamers are increasingly experiencing worlds of fantastic narratives. From simple mobile games like Flappy Bird (Gears Studios, 2014) to complicated Playstation 4 and Xbox One titles, we can see players discovering new contents, communities and learning new stuff from these platforms.

In this complex scenario, multidisciplinary crews are necessary to establish the delicate balance between two essential points: 1) the learning curve: or how each stage of the game is connected, creating a challenging experience – level by level – to the players; 2) the meaning: or how the experience of the game will emotionally “touch” the player in his/her social context.



As Bienvenido and Ruiz (2013, p.225) say, “during play activity it is possible to maintain the ability to learn and grow, training our individual and collective skill to adapt to the evolving condition of the surrounding context. In light of that, we believe it is crucial to harness a conscious and aware design process able to lead to a ludic meaningful experience activity that, on its side, is able, on the one hand, to engage and involve players, and on the other hand, to transmit meaningful concepts and prompt interesting contexts”.

In this discussion, it’s important to remember the social aspect of gaming culture. Especially in times of extreme connection between individuals we can see the strong role of social interaction between gamers. As Bartle (2014, p.11) reminds us “indeed, it could be argued that all games – even single-player games – are at least in some way social, because the people who play them are framed by the society in which they live. Subjectively, though, certain types of game are ‘more social’ than others because they involve more people interacting more often in more ways”.

I don’t intend to synthetize such complex subject in a simple blog’s post, but I think it’s a good starting point to broaden the discussion. Now, on to your opinion!

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References:

BARTLE, Richard. Design principles: use and misuse. IN: QUANDT, Thorsten; KRÖGER, Sonja (Eds.). Multiplayer: The Social Aspects of Digital Gaming. New York: Routledge, 2014

BIENVENIDO, Héctor Puente; RUIZ, Marta Fernández. User generated content: A situated production of video walkthroughts on Youtube. IN: HUBER, Simon; MITGUTSCH, Konstantin; ROSENSTINGL, Herbert; WAGNER, Michael G; WIMMER, Jeffrey (Eds.). Context Matters! Proceedings of the Vienna Games Conference 2013: Exploring and Reframing Games and Play in Context. New Academic Press: Viena, 2013.

Rymdkapsel: a new way to observe tower defense games

Today I played a ‘meditative space strategy game’ named Rymdkapsel. Rymdkapsel is a game in which you take command of a space station and its minions. You will have to plan your expansion and manage your resources to explore the galaxy. In its essence, it’s a tower defense game with a minimal interface created using isometric perspective.

As Nitsche says (2008, p.99) “isometric views eliminate any distortion of the depicted shape caused by the perspective. (…) True isometric views are an artistic construct and always include a level of abstraction, because the real world is not perceived in that way”.



In the game mechanics you need to manage the different random pieces to construct the scenario (very similar to Tetris). It’s necessary to construct corridors, extracting devices, food providers, cannons etc. It’s important to explore the space attaching your ship to other platforms. You have few minions in your ship, and a good management is essential to keep it working.

The game has a unique and immersive environment structured with a relaxing soundtrack, minimal sound effects and simple colorful graphics.



Check the gameplay below:



Rymdkapsel is a mobile game (for iOS and Android) by Martin Jonasson with music by Niklas Ström. Click here to visit the official site.

Reference:

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NITSCHE, Michael. VIDEO GAME SPACES - image, play and structure in 3D worlds. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2008

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.