Week 8 – Reading Week part2, and back to school :(

           The past week has been fun, as I spent the last few days of my reading week enjoying different games on my PS Vita. It is also time to go back to Oshawa for more school again, as my reading week has ended. For this week’s blog, I will talk about more PS Vita games, since I have been playing several different games over the break. 

            The first game that I will talk about for this week’s blog will be Gravity Rush. This is a highly anticipated game, and one that I simply cannot wait for. I have recently played and finished a demo version of the game, and I must say, it was an amazing game, and goes beyond all my expectations. In Gravity Rush, the player controls a young girl named Kat, who seems to have a very unique and strange pet cat, with the ability to control gravity whenever the player wants to. The player is able ‘turn off’ gravity for with the pressing of a single button, and you are able to also change the direction of gravity afterwards. The player can also glide and kick towards any direction of their choosing, while in zero gravity mode. The enemy monsters are quite standard as with most games, but the player has many more choices to defeat the enemy. The player can either choose to attack the enemy head on while on foot, or you can choose to strike from the air, through the use of the zero gravity function. All in the all, I am really excited for this game, and I enjoy the different aspects of controlling gravity in this game.

            Another game that I played was Table Soccer, which is a free game that you can download from the PS Store, and involves the use of AR cards, which are included with the PS Vita. The game itself looked very promising, as I enjoyed playing actual table soccer back when I had one. When I actually started playing the game, it was very difficult to set up, as the AR cards had to be placed very carefully, and you have to take into consideration the lighting as well. After spending a good hour or so setting up the game, I finally got started with the basics of passing the ball around and shooting the ball. I then got to one part where I had to lob the ball over an opposing player to pass it to my teammate, but the game wouldn’t let me to it. After nearly 50 attempted lobs, I had given up and went to go play a different game. Overall, this game looked promising and fun to play, but was actually very “glitch” and did not entertain me as much as it made my frustrated.

            That’s all for this week, stay tuned for more blogs :)

Websites used:

http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/119/1194585/gravity-rush-20110914085411480_640w.jpg

http://pspmedia.ign.com/psp/image/article/121/1213144/gravity-rush-20111122101812139.jpg 

http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/artwork/na-ohgj/Gravity-Rush-PSVita-1.jpg

http://webassetse.scea.com/pscomauth/groups/public/documents/webasset/psvita_table_football.png 

http://www.iverged.com/iv/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/PS_Vita_Table_Soccer_screenshot_460x283.jpg 

Week 7 – “Reading” Week…

            This week has been fairly fun for me, as there were no classes due to the reading week, so I pretty much played with my PS Vita that I just got from the mail last week. For this week’s blog, I will be talking about two games, Dynasty Warriors Next for the PS Vita, and a continuation of a discussion of the game Final Fantasy XIII-2.  

            I have just bought the game Dynasty Warriors Next today, and have been playing it for several hours. The game puts the player in the shoes of a warrior from the era of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and involves a lot of “hacking and slashing” dozens, if not hundreds of enemy soldiers. It is a very interesting game on the PS Vita, since you can use the touch screen functions to perform certain actions, such as using your ultimate ability. You can also swipe across on the touch screen to fight certain bosses, however, I find this fight to be very confusing and I ended up dying a lot during that fight. The game started out being pretty interesting; however, it got a bit redundant as you are told to continuously attack and capture enemy bases during each mission, and your goal is to conquer enemy territories until you control all of China. I like the concept and story of the game, but the gameplay does not live up to those expectations, since it is very much like every other ‘hack and slash’ game. Overall, I believe this game appears to be fun when you first play the game, but it gets a bit boring after you play it for quite some time. 

            Continuing on from my last discussion about the game Final Fantasy XIII-2, the game still manages to keep me interested even after nearly 55 hours of gameplay. I had beaten the game a few weeks ago, and I must say, it has been a very interesting story, and was full of twists and turns along the way. The gameplay is pretty much the same, involving the player controlling two human characters, with the third character slot reserved for a monster that you can capture from monsters you battle. Another unique aspect in this game are the paradox puzzles that must be solved in order to proceed along with the story and to get fragments (which have benefits, as some fragments can provide extra skills for your characters, or to count towards trophies). I would definitely recommend this game to people already accustomed with the Final Fantasy series, as well as the gamers who are interested in games with the same genre. 

            That’s all for this week, stay tuned for more updates!

 Websites used (in order):

http://www.thetechlabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/sony-playstation-vita.jpg

http://www.gstylemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/d6.jpg

http://kokugamer.com/wp-content/upload/2012/01/Final_Fantasy_XIII-2_1-587x330.jpg

Week 6 – Redesigning War, Tic-Tac-Toe, and Remixing a previous Board Game :)

           This week has proven to be unique, compared to the past weeks, as we were told to redesign 2 popular games, as well as to remix an old board game presented by someone from this course.

            For redesigning the card game “War”, I have decided to allow the players to draw 3 cards at the beginning of the game, as well as drawing another card every time players begin their turn. After the draw phase, the turn player will enter the optional set phase, where they will be allowed to set one of their cards face down (which they cannot be used until their current turn ends). This set card, when flipped up, has its value/rank boosted by 5 points. The player then enters the battle phase, where both players choose one card in their hand or one of their set cards to battle with, and simultaneously reveal that card. The player who has the card with the higher rank/value wins the battle, and gets all the cards involved in the battle, which goes to his/her discard pile. In the event of a tie (war), players then draw 3 more cards, and set any 3 cards of their choosing face down. Play then resumes as per the original rules, where players flip the first of the 3 set cards, and battle once again. This can repeat in the event of another tie. 

            For redesigning the game Tic-Tac-Toe, I have altered it so that players must roll 2 dice every turn, in order to determine which column and which row they can put their piece on. The first dice rolled will represent the column to place the piece on, and the second dice will represent the row to place the piece on. For example: player1 chooses to be “X”, and chooses to roll 2 dice, and ends up with a “1” and a “5”, so he/she would then place an “X” here:

(The red numbers represent the columns and the blue numbers represent the rows)

In the event that your piece is to be placed onto another piece, the player can then choose to reroll, or place your piece onto the existing piece, which will return that piece back to that player’s pile of pieces. Players can also opt for the option of flipping a coin, which then determines if they destroy one “X” or one “O” (however, players cannot place a piece if they choose this option). Any piece that is destroyed cannot be played again, and will go to a separate pile. Players only start off with 8 pieces, so strategy is still somewhat necessary to win.

            The game that I have chosen to remix will be the game “Card Collection Frenzy”, which was created by me and my group (Christian Perera, myself-Edward Kwok, Shing Hei Yee, Seonghyun Lee, and Yang Zhou) for homework3. The game “Card Collection Frenzy” starts off with 2-4 players who start off in each of the corners of the board. The first player to go will then roll one dice in order to determine how many steps they can move their piece. Players can go in any direction, but cannot take any steps backwards. If players land on any of the black squares, they can draw a card from the pile of cards, and players win the game by collecting 3 cards with the same shape. Players can also trade in 3 cards of the same color when they land on the middle tile (the “trade tile”) for a wild card, which counts as any shape.

In order to turn the mechanics of this game to be based on pure luck, players should not able to decide which direction they will go in, and instead, players must roll a dice to determine which direction they will go in (odd/even, or 1/4, 2/5, 3/6 if the player is at one of the starting positions). I will also remove the wild cards from the game, and instead, the middle area will just be another spot to allow players to draw a card from the pile. 

            I have found all of these changes to be very interesting, as it alters each of the games dramatically, and sort of adds a new twist to each game. 

            That’s all for now, stay tuned for more exciting material next week :)

Week 5 – Turning old video games into board games, modifying Liar’s Dice, and some Game Design Discussion

            This week was a bit different from my previous weeks, as we did not have to do 2 board games as usual, which began to turn into a habit (our group had designated Thursday afternoons and evenings as ‘board game Thursdays”). This week, we had to turn any of the listed video games from the Atari era into a board game, as well as redesigning the rules of Liar’s Dice.

            The video game we chose to turn into a board game was Paper Boy, which is a fairly unique game that involves the player playing as a newspaper delivery boy who receives a customer list and a certain number of newspapers. The player must then deliver the newspapers to customers on his/her list, while avoiding certain dangers that could hold you back. For our game, we used most of those components, and added a few of our own. Players do the same thing in our board game, where they receive a customer list and a certain amount of newspapers, and they must deliver it to their customers. Players will roll a die to see how many steps they can take that turn, and must land on a particular address in order to deliver the newspaper to that customer. There is also a newspaper factory, where players can get 5 extra newspapers when they pass through it, similar to passing ‘GO’ in Monopoly. There are also tiles with a question mark, which causes the player who lands on it to draw a card, similar to the ‘chance’ cards in Monopoly. These cards have the ability to affect your progression through the board, as it can hinder you, change your customer list, and even make you lose newspapers. All in all, this game was fairly fun, and proved to be an accurate representation of the video game, with several extra twists to it, which made it more interesting to play.

            For the second part of our assignment, we had to redesign the rules of Liar’s Dice, after discovering the positive feedback loop. Our group had defined the positive feedback loop as the fact that making a bet with the dice has the ability to make bets go higher and higher, which then goes even higher, and can cause players to win and lose big. In order to alter or remove the positive feedback loop, I proposed that players should have the ability to bet on a face value that isn’t just equal or greater to the current face value, but also lower. I had also thought of the idea that there should be an extra “neutral player”, which would just be an extra cup with 5 extra dice, in order to make the game more challenging, as players also have to account for the random neutral dice. During our play tests, these changes proved only to prolong the game, which did not affect the positive feedback loop.

            For my game design discussion this week, I will talk a little bit about the video game Final Fantasy XIII-2, which I have recently purchased and player for hours on end. This game is a direct sequel to Final Fantasy XIII, which was also very fun. The gameplay mechanics for FFXIII-2 are very interesting, as players have the ability to use paradigms, which can be shifted very quickly, and anytime in battle. These paradigms are basically classes for each of your 3 characters, and can include commando (heavy damage dealer), ravager (spellcaster, also increases the chain link on monsters, allowing them to be staggered easily, which allows players to do extra damage to the monster), and sentinel (tank), which are the default classes your characters start with. A unique aspect to the sequel was the fact that players can obtain, use, and upgrade monsters to use as a 3^rd member of the party, since you only get to use 2 human characters in this game.

Here's a short video on how the battle system works:

That’s all for this week, stay tuned for more game design discussion next week!

Week 4 – Battleship re-designing, more Game Design Discussions, and more Board Games….

This week was nearly as intense as the previous week, as we were told to create 2 more board games, with even more restrictions this time. The catch was that both board games didn’t need to be fully polished, which was a relief for most of us. The lecture was pretty much re-designing the board game Battleship and more discussions about game design, such as the aspect of spawning in a game and spawn-camping, which players take advantage of. 

            For the first board game of the week, we were told to create a board game involving the collection dynamic. This was a bit different from last week’s board games, and my group and I decided to go with a totally new game, instead of re-using one of our old board games. To start off the game, players roll one dice each turn, and move according to their roll, and if they land on one of the 12 specified tiles, they must draw a card from the draw pile. 

              The winner of this game is declared when a player has 3 cards with the same symbol, regardless of colour. Players can also trade in 3 cards of the same colour when they land on the middle tile (also known as the trade tile), and receive a wildcard, which counts as any symbol. This game seemed to perform very well and proved to be fun, although it may be based on luck too much at times. I found the use of a trade system to be very intriguing, as you can use it to get rid of any useless cards in your hand.

          

             Our second board game of the week is very interesting, as we were told to create a World War 2 themed game, which could not involve death, territorial control, or capture/destroy objectives. This made our choices of objectives very thin, and my group and I decided to go for a board game that involved resources, which was required for each player to make their move. We ended up creating a very fun game that involves a lot of strategy to play. To start off this game, players roll one dice, and they are able to move that many spaces that turn, at the cost of that many resources +1. If the player did not have enough resources to move that many space that turn, they can re-roll the dice and gain that many resources; however, they will not be able to move for that turn. The goal of this game is for players to get to Berlin before their opponents can reach it. 

            There are 3 different spaces for players to land on, strategy zones, trap zones, and Nazi zones (if controversial, will be changed to German zones). When players land on a strategy zone, they will be able to draw a card from the strategy deck, which involves cards that allow you to advance further, or to set back your opponents. When players land on a trap zone, they are able to draw a card from the trap deck, which involves setting back the player who drew that card (this can be seen as the Nazis impeding your progress to Berlin). The final zone that players may land on are Nazi zones, which causes players to lose extra resources when they land on that zone. This game proved to be very fun as well, and can be very suspenseful at times, since you don’t know what cards you might draw or what space you will land on. The use of resources was especially interesting, as it forces players to think strategically before attempting do anything without and thinking beforehand. 

That’s all for this week, stay tuned for more :)

Week 3 – Making Board games, Redesigning Tic-Tac-Toe, and more Game Design :)

           The past week was relatively busy for me, as well as for my group, as we had to work on two board games at once, and get them ready by the next tutorial to be presented to Kei. It took nearly a full day of work last Thursday in order to finish and polish up our first board game, which was the race-to-the-end-based game, as well as to finish up our second board game, which was the territorial-based game. We also had to redesign tic-tac-toe in class, which I found to be very interesting, especially what some people come up with. As usual, we also discussed game design, and different aspects of game design, which were related to the tic-tac-toe game.

Our first board game that my group and I had created was pretty much a capture-the-flag based game, called Flag Assault, where players control 10 pieces placed in their starting zone with 2 flags in the back of their base. The whole goal of the game is to move as quickly as you can to your opponent’s base (who will always be in the opposite corner from your base), snatch their flag, and to bring it back to your own flag spawn point in order to win the game. the game was fairly fun to play, as you can come up with many strategies in order to win.

Our second game is a bit different, where players start with one tile each at opposite corners on the board. Players can either move one step in any direction, or to duplicate their piece onto an adjacent hexagon. The goal of this game is to conquer more territory than your opponent, as the winner is decided by either the player with the most tiles of their colour on the board, or the player that manages to conquer every territory on the board.

Week2 - Tic-Tac-Toe, Magic Square, and Game Design!

Well, another week has passed, and this week was similar to last week, where we were told to play a numbers game (which is supposedly tic-tac-toe in disguise). It was a bit different, however, because we only played the numbers game for a short period of time, while most of the class was spent discussing elements of game design, and what components make up games. 

We also had to brainstorm different elements that tie to games, such as fantasy, goals, artificial, decision making, etc. It was interesting listening to what other people thought of games, and components of games. Although I had wanted to join the discussion and add some thoughts of my own to the class discussion, my friends and I had sat too far back to be chosen to speak. Next time I shall try to sit in a better spot in the front in order to have a better chance to be chosen to speak :)

Finally, we were all told to work together in groups in order to design and create a game that involves the category ‘race to the end’, where players have to compete to see who gets to the goal first, and bonus marks were awarded to games that involved conflict. We also had to design and create another game that involves the territorial category, which is heavily used in the board game ‘Risk’. Well, that’s all for this week, hopefully my group and I can finish our games within the week…