Monday, 28 November 2016

Task1b: Principles of game design (Game Play & Genre)

Introduction

This is the second task in explaining the principles used in games design. In my previous task I explained how Borderlands, Assassins creed and Grand theft auto IV used different visual elements to contribute to the design of the game. I chose these particular games because they are not similar, each of these games are a different genre. For instance Borderlands is RPG whilst assassin’s creed is an action adventure, stealth game. I did this so I could explain the visual and game play styles off different game genres so it’s easier to understand the different effects visual elements can do.

  In this task I will be explaining the way the game is played rather than how the game looks.

Game Genres 

Game Play elements make up the majority of game from the players perspective, this includes the mechanics, rules, and how the player is controlling the game and so on. The game play covers a broad range of topics and it all depends on the type of game. Each Game Genre has different gamely elements.

Here is a list of the different game genres and how they individually use different game elements.

1. Sport
A sport game is a game which simulates the practise of sports. For example, most sport has been recreated as a game including team sports, track and field, extreme sports and combat sports. The players could be controlling a player based on a real player/manager or fictional sports. Some Sport games can emphasize the playing of actually playing the sport or some sport games are based more on the player’s strategy and manager such as championship manager. The genre is real popular with games such as Fifa and need for speed and is known for its competitive just like real world sports. Most sports game involve physical and tactical challenges and like to test the players accuracy and are required to focuses on the characteristics such as speed, strength, acceleration etc. Most sports games are similar and include common mechanics such as providing a commentary throughout the game or having settings such as a stadium or an arena which limits the players movement and has boundaries where they can go. Controlling sports game isn’t that difficult and most football games will distinguish how the player is kicking a ball by how long or short the player is holding the button whilst gold games usually have a one button push. These games appeal to sport fans. This means the audience can vary in age for example both young and old people like to watch and play sports.


2. Simulation
There are many different types of simulations. Although there is one thing they all have in common, simulation games are usually realistically modelled to real life situations than most games with a different game genre. The most common situations which simulation games are usually based on are; Business, construction, life, management, sports and war games. The games are closely designed to simulate real world actives by copying various activities from real life and putting it in a form of game. Simulation games could be used as several purposes such as training for example bus driver simulator feels real and is used for an educational purpose. Although usually there is no strictly defined goals within the games and the player is free to control the character and be 'god'. Simulation games are usually targeted at everyone although the audience which usually play these games are casual gamers and female however there is not a particular age.  The best selling simulation game is the Sims franchise with their most recent game selling over 5 million copies.


3. Role playing games
Role playing games is a game in which the player assumes the role of a character, these games are generally in a fantasy or science fiction setting and the player are able to interact with the games world. This genre usually focuses on the character development, the games narrative and a tactical combat although it’s hard to explain the definition simply because the genre is used in a wide verity of games. Usually the main purpose in a role playing game is simply playing a fictional character and having to learn new abilities or improvise the capabilities for old ones.
RPG games usually have game play elements such as the players character, controls, statistics such as health, items which the player must collect and NPCs which the player can interact with to help advance the story. RPG games have gone from traditional role playing games like Dungeons and dragons to first person shooters like borderlands. 


4. Viral Marketing
Viral Marketing is the latest trend in online marketing tools it’s also known as 'pass along' or 'word of mouth' because it gets the audience to tell one another about the game. The viral marketing is designed to encourage visitors to go to an online site and make them pass along the marketing message. This is beneficial because it will attract people to online games.


5. Adventure
An adventure game is a video game where the player plays the role of a protagonist within an interactive story which the player usually has to explore and do puzzle solving to progress. The genre focuses on the story and is usually designed for single player. Adventure games usually emphasize experiencing the story through dialog or through puzzle solving and the mechanics cross over with action. Game play mechanics usually involve combining or manipulating items to advance the story. 


6. Strategy
A strategy game is a game which involves a lot of description-making skills and they usually revolve around tactical usage of resources in combat or management scenarios. For instance a puzzle game might consist of the player having to interact and manipulate the puzzle pieces and the game rules play a massive part within this genre. They usually determined how a player wins or loses. The most popular strategy game is chess which has been around for decades. In strategy games you must Use knowledge and must keep practising, the only way to get better is by learning and learning by your mistakes.


7. Management
Management is a type of a simulation game in which the player can build and expand multiple imaginary communities with limited recourses which the player usually has to earn/collect. Players must manage their resources whilst expanding their projects and their goal is to build something of an ongoing progress. Sims city is a popular management game where the player has to build and design a city without and specific goals to achieve. 

8. Action
An action video game is a game which emphasises all the physical challenges including co-ordination and the player’s reaction time. The genre is mainly popular in fighting games, shooter games and platform games and they are considered the most important action games. In action games the player usually has to control the protagonist and navigate their way through different levels, collecting objects and avoiding obstacles as well as battling enemies. Action games mechanics usually revolve around the player’s accuracy, movement, decisions, reflexes and timing. 


9. Puzzle
Puzzle genres are games which usually emphasize puzzle solving such as pattern recognition, sequence solving and word completion. The player usually has a limited amount of time to solve a puzzle. Puzzle solving games aren’t much of a genre but do denote any type of non-puzzle games that features puzzle solving elements


10. Educational (“Serious”)
Educational games are designed for an education so the games can be used in an education environment such as a Primary school. All these games are designed to teach players about a particular subject or concept and are used to help assist learners to learn as they play. This is beneficial because games are interactive which means people usually find them a lot more interesting than reading a book and they can teach a lot such as adapting to a different world, how to follow certain rules to achieve a objective whilst making it a enjoyment to do and will motivate more people to learn. For example an interactive book is a game which is presented as a picture book and the story is being narrated for them, these elements allow the player to interact the book as well as being educational and aimed at children.


Images
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JptbGm97vFA



Game Examples

I will be using Border lands and Assassins creed black flag as the game examples and will be covering the different game mechanics each game uses.


Borderlands

Interaction model
In borderlands you have to select an available character at the beginning of the game. Each character represent a vault hunter, a vault hunter is someone who has travelled to planet Pandora to find the fabled Vault. Each Vault hunter is in different classes, this means each vault hunter will have a different skill tree, Background and unique abilities.
All together there are four different character classes. The four classes;

Mordecai
This is a Hunter. He has a skill that enhances sniper rifles and pistols. The hunter also has a pet blood wig which will swoop down and attack enemies from above. His three different skill trees include: Sniper tree (Improve sniper abilities), Rogue tree (Improves special ability) and finally the gunslinger tree (improves pistol and melee abilities.

Roland
Roland is a soldier. This class is more suited for combat rifles and shot guns. He can deploy a Scorpio turret which automatically attacks enemies independently. His three different skills include: Infantry Tree (Increase effectiveness with weapons), support tree (Increases defensive abilities with shields) and finally Medic tree (Ability to heal other allies during combat)

Lilth
Lilth is a siren. She has the advantages of having an ancient alien power and can use SMG's and elemental weapons. Her ability is Phase walk which is where she Shifts into a different dimension and be invisible for a few seconds.  Her three skills include: controller tree (Improve survivability), elemental tree (Improves ability to use weapons) and assassin tree (increases lethality with weaponry and melee combat.

Brick
Brick is a Berserker. He is amazing in combat and loves to hit enemies using his fist and explosive heavy weapons. His ability is bezerk which means he is able to pound his enemies to death and give him an increase of survivability and speed. His three skill trees are: Brawler tree (Increases melee damage, Tank Tree (Increases his toughness and survivability even more) and lastly blaster tree (improves explosive damage)



Single or Multiplayer
Borderlands can be played as single player, online and multiple players (Split Screen). Borderlands one campaign will be frustrating in single player because of the amount of enemies. In fact reviews usually use non-descriptive words such as 'fine', 'alright' and 'boring' to describe borderlands campaign in single player although the game is being praised for the multiplayer. The game is a lot better with a friend on split screen or online, and I can personally agree to this. Single player is just no good at all, but even gear box has said that the game was originally designed for multiplayer more than single player.

The difficulty of the game play is a lot harder when there are more players for instance when playing the game online, simply because the enemies will be stronger with each player. This means the loot/rewards are a lot better than playing it single player. Although, playing borderlands online isn’t my favourite way playing borderlands campaign either and I have seen a lot of reviews explaining the same opinion. Whilst online other players will take all of the loot and be inconsiderate and not think about the other players. There is also a chance that there will be modders online which can make the game play epically lag and take make the frame rate a lot slower. The most popular way to complete borderlands campaign and also my favourite is by playing the game with a friend. This means you can play the game without going online and having the risk of your loot being taken, being hacked or running into modders. Playing with your friend means you can have a co-op partner who knows how you like to the play the game and blows single player away in terms of fun and entertaining.


Narrative
The Narrative of borderlands is quite complex. The story begins after the Dahl Corporations leaves the planet Pandora because of the several fortune seekers; this includes the player who is looking for the fabled Vault. As they arrive to Pandora they discover the town Fryestone and the player begins to follow instructions from a mysterious woman known as the guardian angel and the player meets claptrap who is a little robot and a man named Dr. Zed who will help the player earn a reputation killing boss bandits and collecting the first alien artefact which is needed to open the vault. Although Patrica Tannis who is Dahls Archaeologist contacts the player explaining how the vault can be accessed only every 200 years and the next time the player is able to access the vault is going to be soon but they need three more artefacts in order to open the vault. Tannis then agrees to help the player and gives them several instructions to find the massacre alien artefacts.

The player eventually finds the second and third pieces using her instructions but had difficulty finding the third and final peace because the artefact is now where it’s supposed to be according to Tannis instructions. She then contacts the player to reveal that there is only three places which the player already has and she been forced to betray and mislead the player. The player restarts the ECHO network to stop Steele and the crimson lance before they reach the vault. The Guardian angel directs the player towards their position although as they get to the vault steel has just opened it. Out of the vault is a giant monster that is called 'the destroyer' he wipes out Steele and her troops because he was imprisoned by the vault to protect it in order to prevent destruction of the universe. Finally the player defeats the monster and the vault is re-sealed for another 200 years.

Game Mechanics;
The game for borderlands is quite easy especially in co-op mood and have the standard FPS mechanics.  For example, On the HUD screen the health and ammunition is monitored, there is a wide variety in guns and weapons as well as the common mechanic that the player gets a additional damage for killing enemies by a head shot. The player has a shield which size and recharge time depends on the stats of the equipment whilst the player life can only be regenerated by collecting health packs or going to doctor Zed.

When the player is in combat if the player is hit the players screen will look like its bleeding, the more the player 'bleeds out' the more red the screen gets, If the players life reaches 0 the player will collapse and will need to be revived or will have to kill a enemy before they die. If they die then the player will appear at their last checkpoint.

Missions
There are a lot of missions all over Pandora, in total there are 126 missions, 46 being the part of the story which is mandatory and the players are compulsive to do it to progress the story and complete borderlands although 80 off the missions are side missions. This means the majority of the missions are not directly to progress the storyline although these do help provide enough experience and loot to get weapons to progress the story line. With the four DLCs added there will be a total of 216 missions. However is excludes two glitches which sometimes happen when playing the game, these glitches are extra missions "Talk to Tannis" And "Keep your insides inside" so in away there is a total of 218 mission.

 Difficulty
Unfortunately you cannot change the difficult setting on Borderlands simply because the difficulty is already set which is a common In RPG genre game. If the game is too difficult the player can over-level the character by doing side quests before progressing with the main story missions which makes it considerably easy. Because borderlands allow the player to re-play the campaign using previous characters the game is based on two different plays through. The first time you play throughout the game the enemies are considerably easier than playing the game the second time simply because the missions are tailored to the players level.

Rewards
Once the player completes a mission the player will in some way get rewarded, these rewards include earning Experience Points (XP), money, other loot and sometimes unique mission rewards.

websites

Assassins Creed

Interaction model
In Assassins Creed Black flag the players explore the memories of a young British man called Edward Kenway. Edward Kenway is a young, charismatic pirate with a thirst for danger and adventure. Although he is also a reckless assassin who ends up deeply involved in a war between the assassins and templar’s. 
The game is based in the 18th century and features real, infamous pirates from the past such as Blackbeard and charle vane which I have explained in my previous task. The memories take the player through a lot of violent throughout the West Indies which is now known as the golden age of pirates. In assassins creed there is some customization such as changing his ship 'the jackdaw' and being able to change outfits if the player completes certain challenges and meets a certain criteria. He is able to change his outfits in the jackdaw or any store though out the West Indies. Here is an example of some of the outfits;

Special outfits
Brown cloak- A brown cloak praised by veteran sailors for its resistance.

Pirate cloak- A standard cloak many pirates once wore to express their pride.

Crimson cloak -A ruddy cloak praised by the Spanish aristocracy.

Temporary outfits - Crewman outfit Worn during the Edward Kenway memory.



Single or Multiplayer
The player can play assassins creed in either single or multiplayer. Once you have completed the single-player section of the game which has a great story line then you will want to move onto the multiplayer section. The Co-Op section is a huge part within assassin’s creed black flag simply because it focuses on the multiplayer format, making it look like a pirate-filled world. The player must blend in with NPCs and hunt down their targets without exposing themselves to the other players which are hunting them. 

 The game will team up players to defend their own treasures from the thieves. Online play has been extremely popular especially since the world pack was released. The wolf pack allows players to train together to be able to achieve the best scores possible in the co-op mode. The players will look different in each Co-Op game; in fact 90% of the time the player’s multiplayer character will be the current assassination target on the single player campaign. In every game you cannot have the same character so there is a customisation screen where the player can edit the characters appearance, look, weapons, moves etc. Just because every player has a different appearance doesn’t mean a character is better than the other, the characters do not have unique ability just unique appearances. Although there is a few abilities which can help you within multiplayer, Here are a few;

Disguise- Changes appearance so the player hunting you doesn’t know what you look like

Decoy- Makes a copy of you to distract and confuse your hunter

Knives- Slows down the player trying to find you

Time Phase- Stops player’s action





Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag

Narrative
The Narrative begins when samples are taken from Desmonds Miles body, moments just after his death. This allowed the Abstergo Industry to continue exploring his genetic memories using the animus computing abilities. The player is hired by Abstergo Entertainment to play through the memories of Edward Kenway who is an eighteenth-century pirate and farther of Haytham Kenway. The player needs to gather material for an animus-powered interactive feature film but in real life the Abstergo who are the present time templar’s are searching for the observatory and using the memories to help find it. 
The player must unravel a conspiracy between the templar’s within the British and Spanish empires and use his position to locate the sage (Bartholomew Roberts) who is the only man who can lead them to the observatory. The Observatory is really important because it can monitor anyone anywhere when it has their blood sample, The Abstergo Industry wants to use this device to spy and blackmail the world leaders.

Game Mechanics;
When controlling the ship the game mechanics work really well. The ship is easy to control and it feels and drives outstandingly well. In the ship there is three different speeds, one of the speeds is 'travel' which is the fastest speed and you can usually visually see the crew members put up more sails to help catch the wind which makes driving the ship feel a lot more realistic. Whilst sailing your crew will most likely begin to randomly sing the sea shanties which you need to collect. The player is able to switch through the songs or stop the singing completely. If the player is sailing and is caught in the storm it’s not hard to notice how much thought has gone into the game. The storm is unbelievable and the sounds and simply the effects of the storm are really well done for example random water will appear and damage the ship if the player does not avoid it. To upgrade different aspects and appearance of the ship the player is able to gain money and resources to do so for instance you can change the cannon type to equip to your ship. Cannons are used to fight in ship combat, you can blast the cannons and have the ability to go a board or to completely destroy and plunder the ship. If you decide to go aboard the ship there is ropes on the sides of your ship so you can easily grab onto the rope and swing onto the opposing ship. Once you have defeated the ship you can either choose to repair your own, set the crew free which will reduce your ships wanted level or simply have the crew come join your own crew.

The combat mechanics are also very well done compared to the previous games in the franchise. You are able to upgrade your gun and hold up to 4 different guns and able to shoot blow darts into enemies to either sedate them or poison them to make them go crazy and start fighting their own. This makes the combat a whole lot more interesting and you are able to combat using different methods using different weapons. The enemies in black-flag are also a lot more smarter than the ones in the previous assassins creed, for instance the enemies in black flag seem just to parry your attacks more they will understand and learn how you are fighting. For example if you are constantly pressing the same button to fight the enemies will click onto it and learn how to counter you so it’s important you need to pay more attention in combat. The health and stealth mechanics are again quite simple and are really similar to the previous assassin’s creed games. You need to hide in bushes, hay and do stealth attacks and jump on enemies when they are close enough. Although the mechanics for stealth can be quite difficult for instance the enemies are a lot smarter like I’ve just explained so whilst hiding in hay or behind a door you need to learn how the enemies are moving and make sure no one is looking. It’s a lot harder and more difficult in Assassins creed IV than the previous Assassins Creeds.



Missions & Difficulty
Assassins Creed IV Contains 12 different sequences, each sequence individually include multiple missions. Overall there is a total of 42 missions plus tons side missions. Assassins Creeds games never have a difficulty setting so unfortunate you can’t decide how hard or easy the missions are going to be but to make the game a bit difficult because there is reviews saying the game is too easy the player can simply go into the options and turn off the HUD and simply stop upgrading and 'fall behind' which will obviously make combat a lot harder.


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