Never Give Up

I just read this article from Game Designers Career Guide. It was about those students who study game development and aiming to get into the industry. The bottom line was a very inspirational paragraph. I want to put it here to be inspiration for myself in times when I start to get worried about whether I will make it in a short time, or is this all worth to be dedicate yourself with the risk of never actually be able to accomplish it. The idea is: yes maybe the industry is very small and the barriers to enter is very high and competitive but you should never let yourself down and stop working less because of the intimidation. Keep on expanding!

“Never give up
The working conditions as a game design student are a hundred times more stressful than the working conditions in the industry itself. You’re spending money rather than making it, probably accruing a huge debt while that’s going on; your living conditions probably suck; you’re probably being torn in a hundred different directions; the job market you’re trying to break into is aggressively exclusive — such that there’s no guarantee that you’ll even find gainful employment once you get out of college; and to top all that off, every week as you keep an eye on gaming news and trends you’ll be given reason to wonder if it’s all even worth it. You will get discouraged; you will doubt yourself; and you will consider giving up.
Don’t.
It’s my observation that most people who want to work in games are dreamers, and a dream is worth fighting tooth and nail for. Hopefully with the survival tips I’ve shared with you that fight will be a little easier, but the most important part of all this is you and what you want.
Go for it. “

To read the whole article click here.

Body Blob

My group friends and I just finished the term project for Interaction Design course. We had a big expo and get to share our project with other people.

What we did was a twister game only you play it standing and trying to touch virtual spots on the air It is as fun as it sounds ! A lot of people played our game in the exhibition and they enjoyed it so much. I programmed the game itself rather than the technology used to detect bodies with infrared cameras.

The best thing is that the project worked out just like we imagined almost for every phase.

The formal definition of the project Body Blob:
Body Blob is an installation that tracks a player’s body and makes it part of the an interactive game. The player has to use his body image to cover certain circles on the screen in order to gain points. The game supports multiplayer mode. The levels behind the game have been created in order to make players test their physical flexibility. At the end of the game, we give the opportunity of taking away a stop-motion short movie of yourself doing different poses.

And here is the link to our project website.

And here I am the red one, competing with a friend, getting beaten so bad on my own game

Constructing & Destructing in Games

CONSTRUCTING & DESTRUCTING BUILDINGS IN GAMES

The game play style described in this essay is about constructing and destructing buildings in games.

Dictionary meaning of the term construction is: To create new elements with previously measured or constructed elements. And destruction is: A destroying agency; a cause of ruin or of devastation; a destroyer. These two elements exist very much in the human nature. Mankind has been constructing and destructing through the centuries for variety of purposes. Hence having these two elements together is a great tool for making players feel invested in a game. Whether it is constructing cities, armies, space colonies, or characters, building things is fun. On the other hand, tearing things down is fun too (we all love to smash down our own sand castles or knock down that first domino piece). Giving players the opportunities to both build and destroy things provide different types of fun, both of which can make our games successful.

The object in a construction game is to build, maintain, or manage objects; this might be within a directly competitive or indirectly competitive environment. Examples of this type of game are simulation games like Animal Crossing, Gazillionaire, SimCity, or The Sims, or board games like Settlers of Catan. Games with a construction / destruction objective often make use of resource management or trading as a core game play element. They are usually determined by strategic choice making rather than chance or physical dexterity. Also, construction games can often be left open to player interpretation as to what ultimate success is within the game; for example, players choose what type of city to build in SimCity or what household to encourage in The Sims.[1]

To be more specific, for this essay, the game play style will be analyzed mostly in terms of constructing and destructing “buildings”. I chose to narrow it down to specifically subject of buildings, because it is one of the widely used elements by the game designers to give the player the feeling of constructing and destructing. (Especially for the constructing) Buildings are physical proofs of a successful attempt to a construction action in this sense. Also buildings have a big potential to contribute to the game play in other aspects rather than just standing statically. They could be designed as interactive for the player in different levels.

From player’s perspective, building houses, temples or factories etc. are possibly associated with real life experiences. This kind of tool opens the door for a better attachment to the game by bringing in a good premise for the player. Whenever a building is constructed, player put himself in the position of the owner of it. Hence, player feels to protect and use it to the fullest before it is burned down to the ground by the opponent.

There are quite a handful amount of games that uses buildings in the game mechanics. I am going to explain further the features of constructing & destructing buildings and their objectives by giving examples from different games that exists in different genres.

Age of Empires II & III
Castle: The Castle is a military building in Age of Empires II. It is a civilization’s most powerful fortification, able to arisen up to 20 units, builds that civilization’s Unique Unit, build trebuchets, support 20 populations, and fire a devastating number of arrows at any unit that gets in range of the Castle. Castles require a lot of stone, but if placed right they’re worth it. The castle can also train petards, an explosive unit. The castle also researches its civilization’s unique technologies and promotes unique units to elite. The best counter for castles are siege weapons, such as rams, trebuchets, bombard cannons, or petards.

The Blacksmith: It is a building in Age of Empires II which researches upgrades to non-siege units and ships. It is first made available during the Feudal Age and should be kept close to the Town Center. The Blacksmith offers upgrades to melee damage, arrow range and damage (under the same upgrade), and infantry, archer and cavalry armor. Blacksmith upgrades can make a big difference in determining the outcome of battles. The availability of top tier upgrades is one of the leading factors in determining what kind of army a civilization should field.

The Archery Range: It is first available in the Feudal Age when it can produce both archer and anti-archer skirmisher units. In later ages, stronger and better ranged units can be produced, such as the the hand cannoneer. Although cavalry archers are considered as both cavalry and archers, they are created at the archery range. Other archer units can be created by some civilizations as Unique Units from the Castle.

Units which can be created here;
• Feudal Age – Archer, Skirmisher
• Castle Age – Crossbowman, Elite Skirmisher, Cavalry Archer
• Imperial Age – Arbalest, Heavy Cavalry Archer, Hand Cannoneer

The Factory: The Factory is a unique building that is available during the Industrial Age for every European civilization in Age of Empires III. The Factory is sent as a Home City shipment from the “Factory”, “Robber Barons” or “Industrial Revolution” cards, all three of which will send factory wagons to construct factories. The Factory is able to generate a steady source of food, wood, coin, or heavy artillery for the player at no cost. The factory also offers upgrades to increase the production rate of whatever the factory is configured to produce and an Imperial upgrade for the civilizations heavy artillery unit. Most civilizations receive the Heavy Cannon unit, although the British receive the Rocket and the Ottomans receive the Great Bombard. They are most often placed in a well-guarded position, because they are easily destroyed by dedicated siege or a rampaging army.

Heroes of Might and Magic III [2]

In most of the strategy games that the buildings are used, they pretty much decide who is going to win the game. As also seen in the examples above, buildings are deciding and controlling several aspects in the game. It affects different units hence the overall game flow significantly. Considering this, buildings become the main elements in the game, even sometimes above the attacking units; since they are also trained from specific buildings.

Such powerful mechanic should be analyzed very carefully before using by the designers. Otherwise it may ruin the balance in the game and might mess up the overall game play. All the relation between buildings and the rest of the elements should be specified and tested. Some of the important pinpoints that should be questioned are described below.

Purpose of buildings

Player uses the mechanic of constructing buildings in games for a lot of purposes. In strategy games like Star Craft or Age of Empires, the purpose is primarily to train units to attack or defense against the enemy troops. In Heroes of Might and Magic series, which is not an RTS but a turn based strategy game; buildings are constructed usually just to train units. All the upgrades and resources are used to train more units to attack or defense. On the other hand, in RTS games where buildings it selves also could be used to attack or defense, they become more strategically important for the player.

Players have a chance to develop or upgrade a building whenever the resources are sufficient. Hence, construction is directly related to resource management. So resources should be taken into account when taking an action. Also, since the buildings are destructible by the opponent, player should care to defend them as long as he can because buildings are also another currency of resources in this sense.

What exactly does the player do?

In some of the games, construction of a building should be stimulated by other units like workers, machines etc.. For example in Age of Empires II, the only unit that can construct a building is the workers. Player needs workers to keep building new houses, factories or castles. After finishing the construction, (it takes different times depending on how advanced the building is, so timing is also a consideration here) player uses them to train units to attack or upgrade weapons and research. Moreover, in most of the strategy games, like Empire Earth, Rise of Nations, C&C etc… the winner is decided when the enemies’ buildings are destructed at the end. Hence destruction becomes an important goal in the game, in which the conflict resolves to choose the winner. As we can see in this example, buildings are not only an element during the main game play, but also they become a goal that determines the end of the game. Hence the player tries to reach his goals with the help of constructing and destructing building(s).

Who can use the procedure?

Construction / destruction procedure could be used by single or multiple users at a time during the game, depending on the type of the game. If it is a RTS game like Age of Empires, in multiplayer mode, every player is free to build up and develop their own type of buildings. In recent versions of this kind of games, buildings have a variety of characteristics. In this example below we see four different types of churches in Age of Empires III. This kind of range would make the game play more realistic and make the player more devoted to his own civilization represents him in the game. Also the color of the player is highlighted on the buildings so that one can easily distinguish them form other players units.

-from left to right there are English, Dutch, French and German styles of churches

Buildings might be customized and integrated to different situations. If player has this variety in his hands, when he takes the action of constructing the building or when defending his buildings, he will be more connected to them. On the other hand, whenever attacking to the enemy forces, this kind of identification will make the player more offensive and concentrated. This kind of feature only, can affect the overall game play, independent from the genre, no matter how an important element a building is in a game.

To analyze the customizable building construction from a bigger picture, it is best to look at games like The Sims. We again see the game mechanic of constructing, from a very different perspective compared to RTS examples given so far. In The Sims, player gets to build the house from a much more detailed perspective. Player has the shape of the building, colors of the walls, number of windows, doors etc. in his full control. Construction to the fullest is presented to the player to enjoy. There is not much strategy required in this sense; however constructing still has to be balanced with resources. There is a pay-off for every alteration made in the building. As a very unique genre, The Sims doesn’t specify a certain goal to the player to achieve. On the other hand constructing a bigger or a nicer house could be set as a goal by the player himself.

Limitations

Constructing buildings are limited usually by the resources ( simoleans in Sims or gold- wood-stone in Age of Empires, money in Sim City etc.) Limitations are also comes with the physical environment in the game map. For example trees, lake, river or a hill could limit the ability of constructing a building. Moreover player is also limited by the size of the map. For instance, Sims 2 provides a certain size of terrain for houses.
Also, in turn based games, player is limited by the turn. In Heroes of Might and Magic III, player has a chance to upgrade only a few numbers of buildings for each turn.

If there are different phases in the game, such as eras in Age of Empires, or Gods in Age of Mythology, player is limited by the buildings that he is allowed to construct for the current era. This kind of limitations would make the game more challenging and player will value each building more if they come as unlocks after certain accomplishments.

Also the availability of the procedure could be limited by the location. For example a dock could only be built on a shore or a bridge should be built over a river etc. Geographical property of the landscape is another factor that limits the player when constructing buildings.

How do players access the procedure?

Several ways are implemented for the player to reach the procedure of constructing. Depending on the genre and the context of the game, buildings are usually grouped in terms of functionality, cost or physical similarity.

Some of the games like Empire Earth or Rise of Nations; buildings are built by other units in the game. Player needs to create enough workers to start constructing buildings. Those units are sent to the location that the building is intended to put, and interact with the worker to choose the type of the building and execute the action. This could be thought as an indirect control over the construction phase. Player doesn’t control anything about the buildings features after selecting its type. Similarly, when destructing the enemies’ buildings, player sends out their own units. This could also be considered as indirect control for the destruction. For instance, in Age of Empires 2, player needs to send his units close to the opponent’s buildings and execute the attack command. Any unit can attack a building but some of them specialized for demolishing buildings, which takes a lot less time for them to finish it.

Some of the games also include maintenance of the building as a feature. Player can repair buildings by either using workers or sometimes performing direct control over them (click on and select repair, for example Heroes of Might and Magic IV). During or after attacks, damage could be fixed any time, since enough resources are provided.

Mostly in RTS games, buildings are assigned with one main task, which is creating new units. This is being the case; the shape of the building is not taken into the consideration, whereas this situation changes for some other type of games.

Below we can see the HUD (heads up display) for construction mode in Sims 2. Player can choose different patterns for the textures of the papers on the wall or can pick up different type of doors, windows etc. All the elements are accessible from the tabs on the bottom left corner of the screen. Simulation has to be stopped to switch to the build mode and whenever the player goes back to the game, the character interacts with the updated version of the building. Any element that is able to be added in the build mode can also be removed by the player. All the alterations made on the structure of the building get into the action of construction and destruction in this sense for Sims 2.

Sims 2 – Construction Mode

Whenever the procedure is used, this type of freedom should always be taken into account when designing the game. The more properties provided for the player to fiddle with, the more ranged game play could be presented. However, depending on the overall game play, too much detailed customization could be an over-detail and might distract the player from the main goal. The balance should be kept between building and actually using what has been built.
What types of players would enjoy this game play style?
Different players have different needs when they come and play a game. Which kind of players would enjoy constructing and destructing, also managing buildings? Designer should also take this question into account when using this procedure.
The Craftsman: Wants to build, craft, engineer, or puzzle things out. This kind of players would like to get their hands dirty with complex details in physics. They also would like to use the direct functionality of the buildings. A good example would be Pixel Junk Monsters, a tower defense game for PSP where the tower buildings are upgraded and strategically used.
The Artist: Driven by creativity, creation, design. This kind of players seeks to express their artistic talents during the game. The Sims is a very good example at this point. By providing a big range of customizable elements for constructing buildings, it makes the players sit and play for a long time. [3]
The Director: Loves to be in charge, direct the play. Player, who wants to build up a system and manipulate it, probably likes to use buildings in strategy games. This kind of players would likely be concerned with the whole system rather than the looks or the complexity of the buildings. RTS games like War Craft III or Star Craft would be a good example.

Feedback

In everyday life, our goals are not always clearly defined. But in flow experiences, we know what needs to be done, and we get immediate feedback on how well we’re achieving our goals. For example, musicians know what notes to play next and can hear when they make mistakes; the same is true whether it’s playing tennis or rock climbing. When a game has clearly defined goals, the players know what needs to be done to win, to move to the next level, to achieve the next step in their strategy, etc., and they receive direct feedback for their actions toward those goals [4] It is the same for construction / destruction mechanic. Player should get immediate feedbacks on his actions before, during and after his attempts.
Before: All the requirements should be clearly stated to the player before trying to construct a building. The recourse needs and prerequisites must be available in the HUD. Also, information about the buildings should be given in events that are possibly related to construction. For example player might need a certain unit in the game, which is trained from a certain building. Whenever player gets information about the unit, he also should be able to get the information about the building along with its own prerequisites.
During: When player is ready to construct the building, there still needed some feedbacks to let him know that he is doing it right. In Age of Empires II, if a building is not suitable to be placed on a certain terrain, say on the water or if there is a tree on the way etc, the building is highlighted red, warning the player by giving a feedback, telling that he can’t construct the building there. Also, there could be a preview display of the building about how it is going to work in case of being put to the spot. For example in Pixel Junk Monsters, all the towers have their ranges displayed to the player before actually they are built. This kind of feedback makes a more consistent and efficient game play.
After: Finally after the construction/ destruction of the building are complete player should get another feedback about its effect to the overall game. For example in Sims 2, whenever a household is modified on its walls, door, furniture etc… player gets an immediate feedback from the character (by clapping, cheering to express gratitude or cursing for the disappointment.) or the environment bar on the HUD gives an idea about the results of the alterations made in the building

Sims 2 – Choosing construction elements with feedbacks

How the destruction works

Since now, in the report, even though the destructing is mentioned, the idea was mostly describing the constructing part. However, these two mechanics could not be separated from one another to make a complete cycle. The main idea was: whenever there is a building constructed there should be the chance of destructing it.
Destructing in nature happens much faster and easier than constructing. With this in mind, in games these concepts should be applied accordingly. Players don’t tend to think as much when it comes to destructing compared to building something. Destructing doesn’t require resources, maintenance or an excellent strategy. There could be two kinds of destruction.

1)Destructing enemy units:
In most of the games that uses this mechanic, players dominates via buildings. It’s either about destructing buildings faster than you build or prevent opponent from building enough buildings to dominate the game over you. Hence, destructing enemy buildings becomes as much important as constructing them. Most of the time, there is also strategy and tactics to some extend when attacking enemy buildings. Aiming the most crucial buildings to attack or training special units and using them to destruct buildings faster could be counted as some of the tactics that can be followed.

Age of Empire III – Blue troops attacking to the red enemy base

Buildings also have HP bars that gives a feedback both players who are defending and attacking. Buildings that requires more resources to build or those that are more vital for the owner to proceed to the game should have more HP s. There should also be physical consistency. Construction material of the building could give an idea to the player about how resistant will it be against the attacks. For example in Age of Empires Castle takes stones to build and they are the most resistant building type in the game.
2)Destructing own units:
As mentioned before, buildings can be considered resources in the game. They also consume resources to make. When they are so important, some games gives opportunity of destructing players own buildings to re-gain the resources spent to make it. Player might realize the decision he made was not that good after all or he may realize that the units he built is not necessary any more for the current strategy; then he should have the chance to undo his actions. This kind of feature will help the game to be more convenient for the player and it will ease the resource management to shift the focus on to the main game play.

Conclusion
Constructing / destructing is a very widely used style in games. From Tetris to Monopoly, we can give a lot of examples of this concept. When it comes to specifically constructing and destructing “buildings”, the idea starts to get much more interesting. Player starts to affect other mechanics by using this game play style. Huge variations of outcomes get into the picture related to manipulation of buildings. As discussed in the report, this kind of potential should be balanced with other elements in the game. Buildings must be used logically to serve to the premise of the game. Fun aspect must be the primary focus when choosing the theme of the buildings and the story of the game play (who is controlling the building. Is the player a King, some sort of divine being or a soldier etc…) . After all these design decisions and rationalizations are made, game play style will be safer to use. Otherwise the result has less chance to be successful.

References

[1] Kaufmann, M (2008). Game Design Workshop 2nd edition
Chapter 3: Working with formal elements (pp. 63-64).

[4] Retrieved March 10, 2010, from Age of Heroes website:

http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com/heroes3/buildingsfortress1.shtml

[2] Kaufmann, M (2008). Game Design Workshop 2nd edition
Chapter 4: Working with Dramatic Elements (pp. 92).

[3] Kaufmann, M (2008). Game Design Workshop 2nd edition
Chapter 4: Working with Dramatic Elements (pp. 88).

Focus on the Formal Elements when designing games

The formal elements, are the underlying system and mechanics of the game. Your initial concept might already include some of the formal elements of your game. As you move forward, you will need to fi ll in that system more and more.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

· What is the confl ict in my game?

· What are the rules and procedures?

· What actions do the players take and when?

· Are there turns? How do they work?

· How many players can play?

· How long does a game take to resolve?

· What is the working title?

· Who is the target audience?

· What platform will this game run on?

· What restrictions or opportunities does that environment have?

The more questions you ask yourself the better. And it is okay if you do not know all the answers at this point in the process. In the beginning, you can only guess, and you won’t know if you are on the right track until you actually play the game and see how it works. But do not let this stop you from conceptualizing the game. You might be working blind at fi rst, but soon the game will begin to take form. To flesh out the game structure, consider the following:

· Define each player’s goal.

· What does a player need to do to win?

· Write down the single most important type of player action in the game.

· Describe how this functions.

· Write down the procedures and rules in outline format.

· Only focus on the most critical rules.

· Leave all other rules until later.

· Map out how a typical turn works. Using a flowchart is the most eff ective way to visualize this.

· Define how many players can play.

· How do these players interact with one another?

Clue & Realm of the Mad God

Clue

I just stumbled upon (not really, i ve been looking for this for a while actually online version of Clue board game.  I used to play this a lot with my friends when i was a little kid. In turkish its called “iz peşinde”. Well, after a decade it still looks exciting but pleasure was not even close compared to good ol’ days. Bad thing is, game is set for just one solution, i dont know why… So there is no re-play value.  Click on the the photo to play it.

Realm of the Mad God

There is also this very cool online RPG game worth to try.  Its very unique with its simplistic graphics and simple gameplay. It reminds me half minute hero- the psp game. check it out.

GGJ 2010

Last weekend was the Global Game Jam weekend all around the world (January 29-31). It s briefly a game making festival that hundreds of gamers from over 30 different countries participates in to make games out of nothing in 48 hours . The idea is simple, you are given a task in the beginning of this 48 ours and you sit and make a game out of it. I participated to this event with couple of friends from the university in Gothenburg. It was a very good experience for us to see what can we do in such a limited time within the given constraints.  Actually it took much less than 48 ours. we went to sleep and even partying during the contest:) , so I say the game was designed and implemented nearly in 15 hours or so.

The theme was “deception” and the game had ( or better ) include “monkey – donkey and key ” in it. We went for a deceptive  platform flash game for the contest. Deception was implemented in the game play and also in the story.  The levels mostly trick the player to do unnecessary or wrong things during the game. Player has to try and fail to reach to the end by dying as less as he can Dying consecutively is a very natural outcome in our game so we also put a death count on the left up side of the screen. I’m not going to reveal the ultimate deception that hides in the story itself.  You need to finish the game !

Here is the white board that we were trying to design the levels of the game.

I like this kind of “from this to this” pictures. So to see the end result check out the game. Show how  good platform gamer you are  If you are able to finish let me now.

Movement with arrows.

Space bar for jump.
Ctrl for shooting.

Click to play the game.

What is a Game ?

My definition of game is a set of rules that decision makers deliberately commits without a risk of real life loss (money, health etc…) where each decision maker seeks to reach a certain goal that a winner is defined within the artificially introduced  conflict  by  constrains of defined rules.

In this definition I tried to put together different and very important aspects that form a game. There are different comments by different game designers in the industry about what game is.  Its best to analyze each and every element that forms a game according to the definition, and discuss the different views to have a better understanding of the structure of a game.

First of all, game is an action that players deliberately choose to participate without a force or obligation from the outside. Even though there are so many different reasons for a player to start playing a game, it s not necessary to have one. Most of the time players seek for the experience of fun and joy.  It could also seen sometimes as a physical activity, sometimes as a way to socialize or express oneself.   Without a player there can’t be defined a concept as a game.  Game is where player interacts with the system in a certain way. The primary purpose of the game is to engage the player in itself and let him experience the mechanics of it.  C.C. Abt describes the game as “an activity among two or more independent decision-makers seeking to achieve their objectives in some limiting context.”  Starting point of Abt’s definition is to have two or more players included in the system.  However, games can be played with only one person if the system can provide the challenge that an opponent is likely to put. This could be a computer game that a player fights against the enemies that are driven by the AI of the engine, or this could be a game with time that player is limited and run against etc.

Games can not be though with a real- life consequence. Failure in a game never corresponds to a physical damage or a financial loss in real life. The consequences, earns and losses could only be defined within the game.  Huizinga touches upon this on his definition of the game: “Game is an activity connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained by it. It proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules and in an orderly manner. It promotes the formation of social groupings, which tend to surround themselves with secrecy and to stress their difference from the common world by disguise or other means.” If we accept the fact that the outcomes should stay in the game, the question of “is gambling a game?” comes to the picture. Besides my definition also as lots of designers definitions would agree, gambling is not a game. Even though gambling satisfies the criteria of games in various ways like, having a winner or describing and teaching some set of rules to the players who interacts with it; it contain outcomes that effects the real life after the game ends.  Here the effecting mostly on financial phase. People either gain or lose money as a result of the game. One player could become more advantaged over other opponents if he has more money to bet and to higher his chances of winning the game, independent from the context of the game.   According to R. Caillois’ definition of the game, it should be    ”Unproductive – creates no goods or wealth”. So the aim of the game should utterly be winning the game itself, not other materials that come with the win.

In a game, players are expected to solve an artificial conflict created by the game system.   Each player has to work to resolve for his own favor. The winner is decided through this mechanism at the end.  K.Salen states that “a game is a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome.” As also described in this definition, games are basically aims to overcome a conflict. The challenge creates tension as the players work to resolve the problems.  If the challenge is so great, this causes frustration. Alternatively if the challenge always stays on the same level or goes down, player decides to give up on the game, not to play it again.  Challenge that the game mechanism provides is the most important element that binds the player into the game.  To make the player feel attached and motivated, a game is expected to provide appropriate level of challenge or leave the door open for opponents to challenge each other in various ways.  Without the challenge there can’t be considered a game.  Therefore a good game designer is expected to create different levels of challenges for different types of players.  Once the player discovers the obstacles and solves the puzzles in Monkey Island game for example, in the next level, system should face the player with more advanced problems to solve, after the player learns how to interact with the items.  This kind of a balance will give the opportunity of trying and learning new things and this certainly would trigger the fun aspect of the game.

All games exist for players to play it. Playing is an interaction between the player and the game.  Without a player, game can’t be defined.  Even though the system is tracked by two agents, which both are not deliberately participating human beings, we cannot mention about playing.  As an example, when we think about two super computers, trying to beat each other in the game of chess, by applying their own algorithms, we can’t say there is an action of playing. This situation more likely represents a simulation of two players.  Each computer represents a player’s decision. Choosing each move in each situation is not controlled by a player. One can object this idea by saying that the algorithms are implemented by human beings and those could be the players hence this situation could be called as playing.  However what is missing in this way of thinking is that; what decide the next move in a game of chess controlled by a computer are the optimizing mathematical computations. The scientist that implemented the algorithm may not be able to execute it himself in real life against an opponent.  Another example to this could be a robot competition where robots try to push each other out of a line.  Here the interaction between robots can’t be mentioned as playing because of the same reasons mentioned above.  On the other hand, if the builders of both robots started with the same condition with the aim of building the robot who pushes the other one out of the line, then the result of the simulation between robots could determine the result of a game, but in another level, just as a game mechanic.

Most of the games are designed for more than one player to participate. It’s usually because of the purpose of creating a challenge for each player, which is proposed by the opponent player. Systems like, board games, card games or sports games usually are the systems which are only the way of interaction is defined.  The challenge is mostly in between the opponents who play the game.  After the invention of computer games, this concept is changed a bit because of the AI features that make the game system itself able to disguise itself as the opponent against the player. Of course after on-line games this issue got into a whole new phase.  Important point here is that main purpose of the players who plays the game is to beat an opponent, or win the game if we define it from the other way around. Winning is an act where one beats everybody else.  So, the question is, if there is no one to beat, can we talk about a game?  Let’s think of Sudoku. It’s a game that a certain goal is defined for the player to solve, and also different levels of challenges exist for different levels of the game.  However, Sudoku itself is not defined as a game (even though some says so). It is a puzzle.  Both games and puzzles have rule-based systems that players should follow. The difference between two is: the main goal of the puzzle is to find a solution; on the other hand, the main purpose of the game is to find a winner. Also, unlike games, puzzles are not re-played several times as a result of the previous fact. Puzzles could be turned into games by redesigning or adding some more features into them. For example, if we gather couple of friends for crossword evening and make a contest we can turn it into a game. If we distribute the identical crossword set to each friend and make them start solving it at the same time, eventually defining the one who finishes the puzzle first as the winner, then we have a game. It’s not crossword what makes the game; it is rather solving the crossword fastest. Crossword becomes an element in the game we just defined, where player faces as a challenge to overcome besides being faster than other players  to become the winner of the game. In this scenario, solving the puzzle is not the main goal any more, but solving it faster hence determining the winner is.

Playing is not only defined between a game and a player. For example, toys are objects that people who play with them also interacts under the act of playing. Other types of play can be turned into a game with similar additions described in previous paragraph. For instance, if we think about weight lifting, it’s hard to say it is a game. There is no certain aim described for the action. Also, no certain rules for how, when or where to lift it is described. Weight stays there just as a challenge for the player (in this case it could be an ambitious guy who likes to lift heavy stuff) It depends on the player’s decision about how to interact with it.  In this sense weight could be defined as a toy. A toy is a manipulable object that the player interacts with the act of play, where no certain goal is defined.  Weight lifting for an adult in this sense, interestingly, is no different than an action figure or a baby doll for a child.  Will Wright, the designer of the Sims series, mentions about his game as a toy.  If we analyze the game, we see that the player is not constrained with a simple goal. There is no way of playing is defined. Players are free to set their own goals and try to accomplish them as they want.  There is not state of winning and losing the game.  So, Sims could be defined as toys that are placed in a world that only the player defines the rules and the purposes, just like a little kid playing with his action figure.

Concept of game could be analyzed in very different aspects and most of the time it’s impossible to present a definition that embraces every case. Some systems may not be taken as games but in a different scenario they could be defined as games.   Without getting it too much into the definition, a designer should be able to understand what and who to design for. These kinds of definitions could only be a hint while following a design process.  On the other hand it is important to understand each and every concept, and keeping them in the arsenal to use when needed.

Game Engine & FPS game

Me and my four tem mates finished our own game engine a couple of weeks ago. It was a class project of Simulation Engines course in my university. We used OGRE framework , also utilized libraries like OpenSteer, OpenAL, Open CV and Boost .  I was the software engineer in the project so I was in charge of the main framework of the game. We also built an FPS game using our engine, it was mostly to show off the capabilities of the engine. I built the states of the game and implemented a good portion of the game play . We had only  2-3 weeks to make the game so the end result is just a small map with couple of enemies.  I learned a lot during the project.  It was the biggest game project I ever worked on, considering all the games that I built so far; I built them on my own  I hope to continue with more game projects in 2010.  Here is the group report of our engine. You can find detailed information about the engine and the game as well.

And this is how our game looks:  Click on the images to see bigger versions.  Soon I hope to put a short video of the gameplay too. By the way, looking at the game you can tell where our inspiration comes from

Spotify – how the cashing works ?

I admit that after I ve discovered Spotify my music world enriched and lifted up to a whole new dimension . I cant even describe how thankful I am to the developers of this ingenious system.  First question I asked when I faced with Spotify for the first time was, “is this heaven ? ” and the second one was ” how the hell this caching works ?” . After browsing and start playing a new song, the system brings the data so fast that user can jump into any second of the song as soon as it starts playing. There is no buffering delay whatsoever  ( at least it seems to the user so )!   I knew that Spotify was a P2P system but still I couldn’t understand how come it works so smoothly. It seems that each Spotify user has a devoted memory for cache list that is sent to main Spotify hub after the first connection. Individuals act as servers listening other incoming users  for the songs they hold in their caches and when a song that is not in users cache is required, it is looked up from the index in Spotify’s hub and fetched as a client to the user.  This means the more popular the song is the faster it will be streamed into the memory. No official information announced  from the developers about how much of the bandwidth is used by the client when streaming to the other users.  Also ,there is no way to configure this in Spotify as oppose to other P2P programs, such as uTorrent.  However cache size and location is configurable. 1 GB of frees pace is recommended when installing Spotify.

Result : “Users can access approximately 6 million tracks via searching for artists, albums, titles, labels and genres ” . Heil Spotify !

Unfortunately membership is provided only services in  Sweden, Spain, Norway, Finland, the United Kingdom and France…

The Game of Mangala

I just stumbled upon this board game on the internet. As a huge board game fan I immediately dived into it. Actually what attracted me the most was the fact that this game was frequently played in ancient Turkish societies,  but it was almost forgotten, sharing the same fate with any other cultural beauty… Well, its never too late Some people are selling the physical game it seems. I’ve seen it in this web site.  I will get my hands on it when I visit home. It seems that the game does not have a certain origin. I’ve also looked it up from other sources, everybody has a different idea. I think its better to enjoy the game rather than discussing its origins.. In the same web page there is a short article talking about the games history, in Turkish cultre. Read here.

Enjoy the game.