WHY OH WHY!!!!!

I must be doomed...cursed....fated,destined to fail each and every little thing in this miserable life,one after another!!!!! One of our “fun” modules turned to disaster this week when we submitted it to our lecturers laptop.Its large, glowing initials pulsing at us as, if it was laughing. DELL X.P.S.,Xtremely Pathetic Submission that's what it wanted to say!I could see its flashing lights swaying like KITT from Knight Rider,tauting me! It couldn't have picked a worse time to act up.We had been defeated, and all that was left was for us to hold our heads in our hands as we felt a good mark slip from our reach!

If I ever come across the people that worked on that damn Oblivion construction set they better scarper quick before I teleport their arse half way across the country or stick one of those long fine-steel swords somewhere the sun don't shine!
Why..oh..why!

Writing Games Analysis Module

I'm in total agreement with what was discussed in one of our lectures lately.
I think it would be hugely beneficial to run the Writing Games Analysis module earlier in our course. I feel the teachings of this modules have set alight the fuse of my creativity and it is only a matter of time before it explodes with jaw dropping force amongst the games design community!I only regret that this has not happened long before now.Running this module early in the course would almost definitely lead to move creative graduates with wilder and wilder design ideas......I guess the world will never know what could have been!!!!

Game Proposal!

Ah so its nearly time now to start that auld assignment for our writing games analysis course. So many ideas are floating around in this big brain of mine but which is the way to go?? Im thinking an educational game,for a younger audience perhaps......so what do kids need to be educated on in this day and age then????

Thinking back to my secondary school days,I was involved in my schools environmental group. Yeah I no what your all thinking.....sad!!.....but hey it got me out of double maths so I think ot was a fare trade!We crushed cans and recycled them,picked up litter within the school grounds things like that.We also learned about energy conservation and other techniques to preserve our surroundings.

I think there should be more games that promote environmental awareness and that could be encorporated into the everyday education of todays youths,after all why not start as we mean to go on.

Spaces!!!

Well as the all-knowing Liam Murray once said ...“ya cant talk about game spaces without mentioning GTA” ...so maybe that's the place to start.Grand Theft Auto presents the player with a massive free to foam environment.This enormous game space gives the player the feeling of freedom,the feeling that they can do whatever they want!And thanks to the great folks at Rockstar we pretty much can!Woo-hoo!!!

Another game which I enjoy is SWAT 4,its small game spaces, that of a single house for example is at the opposite end of the spectrum compared to GTA.The player commands two teams of SWAT officers through a given level,with the power of viewing and commanding either team through their head-cams and radios. If the room has multiple exit routes the teams may split up but the commanding player can choose their own path while still maintaining control of his/her squad through an on screen window that displays a view of the game space from one of the team members perspectives. This ability to view the game space from multiple dynamic perspectives simultaneously is an enormously attractive feature in my opinion.

We talked about how the game space in which the game exists contributes to the impact of the game on its players.There are so many features of the game space that impact us, ranging from the size of the space itself to the colors used in the game space, the audio, how it is used to build suspense at times and at other to relax the player, after a big action sequence for example.As in SWAT the levels are usually dark and gloomy,silence builds tension and puts the player on the edge of their seat.Hearing a hostage talking to the perp behind a closed door begging for mercy increases this tension and finally busting through this door into a hostile situation requires all the players focus to provide a positive outcome.It is clear that all of these space related features impact the player significantly.

Rules, rules, rules, and more bloody rules!

Right, so lately in class we were discussing the topic or rules in games.As we contemplated over what exactly rules were, a few words came into focus.We suggested that rules are constraints,or ideas that govern or limit our behaviour.Rules dictate what we can and cant do,or what we are and we are not supposed to do.

We discussed the game of x’s and o’s,its explicit rules and also its unwritten rules.These unwritten rules being I guess the assumptions we bring with us into the game.For instance an explicit rule for x’s and o’s is that players take alternative turns. An unwritten rule for the game is that a player must make their play in a reasonable amount of time.Who defines what the reasonable amount of time is? Each player could have a different perception of what constitutes a reasonable amount of time. Also this rule could be abused and allow a player that has no chance of winning to defer playing and therefore effectively leave the game in a draw.

It was suggested that it would be impossible to create a rule for every situation that may present itself in a game.After all, suppose we state that a move must be made within 5 minutes, then suppose your opponent falls victim to a crippling disease and cannot make his move.Surely we have to create a rule then for this type of situation where the players inability to move is out of his/her control.In this situation,each rule becomes the parent of more rules and so on and so forth.

Games Industry!

Typical,I miss a class and we have a guest speaker!!!! Its a good thing some of the class avoided my crippling hang-over and were able to fill me in! Apparently his name was Gary,unless I've been misinformed. From what I've heard,this well connected shop owner seems to have enlightened my peers a great deal. It was one of the few times I've heard of people actually talking about the kind of jobs that are out there for us. I'm fed up having people coming up to me at home telling me "did you hear Dell have sacked another three hundred!". Aside from mainstream game development,he mentioned work in the support field, modeling,and even marketing which I was surprised to hear.

Right,three hours on, 10 gallons of water later,I'm back in form!!! Just in time for our second guest speaker luckily enough. No sooner had I replenished my bodily fluids than I found myself on the verge of loosing them again. An idea put forward about the death of the games console nearly had me in a fit of tears!Is it really conceivable that the improvements in web storage and the ability of a player to access their game anywhere outside of their own home could really kick the games console into touch?I very much doubt this!In my opinion the games console will be here for a very long time yet. For me, half the excitement of gaming is the build up! Waiting semi-patiently for that next big fix,those few hours of pure elation!I cant see the attraction of having the ability to game in every direction. For me that would ruin the thrill and dampen the immersion!

Online Communities!

Right,so the mayhem is over,presentations are done and dusted,normal service is resumed people.Ah, so this week we discussed massively multiplayer online games (MMOG) and their biggest sub genre, massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG). Well I cant say I'm their biggest fan!That said I haven't much experience with them either. The game of focus was EverQuest. In the fantasy world of Norrath you customize your character,explore the game world,complete quests and other such bull muck! Not particularly exciting in my opinion but there are some interesting aspects of these MMO games, communities being among them. These games give the player the ability to join a faction,guild or community within the game. This ability adds a great deal to the players experience. I've never played EverQuest but I do enjoy other team based games,such as online first person shooters. The team play adds depth to a game.Not wanting to let the side down is enough,combing brains and brawn to accomplish a common goal. Also I feel that the players acceptance and sense of belonging, have led to the popularity of these such games.

Unit Operations!

So what's involved here then?Well what I understood from this discussion,all be it very little, was that these unit operations (UO) can be used to disassemble a medium, be it a film,poem etc. into elements that can be individually critiqued.

 It was compared to Object Technology (OT) which focuses on the use of components in the development of software. This eliminates the need to rewrite certain software or as one of our lecturers loved to say "there's no need to reinvent the wheel!!".

 Both unit operations and object technology seem to have a common goal. They both strive to disassemble a system for examination purposes and reuse.

War Games!!!!

Why are these games so popular?Different types of war games exist that provide different experiences to the player.Strategic war games ,place the player in a positon of authority,with which you dictate to your troops and watch the results of these actions from the sidelines.Other war games,place the player on the battlefield, assuming the role of an individual soldier in the fight for survival.Im my experience of war games nothing gets you as immersed in a game as you do when you play these types of games.Sweaty palms,beating chest,the rumble of the gamepad as a bullet slices through your body,all of which are encountered whilst experiencing what these games have to offer.However there is a dangerous side to the development of games that exhibit acts of war.These games promote the concepts of power and domination,giving the player an ability that only god should possess,the power to take a life!

Another topic dicussed this week,was that of seroius games.Games that dampen down the entertainment side of games and utilise games to educate the player on a serious topic.
With an ever growing population of gamers,these "serious games" are an excellent way to inform people on a wide range of real world situations.

Learning Vs Teaching

So what do we learn from games or what do games teach us?....huh?I no in my experience,games have taught me a lot,for instance I now know that shooting ahead of a moving target is the way to go, or that one carefully positioned shot to the head is an excellent way to conserve ammunition!But seriously games teach us many things,some useful some not so useful.I mean i'm hardly likely to need to know about the advanced technologies an alien race possesses,well not for the foreseeable future anyways, but for example, say I need to stealthily gain access to a protected location,to do this I observe the guards patrol, and work around it.I observed a pattern and patterns help us to learn.I think it is not what a game teaches that is vitally important but how we learn from them.Games improve our learning process, making it easier and easier for us to assimilated new information and better our understanding of previously acquired information.Having knowledge in a specific area allows us to easily build upon it rather than starting from scratch each time.

The one and only round!

So weve got a fight on our hands have we!Ludologist versus naratologist,to your corners please!In the red corner swinging away,this man dont know where he came from,why hes here,hes just happy hes here and happy hes playing.He pounces from his corner, fists flyin, but oh whats this, the naratologist is still in his corner,facing his cut-man and,yes,yes ,hes is,hes telling him a story!!!This is highly unorthodox!.Thats not gonna help him here folks and rightly so!.Oh and its a devastating one,two combo from the ludologist,and down goes the boy in blue!!Thats one story he wont be telling his grandchildren!.

CS4067

What is a blog?.....a simple web log?,a whiteboard of the mind possibly. . . capturing all those little pulses,one after another,resulting in an archive of the endless information we digest, day in day out,month after month until we eventually fry a brain-cell and need to re-format the auld hard drive.There has to be more to life than this or maybe just a better balance,how do we juggle work and play?Can there be an even balance between the ups and downs in life!As a student im finding that as i've progressed from a vertiginous little first year whose main predicament was which night club to attend, to a now more informed fourth year,something has been lost,maybe its my will to live!With all this talk of final year projects within minutes of our return, its enough to drive one mad!!Deadline after deadline flashed before our eyes warning us of our impending failure!Thank god we can turn to gaming to release the pressure,theres nothing like blowing up a tank,slaughtering a pedestrian, or picking off a sniper to relax a man!!!