Week 2

3 Game Challenges:

- Game for Pre K to Grade 1-3: I decided to create a more modern version of kid pix mixed with a simplified Photoshop design. The child will be supplied with a bar at the bottom of the screen with colourful buttons (ex. paint brush, stamps, pencil, eraser), and everytime a button will be clicked, he or she will be able to hear the name of the tool. When I was younger, I use to love Kid Pix and I thought it would be a great idea to re-use this game but making it more on the educational level. Games for children need to have the fun aspect with the learning aspect and this game will be able to provide that with endless possibilities for ones imagination.

Once the child chooses his or her tool and hears the name of the tool aloud, he/she is surprised with either rainbow colours, different stamp icons with each click of a mouse, different line thickness with the pencil, etc. Also, the tools will be very varied and one of them will be able to animate your art piece briefly with the paint strokes dancing to a song the kid chooses. This game is best played on the computer but can also be played on the Wii since its family oriented, and on the ipad since they can use their fingers to draw (cleaner than real paint). E for Everyone.

- Game with One Button: The game I came up with using only one button is with a venus fly trap and bugs. One button games are known to be quite addictive in terms of beating your own score. In this game, the player must use the one key/button on a keyboard/remote and persistently click that button so the venus fly trap's mouth stays open. The player must keep the fly trap's mouth open in order to catch as many bugs as possibly but beware, there a certain things it can't eat. This is why you must immediately let go of the button/key so the mouth closes. The player is given 3 lives and calculates the score on the number of bugs swallowed and the time it took before dying.

I got inspired from the analog game Crocodile Dentist when the player must remove the teeth one by one till the mouth closes on your hand. This game will have a very simplistic design and look cartoonish as well. Also, this game will most likely be played on the computer and smart phones since it is like an application (ex. angry birds). Not a complicated game, quite simple yet challenging, and most of all; addictive. E for Everyone.

- Cooperative Game but also Betraying Allies: This game was more difficult to come up with but thanks to the classic game of "Clue", it inspired me to come up with a strategic game. Since there are not that many pirate games and more "World of Warcraft" style games, well, you can guess the rest. The goal of the game is to solve puzzles and win challenges so that the Pirate team the player chooses finds the treasure. Challenges may be to help the player get the map, if one teammate betrays others to find which one it is before he/she steals the gold. The player must cooperate with his team on his ship to guide him to the treasure. Once this treasure is found, the team must be betrayed so only the player can leave with it. The challenges are different everytime depending on the team one chooses.

In addition, this game has a slight narrative but not too much to overload the game and can be rated T for Teen. Be careful that the team does not think the Captain will betray them because if one senses it, the player's Pirate will walk the plank! Designed with complex 3D models, this game can be played on consoles such as PS3 and XBOX.

Review:

"Simulation versus Narrative: Introduction to Ludology" by Gonzalo Frasca

Narratives are essential to ours lives by providing a basis for communication and information transmission. In Gonzalo Frasca’s article, he presents to the reader the contrast between media past and the newcomer: videogames. The narratological position is that games should be understood as novel forms and studied using theories of narrative. The ludological position is that games should be understood on their own terms and should be focused on the rules of the game itself. Though I am not sure to agree with the saying that video games are not held together by a narrative structure, this reading highlights successfully the importance of researching the power of stimulation. I find that that every video game is different and one might be held together by a strong narrative structure in compared to others that have no story at all. Games may not completely be non-narrative nor are not structured like narratives, but do require structuralism since it is the first step to understanding the basic characteristics of the game.

Nonetheless, Frasca goes on explaining that there is an alternative to presentation and narrative that is stimulation. From drawing to writing to composing, these means of transmission are considered linear and representational rather than simultational. However, the contrast in videogames tests the multitude of connections and relationships examined by the player, and thus the nonlinear mode takes shape. To understand between, he explains that, “games are just a particular way of structuring stimulation, just like narrative is a form of structuring representation”. But don’t they all connect in a way? It seems that video games are able to trigger the brain’s behavioral intuitiveness, making use of the body’s perceptivity. From personal experience this is true since the feeling of painting of a canvas is not the same as painting on Photoshop. I guess it is easier to apply narratology than to imagine a new approach.

In addition, with the latest technology on the market, games are able to place the player on a level as enticing as a pure narrative structure. Frasca says that game creators are restrained to narratives. On the other hand, stimulation is not a replacement for representation but rather an alternative.

To conclude, this article discussed two general structures in the simulated environment, ludus and paidia. This reading tends to be quite complex and sometimes confusing because of the terms Frasca employs as he goes back and forth about ludology. Frasca discusses that the basic assumption of a simulation is that change is possible but it seems rather naïve. So what should the next games resemble: more simulation and less narrative, no narrative structure and only simultation? It is up to the programmer and the player to decide.