La decima vittima

During out introduction to persuasive games, we learnt about an apparent somewhat popular game simply named "Killer". In Killer you essentially play the role of an assassin whilst also appearing to live a normal life. As a killer you are given basic information on your target to aid you in their whereabouts, however the game may also overlap into real life as the killer you may choose to find your targets location through other means. Essentially the end goal is to be the Killer to be last left alive, or with the most kills.

After our introduction to the game Killer, we began to look at where it may have originated from, we learnt that it had most likely to have derived from a short story by Robert Sheckley, called The Seventh Victim.

After learning a little more on the origin of Killer, we were introduced to a film called La Decima Vittitma, (The Tenth Victim) An Italian film which was based off of  The Seventh Victim by Sheckley.

We watched the entirety of the film from beginning to end, it was an interesting film to say the least and for some odd reason also reminded of The Purge(2013) although they are very different in terms of tone and story direction, they both had one similar premise, the syndication and entertainment of killing, as though murdering is a sport of sorts. That being said, I must admit the plot was slightly more difficult to follow than The Purge, in particular the ending although it was a "twist" of some sort still had me scratching my head by the time the credits had rolled.

Overall the film was quite entertaining and definitely made me laugh at times, even though I'm sure it wasn't the Producer/Director's intention. It was also particularly interesting to find out the Origins of a game that has apparently been played for a few years here now at UCS.  

My Design Document

A Knight’s Quest

You are one of the four armies of knights that represent your homeland. During your expeditions to find the sacred holy grail, you came across the location of it’s whereabouts. Make Haste and ensure that your army is the one that returns to it’s homeland first, to share the news!

The first player to return all seven of their knights to their belonging homeland is the winner.

Materials and Set up:

Rules:

1. Each Player Starts with 7 “Counters” (Game pieces) and must return each one to it’s corresponding “Homeland” tile, in order to win you must be the first player to return all of your counters.
2. Player may only move along his/hers corresponding “footpath”, (Each player’s foot path is coloured to correspond to the colours of their counters).
3. The player may take one counter out on to the board each turn, However a player may only place a new counter onto the board if their “Starting tower” is vacant.
4. A player may move up to 6 spaces each turn, with 1 being the minimum depending on the corresponding dice throw. However the player may also choose to strategically miss a turn if he/she wishes.
5. On the board there are 4 watchtowers, if your counter lands on one of the watchtowers the player may throw the dice a second time, if the player lands a 6 he/she may roll again.
6. If a player lands on a space that is already occupied by an opposing player’s counter then they have successfully captured the players counter. (When a player captures another  player’s counter they must give it back to the corresponding player for it to be reset and used for another turn).
7. There are 3 “Battle zone” squares on the board, if 2 or more players land on the same Battle zone square, they must all roll their dice, the player with the lowest dice roll must reset all of their counter(s). (Essentially this means that the player’s amount of counters to be put in to play is reset to 7.)
8. In order for the player to successfully capture one of his/her’s counters, the player must roll the exact amount to land on the “Homeland” square.( If the player roles greater than the amount needed they then need to move back the corresponding amount of spaces depending on the dice throw).
9. In the exception that all players in the “Battle zone” role the same amount, the players will then have to role consecutively until there is a player that roles less than the opposing players.
10. To decipher which player rolls first at the beginning of the game, all 4 players must roll at the same time, The player turns are then decided incrementally, with the highest roll being the player that will roll first and the lowest having their turn last.  

Defining games: Caillois' terminology

In a previous lesson we had the opportunity to learn further about the categorization of video games. We learnt that it was important to decipher games from one another by looking at things such as the rules implemented in the games, alongside what the player actually does, objectives etc.

The idea mentioned above can be expressed through Roger Caillois' terminology, discussed by Newman J. The two main terms he mentioned were Paidia and Ludus. Paidia means to "Play for pleasure." whereas Ludus means "Limited by rules with a clear outcome to achieve".

Besides the Paidia and Ludus, Newman also talks about several other ways in which to categorize games by. These other 4 terms also know as Huizinga's four terms (an adaptation made by Cailliois).

The following terms look like this:

Agon (Competition)
Alea (Chance)
Illinx (Vertigo)
Mimicry (Simulation)

Using all the terms above makes life a hell of a lot easier when trying to decipher or generalize a game's Genre/Play style.

For example a relatively new video game such as Grand Theft Auto V (Developed by Rockstar North) can be easily defined within these categorizations. Since the game is both Sandbox and Story driven the game may be categorized slightly differently depending on how people view the game. For me, the game would fall under being a Paidia typed game as the open sandbox world that Rockstar have created is vast and possibilities of what you can achieve in this game feel endless. That being said it is also quite an interesting game as it lends it self from many real world elements. Agon, Alea and Illinx could technically all be defined within this game as it incorporates all the main factors that make up these terms. However with this being said the game would most definitely have to fall under Mimicry, as essentially GTA V is just a simulator, a simulation of real life. As for it being a Paidia typed game this will be more than true with the release of the game hits PC once the modding community gets its hands on it.

My experience going to the British Museum

During our studies of ancient games we took a trip to the British Museum based in London, which happened to house a number of ancient games alongside the stories of their origins,  with one ancient game in particular that had my attention was also being hosted there, that being The Royal Game of Ur.

The Royal Game Of Ur & My iterative approach

During the time that we visited the museum, I was also making iterations of The Royal Game of Ur, So I was particularly interested in finding out more information on the different approaches that were made to find out and decipher the rules of the game originally, or to see if there were any other assumptions of the game that were made during it's early years of discovery. I was interested in these factors primarily as I thought I may be able to gain more knowledge and possibly find more interesting and technical ways of making my own iterative approach to the game seem more approachable.

During our trip we had a rather special tour guide, his name was I.L. Finkel who just so happened to be a scholar and curator of the museum. This was fascinating as he was mentioned numerous times in the text we we're studying called  Murray's Compiled list of board game types, under H.J. R. This was a great experience as it gave us the opportunity to listen to Finkel's insight and overall analysis of the game.

Whilst on our tour we also got the opportunity to take a peak at some of the original pieces on display, as well as a reconstruction of  The Royal Game of Ur,which I also managed to snap a picture of. (pictured below)

Overall I would say that my experience at the British Museum was a positive one, with my knowledge on Ancient games strengthening and learning a little more on the origins of them. However the same cannot be said for the bus journey back home, as it mostly consisted of Juniour sleeping or making me hungry by talking about food when he was awake, besides from this it was an insightful and interesting day.

Ancient Games- The Royal Game of Ur

Throughout  last September and November, we spent a generous amount of time studying historical and ancient games, one of which being The Royal Game of Ur. After studying and playing the game for a number of weeks, we were then given the task of making our own version of the game by tweaking and making various iterations of it.

My Iterative approach to The Royal Game of Ur:

When I first thought about iterating the game I found it difficult to know where to start. So in order to make the iterative process a little easier for myself, I decided to compile a list of what I thought the current version was lacking in terms of mechanics and game play. Here is the list I came up with:

Here is the list I came up with:

·         Player count is restricted to 2 players only
·         The level of user interactivity could be gravely improved
·         Limited risk vs reward factors
·         Games are relatively short
·     Lack of Betting/battering mechanics/alliances

After looking at what I thought was possibly lacking in the current version, I then began to take iterative approaches to make the new version include some of factors that I originally thought could be added.

The final flow of the game looked something like this:

After play testing the final iterated version of the game I had actually come to be pleasantly surprised by it's functionality. when The 4 players, the alliances and risk vs reward mechanics combined, I was worried it may have made the game too over complicated, but I enjoyed playing it and so to did it seem the players that play tasted it did as well.

My experience with bibliographies!

Recently in Critical Games Design we learnt how to create bibliographies, it was an interesting skill to learn and may be a potential asset for future projects.

Schell, J (2008) The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, CRC Press, Florida

Ryan .H.C (2010) "Let's start with the Sky" Unity 3D Game Development by Example. Packt Publishing Ltd, Birmingham, pg 29-47.

I'm a Blogger, Blogging things!

• What is the title of the book (fiction) you are currently reading, or what is the title of the last fiction book you read?

"Well personally I'm not much of "book worm", so when it comes down to reading a fictional story it has to be something I feel like I'm really going to be able to grit my teeth into. However back to the point, technically the last fictional text I read was...Green Eggs & Ham by Dr.Seuss. I remember my little brother bringing it home from school one day and I got an overwhelming sense of nostalgia, as I remember it being one of my favorites from a very young age, I couldn't help myself so I sat down and read it to my little brother, probably enjoying it as much as he did."

• What is the title/topic of the book (non-fiction) you are currently reading, or what is the title/topic of the last non fiction book you read?

"The last non-fiction book I read was called The art of Game Design by Jesse Shell, Although it's part of our syllabus, I do believe some interesting points were made throughout chapter 8, This section mainly discussed the ideas of understanding who the audience is in which you are pitching/developing a game towards, and how it could fundamentally change overall outlook and future of your project scope, all in all it was very useful information and well hopefully aid me soon when I'm in the works of developing my very own game."

• What is the last live performance (music, drama or dance) you attended?

"The last live performance I attended was a music group known as 1975 during this years Reading festival, Overall it was a great show, a huge fan of the band, I must admit though, vocally the lead singer Matt sounds a hell of a lot better on YouTube then he does live, however I can't complain too much, the atmosphere was brilliant and overall the music was spot on."

• What is the title of the last film you saw at a cinema, online or watched on DVD?

"The last film I watched was animated film called My Neighbor Totoro, It's only an hour and 20 minutes long but it's coupled with a great story line, light drama and a lot of comedic aspects. All that alongside a brilliant art style got me gripped and I was kind of sad when I found out there wasn't a sequel or any sort of continuation into series."

• How often do you read the newspaper? (Which one? Online or physical?)

"These day I don't read the newspaper that often however, I used to read a newspaper called Metro almost daily on my commute to school on the tube, it's a free news paper distributed quite widely around London's Metro system, usually there would be one just be on lying on the seat next to me so whenever I had the opportunity I would pick one up and read as much as I could before I arrived at my stop."

• Which art galley, museum or exhibition did you last visit?

"The last exhibition I attended was EGX London  or more commonly known as "The London Gaming expo". It was a pretty interesting experience, especially as was my first time at a Gaming expo or any expo for that matter, It was basically everything you would imagine a gaming expo to be like, large quantities of geeks and nerds playing games with one another, so I felt pretty much at home when attending. However the sheer amount of Naruto Cosplayers on the train back home left the day feeling sort of bitter sweet."

• How many hours a week do you spend playing video games?

 "Let me sum up that question in four words: "Eat, Sleep Game, Repeat.""

• How many hours a week do you spend playing games other than video games?

"Honestly the only physical game I play is Rummy and Black Jack with playing cards, There simple games, rules aren't hard to understand, so it's a win win for everyone that's playing, as for how many hours a week not many, but when there's time for it, it's always good fun."