For my first IP, I chose the following exercises from Fullerton:
Exercise 1.2: D.O.A. – Take one game that you’ve played that was D.O.A. Write down what you don’t like about it. What did the designers miss? How could the game be improved?
Mass Effect Andromeda. This was a game I was very excited for as the original Mass Effect trilogy had a profound impact on me. This game was so close to being good and I do believe has a good game buried beneath suffocating layers of control. One aspect I took umbrage with was the changes to the player abilities and squad-based combat. In this system, you upgrade your character and your squad mates with various powers and abilities to be used during the game. A mainstay of the franchise has been streaming your character down one pathway of abilities vs another. An advertised selling feature of this game was the freedom to choose from any tree of powers/abilities which sounded incredible as the game has a theme of freedom and exploration. What they failed to communicate was that although you can choose from over 100 abilities, you are locked into 3 during gameplay. You also lost control of your AI squad mates and can no longer direct their actions during combat rendering their utilization random at best and severely detrimental at worst. This game could be improved by expanding the number of actions you, the player, can take (previous games had up to 8 actions) and to allow you to control your AI squad mates actions directly during the combat pause menu present in all Mass Effect games.
Exercise 1.3: Your Life as a Game – List five areas of your life that could be games. Then briefly describe a possible underlying game structure for each
Commuting to work – Depending on the morning I’m having this area of my life could be a racing sim where the goal is to shave off precious seconds or minutes from a previous personal best or perhaps beat the competition (co-workers) to the finish line (staff parking lot). In a high-traffic situation, this area could become a logistics simulator trying to accommodate for multiple vehicles wanting to merge, finding the most efficient time and location to change lanes, or to plan alternative routes to alleviate congestion.
Grocery shopping – These excursions follow a structure of time-management and efficiency with a goal of completing the trip with the minimum number of steps. If done with friends or family there is a true cooperative element as each party can split to cover more ground quickly. The goal is for a streamlined course of action to be planned on-the-fly and to be executed to perfection.
Hiking – I believe this area could follow a game structure of an open-world RPG game with plenty of exploration and rewards for curiosity. There is potential for competition with yourself or others by bringing time or distance into the equation (travel from Point A to B in the shortest time or distance cross-country) or playfulness with the introduction of geo-caching which is lots of fun to participate in.
Hunting – I feel this area falls upon a first-person shooter structure with an underlying mechanic of stealth where the rules are to quickly and cleanly dispatch your prey with a chance for competition with other hunters depending on the situation (eg. bird hunting with friends)
Marriage – This area of my life would undoubtedly be a relationship simulator where I am constantly presented with a myriad of situations with an unlimited choice of responses, each of which could strengthen or weaken my relationship with my wife.
Exercise 1.5: Your Childhood –List ten games you played as a child, for example, hide and seek, four square, and tag. Briefly describe what was compelling about each of those games
Kick the Can – a compelling aspect of this game was the feeling of camaraderie with my siblings/friends versus whoever was “it” and the glory won by the person freeing everyone from jail by kicking the can.
Mission Impossible – The most compelling aspect of this game for me was sneaking around the woods in the dark while evading the beam of a flashlight – I’ve always been a fan of any games relying on stealth or hiding
Capture the flag – I always found Capture the Flag compelling as it allows for a wide variety of play styles: will your team be aggressive, trying to capture the flag at all costs while leaving your own undefended? Will your team stay on the defensive, playing it safe until you’ve caught enough of the opposing team to weaken their defenses? Will you approach in a bold charge or through stealth and guile? All of these and more have kept this as a high-ranking game in my mind.
Hockey – A compelling aspect of hockey for me, playing road hockey in my neighbourhood, was the flexibility and creativity required with the ever-changing teams. For a portion of one game you might have a team great at passing but weak on shooting so your play style needs to reflect that while later on the teams may shift to balance out which could alter the composition of your team. Every game’s strategy was a fluid state that needed to shift constantly.
Soccer – A compelling aspect of soccer was the teamwork. I was a midfielder for most of my years playing soccer which required a lot of running and working to facilitate the ball from the defense up to the forwards. It was always thrilling to successfully enact moves endlessly drilled in practices in a game with a teammate’s assistance.
Paintball – What isn’t compelling about safely shooting your friends? Your brain is filled with primal urges of hunt or be hunted, fight or flight, and various other strong emotions. The adrenaline rush you get as all this is happening is truly addictive
Lacrosse – a compelling part of this game for me was the physicality that was missing from most games I played growing up. It is important to have healthy outlets for aggression and lacrosse is a fantastic sport for this.
Clue – The compelling part of this for me was developing the skill of deduction and the ability to procedurally eliminate suspicions during the game.
Windsurfer Jousting – this was a fun game to play during summers as we would use windsurf boards and paddle them around a bay in the Gulf Islands. This was compelling as it drew upon your ability to paddle and steer your craft (a skill that has become handy as I adventure more on canoe trips as an adult) whilst trying to maintain your balance on these unstable boards
Baseball – I’ve always enjoyed the dichotomy of playstyles in baseball. Few team sports have such a difference between the “attacking” (up to bat) and “defending” (in the field) teams. The constant change helps keep the play from becoming too static.
Exercise 2.3: Objectives – List five games, and in one sentence per game, describe the objective in each game.
Cities: Skylines – build an ever-growing city while providing for the multiple needs of your citizens and economy.
Killing Floor – Survive multiple waves of zombies, earning money to purchase weapons and armour as you go.
Trine – Use a variety of platforming and physics-based puzzles to progress through levels and save the world.
Star Wars Battlefront (2004) – capture command posts and reduce the numbers of the enemy team faster than they can reduce your team’s numbers
Surviving Mars – with limited resources and in dangerous conditions, terraform the planet for human life and build a viable colony on Mars
Exercise 2.8: Story – Have any stories within a game ever gripped you, moved you emotionally, or sparked your imagination? If so, why? If not, why not?
As stated in Exercise 1.2, I am a die-hard fan of the Mass Effect trilogy. This trilogy is a science-fiction epic set against an imminent galaxy-wide extinction. The trilogy sparks my imagination in regards to how humanity would cooperate with alien races in the pursuit of its own survival. Although I love all three of these games, the standout is Mass Effect 2 which gripped me emotionally from the first few minutes where (SPOILERS), your ship is attacked while flying on a routine mission and the main character sacrifices themselves saving a beloved crew member. You watch as the main character floats off in space with their suit venting air from a leak while the sounds of choking gasps fades and the main title rises on the screen. This trilogy was initially launched with the premise of being a cinematic sci-fi experience. The first game even allowed you to adjust the level of film grain to fit your own cinematic tastes. The games play like an incredible movie/mini-series and the level of writing/voice-acting/music matches any Hollywood blockbuster. The writing is so incredibly strong in this game both in story and dialogue which has made these games some of the most emotionally-impactful that I have ever played.
Exercise 3 .3: Interaction Patterns – For each of the interaction patterns, create a list of your favorite games in each pattern. If you can’t think of any games in a particular pattern, research games in that area and play several of them
Single Player vs Game – Age of Empires 2, Cities: Skylines, Surviving Mars, Frostpunk, Portal, Half-life
Multiple Individual Players vs Game – Bingo, SimCity Buildit
Player vs Player – Super Smash Brothers
Unilateral Competition – Spyfall, Clue, Mafia
Multilateral Competition – Star Wars Battlefront (2004), Terraforming Mars
Cooperative Play – Age of Empires 2, Company of Heroes, Dawn of War: Soulstorm, Left 4 Dead (1&2), Portal 2, Borderlands 1&2
Team Competition – Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike Source, Battlefield 3&4, Star Wars Battlefront (2004)