08/04/16 - Responding to previous blog post

Blog post about Fahrenheit:


I played through two sessions of the game Fahrenheit, both for at least 2 hours each on the same day. I only planned to play it once, but for some reason the file didn't save so I decided to play it again. On my second encounter with the game I realized the my choices made in the game affected the game's story. In the first play through I was more cautious, trying to get used to the controls and learning what the game is like. When the police officer came towards the bathroom after my player had killed the other guy, I started panicking, not knowing what to do and realizing that this police officer was going to figure it out. I made the choice, unaware of it, to run straight out of the restaurant without paying my bill and the police man was chasing me. All of these choices I made, I had done differently in my second play through and I noticed the differences in the character interactions and the way the story was told. The story didn't change completely, the two police investigators still came to the crime scene and every main story path was still pretty much the same, but my minor choices in the game can affect the minor story nodes the and game play experience. I felt that this made a big impact on the game play experience in Fahrenheit because the freedom to act upon the situations given to the character within the game really immerses the player in the world of the game and it makes you feel like you are a part of the story being told.

In my previous blog post I commented of the choices presented in Fahrenheit Indigo Prophecy, but I did not link this to a reading which I have just found.

In the reading ''Storyplaying" by Sebastian Domsch, the choice situations in games is commented on, and this relates a lot to the choices presented in Fahrenheit because of the fact that they are affected by the passing of time.

"Choice situations can be either a-temporal or have a temporal dimension, which means that there might be a limited amount of time during which the options are available, or that – after a finite amount of time – not making any choices will produce an outcome that is different from the choice situation and that therefore constitutes a choice in itself."

The choices in Fahrenheit are presented to the player following the narrative of the game, and it is up to the player to respond to these choices efficiently as the time of the game is still ticking. The player can choose to do nothing and that choice could inevitably lead them to an end game situation where they get caught because their character just stood there doing nothing. The player can choose to act on these choices quickly, effectively making them less suspicious to police if the situation arises.

08/04/16 - Final Game Blog - Amnesia

Amnesia The Dark Decent is a first person 3D horror game set in a dark castle featuring the protagonist Daniel, who awakens with little memory of himself. The game is built in a way to immerse the player into this environment and take on the role of this character. The player learns very quickly that the character's sanity is an important aspect of the game to keep track of. Being in the darkness for too long can affect the characters sanity, along with seeing unsettling events or looking at monsters. The level design of this game has been built in a way to use the darkness of this large, spooky castle to create a feeling of claustrophobia as the player and the character work towards avoid being in the dark for too long. Amnesia's strong point would be it's level design in my opinion, as it was interesting and innovative at the time of release. The darkness was used to the game's advantage, as it meant that the player has to stick to the areas that were lit from either natural lighting from the windows, or by lighting candles.

In the first level of Amnesia, the player is introduced to the character Daniel, who wakes up groggy minded in a dark castle. The character has a flashback to an event prior to his awakening, in which he remembers that he passed out while trying to remember his own name. Daniel scribbles notes in his journal and these help the player work their way towards following the narrative such as 'follow the red trail on the ground'. The player is put in the same shoes as the character throughout the game, both the player and the character are trying to find out or remember why they woke up in this castle and what their goals are. The player progresses at the same pace as the protagonist as they both work towards discovering information and completing goals and puzzles.
The design of the game is made to feel like an experience rather than a play to win situation. There is little to no music in this game, only eerie ambiance to set the player into the role of Daniel in this castle. The only sounds that can be heard are the footsteps and breathing of the character, fires crackling, wind howling outside and and occasional unknown sounds beyond.

Amnesia's narrative is structured into levels as the player progresses through the game, each getting more interesting and complex than the last. At the start the player is introduced to a basic feeling for the story and is given simple goals to follow as they learn what the game is about. As they progress through the game and finish each level, new aspects of the game are introduced such as information about what the protagonist had done previous to erasing his memory and why, and also along with what is in the castle and what is hunting him. Puzzles are introduced throughout the levels which get more interesting as the game progresses. For example, the player has to gather ingredients for a chemical recipe to destroy a wall made from a strange organic substance in order to progress to the next area. In the Rules of Play reading by Salen and Zimmerman, they discuss this aspect of game play.
"Level or mission structures allow players to feel the details of a story while the game designer maintains control of the larger narrative experience. A game's goal, or series of goals, is part of the narrative context that makes up the game. When goals are well-designed to support the narrative play, a player's interaction with the game world becomes consistently meaningful."
The levels in Amnesia are structured in a way to give the player a sense of immersion within the story and it's narrative, playing as the character and discovering why he is there and his purpose while progressing through the levels. The game designers developed the levels in a way to keep the player feeling immersed within the narrative and the world of the game.


References:
Salen and Zimmerman. 2004. Games as Narrative Play
Page 387

04/04/16 - Final Look Wife

I drew up a final look for the wife and tried out a few different versions for how she could look in the animation. 

The first image has a soft white glow around the edges, with a Gaussian blur overlay and I think it could be very fitting for the alternate world that she resides in.

The second image is just with a Gaussian blur overlay.

The third image has a Gaussian blur overlay and also has a newspaper overlay.

04/04/16 - Piano Model

I quickly finished the model for the piano and updated the models for the bookshelf and the sofa.
Today i realized that I accidentally saved over the old file for the sofa, so I had to redo almost the whole thing, luckily I had saved pictures of what it had looked like before and it didn't take too long to redo the model. I made some small changes to the scene too while I was at it, such at the crinkles in the blanket, the size of the beer bottles and the shoes.
For the bookshelf I took into consideration some advice to make the model look better such as making the left door off the hinge a bit from the earthquake and I added some more books.
For the piano I just looked off the reference Phoenix had found and I hope it looks ok.

Today I will do a final look for the wife character.

02/04/16 - Game Blog - Fez

As a player do you interact with a character or an avatar, and how does this affect your involvement in the narrative?

It doesn't take that long to play through Fez to understand the world that the main character, Gomez lives in and to find out what is required of you, the player. The narrative in Fez is quite simple, which I can also say the same about the main character and the supporting characters. There is a lack of depth within this game's narrative, the only thing that makes it uniquely interesting would be the ability to rotate the world to find and collect the objectives of the game, and solve the hidden puzzles.
Regarding the question of whether the player is playing as a character or an avatar can be debatable. In a sense, Gomez could be both a character or an avatar. The lack of depth within this character's personality, background story and life allows for the player to project themselves onto this blank slate of a character and potentially play as themselves within this world. At the start of the game the player is introduced to the character Gomez in his house and is briefly shown his village, a few village members and how to interact with a few objects. The main character doesn't speak, and neither do most of the members of the village. Only the necessary plot points will show characters and/or objects that you can interact with, and even so, these characters will not say much and they will only repeat the things they last said if you talk to them again.
To think of whether or not Gomez is an avatar or a character, a quote from the reading 'The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies' discusses this thought.
'Rather than using the terms “avatar” and “character” interchangeably, some scholars have sought to locate them on a continuum wherein avatars function primarily as projections of their players, while characters may take on strong, fictional identities that are recognizably separate from those of their players.'
Referring to this argument and comparing it to Fez, it could be argued that Gomez is simply an Avatar, because his identity as a fictional character is quite weak and therefore the player doesn't feel that they have to take on this fictional characters personality in order to play the game. This lack of identity allows for the player to play the game without worrying about how the character would act, rather than themselves.

References:

Jessica Aldred. 17 Dec 2013 ,Characters from: The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies Routledge. Accessed on: 26 Nov 2015 https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9780203114261.ch44