The third and final instalment of the Games Britannia dealt, of course, with the leap to video games and the influence they have had on gaming.
Looking at the arrival of "Dungeons & Dragons" and how it changed the way people looked at games as well as video games such a "Populous" and "Black and White", games which held you responsible for saving lives instead of ending them. Of course, you have the freedom to decide whether to be a cruel or kind God in these games, however the game will tell you which way you are going: people will fear you, the landscape will change and the little you can see of yourself (your hand) will become uglier the further you travel down the path of cruelty and wilful neglect of the people looking to you for salvation.This was the first time there had really been such a thing as repercussions in video games, you got to decide whether you were the 'good guy' or the 'bad guy' and the game treated you appropriately.
In stark contrast to this was the controversy caused by games in which you could do terrible things with seemingly no repercussions except, that is, a chance to cause more wanton destruction when they police came for you. I refer, of course, to the incredibly popular "Grand Theft Auto" series. This game allowed you the freedom to do pretty much anything you wanted in the seedy underbelly of a city and people loved the chaos.
The episode also focused on the arrival of Lara Croft on the gaming scene, a character who had a story and who could be understood. As well as the introduction of games that allowed and encouraged you to create your own content such as "Little Big Planet".
The episode focussed on the untapped potential of gaming and how much we can still discover, it made me excited to make headway and discover something else that no-one has ever seen in gaming before.
Thursday 27 March 2014
Games Britannia: Monopolies and Mergers
The second episode in the Games Britannia series follows gaming into morals and politics instead of religion and simply making a game from nothing.
Mansion of Bliss was a game all about morals and promoting good behaviour in children, the game itself, however, was a simple game of chance. Following more along the lines of trends and less on the moral compass was Pank a Squith which followed the story of Emily Pankhurst.
Although some trends have been almost completely forgotten the following games are still strong today, although the first not by the name it originated with. Brer Fox an' Brer Rabbit was the spiritual forerunner to Monopoly and Cluedo and Scrabble have remained the same for long years.
Mansion of Bliss was a game all about morals and promoting good behaviour in children, the game itself, however, was a simple game of chance. Following more along the lines of trends and less on the moral compass was Pank a Squith which followed the story of Emily Pankhurst.
Although some trends have been almost completely forgotten the following games are still strong today, although the first not by the name it originated with. Brer Fox an' Brer Rabbit was the spiritual forerunner to Monopoly and Cluedo and Scrabble have remained the same for long years.
Games Britannia: Dicing with Destiny
Over the course of the academic year we watched three episodes of "Games Britannia", a documentary dedicated to looking at the history of games in the British isles. Part 1, "Dicing with Destiny" showed us the earliest games to be found in England: I will cover briefly here what was covered in the episode.
The Stanway Game was discovered at a burial site beneath a body and is believed to be one of the earliest examples of a game in British history hailing from the time of the Roman occupation of Britain historians have dated the game at a staggering 45AD.
Alea Evangelii seemed to be an English version of Tafl, a game I mentioned in my Ancient Games blog post, as with a lot of the games of this time it is heavy in spirituality and religion. The game came from medieval Britain and is also known as "Game of the Gospels".
Backgammon, Dice and Chess all owe their British introduction to the book "Libro de los Juegos" which literally translates as "The Book of Games".
The final game was "9 Men's Morris", the game that seems to pop up all over the world. According to Irving Finkel this is because the game seems to be the obvious way to go when one wants to make a game from nothing.
The Stanway Game was discovered at a burial site beneath a body and is believed to be one of the earliest examples of a game in British history hailing from the time of the Roman occupation of Britain historians have dated the game at a staggering 45AD.
Alea Evangelii seemed to be an English version of Tafl, a game I mentioned in my Ancient Games blog post, as with a lot of the games of this time it is heavy in spirituality and religion. The game came from medieval Britain and is also known as "Game of the Gospels".
Backgammon, Dice and Chess all owe their British introduction to the book "Libro de los Juegos" which literally translates as "The Book of Games".
The final game was "9 Men's Morris", the game that seems to pop up all over the world. According to Irving Finkel this is because the game seems to be the obvious way to go when one wants to make a game from nothing.
Remediation
Remediation is the process of taking something from one type of media and applying it to another. For example, taking the constant flow of information in a breaking news update and applying it to a video game to get the HUD (Heads Up Display). The transition is not always smooth, but it does usually result in a trend if the remediation works and the two concepts gel and thus is an important tool to consider when creating games.
Ancient Game Tweaking
Our first assessment this year was to take an ancient game and, using what we had learned in our lectures, iterate them. Our test was to come up with a version of the game that we felt was more suited to modern times and was an improvement on the ancient original.
The game that I chose to improve was the Royal Game of Ur, a game I mentioned in one of my previous blog posts aptly named Ancient Games. I have to admit it was difficult to improve upon Ur and that iteration in general was a lot harder than I had first expected. I proved to me how useful and how necessary the iteration process is when developing a game, if it doesn't get play tested then one can potentially miss loads of problems that only asking people to play your game and seeing what happens can turn up.
The game that I chose to improve was the Royal Game of Ur, a game I mentioned in one of my previous blog posts aptly named Ancient Games. I have to admit it was difficult to improve upon Ur and that iteration in general was a lot harder than I had first expected. I proved to me how useful and how necessary the iteration process is when developing a game, if it doesn't get play tested then one can potentially miss loads of problems that only asking people to play your game and seeing what happens can turn up.
Pervasive Games and La Decima Vittima
When people think of games they usually think of either computer games or board games, things that are completely removed from the real world.
Pervasive gaming, however, takes place in the real world and thus opens up all sorts of new possibilities. An example of pervasive gaming would be a treasure hunt or a paper chase, but more recently people have become more and more creative when creating pervasive games. This has led to things like LARPing, or Live Action Role Playing, people take on a character wholly for as long as the LARPing event lasts and get to take part on what has been described as a live action version of Dungeons and Dragons role-playing.
A new form of pervasive game that has become popular with the release of such things as the Japanese book/film "Battle Royale", but was sparked by odd, Italian film named La decima vittima (the tenth victim), is a game called 'Killer' or 'Assassin'. It started on certain University campuses in America, a student would join an 'assassin's' or 'hunter's' guild and as such would sign up for the game, they would be given the name of someone they had to 'kill' (another person in the guild, so as to avoid scaring people who weren't aware of the game) and would have to find a way to take out their target. It was all completely non-lethal, of course, 'killing' would have to be done in a harmless way, for example with an alarm clock in their bag representing a bomb or 'stabbing' your target with a wooden spoon.
However, once you sign up to be an assassin you also sign up to be a victim, people got to enjoy the thrill of being the hunter and hunted without any actual danger. As previously mentioned, this movement started after the release of La decima vittima, a peculiar film set in the future where crime and war have been abolished by the set up of the Big Hunt Club, a place where people can indulge their most primal and violent urges within the bounds of the law. Once you sign up you pass through five phases of being the hunter and the victim, as a hunter you hunt another member of the Big Hunt, someone who's turn it is to be the victim and as the victim you must survive and kill your hunter. Once you make it to ten kills you are rewarded with fame, glory and vast amounts of money.
The people who started killer wanted to experience the same thrill, but without the risk of actual harm, and so 'Killer' was born.
Technology has also allowed pervasive gaming to make huge leaps forward, with smart phones equipped with scanners and cameras there are becoming an increasing number of AR or Augmented Reality games. As well as treasure hunts where people follow odd symbols that can only be scanned by the QR scanners on their phones or pads.
It would seem that gaming is making a leap from tabletop and screen to the real world.
Pervasive gaming, however, takes place in the real world and thus opens up all sorts of new possibilities. An example of pervasive gaming would be a treasure hunt or a paper chase, but more recently people have become more and more creative when creating pervasive games. This has led to things like LARPing, or Live Action Role Playing, people take on a character wholly for as long as the LARPing event lasts and get to take part on what has been described as a live action version of Dungeons and Dragons role-playing.
A new form of pervasive game that has become popular with the release of such things as the Japanese book/film "Battle Royale", but was sparked by odd, Italian film named La decima vittima (the tenth victim), is a game called 'Killer' or 'Assassin'. It started on certain University campuses in America, a student would join an 'assassin's' or 'hunter's' guild and as such would sign up for the game, they would be given the name of someone they had to 'kill' (another person in the guild, so as to avoid scaring people who weren't aware of the game) and would have to find a way to take out their target. It was all completely non-lethal, of course, 'killing' would have to be done in a harmless way, for example with an alarm clock in their bag representing a bomb or 'stabbing' your target with a wooden spoon.
However, once you sign up to be an assassin you also sign up to be a victim, people got to enjoy the thrill of being the hunter and hunted without any actual danger. As previously mentioned, this movement started after the release of La decima vittima, a peculiar film set in the future where crime and war have been abolished by the set up of the Big Hunt Club, a place where people can indulge their most primal and violent urges within the bounds of the law. Once you sign up you pass through five phases of being the hunter and the victim, as a hunter you hunt another member of the Big Hunt, someone who's turn it is to be the victim and as the victim you must survive and kill your hunter. Once you make it to ten kills you are rewarded with fame, glory and vast amounts of money.
The people who started killer wanted to experience the same thrill, but without the risk of actual harm, and so 'Killer' was born.
Technology has also allowed pervasive gaming to make huge leaps forward, with smart phones equipped with scanners and cameras there are becoming an increasing number of AR or Augmented Reality games. As well as treasure hunts where people follow odd symbols that can only be scanned by the QR scanners on their phones or pads.
It would seem that gaming is making a leap from tabletop and screen to the real world.
Bibliography practice
During the past year we have been learning how to use the Harvard reference system, here I have a bibliography that I have created from books and articles I have read over the year as practice to perfecting this form of referencing.
Finkel, I. Ancient Board Games. 1931, Steward, Tabori & Chang.
Braithwaite, B & Schreiber, I. Challenges For Games Designers. 2008, Cengage Learning.
Leblanc, M. Commisioned essay 'Tools For Creating Game Dynamics' in The Game Design Reader: A Rules Of Play Anthology. 2006, MIT, pp. 438-459
Knizia, R. Commissioned Essay in: Rules of Play:Game Fundamentals. 2004, MIT, pp. 22-27.
Finkel, I. Ancient Board Games. 1931, Steward, Tabori & Chang.
Braithwaite, B & Schreiber, I. Challenges For Games Designers. 2008, Cengage Learning.
Leblanc, M. Commisioned essay 'Tools For Creating Game Dynamics' in The Game Design Reader: A Rules Of Play Anthology. 2006, MIT, pp. 438-459
Knizia, R. Commissioned Essay in: Rules of Play:Game Fundamentals. 2004, MIT, pp. 22-27.
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