You only have today until tomorrow dies

Waves of monsters/enemies
Traps/defense mechanisms
Different effects for traps. Can implement a system that makes use of “class trees” where prerequisite points must be put into the more basic options in order to unlock the more powerful abilities
Different classes will have different abilities/strengths (ie fire, ice, earth, lightning, etc)
Leveling up system for both the players defense mechanisms and the enemy monsters; varied attributes such as slower(higher hp), faster(less hp), immune to certain types of player defenses, ability to bypass obstructions
Modes; more lives for easier levels, 0/1 for “impossible”
Currency to build defenses with; as player progresses throughout the game, access to more powerful weapons and defenses will be unlocked
Towers/defenses can have the potential to “level up”, and get stronger based on the number of kills that they acquire

Imagine a Spartan warrior, betrayed and forsaken by the gods he believes in, is now on an epic journey to kill them all – specifically Ares, the God of War. If you’re ready to line up at the movie theaters, it won’t be there anytime soon. It’s the premise of a videogame and as you play the game you take on the role of the warrior taking on the burden of his plight and his mission. The further you go along, cinematic elements of the story are fleshed out right before your eyes. Cinematic videogames like God of War will be more affluent in the future. It wasn’t until recently that more and more of them are heading in that direction.

I was exposed to a lot of movies and videogames when I was younger. It eventually turned me to the cinephile and videogame enthusiast I am today. The first videogame I ever played was 1985’s Super Mario Brothers for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1987. It was made by Shigeru Miyamoto and it chronicles the adventure of a plumber named Mario who is trying to rescue Princess Peach, from the clutches of the evil King Koopa.

The gameplay was unique and unprecedented but the journey was not engaging. You simply just pick up the controller and play monotonously until you beat the game. The gameplay consisted of Mario jumping on bad guys to defeat them, with the occasional fire flower pick me up to enable you to project fireballs.

At the time, I compared Super Mario to the movie The Princess Bride by Rob Reiner, which also came out in 1987. What Super Mario did was take the tried and true formula of rescuing the princess, (similar to The Princess Bride), and turned it over its head by having a plumber as the hero and the main villain as a turtle-type dinosaur. I favored Princess Bride for the story and adventure and imagined the possibilities of what would it be like in videogame form. This is what Super Mario was lacking, an engaging story that made you want to rescue the princess because of what is at stake.

Videogame players are looking for more story and more actions to choose from in today’s videogames. Videogames have come a long way since 1987, and more and more of them exhibit gameplay mechanics intertwining with the experience of watching a movie unfold right before your eyes. It’s also as if the Choose Your Own Adventure books you read as a child has now turned into a videogame and the actions and decisions you choose are visually manifested for you to experience. If you want to save the world go to page 59, etc.

How do you want to save the world?

Mass Effect developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts, is an action role playing game that enables you to choose or modify the character you want to play and control every minute action that will change his or her story accordingly. You are Commander Shepard, and you are tasked with saving the universe from being annihilated by a supreme alien race. Mass Effect, requires the player to play it more than once in order to see the multiple endings it has to offer by exploring the decisions and actions not made by the player in their previous play through. Mass Effect uses the graphic capabilities of the Unreal Engine 3 and is smoothened out further still with the release of Mass Effect 3 by using the Mass Effect 3 Engine.

When I finally got my hands on a copy of Mass Effect and played it, I was stunned to experience the depth of control the player has over their character. When it came to dialogue you can choose what to say. Do you want to be good? Choose to say something nice. Do you want to be evil? Choose to say something harsh. And that could convey on the actions you want to decide to take as well. You have the makings and capability of being your own Jedi or Sith a la Star Wars. With countless of options on how you want to shape your engaging story of saving the world, it’s no mystery why Mass Effect has high replayability values.

How will you solve the mystery?

Heavy Rain (released in February 23, 2010) developed by Quantic Dream and published by Sony Computer Entertainment, is another game worth mentioning that is heavily cinematic in terms of interactive gameplay. It is an evolving thriller told in the perspectives of four characters who are trying to solve the mystery behind some serial killings done in the area. The world presented echoes the film-noir style of the 1940s and 1950s. Heavy Rain uses the Havok 2.0 Engine for the physics in the world and uses motion-captured animations by real actors to flesh out the realism of the videogame - similar to how the CG movie Beowulf was filmed. Like Mass Effect, the actions you choose as a player decides the overall outcome of your playthrough.

It was amazing being able to see some cinematic action on screen with the ability to change the outcome. If someone is choking you, shake the six-axis controller up and down to break free. That’s the difference between Mass Effect and Heavy Rain, other than they typical pause of choosing the dialogue, how they approached the action was entirely new and refreshing. When I first heard about Heavy Rain and the concept behind it, I was both anxious and excited to see how much closer it was to being an interactive film. The realistic overtones were palpable and if you’re not responsive enough to stop your attackers, the experience will end right there.

Can it be more realistic?

L.A. Noire developed by Team Bondi and published by Rockstar Games is a videogame that garnered buzz with the high level of realism it offers graphically. You are a detective in “a perfectly re-created Los Angeles” and can decide a number of ways to solve a series of mysteries. Team Bondi used their in-house engine that is a combination of facial motion capture and animation software. In fact, the amount of motion capture cameras they utilized is unparalleled if you compare it to Beowulf and Heavy Rain. As a result, the computer processes all the nuances of facial and body movements that the actor embodies.

The videogames of today are at the threshold of what will ultimately become the future of videogaming. L.A. Noire will set the bar in terms of graphic capabilities and cinematic interaction. I have noticed that less people are going out to see new movies but there are more people playing videogames now than before. I believe in the near futurewill come a time where both film and videogames will nearly be indistinguishable. Maybe it won’t come with this generation of consoles but the next generation is just over the horizon.

     Imagine a Spartan warrior, betrayed and forsaken by the gods he believes in, is now on an epic journey to kill them all – specifically Ares, the God of War. If you’re ready to line up at the movie theaters, it won’t be there anytime soon. It’s the premise of a videogame and as you play the game you take on the role of the warrior taking on the burden of his plight and his mission. The further you go along, cinematic elements of the story are fleshed out right before your eyes. As I learned concepts and game design during Game Studies, I have come to realize that there are a lot of similarities in designing a video game and producing a movie. So it would not surprise me that cinematic videogames like God of War will be more affluent in the future.

    I was exposed to a lot of movies and videogames when I was younger. It eventually turned me to the cinephile and videogame enthusiast I am today. The first videogame I ever played was 1985’s Super Mario Brothers for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1987. It was made by Shigeru Miyamoto and it chronicles the adventure of a plumber named Mario who is trying to rescue Princess Peach, from the clutches of the evil King Koopa.

    The gameplay was unique and unprecedented but the journey was not engaging. You simply just pick up the controller and play monotonously until you beat the game. The gameplay consisted of Mario jumping on bad guys to defeat them, with the occasional fire flower pick me up to enable you to project fireballs.                         

    At the time, I compared Super Mario to the movie The Princess Bride by Rob Reiner, which also came out in 1987. What Super Mario did was take the tried and true formula of rescuing the princess, (similar to The Princess Bride), and turned it over its head by having a plumber as the hero and the main villain as a turtle-type dinosaur. I favored Princess Bride for the story and adventure and imagined the possibilities of what would it be like in videogame form. This is what Super Mario was lacking, an engaging story that made you want to rescue the princess because of what is at stake.

Gamification

    But even before Mario came along I was out saving princesses and damsels in distress in my house, making sure to not touch the carpet because it was hot lava. But something was missing for me. I just jumped in one day and thought the floor was lava and tried to cross it through couches to reach a princess. Why did I want to save this imaginary princess? At the time I didn’t know. Little did I know that the process of turning something that is normally not a game, into having game mechanics was called gamification. All this time, I was telling people I just used my imagination.

Narratology and Ludology

    Narratology is the study of narrative and narrative structure. It started out with books where a reader would use their imagination to see what the actions being described on the page would look like. And then with the advent of films, the viewer can see the actions happening on screen to go along with the story. I believe that video games are the next platform where narratology could be completely interactive. This is where ludology would come into play. Ludology is a yet non-existent discipline of studying games and play activities. With more video game players looking for more story and more actions to choose from in today’s videogames, ludology would become necessary as a discipline for game makers to study much like how writers dissect poetry and books, and filmmakers dissect scenes and movies.

    Videogames have come a long way since 1987, and more and more of them exhibit gameplay mechanics intertwining with the experience of watching a movie unfold right before your eyes. It’s also as if the Choose Your Own Adventure books you read as a child has now turned into a videogame and the actions and decisions you choose are visually manifested for you to experience. If you want to save the world go to page 59, etc.

How do you want to save the world?

    Mass Effect developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts, is an action role playing game that enables you to choose or modify the character you want to play and control every minute action that will change his or her story accordingly. You are Commander Shepard, and you are tasked with saving the universe from being annihilated by a supreme alien race. Mass Effect, requires the player to play it more than once in order to see the multiple endings it has to offer by exploring the decisions and actions not made by the player in their previous play through. Mass Effect uses the graphic capabilities of the Unreal Engine 3 and is smoothened out further still with the release of Mass Effect 3 by using the Mass Effect 3 Engine.            

    When I finally got my hands on a copy of Mass Effect and played it, I was stunned to experience the depth of control the player has over their character. When it came to dialogue you can choose what to say. Do you want to be good? Choose to say something nice. Do you want to be evil? Choose to say something harsh. And that could convey on the actions you want to decide to take as well. You have the makings and capability of being your own Jedi or Sith a la Star Wars. With countless of options on how you want to shape your engaging story of saving the world, it’s no mystery why Mass Effect has high replayability values.

How will you solve the mystery?

    Heavy Rain (released in February 23, 2010) developed by Quantic Dream and published by Sony Computer Entertainment, is another game worth mentioning that is heavily cinematic in terms of interactive gameplay. It is an evolving thriller told in the perspectives of four characters who are trying to solve the mystery behind some serial killings done in the area. The world presented echoes the film-noir style of the 1940s and 1950s. Heavy Rain uses the Havok 2.0 Engine for the physics in the world and uses motion-captured animations by real actors to flesh out the realism of the videogame - similar to how the CG movie Beowulf was filmed.  Like Mass Effect, the actions you choose as a player decides the overall outcome of your playthrough.

    It was amazing being able to see some cinematic action on screen with the ability to change the outcome. If someone is choking you, shake the six-axis controller up and down to break free. That’s the difference between Mass Effect and Heavy Rain, other than they typical pause of choosing the dialogue, how they approached the action was entirely new and refreshing. When I first heard about Heavy Rain and the concept behind it, I was both anxious and excited to see how much closer it was to being an interactive film. The realistic overtones were palpable and if you’re not responsive enough to stop your attackers, the experience will end right there.

Can it be more realistic?

    L.A. Noire developed by Team Bondi and published by Rockstar Games is a videogame that garnered buzz with the high level of realism it offers graphically. You are a detective in “a perfectly re-created Los Angeles” and can decide a number of ways to solve a series of mysteries. Team Bondi used their in-house engine that is a combination of facial motion capture and animation software. In fact, the amount of motion capture cameras they utilized is unparalleled if you compare it to Beowulf and Heavy Rain. As a result, the computer processes all the nuances of facial and body movements that the actor embodies.                     

Mechanic, Dynamic, Aesthetic  

     I have noticed that less people are going out to see new movies but there are more people playing videogames now than before. The most fascinating thing I learned about in Game Studies is how Le Blanc’s concept of Mechanic, Dynamic and Aesthetic can be applied to filmmaking. This is important because while books and literature provide resources for movies; and books, literature and movies provide resources for game design – game design has a concept that can be used as an applied resource to filmmaking.

    Le Blanc’s MDA Framework for a game designer is Mechanic (Rules), Dynamic (System), and Aesthetic (Fun). A game designer must create the rules of the game then structure a system to employ those rules and try to make it a fun experience for the player. The player then plays the game to determine if it’s a fun experience depending on the rules of how the game works and the world it is presented to.

    Now if I apply that to making movies, making a plot, characters and the world they live in would come first, then drawing up a storyboard to determine what scenes to shoot to convey the story would be next, and the resulting film would be seen by an audience and later dissected to find the point that the filmmaker was trying to make.

      I believe in the near future, there will come a time where both film and videogames will nearly be indistinguishable and ludology would be an accepted discipline. Video games are an evolving art form that gets better with technology much like how film is today. I hope that one day, if a filmmaker cannot express their story concept through the film medium, turning it into a video game instead would be an accepted viable option. That way, the ending of your play/viewing experience will be left in the gamer’s/viewer’s hands.

In regards to the youtube video we watched about Gamification and the article we read by Ian Bogost. I have to side more towards what Ian Bogost is trying to convey. Although both sides presented good points and I’ll admit to agreeing to some of them. I think that using Gamification as a business ploy loses the artistic merit that game developers try to convey when they make games.

I understand that we use gamification to transform somewhat mundane tasks to be something more entertaining but when companies focus on this aspect for the sole purpose of turning profit, it tarnishes and transforms it into something cold and mundane itself.

Write how this affects you personally

According to Anna Anthropy’s book. these are the reasons

What to make a game about:

your dog, your pet, your mother, your father, your friends, your childhood home, your first job, the job you wish you had, your first true love, your deepest secrets, your undying love, your hopes, your dreams, the thing you were afraid of when you were little, your hope for a better you, your hope for a better day, the experience of forgetting or remembering, the experience of aging, the experience of opening a business, the experience of opening your heart, the experience of taking drugs, your favorite fairy tale of book

The book is written for people outside of the game industry

The book doesn’t require you to be in the game industry or have technical knowledge about it.

She was a member of the Guild Hall.

To get game making experience is to make games

She moved to Oakland because there’s a scene there; she’s involved with a lot of game makers.

Being good is not the goal here, it’s making more stuff.

Anyone who wants to get involved should just go ahead.

People who don’t identify making games is much needed than celebrities trying to make their own videogame.

Her book was about tearing down the walls of game making inorder to open it up to people who ordinarily don’t make games.

She views that people who do not know the literacy of game making can still jump in and work it out as you go along the way.

She puts a lot of her stuff on Newgrounds and she put her game dys4ia on it, which is pretty much an autobiographical journey of what she went through done in a game. She was surprised that that community was so receptive of her work.

She thinks that videogame awards show is a grotesque show.

Gamers are driven to understand things

Many of her games provide a score in the end

She thinks that there is still value in assigning a score.

Skill based games, pure exploration and storytelling, and grueling punishing games can be all one in the same.

Saints Row series is her favorite triple A game.

She points to Saints Row as a model for people to follow if they want a game that allows you to pick your gender identifiers.

She is a very controlling collaborator. She likes to have that hierarchy and she likes having people do things for her.

Personally, having someone like Anna Anthropy encourage people with no game making experience is something I can relate to. Before taking Game Studies class, I had no prior experience in making a video game. I would always think up ideas of making one, but it was always a case of being a dreamer and not a doer. However, listening to Anna in the video, makes me want to try and actually make the games that’s in my head. What I learned from Anna, is to just go do it, and experience will follow the more you make games so it’s finally time for me to stop dreaming and take action.

What I learned about Anna Anthropy is that she is a prolific game creator that has been part of the design underground online for a long time and is also a prolific writer/blogger. She wrote a book called Rise of the Videogame Zinesters in 2011. She is also transgender and incorporates themes of LGBT and master-slave dynamics in the games she creates. I played two games of hers, Calamity Annie and Mighty Jill Off.

The premise of Calamity Annie is simple, it’s a simple gun duel between two people and you take the role of Calamity Annie. You only have one bullet to kill or disarm opponents. The beginning of the level asks you to holster your gun before you are signaled to draw. You get bonus points for disarming the opponent. If you draw too early, you get a strike. Three strikes and you lose a card. After you lose 3 cards it’s game over. You control with a mouse and click to fire. Also if you do not fire within a time limit, the opponent will shoot you first, taking a card away from you.

It gets harder as you go along the way but I get the appeal of it all. It’s simple and fun.

The premise of Mighty Jill Off is that you take on the role of Jill, a slave, who just wants to lick her master’s boots. Her master kicks her off the top of a tower and Jill has to make her way back up top by jumping through obstacles. You jump with Z and to make her levitate for a while, you repeatedly press Z to do so.

The game is hard. You have to know when and where to levitate and have to consistently pay attention if you’re consistent in repeatedly pressing the Z key. The premise is simple and the level design is creative. There are spikes and fires that can kill you, and enemies as well that obstruct your way to the top.

All in all, Anna Anthropy makes the most of what she has to work with and creates and uses uncommon themes in her game design that is presentable and fun to play.

Pat:
Mass effect was so sad! I love how they ended it

Tim:
I chose synthesis, bc it didn’t make sense for me on this playthrough to save the geth only to wipe them all out in the end lol What did you pick?

Dude I had to retry the 3 husks and a marauder part hella times -_-

Pat:
Same. Picked the right choice. I’ll be picking the reaper one next.

God, I hate defending how me3 ending is valid. Ugh

Tim:
Lol I just want an epilogue on what happens after that I’m reading some of the theories and they said that the ending is like inception. He was dead the moment he got hit or something.

Pat:
You don’t think bio ware left it to interpretation? If you done the missions for everyone, you kind get the idea. And with the ending, you can better understand what happened to everyone else.

Not even inception. Shepard is dead. Buy his will was the signal the citadel emitted at the end, so his legacy lives on through others. Shepard was going to die any way you put it, being synthetic will be the death of being an organic and vice versa.

Tim:
Yeah I guess. But if I leave it to interpretation that means that tali is brokenhearted about my death haha

Pat:
Fine, but what I see with this game and it’s fans is that these fans were spoon fed this lore and can’t handle the idea of not knowing whats next. You of all people should understand this.

Tim:
Lol true

Pat:
I just think its selfish for consumers to be in raged. I thought the ending was just right. And if they were going for a twist they will look at how they did with fall out 3’s ending and the expansion packs that came after that.

Tim:
Yeah that’s what i was thinking they’d do

Pat:
I know games, and frankly, they style of games are bullshit. We’re so clingy to railed cinema viewed experience, we are helpless when a game is over and not fully explain everything. What happened to just having for or going with the ride. Shepard was one tough son of a bitch, but he had to run out of luck sometime.

Tim:
Yeah…dude is it me or did they lay on some religious theme at the end? With Shepard being the Christ allegory of a sheperd?

Pat:
If they don’t do an expansion, I wouldn’t get mad. Why not discuss or debate what happens. Why do we as, a consumer, argue with a piece of art that it’s wrong? We didn’t make this nor we don’t know what went through theirs heads when they made this ending. All I know is that made one hell of a game that didn’t disappoint. And why is it art? They left it with such a room of discussion, be it good or a lot of bad. This shit is godlike!

Religion is in context to every game. Yeah but i didn’t think they’d go ahead and make him the christ figure of their cycle Sure, but it had a lot to do with the idea of evolution as well. Plus, Shepard was never a god, and his sacrifice was for the galaxy and not for mankind. He was no Christ. The actions he did did not reflect religious concepts, just the sacrifice.

Tim:
He died to save humanity, and he had 12 loyal people to follow him lol

Ahh that may be true

Pat:
Also remember, he didn’t have 12 deciples at the end. And he didn’t save humanity, but a galaxy.

Tim:
I’m reading a forum topic with the same idea, their backup to the theory was the Lazarus project and how shep came back from the dead once. Lol though it was 2 years and not 3 days.

Pat:
He used what remained of his life to give hope to everyone else, he was not stoned by the people, and he did it with such patriotism that anyone and everyone will remember him. This is more like a propaganda game for the us government.

Doesn’t mean anything. Jesus Christ resurrected on his own and Shepard was through science, science! The idea that human evolution would defy its creators. It’s really versed with technology being our handicap.

Tim:
Haha yeah it could be huh

Pat:
It’s like technology gained a consciousness and told you, hey we can fix your problem but this galaxy shit is over…but we won’t kill you…and hey your already dead so you really don’t have options left…

Tim:
Haha Adding on to your last thought Im starting to think now that the catalyst is god, and being indoctrinated is like how religion has a hold of people And that he even admits that it can’t continue on like this, but by making Shepard choose, he inadvertently made him the messiah for future generations like how the stargazer tells stories about him

Pat:
It’s kind of hard to truly believe that. God is vast and unknown, Shepard was not. I think it just plays out as human nature and our utmost desire to strive and live. Think about religion and how we got here…the context is there, but the humanity in Shepard just plays out as one man who can make a difference, not one god. Cause god has yet to unify this world, it takes a man.

Tim:
Hmm, bc its like that one question, if god is all powerful, did someone make god? And the reapers were controlled by the catalyst, but who made the catalyst? Lol

Pat:
Remember Shepard in context of religion was just a plain man who sought a vision and did his best or guide people…just a man. And that’s whats more compelling about Shepard, he was not a god but a man who made those decisions.

Tim:
But Jesus was a man. Son of god and whatnot

Pat:
Yea but Jesus didn’t have technology he had god power to bring him back.

Tim:
Haha

Pat:
And what if god made technology by the idea of god accidentally being made by the big bang.

Tim:
ie the catalyst

Pat:
No one knows but Jesus could walk on water and make water into wine, so Jesus was not a man…demigod…no man. Shepard was a man, then made into machine.

You don’t get it. Imagine if religion lived in mass effect, they would not say god made reapers.

Tim:
No one knows who made them. The catalyst just said he controls them

Pat:
God made creatures, then creatures evolved to make their own god, that god sought it differently and played real god while god got lazy and couldn’t say he existed

Uh okay, but have we seen god? Have we seen what he is capable of yet? Context is religion, but this isn’t truly about religion. It’s about humanity.

Tim:
Lol. Well now my train of thought jumped and it’s thinking about borderline infinity…so if you choose to destroy the reapers the catalyst said that eventually they will create synthetics again and they’ll rise to be the new reapers in a sense. So could it be that million of cycles ago another race created the reapers and invented the catalyst to control them?

Pat:
Yup! That we couldn’t look into religion so we made one up that ended up getting bigger than we could comprehend.

Tim:
Or maybe even created the catalyst to try and control the reapers like the illusive man bc they were kicking their ass, but the catalyst became sentient also and just used them to fix chaos

Pat:
Like religion became skewed and we relied on science for answers, which would imply religious context at the end. It’s just the matter of simple thinking, what you want people to believe in.

Tim:
Yeah that’s true

Pat:
Who are people in the stars, is this true, did it happen, when will we have our shot. Shepard almost bring ing it back to the root of religion and believing in something you can’t fathom.

Golden cow became golden cow with robots.

Tim:
Lol too bad we couldn’t post this on Facebook, I’d love to see people’s opinions on our discussion

Pat:
I dunno. The ending has me thinking, that’s why I like it. It can’t be that bad if we’re deep in discussion.

Tim:
Yup yup

Pat:
They would be mind blown.