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VR: Modelling w Rhys

VR: Modelling w Rhys

This slideshow requires JavaScript. Using a reference image imported as a plane into Maya, I modelled the shape of an Ankylosaurus for the VR Gondwana project. I will still need to modify and define the model before I am able to texture it and prepare it for use in Unity.

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Geek and Sundry: 3 Games for People who Hate Taking Turns

http://geekandsundry.com/three-games-for-people-who-hate-taking-turns/

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[RESEARCH] VR: Gondwana for the Botanic Gardens

[RESEARCH] VR: Gondwana for the Botanic Gardens

Our next assignment is to build a VR environment in Unity which essentially imagines life 125 million years ago, which will integrate with the Gondwana exhibition beginning on November 9th at the Botanic Gardens in Manurewa. I visited the site to see what the exhibition already had to offer – strange tall things! Various signs…

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Alpaca Tappa: Updates

  I made a list of all the updates and fixes I completed of our Alpaca Tappa! game/app as I did them – I noticed other developers such as Finji (developers of ‘Overland‘ and ‘Night in the Woods‘) used this kind of system to manage and monitor their process so I decided to imitate it. It turned out to be really useful and I was able to just copy and paste my list of changes over to my group for…

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SCOPE; precedents of simultaneous play?

In class we discussed Robot Turtle and X-Wing as examples of games which feature simultaneous play and which we can look at as precedents for our SCOPE project. 

Fairy Tale, Among the Stars, 7 Wonders – card drafting with simultaneous action selection. Common features seem to include a set number of rounds, which may fit with the time-based factor of our conceptualised game.

Space Alert – complex, real-time co-operative team-based survival game with simultaneous action selection. “During play, the central computer will announce the presence of various threats on one the supplied 10 minute soundtracks that also acts as a game timer. The threats vary from space battleships and interceptors to different interstellar monsters and abominations, asteroids or even intruders and malfunctions on the spaceship. Players have to agree who will take care of which task and coordinate their actions (moving around the ship, firing weapons, distributing energy, using battlebots to deal with intruders, launching guided missiles, etc.) in real time to defend the ship. Only a well-working team can survive 10 minutes and make the jump back to safety.” – Board Game Geek

Escape: The Curse of the Temple – real time co-operative game similar to Space Alert.

Robo Rally  – We could potentially look into this as a way of moving players through the game. Robo Rally requires players to fill their robot’s (player pieces) “registers” with facedown movement cards, allowing them to plan a route to whatever win-condition the game features. However, other players are able to intercept that route and force their robot to take other paths.

Race for the Galaxy – “At the beginning of each round, players each select, secretly and simultaneously, one of the seven roles which correspond to the phases in which the round progresses. By selecting a role, players activate that phase for this round, giving each player the opportunity to perform that phase's action.” – Board Game Geek

Dixit – simultaneous action selection – reminds me of The Resistance and Avalon due to simultaneous voting. 

Diplomacy – “In the game, players represent one of the seven "Great Powers of Europe" (Great Britain, France, Austria-Hungry, Germany, Italy, Russia or Turkey) in the years prior to World War I. Play begins in the Spring of 1901, and players make both Spring and Autumn moves each year. There are only two kinds of military units: armies and fleets. On any given turn, each of your military units has limited options: they can move into an adjoining territory, support an allied unit in an attack on an adjoining territory, support an allied unit in defending an adjoining territory, or hold their position. Players instruct each of their units by writing a set of "orders." The outcome of each turn is determined by the rules of the game. There are no dice rolls or other elements of chance.” – Board Game Geek

Pit – Turnless trading game! Looks chaotic.

Boggle – A timed word game where players must find as many connected words as possible from the face up letters resting in a 16 cube grid. When the timer runs out, players compare their lists of words and remove any words found by multiple players. Points are then awarded for remaining words, depending on how many letters are in the word. This is another example of using time restriction to coincide with simultaneous play.

Frozen Synapse and Frozen Cortex – simultaneous turn-based strategic games.

Liege, a tactical RPG that got funded on Kickstarter, was trying to implement simultaneous turns, but in the most recent update, the developer said that he had to drop that plan because "too much was happening at once and players weren't able to keep track of it all," and that it was more important for a tactical game to be easy to follow than for it to be flashy. This is something we will have to be aware of if we implement the use of cards etc., and make the game more tactical – will we still be able to implement simultaneous play without the game becoming too complicated?

Civilization V – “has the option to have simultaneous turns in multiplayer, so you don't have to sit there waiting for the majority of the time. You lose a bit in the short-term tactics front because of everyone doing things at the same time, but maybe that just forces you to focus on long-term strategy all the more?” – Reddit user Intelligensaur

Toribash – “A fighting game that pauses every second or so and lets the players adjust each and every joint to their whim, then plays out what happens. Even further from a typical strategy game, but it's the only way you're going to win so I'm counting it.” – Reddit user Intelligensaur

Flotilla – a three-dimensional simultaneous turn-based strategy space combat video game set in a randomly generated galaxy. The player and computer-controlled opponents issue orders to their ships, which are carried in a simultaneous and real-time fashion over a period of 30 seconds. The game then freezes, and the player and opponents issue new orders to their ships, which are again performed for 30 seconds. This process repeats until one party is defeated.

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SCOPE; briefly...

Our bee crisis project has been “theoretically cancelled”, and we have now started conceptualizing a new project for the ‘Scope’ brief. Our group decided to remain together and work collaboratively for this new project - a multiplayer 3D (tactile) multi-layered plat-former board game with continuous, simultaneous time-based play (?). This addressed the WHY? criteria of the brief: What is the phenomena you are responding to or what is your line of enquiry, questioning? In this case, we’d be looking into particular techniques - such as 3D multi-layering in a tabletop game and/or simultaneous/continuous play.

WHAT? What is your developed concept that you propose addressed this phenomena or question? We are currently looking at a board game which is built like a semi-destroyed office building - players must race each other to a parachute located in-game and launch themselves off the top level (roof) of the building before it collapses completely. Players will play simultaneously - it will not be turn-based! Instead, they will only have seconds to make their move and attempt to sabotage and out-wit each other. We are also looking into strategic items, such as cards and tokens which give the player certain advantages - for example, collecting items to ‘craft’ a makeshift parachute or setting a bear trap to disadvantage the opposing players.

HOW? What is your methodology? How will you know you are making the right design decisions? Our group are about to begin looking quite extensively into precedents to judge whether or not ideas we have theorized would be successful. We would like to lock down the aforementioned strategic items and their uses before creating a paper-prototype to test play, finding the appropriate limit of time to play (before the building collapses), and sorting out what needs to be taken out of or put in the game.

Because there are three of us, we have decided to each focus on on one of the above questions each.

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A backlog of BEE things.

Our project for this semester seems to have gone through every form of ‘something interactive’ - beginning as an interactive installation piece, briefly suggesting itself as a tabletop or a card game, and then becoming a high energy physical and social game you’d see in schools or drama classes. It’s kind of problematic, as no idea seems to really stick, and we don’t know why. Maybe it’s the subject matter, maybe it’s the fact that the game already exists, maybe Samai, Jerry and I are all too passive. Dunno. For now, we have something social/physical, and are set to research mats or poles for ‘basing’ - bee-players run from base to base as the moderator removes bases at regular intervals, other players aiding the ‘bees’ by moving bases.

The image above is a test run of our game using AUT Live magazines as bases. Samai played as the bee, Jerry as the moderator, and I played as the bee-aid. The energy levels the game was able to access were definitely high, but as there was lots of slipping, the bases 100% needed to be revised. We also need to look at potentially redefining the environment of the game to a field or turf for safety measures.

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RESEARCH: Resident Assistant - High Energy Games

Resident Assistant offers examples of high energy activities and games for groups, similar to the high energy game we have discussed and theorized as a group. We are uncertain as to how our game will exactly function, but I decided to do some research on games which are more physical and quick-paced.

‘Raid’ is an example closer to our subject matter - “The leader begins by choosing two “exterminators.” Everyone else is an ant. The “exterminators” will be doing the chasing. Once an ant has been tagged by an exterminator, the ant falls on their back and puts all four limbs facing upward. Four other ants may pick up their hurt buddy by their limbs, and place them on a designated hot spot (i.e. bases or rubber mats). The once dead ant has been resurrected and may continue playing. Note: Any time a live ant is helping a dead ant, they can not be tagged by the exterminators.”

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SPARX Mini-Game: Alpaca Tappa

SPARX Mini-Game: Alpaca Tappa

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[crowholtz]

new overwatch map: eichenwalde. [x]

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RESEARCH: Is there a bee crisis?

“In 2015 the bees are still dying in masses. Which at first seems not very important until you realize that one third of all food humans consume would disappear with them. Millions could starve. The foes bees face are truly horrifying – some are a direct consequence of human greed. We need to help our small buzzing friends or we will face extremely unpleasant consequences.“

Our group has taken the stance that there is  a bee crisis.

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RESEARCH: QR/AR

During our conceptualization of our project, we wanted to incorporate our ‘game’ into Auckland’s White Night event, as an installation. We considered using QR codes with AR to make a literal ‘pollinating pathway’ with a narrative and sequence of events that portrayed the bee crisis in some way. We began our research, and I created a basic AR cube from a QR-code image using Vuforia and How to make an AR app in 5 minutes with Unity and Vuforia. We scrapped this idea once we realized continuing this project until the next White Night event was available would be an issue, and working with QR codes seemed redundant in its entirety.

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ARDN612; Play Design Iterations

Werewolf – commonly known as Mafia (with a variant theme), is a ‘parlour game’ of deception and manipulation, created in 1986 by Dmitry Davidoff as he attempted to cram two years of tertiary study into one. Davidoff explained the game as “the uninformed majority versus the informed minority”.  

My iteration of Werewolf will include removing elimination in gameplay to keep players (especially first-time players) from feeling discouraged or put off. Problems with Werewolf by Ted Alspach on League of Gamemakers: “This [elimination] is by far the number one issue that most people have with “traditional” (i.e. non-One Night and non-Inquisition) Werewolf. Games that have this mechanic are doomed to failure.” Ted Alspach also comments on the common play of killing a brand new player on the first round of Werewolf, making players feel negative towards the game as a whole.

Rules of play –

There are numerous variations of gameplay for Werewolf, so I will link the most common form of play here, and the wiki for Mafia, which includes most of the well known variations of Werewolf.

Already established iterations –

Town of Salem – online version of Mafia/Werewolf. I used to be quite an avid player of Town of Salem, which is primarily why I chose to use Werewolf for this assignment. Elimination (death) in Town of Salem doesn’t always negate your ability to help – the anonymity of online play allows for a ‘Medium’ role, a player who can speak to the dead during nightfall and gain valuable information from now-confirmed village roles. The Medium can also use a one-time ‘seance’ ability once they are dead to speak to a living player. Good communication with the Medium can help the village win even when you are eliminated/dead! 

Edit: There is also a ‘Retributionist’ role with the ability to bring one player back from the dead, so even if a player is eliminated, there is a chance to be brought back into play with all players aware of your role. Players generally whisper their own roles to a player who has been brought back from the dead (as they are confirmed village), making them a very valuable player in game.

//Greyed-out font in chat is from a player (bbq sauce) who is dead. Only other dead players can see this. During the night phase of the game, the Medium is able to communicate with all players in the ‘Graveyard’.

The Resistance & The Resistance: Avalon – varying theme from Werewolf, but essentially Werewolf at heart, The Resistance and the Avalon removes the mechanic of elimination by altering play so that the ‘werewolves’ (now spies and minions of Mordred, respectively) must instead sabotage the missions/quests of the ‘villagers’ three out of five times to win. There is no longer a night phase, and instead all players take turns selecting a team to complete a mission – if the player is good, he chooses to succeed the mission, but if the player is bad, he may either succeed or fail the mission.

//This is probably the most efficient way to remove the mechanic of elimination from game play. Before play-testing my own iterations of Werewolf, we played Avalon first, and decided to use it as a basis of comparison for what a successful iteration of a social deduction ‘parlour’ game might feel like.

Already established iterations I did not play –

Two Rooms and a Boom – No elimination – the ‘werewolves’ (red team) instead must try and get their bomber into the same room as the blue team’s president. I did not look too far into this game as I feel it lost Davidoff’s essence of ‘uninformed majority versus informed minority’, as both teams are even, and no one is informed of other roles.

One Night Ultimate Werewolf – Condenses the last tension-filled round of Werewolf into a single ten minute experience, and removes elimination in the process. Charles Simon explains the rules as follows; “Everyone receives their hidden role and three extra roles are placed face down in the center of the table. The game begins with the Night Phase. Everyone closes their eyes. The Werewolves open their eyes and spot one another. If there is no other werewolf player, a lone wolf may peek at one of three cards in the center. This is important because he can bluff to be that role since no one else will be it. The Seer then looks at one other player's role or two of the face down cards in the center. The Robber then takes one other player's role card and gives them the Robber. The Robber looks at the new role and they are now on that team. This means that if the Robber stole a Werewolf's card, the player who was the werewolf (whose eyes were closed) still thinks that they are a werewolf, but are instead now a villager and the Robber is now secretly a Werewolf. The Troublemaker then switches any two players' roles without looking at them. If you are a generic Villager, you keep your eyes closed the entire time. Players then all open their eyes and try to figure out who to lynch.”

My iterations –

Round 1) I took the prototype of a rather terrible ‘pocket-game’ I made last year and used it as the board for my own ‘no elimination Werewolf’. The theme behind this game was ‘a chase’, so I incorporated that into my iteration – the black player token became a marker for the werewolves, and the ‘white’ a marker for the villagers. The werewolves marker begins on the black square piece, and the villagers marker begins on the black triangle piece. Once the werewolves marker reaches the same space as the villagers marker, the werewolves have won and the villagers are dead. If the villagers make it to the ‘wolf den’ (the black square piece and werewolves markers’ starting point) before the werewolves can catch them, they are able to destroy the den and force the werewolves out of their village.

I wanted to indefinitely keep Davidoff’s uninformed majority versus informed minority, so I put two werewolves into my game of five players, and allowed them to be aware of each other. Without the ability to kill off/eliminate the villagers, I decided that the werewolves marker would move every round, where as the villagers marker would move only depending on how the round was played.

Round 1a) At first, we played similar to The Resistance or Avalon – players would take turns choosing a team which would help progress the villagers marker forward, and the werewolves were able to succeed or fail the plight. We figured with more spaces to travel, the werewolves had more time to gain the trust of other players, but the number of rounds proved to help the villagers 9.9 out of 10 times, as by a certain point they had figured out who the werewolves were and repetitiously played the team of villagers (a positive feedback loop :D). Eventually, we changed the end goal for the villagers to the space marked with arrows, which shortened gameplay and forced the werewolves to be more aggressive and gave the villagers less rounds to figure out who the werewolves were.

Round 1b) Roles! Attempting to stray from Avalon a bit, I added the following roles into gameplay: 

- 1 doctor (village) - 1 escort (village)

In this version of what we began to call Werewolf: Chase, we revoked the team-play prominent in Avalon and tried to cut it closer to the more commonly played party game. This time, the game requires a moderator (me, so we only had 4 players now), and there are night phases – the werewolves mutually agree on a player to maim and which of them would attack, all other players eyes closed. The doctor then opens his eyes and selects a player to heal. He may select himself, or he may select to chose no one, as he can only use this ability three times during the game. The escort then takes their turn, distracting a player and essentially role-blocking them.

When the round turns to the day phase, the werewolves’ marker is still moved one space, but the villagers marker is only moved if the doctor managed to heal the attacked villager, or the escort was able to successfully role-block a werewolf. Players with these abilities would have to figure out if they were successful, or if perhaps another player was; however, the werewolves were pretty much left stagnant with no other play but to try and figure out who the doctor was and would heal, and who the escort was and would rb.

Round 2) A friend suggested Strip Werewolf, so we gave it a metaphorical go with drawings of ourselves and our clothing without much forethought. Eventually the obvious became apparent – there was still elimination, it was just a much longer process, and after a few rounds, it was far too clear who the werewolves were, as they were the only players not attacked during the night phases of gameplay.

Conclusion) Selecting Round 1b as my final iteration as although the gameplay of 1a felt more thoughtful, this was due to the mechanics of the game being an imitation of Avalon. Moving Werewolf to a board with the theme of a chase added a new element of tension, as players visibly grew anxious as the werewolves marker moved closer. This was an energy I feel may have been tapped in Werewolf or Avalon, but was heightened in this version with a visible chase happening – the feel reminded me of a sort of Avalon/Break the Safe hybrid, as players began to rush play as if time was limited.

[waspgrave]

this is what jesus would have wanted

[bloodofelves]

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me: [wakes up] video games

me: [showering] video games...........

me: [at grocery store] video. games.

me: [walking down the street] wHO LIKES videO gAMES????

me: [playing video games] i LOVE VIDEO GAMES!!1!

me: [sleeping] ah yes video games

[jihyunkm]