PLay games and more games and more games

There's a thread on a mailing list I"m on about helping students have access to old classic games. One interesting suggestion was to get a license with steam as an internet cafe. Another was to get a subscription with GameTap. Both of them have interesting older games. Game Fly subscriptions for the students (like buying a textbook) is another possibility. The conversation turned to lists of games people should be playing.

Here's one list from the Game Career Guide - new, old, Flash, board, card, D&D....an ipmressive list -
http://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/668/ask_the_experts_31_games_students_.php

And here's a list of games that seem to have been abandoned by their publishers or their publishers have gone out of business. You might not be able to play the games, but you can use the descriptions and images on these lists to get a sense for what the games included and how they looked.

• Abandonia - http://www.abandonia.com/
  
• Abandon Games - http://abandongames.com/
  

And last but not least by any means is to look for game play videos on youtube and elsewhere on the net. This is especially good for older games that just aren't available anymore (or their consoles aren't available. My students use game play videos now to illustrate the games they're presenting each week rather than bringing in hardware we don't have at school.

More games

Image via Wikipedia

Ok - there are some sucky games out there - we all know it. This weekend I'm playing Mystery PI: Portrait of a Thief on the DS. I am not sure what the mystery is and I've been playing (successfully) for 3 hours. You have to find specific objects in a photo filled with objects. There are several locations to gather evidence and at each location you have to find a specific number of objects. When you find all the objects in the given part of town you get to play a mini-game (concentration, rearrange the puzzle pieces are the 2 types I"ve seen so far). And you get a screen of text that seems to be talking abou thte mystery but there's no info there to help you on the next level or that adds to the story line or even to your understanding of yourself as the private investigator.

Image via Wikipedia

I like puzzle games. Don't get me wrong. And repetition doesn't always bother me. I like Cooking Mama with its repetition of a set of cooking skills; I'm anxious to get the new recipes even tho I know there's no new skills to learn (ok - and is it just me but or is Mam really passive aggressive - look at the literal fire in her eyes when she tells you she'll fix your mistakes. She sounds all friendly, but her eyes show her real feelings!). But this game is bad There's no apparent logic to what objects ya have to find - they're not related to each other and since there's no bigger story clearly layed out, the objects don't seemt o be related ot the story either. There's something in the text about art so ya think maybe some art has been stolen. But you're not looking for art - you're looking for paperclips and red peppers and butterflies and birds and masks and .... . And I don't know if it's my older DS or the graphics quality in the game but the pictures are hard to see. I'm not even sure if there is a bigger purpose to the game. So it falls down in terms of story, in character development, and in variety of game play. I keep playing going - is that all there is?

I think this game will become part of an assignment next year for the game design students - fix the game. They will be developing the sequel maybe or porting it to a new platform. I am sure there is no shortage of bad games we could pick up - i will look for low meta critic scores and recommendations from the more senior students. And if you have any suggestions - please leave them in the comments section. It will just be the design - i don't think we'll be doing any of the programming tho I think we could in flash but I want them to focus on the design elements, the rules, and giving the game a purpose. So stay tuned in the fall for an update on how that assignment goes over

Image via Wikipedia

As an aside - this game is from Pop Cap games which has a great portal on the web and has done very cool things to monetize their games. They're a company I want to study more in our junior class on the business - they've stayed independent (I think), they have tried a variety of things to get revenue from the games. I need to find out about their relationship with developers.

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Game Testing

Image by kgregson via Flickr

I have 10 groups in my Critical Analysis of Games class (26 students). Each group had to create a game using the Icehouse pyramid game system. They could add anything else they wanted - boards, cards, dice, spinners. The games had to be playable within 10-40 minutes. I didn't want any 1 minute throw the pyramid (like 56 card pick up) games.

We tested the games today with other students from class, volunteers from my Qualitative Research class, the chair of the TV-Radio department, and several of the administrative staff from the 3rd floor. It was kind of organized chaos - 10 tables with games spread out, people milling around - some playing, some taking notes and observing.

The goal of the play testing was to get feedback from people who hadn't seen the games before. We needed to know if the rules made sense and, maybe more importantly, was the game fun to play. A secondary goal was to let people in the class see other people's games - kind of set up a little competition to improve the games.

A full set of pictures is on flickr - I am not a photographer but you get the idea - lots of people, lots of tables, lots of games, small room - ha ha. - click here to see the set

Image by kgregson via Flickr

I think we met the goals. Most groups had notes. A couple of groups discovered problems with their rules or winning conditions; they made some changes on the fly and adjusted their documentation.

We may test again on Monday if I can find some other people to come in, depending on the feedback I get Wednesday in class. They will turn the game in on the Friday before spring break. I also want them to put the rules and game documentation online and encourage others to play.

A post about style, look and feel

I read in the text book for next semester about levels in games and it mentioned that US games tended to be conservative with styles and Japanese games more adventurous. Here are some images nad videos from teh games the book mentioned that seem to be worth looking at. I think we could find some US games - i wonder if next gen consoles might have the computational horsepower to do cooler graphics, more realism, hyper realism

Vib Ribbon


Official VibRibbon homepage

Youtube video demonstration

Rez



Wiki page

Space Channel 5 (for the dreamcast

Wiki pge for the game

YouTube video

I want this

Image via WikipediaMass DDR at the Videogame Expo. They had 32 people all dancing at the same time on wireless metal dance pads. The screen at the front showed a bubble for each player to let them know beat by beat how they're doing. The top 10 scores (and dancer numbers) were shown oat the bottom of the screen. And people were having a great time. It wasn't just kids or girls - everybody was dancing together. The man running the show played songs at different difficulty levels so everybody could have a good time.

(ps - this was my first attempt at using the FlipVideo I borrowed from school - the quality is pretty awesom considering I was in a darkened room, on the floor, holding the camera propped on my knee)

Here's the video

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A Few More Games

Image via WikipediaGot some new games for the major - they'll be in ppecs soon. Some I got on multiple platforms so we can compare game control schemes and how well they take advantage features of the different hardware.

For the 360
Ultimate Alliance/Forza Motorsports
Assassin's Creed
Bully
Civilization: Revolution

For the DS
Civilization: Revolution
Assassin's Creed
Meteos
N+
Elite Beat Agents (ok - i'm playing this one now so it won't be in PPECS for a week or so)


For the PSP
Lumines II
Ridge Racer
N+

For the Wii
Red Steel