Bibliographies

A bibliography is an important part in academic papers. Any references or quotes used from external articles, books etc can be used in the paper and allows the reader access or 'reference' so these quotes and such can be checked or followed up. However there is a particular format of which the reference must be laid out in the paper and the bibliography. Here are a couple of examples of what could be expected in a bibliography:

-Costikyan, Greg (2002) ‘I Have No Words & I Must Design: Toward a Critical Vocabulary for Games’. In: Frans Mäyrä (ed), CGDC Conference Proceedings. Studies in Information Sciences. Tampere: Tampere University Press, pp. x–y. (page numbers here)

-Church, D., Gamasutra - Features - Formal Abstract Design Tools. Available: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3357/formal%20abstract%20design%20tools.php

These are two different examples; one coming from a book, the other an article from the internet. They contain the name(s) of the author(s), name of the article, publishers details, page numbers etc. This system allows for an easier and more accessible way to chase up a reference.

Gender Differences in the Games Industry

There is alot of talk around the game industry relating to gender 'discrimination'. Alot of people believe that games are marketed more specifically to a male audience. Games like 'Call of Duty', 'Halo' and the 'Doom' series are predominantly more violent and therefore aimed at boys. Whereas girls are supposed to enjoy games like 'The Sims', 'Zoo Tycoon' and 'Animal Crossing'.
But is there any truth in this? Can't girls enjoy 'Crysis' whilst boys enjoy 'Hannah Montana: The movie game'?
I interviewed a female friend for a better insight.

Q. Do you believe there is any prejudice in the games industry when it comes to gender?
A. I beleive when it comes to stereotypes in the industry, that there is. But not necessarily in the industry itself.

Q. Is that to say that people making these games have no sexual bias, but the games show an obvious particular marketing choice? Shooters for boys, Constructive sandbox games for girls?
A. Yes. Alot of games are geared specifically towards males and they seem to make up for that by having token female characters, Zoe and Rochelle for the Left4Dead series. Theres also one from the game 'Borderlands', too. I also think there are very few games that are geared specifically towards girls. To someone outside the industry it seems like there are more games geared towards primarily males than there are aimed at both genders.

Q. Do you think that having these token female characters is a good mechanism? For example, would you feel more compelled to play a game such as Left4Dead than if it was a group of four males?
A. I'd be ok with playing the game but still I would most likely play as the female. Although if it was an RPG more specifically where you can customize your character I'd be less likely to play the game were there only options to customize a male character.

Q. So in a game, playing as a female seems to make quite an impact on your decision to play it. Would you look for games based on playable female characters mainly?
A. Not really. It's once I'm playing the game.

Q. So how do you feel about more violent games? The market suggests that boys are more for shooters. Do you enjoy shooters and violent games at all?
A. I have to admit, I don't like shooters very much. It might just be more but violence in a game isn't an issue.

Q. Not liking shooters is a personal choice, obviously. As a female gamer, what kind of games would you enjoy the most?
A. I like games that seem to have more of a storyline and allow the player alot of freedom. I do like games with a slight childish touch such as 'Kingdom Hearts' but games that are clever such as 'Fallout' make a big impact on my gaming choice.

Q. I too enjoyed 'Kingdom Hearts' immensely. You described 'Fallout' as a "clever" game, what does that mean to you?
A. I like how it combines a chaotic dark world with comedic value. Such as references to media of today and historic elements, such as the group "Caesars Legion" in 'Fallout: New Vegas'.

Q. There is a huge contrast in style between 'Kingdom Hearts' and the 'Fallout' series, however both have strong story elements. How important do you believe story to be in creating a successful or enjoyable game?
A. I think it's the most important bit. Story impacts on much of the aspects of the game for example, a character cannot be developed unless there is a story behind him. It's hard to be immersed in a game if there isn't anything to draw you in, and I believe the story is what does that. How crap would Kingdom Hearts be without a story?

Q. Kingdom Hearts would be certainly very different without a story. However the fundamental mechanics would still exist and in that respect would still be playable but without a purpose. Would you still find it enjoyable and play it? Or just not enjoy it as much?
A. It would be alot more boring and reduce the quality of the game but because the story is so integral it is hard to imagine!

Q. Generally, girls are stereotyped to play games like 'The Sims'. Do you enjoy this game? or any games like it?
A. I love The Sims! I love The Sims because you can just lose yourself in it for hours. There's so much you can do on it. I also like text based games like 'Cute Knight'. I like it because it's quick and it's got some nice artwork, if a little amateur.

Q. The Sims has no story. How would you justify the entertainment that you and so other many people get from it when there is no ultimate goal?
A. There are ultimate goals and achievements and you make your own storyline by earning these achievements.

This brief interview has been of particular interest. From this example alone it would seem that girls are more interested in storybased games, or creative outlets. Stereotypes definitely exist within the industry but really it comes down to the gamer. Perhaps future games would benefit from involving both sexes majorly rather than bit parts from either party. I suppose only time will tell. . .

A new form of inspiration!

So in our last lecture, I was speaking to the very talented Mr Tom White who very generously shared with me some videos. The videos were tutorials for how to create characters from scratch. I usually find this quite difficult so it was a real treat to find brand new ways of incorporating any idea you have into an artistic design.
The best thing is you start (or at least I do anyway) with no idea. Starting with no idea in mind of what your about to create means there's this adventure from the first line, curve or dot you sketch. It just pops out, a wonky square looks like an eye for some reason, so you add to it. . .
Before you know it you've got a brand new design of character or creature streaming from whatever looks good to you. I love the uniqueness of this method, everyone who tries it will invent something different.
I'm not that confident in my drawing skills but with the tutorials I have learned how to establish effective styles and techniques that makes the picture look great! Hopefully the more I do the better I'll get but I feel this is something I could really get into. Here are some pictures of 3 main stages of my design.

Anyway, just thought I'd mention this as a step up in new artistic capability. Excitement!

Bulletstorm Review

Today I finished a game worthy of a review, I beleive.
Bulletstorm is a very recent game (released a week ago, I think) with beautiful graphics, a well attempted storyline and a lovely list of mechanics. I will refer only a little bit about some areas that really caught my attention.

The graphics are amazing, with some models that redefine any games opinion of "terrifyingly gargantuan". The scenery is brilliantly crisp and the lighting dynamics accompany the characters and interactive extras perfectly. Although some re-use of particular animations (namely the sniper rifle bullet-guiding function) gets a little repetitive. As always, I have yet to see a model or particle animation of fire that 'WOWs' me, but that's a little harsh I suppose. Alot of the environmental ornaments conveniantly placed for gameplay (I'll explain later) are seemlessly and organically placed and feel very appropriate for the specific areas you explore. Cutscenes are lovely to watch, the character animation or mo-cap use really gives each character a realistic sense of behaviour, although I feel some aspects of the modelling for Trishka Novack seem somewhat cartoony in places.

The storyline is original, tight and enjoyably but feels immensely rushed in the worst places of the game, noteably the start where the characters and situation are established and the end which I will describe later in the mechanics section. The protaganist, Grayson Hunt is written rather well, with understandable motives and behaviour from the word 'go'. Even his cybernetic friend Ishi Sato has an important and well thought out role to play. Unfortunately it's Trishka who failed to satisfy me again, with behaviour that seems really out of character in places. When you first meet her, she's a hard sort who doesn't play by the rules and seems bloodthirsty even for her companions (You, the player ; I might add) but digresses into a soppy wuss by the end of the game, a time when she should be aptly killing anything at full throttle, for reasons I will avoid to prevent spoilers.

The brilliance of the game comes into its mechanics, with an endless list of variable ways to 'do-in' your enemies. Near the beginning of the game you are provided with 'your new best friend' (as the gamer achievement states), the leash. The leash is a sort of lightsaber Indiana Jones whip which you can sling around from a device of the back of your hand and provides multiple uses. For the most part, you will use the leash to pull enemies towards you, only to kick them away from you; something that seems a little odd as I type it here. Aside from the ability to tug enemies, guns and annihilate small vehicles posing a threat to you, the 'cocky' leash grades your performance as a trigger happy assassin, giving you points for the more creative ways of killing folk. These are called 'Skillshots' and encourage the player to use the environment and surroundings to kill your enemies. For example, you can kick explosive crates at enemies, kick them into stray electrical wires, fires, spiky debris, off the side of cliffs, into walls (repeatedly), pools of water and even cacti. These are all individual methods of killing which will grant you special points (less points the more the use the same method) to purchase upgrades for your guns and leash. These are most of the main game mechanics although from the start the game many different forms of gameplay are used. At one point, you man the turrets of a spaceship to bring down a much larger spaceship. You also man a minigun from a helicopter to provide cover for your friends. You even get to play with a 50 ft remote control dinosaur that fires lazers and brings down building (surprisingly fun, actually). But you can only experience such a disappointment when the final 'boss battle' which you are driven to look forward to is a simple 5 or 6 button quicktime event. No epic shootouts with said leash or exploding barrels. No use of the upgraded weapons you've spent the entire game building up from classy killing maneuvers.
Just a ridiculous "Press left bumper".
"Press Right Trigger".
"Press Left bumper again".
"Press it again".
It's slightly infuriating.

I was given a book at christmas entitled "A theory of fun" and what a great read. A mention of this reading that seems appropriate to me here is the author details how the human brain revels in finding solutions to puzzles and finding patterns in places there should be none. We get bored of a game when we have mastered all its tricks and it has nothing left to give. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Bulletstorm immensely, its use of several gameplay styles were good fun, if anything even a little short! I just feel the game was a beastly concept and for the most part produced well. But it really let me down in some areas.

The game also lets on that there will be a sequel from some incriminating speech after the credits. I just hope that it can improve on its flaws, but build on what makes it so brilliant. Then we'll have a really awesome gaming experience to look forward to.

3D Models

So I mentioned in my last blog that I've had some experience with 3D modelling. I thought I might just dedicate this blog to say a bit about it as it is one of the reasons I am on this course. As an avid fan of Doctor Who, I was approached by my friend one day who asked me if I'd like to try and make a Doctor Who mod for the popular RPG game Fallout 3 by Bethesda softworks. Of course I agreed immediately and soon we were meeting up and planning how the mod would work, the storyline, the new abilities and resources the player could use etc.
There was only one problem, between the two of us, we had no knowledge of how the game worked at all. Sure, we had played the game for hours and even days on end but knew nothing of putting these things together. Having toyed delicately with 3D models I was volunteered between the two of us to take care of the models, animations, textures etc. It was then my friend Jacks job to implement these designs into the game itself.
At first it was a huge struggle and took many hours trying to figure out how to do the simplest things. Using Blender (a freeware 3D modelling program) and many downloadable plugins it didn't take long to understand how to get custom models into the game. It was during these processes that games design seemed to be more than a hobby. It was something we both enjoyed thoroughly and something that after years of thinking about seemed like a dream come true. The mod itself is still in the works, obviously on hold because of the work that the course requires but is still very alive and something that me and Jack discuss and work on when we can. Here are some screens of the working models in-game.

A portrait of Ianto Jones which can be found in Torchwood Manor.

Daleks surrounding the Tardis.

The Tardis (and yes, it's much bigger on the inside!)

A statue of the Torchwood insignia which can also be found in Torchwood Manor.

A reconstruction of the 10th Doctors Tardis, fully textured and functional.





Well here are some examples of the 3D models I have created for the mod. I will blog about the Sonic Screwdriver separately for obvious reasons. Any feedback would be appreciated :)

A General Update

Well its been a while since my last blog and despite this ungodly time of morning, insomnia and fresh ideas seem to be a bad combination. So I'm sat here to crack open my can of update and spill out the fresh ideas and on-going projects.

I suppose the most neglected module on this blog has been the group effort that is 'Animal Frenzy' so I shall delve straight in. After me and Nicola's original concepts for the KS1 game, the beast that is Animal Frenzy has very much come to fruition. With a vertical slice finished, our team is assigned; Tom and Dan using their talents to paint out and deliver the outstanding aethetics which without would leave the game drab and untrue to the original designs. Steve and I are working on collecting the sounds for the animals, the music for the levels and the ambient noises that will create an atmosphere for the particular scenes. Last but certainly not least is Nicola who is working (IMO) on the hardest aspect of this game, the coding; and proving herself completely, showing in the v-slice that this game will play out almost exactly as we had first imagined it.
So with the v-slice complete, the remaining levels will be much easier to attend to in the remaining two months we have to complete the project. Currently we have a reading week awaiting our hard work (blood, sweat and many, many tears) to put together more and more assets of the remainder of the game. I think I speak for the whole team when I say that it was a relief to get the v-slice finished as the rest of the game will just follow suit now, but watch this space for more developments. . .

A couple of entries back I also mentioned the solo flash game, which has taken time to manifest itself. Based on what I believed myself capable of with the coding, the idea for the game was changed several times but ironically, the first idea was the one that suddenly seemed clearest. After enough attack of insomnia and brutal ambition the project was finally started and is headway into becoming (dare I suggest it) actually something rather decent. Still using the premise of playing as the bad guy, the game (which so far remains nameless) provides the player the chance to play as a demon, fighting through waves of evangelical enemies, in order to destroy all that's good with the world. So far the player can move with the WASD keys and look and aim with the mouse. With a start to the necessary artwork and hopefully some pretty nifty animations in the works, here is a shot of the game so far.

The crash course in flash is a slow but certainly progressive one and with fingers crossed hopefully this will be the start to a healthy relationship with Adobe Flash. It certainly hasn't been so far.

We are also tackling 3D modelling which is definitly exciting, an area I have had some experience in for personal projects and an area which I am more confident in. I have chosen to model Matt Smiths (a.k.a Doctor Who) Sonic Screwdriver. Fairly simple in design but with some challenging detail that I hope will look really cool in the final render. Time has been spent so far getting to grips with the software 3DS Max, an application I have read about many a time but never had the oppurtunity to sample. Many functions seem similar and/or exactly the same to other 3D modelling softwares but for the best possible result I reckon testing the waters of this foreign program is the safest way to go before I pour in all my effort for the actual Screwdriver model.

We are also working on storyboards, character biographies and scripts all rolled into a neat little package for an effective method of telling a story. Luckily I was blessed straight after christmas with a rather in-depth and chunky idea for a story, of which I'm currently working on wrestling to the pages of this project and a story which I hope will translate to the audience in the final composition. Not to go into too much detail (perhaps I will blog the finished storyline for y'all to have a look at) but the story involves a dark protagonist working for underworld mafias and mobs unveiling a nasty international conspiracy which our fateful anti-hero soon realises has placed the entire planet and human race in threat of extinction. There are a few scenes that I will work on that will create some powerful drama for the audiences to watch but this is work in progess and I will post relevant information and artwork soon to provide a better understanding of what I'm trying to achieve.

Another essay is also in the works for how problems arose and were conquered within the group project. It is my intention to produce a rather revealing journal of some of the inner workings of 'Team Frenzy' which will clarify in a professional way my first experiences of a team effort  in the games design field. Should hopefully make for an interesting read, if anything to compare to other groups, I can't imagine that we've been the only group struggling with. . .well. . .many variable issues.

Finally, the blogs. Sugar sweet when you eventually get round to writing one, I shall try and use the reading week as a chance to build a comfortable momentum that is easy to maintain in the oncoming and final weeks of this semester.

Well that wasn't so bad. At least now I can collapse knowing I've elaborated the topics buzzing round my head and knowing that this can be a strong start to a head-on flurry of tackling the rest of the work required to complete these modules. *Exhales deeply*