One Semester in One Word

Granted, I don't play video games in my spare time ever and I've tried college twice before and didn't finish it both times, my experience of taking 3 (...and then 2) classes between August and December of 2010 in Central Piedmont's Simulation and Game Design program can be summed up in one word - FLARNK.

Maybe I shoulda just taken the classes online.  Hell, most of the lessons in class were directly from online tutorials.  Just follow along and pause it every now and then.   I'd probably be chillin' at my futuristic desk somewhere in Irvine, California working on some game that involves shooting the shit out of something by now.  

The best thing about the program was the people.  Yes, there were lots of dorks and know-it-alls and, hands down, the most socially awkward nerds I've ever encountered in 34.4 years on this planet, but there were also some really great, funny people that were a blast to work with.  I expect amazing, weird things from them in the future. 

Go for that.  And if you love Subway - there's one on the ground level of the building where the classes are held.  So go for the people... and the smell of Subway bread.  Good luck.

  

Movie Madness

Here's a scene from my movie, "Basket Case".



Never seen the whole thing?  Don't worry, I didn't ruin it for you.  See it.  It was done with a very low budget by a bunch of unknown folks about 30 years ago.

In my video game version of this film, the player is in control of the beast in the basket, Belial.  Here he is sitting on some steps...

You drag yourself around 1982 Manhattan, while your once-conjoined brother, Duane looks for you.  He'll put you back in the basket.  You don't want to be in the basket.  Got it?  

Through a series of challenges, you must figure out unique ways to enter buildings and use human devices (phone, electric razor, fishing pole) seeing as that you don't have all the normal appendages and digits us regular folk have.  You're finally on your own and want to show Duane you don't need him.  You must eat humans when you're hungry or if they threaten you in any way.  If Duane locates you, you might be faced with the chilling notion of attacking and eating him.  Or just part of him.  You're pretty darn good at lying low, so I suggest waiting under chairs and beds for the right time to attack.  Can you drive?  Maybe.  Try not to attract attention to yourself and give it a whirl.  Want to explore the seedy Times Square theaters of early 80s New York?  Go ahead.  You, might want to wear a  poncho, though.  Horseback riding through Central Park?  Not impossible.  Quite fun, actually.  You're free.  Enjoy life and all it's mysterious foibles.  

This game would follow the third-person shooter format, with a choice of various viewpoints to better enable you to see what the heck's going on above everybody's knees.

CHAPTER SIX: Book Work

Play a game that features "combat".  Okay.  I searched the internet for some sort of cool looking fighting game for about an hour.  Swordplay or karate.  Old west or laser beams.  No luck.  Everything's cheesey and too confusing.  Dear Lord, there must be a billion games out there.  Who made them all?  Are they all famous and rich?

I finally stumbled upon what I assume is called a catapult game called "Crush the Castle" in which you fling stuff at a castle, trying to knock it down and kill everybody inside.  If that ain't some sort of combat, well call me Dame Judi Dench.  Sure, the folks in the castle can't fight back, but that doesn't guarantee that you'll always be victorious.  It's all about how you fling stuff.  How fast you release it.  The angle at which it travels.  As you progress, you're given more things to launch.  Then you move up to bigger things to launch.  Finally, you're given bombs.  Flaming bombs.  Yeah.

I am proud to say that this game made an addict of me.  I haven't had this much fun on my computer since...(checks watch, gazes off into the horizon)...well, I have fun on my computer...a whole lot...let's say I haven't had this much fun playing a video game on my computer in quite a while.  The game's simple.  No backstory.  Just click the mouse.  Easy.  But frustrating.  Organic.  Basic.  Sometimes random and chaotic.  Some castles crumble easily.  Some don't.  Some should, but don't.  I dig it.  I plan on playing again one day.  Maybe not this upcoming week, but soon.  I need a job first.  Anything.  I'm poor.

These games are probably a dime a dozen.  I don't know.  So, the few hints I have for improving it might have already been applied to another version or an entirely different game all together. 

How 'bout being able to move the ol' trebuchet wherever you want?  How about trying NOT to kill the princess?  How about suggesting we try a certain ammo after we've spent 38 minutes on one level and can't figure out how to advance?  What if they were flinging stuff at you, too?  Whoa.  Wait a minute.  That changes everything.  No.  They aren't allowed to do that.  I like how they're just standing there like their fortress isn't being besieged by huge boulders. 

Buried Alive

Goal 

To have the least amount of dirt (cards) in your grave (possession).

Contents

2 dice, 1 deck of regular cards (no jokers)

Players

4 

Instructions for Playing

1. Divide your cards into suits.  Each suit becomes the player's hand.

2. Each round, a player will roll both dice.  Once the movement of the dice stops, all players throw down a card that matches that number as fast as possible.

3. The last player to throw down that card will put all the thrown cards into his/her "grave" - a stack of cards separate from his/her hand.

4. The Ace, Jack, Queen, and King are wild cards.  Throw them wisely.

5. If the player does not have the exact card or any remaining wild cards, they can throw down the card closest numerically to the dice roll.  Accuracy always trumps speed.

That's the 5 rule version of the 8 rule version of the 10 rule version of the game that Rex, Mike, Nate and I made from scratch in Saturday, October 23rd's class.  Quite a pickle to dill in my opinion.  For a brief moment we considered removing dice and cards from our game idea all together.  The class has come to rely on them as "basic game making  ingredients".  Actually, the entire world has.  Next time, I'd be up for doing a brain teaser type game.  Like "I Spy" with your eyes closed.  Or something that utilized the dry erase board.  I'm all for getting folks out of their chairs and animated.  In a game where speaking isn't allowed like "Pictionary" or "Win, Lose, or Draw", I find that the most hilarious thing is the how frustrated people get when they have to remain silent.  The artist does all sorts of pointing and jumping and face gymnastics trying to clue everybody into what they're drawing.  It's even better when the artist sucks at drawing.  It's a squiggle and a box and a big alien cat head looking thing.  That's supposed to be "Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time"?!   No way! (tilts head, squints eyes)  Well...okay, I....kinda see it, now.  Sorry.

We did make the act of throwing down your card as fast as possible an integral part of the game.  Nobody in the history of gaming has ever done that before.  Although, a bunch of prisoners playing Buried Alive in Sing Sing might be at each others' throats over "who threw what first", we remained civil and calm.  We had fun, but soon realized that writing down how to play in a short, simple, easy-to-understand manner was not fun.  We wanted to include "Exercise your common sense" as a rule, but refrained.  I'm sure game makers since the beginning of time wanted to include that rule.  Or "Don't be dumb".  But, you'd end up offending somebody somewhere and get sued for causing mental distress costing the game manufacturer hundreds of thousands of dollars in a long, messy televised court case.  You'd become the butt of gaming industry jokes and turn to a quiet, anonymous life of office data research.  Or you'd become famous.

All in all, we came up with a good game quickly.  Much better than this "Tetris" type game also called "Buried Alive" I found.  Go ahead.  Click on it.  You know you want to.  I won't tell anyone if you stay up until sunrise three nights in a row trying to beat it.

(if you get past level 4, leave an anonymous comment and tell me how you did it - I'm stuck)

Character Development Revisited

Again, my knowledge of current video game characters is pretty thin.  I played "Medal of Honor" a few times in the front offices of a screen printing company I worked at many years ago.  About 7 or 8 of us would be on computers walking around and shooting each other.  I think my character's name was "Pierre".  He shot people and got shot at.  And I watched a guy play "Assassin's Creed" once about a year and a half ago.  I never caught that fella's name.  He had a hood on and nobody in town really talked to him as he jumped on roofs and stuff.  The guy in the game, that is - not the guy playing the game.  He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans.

So, I must turn to the days of my youth and recall the games with characters I liked.  There's that dude in "Berzerk"...

He's stuck in some minimal, futuristic supermarket with big-shouldered robots.  He's probably still there, for all I know.  Somebody go check.

Ooooh - I know somebody.  The paperboy in "Paperboy".

You're only aware of his evil eyes by the artwork on the arcade console itself.

The only time you see his face in the game is on the title screen...

Seems like a happy, hard working lad there.  In the actual game, you only see him from far above - like you're following him in a hot air balloon.

The player can decide whether to believe his heart is full of anger and he despises all the good for nothin' rich people in their filthy rich houses on his route - or - he's a good, decent boy rising early to bring the news to everybody's doorstep, hoping to earn enough money for a giant gong.  I like that.  You're allowed to bring your own mood to the character.  You're not told how to be.  Deliver the papers as you wish.  

Your environment is American suburbia circa 1984 - meaning it's pretty much exactly how it is now, except there aren't any SUVs in driveways.  It's not a wacky, alien world that our hero's never seen before.  He sees it everyday.  This is his job.  It's the only game I can think of where the main character is simply doing a normal job.  Not one of a sexy secret agent or an oily volleyball pro - just an average kid doin' an average 1984 kid's job.  Sadly, kid's in 2010 don't know what a newspaper is and can hardly ride a bicycle past the end of the block they live on without feeling nauseous.

The environmental hazards of suburbia are the "villians" of this game.  (if you have no idea what I'm talking about, please click here to see a clip of somebody playing it) Things that harm the player in any game are always a part of the environment.  Unless you're dealing with some major inner turmoil in the player's psyche such as a childhood trauma, a phobia, a Red Bull addiction, or just your basic, old-fashioned bruised ego like Pac-Man had.  

This game would be cool if it was set in downtown Tianjin, China because Chinese newspapers weigh about 8 pounds each.  He could get caught up in the seedy underworld of the Chinese mafia and quite possibly work his way up to become head of the entire Asian heroin ring.  That would surely make the front page of "The Daily Sun"!

Basic Artificial Intelligence

Just got back from a class in which we made and played several different variations of the Us vs. It game.  My head has been rendered into mush and I find it hard to even decide if I'm hungry or not.  My mind went on strike about 30 minutes before class ended.  I didn't care about what the robot could do now.  I didn't care if I lost.  Winning was meaningless.  The neurons and synapses in my brain simply switched to "sleep mode".  No thoughts being registered.  No thoughts being created.  I was floating in a silent womb, quite contented.

While still cognitive, I learned that artificial intelligence is what's going on in a game that you can't control.  It's magically doing things for desired results and can be directly effected by what the player does.  Or not.  You observe and interact with it until you can solve the task at hand.  Find a weakness and strangle it until its eyes pop out.  Jump over it, punch it, unlock it, hang on, let go, sneak away, hide, yell, shoot, dive, ctrl, alt, delete.  Off.  Go for a long walk and listen to the birds.  Feel the sun against your skin.  Clear your soul.  Relax.

Here's what Jon and I did.  Blue paper.

For someone unfamiliar with this game, I could explain exactly what everything means, but I simply can't at the moment.  Ask me one day.  I'll give you the rough idea.  I promise.

Paper Simulation

I am currently working on this assignment.  I need 5 more minutes.

In the meantime, look at this Game Boy made out of paper.