Question 3
Following Doug Church’s approach, try to extract the abstract design concepts that constitute the gameplay. Can these be transferred to a different type of game? Why/why not?
Well, there aren't a lot of abstract design concepts in a game that can be finished in less than ten minutes, but since Alex gave me "the eye" while mentioning that some haven't attempted the third question, I guess I have to attempt it anyway, even though he can't read the first part because of the spoilers.
1. Intention.
There are two main goals in this game, namely winning the trial and finding a way to get back to the mortal world. For the first goal, the player gets to pick what his/her character thinks is the best line of defence from the list of options. For the second goal, the player has to try and convince the Judge to send his/her character back. If the Judge found the PC guilty from the trial and refuse to grant the appeal, he/she will be given a new set of options to choose from to try and change his mind. Intention can also apply to the PC attempting to learn more about certain things from interacting with the NPCs. For instance, the PC can choose to learn more about the Hell Guard's backstory.
2. Perceived consequence
The player knows pretty much that losing the trial would make it harder for the PC to leave Hell, and it does happen when the Judge makes it difficult for the PC to change his mind. In contrast, if the player succeeds in proving his/her PC's innocence, the Judge grants the appeal instantly.
3. Story
This being a game that emphasizes on dialogue and journal writing over scripting, I'd say that there's definitely story in this one. It is an RPG mod after all.
4. No-Lose-Game
Both Ahmed and Weiwei talked about no-win-games in their blogs. Here's a game that you cannot lose. Sure, you can completely mess up both the trial and the appeal, but the end objective is still attainable regardless of your actions. You leave Hell either through the appeal, or through Ahmed the Hell Guard (who only shares the same name as Ahmed the NUS student, and nothing else). You can't even die in this game because there's no combat, so there. You can't even become stuck halfway because you're always given something to do.
5. Player-reward
This plays a very small role in the game, but it's still present, and it's in the form of experience points (XP). The player gets a certain amount of XP whenever he does anything to advance the story, be it accepting an assignment or defending yourself well. It's not quite enough to help the PC advance the character level, but it brings the player slightly closer to the goal.
Oh look, whaddaya know? Five abstract design concepts in this very short game (not bad for my first NWN mod, hmm?).
Now for the next part of the question.
Intention, perceived consequence and player-reward can be transferred to almost any game type because they're rather generic. In a First-person shooter, for instance, intention would be to kill as many hostile NPCs as possible, and players sometimes have to choose who they want to take out first, or with what. Perceived consequence would be where failing to take them out in time or hitting a cilivian would result in a penalty. And player-reward would be in the form of ranking systems and upgrades. Those three concepts can be found in other types as well, like Action, RTS, Adventure, Racing, Puzzle and Sports games.
Story can be applied to a number of game types, though it is less likely to be applicable to a puzzle game like Tetris, or a no-win game like Snake. The player could very well churn up a narration of his/her actions in the game, but that is rather low-level compared to an RPG.
The "no-lose-game" concept can only be applied to very few types of games. It doesn't make sense to use that concept if you want to make winning the objective, and it takes away the conflict that's needed to drive most of the games. At most, it can be applied to Adventure games, MMORPGs (to a certain extent) and Simulation games.
Well, there aren't a lot of abstract design concepts in a game that can be finished in less than ten minutes, but since Alex gave me "the eye" while mentioning that some haven't attempted the third question, I guess I have to attempt it anyway, even though he can't read the first part because of the spoilers.
1. Intention.
There are two main goals in this game, namely winning the trial and finding a way to get back to the mortal world. For the first goal, the player gets to pick what his/her character thinks is the best line of defence from the list of options. For the second goal, the player has to try and convince the Judge to send his/her character back. If the Judge found the PC guilty from the trial and refuse to grant the appeal, he/she will be given a new set of options to choose from to try and change his mind. Intention can also apply to the PC attempting to learn more about certain things from interacting with the NPCs. For instance, the PC can choose to learn more about the Hell Guard's backstory.
2. Perceived consequence
The player knows pretty much that losing the trial would make it harder for the PC to leave Hell, and it does happen when the Judge makes it difficult for the PC to change his mind. In contrast, if the player succeeds in proving his/her PC's innocence, the Judge grants the appeal instantly.
3. Story
This being a game that emphasizes on dialogue and journal writing over scripting, I'd say that there's definitely story in this one. It is an RPG mod after all.
4. No-Lose-Game
Both Ahmed and Weiwei talked about no-win-games in their blogs. Here's a game that you cannot lose. Sure, you can completely mess up both the trial and the appeal, but the end objective is still attainable regardless of your actions. You leave Hell either through the appeal, or through Ahmed the Hell Guard (who only shares the same name as Ahmed the NUS student, and nothing else). You can't even die in this game because there's no combat, so there. You can't even become stuck halfway because you're always given something to do.
5. Player-reward
This plays a very small role in the game, but it's still present, and it's in the form of experience points (XP). The player gets a certain amount of XP whenever he does anything to advance the story, be it accepting an assignment or defending yourself well. It's not quite enough to help the PC advance the character level, but it brings the player slightly closer to the goal.
Oh look, whaddaya know? Five abstract design concepts in this very short game (not bad for my first NWN mod, hmm?).
Now for the next part of the question.
Intention, perceived consequence and player-reward can be transferred to almost any game type because they're rather generic. In a First-person shooter, for instance, intention would be to kill as many hostile NPCs as possible, and players sometimes have to choose who they want to take out first, or with what. Perceived consequence would be where failing to take them out in time or hitting a cilivian would result in a penalty. And player-reward would be in the form of ranking systems and upgrades. Those three concepts can be found in other types as well, like Action, RTS, Adventure, Racing, Puzzle and Sports games.
Story can be applied to a number of game types, though it is less likely to be applicable to a puzzle game like Tetris, or a no-win game like Snake. The player could very well churn up a narration of his/her actions in the game, but that is rather low-level compared to an RPG.
The "no-lose-game" concept can only be applied to very few types of games. It doesn't make sense to use that concept if you want to make winning the objective, and it takes away the conflict that's needed to drive most of the games. At most, it can be applied to Adventure games, MMORPGs (to a certain extent) and Simulation games.
posted by Swift at
2:39 pm
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