I am an adult, apparently

Dwarf Fortress is a game apparently infamous for it’s player-unfriendly user interface and difficult to grasp controls. Brief summary as I understood it initially: You control a dwarvern fortress (shocker) whose inhabitants and resources you have to manage in order to succeed. 

My homework was to play/investigate this game.

It was time for me to lead some dwarves to what would probably be death and destruction.

My Experience:

I decided to start out basically blind with the vanilla game and attempt to work it out for myself. (regrettably) Good news: there’s a help menu, that I can get to at anytime. Bad news: I don’t know how to use the help menu (also ‘Losing is fun!’? okay game). Press Enter to create new world, okay. I went with the default settings of world generation mostly purely because I wasn’t sure how to change them. The loading time for the world generation was long enough that I feel the need to complain about it, but hey what should I have expected from Tar Oru “The Land of Forever”? The music was very chill though, and gave me an ideal soundtrack to contemplate the fact that I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on. It was interesting though.

However, after a long wait the world was finally finished generating. It said movement keys to view so I naively went to use WASD, however it seems one of those buttons (a) was actually the button to clear my newly generated world.

RIP  Tar Oru “The Land of Forever” 2017-2017 Said to be of forever but instead the land of never. Taken too soon.

Okay, that wasn’t ideal, let’s try again.

Now Niralsil, “The Portentous Planes” was to be my domain to explore.

Interesting names/descriptions such as “The Bones-Spike of Flowers” kept turning up during the generation, along with a lot of stuff I did not understand such as ‘Hist Figs’?

Well it finished generating after some time and this time I clicked Enter instead of ‘a’ and was greeted by more loading, now for the saving.

Okay. Fine, this was quicker than the generating at least.

Now finally I could start playing (or at least I thought I could start I wasn’t entirely sure).

Whoop! More Loading.

And then... Well I started.

I found a lengthy bio for one of my dwarves, Led Regnomal, seemed like a good dude. And so decided to read all the bios which have equal amount interesting and boring information.

I was starting to get sick of the repetitive music and hoping there was some option to turn it off.I also found there a bit of customisation able to be done so I immediately made my dwarves all about dragons. Dragons are awesome.

After some investigation I realised I could send my dwarves with a menagerie of animals and/or give them skills. Deliberating on this took some time. Then I finally decided to embark.

Well, this looked confusing, thankfully because it was paused I had the time to explore the menu without any rush. I decided to visit the help menu again and discovered how to navigate it (finally).

There’s a lot to read. I managed to make a pen for the goats and assign a meeting place.

I then decided to un-pause for the first time. Nothing really seemed to happen, apart from the dwarfs going to the tavern.

I decided to set up more pens for the animals.

Then I needed to finish up for the day, therefore I needed to work out how to save/quit. It was thankfully in the esc menu like other games.

Questions:

How far did I get with the game? Not very far at all.

What actions did I manage to do? Make pastures for the animals. Navigate the help menu. Get confused.

Elements that were fun? The depth of it (each dwarf having its own bio, each animal having its own bio, the procedural generation (even if it takes long)

Elements that were not? Difficult controls, hard to understand graphics, the fact that there wasn’t an “are you sure you want to delete your world after waiting ages for it to generate”

Would you consider playing this game outside of homework? Seeing as it’s free, I probably would (strange I know), once I installed a few mods to make it easier to understand. It seems to appeal to my need for depth.

So that’s Dwarf Fortress.

Source

Procedural generation is interesting and exciting thing. It is when some sort of algorithm is used to make large amounts of content. And we all love content right?

It can be quite powerful and can be used to do such things as make a maze level in a game unique every time so that nobody can memorise it. I’m personally a big fan of it. But it’s not without it’s flaws as all procedural generation has an element of unpredictability sometimes strange stuff happens.

For example in Minecraft vast worlds are made with Procedural generation. However there are sometimes bugs. Floating Islands, single blocks floating in the air, flowers spawning on stone and village house spawning half underground are just a few examples of what I have personally seen. Luckily for Minecraft players often find these ‘bugs’ interesting, or a feature in the case of floating islands, at worst they can be sometimes annoying. This may not be the case with other games though.

Procedural rhetoric a whole bit different from that and to be clear I don’t really understand it, even after all the reading I’ve done. But that’s not surprising as it has to do with people. Specifically how gameplay can reveal the developer’s understanding of how the world works (or how they want the world to work) and/or how gameplay effects the player view on how the world works.

This can obviously get a bit touchy sometimes, as not all of us agree on how the world works. Whenever sensitive subjects are tackled in games care should be taken to stop the developer’s bias misrepresent issues and that the game doesn’t give the wrong impression of issues.

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Diegesis in game is basically what is part of the game world and what is not part of the game world but presented to the player as the game. They are called diegetic and non-diegetic respectively.

How Diegesis is handled in games can have a extreme effect on both story and feeling of the game and the gameplay.

It also is overlaps a bit with the fourth wall sometimes, seeing as it deals with the connections and differences between the game world and the real world.

In Grim Fandango a lot of non-diegetic elements are made more diegetic or removed in order to make the game’s tone more in-line with it’s film-noir inspiration. However this makes it more difficult for the player to play the game.

Some other games that play around with Diegesis:

Drawn To Life

In Drawn To Life the player is cast as the ‘Creator’ and is often directed and acknowledge by the characters in the game directly. The player has a birds eye view in most of the story sections when this occurs so when they talk to the player they look up. A lot of other non-diegetic elements are explained in game to be diegetic. Like the character creation when the hero character is made.

There is also this dialogue;

Mari: Hey Jowee... How do you think the Creator sees us? Jowee: Erm... What if we lived in a white box with two windows... and the box had buttons... and a magic wand! And the Creator used that to examine our lives... And control what we do! What do you think? Mari: That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard... Jowee: Yeah, I guess so... 

Which obviously refers to the Nintendo DS, making even the slightly game system diegetic to this game.

Little Nightmares

Little Nightmares goes for a get rid of as much non-diegetic stuff as possible approach like Grim Fandango. However the gameplay does not suffer from this as it does not require a lot of the more common non-diegetic elements such as a health meter as the player character(Six) dies in one shot, or a game map as the exploring is mostly linear.

In addition how re-spawning (another traditionally non-diegetic thing) is represented is interesting. When Six dies in one of the terrifying ways availiable in-game she is shown waking up back at the last checkpoint. As if what terrible fate she had just befallen was only a little nightmare.

As it always is with games whenever you play around with the normal something interesting is produced.

Sources Gregory Weir - Grim Fandango and the Diegesis in Games

I don’t think podcasts are really for me. After all just listening to something is how I start falling asleep in class. I need some visual stuff, something shiny, even if it’s something in my own head. They also tend to be long. I get lost easily. There are noises in the background I can’t see the source of.

However since I had to watch listen to a podcast for homework I found some stuff of the 1 hr, 32 min and 11 secs of listening to game developers discuss games interesting. Even if they discussed some games I am not familiar with (and that didn’t help my problem with podcasts that I couldn’t visualise anything for them). It was really nice to hear some of Steve Gaynor’s story of being a games fan and student to game developer. As some looking at trying to enter the industry it’s really relevant.

There were other topics that came up that I have things to say about, but there’s one idea(s) I got a bit more to say about than anything else.

Elements emerging from the process/Exploratory Process To explain quickly this is about how sometimes things aren’t planned out in the game development, ideas for the game can be created through the actual making of the game, and all ideas in the game can evolve when you explore them.

In the podcast they discuss how the monkeys from System Shock 2 emerged from the process of motion capture when Ken Levine decided to start monkeying around (I’m not sorry) and how the concept of Little Sisters and Big Daddies in Bioshock evolved from the idea of showing relationships non-verbally which was inspired by a nature documentary about worker-ants. Another example is the Creeper model in Minecraft being the result of a mix-up with the pig model.

Some of these elements are silly and turn into Easter eggs. Others are radical and literally game changing.

This is a really important idea to think about in terms of game development. Why? Let me explain.

The idea of making a game often feels very intimidating, I think I often come to the assumption that before you start developing a game, you need everything completely planned out. Which is a restrictive assumption. For many reasons. 

Reason one; your ideas are not completely king and it’s important to have other people’s perspective on your work. If you have everything planned out you might be tempted to think that any deviation to that plan as bad, and not take on constructive criticism and new interesting ideas.

Reason two; it stops you from adapting. Whether it’s a technical limitation you didn’t foresee or that the world has moved on from when started coming up with your idea and opinions on things are different, if you can’t adapt and evolve you’ll die out like the dinosaurs.

Reason three; it stops you from coming up with and using really unique and interesting ideas! In my books that one of the worst things ever.

So yeah.

Podcast

People are weird. People are also mean. 

I have to stress that when I say people I mean people as the collective; a person is usually a-okay but people are pretty much always terrible.

This is true for the gamer community too.

From rampant sexism (despite the statistics saying more gamers are women over 30 then teenage boys), elitism (Console wars etc) and general toxicity observed, a lot of people quite fairly think of the gamer community as terrible.

Of course stereotypes are bad and most of the time statistically false, and most persons of the gamer community are great.

And it is a community, a very wide and diverse community, but a community never-the-less. All united by enjoying these wonderful interactive experiences, be it CoD or Dragon City. 

Some say that there is a barrier to playing games due to cost but with internet games, free app games and free-to-play games I think that barrier is lowering.

In my view if you play games and like them, then you’re a gamer. Like if you make art, be it for fun or for money, then you’re an artist.

Speaking of art; there’s a lot of amazing things gamers do, lots of different amazing things. There are fan-artists, cosplayers, modders, map-makers, collectors, lets-players, achievement hunters, and people who just play the games and have a fun time. 

They make and do incredible things because they want to.

To summarise; everyone is terrible, but some things we do aren’t terrible.

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I’ve been partway through The Last Guardian since... April??? and haven’t found the opportunity to finish it. (Blame homework and the internet) 

However I do know I love it very much, and should get back to it. I just want to spend time with my bird-cat-doggo friend.

Aww, I love him. (I wish I had less homework and better time-management skills)

Many have criticised the clunky controls, bad camera and having to deal with Trico not following directions. I have been mostly fine with these problems and I am totally okay with Trico not entirely being easy to direct. (maybe I’m just used to my cat not doing anything that I say at all)

I think that for this game it is important to like animals to enjoy this game. If you’re one of those people who see animals as ‘mindless meat machines’ or something similar I want to fight you, and you probably won’t enjoy this game that concentrates on the bond that’s formed between boy and beast. So there’s cultural context where the game really appeals more to pet owners and animal lovers.

The creator of the game said The Last Guardian came from people reacting to the bond between the Wander and the horse in Shadow of Colossus. I find that really cool, like he was ‘oh you find this nice, I didn’t realise, lets do more’. Udea actually seems like a guy I can relate to, with him answering question about his visual style with “We just go from our imagination.”

All in all I have to finish playing The Last Guardian, play Shadow of Colossus and Ico, and get better time-management skills...

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I am not good at people or that thing called ‘socialising,’ I much prefer the company of my cat. However there are a few things I know:

People are weird. They are the opposite of cats, as they don’t stay in boxes. They cannot be organised into nice little categories. We’re just too diverse. And whenever ever things involve people or even worse; a lot of people, things are going to get complicated.

Subjectivity in games is complicated. Whether it’s about how games should be reviewed or just how we play together as a community, it’s a real mess and saying anything else would be lying.

When it comes to reviews and critique some believe that because everyone’s own experiences of a game are unique and therefore their views that ‘professional’ reviews should be purely objective in order to cater for everyone. I think that would be boring and out of touch. What would that even be, a list? I mean, sure, I want to know what a game’s features are whether or not it will run well but if that’s all you’re discussing? Sorry, I probably won’t read it. Because when you take away subjectivity more often than not you take away some humanity too. That doesn’t mean that game reviews should be purely subjective either obviously. (because humanity can be terrible)

One prime example of how humanity is terrible is the fact that one of the four classifications of Bartle’s Taxonomy of Players is literally called ‘Killers’. Bartle’s Taxonomy is a nice neat theory about how and why people play Multi User Dungeons (MUD’s) and by extension MMORPG’s. Basically it boils down to this;

Achievers want to beat the game

Explorers want do discover everything in the game

Socialisers just want to have a good time with people

Killers want to the very best by murdering/sabotaging/annoying everyone (lovely)

It’s a cool theory, but you know what I said about people and boxes? So it’s a nice framework to start thinking about how and why people play, but not perfect. (perfection is an illusion)

In the same way subjectivity in games is complicated, in the end it is also simple; there will always be someone with a different view from you, many people actually. As long as we acknowledge that we’ll be fine.

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I have not yet had the pleasure of playing Okami, but even from afar I can tell that it is a great game. 

If nothing else the pure admiration fans of the game have is telling of just how great a game it is. Though these days game fanbases can be quite rabid and blindly loyal (I haven’t mentioned anyone in particular so leave me alone I don’t want a fight) they still show that a game has something interesting about it, and Okami is from before that time anyway.

However I can’t exactly believe that Okami is perfect, as perfection is unattainable, so I would like to hear about the game’s problems, even if they’re inconsequential, even if they’re subjective. That always makes a discussion deeper in my opinion. (Though if Okami is actually without fault please tell me)

So I’ve got to add Okami to the list of games I should definitely get along with the Last of Us, Overwatch and Shadow of the Colossus.

Sources

“Ludonarrative Dissonance” is a pair of big words that describes when game-play and story elements in a game are outright conflicting each other. Or to be more precise the message or theme of the story is outright conflicting with gameplay elements. For example if the message of the story was ‘freedom of choice is good’ and players are faced with choices, but none of those choices have any effect on the game whatsoever. 

I think the term “ludonarrative dissonance” or at least the concept behind is useful for games criticism as it gives framework to discuss a problem which doesn’t plague too many games but are deeply frustrating when it does.

I suppose we don’t need a specific word for it per say, I mean we would probably get along without it just fine, but since it has been coined we might as well use it. 

Campster’s blog post on Errant Signal brought to my attention however that some see the phrase is seen as ‘hoity-toity’. A word that would be used by people who like to use big words to sound smarter and more important. (I actually am quite guilty of similar things, perhaps that’s why I actually like saying the word?) However he goes on to explain while the phrase may be long and complicated the concept it represents is something that exists and should be investigated.

In response to Julie Muncy’s Article on what she perceives to be (though she doesn’t use the term) ludonarrative dissonance in Undertale where the game promotes pacifism but forces the player into conflict... I just have to say she seems to have a bit of misconception on what pacifism is.

Pacifism as far as I understand it is an outright rejection of violence, according to some it means if you had no choice to avoid conflict you would rather have the harm inflicted on yourself then your opponent. Using Flowey’s words; pacifism is ‘be killed’ part of kill or be killed. 

I can’t say I’ve encountered ludonarrative dissonance in any of the games I’ve played recently, however some of the issues raised with Battlefield Hardline seem to be such. In particular the fact that you receive bonus points for non-lethal take-downs of enemies however those points only reward you with new ways to kill enemies.

I think at the very least the concept of ludonarrative dissonance should be discussed in video games critique even if people don’t like using the phrase.

Sources

Clint Hocking’s Critique - Ludonarrative Dissonance in Bioshock

Campster’s Blog Post - Ludonarrative Dissonance & Game Vocabulary Criticism

I’ve always admired pixel art; two of my favourite games of my childhood were Pokemon Mystery Dungeons: Blue Rescue Team and Drawn to Life. So I was very interested in reading Chevy Jonston’s breakdown of the art and style of Ikenfell.

In particular I loved reading the design choices for the game being explained in both the stylistic and practical ways. As someone who is looking to possibly work in game design that’s something I need to consider. You can’t just have a game look pretty, the players also have to be able to play it and see what’s going on.

I would have loved to learn more about the story and the characters but from what I can see the characters are diverse with a lot of care gone into their designs. They also seem really cute, a hallmark of this sort of pixel art style.

The environments are nicely detailed from what I can see (or at least detailed for pixel art) and if you look you can see bits that have been repeated, but often the repetition has been broken up with some variance or another. Such as a different type of tree in the forest or different formation of flowers.

Little simple details building up to a big picture, that’s pixel art.

All in all Ikenfell looks beautiful and interesting and I will certainly look forward to it’s release in 2018. Until then I might pick up Drawn to Life again.

Sources:

Chevy Jonston’s Article - The Art & Visual Language of Ikenfell

I have not played Battlefield Hardline, in fact I can’t say I’ve really played any FPS’s except for Star Wars Battlefront with my sister.

Star Wars Battlefront depicts a fictional conflicts set in a fictional galaxy. Battlefield Hardline depicts fictional, dramatised versions of real-world conflicts set in places that are some peoples’ home towns and glosses over the ramifications of that.

If it had been released at another time other than 2015 perhaps this wouldn’t have been an issue since there are plenty of media which glorifies this cops vs robbers action with cops shooting to kill and criminals with weaponry they surely don’t actually have access to or funds for.

But it was released after the events in Ferguson, Atlanta when the issues of police brutality, police militarisation and racism were at the forefront of peoples minds. They should have stepped up to the plate and had this reflected in the game.

They tried, it seems, to get people to play stealthily and use 'less-lethal force’ but as Austin Walker explained in his article it was executed very poorly with no effect on the single-player story whether you safely arrested or gunned down people. 

I think one of the core parts of that problem is that, in addition to no real incentives there are no terrible consequences for using excessive force in both campaign and multi-player. Just a few less points. That’s something that gets quite scary if you think about it. And that the force also seems excessive, in real-life situations it would seem that officers should aim first for disabling shots then for killing shots as the situation escalates. At least, you would hope.

From what I can see the multiplayer plays like some grand stakes heist movie. In that way it seems detached enough from the reality of what happens in the real world. The two sides fight like two armies, with different abilities but ultimately on a balanced level. It’s fantastical and dramatic, and after watching it I can’t stop thinking of all the ways it wouldn’t happen and that I haven’t seen anything like it outside a superhero movie.

It certainly looks very exciting and interesting though, and what more should we care, it’s a bang-bang video game, what more should we expect?

As Marc Price said in his review Battlefield Hardline did add some new, fresh game-play elements to the Battlefield series and shooters in general. Which is certainly needed. 

In the end even though Battlefield Hardline glossed over the issues, others didn’t and thanks to Austin Walker I learnt of 75 unarmed people of colour killed by police tonight and read the story of Aiyana Mo’nay Stanley-Jones’ tragic death. And so while Battlefield Hardline did not deal with the issues surrounding their subject matter they did start some discussions and that makes me think someone else could make a game dealing with these issues properly and start even more conversations.

Sources:

Austin Walker’s Review Battlefield Hardline Review: Cop Out

Marc Price’s Article I’m Here for the Bang-Bang: On Battlefield: Hardline, First-Person Shooters, and Storytelling