Critique 5 - The book wizard. & Weekly Contribution

Weekly Contribution:
Leo's Adventure - Final code.

Created an eye animation for final boss cutscene

fixed - a lot - of bugs. (woohoo)

The Book Wizard

Game Concept

Pros:
The concept that I liked about this game is how they creatively designed the letter shapes into functions that can be made in game with a logical shape. For example, placing the H letter and tiling it vertically will make it look like a ladder. Another example is the letter J when being held, can either serve as a weapon to attack enemies. I thought this concept idea was really creative and unique.

Cons:

I remembered the first week they presented this idea, the cons that I had immediately in my thought were hit detections. At first, for the player to pick up the letter, use it to attack using the right hitbox, or placing the inks to activate objects in the game require many precise hit detections.

Design & Innovation

Pros:
As I mentioned before, not many games out there that uses letter shapes to form an interactive object within the gameplay. Which I thought was quite innovative in the design. The artwork definitely attracts a cute-lover styled art mainly aimed for females or kids or to a certain extent, males.

Cons:

There weren't really any design cons that I had towards this game. Although when I playtested the game, I was a bit disappointed to find they changed their concept a bit. It was previously using letters, picking them up and using them each. Whereas now they use inks to activate functions for the game.

Art Content:

Pros:

Art content is really nice for the game's purpose. The soundtrack and color palette has a clear intended audience and it does give a fun feel even before we play the game. It certainly can be more dramatic as it is now, because I felt that it had little impact towards the character. With the art style being well done, I felt the need to increase the player's relation towards the main character. That is what I would do if I were to be in the creation of this game.

Cons:

I love it. No Cons

Game Interface:

the game interface was made pretty clear. and the level designs really helped me in learning how to play the game. Immediately when I walk towards a beanstock, the character would push it, making it really simple to learn. Also, as soon as the character (holding an ink bottle) reaches a transparent letter, it lights up to full opaque hinting that it is now interactable.

Compelling Gameplay Experience:

As compelling as it was, I felt that the attraction mostly came from the artworks. The movement was a mechanic that needed to be learned as the creation team uses a certain time frame for the character to move. When I press a move key, and release it a short while after, the character will move the exact same amount of distance as if I release it immediately after pressing it. This makes the jumping mechanic a bit difficult to master, and I'm pretty sure not in the intended way. Because in a platformer, sometimes it feels nice to jump right along the edge, or if we want to turn around direction in the air. Through the game's beta code mechanics it felt difficult to do so as it has small delays.

At first, the gameplay was engaging, but I felt that the pace wasn't fast enough for me to keep me interested to play more. For the beta code, the mechanics were only ink bottles, H letter as ladder, and pushing beanstocks to cover jump distances. I felt that those three could really be at most in 2 levels and not 4. Aside from that, a narrative addition to have players connect more with the character would also be nice to have.

Technical Achievement or sophistication:

As a programmer, I think the complexity of the technical side is quite low. When I started this class, I had no idea how to use gamemaker and thus having to learn it from zero. If I only compare the technical side and not the artworks, I felt like what I created is much more complex than what The Book Wizard has. All they had to do was to create a level selection room, main menu, and actual gameplay which will be elaborated. In the actual gameplay, they used many similar objects and mechanics such as platforms, inks, H letter, or beanstocks, and character movements which are all reused in each level. Not many new contents or objects are available yet in the beta, even though they have complete levels.

Difficulty?

The overall difficulty of this game is rather low. Aside from the movement mastery that I mentioned above, the game seems quite simple and easy to learn. I may not be the intended audience since I do feel that the challenge and pace was rather slow. To actually find out if it fits the correct challenge level for its intended audience, the game has to be playtested.

Improvements:

Narrative, is the most important part I can say about improvements. Making players relate and care more towards the main character. Find out why he has to go through this. What is his goal? Why is he progressing through these levels? Does it need to be levels? Why can't it be one big area?

Are just some sample questions that can still be answered to improve the game experience overall.
Movements can also be improved so that it is more responding to change rather than using a small timeframe to lock a movement direction.

Aside from those, I love the soundtrack and style.

Commercial Potential:

If the game were to be put on a store, I would definitely browse over it , view the actual gameplay video and maybe not buy it after seeing the gameplay. The concept does catch people's attention, but at the beta code's point, I do not feel that it is enough for someone to actually use money to play the game.

Team Contribution This week

up to March 26, 2012
Created  Beta code,
assisted in playtesting
fixing bugs and functions from code

Weekly Contribution

This week, my contribution is finishing the water puzzle to be done,
fixing the game start so it matches the narrative,
and start fixing the collision paths through using the updated new artwork.

Also, hint or start learning narrative about fire path and end game path for its story and puzzles

Game Critique 4 & Weekly Contribution

For this week, I continuously work on the alpha code and try to fix bugs and codes that were present in the alpha. There are not many forward movements yet except for the narrative and the puzzle difficulty. Since we decided to increase the age of our target audience range, we had to modify some aspects of the puzzle and narrative, so that it would not be as boring to read all the chat. Thus this week I kept on trying to fix the chatbox size and font size in perspective to camera, and some other bugs such as collision and movement.

Game Critique 4HUD and Interface Design Critique

Skyrim

On Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the HUD and interface design is a hybrid type where they kept only the important HUDs diagetic. Most of the general game related displays such as health, mana, energy or item lists are all non-diagetic.

Diagetics

Let us take a look at what I meant by the most important HUD, your equipped weapon or spell and armor. This game provides both first person camera mode and third person camera mode. The benefits of each are subjective, however in my view point, first person view is only useful when bows are equipped because the trajectory of the arrow is very visible and the mechanics of archery is actually quite astonishing in this game. Back to the point, players can easily notice what spell or what weapon they are equipping just by looking at what is embedded as their own hands in the camera of first person. In third person, they can view what armor they are equipped with.

Another example of a semi-diagetic interface is the activation information that appears in the middle of the screen. This appears diagetic because players can quickly notice that they are able to interact with the object differently than other dead objects.
Once selected, a different menu appears on what that activation actually does. Lastly, some puzzles are also solved with both diagetic and non-diagetic interface. A puzzle where the trick in solving requires players to search an item in their inventory and read the answers, and actually solving them in the game.

Add caption

Another example of a slightly imposed diagetic UI is how the players should navigate. Such as the picture with the activation stone up above, players have a mini compass they can always use to see where their objective is. However, the actual design of the dungeons provide a more detailed view once they actually arrive. The picture below is an example where the player has reached the end of the dungeon to an altar where their objective is. The altar is shone by light from above, clearly differentiating the place because it is more focused by the light, directing the player that there is something interesting and something to do at that location.

Non-Diagetics

When we open the menu, the first thing that popped up is this interface. Everything else we saw is paused in time and blurred, and this cross-shaped interface popped up. This interface works very well for both joystick and mouse controllers. Joystick players move their analogs to a direction of options they choose, and mouse controllers move their mouse to a direction of choice as well. Then, a menu pops up and then a more typical inventory interface is seen. A more in depth list of items that we collected, using a column tab information such as apple (Mac OSX) styled folder browsing.











Another example of a non-diagetic UI is the health, mana, energy, and enemy health bar. This UI is interestingly done because it only appears when combat starts, or when any environment objects are affecting them. Otherwise, they fade out of the screen, giving a more realistic view of the world without any on-screen HUDs.

Skyrim Summary

In summary, the HUDs and interfaces of Skyrim is clearly made so that the view of the world is somewhat visible from any kind of menu the players are in. Skyrim successfully managed to keep players immersed by keeping only what is needed in a specific task. The interface is designed for intermediate users because it needed to be learned and experimented with trial and error before the player masters it. However, with the length of the gameplay that are both intended and provided, the controls will eventually become intuitive.

In respect to the rule of functionality preservation, I think Skyrim balances their visual quality with its functionality. By having an aesthetically designed UI to match the overall game design, they reduced the efficiency of expert users trying to navigate through the menu. This opinion will be clearer once we read through the summary of Recettear's UI critique.

Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale

On Reccetear, the interface and HUD is mostly non-diagetic with a small aspect of diagetic interface. The interface style and control scheme of Recettear is a typical design for games with similar visual aesthetics. The game expected players to be familiar with a similar styled games even though it is not very popular in the Western society.

Non-Diagetics

Let's start with the menu operations.
The controls that are designed for this styled game are the "Z, X, C, V + arrow keys".
This control scheme are mainly used for Japanese and Korean original game control schemes such as Touhou series or Getamped. Z key is the accept button, X key is the cancel, C and V can be for various functions. Arrow keys are natural for players to navigate the menu from a previous standard of control. However for Recettear, since there are a bargaining element involved, and an option menu to be accessed, the number keys and the esc button provides these accessibility. The reason why I claimed that ZXCV key styles are Japanese and Korean visual aesthetics are because these games are limited in their key configurations. They have the players use these keys without giving them options to change or switch the keys to the player's preferences.



Some HUDs are obvious through standard, however some HUDs are also new to players from the game's own design. For example, the yes and no option with the mickey mouse glove pointing is a traditionally used style of option choosing.

However, also in the next picture, the book that is opened is showing what menu is being selected, and this can only be learned through trying to press the buttons. Eventually, players will get used to the interface and control, but it is definitely not something that players understand just by seeing and watching.









Another example of a learned UI is the bargaining menu. We can control the price we want to sell either by inputting a price number, or by using the highlighted area and pressing up or down arrow key to adjust the numbers similar to a padlock.

Diagetics

Now let us look at some example of the few diagetic UIs that Recettear provide. There are two examples that I found as an example of diagetic UIs in the shop. Two other examples for the dungeon part of the gameplay as Diagetic UIs.

In the shop, Recette put items to be sold in the shop, and the items are shown in the display of the shop, instead of a normal list. This is what makes Recettear's shop system unique. Customers actually browse the shop and not our inventory. And when they purchased a certain item, the related item is removed from the display. Like the necklace near the window, that necklace has been put into a display and ready to be sold if a customer wishes to when we open the shop. Now for opening the shop, there is an exclamation mark on top of Recette's head noting that she can interact with something which in this case is opening the shop.

In the dungeon, There are two examples of diagetic UIs. First is the experience gaining system. When we defeat a monster, they drop crystals which is magnetically sucked to the hunter, increasing their exp bar. This is Recettear's attempt to create a more diagetic UI experience gain system more than just displaying a text of "200 exp gained" for example.
The crystals differ in color and size corresponding to how much experience they give to the hunter. In this same picture, a semi-diagetic UI is shown when we attack enemies either from the side or from behind. It tells us that we attacked the monster from the side or behind, thus giving more damage to them with each single attack. Another example is when the hunter is doing a critical strike attack to the enemy. The game time pauses a little and the hunter's weapon is given shining effects














Last but not least, a semi-diagetic warning interface for players to know when a trap is about to be unleashed to them. The large yellow exclamation driving sign that is a familiar convention to humans that something dangerous is up ahead. Warns players that they are about to face a trap that they activated.

Recettear Summary

In summary, the control scheme of Recettear is made from the Japanese and Korean style indie game convention. The HUD, Interface, and control scheme is designed for an expert system where players have to learn through trial and error much more than an intermediate system would. The quality can be evaluated subjectively with each gamer's experience in their gaming. One thing for sure is that the Recettear system or program provide player with capabilities of moving through menus quickly, accessing items and objectives that they want quickly, with less animations and loading time the menu can be navigated - astonishing new players of the game with the time expert players can navigate.

In respect to the rule of functionality preservation, Recettear designed the interfaces and HUDs to a more expert player where they have to learn the game's own conventions to a certain extent first before they navigate through them easily. However, through the learning curve, Recettear designed a more functional interface in respect to efficiency more then the visual aesthetics of the game.

Overall Summary

There are many more interfaces in those games that I haven't covered. I only wanted to cover what I thought was a bit more unusual to other games. When judging which is the better interface, subjective of opinions comes into factor. Some players prefer a more aesthetically pleasing interface with clearer and easier to learn functions. Some other players wishes to navigate the menu quickly once they learn the basics of the menu.

For both games, I think that the control scheme and the HUDs can be intuitive once the player are used to seeing it and playing the game to an extent of time. I have played both games over 10 hours each (a lot lot more for Skyrim), and I think that both interfaces can be adapted easily. So the design isn't bad, it comes to a personal preference. Both are hybrid interfaces, which I think is a quite usual style for present designed games as they try different styles to create a more immersive environment based on their game style.

Resources:
I took all the Recettear screenshots from the game (I own it)
For Skyrim, I stopped playing a while ago, thus I took screenshots from a YouTube gameplay video from this link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSL-r9AIEEU

Weekly Team Contribution

This week, I gathered sprites and pictures from Joyce and Azim to create the alpha code.
The code in terms of its mechanics for puzzles are all done in a tutorial level. However, choosing a menu option is still to be implemented in chat. Npc chat is available but choosing a path can only be done in a menu system and not within the chat system. Thus I am working on possibly working around those and trying to have a variable to control the flow of the narrative.

Mechanics done:
saving / loading
npc chat
menu system
digging up dirt
flow with the water using a raft
cutting up a vine - needs better collision checking

Mechanics with ideas to be done:
npc chat with choices (maybe integrated with menu system)
inventory system (tutorial is available and at hand, thus a matter of learning it)

Weekly Contribution Update

Creation of the alpha code of game maker.

Game Critique 3

A critique on level design for 

Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale

As mentioned in previous critiques, Recettear has two main gameplays, one which is running a shop and the second are dungeons that players need to hunt in order to either freely restock their items to sell or finding a rare expensive item to sell. Thus the hunting needs a dungeon that the hunter and Recette has to go through and we as the users control the hunter to defeat the monsters that are laid out in the dungeon.

When discussing about the dungeon in Recettear, the first thing we need to know is that dungeons are randomized within a subset of limitations. The dungeon system of Recettear uses stages for the hunter to explore and find the portal to the next stage of the dungeon. Once the players reach a certain stage of the dungeon, they fight a boss where if the boss is defeated then the players are given a choice to go back with all the earnings or continue to fight a harder dungeon.

The size and shape of the actual dungeon is the exact same for a specific stage, however every instance the player arrives in the stage there are three things that are randomized. The player's spawn position in respect to the stage, the portal's location that would advance to the next stage, and the location and traps of the enemies are randomized as well. The minimap, even though has the exact same shape is reset on every instance and is only showing the parts where the players have gone through in that specific time.

In discussing and critiquing a level design I am using a subset of elements to evaluate the design. These subset factors that would determine are:

a. Ergonomics: Making sure the player is not frustrated in play 

b. Flow: Keeping the player moving through the play field 

c. Rhythm: Providing a spread of intensity and experience to motivate the player

d. Difficulty: Keeping the player challenged 

e. “Wow Factor”: Moments that leave an impression on the player 

f. Hooks: Making your level stand out to the player

Ergonomics

The level in Recettear has a same shape for a specific stage. Thus when evaluating whether a player's level of frustration, there is a balance between what can happen. Through the randomization of some aspects, this keeps the player in a flow and rhythm however this can also frustrate some players by chance. In low level dungeons, this isn't shown as much and new players can easily navigate through the dungeons. However when the dungeon reaches an expert level where the stage is large and proceeding a stage is difficult, spawning at the edge of the stage and having to find the portal can be difficult thus frustrating the players on how they should proceed. If players die numerous times, they eventually learn the shape of the stage, which makes them easier to try and find the portal since they know what areas or which direction to go to cover most of the stage and reveal the map of the stage. So even though chances are low, there is a possible consequence of the randomization of positioning in Recettear's dungeon stages.

Flow

The flow of Recettear's stages are designed pretty well combined with the mechanics of hunting. There are traps laid out certain positions of the map and monsters can ambush the player, giving them a choice to fight or either run from them which keeps the player flowing through the stage. Killing the monsters are also fairly quick especially with the right equipment, and a single stage provides many monsters for the players to kill and keep them moving through it. Once the player finds a portal door, they have a choice to either continue exploring the stage to reveal the whole map, finding more monsters for items and leveling up the hunter, or decide to finish the stage quickly and go straight to the portal door.

Thus I think Recettear does a pretty good job on keeping players immersed in the dungeons.

Rhythm

Placements of monsters in Recettear if fairly predictable. There is a negative space in architecture terms, where the player is supposed to be moving because they are in a tight sized hallway, or a positive space where players are encouraged to stay and fight the monsters present in the large open area. Although the roller coaster of challenge is in a simple form in lower level dungeons, at higher level dungeons the decision to either advance to the next stage or continue and fight more for more loots becomes an important decision. If players die within a dungeon, they are only given one item from the trip to bring back. This is a huge loss given what players have accumulate over the time they spent in a single dungeon run. Thus decision of farming more or quickly defeat the boss is a pretty important and challenging decision that players constantly choose at every stage. By this, players are really engaged by making important decisions at short intervals.

Difficulty

The difficulty of dungeons in Recettear can be balanced with the flow. Players can evade monsters and explore the dungeon to quickly advance the stages and fight the boss in order to go back to town. However a certain higher level dungeons, there are difficult monsters which players have to fight regardless because of their mechanics which does not let players run from them. Thus to a certain extent the player have a control of the level although it is not a complete control. But this does create a challenge in the game which keeps the players engaged. As if a consequence can also bring a benefit and vice versa.

Wow Factor

For the most part, Recettear's wow factor in their levels are hugely decided on types of monsters they fight. The game have plenty types of monsters to keep players engaged. Aside from that, there are trap types and treasure chests which keeps the players interested. Especially if the treasure chest or monsters drops some rare items which the player has been searching. Though the wow factor's impact isn't as huge, there is no other feeling like finding the item you have been searching for a long time and the satisfaction it brings.

Hooks

As far as uniqueness of Recettear's dungeon goes, from what I can tell the randomization aspects of it are pretty uncommon. Even though some other games may have done it as well, Recettear's is one of its kind. I think that the other aspects of the game really covers up the consequence of the less of hooks in the dungeons. Especially since this is just a part of the game where opening and running a shop is really the hook of the game. Overall, Recettear does a good job of its level designs and a high mark on its gameplay combined with shop running.