Week4 - Game Critique 2 and Team Contribution

On my part of the contribution for this week I did:
- help on game testing
- learning how to make npc chat in game maker
- learning further game maker actions and functions in preparation for alpha code during reading break


Skyrim
Primary Gameplay mode -
The primary gameplay of Skyrim is the third person world navigation and combat against monsters. This gameplay mode allows you to walk around the world and attack enemies with either a spell or a weapon. It also allows you to talk to an npc and receive or submit quests. This is where players mainly spend all their time in the game.




Additional Mode -

An example of an additional mode for Skyrim is the character creation mod. When we first start the game, we choose which race or gender we would like our character to be. This makes a huge difference in the gameplay because each race have a specific skill that can either help or bring a situation to a disadvantage which will cause some gameplay mechanics to be a little different.



Feature Mode -

As I have explained in my first game critique regarding Skyrim, one of its attraction is to add mods which will modify everyone's own experience in playing Skyrim. The website Skyrim Nexus is a database which some players like me actually spend 80% of the time in this website, either creating or downloading other people's creation to add content to the game. After the stories and quests are done, generally people look into here to find some interesting new content, which actually turns to where they spend most of their time browsing as if we are shopping free things.



Challenges from mechanics or Implemented actions
From the mechanics of moving and swaying weapons and targetting enemies with spells, this creates a world with hit boxes that programmers of Skyrim has designed. One of the very interesting combats are against a dragon. The dragon would perform a firebreath attack which players have to dodge through moving, and somehow find a moment to counterattack the dragon. These, including the sound design of the dragon, music and graphical effects causes many players to experience fighting a dragon like none other game have done before. The sound was real, it looked real, and how we defeat it looks challenging and fun.


Pros and Cons
As I may have mentioned before as well, the pros and cons of their design lies mainly in the ability for people to mod the game. The pro in here is because additional contents are technically speaking unlimited as people can keep creating and adding new content as they wish. However in coding something that can be easily generated by players across different abilities of production, there are limitations that are caused in the gameplay so that it doesn't break easily. Thus the mechanics are very simple in the actual gameplay. The walk animation, the attack animation, the NPC talking animation falls into a loop that are easily noticed. This falls off for players who are seeking new actions and excitement. As many Western RPGs typical style of someone has a problem, needs you to kill this monster a number of times, report back for reward - will eventually be tiring because the level of repetition is too high. As the flow graph of challenge / ability, the challenge will eventually drop because there aren't any more new NPC mechanics since they are all similar causing players to fall to the boredom area and stop playing.


In terms of its flowboard, skyrim mainly uses the blur effect from the main gameplay mode to add inventory menu. When the players are able to navigate through their inventory, the main screen blurs out making our eyes focused on the menu at hand.












Recettear

Primary Gameplay Mode -

Speaking about the primary gameplay mode of Recettear is tough. As my first critique said, this game is a good example of crossing genres and therefore it seemed as if there are more than one game combined into a single game. Thus in my opinion there are two main kinds of primary gameplay mode. As the game would progress, the most important gameplay is opening and running a shop. Selling the goods players obtain from the second primary gameplay mode which is dungeon hunting. When we open our shop, customers will start to come in and negotiate buying or selling price. This becomes the primary gameplay mode. However if we keep selling things, we will eventually run out of stock. Which is why dungeon hunting is also necessary to be done in this game.

























Additional Gameplay Mode -

The additional gameplay mode of Recettear would be controlling wisely what to do with your time. As certain dungeons and certain hunters that you hire are only available at certain days, then we have to schedule our day and choose wisely what to do. This option is available through controlling the pointer choosing which location to go. Players can either do the story or try to find someone new to recruit by making friends at the bar. Scrolling through your inventory and choosing which item to bring to a dungeon, which item to buy at a shop because some of them are on sale, are all secondary gameplay modes that trains your planning and scheduling skills.















Challenges from mechanics or Implemented actions
The challenge in Recettear is to achieve enough money that she can pay her father's debt. Thus the main mechanic in trading is to negotiate the price. Expressions will change amongst customers as we raise or reduce the price. On one hand we try to keep our prices low, yet as much profit as possible for more customers in the future to come. However we have to decide some items that can be sacrificed for better amount of customers, and some items that we just can't sell cheap due to rarity.
At the dungeon, each hunter will bear different skills and play styles. Some are weak with ranged attacks thus dodging becomes priority. Some have more health and medium attacks thus we balance out our health loss to the enemy health loss. This challenge and different play style is what keeps players interested and not bored with the game.


Pros and Cons
The pros of this design method is that players are entertained for most parts of the game. The different and distinct style from one gameplay mode to another will keep players interested because not only it feels like a different game, but it opens up opportunities for each gameplay to be designed on its own thus doubling the rate of game that gamers play. The con to this design is that it requires complex coding, thus some menus such as navigation in town may be difficult to program since there are plenty of gameplay modes. The chosen style of navigating around the town can definitely be more designed to keep the players engaged by controlling the character manually instead of pointing where to go.

 In terms of its flowboard, there are not any noticable animations of the switches. From the shop menu, we run the shop. Then the dialogue between multiple customers happen again and again. Then there shows a calendar along the results of today's sales. Then we can choose to go through the town and go to a dungeon, bringing the menu of choosing your hunter, and then the map of which dungeon to go. Afterwards just straight to the second main gameplay mode. Then it rotates back to the shop.