Week 6’s Reading

Posted on by group152017

 

06
Feb

7 / 9

 Interactive Fiction
  1. Bronstring, Marek. (2012). What are adventure games? Adventure Gamers.
  2. Ashwell, Sam Kabo. (2015). Standard patterns in choice-based games. These Heterogenous Tasks (Jan 26, 2015) and

Short, Emily. (2016). Small-scale structures in CYOA.

3. Boudreau, Ian. (2016). Letting players tell the story: Simulation games as narrative machines. Game Informer.

Bronstring, Marek. (2012). What are adventure games? Adventure Gamers. Jacob and Pavel

Marek Bronstring What Are Adventure Games?

 

Like adventuregamers.com >>> http://www.co-optimus.com/ (however, focus on co-op games -cooperative games-)

 

What are adventure games?

  • Adventure games aren’t action/adventure games, not platform games (like Mario)
    • NOT Uncharted, Batman, Arkham City, Etc.
    • Also NOT Mario, Crash Bandicoot, Super Meat Boy
  • Puzzle solving through inventory manipulation and platforming are integral parts of adventures games
  • Set character that nevers changes (can’t gain levels). The point is to experience a strong story.

 

Characteristics:

 

  • Narrative
    • A story told vs story created
    • Less focus on action, more on the stories and character
  • Puzzles
    • Inventory puzzles
    • Dialogue-based puzzles
    • Environmental puzzles
    • Non-contextual logic puzzles
  • Exploration
    • Interface BEFORE & NOW (photos on presentation)
  • Graphic Style
    • 2D style
    • Slidehow – interact with still images
    • Real-Time 3D- Grim Fandango!
    • Full motion 3d – footage of real life actors merged with computer generated graphics
    • No graphics: Interactive, text-based games


Kahoot.it – used to poll class about adventure games.

 

Ashwell, Sam Kabo. (2015). Standard patterns in choice-based games. These Heterogenous Tasks (Jan 26, 2015)

 

Interactive Fiction

About the Authors:

Sam Kabo Ashwell

 

Emily Short: writer, blogger, consultant, game designer.

 

Standard Patterns in Choice Based Games

 

    • Time cave: start and go until you’re done. I think of this as a continuously branching tree. It looks like a family tree or cascading flowchart pachinko board thingie. Each path is unique and doesn’t connect to other paths.
    • Gauntlet: Linear consistent thread with several branches that don’t deeply affect the overall path

 

  • Branch and Bottleneck: Lends itself to chapter based stories where the stories always  return to a common point between chapters (think the episodic nature of TellTale games).

 

    • Quest: Storyline with 2 paths.

 

  • Open Map: Usually includes several different areas that the player can move back and forth from as they please.

 

  • Loop and Grow: start at some initial point then loop back through the sae situations (usually based around routine activities or time travel.

Small-Scale Structures in CYOA (Choose Your Own Adventure)

    • Track Switching Choice: can stick to linear path, or switch to another track
    • Scored Choice: When making a choice, a stat or score can go up or down based on the decision the player makes.
    • Re-enterable Conversation Node: A conversational type choice.

 

  • Chapter One Sorting Hat: The player makes a choice early on that determines which linear path they follow for the rest of the games. All paths go to the same ending.

 

Questions

  1. Does your final project game fit into any of these structures?
  2. Which of these would you find the most engaging to play, why?
  3. Do each of these structures elicit a different level of interactivity? A different emotional response?

 

Clap clap clap clap

Boudreau, Ian. (2016). Letting players tell the story: Simulation games as narrative machines. Game Informer. Lee

 

Simulation Games

 

Author: Ian Boudreau

  • Gamer at heart
  • Studied journalism
  • Went to school with funky name

Goal

 

“Games that rely on emergent, player-driven narratives are doing something…”

 

Boatmurdered: a story created by player and game in Dwarf Fortress. A story they made with a game. The player has no direct control over the dwarves. Many variables in the game.

http://lparchive.org/Dwarf-Fortress-Boatmurdered/

Main Points:

  • Multiple game genres

        ,-~-. _.—._ ,-~-.
         / .- ,’       `. -. \
         \ ` /`        ‘ \ ‘ /
          `-/   ‘a___a`   \-‘
            |   ,'(_)`.   |
            \  ( ._|_. )  /
             \  `.___,’  /
            .-`._     _,’-.
          ,’  ,’ `—‘ `.  `.
         /   /     :     \   \
       ,’   /      :      \   `.
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    |     ,’|      :      |`.     |
    `.__,’ .-\     :     /-. `.__,’
          /   `.   :   ,’   \
   .””-.,’      `._:_,’      `.,-“”.
  / ,-. `         ) (         ‘ ,-. \
 ( (   `.       ,’   `.       ,’   ) )
  \ \    \   _,’       `._   / hjw/ /
   `.`._,’  /             \  `._,’,’
     `.__.-‘               `-.__,’

ASCII ART!

 

http://boatmurdered.smackjeeves.com/

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