character or characterisation....?

Since i have been able to see stories cartoons and games fro what they are i find myself wondering what a character ould have looked like from the designers point of veiw if he/she didnt have a solid plotline for a character. basis for a character can change an image into a beleivable actor. for example condemned is played as if you are the character - 1st person - and you walk through the game encountering foes but without the characters plot - slightly diranged police officer - the game would be nothing more than a mindless first person beat em up.
a person can become attached to a certain character if the character is beleiveable and has characteristics that make he or she more realistic un like games such as oblivion in wich you create a random looking character than takes part in a scripted world with no real emotion or characteristics.
Games creators look for psychological floors in the gamers psychi to exploit to their will and build a character people can gather emotion from by playing that character in either a good or bad way. (villain or hero). when i played tomb raider for the first time all i could think about was breaking her legs, i couldnt help myself, that crunch sums up my favourite experiences of that game and maybe just maybe this was an intention on the designers part. go on you know you want to. let her fall!
As a keen game player waching a character fall to their death is only part of the fun i want to see them screaming and clawing to try and save them selves. wouldnt you be scared if you fell a thousand feet to your death? teh acting doesnt just stop at mindless script and occasional one liners, an indeapth character diologue and characterisation makes people more attune to liking or disliking a character. weather it be looks or acting, a character needs that somthing special or a an indeapth look that shows just a faint bit of emotion to bring them to life.
Depending on the game, a character doesnt have to rely on any script at all. acting and appearances says it all, tekken is a clear example of a game that doesnt require script just as tom and jerry doesnt in cartoons or laurel and hardy do on television.
I am a sheer fan of horror mysteries because i cant help but want to either be scared or be visualy challenged by an overload of different characters in different situations of suffering or iscolation. books to me cant just contain dialogue for character building or i get a little bit bored and disreguard the rest of the book, this is why i prefer stories in games as i can see here and almost touch a character while the character building takes place then get into the story wothout a hint of bordom. id much rather take a part in a story than read someone elses thoughts. Although, im not the sort to run off to the cinima if a book is fatter than the palm of my hand.
Reading a book to me is much like having a narrator (honestly now, do you like having someone talk through a movie) i prefer to see the story unfold without having to read what somone else is feeling, after all its my experience not theirs.

"if it aint broke don't fix it"

As a child the earliest user interface i used (that i can remember) is the ever so special keyboard. some peoplebeleive its complicated but its getting used to it just the same as other interfaces. user interfaces such as tv remotes and microwave keys that people use on a daily basis follow the same path even though they are not designed primerily for games but user interfaces doesnt have to stop at hand held objects. the pc operating system and mac operating systems were carfully developed to suite the markets need for a user interface. the mac interface is far superior in aesthetics and erganomics where as the pc is the most widly used thus does a user interface matter to us so much. after all we will get used to it in time and grow to love it. like the keyboard or pc OS.
Apple macs have the aesthetic qualities that most if not all other user interfaces do not have as it uses psychology to feel more user friendly - dragging rubbish into the bin at the bottom right, as if sweeping off the desctop - where as pcs just crash when we attempt to drag and drop somthing.
Ever since i can remember, having a control pad in my hand made me feel at home and in the future this wont change for me or the next generation because they are coming into a generation of key boards and mice but consoles will always be peoples first choice for games even if the pad is changed or removed.
In the future people will always be interacting with machines through some sort of user interface and at the moment the joypad and keyboard seem best suited for the job. "if it aint broke dont fix it".

WoW...pfft!

Aa strong storyline is what makes a game worth playing as well as nifty visuals but characterisation in that game is what keeps me hanging in to the bitter end. ive tried to create characters before and found it to be dificult without having some refrence or background and many people agree that this is a nesessity or key to teh door that is the story. the character must have links are deep roots to the story or other characters that do. a strong story requires other things. enclosed a character i created using a time period, background and genre.








I like to think im not a person playing a character but i am the character, creating that atmosphere can lead to a person feeling that part rather than just watching it. i enjoy a game to an extent that i try to play it as best as i can but i do understand that a game player does make the story happen through a sereis of events however the realisation of this all depends on the games designers choices from the get go. do u realise your playing a part before or after? does the game scare you to a point that you will never play it again or did u just play it for teh sheer need to complete the second in the sereis for example.
What is the point in living someone elses fantasy if you dont experience it the way he or she wanted you to experience it, just the way they have.
Many designers say they do agree that a story is essential then add some poor attempt at one towards the end but alot of games are designed to get you hooked such as MMORPGs. mo money for the creators but many popular games such as zelda or metal gear solid do have appealing story lines that make us want to play everyone of teh sereis and we damn sure gonna pay £50 to play these because we want to rather than need. games like call of duty or medal of honor take there place either from a major point in history or a sideline of that such event and thus we want to take part in the story or relive it. maybe its just for sheer fact of shooting germans. games like these have a story for those that wish to see it but also can be played by skipping every cut scene just the same.
To me a story is essential even if it is repetitive because all games by merit have to be at the most, slightly dissimilar in some way and i get the satisfaction from playing new characters in new situations with the occasional plot twist and great ending.

What does an Art Director do? Game artists are fundimentally the brain behind everyone working on a single project. their job requires them to solve problems related to everything and anything that a currnet game could and most definatly would face, weather that be photoshop or the 3Dgame engine specified to such things as what a characters shoe is going to look like, thus an art director will inherintly have to keep all his team in check and all on the same path or a so called game could end up looking some what, messy - in terms of visual style. as an art director i would personaly put forward my own ideas rather sneakily and maybe ad a few things into a game that would take my personal art style or cheaky ideas, not all that disimilar to John Romaro's coligues oddly placeing johns face in teh game, on the first Doom game.

Who are they responsible to? Art director - although quite a high status and resposible part of the games chain that it is, is below the first link in the chain, the Games designer, as in film the art director would be directly below the production designer or below editor in publishing. the art director can and most likly is a person brought from outside to express the ideas from the games designers to all the artists and creators of the games practical side. he would control the workings of all these and report back the games progress to the designers to make sure everything is going the correct way.

Do you think it's a creative role? Art director dips his paw in every part of the games pipline, from art to 3D engines, it is only as creative as the art director would like but there are limitations to an art directors use of creative expression as they are far removed from conscept design and art in general but they do over see these things and have their input just the same.


What qualities do you think youd need to develop if you want to become an Art Director in the future? To develope myself in the form of an art director i beleive experience is key to being able to handle the pressure of all the tasks that can quite easily be split in to several well payed jobs. people skills and maybe a million years in the industry will almost bring me up to scratch with the trials and tribulations of an art directors Daily! tasks. being able to keep an entire team - of up to more than 100 people on next gen games - on track and all following a specific style. making a game look feel and sound well would have to come a close second.

Reveiws are for people that want another persons oppinion

for arguments sake i am going to stick to games reveiwers and not reveiwers in general. reveiwers are given a game to play and evaluate on "their" experiences with the game. weather it be graphics game play or over all feelings, it is a personal take on somthng someone else has created. maybe the game designer wants this overcite maybe he doesnt but to be honest putting reveiws that are obviously going to be read by the masses you have to stick to what i like to call...RESTRAINT!...people are going to take every little word you say and twist it to fit their own personal veiw on a game, almost like a war in which a reveiwer takes the first shot and an apposing or agreing person takes the next shot as the reveiwer cowers in wait.

novice reveiwers tend to take their personal veiws to a point - a little like i am doing now - in which onlookers can take advantage of. the second link hilights a less animalistic take on clashes between points of veiw but the theory is there. what if i were to say "i dont like project gothem 3 because its linear and i dislike racing games to an extent in wich i wish to vomit" the reveiwer will almost certainly take that as a personal attack and feel non the better for personalising his words for the masses. some things should be let go.

game journelists also face the scrutiny of the much larger percentage of the games world, the recreational players. people have an over veiw of journelists and reveiwers but hey, we all buy these reveiws and in turn, even if we disagree immensly, we pay their wages through sales and they benifit from us doing so. their point has been portrayed and many of them are strong willed enough to take everythng we say about them, with a pinch of salt.

Ranking a game in its most basic sence seems almost heart breaking as many games that are left on teh shelf because of a bad reveiw have deeper graces that need adressing, but reveiws tend to reer towards "i like the graphics but...!!THE FRAME RATE IS A BIT SLUGGISH!!" ranking a game on its graphics and/or game play alone seems almost meaningless, what does this game have? what can it show for future development? games can be considered milestones and are a learning process for games companies. To put it simply, if i wanted a game to be changed in a certain way such as farcrys low contrasting lush green fowliage, i'd make a comment expressing that, rather than giving the game an 8 because it had good game play but the graphics made my eyes ache. looking at a game and giving it a score is pointless. looking at a game and giving your oppinion on its failiures and successes gives the developers and readers somthing to work from. hten maybe sales would be increasingly more perposfull.

ngj..

What other forms of games writing can you find?

games writing can take the form of ratings reveiws and general discussions and can also be found in many formats such as blogging, devotedURLs and even discussions through other games or chat rooms. writings from sites such as http://uk.ign.com/ are a basis for delivering games writings inside the games world. people can express their oppinion through message boards. articles in newspapers depicting games sales or game trials are common place in todays technological age. many games have also been made into movies or vise-versa such as "Final Fantasy" or "Resident Evil". games writing doesnt just stop at somes score out of 10 its mass marketed and put out there in many forms for us to see on a daily basis.

Both subjectivity and objectivity have there status and are regarded to be a necesity in writing. i feel that both types of writing deliver a persons point of veiw weather bias and straightforward or broad and discussed. if a person must express an oppinion on wich he or she cannot be shyed away then so be it but if a writer can openly agree to critisism and discuss to means then that is a course best suited to its perpose

F.E.A.R?,,,next gen?

1. review some of these links on Game Design
2. write your blog entry, and consider the following questions:

What is meant by Gameplay?

game play is a term many people use to fill the gap where other words fail to fill. something that can be tagged as the games soul or reason for being...failing that it can be described as a games longevity or the players experience of a game other than a bit of eye candy and catchy line or two. for most people a game is played for fun and excitment and this is generally the way game play is merited upon. "does this game lack game play?" yes? many people would pull apart a games defining points in an attempt to rid it of its so called "game play" and miss the point entirly. for example i played a game called Condemned: criminal origins recently and found it to be overly satisfying and enjoyable to smash the skull of a crazed lunatic in the desperate attempt to....what? i just realy liked beating people up! The lighting also reflected the dark diranged esscence of the game. some may say this game lacked game play if all i remembered about it was crushing my foes in increasingly more violent ways, but i played the game and enjoyed every last second to the point in which i could wait to catch my next victim unawares and feel my 2x4 connect with human flesh. game play is more than how the game realed me in and kept me playing, it is better described as a feeling of satisfication weather it be violence, pleasure or pain, in the end "each to his own".

Who are the leading lights in Game Design? games designers come from all backgrounds, genres and skills thus there are hundreds if not thousands that deserve the title of leading lights
Eugene Evans, VP, Marketing & Business Development, Mythic Entertainment,Inc.
Montgomery Singman, Chief Professor, Shanghai Theatre Academy
Lan Hai Wen, CEO, Link China Entertainment
John Needham, CFO, Sony Online Entertainment
Joshua Hong, CEO, K2 Networks

games design is a fundimental part of the economic structure in teh computer age that we live in and will continue to develope through the imagination of the next game enthusiast. Games design takes place in all walks of life and in many areas of the world, such as Russia, America, Japan and little old England but the design process is created in the same place it always has, the minds of games enthusiasts all over the world, hidden away somewhere in dark computer rooms in the attempt to make millions of people happy.

Is it a single person's responsibility?

Over the years games design has gotten more complicated and technical with many people taking part using their indevidual skills such as texture mappers and level designers to artists and sound designers. from the first games to the most rescent, games have had increasing nubers of staff required to get to the finished product, sometimes as much as 150 or more people (Doom3). however games design has to have a beginning and that can be found at one persons idea or conscept wich is annalysed and split up into design stages. the first doom game was designed by non other than John Romero along with other games such as wolfenstein3d and the first quake. some people assume that games are developed and set on a path that is layed exactly how it started but many things change throughout the process. such as zelda: the ocarina of time. some of the locations of objects and creatures were changed even after the strategy guide was published. in short, games design is the sole job of everybody working on the game, after all, thats why they call it a design team.

Do different genres require different design principles? different genres of games are required to go through a similar process, every time. the games pipline requires research into a particular genre that may give the game its starting point and could effect its overall outcome but in terms of genre, if a game was to be an FPS for example then one would have to cinsider violence and game structure (psychology?) compared to an RPG that may entail more than just killing the next thing you see with a fully loaded hand cannon, what if an RPG needed more of an intelectual approach (myst or atlantis) as to find objects, solve puzzles or say the right thing to the right person to get you where you want to go. design of everything else depends on teh genre of teh game and above all the audience that likes this genre. games such as atlantis would be more suitible for an older more mature person that lacks teh hand eye cordination of a next generation FPS addict. the design principles of every game doesnt always go according to plan and may inherrit a class that was not originally intended such as GTA. it was first designed as a game for any body to play but as it grew so did the violence and the lastes versions are certificate 18+. the principles of game design cmay be able to go off at tangents depending on teh genre but the main structure is still there. http://www.wunderland.com/WTS/Andy/Games/DesignPrinciples.html

What's important for you, when you play?

when i play a game i want to almost always see somthing new that may not have been done or used in that way before or maybe some new graphics technology, such as crysis (not F.E.A.R.). game play is assential but when a game is given to me i expect a certain amount of realism. im not just a guy that wants a game to look good i want it to feel good. designing a game that has great shaders and real time shadows is one thing but lacking game play and or quality is a no no. i recently played Baldurs Gste1 again and i loved it as much as when i first played it. this being an iscometic 3rd person rpg that has next to no graphical need what so ever. It has immersive game play and i am not forced to go along a set path to complete the story, the game allows me to go where ever want to and complete as many sub missions untill i totaly forget about the storyline.

It's all in my imagination!

What are the significant developments facing gaming at the beginning of the 21^st Century? What pressures does the industry face?

The new millenium. it doesnt seem as long as that since sony released the first 128-bit console that would later become the most succesful console of the eara and become sonys number1 sold creation (so far). playstation 2 could play not only CD-rom but it can also traverse the once, next gen format "DVD-rom" and also play audio files and dvd movies. playstation 2 was the first console to over-shadow pcs in graphics capability thus it was increasingly difficult to create titles in the early 00's that lived up to the potential of the ps2 and 1 year later the requirements of titles were upped with the new and more powerful (nitendo) GameCube and (microsoft) Xbox. All three formats had different specs such as the xbox with its inbuilt hard drive and fully supporting HDTV or Game Cubes optical mini discs. all these platforms and differences made gaming choices a little more difficult to make. im a die hard playstation fan but i cant deny that i have both the gamecube and xbox at hand for resident evil or halo, after all who cares how hard it is to swich between platforms - I want my game! - such as resident evil 4 moving from GameCube to playstation had ome tweaks to it; a total of 5,000 polygons less in the playstation version than the GameCube.

Alot of the pressure faced by the games industry is the vast need for new and updated titles for current formats, for example there are over 8000 titles for the playstation2 in circulation around the world and more in the piline every year. consider also that xbox, gamecube, dreamcast, psp, etc have their own personal titles, applicable to just that particular platform and you have an almost unimaginable amount of titles out there. t be honest it makes me wonder weather i can call my self a hard-core gamer.

From thegaming super powersthat gave us playstation 2, Xbox and GameCube comes the next gens; ps3, Xbox 360 and nintendo wii. the next generation of console power is right on our doorstep and with it the games market is pushing world wide instead of the smaller managble europian and american markets.

What do you want from gaming in the future? What games would you like to play? How will you play them? This is a chance to dream!

Id like to play crysis because its the first next gen game that ive seen with amazing A.I. a story, and some nice eye-candy. when a person walks through a bush the leaves are moved almost as if you are touching them - finally a main character that actualy exists - and the noise that is made is differant depending on the speed in wich you run thorugh them. crysis is 1 step closer to what i want to see coming to light in the future and i will have hours enjoying it after i get myself in debt trying to make my pc powerful enuf to play it on the lowest possible settings.

Future gaming is a wide area to cover because games today are slowly but surly becoming photorealistic and meeting the needs of most people, with the ecseption of the few games that lack valid story-lines or game play. the future is here with the much antiscipated crysis (crytek) (bit of eye candy for you) the future of gaming a id like to see it is more graphical content A.I and story. todays games tend to have 1 or 2 of these but most rear around just that and always end up having somethng missing. for example oblivion is nice looking and quite large...my god even the A.I isnt so bad but can i break through a window and see what is going on inside, no i cant. a house in most games today are just over hyped loading points and/or obsticles. i want to be able to interact with everythng i see similar as oblivion but expanded upon it. picking up set objects that - by the way are the same in every building in the game (another point) - are thrown or just repositioned in the vein attempt at a funny screen shot isnt what id liketo see. i want objects that break depending on my characters strength or cars to to dent exactly where i put all my characters body weight. Realism would be nice too. having the same objects conviniantly placed in every house is a little bit boring. peoples houses and surroundings should reflect their personalities and therefore my character could change their personality hence changing the world around me. making someone scared of me could inherantly make an npc a recluse (hair grows long, house gets untidy, doesnt speak to people, eventualy may die a lonley death) or an npc could fall in love with my character and have fresh roses on her table, greet every1 with a smile. A.I. shouldnt just stop at hiding behind a tree or running up to start a conversation, personalities that evolve and change would enhance game play far beyond normal gaming boundaries.

Photo realism in games today is getting closer and closer as every ten years technology gets 10 x smaller and 10 x faster. a game that a person can feel is real rather than just see is real would make all the differance. If every texture was felt or weather was experienced, a person should feel rather than begin to slouch over a rendered 2d image of his character beating up a zombie with a pitch fork (mental note: that actualy sounds fun!).

In the near future (im dreaming) id like some hardwear that will allow me to feel and see things that i explained a little while ago. such as a body suit that makes you feel everythng your character feels, almost like you arnt just an extention of your character you are! the character. this would make a person feel remorse over getting their character killed or genrally fhave a more emotional attatchment to their character, after all you are feeling what they feel (a little bit of pain never hurt anyone)

Id like to play crysis because its the first next gen game that ive seen with amazing A.I. a story, and some nice eye-candy. when a person walks through a bush the leaves are moved almost as if you are touching them - finally a main character that actualy exists - and the noise that is made is differant depending on the speed in wich you run thorugh them. crysis is 1 step closer to what i want to see coming to light in the future and i will have hours enjoying it after i get myself in debt trying to make my pc powerful enuf to play it on the lowest possible settings.

"E.T. didnt kill gaming, it only killed atari"

the 80s started video games off with a little character known as pac man or puck man to japanese gamers. pac man was the first game ever to have a leading character with its own name and many other games followed suite but failed misrebly.

Ataris E.T. considered the cause of the crash of 1983?
in 1983 the next milestone in the gaming world was its down fall. the game industry dug itself a grave of poor quality game and jumped in head first . some people say that E.T. was 1 of the games that started the crash of 83 but there are forcfall veiws on the crash of 83 being a lie.
i beleive that the games crash of 83 was point of veiw blown out of proportion. many games were still on the market in the early 1980s and people still bought them. there wer games throughout the early 1980s and the games market was still progressing at that time.
"E.T. didnt kill gaming, it only killed atari!" anon

A major boost in gaming happend in 1983, the first 2 player game was designed by a woman. "M.U.L.E." it would be a further 20 years before man caught up and made this idea mainstream - and i thought men ruled the gaming industry - swiftly putting that aside. nintendo brought the gaming industry out of its dark years with the "NES" or japanese name "famicom". the 8bit system was the the beginning of higher res gaming, over 60 million consoles were sold world wide. it reigns supreme as the most sold console ever.




a major milestone in gaming history struck in 1985 with the development of a game generally called tetris. tetris was created by Alexey Pazihitnov, in 1985, while he was working for the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow during the soviet union. tetris was designed with another russian game in mind "pentominoes". (tetra is greak for four and is used in tetris because all the shapes have 4 sections.) you can find tetris on almost any platform in some shape or form.

in the mid 1980s sega decided it was time to join the hardware gaming war with the sega master system as a direct competitor of the nes but failed to take a valid part in the japanese and european market even though it was a more technically advanced peice of hardware, its failiure may have been a result of its mascot - prior to the 1990s sonic - "alex the kid".




in the late 80s a new generation of gaming style came to being....simulators. people wanted to do real things but in a fantasy world such as sim city and sim farm. this started a new genre of games and kept the games industry rolling into the future for a short period of time.
1989 was a fabulous year for gaming as not only sim games were brought to lightbut also the aptly named "god games" developed by Peter Molyneus, such as populous. the gamer took control of the inhabitants of a world and had complete control over them -finally a game you can have fun with - other games developed by peter molyneus are "dungeon keeper" and "black and white"
sega finally fought back with their new and first 16bit console the sega genesis and with there 100million marketting campaign plus the add ons to allow the gamer to play master system games it couldnt fail. it didnt. it stormed the market the likes that had never been seen. GO sega! with the exception to the hand held console known as the gameboy this is the end of that golden age of gaming...teh 1980s!

hmmm. who decided to make computers fun? and what was their background?

the first game ever devised on computers was tic tac toe, whcih is almost 10 years older than "Space War", created in 1952 created by a PHD studant, studying a degree in computer and human interaction, A.S. Douglas. an argument could be made that Douglas may not have been the first person to want computers to be fun but the first person to catch onto the idea. http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~edsac/ follow the link to dl the latest verson of A.S. Douglas' game.

the first computer game i had, was a Commodore 64. i loved the retro cassettes. i had a box filled to the brim with cassette tapes. most i had never played so there was always somthng knew. the first game i remember playing from start to finish - after my patients grew - was crash bandicoot. sitting on the living room floor on christmas day with my brand new playstation was 1 of the most memorable experiences but a only a few years later i found a game that i would soon grow to love, Resident Evil. from the first time i played RE i knew id found my favourite genre, survival horrors came and went through many years of excessive gaming, such as parasite eve, alone in the dark and ofcourse resident evil. failing any new releases of survival horrors i attained a PC for the first time in the late 1990s and bought myself a copy of "Baldur's Gate" i soon fell in love with roll playing games and from this point on i considered my PC as my first and formost gaming system. (i later became addicted to FFXI and lost all conscept of time)

the most recent game i have been playing is final fantasy XI but ive been weaning myself off it to play oblivion and to sit and wait for resident evil 5 on ps3 and resident evil biohazard chronicles on the nintendo wii.

Sorry for being so late

whos writing and how do you perceive them to be?

i had a quick scan through the links and found yors...mr Powel. as you have put it to the invisible audience id like to comment on farcrys use of gun gore set in a lush green paradise. farcry in my oppinion was a way of throwing you into a gaming world in which you were forced to use site sound and instinct to resolve any given predicament. granted the over the top foliage was irritating for wanna-be snipers but this is what you would expect to see in a tropical island. plant life taking over forcing man to use all his sences and abilities just to make that long wated kill shot or fire-fight more satisfying.
farcry was only a starting point or ruf scetch for ubisoft as there up coming game - crysis - is what i can comfortably assume will be there master peice. depth perception and color variation as pointed out that was lacking in farcry, crysis will set a knew bench mark for the next generation of FPS. http://news.spong.com/article/9833?cb=209 (link to lovly screenies of crysis) this link has a few comments that explain the need for AI as well as graphical content. i agree to an extent that graphics are only a section of a game but im bias to a bit of eye candy over an intelligent enemy that can anicipate my every move. I will just have to wait and see for myself if crysis is all i hope and expect it to be.

hmm i went a lil ways off the question. mr. P. is obviously a keen gamer and doesnt need me to to say so. his comments are obviously well thort considered and personal. I'd comment more on this blog but id probebly type far to much. Love your ideas Mr P. blog on.

does blogging strike you as objective or more personal?

i cant help but feel that posting blogs to a large audience is a long shot away from handing in a tatty peice of paper to a school teacher in absolute confidence as i can assume we all have. it is a step above writing to a grade rather than an actual audience, i mean i want to get my thorts out there instead of scrawling things i dnt understand just to impress.

how often do they write, what do they write about?

micheal mosts in quite an irratic way but always has somthing fresh to say about anythng and everythg. (not just games)

how do i see myself using a blog?

this blog is rather late as ive had trouble setting my account up but i can see myself getting into the spirit of things as i intend to have my next blog posted quick sharpish.

do i feel comfortable writing to an invisable audience?

i feel as if everythng i am writing will get judged but im willing to accept critisism as it comes. i can deffinatly see blogging as my personal format for my ideas.

If only i had thought of this earlier

thank gawd for blogging. i dont know how id have coped with essays for another three years. if only i had thort of this earlier. thank you tinternet.