Dev.log Green

Dev.log GREEN

Option 2b

My writings on the game: 
This week I decided to play Creature In The Well. It was made by Flight School Studio and MWM Interactive. Originally a title for the Nintendo Switch, I was surprised to learn recently it had received a pc port. It first caught my eye at one of the game trailer events in the past few years, and I was captivated by the promise of delving into ancient ruins on an alien planet, and the faint lure of cosmic horror I smelled at the premise of the name.

The game stars a robot waking up in the midst of and endless sandstorm, and wandering into a town to complete it's mission to repair this weather control device built into a mountain by interplanetary settlers. The town is trapped in a sandstorm, with seemingly nothing beyond, it's people afraid to venture out. Inside the mountain a massive creature wanders freely, below the facility rearranging it's internals and sabotaging mechanisms to stop you from repairing the facility. The creature is too large to come out, but it's long bony arms can reach throughout the facility to annoy you. Oddly enough it tells you that it is better if the people believe they are trapped, as what waits beyond the sandstorm is too much for them to bear. The robot character uses a two tools to charge up energized pinballs and redistribute energy to objects, essentially a hybrid of pinball, breakaway and a platformer. 

I didn't finish it, because my experience was far less than pleasant.

My reflection for the assignment: 
As a player of Creature in The Well, I found the game fun at first, but it quickly became too repetitive,  I found the music, and many of the rooms too similar. Each secret area looks exactly the same, an many bonus rooms offer nothing at all. The games lore can all be found in the same room in each level, letting these other areas go to waste essentially. As a game designer, I hope not to waste so much of the players time with rooms that offer nothing to see but another template or recolor of a previous room and the same droll musical piece to match, by I would like it if I could deliver a crisp art style like what we see in the game.

The game spikes severely in difficulty as the titular Creature begins actively interfering with you in boss battles, activating swarms of homing projectiles that can only be destroyed by your pinballs or structures that electrify floors or explode when struck by pinballs. These elements begin to feel far beyond the players control as the game forces you to use multiple sometimes dozens of balls on screen at once and then at others, not giving enough to destroy objects in the way or hazards, and it really feels unfair when the players concentration is strained to the limit to follow them all on screen at once, not to get hit or let them touch explosives, as the player is slow and cannot continuously dash out of the way, or often has no space to do so.  If I design a game I would give the players the resources to play the way they want to. The dash mechanic is limited and often not fast enough to clear the radius of large explosions from objects, some of which move across the field of play back and forth. I'd make sure that any dash/ dodge mechanics can be rapidly chained together by skilled players so it doesn't become hopeless.  I would also make certain the player never has more than they need because it becomes messy. For example one room has a number of objects that exploded, but the player was stuck in a confined place. The ball spawner nearby continuously gives new balls, taking control away from the player, as their goal is to destroy breakables nearby without touching the explosives. But there isn't enough room for the player to swing their tools without throwing out more balls! Things like this muddy the experience. Like in chapter 4, what Csikszentmihalyi says about flow theory is clearly failed here. The game suddenly becomes nearly impossible with no clear way to move forward. It alternates between boredom and mega frustration.
Previously I had been told that college algebra wasn't truly necessary for game design, but I realize this is an understatement. Within the scope of game design, math is only important as long as it achieves our goals within the games programming. The mathematics governing rebounding balls on collisions is too simple and not reliable at some points. If I knock a ball straight at a bumper, and the rebound is at an angle clearly nearer to that of 45 degrees something is wrong. The quadratic formula my teacher berated me for isn't relevant here, but calculating the correct angle measures with stuff like sin/ cosine, and arctans definitely are.  Each object should calculate realistic rebound as it is clearly just choosing a range to rebound in sometimes. The fun pinball/ breakaway portion of the game is lacking, because the math is lacking. I hope to avoid quick math solutions that do not accomplish my design goals.

Something I also want to avoid is how the player respawns after dying. In this game it breaks narrative immersion heavily. The very creature who is trying to destroy you, fixes you and throws you back to the surface each time, and berates you. This doesn't make any sense at all. This really kills the sense of conflict and makes it seem silly. The obvious solution is to have the friendly frog NPC who wanders the facility carry you back instead. I'd also like to include something similar to the games lore text dumps. I really like these, as they make me feel immersed and vested in the world.

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Option 3

From page 112 of Fullerton's Game Design
Exercise 4.7: Game Characters
Name three game characters that you find compelling. How are these characters brought to life within the game? What allows you to identify with them? Are they rounded or flat, dynamic or static?

My reflections:

  While doing this assignment I struggled to think of memorable characters from games I've played. I focused on which characters that I continued to think about for months after playing and compared their actions to what the player character is done and how they responded in turn. I realized that other characters can truly shine when more popular characters take a backseat, and even a terrible, franchise sinking  game can be made good this, in the case of Devil May Cry 2. The main character being made into an action movie/ matrix knock off stereotype can really harm a games appeal, but it can change how people view everyone involved. It can also rarely cause everyone to fall in love with a more diverse character.

  Another thing I had to consider was whether or not characters logically respond to what is happening in game, and if they are active participants. Zeke does not have superpowers, so he cannot take on the super powered military forces in Infamous 2, but he can shmooze it up with the backwater militia that has been brutalizing the games setting. I considered things from his perspective, that regardless of what the outcome of his battle is, millions could perish, so using a nuclear bomb is a lesser evil, potentially meaning his friends won't have to sacrifice their lives. Many characters will just react audibly to what is happening, but it's rare to see a character take matters into their own hands and become more than a soft target in an escort mission. When his plan fails, he even asks his friend to leave him to die, so that he can save the world, a stark contrast from who he was in the previous game. A character like this shines just as much as the protagonist, maybe even more. 

  I also got to thinking about many of the games I played that had forgettable characters, and why. I didn't remember anything all about the playable character of the game Vanquish (2007), but the emotion established through some of the cutscenes for the players armored, deuterantagonist companion, Lieutenant Robert Burns made him more interesting, even more so when he turns on the player later. I realized that Insomniac games intentionally made this level where Ratchet, in Ratchet and Clank is nerfed, as a way to emphasize the 'mechanic as the message'. Without his companion, he is lesser. Where as on the flip side, in other games you get missions where the companion is a hindrance, and lame escort missions.

My writings for the exercise:   
   One character I Identify with is Lucia from Devil May Cry 2. She is an alternate playable character, who happens to be black, and is brought to life by the main character being watered down, and through her own right. I identify with her, because she defies fate by choosing her destiny, although she is an artificial demon, a tragic discovery that rocks her entire life, she chooses to be human and protect her home. She is dynamic and rounded because she intend fight demons, but falteers when she discovers that she herself is a demon and a 'failed' creation of the antagonist. She is ready to throw her life away until another character reminds her that real demons cannot shed tear, so she resolves to fight until the end, Defeating her own creator. It also meant a lot to me as a teen to see a character who sort of looks like me, be characterized as a real person. 

  Another character I really like is Zeke Jedediah Dunbar from Infamous 2. I identify with him because he previously betrayed a friend at a critical moment, and suffered for it, but he proves himself willing to risk his life for his friend, and becomes dynamic as he becomes an active participant in the story. Rather than be outshined by his super powered companions, he joins a fascists militia as a double agent and steals a nuclear missile from them use it against the games main antagonist. He does this out of desperation, not wanting to lose his friends to save the world or cost millions of lives. He is driven to make hard choices in the background, just as much as the player is.

  A third character I liked is Ratchet from the Ratchet and Clank series. In the very first game (2000s) he acts like a stubborn jerk and mistreats his friend badly after he trusts a villain in disguise. He is extremely selfish and only seems to want to joyride while the galaxy is literally being torn apart piece by piece for profit. Things change when they are stuck on a planet being that was ravaged by an orbital attack, lightning storms knock his companion Clank out of commission, leaving him helpless. Without the ability to double jump, or glide his traversal options are limited. He is half a character. He proves himself dynamic when he becomes worried, even sounding as if he will if his companion doesn't return to life. He abandons his need for gratification and goes on a gravity defying suicide mission to repair his friend, going alone against a horde of war machines. After saving his friend he resolves to treat him better and focus on saving the galaxy, realizing that every planet could become as bad as this one.