My game that i have come up with is a /action/adventure game
Story - You've woken up in the year 2024 in the middle east, in a small hospital. The area around you has been more worn torn than ever from the events of the third world war that happened in 2018. Everyone in the middle east has been wiped out as a result but you are yet to find out. A note left beside you bedside table tells you very accurate instructions that you must follow if you are to uncover the truths of the world's current state.
Theme - At first the game is peaceful but as you start to expand your journey you find out how twisted the governments of the world are, when you first start your journey you are bombarded with enemy artillery which is actually the NATO's. the game progresses into a more dark and sinister game when you are reaching the final stages.
Tuesday 31 July 2012
Tuesday 24 July 2012
How does a game’s genre affect the way its levels and environments are designed?
Pokemon - Pokemon is a RPG game created by Nintendo. In RPGs games the key role is to level your character up, in pokemon this is done by having 1-6 different types of pokemon and battling other trainers in the game, you are awarded experience points for each one defeated, as you progress through the game you encounter the enemy team which is the main objective to take out (other than the elite 4 and become champion) the goal in this usually involves a legendary pokemon at the end of the quest, which is where the risk reward is. the legendary is usually a couple of levels in front of you and has really powerful moves, to counter this you have to prepare with different types of pokemon and find ways to lower the legendary down to low health to capture it or to kill it. The elite four is always levels ahead of you and the champion always has a variety of pokemon, so you much train your team to counter all of the types. there can be risk in pokemon where you would only train one or two pokemon because for some the grinding of training all six is to great.
Binding of Isaac - Binding of Isaac is an action adventure/dungeon crawl videogame. In the game you are a small kid whos aim is to defeat your mother, the only way to do this is to collect over 200 items that can change how you look and give you different abilities. The main aim of the game is to first defeat your mother in the dungeons, and then afetr travelling to the womb you must defeat her heart to complety win the game. the risk reward system in the game is very promising because you start with only 3 hearts and the enemies normally damage you for at least 1 heart, there are also some characters that give different starting abilities. the challenge mode in the game can be very hard especially the curse of the Labyrinth which makes the dungeon 2x larger and everything is doubled so in the end you vs mother twice.
BIT TRIP RUNNER - BIT TRIP RUNNER is a fast paced platformer game. In the game you must jump and duck over and under obstacles while collecting all the gold piles. as the game progresses through the levels you can collect stars which change the music of the level and add different beats into it. The objective in the game is to collect the gold piles and reach the end of the level in full star mode for maximum points. The risk reward in this game is caused from trying to collect the gold piles while attempting to dodge and duck under the obstacles, the game requires very good timing with the jump keys and can be frustrating when you miss a jump.
Binding of Isaac - Binding of Isaac is an action adventure/dungeon crawl videogame. In the game you are a small kid whos aim is to defeat your mother, the only way to do this is to collect over 200 items that can change how you look and give you different abilities. The main aim of the game is to first defeat your mother in the dungeons, and then afetr travelling to the womb you must defeat her heart to complety win the game. the risk reward system in the game is very promising because you start with only 3 hearts and the enemies normally damage you for at least 1 heart, there are also some characters that give different starting abilities. the challenge mode in the game can be very hard especially the curse of the Labyrinth which makes the dungeon 2x larger and everything is doubled so in the end you vs mother twice.
BIT TRIP RUNNER - BIT TRIP RUNNER is a fast paced platformer game. In the game you must jump and duck over and under obstacles while collecting all the gold piles. as the game progresses through the levels you can collect stars which change the music of the level and add different beats into it. The objective in the game is to collect the gold piles and reach the end of the level in full star mode for maximum points. The risk reward in this game is caused from trying to collect the gold piles while attempting to dodge and duck under the obstacles, the game requires very good timing with the jump keys and can be frustrating when you miss a jump.
Monday 23 July 2012
Compare and contrast the environment and levels in one game from the 80s, 90s, and 2004 onwards
Game from the 80s = Donkey Kong
Game from the 90s = Super Mario World
Game from 2004+ = Zelda Twilight Princess
Donkey Kong has 4 stages in the game each one gets increasingly more difficult as you progress, in a platformer game the need for difficulty increase was a key factor. The levels in Donkey Kong were not detailed, this made for linear gameplay compared to Zelda Twilight Princess where the levels were open and you could explore enormous regions. The environment of Donkey Kong was primarily a construction site where DK would be sitting at the top throwing barrels down while mario tried to catch the princess, the main game had 4 stages each one would get smaller and more events would be happening in it. When the final stage was beaten the game would put you back at stage 1 but the game would be harder as the barrels would fall faster and platforms would be smaller.
In Super Mario World the environment was more detailed because the snes could support more memory and thus more graphics, each stage had a different background and some would be the same background but with the different colour style. The stages in Mario Land were linear but some stages had secret exits that could be found high in the sky or under water, it also introduced different worlds which you could visit ghost houses were seen as a midway point into the games world. compared to Donkey Kong and the older 80s games there were not many levels/stages in them, and they would loop back to the start when completed.
Zelda Twilight Princess released on the Nintendo Gamecube/Nintendo Wii was a massive zelda game that had mini quests and a lot of exploring. Because of the newer technologys in the 2006 era the games art style had a major overhaul compared to the earlier games, the levels had become more detailed and this made for more puzzles to be added within the dungeons and overworld. Twilight Princess also had alot of different environments from castles to underwater Labyrinths each one was done to make the theme and feel of the game. Each level in zelda or dungeon would get increasingly more difficult as the game progressed and involved the items that you had acquired in the previous dungeons.
All of the games that i have mentioned above share the same characteristic with there levels, it is that each one gets much more difficult to beat. As the producers got more technology they could create the levels with more depth and give the game more sparks to create complex levels that made the user think how to pass it. With DK there would be only one way to the finish level, but with SMW there was multiple ways to get into Bowsers castle and beat him, there was the extra stages of the star world which needed secret exits from the over world, but inside Bowsers castle there were 8 doors that you could choose to go in each one had there own way of beating it, then another 8 doors would appear and the same would happen again. In Twilight Princess there were mini games which could upgrade your existing items but each stage was hard. The mini quests were used to get more hearts and always required you to do moderatly hard tasks.
The environments in the games went from very basic plain colors to very detailed environments, you could actually tell whether you were venturing in a forest or exploring a cave system. Donkey Kong's environment was a construction site which could be told from the steel girders and the ladders leading up to the different heights. SMW improved on this by making different background which suited what level you were playing in, if you were running in a cave system the background would have a cave design the obstacles in the game were also more detailed, you could easily see if it was dangerous. In Twilight Princess environments had been heavily improved on, each area had been done into the finest detail, if you were in a cave system the lighting in the area would be dull and there would be rocks everywhere, if you were swimming underwater then seeweed/fish and other small aquatic creatures would be in the area, this gave the game a more lively aspect to it.
Game from the 90s = Super Mario World
Game from 2004+ = Zelda Twilight Princess
Donkey Kong has 4 stages in the game each one gets increasingly more difficult as you progress, in a platformer game the need for difficulty increase was a key factor. The levels in Donkey Kong were not detailed, this made for linear gameplay compared to Zelda Twilight Princess where the levels were open and you could explore enormous regions. The environment of Donkey Kong was primarily a construction site where DK would be sitting at the top throwing barrels down while mario tried to catch the princess, the main game had 4 stages each one would get smaller and more events would be happening in it. When the final stage was beaten the game would put you back at stage 1 but the game would be harder as the barrels would fall faster and platforms would be smaller.
In Super Mario World the environment was more detailed because the snes could support more memory and thus more graphics, each stage had a different background and some would be the same background but with the different colour style. The stages in Mario Land were linear but some stages had secret exits that could be found high in the sky or under water, it also introduced different worlds which you could visit ghost houses were seen as a midway point into the games world. compared to Donkey Kong and the older 80s games there were not many levels/stages in them, and they would loop back to the start when completed.
Zelda Twilight Princess released on the Nintendo Gamecube/Nintendo Wii was a massive zelda game that had mini quests and a lot of exploring. Because of the newer technologys in the 2006 era the games art style had a major overhaul compared to the earlier games, the levels had become more detailed and this made for more puzzles to be added within the dungeons and overworld. Twilight Princess also had alot of different environments from castles to underwater Labyrinths each one was done to make the theme and feel of the game. Each level in zelda or dungeon would get increasingly more difficult as the game progressed and involved the items that you had acquired in the previous dungeons.
All of the games that i have mentioned above share the same characteristic with there levels, it is that each one gets much more difficult to beat. As the producers got more technology they could create the levels with more depth and give the game more sparks to create complex levels that made the user think how to pass it. With DK there would be only one way to the finish level, but with SMW there was multiple ways to get into Bowsers castle and beat him, there was the extra stages of the star world which needed secret exits from the over world, but inside Bowsers castle there were 8 doors that you could choose to go in each one had there own way of beating it, then another 8 doors would appear and the same would happen again. In Twilight Princess there were mini games which could upgrade your existing items but each stage was hard. The mini quests were used to get more hearts and always required you to do moderatly hard tasks.
The environments in the games went from very basic plain colors to very detailed environments, you could actually tell whether you were venturing in a forest or exploring a cave system. Donkey Kong's environment was a construction site which could be told from the steel girders and the ladders leading up to the different heights. SMW improved on this by making different background which suited what level you were playing in, if you were running in a cave system the background would have a cave design the obstacles in the game were also more detailed, you could easily see if it was dangerous. In Twilight Princess environments had been heavily improved on, each area had been done into the finest detail, if you were in a cave system the lighting in the area would be dull and there would be rocks everywhere, if you were swimming underwater then seeweed/fish and other small aquatic creatures would be in the area, this gave the game a more lively aspect to it.
Tuesday 17 July 2012
Design a game with the technology limitations of the 1980s
Game Name - Falling Debris (designed for the NES)
Gameplay
You are a average size 16 bit character and your mission is to avoid the falling Debris coming off of the nearby buildings. As you avoid more and more pieces of rubble the building starts to suffer heavy decay and the blocks get bigger and fall slightly faster every 30seconds. Your score goes up one for every piece that is evaded and every 50 points you are given 1 extra life, you start off with 3 lives and when all are lost you get game over and a chance to enter your name and score into the highscores.
Like most games from the NES it has to game options a type a and type b, also it is a 2 player game. The Type A game is a much slower and peaceful build up to the madness that is to come when you survive longer. The Type B game puts you on the stage as if you've been dodging for 3minutes, this makes for quick and fast paced gameplay, which is great if you have friends over because you get the rush to see who can survive the longest
In the 2 player game both of the players are on the screen and you compete for the most dodges, there are also small powerups that fall down occasionally in the 2 player game, which can increase speed or give you an extra score. There are no lives in the 2 player game so its a battle to the death and who can get the top score.
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