Game Plan

 

Background Information:

It is the final match between two powerhouses of the modern gaming world. Mario and Sonic battle it out to find the ultimate gaming hero of modern times.

 

Game Mechanics:

The Game mechanics that the game will have in it are a health system which deducts health when hit by an object. Each player will have 2 lives with objects that will allow the player to gain lives, gain health via a health object and lose health via bombs and other objects that fall on top of them.

 

Objects/Sprites:

The game will have objects for Mario and Sonic as well as the wall that prevents the players from disappearing off the screen. There will be objects for the bonuses that fall down onto the players, as well as an object for the way that they players can control Mario and Sonic. The bonus items that will be falling down will also consist of sprites and objects. The sprites will be a picture of the various items and movements that the characters may encounter. There are also platforms that the characters can step on that are off the ground, but they will be moving to encourage more action during the game.

 

Rooms:

I would have 2 rooms which will change at a certain point in the game, usually when 2 minutes has passed. One room will contain a metropolis background and the other background will have a forest background. The swap in rooms is to indicate that a new level has started with more obstacles in the way.

 

User Interface:

The user interface will have a play button, instructions and a high score menu to allow the users to know how to play the game, or to start straight away. It will also have music playing, possibly theme songs from both the Mario and Sonic games.

ACMI – Best of IGF 2011

So yesterday, I went into the city and to the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) to look at their current exhibition on the Best of the International Games Festival 2011. There were games available to play and I had a go at 5 of the 14 games that were there.

The game that caught my attention was Limbo, which was released in 2010. The winner of the best visual art award at the 2011 Developer’s Choice Awards, Limbo is an exciting game that stars a boy looking for his lost sister in a dark forest. With a dim and misty black and white scene, Limbo is an easy to play game that anyone can pick up.

 

Starting off, the boy has to move through various obstacles in order to find his sister. It is a challenging game, as the player has to think about how the boy can progress to the next section of the game. The boy has to jump up and down ropes, try and cross bodies of water without drowning and avoid being killed by traps that are fairly hard to see with the dim black and white setting.

The aim of the game is obviously to reach the boy’s sister, but there are no rewards system built into the game. Instead, if the boy dies, then he will be transported back to a place shortly before he died and you try the puzzle again. It takes quite a lot of thinking and I managed to die on numerous occasions in the short time that I played the game.

The developers have thought out the game extremely well, as it is still addictive even with the lack of rewards. The sounds fits in with the game and adds dramatic effect whenever the next puzzle comes around, as well as giving it the eerie feeling as if something is going to happen.

Here is a picture of me playing Limbo.

I also spent time playing other games in the gallery, such as B.I.T-Trip Runner, Solipskier, Halcyon and Colorbind, all addictive games with the latter 3 games that were played on the iPad.

Playing B.I.T-Trip Runner

Playing Halcyon

If you ever go down to Federation Square, head into ACMI and as well as playing the 14 games as part of the International Games Festival, next door to the gallery is a whole exhibition called “Screen World”, which is a permanent exhibition about film, television and digital culture that has many Australians featuring in it. It displays a whole range of interactive activities and you can easily spend hours in there.

More information is at :

http://www.acmi.net.au/screen_worlds.aspx

Screen Worlds

Reward Mechanics

So, you might be asking, what is a reward mechanic? Well, a reward mechanic is essentially a system to reward players playing a game that they have completed a section of.

 

Below is a link to a video on what gamification is to professionals. Gamification is essentially the process of game thinking and game mechanics to solve problems and engage users.

 

http://vimeo.com/29242791

 

A reward mechanic can be in various forms. For example, games may have virtual coins that can be then used to purchase better in-game items. Another method is experience points, which can be gained through completing various activities throughout the game. The more points a player earns, the better the skill level of that player will be.

 

Another form of a reward mechanic is in shooting games, where if a player receives a certain number of kill in a row, they receive bonuses. In this example, a player receives bonuses for killing other players in a row, as well as all the other rewards that players can receive whilst playing Call of Duty.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67zdGvCbiaY

 

Reward mechanics are used to keep players interested in a game. It can be simple as Tetris, where points are used in order for the player to beat its previous high score.

Gamification.org has a list of various reward mechanics that various games use in order to keep players interested.

 

http://gamification.org/wiki/Game_Mechanics/Reward_Schedules

 

One blogger that I’ve found has his take on reward mechanics and what they do. He explains that they are like a giant sign, which points the player into the direction that the best way to play is.

 

http://linnaeus.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/good-reward-mechanics/

 

Hopefully this gives you a better idea on what reward mechanics are and how they work.