Alter Ego is a browser-based life simulation game by Choose Multiple LLC; originally written by Peter Favaro Ph.D. and published in 1986 on the Commodore 64, MS-DOS, Apple II, and Macintosh platforms.
The game's premise is simple enough: 'What if you had an opportunity to live life again.' Unfolding from birth and progressing through events and opportunities over the span of this new life, how the player chooses to live this virtual second life is what this game explores and illustrates.
Summary of analysis
Internet browsing knowledge-reliant new player experience, engaging and immersive gameplay that goes so far as to try and maintain situational plausibility and sociological expectations, mouse-controlled gameplay and easily-navigated interface, text and icons graphics, no music or sound.
Tutorial/New player experience
The new player experience of Alter Ego is largely implied as it flows through an interaction-enabled Javascript web-page. Most anyone capable of finding the game on the web will be probably be able to play the game. Though I feel that tutorial elements would've still been welcome, it's likely that without an experienced game designer the game would've suffered for it due to the level of attempted player immersion of game events and overall casual theme.
Gameplay experience
There's two routes for a player to go from my own experiences and that of some friends: either log into the game using google accounts in order to walk away and return at your leisure or prepare for a four to eight hour block of a game that really immerses you in it to the best of its ability. Alter Ego definitely has a lot of replay value due to its premise and that nearly every game event is optional. In fact, no age section gives enough turns to fully explore all of the events available, driving curious players to see what they missed out on and weigh their choices and sacrifices.
From what I've observed, it even tries its best to simulate social differences between genders to some degree by having a number of events change perspective or be unique to the experience. On a related note of simulated integrity, there are times when a set of selections determines outcome such as mood and action/inaction and certain combinations are locked out due to lack of plausibility (i.e. deciding to show up to a fight at school with a mood of unaffected by being called out).
Interface & Controls
As a browser-based, Javascripted game, the mouse is the whole of the control scheme and was an unsurprising design decision. The game has a simple and quickly-learned interface of going between choice windows and narrative text windows.
While certainly unnecessary (given it steps out of immersion) the game provides a stat window that is viewable from the main choices window, but given that the information it provides is akin to an internalized self-evaluation, it's doing a lot when it is considered necessary to a player.
Graphics
The game is comprised mostly of text and iconography, I honestly only recall one picture in the game's entirety. If I had the resources to, I'd love to invest into making a full graphics evolution, particularly one that would randomize features, ethnicity, and explore sociological differences in those experiences as it could make for a powerful serious genre game and help foster understanding at the same time as enticing players to seek out and learn from diversity.
Music & Sound
The game lacks music and sound, but I doubt it suffers for it. Alongside wishing to see a full graphics version, getting to see this remade or inspiring a similar title that is fully voice-acted and sound-rich would be a beautiful thing.
Commentary
I feel that I should note here that the reason I've had such long sessions of playing this game was because of how fun I found it to be, I've rarely felt any desire to skip ahead even though it's always an available option. This is a game that I've recommended to everyone I know and would definitely recommend it to more. For anyone wondering if I could possibly push my wish list for this game in the future further than already noted above: yes, I can, I've contemplated the possibility of an Alter Ego MMO and talked myself down from it knowing that it would be an epic undertaking and most-likely commercially (if not technologically) non-viable.
P.S. (No, Second Life doesn't count as it lacks both game-style motivation and sociological integrity/plausibility.)
Friday, October 7, 2011
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Game review: The Cat and the Coup
The Cat and the Coup is a narratively-focused serious genre (Edutainment) game by Peter Brinson and Kurosh ValaNejad (click for full credits hosted on the game's site). Available for Windows and Mac PC systems as well as being hosted and distributed via Steam.
The game's premise has the player taking the role of Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh's cat who, during the course of being a playful feline, leads the ghost of Mossadegh through an abridged history of noted significant moments of his life strung together in a Wonderland-style series of rooms.
Summary of analysis
Simple and effective tutorial elements, admirably accomplished gameplay, minimal interface and easily-learned control scheme, graphics that escape my ability to adequately describe, and effective sound.
Tutorial/New player experience
The tutorial elements of the game are summed up in the space of about twenty seconds in the pre-launch screen. Move the cat around and swipe at objects in order to keep the narrative moving along. There are also hints on where to go that pop up to aid the player, keeping the game from making one of the big mistakes in game design: entrapping a player at no fault of their own.
Gameplay experience
Unlike purely entertainment games, the Cat and the Coup serves to intrigue the player into wanting to learn more, one of the goals of the growing genres of serious games and Educational-Entertainment (short-form: Edutainment) games. I'd very much have to say that it accomplishes this goal admirably through a combination of the abridged event texts and, what seemed to me at least, the unconventional graphics. In my opinion, and possibly others, one of the best ways to get people drawn into a desire to learn is to engage them to interact and to trigger curiosity like a reflex.
Interface & Controls
Fully keyboard-driven controls movement and interaction. There are user-interface elements in the way of a hints system, but nothing that overtly screams, "Hey, you're playing a game."
Graphics
Give it a play for yourself, it only takes about fifteen minutes, whereas me attempting to quantify a description of the game's graphics would take about an hour or two to find words for illustrating it properly and maybe a quarter of that to thoroughly read through. The best I can do to simplify it is that it compares to descriptions of animistic spirit journeys that I've read about.
Music & Sound
The music wonderfully compliments the gameplay and the sound effects are implemented well. There's little else I can say about this element due to the length of the game really only requiring so much in audio resources.
Commentary
There are only two points that I can really call detraction: a heavy memory requirement (cited 2GB of RAM) and that I had to rely on external resources to seek out and read through a detailed source of the story that the Cat and the Coup effectively acts as a short documentary of events. To be fair, though, I tend to seek out secondary and often tertiary sources of information habitually anyway.
I'm always glad to see both attempts and innovation in the genre of serious games, especially as more of public education goes voluntary and interactive. I'd urge anyone interested in similar topics to take the time to give this game their own analysis and to follow-up in learning more, especially in verifying presented information (in more than just the media of serious games, too).
The game's premise has the player taking the role of Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh's cat who, during the course of being a playful feline, leads the ghost of Mossadegh through an abridged history of noted significant moments of his life strung together in a Wonderland-style series of rooms.
Summary of analysis
Simple and effective tutorial elements, admirably accomplished gameplay, minimal interface and easily-learned control scheme, graphics that escape my ability to adequately describe, and effective sound.
Tutorial/New player experience
The tutorial elements of the game are summed up in the space of about twenty seconds in the pre-launch screen. Move the cat around and swipe at objects in order to keep the narrative moving along. There are also hints on where to go that pop up to aid the player, keeping the game from making one of the big mistakes in game design: entrapping a player at no fault of their own.
Gameplay experience
Unlike purely entertainment games, the Cat and the Coup serves to intrigue the player into wanting to learn more, one of the goals of the growing genres of serious games and Educational-Entertainment (short-form: Edutainment) games. I'd very much have to say that it accomplishes this goal admirably through a combination of the abridged event texts and, what seemed to me at least, the unconventional graphics. In my opinion, and possibly others, one of the best ways to get people drawn into a desire to learn is to engage them to interact and to trigger curiosity like a reflex.
Interface & Controls
Fully keyboard-driven controls movement and interaction. There are user-interface elements in the way of a hints system, but nothing that overtly screams, "Hey, you're playing a game."
Graphics
Give it a play for yourself, it only takes about fifteen minutes, whereas me attempting to quantify a description of the game's graphics would take about an hour or two to find words for illustrating it properly and maybe a quarter of that to thoroughly read through. The best I can do to simplify it is that it compares to descriptions of animistic spirit journeys that I've read about.
Music & Sound
The music wonderfully compliments the gameplay and the sound effects are implemented well. There's little else I can say about this element due to the length of the game really only requiring so much in audio resources.
Commentary
There are only two points that I can really call detraction: a heavy memory requirement (cited 2GB of RAM) and that I had to rely on external resources to seek out and read through a detailed source of the story that the Cat and the Coup effectively acts as a short documentary of events. To be fair, though, I tend to seek out secondary and often tertiary sources of information habitually anyway.
I'm always glad to see both attempts and innovation in the genre of serious games, especially as more of public education goes voluntary and interactive. I'd urge anyone interested in similar topics to take the time to give this game their own analysis and to follow-up in learning more, especially in verifying presented information (in more than just the media of serious games, too).
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Game review: Depths of Peril (Demo)
Depths of Peril is a ambitious action-adventure game combining elements of hack and slash action, roleplaying-style character equipment and stat management, tower defense game's home outpost with defenses, factional real-time strategy, and a rich backstory narrative all with an explorable world. Depths of Peril was developed by Soldak Entertainment and is available to run on Windows and Mac PC platforms.
Summary of analysis
Poorly implemented new player experience, fast-paced and challenging gameplay with hordes of monsters, the lurking threat of factional warfare but the most frightening element is the narrative elements, complicated but rewarding interface and controls, well-detailed graphics with minor obstacles of object distinction, mediocre music with mostly satisfying sound effects.
Tutorial/New player experience
I imagine that the one thing that got me through this part of the game was an abundance of comparable game experience, the new player experience was bordering on painful.
After creating a character I was dropped into the game without a clue about the controls and considerable curiosity about what I was supposed to do first. Within the first ten minutes of gameplay, I was over my head with a long line of tutorial help windows waiting for my attention and in need of industrial machinery to deal with all the walls of text I was expected to read through. If you're new to this style of game, I recommend its competition first, they'll ease a player into the game much better than Depths of Peril does.
I can understand that there's a lot to teach the player as there's a lot to manage in the game and quite a bit of mechanics and interactions that they'll need to learn (kind of quickly, too, lest they fall behind the opposition), but more succinct explanations and walking a player through things is an art, not a chore list.
Gameplay experience
After getting the hang of everything, things ran much more smoothly, though the feeling of having to outrace impending doom never went away. Personally, I love being able to multi-task in a hardcore style game and managing a constant flow of quests, preparing for invasion from opposing forces, managing a main character and companion, and slaughtering hordes of monsters in exploration really let this game shine after the grueling new player experience. This game appears to be designed to keep a player going, unrelentingly, so keep an alarm handy if you have any upcoming plans while playing.
Probably the major detractor to ongoing gameplay are the tomes, which are an interesting read and show that the designers really wanted to draw players into the game's world, they're just cumbersome and out of place given the game's pacing and themes. If they could have implemented a telling of these narratives through high-level or epic quests in which the player character is transported back to participate in the events depicted, I would applaud the narrative, but they wound up being the most dreaded usable item a player would come across (whatever you do, don't right click the tomes... just stuff them in the bookshelf for their bonuses) and did more to break immersion than was really tolerable.
Interface & Controls
Complex interface relying on a sizable number of windows to manage (thankfully some of them pause gameplay while active). Primarily mouse-driven controls with abundant, and life-saving, keyboard hotkeys. It takes a significant investment of time to master the gameplay and the interface interactions, but it pays off exponentially with ongoing gameplay and especially in higher difficulty levels.
Graphics
2.5D top-down, angled, third-person perspective with moderately detailed character, object, and environment artwork. While certainly more visually appealing to a seriously-themed game, the interactive elements' graphics have a tendency to blend in with the non-interactive elements causing the targeting system to be an unnecessarily high level of nuisance (in fact, there's a whole keyboard hotkey just to highlight objects that can be picked up and it's probably going to be used more than any other). But even without the distraction-prone environment elements, a mouse-based targeting system in third-person perspective is clumsy at best. Thankfully, death by camera-angle or targeting system never became an issue (so far).
Music & Sound
I think there was background music, but between the rapid pace of gameplay and the sound effects, it may as well have been turned off for all I ever noticed it. The implementation of sound was quite a lot more satisfying, save that damnable knocking of factional management that honestly tempted me to embrace savage massacre of my in-game neighbors.
Commentary
Diablo-esque and it shows; the interface, controls, quite a lot of mechanics, and even some bits of narrative and premise illustrate a high likeliness of inspiration by the works of Blizzard Entertainment. There were also a number of moments where I felt the need to pause and question a few of the game's elements, such as a factionally-divided tribe of barbarians which somehow valued hefty (though abridged) tomes of lore in a hostile environment nearly pouring in on them from all sides. It was also a bit jarring to see the most-used currency was actually a coin-based economy as opposed to the frequently cited crystals of the tutorial and help windows.
To the game's credit, it was mostly well put together and it excels as a hardcore-style game by how it manages to keep a player engaged with only moments of downtime to give the player breathing and strategy time, eventually aiding in the desired player skill development rather than letting inventory management and spreadsheet-planning to detract from the pace.
Summary of analysis
Poorly implemented new player experience, fast-paced and challenging gameplay with hordes of monsters, the lurking threat of factional warfare but the most frightening element is the narrative elements, complicated but rewarding interface and controls, well-detailed graphics with minor obstacles of object distinction, mediocre music with mostly satisfying sound effects.
Tutorial/New player experience
I imagine that the one thing that got me through this part of the game was an abundance of comparable game experience, the new player experience was bordering on painful.
After creating a character I was dropped into the game without a clue about the controls and considerable curiosity about what I was supposed to do first. Within the first ten minutes of gameplay, I was over my head with a long line of tutorial help windows waiting for my attention and in need of industrial machinery to deal with all the walls of text I was expected to read through. If you're new to this style of game, I recommend its competition first, they'll ease a player into the game much better than Depths of Peril does.
I can understand that there's a lot to teach the player as there's a lot to manage in the game and quite a bit of mechanics and interactions that they'll need to learn (kind of quickly, too, lest they fall behind the opposition), but more succinct explanations and walking a player through things is an art, not a chore list.
Gameplay experience
After getting the hang of everything, things ran much more smoothly, though the feeling of having to outrace impending doom never went away. Personally, I love being able to multi-task in a hardcore style game and managing a constant flow of quests, preparing for invasion from opposing forces, managing a main character and companion, and slaughtering hordes of monsters in exploration really let this game shine after the grueling new player experience. This game appears to be designed to keep a player going, unrelentingly, so keep an alarm handy if you have any upcoming plans while playing.
Probably the major detractor to ongoing gameplay are the tomes, which are an interesting read and show that the designers really wanted to draw players into the game's world, they're just cumbersome and out of place given the game's pacing and themes. If they could have implemented a telling of these narratives through high-level or epic quests in which the player character is transported back to participate in the events depicted, I would applaud the narrative, but they wound up being the most dreaded usable item a player would come across (whatever you do, don't right click the tomes... just stuff them in the bookshelf for their bonuses) and did more to break immersion than was really tolerable.
Interface & Controls
Complex interface relying on a sizable number of windows to manage (thankfully some of them pause gameplay while active). Primarily mouse-driven controls with abundant, and life-saving, keyboard hotkeys. It takes a significant investment of time to master the gameplay and the interface interactions, but it pays off exponentially with ongoing gameplay and especially in higher difficulty levels.
Graphics
2.5D top-down, angled, third-person perspective with moderately detailed character, object, and environment artwork. While certainly more visually appealing to a seriously-themed game, the interactive elements' graphics have a tendency to blend in with the non-interactive elements causing the targeting system to be an unnecessarily high level of nuisance (in fact, there's a whole keyboard hotkey just to highlight objects that can be picked up and it's probably going to be used more than any other). But even without the distraction-prone environment elements, a mouse-based targeting system in third-person perspective is clumsy at best. Thankfully, death by camera-angle or targeting system never became an issue (so far).
Music & Sound
I think there was background music, but between the rapid pace of gameplay and the sound effects, it may as well have been turned off for all I ever noticed it. The implementation of sound was quite a lot more satisfying, save that damnable knocking of factional management that honestly tempted me to embrace savage massacre of my in-game neighbors.
Commentary
Diablo-esque and it shows; the interface, controls, quite a lot of mechanics, and even some bits of narrative and premise illustrate a high likeliness of inspiration by the works of Blizzard Entertainment. There were also a number of moments where I felt the need to pause and question a few of the game's elements, such as a factionally-divided tribe of barbarians which somehow valued hefty (though abridged) tomes of lore in a hostile environment nearly pouring in on them from all sides. It was also a bit jarring to see the most-used currency was actually a coin-based economy as opposed to the frequently cited crystals of the tutorial and help windows.
To the game's credit, it was mostly well put together and it excels as a hardcore-style game by how it manages to keep a player engaged with only moments of downtime to give the player breathing and strategy time, eventually aiding in the desired player skill development rather than letting inventory management and spreadsheet-planning to detract from the pace.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Game Review: The Kingdom of Loathing
The Kingdom of Loathing is an online roleplaying game by Asymmetric Publications. At time of this blogging, it is listed as being in open beta.
The game's premise appears very much to just have fun and do a little adventuring in a unique land.
Summary of analysis
Effective new player experience, a fresh take on roleplaying genre gameplay through its presentation to the player, semi-complex but well-implemented interface with mostly mouse-driven controls, surprisingly well-chosen graphics, no sound or music.
Tutorial/New player experience
While at heart the game comes across as significantly less than serious, there's actually quite a bit of mechanics going on behind the scenes and like many roleplaying games a lot to teach to a new player. Thankfully, the overarching theme and succinct tutorial system keeps things rolling along nicely and even though I've had to pause to get through a bout of laughter, it's a welcome slow down.
Gameplay experience
For a run down in detail of gameplay elements, I recommend the Kingdom of Loathing Wiki.
Definitely a one of a kind experience, from fighting off laughter to fighting absurdities, it's fully embraced the roleplaying game meme of random encounters. The game adheres to a lot of the genre conventions: random encounters and level grinding, stat management, inventory systems, etc but it was still somehow refreshing to play through due to the colorful descriptions and comical interpretation of pretty much everything.
Interface & Controls
Like many roleplaying games, there's numerous interface elements to interact with and I'm grateful to see them introduced as they're being placed on the interface (with some exceptions). The mouse appears to be the sole means of controls in the game, at least from what I've found from playing so far though I expect from my research that the keyboard becomes important once a player gets into the social elements of the game.
Graphics
Stick-figure style characters, objects, and environment. Though many games would have a hard time pulling this one off, I think KoL actually benefits its themes and the overall gameplay experience having gone this route.
Music & Sound
No sound or music at the time of this blogging, though I'd love to see it implemented one day when it's in full release.
Commentary
I expected from creating a character that I'd be in for quite a lot of puns and some occasional campiness. Just a few actions in and I realized I was going to be needing a week's rations, a tent, some flint and steel, fifty feet of rope, and a standard issue ten foot pole (actually 11') because this was going to be an adventure into the heart of camp. It's obvious that the developers meant for everyone involved to have fun with the game including themselves and should be credited for taking a job and making it enjoyable (seen far too many game developers that try to discourage others from the industry and barely enjoy what they do).
I'm definitely going to be keeping an eye on this game as they've managed to be innovative without the need of a multi-million dollar budget and provide players with recreation through silliness in a well-structured set of mechanics.
The game's premise appears very much to just have fun and do a little adventuring in a unique land.
Summary of analysis
Effective new player experience, a fresh take on roleplaying genre gameplay through its presentation to the player, semi-complex but well-implemented interface with mostly mouse-driven controls, surprisingly well-chosen graphics, no sound or music.
Tutorial/New player experience
While at heart the game comes across as significantly less than serious, there's actually quite a bit of mechanics going on behind the scenes and like many roleplaying games a lot to teach to a new player. Thankfully, the overarching theme and succinct tutorial system keeps things rolling along nicely and even though I've had to pause to get through a bout of laughter, it's a welcome slow down.
Gameplay experience
For a run down in detail of gameplay elements, I recommend the Kingdom of Loathing Wiki.
Definitely a one of a kind experience, from fighting off laughter to fighting absurdities, it's fully embraced the roleplaying game meme of random encounters. The game adheres to a lot of the genre conventions: random encounters and level grinding, stat management, inventory systems, etc but it was still somehow refreshing to play through due to the colorful descriptions and comical interpretation of pretty much everything.
Interface & Controls
Like many roleplaying games, there's numerous interface elements to interact with and I'm grateful to see them introduced as they're being placed on the interface (with some exceptions). The mouse appears to be the sole means of controls in the game, at least from what I've found from playing so far though I expect from my research that the keyboard becomes important once a player gets into the social elements of the game.
Graphics
Stick-figure style characters, objects, and environment. Though many games would have a hard time pulling this one off, I think KoL actually benefits its themes and the overall gameplay experience having gone this route.
Music & Sound
No sound or music at the time of this blogging, though I'd love to see it implemented one day when it's in full release.
Commentary
I expected from creating a character that I'd be in for quite a lot of puns and some occasional campiness. Just a few actions in and I realized I was going to be needing a week's rations, a tent, some flint and steel, fifty feet of rope, and a standard issue ten foot pole (actually 11') because this was going to be an adventure into the heart of camp. It's obvious that the developers meant for everyone involved to have fun with the game including themselves and should be credited for taking a job and making it enjoyable (seen far too many game developers that try to discourage others from the industry and barely enjoy what they do).
I'm definitely going to be keeping an eye on this game as they've managed to be innovative without the need of a multi-million dollar budget and provide players with recreation through silliness in a well-structured set of mechanics.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Game Review: Fault Line
Fault Line is probably the first game in a long time I'd played where I had become obsessed with trying to figure out how to reverse engineer its mechanics. It's an Action-Puzzle style flash game which leans more into hardcore play style (especially in later levels), but still has casual appeal.
As indicated in the credits, the art is by Stefan Åhlin, it's programmed by Chris Burt-Brown, with music by Dave Cowen, and is part of the Nitrome games network.
The game's goal is to bring its protagonist through dynamic environments akin to mazes via manipulation of space.As indicated in the credits, the art is by Stefan Åhlin, it's programmed by Chris Burt-Brown, with music by Dave Cowen, and is part of the Nitrome games network.
Summary of analysis
Minimal interactions/mechanics to teach the player, resulting in a quick and in the action tutorial, excellent mix of challenging puzzles and learning how to use the mechanics creatively but lacking replay value, well accomplished music and sound, and uncluttered/non-distracting interface with largely accommodating and simple controls.
Tutorial/New player experience
By the end of the first level, all the game's interactions have been shown to the player, the challenge from that point forward is learning how to use them to solve the various levels ahead.
Gameplay experience
With experimentation and creative logic, I'd have to say that the game is at just the right mix of challenge and learning that really makes a puzzle game shine. The game also forgoes narrating a story and lets the player's own imagination wander if they're so inclined to find a premise that ties together the events of the game.
Levels are timed and scored, but outside of playing the game with an attitude of testing the limits of the mechanics, there's fairly little motivation behind replaying them except to get a few more points.
Interface & Controls
A minimal interface lets the player focus better on the tasks at hand. The most notable part of the interface and controls is the mouse-driven detachable hands of the character, which pull together special node points in the environment, thereby bending the level's space in order to create pathways, avoid or destroy obstacles, navigate the maze, and even have a little fun distorting objects. Character movement consists of keyboard keys for moving left, right, and jumping (with some accommodation of multiple layouts).
Graphics
Sprite-art character and objects/environment with a futuristic style. No character death, relying on a rewinding time to most recent checkpoint mechanic when hazardous conditions are met (including bending the environment into a collapse on the character).
Music & Sound
Unlike a lot of futuristic-style games, the music was neither fast-paced, nor annoyingly repetitive (at least by my tastes and standards). The music and sound evoked a sense of mystery, possibly being meant to entice a player to keep pressing to finish every challenge.
Commentary
As stated earlier, this game has left my designer tendencies working overtime theorizing possible methods of implementing similar mechanics. From incredibly well-written object-draw programming tied together with an adaptive surfaces interpretation to interchangeable level maps to more complicated object-merging interactive systems, this game was engaging as a player and inspirational as a game designer. Also, Fault Line is a testament to breaking away from convention and trying to innovate by making the level itself the focus instead of the character or the character's movements.
Finally, it never hurts to take a mechanic and show how it can be iteratively used to exponential degrees.
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