LIFE EXPERIENCES INTO GAME DESIGN

Out of all the ideas that we have seen in class there is one that called most of my attention, and that is: Can the experiences that I have had in my life help me with future designs that I want to make for games?

The problem with finding a quick solution for this question is that most people will say yes, but that is not fully correct from my point of view, thanks to what we have learned in class. Actually it is not the experience that helps, it is the analysis that we can make of the experience. For example let’s look at an example represented by hardcore gamers:
By definition a hardcore gamer is the person that plays games the most of the time (maybe less than a pro gamer), so if we think about the statement and think about the experience this players have, hardcore gamers must have the best ideas in game design , but as we all know it is false to make that generalization. The idea that the more games we make gives us the most amount of experience to create games is wrong and according to what we saw in class Ill analyze what else is needed besides playing a lot of games.

If we look at the Toolbox project and what we saw in the first class part of game design is not taking ideas from other games and putting it in our game, basically just because we say we are a game designer and make a game like some game we have played doesn’t mean we are good game designers, it just means that we can rip off another person’s idea really easy. Game designers ideas should always come from personal ideas, not from other persons perfective, this meaning that even if we have an idea that looks like a game that already exist we should make it our idea and our perspective of how the game should be to end up being successful and especially fun.

Another point to add to the previous idea is about using or point of view to create games, even if we have played many games and we think we know what fun is, it is guaranteed that we will be wrong, and that is because times change, what kids want nowadays is not what they wanted 15 years ago. An example of this is if we remember a really fun game from years ago we can think in Mario Bros, this was a game that innovated all side scrolling games and made a character that everybody ended up loving. Now what happens if we come up with a side scrolling game with a cute character, we come up with another of those games that think that if you take the formula from a winning game and create anything it will work and an example of this is that we have side scrollers like Mario with characters like the Tiny Toons, Sonic, movie characters and a lot more, and none of their success compares to what Mario was in the 80s.

So what can we do to create a winning formula? According to this, one word that comes up to my head is innovation, people don’t like to play the same thing multiple times, so if we create a game that nobody has ever seen people will be curious about it and maybe they will play it, that’s a start to make a good game.
So going back to what we say that playing games makes you a great designer, the point of this entire essay is that the playing is not what makes you a good game designer, is the learning you get from them, and I don’t mean learning like I still remember the fatalities from Mortal Kombat. Learning from a game means, take it apart, and be able to find why is it fun for me and find out why is it fun for my neighbor, for my sister, for my best friend, but most important find out why is it boring for some people.

In conclusion it doesn’t matter how many games have you played in your life, a big number doesn’t mean you know a lot about game design, it means you had a lot of free time probably and that you like games a lot. But the important aspects of this is that we can take all the games even to the point when we were kids and are able to find the formula for fun, which we will probably never find, but it’s important to get the closest we can because not only that will mean sales in our games, but personally what I expect from my games is that people come back to me and tell me they enjoyed the experience .

Finished Game: Demons Souls

Name: Demons Souls
Platform finished: PS3

Game Overview:

It’s been a while since PS3 players have not found a good RPG, technically all of them have gone to the 360, but finally Sony has made an exclusive game that will be the envy of most 360 gamers out there.

The first thing I have the say about this game is pretty common on online sites that have talked about the game, and that is that this is a game where you will die a lot. With this said I think this is one of the hardest games I have played in years.

To start Demons Souls is a Role playing game where each player is in control a character which he will be able to personalize in many different ways, from his body to his face. After the character is created we will start in the kingdom of Boletaria, a kingdom controlled by a demon called The Old One. This evil has all of his armies of demons hunting for souls wherever they can find them. This is where our hero comes in, as one of the many heroes who come to help the kingdom, but as you can imagine this adventure might be a little more we originally expected.

The story can be a little classic RPG if we compare it to other fantasy titles; basically you’re a knight who arrives to a kingdom to save it. But looking a little further, the game is surprises us with a deep story not only around our character, but also around the kingdom of Boletaria. This story is based that we are not the only character writing this story like in many games, but we are only one of many (kind of like an MMO) where we will be able to interact with even more players through the PSN to help us on our quest to save the kingdom.

But this is not like any other online game where we just look at a party to kill some enemies, this game will show gives us interaction through dead. With dead I mean that the in this game you’ll be able to play as a living character or as a spirit character, and depending on this, if you are alive, you’ll be able to summon spirits to help you, and if you are a spirit you’ll be able to be summoned to help other players.

Talking about the gameplay on the game if we think about good RPG mechanics we probably think about Oblivion. Now if Oblivion defined how a good RPG should be in first person view, Demons Souls is how a third person Action-RPG should be. This is thanks to an intuitive fighting mechanic where most is depending on skill and not so much, as classic RPGs where grinding will make the games too easy.

Potential Improvements:

In the area of technical improvements I suffered from some framerate drop in a few areas of the game that would be my only aspect to improve in this area.

On the sound part, I loved the music; it gives the "epic" feeling through the whole game. Now the voice acting is an area where it could have been a lot better, but as a personal opinion it wasn’t that bad to break the game.

Finally a design opinion that it may break the game is on the party options, first of all there is none, and it’s not totally incorrect to not have this option. The feeling of helping and being helped by total strangers I think it’s a great idea and it’s perfectly implemented, but as a personal thought I would have liked to meet with my friends online.


Final Thought:

Buy it! This game is something that I have not seen in a long time, in my previous post I posted my detailed review for the game and I gave it a 6.9/7.0, this is because it’s a unique experience compared to all other games out there, and when something is this unique, I think it definitely should be tried by all people who like gaming.

Demons Souls review is up!

The review for Demons Souls is up at:

http://www.elinsane.com/fichaResena.php?idResena=265

Pretty nice review, gave it a really high score, will post later about it, check it out and check out the game, a really fun and most important "NEW" experience.

Spradan

Welcome

Hello everybody, this blog will mainly be my gateway to post my ideas about gaming. Initially I have started making reviews for games at www.elinsane.com (in Spanish) but I thought of adding some extra design perspective to the games Ive played, so this will be the place where I will put this stuff.

Thanks for reading and any comments are appreciated.

Spradan