End of summer and prepping for my first project

It's Beginning
As anyone whose stumbled upon my writing, either at a glance or gave it an honest read, might have picked up I write alot; unfortunately I don't do this alot. Whenever I can get myself to put things on the internet it's only because I've convinced myself it will be of some use to someone else; my goal this semester is to finish drawing and coding a proof of concept segment for a game, sort of a playable tease trailer that as far as I can foresee might end up being an opening level. I plan on recording every step of my journey, from my continued stumbling ignorance to basic grasp, and highlight every flash of clarity I've come across as it might help another.

What to expect
Because of my lack of experience in actual coding or art, a bulk of these early posts are going to be on writing, both my history and the exercises and resources that have lead me to the familiarity with story and writing I've come to appreciate.

Why didn't this happen before?
Mostly because of my misunderstandings with self motivation and timing. Example, loading yourself up with work with the hope that the pressure of responsibility will keep the gears turning isn't clear thinking. Also full school and work load do not lend themselves to freetime, and a lack of familiarity with genre do not lend itself to good first project designs.

Why Now?
My schedule has more time in it, but also I've figured out what I want to make. I'm taking one of my ideas out of the sketchbook and going to lay it out on the workbench, Ags is a strong versatile tool and it's time we become seriously acquainted. I'm dusting off an old story I realized would translate well. My next post will be a breakdown of how I believe story and plot translate to the genre elements we find inherent in the point and click game. 

Learning AGS and Narrative (discussion of play, prose, and focalization)

Oh dear god this is hard.


The first thing I learned of design.. was that something simple is complex. Just because something plays really simply and is a simple design, doesn't mean it didn't take much to create. Trying to recreate a really simple game in a manner that's better, is like trying to reinvent the wheel. Try remaking something like tick-tack-toe, ya know, something that will fit the same market and could replace tick-tack-toe in the mind of it's loyal audience... you can't.

That's because every beautifully simple design, is ingeniously complex. It's complex in the manner that it is simple but still works so strongly. It is precisely the right amount of everything to convey what it needed to, not too much where it became confusing, and not too little where it became forgettable. Think of rock-paper-scissors, as much as people try they can't really add something to the game and have the game work smoothly. They might reskin it, have three other things besides the classics; but that's just aesthetics, that's not changing the design of the game. There are three options to each player, each option lead can only lead to one of 2 outcomes.
1. fail-state, which would automatically result in the opponent's win-state (and vice-versa)
2. stalemate, which leads to a replay.

These outcomes lead to split second strategic decisions with instant reward, the timed element builds tension, the player aspect makes every game feel new despite the fact that every outcome has already been experienced. The nature of it leaves the players on an even level. Regardless of what age you are you can still loose or win with the same likelihood as you always could.

My point here is that early designers incorrectly correlate the number of inputs and quantity of interactions onscreen to the quality of the game's play. This is a fallacy that's typically learned after the first or second project. While tangentially related as far as design goes; input, interaction, and play are completely different aspects of game. Input is strictly analog. Interaction is strictly digital response to input. And play is the neurological response (within the player) to the perceived association of analog input and interaction. I distinguish it as a perceived association because of the play we frequently witness with young players, or even just children in play. We constantly see players lean controllers one way or the other even though that has nothing to do with the interaction onscreen. You can place a unplugged controller in your nephew's hand and they'll watch you play, clicking buttons, thinking they're involved. (I'm not the best babysitter)

Of course during early development the nuances of analog controls (just like the nuances of analog motor skills) are lost on youngsters, along with the nuances of small game interactions onscreen. With this we assume the input->interaction->play is lost on youngsters, and they perceive it to be a solely passive (McLuhan Hot) medium like film, but this isn't necessarily true. The nuances of it are lost but the cognitive response is still there, the interactions we see simply highlight the importance of agency in the input->interaction relation. In a small experiment (I'm a terrible uncle) while babysitting I brought up my Atari simulator, turned on Combat2, and handed my nephew (1 1/2 year old) the second controller. Not expecting much and knowing the little one's love of pressing buttons, changing the channels, and seeing the change onscreen I placed everything within his reach (small television/console/both controllers) on a short coffee table, to see what would happen. I instantly regretted the game choice because the foliage covers a good part of the interactions onscreen, new players might not even notice what's happening for the first few shots.

Not to diminish the whippersnapper incidentally beating his distracted uncle a few times, the game did not last long as the small nuanced interactions onscreen were not enough to hold the youngster's attention. After exploring all the controller seemed to offer him, my nephew quickly began to experiment with the console. Which had the desired effects of turning on and off, then cycling through the games installed within it's memory. This illustrates a rudimentary rule of design; agency is established through clear control. The response of play is only as strong as the perceived association between the input and interaction. The interaction must be noticeable and a clear and direct response from the input. Imagine watching a game being played where you have no grasp of the rules, until you can make the link between what players are doing and the repercussions of their actions, then all you're seeing in-front of you is gibberish actions that have no correlation. To you it can't be played, you can't voyeuristically play that game because you have no understanding of that system (input->interaction). This is at root the inherent difference between games and film, games are constructed to convey the input->interaction system to a player (design is comparable to prose) where film doesn't have this interactive(cool, McLuhan) prose. This is why Let's Plays or Walk Throughs on youtube are popular with the gaming culture as interactive material related, instead of the film culture as cinematic material related despite sharing similar a visual language. While a mostly invisible aspect that's "under the hood" the prose of games and cinema are internally different, and draw the participant into a different neurological experience.

And just like if you don't recognize the system of input->interaction, if the interaction is inconsistent the game ceases to be. When kids run around the playground and point fingers going "BAM, you're Dead!", they have simultaneously designated input and interaction. If the second child laughs falling down, pretending to be dead, they have designated the output, the system is established. Even if they dodge, or run shouting "No you didn't!" they have established a system. Then it's a game, they've created play. If the second child doesn't react, then the first child is privy to either give up on his game, or to adapt it. Imagine the child that sneaks around in a public place pretending they're James Bond and imagines shooting down robots in the supermarket, or the kid in the back seat that pretends they're launching rockets out of their window, blowing up other cars. They have designated the game to be private and within their imagination, if a stranger sees them and pretends to fall down dead in the supermarket, smiling.. well typically at that point they just ruined it. That wasn't the game child was playing first, second they didn't invite this weirdo to play. It might have similarities and be a game, but it wasn't the game being played. It's not that the player doesn't understand the system of the slightly different game of "shoot, and shoot down bad guys" but that interaction and output had a fundamentally different prose then "shoot, and imagine shooting down bad guys". The prose of the first was controlled internally and allowed a deep exploration of player imagination and narrative, where the prose of the second became a cooperative effort and drew more attention to the game itself and out of the narrative being experienced, this is why some kids suddenly get embarrassed when you jump in on their game.

-Jump next to sandcastle-

"So what-cha doing?"

-shyly sticks plastic figure in sand-

"Just.. playing.."

You're sudden attention draws their own attention to the nature and prose of their game, drawing them out of their play experience. At this point we've all learned the best thing is to draw the child back into their narrative, be a participant and not draw attention to their system by learning the rules, and responding as they decree is appropriate to the system. Let them DM. 

"I wanna play, what do I do?"

"OK, and you can be the dragon! You're over here, and you're like -"RAHH"- when the knights go inside the cave. Alright! But I'm the Green knight, you can burn my head, but I just don't die."

I'm Getting There! Jeez!

As I've mentioned games have an inherent prose of their own through the design and nature of the game. The elements of the games design, the input, the interactions, and the subsequent play are the prose of games. Game prose is the form of interactive language and game flow/feel, and same as linguistic prose is the form of grammar and flow. In a manner of speaking prose is the cellular structure of narrative. There is a rudimentary prose in narrative(storytelling) that is not directly specific to any medium (movie,comic,tv series, novel, painting, ext.)

This rudimentary aspect of prose, this universal aspect of story stems from the existence of the story itself. I am of the personal belief that every creative medium has the potential to convey a story, and might so inherently through the participation of humanity (but that's for another time)

What I'm referring to is what French Narrative theorist Gerard Genette, refers to as Focalization. The eye and voice with which the story is being told. Narrative is the recounting of a story, the fact that the story cannot be recounted without a manner of voice, or eye, or ear, or some other sense mandates that there must be -in a sense- a narrator as an individual that recounts the story. We borrow their eyes, ears, thoughts and actions; but not always directly, often a storyteller will distance themselves from the protagonist so they can establish elements like foreshadowing by allowing the viewer information the character isn't privy too. Or build drama by allowing the viewer more then one character's perspective so the viewer can be engaged on a larger scale. A young writers first struggle is commonly changing tenses when trying to change perspectives, which is understandable as timespace in any form of storytelling is a pretty weird,weird thing.

(I'd encourage anyone interested in storytelling mediums (especially visual) to look into Scott McCloud's, Understanding Comics, which has a brilliant section on this.)

I've always found it helpful when organizing, character events, time, locations, pacing, basically everything to think of the focalization (the eyes and mouth of the story) to be a character on their own. Even if the character is just a spirit that floats around the other individuals I've found it to be extremely helpful understanding and writing for the reader when I have a established character that's sort of a in-between for the reader to the fiction. Think of the narrator of the window into the story, now think of that window having some degree of character.

With this it's easier to focus the story, like an engineer removing useless or redundant parts, if it's imagined within the span of a single beings mind. Especially as the entire story has to fit into one person's mind. The narrator doesn't need to refer to themselves as a character in the story to have relevance in the story. Imagine the narrator as the person whose siting by your bedside telling a story to you. Someone who knows the story so well they could read it too you without any reference, and they chose to do it a certain way because of that. When the narrative isn't delivered in chronological order, it's sort of like someone telling you pieces that somehow fit together into a larger story, part of reading it and the experience is in figuring out why the narrator does that. Everything the narrator tells you matters, or sometimes with postmodernist-lit it matters that it doesn't matter. The same way in a novel the author won't write what happens to the character every moment of every waking day the narrator wouldn't turn around and tell you that, because it's irrelevant to the story the narrator is trying to tell you. A story with a strong voice is when the narrator has cut the fat and will only tell the reader what really matters about what happened, (or what the author decides what matters).

I am of the opinion that everyone is to some degree a natural storyteller, maybe not a concise or very good storyteller, but one non-the-less. I think it's something we learn through years of communication and through a kind of osmosis, or at least we gain the ability to subconsciously appreciate it. When we're educated to recognize storytelling, it's mechanics, and specific language we better understand why we appreciate the pieces we did. Hopefully we might even be inspired to make our own.

So I believe that to a sense people have a natural sense of thematic devices, plot, pacing, and the like. Stephen King did a interview on writing where he talked about one of his current projects based on a news story he heard years ago about some lady driving threw a store window to drive over someone. To paraphrase, King said that he always felt time was kind of like a sieve, you can't really get ride of the big important stuff. The "chaff" just falls aside leaving the "rocks" the things that just stick in your head and you have trouble forgetting. People have a sense of what is big and important, in hindsight it's always a little clearer what was actually the "big stuff" but it isn't like it goes away, but the point is people still have that kind of thing with them. I think everyone has a great sense of the moments that are big and important, and that as you gain experience storytelling and work on your craft you're learning the reason those things are big, and you learn to position those things in the light and shape the edges to get the best effect you can out of them.

At this point we've dug into a number of topics.
1. Simple systems aren't easy projects
2. The input->interaction system that produces play hinges itself strongly on a sense of agency in the player, without a sense of agency the essence of play is diminished and the interactive aspect of the medium takes a more passive tense.
3. Agency is established through clear control. The response of play is only as strong as the perceived association between the input and interaction.
4. This play dynamic is the prose of video games and ludonarrative. Similar to prose in literature being the narrative flow, the play dynamic in games are the ludonarrative flow/ the game feel.  (Pieces expanding on Ludonarrative A. B.) 
5. A story's Focalizatin is the aspect in which the narrative is being delivered. In a story the manipulation and treatment of the elements in that story's medium becomes an element of story itself. In film the angle and position of the camera are just as important to conveying the story as the dialog delivered. In comics the specific layout of panels and manner moments are conveyed mean just as much as the moments themselves. In literature the use of transitions, the inclusions or exclusions of segments, all focus the material presented. In games the use of camera angle, the interfaces, the analog input, audio or text segments, the general gameplay all create the aspects of narrative delivery. With any great story its specific focalization is necessary for the story to maintain its individual nature.
6. Humans are natural storytellers, in our understanding and mastery of elements of storytelling is where we learn to understand the natural strengths in a story and the best manner in which to convey that.

This was all about Ags  

The main reason I am always so emphatic that people who want to get into game design start small is not just so they feel the accomplishment of finishing a game and don't loose there passion to a overbearing project, but so that they hone their abilities to create good games and convey experience to the player. Games that use simple systems like basic platformers, basic rpgs, shoot'm ups, brawlers, point and click adventure, are all time proven systems with very limited focalization. The camera is set, the player can only do so much, the designer is presented with limitations. One of the first impulses of a new game designer is to take a game system and expand it's focalization; take a top down shooter and give it rts elements, make it rouge-like, multiple endings, character relations. This ends in a game that is jack of all, master of none, which results in a mehh product. Some indie game that tried to do too much without focusing on doing any one thing well. But when you have someone tackle something small for a while; whether it be your platformer, rpg, top down shoot'm up, card game, board game, Doom clone shooter, or your point and click adventure game.. well then you see someone produce clever and well crafted pieces. The reason for this is that a practiced veteran of a genre has the experience not just to reproduce the focalization (gameplay) of that genre, but has the experience to perfect(or better) their prose within the genre. They've come to understand the inner workings that make the nuanced decisions when designing interactions that result in a better end product.

I'm at a point where I've only been tangentially aware of the Adventure Game genre and it's elements, I've begun working through the Sam an Max series(one I've always wanted to tryout) and reading up as much as I can on design theory, puzzles, and story that I've found. As before the ags forum community has been very helpful and directed me to a number of resource blogs/aritcles/podcasts to check out.(listed below) My first attempt at a project had me realizing the cinematic sequential nature of ags games with their backgrounds and transitions so I invested in some books about comics... I don't know how much it was just an excuse, but so far the books have benefited me tremendously. 

I have a better understanding of angles and positioning with my backgrounds, my character design, and animations are stronger. I had heard it mentioned before but this work definitely is a must have for game designers. Even it most of it just reiterates something you've learned with experience, if you're into storytelling, there is a wealth of knowledge in here you do not want to miss. 

Of course I'll continue referring you guys to blogs that have been helpful, and better reading then mine (look to the right side of this blog). I'm going to continue writing, dusting off and resharpening my art skills, and start working out puzzles. With time, with experimentation and study, I'll start to figure out the specific strengths of the Adventure Game narrative. I'll discover the elements of pacing and storytelling within this specific genre. When I learn or find something that's helpful while I go along I'll be sure to put something up here for it. Until next time, thanks for reading, and good luck everyone :)

Welcome to the Program
-here is a great introductory series of videos to the program and all the basic coding you'll need to make your first game -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ml_DR76Cl4

-here is more information on the Ags program scripting -  
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/wiki/Scripting

Focus on Design/Prose

-here is a backlog of the Blue Cup Tools podcast where Ags developers Grundislav and ThreeOhFour discuss game design and production with a heavy focus on Adventure games (shock) with a tasteful amount of divergence to other genres -  http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=46193.0

-while at the time of writing this I haven't had the opportunity to read these, I've heard numerous reference to these articles on adventure game by genre enthusiast Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw. 

-  http://www.adventuregamers.com/about/author/2157

-more by Yahtzee
-  http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/extra-punctuation/10959-The-Magic-of-Old-Adventure-Games

On the subject of Experience. Better titled; Work Ethic for students

I apologize, this isn't about Experience as in video games, or any kind of talk about design and leveling up. 

This is a note about Work Ethic and Learning

Spring Break is just around the corner, in truth I'm standing at the corner now, but until I complete and email some papers I won't be officially on break. And with how I've been working on these papers and my thoughts of my plan of working on these three game projects of mine over break and my history with finishing projects I had a thought.

Originally this came from a sentiment brought up in the young adult novel a friend lent me (The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson), in the book there's this alchemist-ish power that derived from certain individuals ordained as Rithmatists can conjurer from drawing chalk on a two dimensional surface. Drawing specific geometric patterns can create protective fields around the Rithmatists where drawing things like knights or dragons will bring to life the creatures who can break down another Rithmatists defenses. Set in a steampunk universe, there are specific schools that teach the privileged Rithmatists their science. Of course my first thought is how easily someone could fudge with the typical design of a turn based rpg and change it to time based, each of the different drawings and defenses taking a specific number of seconds to execute before effective. Missions could unlock learning new techniques. Experience points earned could be spent studying and improving your drawing speed, accuracy, or artistic ability (empowers drawn creatures). Then currency could be spent on chalk, quest items, game items, ect. (okay there was a little design.)

As expected in a young adult novel there is a protagonist who is gifted in some aspects but completely lost in others. While the protagonist is extremely intelligent with math, science, and able to draw Rithmatists patterns extremely well.. He is completely inept at art, history, or anything else that doesn't have to do with his beloved Rithmatist subject. Which of course leaves him at odds with a majority of his schoolmates and adult friends as he isn't actually a Rithmatist and doesn't have any power. His knowledge and passion of all things seems for not. Through the beginning of the novel he is barely applying himself in his studies outside of trying to sneak into Rithmatic lectures (non-Rithmatists aren't allowed in the special Rithmatists' classes). A character with a almost hopeless dream, pursuing his passion while ignoring what he is not passionate about... A character we all could have gotten behind at one or another point in our life. The entire "do what you love, forget the rest" way to live mentality seems to be a common aspect of our culture these days.

Jump back to the book. Our young protagonist finds himself in a unique possibility where if he applies himself in certain subjects he can learn from one of the Rithmatist professors, the big step in actualizing his dream. Personally, I had been on the route for the culinary profession until my Senior year of high school. ... maybe it was the end of my junior year.. idk. I had always enjoyed and played games, after finding critics and journalist that discussed design I developed an introductory level vocabulary to discuss and explore design/theory/storytelling, that is why I credit people like Yatzhee for the moment I became a "real" gamer. Not because before I didn't care about it, but because individuals like that were the catalysts for my realization that making games wasn't out of my reach. And after that I felt an investment and love for the medium like never before.. The difference between when someone feels towards language and storytelling was just a reader to when they became a writer. And like the young spirited protagonist of a ya novel I passionately threw myself into my dream subject as if it was my life's purpose, also like that protagonist I gave little consideration for the rest, until that moment an opportunity presents itself. There was a experimental game design class in the tech department. I had taken 3d modeling early on in my high school career, but other then that I hadn't spent much time in the computer labs. Senior year I lived in those labs. Basically any study hall, any lunch period, I was there. 

In my design class I realized suddenly that coding was a great deal of math, art I was okay at, but math didn't really capture me. It just made sense after a time. So I was doing as the protagonist did, throwing myself suddenly into the subjects relevant to my passion and giving enough consideration to the rest to pass will good grades(B or around there). Here's the issue with that mentality, something it took admittedly a few years in college and a book to completely learn. School work isn't about learning to get by so you can do what you want, it's about learning how to do work even when you don't want. That sounds like one of the "bs" answers you might have gotten from one of your grade school teachers one day after "forgetting" to do an assignment, but it's true. We try to convince ourselves that once we're in a class, or working in a specific field, that we're interested in that we'll be perfect students. But that really, really isn't true, and we know it. 

Remember that one class you loved, you paid attention in all the lectures and discussed the subject with your teacher and friends and felt pretty confident about it. But homework wasn't counted as late, or the grade percentage wasn't very high so you felt okay letting one or two assignments slide. Besides homework's about learning the material, and know the stuff right? Then you blink and suddenly you're late assignments are piling up, and while them being late doesn't phase you, not getting the grade at all for not having them turned in at the end of the semester and failing despite your strong grasp of the subject matter terrifies you. 

Think about that time in English where all you had to do was read outside of class, and talk about the material in class. You did a bunch of the readings, sometimes maybe you'd have to read it in the study hall before that class, or you'd only skim it though, sometimes you'd just rely on what you remember from past readings of the material, maybe you'd just talk with friends who had read it so you get an idea of the events and formulate from that some interesting points about the cultural meaning of the text, or the authors purpose, or foreshadowing. Say you have to write a paper on it or do a test, at first your feeling pretty confident so you put of reviewing the text or starting early on your draft.. Then when you get the test they're asking you about specific quotes from the start of the book that you don't remember or names of characters that were only mentioned in a brief segment, and suddenly you don't know the book nearly as well as you thought. Or you're writing the paper last minute and suddenly you realize the requirements are more demanding then you thought or after writing your thesis you realize you don't know the text well enough and have to go over it all again to find direct examples that support your thesis, or you realize you don't know how to start your paper and just sit there for too long panicking, or you stare at all the material and notes you've pulled together, all the interesting thoughts... and can't boil it down to a single strong thesis statement.

Think about the art classes where you mostly talked with friends and thought about what you planned to do, and spent the last night before presenting the final projects sleeplessly trying to polishing it.

Same with science projects.

Same with any presentation.

The realization to be drawn from here is that despite enjoying or even loving the material we don't specifically love the work, or at least we don't love the work aspects of the work. We might love the creation aspect. Like how most writers actually hate writing, if you don't believe me ask a writer if they have trouble with writer's block. Writers write to tell a story, not to write. They want to tell a story so much it overpowers their natural aversion to work and they start writing, once writing the story comes more easily, they fall into the story, and the writing (the work) seems effortless because they've been seduced by their love of creation. 

Homework, busy work, it teaches us to get past that natural aversion to work by regularly getting us to the benefits of the work. Most people who practice a craft or play an instrument will tell you that all you have to do to get into something, is to just do it. The artist feels the benefits of creating art through repeatedly creating, it's only through that repetition that we get good. I think this is the second point where people get caught up, especially myself. We see the people that are good at what they do, at what we want to do, and when we try we see the difference. We see our weaknesses, inexperience, and the hints of our ignorance in the light of their work and put it off. I've done this for years now. I see my mother draw something, try to duplicate and can see the issues in my proportion, "well I need to watch let's draws and hear some experienced artist's tips on shading, or how to judge if you're getting the angles right". I play a game and realize I can't wrap my mind around how code made that specific interaction possible, "going to have to subscribe to some coding channels and watch some tutorials". Man that guy's talking game design terms and theory I've never even heard about, guess I need to read those now before I do anything." 

Now don't misread this, I will always be emphatic about the value of research and study. But that valuable cultivation of thought and experiment in your mind only gains worth when the thought/experimentation is actualized. This is a key aspect of the "Fail Faster" first rule game making. Actually fail faster should be the first rule of anything. If you're not 100% sure about that lecture that just happened and you're hovering on a public student failure by going up to the teacher and asking a question or postponing that until it's a private failure by going home and reviewing the material until it makes sense, it's better to just talk to the teach. We think of it as a failure because it wasn't a success, we didn't grasp the material with a "this is self evident" absurdness that we do when we feel like smart good students. But as we know, smart good students are the ones that are always raising their hand, and asking questions, and taking notes, and leaving apples on the front desk. That's why I want to teach, free food.

We try to apply the "better to remain silent and be thought a wise man then to open one's mouth and remove all doubt" to the class room.. Maybe it's applicable to confrontation ,or a challenge to debate, something, but in a class room it doesn't work. The people that never say anything when the questions are asked might very well know the material, they might just be shy or giving other people a chance, but that doesn't make them look wise. At worst they look apathetic about the material, at best they look bored about the material, either way wise is the very last thing they look. And it's very possible they can go off and learn all the material and comfortably pass on their own without much interaction within the classroom. I'm not going to condemn anyone's student habits, if it's working for you, then good for you. But consider the potential, consider your own potential, with a highly qualified individual at your disposal. (typically) At school or in the university you are in a setting where you are encouraged not only to propose questions around the material, but inquire past the level before you. You can be completely bored with the surface reading of a specific text, crave something that's more interesting or challenging, and all it takes is a raised hand to get the discussion onto a more advanced level. Remember that your teacher is someone whose not only more familiar with the material, but has spent a number of years engrossed in the higher level (actually interesting) corner of that material's field. If you're talking about Distopian literature and it feels dry, all it takes is a few questions on what next-step aspect of this you're trying to wrap your head around and suddenly you're talking about philosophy and the nature of fears and the other, and dreams and the subconscious, and studies about human behavior, and sociology, and the Nazis. Most teachers are big fans of tangential learning. 2168 words until "Nazis" showed up.

It's true sometimes when the material will lead into your question and you're just thinking a lesson or two ahead and the teacher doesn't want to confuse the rest of the class sometimes you're asked to wait. But that's not stopping you from trying to ask the teacher after class, more so that's not stopping you from reading and doing the homework ahead of time. As long as you're able to continue getting help from the teacher when you run into trouble and you don't end up completely lost then why not? Sure you could respond (well I have a life and I don't want to spend my whole day doing homework.) If you're ahead of the class, you're going to have more time to relax when you're home. Think about it, imagine if you could go back in time every year and redo all of your classes as if it's your first try. You'd understand assignments the moment they're assigned and be able to get through them almost effortlessly, your work would undoubtedly be of better quality. Well reading ahead a little bit, giving yourself that much more exposure to the material, is how you begin to accomplish that. Einstein said, "I have no special talent. I am passionately curious." 

Here's some fun latin for you. nanos gigantum humeris insidentes 

You've probably heard the metaphor, "Dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants." All this means is that discovery is always built on previous discovery. Einstein had some groundbreaking ideas, but his ideas were only groundbreaking because he asked a "what if" no one had asked before. He knew it was something unknown because he read a bunch in scientific journals, and then thought a bunch. Take a look at every discover in history, that's all it is. They question, they think, and they test. When they fail, they think deeper, question deeper, and retest. 

But really, when you come to a problem or challenge you feel ill prepared to deal with, your hesitation to tackle it isn't just because you don't like the work, or because you feel the information is beyond you and you don't want to admit that or need more time to research. Alot of this semester this is what I thought and this is what I've always tried to focus on: assuming that through learning more, forcing myself to complete the work, actively ask questions when confused, that somewhere along the line I'd start to break my bad old habits and take on a more proactive productive lifestyle. 

And to a degree I saw success doing this. I've greatly improved my writing, I've written and participated in a professional setting for film and game journalism. I'm actively part of the writing department for a small group of game developers. While available I've been actively writing on this blog about my theories with design, things I've learnt, my game development status. But that work experience and learning has only increased the quality of my work, not the quality of my work ethic. I still have the same unproductive habits, I still find myself over-stressed with writers block staying up late into the night and early morning trying to catch up on late work like I would in high school. So at first, I blamed the load of work. Then I accepted that I had plenty of hours in the day when utilized to complete any work. Then I blamed the difficulty of the work, but I'm able to grasp everything the teacher says, the classes provide materials, and the teachers are there to help for any confusion, so it's impossible to say that learning the material is above my capabilities. I refuse to believe any learning is above anyone's capabilities, all that's required is self application. And with that I came back around to the question, why can't I learn to be a better student? Why can't I learn to not let myself get in situations where I get so stressed out and worn down? And for a moment in that sad place I thought maybe it was just a way some people were, some disposition that the proactive people were constantly at war with behind their smiles. I'm certain in some situations that is the case, but that can't be the definitive way that it is. I can't imagine that all adults feel like this all the time, I don't remember feeling like this when I was young and I certainly don't believe that a bit of development in brain chemistry from age and a change in height and experiences lead with necessity to a less happy life. 

But then the other day I wrote a piece on luck, as luck would have it.... I'm sorry that was terrible, please keep reading. 

I wrote a piece on luck and I'll admit I wasn't ready to write it when I received the assignment, I had no idea what to write on luck, and I hadn't found anything that sparked up in my head by the time I sat down to write it. But I sat down to write it regardless because I had forgotten about needing to write it as I left school, then went to visit a friend before their break was over and came home and hoped onto the computer with twenty minutes to write the piece before it was due to be published. Please never do this to your team, it's really terrible thing to do. I had been thinking on the topic, I wasn't completely sure on a thesis though, I hadn't found any super interesting facts or ideas that would work into strengthening the piece. But as I wrote, I enjoyed the creation, I enjoyed explaining and narrowing my thought process on the label of luck down and working it out on paper. I knew my thought process, in writing I just needed to work out how to explain it well, that's the fun challenge of writing. I came to a thesis about the nature of the label, and what it implied about humanity. I felt very proud of my piece. Then after publishing it (just in the nick of time), and then realizing I hadn't formatted it with the code (edit that in real quick), putting up on the site's facebook page, having my great team send me small notifications of things to edit (more rushed editing). It was done and it felt right. Literally the very next day in my English theory class we were discussing and going over Derrida... learned the theory of stuff I had just a few short hours ago published on had a specific name. I was talking about luck as defined through a present absence. All I could think was "Dang, if I had finished my reading for this day (I had previously been introduced to Derrida so I convinced myself I could skim the reading and focus on other work)- If I had finished the reading I would have known and been able to incorporate that into my piece about luck." At first I looked back in-hindsight and thought "I wasn't ready to write that yet, I need to be more prepared." But in truth we cannot always be prepared for things, there will be times we are thrown a challenge and all we can do is our best. The quality of my work does is not diminished by what I know now. I'm still proud of my segment on luck because I feel it's well written, and I think it successfully explains the affect of present absence without using the linguistic term.

Next time it would be better to use the term, of course, now that I know it. But I can still appreciate the work, I can appreciate the challenge it posed and feel good about overcoming it. A while back in an earlier post on this blog I described a thought of mine. I hadn't spent any extra time looking into this theory of mine, just had an idea and started writing. Later I learned the kind of "game story" I was talking about had a name, "ludo narrative", to other's it's probably not much but to me I feel that's an accomplishment. With the information I had a think about games and mechanics and proposed something, it wasn't something completely original, but it was original to what I knew. And that, the act of creation, contains value. So often we try to place value on the voices of others, and possibly worse, ourselves and we think we should leave things for other people; for people more qualified, or talented, or educated. How is it we so easily fool ourselves into thinking that those esteemed others who are "better suited" then us are made from people exactly like us. They were curious, passionate, and ignorant. They let their passion guide their curiosity, their curiosity fuel their passion, their passion lead them to realize their ignorance, and their ignorance to fuel their curiosity. 

You can't wonder about things you already know. Realize you yourself could very well know nothing and the world is full of exciting wonder. Be a kid again.

Trust yourself that you have something to say and trust it to contain some worth. When I started this I thought that I might not have enough to say to fill a post, I thought I shouldn't bring up the present absence until I've read Derrida over again, I felt I had lost my point when I was talking about high-school, I questioned -still question- if this post flows and has enough to be engaging to someone(besides myself), and near the end I wondered if all of this built to any coherent thought. I am always filled with self-doubt whenever I start anything. But while at first it feels sporadic and poorly done, trust yourself to continue, be mindful of your actions, be okay with the possibility of mistakes, and in the end. In the moment you realize that work to its natural conclusion, look back at all that you accomplished in doing that. Instead of giving up, instead of giving into doubt and quitting or not starting at all, or convincing yourself to not care and doing it rushed so you try to feel impervious to judgments on your work, you did it. Good on you. 

DeconstructionCraft: Luck of the Dice?

Another fun colab piece with Kevin. Again, Mr. Rickman is first half, I am second. A fun piece on the nature of luck and games keeping in the holiday spirit.

Lucks one of those things some people have where others just don't... or is it?

Click Leon

I have two more of these I want to wrap up but it's just.. it's bananas with midterms right now, so I apologize for my tardiness. Hope you enjoy my piece on luck while you wait. :)

[Ludonarrative] DeconstructionCraft.

These are exerts from the full article found here.

"Games do not necessarily need text, cut scenes, music, sound, or visuals at all to tell stories. They simply need a player's input and some unspecified means to show reaction to player input to articulate the game space and scenario. The process video games employ to tell stories, or describe what happens, is fundamentally in their mechanics. "

        "In the very act of playing we automatically assign narrative to actions. In board or card games traditionally not associated with story, the very rules are in fact bits of narrative that help players understand the theming, the pieces we assign narrative by naming them, and which functions as the story to their specific characteristics in play. Think of the game of chess in which the objective of the game is to capture as many of your opponent’s pieces and put them in a position to force surrender. A war game, a military theme, we've given meaning to moving small carved bits of wood around on a board by assigning a narrative. The rules dictate the manners in which the players can move their pieces. This piece is a Bishop and so it can move in this certain fashion. The narrative of the Bishop is in its name and its place on the board, these are used to explain its actions on the board.

            In video games, this is even simpler. There's a shape on the screen, and to explain its inter-activeness within its virtual space we assign it a name. The name explains to the viewer why it acts within the space as it does. This is a car, a soldier, a robot, a blob, a gun, a superhuman. Games help the player by contextualizing this narrative by other communicative forms of exposition through interaction; voices, pictures, text. It's important to note these are means of the process but are not the process itself. Similar to how literature uses letters, words, punctuation, thematic devices, and yet narrative cannot be found explicitly within any of those things. Narrative lacks an empirical component."

" It is through the action of the player through the avatar upon the world that allows the player to continue projecting a narrative upon the virtual space and the objects and characters within. "

            

YOU CAN GET THIS PROGRAM FREE UNTIL THE SECOND OF MARCH 2014!

http://www.yoyogames.com/studio/download

Typically a 35 dollar value GameMaker Studio is free to download.. Like right now. I'm no pro at GameMaker, but I've downloaded it an it's on the list of program walkthroughs I'm going to do. Get Studio now if this one catches your eye, if you're ever interested in investing in something it's always better to do it when it's cheap, and if it's free you should just do it incase, seriously. For those of you who roll there eyes at these programs and just want to get into the ground up programming world of game making, I do getting into Java and JDK eventually. Soon as I'm proficient enough with coding, but for full disclosure that really means as soon as I'm not juggling upper level courses with work.

Update on the game stuff. I'd love to say the first engine is complete, but it's not. It's simple a matter of understanding the rolls of in script functions and how they function (which is kinda funny in itself). Quality tutorials for Construct 2 are a little more difficult to find, I'll be putting up the resources I've used and a in depth of the game development soon. 

THIEF - Launch Trailer Thoughts/ Discussion on Stealth

In all honesty small response bits aren't my thing, but I figure as my commentary on design and production come from my personal experience with games I enjoy and making games I'd enjoy I thought it'd be good to include that other end of the spectrum. Traditionally indie development blogs showcase the creator's specific thoughts or commentary on whatever aspect of game creation they're currently working on, but they can also showcase examples of successful handle..ings of whichever specific content. The thief series is one of those good examples in a number of different design aspects. One of my personal favorite where it shines is "How to deal with open world without having the npc's become background fodder." or a little more face value "How to make engaging stealth." We're going to look at the latter for now.



One of my favorite aspects the stealth game -especially one of the former Theif series-  provides is this sort of player distinguished challenge. In stealth games the player has the option to wait and avoid detection, even if combat is imbalanced or the ai is boring, the ability to wait completely changes the dynamics of the player within the game environment. In the first Halo, on the snowy level there's a room right before the bridge where most of the enemies are asleep(I'm siting this from memory if details are off I apologize). Now, while most of the Grunts are asleep there are two patrolling Elites that upon spotting you will yell, fire their guns, and wake up the rest of the enemies in the room. Halo does not have refined stealth mechanics, it is not considered a stealth game; but as ai is triggered of line of sight, there is a crouch that aids avoiding being spotted, and gunfire triggers enemy agro, the game sets up scenarios that enable stealth gameplay. You could argue that every shooter has this and yet we don't consider every shooter to be a stealth game.. And I agree with you, the focus of using Halo is to break down stealth into it's fundamental concept without any refined polished mechanics so we can focus on the dynamics that occur in gameplay.



The first thing to note about this dynamic that results in a game being labeled a "stealth game" or having "stealth elements", is entirely dependent on the level design. Someone could just as easily take a Mario platformer -or any platformer- and design the level layout and the enemy placement to completely change the way the mechanics are used and turn it into a stealth game. This brings us back to the waiting element. The ability to avoid detection in itself is considered the most important element, the make-or-break, feature that decides the classification of a stealth game, but in truth it is only a half. When creating "stealth" mechanics the ability to avoid detection is only as good as the manner the game's layout presents waiting. These two elements are often treated as the same and in an aspect cannot be separated, but to better diagnosis the success of a games "stealth" they must be understood independently and viewed side by side. Like the chocolate chips, and the cookie, experienced as one and the same, but very different.



The quality of stealth in a game is understood to be predicated by the strength of the game narrative of why the character must hide, the exact context of why the player is avoiding detection. This brings an investigation of the game's specific fail state. In our Halo example the failstate is clear, you've woken up all the grunts and now you have to chase them around to kill them where before they were lined up on the floor for you, obviously as well there were less enemies previously so there is the threat of death with a harder difficulty setting. In the long run, that extra work of crouching and moving around the room to avoid the Elite's notice, and sneak up behind them, then sneak around taking out the sleeping Grunts, to accomplish that takes loads more time and energy with a minimal internal reward (having not spent those bullets). In many of these instances the player is purposefully setting the bar much higher then necessary with no tangible in game reward, without any provocation from the game. When you walk out of that room there aren't any gamer achievements that pop up for "no shots fired" or "silent death", the challenge is presented the moment the player sees the sleeping Grunt and the patrolling Elite. The layout provided a kind of telescoped game condition, yes the immediate game is to kill all the enemies and survive, but now can you do it without anyone noticing? Mechanically it's just another shooter but the game play allows for conditions to be set on-top of that, it's the level design and monsters that can then add stealth elements. Again, not the fact that you can avoid detection alone, but the manner in which you wait while avoiding detection. Look at Grand Theft Auto, there are no instances where anyone would confuse it with a stealth game, even though the notoriety bar is by definition a stealth element. If viewed with that feature alone it could be said GTA is a stealth game about hiding in plain sight, but we don't consider it a stealth game. Probably because if we're on a empty rooftop then fire off a sniper round toward a playground two miles away and take out someone the police are still on your case in five seconds. I mean really, Oswald got more time then that; there was no way they could respond that quickly. The line of sight is completely bogus, where I should have been able to hide on the rooftop without notice, the cops should have logically been running around the streets and alleys looking for a shooter for a set of time. But that didn't happen, the manner of waiting and ability to hide are not set in a way that allows "stealth" gameplay.



Even more misguided on this manner (in my opinion) is the Assassin's Creed series. This is more to a broken sense of failstate then anything but in this case the open world doesn't help. To be clear, I have a love hate relationship with this series; I love half the things the games do, I love the subject matter, I hate half of everything they do and the way the do half the things I love. Example, why be able to pick up and carry weapons without being able to unlock them, or at least sell them at the stores to then turn around and unlock them, and on that note why the hell is there even money when the stupid homestead is going to be making it rain a third through the game? If the player never worries about their in game coin purse going empty then money has no worth and basically no point. While we're no the topic, if the player can kill people -especially the heavies- quicker and more efficiently unarmed then actually armed with all the big expensive weapons, then what is the point of buying the weapons or even having them? Yes the combat alone is fun, but by making the unarmed option more viable the game undermines the entire point. And if you can stake up bodies and bodies of enemies without much hassle, what is the point of hiding? Now there can be instances where patrol routes and hay stakes are cleverly placed, but often times there the reason for not being spotted isn't a manner of avoiding fights, it's just this is what you've been told to do. If you get spotted it'll just give you a failstate and start you over. This feels less like the "stealth" dynamic and more "wait until they've lined up with spot a to press x" which functions more quick time event then.. well stealth. Just.. just don't get me started on that series.

Thief does it right, they focus the environment and interactions around their stealth mechanics. Where sight and sound play key roles in coming into and avoiding challenging combat the player abilities are all based around manipulating the environments visibility or sound, the objectives are set up for multiple entrances and the ai designed provide a multitude of approaches. In an article (in GameInformer I believe) a designer commenting on the Thief series said they figured the best way to present a realistic challenge to a burglar was to have a "simulated environment", everyone is just going about their business. If they find someone knocked out and mugged in the street they'll get the law. If they find a door closed when they had left it open they'll open it and look through the room. If the light in a room goes out they'll become more aware and look around and listen to see if anyone is there. If they're not a guard or armed when they believe someone is there they'll run and get someone to come back with them. The player is presented a challenge strategic challenge in the number of ways they can approach and deal with their obstacles, all within the bigger goal of stealth. In another game not being found might be a lesser thing, but in Thief where you are not the hulking warrior and any hostile creature has the potential to kill you, it becomes an immediately bigger thing.

.. trailer analysis.

There is gameplay in the family of the Thief formula, (the sneaking climbing bits) but the other thing that's noticeable is what appears to be either one of those (not actual gameplay/looks like gameplay ) cinematic trailer, a taste of what we might expect for a cut scene (doubt it seeing as there were other blatantly cut scene bits that fit existing Thief formula), or -more likely- a cinematic with what we can expect from scripted parkour/timed run segments (reminiscent of Mirror's Edge). And that is has strange effect on me, on one hand I really liked how Thief didn't have scripted gameplay events, sure sometimes the best way was to enter from this door, but there was never timed running bits with quick-time-event-slide-over-tables bits or anything, it presented a kind of freedom. But on the other hand, I reeeally liked Mirror's Edge and felt it's timed run segments were compelling and challenging, you had to think fast and preform the movements exactly. While that doesn't sound Thief to me, that does sound like a fantastic marriage. If this is the case I'm going to be optimistic and support whatever union of sneaking thief and parkour Eidos and Square dream up, until it proves otherwise. From what we've been given, in my opinion, the game looks like alot of fun. I just wanna wish best of luck to the developers, and God please let it be as good as I want it to be.