Hello Kitty Online

Class chose to play Hello Kitty Online out of a large list of MMORPGs, so I played it. The game is very poorly built. Coming from a respective franchise, this game is an insult to it. It's very poorly built and judging from the fact that there is only one server and usually empty, it's not doing so well either. I have a decent computer that can run most games, but my frames were choppy when playing Hello Kitty.

The game itself involves typical MMORPG quest of gathering things and such. There's also minigames that can be done too in order to get money. Combat is almost none existent in the game. While there are monsters to fight, combat is only done by clicking on them and letting the game do the rest. No skills, just wait. Of course healing has to be done every so often, but that's the only thing a player can do in battles, attack or heal. The game isn't combat oriented, but based on minigames and other stuff. I will have to continue playing it to give more info. So far, this is just from the beginning.

Playtested games

I playtested two games today. They are "Tiger Attack," by Chris, and "Aliens," by Tyson. "Tiger Attack" is a 2D platformer game where you control a tiger. The game currently has climbing mechanics, a score system, a life system, and a HUD. "Aliens" so far, is just a custom map made using Source SDK running in Alien Swarm. What's planned is to have 1 GM take charge is sending enemies and health to the players. Their games show progress, but not complete yet.

Update 11/7/11: Playtested a third game called :oBaMa. It is a political game created by, Brian Tamayo. The goal is knock down political opponents by stomping on them using Obama. The goal is to rack up points in a minute. Plan is to improve effects and randomize the holes the opponents come out of.

After getting my game playtested, my conclusion about my game's difficulty proved correct. It is tough. Out of everyone that tried it, no one was able to make it to form 2. One suggestion was to give the game the ability to fire using the arrows instead of relying on the mouse. I will implement this control next.

My game analysis

The game I created is a top down space shooter. It has free movement instead of a scrolling type gameplay. The game is 1 player and the goal is to defeat the boss in the middle. The only rule is you have only 1 life. 1 shot will take out the player and it's game over.

The game is controlled using WASD-movement and E and space to accelerate and decelerate the ship. While moving using E, the WASD movement still works. If the ship is moving at max speed from E, pressing one of the four WASD will add speed or slow down depending on the direction. Left-click is use to fire.

So far, the gameplay is looking like bullet hell style, but that might change later. As of right now, winning is extremely tough.

Zork

Played the text based adventure game Zork. The game is old. It was made in the 80's. The game uses no words and has no graphics interface whatsoever. Everything is done through text and commands. While playing the game, I noticed how easy it is to get lost, so I actually tried to create a map of where I was going. This proved to be helpful and it turned out to be common practice among those that played these type of games.

Zork is actually quite tough. Navigating the game is already hard, but it seems that there are puzzles too. The good thing is the game is designed in a way so that you won't get stuck. You will get lost though.

Since there are no pictures in the game, the way you see the world is entirely up to your imagination. This type of game play is probably why the game was considered memorable. People make up their own views of the world and some created highly detailed maps to show the area.

A Theory of Fun chpt. 4

Koster talks about games teaching people skills. I find this to be true. However, in his writing, I noticed that he seems to put together the notion that games have to teach something. This is false. A classic example of a non-teaching game, a game that takes nothing but pure luck is the common slot machine. The slot machine does not allow the player to do anything at all, yet people find it fun to play. Most people consider it to be a game. While most game teaches some skill, a game can teach no skill and still be considered a game.

Session Report: Go Battleship

This game is played like Go Fish. It can be considered a variation.

This game uses a standard 52 card deck. It is for 3 or more players. All cards are passed out.

The objective of the game is to knock all the "ships" from your opponent. The ships are the cards in their hand. People takes turn in this game. The person picks someone and guesses a card with suite that they think that opponent has. If the player gets it right, that opponent places the discards the card by placing it face down and the player gets another turn. If the player gets it wrong, then the person clockwise goes next. This cycle goes on until there are only two people left.

When there are only two people left, the game goes to showdown. The two players pick one card in their hand and discards the rest. Each player then takes turn guessing at what card the opponent has just like in regular play. Whoever gets it right wins the game.

The game's added rules make this game far more fast paced than Go Fish, which makes it more exciting.

The game Apples to Apples is a card game that uses nouns and adjectives. The nouns are on the red cards and the adjectives are on the green cards. The red cards contain various words which include common items, historical figures, and popular culture. Because it uses popular culture, the game has to be updated every so often.

Each player gets seven red cards and one person is the judge. The judge flips the green card. Each player excluding the judge places a card that best fits the adjective and draws a red card. After everyone is done, the judge takes all the cards and picks out the best choice to his/her opinion. The owner of the best card takes the green card. The whole process repeats itself with another person being the judge, either clockwise or counter-clockwise. The first person who has enough green cards wins. The amount of green cards needed is based on how many players there are. For example, the amount that I was playing with only needed 3 green cards to win since there were 9 of us.

The time it took for someone to win was short. The game ended in about 10 minutes. Someone was able to rack up 3 green cards while most did not even have 1 yet. This game felt like it should take longer. I noticed that the person who took the green card usually put down something very witty or funny with funny winning more. One example is when we decided to use a game play variation where 2 green cards are placed and a red card has to match both. The green cards were “One-of-a-kind” and “Average.” The winning card ended up being, “Your Ex.”