Flights of Fantasy

While we're still stumbling around and trying to find something to write about, here's some more ideas for the 2nd essay. For the fantasy inclined fan, here's some works that you could turn into video games.

Phantasmagorical and Strange Happenings

• The Redwall series by Brain Jacques:
  anthropomorphic animals, swords and protecting their castle from the enemy are the main points of this series. Do I sense an RTS?


• Diana Wynne Jones' novels:
  Did you know Howl's Moving Castle had a sequel? Or you could try the Chrestomanci series featuring a enchanter with nine lives.


• The works of Raymond E. Feist:
  Try to to focus on one book or one of the smaller series. Yes, there have been some games but you could make Magician: The Game or how about political intrigue Tsurani style in Daughter of the Empire.


• Arcorna by Anne McCaffrey


• Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea's series


• The Black Jewels by Anne Bishop:
  'Bad fantasy' but does have some elements appropriate for games that have units or characters that level up via hierarchy.


• David Eddings:
  Perhaps try The Elenium or The Tamuli.


• Promethea by Alan Moore (Alan Moore may screw your head in this one. Copies of this comic are floating around in the Brisbane City Council library system)


• Novels by Haruki Murakami (Challenging and intense reading)


• Tomorrow series by John Marsden (Die hard fans may kill you for destroying the spirit of the book


• The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (intense reading, if you're female you might think it's shit)


• American Gods by Neil Gaiman


• Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer:
  Contains a child who's an evil genius, fairy police force with lasers and a ninja butler.


• Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke


• Thursday Next by Jasper Fforde


• Abarat series by Clive Baker:
  If you're going to tackle this one, perhaps concentrate on the world of Abarat.

Hurtling through the Galaxy

Like the last post, this one is going to about looking for ideas for the essay topic: Why this work has not been converted into a videogame before and discuss.

[4:50 pm I've just realised some of these ideas are not actual "works", they are more concepts so you'll either need to find a source material(text/video) based around these concepts. I'll be changing some of these so they are based off actual texts or films.]

TV, Science Fiction and Oddballs:

• MacGuyver:
  I can't see why a game that uses MacGyverisms to solve problems, escape cells and kills bad guys hasn't been made. It could just be the mullet.


• The A-Team:
  Explosions, guns, escapes and Mr T.


• Mythbusters:
  Teaching kids or grownups, the hows and whys of the universe. You could make it into a learning game, give your player a problem, give them free run of some labs and see if they can busts some myths. Alternatively you could turn in into a trivia game to see how much stuff you know.


• The Action Hero's Handbook


• Phillip K Dick


• Snow Crash:
  Hacker/Sword Fighter/Secret Agent turned pizza delivery guy who's broke has discovers plot to destroy humanity. The story world features the Metaverse, a fictional virtual reality that was spawned from the Internet. It's been described as an MMO.


• Comic book heroes:
  Flash Gordon, Tom Strong or find a hero like Hungry Beast did.


• 2001: A Space Odyssey:
  If you were trapped in space with HAL, what would you do?
  Alternatively you could look at Moon. (Beware, die hard fans may stop you from killing the movies)


• Brainship series


• Culture Jamming:
  - Steal This Book
  - Flash Mobs (Improv Everywhere)
  - Anonymous
  - The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
  - Scientology(insert appropriate level of sarcasm here).


• Alternate Sports *Concepts:
  - Roller Derby(Whip It)
  - Unicycle Hockey or Boxer Hockey
  - BASEketball
  - Dodgeball (links to international rule book in pdf form) or the movie
  - Speed Dating (I jest)


• Advergame *Concepts:
  If you don't mind capitalising on a current product or you like seeing where extreme commercialisation is headed, why not try making a game to help advertise a product or company?
  - Kids MMO where weapons use brand name candy as ammo. Sour Warhead anyone?
  - This, obviously copyright and the corporation may scare you off buy you know it would awesome if it where made.


• Internet Social Phenomena *Concepts:
  Why not see what you can come up with based around stuff like: Twitter, Facebook or even YouTube. Maybe you could use these sites as part of the plot or game mechanic.
  - A Private Investigator searching for missing people via Facebook
  - The FBI trailing drug consignments via coded Twitter messages
  - A wannabe trying to become popular via YouTube

Fragging the Classics

The goal for assignment 2: "this work has not been converted into a videogame before: discuss".

That is a big rabbit hole to go down into, there are a lot of works that you can choose from and a lot of works you should not look at. Stuck for an idea, join the queue, but here's some places you can check out:

Project Gutenberg: One of the best places to get public domain(no copyright) works by authors who've long been in the grave.

Wikipedia: An entertaining place where you can check if a work has been made into a film or video game. Alternatively you could use it to find something that hasn't been done before, like Canning or Mensa.

'Classic' works to turn into games:
I've stuck in some example works that may have used the original as an inspiration or are something in a similar vein. I'm not going to go into what classic is, this is just something to generate ideas.

• The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer:
  Stories within a story of a group of pilgrims (it's the 14th century) travelling from Southwark to Canterbury Cathedral. They tell each other stories to pass the time and provides a framework for Chaucer to use all sorts of literary devices like self insertion, parables and a set of characters who represent a cross section of society. It's really tempting to do a American McGee's Grimm on it..
  


• Genji Monogatari by Murasaki Shikibu:
  Early 11th century Japan's 'Casanova', The Tale of Genji tracks the (romantic) life and times of the illegitimate prince Genji. There are a few ways to go about it, but try to avoid making a erotic visual novel/game, that's the easy way out.)
  


• The works of Alexandre Dumas, père:
  Best known for works of high adventure such as The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, have a lot elements that could make them into video games. Revenge, politics and swords are awesome. Gankutsuou is Monte Cristo in space. [I've been told a lot of Dumas' books have been made into games so you may have to tread carefully.]
  


• The Bard, William Shakespeare:
  Zounds, these works have gallons of inspiration in them. Hamlet and The Tempest have already been video games but you could try King Lear (lots of dying) or A Midsummer Night's Dream (happy endings). (I know some of these link to wiki but as if you're going to read the whole play at this stage)


• Jane Austen:
  No.. I hear you cry? Well how about mixing it up some? How about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters? Guts, gore and killing strange monsters in Regency England, why hasn't this been made before?


• Swan Lake by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky:
  Why not, young man finds an enchanted lady who's cursed and decides to free her. There's an evil magician and some drama, sure it's a ballet but you could rewrite it to fit in a video game. LucasArts did with Loom.


• Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelun) by Wilhelm Richard Wagner:
  You're probably more familiar with What's Opera, Doc? (Kill the Wabbit) The Ring saga could be made into a game, who doesn't love Norse gods and viking helmets? Odin Sphere is almost like the opera but without the big ladies breaking glasses or ears.


• The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy:
  Set during the Reign of Terror (start of the French Revolution), the series follows the exploits of Sir Percy Blakeney, a man with a secret identity. When he's not being a fop(the 17th C 'man of fashion'), he's off saving innocent French nobles from getting the chop. How easy would it be to convert it into a action/adventure with swashbuckling rescue missions?


• The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes:
  Maybe you can actually create a video game out of the story of an old man obsessed with chivalry who decides that he will become a knight. Don Quixote is beset by problems, he's clearly delusional, people make fun of him and his family are trying to stop him from acting so crazy. What's a man to do when giants (windmills) are all over La Mancha? See if you have better luck than Terry Gilliam in adapting this work.


• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain:
  A smart talking man with a knowledge of firearms and machinery is transported to the year 528 after being hit on the head. He eventually realises that his 19th C knowledge makes him the smartest man on Earth(Middle Aged version). Hijinks ensure. You could turn this into a several different games, think action/adventure, puzzle or click and point.


• The Ramayana:
  An ancient Sanskrit epic about the prince Rama(an avatar of Vishnu) and his wife Sita who is kidnapped by Ravana the demon King. Don't go "God of War" or "Dante's Inferno" on this despite the similarities. A comic book adaptation is being made into a MMO.

Still stuck?

• Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith


• The Amazing Screw-On Head by Mike Mignola


• Oscar Wilde's stories


• Works by L. Frank Baum (The guy who wrote The Wizard of Oz)


• The Pilgram's Progress by John Bunyan (Heavy Reading)


• The Illiad by Homer (The Trojan War)


• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift


• Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe


• The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan


• Moby Dick by Herman Melville
  

Level Up - Working in a Story

This week you should consider the different theories presented in the lecture and do two things: one, which one do you most agree with? and two: give us a game which you feel EPITOMISES your favoured theory and why?

Game Theories:
- Games are active
- Games as work
- Games as learning
- Games as social interaction
- Games as a study of rules or Games bound by a system of rules
- Games without goals (it's not a game with a goal, so they say)
- Games as spaces or Games as story worlds
- Games as an "Unholy" alliance of designer and player
- Games as art (a bonus one from my head)

Yes, I'm sure I've missed the point but this is what I have gotten out of the lecture so it's going to be different to whatever is in your head. The hard part of picking one of these theories is finding one that I'd agree with 100%. Games are complex constructions that have a whole lot of elements that I find difficult to pigeon hole as one 'thing'.

Nearly all games fit within these theories it depends on what aspects you decide to concentrate on. I'd could go on all day about it but that would be digressing into a giant pile of blah blah. I'm going to concentrate on "Games as story worlds" and "Games as work".

I like games that have worlds that are fully (or try to be) immersive and are about having to work within the confines of the story. A lot of the time this fails, the story is bad and the game mechanics are boring or don't work. A game that has a story world has to work hard to get the player to stay in the world for a long time.

Let's take Japanese RPG's for example. J-RPGS are all games that run on 2 theories, games as a story world and games as work. The story and world is there to suck you in, the work is used to stop it from being one giant visual novel. The kind of work you do is leveling up (grinding).

Why level up:
- To stop getting killed
- To get powerups/gain abilities
- Collect items (you collect items for many reasons)
- OCD (you're compelled to get as much stuff as possible)
- Bragging rights (the internet is a strange place where bragging on how little you level up will earn you 'cred')

Case Study:

Let's look at an example of how the story world and working(level) work together.
The JRPG works on having a story and characters that make the player/audience want to progress the story or spend time with the character. The get further in the story, you more you need to level up.

Persona 3:
A dungeon with 250 levels, characters, social relationships and your personality that require leveling up? Welcome to Persona 3, a J-RPG that puts you in the life of a Japanese teenager who has to deal with demons, the apocalypse, soul searching and exams.

Levelling up requires you to fight monsters that appear in the dungeon, standard fair. What makes this different is that if you need to get to certain floors of the dungeon by certain days. That's right, it's got a calender cycle. Okay, strange but possible until you find out that your party members are digital humans; work them too hard and they get tired and catch colds. Your main character has these weaknesses too, work him too hard and he won't be able to fight.



There are some incentives for levelling up, you get access to new summons, magic powers, money and the thrill of not dying in the randomly generated dungeon. Don't forget, you're saving the world. How's that for extra curricular activity?

The story of Persona 3 does make the fighting and levelling bearable, sometimes enjoyable. You're going to save the world, making sure you don't die while doing it is a powerful incentive. Another incentive is Hard Mode, you die and there aren't no magic items to bring you back to life.

The game has moments that do make you feel a part of the world. Team members will tell you enthusiastically when they level up or when they land a critical hit. Exclamation marks pop up when you character answers a question correctly, is charming or stands up for himself.



The social relationship leveling up? Strangely investing time in NPCs does reap some benefits, being best buds or having a relationship will net you more powerful summons. Having friends also helps you save the world from doom. You get bonus content as you get closer to your friends, finding out why a monk hangs out at a night club is one of the highlights. JRPG's are notorious for making character interaction a must, I don't know if these skills will carry over to your real life.

Unlike real life, if you level up aspects of your personality, you can meet new people or impress the ones you know. Somehow it's worked into the story; a creepy man from a dimension that only you can access tells you to make friends as part of your contract that you've signed with some strange ghostly kid... It makes sense in the world of Persona but no where else.





The game world does have a lot of extra things to do but they are geared towards levelling either relationships or your own stats. Singing karaoke makes you more courageous.. The main character is pretty bland, giving you lots of opportunity to give him a personality. The game's also great at getting people to micromanage the character's life. Not that's a bad thing when you get to the stage of juggling 3 girlfriends..

It's best to say that this particular story is work, you work to save the world and better yourself. Working to save the world involves levelling up and trying not to die. Well, at least you've spent over 50 hours getting through a really intense story, surely that's worth it?

Pretty sure I've failed getting any form of a message across. Better luck next time.

The Wizard of Oz - Remixed

This week's prototyping exercise was to take L. Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz and turn it into a game. The catch is that the game must be based on 1 of 5 game theories:

- Play as Darwinian influence (survival of the fittest)
- Play as active performance (player works to create work via action)
- Play as work (where the game exists because the player plays it)
- Play as (learning) fun ("teach" the player a satisfying pattern)
- Play as social imperative (playing provides social opportunities)

Ideas generated by: Max, Natalie, Jasmine and I.

The Wizard of Oz as Survival of the Fittest:
Feel free to add dystopian future to any of these.

- Wizard of Oz as Survivor (TV show)
- Battle Royale: Oz
- Wizard of Oz fighting game
- MMO (offers survival but also social opportunities, why kill when you can befriend?)
- RTS (pick a faction of Oz and try to assimilate as many hosts to bred a batch of super solders)

Return to Oz: Teaching the player:
Genre: Action/Adventure with puzzle elements (up for discussion)
Play: Non linear

Inspired by the movie Return to Oz and The Wizard of Oz series, the game has the player moving between the real world and memories set in the land of Oz.

The real world is filled with problems but the solutions to these problems can be found in Oz. The player is given a portal to be transported to a memory bank where they can choose which memory to play.

The game is comprised of small events that culminate into a larger goal, the puzzles that the player solves help fix the real world and progress the game.

Potential Puzzles:
- Freeing cursed characters from the Nome King's spell
- Finding treasure in Mombi the Witch's Hall of Heads

Hairstyln'

Somehow I'm an(the?!) example on how to do shit that involves written assignments. If you're looking on how to write an essay, you're looking in the wrong place. Here's some stuff that will help you to make it look like you did research.

Swinburne University: Harvard Style Guide: The most useful one around, it's pretty wordy but does have guidelines for referencing Wikipedia, Youtube, blogs and Twitter.

Harvard - UQ style!: If it's good enough for them, then it's good enough for you. Download UQ's guide here.

Griffith U's Referencing Tool: Nuttin' says serious learning than a Flash applet. No Flash - use the text version. Or pdf version.

Don't forget:
Bibliographies go on a new page. They are also A - Z like a phone book.

Episode III - Third time's not so charming

Getting a little closer but the conclusion stinks as usual. Some of the stuff is the same, but I have tried to make it flow better and get some of those ideas tighter. Hopefully the final version is within sight.

Star Wars has had a pervasive impact on the modern human psyche and has left its mark on directors, fans and video game designers. It is responsible for several changes in popular culture, the rise of the blockbuster, the franchise movie, the use of computer generated special effects and for leaving an indelible mark on popular lexicon. (Emerson n.d; Jenkins 2005) Countless references from the series have been used in commercials, video games, books and other mediums.

For those born after the inception of Star Wars, they have accepted it as a site of shared cultural knowledge. (Booker 1997) Peter Krämer (2001) cites during a class, he asked students the role of Star Wars had in their lives and was surprised by the response. They recounted that as children; they inhabited a 'Star Wars universe' and still felt that was still applied even as adults. "... the saga's characters, stories and catch phrases had been a primary reference point for their peer group and also within their families." (Kramer 2001)

Star Wars has a video game industry has spawned over 100 video and computer commodities. Much of the series continuing popularity and perpetuation of Star Wars over our society is due to the production of video games. (ref) Video games have offered a way for Star Wars to continue their dominance of popular culture; this spread also has had an effect on video games as a source of inspiration, reference and parody.

The biggest game in the industry that Star Wars has inspired is Tomohiro Nishikado's Space Invaders. Nishikado recalls that he was inspired by news of the American movie that was coming to Japan. He had felt that setting the game in space and having aliens as opponents would be less immoral than shooting human enemies. "Human movement would have been easier, but I felt it would be immoral to shoot humans, even if they were bad guys." (Nishikado cited in The Creation of Space Invaders 2005)

Space Invaders is considered to one of the seminal arcade games which launched an industry. The influence on the games industry can still be felt today. It pushed video games culture into mainstream consciousness; it created the genre of games known as top-down shooters and became a historical icon of video games. (Edwards n.d)

Its conception could not have happened without Star Wars' interpretation of space as an adventure. It paved the way for space opera and aliens to be acceptable serious topics for movies and video games. (Edwards n.d) While Star Wars is considered the quintessential space adventure movie, it has also created the archetypal video game moment.

`Star Wars' didn't create video games but it totally influenced them... The Death Star trench run in the original `Star Wars' is the archetypal video game climax: Fire a missile, hit a weak spot and everything gets destroyed. (Schneider cited in Caro 2005)

The battles set in space have been an inspiration to game designers Ted Michon and David Rolfe who in 1979 released the arcade game Star Fire. Due to licensing and publishing issues the game never bore the Star Wars brand but players have made connections between Star Fire and its muse.

David Rolfe admits that Michon wanted to create a game in the same genre as Star Wars. The graphics created for the game attracted Star Wars fans through their similarity to the original product. It has been described by some to be a digital equivalent to piloting a vehicle from the movies. (Thomasson 2006; Minter 2003) The sheer volume of fan media is overwhelming; the desire for others to relive and recreate the experiences of Star Wars and its characters is not limited to fans. (Jenkins H 2005; Caro 2003)

Star Wars and Star Fire would later lead to an unusual game inspired by an official Star Wars product.

The review in question described the Walkers as “giant mechanical camels”. “And that just got me thinking about giant camels in general,” says Minter. (The Making Of: Attack of The Mutant Camels 2009)

Drawing inspiration from a review of The Empire Strikes Back, Minter created an imaginative experience which pitted the player against shielded camels that could fire lasers. (The Making Of: Attack of The Mutant Camels 2009) With an aesthetic borrowed from the Parker Brother's game, Minter's game could be seen as a parody but also as a retelling of the original game.

It is difficult to imagine a cultural landscape without Star Wars, much of it has become ingrained into our communicated media such as films, books and video games. It has remained one of the most popular space operas, a prime example of man's obsession with adventure and the unknowns of space. Space Invaders and its space themed game play originate with Star Wars; this little seed of inspiration gave rise to one of icons of video game culture.

Conclusion is not finished, again. I will get around to it once I figure out just how to sum this essay up.
Following the rise of Space Invaders and Lucas' films, video games, aliens, space operas became pop culture standards. The thrill of exciting frontiers opened by digital media continues today. Scenarios, characters and lines from the films have often been referenced in different mediums and still provide stimulus for developing works.