Assessment 1 : Researching games

Different genres of games

Genre	Genre description	Genre example
FPS	An FPS is a first person shooter, normally the camera is set in first person meaning you see through the players eyes, these games are heavily based around gunplay.	One example of this would be counter-strike, arguably the first pioneers for the fps genre. Counter-strike is an online game with no campaign missions, unlike most fps’s of today like Call of Duty. In counter-strike you either play as 1 of two teams, the terrorists or the counter terrorists. The aim of the terrorist’s side is to plant the bomb at a bomb site and make sure that no one diffuses it while the counter terrorists have to stop them from doing so. This game is heavily based around gunplay and teamwork.
Survival horror	A survival horror game is exactly that, a horror game. These games are meant to scare you with blood, gore and normally zombies. Normally trying to create a suspense atmosphere by handicapping the player.	One great example of this is the resident evil series, specifically 4 as it is regarded as one of the best ones. This game is based on a random unknown village in an unspecified part of Europe, the player is sent in to save his friend. While in the village though he finds the blood thirsty villagers trying to kill him. This game is great because it sets up a scary atmosphere very well, a lot of enemies will jump out at you creating a jump scare effect. Another way is that the game gives you very little ammo, and with what ammo you do have you have an inventory system that you have to organise to fit stuff into it. This is the handicap the game gives you. This topped with some scary and hard boss fights makes a hard and scary game.
MMORPG’s	An MMORPG is similar to an ordinary RPG except that these take place online and with thousands/millions of people around the globe. The point of an RPG is to embark upon quests to achieve a reward. MMO’s normally don’t have an end game goal, rather they have many quests scattered throughout.	Another example is Runescape. Runescape is a free to play MMORPG containing thousands upon thousands of people playing it. Set in the world of Runescape your player is sent to complete various quests for people to gain higher stats and sometimes good item rewards to use in combat. The main point of runescape is to achieve a higher level in all of your skills, for example the cooking skill, cooking food in runescape gives you experience points in the cooking skill. The maximum level you can get for a skill is 99 and this is what most players aim for in most skills.
Simulation	A simulation game is exactly what is says in the title, a simulation. These games revolve normally around a real life practise. For example flight simulator puts you in the pilot’s seat of flying a plane. The key to simulation games which you have probably guessed is immersion. Creating as much as real life as possible. Although this isn’t true for all simulation games as of recent.	Probably one of the most popular simulation games of all time is the Sims. This game is about real life and It’s as simple as that, you first of start by making a family, or just a single sim, in which you then buy a house for your sim to live in. after that you get them a job and make sure that all of their needs are fulfilled for example energy and hunger and Once you’ve done all of that you wait for your sim to die, or you could just kill them yourself as you are essentially the god of the sim world, it’s all up to you.
sport	Sports games go hand in hand with simulation games but generally involve a lot more action, sports games are simply a game revolving around the sport that it chooses to base its game around. For example: Rugby, football, golf, tennis all of these examples apply.	Fifa is a good sports game and arguably one of the most popular one as well. Fifa is based on its real life counterpart football, the aim of the game is two teams verse each other at   trying to kick a ball into the other team’s nets while defending and attacking the opposing teams.
puzzle	A puzzle game is where you have to solve a sequence of puzzle normally in order to progress to the next level, while doing this the difficulty normally ramps up until a final finale is ensued with a very hard puzzle to solve.	portal is a physics based puzzle game. The game involves the player traversing an abandoned science lab getting guided by a corrupt AI computer using a portal gun to get from one game to another.
Role playing game	A role playing game is similar to an MMORPG except that these games are not online, and it has more of a story and you have more of an impact on the game world around you with an end game goal.	Skyrim is quite a popular RPG game which is also a third or first person game. You take the role of whatever race and gendered character you decide to choose and embark on an adventure to save the land of skyrim from the evil dragon Alduin, along the way you meet a variety of different people and can join a variety of different societies in the game.
Stealth	A stealth game comes under the action-adventure genre as is generally based around sneaking around and trying to complete certain objectives while staying out of sight from enemies.	Apart from splinter cell, metal gear solid is arguably one of the most popular stealth game out there on the market. You play as snake trying to infiltrate Russia to retrieve someone from the clutch of the Russians, you must sneak your way past enemies, defeat difficult bosses and infiltrate your way into enemy strong holds all while staying undetected. Combat is hard in this game when you have alerted other guards which gives you all the more reason to use stealth to get about.
Text based	Text based adventure games are the games that came before any other action game, these always use just text to navigate your way round the author’s fantasy world. Sometimes there can be illustrations of things around you but mainly it’s just text to guide you through.	Zork is the most popular text based adventure game out there. In this game you guide your character through a labyrinth of different challenges telling him where to go and what to do, guiding your way out of difficult mazes and battling monsters.

Action: Platformer	These games involve the character jumping on platformers, normally in a side scrolling fashion, in or order to get to another destination, usually while trying to avoid monsters and different obstacles.	A good example of this is super Mario bro’s, the most recognisable platformer to date. In this you play as Mario, who is trying to save the princess from being stolen by the evil character bowser. You travel through a lot of different levels with a very good learning curve along with it. You can collect mushrooms which make you stronger to enemies and collecting coins will reward you with an extra life.
Shooter: shoot ‘em up	A shoot ‘em up is a game in which the player is brought into a world where they have to shoot to survive. These games are normally very basic and all they have you do is simply shoot other things on screen.	Space invaders was one of the pioneers of the shoot ‘em up sub-genre of games. In this game you play as a little ship shooting up at the aliens above you trying to kill all of them before they land down on earth. As they get closer to the ground to gradually begin to get faster and faster making it harder for the player.
Simulation: vehicle	Vehicle simulation games are simulation games where you take on the role of a driver or a pilot of some kind of vehicle. These simulation games are straight forward and straight to the point normally with nothing else but driving or flying the thing you are simulating.	In flight simulator 98 you play as a pilot piloting a variety of planes doing a variety of tasks, be this either carrying passengers on a safe journey or simply flying around free style. This is a very good simulator as you can play around with the buttons inside of the plane and it simulates flying a plane very well.

The good and the bad of video games

Bad that computer gaming brings.	Good that computer gaming brings.
First of all i will be talking about the concerns of excess game time and the impact it can have on your life. there are a lot of downsides to excess play time on computer games and some of these go hand in hand with some other things i will be presenting on this list, one example is that from playing too long you could lose sleep from playing a game all day and all night, this can be a multitude of reasons as to why but i think many people can become addicted to the game they are playing, a quote from here says this "International studies have shown that between seven and 11 per cent of gamers show some symptoms associated with addiction."  This shows us that quite a few kids are addicted to some type of video game, and a lack of sleep can lead to a lot of problems such as: fatigue, lack of rational thought, hard to make clear decisions and feeling depressed.	Now we are moving on to some of the benefits of games starting off with hand eye coordination and brain training in games. Some games offer to help brain training with actual games like Brain Training on the Nintendo DS. But most games offer some type of brain training exercise and or hand eye coordination exercise. for example puzzle games offer a lot of help with problem solving and offer a good learning curve for young children and teens, most games like first person shooter offer hand eye coordination for example if you were using a sniper you would have to be very accurate with it and develop a lot in this sector.
Next is social isolation, this is quite common among video game addicts as they lack social skills that most non game addicted children/teenagers have, this can be caused by playing too much computer games and not socialising with friends/family outside of the games. Yes you can socialize with other people around the world in a video game but it can only go so far, as most of the time the players are talking about the game and trying to team up to complete the objective. another reason why kids can be become isolated from society is that the kids become attached to the game because they have a companionship with the game as it fills the roll of friends. a great example of this is World Of Warcraft, this game is meant to be played for a very long period of time and most people can find themselves becoming addicted to it.	Next is thinking and strategy skills, these can be seen in top down real time strategy games like for example Starcraft or Warcraft, in these games you normal take control of a unit to destroy/take over an enemy’s territory to win the objective. These games require an immense amount of thinking and strategy skills to outwit and flank the enemy team, especially if you are playing online against someone who is playing the game more than you are and therefore has more experience than you do. research done by the queen Mary university of London have done an experiment in which participants either play one of two games, the sims or starcraft. here is a direct quote from the findings which can be found here, "Findings showed that subjects who played "StarCraft" were quicker and more accurate in performing cognitive flexibility tasks than those who played "The Sims.".
Thirdly is the cost of video games, not necessarily the overall cost of the physical game itself but also the toll it takes on your life. One example of this is a subscription based game like Runescape, costing around 7 pounds a month, now this may not seem like a lot at the time but this can add up, especially if you have been playing Runescape for a very long time. Another example is the cost of sleep that the gamer will experience, as i previously mentioned in excess playing which i think i summed up enough.	But what is to come for gaming of the future and the impacts it may bring? who knows, but we can hazard a good guess. with games becoming more philosophical and more in depth i believe that they will be accepted more as an art for by the newer generation than just a silly console or past time by the older generation. games may even be used to help surgeons for training on very hard to do operations. one example of this can be found here. the website shows a study in which surgeons where recorded before and after playing video games while performing laparoscopic surgerys. "Overall the 33 participants scored 33% better on a skill test called Top Gun. Participants that played more than 3 hours a week scored 42% better.".
Lots of games set your player in a fantasy world, a world quite different from our own, this is fundamental for some games roles, but it does help kids get addicted to video games making them want to live there lives in this world instead of their own, as they may be bullied in real life or have a terrible home life and so to substitute for this they play online games. doing this is quite dangerous and the child could later on find it hard to distinguish themselves from the fantasy world and there real lives. one example of this is joshua J nimm who was a boy who shot himself while re-enacting a scene from his favourite game halo. the full story can be found here.	Recently there has been a breakthrough with new technology in the mainstream in the form of the Oculus rift, which can be found here. the oculus rift is a 3d headset which is available right now, unfortunately there are only a few games available for it but i believe you can make a game applicable with the headset.

My game

What you are looking at here is the title screen for the 2d concept game we where assigned to make up, this game intended platform is for an android or Iphone. but what is chefs escape - hells kitchen? well it is a 2d action game in which you take the roll as chef. collecting point in which to upgrade your pan with wheels on it. more distance scores you more points in which to use to upgrade to get even further and get even more points. But who is Chef?

the goal and aim of this game is very simple, escape the kitchen from the bomb. nothing much is needed to be said. but what does the upgrades shop look like?

i made it so that you can customize even the main character chef with cosmetic upgrades to make you feel closer and more relate able to chef. i also have an end goal which is master chef cosmetic change and the "hadron collider" rocket upgrade which upgrades your speed 1000x this is a great incentive for the player as all the end upgrades for each item are very heavily priced so they play more of the game, but not too high as to scare the player away from playing the game.

Player just completing a jump

But how is the game played? the game is played by waiting for the power bar to fill up and tapping the screen so chef can push himself down the hill and that speed, the power bar will fill up really fast and then go down really fast as well so that there is some challenge to the game, while in the air chef can perform tricks to get more points to help you get better upgrades, this is achieved by swiping on the screen in different directions, or by tilting the screen to tilt chef and performing a back flip/front flip.

Power bar filling up and decreasing.

My Game

What is my game?

I could simply tell you about my game, but i would rather show you what my game is.

My game is Chefs escape - hell kitchen. but what is this game? the game consists of you playing as the character chef. but who is chef?

now you know the backstory to my game and who you play as i will now proceed to tell you what kind of game it is. my game is intended for mobile devices, played in short but sweet sessions of around 10-20 minutes at a time. you try to make chef go as far away from the restaurant as you can by tapping the screen when the power is on full, 

Power bar filling up

this will allow you to gain more distance. once you have traveled that distanced you are scored for the distance and how many tricks you pulled off in the air. along with the score you are awarded with money to use in the point shop to buy power ups and things that will help you get a further distance and better score in game

The point shop

Who is this game aimed at? this game is aimed at people of all ages as it does not contain any violence of any kind just simple game play and simple fun for everyone.

computer game graphics

Computer game graphics

Pixel art

First of is pixel art. Pixel art is heavily used in retro games/games that take on the retro feel and artistic form. The pixel art can be used in a variety of ways, for example in the picture shown below of a sprite chart. This is mainly used in 2d retro games for movement and attacks. Pixel art is also used in 3d isometric games.

Concept art

Concept art is where the team of designers try to come up with an image for something in the game, it can be as big as a main character or as little as a vehicle for the character to use. Concept art is crucial for the designers to get a picture of what they want the subject in hand to be and finally coming up with the final form of the thing they are trying to create and then finally creating it. Below is a picture of a boss in a game called Runescape named Vorago. This is actually the final form of the design of the monster showing it in different positions to show what it is like all the way around.

Texture art

Texture art is as simple as it sounds, this is the art for the texture in the game, usually found in 2d and 3d games. These texture could be for literally anything in the environment, this could be something like the grass below the player’s feet to a metal sheeting of a house that the player is in.

metal floor

Broken dirt floor

Background graphics

Background graphics and texture art kind of go hand in hand but this is more to do with like the skybox for example more than what you can interact with for example walls, forests, clouds, deserts etc.. Below is a picture of an example of this.

In game interface

A game interface is simply a heads up display. This is present in all games and is normally abbreviated as a HUD. This display can show a variety of things, health, stamina, mini-map for navigation, spells to cast, people in your party. I have found that the games that utilize this feature the most is MMORPG’s such as world of Warcraft where the HUD is vital for survival and efficiency. An example of this can be found in the picture below

Different artistic styles

Different artistic styles

There are a variety of artistic styles in the games industry, and these different styles are used for different reasons also, today I am going to be describing the different styles used in these photos and why the artist has used this particular style for their game.

DayZ: realistic style of art, photo realistic. As with many realistic/survival/army games is a realistic art form to accompany it, this is used to make the player feel more immersed in the game. Also a cartoonish style would not go with the gritty realism presented in the game and would disrupt the atmosphere. This is relevant as well with simulation games or games like Fifa as to keep the player seeing less of a difference from the game and the real world to keep the person playing the game. Photo realism can be spotted in a game if the game looks a lot like real life.

Super meat boy: Next up is Super Meat Boy, this games style is retro/cartoonish, this style reminds me a lot of a children’s comic book which is funny because this isn’t a children’s game. The artistic style of this game suits it very well as the game itself comes off as a fun plat former with a lot of quirky humour, this, combine with the artistic style, makes the game blend together very nicely. As you can see by the humanised environment, the scared sun and the smiling hill shows more evidence into that this was made to look child friendly/cartoony vibe. But the blood dripping off of the protagonists shows otherwise. A quite from the maker and artist of super meat boy is that the art style is made to be “bold and scary”.

Cell shaded

This image is of boarder land, but is also exaggerated realism. As you can tell by the cartoonish look this effect is created by the cell shading in the models. It is also made to look cartoony with the exaggerated realism. This is shown clearly by the person on the rights muscles. Both of those combined gives it a type of comic book style look to the game which is very appealing in this game it meshes together very well.

Ethics in gaming

Ethics: impact of computer games on society

There are many good and bad sides of the gaming world, different things need to be taken into account and a different perspective is needed to look at some aspects of gaming. today i am going to be talking about the impact of computer games and there roll that they have on society as a whole.

Excess playing

First of all i will be talking about the concerns of excess game time and the impact it can have on your life. there are a lot of downsides to excess play time on computer games and some of these go hand in hand with some other things i will be presenting on this list, one example is that from playing too long you could loose sleep from playing a game all day and all night, this can be a multitude of reasons as to why but i think many people can become addicted to the game they are playing, a quote from here says this "International studies have shown that between seven and 11 per cent of gamers show some symptoms associated with addiction."  this shows us that quite a few kids are addicted to some type of video game, and a lack of sleep can lead to a lot of problems such as: fatigue, lack of rational thought, hard to make clear decisions and feeling depressed.

social isolation

Next is social isolation, this is quite common among video game addicts as they lack social skills that most non game addicted children/teenagers have, this can be caused by playing too much computer games and not socialising with friends/family outside of the games. Yes you can socialize with other people around the world in a video game but it can only go so far, as most of the time the players are talking about the game and trying to team up to complete the objective. another reason why kids can be become isolated from society is that the kids become attached to the game because they have a companionship with the game as it fills the roll of friends. a great example of this is World Of Warcraft, this game is meant to be played for a very long period of time and most people can find themselves becoming addicted to it.

Online chat room "habbo hotel"

cost

thirdly is the cost of video games, not necessarily the overall cost of the physical game itself but also the toll it takes on your life. on example of this is a subscription based game like Runescape, costing around 7 pounds a month, now this may not seem like a lot at the time but this can add up, especially if you have been playing Runescape for a very long time. another example is the cost of sleep that the gamer will experience, as i previously mentioned in excess playing which i think i summed up enough.

The game Runescape

Separation from reality 

Lots of games set your player in a fantasy world,

a world quite different from our own, this is fundamental for some games roles, but it does help kids get addicted to video games making them want to live there lives in this world instead of their own, as they may be bullied in real life or have a terrible home life and so to substitute for this they play online games. doing this is quite dangerous and the child could later on find it hard to distinguish themselves from the fantasy world and there real lives. one example of this is joshua J nimm who was a boy who shot himself while reenacting a scene from his favorite game halo. the full story can be found

Hand eye coordination/Brain training 

Now we are moving on to some of the benefits of games starting off with hand eye coordination and brain training in games. Some games offer to help brain training with actual games like Brain Training on the Nintendo DS. but most games offer some type of brain training exercise and or hand eye coordination exercise. for example puzzle games offer a lot of help with problem solving and offer a good learning curve for young children and teens, most games like first person shooter offer hand eye coordination for example if you where using a sniper you would have to be very accurate with it and develope a lot in this sector.

Thinking and strategy skills

Next is thinking and strategy skills, these can be seen in top down real time strategy games like for example Starcraft or Warcraft, in these games you normal take control of a unit to destroy/take over an enemies territory to win the objective. these games require an immense amount of thinking and strategy skills to out wit and flank the enemy team, especially if you are playing online against someone who is playing the game more than you are and therefore has more experience than you do. research done by the queen mary university of london have done an experiment in which participents either play one of two games, the sims or starcraft. here is a direct quote from the findings which can be found here, "Findings showed that subjects who played "StarCraft" were quicker and more accurate in performing cognitive flexibility tasks than those who played "The Sims.".

Future impact

But what is to come for gaming of the future and the impacts it may bring? who knows, but we can hazard a good guess. with games becoming more philosophical and more in depth i believe that they will be accepted more as an art for by the newer generation than just a silly console or past time by the older generation. games may even be used to help surgeons for training on very hard to do operations. one example of this can be found here. the website shows a study in which surgeons where recorded before and after playing video games while performing laparoscopic surgerys. "Overall the 33 participants scored 33% better on a skill test called Top Gun. Participants that played more than 3 hours a week scored 42% better.".

Impact on mainstream application development

Recently there has been a breakthrough with new technology in the mainstream in the form of the Oculus rift, which can be found here. the oculus rift is a 3d headset which is available right now, unfortunately there are only a few games available for it but i believe you can make a game applicable with the headset.

Sound

Sound is extremely important in a game as it can really help the player feel fully immersed inside of the world the game developers have made for you to enjoy, it's all good having an amazing environment with a brilliant backstory but if you don't have good sounds you will be ripped back out of the immersion. an example of this is skyrim, even when you are wondering around the vast landscape of Skyrim you can hear an amazing soundtrack to accompany you, this is to make you feel important when you are embarking on a quest or are about to fight a monster.

Different game genres

Genre	Genre description	Genre example
FPS	An FPS is a first person shooter, normally the camera is set in first person meaning you see through the players eyes, these games are heavily based around gunplay.	One example of this would be counter-strike, arguably the first pioneers for the fps genre. Counter-strike is an online game with no campaign missions, unlike most fps’s of today like Call of Duty. In counter-strike you either play as 1 of two teams, the terrorists or the counter terrorists. The aim of the terrorist’s side is to plant the bomb at a bomb site and make sure that no one diffuses it while the counter terrorists have to stop them from doing so. This game is heavily based around gunplay and teamwork.
Survival horror	A survival horror game is exactly that, a horror game. These games are meant to scare you with blood, gore and normally zombies. Normally trying to create a suspense atmosphere by handicapping the player.	One great example of this is the resident evil series, specifically 4 as it is regarded as one of the best ones. This game is based on a random unknown village in an unspecified part of Europe, the player is sent in to save his friend. While in the village though he finds the blood thirsty villagers trying to kill him. This game is great because it sets up a scary atmosphere very well, a lot of enemies will jump out at you creating a jump scare effect. Another way is that the game gives you very little ammo, and with what ammo you do have you have an inventory system that you have to organise to fit stuff into it. This is the handicap the game gives you. This topped with some scary and hard boss fights makes a hard and scary game.
MMORPG’s	An MMORPG is similar to an ordinary RPG except that these take place online and with thousands/millions of people around the globe. The point of an RPG is to embark upon quests to achieve a reward. MMO’s normally don’t have an end game goal, rather they have many quests scattered throughout.	Another example is Runescape. Runescape is a free to play MMORPG containing thousands upon thousands of people playing it. Set in the world of Runescape your player is sent to complete various quests for people to gain higher stats and sometimes good item rewards to use in combat. The main point of runescape is to achieve a higher level in all of your skills, for example the cooking skill, cooking food in runescape gives you experience points in the cooking skill. The maximum level you can get for a skill is 99 and this is what most players aim for in most skills.
Simulation	A simulation game is exactly what is says in the title, a simulation. These games revolve normally around a real life practise. For example flight simulator puts you in the pilot’s seat of flying a plane. The key to simulation games which you have probably guessed is immersion. Creating as much as real life as possible. Although this isn’t true for all simulation games as of recent.	Probably one of the most popular simulation games of all time is the Sims. This game is about real life and It’s as simple as that, you first of start by making a family, or just a single sim, in which you then buy a house for your sim to live in. after that you get them a job and make sure that all of their needs are fulfilled for example energy and hunger and Once you’ve done all of that you wait for your sim to die, or you could just kill them yourself as you are essentially the god of the sim world, it’s all up to you.
sport	Sports games go hand in hand with simulation games but generally involve a lot more action, sports games are simply a game revolving around the sport that it chooses to base its game around. For example: Rugby, football, golf, tennis all of these examples apply.	Fifa is a good sports game and arguably one of the most popular one as well. Fifa is based on its real life counterpart football, the aim of the game is two teams verse each other at trying to kick a ball into the other team’s nets while defending and attacking the opposing teams.
puzzle	A puzzle game is where you have to solve a sequence of puzzle normally in order to progress to the next level, while doing this the difficulty normally ramps up until a final finale is ensued with a very hard puzzle to solve.	portal is a physics based puzzle game. The game involves the player traversing an abandoned science lab getting guided by a corrupt AI computer using a portal gun to get from one game to another.
Role playing game	A role playing game is similar to an MMORPG except that these games are not online, and it has more of a story and you have more of an impact on the game world around you with an end game goal.	Skyrim is quite a popular RPG game which is also a third or first person game. You take the role of whatever race and gendered character you decide to choose and embark on an adventure to save the land of skyrim from the evil dragon Alduin, along the way you meet a variety of different people and can join a variety of different societies in the game.
Stealth	A stealth game comes under the action-adventure genre as is generally based around sneaking around and trying to complete certain objectives while staying out of sight from enemies.	Apart from splinter cell, metal gear solid is arguably one of the most popular stealth game out there on the market. You play as snake trying to infiltrate Russia to retrieve someone from the clutch of the Russians, you must sneak your way past enemies, defeat difficult bosses and infiltrate your way into enemy strong holds all while staying undetected. Combat is hard in this game when you have alerted other guards which gives you all the more reason to use stealth to get about.
Text based	Text based adventure games are the games that came before any other action game, these always use just text to navigate your way round the author’s fantasy world. Sometimes there can be illustrations of things around you but mainly it’s just text to guide you through.	Zork is the most popular text based adventure game out there. In this game you guide your character through a labyrinth of different challenges telling him where to go and what to do, guiding your way out of difficult mazes and battling monsters.