game invaders

Game Invaders www.it-ebooks.info Press Operating Committee Chair James W. Cortada IBM Institute for Business Value Board Members Mark J. Christensen, Independent Consultant Richard E. (Dick) Fairley, Founder and Principal Associate, Software Engineering Management Associates (SEMA) Cecilia Metra, Associate Professor of Electronics, University of Bologna Linda Shafer, former Director, Software Quality Institute, The University of Texas at Austin Evan Butterfi eld, Director of Products and Services Kate Guillemette, Product Development Editor, CS Press IEEE Computer Society Publications The world - renowned IEEE Computer Society publishes, promotes, and distributes a wide variety of authoritative computer science and engineering texts. These books are available from most retail outlets. Visit the CS Store at http://computer.org/store for a list of products. 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Additional information regarding the Computer Society authored book program can also be accessed from our web site at http://computer.org/cspress. www.it-ebooks.info Game Invaders The Theory and Understanding of Computer Games Clive Fencott Mike Lockyer Jo Clay Paul Massey A John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Publication A Wiley-IEEE Computer Society Publication www.it-ebooks.info Copyright © 2012 by IEEE. All rights reserved. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. Published simultaneously in Canada. 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Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print, however, may not be available in electronic format. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Game invaders : the theory and understanding of computer games / Clive Fencott [et al.]. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-470-59718-7 (pbk.) 1. Computer games. 2. Computer games–Design. 3. Video games 4. Video games–Design. I. Fencott, P. C. GV1469.3.G365 2012 794.8–dc23 2012002566 Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 www.it-ebooks.info v Contents Preface ix Abbreviations xi Part I Why Do People Play Games? 1. You Are the One 3 Tools to Think With 5 Getting Started 8 Summary 12 2. Genre 13 What Are Genres? 14 What Are Genres For? 16 Genre Maps 18 Computer Game Genres 19 A Theory of Computer Game Genres 21 Summary 25 Further Reading and Tasks 26 3. Activity 29 The Story of Activity Groups 29 An Overview of Activity Profi les 33 Three Driving Games 35 Calculating Genres 38 Summary 43 Tasks 44 4. Pleasure 45 Aesthetics and Computer Games 47 Spacewar 51 www.it-ebooks.info vi Contents Zork 52 Pac-Man 56 Comparative Aesthetics 57 Summary 59 Tasks 60 5. Two Rail-Shooters 61 Star Fox and Rez 61 Activity Profi ling and Genre Theory 63 Applying Aesthetic Theory 65 The Method of Game Analysis 67 Tetsuya Mizuguchi, Rez, and Beyond 67 Summary 69 Further Reading and Tasks 70 6. Why Don’t People Play Games 71 What Do We Mean by Games? 72 Resident Evil 73 Why Not Ask the Players? 75 Emotional Models of Play 76 Player Types 79 Demographic Research 81 Why Don’t People Play Games? 82 Conclusions 83 Part II What Is a Game? 7. Just an Ordinary Day 87 The Glass Vial 89 Unrealisms 90 Perceptual Opportunities 91 Sureties 92 Surprises 93 Attractors 93 Connectors 95 Rewards 97 Getting It All Together in SinCity 99 Perceptual Mapping in SinCity 100 AS-OceanFloor 103 Summary 108 Further Reading and Tasks 109 www.it-ebooks.info Contents vii 8. Big Bad Streets 111 Driver School 111 Sureties 113 Surprises 114 Driver and SinCity Comparisons 119 Summary 122 Further Reading and Tasks 123 9. Time to Visit Yokosuka 125 Shenmue 125 Genre and Activity Profi le 126 Aesthetics 128 Shenmue POs 129 PSAS and Cut Scenes 131 Interactive Storytelling? 133 And On With General Aesthetics 134 Summary 135 Further Reading and Tasks 137 10. Meaning What? 139 Semiotics and Signs 140 Pac-Man’s Signs 143 Icons, Indexes, and Symbols 144 Denotation, Connotation, and Myth 146 Syntagms and Paradigms 148 Codes 151 Making Up Pac-Man 154 Filling Gaps 155 Summary 159 Further Reading and Tasks 161 11. All Work and Play 163 The Work of Meaning 164 Signs of Interaction 167 The Mechanics of Interaction 170 The Inside-Out Code 176 Where Is the Player? 178 Summary 180 Further Reading and Tasks 181 12. Big Game Hunting 183 Semiosphere 183 The Code of Interaction 185 www.it-ebooks.info viii Contents The Myth of Interaction 189 What Is a Game? 191 How Do You Get Out of Here? 192 Big Game Hunting 194 Glossary 197 List of Games 203 Bibliography 205 Index 207 www.it-ebooks.info ix Preface Game Invaders and Game Invaders Live (GIL) have interesting histories, and it is worth a few words to outline them, as they do to some extent explain why both are as they are. Degrees in games — video games, as they used to be called — have been around for about 15 years at the University of Teesside and a few others. When they began there was very little theoretical and/or analytical material with which to establish game courses at an appropriate academic level. In the mid - 1990s Clive went in search of suitable theory, found some, found he had to invent some, and began to put this together in his teaching: a fi nal year undergraduate course called Game Futures. The idea was that students thought about the future of games rather than Clive telling them what that future would be. This was just as well, as Clive didn ’ t know the future of games and would have wanted a lot more money to tell anyone who wanted to know if he did. The history of what would become this book and GIL had begun. Games people wrote about how to develop games, how to design them, and what the industry expected, and gradually the academic community got its act together and suitable theory and analytics began to appear. In 2003 Clive started writing a book based on what is now much of the book you now have in your hands. And a publisher got interested and all was going well until the publisher, or rather the editor Clive was talking to, stopped talking. The idea of a book was put on hold because at about that time, Teesside University put out a call for staff who were interested in developing their entrepreneurial sides. Clive was fed up being messed around by the publishing world and decided that there might be a business opportunity in selling analysis data on games to game developers and the like. The university and a regional “ Proof of Concept ” fund agreed with him, and in 2004 a company called Strange Agency was set up. Jo Clay was its fi rst, and for a while only, employee while Clive continued with the day job and the company, which was also a day job. Mike and Paul got involved as software and database experts respectively and along with Clive, Jo, the university, and the Proof of Concept Fund became shareholders and board members. The idea was that the analysis data should be automatically generated and made available through a software system that accessed data from the company ’ s web server. The desktop software worked well and data on thousands of games were collected and made available. People in the games industry were quite interested and the team demonstrated at trade shows such as E3 and tried to drum up business. But sales were hard, very hard, to come by and eventually after many trials and tribulations Strange Agency was wound up in 2009. www.it-ebooks.info x Preface Rather than let it all go to the wall, Clive, Mike, Jo, and Paul decided to return to the original idea of publishing a book. Mike completely rewrote the software so it ran wholly on the web as a Silverlight application, and the book was rewritten to incorporate all that they had learned about games analysis. GIL meant that students and teachers could undertake their own analyses to support the theory and examples in the book. The current book, web app, and website, a truly multi - media publica- tion, came into being. So this book and GIL are the products of people who have worked and researched in the games industry and taught and researched in academia. This is a truly informed offering and we hope you fi nd it useful. Clive Fencott Mike Lockyer Jo Clay Paul Massey www.it-ebooks.info [...]... GIL mapping of known genres DS – Ninitento handheld game console FADT – Formal Abstract Design Tools FPS – First Person Shooter, game genre GI – Game Invaders GIL – Game Invaders Live GIS – Generalized Interaction Sequence HUD – Heads up Display IGN – Games review web site IS – Interaction Sequence MMORPG – Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Game MOO – MUD Object Oriented, see MUD MUD – Multi-user... Role-playing game RTS – Real time strategy game SNES – Super Nintendo Entertainment System VE – Virtual Environment VR – Virtual Reality Wii – Ninendo game console with motions tracking etc Xbox – Microsoft game console XML – Extensible Markup Language xi www.it-ebooks.info Figure 3.1 Activity profiles for Final Fantasy X and Sacred Game Invaders: The Theory and Understanding of Computer Games, First... fundamentals of computer games Different theories can lead to different insights even into the same thing We use theories all the time in our everyday lives For instance, we use theories to play computer games Very few gamers ever read the manual You learn a new game by playing it and in doing so you build up your own theory as to how the game works, what the underlying logic of the game is, and what you... things with this DIY package For one thing, we can go big game hunting! We can look at big games like Shenmue and SimCity and see how they tick No game will be too big for us We can also use the package to try and define games more clearly At the beginning of the book the only definition I use for computer game is that they are things that people call games that are played on computers, consoles, handhelds,... Computer-Based Signs Code of Interaction General Semiotic Theory Figure 12.1 Semiosphere for video games www.it-ebooks.info Figure 12.2 The Code of Interaction www.it-ebooks.info Part I Why Do People Play Games? www.it-ebooks.info Chapter 1 You Are the One Games are about creativity! Right? Games are about great gameplay ideas translated into great graphics and sound! Right? And because they’re creative... to do to win We are helped in this by training levels, by previous game playing experiences, and by recognizing the genre a new game belongs to Training levels usually help out with the game s user interface and basic gameplay They often also try to show us how to succeed But to really know how to succeed there is nothing like real game playing experience and knowledge This in turn leads to recognizing... range of media Semiotics and, in particular, the semiotics of computer games is the subject of Part II of this book What kinds of theories and models might be useful to us in trying to investigate the fundamental nature of computer games? Many computer games already make use of some pretty heavy theory The game engine for a driving game, for instance, will make use of various theories from physics in... fit together But these are not the kinds of theory we need to use to investigate games Understanding how the theory of gravity works in a game doesn’t help you understand why the game does or doesn’t work for its players We need to understand the very nature of gameplay, the kinds of pleasures people experience in playing games, the reasons why people recognize a bunch of flickering pixels and digitized... program into games More importantly for us, are there also theories that can help us to probe into the nature of games, which will allow us to establish general principles of games? The answer is yes and no There are such theories but computer games are developing so quickly that our fundamental understanding of them lags behind our ability to build them Coming to understand computer games is very... deceived by computer games That is when the fun starts Hence the term “willing suspension of disbelief” coined by the poet Coleridge (1817) way back in the beginning of the nineteenth century He was talking about the power of poetry to conjure up images and imaginary worlds but his words apply just as well to computer games Game Invaders: The Theory and Understanding of Computer Games, First Edition . known genres DS – Ninitento handheld game console FADT – Formal Abstract Design Tools FPS – First Person Shooter, game genre GI – Game Invaders GIL – Game Invaders Live GIS – Generalized Interaction. Here? 192 Big Game Hunting 194 Glossary 197 List of Games 203 Bibliography 205 Index 207 www.it-ebooks.info ix Preface Game Invaders and Game Invaders Live (GIL) have interesting histories, and. Data Game invaders : the theory and understanding of computer games / Clive Fencott [et al.]. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-470-59718-7 (pbk.) 1. Computer games.