A New Direction: The Semester in Retrospect

New Beginnings
This semester represented a change in my academic focus. When I took on my master's project - designing a roleplaying game designed to teach activism - I knew I would need to learn to critically analyze games and learn how to view them as a designer. I had ambitions, to be sure, that I might be able to do this kind of design, and so I picked classes that would help me to develop those creative and critical 'muscles.' ART108 was the class I chose to tackle the design part of my goal.

I needed to orient myself towards game design and build up my library of texts and concepts, but also to actually *do* some design work. Knowing this didn't necessarily make the work less intimidating, but it made it feel immediate. I've played games for effectively my whole life, and they are still every bit as important to my life today as when I was younger. I play frequently - possibly more than I should - and I figured I probably knew something about what makes a game good, before the semester started. I was right, to an extent, but now I have a much fuller toolbox.

Getting to watch Extra Credits in class was just the icing on the cake

(even if - as we know - the cake is a lie)

Playing my Work
The concepts we studied in ART108 was vital to my project and my future dream of being a game designer. The work of Huizinga, the MDA framework, and Fullerton's in-depth process analysis are among the most valuable materials for my work. I feel like I have a whole new vocabulary to pull from when it comes to the components that come together to make games. Huizinga was an especially good introduction for me, as a social scientist, since the concepts he illustrated - such as the magic circle and the universality of play - meshed nicely with my anthropological training. The MDA framework gave me some tangible terminology and clarification to ideas I thought I'd understood previously, like how mechanics differ from dynamics (I think I probably conflated them in the past) and helped me to look at the different aspects of design from new angles. And the chapter from Fullerton was supremely useful to me taking the steps to conceptualize and iterate on designs - I've since purchased her book, and when I thinking of game design now, I take an iterative view, breaking down the steps and working through them systematically, rather than attempting to create designs from whole cloth.

What really made an impact, however, was getting to actually *do* design work. All the conceptual stuff in the world can't compare to doing something. Once I began doing iterative design, talking about concepts with peoples, and putting ideas together into actual prototypes, my whole way of thinking about game design changed. Since prototyping the game that has since become Spokesgoblins, I have come up with iterative designs for at least 5 other games, some inspired by that initial work, some based on other games, and some just because they sound fun. Now I start with my core concept and build out from there, making documents of my ideas and workshopping them, adding and removing elements, and changing things based on feedback and result.

I've also learned some new skills like doing basic pixel art, something I never seriously thought I could do. I'm still mostly copying other artists to start with and making changes to the initial frameworks, but I have a new eye and appreciation for art assets. I'm learning to work through what styles and approaches might work for different projects, and I have more confidence to do some simple graphic design for my games. Moreover, I've certainly enjoyed the positive feedback I've received when sharing my designs with others.

Someday this symbol may sit next to Zombie Dice and Cards Against Humanity

Takeaways
I found it to be quite gratifying to be able to work on projects with relatively open formats, getting to choose what kind of games we got to make, especially for the final. I had been so enthusiastic about my board game prototype that I knew pretty much right away that I would want to keep working on it for the final. Now that I have finished the version for the assignment, I am looking forward to creating a new prototype version to show to ever more people for playtesting, and I hope to get the game on some crowdsourcing site with the hopes of producing a finished retail version. I have a great deal more confidence in my design now that it has been played numerous times and had hours upon hours of time put into it. Hopefully before too long, Spokesgoblins will be a finished, printed reality.

The most interesting lesson I have learned from the course material is the amazing level of similarity between game design and social science research. Many of the concepts of good game design - iteration, hands-on approaches, workshopping ideas with others - have fascinating correlations to ethnographic approaches and anthropological theory. In anthropology we often have to go into the field to gather data and create hypotheses, which we test through iterative studies. Because of the varied nature of human behaviors, we have to constantly prepared to make observations and alter our theories to adapt to new data, just as game designers vigilantly test their new games on their peers and fellow players. I feel like game designed seemed so natural to me from the beginning, because I had already been learning the concepts from it for years - just under a different name.

In the end, there can be no doubt that I was able to envelop myself in games this semester - playing, designing, reading, and certainly writing, about them. It was an immersive experience that I feel made me grow both as an aspiring game designer and social science researcher. My goal now - besides making games that might someday see the retail shelf - is to take these lessons into my graduate research and to make Affinity - the game I am designing with Dr. Larry Bogad and fellow SJSU graduate student Chelsea Halliwell - an impactful game which will help to teach people about activism and social movements, which seems more and more to be a timely goal, given current geopolitical and environmental situations.

We can only hope - and design

A History of Violence - Playing Super Columbine Massacre RPG

Background
I chose to play this game for extra credit for a somewhat personal reason - in 1999, I was a sophomore in high school. I wore black clothes, listened to 'strange' music (see: heavy metal), played violent video games, and watched a lot of dark movies (for the record, little of this has changed since, besides maybe adding more color to my wardrobe). When April 20th rolled around, and news of the Columbine massacre began to dominate the airwaves, I was, naturally, horrified at the events, scared for the victims and their families, and emotionally distraught by the overall implications of the events. This was the first major school shooting that I was personally aware of, and it certainly colored my perception, permanently altering my own - and many others' - sense of safety and security while at school.

After the initial horror set in, I began to think about the effects this would have on my life. On an immediately personal level - because of the external profile I fit - I knew I would be in for a bumpy ride. I think I was instantly aware that I would be an instant target of suspicion following the massacre. It didn't matter that I was a gregarious and fun-loving kid. I knew I would be guilty by association. It didn't take long before people began looking at me a bit more cautiously. Within about a week, a bathroom on campus was defaced with graffiti making racially-changed threats of a copycat attack. I actually reported this to a teacher, and was quickly called to the school office, where I found that word had gotten to authorities that I was actually responsible for the messages. It took some explaining to clear things up, and still for quite some time I was treated like a suspect.

So playing Super Columbine Massacre RPG was a deeply personal experience for me.

The Game
For starters, the resolution of the game didn't play nice with my setup, so the text was very difficult to read. Besides that, the music and the aesthetic of the game created an almost whimsical feel that seemed very much at odd with the game itself - possibly an intentional design by the creators. The midi versions of popular alternative songs from the 90s were instantly recognizable, and somehow haunting given the circumstances. Exploring the first house and finding little relics that I instantly recalled from the news media reports at the time was a creepy reminder of all the swirling imagines and scapegoated artists at the time, such as Marilyn Manson and id Software, creators of Doom. The flashbacks to Harris and Klebold's antisocial behaviors, and the manner in which the characters interact in the game, capture a fairly believable retelling of what these two were potentially like, and the integration of their actual recorded words often serves as a striking reminder that this game is inspired by the real-life tragedy.

The gameplay was somewhat frustrating at first - I got 'caught' by cameras and hall monitors as I moved through the halls, and it was annoying to constantly be pushed back to the beginning. The lack of clear instructions for things like planting bombs in the cafeteria, and the constant need to avoid detection, did a fair job of representing how the killers executed their plan, though the lack of real consequences for detection were somewhat laughable. Collecting their weapons in the video game-like "you got CO2 bombs!" matter the game implemented was darkly comic. After that, however - when the game becomes about killing innocent bystanders - it got a bit too real for me. It was difficult to click the attack buttons, knowing that this was based on real events, even if I knew that this game was attempting to deconstruct these events in a critical way. The killers' celebration of each kill made me feel a bit queasy, and stalking through the halls to chase victims was emotionally trying. Honestly, I couldn't make it through much more of the game after the killing started. It shocked me and pushed me a bit farther than I was comfortable, and once I had breached the school again and began working through the halls, I had to call it quits for the time being. I'm not sure if I'll ever play Super Columbine Massacre RPG again, though I feel there is a strange merit to its existence.

Analysis
This game pushed a lot of buttons for me. For starters, it really does an excellent job of retelling the events, and uses plenty of information that will be familiar to those who payed attention to these events following the massacre, Moreover, it made me think deeply about what is usually kind of a under-analyzed concept in games - the implications of the killing we do in games. Slaying monsters in Final Fantasy is practically a non-point, a routine behavior I have done with glee for years. The weight of actions in this game changed that for me, at least within the context of the game.

Seeing the "Trench Coat Mafia" celebrate each kill was quite unnerving

I'm not saying that games make us killers, of course. When I play violent games I sometimes think about the actions I am undertaking - I finished Mad Max recently, and certainly though it was a bit dark that the game is basically about a rage-oholic murdering mentally ill transients in a shattered world. But I can easily disconnect that from reality, since the situation and the context are imaginary. Reality-based shooters like Call of Duty are not generally games I play, though I can certainly feel the inherent ambivalence of killing enemy combatants that seem realistic, though still the scenario is clearly fictional in my mind. In Columbine Massacre, however, it was much harder for me to separate the actions in the game from the stark reality of it, since I was acutely aware that these actions were based in reality, and that the victims were stand-ins for real people. This hit me quite hard. No other games has ever impacted me in such an emotional way that I couldn't keep playing, but this one did just that.

Still, I'm glad I chose to play. This was a powerful, personal experience. I was creeped out, mildly disturbed by the imagery and seeming callousness of it, but really I can appreciate that the creators were not glorifying violence but rather holding a light up to it, exposing the darker side of life through the powerful medium of games. For me at least, the experience was more impactful than watching a documentary film on the events, where I could separate myself from the action. Having to push the buttons to carry out the violence hit me in a profound way. I was no longer voyeuristic, and it was much harder for me to think of the victims in the game the way I would think of maniacs in Mad Max. Even with its cartoonish appears, an hour of violence in Super Columbine Massacre RPG will stay with me much longer than the thousands of hours I've spent killing fictional foes in other games, and I suspect that that was very much the intention of the creators.

Now I need to go do something a bit more peaceable, like reading War and Peace.

Back to the Drawing Board (Room)

Where It All Began
Ever since I began my paper prototype for my Intro to Game Studies class, I've been kind of obsessed with the game I have been designing (and - to be honest - a bunch of others I've thought of since). What started as a fairly bare-bones concept has started to come together into what I think is a pretty cool concept, one which borrows from a bit blackjack, rock-paper-scissors, and my own wacky D&D homebrew campaign setting, Yurth, where things are a lot like they are in the real world, just with fantasy races and strange magic. I knew fairly quickly that I wanted to use my evolving Yurth setting in a variety of games, and I have been hoping that people would find it equally humorous and compelling. So far, the reaction has been good.

A handful of people are probably familiar with the previous iteration of my game, Wizards of Wealthiness (a name which I have since re-purposed for a larger project for later), which I've been playtesting with friends, family, and classmates. Working out the early kinks, I got the game to a fairly stable and playable state, though some of the intricacies of the rules can still be a hangup for new players. The combo system is a bit more complicated than something that can use just icons and numbers, since different classes of card create different effects when played together or with their own 'suit.' Still, I feel like, overall, the game is just like any other retail card game - a bit confusing or overwhelming at first, but it becomes much more intuitive after just a short amount of play. This has been true of my playtests so far, at least.

People have enjoyed the theme and have actually asked to know more about the game world, which is great for me since I want to create a lot of content for this setting. Writing quotes, making character names, and adding bits of flavor throughout the game have been very satisfying and enjoyable experiences, Likewise, designing art has been fun. I decided to continue with the pixelated style I have been using since starting work on Space Investigator, because it seemed attainable and pixel art projects are viable today, given the plethora of tabletop and video games utilizing this old school aesthetic. My idea-mill has been churning out ideas, and now my little card game has a new face . . .

Punching clocks and battling years of oppression by the so-called "civilized" races

Revamping the Game
During a game of D&D a friend made passing mention of the idea of 'spokesgoblins' for characters in a fantasy-theme satire of real world corporate culture. The name really stuck with me, and I've been working on my home campaign setting of Yurth ever since with these fellows in mind. The brand of D&D I tend to play has a heavy focus on recasting traditional concepts of good and evil, 'civilized' and 'uncivilized,' and so on. I find the image of a goblin in a top hat and tux, working hard to rise up in a world that systematic oppresses his kind, compelling (and perhaps timely). So, shortly after I finished my paper prototype, I thought - after some light prodding by a couple friends who liked the idea - "Hey, I can reflavored this and the theme will be even better!" So, the first phase of Spokegoblins (and about the 4th phase of my original card game design) began.

I have a solid base, since I did plenty of conceptualizing and playtesting of the original prototype. The things I really need to do are to simplify the rules as much as possible (without sacrificing the fun and interesting parts of the game), continue to balance the system and the card combos, and create art assets and card, component, and box design materials. I'm leaning towards a lot of greens and golds for the box and primary cards, and some themed art for the cards that represent other fantasy races. I'm also in the process of rewriting all the rules material and flavor text, to bring it all in-line with the new core idea of golbins fighting over a job within their Magical Corporation - and avoiding being disintergated by their ruthless wizard bosses.

My wife, Chelsea, is helping me with some of the art, mostly with adding detail to make the initial assets I create 'pop' more. I have a lot of ideas for the main artistic concepts, but I'm still new to this and not very well versed in perspective or shading. The art combines concepts from the D&D cosmology with modern corporate culture - every Board Member has a logo, for example, and the cards including (hopefully) funny, anachronistic quotes from the personalties of the game world. Because I'm so heavily inspired by old school games and tons of pop culture, my designs tend to be filled with homages to various media, though not always in easily-identifiable ways. For example, the dwarven Board Member is Hilda Hammerfall, based on Swedish power metal band Hammerfall, while the human, Bob Johnson, is a very subtle reference from Mystery Science Theater 3000. It is funny for me, if nothing else.

Sample art from the elven, halfling, demonic, and angelic Board Member cards

If I have time, I also want to create some unique characters that players will take on the role of, each of which will have special powers and their own art. This is ending up being a bigger endeavor that I expected, however, and this leg of the project might have to wait until another iteration, or expansion. I am currently on my 8th overall rewrite of the rules and game effects, and I still want to playtest a lot more to iron everything out. I've gotten great suggestions and learned quite a bit about the game from watching people play and playing it myself. I'm happy with Spokesgoblins so far, and I think the changes make it a viable retail game, if I can work out the kinks and create a cogent art style. Time will tell.

GO-ing with the Flow

How Did I Get Here?
Frankly, I never intended to try Pokemon GO (I figure my friends have put in enough time for me) but I suppose I should have suspected that as a student of game design, I was going to have to see what this craze was all about. When I was given a class assignment to play the game and write about it, I decided to go into the game armed only with what I knew from talking to people about it. So here I am, to tell you my thoughts and reactions to the first (and most likely, only) hour and a half of Pokemon GO I played.

For starters, my phone won't even run the app, so I had to borrow my wife, Chelsea's, phone to complete this assignment. Because of this, I decided to create a female avatar that was more or less modeled after her. Picking a name was kind of a hassle - I'd say the first 10 or so options I tried were taken (seriously guys, why not have a feature that tells you that BEFORE you have to go through the whole submit button thing?) Finally I was able to come up with something that worked - SleepyStarz, because my wife sleeps a lot, and I like stars. Flawless logic.

A (tired) star is born

My Life as a Poke-Trainer

I selected Charmander as my starting Pokemon because I used to have the original Pokemon Red, and also dragons are rad. Then I made my first real catch from the comfort of my own home, but of course it wasn't long before I had to break out and walk around to find the little buggers (funny aside though - I literally just loaded up the game while writing this, then a Meowth appeared within my reach, and as I was catching it my cat jumped into the camera's view - that was kind of awesome.) I decided to take the game on a little walk to get a coffee. 

I live right on the border of Oakland in Piedmont, so I walked down Grand Avenue towards the Coffee Mill, a favorite spot of Chelsea and mine. I didn't have much luck on the way, but as I appropriated the trendy area near the historic Grand Lake Theater, I was able to grab a few more Pocket Monsters, including a Krabby, which prompted a few tasteless jokes on my part that I won't repeat here. I also saw the landmark feature for the first time, as a little icon on the GPS map showed me a cool stained glass window in a shop across the street from the Coffee Mill. I didn't have much luck finding Pokemon on my first trip, though, partly because I wasn't too apt to be walking around in broad daylight with my nose buried in my (wife's) phone. I needed a better environment.

I decided my best bet was to take a nighttime walk through Piedmont (a quiet town with very empty streets after dark) so Chelsea and I strolled through the chilly evening air to hunt - er, catch - Pokemon. As we walked down our street, I snagged a couple critters (including a Mankey, which I was fair stoked about, as a primatology enthusiast) and had some luck as we ascend the steep street on our journey into upper Piedmont. Using the GPS map, I saw that there was a Pokemon Gym at the elementary schools in the center of town, but I was only level 3, so not high enough to fight at the gym.

We continued our walk, catching Pokemon as we went, and my level was slowly creeping up, I hit level 4 as we passed a few active Pokestops at the various businesses in the center of town. We'd already passed the school with the gym, but as we wound our way through the park I got some lucky catches, and finally made it to level 5. I joined Team Mystic (since  they seemed to alight best with what I'd think Chelsea would want and I was using her phone) and we decided to wind back to the school and check out the gym battles. I had no point of reference, and no idea how to battle. The gym contained a sporty yellow dude called Alakazam. "How hard can it be?" I wondered.

My Pokemon are represented by the guy in the black trunks

What Am I Supposed to be DOING?

I lost - badly - to Alakazam. Twice. Before taking Pokemon GO for my walk, I talked to my friend Jorge, who has been playing the game for a while. He basically told me to fight in a battle I had to rapidly push the screen. I tried that, and Alakazam wiped out 12 of my Pokemon (6 in each battle). It was kind of disheartening. At this point, Chelsea's phone battery was dying, so rather than keep collecting the little monsters, I quit the app and we made our way home.

After the Meowth I caught while writing this, I ended with 17 Pokemon in my Pokedex. Catching them is fairly easy, but I still have no point of reference about how the game is really supposed to be played. There aren't really any tutorials or much in the way of helpful menus. Jorge basically said that part of the game is interacting with the community online or asking your friends how to play. I wanted to see how much I could figure out on my own, but having seen the gym battles, I know that - if I was going to play again, which I probably will not - I would need to watch some examples online and read up on doing battles.

Jorge also told me about some of the upgrades and the resources in the game, but I had a bit of trouble following. To my mind, the game has an uneven amount of depth for a system that is relatively basic. The turn based battles of the original Pokemon for Game Boy made sense to me intuitively, as someone who is well versed in similar combay systems like those in older Final Fantasy games and Dragon Warrior/Quest. For Pokemon GO, on the other hand, I kind of relied on word-of-mouth to know what was going on, but this was clearly a limiting factor. This is actually a decent implementation for a game that ostensibly is designed to make people more active and social. Crowd-sourcing information about mechanics is a fine approach, in my mind. People love Pokemon and are certainly using those resources.

For me, there simply isn't enough interest in the source material to be keep my interest. I picked up the basic stuff just because I am culturally literate enough to have known about Pokemon GO and had talked to friends about how it works before. I knew I had to walk around to find Pokemon, and I figured out the 'flick your Pokeball at the Pokemon and hope to catch them" thing, but the rest of the game seems to require either a lot of trial-and-error, or a level of commitment to the game that I simply am not motivated enough to dedicate to. There is a really good chance that if, someone made a similar game where you wander around and fight D&D monsters, I would be instantly on-board (and now I'm giving myself an idea). I feel like interest in this kind of game is likely primarily predetermined by one's existing interest in the series.

So, it seems that my future interactions with Pokemon will continue to be contained exclusively within Honest Trailers, and their great lists of Pokemon names.

Gah put it out put it out!

Click here if you don't mind dirty jokes

I made a game!

If you have been following along with me, you know I recently began work on a prototype for a side-scrolling adventure game - along with my partner, Soneer - for our ART108 class at SJSU. After our initial phase of concept building and content creation, we have a playable prototype with 2 levels which you can play with the link here.

Space Investigator

a game by

Soneer Sainion (programmer, producer)

&

Jamieson Mockel (artist, designer)

with Creative Comments music by Tanner Helland - http://www.tannerhelland.com/

The creation of Space Investigator has been a fun process, getting to collaborate on a project that I was initially worried that I would be unable to contribute much to. In my last post, I discuss my journey in becoming something akin to an artist and creating the game world with Soneer, my programming whiz partner and co-conspirator in SPACE CRIME THRILLERS! We've spent a few weeks fine-tuning the game and making the best possible version, and now I am here to walk you through it.

Designing and Playing Space Investigator

In Space Investigator, you take on the role of Buzz Asimov, a detective in a spacesuit and duster who has arrived on the moon colony to solve a series of murders. When you load up the game, you will be treated to a haunting melody from Tanner Helland's Creative Commons collection called "Deeper." We selected it because it just has this great, spacey and mysterious vibe. I created the other sound effects using sfxr, an awesome program you can grab here - seriously go check it out if you want to make game sound effects or just mess around with virtual dials.

Yon control Buzz using the arrow keys left and right. Space bar jumps, E is used to interaction with sentient creatures and objects, and Z shoots the gun once you find it. You must scale platforms by jumping onto them, and collect items along the way to complete various tasks.

In level 1, you start out near a wounded alien and Buzz will provide a quick prompt about solving the crime. You can talk to the wounded alien, but alas! He does not speak a language you recognize. Look around the screen and you will see some items sitting on platforms - these are your objectives for level one. There is a translator card that allows you to talk to the alien, a health kit to heal his wounds, and a keycard needed to leave the area. Buzz's rocket boots help him jump around on the moon's zero-G atmosphere, but beware! The jumps can be treacherous, and the roiling purple ooze will steal any items Buzz has collected and send him back to the beginning!

If you manage to help the alien out, he will give you a clue that will be a big help in level 2, but I'll avoid spoilers and let you figure that out as you progress through the game. Needless to say, there are some riddles to solve, and if you apprehend the wrong perpetrator then it is game over, and you'll start back at the beginning of level 1! Pay attention to the clues you receive, and leave no stone unturned.

Current Issues

The game has come a long way, but still has a few things that need to be addressed:

• Misprint in the title screen - but I have already submitted a new splash screen to Soneer, complete with Star Trek-esque italics text!
• The ground blocks might be disportionately detailed when compared to other art assests, so some new tiles might need to be made
• Some of the jumps are a bit tight, with low ceilings. This is especially true in level 2 and may lead to frustrating restarts from falling into ooze
• One possible fix here is to allow the character to keep his collected items after falling in the ooze
• Some unused art assets to round out the game, including a translator device and different colors for translator cards
• We've gotten feedback that the hazardous ooze might not look immediately hazardous, so warning signs might be implemented
• Players want more narrative, including backstory for Buzz and more dialogue to explain what is going on in the story (we have concepts for this but could not include everything for this build due to time constraints)
• The aliens in level 2 are a bit small and might need to be upscaled
• There is a glitch that has been an issue from the first build where Buzz ocassionally gets 'stuck' on tiles and kind of floats in place - this happens much more rarely now but can still occur at seemingly random times
• The red guard alien on level 2 needs to be animated to give it some personality

Parting Shots - What Could Be

I've enjoyed being part of the Space Investigator team. We conceptualized something that blends 2D platforming with an adventure game dynamic, and I think we have a nice groundwork for it. There is a lot of potential to pull from adventure games, such as including an inventory, allowing the player to move between different areas to solve particular parts of the crime, and fleshing out the story in an interesting way, with plot twists and intrigue. Of course we'd need to balance the platforming aspects with the usual feature of the less-brutal adventure games of not really being able to lose complete (if you grew up with King's Quest you know the danger of crossing a bridge too many times).

I'd want to borrow more from the adventure genre to create a fun and humorous experience without losing what makes platformers fun, and that would require a very delicate hand, since the two styles - adventure and 2D platforming - have fairly different core mechanics. Games like Psychonauts have shown that platforming and adventure can play nice, and Dex is a cool example of this in a side-scroller, but I'd like to create something that could be played more episodically, in shorter bursts, with some Mario-like challenges - scaling but never punishing - but also some puzzles that require close reading and deduction skills to get through.

At this point I feel like I'd need to sit down and write a script, then design lots of characters to meet while someone else creates good platforming levels to plug the bits into. The charm of the game would be in the at direction and the writing, but without solid stage design, we'd never hold the audience long enough to want to experience the whole thing. I think it would be a fun project, but perhaps a bit out of my depth at the current juncture. Still, Space Investigator has - in my opinion -  lot of potential, and we've gotten some really great feedback that has inspired me to think of ways to make the experience even better.

For now though, I'll leave you with some cut/currently unused art assets.

A translator device, which can have translation cards slotted in it to understand aliens

An alien in a button down shirt and tie

A door inspired by Mega Man

A teleportation device

A possible stage design, with moving platforms

Thanks for reading. Keep gaming on!

New Skillset Unlocked!

Technical Bits

Name of the Game: Space Investigator

My goal in the project: artist and designer

Tech demo here

What we want to address: how are effective platforming levels designed in a way that doesn't make going back and forth to look for clues/evidence a tedious process?

Me, Doing Art?!

I can't stress enough that I didn't think I could be an artist.

Let's unpack that statement a bit. I do think of myself as a writer and a poet, and I believe that writing is an art. I'm talking about visual artistry here: drawing, painting, digital art. You get the drill.

I'm also not saying I'm particularly good at it. My work is fairly basic and a little flat, but hey, it's a start.

So yeah, today I'm calling myself an artist.

Jamieson learned the power of art!

"How did you get here," you may ask? It started with a playing card, and it lead to the internet.

I was assigned the somewhat vague role of "artist" for my class video game prototype assignment (my first response? "Writing is an art." Like I said: writer.) "Well," I thought. "I hope the art doesn't need to be very good." I'll let you decide whether or not it is, in the end. My partner, Soneer, was amenable to the fact that I had virtually no clue what to do, and said we could just work through it. He'd handle the programming, I just had to go find out how to make some basic assets.

Let the games begin.

First thing first, we needed a theme and a concept to start with. We both instantly gravitated (no pun intended . . . okay, pun intended) to a sci-fi themed space platformer where gravity would be a factor. But not just any platformer! So running and gunning in our game. Instead, a mystery. The player would traverse the treacherous landscape and solve crimes. A space cop, if you will.

Little did we know, another brilliant mind beat us to it.

With our concepts in mind, we discussed production and ideas to implement. We were both (mercifully) okay with old-school 8-bit style graphics. The game would take place on a moon (not necessarily THE Moon) with a colony of peaceful people who were beset by saboteurs trying to destroy the civilization there. During the game, players would meet aliens who they could not understand, and would have to find translators by exploring the elevated platforms throughout the levels. After this, they find clues to what happened by talking to aliens and making dedications to answer that age-old question, "Whodunit?" Once we had this sorted out, we set off into the wild green yonder of creating our masterpiece.

Well, *I* set off to YouTube, to figure out what in the blue hell I was doing.

I won't regal you with a blow-by-blow account of me watching hours of videos about doing digital art, but I will tell you that I spent hours watching videos about how to make digital art. I will, however, absolutely give major props to YouTuber Achebit and his series, "How To Pixel Art." Check his stuff out here. If it wasn't for this, I might have spent even more time blundering around the internet, praying for mercy.

Or just wishing I could play WWF No Mercy, one of my all-time favorite games

I also futzed around with programs to use for making the art. I got Photoshop from SJSU's software program thingy, but was instantly daunted by the sheer scale of it. I used to use Photoshop all the time at my old job, but mostly just for photo manipulation. I also tried a Japanese program with no eraser tool, but seriously there was NO ERASER TOOL. Then I actually went back to good ol' Achebit, who transitioned to using the unfortunately-named GIMP early in his videos. Works for me.

My Process

I've had a bit of trouble with GIMP, mostly because of the toolbox being wonky and also because the select and drag options are kinda craptastic, but overall it has served me well enough to do what I need to do. Then I needed *ahem* 'inspiration' (see: something to steal ideas from). I found some pixel art samples and came up with the concept I wanted to create: a character in a spacesuit and trench coat, partially inspired by an action figure of Gambit from the X-Men I keep on my desk. I basically traced out some pixel images I saw online and changed them to include the features I wanted from the Gambit figure. My first efforts are below, recorded for posterity.

Glorious!

I wasn't thrilled with these two for a couple reasons, the most glaring to me being the difficulty I imagined in animation the tall one's awkward limbs and the small one's stumpy stature. I needed something to reference that I could see animated examples of. Then I thought of Risk of Rain, which I helped demo in class. It has a fairly simple sprite style (though I realized later that it has a lot more going on than one might expect at first glance) and I started looking through Google images of the game, and found this handsome devil, the bandit:

Bingo: Inspired

He even had the jack and hat. This would become the basis for my main character design, a character I had dubbed Buzz Aasimov (inspired, of course, by Buzz Aldrin and Isaac Aasimov). Having something that I knew was a functional sprite was a great jumping off point for me. I've worked on a few animations for Buzz, and created a simple sprite sheet.

Pictured: a lot of time, in digital form

I kind of followed a similar formula making other assets, For space backgrounds, I've just looked at pictures of actual skies and tried a bunch of brush and pen patterns in GIMP. For blocks and pillars I just kind of think about other games I've played and how they look. Generally I worked in either 16x16 or 32x32 pixels, then expand when I add animations. If I need to work on the go, I use a draft notebook of graph paper and colored pencils. For animations, I similarly think of games I've seen in the past and just the way people (or aliens) might move. I try to give sprites a bit of bounciness or quirky things to do. Backgrounds are still intimidating, but I give it my best, experimenting with all the tools GIMP has. And when I need something like a space ship, I just use Google image search and copy an idea. I look around my environment for inspiration.

In the below image, the space background was actually inspired by my tattoo sleeve, and the ship was a toy I found on Google.

Stylin' and profilin'

It is interesting to note, I remembered part way through this project that I used to effectively do the same thing in Mario Paint for the SNES when I was a teenager. It had a similar pixel art program and a mouse that attached to the SNES console, and I would basically copy characters like Link and Samus and put them on paint-by-numbers-like backgrounds. Maybe the art was in me all along. After all, someone once said, "Good artist copy; great artists steal."

Some aliens who inhabit the world of Space Investigator

A new designer enters the arena

I've always had machinations about becoming a game designer, and for a long time I wanted to make video games, having been mystified by the potential of making the kinds of games I want to play and possibly having a bit of money to show for it. But in light of the recent views into the grueling video game industry, this fantasy has shattered a bit. More than anything, I'm am a writer and an 'ideas person,' certainly no graphic artist or programmer. I am, however, beginning to fancy myself a game designer - especially board games - and I'm taking rather quickly to the new material I am learning as I engulf myself in design literature and delve into the intimidating and fascinating world of GameMaker. To start off on this journey, I've been working on learning critical play skills and "playing like a designer." So let's talk about a part of this adventure. Tallyho!

                                                 May the dice be ever in your favor

ART108 Video Game Lab

My partner, Nathan Tsen, and I selected a handful of games to try out for our lab assignment from the list of potential titles. Rather than letting my own biases guide me to games I would be familiar with, I picked titles mostly randomly (though I couldn't turn down the description of You Have to Burn the Rope being for "culturally aware, literate" people. I'm at least one of those things). In our short time block, we played There is Only One Level, You Have to Burn the Rope, QWOP, Wizard Wizard, How to Be Happy, and Canabalt, a fairly diverse selection of games featuring different mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics (boom!) We alternated play between my Chromebook (which cannot play games that require installation of a executable file) and Nathan's laptop. The result may shock you - if you are easily shocked by two guys playing video games

How To Be Happy
This was one of those moments where I just said, "Ok, yeah, I get it." How To Be Happy is an abstract dating sim told through the aesthetic of puzzle pieces (get it? Because being in a relationship is like . . . ah you get it). It's clever, short, and basic - the game doesn't tell you what to do, per se, but you can figure it out just by trying a few things and watching for the feedback. For example, at one point your 'puzzle piece' mate begins fading away and you just quickly click on it to keep it from leaving. Nathan and I both played and finished it fairly quickly - once you get past the second puzzle you can pretty much finish the game is a couple minutes, and we both did so without failing after about the halfway point.

                   Pictured: (Not really) an accurate metaphor for the relationships in my life

How To Be Happy does a great job of using aesthetics and feedback dynamics to tell its story. In the first stage where you 'pick a mate,' some options are just not available at all - the puzzle pieces move away from your pointer. On the second stage, you see if your piece and the 'mate' you selected can even fit together - if not, the game restarts and takes you back to the first stage, where you have to try again to find a piece that your piece 'fits' with. The game is completely abstract, so that is as deep as it goes, but it creates a functional metaphor with very few words or systems. The assets are simple, the dynamics function and provide feedback that helps tell the story, and the game makes it point aesthetically without belaboring its metaphor.

Canabalt
Canabalt is a fast-paced infinite runner where your sprite is charging across rooftops and through buildings. The art style is relatively simple black-and-white graphics but it is surprisingly beautiful - at least as much as you can see it while trying to anticipate death-defying jumps! There is only one control (jump) so the game is all about timing and anticipation. I made it fairly far on my first run, but I expect the game probably just goes on forever, keeping track of the distance you run to measure your score.

                   Pictured: A (possibly more accurate) metaphor for my life in grad school

The aesthetic is arguably interchangeable but the look and feel of the game is reminiscent of an action movie, with the player sprite in his suit complete with tie waving in the wind as you race across the map. Pit and obstacle placement and height of jumps are the primary mechanical design elements, with the dynamics coming from the pulse-pounding responses to upcoming and completed jumps. The game feels exciting because of the pace, the music, and the fact that the layout of the map is different every time, which forces the player to pay close attention to their environment. There is also a bit of control over your jumps in terms of holding the jump key down to get a bit more height or hangtime.

Wizard Wizard
Wizard Wizard is in some ways the most traditional video game on the set we played. While the controls are still relatively simple, the player does actually control a sprite by moving and jumping, and the level design is more varied and challenge-based than some of the other games. Aesthetically I like the design because I have a huge nostalgia factor for 8- and 16-bit games, and who doesn't want to be a wizard at any opportunity? Though not getting to cast spells just feels, kind of low... Anyways. The game is about escalating challenges in getting through short 'deathtrap' levels, mostly a combination of pitfalls and saw blade traps,

                                                            "You're a wizard, 'Arry." 
                                             "Does that mean I get to cast spells, Hagrid?"                        
    "No, you're just doomed to constantly repeat all your mistakes, and you can never actually die."
                                                                      "Oh god!"

The game provides a solid challenge without punishing the player too much, since death just starts you back at the beginning of the (single screen) level. You usually advance through a combination of planning (looking at the stage and using your judgment gleaned from playing or watching another player) and trial-and-error (jump, die, repeat). The aesthetics are fairly replaceable - you could slap in the dude from Cababalt and change the mountains and floating platforms to skyscrapers and cranes and effectively have the same game. My biggest issue with Wizard Wizard was the fact that the hit detection feels off. Sometimes I would get caught by a saw blade even though my sprite should have ostensibly cleared it. This bug in the mechanics really hurts the dynamics of the game, since precise jumps are basically what it is about.

Looking at the source code for Wizard Wizard was interesting. I don't know the first thing about code, but in my head I expected such a simple game to have relatively few things in its code. I was surprised by the amount of content - not that I understood much of it - that went into a game that doesn't have any control more complicated than 'double jump.' I started thinking about Risk of Rain, which I played in front of the class and have hours of prior experience with, and began to think how much coding must have gone into what I initially considered to be a deep but possibly attainable level of design, if I gave myself enough time. Now I'm less confident that I'll be able to make something with jumping, shooting, and weapon choices any time soon.

Playing Versus Observing
When I was playing a few of these games, I would get frustrated by the controls. I'm not a huge fan of playing on a keyboard, especially for action games. For one, the layout doesn't usually work great with diagonal controls, and most of the time using the arrow keys is much more difficult for me since I usually use my left hand to control my sprite, rather than my right. I enjoy the puzzle aspects of the games we played, and figuring things out was interesting usually but also occasionally it was obtuse (I'm looking at you, mouse-controlled levels in There Is Only One Level!) In some cases, I would give up faster than Nathan, who was determined to complete the levels in each game.

Watching another player is interesting because I can compare my own experiences and learn more about game design. The above-mentioned mouse levels in There Is Only One Level threw me off - as soon as I got to one, I fumbled around for a bit with the keyboard, got nowhere, and gave up. When Nathan played, once he realized that the keyboard wasn't working, he started clicking and solved the puzzle. I laughed at myself for giving up without trying the mouse, and tried again, getting farther.

Similarly, Nathan played Wizard Wizard first and I watched and got acclimated to the game without actually playing. He got through a few levels and passed the controls to me, and I was able to progress through some pretty challenging stages just because of my own experience with games and watching how this one in particular worked through observation. My own familiarity with platformers gave me most of the skills I needed to play, and watching another player let me know what to expect.

Comparison: Canabalt and How To Be Happy
Comparing Canabalt to How To Be Happy is an interesting experiment, since on many levels they are very different kinds of games. That being said, both require you to play - and fail - a few times to anticipate what has to be done to progress through each game.Trial and error are major components of both. Conversely, the games have different degrees of telling the player how exactly to play. Canabalt has simple controls and tells you right away what to press, though you have to figure out for yourself that the point of the game is to jump over pits and through windows; meanwhile How To Be Happy gives you little to go on - it might say, "click" or "fit" but you have to figure out what that means for every stage. Both games, however, feel intuitive if you are paying attention. You'll know what you are jumping over in Canabalt, and the use of puzzle pieces in How To Be Happy assures that you likely know what you are fitting together. The mechanics help tell the player about the dynamics, without having to just spell it out in a tutorial.

All that being said, in How To Be Happy, there isn't really a challenge beyond the first attempt, so replay is kind of nonexistent. Plenty of abstract games are replayable (chess or checkers, anyone?) but How To Be Happy just kind of tells it story and then you can move on. From a designer's point of view, this might not exactly be what you want from your players. Canabalt is simpler in a way but has more replayablity since you can always try to get a longer run. You can compete with friends' scores or just try to get a better run each play.There is no set endpoint, and the scoring mechanism gives you feedback to go on. How To Be Happy begins and ends, and that's kind of it. You might have to restart 5 or 6 times to get the right piece to start with, but after that you are kind of done.

Actually, the rest of the How To Be Happy played out in my head, as I have still been considering the metaphors after I played, so maybe the designers just created a game with a different kind of replayability. Well played, indeed.

                                          That's what game design is all about, folks!