Design issues faced when developing Mr Cheeseys spelling fun

With particular reference to the readings you have undertaken this year what are the major design issues you have faced in developing a game for Key Stage 1 children

In this essay im going to discuss the main design issues that have been faced in the making of our groups KS1 game ‘Mr Cheesey’s Spelling Fun’.

Mr Cheesey’s spelling fun is a KS1 game with the aim of teaching children how to spell. To make the game fun and educational, it has two parts to it so to speak. The first part is a platform style game with the aim of working your way through the levels collecting the letters placed within; this is what I would consider the ‘fun’ aspect of the game. The second part is a drag and drop style game where the player uses the letters collected within the previous level and places them in the correct order to spell out a word using the hints, this is the most educational part of the game as the players has to use their own spelling skills with minimal help to move on to the next level. In the designing/development of the game we had to constantly keep in mind the target audience and the fact that the game had to teach.

We knew our target audience was children aged 5-7, but we needed to fully understand our target audience so we could make a successful game. Brenda Brathwaite and Ian Schreiber speak about the importance of a designer understanding the target audience so they can design a game that would be suitable. They also state that it is not a good idea to look at other games with the same target audience as a method of researching them. ‘even for the products that are successful, it is not always clear why they are successful and if you copy the wrong parts while missing that one subtle thing that makes those products work, your project is dead’. I disagree with this point. When researching our target audience, we researched and played other games that were aimed at KS1 children and had the objective of teaching a KS1 subject. This process actually taught us a lot about our target market. Whilst playing a variety of these games we could see the consistencies that were used in the colours, graphic style and the simplicity in the workings of the game. This taught us not only about what most appeals to our target market but also what is suitable for them i.e. simple controls and not over complicated reading. We were able to experience these types of teaching games as the player and evaluate weather they were fun or talk about how they could be improved. This gave us a list of the ‘dos and don’ts’ that we could apply to our game during the design process.    

In Hunicke, Leblanc and Zuberk’s paper they discuss the Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics framework and how a designer’s perspective of a game would be different to that of the player. ‘it is helpful to consider both the designer and player perspectives’.  To do this we had to look at the aesthetics of our game since this is what a player would focus on first. ‘thinking about the player encourages experience-driven (as opposed to feature-driven) design’ (Hunicke, Leblanc, Zuberk, 2004:2). 

When talking about aesthetics in a game the language that can be used is limited, so Hunicke, Lablanc, Zuberk refer to a list of 8 words.

   

         

(Hunicke, Leblanc, Zuberk, 2004:2). When using these words and meanings to describe the aesthetics we want to achieve in Mr Cheesey’s spelling fun we hoped it would be Fantasy, Challenge, Expression and Submission. We had already achieved fantasy in the design of the characters being based on foods and with the story of Mr Cheesey. Submission was something we decided would be important to our game as we would want the KS1 children to want to play the game and to keep playing the game. To achieve this we had to not only design the game to stand out by using appealing bright colours and quirky characters, but also use a different style of play we had not seen in similar teaching games so we could keep our game interesting. This is what sparked the idea of having two elements to our game.  Challenge and Expression are obvious aesthetic choices for our game because the goal of the game is that it has to teach and these are elements that come with that.  Using the dynamics of the game we created challenge by incorporating a life system into the platform level as well as including two enemies that try to hinder the player in collecting the letters. Expression is something that is mostly seen in the spell screen of the game. The player uses there own skills to work out what they have to spell with only one hint and this will help develop there spelling skills. This creates the teaching process with in the game.

 Although there was challenge within the game with the purpose of teaching, there was no real reward for it. Not one that can be considered as a ‘fun’ reward so that  it would appeal to the target audience. Hunicke, Leblanc and Zurberk go on to talk about the aesthetic model in their article and state ‘if a player doesn’t see a clear winning condition or feels like they can’t possibly win, the game is suddenly a lot less interesting’. This is an element as designer we wanted to avoid. No one would want a game they were designing to become un-interesting or feel like a pointless effort, especially with a target market that is prone to become distracted easily.  We came up with the idea of having a treasure chest and with each level completed the player is rewarded with a key. The player can then use the key to unlock the chest and reveal a printable certificate. This seemed to solve this problem and would appeal to our target market. We had to start thinking from a designer’s perspective now and consider how we could make these different parts work together and how to keep the repetitive parts of the game ‘fun’.      

Marcos Venturelli in his case study for PopCap talks about the space of possibility in casual games. He states ‘taking the definition of ‘fun’ as being pleasure with surprises (Schell 2008), when there are no more surprises there is no more fun’. The certificate at the end of the game is really the only surprise for the player within our game, but we designed the characters and levels so that they would be quirky, complex and visually interesting so that they would also contain a ‘fun’ factor. He goes on to talk about the patterns within games and the way the players try and work them patterns out. ‘if all the patterns are figured out the game becomes un-interesting’. Patterns in a game directly affect the complexity of it. Our target market is aged 5-7 so a complex game could become frustrating to them so we had to find a way to keep the game as interesting as possible other then using lots of patterns to increase the complexity. Examples of other KS1 game used animations and visuals to do this so, we went about designing our game to be as visually interesting as possible. Venturelli also talks about another technique we used to keep the game interesting, Pacing. ‘to create relaxation,tenson and repetition the designer paces the game’. By pacing the game to create different player experiences we can keep it interesting and fun.  

 ‘Pacing is a concept related to the overall rhythm of the game, the relevant speed at which the different moving parts of the system are put in motion’. (Venturelli, 2009: 2). Venturelli goes on to talk about the tempo in games. ‘Higher Tempo means that the player’s decision-making is slow, and he is either waiting for some change of state on the system, thinking about his movment, or simply confused. Lower tempo represents more frantic decision-making by the player’ (Venturelli, 2009: 3). The tempo of Mr Cheesey spelling fun changes when you move on from the platform game to the drag and drop task. The platform part of the game has a Low tempo as the player can be quite rash about moving around the level and not have to pause and think for more than a second or two about where to move. The life’s that the player is given at the beginning of the level provide a cushion for this rash thinking so that the player learns through mistakes made during game play rather than through thought. The drag and drop screen is the opposite of this. The spell screen has a high tempo as the goal is to spell out the word and this means that the player has to stop and think about there next move before making it. With the use of animations to smooth the transition between the two tempos, this change of tempo in Mr Cheesey’s spelling fun gives the player different experiences whilst playing. This takes the repetitive feeling away from the game thus keeping the attention of the target market.     

  

In conclusion I feel that there were a few issues in developing a game for KS1 children but they were over come due to the fact we took the time to get to know are target market and designed the game around their wants. ‘thinking about the player encourages experience-driven (as opposed to feature-driven) design’ (Hunicke, Leblanc, Zuberk, 2004:2).  This is the key way to over come design issues as you have to remember you’re designing a game for a specific audience, the designers views on what looks better are irrelevant. It’s all about what the market wants.  Doug church sums up what the role of a designer is in his article ‘“As a designer, you still have to figure out what is fun, what your game is about, and what vision and goals you bring to it ” (Church, 1999:4). I think if you combine these two element as a designer you can make a successful game.

  

Bibliography

Church, D., Gamasutra - Features - Formal Abstract Design Tools. Available at: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3357/formal%20abstract%20design%20tools.php

LeBlanc, M., Zubek, R. & Hunicke, R., MDA: A formal approach to game design and game research. Discovery, 83(3), p.01–04.

Marcos Venturelli, Space of possibility and pacing in casual games design a PopCap case study 2009

Retro games review - BurgerTime

Burgertime

Burgertime is a frustratingly addictive arcade game released in 1982. You play as a chief called Peter Pepper who is assembling burgers whilst being chased by giant snausages and rotten eggs. Fear not though, you do have one defence against the bad ingredients. You can toss pepper at the bad food to stun them for a moment. The aim of the game is to assemble the burgers by walking over each part so it can drop down the levels until it finally lands on the plate at the bottom. You have to avoid the bad food as they chase you because if they touch you, you lose a life and have to start from the bottom of the level your playing on.

Burgertime was created by Data east (the now bankrupt Japanese video game developer and publisher) and was created for release on its DECO Cassette System. The game was popular in arcades when first released but never really became popular again when released on other consoles. One reason could be because games released with the newer consoles had much more interaction than games designed to be arcade games. 

Interaction

Interaction is something that makes Burgertime so frustrating. You (as the player) can navigate Peter pepper fully around the level and press the space bar to toss the pepper at any time but that’s as far as it goes. The frustrating part of this is that if you make one little mistake it could be game over. ‘Greg Costikyan’ wrote an article ‘I have no words and must design’ in which he breaks down gameplay into ‘identifiable chunks’. Interaction is one of those ‘Chunks’. 

‘The game stat changes in response to your decision. The outcome of the game will differ depending on your decision, the game interacts with the players’ (Costikyan- 1994)

If we look at the interaction as being when a player makes a decision that changes the outcome of the game, like Cosikyan’s method, the player has full control of the interaction in Burgertime. Every move the player makes determines the outcome of the game.  For example if an annoyingly smart snausage is on the platform to the left and the player chooses to go left they chose to loose a life and get one step closer to losing the game. If they move right they can avoid this. 

The interaction in Burgertime gives the game its addictiveness. Your every move can change the outcome of the game giving it that replayability that all arcade games need. After playing this game once, I grantee you would be hooked on trying to constantly improve and change the way you play the game to proceed to the next level and therefore achieve the games goal. 

Struggle and goals

There is only one aim of game: to stack the burgers to gain points. The way you go about doing this is essential to achieving this goal. You start the game with 5 lives and 5 sprays of pepper.  There are various ladders and platforms in each level making up a maze like arena for peter pepper to navigate around until all burgers in each level are fully made and you move on to the next level. All is not well though as bad toppings will try and prevent your burger making quest and they do get very annoying. There are two elements in the game that cause a struggle:

·      The bad toppings

·      The layout of the level

The bad toppings constantly chase after peter pepper all over the map. If a bad topping touches you, you will lose a life and from what I’ve played of the game there is no way to regain a life once lost. The amount of lives you have at the end of each level carries on through to the next, and its very hard for a first time player to learn to ration their lives so that they may have enough for the next level.  This is one negative aspect I’ve found with Burgertime, the lack of lives make it very hard to be able to play through all the levels (I myself only managed to get to level 3!). The Patience with how long a player will play a game can only go so far and I guarantee that this is a game that tests this patience.  The level structure has two major parts, the platform that peter pepper can run across and the ladders connecting the platforms in a maze like style. As you progress through the levels, the layout of the level gets increasingly harder for you to successfully navigate around. The spaces between ladders become smaller and it becomes difficult to dodge the toppings because of this. A slight touch from a topping takes a life. The pepper spray does help with tricky situations within the game, but there has been a few times whilst I’ve been playing the game that I’ve used the pepper, gone to run across the baddie and I’ve still died. The struggle within the game has a huge influence on the players’ experience. It causes one simple emotion that I’m sure I’ve mentioned at least twice in this review so far; frustration, pure blind frustration. However I think this is by far one of the best elements of Burgertime. It’s that frustration that causes the player to play just that one more time to see if they can get just a bit further.  Costikyan writes in his article that ‘a game is an interactive structure that requires players to struggle toward goals ’ and you can tell that this is an element in games that makes a game successful.

Endogenous meaning

The endogenous meaning in Burgertime is the burgers. The burgers are the objects within the game that have the most value. Once you stack each burger part on the tray you are rewarded with a number of points that total towards your high score. Burgers give you the most points within the game but in the real world there not the highest valued things.  Endogenous meaning is another ‘identifiable chunk’ of gameplay in Cosikyan’s article. He talks about what endogenous meaning actually is. ‘ A game’s structure creates it’s own meanings. The meaning grows out of the structure; it is caused by the structure; it is endogenous to the structure.’ The rules and objectives in the game create the endogenous meaning within Burgertime. The high score system means that any object that would give the player points in the game would create that object to have an endogenous meaning. The rule that you have to stack each part of the burger successfully before moving on to the next level would give the burger parts the highest value within the game and this create its endogenous meaning.  

Another object within the game that has an endogenous meaning is the ice cream. The ice cream appears from time to time in the middle of the level, but only for a short amount of time. If collected within the time limit you gain not only another ‘pinch’ of pepper but also the same amount of points you would get if you knocked a piece of burger onto the tray.  This is the only random element within the game and could help turn the game around for struggling players.

Types of game

Chance or that random element is an aspect of gameplay that is discussed in James Newman’s article. He talks about the variety of different types of games and how to categorize them.

‘agon in which competition is dominant; alea where chance and randomness are key; ilinx in which pleasure is derived from movement; and mimicry in which games are oriented around simulation’ (Newman- 2004)

If we were to look at what Newman has wrote and try to categorize Burgertime, it would belong to more than one category.  I believe that Burgertime is made up of mostly ilinx. This is because the movements are key to winning the game and moving on to the next level so when a right movement is made the player gets some happiness from that. I also believe that Burgertime is made up of Agon. Agon because of the competition of getting on the high score board on the game and also the competition of competing against the bad toppings.

Other variations of the game

In all remakes of the game the basic dynamics of the game have stayed the same. The mechanics of the game react the same to the player’s inputs.  There is one version of Burgertime that I want to take a look at and it’s called ‘patty panic’. The biggest difference with this version of the game is that it’s aimed at a completely different target audience. The mechanics remain the same as you still use the arrow keys to control you character and your only defence against the baddies is to throw pepper at them. What makes this version so different is that the graphics have been completely changed and as a result (I feel) the game has lost some of its charm. ‘Patty panic’ is a version of the game that is based on the cartoon show spongebob square pants and uses the characters from the show as well as the graphic style for a Burgertime revamp. After playing ‘patty panic’ I was a little disappointed for a few reasons. The feel of the original game had completely changed, which was surprising considering how little patty panic had changed compared to the original. There was none of that frustration or that driving force that the player experiences from playing the original.

In conclusion I feel that Burgertime is a fantastic game.  It really shows what retro games taught us about the basic principles of designing an enjoyable video game. It’s a game that I recommend to anyone who wants to play a game with great game mechanics and aesthetics that drive the player to play the game over and over.      

     

Bibliography

Costikyan, G. (2002) I have no words & I must design: Toward a critical vocabulary for games. In: Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference Proceedings. pp.9–33.

Newman J. (2004) what is a videogame? Rules, puzzles and simulations Defining the object of study pp 22

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BurgerTime