Description

Hollow Knight is a single-player 2D action-adventure game developed and published by Team Cherry. The player plays as the Knight, a small insect-like character that ventures into the ruins of a mysterious kingdom, Hallownest to uncover the secrets that lie within. As the game progresses, the player unlocks new abilities and upgrades in the classic metroidvania style.

Website Link: https://hollowknight.com/

Lens 9: Elemental Tetrad

Elemental Tetrad 1: Mechanics

The game may seem deceptively simple at first as the Knight moves around the map to kill enemies by swinging his sword, but it quickly becomes clear to the player that it is possible to interact with the environment. For example, the player can bounce off the enemy using his sword to reach a greater height to unlock areas, or even exploit enemy weak points. There are also obstacles that can only be destroyed with certain spells and equippable power ups(charms) that interact with each other differently to give different effects. These complex mechanics ensure that the player is engaged in constantly trying to master the new mechanics.

Elemental Tetrad 2: Story

The story of Hollow Knight begins with the Knight descending into the ruins of Hallownest, and as the player progresses along the game, they learn more about the story of Hallownest.

Elemental Tetrad 3: Aesthetics

The aesthetics revolve heavily around the story, from the muted blue of the walls of the Forgotten Crossroads reflecting the ruins of the Kingdom, to the snowy peaks of the Kingdom’s Edge, and even the pitch black of the Deepnest, each area in the game holds a theme which is tied in closely to the lore. Enemies are also designed based on the theme of the area, thus allowing the player to be even more immersed in the story.

Elemental Tetrad 4: Technology

The game is not very graphically intensive thus making it widely accessible for PCs, allowing many players to play it even with low settings. It was originally designed for PC before being released for consoles.

Lens 6: The Lens Of Curiosity

• Apart from the first cutscene of the game, which shows the Knight entering the first area, the story of the kingdom is mostly told indirectly through subtle hints and pieces of lore as the player progresses in the game, with no clear objective markers and only a map to guide the player.
• The player is left in the dark about the motive of the Knight in entering Hallownest and his goal/purpose in the game, as well as the reason to the Kingdom’s decline.
• This along with the mysterious atmosphere of the ruins encourages the player to further explore the ruins and learn more, piecing together the story of the game themselves instead of being told directly from the start, giving the player a sense of accomplishment as they deduce the story by themselves and drawing them into the story.

Lens 74: The Lens Of Obstacle

• Just like other metroidvania games, progression through the game is by lock and key.
  • Throughout the game there will be areas which are visibly inaccessible with the player’s current state.
  • This signals to the player that there is a need to explore other areas in the game to obtain the necessary power up to unlock the area, and even within the area itself there may be more obstacles that require further exploring of other areas.
• Similarly, some bosses in the game may seem very difficult to the player, signalling that there is a need to upgrade the player’s weapons before they challenge the boss again, or even learn more about the boss so they can exploit it’s attack patterns.
• These obstacles provide a goal for the player to work towards so that they are able to progress in the game and unlock the next part of the map.

Lens 40: The Lens of Triangularity

• High risk, high reward play exemplified through saving mechanic.
  • With no autosave, the only saving mechanic in the game is when players find a save point(a bench) which they can return to save their games progress. Save points are located throughout the map. However, before the player explores an area, the map is completely dark until you explore the area, leaving the player uncertain whether the next save point is close or far away.
  • If the player dies once, he loses all his in game currency(Geo) and needs to recollect it by returning to where he died, meaning that the player will have to fight through the same wave of enemies to reach where he is currently. If he dies a second time without recollecting the money, it is lost forever, impacting game progress significantly as currency is needed to upgrade items.
  • This allows the player to choose either to continue the explore at the risk of losing all currency but with greater rewards, or to return back to the previous save point, keeping his currency and returning when the player is stronger, thus keeping the player engaged as such decisions need to be made often.

Lens 79: The Lens of Freedom

• Although the game progression is linear for the first section of the game, once the player reaches a certain point in the game, the game dramatically opens up, allowing the player to forge their own path and explore the map on their own.
• There are even optional areas which are not needed for the progression of the storyline, but allow the players to gain more powerful weapons and abilities.
• Players choices along the way may also affect the ending of the game, with it having 6 different endings. Thus, the player is free to choose what actions to take in order to achieve their endings.
• This freedom of choice makes each player’s experience a unique one as they would explore the world differently from other players, or even from different playthroughs, encouraging them to play multiple times.

Description:

Okami is an action-adventure video game developed by Clover Studio and published by Capcom. It was originally released on the PlayStation 2 but has been ported to many systems since. The player controls the goddess Amaterasu – the titular ‘Okami’, which is meant to be a play on words, meaning great goddess or wolf. The gameplay style is a mix of action, platform, and puzzle gaming genres.

Link to game’s website: http://www.okami-game.com/

Lens 9: The elemental tetrad

Story

The story is based on various parts of Japanese folklore, where the sun goddess Amaterasu is called upon to save the world from the snake demon Orochi who has been unsealed due to the folly of man. Taking the form of the legendary white wolf, it is now up to Amaterasu to stop Orochi and put an end to the source of the demons who have since plagued Japan.

Aesthetics

The game itself is very stylised, featuring an inkbrush-inspired cel shaded visual style. This ties in heavily with the other aspects of the tetrad, with its Japanese-inspired story roots, painting mechanics and the utilisation of technology to carry them out.

Mechanics

The game uses a unique paintbrush mechanic, where a player can pause the game at any time to paint over the world and affect it as desired. For example, painting a sun causes the sun to come up, illuminating dark areas. Delivering a straight paint stroke across trees and walls cuts them in half. You can even paint bombs during combat to damage enemies.

Technology

The game was hampered by technology in a sense that it was originally meant to have a more photo-realistic style but was scrapped due to it putting to much strain on the then aging PS2. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it would not have aged as well, compared to the cel-shaded style it currently uses.

On the plus side, it benefited greatly from the motion controls of the Wii, PlayStation, and Xbox, furthering the mechanics and aesthetics of the painting process.

Lens 24: Novelty

The game is novel in two separate ways: the art style and the mechanics. While cel shaded art styles are nothing new, the inkbrush visual style differs slightly where instead of using different shades to represent depth in a 2D model, the lines are drawn to be thicker while retaining the same shade of black, similar an inkbrush. This makes the contrast between the vivid colours of the world and the thick black outlines very evident and thus characters have a very distinct form.

Pair this with the concept of being able to directly influence the world in any way you wish; slowing down time, creating flowers, burning NPCs for no apparent reason and you get one of the most unique games to have ever been released.

Lens 58: The puzzle

Okami contains a mix of action, platforming, and puzzle segments, with the latter being more prominent. As the player you have a lot of power and skills at your disposal – being able to manipulate earth, wind, fire, water, and time, just to name a few. The game does not shy away from giving the players puzzles which require certain skills or combinations of skills to solve. Progressing through the main story, you would encounter a comfortable amount of said puzzles that are not too challenging. However, if you simply do not wish to rack your brain over them, you could simply ask for advice from your travelling companion Issun. When it comes to optional content however, apparently anything is fair game, where some of the puzzles become really challenging, thus giving players the option of differing difficulties when it comes to puzzles. Easy – story with hints; Normal – story without hints; Hard – optional content

Lens 76: The Hero’s Journey

Clichés are called clichés because they get used so often, and the reason why that is so is that they are a solid foundation for creating a story that has been tried and tested in the past. Okami follows in its predecessors’ footsteps, where our hero is tasked with saving the world against the evil demons, exploring villages, fighting enemies, and gaining new skills along the way together with her trusty sidekick. What sets it apart from the typical tale is that the main character is a wolf goddess instead of a normal human being. Considering you could get the NPCs in the world to come play with you and pet Amaterasu, that makes it a plus in my book.

Lens 81: Indirect Control

Optional content such as side quests and collectibles, although optional in name, have always been added by developers who want their worlds to feel fleshed out and for the players to experience something more. Okami is no exception, with various indirect cues being given by the game designer to encourage players to explore beyond the main questline. Although obvious signposting such as giant exclamation marks above NPCs for side quests still exist, they are rare as compared to the more subtle efforts. Certain chests or items are placed in very conspicuous places just out of reach to encourage players to solve optional puzzles for the rewards; visual designs such as withered trees and barren land encourage players to start blossoming flowers and rejuvenating trees in order to beautify the environment, which in turn gets them collectibles.

Conclusion

My overall opinion on Okami is that it is a masterclass when it comes to game design. Its style and mechanics were novel during its time and still is today; it is backed with a solid story foundation, a beautiful world that encourages exploration and puzzles of varying difficulty to appeal to casuals and veterans alike. Not many games can ever come close to achieving what it has.

Introduction

Slay the Spire is a roguelike, turn-based deck-building game developed by MegaCrit. Players choose one of four characters to progress through the eponymous spire and battle increasingly difficult monsters. As players ascend the spire, they have the opportunity to upgrade their deck and gain powerful relics that affect battle.

Though it is a roguelike, where the game resets after each completed or failed run, players are granted points that help unlock new characters, relics and cards for future runs.

Website: https://www.megacrit.com/

Gameplay demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqBan9PjgUg

Lens #9: The Elemental Tetrad

Aesthetics

• Simple 2D sprites for characters and enemies
  • Sometimes criticised for being ‘ugly’, but the sprites do their job and do not distract from the core gameplay
• Well-crafted background music, changes with different levels of the spire
  • Calmer themes for when the character has a non-battle encounter or is resting
  • Intense battle themes during boss battles
• Recognisable and distinct card art, themed for each character
  • Allows for experienced players to easily play without reading the card names

Technology

• Able to run on low specs, highly accessible
• Released on many platforms: Windows, MacOS, Linux, Switch, PS4, Xbox One, iOS

Mechanics

• Turn-based combat: players play cards from their hand to perform offensive or defensive actions against enemies
• Deck-building: players improve their odds of winning battles by upgrading their deck. They can upgrade their deck by adding better cards, pruning bad cards or upgrading existing cards. Players have to adapt their deck-building strategy as they progress depending on the cards and relics they have received, and depending on the upcoming enemies that they have to battle
• Movement: players ascend the spire through branching paths. Players can choose which paths to follow which result in different chance-based encounters such as battles, shops, rest spots and random events
• Resource management: players have two main resources to manage – their health, and gold. Certain events allow players to trade health for gold or powerful rewards. Gold is a resource that can be used in shops or in certain events.

Story

• There is no clear story, but there are hints about the lore as well as each of the characters’ motivations for ascending the spire (e.g. the Defect character was an automaton serving the spire that malfunctioned and turned rogue)

The four elements are not balanced – for instance, aesthetics and story are weaker than the  game mechanics. However, this is not necessarily a flaw, as it serves to highlight the unique and acclaimed mechanics that are Slay the Spire’s selling points.

Lens #39: Meaningful Choices

Slay the Spire forces the player to make meaningful choices at every turn, including but not limited to:

• Choosing which paths (and by extension, which encounters) to explore
• Choosing which cards to include and remove from their deck
• Choosing when to sacrifice resources such as health and gold for possible upgrades
• And of course, choices during the battles

As the game is considerably well-balanced, there are no dominant strategies that work all the time. The RNG element (not knowing what card, relics and encounters are available) also prevents players from blindly following guides and making easy choices.

Lens #55: Visible Progress

Being a roguelike game, Slay the Spire is somewhat limited in the progression aspect.

One metric of progression for players is the Ascension level, which caps out at 20 and serves as a difficulty modifier for each run. Players have to beat their current Ascension level to unlock the next one, and each of the four characters has their own Ascension level as they have very different playstyles and mastery of one character does not imply mastery of the others.

Perhaps progress could be tied to unlocking lore, which would keep players invested in making progress and also help to amplify the story element of the elemental tetrad.

Lens #41: Skill vs Chance

The chance elements of Slay the Spire are well-balanced. They are significant enough such that each run feels very different and forces the player to adapt, but also not so oppressive as to make the player win or lose on the flip of a coin.

Chance helps to test players’ skill in this game, forcing them to do risk calculations before making decisions. It also serves for some very rewarding moments when RNG blesses the player with the right card or relic at the right time.

Slay the Spire does an excellent job of balancing these two aspects.

Lens #95: Spectation

Slay the Spire has served as an excellent spectator sport, despite its simplistic graphics and lack of competitive elements. It has accrued 1.7m hours worth of watch time on Twitch over the past 30 days.

While traditionally multiplayer games dominate in terms of spectation value, Slay the Spire manages to find a loyal following who want to watch how others make decisions, fight the battles and perhaps learn from others to improve their own gameplay.

Conclusion

Overall, Slay the Spire is an excellent game and its mastery of the lenses has no doubt led to its commercial success. It rarely frustrates, as every failed run leads to some learning value for the player, and its unique, accessible gameplay leads to great fun and enjoyment.

Description

Stellaris is a 4X grand strategy game set in space. Gameplay revolves around space exploration, empire building, resource management, diplomacy, and warfare. Players have massive freedom of customization for their empire, from high-level details such as government types, societal civics, and ethics, to the species type and evolutionary traits of their people.

* 4X: Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate

Elemental Tetrad

Mechanics

• The player customizes their empire’s key features (as described above) before starting a session.
• The player must send science vessels to explore the galaxy in search of resources and colony ships to expand their territory.
• The player must manage the various resources and upkeeps incurred by their expanding empire.
• The player must contend with other spacefaring civilizations, either through cooperation (diplomacy) or competition (warfare).
• The player must contend with internal politics and struggles in their Empire.

Story

• All empire’s backstories are based on their traits which can be player chosen or randomly generated.
• The story that the player experiences from then on is determined by the choices they make during special events and the policies they enact for their empire.
• There are rich backstories and lore about the world to be discovered as the player explores the galaxy. They are randomly chosen from a pool, with certain events or choices being exclusive to certain empire archetypes.

Aesthetics

• The game has 3D graphics with a free rotating camera which allows the player to view the galaxy from any angle.
• The game has consistent science fiction themes and sub-themes, which are reflected in everything from celestial bodies and ship design archetypes to advisor AI voice lines and music.
• The atmosphere and world-building of the game is very strong and immersive, with overall ‘mood’ and ‘feel’ of the game varying greatly depending on the empire archetypes the player chooses.
• Through these aspects, the game strongly evokes a sense of wonder, excitement, and curiosity.

Technology

• The game is very resource intensive and requires a strong setup to play smoothly, even on lower graphics settings.
• In the late game, lag is not uncommon, causing in-game time to slow down. Multiplayer experiences more frequent desyncs as players’ systems struggle.

Lenses Referenced From: http://deck.artofgamedesign.com/#/menu/0/?lang=en

Lens #6: Curiosity

• The game encourages and rewards curiosity through anomalies and special projects – points of interest found during exploration that may evolve into their own storyline if the player chooses to investigate them.
• Even small/short events tell interesting stories in addition to impacting the player’s empire, creating a sense of satisfaction of having followed a curiosity to its (hopefully positive) end.

Lens #73: Story Machine

• Stellaris is chock-full of events, most of which require the player to make choices. These choices are tailored to the player’s empire archetype, whether through flavour text or unique choices presented to specific empires.
• Unique choices that are specific to the player’s empire create a sense of personality and identity for the player. The game essentially becomes a story machine, where the players write the stories for their empire.

Lens #74: Obstacle

• The player is constantly presented with obstacles, chief among which are resource constraints and other competing civilizations.
• The player may be forced to make choices that go against their goals for the sake of survival. E.g.: As a pacifist, I may be forced to divert resources away from my scientific research to maintain a standing navy to deter would-be aggressors.
• As the game progresses, the player is challenged with even greater obstacles, from managing a burgeoning empire and its vast requirements to handling galaxy-wide threats that may overwhelm even the most powerful of empires.

Lens #83 Fantasy

• Stellaris heavily appeals to the fantasy of empire building as players are given the freedom to customize and roleplay unique civilizations from their own imagination.
• Players may roleplay as the ideal leader of their dreams, leading their ‘perfect’ society into the future and experiencing the joys and griefs their society brings.
• Players may set their own fantasy goals and metrics for what they consider to be ‘success’ for their empire.

Introduction

MapleStory is a free-to-play, 2D side-scrolling MMORPG that was developed by Wizet and released in 2003. In the game, players travel around the Maple World to hunt monsters for experience, gaining levels and improving their skills and abilities in the process. They also obtain need weapons and armour from a variety of sources such as quests, monsters and boss monsters in order to become stronger. Inside the game, they are also able to use cash, which is obtained using real life currency, to buy cosmetics and also items that will improve their gameplay.

Gameplay Demo

Official MapleStory (Southeast Asia) website: http://www.maplesea.com/

The Elemental Tetrad (Lens #9)

Mechanics

• Movement — 2D side-scroller where characters have skills that aid in their movement as well
• Class system — multiple characters with different classes (warrior, bowman, magician, thief, pirate)
• Monsters — Players kill monsters to get experience and level up
• Leveling system — each level provides the character with new skills and abilities to improve on
• Gears — killing monsters and completing quests give the players new equipment to become stronger
• Quests — In-game quests help introduce players into the world and give them rewards at the end
• Cash Shop — real-life currency is used here to obtain cosmetics worn over in-game equipment, or various enhancements to improve gear
• Trading — Players are able to trade with one another using the in-game currency (“mesos”)

Story

• Main story — the main antagonist, the “Black Mage”, was sealed away years ago by six heroes, and the Empress Cygnus enlists the help of the heroes of the Maple World to join her Cygnus Knights in preventing his return
• MapleStory is generally quite open world, with many areas having different themes and storylines tied to that area

Aesthetics

• Characters are 2D sprites that can wear a variety of cosmetics
• Monsters are cute 2D sprites as well that are drawn suited to the area that they are in
• Background music for every map helps to immerse players in the environment
• Skills are flashy and appealing to players when used on monsters, dealing massive amounts of damage

Technology

• Primarily made for Windows PC
• Broadband Internet connection needed
• Coded in C++, with assets stored in their own “.wz” files

The Lens of Curiosity (Lens #6)

MapleStory provides players with a huge world filled with many differently themed for players to explore.

• Each area consists of quests and monsters that are suited for different levels
• This encourages players to go and explore these areas once they hit the minimum level requirements
• Fosters the idea of a Maple “World” where players are able to go to incredibly different places and discover new things
• Helps to keep players engaged, gives them the motivation to improve their character to access these new areas
• Questlines and stories in these areas also immerses players in the world

I feel that the content provided by the game in terms of the game world is great, as it provides an area for players to explore and find out new things. It helps keep players engaged and also provides them motivation to unlock these areas to explore.

The Lens of Pleasure (Lens #20)

MapleStory involves players working together and training together to become stronger.

• Working together with friends fosters a sense of community and makes the game fun for players
• Becoming stronger together and taking down stronger monsters compared to before gives a sense of accomplishment and achievement
• Dealing high damage to monsters and seeing high numbers of damage gives players pleasure as well

The way MapleStory has been designed in terms of providing pleasure is good, as players have a clear goal of improving themselves and getting stronger. However, some criticisms include the fact that in order to truly reach endgame content, there is a need to use real-life currency to buy items from the Cash Shop in order for players to improve their characters further (pay-to-win aspect).

The Lens of Motivation (Lens #23)

MapleStory involves improving your character’s gear and has a level progression system that encourages players to gain experience and get stronger.

• Better equipment and higher levels is something that can be shown off to other players
• Being stronger also allows your to have more damage on monsters, enabling you to fight stronger monsters
• This sense of progression and “becoming stronger” encourages players to keep playing
• However, at higher levels content starts to slow down and progression becomes slower, game becomes “grindy”

MapleStory has provided a clear and simple way for players to progress, which is the cycle of levelling up to wear better equipment to train faster to level up to get better equipment. This however can get stale after awhile, and as players reach higher levels the main issue is that levelling becomes a “grind” as it takes a very long period of time to progress to the next level.

The Lens of Freedom (Lens #79)

Players in the Maple World generally have the freedom to do what they like: they don’t necessarily have to train and improve themselves all the time.

• Some players like to sit around and chat with other players
• Other players may want to do merchanting in the “Free Market”
• Players can go around the Maple World to complete quests
• Players can gather to take down boss monsters

MapleStory has done well in this aspect as they have provided a world where players are free to do what they want. They do not necessarily have to keep training, and are able to take breaks to do as they please whenever they want. The openness of the game in this aspect has been a tremendous boon to the game’s success as players feel like they are in control of their story and their character.

In a nutshell, MapleStory is a game filled with many possibilities, where players have the freedom to create their own story. The Maple World is vast and filled with much content for players to explore together with friends, and there are

Trailer for Animal Crossing: New Horizons Nintendo Switch

Description

Animal Crossing: New Horizons(ACNH) is a life simulation game published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch in March 2020. This is the fifth main Animal Crossing game and also the best-selling one in the series. Not only that, ACNH also won many awards, including Game of the Year at the Japan Game Awards as well as Best Family Game at The Game Awards 2020.

The gameplay is very simple. You control a human on a deserted island, design and develop it into a thriving community of anthropomorphic animals. ACNH supports both local and online gameplay, which allows a player to visit and interact with other players very conveniently.

Analysis

Lens 7: Elemental Tetra

Aesthetics

One of the main reasons for the popularity of this game is it’s breathtaking aesthetics. The main goal of a life simulation game is to provide a relaxing gateway, an alternate reality where life is simple and perfect. ACNH gives players the perfect user experience, immersing us in a captivating world where you grow to be a part of. The vibrant colors and limitless choices makes this beautiful world exclusively yours. You can hear the wind blowing and the trees swaying, the waves crashing onto the beach as you pick up sea shells. Every detail of the game tingles your senses and transports you in this utopia.

Mechanics

The mechanics of the game are very simple. Equip an axe to chop trees down, carry a net to catch insects. The gameplay was meant to be as basic as possible to make the game relaxing.

Story

The beauty of ACNH is in how endless the opportunities. The story line is simple as well, decorate and develop your island from scratch, make new friends and enjoy the simplicity of this alternate reality.

Technology

The graphics are a much needed improvement from the previous edition back in 2013. This helped to increase the sensory experience of the game. In addition, this is the first time there is a multiplayer option, where you can mingle with friends and explore each other’s islands.

Lens 2: Lens of Essential Experience

The essential element of ACNH is transporting the player into a different reality, one free from worries and stress of the real world. The point is to create a relaxing gateway for the player to enjoy mindless fun, without a goal unlike in most traditional games. This gives the player to do anything he wants whenever he wants, giving him the freedom of choice to create his perfect world for his character to live in.

Lens 51: Lens of Imagination

The possibilities are endless in ACNH. Having a big imagination and the willingness to try new things will turn your deserted island into a lively paradise. By taking in inspirations from your daily lives, you can create the perfect world for you and your character to live in. Change the colors of your room to match your favorite palettes or grow a garden of your favorite flowers outside your house. Your world can only be as creative as you can be.

Lens 55: Lens of Visible Progress

The feeling of satisfaction of building up an empty, weed-filled deserted island into a perfect, vibrant paradise filled with bustling activities and adorable neighbors in ACNH is amazing. Knowing that the daily grind of collecting materials and intricate planning eventually led to your dream house and an island worthy of praise from your friends feels good. However, there is not much to do after that. ACNH tries to come up with fresh novel updates every now and then but I feel that it is inadequate to keep my attention.

Lens 75: Lens of Simplicity and Transcendence

The rules and gameplay of ACNH is as simple as it gets. This is to put the focus of the game on creating the perfect world without any stress. Add in the right amount of control for the player and the world can be anything he wants. This makes the experience much more joyful as more time is spent thinking what can be done instead of how to do it.

Description

Among Us is an online multiplayer social deduction game developed and published by American game studio Innersloth.

Steam Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/945360/Among_Us/

Lens #4: The Lens of Surprise:

Imagine that you are a Crewmate, working hard to complete your task…At this time a Impostor come from behind and kill you! A red assassin picture and sound effects can scare you, and the Impostor may be your best friend!

Lens #9: The Elemental Tetrad:

Lens #17: The lens of The Toy

• The game can even forget the goals. You can also play hide-and-seek with your friends, turn off the lights and enjoy the darkness.
• Among Us is easy to get started, the rules and goals are simple, the only thing you need to practise is to make up the story when you are a Impostor.

Lens #21: The lens of Flow

• Goals are different between Crewmates and Impostors. Even different Crewmates have different tasks to complete.
• Because that the game can win in different ways: identify and eliminate the Impostors, complete tasks around the map, sabotage and kill the Crewmates… If some players forget their tasks, the others can also win!

Lens #44: The lens of Cooperation

The Crewmates need to cooperate to win, if all the Crewmates play separate, the Impostors are easy to kill them and it’s hard for the Crewmates to recognize and expel the Impostors. But watch out! Not all the guys following you are good, the Impostors can gain your trust by not killing you.