StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swart is second installation of the StarCraft 2 trilogy, a military, science-fiction, real-time strategy series. The game is developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment. The game has various modes, which can mainly classified into 2 categories: Campaign mode and Ladder mode. I will mainly focus on the 1v1 Ladder mode in this analysis.

1v1 Ladder mode, or Melee mode, is where 2 players can play against each other on the same map. Each player can choose to play one of the three races in the game. Each race has its own strengths and weaknesses, thus required a different playstyle. The player’s goal is to destroy all enemy’s buildings before he does to you. This is considered the most well-known form of StarCraft 2.

Some high level best games in StarCraft 2 can be viewed here:

You can even download and play the game for free here:

http://us.battle.net/en

I have attempted to close read the game using the lenses as described in Jesse Schell’s The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses. Below is the results, listing using the lenses described in the book.

• Lens of Essential Experience:

StarCraft 2 essential experience are basically the competitive drama, which occurs in many competitive game. Basically, it can be broken down into 3 parts: the tension when enemy’s actions are unknown, the heat when player’s engaging each other, and the satisfaction and self-worthy of the winner as well as disappointment of the loser. Judging from my own experience, as well as observing the crowd’s “excitement level” in most StarCraft 2 tournaments, the game has definitely well-captured the essential experience described above.

• Lens of Surprise:

Surprises in StarCraft 2 are plenty. It comes under many forms: drop units or slipped clocked units into enemy’s bases; assault, flank, or trap enemy’s armies; etc. It can even be the build you are executing. Rushing for an all-in early attack, hoping to surprise the enemy is a common and basic tactic. Example of this would be a popular “6-pool Zerglings rush” that become a well-known term for even non-StarCraft 2 players. Elegantly, all of these are achievement mainly by using a single RTS-popular mechanics: the infamous Fog of War. Obviously, StarCraft 2 does not lack surprise.

• Lens of Curiosity:

Information is vital in StarCraft 2, as “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles” (Sun Tsu). Hence, players constantly seek to acquire information on what the enemies are doing. Early scouting with workers, sending suicidal units to peek the enemy army’s composition, gaining map control, etc. are example of information seek done by the players. This is the curiosity of the players, the desired to know more about the opponent’s actions. Sure enough, curiosity always presents in any StarCraft 2 matches.

• Lens of Problem Solving:

StarCraft 2 is famous for being a fast paced RTS game, hence it requires split-second decision makings and executions. In any moment during the course of the matches, players are constantly asking themselves long term questions about the game plans and tactics and how they need to adjust based on the information gathered, as well as short term decisions such as army’s composition and position, how to gain advantages over the enemy through harassments, engagement, etc. while protect and respond to enemy’s harassments, etc. Problem solving, without doubt, is part of the StarCraft 2’s experience.

• Lens of Balance:

StarCraft 2 is famous of being well-balanced. In StarCraft, there are always counters to everything. Therefore, there is no dominant unit or strategy in StarCraft. Moreover, the game is not only balanced at the high level pro-gamers, but applicable to any skill levels as well. Therefore, StarCraft 2 is definitely well-balanced.

• Lens of Simplicity/Complexity:

The StarCraft 2 rule and mechanics are simple, and can be fully taught and explained through the first few levels in Campaign Mode. However, the game dynamics and complexities generated through these mechanics are numerous and deep. Hence, the game is well-designed in a sense that it can keep the game’s simplicity yet able to generate gameplay’s depth.

• Lens of Competition:

The game itself is very competitive, and is considered one of the leading ESport game in the world, as well as the best game within its own genre. The competition is formed by the nature of the game itself, such as its game play mode, its high requirement of understandings and skills, and its past face in decision makings and executions. Also, the StarCraft 2 Matching system always find the opponent at about the same level with the player, hence ensure the player always feels challenging but not unfair. The Ladder system in the game also encourage players to keep playing and reward players with league promotion. This system working in conjunction with the Matching system also creates pressure and tension for players, especially before the match. This feeling is commonly known under the name “Ladder anxiety”. Moreover, the game itself has a community of programers whose main job is to constantly training and playing StarCraft 2, hunting for tournament’s prize. There are numerous tournaments hosted every year for StarCraft 2 players to test their skills and compete with other players. This is showed that StarCraft 2 is a competitive game at any skill levels.

Game Description

Flappy Bird is a side-scrolling mobile game with 2D retro style graphics. The objective of the game is to direct a flying bird. The bird is flying towards right direction constantly while it has to avoid the pipes that blocks its way.

Gameplay Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQoJZuBwrkU

Figure 1

Own Experience

Lens of Elemental Tetrad

Aesthetic

I find the game graphics to be very cute. This is because that it uses retro style graphics to illustrate the game world. On one hand, it is a simplistic game hence complicated graphic effects become unnecessary. On the other hand, pixelated graphic style suggests that the game is very light-weighted and it is easy to get hands on.

Technology

Although the game does not have realistic graphics, it has relatively realistic physical engine. The motion of the bird is accurate and it corresponds to how I imagine it to be.

Mechanics

The rules and procedures of the game is very clear. A straight-forward instruction is given at the beginning of every game (See Figure 2). Before the game starts, user will see a bird floating up and down, locating at the center of the screen. The ground is moving towards left, indicating that the bird is flying towards right. The pre-game animation hints the goal of the game is to keep the bird flying forward. Another instruction is given to show user how to control the bird. A Tap sticker, a grey replica of the same bird and an upward arrow suggest that each tap will make the bird fly higher.

Figure 2

Story

The game has only one character – the bird. Throughout the game, there is only one event that is happening – the bird is flying towards right and it has to avoid the pipes that block its way. There is no clear storyline or branching of events. However, the different height and orientation of pipes makes the gameplay more dynamic.

Lens of Curiosity

The game triggers my curiosity. In the first few rounds, I was not able to get more than 10 passes (a.k.a score more thant 10 points). However, when I finally got more than 10 passes, I was awarded with a bronze medal. I wondered what I would get if I reached more than 20 passes, or even more. Additionally, I was curious whether the game has an end.

Lens of Skill vs Chance

The game is well balanced with skill and chance. It requires skills to get good results. During the game, I have to be concentrate and alert at all time to avoid the incoming pipes. However, sometimes chance does matter. As the height and orientation of the incoming pipes are randomly generated, a skilled player like me might also fall in front of the first pipe. The balance between skill and chance made me think that I am well equipped with the skill, and I was just unlucky sometimes. That thought motivated me to have another attempt.

Lens of Head and Hands

The game has a good balance of mental and physical elements. When I was playing the game, I was always mentally focused. I had to assess the risk of making the bird flying higher when a pipe was near – either too high or too low would make the bird crush onto the pipe. While being mentally focused, I had to make sure my hands execute the right command. The game challenged my brain-hand coordination. I could feel my hands shaking when my score was increasing.

Other’s Experience

Lens of Challenge

My friend watched me playing the game and he proposed to challenge me. The challenge in the game mostly happens between players. By listing the highest score at the end of the game, Players are motivated to play again to beat the highest score (See Figure 3). My friend said he kept on playing because he wanted to beat my record.

Figure 3

Lens of The Interest Curve

My friend was a first time player. At the first few trials, he could not even pass the first pipe. The experience was very demotivating for him. However, the interest curve raised rapidly once he picked up the skill. After a while, my friend got bored of the game as he could not make any further progress. The more he plays, the more impatient he got and the worse result he obtained. The interest curve dropped constantly as time progress.

Lens of Accessibility

My friend is a first time player. However, he knew how to play the game and understood the game objective naturally. One reason is that he had seen me playing before. The other reason is that the game is equipped with high accessibility. The starting screen provides instruction of how to interact with the system. The game graphic is pretty similar to Mario Brothers (See Figure 4). Both Flappy Bird and Mario Brothers are side-scrolling game. They share similar objectives – to direct the main character to move towards right. However, there is one confusion in this familiarity. In Mario Brothers, Mario can jump into the pipe to access other part of the world. In Flappy Bird, the bird has to avoid all the pipes.

Figure 4

Comparison and Learning Points

First of all, I learnt that players with different skill levels will have different playing experience. My friend is a first time player, hence he focused more on exploration. He paid more attention on the number of successful passings. He wondered what was going to happen if he broke my record. As for me, a relatively experienced player, I did not waste my focus on small details. I paid more attention on directing the bird.

Secondly, I discovered that player’s profile affects game experience. Though getting frustrated by the obstacles he encountered in the game, my friend requested to play again and again. As I recalled my gaming experience, in most of the cases, I played this game because I wanted to kill some time (eg. waiting for bus). Some players can get addicted to a game very easily, and some can not.

Thirdly, intuitive instruction in the game widens its audience base. A game with steep learning curve always loses new players at the beginning. For example, EVE Online is a great sandbox game. However, it does not have much player base due to its steep learning curve. Observing my friend playing Flappy Bird for the first time, I noticed that Flappy Bird has a very shallow learning curve. It is very easy to get hands on but mastering it requires many practices.

Lastly, I learnt the importance of testing the game with different players. By observing my friends playing the game, I got to access a different perspective. I am an experienced player hence my verdict on the game’s learning curve may not be accurate. My friend is a first time player, therefore his playing experience provided me more insights on how people get their hands on the game. By observing more than one people playing the same game, I was able to understand how gaming experience varies as player profile differs. It helped me to assess the audience base of the game.

Short Description

Defence of the Ancient 2, more popularly known as DOTA 2 is a multiplayer online battle arena video game. The core of the game involves two teams of five players, each side fighting to penetrate the stronghold of the opposing team, and to ultimately destroy their ‘Ancient’ building in order to seize victory (hence the title). The individual players each picks and controls a unique ‘Hero’ character and focuses on levelling, earning goal, purchasing items and last not but not least, fighting the opposing team.

Game website: http://www.dota2.com
Game play demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc9SsckCf_w

Analysis

1. The Lens of Surprise

DOTA enables players to constantly surprise one another through game mechanics such as fog of war, in which vision of the enemy team is always limited, for example, I would not be able to see an enemy unit if it is on a higher ground or say behind a tree thus allowing players to do things such as sneak up against each other, or even discreetly ‘farm’ for gold then emerging suddenly with crazy items.

2. The Lens of Fun

To me, DOTA has been one of the most engaging and fun game I’ve ever played. It’s complex game mechanics allow endless possibilities and playing styles, such that every game I play is always at least slightly different the previous ones, involving different players and different situations that arise from decisions of these players. This ever changing and surprising game play never fails to keep me entertained and engaged. Being able to collaborate with people also adds into the fun, especially when we successfully gang upon an enemy hero.

3. The Lens of Curiosity

While playing DOTA, we are presented with many different scenarios in which we have to constantly question ourselves in order to make what we deemed as the most appropriate decision. Questions like, “am I about to be sneaked upon?”, “is it save to take this route” often run through my head repeatedly. I feel that the game designers had been very successful in forcing us into asking these questions as by experience, failing to so would lead to multiple death of your ‘Hero’ and hence great frustration, also coined as the term ‘feeding’.

4. The Lens of Endogenous Value

DOTA has a number of things that carry endogenous value, one which has significant endogenous value is gold, which is extremely pivotal in the outcome of the game. How fast you can earn gold determines the speed of you obtaining your necessary items in order to achieve an edge over the opposing players. Another example would be ‘hero’ kill score, while not directly resulting in the winning of the game, since game is not won by kill counts but the destroying of the ‘Ancient’, having a high kill count usually is a very accurate indicator of how well your team is doing, higher kill count also means higher revenue since each ‘hero’ kill earns a bounty. A high kill count also gives a sense of satisfaction and achievement, as mentioned in my above game experience.

5. Elemental Tetrad

• Mechanics: I feel that DOTA has great game mechanics that while the main goal of the game is to destroy the opposing team’s ‘Ancient’ building, it still leaves plenty of room for players to explore and try different things.
• Story: DOTA has a short background story but does not quite matter at all, I doubt many actually knows the story behind the game.
• Aesthetic: DOTA 2 is aesthetically pleasing to the eye, a great step up from its predecessor DOTA 1. It even has a marketplace where new skins can be found and equipped onto ‘Hero’ characters.
• Technology: There is nothing special about the technology of DOTA 2, since it is designed to work on even not so high end computers, graphics in DOTA 2 can even be scaled down such that it could run on slower computers.

Dragon Age: Inquisition (DAI) is the latest installment of Bioware’s Dragon Age Series. Like its predecessors, DAI is a 3D role-playing game (RPG) set in the fictional world of Thedas. The player takes on the role of the story’s protagonist who eventually comes to lead an organization called the Inquisition which aims to restore order to the world. The Inquisition is made up of various well-written characters, with 9 of them being potential party members whose skillsets and gear are also customisable like the protagonist’s. Select expanses of Thedas are also open for the player to explore, fight foes and complete quests within, with more unlocked as the player progresses. Combat is mostly action-orientated, with the player controlling a party member while the others will behave according to their individual AI.

Protagonist of the Story: The (soon-to-be) Inquisitor

Game’s Homepage: http://www.dragonage.com/#!/en_US/home

Gameplay Video, by ChristopherOdd and also used in this analysis:
Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjKh8QzYtaQ
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BFhWN2CnRM

In this assignment, I chose to analyse in particular the very first stage of the game between my playthrough and that of ChristopherOdd’s “Let’s Play” Video. Being a game being focused around a main plot, I had found that the experience could vary greatly when played at different points of the plot, especially the emotional responses to events of the story and difficulty differences. Thus, fixing the part of the game to analyse would be easier to compare and contrast directly.

Elemental Tetrad

Story

I find Story being the most prominent out of the four elements, especially with the very detailed lore of the world. The game began with the showing of cutscenes of the protagonist’s plight. From the first few conversations the protagonist has with the character Cassandra, the ongoing chaotic situation of having a giant green hole in the sky was set up before me. Though, few things that happen in this first stage elicit much response from me as a returning player. For ChristopherOdd, being the first time he is playing the game, was actually surprised at various points of the stage such as the bridge collapsing when he tries to cross it. The dialogue system also allows him to learn more about the situation and characters around the protagonist to grasp a better understanding of the story.

Prominent Characters of the Inquisition

Aesthetics

It’s unfortunate that with my low-end PC, I am not able to fully enjoy the 3D environments. Nonetheless, the great voice acting is able to bring forward the personalities of each character. Music tries to play up the ongoing doom-on-the-world tension. From the sound effects, I could even tell whether or not my attacks are connecting with the moving targets.

Aesthetics also aid ChristopherOdd in picking up the mechanics. For example, from the metallic bars above Cassandra’s health bar, he deduced that she has some sort of armour on her in which he was quite correct even though he did not know that they represent her “guard”, a commodity which takes damage in place of her health.

Mechanics

Combat is DAI is mostly action-based. Mechanics are also flexible enough to allow us to take different approaches to combat. For example, in the same fight, I did take out the weaker ranged enemies first before focusing on the enemies with more health while ChristopherOdd usually tries to take out the closet target.

I’ve found that Mechanics meets Story particularly in Rift fights. These green tears in the Veil could be disrupted by the protagonist in combat to deal damage to surrounding demons, something unique to the main character since he had woken to find a strange green mark on his hand at the start of the game.

Technology

Though not very apparent, it appears to be the glue in DAI’s well-meshed Elemental Tetrad. My favourite feature of the game is the characters. Aesthetics, of both animation and voice acting, and writing are meshed through technology to make them feel very much like real people. It’s also Technology that allows us to move our character freely and interact with objects, choose dialogue option and make visuals and sound play through our screen and speakers.

Screenshot from the First Stage (Credits: http://www.allgamesbeta.com)

Lens of Essential Experience

Although I was replaying the tutorial stage, I was still able to have an exciting on-the-edge boss fight by playing in the most difficult “Nightmare” mode. The increased difficulty challenges me to employ better tactics in fight as I could easily run into crisis points in combat and possibly lose. As this was not my first playthrough, I was rather impatient when cutscenes are going on as they are not new to me. Nonetheless, I still find myself being amused by the back and forth responses between characters, especially the witty remarks of Varric Thetras. The AI, models and voice contribute to life-likeness of the characters, reinforcing the illusion of my protagonist fighting alongside other people, and not mere pawns I can control as the player.

This tutorial stage seems to be able to guide ChristopherOdd smoothly into the controls and rules of the game through presenting popup explanations of combat skills, items and control as he encounters them. The game also makes an effort to instruct him through the party members, such as telling the protagonist to “use the mark”, which cues him to interact with the Rift using his character. Such efforts allow instructions to be presented in a “natural” way in the game’s setting and interrupts immersion less than the instructional popups.

Lens of Curiosity

While playing the game, I tend to look around a lot while hitting the search button repeatedly. This is likely because of the question of “Is there loot nearby?” in my head. The more I find, the more I am convinced that there are more lying around somewhere, especially when there seem to be the trend of loot waiting to be found in dead ends and corners off the main path of the stage. Similarly ChristopherOdd tends to search the area for loot thoroughly, probably due to the same question.

As a first time player, ChristopherOdd also appears to be curious and wanting to know more about where the stage and story is headed. The game begins with the cataclysmic event of a Breach being opened in the sky but there are many unanswered questions of how the protagonist ends up with the special ability to influence Rifts. The voices heard at the Temple of Sacred Ashes and the vision seen later also makes him wonder “What is going on?” probably not just about the vision itself, but also to the story behind the explosion that created the Breach.

Pride Demon Stage Boss (Credits: http://guides.gamepressure.com/)

Lens of Endogenous Value

Both of us collect as much loot as possible from this stage probably for similar reasons. We know gold would allow us to buy things we would want in future parts of the game, a parallel to real life money. Equipment we find that are better than what we are currently wearing would help us towards combating foes we meet. Combat is a major part of the game and if we are to complete it, we would have to win against enemies we come across. This give importance to developing our characters’ combat prowess and thus, attaching importance to good equipment. Similarily, we learn from this first stage that levels give ability points which are exchanged for usable skills and passive boosts for combat. Although experience points in this first stage are limited, we come to know that they are important as they lead to levels and thus, ability points.

Lens of Problem Solving

At the beginning of the stage, we are given the quest to “Get to the Rift with Cassandra”. This is the first of many problems disguised as a task and quest. Getting to the Rift means needing to overcome the foes encountered on the path to the Rift. Similar quests and problems make or guide us to the end of the stage to the Pride Demon boss.

A different problem was presented when fighting the boss. We would have to disrupt the nearby Rift in order to remove the shield on the Pride Demon boss that makes it immune to attacks. This slight change in the rules and the increased power of the opponent makes the problem of defeating the boss more challenging, creating the experience of the climaxing fight of the stage.

Conclusion

The experience of the first playthrough of this first stage of the game could be quite different from that of subsequent replay. Although my curiosity for what-happens-next is dimmer than ChristopherOdd’s, the wanting of valuable loot and the curiosity of what I can find had me exploring the stage as thorough as I could. Although I was already versed in the game and impatiently skipping through tutorials, I could still have fun through the increased difficulty as it challenges me to apply what I already know to overcome the problems. On top of it all, characters that I have grown fond of during my previous experiences of the game were present, no less well-presented and amusing as I remember them from previous plays.

Offical Website              Gameplay demo

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is a free-to-play collectible card games created by Blizzard Entertainment which is played by two players.

Elemental Tetrad

• The mechanics of the game is to reduce the health points to zero with decks of 30 cards which consist of minions, spells and weapons. The minion can attack each other or the enemy’s hero. The spells cards have diversity effects, from damaging and drawing extra cards to spawn new minions. Once your hero’s health falls to zero, the game is over
• Hearthstone has impressive graphics.

• One of the features of Hearthstone that I was impressed by is their Tutorial Mode.

• It wasn’t only to introduce player to cards and mechanics of the game, it was giving the sense of progression from fighting lesser bosses all the way to Illidan. It gave me a sense of closure, before moving on to the next stage of the game.
• Hearthstone is available for Windows, Macintosh and iPad.I find that the four elements (Mechanics, Aesthetic, Story, and Technology) are working well together , it makes the game pleasant, interesting and challenging for the players.

The 5 lenses

1. The Lens of Fun

The duration of the game ranging from just a few minute or more than 20 minutes. This allow each player to play against variety of enemies. Thus, it doesn’t make a player reach a state of boredom.

There are 9 playeable heroes which user have to strategise differently and we have to choose 30 out of more than 400 cards to bring in the battlefield, this can be quiet rewarding. The competitiveness in Ranked Mode makes the game engaging to the players.

Having a new class could make the game attractive to the players. As there will be new decks of cards to collect and new abilities. Currently, Hearthstone has it’s first game’s expansion, Goblins vs Gnomes. Since then, it has increases my interest in playing the game.

2. The Lens of Surprise

During the battle, the player does not know what card will be drawn form their deck of 30 cards. The card will determine the player’s strategy.The cards in our enemy’s hand is unknown to us. While playing the game, you tend to predict what cards does your opponent has.

3. The Lens of Motivation

Players are motivated to obtain higher rank in the ranked mode. Starting from rank 20, each player needs to obtain 3 stars and they will lose one star everytime they lose a battle. The competitiveness of the game drives the player to play more.

Losing the battle sometimes demotivating the players, especially form rank 20 onwards. You can win 3 times in a row, at the same time you can lose 3 times in a row. Thus, it gave a sense of zero accomplishment to the players.

4. The Lens of Chance

There is randomness in the type of enemy you will play against. A card that will be drawn to your hand during the battle is randomise by the AI. The outcome of the game determine by the correct or incorrect order of the cards.There are different daily quest that player have to fulfil in order to obtain a gold reward.

The long –term success doesn’t fully depends on the chance. The extended knowledge of the game and one’s intelligence are the greatest factor of success.

5. The Lens of Balance

The player will be matched against the opponents who has similar skill/decks and the number of wins.This provides a good balance in the game as it prevents player to battle with a player that has better cards and abilities.Every time the player buy 1 new card pack, there is no factor affecting what cards can a player obtain. Thus, there is fairness in the game itself.

Friend’s Analysis

1.The Lens of Fun

There is a great sense of satisfaction every winning round. The competitiveness increases as there is a sense of accomplishment playing at the ranked mode.Playing against different type of players makes the player feel adventurous as the player needs to adjust their game strategy accordingly.

2.The Lens of Surprise

During the battle, the player constantly thinking of the cards that he/she will obtain. It has always been a surprise for the player every time the new card is drawn to their hand.

3.The Lens of Motivation

The number of wins in the battle encourages the player to keep on playing. The more wins you obtain, the faster you can obtain a higher rank.

4.The Lens of Chance

The cards drawn to their hand is always unpredictable. Thus, player tends to be constantly adopting different strategies to deal more damages.The opponent’s deck affected the approach that a player has.

5.The Lens of Control

The interface is simplistic. Player knows how to put their cards into the board. It is easy to navigate and it is easy to master all the controls in the game.The outcome of the game is determine by the type of cards each player put on the board. It gave sense of control of the game.

Overall game design of hearthstone is simple and easy to grasp for the first time player.

Compare and Contrast

1.The Lens of Fun

Both player find that the satisfaction of winning the battle initiated the fun in the game. The more you win the battle, the more you want to play.

Additionally, by playing multiple games with different types of opponents each time stimulate the player to find more opponents to defeat. This game requires a right strategy with the right order of cards.

2.The Lens of Surprise

As the cards are drawn randomly, both players have to srategise their battle on the spot, with respect to the cards on their hand

3.The Lens of Motivation

The competition between both players and the goal to achieve legendary ranks or even to get a higher rank for every season has make the game attractive for both players.

4.The Lens of Chance

It is random thus it is difficult to predict what is the next movement. Both player experience similar feeling, excitement when the right card is drawn and frustration otherwise.

5.The Lens of Balance Vs Control

The randomness in the game makes the game fair to everyone. The new card pack bought by every player differ in the rarity of the cards.

Additionally, the first time player find it easy to play the game as there is a concise tutorial that have been provided. In this case, the elemental tetrad of the game is well balance and it has increase the pleasure and excitement of the game.

In conclusion, despite playing the same game, different player experience different feeling and emotions. It is interesting to see how a game can affect individual differently.

Royal Revolt 2 is a 3D strategy MMO game for smartphones, tablets and Windows 8 PCs. It brought a breath of fresh air to the classic tower defence games, where now players can assume the role of both defender and attacker. Besides building up their own kingdom and setting up defences to prevent attacks, players now can also raid other player’s castle by sending in their own troops. All these can be done within a few taps and thus making the game easy to learn and play.

Game website: http://royalrevolt.com/

Gameplay Video:

MY EXPERIENCE

Lens #7: The Lens of the Elemental Tetrad

I felt that the technology and mechanics go very well together. Game is easy to access and it is available on our smartphones. I will also play the game even while travelling due to the easy mechanics of the games. I also enjoyed the aesthetics wise of the game as it was cute and allowed me to enjoy the impressive graphic while playing.

The storyline however felt a bit redundant. If a stronger and/or linear storyline could be used, I believe I will be able to connect to the game even more. What kept me playing is the interesting gameplay and the MMO aspect of the game.

Lens #39: The Lens of Time

The game is designed such that time is needed for building of structures and refilling “food” that is needed for raiding other players. This can be frustrating as I may want to play for a longer period but the game disallow me to.

Hence, I usually play the game only for a few minutes, and only get back when I have free time or nothing to do. Sometimes due to the long waiting, I did ever consider if I should quit.

10 minutes is needed for an upgrade

Lens #86: The Lens of Community

The game has a system of rankings, guilds and player raids. This sense of playing with and competing against other real players has somehow increased my competitive spirit, spurring me on to level up and raiding players to increase my ranks or just to get revenge.

However, I felt it still lacks a sense realism of community since the game is not real-time.

Lens #31: The Lens of Challenge

The game system usually paired me up with a stronger player when raiding. It gave me a sense of satisfaction when I am able to beat the stronger players, partly due to my own skills and decisions during gameplay.

However, many times the player will be too strong and I will spend “golds” to be matched with a lower level opponents.

Lens #30: The Lens of Fairness

Royal Revolt 2 is a typical freemium game – a pay-to-win gaming system. It definitely get on my nerves, when players of the same level as me have much better skills and equipment just because they are willing to spend real money on the game.

Luckily there are still players like me who does not spend money, which kept the game partially fair. I also pride myself, if I were to be able to beat those pay-to-win players who are much stronger than me.

Buying Gems with real money

FRIEND’S EXPERIENCE

Lens #7: The Lens of the Elemental Tetrad

My friend found that the technology and mechanics go very well together too. Likewise, at every free time, he will be using his phone to play the game. He even uses his tablet for a bigger and better screen. He sometimes played with the music on, in order to appreciate the game’s aesthetics fully.

As for the storyline, my friend too did not take much notice of it and he will skip all the dialogues of the characters.

Lens #39: The Lens of Time

Almost every free moments he had, he will be checking the game. He would even plan the gameplay to fit into his schedule, to allow the game always be ready for play whenever he is free. This let him not to feel a sense of disruption when the game disallowed to continue playing.

Lens #86: The Lens of Community

He is the leader of his own guild, and with his online friends, they will work and communicate with each other in order to achieve and level up their guild. He actually felt a sense of belonging with the community as they will chat frequently to discuss the game play and strategies.

Lens #31: The Lens of Challenge

He does felt the game is challenging too due to the fact stronger players were always been pair to him during raids. Sometimes he will challenge those stronger players just to test his skill. But similar to me, he will still tend to seek for an easier enemy yet with enough challenge.

Lens #30: The Lens of Fairness

Since my friend spends much more time than me on the game, even if his level may be same as mine, his skills and equipment are much better. This actually kept him near the level of those who pay for the game.

Unlike me, he rarely complains about the fairness of the game. However, sometimes he will still be willingly to spend a bit of money just to keep him on par with the other players and to keep his rankings up.

ANALYSIS

Mobility of device and ease of gameplay

I realized that the most effective way to get a person to be hooked on a game knowingly or unknowingly is the combination of device’s mobility and gameplay’s simple mechanics. A game with an easy gameplay will allow people to play without much thinking or just help them pass time. With the mobility of its gaming device – smartphone, which people carries around most of the time, it further entice the person to play the game almost anywhere and anytime. Just like how my friend and I were, while travelling or waiting for a bus, we will conveniently take out our phone and start playing game. It slowly becomes a habit, for us to play some games on our phone when we are free.

The “waiting” game

Royal Revolt 2 is a game that requires time. I found out that this kind of games tend to led to 3 scenarios.

1. Some gamers, for example myself, may get frustrated of the waiting. This kind of people may only play the game for a few minute and only get back to the game after a long while. They tend not to check the game often. After a while this may lead to their disinterest and stop playing the game.
2. Gamers may be hooked by the game and set notification to notify themselves whenever the game is ready. This causes them to spend almost all their free time on the game.
3. They are the players who hate waiting and are willing to spend. They will spend real money just to decrease the waiting time so they can continue playing as long as they want. This is where the revenue of the game is mainly from.

Through this, we can see that this is one of the way the game is designed to keep the players playing, though it does have its downside to it. However, the popularity of this game showed that the upsides out ruled the downsides.

The (un)importance of storyline

I found that storyline may not be the most important thing in a play-on-the-go game. Many people who play Royal Revolt 2 just want to pass time quickly. Also they may just want to play some game that does not require much thinking. Most of the time they just want to be entertained through fast-paced action gameplay and dynamic graphics. This may be reason why Royal Revolt 2 does not have a complicate story. It only gave the players a simple background story and everything else depends heavily on the main gameplay itself. People who continued playing is not because they are interested in story but because of the well-designed gameplay.

Players prefer games with dynamic graphic

Conclusion

Royal Revolt 2 is a good example of a game breaking out of the mainstream gameplay, by injecting a new perspective to the traditional tower defence game. This further proves that storyline may not be the most important aspect but the game design and ideas are the one that kept the players playing.

Binding of Isaac (BOI)

The Binding of Isaac: Wrath of the Lamb

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swh54ibRSDo&index=1&list=PLA958826F60F5B8B7

The Binding of Isaac is a top-down 2D roguelike in which the player assumes the identity of the protagonist, Isaac, and attempts to escape from his murderous mother by going deeper down each floor of the basement. Progressing further down each floor requires the player to kill all the enemies encountered and defeat the boss guarding the entrance to the next floor. Along the way, power-ups can be obtained to strengthen or weaken Isaac. The game ends when the final boss is killed, prompting the ending scene to start showing. New content is unlocked on completion of certain achievements, with some of the content being new power-ups, new floors or new ending scenes.

My Experience

Lens #7: The Lens of the Elemental Tetrad

Mechanics: Enemies and bosses are characteristically different from each other. Power-ups obtained are stackable with each other. Permadeath keeps the game tense and engaging. Floors being randomly procedurally generated makes each playthrough different and gives me a chance to discover interesting and sometimes hilarious interactions between enemies and power-ups.

Story: Controversial story that touches on dark themes, e.g. religion and child abuse. Each ending is ambiguous and open for interpretation. It piques my interest to keep playing to unlock more endings to further understand the story.

Technology: The game is made in Flash, which while is good enough for the scale of this game, introduced slight lags when activity on the screen got too hectic. This caused slight irritation when the lag occurred, but not enough to spoil the experience.

Aesthetics: Cute artwork but disturbing enemy sprites.

Cute stuff

Overall, the aesthetics and story complemented each other well. The cute artwork was deceptively contrary of the dark themes, creating a unique experience. The mechanics kept things fresh for players that want to keep replaying to know more about the story. Its biggest flaw was technology, which the developer agreed and eventually changed in its sequel: Binding of Isaac: Rebirth.

Lens #27: The Lens of Skill

Bullet Hell

BOI in its essence is a game of skill. Besides testing my reaction speed, it challenges me to make decisions on either rushing each floor or to spend a longer time on each floor farming to possibly become stronger. Each subsequent floor becomes harder, requiring the player to farm floors to become stronger. However, spending a longer time on each floor means possibly taking more damage, making the later game harder.

Lens #20: The Lens of Judgement

The game judges me on whether I have good reflexes and can make smart decisions, and the achievements unlocked and amount of progress made in each playthrough affirms my skill.

Lens #49: The Lens of Visible Progress

From this to THIS

BOI shows my progress during a playthrough. Power-ups all make visible changes to the character and the projectiles. Each new power-up that is picked up add to the change in aesthetics of the character sprite, showing how powerful the character has become. The game also shows the progress of the player’s career in playing BOI. It shows the tally of total number unlockables and how many are left, even changing the start menu to reflect the progress that I have made in unlocking all content of the game. This appeals to the completionist in me, urging me to keep replaying to unlock everything.

Lens #53: The Lens of Control

The control scheme is simple; WASD for movement and arrow keys to shoot projectiles. Use SHIFT to set a bomb, Q to use an item, and SPACEBAR for the spacebar item. Controls respond fluidly to the command of the player. Enemies are fair in that their own AI and movesets do not change. Whenever I lose in the game, the irritation I feel is always with myself as the outcome is due to my control.

My Friend’s Experience

I got a friend who was new to BOI and got him to play a few games for me.

Lens #2: The Lens of Surprise

That’s all you get

At the start of the game, players are simply thrown into the game with four instructions and nothing else. Everything from then on is a surprise for new players. How enemies and bosses move and the effects of power-ups. Nothing is explained at the start and there is enjoyment in exploring new things.

Lens #29: The Lens of Chance

What RNG can do for you

Due the random nature of the game, sometimes the power-ups received are quite underpowered. The friend who played the game felt that the game is too “RNG-reliant”. The power-ups received dictated his progress in the game, and thus became too random.

Lens #69: The Lens of the Weirdest Thing

The setting of the game is weird. Weird monsters appear in the basement and the further down players go, the more detached from reality the game becomes. The ending revealed on completion of the game do not explain anything directly and leaves them puzzled and interested to make sense of the whole story.

Lens #10: The Lens of Resonance

The dark theme and issues dealt with in the game resounds with players. Players can empathise with the main character, and it forces players to think about these controversial issues that are seldom covered. It creates depth for the game and offers additional meaning for players playing it. It creates for a more satisfying playthrough.

Analysis

Comparing the two sets of notes, we both agree that BOI is a satisfying game where the good controls and level design provide an interesting and enjoyable experience. The weirdness of the story and dark theme explored gave the game additional value, making the experience of the players more meaningful.

Using the Lens #7: The Lens of the Elemental Tetrad, we can see that of the 4 elements, none is more important than the rest. Developing the game in Flash has resulted in a somewhat subpar game, where if better technology is used, a better experience for users can be achieved.

However, from the two experiences, we see that there is a conflict of Skill versus Chance. I thought the game had more emphasis on skill while my friend thought that the emphasis on chance. This brings about the difficulty of how to balance skill and chance, which corresponds to Lens #34: The Lens of Skill vs. Chance. In my opinion though, while BOI’s element of chance with power-ups does indeed contribute to ease of a playthrough, an immensely skilled player can still complete the game without strong power-ups. The balance of skill and chance in this game is still acceptable.

From all the lenses we have identified and judging the game based on them, I would argue that BOI has a good game design. The game is designed to be hard for starting players, and through the gradual improvement of the player, the game judges them and reaffirms their steady improvement. The element of chance and randomness of the game allows replayability, which helped to maintain the interest in the story.

Short Description

Battle Camp is a mobile-based game that is very much like Pokemon. The player starts off with 5 basic monsters in his team and progresses to each new town by defeating a hall boss (much like Gym Leaders). Every new town gives access to better monsters, which improve your team’s Power Rating (PR).

The rarity tier of monsters goes from Common, Uncommon, Rare, Super, Ultra, Epic and Legendary Monsters. Players can only obtain up to Super monsters by completing the main questline. For Ultra monsters and above, players can either compete in Events, or spend money to spin “Ultimate Grabs”, which has a random chance of giving Ultra and Epic monsters.

Each monster has its own zodiac sign, which means there are 12 versions of each particular monster. Another way for players to improve their PR other than obtaining monsters of better rarity is to match zodiacs e.g. using all “Scorpio” monsters in the team. This will activate powerful passive bonuses, which may include additional Attack stats, or HP stats.

An important aspect of the game is that players cannot sit down and complete a ‘playthrough’ in a single session. It is a passive game, where Energy is used to battle monsters, PvP other players, participate in Events and fight bosses. Every 10 minutes, 1 energy regenerates, and the total energy cap at any one time is 5. This means that players can only play for a short while, depending on how fast they use up their energy. After depleting their energy, they must either wait 50 minutes or use In-App-Purchases (IAP) to buy extra energy.

My experience

1. Lens of Time

A lot of times, I just play the game passively. After using up my energy, I just close the game and go and do other stuff. Even though the game notifies me when my energy is refilled, sometimes I forget and let them go to “waste”, since there is a cap imposed. This is directly related to the Lens of Time. In this case, for me I think it is just a different style of gameplay, and I am neither frustrated that the game is too short, nor bored because it is too long.

2. Lens of Endogenous Value

When I ran out of energy, I went to the ‘Management’ Tab and looked at my monsters and inventory. This is relatable to the Lens of Endogenous Value, which asks the question of ‘what is valuable to the players in the game?’ For me, it is obvious that my team of monsters and those in my inventory have endogenous value because it is essentially what the game is all about to me – improving my team and getting better monsters.

3. Lens of Motivation

I also find myself exploring the ‘Social’ Tab and looking at my friends’ monsters, comparing his team to mine. I also PvP occasionally when I feel like it. I think the Lens of Motivation comes into play here as I feel motivated to play and upgrade my team so that I can beat other players.

4. Lens of Spectation

An interesting thing that happened when I was doing this assignment was that another friend (not the one who I was planning to do this assignment with) became interested in watching me play. This may be explained by the Lens of Spectation, and I think the game is interesting to watch because animations are everywhere and people are generally attracted to moving things.

5. Lens of Elemental Tetrad

Aesthetics – This game is heavily invested in aesthetics, as it is filled with nice animations and good looking monsters. On one hand, the common and lower-leveled monsters tend to look small and cutesy, while evolved monsters grow in size and give off intimidating looks, so this actually allows the game to cover a broad theme of art.

Technology – For technology, I do not know what game engine is powering the game, but I feel that it can be improved. When playing on my Android device, I always experience lag. On the other hand, my friend has no lag problems on iOS.

Mechanics – The mechanics of the game mainly revolves around matching gems, and is not new. Unlike Candy Crush, the player can move a gem anywhere on the map, displacing gems along the path taken and making multiple combos this way (see gameplay video).

Story – There is hardly any storyline progression in this game.

My friend’s experience

1. Lens of Time

Unlike me, my friend was glued to his phone screen. It was clear that the 50 minutes recharge time for energy is too slow for him, and he was frustrated that he could not play longer.

2. Lens of Endogenous Value

Similar to me, while my friend was waiting for energy, he would look through his current team of monsters and inventory.

3. Lens of Chance

During his playtime, he actually used his free “Ultimate Grabs”. Although initially a paid feature, sometimes the game gives out free grabs as rewards to players in event. The chance of getting a good monster from spins is totally random. One of the questions asked by the Lens of Chance is: Does the randomness give the players positive feelings of excitement and challenge, or negative feelings of hopelessness and lack of control? Actually, it depends. If the player receives a very rare monster (e.g. Epic-tier monster) from the spin, then they would obviously be very excited. However, the chances of this happening is very low, and most players experience negative feelings when spinning such “Ultimate Grabs”. A lot of them have even advised other players to spend their money on other items instead, such as buying energy. In fact, some have even came up with their own term for “Ultimate Grab” – they ridiculed it as the “Rare Grab”, which means you only get Rare-tier monsters from it. Unfortunate for my friend, he did in fact get a rare-tier monster from his grab.

4. Lens of Reward, Lens of Triangularity

My friend participates in events actively. Relating this to the Lens of Reward, events can be counted as the main source of rewards for players, as they usually reward monsters with much better stats compared to those that can be obtained through quests. Players are always excited to receive these better monsters as rewards. At the same time, events can also be related to the Lens of Triangularity. Event rewards are separated into Tiers and only the top 5000 players receive good event rewards. Some players may choose to spend lesser energy, and are satisfied with a lower tier. However, they may also choose to spend more energy to advance to the next higher tier. This is obviously very risky as players are competing against players and if everyone were to spend more energy, then nobody would advance at all.

General

1. Lens of Community

There are 12 versions of each monster in the game. When getting new monsters (spinning grabs or event rewards), players do not necessarily get the new monster in their zodiac. Hence, trading among players is a very important aspect of the game as it allows players to match their zodiacs and receive bonuses.

Analysis

A learning point from the analysis of Lenses of Elemental Tetrad would be that a game does not need to have all elements; in fact if even one of the elements is done well (e.g. Aesthetics), players would be drawn into the game all the same.

Different people can have different reactions and experiences to the same game. This is evident in the Lens of Time analysis between me and my friend. Therefore, it is not only important to use the different Lenses blindly as a guide to game design, but to also consider that different people may react differently to the same Lens. A learning point from this may be that players are generally very fussy, and one man’s meat may be another man’s poison.

Despite the differences, some parts of our experience do share common reactions, such as the part on Endogenous Value. Although this may sound contradictory to the previous point about players reacting differently, I think this further reinforces the learning point that players are hard to please.

From both our experiences, I have been able to use multiple different Lenses to analyze the game. As a learning point, it is important to note that while using the different Lenses to design a game, it is better to stick to the rule of “more is better”. Some features may appeal to certain audiences e.g. passive playing and make others frustrated, but as long as the game has other features that addresses the needs of such players, then it would still be okay even if you have to make the player wait a while for some energy.

Website: http://pennypop.com/

Gameplay videos:

(Battle System) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cR5Ibg0ozo

(Ultimate Grabs) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIkiu0yk4aQ