Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWKUAX9n0Fs

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas

Introduction

Fallout: New Vegas is a post-apocalyptic role-playing game developed by Obsidian Entertainment that is released in 2010. The game centres on the events years after a nuclear fallout between countries over natural resources. The player starts off as a Courier who was tasked to deliver a package, but was, unfortunately, attacked by a group of raiders. Surviving from the fatal attack, the Courier sets off to find his assailants to recover the package that was stolen from him.

The Elemental Tetrad

Aesthetics: Set in an alternative reality where it is commonly referred to, in the 1950s, “the world of tomorrow”, the game was designed to portray the future of that era, where advanced technologies such as lasers and robots are invented. It is a world that focuses a lot on scientific advancements. This provides us a getaway from our everyday lives, making the game much more intriguing. The sound used in the game complemented with its theme, giving players a much more immersive gaming experience.

Story: The game talks about a world, ravaged by a nuclear fallout, and its survivors, either vying for power or simply finding a place of solace. It shows us numerous issues that are present in the real world, with some being very relatable. It allows you create your own adventure, where it puts you into situations that forces you to make decisions that deals with morality, leading to different endings. Often, one finds himself in similar positions, hence invoking feelings and thoughts without having to face the consequences in real life.

Mechanics: As the game can be played in both First- and Third-person, it follows the convention, where WASD keys are for movement and left-clicking allows the use of an equipped weapon. The game has also included interactions with other game objects by pressing E to interact with them. This action can either be crafting or picking up objects.

Technology: The game is released for consoles and PC as it require certain tools in order to play the game well. These tools, such as mouse and keyboard, enable a player to do more with the game, hence creating a better gaming experience.

Lens of Meaningful Choices

The game contains choices that affects its main storyline. Often, the player have to support factions that are hostile towards each other, or making choices that alter the player’s karma, which affects the ending. Each option has its own pros and cons that indirectly impacts a player’s gaming experience.

An example is the quest “You Can Depend On Me”, given by the leader of a faction known as the Crimson Caravan. It tasks the player with necessary and optional objectives. Among them, the player has to steal a manufacturing specification from the Gun Runners, an organisation that produces superior weaponry. Its completion provides a wider variety of weapons from the Crimson Caravan shop, but it is accompanied with bad karma. However, this is optional – not doing it will not have any negative repercussions, though the player will not get access to better weapons. Such choices force players to make their choices wisely.

Lens of Character Traits

As it is a role-playing game, it gives the player the liberty to choose the attributes for its character. It is represented as S.P.E.C.I.A.L., where every letter is a unique attribute. These attributes will then affect its skills. Skills determine the character’s effectiveness in different situations. For example, crafting of ammunitions for a specific gun require a minimum Gun skill level, and higher levels allow the player to create deadlier ammunition for the gun.

Characters can also gain perks that adds on to or enhances its capabilities. An example is the “Black Widow” perk, which can only be acquired by female characters. The main purpose of this perk is to unlock unique dialogue options with certain characters in-game. This influences the gaming experience for the player, leaving a deeper impression on the game.

Lens of Emotion

The game starts off with a phrase “War. War never changes”. It then begins to narrate the events prior to the nuclear fallout. Along with the melancholic music, one will be able to feel the gloom and despondency in such setting. During the game, there are locations that invoke similar feelings – upon entering Vault 22, there are unusually small humanoid plant mutants attacking the player. The player explores the place after killing them, but only to find a room filled with child-sized beds and toys. The developers want the players to empathise with the characters in-game, and I think they were successful in doing so.

Lens of Story Machine

The game has multiple endings that is based off the player’s actions and karma.  Apart from the main storyline, there are side missions that also contributes to the ending. As the game has a lot of factions, a player can unlock its respective ending by encountering them. This allows players to customise their gaming experience – they can choose to learn more about the Mojave Wasteland, where the game is set in, or they can focus on finishing the game.

All of the endings: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas_endings

Lens of Challenge

As the game is vastly different from many First- and Third- person shooters, it makes it difficult for newer players, who are too used to the latter gun mechanics. Though this game was developed with the concept of survival in mind, it is sold as a shooter, which is often seen as a fast-paced, action-packed game. However, the developers added the VATS system, which is an auto-targeting system for guns. Yet it is not sufficient enough to ease the gameplay. As such, this may possibly diminish its value among the gaming community.

In conclusion, Fallout New Vegas is a game that is successful in attracting post-apocalyptic role-playing gamers, as it contrasts itself with most games today that are based on current affairs or futuristic technology. Hence its uniqueness leaves players with a memorable experience.

Description

Pokémon Go is a free-to-play, location-based augmented reality game developed by Niantic for Android and iOS devices. This game utilizes the Global Positioning System (GPS) of the mobile device for the player to navigate through the world. In this game, players are able to find, capture and battle with virtual creatures, called Pokémon. These Pokémon can be seen on the mobile screen as if they were located at the same location as the player in the real world. Items, such as pokéball (for capturing pokémons), can be obtained through in-app purchases or spinning something called the pokéstop.

Game Webpage

http://pokemongo.nianticlabs.com/en/

The Lens of the Elemental Tetrad

Aesthetics:

The main attraction of Pokémon Go is probably the Pokémon creatures themselves, as Pokémon models are replicated from the largely popular original Pokémon series. This effectively brings back the feelings of nostalgia as the original Pokémon series made up a large part of many youths’ childhoods. Moreover, the game has amazing graphics and most Pokémons look cute and appealing to the masses. This is further enhanced by the music and sound in the game when the player performs certain actions.

Technology:

Pokémon Go is among the first few games to use Augmented Reality to create a blend between the virtual and the real world, by superimposing an image generated by the computer onto the real world through the camera of a mobile device. The game also utilizes GPS, location services, and mapping technologies to further deliver a novel game mechanic to the players.

Mechanics:

This game brings out a whole new game mechanic to the players. To navigate the world in this game, players have to physically move around in the real world instead of pressing some buttons on the keyboard. In other words, players have to explore the real world around them to hunt for Pokémon, spin Pokéstops and battle gyms.

Story:

Pokémon Go does not really have a storyline. The game begins with Professor. Willow telling you to go and catch Pokémon all over the world, in order to aid his research, and that is the entire story this game has. The player then proceeds on an unending journey in pursuit of Pokémons. The reason to not really need the storyline lies within the novel game mechanic and the nostalgic feeling of Pokémons, which are the main alluring factors for players to play this game.

Combination:

All of these 4 elements combine and works towards a common goal – to bring a novel experience to players and encourage exploration of our real world. The success of Pokémon Go comes from the novel and interesting game mechanic it brings, and the feelings of nostalgia for some of the youths. Although I am in favour of this game design, I would still want the introduction of more game mechanics into this game as the novelty is starting to die off and more is required to keep this game alive.

The Lens of Cooperation

This game brings about plenty of opportunities for cooperation in one way or another. As players are required to go out to the real world to play the game, there is a great chance that players will meet one another in real life. Strangers can talk to each other because of this game as they can inform or guide one another to a rare Pokémon which they may have encountered. Moreover, players can work together in gym battles to take down a gym of an opposing team, and fighting together is a faster way of the attempt to take over a gym. All of these encourage collaboration and cooperation of the players. I am in favour of this game design as it can break the ice between strangers and even deepen the bonds of friends or families when they play the game together.

The Lens of Skill vs. Chance

The main part of Skill vs. Chance in Pokémon Go comes from the capturing of Pokémon. To capture a Pokémon, the player has to throw a ball at the Pokémon. This requires certain amounts of skills as different way of throwing and hitting the Pokémon generates different catch rates and bonuses, while the ability to capture the Pokémon or not comes down to chance. For example, players need to have some amount of skill in order to get a “Great Throw”, but getting this only equates to higher chance of Pokémon capture and not definite capture. Personally, I am in favour of this game design as beginners can benefit from the chance aspect when they get lucky, while not putting seasoned players at a disadvantage as they possess a higher chance of capturing the Pokémon, this is a nice balance to me.

The Lens of Surprise

There are plenty of surprises in store for players in Pokémon Go. Players will be pleasantly surprised when they just randomly walk into an encounter with a rare Pokémon, or when their Pokémon eggs hatched into a desired, rare or strong Pokémon, or even when one of the most dull and mundane Pokémon captures turns out to be a Ditto in disguise. (Note: Ditto is a Pokémon which will transform and disguise as another Pokémon). All of these pleasant surprises is a huge factor in enticing players to continue playing the game, and personally I enjoy them as well, thus I am in favour of this.

The Lens of Fun

The fun aspect of Pokémon Go comes from the capture or hatch of a new Pokémon, which you have never encountered before, or from the capture of a rare or strong Pokémon. However, once the player has finished capturing all available Pokémons, the fun factor will decrease significantly as what is left to do now is only capturing rare or strong Pokémons. Thus, I feel that more Pokémons (of later generations) should be introduced quicker in this game to bring the fun factor back. Moreover, I feel that the gym battles portion of the game needs to be more fun, as the current system only allows players to tap the screen repeatedly to unleash the Pokémon’s attacking moves and swipe the screen to dodge an incoming attack. I also feel that more game mechanics should be introduced in this game to bring the game back to where it used to be, and to make it more fun.

Don’t Starve is a single player survival game created by KLEI Entertainment. The game is set in a dark and magical world in which the player has to scour the world in search of resources to survive. There are multiple characters to play as and each character has its own unique perks that affect the way you play Don’t Starve. The game has two DLCs which are Reign of Giants (RoG) and Shipwrecked. There is also a stand alone game called Don’t Starve Together for multiplayer.

Game Website: https://www.kleientertainment.com/games/dont-starve

Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6llTfYmI90

Lens of elemental tetrad

Aesthetics

Don’t Starve boasts a dark theme. The art styles and the sound effects alone help to depict the impression of a direness of the situation and the need to survive. The colors and sound in the game progress with the changes in environment and actions done in the game.  These help me as the player to realize and immerse into the situation I was in. The results in intuitive gameplay.

Technology

The game is available on console, PC and mobile. The game runs in a pseudo 3D environment with mostly 2D assets. Having these relatively GPU light visuals allows the game to be flexible enough to be played on all platforms. There are also not much buttons used in the game as it is possible to play the game on PC with just one hand either on the mouse or keyboard.

Mechanics

The character’s status is represented by several meters which are health, hunger and sanity. These meters will fluctuate depending on the environment, weather or actions taken. The player has to search the map to look for resources to craft and improve his/her survival rates. The game focuses a lot on exploration as each map is randomly generated and important resources are scattered throughout the whole world. Exploring and combat will be necessary in order to survive the game. This will provide the player with rarer resource to make higher tier equipment, and the cycle continues.

Story

The game has a story mode called Adventure Mode that can be activated through the sandbox mode. The player has to search for a structure called Maxwell’s Door in sandbox mode to start the story. The story is simple yet interesting and closes the loop on how and why the world of Don’t Starve came about in the first place. The game still has its main focus on survival than the story.

Overall

I feel that the four elements complement each other to provide an immersive and dark survival game.

Lens of Visible Progress

The game has an element in base building and tech tree. As the player progresses on, the base will grow larger and the player will be able to craft more things from different crafting stations. The number of days survived is also clearly shown to the user in the UI to show how far the player has progressed. These feedbacks tell the player clearly that he/she is getting stronger and more well equipped to deal with anything the game can throw at him/her. The progress indicators in the game is broken down into small bite-sized pieces. Content that is slowly released into the world as the player progresses are also indicators of progress.

Lens of curiosity

The game keeps the player curious. Many equipment and structures are given weird names and vague descriptions that suit the theme but does not provide information about the item. This makes the player wondering, leading them to craft it themselves. Some clues are given in small pieces to lead the player on.

In this example, I was investigating ‘Suspicious dirt piles’ which revealed animal tracks for me to follow. It led me to a source of food. It is also possible to find a mini-boss at the end of the trail sometimes. This encourages the player to be alert and actively search for ways to survive.

Lens of punishment

Don’t Starve can be very punishing as if you die in game, the game world will be deleted along with all your progress. This can be devastating to a causal player who died to a silly mistake. At first glance this can seem as unfair and frustrating to some. This results in an effect that your life is very precious and any mistake can be fatal. There are also many enemies in the game, events or environmental hazards that can kill you. Although this reinforces the design of the game as a dark survival game, it may be too much for some players. On the other hand, if you manage to survive a long duration of time, it gives the player a sense of pride and accomplishment. This works well with the theme of the game which emphasizes heavily on survival with little hand-holding.

In this picture, my base just got destroyed by a Bearger.

I tried to lure it to some killer bees..

But, he wrecked us all.

Lens of control

The interface of the game is quite intuitive and simple. The hotbar at the bottom, crafting window on the left and character status on the right gives the necessary information to the player concisely and clearly. The interface is very learnable and effective.

The player can also hover over objects to view the name and right click to ‘examine’ the object. This allows for more screen space for what really matters which is happening on screen near the player.

Orchids to Dusk is a short ambient game created by Pol Clarissa. In the game, you play an astronaut who has crashed landed on an alien planet. However, upon crash landing, you realized that you have a limited supply of oxygen and hence only a few minutes left to live and explore the planet.

Website Link: http://www.ko-opmode.com/orchids

Game Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Tw2XkQqkow

Lens of Elemental Tetrad

Mechanics: Orchids to Dusk is unique because even though it is such a simple game, it is also very profound. Instead of the usual action-packed adventures of normal games, Pol purposely created a game which focuses on simple idleness. Players have no objectives and are free to wander wherever they wish within the constraints of their oxygen level (which will eventually deplete) in an arid environment that was almost bare and seemed never-ending.

This setting conveys that the player is not all-powerful, and hence shifts the focus away from player-centered game-play seen in many objective-based games. Players are now forced to contemplate the character’s feelings and take in the serenity of the surroundings as they move through the landscape with the clock ticking down. This allows players to immerse and appreciate every moment of the game until the end, rather than just fixate on completing objective after objective. In this game, simple things like movement to a place would be a significant consideration, amidst the dwindling oxygen supply.

Furthermore, the game is a shared experience. Any player who plays the game would start in the same online world. In the game, you can either wait for your oxygen to deplete and pass away or you could voluntarily accept your fate and take off your helmet, following which you would become part of the landscape itself, contributing various beautiful trees and vegetation which would mark your resting place.

As a new player explores the same alien world, he can see the spots of beautiful vegetation left behind by others before him. This not only gives players certain control over death, but it also gives a sense that you are never truly alone in that world, making the concept of death seem much more accepting. The spot of vegetation left behind as you merge with the landscape after death simply adds further to the interaction between character and surroundings.

Story: There is no main plot once the game-play starts. The only background story provided in the game is the same 2-sentence introduction given at the start of this analysis. This proves that you do not always require a detailed plot to prompt players to contemplate life meanings and sincerely enjoy the interactions between character and surroundings. The lack of story seems to allow players to move away from objective-based playing to one that focuses more on the moment-to-moment interaction in the game.

Aesthetics/ Technology: Being a game that relies heavily on the interactions between character and its landscape, the visuals of the game are simple, yet amazing. Simple in the sense as to convey the intent that the player cannot see everything in the barren alien world, yet amazing in the spots of vegetation that pop up here and there to mark the passing of other players. The graphics, such as the trees, ground vegetation and colorful swirls, were all very detailed. The character also adopts different poses with respect to his action and/or surroundings, allowing stunning shots to be taken. Each spot of vegetation was different, probably corresponding to the number of people who passed away in that spot. The use of soothing music also helped to ease the mood of the game to convey a sense of appreciation and acceptance, which is believed to match well with the intent of the game.

The game was made to be a short and simplistic game. Hence not much CPU is needed to play the game. Only around 113 MB of memory space is needed to download the game before running the application and playing it.

Overall: I believe that the intent of the game was to focus on the character’s interaction with the surroundings and to get the players to appreciate every moment in the game through contemplation of various meanings and acceptance of death itself (which, like the astronaut, is something we ultimately would face in our lives). The elemental tetrad complemented smoothly with that intent to create a shared and contemplative wandering experience.

Lens of Curiosity

Coming into the game with no objectives and a depleting oxygen meter, it sparks a certain desire to challenge the status quo that the astronaut must die. The simple game fills into mind many possibilities, such as to explore far-away runes hoping to find habitation on the arid world, or to find a resupply of oxygen in that far-away corner, and it does this by allowing the player’s imagination to fill the almost barren landscape which sparks different possibilities and attract the curiosity of the player to explore them.

Lens of Meaningful Choices

Orchids to Dusk allows players to choose to go and explore wherever they like. It prompts the player to decide how to spend his remaining oxygen supply, whether to explore further to fulfill curiosity, to just sit down and admire the vegetation or scenery or voluntarily take off his helmet to accept death earlier. This is meaningful because it means either fighting against death till the end to explore as far as possible or to relish in the moment and accept fate. The profound concept of acceptance of death is being brought up here and left for the player to choose.

Lens of Simplicity/Complexity

Orchids to Dusk is a very simple game with no plot or objectives during game-play, however it can bring out profound meanings and introduce the concepts of appreciation and acceptance all at once, while allowing players a certain degree of freedom to make their own choices in the arid world, e.g. whether to explore further to search for a way out or accept their fate. Its emergent complexity allows players to contemplate these concepts while playing the game.

Lens of Time

Orchids to Dusk has an optimal game-play time of around 5 minutes from the time when the astronaut crash-lands till he runs out of oxygen. The timing seems appropriate because it is not too short that players get frustrated that they die too early without being able to explore up till a certain limit of where their curiosity takes them, but also not too long such that players get bored of exploring. This is important, especially in this game where there are no plots or objectives to hold the player’s attention. Hence the whole wondering experience cannot be too long, yet must be short enough for players to immerse in the interaction with the surroundings and also contemplate on the concepts intended by Pol when he created the game, , i.e. appreciating the present moments.

Website/ Youtube Link

Website Link: https://worldofwarcraft.com

Trailer Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYNCCu0y-Is

Gameplay Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joJJt3ERCws

Short Description

World of Warcraft (WoW) is a massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG)  created by Blizzard in 2004. Since the start of WoW, there are 6 expansions that expands the world to a higher level. Players start by choosing a class and a race, races picked will affect the faction which you will join. The available factions are Alliance and Horde. With the current expansion, players that are level 100 set out to the area of Broken Isle to level and help defeat the Burning Legion.

Elemental Tetrad

                Experience

                The experience in the World of Warcraft varies, there are the levelling experience, Player versus Environment (PVE) experiences, Player versus Player (PVP) experiences and Role Playing (RP) experiences. For levelling experience, the player levels his/ her character to the maximum level, 110, by doing quest, clearing dungeons and killing monsters. The player is also able to learn the lore of the game through questing. In PVE experiences in the end game, players team up with each other to clear raids and higher difficulty dungeons. A raid is a larger and flexible dungeon which requires 10 – 30 players to cooperate to kill the raid bosses, with the most difficult mode, Mythic, requires 20 players to take on. In PVP experiences, players are able to attack other players from the different factions in PVP worlds. Players are also able to queue for arena, a 2v2 – 5v5 PVP arena, and battlegrounds, a larger scale 30 vs 30 battle arena. Different battlegrounds have different objectives to do, from Capture the flag to escorting the payload to the end. In RP servers, players create a character that will join to create their own story with other players.

                Aesthetics

                WoW is set in the world of Azeroth, a world full of magic and magical creatures. In every expansion, the world is set to a different kind of Aesthetics, from demons to pandas. In the recent expansion, the new area, Broken Isle, has different areas. In Azsuna, the area is filled with Nagas, creatures that live in water, who are attacking the area with one small area that are filled with demons. In Val’sharah, it is a druidic like area which is being corrupted by the demonic energies of the burning legion. In Highmountain, the area is full of mountains and different tribes of creatures. In Stormheim, it is design with the feeling of valor, where you quest to prove your worth to one of the Titan Keeper, Odyn. There is also enemies that are from Helya’s army, who are attacking Odyn’s army.

                Story

                WoW have a long history of lore, with each expansion increasing the amount of lores. With the current lore, Guldan, an orc warlock, was pushed into a portal to Azeroth of the main timeline after the defeat of Archimonde in the alternate timeline. He then open a way for the burning legion to attack Azeroth.

                Mechanics

                As a MMORPG, your characters will learn different skill at different level. You cast spells by pressing on a button assigned to it, and you move your character by using the buttons q, w, e, a, s, d. Unlike the newer MMORPG, in WoW, when you cast a spell, the spell will automatically hit on the target you have selected, in newer MMORPG, you have to aim your spells. In raids, there are different raid mechanics that players have to learn to defeat the boss, like not standing on the fire that the boss created.

One of the different UI addons you can use to customize your World of Warcraft Experience

Lenses

                Lens of Challenge / Cooperation

                As a player who mainly plays the end game PVE, the lens of challenge is on defeating the boss before a certain timing, doing the mechanics correctly and dealing enough damage to the boss, and when the boss dies, it drop loots for the players to gear up and to do more damage. There are different modes to challenge the players. There are Looking for Raid (LFR), Normal, Heroic and Mythic mode. In LFR, you queue to join random players to defeat the easier version of the boss, in normal the skills that the boss casts is more painful and boss have higher health. In Heroic, some bosses will introduce new mechanics for the players to dodge/manage. In Mythic, It is a set number of 20 players, and the boss will have new mechanics, most of the time it will punish the raid if it is not done correctly. I have combine Cooperation with Challenge as they are something similar in WoW, to make the fight easier,  the players who are grouped up together have to cooperate with each other, using any form of voice communication, like Discord, to call out certain mechanics. There are tanks, which takes the hard hitting damage from the boss, the healers, who heal the entire raid, and there is the damage dealers, who are the one dealing the most damage to kill the boss.

                Lens of Skill

                While raiding, the skills that a player required is basically knowledge, reaction and perseverance. In every boss fight, every raider is needed to know what skill will the boss cast, which can be read through the dungeon journal tab or reading it up online. In reaction, players are needed to react to certain boss skill, reducing the damage taken by avoiding the skills. In perseverance, in progression raiding, raid where you fight the boss for the first time, if your group is still learning the boss, you need to be prepare to die many times before being able to kill the boss.

One of the boss from the latest expansion in Emerald Nightmare

                Lens of Chance

                Every race have their own form of chance, on different skill, talents and passives. This makes the game more interesting as without chance, people would probably use the method of min max-ing and find the best damage class, best healer class and best tank class to defeat the boss.

                Lens of Fairness

                In WoW, there are many small patches which will nerf overpowered class that happen to get a really good buff during bigger patches, this makes the game more fair as people can play the class they like instead of playing the more over powered classes.

                Lens of Goals

In WoW, there are 2 major goals, in PVP, players are aiming to be the best PVP team/player, in arena they plan to be the group with the highest match making rating (MMR). In PVE, the groups of players are aiming to clear the raid before everyone else to be the world/realm first to defeat the last boss in the highest difficulty. Goals are achievable if you put in time and effort into the game.

The legendary artifact of Protection Warrior

Legacy of Discord is a mobile 3D action RPG by Youzu Games based on Hong Kong, which runs on both Android and iOS. It has currently 5 million downloads on Android as is emerging as one of the top trending games in the market. It is mainly a single player game that focussed on completing quest that is in a form of stages, with some elements of CO-OP and PVP. It offers high quality graphics with a lot of emphasis on character customization. Generally, the character’s ability is usually overpowered and can easily fight monsters without much trouble. As continuously playing stages after stages can be repetitive and boring, the game also implemented an auto-fight function that allows an AI to play on your behalf, saving you many taps on the screen. Overall, this game has a very low difficulty rating and can be easily picked up by anyone.

Links

https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/legacy-discord-furious-wings/id1132537738?mt=8

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gtarcade.lod&hl=en

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UinCD1TtU2A

Lens #9: Elemental Tetrad

Mechanics

• There are 5 chapters, each chapters consisting of 15 stages
• The goal is to win every stage to proceed to the next chapter
• Each stage is accompanied by a NPC quest that runs part of the storyline
• As the character progress, more of the storyline will be revealed
• As the stages are cleared, gold and weapons are rewarded to upgrade the character’s skill set and stats
• More features are unlocked, such as PVP, as the player levels up

Aesthetics

• Well polish environment with well embellished maps
• Animations are very flashy and captivating
• 3D models are detailed with very nice texturing
• Sound and music gives of a fantasy yet heroic vibe
• Overall aesthetic is medieval fantasy

Story

• Story is broken into 5 chapters, namely Story of the Light, The Dark Invasion, Betrayal and Revenge, The Predestined, and Unbreakable Alliance
• The game takes place in Aurora, a world which have been taken over by the evil
• Totems in the world, called Crystals of Light, has been corrupted by darkness and transformed into Crystals of Darkness
• The player’s goal is to purify the crystals by defeating monsters that spawn in each stage
• While on the mission to purify, the player will learn more about the history of Aurora as it unfolds every chapter

Technology

• Basically a point and touch game that utilizes the touchscreen of smartphones
• No other significant technology is being used here

Lens #24: Novelty

• A main aspect of the game is the limitless character customization
• As the player levels, he/she will gain access to more fanciful outfits
• One key equipment is wings, which looks really nice and grand
• Players who walk around with big wings that show off their prowess to other players in the area
• The animations of the spells are flashy and detailed, however, it does not evolve through the game and stays stagnant, which may wear off the novelty factor

Lens #46: Reward

• This game has a huge reward system. The most obvious one will be the reward that is given right after completing a stage
• Completing NPC quests(which involves talking to different NPCs and completing stages), also rewards the player with gold and crafting materials
• There is also daily login bonus to encourage players to play everyday
• In addition, everyday there is a time bonus where the longer you play the game within the same day, the more rewards you can get
• VIP members can claim even more high grade items as daily rewards, encouraging players to spend money to upgrade their status

Lens #52: Economy

• There are many different currencies in the game
• Gold is the most common currency which are pretty useless apart from upgrading your equipment and levelling up your skills, and hence they are awarded freely
• Diamonds on the other hand is a cash item, where players have to use real life money to purchase them
• These diamonds can be exchanged for rare items, which are used to either craft equipment with very high stats, or equipment themselves that are very flashy and fashionable

Lens #109: Profit

• There is a lot of emphasis on diamonds in this game
• There is constantly a lot of advertisement encouraging players to make diamond purchases
• They even have incentives, such as 2x diamond on the first recharge, to encourage players to spend money
• On top of that, the more diamonds are recharged, the higher the VIP status of the player, which unlocks more features and bonuses as a part of the loyalty program
• Players who pay, and subsequently attaining VIP status, will be given VIP exclusive items to differentiate themselves from the normal free-to-play players, giving them a sense of superiority
• These diamonds can also purchase more energy so that players don’t have to wait to play more stages
• Basically diamonds allow the player to do pretty much anything they want, and proceed the game with ultimate ease

Title screen

Game website and demo: http://undertale.com

Undertale is a role playing game produced by Toby Fox, and released in 2015. It was one of the finalist for IGF 2016. The game follows a child that falls into a place called the Underground, where monsters are trapped by humans after a war. The player will have to play as the child and navigate through the Underground with the goal of getting to the surface. They will meet with obstacles along the way as they find out the past of the Underground and why monsters are after their soul.

Lens of Essential Experience

Undertale allows players to experience a game where all of their actions seem meaningful. It strives to distort reality and trick the players into really placing themselves in the shoes of the protagonist and forget that they are only playing a game. It does so through several ways.

1. Undertale provides an array of interesting and well developed characters that can be interacted with, and depending on the player’s choices, the scripted interactions may change slightly or drastically. This makes the game more personal to the player as the game customises events to take place according to the player’s choices.

2. Undertale has a story that revolves around issues caused by basic game mechanics such as resets and reloads, this unnerves the player and tricks them into taking the game more seriously.

3. Undertale provides well designed characters with interesting back stories and strikingly different personalities, this lets them leave lasting impressions in the player and allows the player to quickly develop emotions relating to them. This makes the player consider more carefully as they interact with these characters and keeps the player interested.

Undertale also draws out the player’s desire for adventure and exploration. It does so through these ways.

1. Most parts of the over world have a suitable amount of interactable objects and characters to keep the player interested.

2. All different types of monsters the player have to face have sightly different attacks and interactions that are unique to the monster. This makes the player unable to predict their encounters further into the game, which pushes them to find out what lies ahead.

Lens of Endogenous Value

Surprised by Sans’ words in the judgement hall, revealing what LV and EXP really meant.

Undertale strives to give endogenous value to items. Consumables can have different effects when used in battle, and gaining higher LV and EXP allows the player to deal higher damage to monsters which they attack.

Furthermore, some consumable items have sentimental value in them. Also, some items may behave differently when used under different circumstances. This can cause players to become attached to certain items.

Lens of Elemental Tetard

Undertale do strives to balance out the 4 elements in game design.

1. Mechanics of the game is well designed and thought out. During “fights” that the player is forced to have, mechanics to attack or defend is largely the same but differing in detail to complement the enemy attacking. They are easy to understand and difficult enough to make the battle challenging.

2. Throughout the game, the goal of the player is always well defined and the game constantly reminds the player to move towards the goal. This mechanic is deeply integrated into the story of the game.

3. Towards the end of the game, the mechanics change slightly according to the story line, allowing the player to immerse themselves deeper into the story line. Thus, enhancing the story.

4. The story is detailed but simple at the same time. While the player had a clear goal throughout the game, the backstory of the game is gradually told to the player through various channels. Details of how none player characters have participated in the back story of the game fleshes out the characters.

5. The technology used is sufficient in creating the simple graphics and music the game needs.

6. Aesthetics wise, while the graphics are simple and can be considered plain, they are able to portray important characteristics of characters well. Furthermore, simple graphics enhances the story as it allows players to use their imaginations to portray their version of characters.

7. The audio in undertale is very well fitted. Music in the over world is able to control the mood of the different places very well and character themes really amplifies the personalities of the different characters. The well fitting music is able to allow players to further immerse into the story.

Lens of Surprise

Undertale integrates surprise deep in its story and surprisingly, mechanics. A play through of Undertale always manages to put new players on the edge of their seats. Undertale does so in these ways.

1. The true story of the game is not revealed to the player at the start of the game, but it is revealed throughout the game as bits of littered information instead. Thus, the player are surprised when they come across a plot twist which they do not expect.

2. Towards the end of the game, the mechanics changes slightly according to the story. This integrates the element of surprise as players do not expect the mechanics to change.

3. Characters in Undertale is multidimensional, the characters often have multiple sides to their personalities, and this may surprise the players when the players are not expecting the characters to react a certain way.

Lens of Fun

Hanging out with Papyrus

1. Undertale is fun as the story is very intriguing, having many plot twists and sub plots which are interlinked. The interesting story keeps the player interested and wanting to find out what will happen further into the game.

2. Due to the interlinked nature of sub plots and relationships of characters in the game, choices made in one part of the game may have a lasting effect and change the subsequent game play for the player. Having a personalized game story makes the game more fun to the players as they will be able to observe the consequences of their actions.

3. The underground offers an array of different objects and characters to interact with, many with interesting dialog or descriptions or even references to pop culture. This pushes the player to explore and interact with objects and characters, making the experience fun and entertaining.

4. The use of humor throughout the story provides a light-hearted feel to the players and entertains the players, making exploring the underground fun for the players.

Description

H1Z1 – King of the Kill is a third-person shooter deathmatch survival game developed by the Daybreak Game Company. About one hundred players in solo or in teams fight against each other in a hilly region. All unarmed players parachute to the region. Players have to go to towns to look for equipment like weapons and cars or kill others to grab others’. Escaping from the advancing gas and killing all other players, only the strongest player will be King of the Kill.

Website: https://www.h1z1.com/king-of-the-kill/game-overview

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/h1z1thegame

My Own Experience

While playing this game, I feel quite excited and a little confused to be an unarmed person in such a region. It is not easy to choose useful equipment because of limitation of carrying capacity. Moreover, when hearing footsteps or gunfire, I feel quite nervous. Personally, I think it is exciting and enjoyable to struggle for survival in H1Z1.

Analysis

1. Lens of Fairness

H1Z1 is a highly competitive asymmetrical game. As the name suggested, only the best killer can win the game, which means players who have the better skills about the game are more likely to win. Nevertheless, there are probabilities for players with lower skill levels to win. Players parachute to a random place of the hilly region, so that some players are closer to useful equipment. Thus, besides skill, luck is also a factor which influences the result of a game. This makes the game interesting and challenging for everyone.

2. Lens of Skills

One of the dominant skills for this game is perspicacity. For example, some powerful players can recognize cars which can be driven and the houses which may contains significant equipment.  Another one is abilities to use the equipment like using guns and drives the cars. All these skills can be improved with practice. Thus, it will not break the fairness.

3. Lens of Cooperation

Players can form teams of two to five people to fight in team-match mode. They can communicate with each other through microphone. They can cooperate to fight skirmishes or share materials to make equipment. Even in solo mode, people can talk to each other too. Thus, it is convenient for players to make friends worldwide. However, there exists a problem. Players who are killed can also talk, which leads to a rude environment, but it is okay for this game because it is rude to some content in my opinion.

4. Lens of Economy

According to the ranking, players can get metals as rewards. The metals can be used to buy cooler clothes, which will not influence the fairness. Players can also get rare clothes from activities held by the company. Some people like to collect clothes so that trade on these clothes appears.

5. Lens of Time

The map of a game is relatively large, as it is possible for a player to move for several minutes without meeting any other player, and it is too large for a few players left at last. Nonetheless, the time of a game is always tens of minutes. This is controlled by the harmful gas which advances into the region gradually. Every several minutes, the gas advances and after some times, the safe place is quite limited. Thus, it forces a decisive battle to determine the last winner.

Gameplay screenshot from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Witcher 3 is an open world third-person role-playing action game that is based on a fantasy novel series. Witcher 3 is the third game in the Witcher trilogy. It picks up after the ending of Witcher 2, in which the protagonist, Geralt of Rivia, a monster hunter known as a witcher, attempts to reunite with Yennifer (his friend and lover) and Ciri (his adopted daughter) who are currently chased by a mysterious antagonistic group called the “Wild Hunt”. Players play as Geralt and fight against both monsters and humans using his swords and magic powers called “Signs”. Apart from the fulfilling the main storyline, players can also embark on the numerous side quests strewn across the huge world or play Gwent, a card game unique to the world of Witcher.

Video of gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4ony2r0QFs

Lens Analysis

1. Lens of Elemental Tetrad
   1. Story: Witcher 3 has a compelling main story that is brought across with excellent narrative, making it one of the strongest aspect of the game. The story is complex and non-linear (player’s choices can affect the ending), and has numerous plot twists and unexpected moments. The unconventional story serves as a main drive for the game.
   2. Aesthetics: Witcher 3 at the time of its release, had one of the best graphics for a video game. There is realism in the movement of environment objects (eg. grass), and especially in Geralt’s A special aspect is the subtle changes to the screen hue with respect to the player location, such as a dark and dull hue when in a haunted village, or a highly saturated hue when in the heart of a lively city. These works very well in enhancing the storytelling aspect of the game.
   3. Mechanics: The game does not encourage the “hack-n-slash” playstyle, and often, players are required to use signs, potions and skilful manoeuvres to defeat enemies. This plays well with the overall idea that the world is dangerous and survival does not come easy, and ensure that players do not easily get bored of the combat system.
   4. Technology: The game makes use the keyboard and mouse assets very well, such that even with so many controls for combat (five available signs, two secondary weapons, two swords, dodging, parrying etc) players do not normally have to move their palms to be able to fight comfortably. The game cleverly slows the game time while players access a wheel to change signs so that no extra keys have to be allocated to the all the signs, and players have sufficient time to switch between signs
2. Lens of Emotion
   1. There are many surprises hidden away in the world. For example, while travelling in the game world, the player may come across mysterious blood stains and monster tracks on the forest side trails. This invokes excitement, fear and curiosity in the player – should the player move on or take a risk and investigate the source? These instances are not explicitly displayed on the map nor in the quest guide, and can only be discovered through exploration, which enhances the excitement and novelty of every encounter.
   2. Witcher has a very strong narrative accompanied by excellent voice-acting that brings out the emotions of and dynamics between the characters very well. In one of the expansion content, Heart of Stone, Geralt takes part in a wedding in the village and the combination of uplifting ambient tunes played by the musicians, gossips from the maidens and funny dialogue exchanges with drunk guests creates a very lively and happy atmosphere, invoking happiness in the player.
3. Lens of Freedom
   1. Being an open-world game, players are allowed access to almost the entire game world even without following the storyline. Players are not constrained to the storyline quests and are free to roam wherever they want or do whatever they want to at any point of the game.
   2. Apart from just plain exploring, players can find hidden treasures or guarded stashes, clear out (challenging) monster nests and discover other countless places of interests found in the very big game world.
   3. When players get bored of the constant combat and questing, they can play a strategic card game, Gwent, or take part in many mini games such as fist-fighting, horse racing etc.
   4. There are no hard and fast rule on how to ace the game. Players are free to choose their preferred style of combat and then add skill points or buy gears that cater to or enhance that combat style.
4. Lens of Meaningful Choices
   1. The strongest aspect of Witcher lies in the myriad of choices that the player faces. In many cases, players are faced with a moral dilemma; Should you pardon a bandit (who pleads for your mercy and promises to turn over a new leaf) or kill him in distrust? Do you reprimand your daughter for being brave and risking her life to save others, or encourage her bravery? Would you choose the girl that stuck with you at your lowest, or choose the love of your life? Every choice matters – it changes your reputation and how people treat you, and the more major choices affects the story progression and eventually the ending.
   2. Many a times, there is no right or wrong for any of the choices you make, which makes every decision a lot more interesting (or frustrating).
   3. Apart from moral dilemmas, there are also numerous times where the player’s choices are based on his level of observation and judgement. For example, if a player does not pick out clues from the messages and dialogues carefully, he might get tricked into a decision that might negatively affect him or other characters.
5. Lens of Essential Experience
   1. The game does a very good job in creating the immersive experience of being in a fantasy-mediaeval world.
   2. First, the level of detail put into the level design of the world is excellent. The buildings, structures and scenery are very relevant and accurate to the representation of the mediaeval era. Cobblestone floor, stone buildings in the richer district and wooden houses in the slumps. Even the interior design of every accessible building is done intricately. When walking through the streets and accidentally bumping into other NPCs, the collision is visible and the NPCs will react to it (such as shouting or scolding). This contributes to a very immersive and lively game atmosphere.
   3. Monsters roam freely in the wilderness, and unexpected encounters with them enhances the fantasy aspect of the Witcher A player can be travelling near a cliff when a wyvern lets out a cry and flies overhead, or be gathering herbs in the woods and suddenly encountering a Leshen, a powerful tree monster.
   4. Lastly, the Witcher world highlights the dynamics and politics between the difference races very well. Throughout the game, players will interact with elves, dwarves, sorceresses and different factions of armies. For instance, there is a sense of distrust between elves and humans due to feuds in the past, and discrimination against dwarves by the humans and thus dwarves are often only found in the slumps of the village. These dynamics creates a fantasy world that has depth and seemingly mirrors the real world, creating an even more immersive experience.

Cover Image

Game’s steam page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/262060/

What is it about?

The Darkest Dungeon is a rogue-like dungeon crawler with turn-based combat. It features elements such as permanent death, punishing difficulty and promises a painful journey complicated by unforgiving dice rolls. Unlike other games, the Darkest Dungeon prides itself as a game with high learning curve and relentless obstacles which would put the average player off. That said, it naturally becomes popular among gamers who enjoy having the odds stacked against their favor.

The Darkest Dungeon is developed by an indie game developer Red Hook Studios and is playable on the Playstation 4, Playstation Vita and Linux platforms. It has received positive reviews and several award nominations. It has also managed to sell over one million copies.

The world is painted with madness and despair

Lens of the Elemental Tetrad

The Darkest Dungeon harmonizes the four elements; aesthetics, story, mechanics and technology, well and stays true to its title throughout the player’s journey.

The story is simple but intriguing at the same time. Right off the bat, the aesthetics of the game is conveyed with an ominous barrage of organ music which reminds the player of the lovecrathian theme that the game is inspired by. Immediately after the prologue cinematic, the player is thrown into a dungeon and the feeling of forsaken and despair is aptly conveyed.

The mechanics of the game is seemingly simple. Visual cues are provided plentiful and the player can understand how the combat works without a wordy tutorial or intrusive markers and guided steps. Yet, the myriad of simple mechanics creates a comprehensive combat system which offers ample room for planning strategies and tactics to achieve victory. Therefore, the game notably achieved a simple to learn but difficult to master combat mechanic which made the game stay challenging and not outright impossible. This thus resonates well with the despair and anguish that the theme of the game tries to create.

Lastly, the technology of the game is more than sufficient. Although the game is entirely 2D, most of the combat mechanics are made more intuitive thanks to the 2D nature of the game. Without the need for 3D rendering, the game also benefited from quick load times, responsive gameplay and almost seamless progression throughout the dungeon. This offers the player no breaks from the grueling adventure. Thus, I felt that the technology used to create the game was both suitable and well justified.

It is not always a treasure

Lens of Surprise

The gameplay of the Darkest Dungeon revolves around bringing parties of adventurers to explore the horrors around the game world and eventually exploring and conquering the darkest dungeon in the end. However, besides the type of area and objective of the dungeon run, the game gives no additional information of the dungeon. It is up to the player to take the gamble to prepare what the player thinks to be sufficient to complete and survive the dungeon. Encounters within the dungeon are also randomly generated and even the “loot” in the dungeon are mostly complicated by a chance of a negative outcome. This constant element of surprise keeps the player on his toes as he would have to constantly analyze his choices and adapt to the ever-changing odds as he progresses through the dungeon.

Moreover, the monsters that lurks in the various dungeons are well varied and each new encounter is packed with surprises as the monster unleashes a new combat pattern which the player would be caught off guard by and must adapt to its strategy ad hoc.

The purposeful deny of information to the player is done adequately to maintain the surprise factor of each combat encounter and at the same time, not impair the player to the point where he is left to poke in the dark, with no ability of devising any form of strategy.

That moment when you want to rage quit

Lens of Balance

The Darkest Dungeon revolves greatly around the concept of chance. Strategies may fail if a series of unfortunate events happen to befall on the player and due to the long game length of around 80 hours, the player is bound of experience some of those occurrences of bad luck. As the game loves to stack the odds against the player, I feel that the player is always taking huge risks when making choices and is given no alternatives.

Since the game artificially raises the difficulty of the game by forcing the player to take risky gambles, I felt that the game was not well balanced. The Darkest Dungeon boasts many different adventurer archetypes and a fair bit of them are frowned upon due to their abilities relying largely on chance. That said, it could also be a deliberate design choice to introduce the element of uncertainty to the game, but I felt that it could have been better balanced.

He visits you in the worst occasions.

Lens of Imagination

The game stays true to the lovecrathian theme by presenting its own representation of the eldritch horrors the lurks throughout the realm of the Darkest Dungeon. Dungeons are occasionally littered with notes which serves as fragments of story about past adventurers and their mishaps. These notes sometimes foreshadow future monsters and events that would happen in the game but is sure to omit certain details to let the player’s imagination run wild before witnessing the horrors themselves.

Additionally, the game’s narrator would inform the player about the lore behind the realm with his excellent voice overs which adds plenty of flavor to the player’s own interpretation of the lore behind the game world.

There was never a shortage of obstacles.

Lens of the Obstacle

Lastly, the game goes all out to design obstacles for the player such that the game would remain ever challenging or worse regardless of whether the player had advanced far in the game. The game is designed such that highly experienced adventurers would refuse to take on easier dungeons. Additionally, adventurers who are stressed by the horrors of their previous dungeon would carry over, discouraging the player from bringing the same adventurer on consecutive dungeons. There are more complications introduced to the player and all of them ensures that the player would not have an easy time. Therefore, when the player completes a dungeon, he will always enjoy a huge sense of relief and this makes each dungeon run appear to be not as monotonous and repetitive as it would have been otherwise.