Name of Game: Tap Titans

Name of Developer: Game Hive Corp

Description:

The game revolves around tapping. The player is represented by a single warrior at the center of the screen. Each tap by the player corresponds with a slash of the warrior’s sword. The player has to defeat several rounds of monsters, which increase in difficulty as the level increases. Every ten monsters, there will be a slightly harder boss monster, that the player would have to beat within a set amount of time. You can always leave a boss battle to stay at the level to ‘grind’ more gold.

The player receives resources in the form of gold each time he defeats a monster. Players can choose to invest gold in the following three things:

– Skills, which enable the player to have certain skills that will assist him in defeating the monsters.

– Level of the Warrior, which increases the base damage that each tap by the player does

– Heroes, who can assist the player by dealing a constant stream of damage and providing the player with a steady income of gold.

Link to game website:

https://www.facebook.com/taptitan

Self Observation:

My own play style reflected my natural tendency to be laid back. I invested in leveling my Heroes for the constant stream of damage. This made my progress in the game rather slow, as my raw ‘tap damage’ was always rather low and it took quite some time for me to take down each monster.

Elemental Tetrad

Mechanics:

The mechanics of this game aren’t too complex. The main form of player interaction is in the tapping. For each tap, the player deals damage to the monster. The mechanics make it such that the monster’s health increases at a rate slightly faster than the player’s damage, so that they player will have to spend time ‘grinding’ every so often.

There is also a late game ‘prestige’ mechanic, which allows the player to reset his game, but will be awarded relics which provide for artifacts that can award the player a permanent boost. This allows for a faster playthrough of the earlier stages and allows the player to be stronger than he originally was when he arrives back at the same level.

Aesthetics:

The 2D look and feel of the game falls in well with the entire theme of simplicity. The smoothness of the damage numbers popping out as the player taps helps the player to visually see his attack speed. The large numbers that pop out as you achieve a critical hit gives the users a sense of satisfaction as well. The ever changing background (it changes after each boss killed) gives the game a change to what might be otherwise considered very monotonous.

Story:

There is hardly any story linked to the game. The player is simply introduced to his character, told to tap on the screen to defeat the enemy, and the game just continues from there.

Technology:

The game utilizes the technology of touch screen phones efficiently, by minimizing the need for buttons and multiple inputs.

Lens 6 – Problem Solving

Despite being a very straightforward game, the lens of problem solving arises at regular intervals throughout the gameplay. This occurs when the boss begins to get too difficult to beat, and I have to make the decision: Do I stay at the current level for a longer period of time, or fight the boss in order to get to a higher level and earn gold more efficiently?

Lens 9 – Unification

The whole theme of simplicity is clear throughout the game. The visual designs are simplistic 2D models, while the mechanics of the game call for a rather simple tap only input. Every thing the player has to do, including leveling and gaining gold, requires the simple action of tapping on the screen.

Lens 18 – Flow

The goals of the game are simple: Defeat the current monster.

The flow of the goals from one monster to another is very clear, as only one monster appears at a time. I don’t feel like I am distracted from the goals, and the goals are generic enough so that the I have the ability to complete the goals in my own way.

Lens 29 – Chance

At random points in time, a fairy would fly in, and tapping on the fairy would provide me with a random boost. Sometimes, the boost is even beneficial enough for me to defeat a boss I previously could not. This causes me to wait in anticipation for the fairy, or even have my experience of the game changed by a timely arrival of a boost from the fairy.

Lens 31 – Challenge

I found the game to have good intervals of challenges. Due to the increase in the health of the bosses, I often end up barely defeating the bosses within the time limit. This allows me to feel a strong sense of challenge when I have to tap as fast as I can to ensure I beat the boss with mere seconds to spare.

Observations when another person is playing:

The person I was observing took a different approach to handling the game. He preferred to invest points into raw power, and coupled with his ability to tap faster, was able to push past bosses without having to rely on his helper heroes.

This play style relied a lot on the player having to use his own effort to deal more damage, and resulted in him having to play the game at a more intensive pace then I had.

Lens 42 – Simplicity/Complexity

My friend’s play style made the game even more simple. He focused singly on his tap damage, and made the game a race between his tapping abilities, and the exponential increase in boss health.

Lens 3 – Fun

My friend found the game to be fun, especially in the ever increasing damage numbers. He paralleled the game to pressing bubble wrap, a way for him to distress through having fun.

Lens 49 – Visible Progress

As he played through the game a lot faster than I had, my friend’s playthrough had a strong aspect of visible progress. You could see his damage done increase from the thousands, to millions, to billions, allowing for a visible sign of his progress in the game.

Personally, he found it very satisfying to look at the damage per second counter, which is affected by both the damage level, and the number of taps per second he could tap. He was able to set his own personal goals at each interval.

Lens 57 – Feedback

My friend noticed a form of feedback that I had neglected earlier.

Under each boss’ health, there is also a small bar that depletes in relation to the amount of time you have left to beat the boss. This provides a visual feedback to players, to help them to see how fast they are managing to whittle away the boss’ health in relation to the time left.

Both he and I felt this was a vital form of feedback, as it gave us the ability to visualize if we would be able to win the boss, especially if it would have been a close call.

Comparison Analysis

Due to our two different playing styles, I was able to observe two completely different ways that the game evolved. In my game, I spent more time waiting for my heroes to attack and generate gold, whilst my friend spent most of his playing time tapping away furiously.

From this, I learnt that a good game should allow the player to dictate the pace (to a certain extent), in order for players to have a unique experience of their own.

In addition, I was able to see how players place their priorities when given a limited resource. My aim was to level my heroes, while my friend’s goal was to level his raw damage.

As we were playing, I realized that an aspect missing from the game is a multiplayer function. A social aspect may help players to renew their interest in the game, and provide a completely different game experience to the players. It can also help with the more frustrating points of the game, as it would allow players to help one another through the harder intervals.

On the whole, my friend and I agreed that the game was one that could clearly fill the role of a ‘casual game’, one that could be picked up – and stopped – at the convenience of the player. The game in itself provides an unexplainable addictive playing experience, which makes players like my friend and I return to beat up the next boss every time we pick up our phones.

The game that I will talk about is League of Legends. This is a free online game and everyone who has a garena account can easily access to this game. There are five players each team. Each player can choose a champion to join the fight. To play this game well, players need to have good sense of how to make combination of their champions’ abilities. During the game, players can kill players and minions of the other team and monsters in the jungle to get level up and earn money to buy items. Once being killed, players need to wait for respawning. The goal of the game is to destroy enemies’ turrets. Teamwork plays an important role in the game. Here is the link to the website: http://lol.garena.com/

I play the game:

When I first play this game, I find it easy to handle. I think this game provide me a chance to be a fighter and happy with that I have the ability to lead my teammates to victory. There is a period in this game that we have to fight one to one. This is the time that we can show our individual talent to play certain champion and this is also the time challenge our skills. There are three lines in the game, I always like to play in one line alone, so that gives chance to those players who are called jungler to gank me. When I stand in line alone, I will be very curious about when and where the jungler will appear. This makes me in tense and in this situation I can always perform better. There is another situation that will make players surprise, we can it critical attack. When we hit others there is a chance that we can make critical attack which will make huge damage. Everytime I see I make a critical attack I will be very excited because that will be a very good chance to kill the enemy. I think the critical attack make the game fun. Overall I like this game because this game provides me good experience. Playing the game we can have fun and there are full of surprise and curious mechanism in the game.

My friend plays the game:

He seldom play games like this, he likes RPG better. When I first ask him to play the game, he is not interested in it. However, finally he tries it. His first feeling is that there are too many champions and every champion has different abilities so that he is not able to memories those. I ask him play with AI first because he is a beginner.When he play the game, this game seems to be more fun because he does not know what ability the enemy has, he is always curious about them and new abilities can make him surprise. After a while, he seems to be OK to handle one champion. Therefore, I ask him to play with players. Bad things happen. He is not performing well and his teammates blame on him. He is unhappy about that. However, he is still willing to play again. “I will prove that I can play better than them after some practice” he says. And after some more practice he gradually learns the method to battle with people and finally he wins a game and becomes extremely happy. He says he is going to download the game on his own computer and play it. Battle with people is more challenge than play with AI and challenge makes this game fun.

What I learn:

A good game should provide people good experience such as I am very happy to be the fighter in League of Legends. Game should have a mode which is easy for beginner so that there will always be new players. Moreover, game should be challenge and interactive. I believe the right amount of challenge can make a game fun. After we play the game several times, we will be better and better. However, there is a limit in game AI; thus, we need other players to be the challenge, which is battle among players. Good mechanisms make a game fun. In League of Legends, I like the critical attack part because this provides unpredictable results of a battle, which makes the game more interesting. Furthermore, I think a good game should have a good goal. In League of Legends, there is an explicitly goal that we have to destroy all turrets and win a game. Moreover, there is another implicitly goal that we want to be the best player among all players. I want to win more so I have to practice more. As a result, players will not leave the game when a game ends; they will be willing to start a new game.

Papers Please: This game puts the player in the position of an immigration officer of a dystopian country Arstotzka and thus has to decide who to admit or exclude from the country.

Game website: http://papersplea.se/

Elemental Tetrahedral: The game is aesthetically pleasing, despite it not boasting of high quality 3D graphics and just opting for a 2D pixelated interface. Despite this low level of graphics, it manages to create a convincing world and story with the aid of suitable music where I am in the position of a immigration officer of a checkpoint that lets people into the country Arstotzka that is ruled by a corrupt government. The technology here would be any personal computer, since it does not require a high level of graphics. The mechanics are to make decisions about the people that pass through the checkpoint everyday as well as whether to admit some specifically important people to the story despite failing the specified immigration restrictions each day.

Figure 1: Checking of documents

The Lens of Problem Solving: I had to decide who to admit or exclude from the country based on a certain set of rules that are declared by the “ministry” of the country every day. There are warnings followed by penalization of money and followed by being fired and thus the game ending in the case of admitting too many illegal immigrants consecutively. Speed plays a factor as well as you are paid depending on the number of people that pass through the checkpoint each day with a given set of hours. One hidden problem would be that the money earned at the end of the day will be spent on food, heat and medicine for the family at the end of the day. I had to decide on certain days to not supply heat for my family due to limited cash which in turn led to them being cold and sick the next day, and thus I had to purchase medicine instead with my meager income.

The Lens of Challenge: The number of rules and restrictions increase day by day and it gets increasingly difficult to check for every single restriction for every person that passes the borders. There is a large variety in the rules and restrictions to pass each immigrant. In the later levels I needed to check not only for validity of the immigrant’s passport, but also whether the conversation between the immigrant and me was in accordance with the reason for entry document from the immigrant. I also needed to check whether the height and weight of the immigrant was valid with the ID ticket and if not, body scan the immigrant for contraband items. This variety kept the challenge of the game fresh and not mundane when all I was really doing was checking papers.

The Lens of Goals: The main short term goal in the game would be to survive the day without getting too many mistakes and thus result in being fired and the game ending. The game consists of twenty different endings which are reached depending on my reaction to certain immigrants and people that pass through the checkpoint. For me I found the long term goal to be able to finish and arrive at all twenty different endings eventually. For example there is a organisation, EZIC, that seeks to overthrow the unjust government in the country and depending on whether I admit the members of the organisation into the country I arrive at a different ending consequently.

Figure 2: Branches for different situations that lead to different endings

The Lens of Meaningful Choice: There are also varying conversations between the immigrants and the officer sometimes that try to “guilt trip” me into choosing to admit the immigrant even though he/she may be violating some rules, for example an immigrant begging or bribing the officer to admit their spouse or themselves. At times I find myself admitting an immigrant because “her son is in the country waiting for her” even though she has an invalid passport, since the only penalisation for me is just a warning slip from the ministry. It also makes me more cautious to not exceed the limited admissions for error since I have already given one “chance” for myself away for a virtual mother to reunite with her virtual son. The game successfully made me believe that I was making a meaningful choice through these interactions.

A friend’s observations:

The Lens of Meaningful Choice: He was not successfully “guilt tripped” into admitting any poor person that could not afford valid passports and just denied them entry without any hesitation. The game had not successfully imposed upon him the guilt of denying a woman from reuniting with her lost son, which indicated a certain level of detachment that he had from the game, and he may not have believed he was making a meaningful choice.

The Lens of Surprise: He was surprised when there was suddenly a terrorist attack on the customs which led to it shutting down for the day and abruptly cutting short his day. There were also some rules that were not explicitly stated that he missed, such as checking whether a person with long hair but had a passport that indicated the person was male needed a body scan before the person could be admitted. He was surprised at the depth of the game’s long list of rules and how it could trip up the player.

The Lens of Curiosity: He found himself being curious about what each ending entailed depending on the different meaningful choices he made such as admitting members of a revolution into the strict and unjust country that gave him such meagre pay from working everyday that could hardly feed his family. He was also curious what would result if he did or did not accept a monetary bribe to admit a particular important person into the country, or to admit someone that the boss had specifically asked him to allow entry. At each ending the game tells you which ending out of the twenty you have arrived at which invokes curiosity about the other respective endings.

The Lens of Story: The symbolic “Glory to Arstotzka” which is said by the officer and every person who has passed through the checkpoint and also at the end of each day somehow stuck with my friend and he himself even said it after one of the endings to the game. The sentence somehow can invoke two different types of feelings, one of which would be the obvious patriotism to the country, and the other being a feeling of being oppressed into saying it every single day as a form of propaganda from the government. This symbolic sentence was key to creating an ambience of being in this world where the country’s government was corrupt and supported the storyline of the officer that actually had the power to admit people that were going to overthrow this exact unjust government.

Comparisons:

I found the difference in emotional investment between my friend and I into the game particularly when he was indifferent to whether or not the people that passed through the checkpoint “needed” to enter the country through the conversations. This indicated that what may resonate with one player may not affect another and it is important to try to create a game that successfully invokes intended feelings into most of their players as much as possible to be impactful. A game like this depends very much on the choices you make and whether or not the player is successfully “guilt tripped” into choosing something would lead to a different ending and therefore these conversations and ambience in the game play very important roles. I myself found the game to be quite successful in doing so despite the not realistic graphics. I realised that my friend had also turned the volume down while playing the game as he preferred to listen to his own music. This might have been a factor towards him being more emotionally detached from the game due to the lack of ambience.

Both of us found the game to be increasingly challenging, and despite a supposedly mundane game (to just check immigration papers) we did not find ourselves being bored even after a long period of time. This may have been due to the variety of papers provided to check for as well as checking the height and weight of the people that passed through. There was also a list of wanted criminals provided that we had to check and detain if they came to the checkpoint. Sometimes we also needed to check for specific names to admit or deny regardless of the validity of their documents. The game also successfully kept us curious at the end of each day about what would happen next, as there is some kind of “event” to take note of each day. For example on one of the days your direct boss, Dimitri, would ask you to admit a specific individual regardless of her papers. I had detained the person and Dimitri fired me and had me arrested. My friend on the other hand had admitted the person and was allowed to continue the game the next day, just getting away with a warning.

Figure 3: Glory to Arstotzka

The symbolic “Glory to Arstotzka” seems to have stuck with both of us, as discussing the game led to us randomly declaring this phrase during conversations. Even on the NUS Confessions Facebook page there was a post discussing this particular game, and many comments in reply consisted of this sentence as well. It seems the game has successfully created a symbol for this game and through the lens of resonance it is special for people who have played this game.

Ooh Jing

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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.