I had an immense pleasure of organizing this year’s Design Workshop at Nasscom’s Game Developer Conference held at Mahratta Chamber Of Commerce Industries & Agriculture (MCCIA) Towers.
The idea and topic was pretty simple – understand and learn to deliver a game pitch in less than 7 mins. The basis of presentation technique was PechaKucha (chit-chat in Japanese).
A part of my preparation was to come up with interesting topics for participants.
I started creating topics…
Preparation – creation of mindboggling topics ;]
Once I demonstrated the PechaKucha technique to participants, they were asked to be comfortable, form power groups (which were made to ensure friends don’t stick together and teams feel balanced).
The topic – a mandate on which participants had to create their game pitch consisted of 2 parts:
A subject/ core matter
Game Genre
Preparation – Cards in disarray!
The stacks were then made, successfully (before the workshop began, at my home):
Cards tied in RED –> Core/ Subject matter
Cards tied in YELLOW –> Game Genre
Power Cards… are READY!
At the workshop, once my presentation was over and groups were formed, I asked one member from each group to draw cards from the stacks I had made. Interesting topics are created when randomness comes into play ;]
For eg: A group picked cards that gave them FOOD as Core Subject and SURVIVAL HORROR as game genre!
The rules were laid out:
use laptop
use internet connection
minimal text
Images, images and images!
20 sec per slide rule
Max slides 20 (due to time restriction – I didn’t enforce 20 slides as MUST – it was a max limit for this workshop)
Fast and Furious 7 :: PechaKucha!
Here are some pictures from the workshop:
It’s on!
Getting to know team and discussion within was paramount!
A team brainstorming on their game pitch
Team getting their slides ready!
Team game pitch kickoff!
Team game pitch kickoff!
Team game pitch kickoff!
Team game pitch kickoff!
Team game pitch kickoff!
With Prashant!
I apologize for some really shaken pictures! :]
My badge this year.
I had an awesome time conducting the workshop, discussing terrific ideas with everyone who participated. If you are in the picture, you participated or were a part of the team – do share 🙂
I have been working on a small prototype in Unity engine. After realizing a quick fun mechanic with basic gameplay I stopped working on it for a while.
Finally, I decided to finish the experience and make a web build! My purpose was to make a small game suitable for web + mobile devices. I did not want to invest heavily in terms of audio and visuals (as its a solo project). Also, I did not want to increase the scope. It’s just a small nifty arcade game.
What an end-user really needs to play this game is:
Focus
Timing and
little bit of Endurance
The idea is to provide an uncomfortable, nauseating experience. Obviously, not what a normal mobile/ web game is about. You will not play this game to relax and chill out. That is not the objective. Saying that, you must never keep playing this game over and over for 30mins or so (unless you really really want to!). This can really cause intense nausea. Just play it in short bursts :]
I am already working on an Android build (90% done). Before I push that out, you should really try to play online:
As many of you already know, I’m currently addicted to Hearthstone and it is the ONLY game for which my iPad is turned ON! No pun intended. Also, I have made no effort in playing this game on my PC. Coz, touch is for now best interface to play card games with.
I present to you a brief analysis I did few days back. This is not about the game design part of Hearthstone. But, more about how you gain benefits, its shop and various layers. Please feel free to comment.
BRIEF POINTS
·Hearthstone has only ONE in-game currency = GOLD.
·The only other method of purchase is via hard cash.
·The game makes sure to SELL ONLY Expert Card packs
oEach Expert Card Pack consists of 5 Cards out of which at least 1 is rare or above
·The game doesn’t allow trading of cards or packs
SHOP
Hearthstone – Shop Screen (Currency is INR)
I made a small table to illustrate how the shop works [the currency here is Euro – €]:
(The image shown above is from my AppStore account – so it is in Rs. Talking in Euro makes more sense internationally. Sorry for the confusion)
PURCHASE COST
Without wholesale discounts – Compared to Cost for 2 Packs – Actual Costs
SAVING
Expert Card Packs
€
€
€
1
100 Gold
2
2.69
7
8.99
9.42
0.42
15
17.99
20.18
2.19
40
44.99
53.80
8.81
NOTE: Player can always purchase 1 Expert Card pack using in-game currency GOLD but to buy more she must invest in hard-cash (one way). The only other method is to keep accumulating GOLD and buy 1 Pack after another as needed.
Looking at the table above it is very clear that the player can understand and see benefits that keep increasing the higher she goes in spending for card packs.
Overall – € 8.99 and € 17.99 for 7 and 15 Packs are most interesting for players. Good amount of savings.
Accumulating GOLD:
·Hearthstone provides a very interesting Quest system
oDaily Quests are given to the player [valid in ONLINE play with strangers or Arena mode]
oA maximum of 3 can be stacked at any given time
oQuests come in various categories which provide rewards
oRewards = GOLD [40-100] – depending on quest difficulty/ length
·Ideally, a person who doesn’t want to use hard-cash to purchase Card Packs (grinder) – the best way is to ALWAYS make sure to keep finishing Quests
·3 Consequent wins with same hero – 30 GOLD
ARENA MODE
One of my example match in Arena (strength of the key – color)
·This is my personal favorite and one of the best game mode in Hearthstone
·Arena mode requires an entry fee
o150 GOLD OR € 2
·Arena mechanic
oChoose one of a random hero presented to the player (choice among 3)
oMake a card deck from a set of random cards
–Interesting part is – almost entire deck in Hearthstone is available
–This includes every rare, epic and legendary cards
–However, the order and selection is random
oPlayer keeps progressing in Arena to unlock better and better rewards until she loses three times
–The player is basically unlocking “KEY”
·Keys come in different variety and open the specific reward box
Check the table below that gives an idea about the rewards presented in Arena (wiki helped here):
Wins
Key
Rewards
Random reward pool
0
Novice
2
1. One expert pack
25-40 gold
2. One random reward
25-40 dust
One common card
1
Apprentice
2
1. One expert pack
30-50 gold
2. One random reward
25-50 dust
One common card
2
Journeyman
2
1. One expert pack
40-50 gold
2. One random reward
40-50 dust
One common card
One rare card
3
Copper
3
1. One expert pack
20-25 gold
2. 25-35 gold
20-25 dust
3. One random reward
One common card
One rare card
12
Lightforge
5
1. One expert pack
20-175 gold
2. 215-235 gold
20-25 dust
3. One random reward
One golden common card
4. One random reward
One golden or regular rare card
5. One random reward
One golden or regular epic card
One golden or regular legendary card
One expert pack
NOTE: The important point to note here is that if the player loses all 3 games in Arena (doesn’t win even a single one) – she still gets 1 Expert Card Pack and any one of the random reward.
So according to the investment made (if used GOLD) to enter Arena –
Player is for sure going to get in return 67% GOLD back in terms of 1 Expert Card Pack
25-40 GOLD or dust
For any non-payable player this is almost completely a win scenario.
Arena offers almost fair play as the deck is created in this mode itself + all cards are made available.
No. of wins a player gets in Arena is directly proportional to the rewards she shall reap.
CRAFTING
Crafting screen
·Player can disenchant any of the cards (except soulbound – hero basic cards) to earn what is called as “Arcane Dust”.
·Can be termed as other currency (indirect) as this cannot be purchased anywhere/ nor converted from GOLD
Check the table below:
Rarity in Card Type
Crafting
Disenchanting
Cost
Golden Card
Reward
Golden Card
Common (White)
40
400
5
50
Rare (Blue)
100
800
20
100
Epic (Purple)
400
1600
100
400
Legendary (Orange)
1600
3200
400
1600
Considering that the reward in Arcane Dust for disenchanting is anywhere from 1/8th to 1/4th – it is just TOO LOW for anyone to make a significant card.The only way is to sacrifice certain unused cards or to dilute extra cards… in other words earn more cards from Arena/ Expert Card purchases.
CLOSING POINTS
·Pushes player to purchase card packs
·Disenchant additional cards
oTry crafting common or rare cards
oCrafting a legendary card revolves around sacrificing other strong cards in huge portion
·There is no energy system or waiting time
·Without putting any real money, a grinder can still win many games to her satisfaction by involving more
oIn Arena
oDaily Quests
oCasual Online play
·The game statistics screen NEVER display
oWin/ Loss ratio (similar to Kill/ Death in multiplayer)
oIt is interesting to note that usually in multiplayer games the ratio is very very important to players
oHearthstone goes in a different direction by
–Increasing motivation – by NEVER showing how many games one loses (apart from in Arena – where it is part of core loop)
–Wins are presented strategically and in appealing fashion
–Even Arena category outside on stats page – always display the KEY till which player has reached till date (showing only positive side)
·An average player will keep earning GOLD in loads if she keeps finishing quests and thus can easily keep purchasing Card Packs
·The monetization is still going strong for players
oWho do not wish to grind and wait
oExcellent savings provided in card packs’ price
oVery important – player NEVER knows which cards are there when she is buying Expert Packs
–So, there will be duplicates (but they can be disenchanted for dust)
–In case she doesn’t get good enough cards she’ll just go ahead and buy more packs!
It has been a really long time since my last website update. I was thinking over and over and wanted to spark Senseless Stories section. This post isn’t going to be a big one. More of an announcement really.
I finally sat down, busted grey matter in hand with my keyboard. Some senselessness should do good, right? Isn’t it what the world desires? Needs even? What’s the point in learning only from matter that makes sense. Why not otherwise? Everyone is entitled to waste their time! One way or another… it must happen and should happen to every single soul on this planet.
Without further whatnot, I forcefully invite you to just go ahead and read one of the first senseless pulp from my side – A Random Encounter?
It was around 2 weeks back when me and many of my colleagues started playing this little game called “Flappy Bird” on iOS. We were having fun with the game trying to beat score. We all kind of played it for few hours then moved on to some other game on iOS.
Just few days later, we came across news on the internet mentioning the game’s sudden rise on the AppStore. We were all like… what?! I’m pretty sure many of you must’ve already experience the game recently on your iPad/ iPhone and some of you might’ve even played it months back when it was originally released! In my opinion, the sudden rise of this game was mainly due to virality and word-of-mouth tactics. It worked. It actually worked wonders for the developer. The game started making tons of monies. Which is both a good and a bad thing.
Few things about Flappy Bird:
It presents a classic game appeal
Addictive, fun game meant to be played in quick bursts
Inspired by retro/ other classics
Absolutely no gameplay variation
No enhancements in core mechanics as the player progresses
No variation in level design
The game still raked hundreds of thousands of dollars. It clearly goes on to show how marketing, virality can work wonders + climb of simplicity.
Due to its sudden rise, the developer gained huge amount of fame and negative press at the same time. Negativity mainly emerged due to aforementioned reasons. I’m sure you’ll find the news about what all happened in detail on various news sites. Eventually, the developer could not take all the press and hatred and decided to remove the app from the AppStore.
Then, soon there was this event that popped up –> Flappy Jam! Hundreds of developers came forth in support and for passion’s sake!
Today is the last day of submission at –> http://itch.io/jam/flappyjam
And… here is my entry (Inspired by Space Invaders) 🙂
I present to my readers a brief analysis of game design in Beyond: Two Souls. This is going to be pretty much a high-level view of the game. In near future, I might dig deeper and provide underlying low details.
Skills
To understand how a game plays out and the challenge provided, it is important to know what player skills are being challenged by a particular game. Beyond: Two Souls demands the following skills from its audience:
Observation: Testing player’s ability to read signs and other cues, be it visual or aural.
This is one of the main skills challenged as the player is asked to respond by providing inputs based on the cues the game presents.
Mainly challenged during:
Fight – Observe the sign of the attack, its direction and appropriately provide the input
Exploration– Looking out for clues (usually game provides a very strong hint about the situation), secrets and hidden rewards. Challenged heavily when playing as Aiden (the Entity). Playing as Ellen, this is also challenged when looking for cover positions and scouting enemies.
Dialogue – Observing the situation and choosing the right/ desired dialog option to converse with non-playing characters
Precision: Testing player’s ability to provide inputs to lead where she wants to go
This skill is largely challenged while playing as Aiden as it gives a full 360 degrees freedom to explore and roam about.
Fight– there is always just one precise input challenged
Measurement: Testing player’s ability to provide measured input on controls to a degree of tension
Challenged mainly while playing as Aiden.
Powers – Interacting with objects in the world – to throw/ use them with a measured degree of power (playing as Aiden)
Simple interactions – Playing as Ellen there is some slight challenge is providing simple measured inputs to open door/ closing letter etc.
Timing: Testing player’s ability to provide input at the right time
Finally, one of the most important skill challenged by this game is Timing. Beyond: Two Souls (much like its predecessor) is heavily based on Quick-Time Events.
Fight – The game introduces an upgraded fighting system (appended to its usual QTEs) – wherein player must anticipate and act by providing inputs at the right time. Usually, the window of opportunity given to the player in most of the situations is high. This allows even the slow (low physical-skill) players to act by first carefully observing the sign and then giving the right attack based on timing.
Stealth – Playing as Ellen, player can sometimes use stealth and knock-down/ kill enemies from behind/ aerial move by giving input at the appropriate time. Not very highly challenged.
Dialogue – Throughout the game, player (playing as Ellen) must converse with other non-playing characters by choosing a dialogue option and providing the input in time. The window to respond to a dialog or to converse is usually very high.
[REMARK – Even though the game challenges player on the mentioned physical and mental skills, the game is no-where close to being hard. The timing never feels stressed, and so on. Compared to Heavy Rain and Indigo Prophecy, this game is very light in terms of challenging the player. Extreme linearity doesn’t help the game either.]
Narrative
The narrative in Beyond: Two Souls is not presented in a regular fashion. The game shifts and jumps the player to different time in Ellen’s life. Player gets a chance to play Ellen as a:
Kid
Teenager
Adult
Throughout the narrative player is challenged on all of the aforementi0ned skills. The narrative does a good job of putting together various clues, revealing information and paces the game accordingly. Game presents gradual character growth, coupled with bonding between Ellen and Aiden (how it grows stronger throughout her life) and usual relationship problems as part of a real world scenario.
[REMARK – As much as I appreciate the narrative direction and slight feeling of character growth, it is again no where close to Heavy Rain. There are hardly any huge plot twists or hard-to-solve mysteries. Narrative is however very close to a Hollywood-cinematic movie experience (apart from the jumps in time-line).]
Visual & Audio
Visually the game has lots of motion-captured sequences, varied settings, themes and highly realized character models. Player is taken form tiny confines of office/ room to the expanse of Mexico.
Aurally, the voice over are present for every characters with high-performance sound-fx and appropriate music. Visually and aurally, the game provides right signs and feedback to the player.
[REMARK – When it comes to direction in this game, there are many scenes that come extremely close to a movie! The train chase and fight, bike riding and forest are memorable and visually breathtaking. Ellen Page gives a great performance and the other characters do a fine job too. As fine as the visuals and audio are, the fact to keep in mind is that the game is more a movie and less of a game. That is not a confusing statement.]
Gameplay Duration
It took me around 15 hours to finish the game in “Easy” setting. I believe the only other option is “Very Easy”. Of course, they are framed differently.
Overall, this game is more of a movie and less of a game (I must mention this again). Given the fact that Quantic Dream was supposed to evolve its gameplay + narration with Beyond: Two Souls compared to its previous offerings, I fully agree that it has not evolved in any way. The only evolution I observed was in the fighting system, where player is now required to sense the direction of attack and act-appropriately. However, as great as it sounds, it doesn’t really fare very well. It makes more sense to go back to defined and strict timing-QTE events.
Would I recommend this game? Well, if you like Ellen Page, movies, drama, story and you are a-okay with minimal gamplay from time to time… then YES! Good enough for a single play-through. Not a challenging game in any way, play it more for its story and direction.
That does it for the high-level and I must soon try and see all the endings …erm… the movie has to offer ;]
After hearing a lot about this tiny little game called “Papers, Please” making waves across the world, I finally decided to pick up a copy on steam during the Christmas sale! I started playing the game with a brief idea about the plot already in my head (articles from net).
Papers, Please
Just when I started the game, the first thing that captured my attention was its streamlined, retro title-logo and soundtrack. The beautiful feeling of paper coming out of typewriter just got me. I started to fall in love. But, I knew its not a funny little game, this is serious. The matter the game covers is serious.
I checked into options, made sure everything is as I would like to have (perks of PC) and started my adventure as a petty Government official. The game’s charm took my by surprise as I went from one Day to the next and tried to verify people’s passports and documents. I was amazed to find such a nicely made progression. To cut this matter short (as I am bound to put my review for this game soon), my first play-through ended on Day 6 :[ yes, all my character’s family members got R.I.Ped. It took just 1 hour. I made several wrong choices and some bad decisions. My next play-through went a little better with Day 26 and 3 hours record!
That’s about it for the day. More Papers, Please post to come soon! Keep watching the page!
Pentium MMX 166MHz. Matrox Manipulation Extensions. MultiMedia Extensions. What have you. Neither is correct though. That’s another story and is completely out of the scope here. This article is about GPUs. Yes. The meat. The bones. The love. Raw processing power in drawing tris/s and accelerating games by lowering burden on CPUs.
My first foray into gaming like a crazy addict on PC started with my first purchase (above). Of course, I ain’t counting playing games for countless hours on classic x86 (286, 386, 486 and Pentium Class 1) in my school/ cousin’s/ friend’s place. My personal relationship with computers started in my home with Pentium 166 MHz MMX. During that time, 1996 I did not have a dedicated 3D-accelerator (so it was called then). What was available for me was on-board Cirrus Logic (if I remember it correctly). It had a mightly 1MB of memory size. Yes. That is 0.1% of Video RAM that is currently installed in my PC.
For me, getting into graphics accelerators started when Quake II arrived. I was having super-fun playing the game in software mode. But, then I came across OpenGL setting for the game. Well, that was it. I turned it on and somehow got it working in Quake II. Immediately, the graphics smoothed out, green filter all over the screen and the game portrayed a fun ride with approx 2-5 FPS (or I think so). That was it. I had to buy myself a new graphics card. That’s when I started researching and knowing more about accelerators available in market.
Let’s begin with my first purchase. It was the year of enlightenment, 1998.
Disclaimer: All the years associated with GPUs in my blog is “Year of purchase”
1. Diamond Viper V330 [1998]
This card immediately boosted my performance in games from almost-nothingness to spectacular (by standards of ’98). Major boost was with the increase in memory size to 4MB.
2. Asus AGP-V7700 Nvidia GeForce GTS 32MB [2000]
The major selling point of this card was Transform & Lighting (T&L). It was all woohoo at the moment. I absolutely loved this graphics card. Particularly, this card blew Giants: Citizen Kabuto. One of the first games that used this card to the limit.
3. Sapphire ATI Radeon 9600 SE [2003]
To this day, I still consider this card to be a filler. Getting this was more of a mistake. I was supposed to get 9600, SE was a real low when it came to performance. Very unsatisfactory. Mainly, as it had a measly 64-bit memory bus. It just couldn’t handle games of that generation well.
4. Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT [2005]
After the love that was GeForce 2 GTS, 6600 GT blew me again. This is one of the most famous cards of the decade. I am pretty sure countless PC gamers had an affair with this video card by Nvidia. Effective memory clock frequency of 1000 MHz! DDR all the way! Yeah!
5. Sapphire ATI Radeon x1950 Pro [2007]
x1950 Pro
This was another of my favorite GPU. It faithfully allowed hordes of games to run smoothly at pretty high settings. Plus, it boasted a killer 44.2GB/s memory bandwidth. Yes!
6. Palit AMD Radeon 4870 Dual Sonic Edition [2009]
Palit 4870 Dual Sonic Ed. 1024MB
It has been 4.5 years now since I bought this card. I must say, this has been one of the best performer. Ever. Even after 4 years, this card performs admirably in current gen games like Metro: Last Light and Far Cry 3. Most games are still playable at 1080p. Love it. Guess, I’ll wait for awhile before I upgrade next. The time has not yet come. 4870 still rocks and has enough juice to satisfy me. At least for a while.
And… I finally gave in to this marvelous new GPU from AMD. R9 280x is a notch above everyone in competition and very close to mighty Nvidia Geforce GTX 770! For the price, this is certainly one of the best value. 3D performance in current-gen games is mindblowing! Not sure how this might handle 4K resolutions… but that is for next year!
I thought of making some interesting analysis (high level) on specifications of all these cards that I owned.
Just shows how the chipsets have evolved since 17 years (or more closely 13 years). Presented here in graph format. I’ve considered some of the major criteria that defines a GPU at a high level. Let’s begin!
Transistor Count
Increase in the count of Transistors on chip
Memory Size
Increase in (raw) Memory Size (technology not taken into account here)
Memory Bus
Memory Bus size
Memory Bandwidth
Rise in Memory bandwidth through the years
Core Clock
Increase in Core processing clock frequency
Memory Clock
Increase in Memory clock frequency
Fabrication
Decrease in the Fabrication process
That’s about it folks. For now. Might post some mid-level details soon.
The name intrigued me. Van Helsing. Adventures? Incredible Adventures? That too for $15? Well, I bought this game to experience and relive classic ARPGs like Diablo. I mean the first one. The one which I consider is better than two and way ahead of 3.
Adventuring Party? Marvelous reference!
I haven’t played a lot of this game yet. I’m just level 8 and my companion, Lady Katarina is 7. She’s like my pet Ghost. I mean like the pet you have in Torchlight II.
Dolby flame surround.
Characters in this game are very likable and display a peculiar sense of humor. Okay, I wanted to write more about this game… but guess I’ll do that next time. Soon. I’ll go back to hacking, slashing and having some more fun while the rain drops outside. Good times.
![Preparation - creation of mindboggling topics ;]](https://jiteshpanchal.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/notes_1.jpg?w=611)
Jitesh's Domain 