On Cart Life and Realism

Realism and the Simulation Genre

In his book Game Design Foundations, Pedersen (2003) states that "realism and fun gameplay are the critical issues to address" (p.27) in simulations, and while these are present in a majority of simulation games, Cart Life provides a unique experience, combining adventure game mechanics with the traditional system managing common to the simulation genre. Unlike many simulations, Cart Life puts the player in control of a single individual instead of a group or larger, in charge of running a food cart (or in one case, a newspaper stand). The mechanics are intended to realistically simulate running such a business, such as dealing with costumers, setting prices, and making change under a strict time limit. In addition, rent is due by the week, and the games's challenging balance is intended to reflect the experience of barely scraping by. On top of the managing of sales, the player also has to keep track of their character's well-being, and the small amount of monetary resources (along with the difficulty of making more) often puts the player in difficult situations.

Many simulation games have a casual air about them, and time isn't treated with too much urgency, but Cart Life is designed to have the player use all of their time as efficiently as they can. Most of that time goes towards working one's cart, but the meager earnings only cover the ultimate goal of rent with difficulty. Revenue is only gained through the selling of food, often for only a few dollars, and making more food to sell usually turns to eating the stock in order to stay fed. Despite Cart Life's adherence to reflecting the desperate and unforgiving situation of low-income life, the game remains fun. The constant challenge keeps it actively interesting with few dull points, and the adventure mechanics add a degree of exploration and discovery to the environment, with the constantly moving clock a grim reminder of how real life can be.

Pedersen, R. E. (2003). Game Design Foundations. Plano, TX: WordWare.

Primordia and Immersion

Briefly Regarding Primordia and its Genre

Crawford (1982) defines adventure games as those in which "the adventurer must move through a complex world, accumulating tools...for overcoming each obstacle, until finally the adventurer reaches the treasure or goal" (p.33), and further elaborates that they are essentially more puzzles than games. Over time, narrative and writing became more prominent in this genre, possibly in order to immerse the player in the world of the game. While games of this type have improved over time, they are still hindered in comparison to other games by their outdated design and often the story becomes the motivation to work through the puzzles. This isn't a bad thing, for it allows the player to immerse in an experience which would otherwise be somewhat difficult to become attached to. However, this is still a difficult effect to achieve, but Primordia is an excellent example of immersion done well.

Essentially, the world composed in the game is in the distant future, where man has been so long forgotten as to become an object of worship for the remaining inhabitants of the Earth, the remaining robots and their subsequent creations. The strong immersive pull of the writing comes from a combination of of familiar and unfamiliar elements; the character you control is one of the only humanoid-shaped characters in the entire game, and the entire setting combines familiar objects and architecture with foreign places and invented cultural flourishes. While the puzzle-centric trappings are present and are to be expected (though even those feature some unique design), the construction of the writing portion is an example set for other games of the genre.

Crawford, C. (1984). The Art of Computer Game Design. Retrieved from http://www.vic20.vaxxine.com/wiki/images/9/96/Art_of_Game_Design.pdf

Porta Lucis: In Regards to Puzzle Principles

On Porta Lucis

Porta Lucis, a small horror rougelike originally created for a seven-day contest, stands out from other similar pieces in several ways. While keeping with the randomly-generated elements that is a foundation of the genre, what is noticeably absent is the presence of character statistics, with the player's numerical elements being few. This presents rather interesting mechanics between the player and the few entities that can be interacted with in the environment. The lack of character advancement and numerical statistics means that the way the player navigates the labyrinth and deals with its dangerous inhabitants becomes a fine circle of interconnected puzzles, in addition to the other mechanics present such as moving around the map, player death, and locating the staircases necessary to advance.

Porta Lucis through the Principles of Puzzle Design

Schell (2008) defines ten principles of good puzzle design in The Art of Game Design, and a majority of them easily apply in the interactions of the player with his or her environment. While Porta Lucis isn't inherently a puzzle game, the simplicity of the mechanics makes many of the encounters in the game very reminiscent of puzzles, with the added allure of the rules of different puzzles being able to impose on each other.

Make the Goal Easily Understood
The base goal of the game, to advance through the floors, is naturally assumed for the gaming-literate. The smaller problems, however, are clearly listed in the game's built-in instructions. While accessing this information would not typically count as being easily understood, it is clearly listed in the player's actions and is one of the few actions they can take. This makes the goal easily understood.

Make it Easy to Get Started
The game introduces its first obstacle, rats, in the first floor. The player quickly discovers that removing them without trouble is fairly easy, and may even fall into the habit of doing so. Later on, the game presents them in numbers large enough to threaten the player, and their previous knowledge meets the complication that constitutes the puzzle. Plotting out the proper steps to remove the rats without coming to harm creates the atmosphere of a puzzle that slowly becomes more difficult as the number of spawned rats increases.
In addition to this example, the entire step-based mechanic makes navigation into a sort of puzzle. The predictable pattern that the enemies move in makes forming mental paths to avoid them a common activity.
Other puzzles exist in the game as well, such as manipulating light with boxes in order to trap light-sensitive enemies, but being purposefully-difficult achievements they understandably lack the pacing of the player's interaction with the rats.

Give a Sense of Progress and Increase Difficulty Gradually
The prominent floor counter increases by one for every floor cleared, and with every floor the game gets more difficult. This slowly builds challenge for the player, until the challenges get so difficult as to succeed in stopping the player. The presentation of how many floors have passed along with the mounting difficulty clearly show progress and serve to challenge the player accordingly.

Pyramid Structure Extends Interest
Porta Lucis' maps are populated with enemies, and they move around the map along with the player. Each of the enemies can be dealt with in a puzzle-like function, such as proper use of steps or light manipulation, or otherwise by simply running away. These situations can interact together if different enemies are encountered together, along separate puzzles to mesh into a more difficult puzzle. In addition, these encounters ultimately tie into the the goal of trying to pass through as many floors as possible.

Hints Extend Interest and Giving the Answer
Two of the only items the player has access to, matches and pills, serve as both a hint and an answer respectively. Matches can hold the more troublesome enemies away for an amount of time, making their respective puzzles easier to solve. Pills effectively allow the player to skip over the puzzles currently placed in front of them, though it has some penalty to doing so.

In these fashions, Porta Lucis contains very finely linked puzzles, and the mechanics surrounding them allow them to build in ways that challenge the player and create emergent situations. The ability for different mechanics and events to interact together harmoniously is a common goal in creating a good experience.

Schell, J. (2008) The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses. Burlington, MA: Morgan Kaufman.

Introductions

A Salutation

My name is Andrew James Wells, and I am a sophomore student at the University of Texas at Dallas. I am currently studying game design under the Arts and Technology major in order to eventually join the video game industry, hopefully as an independent studio. To have my own place in the field of video games has always been a dream of mine, however I only recently began to seriously look into the many elements behind game design, mainly the components of mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics as discussed in Salen, K. and Zimmerman, E.'s writings (2003). Being something of an artist, video games (and their analog ancestors) being used as a means of expression fascinates me. Whether it is done through the visuals, the narrative, the mechanics, or most importantly a combination of the above, I believe games have a profound ability to affect their audience and the future of their own industry.

Purpose

The main thing I wish to accomplish with this blog is an exploration of game mechanics, narrative, aesthetics, and overall design. The central focus of my observations is to analyze elements of a game and find useful or notable examples of them that are interesting design-wise and/or have something unique in their delivery of visuals or narrative that is relevant to how the audience reacts to the game. Game design is an inherently cumulative sphere of knowledge with the most popular and functioning mechanics quickly becoming adopted throughout similar games of a genre, but it is my intention to look for instances of good design in other pieces. There are many outliers in the field of gaming, such as cult hits, projects from independent studios, unmarketed games such as those found throughout the internet, and older games that are not commonly known. It is my intention to mainly discuss these sorts of pieces and what value they have to the field of game design.

Salen, K., Zimmerman, E. (2004). Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. The MIT Press.