Hi all, today I went deeper into "Progression Mechanics" and I found four very helpful articles.
The first one is called "A Tool for Evaluating, Adapting and Extending Game Progression Planning for Diverse Game Genres " by Katharine Neil, Denise de Vries and Stephane Natkin. This article about automating game progression in early stage of designing and developing a game. This article links in with a piece of writing from last week called "Automatic Game Progression Design through Analysis of Solution Features"
This article is based around the game progression tool used in the game "Refraction" (by Butler, Smith Liu and Popovic). They believe that "Refraction’s progression tool approach can be applied to the progression design challenges of games other than Refraction" (taken from - 2 Research Objectives). To test this out they have used three different genres of game, "a top-down shooter with puzzle elements, a casual strategy game and an adventure game" (taken from - 1 Introduction). This image describes their tool of modifying and extending the model used by Refraction.
In the conclusion they said that it is possible to "apply, adapt and extend" Butler's progression plan approach to other game genres other than puzzle games. Also they said they will used their analysis to further test this tool on a wider group of design cases. This is a stepping stone in a more efficient game design and development system.
The second piece of writing of the day is called "Gameplay Design Fundamentals:Gameplay Progression " by gamasutra. This article takes us to the basics of game progression.
In this article we will cover the key elements of game progression, different progression mechanics styles and so on.
As mentioned in the first and second page of the article, game progression is made up of five different elements:
"1. Game Mechanics – all controls and interactions within the game, including new weapons, abilities, powers, vehicles, and environmental states or events.
2. Experience Duration – the average time it takes to complete each stage, level, mission (including deaths if applicable) or course (using the most relevant vehicle).
3. Ancillary Rewards (visual, aural, decorative, etc.) – exciting environmental wonders, fancy visual effects, scripted events, etc. It is great to weight some of the more spectacular environmental wonders and effects up front (Medal of Honor style), but an enjoyable game needs to have all the level, course ormission experiences built so that new visual rewards are staggered at a pace that keeps the user interested (in other words with an Environmental Progression in mind).
4. Practical Rewards (gameplay relevant) – new game modes, upgrades and practical unlockable content are very useful as the carrot on the stick that entices users to continue playing the game.
5. Difficulty – not just how hard it is to pass obstacles and NPCs/bosses, but also how much risk is taken with respect to player injury/death, weapon depletion, or vehicle/equipment damage or loss."
They also talk about the two different styles of gam progression, "Gated Access" (adding new controls and so on as you progress throughout the game) and "Directed Gameplay" (having access to all features but directed to use specific ones in different stages of the gameplay). Throughout this article they have used example such as Nintendo games like Zelda and the likes of Halo.
Another part that is linked to one of my previous readings is the rewards section. Talking about how important is to make players feel a sense of accomplishment.
Finally they discuses the topic of "Difficulty" and "Challenges" and how every non-sport game have some sort of difficulty progression.
The following article ("Game Mechanics of a Character Progression Multiplayer Role-Playing Game with Science Content" by Ionian University, Corfu, Greece) is based on integrating chemistry in game progression on multiplayer games such as MMO and MRPG.
The main factor they spoke about is their game called SAIR. An MRPG game on educating people about chemistry. To progress throughout the game you will learn many combinations of a different elements such as oxygen, copper and so on. This is very important as we can create game that not only are engaging and fun to play with friends but educational at the same time. This shows that there are no limits when it comes to game development.
There is a table (Table 2) that covers that SAIR is about. thing such as the introduction, what you learn throughout it and so on.
A very important sentence I found in the third section of the article (Discussion and Future Research) is "Players in SAIR need to solve riddles and problems to acquire the necessary for the game’s progression educational skills, under the guidance of the NPCs". This explains what the game is about in one line.
As we see we can implement learning in game progression. Learning about topics that are harder to take in at a younger age.
"Assessing Emergence and Progression in Games" by Federal University of Ceara, Virtual University Institute, Brazil is an article that discusses the " first step towards determining a trade-off between Emergence and Progression" as said in the abstract. Emergence stands for the different situations that emerge from the games rules.
This paper is separated in 7 different sections in the first half of this paper they spoke about important definitions and opinions on Emergence or Progression.
A very important quote that help us understand what progressions relies on, this is mentioned in section 3 "It is also clear that progression rely on extensive and controlled content exhibition whose sequence may be predefined by game designers, even on games adopting non linear storytelling". In section 3 we can also find a list that they use to understand the presence of progression and emergence structures throughout games. They used this checklist on a variety of games including games such as Half-Life, Left 4 Dead and The Witness.
Their research proves that Emergence and Progression is as equally as important as one another " In games with strong emergent properties, freedom for the player actions was naturally a result and in games with strong properties of progression, there was a cinematic experience present.".
That is it for this week. Unfortunately I couldn't find any more information on this topic. I find it very difficult to do those tasks.
See you all next week,
Denis.
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