A recent topic of discussion has been skills needed for game design. So, I've decided to delve into one skill in particular: creativity. Creativity is a soft skill, meaning it's more a quality than an action. Like any other skill, it can be improved upon. How creative you are isn't set in stone. It can be improved upon, and can even change throughout the day. According to this article, distraction makes you more creative. It also mentions getting good ideas in the shower, and I can certainly vouch for that. I've often heard that letting your mind wander is better than fiddling around on your phone, and this article says it's true. I know that I'm guilty of using my phone to fill time periods when I otherwise have nothing to do. I also know that I come up with a lot of good ideas when I'm not trying to. Another thing I've often heard about creativity and inspiration are improved by motion, which is confirmed by a Stanford study. The study found that participants were able to come up with more creative ideas while walking than while sitting. Again, I can vouch for this, at least partially. While getting up and taking a walk doesn't always mean I come up with answers, I do have a lot of ideas while I'm up and moving. So, to summarize:
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One of my current favorite video games is The Sims 4. In general, I like the game because of the open-ended gameplay and in-depth customization. I consider myself to be a storyteller, and the game is great for that. In addition, the ridiculous possibilities are quite amusing. Now, down to the specifics. The game has three modes: character creation (known as Create-a-Sim), Build Mode, and regular gameplay (Live Mode).
I like Create-a-Sim for its level of customization. The "detail edit" mode allows the player to zoom in and customize the features of their character (known as a Sim) to the point that no two creations are the same. It also features numerous presets for all features. While there is no color wheel like some of the previous Sims games have, the color swatches are generally well done. I do wish there were more hair and eye colors, though, since the selection is admittedly rather limited. It's possible to download custom content, but I personally would rather not. The amount of wardrobe options and hairstyles is nice, and leads to a lot of very unique combinations. Create-a-Sim also allows the player to customize a Sim's traits, which affect behavior and interaction with other Sims. I wish there were more options, since I sometimes find myself struggling to truly create the character I have in mind, but the ones that exist are still good. Voices can also be customized, as can the way the Sim walks. Overall, I like the amount of detail that is possible. The next main mode is Build Mode. It allows the player to create custom buildings or modify current ones, as well as download them from the Gallery, where players can share their buildings and Sims for others to play with. I like the amount of possibilities in this mode, and the controls are easy to use. I like the inclusion of various ridiculous objects, like the many strange garden gnomes. They're completely unnecessary, but hilarious. I'd also like to mention that building in this game made me notice real-life architecture a lot more than before, and I fell that I really appreciate it now. Live Mode is where the game really comes to life. Players can control the life of their Sim(s), from career, to relationships, to skills. As I've said of the other modes, I love the amount of possibilities. It's completely possible to have your Sims live an average life. It's also possible to raise large, carnivorous plants, do magic, be a ghost, and travel to space. One expansion pack even adds playable alien characters. Sims have emotions, which are caused by various factors and affect behavior and interaction. Some traits make Sims prone to certain emotions, a feature that I very much like. I mentioned before that I wish there were more traits, and that includes more emotion-related traits, since not all emotions have a corresponding trait. Icons known as "moodlets" determine emotion and explain what is causing it. I like that you can tell exactly what's affecting your Sims. Sims can perform numerous interactions with other Sims, which affect their relationship. One of my complaints with this is that Sims who utterly hate each other will sometimes start acting friendly, which can be annoying when trying to create a story. My other complaint is that Sims' relationships degrade over time if they don't interact, to the point that they'll forget each other entirely. While this does make sense, and can be useful, it makes creating friendships amongst large groups very hard. I had one memorable experience trying to do just that, but the Sims kept forgetting each other within a day or so of meeting, and I had to keep reintroducing them. Other than these two things, I like the interaction aspect overall. The one other thing I don't like about Live Mode is the lack of career options. Though the ones that exist are quite interesting, and career isn't as big a deal as one might think, it's still annoying to have so few options, especially for a storyteller like myself. In the end it doesn't make too much of a difference, though. As I've mentioned before, I think sound makes a big difference in games. I like the soundtrack in The Sims 4 because the individual songs are similar enough to create a sense of continuity, but different enough to not be repetitive. Each mode has its own soundtrack, as well as the loading screen, title screen, and more. I also like the music clips that play when a Sim's emotion changes, and the numerous radio songs. Overall, the soundtrack is one that I can (and will) happily listen to for hours. Another important thing is the graphics. I must say, I really like the art style of the game. It's clean, somewhat cartoonish, and overall nice to look at. I especially like the new lightning, though it unfortunately takes a very good computer to run the highest setting. Even on lower settings it still looks great. In all honesty, I don't have anything negative to say about the graphics, other than perhaps the lag it can cause. The final thing I want to talk about it DLC. On one hand, it's nice to be able to pick and choose which things I want to add and which ones I don't. On the other hand, the packs are expensive, and I highly doubt I'll ever own them all, especially considering the rapid rate at which they're released. I don't have any proposals for how to improve upon this, though, so I don't have much more to say about it. Overall, I really do like The Sims 4, and the sheer amount of options within the gameplay. I recommend it to anyone who likes storytelling, character creation, design buildings, and life simulation games. Since we've been discussing ethics in the game design field, I've decided to reflect on the age-old argument: Do violent video games really cause aggression? In 2015, the American Psychological Association's review indicated a link between playing violent video games and increased aggression, as well as decreased empathy. However, there was not enough evidence to indicate whether playing violent video games leads to criminal violence. It was also acknowledged that there was a lack of research on the effect of violent video games over the course of development. According to this year-long study from the Netherlands, violent video games do not cause violent behavior. Playing violent video games showed no connection to psychosocial changes. This article suggests that it is frustration with a game and not violent content that causes aggression. Based on my own experiences, I think it's a fair point. I find that playing fighting games to be a cathartic experience when I'm doing well. When I'm losing, however, it's infuriating. The article points out the large number of "rage quits" seen on YouTube. I've seen, in person, fairly nonviolent games like Zuma and Angry Birds cause people to grow hostile when losing. In addition, the term "violent games" is highly subjective. Almost anything could be considered violent, and context varies, as the article pointed out. So, to summarize:
In the past week I've learned a lot about the history of video games playing Evoland. One thing that's really stuck with me is how much of a difference the sound made. The game seemed a little awkward at first, and when I unlocked sound effects, I realized why: until that point, it had been silent. Soon after I unlocked background music, which really made the gameplay more immersive and enjoyable. Later on I unlocked 16-bit music, which made even more of a difference. It occurred to me how much of a difference the sound makes, so I've decided to dedicate this blog post to it. A few notable landmarks in the development of video game music, as I learned from this article: At first, video games were entirely silent. The first one with any kind of sound was the 1972 arcade game Pong, with one sound effect. Two years later was the release of the handheld game Simon, in which players press buttons to copy sound patterns using just four separate notes. Still, it was music. Another milestone is the Magnavox Odyssey2, released in 1978, with phonetic speech capability. 1983 saw the release of Dragon's Lair, one of the first games with stereo sound. In 1985 came Super Mario Bros., complete with audio cues. In 1986 came the Sega Master System, with four sound channels. 1989's Nintendo GameBoy also had four channels for sound. In the same year, the Sega Genesis was released, with six sound channels. 1990's SNK NeoGeo had 15. It's worth mentioning here that 16-bit machines didn't mean 16-bit music, as it wasn't just for sound. Most of it was 8-bit music. In 1993 came the Panasonic 3DO, with a 16-bit processor and 17 different channels. Also in 1993, Atari's Jaguar was released, with two 32-bit processors, one of them for sound. Jumping ahead to 1996, we have the release of the Nintendo 64, which used its CPU for sound generation. It was, as the name suggests, a 64-bit system. In 1998, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time comes out, with music as an integral part of the gameplay; it was one of the first games to have this. A year later the Sega Dreamcast console is released, with a 32-bit, 64-channel RISC CPU on its sound processor. The year 2000 had a couple interesting developments. One of these was the game Hitman from Io Interactive, with a soundtrack scored by an entire orchestra. Another interesting development was the pet-simulation Seaman, using voice-recognition to allow for conversations with digital characters. The year also saw the release of Hey You, Pikachu!, which used voice commands to guide the eponymous character through miniquests. In 2001, Nintendo released the SongBoy, an audio adapter for the GameBoy Color for playing MP3 files. This was also the year that Internet radio led to video game music radio, as gaming music began to leak into the mainstream, as well as increased processing power in new consoles, meaning better sound. Memory has also been a concern, since early video games didn't have the memory to have elaborate sound schemes. So, to summarize:
The main highlight of my first week in Game Art Design was the return of something I'd hoped to be done with: making infographics. It was one of the first tests of my design skills when I began Sci Vis, so it seems fitting that it would be the first test of how many of those skills I'd retained, and how much I had improved. My answer to both of those questions is "a lot." I decided to do my blog post about designing infographics for a couple reasons. One of these was that we didn't do much else in the first week back from summer break. Another reason is that, as I said before, I'd hoped that I was finally done making infographics. Coming back to the new school year to find that no, I wasn't at all done, made me realize something: No matter how much I dislike infographics, there's no escaping them. They're a simple and effective way to present information and get a message across, and are therefore going to be an important tool if I do (or don't) pursue game design as a career. It was something I never really felt I'd mastered completely, and I've still got work to do. But through research and personal experience, I've learned some things. Infographics are meant to be visual; it's got "graphic" in the name. Graphics catch people's eye and are more memorable. I've heard heard this over and over again, but I yet I still struggle with it. But I know that I should avoid including huge chunks of text, because people aren't to read or remember it. According to one article I read, humans only recall 20% of what they read. I don't think people are going to be remembering much from infographics... Another thing I learned was to have a clear flow, which I recently found some strategies for. It was said that the text in last week's infographic seemed to have been thrown randomly across the screen, and it was a pretty accurate observation. I was mostly concerned with trying to fit in all the different pieces in a manner that was neither cluttered nor full of white space, and I didn't give much thought to the fact that it ended up looking like a big blob of words and pictures. However, it wasn't all bad. The body half of the infographic was significantly more organized than the top, and once I was notified that the top half looked a bit like word-vomit, I numbered the different text chunks and added a subtitle about them to organize them into their own section. I said before that I was concerned about white space. I felt like there was too much of it. However, once I made the text larger, everything felt cramped. Turns out I should have kept it, as it would have the various pieces of the infographic stand out more. It also would have kept the whole thing looking considerably less like word-vomit. This article has a comparison of just how much of a difference white space can make. The white space dilemma also plays into the facts that a) I had a lot of text and b) I didn't start off with much idea how I was going to make one thing flow into the next. If I had considered that, it might not have been as big a problem. A least I was fairly on track with wanting to keep spacing even. So, to summarize:
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AuthorI'm moving on to my 4th (and final) year as a Game Art & Design student at Durham School of the Arts. I'd like to call myself an artist, but I'm a programmer at heart. Archives
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