Ho Ho Ho

Merry Christmas =)
If you're still reading this blog after a long time of stagnant activity, I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

I will see you all on the other side! In 2011!
It's gonna be one hell of a year!

Ross, Out

Reviewing History... Again?!

For this assignment I have chosen to review Donkey Kong (1981).

When games were first computerised, designers and developers would have had a vast canvas of opportunities for game play mechanics, stunted only by technological limitations. As gaming was a relatively new concept some aspects used in early computer games were taken directly from non electronic games then expanded upon. A lot of other concepts were invented in this early time, concepts which were not possible within board games.

Zegal (2008) states that originally games could be broken down into 5 elements of design, these were:

Interface - How the game interacts with the player
Rules - Restrictions on what the player can or cannot do
Goals - Objectives for the player to achieve
Entities - Objects in the game
Entity Manipulation - How the object is interacted with

These elements when used in board games are fixed and often will not vary throughout game play. As we see in the board game Risk, the game board is a fixed entity, where the players chose to lay their men is what can be altered. The chosen rules set and various elements however will always stay the same throughout the game.

When applied to computer games, there is the possibility for each of these elements to change as the game state develops and when the designers wish to ‘up the challenge’ for optimal gaming experience. In Donkey Kong the rules will generally stay the same however as you progress, new rules are added, giving the player a 'Hammer' ability and extra ways to score points. Although the goal will stay the same, the methodology to achieve the goal will vary dependant on the game state.

In Donkey Kong, similar to the rules, the Entities in the game advance as the player plays through the game, suddenly the way in which the player interacts with these objects changes dependant on strategies to achieve their goal. For example gaining or ignoring bonus objects, or deciding to avoid a barrel by jumping or [instead] climbing a ladder.

The actual game interface will also change as the player advances through the levels. This introduced new possibilities to game designers, described as 'Spatial Segmentation'. ‘Spatial segmentation results from the division of the game world into different spaces that also partition gameplay’ (Zegal Pg 182)

Zegal goes on to explain that the varying levels in a game can be distinguished by having multiple subspaces within the game world. These break up gameplay and may even include an individual rule set and varying navigation methods to achieve goals. The idea behind ‘Spatial Segmentation’ is to make the player believe they are participating in a virtual game world which is built up with more than just what is shown on the screen.
Donkey Kong has been acclaimed one of the earliest 'Platform' games and therefore it could be argued, the beginning of Spatial Segmentation. Donkey Kong is considered to have very weak Spatial Segmentation however due to the relationship between each game screen being relatively unclear, if only shown by a short animation at start and end of levels.

Zegal explores how levels were one of the many early inventions in gaming, along with Waves and Bosses. Creating new game play divisions like these added new possibilities for games designers. Zegal deduces that as a player plays through the levels, the difficulty may increase thus extending game play time. There is however games such as Mega Man where the player gets to choose the level they wish to attempt next. Depending upon previous levels completed others may become easier to complete as new abilities are gained. Another meaning for ‘Level’ is to express ‘Order’ within gameplay, whereby you are required to defeat one level before you can attempt the next level and so on with increasing difficulty levels. Zegal uses Donkey Kong as an example of Challenge within levels, he states ‘The sequences of levels exemplify a form of challenge segmentation because the levels become harder and it takes longer to get to the top to defeat Kong.’ (pg 184)

The levels are a method used in Donkey Kong to keep giving the player a new challenge on every game screen

Donkey Kong is a typical example of a Ludus, rule bound style of play which Frasca (1999) explored, describing the process in games as:

Beginning
Development
Result
Triumph [or] Defeat

Frasca describes this as a ‘rule bound’ system where the player goes through the various levels under the game creators rules set to achieve goals, which is the opposite to a Paidea style of game where the player creates his own goals and uses the tools provided by the game creator to achieve them.

Newman took the Ludus theory and pushed it further with his understanding of the player’s behaviours. Where by the games creator can only suggest possibilities for play and can only push the player towards victory or defeat. The methods of achieving can be highly flexible; as Newman explains (pg21) ‘it is ultimately the players that decide which activities will be performed’, ‘it is the job of the player to deduce (or even impose) rules through exploration’

Donkey Kong therefore, as a prime example of Ludus game play, is one where the victory and defeat options are made very clear (reach the top of the platform/game screen) however the methods to achieve are left relatively open and after time a seasoned player could predict patterns in the opponents play. Less experienced players however may struggle to complete levels due to a steep difficulty increase.

The game could be argued as one of the many Nintendo games that made the term 'Nintendo Hard' a phrase used among gamers to express the immense difficulty of a level or wave in a game. This term can be broken down to denote one of the 8 terms in LeBlanc’s Taxonomy that games designers will use to provoke an emotion from the player and therefore create a compelling game play experience.

Greg Costikyan explores Marc LeBlanc’s 8 terms:-

Sensation

Fantasy

Narrative

Challenge

Fellowship

Discovery

Expression

Masochism

When studying Donkey Kong one subset came up repeatedly, this was challenge. Or as Costikyan denotes; struggle. ‘A game requires players to struggle interactively towards a goal’ (Costikyan Page 17). Games need struggle to keep the player engaged, to keep them thinking and predicting their next move. A challenge can take many forms, be it competition among players, obstacles in games or NPC’s, even exploration of a game world and even various puzzles to challenge the player.
Donkey Kong successfully utilises Challenge, using various obstacles and a challenging Ai (or a difficulty set that increases drastically every level).

Donkey Kong has successfully utilised goals to create purposeful interactivity between the player and the game interface giving the player reason to continue in their attempts to complete the game. With the goal always achievable, the player must respond to the game state with snap decisions, for example to either jump or climb to avoid barrels or fire balls, in a struggle to reach the top of the level. Using this structure dictates how the player will attempt to complete the game as not only is timing required but the use of perceivable consequences of the player’s actions.

Back to basics game play concentrates less on the graphical interfaces for the player to focus on, but more on actual game play mechanics, or in simpler terms, how the game works. This means we can discover how the game is built up easier as there is less focus on the aesthetics involved in the game and more upon how the game is actually making play more engaging.

Refrences

Jose.P Zegal, (2008), Rounds levels and waves: The Early Evolution of Gameplay Segmentation, http://gac.sagepub.com/content/3/2/175

Paul Brownlee, Nintendo Hard vs. Easier than Easy
from his blog 'Scramble Dash'
available online at:
http://www.scrambledash.net/?p=52

Newman.J, (2004) What Is A Video Game, Routledge, London and New York

Frasca.G www.ludology.org
Finnish version originally published in Parnasso#3, Helsinki, 1999

Costikyan.G, (2002), I Have No Words I Must Design, Tampere University Press, Tampere

Murray, J. H. (1997). Hamlet on the holodeck: The future of narrative in cyberspace. New York: Free Press.