Design: Quick time events:

Quick-time-events, or QTE, are a popular way of giving a character limited control during a cutscene or cinematic during the a videogames gameplay action.

A simple enough concept, QTE are button mashing sequences during a cutscene, that will advance a cutscene to the designed outcome for the player.

There a couple of positive and negatives to QTE's.  First, it gives the player the illusion of control during complicated action sequences.   These action sequences are also used to progress the players story in a logical sequence. 

The downside of quicktime events are 2-fold. One, they only give the user the illusion of control, they in-fact, have no real control, they either pass, and the game continues, or they fail, in which case they are forced to do it again until they pass.  Two, they are incredibly overused in gaming, and they really shouldn't be used at all.  Plenty of games I've played cannot go a level without entering multiple quick time events.

User Design of animals

The animal kingdom is filled with creatures who all specialize in their own design.

Lets look at an anteater for instance.  These creatures have great natural mapping for eating ants. With there long snouts and thin tongues, they specialize in eating tiny ants and removing them from their burrows.  Of course, for the same reason that they specialize in eating ants, they would make a terrible predatory animal.




Lets take a look at a great carnivore, the jaguar. 

The jaguars build would make it a terrrible anteater, with its snub nose and sharp teeth, this animal would struggle to pick up ants and remove them from their home.  At the same time, however, with their long claws, sharp teeth, and strong jaws, combined with explosive legs and lightning quick reflexes, the jaguar makes an ideal predatory animal.  Both of these animals show the natural design and specialization of mother nature, in the gift of some of natures most amazing animals.

Post 7 why not give people total control?

One thing I will never understand about game design is the seeming inability for designers to try and prevent unnecessary error and inconvenience for their players.  While there are many examples of laziness on the part of the people who work in game development (ELECTRONIC ARTS), I simply want to focus on a general feature that happens to exist in lots of games made by many different companies.  This is the ability to change your controls.

I myself wonder every time I play a game why I can't go to the options, go to controls, and simply pick which button I want to do what.  Many games have preset controller types, but many of these preset types simply switch one key, and do not give you the exact layout you might prefer.  If there simply was a custom controller type, that allowed the player to pick each function and assign it to a key, many of the errors or simply the inconvenience of having to relearn a controller layout for a game that functions exactly the same as another game would be gone.

Post 6: Dreamcast

In the late 90's, before the playstation 2 or xbox ever came out, sega unvailed its next generation system, the Dreamcast.

In the sands of time, the Dreamcast was ultimately a failure.  But the Dreamcast itself was pioneer of features that are now standard on all console platforms, and were merely dreams at the time of there release.

 First, besides the improved hardware and performance capabilities, the Dreamcast was the first system to support online multiplayer. Eventually, games were being released that had live updates and down-loadable content, just like all of the newest console games.  Many of the online multiplayers consisted of voice chat, a feature that was not supported for many of the next generation consoles until much later.

With all these new features, why did the Dreamcast fail?  The primary cause of failure was the lack of developer support for the use of the Dreamcast.  With the playstation 2 predicted to come out in the near future, with better hardware and performance capabilities, many developers decided to wait for these systems to come out to develop their games.  And since players didn't want to buy a system that wouldn't support the good games that might come out, they never bought the dream cast.  It was a vicious cycle.

Post 5- xbox live grievances

Just a short blog post today, which is a minor complaint on the multiplaye matchmaking of the new halo reach.

When connecting to games, you select the gameplay mode you want, and the game then automatically tries to connect you with other players looking for the same type.  While a simple concept that should work without too much of a hassle, the game sometimes has trouble finding players, whether it be because their are not enough online or you have firewall issues or they are too far away to play with a stable connection.

Because of this, I have found myself staring at the Halo matchmaking screen longer then I have actually been playing the game.  Sometimes, the game has has found plenty of players 17+, but we hang in the matchmaking room for way longer then nescessary waiting for one player.

Simply put, it would be a much better design to allow players to start the game once enough players are joined to actually play, and other players should be able to connect mid game.

Mac vs PC

I had not ever used a Mac until the recent decision by the computer science department to change all of the PC's in pastalab to mac.

That being said, I'd like to make note of a couple of things about Macs coming from a pc user.

In terms of natural mapping, macs really tend to confuse me due to lack of right click on the mouse.  I also find it incredibly frustrating that all of the shortcuts, which are ctrl-something on the pc, have changed to command-something on the mac.  Both of these changes seem to be ignorant attempts of making themselves appear to be different from the pc, but has only really lead to tedious moments trying to figure out why copy and paste isn't working.

Week 3: The future of gaming... or life as we know it?

We've come a long way as species.  Thousands of years ago men marveled at the thoughts and ideas of the ancients, like Socrates, Plato, and Cicero, and the world was never the same.  Only hundreds of years ago we experienced the industrial revolution, which has led rise to the great nation we live in today, America.

But it was only about 50 years ago when the first computers were being invented.  Back then, computers were simply the marvelous tools of scientists.  Today, electronic devices dominate our lifestyle.  So much so, that we are in fact seemingly helpless without them.

Gaming itself has been steadily evolving over these past years as well.  The first video-games were simple, like pong and pac-man.  With a 2d interface and a few basic buttons, these first games are dramatically different then the modern games on the Xbox 360, like Red-Dead-Redemption, which simulates the life of a old-west outlaw with unprecedented levels of freedom and realism.

The way we interact with games are changing, however.  As competitions between companies increase, the drive to create new unique ways to attract players is creating an expanding  market for new user interfaces.

The Nitendo: Wii, sparked the first big attraction to motion sensing hardware to input data in games. Many, at first, simply brushed off motion sensing games as a gimmick, and at best a way of expanding to the market of parents who hoped that there kids may get some exercise from a console that forced there kids to swing their arms if they want to play.  But it's not just Nitendo anymore.  Playstation: Move has just been introduced from Sony, and Microsoft is going to unveil its Xbox: Kinect.  Both systems are based on motion sensing games, and are expanding there market not just to kids, but to adults as well.  With the onset of these new hardware systems, many new games will be created to fill the motion sensing market, that could not have been filled with simple controller interface before.

But it doesn't just stop there, with the onset of the 3d movies, gaming is expanding into the 3d realm as well, but with more tangible benefits.  3d gaming has already existed for quite a while, but with the addition of motion sensing technology, 3d games can react in real time to the player.  Additional hardware benefits are going to include real time voice communication with NPC's (non player characters) and facial expression readers that can react to the emotions and facial expressions of the player.

As the technology expands, and becomes more powerful and in greater demand, the line between virtual and real is thinning.  Is the expansion of gaming technology the first real steps towards AI systems and Virtual reality?  Only time will tell.

Original Article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/sep/19/3d-games-xbox-playstation

Week 2: To Wire, or not to wire.

A common problem with many of the older console systems was the wiring.  While it could be somewhat of hassle figuring out that the blue red and white video/audio cables hooked up into the blue/red/white ports on the tv, this isn't what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the wires connected to your controller.  And specifically, I'm talking about the connection of the controller to the Playstation itself.  These controllers were designed to connect and not be easily removed, presumably, because it was thought that a controller that can be easily (or accidentally) removed from the system, was not a desired affordance.

While for all intents and purposes, this was a good idea,  there was one factor that the playstation designers didn't keep in mind.  A simple affordance that designers did not have in mind is where and how the Playstation would be set up, and the players would play.  In most cases, the system would be set up as close to the TV as possible, and the player would be as far away from the TV as possible.  While cord length could be limiting in and of itself, most players would stretch the length to its max, eventually ending with the controller wire pulling on the console.  And depending on where the console was set up, this could end in disaster.  During intense gameplay, or if some careless person walked into the room, any tug on the controller could pull the console and end up moving it, or, if set up with your tv on top of a desk, pulling itself and other electronics crashing to the floor.  Which is never a good thing.

Xbox, however, designed a constraint that eventually has gone to the wayside with the onset of wireless controllers.  None the less, this simple design innovation allowed for players to stretch their cords to the limits without the worry of having their xbox come crashing to the floor.  On the picture to your right, you can see that in the middle of the xbox cable their is a bulky looking section the middle of the cord.  This piece actually separates from  the xbox and the controller, so that if excessive force was pulled on the controller, the controller would unplug itself here, and would prevent the xbox from crashing to the floor.  A simple constraint like this saved many xbox's from being destroyed by gravity.

Entry 1- Xbox controller

The original xbox controller looked something like this. On the back of the controller, there are also two triggers.

This original x-box controller is a classic example of failed natural mapping.

First off, and it's hard to tell from the picture, but the controller was too big.  Unless you have hands on the larger side, many of the buttons would be inaccessible to the user, unless they shifted their hand on the controller. The most notable case of failed natural mapping were the black and white keys.  These keys in themselves were confusing, because they had no letter corresponding names, and were simply black and white keys.  The biggest problem with the black and white keys however were their placement.  On the top half of the controller, the keys could not be used unless you lifted your hands from the controller to hit it.  And in the speed of games, this could be huge inconvenience.