Blug Edition: The Top 5 Bugs of the Week

This satuday is the First Blug Edition, featuring Android Gaming with good old bugs in good old games!

1. Subway Surfers' 3D Mishap

Subway Surfers has been known for having 3D related bugs in the past, and this week they were not the exception. Wrapped under the Myster yBox is a Guitar Model trying to get free.

Most players wouldn't stand the suspense of not knowing what's in there.

2. Machinarium's Little Grammar Bug

We can all make mistakes in any game development process, even in Machinarium!

A tiny Grammar Mistake lies waiting in the File Saving page. Yes, I'd like to Overwite that please!

3. Fruit Ninja Button Attempt

Fruit Ninja developers seem to have slipped a little bit of code into what was supposed to be a button I guess...

At least we get a glimpse of that code.

4. Temple Run's Unfitting Mistake

The buttons are too big for this screen... Or is it the screen that's too small for these buttons.

Anyway, It seems that the Tweet, Store and More Coins buttons are not fitting on this screen!

5.  Fieldrunners Black Bug

Fieldrunners' studio has already started working towards this fix. Can't zoom in to place weapons without the complete screen going like this. Whatever this is.

Tested in Samsung Galaxy Note 3. More Blug Editions coming soon!

The Last of Us: Bringing Balance to the Force?

The Last of Us was one of those games that I just couldn't wait to get my hands on. Having played for all my life and being particularly partial toward indie games as I am, I had hoped that The Last of Us would finally revolutionize the AAA industry to give some space for creativity and innovation. It didn't.

As much as I believe that the game derseves all the awards that it has won so far since it is as amazing as it is beautiful, it wasn't a game changer for me, and I really thought it would be The Chosen One. Hasn't anyone felt as if the gameplay of most AAA games feels too much the same? No matter the genre, the designers tend to go back to the old cliches and scorch creativity for the sake of  playing it safe and selling copies (that's a great motivation, though).

It's not that they should reinvent the wheel with every game they make. This would be a mistake, taking advantage of what history has taught players is a must for all successful games, but there's a thin line between using the past to one's advantage and blinding oneself to new possibilities just for sticking to what one already knows.

Maybe I'm a hopeless romantic, but we hopeless romantics want to play AAA games too and feel like we're playing a new game, not the same game over and over again with a slightly or dramatically different story.

Same old, same old?

The Last of Us is, as those who have been lucky enough to play it know, an Action-Adventure, Survival-horror game with Third Person Shooter and Stealth tints. There are many games that belong to this or to a similar genre, which are the parents, grandparents and cousins of The Last of Us. Let's take a look at some main mechanics behind some of them.

Uncharted Series: Also developed by Naughty Dog, this seems like a logical place to start. Stripping this game out of the narrative context gives us a glance at the main mechanics. Keeping in mind that even though the narrative is a basic and important part of the game, let's stick with trying to forget about it and look at the engines of the mechanics.

Third person shooting: Player goes around killing enemies with guns found in-game. A typical point and shoot game, taking cover behind obstacles, peeking to kill enemies, the whole set.

Stealth: Some game moments are so plagued with enemies that the player might want to take cover and sneak behind them to kill them in silence, so that he doesn't warn other enemies of his presence, the player would normally walk slowly, and when he's close enough to one nasty enemy, typically the player would press the right button at the right time and watch his character silently kill the opponent. 

Puzzle-solving: puzzle-solving in this game is fut but unchallenging. Is there a higher ground that the character needs to reach? Just give your partner a lift, or look aound for ladders. There are other things like completing images, pushing heavy doors in group, and similar tasks.

Mass Effect 3: I love the story behind the Mass Effect series, and the RPG-ish feeling the player gets while playing it, but again, let's forget about this game's narrative content and take a closer look at the bare main mechanics. 

Third Person Shooting: Player goes around killing enemies with guns found in-game. A typical point and shoot game, taking cover behind obstacles, peeking to kill enemies, the whole set.

Weapon Upgrading: The weapons that the character gets in the begining of the game might not be enough to bear with the progressively increasing difficulty, so the player would want to upgrade them in specific locations.

Dead Space Series: I also like these games very much, a clever Survival Horror which broke my controls when I dropped them to the floor out of pure fright. Looking at some main mechanics:

Third Person Shooting: Player goes aroung killing enemies with guns found in-game. A typical point and shoot game, although this time peeking behind obstacles might get your character killed once the enemy has spotted him.

Weapon Upgrading: The weapons that the character gets in the begining might again not be enough to bear with the progressively increasing difficulty, so the player would want to upgrade them in specific locations.

  

All these mechanics are pretty cool and pretty standard, well polished they can be amazing, and wrapped in a interesting narrative they can be enhanced. However if we compare these to the main mechanics of the Last of Us we won't find much difference.

The Last of Us: Some main mechanics of The Last of Us might sound familiar:

Third Person Shooting: Player goes around killing enemies with weapons found ingame. A typical point and shoot game, taking cover behind obstacles, peeking to kill enemies, the whole set.

Weapon Upgrading: The weapons that the character gets in the begining of the game might not be enough to bear with the progressively increasing difficulty, so the player would want to upgrade them in specific locations.

Stealth: Some parts are so plagued with enemies that they player might want to take cover and sneak behind them to kill them in silence, so that he doesn't warn other enemies of his presence, the player would normally want to walk slowly, and when he's close enough to one nasty enemy press the right button at the right time and watch his character silently kill the opponent. 

Puzzle-solving: puzzle-solving in this game is fut but unchallenging. Is there a high ground place that the character needs to reach? Just give your partner a lift, or look aound for ladders. There are other things like pushing heavy doors in group, and similar tasks.

Mechanics vs Story

I have a tendency to favor mechanics, although games can serve as a narrative medium if well implemented. I believe that if they have to choose, developers should choose a mechanic-driven game instead of story dirven one, not sacrificing the quality and innovation of the mechanics over a compelling plot with amazing graphics.

If someone asked me what The Last of Us was about, I'd say that it's about a post apocaliptyc world in which a man with little faith in humanity gets caught up in a standard hero's journey. If you asked me what Braid was about I'd say that it's about a character filled with regret that can manipulate time (without the whole metaphoric content).

This is an exercise that I like very much, because it helps us differentiate (subjectively to each player, although with generalizable tendencies) what the game is really made of, story, mechanics or both. In the Last of Us example I would only talk about the story, because the mechanics are serving as a means to tell this story and are left in a second plane, if we were talking about Braid, I'd talk about both, because story and mechanics are so carefully balanced that one can't live without the other. If we were talking for instance about Tetris, I'd talk only about mechanics, no story, so it's a game about organizing blocks without leaving open spaces. See the difference? More on this in an upcoming post.

As I said, this depends on the type of gamer, but I've come to see how most AAA games are story-driven and how most indie games are either well-balanced or mechanics-driven. Since for me gaming is about playing games, not watching animation sequences, I would very much rather play an indie game instead of a AAA one, of couse I'm generalizing, I'm talking about tendencies.

What left me so disappointed in The Last of Us was that I was expecting the inflection point for AAA gaming, to me, this was the game that was going to change this generalized perception, which would beautifully balance story and mechanics, innovating on the latter to complement the first. But the  mechanics with its few small innovations were so unbalanced in significance compared to the awesomeness of the plot that I felt like rushing through the game to see what happened, as if I was watching a movie, instead of enjoying the gameplay moments. It didn't change my perception about the AAA industry being each day more about great graphics and solid stories and less about quality gameplay and innovative mechanics, it enhanced it!

I would lie if I said that I didn't enjoy playing The Last of Us, I enjoyed it very much, just not as much as I enjoyed playing The Stanley Parable, Thomas was Alone (funny enough, story-driven games for me), Braid or Limbo. To me, The Last of Us was the Chosen One who would bring balance to the force, instead of widening the gap.

I'll keep waiting for that massively popular AAA game that everyone will play and that will be an eye opener, game changing, force balancing event. For now, I'm sticking with indie games and the few balanced or mechanic-driven AAA games.

Videogames are Art's Second Cousin Twice Removed

There's been a lot of debate about whether videogames are art or not. Then again, there's been a lot of debate about whether art is art or not, so buckle up! This can get philosophical.

Humans feel the constant need of communication, and videogames are a form of communicating with the weird world living outside the developer's minds. Going deeper, there are games that have succesfully achieved the subtle ways of storytelling (more on games and storytelling in an upcoming post). So, if a novel is considered art, why shouldn't a videogame be considered art as well?

There are people who say videogames should even have a museum, there are other people that feel like videogames are as close to art as a white canvas in a pretty frame, which, considering the standarrds of modern art, is pretty close.

I believe that videogames can be art, or not, depending on the feelings that they convey on the player. I can't think of a videogame such as Braid not being considered a form of art, which is why I honestly believe that videogames are art's second cousin twice removed. They are definetly younger than other forms of art, and they have definetly artistic potential, so they sure are family.

What does it take for a videogame to be considered art?

It's not about the pretty graphics, or the pretty sounds... it's about the complete experience, it's about having that precious feeling of wonder while you play the game, at all times, even though the game might convey other additional feelings. Here's a list of 3 videogames that I consider pure art and the reasons why.

Braid: The atmosphere that Braid creates is dense with metaphores and intense feelings of loss and regret. The player almost doesn't want Braid to end, the whole experience is so subtle and yet so strong that he can't help but feel satisfied and overwhelmed at the same time. Braid provides a well balanced combination of music, art, storylines (all art forms), and best of all, it allows the player to be a part of it. 

Limbo: Another atmosphere game, however this case is so less obvious than Braid to many people because of the graphics being so simplistic. Limbo empowers the concept of minimalism with (get this) not a very audible music and not very elaborate graphics (huh?) Limbo is not about flashing awesome things at the player, but about hiding awesome things from the player. The feelings of dispair and fear of the unknown are intensified by blinding and deafing the player, the mechanics are neat and the complete experience is so immersive that the average player flinches with every Game Over. Many paintors have tried to achieve these same feelings in their audience to no avail, and Limbo manages it while keeping the player with a genuine sense of wonder and avid for more.

Thomas was Alone: One of my favorite games, Thomas was Alone is narrative done right. It transmits a powerful artistic feeling similar to the feeling one may experience after reading a life-changing, paradigm-shifting book, so why wouldn't it be considered art? The player is led to believe that he's playing a game, when he's actually reading a story, with game rules, again, something only games can provide.

Braid mainly gives the player a feeling similar to the one he might feel by watching a great painting while listening to empowering music, Limbo mainly makes the player feel like part of a minimalistic work of art and Thomas was Alone mainly makes the player feel part of an amazing story. All these have one thing in common, they not only throw art at the player, they also make the player be a part of that through immersion.

Games are unique because they can mix some great music, great graphics and amazing stories and reinforce all this with a solid and coherent gameplay to invite the player to get in and be an active part of the whole thing. Which painting have you seen that can do that?

Why are some videogames not considered art?

Not all videogames have artistic qualities and make the player feel like he's reading the most beatuiful of poems, so here are 3 un-artistic videogames.

Grand Theft Auto: Robbing cars and wrecking cities, however artistic it may sound, ruins the atmosphere. This game has it all: good graphics, good music, cool mechanics, but they somehow don't interact between one another in harmony, making the player feel that he has a rather boring life. The feeling of wonder at the message of the game gets lost between all the complexity and roughness of the mechanics. To me, the greatest feeling that this game conveys is the feeling of cash falling out of your wallet.

Wii Sports: Being a fan of all things Nintendo I must admit that some titles lack that artistic component, Wii Sports is one of them. This game makes the player feel like being at a sports playfield listening to the music of a doctor's waiting room, it's meant to be more of a sport activity than a gallery-sightseeing activity. Since art is such a personal thing that speaks differently to each one of us, it's more difficult for multiplayer oriented games like this to convey art, so sometimes they don't even try to. 

Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures: This is a very fun un-artistic satire. It is made as a cult to the history of gaming, regarding gaming as the classic, geeky, frustrating experience that stuck after the 8-bit consoles went in business. Although the graphics are fun to watch, the humor is hilarious and the gameplay is marvelously frustrating, this game feels to me like whatever fun feelings I get when I watch Saturday Night Life.

Not all games are art, and that's all right, because not all games are meant to be. Each game has its own unique purpose and not all the developer's need to connect at such a deep level to make a great game. What's true is that all games have the potential to become art, because they are family.

Being a woman in the videogame industry

Almost everybody has been hit by a certain series of happenings which we've come to call GamerGate. Thanks to GamerGate a lot of the old "women in gaming" debate has been sadly undusted.

Let me clear this out: Being a woman in the videogame industry is not a big deal. 

I have not been frowned upon, nobody has thought less of me, I have encountered no special obstacles whatsoever, sorry to disappoint you. So what's the deal with people who think women are more or less just because.

For me the saddest moment in the whole discrimination issue was when I was at GDC back in 2012. Everything was going wonderfully according to plan, I had met a lot of interesting people and even managed to make a few friends. And there I was, in the San Francisco cold post-winter winds, when I saw a large line forming to enter an event. This event was called: "Women in Gaming". And almost everyone on the line was, well, women....

For me, the discrimination is self inflicted, and the whole thing is ridicoulous, by being overly victimized or extremely feminist, women have drawn the line and have insisted that there is a difference, fighting to vanquish what's not vanquishable, because it is not existent.

It's true that we have both genetic and history to blame for our lack of participation in this industry a few years back, but that is not so right now. Even if we were engineered to think about raising families and worry about keeping the house clean, these are clearly stereotypes which aren't really true today.

Throughout my life, I've been called a tomboy because I like games... by women! As if games were a specific asset for men, and women who took part in this were weirdoes. 

I wouldn't put myself in a special place just because I'm a woman, I won't recognize any event, comment, hashtag that separates me from the rest just because I'm a woman, no matter if that separation puts me below or over men. 

So I'm sorry to dissappoint everyone, but GamerGate is not really about gender inequality, it's about people who can't manage their personal lives and who think that everyone should be involved in what is clearly not of public interest.

The day the self-inflicted discrimination ends will be the day that women stop calling each other tomboys for liking games, and stop going to events called "Women in Gaming", unless of course, there is a parallel event of equal importance called "Men in Gaming".

Even more, many people have come to ask me how did I manage to enter in the videogame industry being a woman. I have to supress my eyes from rolling as I answer "Just like if I were a dude".

So women, don't be discouraged, there's nothing to fear, this industry is big enough for women and men, and we all would live happily if it weren't for the auto discrimination some women veterans are inflicting upon ourselves, and very publicly so.

You can also find this article in Destructoid: http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/The9BitGame/being-a-woman-in-the-videogame-industry-284237.phtml

A First Time Designer Guide to First Time User Experience

You have spawned in the biggest game ever: life.

You spawned probably in some clinic, all covered up in blood and slime, and ready to play. But you knew nothing. Your XP level was 0, zip, nada. And you jumped in the game because you had no other choice. The first few months were basically spent learning how to eat, breathe, cry. You gained XP when you cried your first time, you got XP when you realized that by crying you could get things done. You got XP the first time you sat on your own, stoop up, walked, talked, went to school, made friends, went to college, graduated, got your first job, got your first boyfriend or girlfriend... you get the idea.

By now you probably are a very experienced player, having been playing for years, you've leveled up and learned more than the basics, although there is still more to learn. But, how did you do it? How on earth could you find it in you to learn all this without noticing that you were learning it? This all happened because life has a very well designed First Time User Experience.

First Time User What?

Life is a big, big game with a pretty neat First Time User Experience. You went through many tutorials, without even knowing you were going through them. Listening to other people speak, by instance, was your tutorial for learning how to speak.

Every game a player plays feels at first like being born in that game, weather it's Tic Tac Toe, or Assasin's Creed, a player is born once he spawns in the game, and now he needs to understand the game world that the Designer carefully crafted for him in order to keep playing. This is one of the crucial moments in Gameplay, a player can just walk away if the learning pace is too tedious, or too fast, or too slow, or he can just keep playing if what the Designer shows him keeps him busy.

The First Time User Experience is every event generated by the interaction between the game and the player in which the player is getting over the initial friction of the unknown. He learns the basics, he knows what your game is about, and he gets ready for more lessons during gameplay.

There are many techniques one can use to design a First Time User Experience that is just about the right length, just about the right amount of information and just about invisible. Sylvester Tynan, in his book: "Designing Games: A Guide to Engineering Experiences" says that the best First Time User Experience is invisible, the player doesn't even know that he's learning how to play. and yet he is!

Learning Stages

Just like your average Joe starts his life by sitting up, then crawling, then walking and finally running, your average player goes through learn and master stages throughout the complete game experience. A game is as deep as the amount of learning a player can take from it.

When I first started playing chess, I was faced with the biggest challenge of all: Learning how to move each piece. Upon mastering the piece-moving phase, I wanted to learn how each piece could eat other pieces. After that I passed onto playing games with my dad, understanding the concept of check mate, crowning, initial piece set up, and being crushed each and every single time. But there came the day when my dad was no match for me and I needed to seek other people to play against, that is when I enrolled on a Chess Club (like all the cool kids at the time, of course), and I learned about tactics, strategies, game endings, general mating configuration, openings, and so on.

To this day, I'm still learning chess, there's always new problems, new games, new openings, new oponents, and I've been in the final mastering and polishing phase for the last ten years of my life, and I will be in this learning stage during the rest of it, because chess is a limitlessly deep game, you can always get better and you can always learn.

On the other hand, when I was a small child I started to play Tic Tac Toe, first I understood the game rules, then I played with my sister and after I found a consistent pattern to beat her, she found a consistent pattern to draw the game every time. After this, I tried playing with many other people but the outcome was still the same: draw, draw, draw. The game could give us no more, we could no longer learn from it. Tic Tac Toe is a shallow game because the amount of lessons one can take from it have a very short lifespan.

Each game has its very own Learnin Stages, the deeper the game is, the more learning stages it has, our job is to know which learning stages do we want the player to learn at which moment in the game and to provide them with the correct mechanisms for learning them. You don't want to give away all your secrets in the First Time User Experience, but you do want to give enough information to keep the player interested. 

The First User Un-Experience

It is common for some games to throw a manual in the player's face. In the elden days, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and played 8 bit console games, these games came with a manual, but they player could either choose to read it, or ignore it and play, most players didn't have the option to play the game right away after buying it, so, out of pure excitement, they would read the manual, however when comfronted with the possibility of actually playing the game, they would toss the manual aside and start playing.

This leads us to a very valuable lesson that some people often forget: Players like to play. They don't like to read before they play, they don't like to have to listen to infinite instructions, they just want to play, and the best way to teach a player how to play is by letting them play. 

So if a player has limited time to play a game, and when opening the game he finds a written manual onscreen that he can't skip, the normal reaction would be to trade games for one that he already likes and knows how to play, and stop playing your game.

Having said this, some times tutorials in the form of manuals are inevitable, specially for games like RPGs, for instance Final Fantasy VIII had a written tutorial, and it is a very beloved and successful game. So, was I lying to you? How did they manage? Here's a few tips to throw in the Designer's mind if he is considering an instruction manual for the player's First Time User Experience.

1. Always give your player a skip button. This is most convenient, it will suit both your impatient player and your patient one, let the impatient go ahead and skip the instructions and bang his character's head on the game walls if he wishes while pressing all the buttons and learning.
2. Always leave the manual with the basics accessible somewhere. If you make your manual skippable, leave it accesible somewhere else so that your player can go back and read it if he finds himself lost.
3. Don't overdo it. Don't provide more explanation than necessary, you can add funny and/or narrative tints to your manuals (this often works), but don't make your player read the character's mother in law's sister's story if it is not relevant to how to make a punch combo when teaching your player said combo.
4. Know your timing. Introduce your manual when the narrative, or the mechanics allow it, don't throw it all there in the beginning unless you want your player to skip it all with a heavy headache. If you are making a game that has many weapons introduced over time, provide each weapon's usability description when each weapon appears. A good example of this is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, they provide a one paragraph explanation on how to use each item when each item is found.
5. Know your player. I can't stress this point enough: know your player. If you are aiming at a casual mobile target, those guys who play for bus fun, don't make them read extensive tutorial, but if you are aiming for a more hard core target of RPG gamers, maybe they have the patience to go through it all.

First Time User Mario-Experience

I like to call the immersive playable-only First Time User Experience, the Mario Experience. think about it, when the player first plays Super Mario Bros, he faces himself in front of a pretty simple controler, with just a few buttons, he can easily understand what the button A and the d-pad do in seconds. He starts the level within sight of a Question Block and an enemy, a Goomba. The game is timed so that when Mario jumps to hit the box, he falls down and kills Goomba, popping an item out of the box. This is all pretty standard, but it seems intentional. The Designer is actually teaching the player how to play:

1. Hitting the shiny question block is logical, so the player intuitively knows that something will happen when that block is hit. He hits the first one, gets a coin, and goes on to hit the second one. The player learns that by jumping, he can hit shiny blocks and things will come  out of them.
2. Upon jumping to hit that second Question Block he can learn that the enemies die when jumped on, or that Mario dies when hit by enemies. This is because the game is timed so that when Mario hits the second block, the Goomba will be waiting for the sweet kiss of death at Mario's feet.
3. If Mario successfully jumps over poor Goomba, the player will realize what the mushroom that popped out of the interrogation block does, because the mushroom will hit a wall and get back to him!

Simply put: this is brilliant.

Just by playing, the player knows all he needs to know in the first 15 seconds of gameplay. It's true that most games today are not as straighforward as Mario and have many more controls, but the core mechanics are ussually simple, and normally you don't want to know your player to know everything in the tutorial or first time user experience.

Leaving some mistery to be discovered later on means leaving the player with the possibility to be surprised, and that usually is a good thing. For instance, in Mario, they don't tell you what the flower does, they don't say that you will have to beat bowser in the castle by passing below him just in the right moment, they don't say that you can run faster by pressing B, they don't say that you can jump ahead and skip levels, or that you can find more lives out of thin air. The game is deeper than the player thought it would be during the first five minutes, and that is all right.

Is there another option? Of course there is: The third way

Just like about everything in life, your First Time User Experience can be gray, you don't need to be completely black or completely white. You can both have a playable First Time User Experience and show manuals where you think the player may need an extra hand.

A smartly executed First Time User Experience that combines both manuals and gameplay to teach the basics is The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo again! These guys are really very good at doing First Time User Experiences, so I'd suggest studying their games for a starting point).

In The Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time, the payer is not prompted a pop up manual for absolutely everything, the player learns how to walk on his own, how to auto jump on his own, how to break vases on his own, ... if he wishes, he can talk to strangers and read watever they tell him, these things more often than not contain instruction for mechanics, and whenever Link has a new shiny weapon, a short manual will pop up to tell you how to use it (with different color words with the most important information for those who don't like reading. In the screen there are also very helpful icons shaped and colored like the game controller buttons that will prompt the player to press these buttons by having onscreen text of what they do under special circumstances.

So basically what they do is:

1. Leave the obvious mechanics (like walking) and the cool surprises (like breaking vases) to the player for discovery.
2. Give the player an option to learn the more coplex mechanics (like Z targetting, or automatic jumping) by talking to strangers.
3. Give the player short manuals with the core weapon mecanics (which appear when each weapon is unlocked).
4. Use a button icon in the right moments for the player to press, so that he can figure out what this does.

Again, brilliant!

Wrapping it up

1. A player has to learn the basics of a game when he first spawns in that game, if the pacing is too fast he may feel overwhelmed and quit, if the pacing is too slow, he may feel bored and quit.
2. A game is as deep as the lessons it can offer.
3. Don't give all the information away, give just the basics for the player to discover.
4. Use a manual booklet approach just if necessary, and don't overdo it.
5. Players like to play, so teach them by playing if you can, think about the First Time User Mario-Experience.
6. You can always combine a playable approach with a manual booklet approach if what you have to teach is more complex.

References

Tynan Sylvester. Designing Games: A Guide to Engineering experiences.