Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=1755https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5997In this playthrough I wanted to explore the mechanics of peace in the game and see how far pacifism took me. I started a new game with 5 other AI opponents. I immediately set my settings to Ceasefire on all 5 opponents. I decided to focus on defense and laid down silos and air bases. I didnt finish laying down the defenses before defcon 3 and was left pretty much defenseless, but I thought it was ok since I was testing out the new strategy. As soon as defcon 3 began, I noticed fighting inside my borders between other groups. I was expecting collateral damage with a small negative score. There were groups whose total score was in the negative while I was sitting in the middle at 0. Just after defcon 1, I saw the white big letters of "Launch detected" flashing all over the screen. I began wondering if they were aimed at me and they sure were. I was getting attacked by ICBMs of all colors. As the victory timer started, I was sitting there with a 50 million population loss. This taught me that peace theories dont really work in times of crises. I would like to know more about the AI and what decisions it takes to come to the decision to attack me. I played another game after this where I sent requests to be allies with other teams but all of them went unanswered and I had another 75 million loss game. I got into this game session with the mindset after having read the news about the Iran Nuclear deal that had just gone through a few days ago. With nuclear war being a concern and the remaining neutral stance not working, I am wondering how much of the game would be a mirror of future struggles. I do think that human beings have evolved enough to not blow each other up in Atomic war. Today when many countries have nuclear capabilities, I think that by itself would be a huge deterrent for war. In last thoughts, I wish the game gave more options to make diplomatic measures rather than just a checkbox. I found it funny how if you manage to make a alliance and stay out of the war, you dont get any point for survivors. The game assumes that the player is predisposed for war and doesnt give any value to survival but rewards aggression. I understand from a game design perspective a peaceful game makes no sense but it would be a good game to try to just maintain peace in a world headed for doom.Wed, 08 Apr 2015 10:50:57 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5997&iddiary=10471https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5997I started a new game playing as Europe this time with AI opponents as North America and South America. I did not feel that this was going to turn out good. As i played I realized there is no pause button. Also you cant attack before defcon 3 and cant bring out the ICBM launches until defcon 1. I was playing the game at the slowest speed just to take time to think and not make a gigantic mess up. I was holding a lead in the beginning but a lack of planning started to show and the game went to hell defcon one started. When the game hit defcon one though I increased the time speed and went behind the closest targets indiscriminately without any sense of strategy because I was losing. I wonder if this is how world leaders feel when they are at war in such dire circumstances. It makes you think if the people you put your trust in to defend you, are as fallible as you and do they have control when faced with the burden of millions of deaths? Do they know any better when it comes to a situation like this? I found myself queuing up ICBM launches to cities with the most population just lining them up one after the other to cause the maximum human life damage. After a point I just wanted to hurt the AI as much as it had hurt me. Every game starts with a foreboding sense of doom and when you actually get to defcon 1 you are no longer concerned with strategy but end up just throwing all you have at the enemies. In my game time, towards the end I found myself at the receiving end of a barrage of nuke attacks right after the victory timer started. I knew Europe was headed for a wipe-out. I wondered here myself how the game measured something like victory when all three sides had a incredible amount of losses. How do you define victory in a apocalypse? Individually - its easy. If you live you've won. If you die, you've lost. But how does it work for nations in the 21st century? If there is thermonuclear war in the future will the countries that dont have all citizens dead be declared victorious? The game gives 2 points to a kill while -1 for a death. I started thinking whether this point system is sensible. I dont think you can simplify something this complicated into a simple point structure. I feel the game does a very good job to convey the hopelessness of all out mutually assured destruction. It is not a future I'm looking forward to. It makes me question the mindset behind these all or nothing, destructive tendencies. At the end of the slow game I was left with all my cities decimated and no military installations left. It perfectly suits the tagline of the game - "everybody dies". This also made sense logically in the real world context of what would happen if Europe went head to head with North America and South America. As I left the game, I saw that there was a option to create alliances which was not mentioned in the tutorial. I plan to play with the alliance mechanic next time. I'm impressed with the game till now and can see this as a good multiplayer experience. I hope to see what more this game has to offer. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Tue, 07 Apr 2015 17:47:27.)Tue, 07 Apr 2015 17:44:27 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5997&iddiary=10462https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5997Within the first few minutes of starting a new game, I was lobbing nukes from europe to russia and it was only the tutorial. While I was busy nuking russian cities, London got nuked and 10.6 million were killed. A large white text flashed on the screen telling me so, the music changed mood and stuff hit the fan in my mind. I had lost the mission. In retaliation I aimed 10 nukes for moscow and people kept on dying by numbers. Here I realised that the size of the markers were based on the size of the population of the city. After I was done, moscow was reduced to a really small marker. I was part of a horrible mass murder. I had to look up the meaning of the word DEFCON which I found out stood for defence readiness condition which turns out be what you do most in this game. The game play felt a little slow (As I played on and discovered things on my own, I ended up drawing my name all over north america with a pen while waiting for all the orders to complete) but I feel at higher levels we will need the time to think and execute. During the last training mission, I was forced to be quick and strategic in my attack. I never felt OP. I felt I was vulnerable throughout, the thought of people dying by the numbers was not pleasing to me. The victory timer started in the end right when I was wondering when the game was going to end? I won by a slim margin with heavy losses on both sides and I was ready for the next game. Aesthetically the game was hugely reminiscent of another game I played - Hacker Evolution which is made by the same developer. The visuals while unique make the in-game text hard to read. since the aesthetic was doing a lot to push the fantasy of a military supreme commander controlling units from the home base, these small niggles are forgiven. The music of the game made me awe. The haunting music reminded me of the soundtrack in This War of Mine. I also think I heard a woman sobbing somewhere while bombing cities in the background. That was a terribly chilling moment. In other thoughts, it is no surprise that they chose Europe in the tutorial level as the first theater of conflict. The game feels slow but I feel that is a deliberate design choice to convey the real nautre of war. I found it strange that India got clubbed with China, Russia and Pakistan against the western powers. I am sure that will never happen in the case of a world war :). Heres to hoping that the game allows me to make my own alliances in the next levels.Mon, 06 Apr 2015 20:42:01 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5997&iddiary=10459https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5979Wednesday 25th January 2015 The suture scene was hard to watch. That scene followed by the bashing of the zombie’s head by the 12 year old girl, I feel, sets up the character of Clementine. Since I had not played the earlier game, it becomes hard to believe that a 12 year old girl has such strength and tenacity to operate on herself and then right after that - kill a zombie. I have to note that after that establishing scene, I found myself making dialogue choices that are not as aggressive, insecure or defiant. I picked dialogue options that appear to be mature, coming from a world wise, strong willed person. This change may be because I’m playing this on a different time and day or because of the difficult situation that the game just put Clementine through. The one time I felt like being a punk was when Rebecca comes and talks to Clementine while she is having dinner. I felt like taking the dialogue option and asking her “Who is the baby’s father?” but stopped short when I realized that is not something that Clementine would do. At the very end of the episode I was faced with two choices – Giving the dying man water and saving Nick or Pete. I stuck to the good guy mindset and gave the man water. The last one was difficult – knowing that Pete was bitten and would turn but was a more valuable asset than Nick who was a loose cannon. Finally, contrary to logical judgment, I decided to save Pete. In the next episode preview it hinted that Pete takes the choice to cut off his own leg to prevent the infection from spreading. That alleviated some of the guilt from the last choice. Just to satisfy my curiosity I went to youtube and checked the change in the final cutscene if I had decided to save Nick instead of Pete. It showed Nick drinking, looking broken and dejected. This gave me further assurance of having made the right choice. I also have a hard time recollecting the dialogue options as I’m writing this so I’m going to a walkthrough or lets play video to make notes. Till now most the dilemmas faced in the game haven’t caused me to think about them much, they being straightforward for me and my moral compass. After playing this episode and looking at the teaser for the next one, I can see that the strength of the game is not in the interaction or the dialogue choices but the multiple branching storyline directions that the game can go in based on story choices. I don’t think the game has enough of those branching stories to warrant multiple playthroughs right now but the hint of possibilities is very exciting for future games in general. I’m looking forward to play the next episodes in the near future! Wed, 25 Feb 2015 11:24:40 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5979&iddiary=10431https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5979Tuesday 24th January 2015 At the start of my second playthrough Luke and Pete rescued Clementine. It was entertaining to see them argue about the decision about taking in clementine. I found myself inserting my decisions on the characters depending on the situation. As much as I tried to keep an emotionally removed mindset towards the characters, I found myself roleplaying and thinking of my own reaction in those situations. In that regards, the game succeeded in making me care. I figured out that the story of the game was going to place a lot of emphasis on group dynamics. Also, I was trying hard to figure out the nuances between the dialogue options this time more than ever because in a lot of the conversations, I couldn’t make out the tone of the dialogue and what emotion that would show. English, being a second language, for me a lot of times the dialogue options seemed similar to each other with no difference between them. I also feel the game could’ve benefitted from adventure game style puzzles because right now it feels like they are trying to do that but the puzzles are so trivial that there is no challenge here. It makes sense for a cinematic game like this but I cant help think they could have made it better by including harder puzzles. I actually hated when there was a supposed stealth section where Clementine sneaks through the house that was turned into an interactive cutscene. I love stealth games in general so this seemed like a mindless drag in comparison. Further in the story, the difference between Sarah who has been sheltered throughout most of this apocalypse and clementine was striking and fun to watch. It was fun to see similar characters that were separated by a world of experiences. I have a feeling that the scene is foreshadowing some really hard to make decision somewhere ahead in the game. The scene where Rebecca talks to herself while looking in the mirror, wondering who is the father of her child, reminds us that regular cultural norms still matter and haven’t broken down completely in the wake of an apocalypse. The choice of stealing and taking a watch was also interesting. I don’t know yet how it will play out but an action like that made a lot of sense in a post apocalyptic world and I wish the game has more of these kind of interactions as I play ahead.Wed, 25 Feb 2015 00:08:17 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5979&iddiary=10429https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5979Monday 23rd January 2015 The Walking Dead series of video games is and episodic interactive drama graphic adventure video game series by Telltale Games - a developer that popularized and mastered this genre of games. They have lots of similar other games but this one was no doubt the most popular and well received owing to the impressive story and popularity of the tv series and comic books. Having never played this kind of game before, I’m buckling myself in for a unique experience. In the beginning, the game showed me a flashback of the previous season. From that, I understood that this is the story of the girl Clementine, who was under the care of a man named Lee. At the end of the first season, she ends up shooting the man, because he had been bitten by a zombie and that last moment of the recap set the mood for the first play-through. The game began with a playful conversation between two people. Clementine is asked to choose a name and I had to come up with a response before a bar that keeps shrinking disappeared entirely. That mechanic took some time to figure out and I got the right choice as I wanted to make on the second or third such question. That scene did well to set up the relationship between the characters. On important dialogue choices, the game told me that "X will remember that". This made me think that these dialogue choices will have some sort of impact later in the story. Clicking through scenes I was preparing myself for a jump scare of two as the game does a good job of creating tension. I also found the image of a young girl carrying around a gun to be very unsettling. The first death was a very tragic experience. Christa's expression upon discovering Omid’s body was horrifying. I didn’t know whether any of my choices had led to that scenario or that it was inevitable in the story. Was I guilty for having the gun on me? I found the QTE based gameplay very boring and restrictive, it is my first time playing the game. I also didn’t have enough time to read and think about the options but I feel it does it to simulate, real life split second decisions. During my play through, I always tried to discern the emotion behind the dialogue options given their tone. I made assertive choices, being rude, even when a gun was pointed at me. I chose a lot of dialogue options that reminded Christa of her late husband just to see the response it would elicit from that NPC. I wish I could go back and play every possible combination of decisions but that would take too much time. In a few situations I felt the choices were just padding. For example, when I threw a stone at a bunch of zombies approaching me, it didn’t feel like the choice had any consequence. I feel these interactions were added just to add some level of interactivity for it to be called a game. Sometime later, the moment when you play catch with the dog was really impactful in bonding the dog’s character to the player. It added some joy to the bleak landscape. Some moments later, I liked it how the game went full 180 and made me hate the dog for biting me when I fed it the food. It was a bad move but it didn’t stop me from being merciful and killing the dog and ending its suffering. At this point I had a thought whether I would do the same if I was bitten in real life. I feel being hungry and bitten I would have left the dog to die. In real life I would have been exacting revenge. Since I’m just playing a game and not in that actual situation I put the dog out of its misery, trying to be forgiving and moving on. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Wed, 25 Feb 2015 00:08:49.)Wed, 25 Feb 2015 00:07:34 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5979&iddiary=10428https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5946Day 5 Started with me getting a knock at the door and two shady characters showing up asking to talk. Knowing the situation and the nature of the game till now, I ignored the knocking in fear of it being a trap. Having no weapons to defend myself I did the thing that I would do in such a situation myself. I had decided not to risk it. I let go of a potential dialogue option i.e. content for the fear of the wellbeing of my characters. I feel this says a lot about the brilliant way that the game was able to make me care about my character for me to make that choice. The thought also crossed my mind that maybe they were looking for help but again, I felt in no charitable mood when my own house was barely making ends meet. I contemplated for a while whether that made me a bad person. I decided not to dwell on it for long and spent the day doing chores. As night came, I picked Katia for scavenging since today she was the only one who wasn’t injured or tired. I went against my original plan and used the female character. I decided to scavenge an area I had been to before, knowing that it would be safe. Opening new cabinets in this area, I found coffee. I saw that Katia liked coffee and was asking for it in the in-game dialogue. Though coffee was an item that was going to bring comfort to only one character in particular, I decided to go for it. Even though it occupied one whole inventory slot when it could have been used for something useful for the whole group. Here I was letting my bias and my need for overcompensation get in the way of the needs of the many. I wasn’t proud of it but I just felt it was necessary when I did it. I came back to find out that the night had not been calm and Bruno had been attacked. His status showed “Sad” in his emotions. That made me stop and take notice as the first thought that came to my mind was to think how far this was going to be taken? Does he go from “Sad” to “Very Sad”? Does that go somewhere beyond just sadness? Does this game lets the characters kill themselves to simulate human emotion in war? Would I experiment with the people I’ve grown attached with just to find out if that happens? I researched the game and found out that the game does let characters commit suicide if they are pushed beyond a point. My thoughts now went back to the moonshine and the implied benefits of having supplies and machinery to make moonshine. Alcohol is a sure stress reliever and now I felt as if it would have helped in elevating the emotions of my characters and keeping future suicidal thoughts away. Suddenly the purpose of the games objects made a lot of sense beyond tradable item or luxury. I now started looking at each item’s descriptions carefully trying to find the hidden gameplay significance of the items. The cigarettes, coffee beans and moonshine ingredients now all fit into the scheme of the game. It was a sudden moment of clarity. I feel the suicide mechanic is a very bold addition to the game as I can’t think of any games with playable characters that commit suicide. It is not even dwelt on in the Sims games. I reckon it would be a punch to the gut to experience it first-hand while playing the game but my life as a graduate student is hard enough. I have grown rather weary of the heavy themes in the game and would like to play a game of Quake 3 as soon as possible to alleviate the depression. Wed, 28 Jan 2015 09:08:24 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5946&iddiary=10387https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5946Since I was raided the previous night (Night 2) in the game, on Day 3 I decided to concentrate on healing the wounded and prepare for the night. Finding out that I had no food, I ended the day prematurely so that I could go out scavenging and hope to find some food to eat. Today when I got to the night I noticed that the game had arranged the three people in my house in an order that was different from the last night I went scavenging. I realized that the game here was making its own suggestions about who should go out scavenging based on its own calculations. It picked the person that was the least tired and hungry to scavenge. I considered the given option and it was Katia. I examined it and decided that though the option made complete sense in the context of the game, it was something that I would never allow and would never happen in real life. Call me sexist, but I would never send out a woman in a war zone unless the men were absolutely wounded and unable to move. This suggested choice and its repercussions made me think about the role of gender in games and how my own biases and beliefs in life affect my choices. I admire the game’s attempts to paint all the characters as capable in their own right giving them varied abilities but when it comes down to it, I decided to impose my own values on to the game. I would like to say here that I felt the game gave the female characters sexist special abilities. Even though I had not played as the characters I did a wiki search and noted their special abilities as “Bargaining Skills”, “Bolsters Spirits”, “Loves Children” and “Talented Lawyer”. Males were given abilities such as “Good Scavenger”, “Trained in Combat”, “Handyman”, and “Good Mathematician” etc. I was not bothered by the clear demarcation of gender roles in a video game but it was clear to me that in a situation like war, gender roles generally get eschewed reminding me of the images of Kurdish women bearing arms and fighting alongside men in the northern swaths of Iraq. Moving on, I felt as if the game should have given us the option of having more than one scavenger (that may happen later in the game). It would also make sense because nobody would like to out in a warzone all alone. Eventually I used Pavle to scavenge. I noticed that the change in music while scavenging does a good job to convey the tension I felt while sneaking through unknown territory. Again I felt the need for more bag space and decided to make that a priority. Day 4 rolled in and the first interesting event happened in the game where a lone civilian walked up to the door of our shelter asking to trade items. I looked at the options and was forced to think about the perceived importance of ordinary items in an extraordinary situation. I thought about the use of all the items I had and tried to think of the things that had fit within my logic and moral code. I consider alcohol a recreational item and would waste no resources making it in such dire times. So I decided to get rid of the items to make moonshine ad concentrated on just getting all the food, clean water and supplies I could get. This was another example of me making a choice based on my own moral code in the game. The game so far had more apprehension and tension than a youtube jumpscare lets play. With my skills I felt like I was watching a slow train wreck. It was clear that people were going to die. It also bothered me as to what were the character’s motivations to stay in a city that was amidst war. Couldn’t they be refugees and migrate to outside the warzone? The limited backstory of the characters did not make sense to me as I felt the reason they were living like this could be solved by escape as I don’t think it would be worth living everyday fearing for your life especially when your greatest threat is not the enemy but your own countryman. I’ll find out more about the story soon. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Wed, 28 Jan 2015 01:17:13.)Wed, 28 Jan 2015 01:15:16 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5946&iddiary=10386https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5946My First play through of "This War of Mine" was filled with a sense of foreboding that made it a depressing experience. The somber music fit the mood of the game perfectly. It reminded me of all the fearful and uneasy sounds that are associated with the kind of experience I felt like I was about to have. The pencil shaded scene did well to re-enforce the worrisome feeling of the rest of the game's aesthetic. I knew this was not going to be a fun experience. I started Day 1 getting familiar with the backstories of the three characters - Katia, Bruno and Pavle. I tinkered around with Bruno, learning the meaning of the symbols over buttons, examining every detail in the scene before me. After I had explored enough I turned my attention to the other characters. I saw that Pavle was sick and hence my first priority was to build a bed so that he can be well rested and could heal. I think struggling to sleep on air bed for the first few months that I came to America, I valued a good night’s sleep a lot. I hence put my own priorities into the game and used Bruno to build a bed for Pavle. There was one piece of food in the refrigerator that I let Bruno have after his effort because I felt guilty for using him for a lot of the digging and scavenging in the hideout. I felt a need to properly recompense a fictional character for a perceived exploit. Soon the day was up and I chose to let all characters stay the night. Day 2 started and I saw that the stats on the characters had changed. Now they said that except Bruno who had had some food yesterday, the others were very hungry. I did not realize that letting people stay at home without scavenging will lead them to have no food at all. The dialogue pop ups in the middle of the game that conveyed the character’s emotions of hunger and tiredness packed a lot of punch. They made me think about my choices for the characters. I felt guilty for the current state of Katia and Pavle now. I decided that this day I’ll scavenge for food and get something stocked up. That night I paid a lot of attention to the city map that opens up. It made the city feel like a scary intimidating place that was mysterious and uninviting but a necessary task. For the first time it gave the game a feel of scale. I packed my bag chockfull of supplies that I already had and went scavenging. Soon I realized how idiotic this was since now I didn’t have enough inventory space to carry all that I could find. I also had a tough time deciding what to grab from the resources I found given my limited inventory space. I felt foolish and depressed at this point knowing that I had subjected my characters to another day of hunger. Day 3 started and I got the message that I had been raided the last night while Bruno was out scavenging. I had built two beds hoping Katia and Pavle both get a good night’s sleep but now they were wounded. This moment really drove home the gravity of the situation in the game. I got an idea of the many variables I have to manage in the game. It became overwhelming. I decided to stop “playing” for the day. I’m usually not a strategist and tend to do poorly in strategy games preferring the twitch genre or adventure games or open world exploration games. All the while I was playing the game, I felt like my foolishness was going to let people die. But at this point I also wondered about the point of the game. Does it want me to find the optimal solution for the game? Is saving everyone the challenge of the game? Or is the game designed such that the resources are very limited and the game is forcing me to make hard choices in the future? I’ll find out soon. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Wed, 28 Jan 2015 01:16:30.)Mon, 26 Jan 2015 22:20:06 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5946&iddiary=10378