Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=1946https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6680My final session ended up surprising me with more gameplay than expected. Though it did boil down to simple point and click interaction. The puzzles were fairly straightforward, and made sense. But the "decision" portion was a game of chance that got the whole team killed. Which I did play through again, with different die results, but the same outcome. I'm assuming that the game has some other conditions that need to be met before this game of "chance" can have a positive outcome. The vents can be played in a non linear order, though it seems like it would be best played the first time through in the linear fashion. But this isn't easily possible due to the naming conventions, unless one were to use outside resources, which in my opinion defeats the point of things like this. Outside resources brings up to mind some questions on things like achievements, lets plays, and online guides. The ones that have the largest controversy surrounding them are lets plays and video walkthroughs. Lets plays in general are watching someone else have a good time playing a game. You can have a variety of different reasons for watching them, but at the end of the day they are usually adding something to experience. For those that do not add to the experience, are companies in the right for flagging and/or removing videos from a platform? It is an interesting question, and I think it depends on the type of game. With things like movies and books, its pretty straightforward, that content has one way to be experienced on its own. Things like riff tracks can be added on top to improve the experience, but that is adding something on top of, not redistributing the content. Though is making a video of the games content the same as redistributing the content? Even in games where gameplay is minimal, the experience is different for each player. I'm sure some people struggle with zero escapes puzzles, where as I did not. Some people might find it enjoyable to watch miserable struggles, while other might want a certain level of competency in their viewing experience. I don't think it is ethically wrong for people to distribute this content, because people are likely viewing it for one of a few reasons: They just like the personality, they are stuck, or they have no interest in actually playing the game. The third group in that list is the group that should be looked at. Are the morally in the wrong for enjoying content that others created without paying for it like the video producer? While these people are doubtfully going to equate to a lost sale, they are benefiting from other peoples hard work. That being said, lets look at an extreme, say you don't have an interest in a game, but your significant other is playing it, and you enjoy watching it at least. Are you in the wrong to watch them play? I would say no, the watcher is having an enriched experience, and they are another potential person to spread the word about the product. Both sides get some benefit out of it. If one were to look at it from one of our lenses, I would say utilitarianism would be the one that sees it most favorably. Because in all situations this only increases the amount of good spread, rather than decrease it. The more linear and movie like a game is the trickier this argument can become though. And it is not something I have been able to fully think through at this point.Fri, 30 Mar 2018 05:23:25 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6680&iddiary=11826https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6680Session two for the game, this play session was essentially watching one long cutscene. I haven't actually played any visual novels before, but this is what I would imagine they are most similar to. The actual "gameplay" from this session was choosing the fate of the characters after the first 90 minute increment. I chose to have them all cooperate and vote in a circle tying everything up, and left off the session after that. Playing it like that makes it seem like a television-esque experience. Where the episode, was the the same 90 minutes cut down and displayed for each group. It brings up the question of are interactive experiences like these really games? I would argue not, but that is more a semantics argument then the ethics of these games I suppose. Side note, that shouldn't be taken as these are lesser experiences or anything. I quite like this experience so far, they are just in my opinion too far away from my criteria for the definition of game. The character themselves seem to lean pretty hard on stereotypes, based on the first hour and a halfish, while its not a bad thing in my opinion, it is a topic discussed in class, and is generally viewed as a negative thing. The point of them is to construe a character at early glance, and then you can develop on that as time passes. I'm not too sure I would want to touch much on the topic of stereotypes because of the rabbit holes that would be. There are positives and negatives to using them, and it can vastly depend on who the content is meant for. Something interesting to me is the idea of just creating a vision. With how much games have to put into marketing and production in general it is not always feasible to do this, but why do we give games so much flak for their content. If you don't approve of the content, then you probably aren't the audience they were aiming for. I guess the counter argument to this is one that has the same foundations as the stereotyping argument. Which also calls back to the last log where I touched on questionable content. Is it the responsibility of producers, to produce things, in general, that don't use what can be portrayed as negative/harmful ideas? Or, is it the responsibility of parents and our education systems to tear down those notions, and moderate what content the more impressionable among us are exposed to? To an extent this has a lot to do with the target audience, which I think most games are pretty good about. I feel like I'm writing and thinking myself in a circle again, so I'll leave it off there and hope the final gameplay session has something I would be less conflicted about and can articulate my thoughts on better.Thu, 29 Mar 2018 18:19:10 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6680&iddiary=11811https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6680Starting this game log a day late, due to not having internet last night. (I apparently didn't have the game installed.) Hopefully that can be forgiven. The first gameplay session was mainly going through the same scene a few times for me. So launching the game as one would, and loading into a new game you are given what appears to be a 50/50 chance or a given answer, based on the cutscene's slowdown before he puts his foot down. I made that choice based the latter, and this ended up being the correct choice. This plays the first ending, credits role, then you are prompted to save. This multiple endings style reminded me of Nier:Automata, so I didn't think too much of it. I wanted to see what happened if you made the wrong choice initially, this was before I chose a team and realized the game seems to be basically all about replaying events. So, I restarted and tried to choose the wrong side by using the same strategy as before. I got the correct side of the coin though. So, I tried this two more times before moving on with the game, thinking that it was probably rigged this way. I continued on to see the first scene with team Q, and this is where I realized what the game is probably about. And I think it is going to amount to a short choose your own adventure style book. Based on this limited experience with the game, I haven't had much in the way of new reflections. With my previous logs I at least briefly question some of things that this game has brought to mind, illusion of choice and forced character choices (if you want to progress) primarily. The question of objectionable content influencing the viewers behaviour comes to mind as a topic discussed in class, and while I don't believe there is anything wrong with a story, I would have a hard time proving the case otherwise. This game appears to be pretty heavily influenced by SAW, which probably has its own influences elsewhere, but I don't know them. A lot of people are into these kinds of movies, and others not so much. But people often object to representation in stories across all mediums, whether it be for one esoteric reason or another. A story can be just unenjoyable due to the way of handling the content, but is that going to influence someone to go become an immoral person? A lot of content I consume is what other people may be pout off by, or some moral viewpoints (though I'm blanking on a specific one) would say is wrong to consume. But I would abhor doing those acts, this is obviously one case, and maybe consuming that content does affect what I would or wouldn't do in other ways, that would be hard to tell even about oneself. Like Thinking there is X which is so much worse then Y, which is worse then Z. Z is fine to do. At this point my thoughts are getting a bit to tangential, Hopefully the next class and more gameplay will inspire new self reflections other than this one. Or at the very least will give me more time to mull these thoughts over and come to a much more concise point about it.Thu, 29 Mar 2018 02:47:03 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6680&iddiary=11802https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6611For this final session of the game log, I wasn't really able to come up with any new meaningful reflection. But I did have some musings about underdog character and characters perceived as evil in general. I haven't consciously thought about about it before, and I am lacking examples for that reason, but I wonder what the feelings are towards those types of characters both evil and good. Its something I will probably be cognizant of in stories going future because of it. Last time I had left off with a question about the attachment people may or may not feel towards these characters in this form of entertainment, and one of the first things I did today was look at the captain listings to decide which one to go after. I was quite close to an upgrade I wanted so I figured I would grab that really quick. My immediate thought was to make sure Ratbag was not implicated in any power struggles, and then because he was I went after the opposing captain first. Which is what brought up the musing on the underdog earlier, he is clearly defined as an underdog character, "evil", and he is also the comic relief.A well done comic relief character I might add, which I think is why I enjoy that character more than the others introduced so far. I'm pretty sure he can't die outside of what is probably going to be a main story mission down the line, but the fact that it was my first instinct to check that out was interesting. (not a huge fan of Gollum, heresy I know.) writing this also makes me reflect on stories that made me feel something in a game context, and I realized most of the games I play are not very memorable to me, although it doesn't help that my memory is abysmal in general. I know it is possible to make characters and stories that have an impact, the most memorable for me are actually short stories nestled within Lost Odyssey, but games themselves that I can think of are probably Final Fantasy 9 and Dragon Age: Origins. Which I realize are my favorite games for other reasons, so maybe that is a bias or rose tinted spectacles. Either way, I wish I had more time with this game in particular for these logs, I'm sure I will have some interesting things to say once I've beaten the campaign. (Sorry this one ended up being more stream of consciousness than I meant it to be! Gotta go deal with some things at work else I would revise it a bit.)Thu, 15 Feb 2018 22:57:47 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6611&iddiary=11688https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6611Continuing today with the main story I thought about a few things regarding racial stereotypes and the like that we discussed last week. I've read a something that mentions the murder to be more or less justified because they are orcs. The orcs of this world are a sentient race, corrupted and misguided, but still have a fair amount of intelligence. I personally really enjoyed the character of Ratbag, who was meant to be a comic relief character in this game of intense violence and generally serious overtones. Ratbag is the one orc that I wouldn't put as much into the orc stereotype I would expect coming into this game. Caveat being I don't know much LoTR lore, so maybe they have more variation in them then I have been exposed to. Yes, the game needs its evil to deal with, but maybe it will end up exploring more shades of grey in the coming hours. It would be an interesting spin on things in the long run. Though I suppose Ratbag so far is the exploration of the shades of grey, though he isn't a particularly benevolent orc, just an incompetent one. This also brings up a side thoughts on what stock do we actually put into these entities. It makes me wonder how much of a disconnect is there between player and actions in a game. I know some games have tasteless forced sequences, but how much does it affect us as consumers? How much should it affect us? Should games be made to be more or less impactful in spheres such as these, rather than continuing to desensitize us? My current, although not extremely thought out, stance is that there is plenty of marketspace for games that fall all over on those scales, and let it be a buyers market for what they want to do with their leisure time.Thu, 15 Feb 2018 01:31:28 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6611&iddiary=11670https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6611This morning I started playing Shadow of Mordor, which is an interesting game. But what it makes me wonder about is the overuse of of this formulaic style of open world. Where you take a sizable map, litter it with respawning enemies, sprinkle it with collectibles, draw out some "zones" and inside each zone put a tower of some kind to unlock the previous information on the minimap. While I understand this game is a little bit older and probably before that concept of the open world formula was intensely popularized and overused, it is still a turn off initially. The combat for this game is also nothing new, in my experience it has been referred to as Arkham combat, after the Batman games. While the system is good, and in my opinion a bit more entertaining in this game, possibly just because the aesthetics are more appealing personally, it is still basically heavily reusing a system. We had discussed utilitarianism recently and I have a few thoughts that are jumping around in my mind about that. I personally do not agree with that moral stance, but looking at it through that lens makes me think that this is one of the kinds of games that are good for the average game consumer. This model I would believe tends to offer a large amount of entertainment for those more casual consumers. It has plenty of objectives to side track the player and those environments are constantly repopulating with enemies. This is a good base of giving them a challenge while they explore and complete these collectibles and side quests. My initial assumption is that this will be the main entertainment value for them. It occupies time in a more or less meaningful way, I do appreciate that the collectibles in this game enrich the experience with well voice acted backstory. The main quests I have not delved much into, but I expect that to be a fairly short experience in comparison, but the main allure of these games to most people is value per entertainment hour. It is using tried and well received systems as a foundation, and throws in a unique mechanic, which I haven't made it to yet, in order to provide what they want with a new twists for the people who can maybe only afford one game every month or so and need to get all they can out of it.Wed, 14 Feb 2018 04:54:42 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6611&iddiary=11638https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6529I would've liked to have spent more time on my final play session, but between being tired and having a busy schedule yesterday/today I couldn't make that happen. I will leave more time for it next time, I didn't realize the first game logs were due this week. Maybe it was because I was so tired and ready to just be done for the day, but I couldn't even get through chapter 4. This tutorial level just seemed to drag on. I am looking forward to jumping into the sandbox mode in the next few days, but it does not have any particularly obvious ways to compare it to class in its play. The only things I can relate it to are story content.Thu, 18 Jan 2018 02:58:15 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6529&iddiary=11534https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6529My second look at prison architect was finishing a couple more of the tutorial based chapters and seeing the intro to the next one. It shows you some of the more dire situations that can occur when attempting to manage a prison within the game. It also covers some real world topics that can be cause for concern, and starts to touch on ones that could be cause for alarm in reality. I would say they definitely range into sensitive subjects, although I don't think they are really meant to be statements, but more a just a good way to give more substance to the tutorial and make it more interactive and maintaining its touch on reality, which is important in a sim game based on something we have a frame of reference for. Subject material could get hamfisted in and used in less than tasteful ways, but the game handles it well in the context of itself. Which would at least keep them from unjustly alienating people who had an interest in playing the game based on that.Wed, 17 Jan 2018 21:35:53 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6529&iddiary=11507https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6529I am technically not playing this game for the first time, but its been over a year since I first and last played it, and that was only for a very short amount of time (roughly 40 minutes according to steam). So, I am essentially seeing the game through fresh eyes. In class we had a discussion on where ethics intersect games, and some of the topics brought up included forcing the player to do an unethical act or choose between a couple things which they do not agree with or want to do in order to proceed. While this game has something that some people would not agree with in just the opening tutorial, and that is having to build an execution chamber and execute an inmate, rather than keeping them imprisoned for life. I agree that there are over the top cases in the same vein in some games, but I believe that not all content is made for everyone. In the case of this game I believe it is well within the bounds of what should be expected when purchasing this game, because it is your responsibility to be an informed consumer, and this game appears to be fairly straight forward in its self representation on steam. The first chapter was pretty tutorial heavy, so I didn't particularly get to see the meat of the game, hopefully it will pick up quicker in the next couple of chapters, but my assumption is that the whole campaign section is just an extended tutorial for the sand box mode.Tue, 16 Jan 2018 17:34:25 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6529&iddiary=11453