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Saturday 26 January, 2008
Entry # 2
Gameplay:
The mood of the game was again a relaxed environment where everyone could have fun. As I played more, I found that I preferred certain characters over the rest. I generally rotated play between two or three characters who's abilities I liked the most. The only real progression in the game was when people improved and were more challenging to play against. The series of random battles that occurred during the session didn't allow for a complicated plot or story.
The game remained fun to play all through the second session and we were able to discover all kinds of new ways to play the second time around. The game environment allowed for a group of people to come together and take turns playing and watching and have fun doing both. Bystanders were able to watch and give input on how everyone was playing and make fun of anyone who got beaten. There was again a distinct feeling of flow while playing the game that came from it's continual increase in difficulty and the new aspects being introduced.
Design:
One of my favorite elements of this game was how the creators took characters from a bunch of different games and threw them all together in one to battle each other. The quality of the graphics weren't anything spectacular, but their cartoonish qualities made up for anything that was lacking by being original. The different levels in the game provided different scenery and different challenges built into the levels. One level might have a tree that tried to blow you over the edge, or space ships might try to blow you up with their lasers.
The game creates conflict by throwing the players into intense and energetic head to head battles that forced them to be each others enemies. The game makes use of the space in it's environment by making players capable of moving a certain distance either way off the sides of the map and both above and below it. The tone of the game is happy and energetic to a point where it changes the mood of the players to fit the music. If there was one thing I could change about the game, it would be to change how easy it is for a character to be juggled. I found it annoying when another player would just repeatedly kick me into the air until i had so much damage that I shot off the map.
This game helped me see how effective a tool the ability to set a mood for the players is. If the mood is right, it changes the whole gaming experience for everyone playing. Overall, I didn't feel the game exhibited emergence complexity due to it's lack of progression. There was no story progression and in all reality, the goals set for each game type was similar. I responded well to the game's reward system because I like out scoring everyone else and having the game clap for me.
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