Brawl Star is a MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) and third person shooting game developed by Supercell. It was released worldwide on IOS and Android on December 12, 2018. It was nominated for BAFTA Games Award for EE Mobile Game of the Year 2019 and BAFTA Games Award for Mobile Game 2019.

Lens 9: Element Tetrad 

Experience:

Brawl Star provides various game modes with different objectives. Players can choose a brawler either long range or close range from his hero pools to play the game mode. The most interesting game mode for me is the brawl ball. Personally, I am a football lover. The objective is to defend your goal and score within time limit in a team of 3. The special thing about this mode is you can use skills to kill the defenders, break the walls or slow down the enemy.

Aesthetic:

The aesthetics parts of the game are the themes and brawler skins. The themes are updated every 7 weeks with new lobby music and wallpaper. Every time a theme is updated, a new brawler and many theme related skin for brawlers are introduced. The theme I liked the most is the Lunar New Year theme. I loved the Lion Dance skin for Brock (a long-range brawler) very much. Basically, he is wearing a Chinese jacket and shoots enemy with fireworks.

Story:

The game mechanic is to earn box tokens while you play. After acquiring enough box tokens, you can open brawl boxes to farm coins and unlock new brawlers. Then, you can play more variety of brawlers and upgrade your brawlers’ HP and damage using coins. The stronger your brawler is, the higher chance you can win the battle.

Technology:

It is a third person shooting game with isometric view. Isometric view also called pseudo-3D or 2.5D. It makes 2D looks like 3D, so that the shooting experience is more realistic and immersive.

Lens 43: Competition

Players queue with players who are using brawlers with the same trophy range. Winning a game earns trophies for the chosen brawler. These mean that novices and experts can meaningfully compete at the game. The higher trophy number you get, the more skillful you are. Club recruitment is based on the skillfulness of the player which is the total trophy number of all brawlers. This trophy system determines who is the most skilled and ensure that people strive to win the game.

There are global and local leaderboards showing player with the highest trophy.

Lens 47: Punishment

Due to the existence of trophy system, players are trying to avoid reducing trophies when they feel disadvantaged, for example leaving the game to avoid trophy reduction. In other games, this method will work and the match is considered free to leave. In Brawl Star, it “punishes” the team with disconnected player by applying trophy reduction to the losing team. This means that leaving the game halfway in a team gaming mode will give extra advantage to the enemy team.

Power League is a competitive mode by generating a random game mode and allow players to ban brawlers according to team strategy. There are penalties to the player who leaves the match after matchmaking. First level of penalty will be a warning. For subsequent disconnections, the level of penalties increases. Players will be banned from playing power league for specific amount of time and rank score will be decreased. These penalties seem fair by giving chances to players with connection issues and giving penalties to those who disconnected intentionally.

Lens 96: Friendship

Player can look for friends with similar trophy range. After winning a game, player can click “play again” with the same team if they are willing to. This can help pushing trophies more efficient. Players can add each other into the friend list after the game. Team formation becomes simpler using the invitation and chat function.

There is also a club recruitment feature to recruit players with similar trophy range. Club members can join Club League to fight for their club reputation and earn exclusive rewards.

Lens 27: Time

One game mode can have many kinds of maps. To show a loop of maps, every game mode is refreshed with new map every 24 hrs. Player can choose the more suitable brawlers to play in specific maps. Providing different combination of brawlers and maps give players a dynamic experience to try out different strategies.

In-game timer is applied to every game mode. The timer act as a decision for winner. When the timer runs out, the team who has the higher scores win. Depending on the game mode, the duration usually last for around 2 minutes. In solo showdown, there is a poison cloud which grows in from the edges of arena, forcing players to fight each other in a progressively small area. Each match in Brawl Star takes very short amount of time and the timer ensures that there is a conclusive result when the match ends.

Conclusion

While playing the game myself, I did not notice there are so many elements/lenses that contribute to the gaming experience. It is a fun mobile game and I always feel very excited about the new things coming out every update, like new brawler, skins, game modes and maps. Do try it out if you are interested in mobile game.

Arknights is a fantasy themed real-time strategy tower-defence RPG mobile game. You play as the Doctor of Rhodes Island, a pharmaceutical company fighting against the spread of a deadly infection while protecting the peoples hit by said infection and the strife it brings.

Over the course of the game, you will recruit new operators (characters) by means of a gacha system, power them up, and send them on increasingly complex missions. The game is set in a sprawling universe experienced through the extensive main campaign and the constant supply of events and side stories that drop approximately monthly. It is so vast that the exposition and dialogue can be rather overwhelming at times, especially for those who haven’t the time to diligently read through them. Arknights also includes an element of base building, albeit smaller in scale and significance, that adds another layer of optimization for those who enjoy it.

The Elemental Tetrad

Mechanics

The mechanics of Arknights follows the standard gameplay of most tower-defence games. You are presented a map in which enemies spawn from certain defined spawn points and head towards certain defined goal points. You prepare a set of units you wish to use for that level and place them on the map to prevent the enemies from reaching the goal(s). Variety in gameplay then stems from enemy and player unit variations, map design, map terrain and environmental effects.

Story

The linear narrative in Arknights follows the mission of Rhodes Island as it strives to cure and protect those affected by the infection. As one of the main themes of this game is fighting to protect those who cannot fight for themselves, the story blends exceedingly well with the mechanics of a tower-defence game.

Aesthetics

Arknights has a vast array of maps and locales, each bringing forth the feel and theme of the areas each set of missions occur in, not to mention the background art featured during story beats. This is only topped by the mind-boggling number of playable operators, 210 on the global server, all equipped with art, animation and voice lines that reflect not only their personality but also their affiliations, home towns, history and more. These aesthetics presented help make the universe feel that much more lived in and increases the immersion of the story, as well as the investment of the player.

Technology

Arknights was developed in Unity for iOS and Android. The load of real-time graphics is not particularly heavy and any cutscenes are pre-rendered. A mobile platform is more than enough to present the game’s narrative and gameplay, while maintaining the ability to be played almost anywhere and anytime.

Lens #3: The Lens of Fun

If it wasn’t already plainly evident, I enjoy Arknights. I find this game fun. Why? Well personally I enjoy the sense of progression, not just when I progress the story or clear a hard level but also and especially when I see the characters I spent time and effort developing perform well.

The sense of continuity and growth definitely increases the enjoyment of many games that incorporate it and this is one of my main pull factors of Arknights.

Lens #74: The Lens of the World

As previously mentioned, the world of Arknights is set in a sprawling universe filled with nations and organizations all striving to attain their individual goals and yet inextricably intertwined with each other. The stories explored fill the world with events and relationships while the art and aesthetics bring them to life. The player is thrust into a beautiful world of fantasy and magic and yet simultaneously a cruel world of war, strife and disease. This world of Arknights may not strictly be better than ours on all accounts but it surely is different, and interestingly so.

Lens #6: The Lens of Problem Solving

Arknights is a tower-defence game, which is a puzzle game at its heart. The map, environment, number of enemies, their spawn times and the route they take are all fixed for each level. The player is then asked to use the tools they have, in this case the operators they’ve raised, and solve the puzzle. At higher levels of play, this requires immaculate planning of unit choice, placement location and timing and more. Boss stages also frequently have a gimmick or three that the player must learn and plan around if they are to achieve victory.

Lens #31: The Lens of Challenge

As expected, a game like Arknights can get pretty challenging at times. New locales bring new maps and new enemies and almost always introduce new mechanics to the game. These can all merge together to form a rather complex and difficult puzzle to solve, especially in the end game content the Contingency Contract levels. These are stages where the players can pick contracts that limit the power of their units and/or increase the strength of the enemies. While aiming for absurdly high Risk, the difficulty counter for Contingency Contract levels, is completely optional and provides no reward nor achievement, many players still strive for as high a Risk clear as they can. I feel this is very well designed as lower level players are not losing out by being unable to clear high Risk and yet the option still exists for end game players to show off their units and strategies.

Conclusion

This game has arguably taken up too much of my time, and truth be told I am very far behind on reading the narrative. But personally, it is the art and the gameplay itself that draws me back time and time again. And I am sure that if I had the time to give the story justice, The Lens of Story would be here as well.

Anno 1800 is a real-time city building strategy game developed by Blue Byte and published by Ubisoft, released on April 16, 2019. It is the seventh game in the Anno series, taking place during the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century.

Website link: https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/anno/1800

Lens 2: The Lens of Essential Experience
The essential experience of Anno 1800 is to build sprawling, beautiful and powerful cities. Players settle islands in the game and build production chains to produce goods for their population. Progress is made by advancing citizens to higher social classes by meeting their needs, from Farmers to Workers, Artisans, Engineers and finally Investors. As the player’s population grows larger and more advanced, the player will unlock new and more advanced production chains and buildings.

This sense of progression is what drives the main gameplay of Anno 1800, and players are rewarded as they progress through the different social classes. For example, upon reaching Engineers, new buildings are unlocked such as the Steam Shipyard which can build powerful new steamships, or the Oil Power Plant which provides electricity to boost productivity. Upon reaching Investors, the player unlocks the ability to build a monument known as the World’s Fair, an incredible building that is not only glamorous, but hugely beneficial to the player by giving powerful and game-changing buffs. All of these mechanics serve well to fulfill the greater purpose of allowing the player to build and sustain larger and more productive cities. It really gave me a great impetus to keep working towards progressing to the next tier to keep growing my city larger.

Lens 9: The Lens of the Elemental Tetrad
Mechanics:
The Anno series has always had a unique mechanic where citizens of a social class must have all their needs fulfilled completely before advancing to the next social class. Each need would usually require a different production chain, often with new resources. Players will usually be implored to search for new resources elsewhere on other islands, settling on them and linking trade routes. If there are NPCs or pirates in their game, the player would also have to contend with potential aggressors. These other mechanics all build upon this central mechanic, which results in a very cohesive experience. It also provides a clear direction for the player to head towards.

Story:
The game features both a sandbox mode with no story and also a story campaign. Both however share a common theme of the influences of industrialisation, of how it not only leads us to progress and wealth, but also leads us to pollution and war. There are also self-contained stories in the form of expeditions, where the player sends a ship in search of new lands or rare items to collect. Each expedition plays out like a typical tabletop RPG, with random events where the player is given choices on how to proceed.

Aesthetics:
The buildings, ships and environments are all designed in painstaking detail and with great fidelity. Factories show animations of goods being loaded or unloaded, citizens roam the streets in horse-drawn carriages or Penny Farthings. All these tiny details give a level of authenticity to the world and really immerses the player in the 19th century time period. I definitely feel that Anno 1800’s strongest aspect was its graphics.

Technology:
Anno 1800 was created with the “Anno Engine” with its own terrain system that allowed for massive mountains systems and more detailed environments. Besides graphical capabilities, the Anno Engine also allows for seamless, almost-instantaneous transition between different regions in the game’s world map, which happens very often during play. Even with the addition of more regions in subsequent DLCs, the transition between them is still equally quick.

Lens 7: The Lens of Endogenous Value
In Anno 1800, there is a mechanic known as attractiveness. Attractiveness is a measure of how attractive your city is, and buildings such as the Zoo and the Museum can raise this value. Attractiveness is not just about making your city more aesthetically beautiful however. Tourists will be more likely to visit attractive cities and they provide a significant source of income. Some of these tourists are also specialists, which are powerful buffs for the player’s population or production buildings. Players are therefore encouraged and rewarded for building more beautiful cities.

Lens 8: The Lens of Problem Solving
To eventually reach the final social class of Investors, players have to overcome many problems in satisfying the needs of their population. They will have to make decisions of where certain goods should be made, setting up trade routes, the city layout etc. The player is constantly engaged with finding solutions to new problems and also other hidden problems that may arise. Expeditions also encourage the player to think ahead, anticipate what problems may occur on the voyage and try to prepare accordingly.

Lens 38: The Lens of Challenge
My main criticism with this game was a very jarring difficulty spike that came mid-game trying to progress beyond the Engineer class. Despite the fact that I was expanding slowly and fulfilling my population’s needs (and had experience with previous titles), I was still losing money for about half of my playtime at that point. I am sure that someone with a lower skill level would have likely lost. However, upon reaching Investors, my income had improved drastically and I was coasting along for the rest of the game. I definitely felt that this part was poorly designed challenge-wise and it deserves some balancing to ease the increase in difficulty.

Conclusion:
Despite my criticism above, I do feel that this game is masterfully done and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in city-building games or just looking for a relaxing game to play. This is definitely the best title in the Anno series. From a game design perspective, this game is mostly very well-designed and the developers have done a great job introducing new mechanics to enhance the game’s experience.

Detroit: Become Human is a decision-based adventure video game developed by Quantic Dream and published by Sony Interactive for PlayStation 4 in 2018. It explores what it means to be human in a futuristic world where humans and androids are living together. There are three main characters with different stories that sometimes intertwine, and the player gets to control them and make decisions that’ll shape the story.

Website link: https://www.quanticdream.com/en/detroit-become-human

Story

The story follows three androids: Markus, Kara and Connor. Each of them has a unique story that follows their transformation of becoming a deviant as they acquire consciousness. The game questions whether it is possible for androids to have their own emotions and thoughts, and how the public views them. There are multiple endings to the story that depends on the character’s decisions and skills.

Aesthetics

The game has beautiful 3D graphics that includes detailed environment and character designs. The looks of all characters are based on real-life actors as their facial expressions, motions and voices are captured. The game has an incredible soundtrack that is distinguishable for each character, conveying different emotions for them. Hence, the game aesthetics make the game realistic and immersive.

Mechanics

The game is mainly based on decision-making. Thus, there aren’t many mechanics related to the character’s motions. The characters can walk, run, pick up objects and even scan the environment for clues. The main mechanic is that the story branches as the player makes decisions. The character’s knowledge about an event or a location affects the available choices too, so exploring the environment is a crucial mechanic.

Technology

The studio didn’t reveal the game engine they were using, so it is assumed that they programmed one by themselves for this game. The game was first developed for PS4, but later it was ported to PC and Vulkan API was used for this purpose.

Lens 1: Emotion

Throughout the game, there are various emotions a player can experience: sadness, joy, shock, nervousness as the story unfolds. The dialogues and connections between the characters allow the player to feel empathy towards them. All characters have personal relationships and goals that the player can relate to. Thus, the player is expected to have similar emotions with the characters. For example, there is a scene where Kara and her daughter are trying to get on the bus before the time limit to escape. The player is nervous throughout the scene as he/she wants them to escape without getting caught and is happy or sad depending on whether they accomplish this goal.

Lens 2: Problem Solving

In the game, there are various stages where the player is asked to solve a specific problem, especially with Connor’s story. He is an android detective who is assigned to trace the deviants and find their hideout, so he investigates many crime scenes where deviants have been associated with. These scenes require the player to actively think and come up with solutions to achieve a better ending. However, the game does not generate new problems, so a player who already played the game before does not face a new problem when he/she plays the game again.

Lens 3: Meaningful Choices

Perhaps the most important aspect of the game is choices. As the player makes critical decisions the story takes shape. There are generally 2 to 4 options a player can choose. A short explanation is given for each option and some of the choices have time limitations. Depending on the player’s decisions, the character’s mission might succeed or fail, the relationship between two characters can be love or hatred and even some characters might die. There are also morally questionable options that make the player think about what it means to be human. Another interesting aspect is that the player is not allowed to change his/her decision once he/she makes it. So many times the player might regret his/her choice as he/she sees its consequences.

Lens 4: Character Transformation

Depending on the player’s choice, the character goes through different transformations. Markus becomes the leader of an android revolution that can be either peaceful or violent, Kara can be a distant or a loving mother figure and most importantly Connor can become a deviant or remain as a soulless machine. These changes are portrayed with arrow signals as decisions are made. For example, if an unexpected decision is made for Connor, his software instability increases as shown in picture below. These character transformations are also communicated through the dialogues and actions of the characters.

Lens 5: Time

Reaching one ending of the main story takes around 12 hours, but the player can start over and play as many times as he/she wants. The gameplay duration is sufficient to convey the message of the game as it is not too long or too short. The player can take as much as time he/she wants to explore the areas if there’s no time limit, so each player can play the game at their own pace. The time limitations for some tasks challenge the player to think/act fast, and make the game engaging and not boring.

Conclusion

Detroit: Become Human is an emotional and philosophical journey that questions what defines humanity and how AI challenges this definition. It allows the player to explore the answer to these questions at their own pace. As a story-based game, it serves it purpose of engaging the player with the characters and the story through lenses and provides a unique experience for each player.

Fate/ Grand Order (FGO): a Japanese mobile gacha game where you use different characters based on real life historical figures to clear quests battling against enemy NPCs in a turn-based RPG format. 

By all accounts, its gameplay system is quite frankly outdated, acquiring the newest highest rarity unit is at a rate considered extremely low by modern gacha standards and recent activities and events have been dolled out at an inconsistent pace! And yet, why do I feel so much fun when I play this game?

Gameplay

The gameplay is simple, field 6 different units when entering a quest, every turn choose to either activate the units’ respective abilities or go straight into battle and pick 3 out of 5 cards as shown above.  Watch the units attack the enemies with unique animations, then receive attacks from the enemies and repeat.

When it comes to daily farming quests, I simply happy tap away at the different cards, seeing the different unique attack animations of each unit.  However, when it comes to certain unique boss fights exclusive to the campaign mode, it feels like every step I take, I do not know whether the boss is going to one shot me or let me live for another turn.  I feel nothing but pure uncertainty and danger. 

Link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DmWGvfNOUE)

If I were to view it through the Lens of Action, during these boss battles, I would like to think there is a somewhat fair balance between strategic (skills, special attack usage) and basic (card selection) actions, though the strategic actions acts as more like precautionary measures towards enemies. Having said that, one has to factor in the enemies unique abilities that could also render whatever skills you use use mute, not to mention sill cooldowns.

Events

Gacha games typically have monthly events that run for a few weeks.  The most recent event that happened last year was a raid event where players “cooperate” to beat a raid boss by defeating the boss a cumulative number of times.  I quoted that specific term because it is more of a race against other players to be able to beat boss before the threshold is hit and the boss is gone.  That was the case until 1 boss in particular.

 

Link (https://fategrandorder.fandom.com/f/t/Tunguska%20Sanctuary)

In this case, there are at least 7 enemies to defeat.  You could either defeat the main boss and clear the quest in 1 turn, or you could try to clear it in 3 turns and defeat all the enemies to maximize your loot.  Essentially, if you were to 1 turn, you would be clearing the boss faster but losing out on drops.  This forced players to instead of destroying the boss within a few hours normally, to take a day and half to clear the boss.  Viewing it from the Lens of Competition vs Cooperation, you could say the players were playing both cooperatively (clearing slow enough for everyone to get drops) and competitively (clearing as much as they could before time ran out.

Story

Link(https://www.reddit.com/r/grandorder/comments/pe22qf/some_minor_but_interesting_missable_dialogue_with/)

Story has been one of this game’s strongest points.  Simply put, the story brings together all these fantastical characters in ways where even if the characters were the most vile villains known, you could not quite hate them.  This can be seen in its most recent storyline with the character Fairy King Oberon.  I won’t quite got into the specifics, but through the Lens of Emotion, I’d like to think they managed to bridge some gap between the players’ emotions and what the designers intended..

Gacha

Link(https://fategrandorder.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:Marie4Life/How_to_Get_SSR_More_Easily_(maybe,_just_try_it))

Simply put, gacha is a mechanic where players acquire units via chance, essentially gambling.  When using the gacha or “rolling” here, there is no particular way to tell what you will get specifically, aside from the type and rarity.  Above indicates that you will get a unit of the highest rarity, but whether its what you were aiming for is not yet known.  This kind of randomness, can elicit excitement in possibly getting what you want, or sadness or lack of control if you fail to get it.  Aside from that, abiding by the Lens of Chance, this can also be factored in to certain effects that take place in battle that may or may not “proc” when truly needed.  In this case, players would be taking risk to survive.

Conclusion

There is much more to discuss about this game, but I will leave that for you to explore. If I had to sum up its experiences, FGO is a game with simple yet unpredictable battle system, has a deep story and cooperation via competition.  IF I had to relate to the Elemental Tetrad, the game fulfills the Aesthetics, Mechanics and Story components, but not quite that of Technology. I am certain the above 3 aspects are working in harmony with one another to deliver an enjoyable experience, and perhaps the Technology can be improved to further enhance the experience.  Granted the game was made using the Unity engine, and that it has come a long way since its roots, there is still room for some form of technological improvement. Time will tell I suppose.

Game website: https://fate-go.us/

Game is available on IOS and Android

For challenge runs using the bare minimum of units:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR1qqjQs8Fg6vcCLX3btacQ

Basically doable hard mode if you can’t get highest rarity units with the best skills.

Metroid Dread is an award-winning action-adventure game developed by MecurySteam and NintendoEPD for the Nintendo Switch. In this game, the player plays as Samus Aran, an intergalactic bounty hunter, as she explores Planet ZDR upon receiving a mysterious transmission from a source on the planet.

Based on a 2D side-scrolling platformer gameplay, this game features a large interconnected world map that the player can explore. However, many areas of the map are made inaccessible due to locked doors or obstacles which can be passed once the player unlocks certain abilities or upgrades which are acquired throughout the game by defeating challenging bosses or reaching certain locations in the game. At times, the player will be required to retrace their steps to previous locations in order to progress in the game.

Lens 9: Elemental Tetrad

Mechanics

In this game, the Samus is able to move laterally with the ability to jump, crouch and slide. Her primary weapon is her arm cannon which can be aimed freely. Samus’s health and her missiles are the 2 main resources that the player has to maintain, which can be restored by reaching checkpoints or killing enemies. As Samus explores Planet ZDR, she will gain upgrades and additional abilities for her Power Suit, which can be used to interact with the environment to unlock new or hidden areas. These new abilities also help Samus to fight/fend off tougher enemies which usually requires a strategy. One such enemy would be the E.M.M.I., short for Extraplanetary Multiform Mobile Identifier, a very powerful enemy which cannot be destroyed by Samus’s normal weapons. As such, Samus can rely on her Phantom Cloak ability to make her invisible to avoid detection by them.

Story

The X Parasites are alien parasitic organisms capable of absorbing the DNAs of their hosts and replicate their forms. While living in their hosts, they could even access their memories, making them extremely dangerous. As a result, their native planet SR388 was destroyed and they are believed to be extinct. Soon after, the Galactic Federation receives a video transmission from an unknown source on Planet ZDR showing a living X Parasite that survived the destruction of SR388, which poses a threat to the entire galaxy. Samus being the only one immune to these parasites, sets out to Planet ZDR to find out if they truly still exist.

Aesthetics

Every major area on Planet ZDR has a different environment, distinct from one another yet connected by a strong sci-fi horror theme. The dark and moody aesthetics of the game, together with the grim background music and sounds, formulate a very hostile and inhospitable Planet ZDR, creating that “dread” for players. If there are moments of peace within the game, they are usually short-lived. The game also does well to quickly change the mood depending on the situation. For example, when the player encounters and gets chased by an E.M.M.I. The gloomy environment is filled with panic by blaring alarms and flashing red lights, and in that moment, the hunter becomes the hunted.

Technology

The game looks visually stunning with high levels of detail in the environment which can be seen throughout the game. Player movement is also extremely fast and fluid with Samus running over and sliding under obstacles with very precise feet and body placement. At the time of this review, the game is only playable on the Nintendo Switch, using button and joystick inputs.

Lens 6: Curiosity

Metroid Dread rewards those who are curious. There are many hidden secrets within the game, such as additional items and shortcuts. Without breaking down hidden walls or performing a series of precise manoeuvres, the player would not be able to access them. While playing this game, I found myself constantly pushing myself to figure out exactly where these secrets may be hiding and which are the actions that I have to perform to get to them.

Lens 79: Freedom

At the beginning, the game might seem linear, giving the player only one path to progress. However, once the player attains more abilities, many paths will be opened. There is no single correct path. The in-game map does not provide guidance on where to go, giving the player the freedom to create their own path. There are even areas that the player can skip entirely and still finish the game. This freedom makes each play-through a unique experience, motivating the player to play this game many times, creating new paths on every attempt.

Lens 34 & 38: Skill & Challenge

This game is challenging. Without any guiding markers in such a huge world, it is easy to see why players who are new to the Metroidvania genre lose their way while trying to progress in the game. To make things worse, even the boss fights are gruelling too. I can’t even begin to count the number of times that I have died to the bosses in the game. Admittedly, a great amount of skill is needed to play this game. However, practice makes perfect. Each time the player challenges a boss and dies, he or she will understand more on how to avoid dying by studying the boss’s moves. And for those who are having problems with navigating the map, the game introduces markers which the player can use to mark out important locations within the game.

Conclusion

Metroid Dread may be a challenging game, especially for newcomers. However, it is a game that brings out our instinctive need to explore. And by encouraging practice and persistence, the player will be able to acquire the skills needed to complete the game and even possibly other games within the Metroidvania genre.

Website Link: https://thewitcher.com/en/witcher3

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is an action role-playing game developed by Polish developer CD Projekt Red, and first published in 2015. It is the sequel to the 2011 game The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and the third and final main game in The Witcher video game series played in an open world with a third-person perspective. The games are based on The Witcher series of fantasy novels written by Andrzej Sapkowski.

Lens 1: Essential Experience

Essential Experience 1: Storytelling

• 

The immersive storyline. This is one of the reasons why Witcher 3 is always one of the games on my top recommendation list. In this game, every quest and mission felt carefully designed and tells a unique story. Even for some random side quest or a “collect items” contract, there is a story behind it to be discovered and doesn’t feel repetitive. Other than the common dialogue-styled storytelling, there is also a rich amount of artefacts, scriptures, history books and monuments to read and understand how this world was like in the past. In addition, players do not just simply follow the story as it is, they get to make decisions and choices in the game that determines how they want the story to end. This makes the storytelling of the game even more immersive as the players get to “live” the story instead of simply “listening” to it.

Essential Experience 2: Immersive Open-World Exploration

Though the open-world concept is becoming a common staple in the triple-A industry, there is something unique about Witcher 3’s open-world experience that differs from many out there. One of the key differences is the NPCs. In Witcher 3, every NPC carries their unique dialogue with the players (Most of the time 🤡). In addition, if my memory serves me correctly, I seldom met any NPCs with the identical appearance in the same setting before. This makes every interaction with the NPCs truly special and makes the overall impression of the game more engaging.

Besides the NPC design, the overall environmental and audio design has also elevated the game’s immersiveness. For example, when the wind blows, the players could actually hear the leaves rustling. (Sometimes, I will just pause my quest in the game and stop somewhere just to enjoy the syntactic scenery ⛰️)

Lens 2 & Lens 3: Surprise & Fun

Though I’ve been playing this game for more than over 60 hours (mostly during NS 🤡), completing all available main and side quests, I’ve never felt a single sense of boredom. There are so many interesting game mechanics that come into play to provide a unique combat system. Brewing of potions, the enchanting of swords, the preparing of bombs/traps, the use of elemental powers, etc. Each mechanic offers its own sets of excitement and surprises. For example, when upgrading Geralt’s sword mastery, the player gets to unlock more dynamic sword combos that can inflict more damage to the enemy. This happens with Geralt’s elemental power mastery as well, providing him with more tricks up his sleeves. This offers lots of fun and surprises as the game advances with players unlocking more and more cool features of Geralt.

Lens 4: Curiosity

Being an open-world game with its massive map, Witcher 3 does spark the curiosity in me to explore all bits and pieces of the game. For example, secret chests are hidden all around the map. In shipwrecks, dungeons, city sewers, secret rooms, caves, riverbeds and palaces, etc. The harder the place to get to, the rarer the contents in the chests. Very often, I find myself distracted from the main quest, just to explore the “?” marked on the mini-map, wondering what items could be found. In addition, these places are usually filled with some explorable background stories, which further attracts me to explore these places to find out about their history in the game.

Lens 5: Endogenous Value

Crafting mechanics is another feature that brings great satisfaction when I was playing the game. As there are many armour and weapons that can be crafted, it motivates the players to track down the materials required to craft them and finally to unlock and try them out. It is also kind of cool and exciting when players get to see their Geralt being equipped with more and more badass gears, like a token of achievement or a symbol of growth.

Lens 6: Problem Solving

Witcher 3 was one of those games that I actually pay full attention to the dialogues and in-game quest instructions. This is because this game is embedded with so many riddles and puzzles to be solved in the context of the story. In addition, these are not just some simple and repetitive puzzles that require you to perform the same few steps. Some of them are rather hard and require some logic, linguistic and detective skills, which makes the game even more challenging and fun. It also brings more dynamicity to the game such that it is more than just a simple “slash-you-out” type of game.

Speaking of problem-solving, how can the players forget about the famous Gwent! Gwent is definitely one of the features in the game that grinds our brain juice, especially when there are many mechanics involved and tough in-game AIs to defeat. It is truly amazing that CD Projekt Red designed and built a totally independable game within the already super packed Witcher 3 🤩

Lens 7: Elemental Tetrad

Mechanics

A very complex system combined with many interesting game mechanics. Listing a few: House racing, monster hunting, detective vision, solving riddles, equipment crafting, skill trees, elemental powers and dynamic storyline progression, etc.

Story

The game takes place in a fictional fantasy world based on Slavic mythology. Players control Geralt of Rivia, a monster slayer for hire known as a Witcher, and search for his adopted daughter, who is on the run from the otherworldly Wild Hunt. Players battle the game’s many dangers with weapons and magic, interact with non-player characters, and complete quests to acquire experience points and gold, which are used to increase Geralt’s abilities and purchase equipment. The game’s story has three possible endings, determined by the player’s choices at key points in the narrative.

Aesthetics

Breathtaking AAA Open World Graphics, with ultra-detailed character design and immersive sound effects; Unique and impressive architectures and environment styling that brings about a realistic fantasy world;

Technology

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The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was created with the REDengine 3, CD Projekt Red’s proprietary game engine designed for nonlinear role-playing video games set in open-world environments, aided by the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles and prepared for use in October 2014.

REDengine 3 was designed to run exclusively on a 64-bit software platform. CD Projekt Red created REDengine 3 for the purpose of developing open-world video game environments. It introduces improvements to facial and other animations. Lighting effects no longer suffer from reduced contrast ratio. REDengine 3 also supports volumetric effects enabling advanced rendering of clouds, mist, fog, smoke, and other particle effects. There is also support for high-resolution textures and mapping, as well as dynamic physics and an advanced dialogue lip-syncing system.

REDengine 3 has a flexible renderer prepared for deferred or forward+ rendering pipelines. The result is a wide array of cinematic effects, including bokeh depth-of-view, colour grading and lens flares associated with multiple lighting. The terrain system in REDengine 3 uses tessellation and layers of varying material, which can then be easily blended.

Conclusion

Though this blog post is mostly praising the Witcher 3, drafting this blog post has actually taught me to appreciate a good game through different points of view. It has also taught me what we should look out for in the different lenses when it comes to designing our own games.

Plenty of games by now have implemented some sort of photography mechanic where the player can further immerse themselves in the world by having their character take images of their view of their world. But photography in these games are often hardly the most important feature of the game. At least until Umurangi Generation, a first person photography simulator first released in May 2020. Well received by indie players and critics, the IGF award-winning game is most notable for its ability to make a subjective art form, like photography, an actually rewarding core mechanic in a virtual world.

Set in the “shitty future” [sic], the player is a Māori courier amidst impending civil turmoil and resistance against a United Nations occupation. Armed only with a film camera (and great parkour skills), the player traverses the cityscape and takes pictures for cash. I played the first level of the game, taking place at the roof of Mauao View, with graffiti splattered walls, scratchy chill hop blasting from boomboxes, and a pool with a penguin?

Lens #17: The Toy

Here the toy clearly is the camera. Is the camera fun to play with even though there are no goals? That would depend on how well the virtual camera is adapted from a real life one.

To many photography enthusiasts, it is essential that the camera has enough settings to give them control and autonomy over the outcome of their shots. But to photography beginners, the technical details may be overwhelming. Being neither a replacement of photography, nor a photography tutorial, but a photography game, it is essential that the camera is accessible enough, but also providing the options that real photography provides in terms of color, focus, exposure, etc. The game abstracts away or omits many of the technical details (film types, f-stop, developing), and together with the “photo editing app”-style sliders and limited mechanics (mainly zoom, focus, lens switching), Umurangi Generation really succeeds in maintaining this balance. 

Lens #79: Freedom

Having a good camera doesn’t necessarily make the game fun. A game about art would not make sense if the player doesn’t have artistic freedom. The game makes it clear from the get go that scoring photos by some sort of metric isn’t right; after all…

This translates directly into the game as: you will not be graded/judged/penalised for the aesthetic of your shots. In fact you can either

1. take low effort shots and rush through the game
2. carefully framing and color grading each shot
3. parkouring into the weirdest places and just taking the most extreme angles

and you can complete the game just the same. In fact, the less you feel bounded by the need to play the game properly, the more you go out of the way to explore the world beyond what the rules tell you to, the more you are likely to get out of the game.

Lens #38: Challenge

All that said, this game is not a sandbox game, it doesn’t have enough building/interactive elements to be one. So how can the players feel challenged, and feel progression in a game that doesn’t emphasize extrinsic objectives? 

1. Photo bounties: Take pictures of the items required
2. Constraints: Time limit, Film limit.
3. Unlocking equipment: By fulfilling bonus objectives

Photo bounties give the player some direction and goal in each level by requiring certain subject matter in the photos. While that seems simple enough, the bounties are often accompanied by certain other shot requirements (Must this be a closeup shot? A wide angle one? Taken with telephoto lens?) which adds an additional dimension of challenge e.g. a standard lens may not be able to take a close up shot of a bird far away.

There is also a 10min time limit for timely bounty delivery, and a 24 film limit on how many pictures you can take. By limiting resources, the game imitates the challenges in real-life film photography, making the players value their shots more and put in more thought into each one.

There is one more mechanic: money. But other than being a number on the screen and one of the bonus bounty missions, it doesn’t really seem to have any other incentive or purpose. In that sense it is perhaps redundant, but doesn’t detract from the game.

Quite importantly the game does not punish the player much for failing to meet objectives. If you run out of film or time you can still roam in the level until you want to restart. Taking pictures of the blue-bottle jellyfishes is “not allowed”, but if you happen to take them, you get a minor fine on the photo, and that is all.

Lens #7: Endogenous Value

But that doesn’t solve the question of how the player can feel progress (other than clearing each level). You do so mainly by unlocking gear, after completing all bonus objectives. Not only does this encourage replaying the level (it isn’t easy to complete the bounties AND finish all the objectives within the 10min limit on your first try), it also is a great way to give endogenous value to clearing objectives when they aren’t enforced heavily.

Lens #9: Elemental Tetrad

Aesthetics: Upon playing one can immediately tell the graphics take a leaf out of the early-3D era of game graphics, with the low polygon count and neon saturated colors. This is unsurprising given that the aesthetic of the 80s and 90s are experiencing a resurgence, but the Cyberpunk inspired environment and Jet Set Radio inspired models and set design evokes more than just feelings of nostalgia. It is part of intentional atmosphere design and world building. Which ties in with…

Story: Strong parallels exist between the cyberpunk trope and the zeitgeist of the 80s, as developer Tali Faulkner describes in this slide. 

Inspired by his government’s handling of Australian bushfires and COVID-19, Faulkner wanted to make a social commentary he felt without him having to preach to his audience about it. Further on in the gameplay, the environments get darker, foggier, dingier and heightens the sense of danger and hopelessness than the story embodies, without the story ever having to even introduce a single line of character dialog. After all this is a photography game.

Mechanics: And the simple mechanics (point, shoot, toggle settings) and typical first person movement controls help to drive home that. The way the objectives are designed, almost like a “hidden object game”, encourages you to really observe your surroundings and take in the world he is trying to convey, explore every ledge, nook and cranny for an item or a shot location. Nowhere is off limits, the NPCs don’t even seem to notice you, whereas you are hyper-aware of all of them, allowing you to soak up the world you are living in.

Technology: The game, developed in Unity, has simple controls (since the mechanics don’t require it), low-poly graphics, doesn’t require any complicated AI, and doesn’t require a powerful graphics card to run. The technology is just enough to deliver the game, and the simplicity works out well for the game.

Conclusion

Umurangi Generation is a rare gem in the haystack of indie and AAA games because of how much heart and soul is in it, not a common sight these days. This really shows when you break down the game’s design in terms of the Lenses, and we can learn a lot from Umurangi Generation about effective visual storytelling and immersion with almost minimal technology.

Genshin Impact is an open-world action role-playing game, where the player is a traveller exploring the world of Teyvat, in search for their lost sibling. On their journey, players meet different characters, embark on quests and discover new cities.

Website link: https://genshin.mihoyo.com/en/home

Lens 7: Elemental Tetrad

Mechanics

Players can wander around freely using the normal navigation controls. They can also sprint, jump, climb, glide and swim but with limited stamina. During combat, players can use normal attacks and elemental attacks, with different weapons and elements depending on the chosen playable character.

Story

The stories mostly lie in the quests, which involve meeting certain characters and helping to resolve the conflicts they are facing. It is mostly a linear story-telling method (author control), the interaction (player control) is relatively insignificant — only on a conversational level.

Aesthetics

Genshin Impact has stunning aesthetics, with detailed character design and architecture of vibrant colours, paired with enchanting music, sound effects and character dialogue that gives personality.

Meticulous care is also given to the interactions that players can have with their environment, making the experience very immersive and in line with the theme of exploration.

Technology

The game was developed using Unity. It is available on multiple platforms, such as Android, IOS, Windows, PS4, PS5 and they are planning to release on Nintendo Switch as well.

Lens 1: Essential Experience

I believe that one of Genshin Impact’s key components is their concept of elemental reactions and character switching. Each playable character has a main element (wind, fire, ice, etc). Combat in the game requires players to think about how to use elemental compatibility and reactivity to their advantage, both within their own party and against their opponents. For example, attacking with a water character and then switching to an ice character can freeze enemies that are difficult to beat, or using an electricity character on a rainy day will cause the enemies to be electrocuted, hence dealing more damage.

Understanding more about how the world in the game works and using past knowledge to solve new problems are part of the essential experience of the game.

Lens 5: Endogenous Value

There are various rewards players can receive in Genshin Impact, and I think one of the most significant ones are Primogems. Genshin Impact has a “gacha” (or randomised) mechanic of pulling playable characters, and Primogems are the in-game currency necessary for that. Since the characters have different strengths and weaknesses, players would feel motivated to earn more Primogems to be able to pull more characters to create their ideal team.

Completing certain domains or defeating bosses can also reward players with the required materials for levelling up their weapons or characters, which is also attractive as it makes defeating tough opponents easier.

As someone who does not want to spend money on games, this system works in my favour as I can continue to progress and enjoy the core game experience as long as I work on the right quests and tasks.

Lens 2, 3 & 4: Surprise, Fun & Curiosity

When players are not pursuing any active quests, they can go at their own pace in increasing their world exploration progress. As an open-world game, Genshin Impact provides many opportunities for players to wander around unexplored regions on the map, discovering enemy camps and treasure chests along the way. This is what I usually do when I get bored or stuck at a particularly difficult quest but still want to play the game.

Lens 6: Problem Solving

As mentioned earlier, combat requires strategies, especially when defeating opponents with different weaknesses. Players can use weapons and elemental reactions to their advantage.

One of my favourite parts is how Genshin Impact has puzzles sprinkled all over their map — for example, figuring out the right mechanism to unlock a certain domain. Clues and hints are available in the area, and players can put two and two together, sometimes using different characters’ abilities to solve the puzzle. This gives a great sense of accomplishment.

Conclusion

Overall, Genshin Impact has a good mix of action, problem-solving and aesthetic. I love how it allows players to immerse themselves in a different world, and the way players can slowly explore and progress at their own pace if they choose to.