Mini Motorways – Small Game, Big Heart

Posted on January 21, 2022 by jinglin

Mini Motorways is a minimalistic puzzle strategy game by Dinosaur Polo club. You can find its website at https://dinopoloclub.com/games/mini-motorways/. In Mini Motorways, the player builds a transport network by connecting houses (the smaller buildings) to stores (the larger buildings) of the same colour using roads, roundabouts, tunnels, bridges, and motorways, which the player gains at the end of each in-game week. Stores generate pins, which cars must deliver from stores to houses. If a store is overloaded for too long, the player loses. As the game progresses, the map expands, and more houses and stores are spawned. This requires the player to build more complex road networks to sustain the stores’ needs, increasing the risk of traffic congestion.

In this post, I will be sharing my experience playing Mini Motorways, and analysing my experience with respect to the elemental tetrad conceptual framework (technology, mechanics, story & aesthetics), and five of Jesse Schell’s lenses from his book The Art of Game Design.

When the game first begins, I’m presented with two buildings with disconnected roads. Without providing any instructions, the task is intuitive: connect the two. The first thing I tried was to drag the house to the end of the road at the store, and it works! This is a great example of how Mini Motorways uses well-known affordances of real-life road networks and takes advantage of natural pattern recognition abilities to make its mechanics as intuitive as possible. This way of presenting mechanics (instead of a full-on tutorial) also makes the game slicker and cleaner, which supports its minimalistic aesthetic well.

As I continue playing the game, I find that I’m deriving enjoyment just by connecting buildings and developing my road network, as I feel like I’m creating something cool. Mini Motorway’s story was largely player-driven, or more accurately, player-imagined. I imagined that I was building an actual road network for a real city, and this gave the game life, while also making me emotionally invested in the game. The minimalistic aesthetic complements this well, as the game allows imagination to run wild by only providing plain coloured boxes. Of course, completing the elemental tetrad is the solid technological foundation of a grid-based system which was simple for players to understand and easier for developers to implement.

I found the intrinsic motivation of imagining a story to my road network more captivating than the extrinsic motivation of increasing my score, and this shows Mini Motorway’s success with respect to Lens 17 (Lens of the Toy). Even if Mini Motorways had no goal, being able to build my road network in a sandbox would be engaging and be a playable game. By being fun to play with, Mini Motorways managed to hold my attention and interest even after I’ve mastered its mechanics (after playing for weeks), and its goals are less challenging.

Although I felt that extrinsic motivation wasn’t too important, Mini Motorways doesn’t neglect Lens 55 (Lens of Visible Progress). Your score is based on the number of pins you have delivered from stores and is displayed prominently on the top right. Completing each in-game week also feels like an achievement, as I’m rewarded with additional road tiles and a choice of a helpful tool such as a bridge or motorway to develop my road network with.

While Mini Motorways managed to retain my interest over a few weeks with its intrinsic fun, at an individual game level, it does seem to have room for improvement with respect to the usual dramatic arc. When analysed with Lens 69 (Lens of the Interest Curve), Mini Motorways has gradually rising tension throughout a game as the difficulty slowly increases, but it lacks two vital elements: there’s no rest for the player (other than pausing the game), and there’s no grand finale – there isn’t a “final boss”. The player can usually tell when their game is about to end, and there’s usually not much they can do about it except perform some damage control to maximise their score and wait for the game to end. However, this shortcoming is what makes player planning important and rewarding and is a justifiable trade-off in my opinion.

Lying beneath the complex road networks that players build in Mini Motorways are surprisingly simple mechanics. Lens 48 (Lens of Simplicity/Complexity) is one where Mini Motorways shines. Each game element has very simple mechanics: stores produce pins, houses consume pins, bridges allow roads over water. But the emergent complexity from the decision-making on how to best use each element to create the most efficient road network is immense, and difficult to master. It’s impossible to tell if a road network I’ve created is the “best” road network, as the state of the network is in a constant state of flux as more stores and houses spawn. Many emergent strategies are formed, such as a colour-separation strategy I employed in the screenshot above. There are even somewhat cheat-y strategies such as placing roads in certain areas to prevent a bad store spawn!

Ultimately, Mini Motorways is a game about problem solving, the subject of Lens 8 (Lens of Problem Solving). Problem solving games tend to have an issue with freshness, as once the player knows how to solve a problem, they aren’t challenged anymore. Mini Motorways keeps things fresh by having random spawns (thus making every game different) and daily challenges that impose certain restrictions such as a limited number of motorways, so players are forced to adapt their strategies.

Overall, Mini Motorways is a gem of a game, and displays many excellent design choices for game designers to learn from. Do try it out!

Streets of Rogue

Posted on February 3, 2020 by NUS A0168353Y

Streets of Rogue is an action rogue-lite game. You play as a disgruntled citizen making his/her way through randomly generated levels in a city in order to confront a corrupt Mayor. This game emphasises on player choice; you are given complete freedom on how you will approach completing the missions in the game. Will you go in a restricted area guns blazing to get to someone? Or will you poison the air vents to make him come to you? You can also choose from a variety of characters, each with their own perks which drastically change the way you play the game.

Here is a video of how the gameplay looks like.

Elemental Tetrad

Mechanics
Controls:
– Zoomed out overview, WASD controls.
– Mouse is used to orientate the player, mainly for aiming with projectile items/ weapons.
Environment:
– Levels are randomly generated. Every third level, there will be an additional challenge on that level (e.g. Killer Robot Is After You!).
– As the game progresses, levels become harder. Players encounter new levels with their unique structures and NPCs (e.g. During the Downtown levels, there will also be many mafia NPCs walking around which will try to extort money from the player.)
Interactions:
– Players have freedom to talk to, attack, hire, or help any of the NPCs that are walking around.
– Depending on the character being played, more options might be open(e.g. threatening, bribing, gifting, etc).
– NPCs will remember their encounter with the player for the rest of the level; hostile NPCs will try to attack you or call the cops, while friendly or aligned NPCs will come to your aid.
Leveling:
– As this game is a rogue-lite, players will always start a game at level one.
– Players can get experience from almost any action performed, with the largest bulk of experience being gained from completing the main missions.
– On level up, players can choose a new perk at the end of the level.
Multiplayer:
– Up to four players can play together locally or online.
– For local play, players have to share the same screen view (meaning players cannot walk too far away from each other)

Story
– Story of Streets of Rogue is shallow, serving mainly to give the setting for the player. During the tutorial, players are shown to be recruited into the Resistance. However, after the tutorial, as the player makes their way through the city, there is no longer any mention of the Resistance.
– Rather than use a main storyline, the game stands out for its quirkyness and randomness. Example: character selection. Players can choose from a multitude of characters, each having a short backstory and their “Big Quest” to achieve along way to overthrow the mayor (e.g. Doctor wants to spread peace, big quest is not being allowed to kill people). Some characters would make sense such as a Soldier or Policeman, but there are characters that seemingly make no sense introduced like the Vampire and Zombie.
– Some storytelling is done as the player progresses through the levels: starting from the Suburbs, the player will eventually reach the Downtown and Uptown areas where there is greater security and more tension shown where the player is denied access or privileges due to not being an “authorised citizen”.
– There are no story-specific events that unfold, until the player finally wins the game.

Aesthetics
– Game looks simple with its pixel artstyle. Since the gameplay is fast paced, this is not a game where you stop to look at the design.
– Minimalist approach is taken to focus on gameplay; NPCs dialogue is simple, when you interact with an object you will see a simple dropdown list of what you can do, similar to using an object there are no unique animations, status effects will be displayed in text on the corner of the screen (e.g. Weak)

Technology
– PC game, standard controls. There are options to use controllers which would be more suited since this is similar to arcade games.

Lens of Surprise

Wow, this game is full of surprises.
– Random events happen throughout the levels, with some events base on the demographic of certain areas (e.g. Ongoing war on the level, so there will be soldiers and cannibals constantly spawning and fighting).
– Similarly, randomly encounters with NPCs (e.g. thieves coming up to steal your items, gorillas attacking you on sight because you are a scientist, a cannibal popping out of a manhole to eat you).
– Note that the element of surprise is so overwhelming at times that it is not uncommon for you to suddenly die and lose the game, which might detract from fun – or, provide an element of challenge (e.g. being caught in the crossfire of a random battle between mafia and the police).

Lens of Time

Wow, this game takes a long time to play.
– Normally for rogue-lites, you would expect gameplay to be short, but one game of Streets of Rogue can easily take an hour.
– This is partly due to the large level size, and the complexity of mission that usually have the objective nested inside a large complicated building.
– Additionally, due to the unpredictability of the game, players would want to navigate the level in a cautious manner versus just rushing through.

Lens of Problem Solving

Basically the essence of the game.
– This is one of the key selling points of the game: being able to complete the missions any way you want.
– To the point where you can complete the whole game indirectly; i.e using circumstances, hiring people, inciting conflicts, and the missions will complete themselves for you.
– This high variability can make the game too easy sometimes, though. Example: The final mission, get the Mayor’s hat. Mayor is accompanied by guard detail, I completed the mission within 15 seconds by giving the guards poison to make them enraged, the resulting shootout killed the mayor.

Lens of Endogenous Value

Wow, this has some amazing rewards.
– The missions that the player has to complete before completing the level, will yield random items of highly variable utility, giving players a lot of options to approach future missions (e.g. Resurrection shampoo, cyanide pill, necronomicon, hacking tool, friend phone, etc).
– Although some items have powerful effects, they are not game-breaking as the items are not able to be used constantly through the game, so it is balanced.

Alto’s Odyssey

Posted on February 9, 2019 by Liwen

Alto’s Odyssey is a nice mobile game available on both Android and iOS. It is the finalist of 2019 Independent Game Festival under excellence of visual art and excellence of audio.

The game is about an endless sandboarding adventure. The background is a beautiful and ever-changing natural landscape. The player has to jump to cross the obstacles and cliffs along the way. It is designed to be enjoyed by returning player and newcomers alike.

The next adventure awaits

Link to the game: http://www.altosodyssey.com

Lens 1: Essential Experience

The essential experience of Odyssey is to expand and build upon the feelings of being alone to an adventure in nature. Besides, it also encourages the player to step out of their comfort zone to explore the beyond of the world. This kind of experience is achieved by the fluid physics-based actions of the sandboarding, procedurally changed backgrounds, dynamic lighting and weather effects, and the beautiful background audio.

Lens 2 & 3: Suprise & Fun

Odyssey surprises player along the way with various natural phenomena and wildlife. The player has to jump. During the jump, the player can enjoy the fluid physics-based action in the air. Besides, the player can also control the body to land fluidly and successfully.

Lens 4: Curiosity

Odyssey offers the player with a small screen into a much bigger world, through the endless sandhill and procedurally changed backgrounds. The game tries and boils down the essence of immersion. It wants to offer a place where the player can escape.

Lens 5: Endogenous Value

Along the way, the player can collect coins for a higher point. The coins are placed creatively to encourage the players to jump and control the body accordingly. Sometimes it also leads players to a second way to do sandboarding rather than on the sandhill.

Mechanics:

The procedure of Odyssey is quite simple. As the player is on an endless sandboarding adventure, player just need to tap to jump over the obstacles or cliff and hold to control the body before landing. There will be several goals for player to accomplish at each level. The game is over when the player fail to jump over the obstacle or cliff. With the collected coins, the player can buy some special packages to help recover from the death or delay the timer and so on. The game is easy to learn but difficult to master.

Aesthetics:

Odyssey has built a beautiful polygon wild world. The world is expanding endlessly through a small window. Environments is changing accordingly. The background audio matches the action of player, which helps the player to be immersed inside the wild world and control the actions better. It has received critical acclaim as a “piece of interactive art”.

Story:

Odyssey is mainly about adventure. While the world is expanding procedurally through the small window, the player is encouraged to explore and continue this endless adventure.

Technology:

Odessey is designed in Unity 3D, and then taps into Metal 2 for iOS. The game is now available on both Android and iOS. Besides, the game is well achieved with a silky 60 frame-per-second. Metal 2 allows much more access to the GPU compared with OpenGL. During the game, the view never stutters or shakes.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Posted on February 5, 2019 by yohanderose

Image result for witcher 3 screenshot

After completing The Witcher 3 I felt a deep loss. I truly became its protagonist Geralt of Rivia; and by the time a legendary career of slaying monsters had come to an end, it was as if a chapter of my own life had ended as well.

A Witcher is a genetically modified professional monster killer. The game follows Geralt on his various quests and contracts, and the friends (and many foes) encountered on the way.

Official gameplay:

Official website: https://thewitcher.com/en/witcher3

The Lens of Surprise:

Geralt is only compensated for contracts on specific monsters, however, other monsters are uninclined to leave you alone as you explore or transit through the open world. Some of your greatest bouts will start running into a dark swamp ill-prepared and low on health. Contracts themselves can often be much more complicated than initially presented. A degree of adaptability and creativity is needed to be successful in quests.

As per typical in role-playing games, characters accumulate new skills and hone existing ones with time. Geralt’s are physical and combat oriented at first, however more magical and mysterious as the game progresses.

The story is also filled with twists and turns. We begin the game looking for an ashen-haired girl who is later revealed to be Geralt’s long lost adopted daughter Ciri – an incredibly powerful young Witcher.

The Lens of Fun:

An obvious source of entertainment is the freedom of choice we posses within the game, furthermore – being able to see the consequences of said choices manifest in plot changes, Geralt’s relationships and available contracts.

Isolated situations are also uniquely thrilling. Awesome fight progressions and visceral combat options make for an intoxicating interactive experience. The exhilaration of facing danger and ordinarily impossible feats is achieved perfectly.

The Lens of Unification:

The world (The Continent) is fictitious, yet the setting greatly resembles a Dark-Age-like time period. Playing as Geralt in this environment is a cohesive and holistic experience. His clothing and weaponry are thematically accurate and even supporting and background characters have nuanced attires and dialects depending on where you are in The Continent. Whether it be on an island in Skellige or in a quaint tavern in Novigrad, your surroundings are detailed and consistent.

The lore in the world is also very detailed, this becomes apparent as you venture to farther lands and collect a wealth of information on the places, people and creatures you encounter. This attention to detail in both the visual non-visual realms of game design create a foundation for the exciting but, importantly, convincing narrative.

The Lens of the Player:

This game is more than entertainment. The enchanting element is its ability to make its players feel powerful and important. Many look to manufactured fantasies when reality is mundane or disappointing. The more believable the fantasy, the greater the escape.

In The Witcher 3, you are Geralt: a powerful and confident man, known the world over for your bravery, strength and success. You are held in high regard by your peers who reside with you in the great castle Kaer Morhen.

Fun is an ultimately superficial lens, achieved by the most trivial games. The degree of control you have over your life in The Witcher compared to (for argument’s sake) the lack of control you have over your own is an irresistible trade. In the game, a player can be seen and heard as they intend; Pursue travel and career risk and romantic relationships with very literally, just the press of a button.

The Lens of the Elemental Tetrad:

The Witcher 3 exemplifies the axioms of good game design. We are drawn into the game by hyper-realistic character and world aesthetics, a thematically complete universe of which we are the centre. A captivating and malleable story with seamless gameplay maintains our emotional investment in the game.

The game was created with the REDengine 3, CD Projekt Red’s game engine specifically designed for nonlinear open world role-playing video games. The engine runs on top of both 32 and 64-bit Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Image result for witcher 3 wallpaper

PUBG (PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds) Game Reviews

Posted on January 30, 2019 by Xiaojun Sang

Introduction

PUBG is an online multiplayer battle royale game. In this game, up to a hundred players will be placed into a resources randomly generated map which the players can choose the spot to scavenge. The players will need to scavenge for weapons and equipment including different types of gun, broadsword, grenades, medical kit and so on to kill others and/or heal themselves. Apart from the attack from players, the available safe area of the game’s map will decreases in size over time in order to force the players encounters. This game also has different play modes according to the attended team size including single, duo, squad whereas the last player or teams standing wins the round
Here is a link of a youtube video showing some moments in the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6h-p4mW5Ks

Experience

I used to play this game, especially last year vacation, I could spend a day on playing this game with my brother and friends but I have not played for several months. In general, I really enjoy this game since it has brought lots of funs for me.

Reasons I love this game

the fun of cooperating with my friends, being able to communicate and cooperate with my friends make us feel relax and pleasure
it is more about the experience than the results. good skill is not everything, although ‘have the chicken dinner’ will make us quite excited, we still get a lot of laughs from any kinds of stupid mistake we made
the vivid environment including settings, scene, sounds make us immerse in the nervous and irritative situation.

Reasons I quit this game

Break of fairness – increasing plugs make the game less attractive to me
not able to run at my laptop – my laptop configuration is not good enough to run this game smoothly, therefore each time I have to go to the internet bar which is really inconvenient and costly although being able to sit together with team member will enhance the coordination and enjoyment.
aesthetic fatigue – after a long time intensive period of playing this game, I fell somehow boring about this game which means I rarely get the feeling of excitement from the game any longer
The most important one – my friends quit this game, the meaning of this game for me is to play with my friend as a team, once my team has dissolved I also lose the interest of playing this game.

Lenses

Lens #43 – Cooperate

this game allows the player to compete as a group which needs the cooperation between friends.
the group could be formed randomly or specified by players.
the technology of remote voice communication built inside the game will allow the player to play with people from anywhere which is really convenient.

Lens #44 – Competition

as there is cooperation, there is also competition
within each match, there is competition among the player within this round
- the setting of HP and safety area will force the player to encounter
- outside the match, there is also ranking which is the competition among the whole players of the game
  - world Competition
  - ranking board with lots of data
there are people who are nor care about the ranking but there is also, and often, the majority of the players who really care about their ranking.

Lens #79 – Freedom

As a result of not having a story or background, a high degree of freedom is provided
there are no specific rules that require the player to finish a certain task or find a clue except one general goal – survive and win the game
actually, even the general goal is not compulsory, people may have different activities with different purpose. (for example, people may do not chase the champion but to having fun with friends )
this is one of the key reasons that I enjoy this game.

Lens #37 – Fairness

people can only spend money buying the outfit which will not affect the combat power
- everyone is offered with the equal position of each match at the beginning
  the resources are generated randomly, the landing position is decided by the player
- the safety area is generated after calculation but no one knows before it shows in the map
- every player start the game without anything
people could report plugins and the game will punish the related accounts if it is real
Logically, it is really fair with the setting of offering an equal position however the problem in real life is the management of plugins is insufficient and the large amounts of plugins can ruin the game

Elemental Tetrad Summary

Story
- no story setting like background or characters
- focuses more on the interaction including competition and cooperation between players
Mechanism
- common goal: kill the competitor and survive to the last to win the game
- there are no specific rules instead it gives the player a great extent of freedom by
  - providing the various weapons, vehicles, equipment
  - the settings based on the real world, such as
    - people will lose HP if they jump from a high position, the points deducted increase with the height
    - people can swim in the sea/river but they need to take a breath
      the speed of moving will varies with the different vehicle used
Aesthetics
- in general: realism rather than fantasy
- mimic the real world to construct a lifelike environment so that the user can better immerse themselves in the game
  - different weathers have the corresponding effect
  - different maps, landforms
Technology
- The 3D replay tools
  - allow players to zoom around the map after a match, tracking their own character, following enemies’ movements,
- the voice communication tools

Dynamix

Posted on January 30, 2019 by Jiang Lingshuo

Video source: Full score (OMEGA) record for Dynamix Lv13 song

Player: Eugene Kua

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shh6rAa_YQM

Introduction

Dynamix, the hardcore mobile music game is the first publishing game made by C4Cat. Dynamix introduces a new style of the music game. Its triple-dropping track design provides a more rhythmic and varying play style. Players can feel like composing the song during the game play. The first release version of Dynamix includes more than 20 Hong Kong original songs.

–Dynamix Wiki,

https://dynamixc4cat.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page

Dynamix, a typical music game, like many other games of its kind, has been found especially “challenging” and “fun” for music game fans. This article will bring you to this “Dynamic” game Dynamix and show you why players are crazy about the game through game design lenses.

Screenshot of Dynamix—-of course, this is the only FULL SCORE I obtained–although only in level 1…

1 The Lens of Emotion & 94 The Lens of Atmosphere

As a music game, the designer wants its user to feel intense nervousness as well as excitement and looking at these video recordings from the players, who were holding their breath for 2 min until they got the full score, we know Dynamix has done it.

There is no doubt that for most of the music games, the rhythm and pace are important for creating this atmosphere with tension. The choice of songs in Dynamix facilitates its excitement. Although there are some moody slow songs, these songs are all presented in Electronic styles so that the periodical percussions and obvious artificial sound effect are attention-demanding thus exciting.

Most of the songs, like Rave-olution, use rapid speed to create an intense and exciting atmosphere.

Even for slow songs with strings, they use multiple parts to emphasize the rhythms.

31 The Lens of Actions

The basic actions in this game are quite simple, namely, click (for the blue strokes representing single short notes), sweep (for the red lines with an end dot representing arpeggios) and long press (for the yellow bars representing long notes).

Based on these simple actions, players can implement a few strategies for higher scores. For example, with two hands, it is simple for players to implement symmetric clicks on the two sides of the screens. Other strategies like the perfect time for the long press, the sweeping for red notes, etc..

Symmetrical notes are easier for double hand actions.

This game also balances the spread out of notes in the layout so that the fingers can stretch while playing. When players interact with the game controllers (usually bars or buttons that simulate the piano keys), they enjoy watching and feeling their fingers dancing on the keyboard (just as we programmers like a mechanical keyboard XD). Stretching out fingers provides a strong gameplay experience of beautiful actions.

34 The Lens of Skills & 38 The Lens of Challenges

Dynamix does a good job in balancing between the challenges and the skills. This is achieved by careful design of the level system. Apart from some minor setting of modes (bleed, narrow, accel, mirror and auto), the challenge is controlled by levels (from 1 to 15, and for each song, there are easy, normal and hard levels).

By providing all three difficulty levels for each song, the game has offered players an equal chance of enjoying the same song. And by exposing to the easy level of the songs, the player becomes comfortable with the tunes and notes, when they can take a challenge and advance to the next level.

One of the most unique designs for Dynamix, which differentiate this game with other musical games like Deemo and Osu! Is the interesting behaviour of the notes flow.

The two red arrows denote the moving direction of different tokens. The sudden change in note directions, apparently does not cater to the native flow in your brain. This brings huge challenges to players to concentrate and stay alert and observe their surroundings. On the other side, in order to encourage the players to improve their skills of observing without too much depression, the system has provided “Blinking” signals in the next coming directions a few seconds in advance.

This line will blink if there will be new notes coming down.

Balancing between the skills and challenges has made this game gain a lot of reputy from old music game players who are trying to seek for the hardest ad challenge their proficiency.

71 The Lens of Beauty

Lastly, Dynamix has also benefitted from its original, modern but yet cultural oriented artwork and music. The consistent design has made the game beautiful to play with or even treat as an artwork.

Modern and sci-fi pictures

Well designed Anime-style characters

The depiction of the old Hong Kong Street (as the producer C4CAT is based in Hong Kong)

Legend of Sword and Fairy 6

Posted on January 30, 2019 by Qi Kongjia

Legend of Sword and Fairy 6 is the eighth work among Legend and Sword and Fairy Series, and is also the 20th anniversary of the Fairy Sword. It tells the story of a secret history discovered by characters’ adventure when they looking for something lost. It is a role-playing adventure game with fighting system and plot. Each character has its own feature and secret, that encourages players to explore more.

Lens #7: The Lens of the Elemental Tetrad

MECHANICS

It uses dual system mode that players can choose either instance combat system mode or round combat system mode, and designs a variety of systems to increase the playability.

There are three different levels of difficulty in the game for players to choose: simple, normal, and difficult. It is impossible to choose the difficult level at the first time before all major missions are finished. At the same time, the game also provides the “difficulty down” function: players who feel excessive pressure in the game can downgrade the difficulty of the game, but once the difficulty is lowered, it will not be able to recover, and can not challenge the difficult difficulty of the BOSS.

STORY

The story is based on Chinese ancient legend. When the Shennong God was born, the world was accompanied by Jiuquan. Jiuquan’s various abilities are the source of the world. In the ancient time, there was a war among three races: Human, God and Orc, ended up with Beast losing. Chiyou introduced the orc into the devil world, and the three realms were separated. After the war, Shennong and Jiuquan disappeared. As time passed, the legend of Jiuquan was gradually forgotten. Two main characters, in order to find something lost, came to the ancient city of the Western Regions. The secret will be revealed again during this adventure.

AESTHETICS

The scenes are vast and the players can enjoy all kinds of customs in the game, such as the mysterious flying city, the border scenery of the exotic people and the sunset scene of the west wind, or the fantasy field of deep sea and the sky. In addition, the production team added a whether system that can change day and night to the scene. In the game, scenes and characters will change over time. When the character stays at a certain place, it will obviously feel the sun’s rise and fall, and the time will slowly pass. The clouds in the sky have passed and changed, and the whole world in the game has become more real. In addition to day and night changes, there are also more weather performances: rain, lightning, sand, leaves, mist and so on.

The dubbing team is professional and top-level. Players will hear the most popular star of the domestic dubbing.

TECHNOLOGY

Legend of Sword and Fairy 6 is published on the steam platform. It utilizes the stereoscopic 3D effects to heighten immersion in its world. It also interspersed with 2D animation and 3D CG.

CPU: Intel core2 Duo 3.0Ghz
RAM: 4G
Operating System: Windows XP / win7 32bits / win7 64bits / Win8 32bits / Win8 64bits (Chinese version)
Harware: 16G

Lens #1: Essential Experience

This game is beyond life, because the story and background in it as well as the skills of the characters, are not realistic, therefore normal people cannot experience. It provides players a different experience that allow players to immerse with the adventure, feeling themselves experience all those things. It is like a movie, or a book, in all is an new experience for players.

Lens #2: Surprise

This game has a variety of small games and mission events throughout the game world, such as new puzzles and institutions that require the skills unique to each protagonist to match the map. After help them and finish small task successfully, there will be unexpected surprises. As this in-game exploration is more free than the previous generations, players will find more hidden characters and events in the game, and may encounter various hidden “picking items”

Lens #4: Curiosity

In this game, there is a system called Spirit System, through which the player can choose different training directions for the character, so that it has more powerful ability and the character characteristics are more vivid. Each character has its own unique three souls. The growth attributes of the three souls are different. The value of each node is different. The player will be able to select different soul nodes to light up according to the prompts. There are some properties to be activated hidden in each soul. When enough nodes are activated, the hidden property nodes will be automatically opened, bringing more different training directions. Players will stay curious about what characteristics they finally make for the character.

Lens #6: Problem Solving

Each of the six protagonists has a unique “scene skill.” There are a lot of well-conceived organs in the game that players need to make good use of the six-player scene skills to pass. Yue JinZhao has used the “Flying Sword”, which can let him leap some obstacles or reach some places that can’t be reached. Yue Qi has the ability to “move things by mind” which can move the controllable items to anywhere you need. By analogy, other people’s scene skills are also so convenient and interesting. Players should try to use these skills to solve the problems. If Players cannot think of the solution to pass the current stage, they can try changing character.

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds

Posted on January 30, 2019 by e0032365

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) is a online multiplayer battle royale game published and developed by PUBG Corporation, a subsidiary of Bluehole. The game was inspired by a Japanese film Battle Royale, and has sold over 50 million copies worldwide within a year of its release. With over 400 million players across 5 platforms, PUBG is one of the most played video games.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Steam Logo.jpg

Website: https://www.pubg.com/

Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7zR0oJTOqU

Lens 7: Elemental Tetrad

Mechanics:

The main objective of the game is to be the last surviving player/team in the game. Up to 100 players, 50 duos (teams of 2 players), or 25 squads (teams of 4 players), are battling each other in the game. Players can choose to actively seek out and eliminate enemy players, or simply hide and avoid being killed while other players are battling each other.

Players are able to pick up healing items to regenerate health during the game, and can operate vehicles, on both land and water, to move around the map. Random supplies will also drop from a passing plane in a crate, free for any player to claim. Random areas will also be bombed from time to time.

Image result for parachuting pubg

Story:

Players are parachuted onto an island to scavenge for weapons and supplies to survive the battle, with the objective to be the last remaining player/team. After certain timed stages, the playable area in the map shrinks, and any player outside the playable area will take damage incrementally. Players have to stay in the safe zone (playable area) to ensure survival.

Aesthetics:

The maps are vast, and players can enjoy exploring every area in the map (if time permits). Due to the different terrains in different maps (lush grasslands, barren dry deserts, snowy plains, urban landscapes), players have to adjust their game-play according to the environment they are playing in.

There are also weather changes in the map that can affect the game-play heavily. Night-vision goggles can also be picked up to enable players to see in the night. Aditionally, elements like fog and thunderstorms can mask the sight and hearing of players.

Technology:

PUBG is available to play on Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, Android, iOS, and PlayStation 4. You might require a PC or mobile device with slightly higher end specifications for PUBG to enjoy the best graphics that the game can provide.

Lens 27: Skill

At first glance, one might think that the only skill needed in PUBG is aiming. However, the game enables players to make use of other different skill-sets to ensure survival.

For example, a familiarity of the map gives a player a huge advantage, as you will know where to find the most weapons and supplies, where to hide to gain the upper-hand on your enemies, and what path to take to best advance into the safe zone.

Additionally, the skill to dodge enemies shooting at you requires experience and practice. The time taken to recognize the direction from where your enemy is firing at you is crucial, and can decide whether you live or die. The skill to quickly decide where to aim/hide takes lots of practice to hone.

Sometimes, the skill to commandeer your vehicle effectively can also win you the fight, or even the game. Being able to drive at high speeds while avoiding buildings and trees, and running over enemies, can prove useful if you are lacking in the other skill areas.

Image result for pubg vehicle

Lens 32: Meaningful Choices

When the game starts, players can choose where in the map they want to start by aiming their character’s flight path towards the desired area. Players have to make the choice of whether they want to go to an area known to have an abundance of supplies, fighting off other players who choose to do the same, or to go to a more secluded and hence safer area of the map to start their game.

There are many different weapons in different weapon classes in the game. You can choose from snipers, assault rifles, machine guns, sub-machine guns, shotguns, and a crossbow. Each player can only hold 2 of these types of guns, with 1 handgun and 1 melee weapon. Knowing which weapon to hold at which stage of the game can increase your chances of surviving any enemy encounters.

Choosing your hiding spot in the game can also be crucial to surviving, especially in the final stages of the game, when the safe zone gets very small. Conquering the correct high ground can keep you safe, and give you an excellent vantage point to spot enemies and take them down.

Lens 37: Co-operation

Most players find that playing in a squad (team of 4 players) is the best way to experience the game. In a squad, cooperation is key, and knowing how to allocate the limited supplies among each player in the team will help your team go far in the game. Sharing weapons and healing items is essential to ensure survival.

It is also important to know how to engage enemies as a team. Watching each others’ backs, and communicating effectively the position of enemy players, will help your team to avoid and take out enemies easily.

PUBG has the feature to communicate with your teammates via the in-game microphone and speaker. Being able to constantly engage in active communication with your teammates adds a new element of fun to the game too.

Image result for pubg squad

Lens 66: Obstacle

The main obstacle in the game is every other player. At the start of the game, players are usually busy finding weapons and supplies. However, as the game progresses, the level of difficulty usually gets higher as you can expect surviving players to be better skilled at the game. The game-play gets more intense, as players are more careful as they traverse the terrain, looking to take out enemy players while avoiding death themselves.

The other obstacle is the safe zone. As the game progresses, the safe zone gets smaller. Staying outside the safe zone means losing health incrementally to the blue zone closing in, and if you do not rush to get into the safe zone, you might be eliminated. As the game enters its final stages, staying outside the safe zone deals more damage to the player, and players must avoid both enemy players and the blue zone creeping in.

Conclusion:

There are many aspects of the game that a player can try to master. Other than the skill elements of the game, players can also try out-of-the-box strategies to increase their chances of survival. You can even take out better-skilled enemies with the element of surprise on your side.

Even though the standard game-play does not change much over time, different new maps can change minute details of how one approaches the game, and keeping the game fun and exciting for players.

Overcooked!

Posted on January 30, 2019 by deborahlow97

Link to Overcooked! Launch Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZK7veYPEJQ

Introduction

Overcooked! is a frantic couch co-op indie game from 2016, that challenges up to 4 players to work together, performing cooking tasks to prepare the meals and complete food orders. Players find themselves in the game’s campaign with 28 different kitchens and a final boss level. There is also a competitive multiplayer option where we can play against our friends.

Image result for overcooked!

Lens 7 – The Lens of the Elemental Tetrad

Story

The campaign story Overcooked! has is simple and subtle. The chefs (players) are initially challenged to feeding a giant spaghetti and meatball monster during an apocalypse. However, the players failed to please the monster. The Onion King then decides to pull the cooks into a time portal back to the year 1993 to improve their cooking skills. The cooks have to go through the training process of cooking in many different kitchens with different environment circumstances and serving different types of food.

Mechanics

Players play the game as cooks and have to fulfill food orders in a given set of time. They accomplish this by carrying out a series of cooking tasks such as chopping vegetables, boiling pasta and washing dishes.
The goal is to earn as much money as possible before the time goes up.
The players are ranked on a 3-star system based on how many coins they got.

Aesthetics

Overcooked! adopted a 3D low poly cartoon style with colourful visuals. It also has a clean and intuitive user Interface and icon layovers. Overcooked aesthetics revolves around a kitchen and cooking activities. The sounds in Overcooked! also contributes to the appeal of the game. Hearing the chopping of food on a chopping board, the fire alarm ringing in the background when the kitchen is on fire makes the players feel like they’re in an actual kitchen. Both the visuals and the music contributes to its appeal towards a large audience base.

Technology

Overcooked! is made with Unity and was released on several platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows. It supports controllers and keyboard controls. However, it only supports local multiplayer mode and not online multiplayer mode (online multiplayer mode was subsequently released on the sequel Overcooked! 2).

Lens 2 – The Lens of Surprise

In Overcooked!, there are many kitchen maps that we can play in, and each of them are unique in it’s own way. Each kitchen would usually have different food orders to complete too! The dishes includes soups, pizzas, sushi and many more! When I first played the game, each map that I get is a refreshing surprise to me. There are different obstacles in a kitchen and we have to come up with different strategies for each map. For example, the map may only allow one person to cross a path at a time, or a portion of the ground disappears during a different time intervals. The element of surprises that Overcooked! has to offer lies in each of the maps and the interesting ways us players could overcome it.

Image result for overcooked!

Lens 37 – The Lens of Cooperation

The essential experience in Overcooked! lies in cooking and communicating with your friends. As the map designs were created to emphasize the need to work together with your friends. This local co-op game will have you shouting out the orders, telling other cooks (your friends) what to do and informing them what they’re doing. The more the players progress in the game the harder the game gets without cooperating and communicating effectively with your friends in game and in real life. Besides the maps, the nature of the game where players have to conduct a series of steps before a food order can be sent out contributes to this lens. As this series of steps can be done by any of the cooks, having an order assembled by several cooks compared to a single cook would mean that orders would be sent out more efficiently.

For example, in the scenario given below, players have to cooperate and always make sure there is at least 1 chef at the left and the right side of the split map in order to complete orders efficiently.

Image result for overcooked!

Lens 6 – The Lens of Problem solving activity

Overcooked! manages to infuse problems very well in the environment. This leaves the players coming up with many different strategies to tackle the problem given to them. Some players are able to adapt well to the problems that they face immediately, however some would not. In addition, as Overcooked! ranks the players based on a 3-star system (and subsequently a 4-star system), this encourages and boost the players to perfect their problem solving strategies just to get that high rank. As the maps are fixed in each of the kitchens, players are able to analyze what went wrong in the previous game and do better in the next round.

Image result for overcooked!

Lens 55 – The Lens of Visible Progress

Overcooked! keeps track of your progress and is compiled visually onto a map. The players are able to see which maps they have completed and how well they completed it (based on star ratings). Players can also unlock different chef skins as they progress through the game.

Image result for overcooked! level map

2Cars

Posted on January 30, 2019 by e0008814

Name of Game: 2Cars

Description: It is a offline one player game. You control the two cars on each side with two fingers. The goal of the game is to get as many circles and avoid all the squares. The flow of the game will get faster as time passes.

Link to Game Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EI3OKIvJh5k

Mechanics: the screen is divided into two for each car and again into two lanes. On every lane, there is a vertical flow of square or circle blocks along the road. Players control each car by tapping on either side of the screen, which switches the lane of the car. The game ends when any car hits a square block, and the goal is to hit as many circle blocks as you can before the game ends.

Story: There is no story in this game.

Aesthetics: There is a calming blue background which helps to contrast the bright colored circle and square blocks. The two sides also have their own distinct color for better differentiation. The aesthetic is simple and easy to look at.

Technology: There is no technology needed to enhance the experience of this game.

Lens 1 Essential Experience: the experience that the players are led to is that of driving cars on the road while trying to hit some items and avoid some items along the way. As the speed of the flow increases with time, players can feel the rush and excitement of an increasing challenge. There is also an experience in multitasking when players have to look out for and control each of the two cars individually.

Lens 2 Surprise: There is definitely the element of surprise throughout the game as the placement/timing of the square and circle blocks are unpredictable and users have to respond fast to what they just saw.

Lens 5 Useful Rewards: There is a sense of accomplishment when players manage to hit the circle block as that contributes to the game score. Hence the players are led to keep seeking that goal.

Lens 6 Problem Solving: the problem solving in such a one-player game would be to beat your own previous high score.