Fantasy Life is a role-playing adventure game where you take up Life Classes, complete various townsfolk’s requests and perhaps even save the world. There are up to 12 different vocations with each having their own special set of quests and stories. The players can switch between the Life Classes as and when they like, experiencing the game in their own unique ways.

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Lens #7: The Lens of the Elemental Tetrad

Mechanics

The mechanics of having multiple classes’ where each has skills that may aid in the progression of another are well-balanced in Fantasy Life. In turn, it encourages players to experiment and experience a wide range of vocations on their play through.

For example, you may craft a set of armor as a Blacksmith for when you head out to fight as a Paladin. You can gather meat ingredients from your battles as a Paladin or fish for seafood as an Angler. Then, from the ingredients you’ve gathered, create dishes as a Cook.

Story

The game has a main linear story focusing on the theme of community and kindness. It also acts as a mechanism to slowly unlock more content such as places to visit, yet finishing the main story does not necessarily put an end to the game due to the sub-stories in each Life Classes and other side quests. The abundance of stories is one of what keeps player clocking hours of game play.

Aesthetics

Characters in Fantasy Life can be customized from dozens of hairstyles, eye shapes and even voices to let players really make the character their own. The somewhat cute design choice for the game graphics gives a “feel good” vibe that can appeal to both genders, while the size difference between the player and higher level bosses evoke a sense of thrill and intensity. The latter experience is further enhanced through the use of fast-paced background music.

Technology

Fantasy Life is published on the Nintendo 3DS platform. It utilizes the stereoscopic 3D effects to heighten immersion in its world as well as tapped on Nintendo 3DS’s StreetPass functionality for players to exchange gifts with others they met on the street, cultivating a sense of community. These experiences are only achievable through the Nintendo 3DS console.

Putting All Together

Viewing the above 4 elements together, it can be seen that they overall contribute to the setting and concept of positivity, community and excitement of discovery.

Lens #4: The Lens of Curiosity

One of another drive for players to clock hundred of hours into the game is curiosity. Each Life Class has multiple rankings and ranking up unlocks new moves and quests. Sometimes, they can even unlock new in-game characters to join their party and embark on the adventure together.

These potential achievements have players pose questions like “What challenges will I receive next?” or “What skills does this NPC have? How do they fight?”, pushing them to set their own goals and eventually reach the highest rank possible.

Lens #18: The Lens of Flow

Fantasy Life does a good job in keeping the players in the flow channel. The core mechanics are not difficult to learn and certainly not hard to master. Instead, the difficulty comes from the quality of the weapons and gear the player has acquired in their game.

They’d start off with basic tools that does an average job at crafting or fighting which gives a good challenge. Then, they’ll eventually earn better tools that makes all current activities easier. But progression also leads to discovering new places and monsters to yet again challenge their existing tools. The repeating cycle of increasing challenge and reward gives a satisfying journey from the start to the end.

Lens #25: The Lens of Goals

The marketing line for Fantasy Life by Nintendo is the ability to “play it your way” and they have certainly been able to achieve that.

Even though the game strongly hints players to switch between Life Classes throughout their game play, they can still enjoy the game should they do otherwise. This freedom of choice is not by chance but a deliberate game design decision evident from how attainable self-made goals by the player base are. For example, players can choose to take up crafting and not gathering Life Classes while still enjoy the game as materials that can be gathered by the latter are purchasable in-game — they just need to earn enough dosh (the in-game currency).

Lens #37: The Lens of Cooperation

Fantasy Life supports both local and online multiplayer with each giving a slightly different experience.

Local multiplayer can induce active communication between players during tough fights as players — especially those cooperating with different Life Classes — need to act on what they do best. For example, a Wizard may need to communicate for the team to gather around before casting its healing spell since it has a limited range of effect.

On the other hand, similar on-demand communication is harder to achieve through online multiplayer due to its limited chatting capabilities. Players are indeed able to chat through text communication, however this mode of communication seems impractical during intensive combat. Besides text chat, players can bind their D-pad keys to emote actions but the limit of up to 4 actions can feel rather restrictive when human communication is a complex phenomenon.

Images in this article are properties of Nintendo and used for nonprofit educational purposes only.

Subnautica by Unknown Worlds Entertainment

Introduction

Subnautica is a first-person, open-world, survival-adventure game set in the alien planet 4546B, with a vast ocean full of flora and fauna for the player to explore, among other mysterious things. The player is quite literally thrown into an underwater world of unknown as soon as the game starts and is left with two things: a damaged lifepod, and a lot of questions. Throughout the campaign, the player collects resources to survive, craft, explore, and uncover the mysteries that the alien world has to offer.

Lens 7: Elemental Tetrad

Aesthetics

Subnautica’s world, despite having fictional organisms that don’t resemble ones found in real life, is a highly believable and convincing underwater world. The starting area of Subnautica, the Safe Shallows, mimics an ocean the way we know it as, by having a diverse ecosystem ranging from corals, harmless fishes for human consumption, and predatory fishes that retaliate when threatened.

Figure 1: Fauna of Safe Shallows. Left to Right: Stalker, Peeper, and Gasopod.

However, venturing further and deeper from the Safe Shallows, things get weirder, more dangerous, and further away from the player’s expectations of a safe ocean, like how players would imagine the deep oceans to be. This is how the developers of Subnautica use a player’s preconceived notions and expectations of an “ocean” and “deep waters” to build a believable world that players fully immerse themselves in.

Figure 2: Dangerous Fauna found in deeper biomes. Left to Right: Crabsnake, and Ampeel

Mechanics

Subnautica is all about exploration and adventure. Scripted events that occur throughout the game often prompt the player to go to a specific location that is often deeper and further from the safe zone, or to find a location that is in an area that the player has yet to venture into. For example, distress calls sent to the player’s radio will often send specific coordinates that show up on the player’s Heads-Up Display (HUD), and is a simple task that gives the player a sense of direction in an otherwise open-ended world, and along the way the player will discover new creatures, resources, and biomes.

Story

The player takes on the character of Ryley Robinson, the lone survivor of the Aurora crash, and his objective is to escape Planet 4546B and back to Earth. However, as he explores the planet, he begins to uncover the history behind Planet 4546B, the inhabitants that came before, both human and alien. He tries to escape the planet via the Sunbeam, a passing cargo ship, but it was shot down by an alien facility, which Ryley will then have to find a way to deactivate.

The story of Subnautica is both linear and emergent, which plays into its open-world. Set plot points such as the Aurora’s explosion and the Sunbeam’s evacuation efforts will always happen, and they serve to push the narrative forward while the player explores the world. While the game offers scripted events in the form of distress calls, the player can opt not to go to them and still complete the game.

Technology

Subnautica is playable in VR, with headsets such as the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift, with the input of keyboard and mouse or a game controller. The game is also made in Unreal Engine 4.

Lens 18: Flow

Subnautica constantly challenges the player to venture into deeper waters, usually with harsher terrain and more aggressive creatures, in order to progress with the game. Players might find it too hard to enter a dangerous, and essential biome like the Lava Castle for the Kyanite resource, however a player can always return to base, build himself a Prawn Suit (which should be available at this point), and have a sturdy vehicle to navigate the Lava Castle in, and collect Kyanite in the safety of the suit. In this way, Subnautica effectively turns challenges that can be solved in more interesting ways, which usually involve exploration and crafting.
Figure 3: The unforgiving Lava zone biome

Lens 4: Curiosity

Half of Subnautica’s experience is curiosity. The other is the player’s resolution of said curiosity. Often while exploring, players will meet a temporary obstacle that they can’t overcome with their current equipment, and will naturally feel curious about what’s behind it, like a door that requires a Laser Cutter to get through, or a biome too deep for his Seamoth to venture deeper without appropriate Depth Upgrades. To reinforce this form of gameplay, rewards often lie beyond said obstacles, and hence lead players to actively solve newfound obstacles.
Figure 4: A sealed door being opened by a Laser Cutter

Lens 5: Endogenous Value

While the end goal is made clear to the player at the start of the game in Subnautica, working towards getting off the planet is not the endogenous value of the game. Ironically, exploration of the planet itself is endogenous to the game’s value, so much so that I felt a bittersweet feeling after managing to escape the planet full of diverse and interesting biomes, with lots still left to do.

The feeling of novelty every time the player picks up a new raw material, encounters a new creature, enters a new biome, and experience a new part of the narrative, is the experience that Subnautica offers to its players. The novelty keeps players wanting more from Planet 4546B to explore, and I believe that this is the most important part of Subnautica.

Lens 9: Unification Theme

Every single gameplay mechanic Subnautica has to offer points towards exploration. A prime example is its survival aspect, which features thirst and hunger meters. When a player gets hungry or thirsty while exploring and does not have food and water reserves in his limited inventory, he is forced to stop exploring, and return to his base for food and water. The survival mechanic clearly inhibits one’s ability to explore in Subnautica. However, by forcing the player back to base, which often has a bigger inventory of resources gathered from the past and a Fabricator which can craft more items, Subnautica gets the player to revisit what he can and cannot craft, so that the player either gets a hint as to what he needs to look out for and where to go, or unlocks an entirely new area for exploration made possible with new equipment, for his next venture.

Introduction

Portal 2 is a first-person puzzle-platform game developed and published by Valve Corporation. It was released in 2011 and is available on both PC and console. In the game, the player controls the protagonist, Chell, to use a portal gun that can create two interconnected portals, to pass through a variety of dangerous laboratories and gradually uncover the history of the Aperture Science Laboratory.

Story

The entire game flow can be roughly divided into three parts.
In the first part, the personality core Wheatley attempts to lead Chell, the protagonist, to escape from the lab, but accidentally awakened GLaDOS, she put Chell back into the lab and started a series of lab tests. In the later stage, Wheatley managed to reach Chell and helped her escape again. On the way they escape, the destroyed a series of lab infrastructure, and finally came to the room where GLaDOS is located. Then, they performed a core exchange, replacing GLaDOS with Wheatley as the administrator of the lab. But Wheatley suddenly changed his mind and dropped Chell and the wreck of GLaDOS’ personality core to the lab’s lowest level.
Then, in the second part, Chell saved GLaDOS, which was made into a potato battery, from a bird, and form a temporary partnership to get back to the lab and stop Wheatley from destroying the lab. They passed through many labs built in the early years by the Aperture Science, and discovered audio prerecorded by the founder Cave Johnson, which recorded the process of Aperture Science’s gradual demise. These recordings also helped GLaDOS knew her origin was the mind of Caroline, Johnson’s assistant.
Finally, in the last part, the duo returned to the modern test room, and completed a number of challenges created by Wheatley. When they finally met Wheatley again, Chell placed a portal on the moon, they were both pulled into space, but GLaDOS retrieved her and left Wheatley in space. GLaDOS learned a lot from Caroline’s remnants, but then deleted it. Chell was also released and sent to the surface.

Mechanics

In the single-player campaign, the player controls Chell to use her portal gun to move (almost) freely in the lab, making use of the items provided in the labs, like cubes, buttons or lasers to open the gate to the elevator and move to next level. As the game progresses, the type of interactable items in the scene also increases.
In the levels, there are also some items lethal to Chell. If she died, the game would automatically load from the most recent checkpoint, or the most recent elevator.
But one of the differences with other first-person games is that there is no falling damage, the official explanation is from Chell’s special shoes, which absorb the impact force.
With the help of her portal gun and the special shoes, she can do lots of things almost impossible in the real world. One of the most commonly used techniques is to use a pair of portals to convert her vertical speed into horizontal speed to get a long jump.

Aesthetics

The three parts of the single-player campaign show player the first part of Portal 2 uses some maps from the Portal 1, but since in Portal 2, most facilities in the lab are no longer functional, these maps are often full of weeds, or scattered with bare steel bars, rendering a sense of apocalypse. In the second part, the environment is infiltrated with the traditional architectural style of the 80s, the walls, floors are all in color of bronze. While in the third part, it gets back to the modern design, but Wheatley’s crazy modification of the lab can be seen everywhere.

Technology

Portal 2 is developed using Valve Corporation’s Source 2 game engine. This engine is widely used among games developed by the Valve, including the Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, and one of the most famous FPS games, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
The hardware requirement of Portal 2 is very user-friendly, an antique Nvidia GeForce 7600 is already enough for the minimal requirement. It is quite affordable by most PC players at that year. For now, almost any graphics card can provide the highest visual experience of this game.
At the same time, Portal 2 can be played on most popular operating systems. Not until early 2014 did it released the Linux version.

Lens #06/#52: The lens of problem-solving/puzzle

This lens seems to be the core of Portal 2, since the whole game flow is surrounded by puzzle solving. Players need to use the portal gun, and to interact with the items in the scene, to solve one and another puzzle and find out the elevator to the next level. Although in this process, there would be lots of attempts and retries, and the players may feel confused when they are stuck in some levels, when they finally reach the elevator, they would feel a strong sense of achievement. It is this thinking-solving pattern that encourages the player to solve every puzzle in each stage.

Lens #86: The lens of community

In additional, the Steam workshop provides the community with tools to create their own levels, introducing new challenges to the advanced players. Players can freely make their own levels and invite their friends to play them, also, they can publish the levels to the workshop, and let more players to enjoy their imagination. There is even a production-quality mod of Portal 2 named Portal Stories: Mel, which tells the story happens between the Portal 1 and Portal 2.
Also, Steam community provides a place for players to share their gaming experiences, like the screenshot, the walkthrough, etc. Players can make friends in the community and invite them to play together, in the cooperative mode.

Lens #02/03: The lens of surprise/fun

During the game process, the player is not alone. At the beginning and the ending of each level/lab, the narrator, either GLaDOS or Wheatley or someone else, will say something in a characteristic tone. The topics are also very wide, from jokes to the background of the story, players can always find some surprise from them.

Lens #45: The lens of the story

Compared with Portal 1, Portal 2 has a complete storyline. The history of Aperture Science, the wake of GLaDOS’ humanity, and the betray of Wheatley, these all form the universe of Portal 2. At the same time, peripheral products like the comic Lab Rat, are also additions to the game’s background, providing players a more immersive experience.

Undertale is an indie role-playing game where the player controls a child who has fallen into the Underground, a place where monsters have been banished to after a war with humans. While attempting to return to the surface, the player interacts with a variety of different monsters, and can resolve conflicts by killing them or seeking a peaceful resolution.

Lens #7: Elemental Tetrad

Mechanics

Like in most role-playing games, Undertale features both an overworld, where the player is free to explore, look for treasure, and talk to Non-Player Characters, as well as a combat screen, which is transitioned to when a random encounter occurs or during scripted boss battles. The combat is where this game differs, as instead of a traditional turn-based battle, a hybrid bullet hell system is used instead. After an action is selected by the player, the player needs to avoid the enemy attack by moving a small heart they control around to avoid enemy projectiles. Players can either use the FIGHT or ACT options to win battles, with the exception of boss battles, which often involve new mechanics unique to that particular battle.

Story

The actions of the player in resolving conflict heavily influences the story, both in the way characters react to the player, as well as the events that occur. The game features multiple branching endings, depending on the player’s actions throughout the game.

The game starts out with a light-hearted and humorous tone, but gradually becomes more serious and emotional as the player progresses. Throughout their journey, the player is able to learn about the backstory of the events of the game.

Aesthetics

Graphically, the game is simplistic and lacks detail. However, the characters are still able to convey emotions effectively through animations and small changes in their sprites.

The music in the game, on the other hand, is one of its best aspects. Both the location and character themes accurately capture a appropriate sense of feeling when listening to them. The soundtrack also makes heavy use of leitmotifs, and this is used to call reference back to previously encountered areas or characters.

Technology

The game was made in GameMaker Studio. It originally was released on PC, but was later ported to various other platforms.

Lens #32: The Lens of Meaningful Choices

The player is offered meaningful choices in two different areas, the aforementioned story, as well as in choice of equipment. As most of the equipment in this game has special effects, in addition to their attack and defence, the player can make different choices on what equipment to wear depending on their playstyle. For instance, a player can choose to wear equipment which has lower defence but offers a larger number of invincibility frames if they are getting hit often, or one with higher defence and passive health regeneration if they are confident in their ability to avoid being hit.

Lens #81: The Lens of Character Transformation

The characters in this game are one of its strong points, as they show a great amount of growth throughout the story if the player interacts with them. For instance, one character learns to be more confident and confront their problems, while an antagonist eventually expresses remorse over earlier actions. These changes feel relatable and are gradual enough to be believable.

Lens #6: The Lens of Problem Solving

There are some puzzles involved in the story, which mostly involve getting past some obstacle to get to the next screen. The combat is in itself a puzzle as well if the player chooses to ACT, as different monsters have to be pacified in different ways, through a combination of the actions available to the player.

Lens #2: The Lens of Surprise

The game makes use of metafictional elements, exploiting players tendencies to do certain actions. For instance, characters may react differently depending on the events that happened in a previous playthrough. This novel feature provides a big surprise to players, especially since special dialogue is encountered at places where the player is expected to use this feature.

Overall, Undertale is a fun, unique experience with a great story and memorable characters.

https://undertale.com/

Introduction

Dota 2 is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game developed and published by Valve Corporation. The game is a sequel to Defense of the Ancients (DotA), which was a community-created mod for Blizzard Entertainment’s Warcraft III. Dota 2 is played in matches between two teams of five players, Each of the ten players independently controls a powerful character, known as a “hero”, who all have unique abilities and differing styles of play. A team wins by being the first to destroy a large structure located in the opposing team’s base, called the “Ancient”.

Element Tetrad

Mechanics

Players can control their heroes to move around the map. Hitting neutral units, enemy units or even friendly units for gold and experiences. Players can attack with normal attack or with 4 unique abilities on their chosen hero. Abilities can be further classified into magical damage, Physical damage or Pure damage. With the gold earned, players can purchase items which makes the hero more powerful. Wards can also be planted to provide vision for the player. Destroying the most important structure of the enemy to win the game.

Story

Each hero have their own back story on who they are and why are they involved in the battle. Heroes abilities also complement their story and characteristics.

Aesthetics

The overall colours of Dota 2 are darker and less vibrant with few heroes or skills exceptions. Players can also purchase cosmetics for heroes and change the look of their character or skill.

Lens 2 & 3: Surprises and fun

There are more than 100 unique heroes in Dota 2 currently. Interactions between each individual heroes is different, even if the hero is the same, different players go for different skill build or item build. Since players can move freely around the map, this makes Dota 2 full of surprises because one can hardly predict what is going to happen. This keep the player wanting to play more.

lens 38: challenge

Dota 2 has steep learning curve, learning 100+ unique heroes and 100+ items will take a long time. Different mechanics also take a lot of practices to master. Players are ranked according to their skills, as they get better they are paired with higher ranking opponents to make the game more challenging.

lens 37: Cooperation

Dota 2 is a team game, each of the 5 players have different roles to play and the team will fail if any of the roles are not being carried out properly. Unique hero combinations and item combinations is a key feature of the game. Due to the high team cooperation requirement, this game can often turn strangers into friends or friends into enemies.

Enter the Gungeon is a rogue-like, top down dungeon crawler developed by Dodge Roll and published by Devolver Digital. In this game, the player descends into a dungeon of monsters with the goal to find the legendary gun to change their past. It is a simple game where players must dodge bullets, avoid traps, and slay the “Gundead” enemies. Players will discover randomly generated levels, with a lot of different (and often hilarious) guns, enemies, and bosses mixed in. For those familiar with The Binding of Issac, this game will seem like a fresh take, but without the heavy themes.

Aesthetics

Enter the Gungeon is aesthetically pleasing and follows art style similar to retro arcades. It follows a uniform theme, including music and artwork, which makes the effect more believable. In my opinion, for the mechanics of this game, this simplistic type of aesthetic complements the game well. In addition, this game takes an entertaining approach by making every aspect of the game, from weapons and enemies, all about guns.

Story

The focus of the game is centered around the ambitions of different adventurers’ who seek to rewrite their past at any cost. Overall, this simple, no-frills story really works in the favor of the overall experience of the game. For individuals who just want to experience the game and play with the mechanics, the story can be considered accessory to the game content. What lies beneath, however, is a rich story backstory about the dungeon that is hidden in the quests and random encounters along the way.

Mechanics

The focus put into the core mechanics is where the game shines. As mentioned previously, the game is all about guns. What really pleased me about Enter the Gungeon is the attention to detail – the number of discoverable guns and effects is enormous. Each of the guns have a unique firing pattern or reference to pop culture which makes playing the game more interesting. Another mechanic that stood out was the ability to avoid bullets by flipping tables for cover or dodge rolling. These are two very simple mechanics that can be performed by a button press to temporarily grant bullet immunity. In addition to these methods, those precise enough to weave through bullets may do so to avoid taking damage. Games like Enter the Gungeon allow casual players, but also rewards players with higher degree of mastery.

Technology

The game is built with Unity, which is well established technology, and is offered on various platforms such as PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch. This is a logical decision because the developer can reach a wide audience since the mechanics of the game itself does not require innovation.

Lens #2 – Surprise

Elements such as chests and discovering new guns and enemies feed the desire for surprises that our brains love. Furthermore, Enter the Gungeon keeps the element of surprise long after all the guns have been discovered through randomly generated levels and rooms.

Lens #3 – Fun

The lighthearted artwork and theme makes this a pleasurable experience for everyone, especially when compared to games of similar genre. However, for some individuals the fun of this game comes from the journey in mastering the game mechanics. The nature of this game is a double-edged sword, as many individuals would be drawn away from the game for the same reason.

Lens #4 – Curiosity

Nothing really entices curiosity like the large, empty encyclopedia the player starts with at the beginning of the game. As player discover new guns and enemies, the book fills up with the characters seen. This simple trick helps with the players curiosity and encourages the replay of the game. Also as previously mentioned, there is an air of mystery for the “optional” story. The game encourages players to discover the backstory by themselves, as interpreted by characters the player encounters.

Lens #9 – Unification Theme

Another point where the game shines is its strong unification theme with guns and retro gaming. It is very evident that Enter the Gungeon is using every means possible to enforce the theme of guns and retro gaming because of its one-dimensional approach, which almost feels like they are overdoing it. As a result, the game feel more complete and well designed because of the consistent theme.

Links below go to the official page and launch trailer:

http://dodgeroll.com/gungeon/

Make the world your weapon

Introduction

HITMAN 2 is a stealth action game that involves taking part in missions centred around assassination. In this game, the player takes the role of Agent 47, the world’s most proficient assassin whose leaves absolutely no trace behind. HITMAN 2 instead of the first game in this trilogy will be analysed as HITMAN 2 already contains the game content from the first game, and contains some special features not present in the first game.

#9 The lens of the elemental tetrad

Aesthetics

Disregarding some minor shortcuts taken in rendering, each level in HITMAN is designed beautifully. The levels are often based off real life locations, as with this example which captures perfectly the dedication and effort spend in making these levels.

The atmosphere, ambience, and even the way NPCs speak and behave provide for an immersive experience, and you can feel as if you were walking down those roads yourself. As compared to the first season, HITMAN 2 added regional voices for each of the different missions, so a Colombian soldier in Santa Fortuna sounds like one, instead of having a flat American accent.

Most objects in the map are also interactable with in some way, either by directly interacting with the object, such as causing an oil barrel to leak, or are destructible when shot, even if it does not contribute to the assassination, such as shooting lamps and computers.

Mechanics

The game is fundamentally simple. Players control Agent 47 from either a third-person or first-person perspective, interact with objects in the map, and eliminate their targets.

One of the core mechanics of HITMAN is the disguise system. 47 can put on clothes that other NPCs are wearing, allowing him to enter areas which are normally out of bounds to him.

Some NPCs however can see through such disguises, forcing the player to stay on their toes for such enforcers. There is also no one disguise that grants access to the entire map, as such the player needs to switch disguises often if they wish to traverse the map as they like.

While the player is free to complete the missions in any way they like, be it through massacring the entire crowd, or through loud and noisy elimination methods, the game encourages the player to eliminate their targets through accidents or other silent methods without raising suspicion.

Technology

HITMAN was developed on the Glacier Engine, and is playable on PC, PS4, and Xbox 1. While the game does not require powerful hardware to run, it can get choppy if the player decides to go on a murder spree and kill everyone, as the ragdoll physics seems to kick in only for dead/unconscious NPCs.

Story

HITMAN follows the story of Agent 47, who is unknowingly assigned several contracts from a shadow client in the first season. The second season explores this shadow client and the organization they are up against.

Each mission has a story of their own, following NPCs around and listening to their dialogue lines reveals information about the targets, which while are not compulsory to learn, gives the player a better understanding of the targets around them.

One interesting part about the story is that it compiles all the previous games and preserves the continuity. In the trailer above, each of the kills are taken from all the past games.

#6 The lens of curiosity

HITMAN does not explicitly instruct the player how to assassinate their targets. Although scripted events that provide opportunities to kill the target unseen are available, the player does not need to follow these if he wants to and can assassinate their target in any way they like. The player is expected to figure out his own way to kill their targets.

When I first started HITMAN 2, the first mission instructed me to assassinate the target, and only that. Figuring out how the target moved in an unfamiliar and hostile environment was quite a challenge for a first-time player.

Furthermore, the sheer multitude of ways to kill a target, be it strangling them with a wire, pushing them off cliffs, poisoning their food, drowning them in a pool, electrocuting them, or even killing them with an exploding propane tank spur the player to think: “How else can I kill this target?”, and contributes greatly to replayablilty, as each mission can be tackled in many different ways.

Even smacking someone into the ocean with a fish is fair game

#23 The lens of motivation

The actual gameplay for HITMAN is very short, comprising of only 6 missions per season. What makes it replayable though in addition to the ways missions can be tackled is the Mastery and Challenges section.

Each mission has a mastery level, where higher mastery levels unlock more starting locations, as well as more items such as the remote explosive. Mastery levels are increased by completing challenges, or just through normal gameplay.

Challenges can range from being very easy, such as putting on a certain disguise, or very difficult (Silent assassin suit only which will be explained later). Some challenges also unlock items, the most notable of which is awarded for achieving Silent assassin suit only on all difficulties for all missions, in this case, a “Classic Lockpick”.

While some of these rewards are only reskins of an existing functional item (the classic lockpick is a reskin of a standard lockpick), these challenges provide motivation for the player to keep trying again.

#38 The lens of challenge

HITMAN provides challenge that is limited only by the players’ limits. Although the player can clear missions easily through liberal use of the scripted events, they may challenge themselves in any way when clearing the missions.

One such example is the Silent Assassin / Suit Only run. This is a considerable challenge as the following criteria must be met:

• Only kill the targets
• Do not get compromised
• No bodies can be found, unless they were the result of accidents/poisoning
• No evidence of the player must be found.
• The player must clear the mission with the default suit and cannot change disguises at any point.

As the default suit for each location grants unrestricted areas to only a limited number of areas, which is often those that the targets never walk into, completing the mission without using disguises means that the player will be trespassing most of the time, which NPCs do not take kindly to. Furthermore, just killing the target is not enough, the player must also exit the map though the designated exits, which means the player will need to sneak their way out of the area as well. Careful planning and familiarity with the map and NPC movement is essential for a successful run.

Clearing all missions on the hardest difficulty, and with the SASO restriction was extremely difficult, and I had to plan carefully how my run would be, as the hardest difficulty adds an additional restriction of having only 1 save attempt. Managing to clear each mission in SASO was extremely satisfying as I saw the efforts of planning being rewarded.

#43 The lens of competition

Although HITMAN is largely a single-player game, there are various aspects where the player can compete with others.

HITMAN has a scoring system, where points are awarded for meeting certain criteria, such as never being spotted, and points are deducted for killing NPCs that are not designated targets. After each mission, players can view the leaderboards to see how well they did comparatively.

Additionally, HITMAN 2 introduced a new multiplayer mode, known as Ghost Mode. In Ghost Mode, two players compete against each other to eliminate 5 targets unseen, before their opponent does. The players can observe each other in real-time, but their maps are separate. Though the maps are separate, interfering with the opponent is possible using certain items, that catch the attention of NPCs in the opponent’s map as well as their own. Experienced players are rewarded as they are much more familiar with the map, and thus can make use of tighter windows of opportunity to kill their target.

A Hat in Time is a 3D platformer where players control Hat Kid and explore open levels to find “Time Pieces”. Other than running, jumping and attacking, players can also wear different hats to use abilities to solve puzzles and get past obstacles. For example, the Sprint Hat allows the player to run, and the Cooking Hat lets the player throw an explosive concoction. Players can also collect “pons” to buy badges that increase Hat Kid’s abilities, yarn balls to stitch into new hats, and “relics” to unlock “Time Rift” bonus levels.

Lens 7: Elemental Tetrad

Mechanics

Natural Mechanics include:

• Looking around and running
• Jumping and double jumping
• Running up walls for a short distance
• Diving forward while on the ground or in the air
• Recovering during a dive
• Walking on tightrope
• Attacking with umbrella
• Lock-on aerial attack

Hat abilities include:

• Sprinting
• Slowing down time
• Throwing explosives
• Transforming into a frozen statue and doing a ground pound
• Materializing objects that usually appear as green holographic objects

Badge abilities include:

• Hooking to and swinging from hooks
• Charging and firing a beam attack
• Riding a scooter

The game has a lot of mechanics that can be combined together for complex dynamics. For example, you can perform a double jump, dive, then recover to get across a large gap. You could also get creative and transform into a frozen statue (which causes Hat Kid to be slightly lifted up in the air), dive forward and recover to get across the same gap. Thanks to these dynamics, there are many different ways to finish a level.

After completing the game, there are a series of challenges that revisit the same level, but put certain restrictions, like not allowing any jumps. These challenges are difficult and really test the player’s mastery of mechanics and timing.

Story

Hat Kid is traveling in her spaceship on her way back home, when a Mafia man from a planet she is passing by breaks open the spaceship door to collect a toll. That causes the Time Pieces that powers the ship to fall on the planet, so Hat Kid must go down to the planet to search for them.

During her travels, Hat Kid meets many enemies who want the power of the Time Pieces for themselves, like two rival bird movie directors, DJ Grooves and the Conductor. In the final battle, these enemies sacrifice themselves for Hat Kid to overcome the final boss.

With many interesting characters and strong themes of friendship, the story was really fresh and enjoyable.

Aesthetics

The art in A Hat in Time is usually vibrant, with a lot of bright colours. However, there are also moments when the art fits darker themes. For example, when Hat Kid is the detective for a murder mystery, the colours become muted for a noir-like tone.

Character design is simple and unrealistic, making the characters easily recognizable and really likable.

The music is easily the best part of the game. It’s colourful in open areas, grim in dark areas, exciting in boss fights, tranquil in bonus levels with no enemies, and rushed in timed levels.

Technology

A Hat in Time runs on PC, PS4 and Xbox One, with an upcoming release on the Nintendo Switch, and was made using Unreal Engine 3.

Lens 4: Curiosity

Levels are set in large, open maps, and there are various rewards like relics and yarn balls scattered around, encouraging exploration. There are also portals to bonus levels hidden in each map, so players are always curious about what they can find in each level.

Lens 6: Problem Solving

There are some puzzles in A Hat in Time, often involving getting from one point to another, and requires the abilities of hats and badges. In stealth levels, players also have to make use of cover to avoid the enemies’ line of sight and figure out a path to get to the goal without being spotted.

Lens 24: Novelty

Each chapter introduces new challenges that require new hats or badges to overcome, so the player is always doing something new. The chapters are also structured differently. Chapter 2 is about helping two birds, DJ Grooves and the Conductor, make a movie, and is set in several separate areas; while Chapter 4 is set in a large open area filled with mountain peaks, and has a “free roam” format, meaning that the player can complete the peaks in any order.

Lens 38: Challenge

A Hat in Time is not an easy game. Being a 3D platformer, it requires players to know how and when to make combinations of aerial mechanics to get to the next point. However, it is still fair, because it has checkpoints that ensure that the player does not lose all progress when missing a jump. This provides a level of challenge that is just right for players. Boss fights are also fairly challenging as they have several phases, with different attack patterns for each phase.

Overall, A Hat in Time is a fun, challenging game with quite a deep level of mechanics and really cute, colourful aesthetics.

http://hatintime.com/

Description, Link and Screenshot

Overwatch is a multiplayer first-person shooter game where each player controls one out of six hero shooters in a team. Developed by Blizzard Entertainment and released in May 2016, Overwatch has gained immense popularity and is recognised as an esport with the establishment of the Overwatch League in 2017.

The main goal of Overwatch is for players in a team to work together to defeat opposing teams by defending certain or escorting payloads to a certain point in the map. Besides this competitive mode, Overwatch also offers various other modes such as arcade mode and training mode.

https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/

Elemental Tetrad

Story

While the gameplay of Overwatch is not directly dependent on a narrative, a backstory has been developed to enrich the player’s experience and understanding of the game itself.

In the game’s backstory, Overwatch is the name of a global peacekeeping force that fell apart due to a rift between its leaders. The current game environment is set some years following this event, where former Overwatch agents regroup and recruit new allies in an attempt to protect the world, while others work to stop its reformation.

Aesthetics

In Overwatch, there is also a high level of attention to detail in both the visual and audio aspects, which not only increases the player’s involvement with the game, but also contributes to the gameplay in a significant way. For example, noises made by other players allows for quicker detection of enemies and reaction. Additionally, each hero is given unique dialogues and emotes to provide the player an additional layer of understanding about the personality of the characters.

The visual aesthetics Overwatch utilizes very vibrant color schemes, such as in its maps and character skins. The characters, objects, and effects of the game are also designed to be very cartoon-like, which reinforces the playful and unserious nature of Overwatch.

Mechanics

While the specific mechanics of each hero in Overwatch is different, every character has an attack weapon with basic shooting abilities, an ultimate ability and a range of other unique abilities such as healing and sprinting.

Overwatch caters to a wide audience by creating a diverse cast of characters that can accommodate different levels of skill. For instance, certain characters have simpler mechanisms and are more suitable for new or casual players, while others have a very high skill ceiling that allows experienced players to improve and advance quickly.

Technology

Overwatch runs on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows.

Lenses

Lens 2: Surprise

As a multiplayer game, Overwatch is constantly providing its players with the element of surprise through their interactions with other players. The fast pace of the game gives each player limited reaction time, causing the players to act based on instinct and experience. This creates a sense of unpredictability and surprise for players that is sustained through the gameplay.

Lens 5: Endogenous Value

Overwatch uses endogenous value both in and out of the actual gameplay. In the game, players can unlock the hero’s ultimate ability each time they accumulate a certain level of damage to opponents. For such a fast paced game, the usage of endogenous value as such is just enough to motivate a player without being too much of a distraction.

Outside of gameplay, Overwatch provides players with additional incentives such as extra character skins, dialogues and emotes as they progress to each level.

Lens 6: Problem Solving

Problem solving in Overwatch presents itself in determining the best team composition and gameplay strategy based on the strengths of each character and on the composition of the opposing teams.

Lens 37: Cooperation

As a team game, Overwatch is heavily dependent on the cooperation of players. Each player contributes to the team in a certain way based on the hero’s abilities, where different types of characters have specific roles in the gameplay.

Overwatch

Overwatch is a popular team-based multiplayer first person shooter, developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment. It was released in May 2016, and as of May 2018, has 40 million players worldwide.

Personal Experience

I started playing Overwatch since its launch and have had the opportunity to play in local and online tournaments as part of a full team of 6 or more for the past years, thus, my analysis will be based on the competitive mode (and aspect) that the game provides.

Analysis

Lens of Elemental Tetrad – #9

Aesthetics

Overwatch follows an art style and design akin to those found in 3-dimensional animated movies, and has a bright, vibrant colour palette that varies with different levels. This visual style sets the game apart from other first-person shooters and entices new players into their world, whilst ensuring that the basic elements that a first-person shooter possess are not affected, such as the visibility of characters across maps.

Technology

Overwatch was released on Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The minimum system requirements for the PC version of Overwatch calls for an Intel i3 processor and a Nvidia GTX 460, both of which were released back in 2010, therefore, most modern laptops and desktops will be able to run this game just fine. As Overwatch has grown itself to become a worldwide eSports phenomenon, obtaining a higher “frames per second” (fps) count is essential to eSports players, and this title is highly optimized to run on PCs. With my gaming laptop (Intel i7-7700HQ, GTX 1060), the game runs on a buttery smooth average of 150 fps with low settings, which is also essential for maximizing frame rates.

Mechanics

In the competitive mode of the game, one team, consisting of six players, pit their skills against an opposing team, to take turns defending or attacking objective points or advancing payloads, until one team triumphs over the other. If a player on the attacking team contests a point or payload at the last 3 second of a round, the game goes into Overtime, a mechanic which gives a final chance to the attackers. As soon as an attacker is no longer contesting, the overtime meter will deplete until it reaches 0, or resets when an attacker contests the point or payload again.

Players can select from a pool of 29 (and expanding) heroes, categorized into three roles: Tank, Damage, and Support, with each hero having distinctively different abilities and an ultimate, game-changing ability. Players can combine any number of regular abilities or ultimate abilities to ensure that the team wins a fight.

For example, Zarya fires her ultimate, Graviton Surge (an orb that sucks in all enemies into an area) and attempts to combo with DVA’s ultimate, Self-Destruct (launching a self-destructing mech-suit). However, since there is a Reinhardt on the other team, Reinhardt’s shield can protect and negate damage from the self-destructing mech. Therefore, Lucio uses his normal ability, Soundwave, to knock the Reinhardt and his shield out of position, thus the combo was able to land successfully.

The game has no fall damage, no friendly fire (although it has self-damage from area of effect attacks), allowing for chaotic, fast-paced engagements.

Story

Overwatch’s story is not explicitly presented in front of the players and does not attempt to divert attention away from the main, action-packed gameplay. The story serves as a bridge and reason to the game’s setting and existence of certain heroes.

Overwatch is set in the near-future on Earth, where an international task force called Overwatch was formed to maintain global stability amidst the Omnic Crisis, where robots turned against humanity. However, corruption tore Overwatch apart, but the world still needs heroes to combat new crisis.

Overwatch’s story is ever expanding thanks to supplementary materials such as animated shorts, webcomics and hero biographies.

Lens of Resonance – #12

Every hero in the game has a chance of defending itself with its abilities. Players will not feel immediately disadvantaged when being flanked or attacked by an enemy opponent, no matter the hero choice. For example, Ana, a support hero that shoots healing darts with a rifle (and damaging darts if it his opponents), has the main role of healing the team from a distance. However, when an enemy tries to attack, Ana has abilities such as the sleep dart to defend herself in an attempt to shutdown a successful assassination attempt.

Every hero also has an ultimate ability, which if perfectly timed, coordinated and executed, has a higher chance of a game-changing, game-winning play, thus players will never feel that a round is completely lost without at least trying. For example, the Reaper waits until the last few seconds before casting his ultimate, Death Blossom, which damages enemies in a ring around him, enabling the team to continue capturing the point in overtime.

Lens of Cooperation – #44

The game has a built in voice chat system, which allows communication between players. Communication in Overwatch is essential and can be the determining factor in whether a team wins or loses a match. Given a typical Overwatch map, opportunities for flanks and alternative routes are open to both sides, and the location of a high-value target must be conveyed such that everyone in the team can start focusing fire. Support heroes, when flanked, can call for help and it is up to the other players in the team to respond accordingly. Losing a single teammate puts the entire team at a disadvantage, leaving the team in a 5 vs 6 situation.

The development team has also attempted to enhance cooperation between players in Overwatch by providing a “Looking for Group” feature, which allows players to match up with other groups who are looking for players which are good at playing specific roles.

Lens of Action – #31

On the surface, Overwatch might seem like a simple game, but there is underlying complexity within. Complementary team compositions, communication and synergy is all key to defeating opponents. The classic team composition follows a “2-2-2” structure, 2 Damage heroes, 2 Tank heroes, and 2 supports, and depending on which heroes are selected, determines the play-style of the entire team. The 2 most effective “2-2-2” team compositions are “Deathball” and “Dive. “Deathball”, which consist of the tanks “Reinhardt” and “Zarya”, with 2 close to medium ranged damage and support heroes, follows the playstyle where all 6 players stick close to one another and attempts to out-damage and steamroll the opposing team. “Dive” on the other hand, consist of the mobile tanks “Winston” and “Dva”, along with mobile, flanking damage heroes such as “Genji” and “Tracer”. This composition follows the play-style of aggressively jumping in and on top of exposed opponents or support heroes, but it requires more coordination between the damage heroes and tanks to focus a target.

A recent popular team composition that has surfaced is the unusual “3-3” composition, which are 3 tanks and 3 supports, known as the “GOATS” composition. It follows a similar play-style to “Deathball” but is even more aggressive and fast-paced in nature. The objective of a GOATS composition is to obtain ultimate abilities faster than the opposing team on top of out-damaging them.

Due to its effectiveness in competitive play and tournaments, attempts were recently made to reduce its effectiveness through hero balance changes, and to encourage other compositions and play-styles.

The ever-changing META (Most Effective Tactic Available) and balance changes are what keeps the game fresh and unique with every match, and with the inclusion of new, potentially META-changing heroes, ensures the longevity of the game.

Lens of Competition – #43

In competitive play, the game has a “Skill Rating” (SR) system, which assigns a numerical value to a player’s performance and ability within the game. The SR system ranges from 1 to 5000, and includes tiers in ranges, from Bronze tier ( 1 – 1499 ), to Grandmaster tier ( > 4000 ). On top of that, there is a leaderboard which shows the top 500 players in 3 different regions based on SR values, Americas, Asia and Europe.

Players are motivated to keep playing in competitive mode to reach a higher tier and obtain a higher SR value. Winning or losing a game will yield about 25 SR gain/loss on average. Players are also matched up based on similar SRs, to keep the game balanced. If the underlying algorithm thinks that a player belongs to a higher tier, it will start matching player into slightly more challenging games. Thus, the SR value allows for a numerical comparison of a player’s skill and ability between peers and other players, and for some, bragging rights. Players in higher tiers have another motivation of climbing into the highest ranks of being in the leaderboards. With every account, the game keeps track of the player’s highest SR obtained in his/her career.