Gameplay screenshot from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Witcher 3 is an open world third-person role-playing action game that is based on a fantasy novel series. Witcher 3 is the third game in the Witcher trilogy. It picks up after the ending of Witcher 2, in which the protagonist, Geralt of Rivia, a monster hunter known as a witcher, attempts to reunite with Yennifer (his friend and lover) and Ciri (his adopted daughter) who are currently chased by a mysterious antagonistic group called the “Wild Hunt”. Players play as Geralt and fight against both monsters and humans using his swords and magic powers called “Signs”. Apart from the fulfilling the main storyline, players can also embark on the numerous side quests strewn across the huge world or play Gwent, a card game unique to the world of Witcher.

Video of gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4ony2r0QFs

Lens Analysis

1. Lens of Elemental Tetrad
   1. Story: Witcher 3 has a compelling main story that is brought across with excellent narrative, making it one of the strongest aspect of the game. The story is complex and non-linear (player’s choices can affect the ending), and has numerous plot twists and unexpected moments. The unconventional story serves as a main drive for the game.
   2. Aesthetics: Witcher 3 at the time of its release, had one of the best graphics for a video game. There is realism in the movement of environment objects (eg. grass), and especially in Geralt’s A special aspect is the subtle changes to the screen hue with respect to the player location, such as a dark and dull hue when in a haunted village, or a highly saturated hue when in the heart of a lively city. These works very well in enhancing the storytelling aspect of the game.
   3. Mechanics: The game does not encourage the “hack-n-slash” playstyle, and often, players are required to use signs, potions and skilful manoeuvres to defeat enemies. This plays well with the overall idea that the world is dangerous and survival does not come easy, and ensure that players do not easily get bored of the combat system.
   4. Technology: The game makes use the keyboard and mouse assets very well, such that even with so many controls for combat (five available signs, two secondary weapons, two swords, dodging, parrying etc) players do not normally have to move their palms to be able to fight comfortably. The game cleverly slows the game time while players access a wheel to change signs so that no extra keys have to be allocated to the all the signs, and players have sufficient time to switch between signs
2. Lens of Emotion
   1. There are many surprises hidden away in the world. For example, while travelling in the game world, the player may come across mysterious blood stains and monster tracks on the forest side trails. This invokes excitement, fear and curiosity in the player – should the player move on or take a risk and investigate the source? These instances are not explicitly displayed on the map nor in the quest guide, and can only be discovered through exploration, which enhances the excitement and novelty of every encounter.
   2. Witcher has a very strong narrative accompanied by excellent voice-acting that brings out the emotions of and dynamics between the characters very well. In one of the expansion content, Heart of Stone, Geralt takes part in a wedding in the village and the combination of uplifting ambient tunes played by the musicians, gossips from the maidens and funny dialogue exchanges with drunk guests creates a very lively and happy atmosphere, invoking happiness in the player.
3. Lens of Freedom
   1. Being an open-world game, players are allowed access to almost the entire game world even without following the storyline. Players are not constrained to the storyline quests and are free to roam wherever they want or do whatever they want to at any point of the game.
   2. Apart from just plain exploring, players can find hidden treasures or guarded stashes, clear out (challenging) monster nests and discover other countless places of interests found in the very big game world.
   3. When players get bored of the constant combat and questing, they can play a strategic card game, Gwent, or take part in many mini games such as fist-fighting, horse racing etc.
   4. There are no hard and fast rule on how to ace the game. Players are free to choose their preferred style of combat and then add skill points or buy gears that cater to or enhance that combat style.
4. Lens of Meaningful Choices
   1. The strongest aspect of Witcher lies in the myriad of choices that the player faces. In many cases, players are faced with a moral dilemma; Should you pardon a bandit (who pleads for your mercy and promises to turn over a new leaf) or kill him in distrust? Do you reprimand your daughter for being brave and risking her life to save others, or encourage her bravery? Would you choose the girl that stuck with you at your lowest, or choose the love of your life? Every choice matters – it changes your reputation and how people treat you, and the more major choices affects the story progression and eventually the ending.
   2. Many a times, there is no right or wrong for any of the choices you make, which makes every decision a lot more interesting (or frustrating).
   3. Apart from moral dilemmas, there are also numerous times where the player’s choices are based on his level of observation and judgement. For example, if a player does not pick out clues from the messages and dialogues carefully, he might get tricked into a decision that might negatively affect him or other characters.
5. Lens of Essential Experience
   1. The game does a very good job in creating the immersive experience of being in a fantasy-mediaeval world.
   2. First, the level of detail put into the level design of the world is excellent. The buildings, structures and scenery are very relevant and accurate to the representation of the mediaeval era. Cobblestone floor, stone buildings in the richer district and wooden houses in the slumps. Even the interior design of every accessible building is done intricately. When walking through the streets and accidentally bumping into other NPCs, the collision is visible and the NPCs will react to it (such as shouting or scolding). This contributes to a very immersive and lively game atmosphere.
   3. Monsters roam freely in the wilderness, and unexpected encounters with them enhances the fantasy aspect of the Witcher A player can be travelling near a cliff when a wyvern lets out a cry and flies overhead, or be gathering herbs in the woods and suddenly encountering a Leshen, a powerful tree monster.
   4. Lastly, the Witcher world highlights the dynamics and politics between the difference races very well. Throughout the game, players will interact with elves, dwarves, sorceresses and different factions of armies. For instance, there is a sense of distrust between elves and humans due to feuds in the past, and discrimination against dwarves by the humans and thus dwarves are often only found in the slumps of the village. These dynamics creates a fantasy world that has depth and seemingly mirrors the real world, creating an even more immersive experience.

Cover Image

Game’s steam page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/262060/

What is it about?

The Darkest Dungeon is a rogue-like dungeon crawler with turn-based combat. It features elements such as permanent death, punishing difficulty and promises a painful journey complicated by unforgiving dice rolls. Unlike other games, the Darkest Dungeon prides itself as a game with high learning curve and relentless obstacles which would put the average player off. That said, it naturally becomes popular among gamers who enjoy having the odds stacked against their favor.

The Darkest Dungeon is developed by an indie game developer Red Hook Studios and is playable on the Playstation 4, Playstation Vita and Linux platforms. It has received positive reviews and several award nominations. It has also managed to sell over one million copies.

The world is painted with madness and despair

Lens of the Elemental Tetrad

The Darkest Dungeon harmonizes the four elements; aesthetics, story, mechanics and technology, well and stays true to its title throughout the player’s journey.

The story is simple but intriguing at the same time. Right off the bat, the aesthetics of the game is conveyed with an ominous barrage of organ music which reminds the player of the lovecrathian theme that the game is inspired by. Immediately after the prologue cinematic, the player is thrown into a dungeon and the feeling of forsaken and despair is aptly conveyed.

The mechanics of the game is seemingly simple. Visual cues are provided plentiful and the player can understand how the combat works without a wordy tutorial or intrusive markers and guided steps. Yet, the myriad of simple mechanics creates a comprehensive combat system which offers ample room for planning strategies and tactics to achieve victory. Therefore, the game notably achieved a simple to learn but difficult to master combat mechanic which made the game stay challenging and not outright impossible. This thus resonates well with the despair and anguish that the theme of the game tries to create.

Lastly, the technology of the game is more than sufficient. Although the game is entirely 2D, most of the combat mechanics are made more intuitive thanks to the 2D nature of the game. Without the need for 3D rendering, the game also benefited from quick load times, responsive gameplay and almost seamless progression throughout the dungeon. This offers the player no breaks from the grueling adventure. Thus, I felt that the technology used to create the game was both suitable and well justified.

It is not always a treasure

Lens of Surprise

The gameplay of the Darkest Dungeon revolves around bringing parties of adventurers to explore the horrors around the game world and eventually exploring and conquering the darkest dungeon in the end. However, besides the type of area and objective of the dungeon run, the game gives no additional information of the dungeon. It is up to the player to take the gamble to prepare what the player thinks to be sufficient to complete and survive the dungeon. Encounters within the dungeon are also randomly generated and even the “loot” in the dungeon are mostly complicated by a chance of a negative outcome. This constant element of surprise keeps the player on his toes as he would have to constantly analyze his choices and adapt to the ever-changing odds as he progresses through the dungeon.

Moreover, the monsters that lurks in the various dungeons are well varied and each new encounter is packed with surprises as the monster unleashes a new combat pattern which the player would be caught off guard by and must adapt to its strategy ad hoc.

The purposeful deny of information to the player is done adequately to maintain the surprise factor of each combat encounter and at the same time, not impair the player to the point where he is left to poke in the dark, with no ability of devising any form of strategy.

That moment when you want to rage quit

Lens of Balance

The Darkest Dungeon revolves greatly around the concept of chance. Strategies may fail if a series of unfortunate events happen to befall on the player and due to the long game length of around 80 hours, the player is bound of experience some of those occurrences of bad luck. As the game loves to stack the odds against the player, I feel that the player is always taking huge risks when making choices and is given no alternatives.

Since the game artificially raises the difficulty of the game by forcing the player to take risky gambles, I felt that the game was not well balanced. The Darkest Dungeon boasts many different adventurer archetypes and a fair bit of them are frowned upon due to their abilities relying largely on chance. That said, it could also be a deliberate design choice to introduce the element of uncertainty to the game, but I felt that it could have been better balanced.

He visits you in the worst occasions.

Lens of Imagination

The game stays true to the lovecrathian theme by presenting its own representation of the eldritch horrors the lurks throughout the realm of the Darkest Dungeon. Dungeons are occasionally littered with notes which serves as fragments of story about past adventurers and their mishaps. These notes sometimes foreshadow future monsters and events that would happen in the game but is sure to omit certain details to let the player’s imagination run wild before witnessing the horrors themselves.

Additionally, the game’s narrator would inform the player about the lore behind the realm with his excellent voice overs which adds plenty of flavor to the player’s own interpretation of the lore behind the game world.

There was never a shortage of obstacles.

Lens of the Obstacle

Lastly, the game goes all out to design obstacles for the player such that the game would remain ever challenging or worse regardless of whether the player had advanced far in the game. The game is designed such that highly experienced adventurers would refuse to take on easier dungeons. Additionally, adventurers who are stressed by the horrors of their previous dungeon would carry over, discouraging the player from bringing the same adventurer on consecutive dungeons. There are more complications introduced to the player and all of them ensures that the player would not have an easy time. Therefore, when the player completes a dungeon, he will always enjoy a huge sense of relief and this makes each dungeon run appear to be not as monotonous and repetitive as it would have been otherwise.

Game Analysis: Rise of the Tomb Raider

Overview:

Rise of the Tomb Raider (ROTTR) is a third-person adventure and action game released in 2016 on PC platform. As a continuation of the previous Tomb Raider 2013, players are to follow the heroine Lara Croft to explore ancient Byzantine tombs in Syria and ruins in Siberia, defeat enemies from a mysterious religious and military group Trinity and figure out the truth of her father’s sudden death and secrets of eternal lives. Players not only need to improve fighting skills and collect gears to slaughter the enemies and beasts, but also have to collect and make use of natural resources to survive in the vast forest. In addition, it also has a large part of content for solving puzzles along the way.

Official Website: https://www.tombraider.com/en-us

YouTube demo (2015 E3 Theater): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkFG6aoo21Y

My own gameplay experience:

I have played this game for over 60 hours prior to this assignment. I would analyze the game with respect to my experience and the lenses of games in the following parts.

Analysis through lenses of games:

Lens 9: The lens of elemental tetrad

Aesthetics

ROTTR uses vivid 3D modelling to make players immerse in almost realistic environment. The art design restores the Soviet camps, Byzantine towns and ruins very well, especially in terms of the artifacts, murals and posters. With the newly introduced weather system, the environment for gameplay has more variations.

Technology

With motion capture, characters in ROTTR have more vivid actions and facial expressions. Yet, with a higher graphic quality, the hardware optimization of ROTTR seems not as satisfactory as expected. Some scenes (eg. Soviet Installation) suffer from frame drop significantly.

Mechanics

The mechanics of ROTTR is quite simple: collect and craft items, solve puzzles and defeat enemies. Yet, the crafting system adds difficulty in terms of resource management and redesigned combat system adds more options for attacking, which extends third person shooting scheme.

Story

As introduced at the beginning, this story is more like an interim between the previous and the next. It formally introduces the villain, but the real culprit is still hidden behind. Through collecting documents and artifacts, the background is enriched during gameplay.

Despite the optimization, these four elements reinforce each other harmoniously to illustrate Lara’s adventure.

Lens 7: The lens of endogenous value:

Both resources and EXP are valuable to players of ROTTR.

Resources are essential for the player to survive in vast Siberia, especially at the first half of the game. The players have to collect natural resources from the environment to make/enhance weapons, especially poisonous arrows to kill bears, and cure themselves with herb and hand-made bandages during fighting. Depending on difficulty levels, players also have to collect wood to make campfire, for this is the only way to save their progress. This design makes resources essentially valuable to players.

EXP is more significantly to players at the second half, when there are many tough battles with strong enemies. During collecting resource and slaughtering enemies, players have chances to gain EXP to trade for Skill Point, so that they could make powerful weapons, increase physical resistance, etc.

Lens 38: The lens of challenge

The challenge of ROTTR mainly comes from resource management based on difficulty level.

In terms of toughness of battles, the game provides increasing challenges, in spite of fighting the boss, which seems a bit easier than the previous fight with helicopters.

Lens 4: The lens of surprise

The artwork of the game may astound the players during the gameplay, as some of the scenes are spectacular and largely approximate reality. The story’s tone is generally flat, but there are still a few plots beyond expectation.

There are also some hidden traps and plots that require some operative tricks, which could lead Lara to a sudden and brutal death and thus surprise the players.

It is also a great surprise for Chinese players to have a 3A game dubbing in Chinese.

Lens 27: The lens of time

Compared with the classic Tomb Raider series, ROTTR is no longer a linear game, but more like a sandbox game with a main story line and many other branch missions – exploring tombs, collecting artifacts and documents, complete branch missions and other hidden challenges.

This offers more flexibility and variety to the game, but can also spoil the game experience.

As a story-based adventure game, the main story seems a bit short as the players could be able to complete it in 15 hours. It is a bit hash for the players to fully feel the establishment of characters and enjoy the adventurous journey.

Yet, if the player aims for 100% collection, it might take him as much time as to complete the main story line, for the items are hard to spot and obtain. Players could feel bored for being a janitor in the game.

Although there is no time limit, Score Attack mode do encourage players to replay previous chapters as fast as they can to earn bonus points and compete with their friends. This is an effective approach to stimulate the players and make the game more exciting.

The game I am discussing is named Etherena.

I first played this many years ago, probably more than 10 years ago. The current version is not very different from that which I played back then, except for the sounds.

Link: http://www.mofunzone.com/games/etherena_beta.html

Youtube video demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_iFDLygzeE

This is a battle game, with 2 characters. Players can choose whether to play against the computer or play against their friends as a dual players game. For each level, try to defeat the opponent and defend yourself.

Elemental tetrad:

1. Aesthetic: this is a very simple 2D game. The landscape varies with each level. Though quite pleasing to the eye, the surrounding is static and looks quite peaceful. It would have helped bringing out the story line better if the environment looks more like an Armageddon, and better still if the characters and the landscape were moving. Nevertheless I personally had not much time to care about the surrounding while playing against the computer because it simply moved very fast. The animations of the attacks are quite smooth. I absolutely loved the music back then (I still remember the melodies of one of them until today). The songs are very energetic and put me in battle mood easily.

2. Story: at the beginning the players will be walked through a short story line of the world’s fragile beginning. Maybe more details will help – the roles of the 2 players with regards to the world’s vulnerabilities are clearly missing.

            The Intro’s full text: “The new world is beginning. But it’s not ready. Not yet.

3. Mechanics: each of the 2 characters has his/her own set of unique moves which makes it really fun. After playing for a few minutes, you start remembering each of their moves, which helps with strategizing. The responsiveness has been good ever since I first played the game a decade ago. There is no perceivable latency with a key press and the players move really fast. Players can jump, attack and shield themselves while at the same time repelling the opponent. The shield will break if held for too long. Players may fall down the cliffs or from tall buildings and lose some of their life force. Of course if they get attacked they will lose life force too depending on the strength of the attack. Players just keep on going until the opponent dies and level up, or until their character dies, in which situation they will replay the current level. Though I hardly make it up to the next level, from online sources there are currently 21 levels, and multiply by the combinations of characters played, you have the number of possibilities for different playing experience! You can even play against the same character as yours (Because why not right?).

4. Technology: Etherena is made with Flash. Flash is relatively simple to learn, and is optimal for making 2D games. That must be one of the reasons why Etherena is 2D and not 3D. Nevertheless it wouldn’t affect the amount of love this game has enjoyed because the interesting moves and beautiful landscape will get you addicted. Also, creating a multiplayer game in Flash is also notably challenging, hence Etherena is at most a versus game of 2 players.

Lenses:

1. Lens #49: The Lens of Punishments: Etherena employs a few punishing systems which keep the player moving: they can’t hold their shield forever because it will eventually break; shields only repel opponents instead of injuring them so players can’t always rely on it but have to attack; if players let their characters fall down to the cliff too often they will lose lots of life force etc.

2. Lens #42: The Lens of Simplicity/Complexity: The rules of Etherena is very simple. In fact, it can’t be more simple: fight till one of the players dies. In contrast to this, it seems that to the first users, the keys for the moves and attacks are quite counter intuitive – while the instructions say that the keys to move are the arrow keys, they don’t seem to work for the left character (which is the one users control in single player against computer mode) and instead, the keys A, D and W are used for left, right and jumping up. Attack keys are also quite all over the place. It would be easier if either there are instructions on the key mappings on the screen while playing or all the attacks are mapped to the same row on the keyboard.

3. Lens #49: The Lens of Visible Progress: I personally don’t see a lot of effort in this aspect of visible progress. Possibly because the plot is really simple and there are no rewards – for instance, tools to increase strength – other than defeating the other fighter. The transition from one level to the next has not much of a progressive change. The scenery changes and the number of chances to be hit decreases but that’s about all to it.

4. Lens #51: The Lens of the Pyramid : Again, there is no culmination to some ultimate goal like saving the world or something similar. Until now Etherena is still in “beta” stage and the story line doesn’t seem to evolve after each level.
5.  Lens #52: The Lens of the Puzzle : Players can’t win a level just by taking chances. They need to eventually figure out during a fight what combinations work best while in a certain position. It’s exactly this requirement of quick reflexes and thinking that give the users the sense of accomplishments when completing a level.

Overall, I think it is still amazing how the game has garnered so much love without an elaborate story line. From the start while playing it, I was too caught up with strategizing in each move my character and the opponent make, and too fascinated by the music, to even care if the story was evolving or not.

Left for Dead 2 (L4D2) is a First-person shooter game which is situated in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. The player will play 1 of the 4 survivors of the zombie apocalypse. The player will either use a gun or an object as their weapon of choice. Together with 3 other players, they will work together and make it through different zombie infested areas to get to safety.

Game link: http://www.l4d.com/game.html

Gameplay video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VGFVenmOVI

The Lens of the Elemental Tetrad

L4D2 was released in 2009, and it was one of the top games during that time. It was a sequel to Left for Dead (L4D), thus it retained many of L4D gameplay features. L4D2 can be run on the XBOX 360 and windows PC, which means the controls were easy to use, like most FPS games.

The game mechanics were rather simple (Basically just shoot zombies and survive till the end). Players arm their character with a weapon of choice, and get through hordes of zombies coming your way. Players are also equipped with a throwable item (such as a pipe bomb or Molotov) and 2 healing items. Each player must work together, and use resources wisely as they are hard to come by, which means that there is a certain strategy to get through each map. The map physics are also rather realistic; thrown items will fly though the air in an arc shape, or hitting an explosive gas tank will send zombies caught in the blast flying in the direction of the blast. One main mechanic of L4D2 is how the game generate enemies (zombies). The game uses an AI system that generates zombies randomly. This means that with each time you play a map, the zombies generated will be different each time, creating a “new” experience each time we play it.

The story of L4D and L4D2 are related, in which there are 4 survivors in each story. The 8 survivors eventually met in one of the maps and fought alongside each other. Each survivor in the story are complete strangers when they first met, but eventually will get to know each other (as seen from the conversions between characters during the gameplay).

The aesthetics of L4D2 is gloomy and dim (it’s a zombie apocalypse after all). Characters will be eventually covered in blood and dirt after trudging through hordes of zombies. The time and weather of each area is fixed however, but it still portrays the environment perfectly. The audio is also eerie, and overall fits the apocalyptic theme very well.

The Lens of Fun

The game is fun as the enemies in each map are randomly generated, thus creating a need for a different strategy each time a player plays it. Included in the game are hidden achievements as well, which prompts players to detour from the original game plan to complete these achievements as well. Thus which each instance of playing, the player will have a different experience of the game.

The Lens of Skill

The game is in real-time, which means fast reaction time is needed to play this game. Players must know how to counter certain zombies, know how to dodge or manoeuvre though enemies. Players must know which weapon is good for which situation, and know which route will allow them to reach the safe zone quickly. Some stages require all of the above mentioned skills to be completed. All these are skills that each player will learn after playing the game many times.

The Lens of Cooperation

L4D2 allows up to 4 players in a single game instance. Each player is essential to the progress of each map, and no one is able to complete the game on his/her own (zombies that can disable you). The resources in the game are also limited, thus each player must communicate on who needs the resources more etc. Thus this game encourages interaction between people. Each player must cooperate to help the whole team get to each safe zone.

The Lens of Challenge

Like most games, a game has to be challenging, if not who will play it? L4D2 is a simple shooter game, with the challenges being achievements and competition. Achievements are hidden actions or things in the game in which players can obtain by doing a certain thing. Some achievements are hard to obtain, while some are fun. Players has a sense of accomplishment if they are rewarded with a difficult achievement badge for example.

There is also a competition mode in L4D2, where 4 players play the survivor, and another 4 plays the zombies. The aim of the survivors are to get to the safe zone, while the zombies aim to stop the survivors from reaching the safe zone. This allow players to compete with each other in terms of cooperation and communication between players, whether they are playing as the survivors or the zombies.

DOTA2 (Originated from DOTA, Defense of the Ancient) is a multiplayer online battle arena video game. The game usually involves 10 players, who are to be divided into 2 teams. Each team member will cooperate together and destroy certain constructions on the map to win the game.

Website: http://www.dota2.com/700/

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cSFPIwMEq4

Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2pEBkB2-FA

Overview

From the year of 2012, DOTA2 holds world-class tournaments annually: The International (Ti). Last year, Ti6 had a price pool of 20 billion dollars and invited 16 teams from different regions around the world to compete with each other, which was really impressive. From the fact we could probably have a conclusion that DOTA2 is becoming one of the most successful MOBA games around the world. To answer the question why this game could win a large gamer population, I would like to provide some analysis.

Lenses and Reviews

Lens#32 The lens of meaningful choices

DOTA2 currently has 113 heroes and 148 items. During the game, some of the items have limited stock, players can choose to use money to buy back to game immediately after death, for each hero, when they reach certain level, they can choose either to upgrade one of the 4 skills or to select a path in talent tree. Such large number of variables make this game flexible and brings out a lot of choices: how to choose heroes that are can have nice combo, how to choose skills that would counter the opponents, how to select talent trees to enhance heroes’ abilities, whether to buy new item for the next battle or leave money for buy back… All those options need to be chosen wisely according to different situations on the battle field and all the choices are meaningful because they all lead the team to win.

Lens#30 The lens of Fairness

It would always be a question for MOBA games that how to balance items and heroes’ skills. In this case, we regard fairness as balance of the game play. However, for DOTA2 it seems that the game is well designed and balanced. Over 83 heroes appeared in the matches for over 10 times, which demonstrated that DOTA2 is now relatively well balanced; there’s no a group of heroes that dominates the game play. In addition, the map is also fairly designed: two part of the map share the same amount of resources so that players would have the same chance for farming.

Lens#3 The lens of fun

DOTA2 is fun. However, from my own experience, it’s fun is not only the game itself, but also the nature of the game. DOTA2 is a competitive game and a multiplayer game as well. Players would have the desire of winning and as they win the game, they would gain pleasure from the game play. In addition, people usually play the game together and just like basketball, players would develop close friendship through game. People would make fun of each other, help each other and encourage each other during the plays. “When losing, we analyze why we lost together. When winning, we share the pleasure together.” All these elements make DOTA2 a really fun game.

Conclusion

DOTA2 is currently one of the most popular competitive games in the world. It’s well-designed game rules and well developed graphics are attracting more and more player around the world. Now it also steps into the field of VR and tries to design new heroes. I sincerely hope that DOTA2 would be more balanced and better in the future.

osu! is a freeware rhythm game whereby players use a pointing device (such as a mouse or tablet) to manipulate gameplay elements (hit circles, sliders and spinners) in conjunction with the song’s rhythm, scoring points in the process.

Game link: https://osu.ppy.sh/

Gameplay video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPw4BdUc9l8

osu! is easy to learn, but difficult to master. The mechanics of osu! are very simple. There are only 3 basic gameplay elements that players need to interact with, namely hit circles, sliders, and spinners.

A hit circle must be clicked on when the ring surrounding it (called an approach ring) just touches the hit circle. If the hit circle is clicked too early (before the approach ring reaches it) or too late, the game will award less points to the player, depending on the difficulty setting. Musicality comes into play because the approach rings are designed to reach the hit circles in sync with the beats of the song being played. Therefore, players need a good sense of rhythm to be able to click on hit circles accurately.

Sliders are quite similar to hit circles except that they also have a body called a slider track. Not only must the player click on the hit circle, he or she must also slide the cursor along the body of the slider track all the way to the end of the slider, in order to score maximum points.

Spinners are gameplay objects whereby the player must spin the cursor around the centre of the spinner in order to gain points. The faster the player spins, the more points are awarded.

Beatmaps are comprised of the above 3 elements, as well as an accompanying song. Map creators carefully design beatmaps by placing hit circles/sliders/spinners in accordance with the rhythm of the music. Players can then play these beatmaps.

Lens of Essential Experience

By clicking on hit circles in conjunction with the rhythm of the music, I feel more immersed in the music, as compared to passively listening to the music. Moreover, there are thousands of beatmaps to choose from (beatmaps are created by the osu! playerbase and popular beatmaps quickly rise to the top), which also means that there are thousands of songs that players can listen to. Songs are categorised according to various criteria, such as genre, artist, length, and speed (beats per minute or BPM for short). These characteristics can have a profound impact on the immersion experienced by the player. For example, when I am playing a beatmap whose accompanying song has a high BPM, the beatmap could be comprised of many hit circles and sliders which require great speed and accuracy to click. This inspires excitement and adrenaline rushes within me, making me feel more immersed in the spirit of the fast-paced song.

Lens of Surprise

osu! is full of surprises because every day, many new beatmaps are created by the osu! playerbase, and each beatmap has a different configuration of hit circles/sliders/spinners. Hence, playing new beatmaps offers me a fresh, unique experience. Moreover, new beatmaps enable me to discover new songs that I like, songs that I otherwise would never have heard of. Over the years of playing osu!, I have accumulated a playlist of hundreds of songs that I enjoy listening to, ranging from video game soundtracks to J-rock. Many of these songs are produced by small, independent music producers that are obscured by the more popular, commercial music producers that are often found on the front page of youtube. Here is an example of a nice piece of music that I found through osu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIn4NK22CBs. Most people would not have heard of the artist, MiddleIsland, if they have not played osu!.

Lens of Fun

Closely related to the lens of surprise is the lens of fun. To me, fun is a combination of excitement and surprises. In this section I will focus on excitement. In order to spice things up, osu! offers a variety of game modes that players can choose from. For instance, the Hard Rock game mode makes things harder by making the hit circles smaller, as well as making the approach circles close in on the hit circles more rapidly, and so players must react more quickly in order to do well in this game mode. The Hidden game mode eliminates approach circles and makes hit circles disappear after a short time, requiring players to rely on good rhythmic sense and memory in order to be able to click the hit circles accurately. There are many other game modes available, and players can even choose a combination of game modes, such as Hidden + Hard Rock. The harder the game modes applied, the more points a player scores, incentivizing skilled players to play harder game modes. Moreover, players can compare their scores with other players worldwide, adding a further layer of competition and fun. In short, the variety of game modes adds plenty of excitement and fun to the game.

Lens of the Elemental Tetrad

This lens is worth discussing because osu! is unique in that it has absolutely no story. It is set out to be a rhythm game that can be played multiplayer, and it does exactly what it claims to be. This detracts from the book which states that each of the four elements are equally important to the success of a game. In my opinion, osu!’s success has in no way been diminished by the lack of story. Perhaps this is because osu! is not a story-based game, and has no need for a story. In fact, the other three elements have amply compensated for the lack of a story. The mechanics aspect of this game is strong because the gameplay revolves around just three basic elements – hit circles, sliders, and spinners, keeping the mechanics easy to understand and accessible to all players. Moreover, these gameplay mechanics are strongly enhanced by the aesthetics, as the hit circles/sliders/spinners are visually displayed on the screen, making them fully visual in nature. osu! also runs very fast and smoothly even on low-end computers, and this is no surprise because osu! is written in C# on the .NET framework, which is an excellent configuration for producing games that run efficiently. By using such technology, latency is kept low (especially important for rhythm games), and this in turn enhances the gameplay and mechanical aspects of the game (players can play fast-paced beatmaps without being hindered by latency issues).

Game chosen: Dark souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin

Game Description

Dark souls 2 is an action role-playing game. The game itself is predominantly single-player, with the addition of player vs player (Pvp) and coop elements at short intervals spread throughout the experience. Scholar of the first sin adds existing expansion maps to the game, making the story more complete. The game, being a role-playing game, allows players to customize their avatars extensively, as well as providing various ways to defeat bosses / monsters, which is ultimately the main focus of the game. The enemies offer challenge despite the player’s level; Dying in the game has been a main staple of the series, and a single misstep can be a costly one in terms of endogenous value with the experience.

Website: http://www.darksoulsii.com/us/

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

Lens #9: Elemental Tetrad Lens

Aesthetics (Excellent) – Game is aligned with the dark / undead theme as with previous titles, visuals are appealing and very detailed with regard to the environment. Character and Equipment design both fit the theme well but yet offering unique artistic directions, as in the case of unconventional armors. Audio is engaging, such as within boss battles, or the sudden ambush of an enemy.

Story (Okay) – Despite being called Dark souls II, the game has little semblance to the previous title in terms of story line. When I was playing the game, a personal opinion was that I did not care about the story. The game attempts to string together events from various non-playable characters (NPCs) in order to immerse the player more in the world. It works to a certain extent, though limited interaction with NPCs results in the dwindling of these connections as well.

Mechanics (Excellent) – Mechanics for this game can be divided into 2 broad categories, game system mechanics and combat mechanics. Game system mechanics such as the character progression, equipment progression, level progression in the multiple areas has been comprehensive and yet not overwhelming.

Combat mechanics are also very fluid, with various fixed weapon types for the player, and very interactive AI on the part of enemies, especially the bosses.

One very important mechanic that this game offers, is the loss of all souls when the player dies, dying can be as simple as falling off a cliff (environment hazard), and even mobbed by basic enemies. Because the enemies’ AI act independently, it introduces a slight randomness to the equation, which makes it more addictive to try again. The loss of souls makes death a lot more punishing, and increases its endogenous value.

Technology (Good) – Being also offered on the PC, it can be expected that it works moderately well with a mouse and keyboard, but the results are abysmal when faced with the challenge factor of the game. However, with a game-pad controller, it changes everything; It feels a lot more connected to the game world when the controls flow smoothly, and the controller reinforces that.

I don’t believe that story is integral in this game, the other 3 elements are very well implemented, except perhaps the native keyboard/mouse control issues.

The 4 elements work very well together in creating an AAA title that succeeds the previous one well,  improving on the existing tested and proven system.

Other Lenses chosen:

Lens #80: Lens of Help

The game offers a way of helping other players, which is in the defeating of bosses. Players can place down summon signs for other players to use to establish a connection. Depending on the helper’s alignment or “religion”, the helper can gain additional benefits for both of the involved parties for items that cannot be gotten from monsters. Besides helping other online players, helping NPCs will also advance their own story lines in the game, and in return, these NPCs will become summon-able by the player should help be needed in defeating hard bosses.

Lens #6: Curiosity

Right from the start, the game plants the player in an unfamiliar environment where he/she has to set off on a journey through the unknown land.The many weaknesses / varied drops each monster has also helps to place more ways the player can navigate through obstacles presented in the game; It becomes just a game by itself to collect equipment and upgrade them throughout the adventure. Pvp has also been a very important aspect, as the game calls it “invasion”; Pvp can happen at anytime, both self-initiated or not. This makes the game more unpredictable and fun.

Lens #40: Triangularity

The most striking instance of triangularity would be in the difficulty or monsters versus the amount of souls they possess. Because the player loses all souls upon death, this is a very cautious decision to make. There are also many other instances, such as traps that guard a chest (risk vs reward), chests that turn out to be mimics, shortcuts that are infested with monsters, optional areas that offer additional gear not obtainable anywhere else. This even includes pvp / coop, which are optional but can offer souls and other rewards. However there is a “religion” that makes the game difficulty twice as hard without offering immediate rewards, but rather prestige in terms of a leader-board.

Lens #73: Story Machine

In this game, the player has the option to kill NPCs, which can present changes to the story lines associated with these NPCs. The main story line ending is also affected by certain NPCs that the player helps / punishes along the way. But besides that, the game does not have much of a story to go about, players can tell “mini-stories” by writing messages on the ground which are transmitted to other players on the server. These are generic messages such as “Ambush ahead”, “Hurrah” etcetera.

Description

MapleStory is a free-to-play fantasy 2D-platformer MMORPG. In MapleStory, players can take on a role of a character and explore the Maple World freely. There are various things that players can do in-game, such as killing monsters for EXP, crafting equipment and potions, doing quests, participating in events, interacting with other players, etc. It has a lore revolving around a central figure, which they call the ‘Black Mage’, along with many other storylines which exists either in relation to the lore, or as independent regional-based storylines.

Website: http://www.maplesea.com/index

The Lens of The Elemental Tetrad (analysed by decreasing order of importance)

Mechanics: The presence of many in-game mechanics, such as party quests, bossing, item crafting, etc. mirrors the complexity of a world of free-exploration and player choice for an MMORPG.

Aesthetics: The graphics and music are designed such that they reinforce the fantasy aspect of the game.

Technology: Players get to control their character and access in-game options through various keys on their keyboard, thus reinforcing the concept of player control.

Story: This takes a bit of backseat since players get to decide, to a certain degree, whether they want to do quests or not. However, these quests reveal/supplement the game storyline if players do the quests, thus enriching the immersion factor.

All 4 elements combine to form a pretty-much-complete game that grants players plenty of free rein in-game.

The Lens of Emotion

The game generally gives off a happy vibe, but exploring the quests reveals some sad/tragic aspects of the Maple Lore that offers a twist on that happy vibe. This manner of making players ‘feel’ in the game could grant them more ownership of the game and enhance the immersive factor. Personally, I enjoy exploring the game storylines, thus I liked the way they approached this concept of emotions.

The Lens of Fun

The game offers many things that the player can do in-game, such as boss expeditions, party quests, participating in game events, crafting items, etc. However, despite their efforts to release new game content through new patches, the repetitive nature of certain mechanics in the new content causes the novelty to wear off. This is a primary reason for people I know who quit the game after playing it for some time.

The Lens of Fairness

Naturally, as an MMORPG, MapleStory is asymmetrical in terms of player power. However, there is a huge imbalance of player power, as only certain game content can be conquered by extremely strong players (which happens to be those who spend loads of real cash on in-game boosters). I find myself unable to participate in certain boss contents because of a variety of reasons relating to the imbalance in player power.

The Lens of Skill

Skill is demanded of players only in very tailored contents like party quests or killing a boss, since these involve unique and complex mechanics. Even if players initially lack the required skills, subsequent practice and in-game community guidance allows them to identify strategies on how to participate well in party plays or boss expeditions. Thus, any player can play the game with ease.

However, some bosses are made so insanely difficult, that even the appropriate level of skill MUST be accompanied by a high level of player strength to kill them.

The Lens of Economy

MapleStory has a complex economic system. There are 2 official game economies, which are ‘mesos’ and ‘@cash’. ‘Meso’ is the usual in-game currency, whereas ‘@cash’ is the currency that is purchasable in real cash, and is used to purchase things in the Cash Shop. In addition, they have ‘Free Markets’, where players can sell their wares to other players.

Its economy has largely spiraled out of control, since only players who spend ‘@cash’ can get and sell ‘godly’ items, that are worth A LOT, to other players. Thus, these players effectively dictate MapleStory’s economy. Furthermore, players can unofficially purchase ‘mesos’ or such ‘godly’ items with real cash, which worsens the state of the in-game economy.

Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris

Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris is an isometric-view single player, or online/offline cooperative play (up to 4 players) game set in the desserts of Egypt. The game immerses the player in arcade-shooting styled action sequences, where she/he fights creatures in the tombs, and puzzle solving sequences, which Tomb Raider games are famed for.

Website: https://crystald.com/projects/lara-croft-and-the-temple-of-osiris

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIcmQgUVMY8

Elemental Tetrad

Mechanics

• Arcade-shooter and puzzle solving game, survival and overcoming obstacles essential to game progress
• Puzzles vary with the number of in-game players, the level of challenge increases with the number of players, i.e. each puzzle has 4 variants
• Players are able to wield a variety of weapons, discover artefacts which contribute to player statistics and characteristics, and collect gems to compete in level scoreboards and ranking with other players of the game
• Aim of each level is known through clear storytelling, and goal of each level contributes to the finale of the game

Story

Lara Croft is plunged into a mission to retrieve the bodily remains of the Egyptian sun god Osiris to defeat Set – the god of darkness, when a rival treasure hunter and her cursed themselves after displacing the Staff of Osiris, freeing the enemy.

The story progresses as players gather parts of Osiris, with interferences from in-game enemies and Set, and puzzles for obstacles. Each part contributes to the finale where Osiris is resurrected, and steers the game to its final battle sequence with Set.

Aesthetics

• High-angle isometric perspective gives the game a “god’s eye” depth-of-field, framing the gameplay to make it feel vast, and effectively exhibiting the impressive architecture of the game
• Playable weapons such as pistols, grenades and magical staffs, give a different feel and experience to the players. Pistols and grenades when triggered displays the usual bullets and explosions, while the magical staffs emit a bright beam the vaporises the enemy.
• Game has an overall earthly colour scheme to create the impression of tomb raiding, and bright lights and colours when engaged in combat or puzzles

Technology

The game is arcade-shooter styled, creating a engaging experience especially in cooperative mode. The game is playable on the PS4 and XONE, narrowing the gameplay experience to controller gaming.

Lenses and Reviews

Lens #6: The Lens of Problem Solving

The game immerses players in literal problem solving – puzzles, and survival. Problem solving can be more challenging if players opt to accomplish optional goals. The game generates different puzzles with respect to number of players, creating level variants. In favour of game design.

Lens #31: The Lens of Challenge

The gameplay comprises shooter, survival and puzzle solving. Challenges are overcome differently at variable difficulties based on playable character (e.g. Lara wields pistols while Horus wields a magical staff), and puzzles and its difficulty changes with the number of players. In favour of game design.

Lens #40: The Lens of Reward

The game instead of rewards only offers achievement of the goal at the end of the level, and few in-game wieldable items at certain stages. Rewards could be given out more to create an alternate more engaging gameplay to entice players to undertake optional tasks. As of current game can we played similarly with or without given rewards. Against game design.

Lens #66: The Lens of the Obstacle

The game’s objective is to defeat the antagonist through a series of puzzles and combat sequences. The storytelling ties the player to the antagonist and goal of the game. The obstacles increase in difficulty and new enemies and introduced as the game progresses. In this game, the antagonist appears in smaller forms throughout the gameplay and as a massive (literally) final boss in the finale. In favour of game design.