Religion in games

This was something that Kris put forward in class the other day that there is actually a lot of religious imagery in games.  At first to be honest I didn’t know what Kris was on about I mean I would of said there isn’t that much religion in games. But then I began to think about it and started to realise that there is actually a lot of religious aspects to games. The first thought that came to mind was the first assassins creed game where the whole game was based around the crusades. Then there was medieval total war where again you could fight in the crusades. Next thing you know im seeing religious themes in every game even in first person shooters where the enemy wearing turbans etc. To where your NPC teammate in the game is praying. When you sit back and look at it religion is everywhere in games. Even in the game oblivion which is set in a fictitious world you play the chosen warrior to help stop oblivion which is very much like Hell. You even go to a temple in the mountains to meet monks in the game. Know that you look at it there is religious themes throughout games. It would make you think how much influence this is having on people of a different religious background. A lot of the themes you see in games are based around Christianity with some influences from the Islamic culture as well. But let say  I was Hindu or Buddhist playing these games surely that is going to have a huge influence on me even if I am not aware of the religious theme. But at the same time if we made it s there is no religious themes in games it would be very hard to make any game realistic. I think this is an area that more study needs to be done in. It is definitely something you dont here many people talking about when they talk about games but it is an area that we should be talking about.

Gamespace is it important

Gamespace or Gameworld or all the other names out there for the space that the player is playing in. Is the gamespace that important to a gamer? I would put it to you that the gamespace is a huge deciding factor on whether a game does well or becomes the bottom of the barrel. Like discussed in class tha it takes literally a couple of seconds for us to determine whether we like the game space or not and for game developers that means their whole livelihood is determined in a couple of seconds. I know myself from my own experience with games the number of games iv picked up and with in a few seconds I hated them. If you take a lot of the most succesful games out there like call of duty and Metal Gear Solid they tend to pull off the visual appeal very very well. My thoughts are currently flying back to one of the last levels in metal gear solid 4 where there was so much snow falling around you that you could barely see where you were going then all of a sudden you would come upon an enemy. You can’t but love that sort of visualisation even if you are not interested in games you could at least appreciate the level of detail in the game. The other visual im thinking of is the new call of duty with the level as one of my classmate put it “the level with the rain in it”  There is a fantastic level in the multiplayer game of call of duty where as my classmate put it there is rain. But the word rain is an understatement the level is based around a storm drain where you as the player see water rushing down this huge open drain as you fight your way up it. But as well as that you can here the ting of metal as rain bounces of the burnt out cars around you.  The effort, time and level of detail that goes in to the design of the gamespace these days is phenomenal. But there is a clear reason for this as gamers we are getting more and more picky about our games and if you want your game to do well you have to put in the detail. The amazing thing is that as graphics and consoles get better who knows how detailed games will become.  Game design is an art form and it is one that is growing into the mainstream. Give it twenty years you will probably have a gaming section in museums around the world all trying to get there hands on that last remaining copy of those old favourites we ruined as kids :).

Business Plan

The following were the ideas we came up with for the business plan. Wii martial art game this was an interactive training game designed to teach people how to develop proper techniques for martial arts. Cloud Gaming for Developing middleware for multiplayer games based on peer-to-peer networks. Confectionary design website an interactive website that allows customers to design their own cakes and biscuits. This is especially useful for weddings. Iphone application the screen saver is a still pool of water when the iphone is moved the water moves aswell. Operating system UI Design the special user interface for the different operating system. For example, people could have a mac interface on windows. For our business plan we decided to do cloud gaming developing middleware for multiplayer games based on peer-to-peer networks.  This software would be marketed at game development company’s. The idea of the software is to allow for cheaper online gaming by reducing the use of server farms. The software works similar to that of file sharing methods such as torrenting. Each player would host part of the game world so that way the game developers do not need to have large dedicated server farms to host the game for the player as the game doesnt have to be hosted by servers. For the business plan I worked on coming up with the financial cost of producing the software as well as the customer description.  To work out how much money we would need to start the company I worked out firstly how much money would be required for paying for programmers and how much money we would need for software and equipment to start the business. The final figure was €150,000. €120,000 was for the programmers and €30,000 was for the software and equipment needed. I then worked out how much money we would expect to make in the first, second and third year of the business. The whole team worked very well together on this business plan and ideas seemed to flow freely throughout the project.

Ethical questions in regard to Games

I will have to thank Joe Griffin for inspiration for writing this post I think. What can you say when it comes to the whole area of ethics and the game industry. When you look at all the violent games out there it would make you wonder do these game creators have any moral compass what so ever. But when you take a step back and look at things you begin to realise that a lot of the games that people say should be banned etc. are developed simply to cause controversy just because it makes lots of money. That been said does it mean that because the game developers made the game to be purposely unethical does that mean then that the game dont have any ethical implications because they knew it was going to be unethical to begin with. What I think is the real ethical question here is that because the mass media condemn a game we as gamers then  all run out and by the game. Does that mean that the real unethical ones are the gamers themselves and not the game company’s as all the game company’s are doing is doing exactly what the masses want them too. So is it that all gamers are unethical and are all raging against the machine. No I don’t think so some how going on my own opinion and that of my classmates and friends who are all gamers i would say that alot of the time these controversial games are bought because usually they are actually fantastic games and you could say one of the reasons they are so fantastic is they test our moral compass to the latter. I would like to hear some comments on this one so please throw some my way.

My Ideal Job

What would I consider my ideal job? This is probably something that every fourth year student is thinking about at the moment as they realise that there about to enter a new realm of working. The first thing that would be important for me to have that perfect job would be to work for myself or to be my own boss. The other important thing would be that I wouldn’t consider my perfect job work. If im in my ideal job then it’s obviously going to be something that I am passionate about and want to jump out of bed in the morning for.

But the big question is what that perfect job would be. In my heart of hearts I feel at the present moment in time my ideal job would involve me running my own game company. Where I would have complete creative control over the games and ideas my company would create.

One of the biggest role models I would have would be Hideo Kojima (Hideo’s Blog) the creator of the metal gear solid series. This game was one of the big influences in my life and really pushed me towards a job in the game industry. Hideo Kojima took an idea that has being done to death by Hollywood, the idea that one man can save the world but instead of it being the boring rehash of a Hollywood action movie he actually made one of the most amazing games even though the idea was basic.

The game itself seems at first simple but in fact is one of the greatest game stories ever created. The games storyline is really in-depth the game play draws you in to the point where you don’t blink for fear of missing something. Even the music that was used for the game adds to the overall story. It is this way of thinking, taking a basic concept and turning it into something amazing that impresses me the most about Hideo Kojima. He is and always will be a key example on how I would like my games company to work in the future.

The other influences that I would like to model my own success on would be Thomas Hertzlerand and Lothar Schmitt. They are the founders of Blue Byte (Blue Byte website) a German company that created The Settlers game series. There second game Settlers 2 was one of the first games I had ever played on the computer. The game was basic in the sense that the main idea was to create a town and expand it until eventually it’s a striving city.

Unlike other games of this genre of the time they created it so that every person in your town played a key role. For example if you made one of your townsfolk a logger he would then need to bring your logs to sawmill.  You then had to go and make one of your towns people work in the sawmill. The same went for food if a farmer grew pigs then they had to then be taken to a butcher. The big aspect of the game that made it differ from others was it wasn’t based on you winning because you had the biggest army. It was more because you had established the most structured and successful town which was a very good idea. 

I could probably go on for hours and hours talking about the thousands of different games I played and who created them etc but I decided that the three people above were probably the most influential as they shaped the way I would like to work. My ideal job would be to own a game company that created games that pushed the boundaries and thought outside the box rather than following convention.

Assignment 3 Community I am a member of

I am an active participant of the Arma2 modding community. A modding community is where a person or group of people create extra content for games that are already made and then release the content for free usually. I have been a member of the Arma2 modding community for nearly four years now. I joined it at first to see what kind of mods people were working on etc. Now I give a lot of feedback to MOD creators and have done some beta testing for a couple of mods. To do the beta testing you basically download the new content the other people have created and then play test it if you find a bug or a problem you then let the creator know on the Arma2 forum page or sometimes they will set up there own test feedback website. I am currently working on my own MOD for Arma2 as part of my FYP and will be releasing this to the public at the end of may 2010. I have also set up a Facebook group to try and get Arma2 modders living in to get in touch with one another as well as being a place where new modders can come and ask questions. Here is a link to the Facebook page here . This is the link to the main Arma2 community forums that I am a member of here and this is where I give most of my feedback from testing as well as giving idea suggestions for new and existing MODs

Rules and why we love them :)

If there is one thing humans strive at it’s the creation of rules. this can be seen in every online game that you play. an example would be if you look at games like star wars galaxies or world of warcraft these games allow the player to engage in a large open world. you would think in theory that if you allow players this large degree of freedom the game would turn into complete anarchy. but instead we see the players creating their own rules in these online communities. why is this? does this show that even though we are given the option in these games to do the opposite of what society teaches us we still manage to socialize and follow rules that we do in real life. sure this is not identical to real life, i mean, we all dont get into light saber battles every day with each other. but even when people take part in these kind of battles between each other there is still respect between the players. just like in real life the gloaters in these games lose the respect of their fellow players. so what can we say about this? even in games such as: The Battlefield Series where your sole purpose is for one team to destroy the other there was still rules created between the opposing teams. where the players of the enemy team were not allowed attack their enemies main spawn base in fact this was called spawn killing. this brought about a large fairness to the game that wouldnt even be followed in the real world. suggesting that players prefer to win fairly than having to resort to dirty tactics. so when it comes down to it even if we created games that were completely open where every decision was in the players hands you would still see a large social community developing where most people respected one another and obeyed the rules. but like in real life you probably would have a small amount of people who would like to cause chaos in these worlds. of course this is my own opinion speaking from my own experiences im sure other people have different views and i would be happy to hear them. So please comment! 🙂

Final Year Project ARMA 2 MOD creation

This is my latest project that I am working on. I am doing this project for my final yea of college. This project is the creation of a brand new MOD for the game Arma2. This project involves the use of 3D modelling software to create new vehicles characters and weapons for the game. It also involves the use of scripting and programming to create new scripts and interactions for the player in the game. I am also creating new levels, videos and voice overs for the game to add a complete new feel to the game. I picked this project for my Final Year Project to get as much experience i can in the creation of 3D models, game scripts and overall game design. Below is a screenshot of some level design in the editor.

Oblivion Vampire MOD

This proect I did in my third year of college.  The idea of the project was to create a new MOD for the game oblivion. This MOD was basically the creation of new content for the game including a new island, new houses, new storyline, new scripts and new dialog. This project was developed using the construction set for the game. We worked in a group of four for this project and created a MOD that basically saw the player coming to an island which has become infested by vampires and the player then has to save the remaining people of the island and unlock new weapons. The project did very well and we received an A2 for the project and also learned good team work skills and experience in designing games.

Picture of the construction set used.

Screenshot from the MOD running in game.

Genuts Recycling Project

This was a game that I developed in second year with two of my colleagues. We used the Genuts api for Java to develop a game that would promote recycling. The game was called Veeto trash time. Thew idea of the game was the player would play as a robot called veeto and the goal of the game was to collect trash while avoiding the evil enemies who were trying to stop you from cleaning up the trash. The idea of the game was to try and teach younger players to pick up trash and encourage recycling. The game was all programmed in java and using features of the Genuts Api. This was my first experience in the creation of games through Java.

here is a photo of the background for the game

and here is an image of the robot used