Blog Task 13 - Remediation

Remediation is using media in another typer of media such as a digital version of monopoly.

Immediacy - Making the audience forget they are watching a movie because they think they are there

Hypermedia - Making the audience call attention to their nature

It is not completely uncommon to find something that has been Remediated across almost all types of media a prefect example of this is the lord of the rings trilogy they started as a book then turned into three books those then turned into audio tapes, games, and movies.

Blog Task 10 - Games Britannia Part 3 - Joystick Generation

In Games Britannia part three we saw how Britain made a historic leap from board games to digital games it started off by showing us games like pac man as these games captured digital gaming very well. The show then goes on to tell us about females in games such as Lara Croft the main protagonist from Tomb Raider. In the final part of the show it went on to present day games.

I found this part of Games Britannia to be the most interesting as i prefer digital gaming to non digital.

Blog Task 9 - La Decima Vittima

We watched a film called La Decima Vittima which was based on assassins. In this film people could get a license and eventually a picture and name of a target that they had to kill, i found the film to be idiotic and incredibly pointless as it all led up to the tenth victim of the two killers and whichever assassin got the kill got the money.

However this movie did inspire what could only be called the most ingenious game ever this game is called Killer in this game a group of people will be assigned a victim to "kill" the assigning of a victim can be done in many ways one of which is by choosing a name or picture of the person from a hat, despite the name of this game it is actually quite harmless this game is best played with friends.

Once you have your victim you then have to "kill" them this can be done in any non-lethal way using anything non-lethal such as a pillow, wooden  mixing spoon or a spatular there are many more items but these are the only ones that came to my mind. 

Blog Task 8 - Tweaking Ancient Games

We were set an assignment which was to pick and iterate an ancient game of our choice.

I chose The Royal Game of Ur and after playing the game i had concluded that the game was far to long for player to be able sit through more than one game because the player had to land exactly on the last tile to get off the board and the board also had rosette square which when you landed on the rosette you were safe and could not be taken by another player, so in an attempt to speed the game i changed both of these rules my first change was that you no longer had land exactly on the last square to get your piece of the board and that when you land on a rosette you can choose to roll again or stay their and remain safe i found that this really sped up the game and made the game a lot more enjoyable as people were no longer leaving pieces on the rosette square so it was safe.

Blog Task 7 - British Museum Trip

I didn't go on this trip due to lack of funds

Blog Task 6 - Going Cardboard

We watched a show called going cardboard this show was about how board games had become a very important part of peoples lives.

Here is the Synopsis from IMBd:

In 1978, the German press and board game makers created the Spiel des Jahres, or 'Game of the Year' award for excellence in board game design. Competition for this award contributed to an explosion in the variety and sophistication of 'Euro-games.' With the arrival of The Settlers of Catan in the United States in the mid-nineties, more people began to discover the new breed of board game that had been quietly evolving in Germany for the past 30+ years.

Designer board gaming is an up and coming hobby made up of many fascinating facets. Going Cardboard helps make newcomers aware of what they've been missing, while at the same time letting hobby enthusiasts hear from the actual designers responsible for some of their favorite games, and a look behind the scenes at what makes the designer board games industry tick.
Source: IMDb website, link - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2229165/

I found this show to be very surprising because i wasn't aware of just how into board games some people are the most surprising part of the whole documentary to me was when the people started talking about how many board games they had one person said that they had a very small amount of board game but the amount they owned was actually in the hundreds and one person made this mans collection actually seem small when the couple said "we are actually behind on our inventory but it's some around 11.000 - 11,500" this couple had actually cleared out a room just for their board games. Other than the absurd amount of board games some people had I was very surprised to learn that Germany hosts the largest board game convention where people from all over the world go to this convention to see what board games are there and to play other people at their favourite games.

Blog Task 5 - Dicing with Destiny - Games Britannia - Monopolies and Mergers

In the second part of Games Britannia showed us a how the board games we all play now came to be, we saw very early examples of what would become known as monopoly. I noticed that a lot of external goings on influenced the games being made, most notably was WW2 and monopoly even though they have no connection with each other the game of monopoly must have saved many lives as it used to have a map on the back and real money to help POW's escape.

I also found that monopoly originated from a game called brer fox and rabbit or more commonly known as the landlords game in which the whole aim of the game was to e the player with the most money and land, after researching this game i found out some thing which i thought was a little odd this was that Elizabeth Maggie the creator of the game wanted children to play this game in the hopes that it might provoke their suspicion and that they would carry this suspicion into adulthood I thought this was odd because most games don't tend to do things like this

Blog Task 4 - Bibliography

As part of my course I have been asked to provide a bibliography of some of the books i have read and using a Harvard style of referencing.

Schell,J (2008) The art of game design: a book of lenses. Amsterdam; London: Morgan Kaufmann.

Brathwaite,B. and Schreiber, I. (2008) Challenges for game designers. Boston: Charles River Media/Cengage

Kline, N, 2014. Doom: Scarydarkfast is a Book You Need [Review], Geekadelphia. [ONLINE] Available at http://www.geekadelphia.com/2014/01/03/doom-scardarkfast-is-a-book-you-need-review/. [Accessed 22 February 2014]

Blog task 3 - Games Britannia - Dicing With Destiny

A little while ago we watched the first episode of Games Britannia This series will provide me with information about the history of games, particular board games, and how they were played.
The first part of the series went on to tell us about ancient games such nine men's morris, and chess. These games were not simply played just for fun the were played because of their strategical benefits.
A good example of this is chess, this game is played for fun but is a very strategic game and is represents war, for example in chess you have to move you pieces around the board whilst defending your king and also taking your opponents pieces to open up a path to take their king.
the presenter then goes on to talk about a game called pharo which was very popular among the upper classes this was probably due to the fact that the upper classes had more disposable income and could afford to lose money.
The game of Pharo involved a lot of cheating from both the layer and and the banker which is probably why it was it got banned in france, Pharo has three names the English called it Pharo the French called it Pharaon and the Americans called it faro it also went by two other names which were "bucking the tiger" and "twisting the tiger's tail" these names came about because of the picture of a bengal tiger on the back of the cards people started to hang a picture of a tiger in their window to let people know they playing Pharo.
The presenter then went on to talk about games from foreign countries such as snakes and ladders, and ludo. the game of snakes and ladders is of hindu origins and depicts the journey of enlightenment.

Blog Task 2 - Paidea and Ludus Games

Newman, Author of the book, What Is A Video Game?, refers to a French sociologist,when describing games as Paidea and Ludus.

Paidea -effectively means playing for pleasure.

Ludus - refers to being constrained by rules where there is a clear winner.

there are also four other terms to define specific games under Paidea and Ludus.

Agon - competition games

Alea - games that involve chance/randomness

Ilinx - games that involve movement

Mimicry - games that are simulation, make-believe or role play

Here is a table that shows some games that fall under each of the four terms

	Paidea	Ludus
Agon	Battlefield 4	NBA 2K14
Alea	Terraria	Chess
Linx	Sims	Metal Gear Solid
mimicry	Star Wars The Old Republic	Need for Speed

Battlefield 4 - Is a highly competitive action/fps game and without a doubt it easily falls under the category of Paidea as you are not constrained by rules like in other game, for example there is no order you have to kill your enemies or certain way you have to kill them, you just kill them however you see fit

NBA 2K14 - Is a highly competitive basketball game and easily falls under ludus as the rules of the game cannot be changed you have to play the game according to the rule set and no matter how good you are at the game or how high up in the leader-boards you are you must play according to the rules.

Terraria - This game is a 2d open world builder this game allows the player to play at their own pace this game is centred around exploring and allows the player to explore as much or as little of the game as much as they like, Terreria's chance/random aspects are forever present as you could be digging down to search for gold but instead you find that you have dug into cave full of enemies

Chess - is undoubtedly confined to strict rules not only does the game have its own rules but so do the pieces such as how far they can move what direction they can/can't move, the idea of the game is to move your piece's around the board in order to capture your opponents pieces and preventing the other players king from moving this is called checkmate

Sims - is a movement game in which you control the characters lives you tell them wheat to do and where to go, you move them around as they build houses and construct families

Metal Gear Solid - the metal gear solid series is widely know and respected for its movement in games in relation to its stealth mechanic, the plauer must move around the game area whilst hiding from the hostile npcs, the player is restricted by rules suchas the player must get from A to B and in some cases the player must do this without getting spotted

Star Wars The Old Republic - is an mmo (massively multilayer online) game. In this game the player creates their own character in terms of allegiance (republic or empire), race, appearance, class once this is done the player can complete quests as the see fit there are optional quests and main story quests the player does not have to complete quests in any set order (except for main story quests) but they are free to play and roam around as they see fit. 

 
Need For Speed - is a racing game in which you race famous cars around different tracks, the player is restricted by the rules the main rule that the player has to follow is usually to come first