How The Impermanence Of Online Games Both Mirrors The Human Lifespan And Gives It Meaning: A Study Of How Cyberspace Occupies Time Through The Lens of Retired Online Gaming Platforms

As human beings, we have the pleasure and curse of occupying a relatively short amount of time within the existing timeline as we know it; from the moment we are born, we can make the fair assumption that we will live anywhere from 0-122 years old based on all prior recorded human lifespans. We can live comfortably knowing that no matter what we do, eventually our time on this Earth will end. We can leave remnants of our existence behind in the form of art, history books, nuclear waste, and to be more abstract our loved ones’ memories, but as far as we know there is no way to immortalize our existence. Art erodes, history books burn, nuclear waste decays, and families forget. No matter how much time we individually occupy, which I’ll define as any period of time that is touched by any result of one’s own existence so I don’t unnecessarily limit the impact a human life can have, a single human cannot have existed within our timeline from the beginning of time to the end of it. Some may argue that religious human figures such as Adam and Eve break this logic if they existed and are still known of today, but to that, I would argue that even before those first humans, time marched backward–for at least five days according to the original source text (The Bible). For those who are of a different belief, or are not religious, I would emphasize that there has always been a time before humans: whether it be a time of dinosaurs or a time of cosmic energy. Given all of the logic above, it is safe to say that we, as individual humans, occupy a subsect of time. If you give me three minutes of your short subsect of time, I’d love to tell you a bit about why I believe that just as we are allotted time to exist on the ultimate timeline, online games are allotted time to exist on the internet. Then, after that, if you give me one more precious minute, I’ll tell you a bit about how the impermanent nature of these video games should teach more about how we view our own lives and impact.

Part One: A Brief History of My Own Experience With Retired Online Games

Poptropica is an online role-playing game that was first released in 2007. It operated using Adobe Flash Player until 2020, when it was briefly retired before being reprogrammed to run with Haxe. In the transition, many of the original gameplay aspects were lost, but players could still access them using a Flashpoint work around or the Steam download of the game (with a few server issues). However, in 2024, with CoolMathGames’s acquisition of Poptropica, the Steam download has been rendered largely inoperable, and many of the old aspects of the gameplay have been lost outside of Flashpoint.

Two weeks ago, I was feeling a bit nostalgic for my childhood back in the late 2000’s (do you feel old yet because I do), and I wanted to visit my childhood gaming website: Poptropica. As I remembered it, the site was a beautiful Oasis in my elementary school computer lab where my after school care friends and I would congregate to solve puzzles located on in-game islands in order to unlock different achievements and mini-games. My favorite island, and one I can still remember every step to solving to this day, was Reality TV Island, where you could follow a sequence of steps as your character to effectively apply, get accepted to, and compete in a Reality TV show. Obviously, still on that nostalgia kick, I immediately went to look for that island after logging into my old account. What did I find? Nothing. A big empty space where the island was supposed to be located on the map. My hopes and dreams for reliving my childhood were crushed. Needless to say, I was more than a little upset, but this got me thinking: how many games has something like this happened to? I knew of Club Penguin, which was another of my childhood games that was recently retired, but I didn’t know of the over sixty online games that had gained a cult following online before being shut down. This list includes, but is not limited to, Marvel Heroes 2016-a free MMO released in 2013 and shut down in 2017, Firefall-another MMO released in 2014 and shut down in 2017, and Spark City World-an MMO geared towards girls released in 2008 and shut down in 2017.

An interesting pattern you may have noticed was that all three of the games I listed shut down in 2017. This is not the result of me manipulating data and only showing you games that shut down in 2017 on purpose, as the games I selected were entirely random. A better explanation, however, is that Adobe Flash Player was deprecated in 2017, rendering many online games that relied on the software as good as dead, as there was no chance for players to emulate them on their own machines. In a matter of months, due to a corporate decision, the lifecycles of these games within the timeline of the internet were officially ended. To make this concept a bit easier to understand, I’ll employ an analogy that helped me wrap my own head around the idea of relative time: humans are to the ultimate timeline as a game is to the section of the ultimate timeline that the internet takes up. Therefore, when an online game hasn’t existed for the entirety of the time the internet has existed, that game mirrors the temporary nature within the timeline of the internet that humans have within the ultimate timeline. If you’re a keen reader, which I know you are, you may take my examples of retired games and argue, “If you could find information about them on the internet, then their lifespan hasn’t ended yet.” To that I say, first of all you have a great point, but second of all you’ve got to think a little bigger. Think back to before the game existed-the game’s lifespan certainly doesn’t extend to the first ever instance of the internet, as the internet was originally created to house and parse raw data. Then, think to the future. If these games could be deleted because the software they relied on for the backend was given up on, the same can be said for every website that houses an article written about those games, as well as every website that houses a video, and every website that houses any information about it whatsoever. These games, therefore, are not immortal within the timeline of the internet, just as we humans are not immortal and all-existing within our own, ultimate timeline.

Part Two: Why We Should Care That Online Games Are As Temporary As Human Life

A representation of a wormhole, which Forbes uses to link to the possibility of time travel. For our purposes, it’s best to think of humans as at the very least occupying contiguous time. With our current scientific knowledge, for something to happen in the future, it must have happened in the past. For our theory, this means that the human who caused something in the future would occupy all of the time from when they started the future event to when the future event happens, as it happens as a result of their existence.

The fact that these games are not permanent will effectively allow us as humans to experience the games within the time of the internet as if we were the ultimate timeline experiencing humans. In the same way that we view these games as just a glimpse of an event within our lives, we are a glimpse of an event within the ultimate timeline. Nevertheless, just as the games were well-loved, fostered connections, and were entertained within their brief time allotted within the time of the internet, us humans are well-loved, connected, and entertaining within the time of the ultimate timeline. It is in this comparison that the main reason we should care as humans is revealed: no matter how short our allotment of time within the ultimate timeline, we can still make an impact on those who have the pleasure of perceiving the time we occupy. Just as we are impacted by perceiving the limited lifespan of the games, the ultimate timeline is impacted by perceiving the limited lifespan of humans. What we do may seem insignificant or small relative to such a large amount of continuous time, but if online games can make an impact within the timeline of the internet despite occupying such a small amount of it, us humans can do the same with the ultimate timeline. By recognizing that these games have limited time, we can hopefully become more comfortable ourselves with our own limited time, knowing that it can have an impact. I can only hope that through the lens of ultimate time I am as loved, cherished, and important as Poptropica is to me and the internet.

With love,

Lizzie

Sources:

Poptropica Picture: linked here ; Human Lifespan: linked here ; Retired Online Games Reference Buzzfeed: linked here ; More Retired Online Games: linked here ; Poptropica History: linked here ; History of the Internet: linked here ; Spacey Picture: linked here

NieR: Automata: a discussion of video game sound effects design

Game Poster of NieR: Automata

There always comes a time when I’m playing a game and feeling a bit labored, so I put down my gamepad and just watch the game screen for a brief rest. However, one game happened to hit me out of nowhere at that exact moment. When I first stopped in NieR: Automata, I felt a powerful soundstage surround me, not just for its excellent soundtrack but as a combined experience of the different layers of sound in the game. In this blog, I’m not going to talk about Studio Platinum’s excellent action and fight design or the philosophical ideas that Taro Yokoo wanted to discuss. However, instead, I’m just going to talk about its soundtrack and sound effects, how it affects the potential for interactivity in the medium of video games as game development technology continues to evolve, and what considerations are made for sound effects design.

NieR: Automata is an ARPG video game released in 2017, developed by Platinum Studios and published by Square Enix, whose story revolves around a proxy war between robots created by aliens and robots created by humans. The music in Nier was arranged by Keiichi Okabe and his team at Monaca, and Platinum Studios used real-time processing of the audio in the game to achieve unprecedented effects. The following technical discussion comes from Platinum Studios member Shuji Kohata’s technical presentation at the Game Developers Conference 2018, please check out the presentation, which includes a number of compelling live demos.

Spatial-based real-time sound effects

For large-scale games like NieR: Automata, which include open-world elements, players exploring different areas within the game is undoubtedly one of the key gameplay elements. And the Platinum Studios team realized powerful spatial audio effects through two technologies: spatial audio technology independent of the output device (simple 3D) and interactive reverb technology (K-verb).

Among these, simple 3D is a spatial audio processing technique that does not depend on the sound output hardware and is designed to enable the player to be aware of objects behind them using only stereo sound. Audio differentiation is accomplished by adjusting the sound source’s volume based on its position, increasing or decreasing its high and low frequency components, and responding to objects behind it with bandpass filters. Interestingly, Shuji Kohata and his colleagues manually adjusted this set of techniques by comparing the audio of a stereo in front of Kohata and one behind Kohata. K-verb refers to a real-time reverb technique (named by Shuji Kohata himself) based on the position of the game character and the size of the surrounding space. By shooting ranging rays in multiple directions from the character’s position and calculating the size of the space around them, the duration of the audio reverb is controlled, resulting in a spatial audio effect that is dominated by the character rather than the player’s point of view.

K-verb: rays shooted on surrounded areas as balls

Real-time sound effects based on game mechanics

Hacking into enemy robots is an essential part of the gameplay. This is where the player enters a shooting mini-game to simulate the process of hacking into other machines. And based on this gameplay, the Platinum Studios team developed a unique audio filter that doesn’t rely on the 8-bit version of a specific track but instead 8-bitizes the current audio through software to achieve smooth overdubs and adjustability of the 8-bit effect. Secondly, like many games where scarlet begins to color around the screen when the protagonist is injured, NieR: Automata produces a unique lo-fi sound effect when the player is injured, mimicking the state of old-school machinery when it’s damaged without making the noise too jarring to add to the immersion of the game.

demonstration of 8-bit sound filter where the “8-bit” level is adjustable

In addition to the above two types of audio technology, Shuji Kohata also mentioned other fun designs used in games, such as odd voice effects if the player adjusts the volume of a character’s voice too high or too low, as well as Doppler effect processing of audio produced by rapidly traveling units, and other sound effects designed to complement the game’s graphics. It’s worth noting that all of the above audio effects must be lightweight and not cause the game to lag by acting out the audio. For example, the lo-fi effect reduces the sample rate of the game’s audio before processing it and subsequently resampling it, while the 8-bit sound effect simply uses mono audio.

Whether it’s a K-verb or 8-bit effect, these techniques demonstrated by Shuji Kohata make in-game audio relevant to the player’s actions, with exact feedback when the player presses a button. This is fundamentally different from playing footsteps when the player starts moving and switching to a “battle” soundtrack when they enter a battle. The sound design in NieR: Automata is integrated into the gameplay. There are few video games I’ve seen that focus on the player’s auditory experience as much as NieR: Automata, which seems to be an aspect many creators don’t pay enough attention to. However, gamers who have played the NieR series know that sometimes games can impress you with their sound alone (please try it here).

—Howard

VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action: The Game That Warms Your Heart

You might want to open the song list in Spotify to listen to the full song

Have you ever wondered what mixing cocktails and changing lives in a cyberpunk dystopia would be like? If the moral dilemmas of Papers, Please and the mind-bending puzzles of Braid have left you yearning for something different, then it’s an excellent time to dim the lights, hunker down under your covers, put on the headphones, turn on the VA-11 HALL-A, and enjoy this small but warm story in a corner of cyberpunk Glitch City.

A Brief Overview

VA-11 Hall-A, or Valhalla as it cleverly suggests, is more than just a visual novel bartending simulator. As the player, you take on the role of a bartender named Jill, peering into the anti-utopian cyberpunk world from her perspective. Each cocktail you serve influences the narrative’s direction, with your choices behind the bar shaping the experiences and lives of your patrons. This unique gameplay mechanic transcends traditional dialogue-based storytelling, making you actively participate in the unfolding drama of Glitch City.

Game interface of VA-11 Hall-A

Don’t Play Valhalla on Mute

Immersion in music is one of the hallmarks of great games, and it’s not just “here we need a happy song, oh, there we need something sad.” The production of soundtracks is even more critical in the visual novel genre, which relies heavily on the emotional experience of the plot to create a great gameplay experience. Often, a classic scene will accompany a soundtrack that players will find hard to forget. Conversely, Valhalla does the opposite; you can even choose the music you want in the game. Before each lively night at VA-11 Hall-A starts, players are free to set up their own settings in the jukebox, and none of them will disappoint.

Interface for players to adjust songs (jukebox)

Where Does the Sense of Immersion Come From?

Aside from the music, what else has Valhalla succeeded with in game design? I’d like to discuss its visual style and the vehicle of information. Valhalla isn’t just about the story; it’s a feast for the senses. The pixel art style, reminiscent of classic 90s games, brings a nostalgic charm that perfectly complements the futuristic setting. Each character is vividly brought to life through detailed sprites and expressive animations, set against the backdrop of a city that feels both alive and oppressively dystopian.

As I mentioned, the player is “peering” into Jill’s cyberpunk world. Japanese director Mamoru Oshii has mentioned two ways of creating a plot: starting with the world or the characters. The former emphasizes the plausibility of the characters’ actions in a well-developed world, while the latter creates a world for the characters to rationalize their actions. In Valhalla, on the other hand, the worldview of Glitch City is built as if it were a jigsaw puzzle, and as the player collects the pieces, the characters in the game become more in line with the setting. Players can learn about the world between each workday from celebrity blogs, local tabloids, and internet forums. Perhaps what was experienced only yesterday in a bar becomes a colorful report the next day.

The “at home” interface: on the left is the interface of the tablet in Jill’s hand.

Reality Seems to Be Malfunctioning

It is undeniable that the experiences of the game’s creators, Christopher Ortiz and Fernando Damas, greatly influenced this work. The design of Glitch City is mainly based on the lived experiences of the creators in pre-2016 Venezuela. Government corruption and mismanagement led to widespread social unrest, including economic recession, currency devaluation, and high inflation, severely affecting the population’s living standards. Moreover, economic hardship and inappropriate policies led to the collapse of the national healthcare system, resulting in medicine shortages and inadequate medical care. Violence and crime in society, such as human trafficking, sexual exploitation, and underage involvement in sex work, increased, further deteriorating daily life and social stability. In an interview, Fernando mentioned their dilemma when developing the game, “not to mention stuff like medicine shortages, shops being barren or having no new stock.” And it was in this broken reality that Glitch City was born. The setting of Glitch City is clearly based directly on the social situation in Venezuela.

Dorothy and Sei

The characters within VA-11 Hall-A not only populate the world of Glitch City but also bring it to life through their complex narratives. Two characters in the game captivated me: Dorothy and Sei. Dorothy, a sex worker in the game, defies conventional portrayals. Her youthful appearance juxtaposed with her profession challenges what is typically deemed acceptable in modern society. This poignant character design is rich in dark humor and irony, subtly reflecting aspects of Venezuelan society.

Contrary to the typical portrayal of sex workers in media as having tragic or painful pasts, Dorothy’s character in VA-11 Hall-A is depicted as cheerful and independent. In contrast, Sei’s experience is perhaps more tragic: she was victimized by a White Knight (akin to a police officer) in her youth. Still, she chose to become a White Knight to protect the people in adulthood. Sei’s role as a White Knight provides a counter-challenge to the current state of Venezuelan society and to the corrupt image of the police and the government in the setting of Glitch City in VA-11 Hall-A.

Sei’s image in the game (you’ve already met Dorothy!)

Dorothy and Sei prompt players to contemplate societal issues and encapsulate game’s theme: finding hope in despair and happiness in insignificance. Echoing Albert Camus’s existentialism, their behavior represents a rebellion against social absurdity. Challenging the traditional norms of “normalcy” and “acceptability,” Dorothy seeks personal happiness and dignity in a dystopian reality. Her attitude proves personal autonomy and rejection of social expectations. At the same time, Sei chooses to become a White Knight and actively opposes the injustices and corruption prevalent in society. Her journey emphasizes the importance of individual choice and free will in a world rife with injustice, in line with the core principles of existentialist philosophy.

You Don’t Need to Be a Hero

When it comes to games in a cyberpunk setting, perhaps the first game that comes to mind is Cyberpunk 2077. So you might ask: can I attack Arasaka Tower in VA-11 Hall-A? Or at least do I need to destroy the anti-utopian government with some bros, right? My answer may disappoint you: the truth is you can’t do much, but so what? Valhalla is a story about accepting yourself. “We try to make the player feel small,” says the game’s author and programmer Fernando Damas. In the twenty days or so since you became Jill, a lot of things may have happened: an unidentified bang from a suspected explosion in the street, a terrorist organization attacking a major bank, hackers seemingly digging into the government’s darkest recesses. But Jill lives in a society with its own personalities and stories. In contrast to this troubled society is the small, intimate space of the game’s bar. Best friend Alma comes to you to pour her heart out about her family problems, new employee Kimberly seems to be struggling at work, and boss Dana is full of spirit and new ideas as usual. Jill and the people in the bar all tell the same story: life is just an experience, and when the sun goes down tomorrow, the story of Valhalla will go on again.

Game Start Screen

–Howard

Stranger Games – Group 11

Introduction

For our game design project, our group decided to remediate the Christmas lights scene from season one of the hit TV show Stranger Things. We decided to make a puzzle strategy game using Game Maker Studio 2 where we use the Christmas lights on the wall to decipher a message. While our group did not have much coding experience, we truly enjoyed the game design process. From making the sound effects and sprites to developing the frame-by-frame game functions, we got to set foot into the challenging world of game-making.

Source: Stranger Things season 1, episode 3

Why Remediate Stranger Things?

When brainstorming game ideas, our group wanted to create a classic puzzle game with a complex background. After reviewing a few movies and TV shows, we landed on Stranger Things: a TV show that remediates the timeless game Dungeons and Dragons. In the specific scene we chose, a young kid by the name of Will has gone missing from his home. Later, it is discovered that he is trapped in the “Upside Down”, another world that exists beneath Hawkins, Indiana. While trapped in the “Upside Down”, Will tries to communicate with his family by interacting with different electronic items in his house (traversing worlds). At first, his family thinks it is an electrical issue but his mom, Joyce, later finds out that it is Will communicating with her. She decides to set up a wall full of Christmas lights, each light representing a letter of the alphabet. Will uses this wall to send messages about his whereabouts.

Through this scene, our group decided to make a puzzle game where one deciphers a message using the light wall Joyce created in Stranger Things.

Game Design

In terms of game design (led by Diego), our idea was pretty straightforward. Our idea was to develop a three-part cryptic puzzle. The first part of the game focused on understanding what the lights on the wall indicated. We went about this by developing a two-room platform where the player can switch between the light wall room and the living room. In addition to the two rooms, the player is also given a text box with 26 text slots. Each text slot corresponds to a letter in the alphabet. As well, each light on the wall corresponds to a letter in the alphabet (but the player has to figure this out). In the living room, a variety of items lay around and will shake. On top of the shaking, the lights on the wall would brighten up corresponding with the letters in the name of that item in chronological order. For instance, if a lamp shook, the first light on the wall would turn on as it corresponds to the letter “a” in lamp. The player must figure out the relationship between the items, the lights, and the chart. Once they fill up the chart and understand that the lights represent the alphabet, they are free to move on to the second part.

In the second part of the game, Will turns on the lights to communicate various words that are part of a phrase. The players’ job is to use their knowledge of the light wall to decipher the words Will is trying to tell Joyce. The player must type the correct word into the text box in order to move on to the next word. Once all the words are properly guessed, the player can move on to the last section of the game.

In the last part of the game, the player must take the words from part 2 and put them in the correct order to decipher what Will is trying to say. Once the player puts them in the correct order, the game ends.

Art Visuals

In addition to the game design, we also had visual sprites and audio produced by Amelia. The intention was for all the object names to cover each letter of the alphabet, so we came up with a list of 10 common household items that held the letters A-Z. Each item had to be drawn separately from the backdrops and to make a sound when shaken by Will, so we drew several of these items and sourced sound clips that correlated with each object. We then hand-drew the two 2D game backdrops – the living room and the Christmas lights display – in a style we found fitting for the era of the show. Stranger Things is set in the 1980s, and the cartoons of the time often featured marker and outline-based drawings, which we incorporated in the style of the object and background drawings. We thought it would be fitting to have a visual remediation that matched the visual media of the characters’ temporal setting, especially as the protagonists are middle-schoolers who would be watching cartoons. We also studied the clips of our remediated Stranger Things scene to try and match the rooms as closely as possible (ex. the pink floral wallpaper behind the Christmas lights). 

Background Music

The music was the most difficult artistic element to create, as we wanted to take inspiration from the Stranger Things theme, but still create something inspirational out of it. We followed a theme and variations, in the form of ABA, where we took the main Stranger Things theme and remelodized it in different lead lines throughout the A sections. We swelled in and out treble and bass elements so that the music would not feel stagnant, even with the same repeated harmonic construction. 

We then added an original B section that we felt broke-up the repetition of the main theme, but still kept it in the same synth-based style of the A section. We made the B section more harmonically complex and introspective than the A section, reflecting the game’s original intention of being a puzzle-solving experience. We also wanted the B section to reflect Joyce’s worry over her son, Will, in a way that the A section isn’t as capable of. The synth sound we used for the lead line is based on an FM radio, which is indicative of their communication between the two dimensions through artificial means (and the Walky-Talky and radio elements which were integral to our original game-design). 

The piece then returns to the A section, which allows the piece to repeat over and over (as often occurs when playing a videogame…the track can’t just end at its 5-minute conclusion) without any jarring re-start. We also added some little sparkling, high-frequency synth hits in this second A section that reflect the twinkling of the Christmas lights on and off. We felt that the composition both reflected the 80s-instrumentation style and pulled elements from the original Stranger Things theme in a way that suited the goals of the game the best (in musical remediation). The music isn’t meant to be the focus of attention, but instead an integral background element that helps provide necessary atmosphere.

Challenges Faced and Remodel

While we wanted to develop this game with Game Maker Studio 2, we, unfortunately, were not able to. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, our team had to remodel our game design and build our project with Twine since we did not have any coding experience. Jamaal led our efforts by creating a “choose your own adventure” game along with the script and video trailer! The new game concept follows the same storyline as our original game design with an emphasis on the plot surrounding the Christmas light scene. The player is tasked with picking various potential storylines within this scene. In order to beat the game, the player must select the right storyline options that lead Joyce to Will’s location.

Twine “Strange Games” home screen

What We Learned

Throughout the game development process, our group learned a lot! Our biggest takeaway from it all is that there is a lot of work that goes into making a video game. From the game design and script to the coding and audio/visuals, a lot of hard work is required to make a game work. Additionally, we learned about the importance of collaboration. Everyone has to play their part in order for the game development process to work. If one person falls short, it sets the design process back a big step. All in all, video game development requires a team effort where everyone must contribute their strengths. There are so many moving parts in the design process and each part is just as important as the next.

Closing Thoughts

While we were not able to create the game we wanted, it was fun exploring video game development. For all of us, this was a new, fun, exciting, and scary experience that we are glad we got to experience. Being able to work on all the moving parts of a video game and seeing what it takes to put such a production together was also pretty eye-opening. Anyways, while this isn’t a finished, polished product, we hope you enjoy our game!

Game link: http://jamaalfinkley.vudigital.net/Media/StrangerGames.html

– Amelia, Diego, and Jamaal!

E.T.’s Escape – Group 3

Introduction

This game is a remediation of the famous chase scene from the 1982 sci-fi/adventure movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. A staple of Universal Studios Entertainment for about 40 years now, the scene is referenced in the company’s cover art and has its own ride at their theme park. For its widespread reach, engaging plot, and easy-to-root for characters, we felt that it was an appropriate scene to remediate.

The iconic E.T.

Game Background

Elliot is the protagonist who has recently befriended an alien, E.T., from outer space. After E.T. ‘s sudden appearance in Elliot’s backyard, Elliot is initially terrified of the alien, but begins to grow fond of him. Unfortunately, after the two develop an unlikely yet strong friendship, the police look to take E.T. away. Their motives are unscrupulous, as they plan to run experiments on him. The consequence is this seminal scene of E.T. and Elliot escaping the police on their bike, which ultimately flies thanks to the alien’s powers. In the game, we showcase the two looking to reach a safe zone, needing to avoid being captured by the cops on the way to get there.

Our Process

We began the design process by selecting the Unity Engine for our game. This software is a professional-grade game development platform, giving us the most possible freedom in our game at the cost of extreme complexity. To emphasize just how powerful Unity can be, some of the famous games made in the engine include Hearthstone (a card game based on the World of Warcraft universe,) Pokémon Go, and Hollow Knight.

Upon choosing Unity, we knew that we had the freedom to create any type of game we wanted, but knew we couldn’t be overambitious. We decided on a 2D escape-style game, in which the player would be chased by police units as they attempt to get E.T. to his ship. We chose continuous movement, where the player can move in any direction using the WASD keys, and the police are constantly moving toward the player. Each level would contain a starting point and a “goal” which the player would need to reach without being caught by the police.

We followed this decision by storyboarding each of the three levels of the game. 

Our storyboard

Our level design set out to increase the challenge as the player progressed through the game. The first level contains the fewest number of police and has the smallest area, as well as two paths which each lead to the goal. The second level is larger, and has several dead ends along with more police. Additionally, some police units in the second level are faster than normal. The third level is by far the largest, with a maze-like structure and the greatest number of police, which move at the highest speed.

Coding and Unity Development

After planning out each of the three levels, work began in Unity. The early stages of development in Unity were full of frustration and challenges, but the basics of the game were eventually completed. We used C# scripts written in Microsoft’s Visual Studio software to determine the behavior of the game objects.

The basics of the game include movement, enemies, collision, and level transitions. The player’s movement is controlled by a C# script which converts a player’s input into a 2D vector and moves the player character accordingly.

The C# script which controls player movement

The movement of enemies was coded similarly with a 2D vector function, but rather than waiting for player input, the enemies are coded to continuously move towards the player. Both enemies and the player were given a RigidBody2D component which enabled physics interactions; this prevented them from passing through walls. This additionally allowed collisions between the player and an enemy to trigger a reset of the current level, though this required the addition of a C# script to the enemy’s collider.

The “goal” on each level was given a similar collider component with an added C# script, so when the player collides with the goal, the next level is loaded. This required the use of Unity’s SceneManager package, which allowed for multiple levels to exist without all being loaded at the same time. This limits strain on the hardware and cleans up development substantially. 

The levels themselves were created using 2D Tilemaps, a native function of Unity which allows for tiles to be placed on a rectangular grid.

An example of a Tilemap

We used basic square sprites to represent dirt roads, forests, beaches, and roads. A second Tilemap was layered on top of the first, and contained white tiles representing the boundary. This Tilemap was given a Collider component, preventing the player or enemies from moving through the white tiles.

Ultimately, we were able to create the levels of our storyboard, with new additions to make the game more challenging and fleshed-out.

Our completed levels

Successes

Making a functioning game in Unity is no easy task; the interface is extremely complex at first glance. The side effect of such complete design freedom is a similarly complete lack of guidance. Programming and developing in Unity came with a fair share of bugs, including police being able to pass through walls, multiple levels loading at once, and the player falling off the screen. We worked through these bugs diligently and created a game which, while limited in its scope, is completely functional.

Failures

The visuals of the game are, admittedly, rough. Given more time, we would have created detailed sprites for E.T., the police, and the rocket ship. However, our priority was the game’s functionality, and we viewed visuals as a luxury if time permitted. Additionally, our team members are, by our own admission, not artists. Ultimately, we feel that our attention was focused in the right places, though we acknowledge that visuals were left behind in the creation process.

YouTube Video

Credits

Programming and Unity Development, Design Document – Jack Doyle 

Storyboard and Design Document – Ashton Kroeger

Video, Scene Choice, Design Document – Joe Berger

Blurring Game and Reality: Horror Gaming in “Black Mirror”

I have been an avid viewer of Black Mirror for a while, the British sci-fi series that explores the darker implications of advanced technology. While I am certainly entertained by the show’s disquieting plots, I am simultaneously horrified by its proximity to our existing cyberspace concerns. In particular, the episode “Playtest” delves into the world of reality augmentation and the ethical implications of pushing boundaries in horror video gaming. 

The episode follows Cooper, our protagonist who finds himself in desperate need of some money while backpacking through Europe. To make a quick earning, he takes on a gig as a playtester for a new augmented reality game, SaitoGemu. The implantation of a brain chip facilitates a personalized VR-style horror game experience, where Cooper is thrown into a mansion simulation filled with terrifying scenarios designed to evoke fear. The line between reality and game thus begins to blur, as he is now immersed in augmented worlds that feel just as real as the physical one. 

Cooper’s conscience is tricked into believing a false construction, questioning how hyperreality impacts our sense of self. Regardless of whether he is actually in the game world or not, his mind is under the impression that what he is experiencing poses a genuine threat to his wellbeing.

Perhaps this is all that it takes for something to be considered reality – the legitimate belief that what one is experiencing in that very moment is the truth. At one point in the game, Cooper even endures what appears to be intense physical pain, grounding our conceptions of reality in the corporeal form. This is complicated when (spoilers ahead) he is unable to exit the game, and the audience discovers he has died from an implant malfunction frying his brain. 

During my rewatching of “Playtest”, I was distinctly reminded of Jesper Juul’s guidelines for what constitutes a game, where a main component of the definition involves the consequences of the activity being both optional and negotiable. It’s difficult to imagine that Cooper was fully aware of the psychological duress he would be placed under, and given how unpredictable our consciousness can be, I wonder whether the fear the game capitalizes on and triggers is truly optional. This places SaitoGemu’s classification as a real game under fire, especially when we consider the safety of its design. 

As someone who despises the horror genre in any medium, the idea of willingly participating in something like SaitoGemu seems impossible for me. While my instinctive reaction is to wonder what the appeal could be, I understand that there’s an addictive and even enticing element of horror that resonates with people. As VR and simulation games grow scarily advanced, I worry these tools may be weaponized, especially if this technology is placed in the hands of those with questionable or malicious intent. The concept of corporations turning fear into a commodity is perhaps one of the most alarming takeaways that left me with an inexplicable sense of dread at the episode’s conclusion. I wonder to what extent are we willing to go in the name of entertainment, especially given how the technology in “Playtest” taps into the most intimate corners of the player’s mind.

This new frontier of gaming technology ultimately poses questions on the potential ethical ramifications of our future, ones that may arise sooner than we might even anticipate. For instance, the monetary incentive of participating in the SaitoGemu experiment mirrors some of our present-day socioeconomic inequities regarding who is most vulnerable, as was the case for Cooper in his financially desperate circumstance. Does the implementation of pioneering technology only exacerbate existing social dilemmas? Is it possible to break from them entirely?

Rachel Lee

Space Fleet: The Game!

Get ready to join your crew-mates on a wild journey through space. You and up to one teammate have duties on board the ship: a Captain to be appeased, an intergalactic war to be fought, and a treacherous navigation system to manage. But what if this journey and your captain are not what they seem? Welcome to Space Fleet: The Game, a deck-building card game remediating the experience of a member of the USS Callister spaceship crew. Within the game, you will discover more details about your role in space and your captain’s true intentions. Does your original goal to be the perfect and submissive crew-mate change? You used to feel so free on this ship, yet by learning more about your captain and the simulation he designed, you can’t help but want to escape. The question is: can you escape in time and avoid the perils of space?

We chose to remediate the Black Mirror season 4 episode 1 “USS Callister” into a card game because the television episode itself remediates a video game in a television show. As a group, we were particularly drawn to the episode because the players within the episode are playing a video game–so meta! So we are, likewise, remediating video game play in a television show through a card game. In the episode, twisted genius-boss Robert Daly artfully collects and harbors DNA from coworkers he feels wronged him, or who stand out to him for a particular reason. An exact AI copy of the individual is placed within a simulated universe on the “USS Callister”, under the brutal command of Captain Daly. The show harkens to Star Trek in its aesthetic and simulated premise, while using the meta-reality of Daly’s ego and misogyny to critique the dark side of geek culture and gaming.

Trailer for the Black Mirror episode

We made our best effort to emulate and recreate the immersive feeling of being stuck in a video game and trying to escape, just like the narrative depicted in the episode. To focus our remediation, we chose not to include the parallel office narrative to limit the game’s complexity. We also intentionally added the twist of the player not discovering that Daly is the “bad guy” until later in the game to surprise the player with this big change. We also chose this episode because it speaks directly to power imbalances related particularly to authority or control – themes inherent in play within a system of rules – as well as pertinent themes of gender, or toxic masculinity.

Our first game design goal to tackle in remediating “USS Callister” was representing a 180° change in the player’s goal halfway through our game. We chose to make a deck building game because  it compliments having a reversible goal and demonstrating change over time, as it allows for adjustments in character well-being and traits through the addition and removal of thematic cards in the player deck. Independent of all aspects of the game, we remediated the asteroid field with its own tracker so that its reversible function could be implemented later in the game for an interesting twist. The game completely flips on its head, and now instead of working to stay away from the asteroid field and fight the villain, you must work to fly through the asteroids (safely) to reach the black hole while escaping the evil clutches of Captain Daly. This mid-game twist is implemented to remediate the surprise the characters undergo as they enter the simulation and have to transition from helping Daly to subverting his control.

Game board design by Ashley Hemenway

As a co-operative game, the system faithfully represents the concerted effort the characters have to make to counter Daly’s egotistical simulation. Teamwork in the face of adversity also makes the players feel trapped together – a key aspect of the victims’ experience in the episode. Players begin with specific cards in their deck representing rudimentary skills and some weaknesses resulting from inexperience. Over the game, players must remove negative cards from their hand and add better cards to build a game winning composition of traits in their deck. In order for the players’ to survive Daly’s madness and the plights of space travel, they must work to improve both their deck composition while keeping up with the fight with Valdack, Captain Daly’s fickle mood, and navigation relative to the perilous asteroid field. The game’s event deck produced semi-random events according to the phase of the game, of which there are four. The events are dangerous, functioning as the “opponent” and causing players to divert attention to the three trackers that keep them from being defeated. This deck is also used to mark the game’s turning point or twist–when you realize you must head toward the asteroid field rather than away from it. The Daly’s mood track is especially evocative of the action in the show. Even as player’s learn Daly is a foe and not an ally, the game still forces them to keep him happy to avoid being thrown out of the ship and losing the game. Players must continue bringing Captain Daly his coffee order, celebrating Daly’s victories, and even kissing him to keep him happy while they subvert him behind the scenes. Balancing the representation of a misogynistic enemy through game mechanics in a prominent yet considerate manner took refinement and nuance in both the artist and the choice of thematic quotations on the bottom of each card.

During their turn, players have a wide range of strategic options. They can add skill cards to their deck, trash negative cards like injuries and confusion they have acquired, play skills from their hand, or draw a new hand of cards. In order to manually move the tracker, player’s can use “Effort”, but in doing so suffer a detriment to their character’s traits (their deck) in the form of a harmful “Exhaustion” card. Players choose 3 actions during each turn to keep the game balanced and exciting. When playing as a team, players decide in which order they each take their 3 actions so as to evenly distribute the cards between players. With these mechanical features to the game, the player experiences a semblance of control, but they are still beholden to the mercy of the game’s events, just like the crew members are in “USS Callister.” 

Game artwork by Helen Loda

A challenge we faced in designing the game was balancing game complexity and meaningful choices. The twist in the game is revealed after the first play through, but we still wanted the game to be fun to play multiple times. On top of this, we wanted someone who was playing through the first time to be able to understand all of the rules. While complexity makes the game more fun to play multiple times, it can make the first play through overwhelming and even discourage some from trying a game at all. We had to balance where to add meaningful choices to the game which add complexity, and where to streamline processes which were distracting from the core experience we sought to deliver. Some key decisions were adding a variety of new skills that can be added to give the game enjoyment over repeated plays, the semi-random nature of the event deck to retain surprise, and the ability to change the starting difficulty for veteran players seeking a heightened challenge. These are the final rules we decided on: Space Fleet: The Game Rule Book.

As far as design and aesthetics of the physical game are concerned, we decided to reflect the comic-book flair of the television episode alongside dramatic stills from the show itself. We used comic book fonts on the board, and we hand-drew the Space Fleet comic logo that was briefly shown in the episode. We also used an art style that added a more modern, digital finish for the cartoon crew, staying true to the outfits worn in the source material. After the card backs, crew, and board were drawn, stills were added to fill in other more minor images on the cards, such that the entire game would reflect the aesthetic of the setting in which it takes place.

Game board design by Ashley Hemenway

Our greatest challenge in creating the game was working together to create a tangible product when we couldn’t work together in person. For example, we had to figure out how to let one person create a board, another create card art, and another put the finished product together. The solution we decided on – shipping the board and doing digital art for the cards – meant that the board and cards were not together until later in the project. This meant that it was difficult to get footage of the game for a trailer until late in the process. Communication between seven group members, who ended up in different time zones for the final week of production, sometimes proved difficult as well. In distinguishing between real vs fiction elements of the experience, those group members creating the rules (real) were different than the ones creating the art (fiction). As all communication was done over zoom and text, clarification questions were frequently needed. We showed each other reference photos throughout the design process, and we reviewed the source material together beforehand. When designing the game, the story behind the rules was given high priority, but the actual implementation of aspects of the story through card art and board design were done by people even as the rules were being developed and finalized. In the end, we were able to communicate effectively over Zoom and text to collaborate on the game, but it was a significant challenge. We learned how to keep the theming of the game consistent with these communication challenges (Zoom, distance, time zones) in place — we were able to take all of our individual contributions to the game and make them highly cohesive to create a final product that visually captures the essence of the game and the episode’s shared themes. 

If this blog post was not enough to make you want to play Space Fleet: The Game, we hope this trailer will do the trick!

Our trailer for Space Fleet: The Game

Thanks for reading/watching,

Group 3: Maya Diaz, Stone Edwards, Davis Glen Ellis, Ashley Hemenway, Dylan Kistler, Helen Loda, and Emma Waldman

Credits:

Trailer Production: Maya Diaz and Stone Edwards

Game Mechanics/Rules: Davis Glen Ellis and Dylan Kistler

Game Artwork: Helen Loda

Game Board Assembly: Ashley Hemenway

Card Assembly: Stone Edwards

Card Design: Dylan Kistler and Maya Diaz

Game Design Document: Maya Diaz, Davis Glen Ellis, Ashley Hemenway, Dylan Kistler, Helen Loda, and Emma Waldman

13 Sentinels: A Love Letter to Science Fiction

Around mid-September, a friend messaged me asking if I knew anything about a video game that was trending on Twitter.  I opened the app myself to find that a small studio’s latest PS4 release was not only getting rave reviews, but that industry giants such as Super Smash Bros’ Masahiro Sakurai and Nier: Automata’s Yoko Taro had gone out of the way to praise the game.

Vanillaware’s 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim is a hard game to describe.  Not only does its mix and match video game genres, but it also drops you right into a complex mystery with the objective of spending the next 30-40 hours untangling it.  Most of the fun comes from discovering different elements on your own, so if you are sensitive to spoilers, I suggest you stop reading this blog post right now and consider playing the game yourself.  However, because I understand how hard it is to trust a recommendation of literally, “just play it yourself, dude,” I’ll do my best to sum up the appeal of the game without revealing too many secrets.

One of the first things you see when you boot up the game: the title screen. If you don’t want any more info than this, turn back now.

13 Sentinels is best summarized as a love letter to pulp science fiction.  Every subject you can think of—giant robots, time-travel, clones, AI—is included with childlike enthusiasm.  The writers clearly adore the genre and delight in paying homage to as many classics as they can.  However, despite these nods to past works, 13 Sentinels still manages to forge its own unique identity.

One of the ways this is most evident is through how the game is structured.  After a prologue introduces you to a few storylines, the game gets divided into three sections: Remembrance, Destruction, and Analysis.  Remembrance is where most of the narrative takes place.  You choose a protagonist to follow and then play as them, exploring their environment and talking to others to gather more information.  Destruction meanwhile leans more heavily into its real-time strategy elements.  You divide the protagonists up into teams and defend important defensive points from waves of enemies for up to two minutes.  Then in Analysis, all the events of the game are organized into one big timeline and you can unlock additional informational files on different characters and plot elements.

Remembrance Mode: before you select which character you want to follow, you can check to see how much of their story you’ve seen.

If you’re confused over which part is the “main game,” that’s the point.  While there are some checkpoints to keep the truly endgame spoilers away from newcomers, 13 Sentinels gives the player the choice and agency to pace the game however they want.  There really is no one right or intended way to play the game: exploring not only different locations, but concepts and mysteries is where the fun comes in.  For much of the game, you’re given more questions than answers.  And while eventually the story manages to resolve itself, 13 Sentinels gives you the chance to put together many plot points ahead of time if you’re an observant player.  While many of its characters are charming and likeable, much of my enjoyment came from those “aha!” moments I got when I finally figured out one piece of the plot.

Destruction Mode: surprisingly all the explosions and flashing lights are easier to process than some of the plot twists this game will throw at you.

It can be an overwhelming experience, but eventually a set of themes began to emerge.  Fitting for its nonlinear nature, you slowly gain a sense of time as cyclical.  The same problems return again and again, and humanity continues to focus more on their own personal drama while disaster looms over the horizon.  It would be easy for the game to fall into cynicism with its teenage love triangles and revenge plots, yet ultimately it still finds a hopeful ending.  While there are parts of the game that fall flat for sure, I’ll leave other reviews to cover those.  This probably won’t be a game for everyone, but the fact something as ambitious as this even exists is enough for me to get caught up in its infectious excitement.

– Amanda

Duel Links’ Nostalgic & Improved Platform

As a child, I was obsessed with the trading card game called Yu-Gi-Oh. I would often spend my recess periods dueling my classmates and trading for coveted cards. Much time has passed since my days in elementary school and I had forgotten about this game. A friend, however, recently introduced a mobile game reiteration of Yu-Gi-Oh known as Duel Links to me. Within a few hours of play, I was immediately captivated again by this franchise.

The premise of Duel Links is simple. You start with one of the two main characters from the original TV series — Yugi Moto or Seto Kaiba; and your goal is to rise to the top of Duel Links tournament where the best duelists compete against one another. You have a starting deck based on your character’s deck from the original series and you battle other duelists to gain experience points in order to level up your character, which unlocks skills and new cards for your deck. Aside from your character’s level, there are stages of the game which can be progressed by competing various challenges such as ‘Win 10 duels’ or ‘Use 5 spell cards.’ Completing stages unlocks additional characters from the TV show who can be battled against or played as.

Choice of Starter Characters (Gameplay Screenshot)

Duel Links emulates the fun atmosphere of this trading card game. There are flashy animations when a player pulls a rare card or summons a signature card. These effects reminded me of the excitement of buying numerous packs in order to obtain the cover card and finally using it against my friends. Another strength of Duel Links is its setting. The TV series was an event I looked forward to every Saturday morning and to summon Blue-Eyes White Dragon as Kaiba brings a warm sense of nostalgia.

Blue-Eyes White Dragon Animation (Gameplay Screenshot)

Duel Links also improves upon the weaknesses of the trading card game. Modern Yu-Gi-Oh has become a tedious game due to dense card text and long play time. Duel Links, on the other hand, has a much faster pace. The field has three monster and spell/trap zones instead of five. In addition, the general deck size is reduced from 40 cards to 20. My favorite aspect of Duel Links is the immediate access to PVP matches. It is difficult to find someone to play Yu-Gi-Oh in a real world setting, so having the ability to play anyone at anytime is an awesome feature.

Duel Links Field Format (Gameplay Screenshot)

Duel Links is a nostalgic reintroduction to Yu-Gi-Oh. Players can use their favorite character’s deck and experience the excitement of obtaining and summoning ace monsters. This mobile game also provides a quick format for players to duel each at any time. Duel Links is a game that should be recommended to all former and current Yu-Gi-Oh players to enjoy the fruits of their childhood again.

-MLB

Death, Taxes, and Video Games

For being one of the few things guaranteed at birth, death is a fickle thing. I am not promised how I’ll die, when I’ll die, or where I’ll die, but death is promised nonetheless. Maybe I can chalk up death’s inevitability to life being unfair, or it could be the only thing that’s fair when the credits roll on my game of life. But no matter how much I prepare for this inescapable ending, death is often unexpected. 

It took me a whole year to realize Pokemon evolution was a thing…

This (among other things) is where reality and video games differ. Yes, death is assured in video games, but it is expected at some point in my journey. Whether that is my Chewbacca crumbling into a pile of Lego limbs after losing four hearts or my Charmander fainting in battle against yet another wild Pokemon, death is a part of the contract you sign as soon as you boot up your system.

For being one of the few things guaranteed at birth, death is an unfamiliar thing… until it’s not. I knew what death was from an early age because of how innately straightforward it is; it’s the state of not living, of not being, anymore. That is obviously an oversimplification of an incredibly complex idea. But, we aren’t born with the mental capacity to understand its intricacies, and until we do, we are forced to live with this elementary concept of death. 

This is where reality and video games are similar. My mortality has and always will be easier to understand than others’. My life is finite and full of “Game Over” screens. I made tentative peace with that a while ago, whether that came in the form of turning to religion or throwing a few controllers across the room. Still, despite my internal preparation, I couldn’t wrap my head around a friend or loved one passing away.

Video games taught me to expect death, but Mass Effect broke those seemingly sacred rules. For the uninitiated, Mass Effect is the ultimate mix of a third-person, sci-fi shooter and a soap opera. In between your firefights with invading alien hordes and saving the universe from genocidal annihilation, you spend your most meaningful time convincing NPCs to join your crew aboard your equivalent of the Millenium Falcon. Over the span of three games and 200 hours, these crewmembers feel more like friends as opposed to a few megabytes in the game’s bedrock of code.

Nose goes on filling up the tank!

My favorite crewmember was Legion, an enemy robot, or Geth, that inexplicably joins your quest. Legion is a conglomerate of every Geth personality and, therefore, struggles with the concept of free will, referring to itself as “we.” Despite its steely exterior, Legion has a lovable personality, a hilariously dry sense of humor, and is always eager to help his commander. 

Throughout the trilogy, I died countless times while Legion charged through levels like a bulletproof battering ram. I was conditioned to believe Legion was invincible in the face of my own helpless mortality.

Great soldier, terrible cuddler.

Towards the end of the third game, Legion and the Geth have a chance to be freed from the chains of their code… with one catch: Legion must sacrifice itself for its race to achieve true free will. His final words before shutting down one last time are “I’m sorry. I must go.” After three games of referring to himself as “we,” Legion finally recognizes his individuality. Through tears, I reloaded the level and tried again and again and again to save Legion to no avail. Death is inevitable, no matter how many times I tried to help my friend escape it. 

My great grandma passed away later that year, and I thought I was ready. I thought I knew what death was. I tried reminding myself of my oversimplification, and that made me sick. I told myself that “she was in a better place,” but I knew I was lying to myself. I wanted to hug her once last time, or eat her homemade pie, or just hear her soft voice again. But, all I could do was cry. You can do everything right, but sometimes that’s still not enough. No matter how prepared for or familiar you are with death, the inevitable is labeled so for a reason. The most important lesson I’ve learned from gaming and life is that, after the necessary tears and mourning, I have a mission to pursue every day, whether that is saving the virtual universe or just spending time with my friends and family I am fortunate enough to still have with me today.