Remediation is the representing of one medium inside another. Basically put, it's taking a formula or idea that works well in one medium, for example video games, and using it inside another, for example movies. It happens with other forms of media too, for example photography and art paintings/drawings. This technique has been used since digital media first appeared. All mediums adopt from one another, for example television was adopted from radio.
We watched the German film "Run Lola Run" in class, which many people believe to do this, as there are many elements used in video games, mainly the part where the film is the same story played out 3 times in different ways, restarting after someone dies; they literally respawn. Of course, this all may be coincidental.
Another film which came to my mind in the lecture was "Scott Pilgrim vs the World" (based off the comics) in which the world literally is like a video game, and it borrows heavily from video games; of course it was intentional.
Sunday 25 March 2012
Saturday 10 March 2012
The 10th Victim (La Decima Vittima)
We watched this film in class, and I thought I'd write some brief comments/my thoughts about it on this blog!
The film is an Italian science fiction set in the near future where many big wars are currently happening. To try and hold these up, people with violent tendencies are given the opportunity to kill others in the "big hunt" which is a game made for entertainment. All the contestants are involves in 10 round: 5 as a hunter and 5 as a victim. The last to survive will win lots of riches. The main character of the story, Marcello, is involved in this game as an assassin, and finds himself targeted by Caroline. The movie mainly involves him not sure if he should kill her as he is not sure if she is his hunter (killing someone not in the game is obviously not allowed). The two also get romantically involved over the course of the storyline.
(I'm not very good as describing the plot of films to people, so sorry if the above is a bit confusing!)
I did like the idea of the movie but it did get a little confusing at times, but maybe that's just my brain!
You're probably wondering what this has to do with critical games studies? Well, the idea of the "big hunt" has inspired many real life action games in which participants are given a target and have to "kill" them (obviously, no one is actually killed, just tagged as it were). An example of this game is "The Assassin Game" which happens on university campuses all around the world.
The film is an Italian science fiction set in the near future where many big wars are currently happening. To try and hold these up, people with violent tendencies are given the opportunity to kill others in the "big hunt" which is a game made for entertainment. All the contestants are involves in 10 round: 5 as a hunter and 5 as a victim. The last to survive will win lots of riches. The main character of the story, Marcello, is involved in this game as an assassin, and finds himself targeted by Caroline. The movie mainly involves him not sure if he should kill her as he is not sure if she is his hunter (killing someone not in the game is obviously not allowed). The two also get romantically involved over the course of the storyline.
(I'm not very good as describing the plot of films to people, so sorry if the above is a bit confusing!)
I did like the idea of the movie but it did get a little confusing at times, but maybe that's just my brain!
You're probably wondering what this has to do with critical games studies? Well, the idea of the "big hunt" has inspired many real life action games in which participants are given a target and have to "kill" them (obviously, no one is actually killed, just tagged as it were). An example of this game is "The Assassin Game" which happens on university campuses all around the world.
Thursday 1 March 2012
Tweak Ur Game (My 'Iterating “The Royal Game of Ur”' Essay)
One thing I noticed I should've posted on this blog which I didn't is my iterations on "The Royal Game of Ur" back when I was tweaking it for the essay I had to write about it, so I thought I might as well post the essay here!
Iterating “The Royal Game of Ur”
by Joshua Aubury
In this essay, I will be studying and analysing “The Royal Game of Ur” and attempting to iterate it to see if it can be improved.
“The Royal Game of Ur,” sometimes referred to as “The Game of Twenty Squares,” is an ancient board game first discovered sometime between 1926 and 1930 by Sir Leonard Woolley (and his exploration party); he found four examples of the game when excavating the graves of the Royal Cemetery in the ancient city of Ur (Murray, 1952, p.19). The game dates from around 2600 B.C, meaning it is likely to be one of the oldest board games to exist (Masters, 1997).
It should be noted that the “boards” were actually hollowed boxes; the game pieces used for it would be stored inside. These “boards” consisted of two bodies of squares, one being four by three and the other being two by three, connected by two squares which act as a bridge (Becker, 2007, p.11). Murray notes that although boards for this game vary, they all seem to have rosettes on them, usually in the middle row just before the bridge on one side and two more on the other side of the bridge, but on the outer rows. Some other boards also added two of them on the outer edge cells on the four by three body (Murray, 1952, p.20). There was also an iteration of the original board found from the second millennium B.C., in which the two by three body was straightened out and turned into part of the original bridge, adding onto the other two original bridge squares (Murray, 1952, p.23).
(In the below drawings, the rosettes are represented by star symbols.)
Above: The original game board.
Above: The straightened out iteration of the game board.
When it comes to the rules of the game, these were not known for some time after the game's discovery. But after a short while, Irvin Finkel, the assistant keeper in the British Museum's department of the Middle East, was able to translate rules from a clay tablet that had been found, dating back to 177 B.C., and were on display at the British Museum, although these rules were for an iteration of the game, and not the original version. It is Finkel that gave the game it's alternate name of “The Game of Twenty Squares” (Finkel, 2007, p.16). There have been various authors that have had their own interpretations of the rules of this game, but for my iterations later in this essay, I am going to base them off of Finkel's rules.
The first thing I had to do before I could iterate this game was to play test both versions a few times. After doing so, I found that the second version was a better game, mainly down to their being more chance of the players being able to capture each others pieces, making for a more competitive game. A simplified version of Finkel's rules, in relation to the later iteration of the game board, are listed in one of his books (Finkel, 2005) and are as follows:
Above: Diagram showing in which way the pieces enter, move around and leave the board (Finkel, 2007, p.23).
I made quite a few iterations to the game and below I have listed the ones that made the game more enjoyable for me and my opponent.
After play testing this version several times, a main problem I picked up on was the length of the game. When there are many pieces to get to the end of the board, coupled with the fact pieces can be captured and have to return to the start, this can make for a long game, and I and my opponent found ourselves getting bored after a while, and eventually gave up on one of our play tests. With the pieces being returned to the beginning pretty frequently, we felt the game was never going to end. A simple iteration I did to try and solve this was to only play the game with five pieces. Doing this made the game slightly shorter but not short enough to make the game end too quickly.
Another problem I discovered was that the game seems to rely heavily on luck much more than it does skill, as the dice play a main part in the game. It is good to have luck in a game as it makes the game more accessible to a wider audience as anyone can play it once they learn the rules, and players of all skill levels feel like they have a chance of winning (Brathwaite & Schreiber, 2008), although a game should include some skill based play so players have the chance to feel like they are able to control the outcome of the game and to fell like they can master the game to an extent, which I think this game needs more of. One of the skills you could already use in this game is when you have landed on a rosette, wait for your opponent to pass. This would hopefully lessen your chances of getting captured and mean you you have a better chance of being able to capture one of their pieces.
A way I decided to add some more skill was by adding the feature of being able to piggyback your counters. This means if were to land on another one of your own counters, you could double them up, and move them along as if they were one. This means you could move more pieces to the end of the board in less goes. It should be noted that you can only have two pieces doubled up, hence “doubled.” This also adds a bit more tension to the game; when you double up you risk losing more of your pieces than if you were moving them along singularly, as you can still be captured. The skill is in choosing if it is a good time to piggyback or not, for example it would be good to do so if your counters happened to meet on a rosette square, as you'd still be protected.
I also made another iteration at this point to add a positive feedback loop. This is to help bring the game to a conclusion and not go on too long (LeBlanc, 2006). To do this I changed the rule relating to capturing: instead of putting the counter back at the start, it is removed from the game completely, and the game can now also be finished in another way, that other way being by eliminating your opponent from the game. This both made the game shorter to play and also added a bit of skill into it; you have to choose your moves a bit more carefully as there is more risk involved.
As I iterated in a positive feedback loop, I decided to also iterate a negative feedback loop as well. This is to help a player who is currently losing catch up to their opponent (LeBlanc, 2006). To do this I added a new rule: if the player has no pieces in the middle row but their opponent does, any dice roll they do is doubled. This helps the losing player catch up and get back into the battling areas quicker.
Another thing I felt was missing from the game was aesthetics; in this case the meaning of aesthetics is taken from the MDA framework (Hunicke et al., 2004), which describes the emotional responses the player has while playing the game. An iteration I decided to implement to do this was having each opponent, after going through their personal four squares near the beginning, going into their opponent's personal four squares. After going through their four squares, the player then heads back onto the normal route. It should be noted that this makes two of the squares in the centre row obsolete, so I ended up removing these. This adds some tension as the player risks being captured by a newly spawning piece, but adds some reward as the player could do the opposite: capture a newly spawning piece from their enemy.
Above: Diagram showing the game board after my iterations; the different shades of arrows show which way each player has to move. (Finkel, 2007, p.23)
In conclusion, I feel I have improved “The Royal Game of Ur” in various ways, without changing it too much and making it completely different from the original.
Iterating “The Royal Game of Ur”
by Joshua Aubury
In this essay, I will be studying and analysing “The Royal Game of Ur” and attempting to iterate it to see if it can be improved.
“The Royal Game of Ur,” sometimes referred to as “The Game of Twenty Squares,” is an ancient board game first discovered sometime between 1926 and 1930 by Sir Leonard Woolley (and his exploration party); he found four examples of the game when excavating the graves of the Royal Cemetery in the ancient city of Ur (Murray, 1952, p.19). The game dates from around 2600 B.C, meaning it is likely to be one of the oldest board games to exist (Masters, 1997).
It should be noted that the “boards” were actually hollowed boxes; the game pieces used for it would be stored inside. These “boards” consisted of two bodies of squares, one being four by three and the other being two by three, connected by two squares which act as a bridge (Becker, 2007, p.11). Murray notes that although boards for this game vary, they all seem to have rosettes on them, usually in the middle row just before the bridge on one side and two more on the other side of the bridge, but on the outer rows. Some other boards also added two of them on the outer edge cells on the four by three body (Murray, 1952, p.20). There was also an iteration of the original board found from the second millennium B.C., in which the two by three body was straightened out and turned into part of the original bridge, adding onto the other two original bridge squares (Murray, 1952, p.23).
(In the below drawings, the rosettes are represented by star symbols.)
Above: The original game board.
Above: The straightened out iteration of the game board.
When it comes to the rules of the game, these were not known for some time after the game's discovery. But after a short while, Irvin Finkel, the assistant keeper in the British Museum's department of the Middle East, was able to translate rules from a clay tablet that had been found, dating back to 177 B.C., and were on display at the British Museum, although these rules were for an iteration of the game, and not the original version. It is Finkel that gave the game it's alternate name of “The Game of Twenty Squares” (Finkel, 2007, p.16). There have been various authors that have had their own interpretations of the rules of this game, but for my iterations later in this essay, I am going to base them off of Finkel's rules.
The first thing I had to do before I could iterate this game was to play test both versions a few times. After doing so, I found that the second version was a better game, mainly down to their being more chance of the players being able to capture each others pieces, making for a more competitive game. A simplified version of Finkel's rules, in relation to the later iteration of the game board, are listed in one of his books (Finkel, 2005) and are as follows:
- Both players have seven pieces each.
- Each player starts on opposite sides of the board.
- He suggests using four D4 dice, with two tips covered in Tipp-Ex on each dice. When rolled, the number of tips facing upward with Tipp-Ex on are counted; how many there are is how many spaces the player can move, with the least being zero and the most being four.
- The players only enter the board when they've rolled, and can move any piece in at any time.
- One player can capture their opponent's piece by landing on the same square as it. The captured piece has to leave the board and go back to the beginning. Although none of this can happen of the opponent is current on a rosette square, which are “safe zones.”
- The rosette squares also allow the player to have another go, giving them an extra turn.
Above: Diagram showing in which way the pieces enter, move around and leave the board (Finkel, 2007, p.23).
I made quite a few iterations to the game and below I have listed the ones that made the game more enjoyable for me and my opponent.
After play testing this version several times, a main problem I picked up on was the length of the game. When there are many pieces to get to the end of the board, coupled with the fact pieces can be captured and have to return to the start, this can make for a long game, and I and my opponent found ourselves getting bored after a while, and eventually gave up on one of our play tests. With the pieces being returned to the beginning pretty frequently, we felt the game was never going to end. A simple iteration I did to try and solve this was to only play the game with five pieces. Doing this made the game slightly shorter but not short enough to make the game end too quickly.
Another problem I discovered was that the game seems to rely heavily on luck much more than it does skill, as the dice play a main part in the game. It is good to have luck in a game as it makes the game more accessible to a wider audience as anyone can play it once they learn the rules, and players of all skill levels feel like they have a chance of winning (Brathwaite & Schreiber, 2008), although a game should include some skill based play so players have the chance to feel like they are able to control the outcome of the game and to fell like they can master the game to an extent, which I think this game needs more of. One of the skills you could already use in this game is when you have landed on a rosette, wait for your opponent to pass. This would hopefully lessen your chances of getting captured and mean you you have a better chance of being able to capture one of their pieces.
A way I decided to add some more skill was by adding the feature of being able to piggyback your counters. This means if were to land on another one of your own counters, you could double them up, and move them along as if they were one. This means you could move more pieces to the end of the board in less goes. It should be noted that you can only have two pieces doubled up, hence “doubled.” This also adds a bit more tension to the game; when you double up you risk losing more of your pieces than if you were moving them along singularly, as you can still be captured. The skill is in choosing if it is a good time to piggyback or not, for example it would be good to do so if your counters happened to meet on a rosette square, as you'd still be protected.
I also made another iteration at this point to add a positive feedback loop. This is to help bring the game to a conclusion and not go on too long (LeBlanc, 2006). To do this I changed the rule relating to capturing: instead of putting the counter back at the start, it is removed from the game completely, and the game can now also be finished in another way, that other way being by eliminating your opponent from the game. This both made the game shorter to play and also added a bit of skill into it; you have to choose your moves a bit more carefully as there is more risk involved.
As I iterated in a positive feedback loop, I decided to also iterate a negative feedback loop as well. This is to help a player who is currently losing catch up to their opponent (LeBlanc, 2006). To do this I added a new rule: if the player has no pieces in the middle row but their opponent does, any dice roll they do is doubled. This helps the losing player catch up and get back into the battling areas quicker.
Another thing I felt was missing from the game was aesthetics; in this case the meaning of aesthetics is taken from the MDA framework (Hunicke et al., 2004), which describes the emotional responses the player has while playing the game. An iteration I decided to implement to do this was having each opponent, after going through their personal four squares near the beginning, going into their opponent's personal four squares. After going through their four squares, the player then heads back onto the normal route. It should be noted that this makes two of the squares in the centre row obsolete, so I ended up removing these. This adds some tension as the player risks being captured by a newly spawning piece, but adds some reward as the player could do the opposite: capture a newly spawning piece from their enemy.
Above: Diagram showing the game board after my iterations; the different shades of arrows show which way each player has to move. (Finkel, 2007, p.23)
In conclusion, I feel I have improved “The Royal Game of Ur” in various ways, without changing it too much and making it completely different from the original.
Bibliography:
Becker, A. (2007) “The Royal Game of Ur.” In: I. Finkel ed. Ancient Board Games in Perspective. British Museum Press, pp.11-15.
Brathwaite, B. & Schreiber, I. (2008) Challenges for Game Designers. Charles River Media, pp. 69-99.
Finkel, I. (2005) Games: Discover and Play 5 Famous Ancient Games. British Museum Press.
Finkel, I. (2007) “On the Rules for The Royal Game of Ur.” In: I. Finkel ed. Ancient Board Games in Perspective. British Museum Press, pp.16-32.
Hunicke, R., LeBlanc, M. & Zubek, R. (2004) MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research.
LeBlanc, M. (2006) “Tools for Creating Dramatic Game Dynamics.” In: K. Salen ed. The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology. MIT Press, pp.438-459.
Masters, J. (1997) The Online Guide to Traditional Games: The Royal Game of Ur [Online]. Available from: <http://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/Royal-Game-Ur.htm> [Accessed 5 December 2011].
Murray, H.J.R. (1952) A History of Board-Games Other Than Chess. Oxford University Press, pp. 19-23.
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