Character Development Revisited

    When I think of games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 1&2 and Killzone 1&2 I think about how prepared and skillfull the player characters are.  They are highly trained, good at what they do, and never meet a challenge they cannot overcome with the right gamer conducting them.  In Killzone 1 there are several players who you play that meet this description, and what you find out is while they are as aforementioned-they specialize in certain weapons or stealth, etc. 
    The characters are not so much affected by their environments as they are prepared for it.  In COD, the player always has what he needs to win the battle be it a sniper rifle, a strong troop collaboration, maps, a predator drone, whatever-he's got it.  This makes it fun for the player who can then feel the ambience of modern day warfare. 
    If the environment was the opposite it might not be as much fun.  This is to say that they are soldiers, and have a level of expertise that if not exercised would not make much sense for a gamer.  They might be able to do well at a carnival where they could test their hand-eye coordiantion shooting or throwing things for prizes, but would a player really feel it necessary to take a black ops operative into a carnival to win there?  Probably not. 

Chapter Five Book Work

2)  What I might do to create a "sandbox" for my original game is to make sections of space obtainable.  With planetary travel quick and easy to understand by putting informational panels beside sections of planets to be traveled to.  Also there would be space stations in between with their own side missions.  The informational panels would communicate whether things were hostile or not, what enemies and/or allies to expect, motives/goals for inhabitants, food/water amounts and types, and anything else one would need to know to prepare for journeys.  Ships could represent rewards for bigger mission accomplishments, while fuel and weapons could do the same for smaller side mission accomplishments.  Plus players could (drawing on the idea from GTA) interact with the NPC's to test and manipulate their current environment to get new missions (perhaps to acquire more or stronger weapons).

Dice Game

Texas Hold'em Dice

Premise: To add another level of luck to Texas Hold'em Poker.

Rules: The cards are dealt like a normal game of Texas Hold'em.  However, at each turn players can either put chips in the middle to pay for a roll of the die.  The die is six sided and represents the number of cards players can pick up depending on their roll.  Since the player starts out holding two cards, they can hold only a maximum of eight with the five dealt in the middle at the last hand. 

Base Mechanics:  At each turn (3 turns), the player can choose to fold, bet only, or bet and pay for a roll with the price being set at the ante (at the beginning of the dealing).

Revisions: None

Design Chemistry

When there is a project at hand, having the right people on hand can make or break its success.  Surely there are somethings that we are good at working alone.  However, when you want to make something big, you will most likely need more people; and surely there are certain things that someone else might be specifically better or quicker at completing on the level needed to ensure its success.  In my own experience, the smaller the team, the easier the communication.  Furthermore, the smaller the team, the better everyone can get to or already know each other.  With this being said I currently believe that small teams can communicate to other small teams via a liaison.  As we have learned from the assembly lines of the early Ford automotive production plants, specialization multiplies productivity.  Granted you need to have the right people in the right places.

Prototyping

Prototyping is an extremely useful tool in design.  In the field of architecture, people build prototypes or models to test for structural stability and aesthetic reasons.  Afterall, the last thing you want to have happen is spend all your time on an idea and find out too late in the process that it cannot accomplish the big ideas you had for it.  In video games the same is true.  Plus prototypes can inspire new ideas or perfect the current one.  The earlier you know how and what will work for your game, the better prepared you are to bring the whole thing together.

Character Development

The following is the description of my player:
    His name is Spatula Francis Dogwalker.  He is an american ninja. Grew up in the trailer park until 16 when he left, after his single-mother's death. He dropped out of school in the 9th grade and moved to Japan with money saved from pick-pocketing. Which is where he learned the ways of mixed martial arts from sinsea Master Jetlu. After winning many competitions and events of defending his honor, Spatula moved back to the states to avenge his mother's wrongful death.
    He can defend himself as a reflex, is bi-lingual, and in excellent physical shape. He has a dragon tatoo on his left forearm, is 21 and is 6'0" and 200 pounds.  His parents separated before his birth. His mother was addicted to pain killers. She started taking them after a drunk driver hit her car when she was 17.
    His overall goal is to avenge his mother's wrongful death. She was killed by gang members in a drug deal gone wrong.  His tactic?--Kill 'em all!

GameMechanics Examined

    I agree with the article that too many mechanics can mean too much resting on the shoulders of the player.  For example, in the game The Matrix: Path of Neo there are so many different combo moves that you end up just hitting buttons and seeing new moves by accident.  I loved this game though because I loved The Matrix the movie.  However, I basically stuck to a few combos I remembered as they came up in the game and discovered others by randomly pressing buttons.  I have also felt this weight in other games where there is so much up to you, you get overwhelmed thinking of how to organize your gameplay in order to be successful in the game.