Semiotics

During our lecture on semiotics we were first asked to imagine that the word “glog” meant “cat”, we were then asked if we owned a glog and if so why/why not. Through this we gathered that semiotics was when one word, in this case “glog”, is a signifier and that the object, in this case a cat is the signified.

So to explain it more a signifier is a word which is associated with an object, another example of this is what people call money, some people might say “I have a few pounds” whereas some one else will say “I have a few quid”. They both use a different signifier but the money is the signified object. Another example of semiotics is a toilet gender symbol, in the way that someone can differentiate between a man's toilet and a woman's toilet, by looking at a symbol which they have not encountered before they can tell which toilet is the right one for them.

New Games Journalism

There are two types of journalism when it come to games, these are NGJ (New Games Journalism) and OGJ (Old Games Journalism).

The main differences between these types of journalism I that with OGJ it is written from the technical view of the game, going into detail with such things as how the mechanics of the game work, if the user interface is easy to read and how good the graphics are. However NGJ looks at the game from the players view; what their experience of the game will be like and what they liked/disliked about the game.

Personally, I prefer NGJ as it give the reader an insight into what they would be feeling while playing the game as this could be a big deciding point to whether they buy a game or not. I'm not saying that OGJ is bad because it certainly is not, it gives you the facts about the technical standpoints of the game which is highly important to some people.

Remediation

We had a lecture about remediation and how it has been happening in recent times, remediation is when one piece of media is changed and also used in a different format. A good example of this is how newspapers companies now post their daily newspapers online as well as still selling the hard copy. This has happened because anything on the internet can be updated instantly whereas you would have to wait a day to buy the next newspaper.

Other forms of media that have been affected by remediation are books as they are remade into movies, movies are made into games and vice-versa. Remediation is carried out in order to keep up to date with the advancements in technology and to make sure it is accessible in different ways.

Games Britannia: Joystick Generation

On this episode of Games Britannia Woolley talked about how board games have changed into video games that are being created and played today. The games that were mention started from Pacman and Space invaders all the way through to Tomb Raider and Black & White.

Games which had the player play as the 'bad' character were also mentioned and how they were pushing the political limits of what was alowed to be in a game, some of these games were Carmagedon and Grand Theft Auto. Woolley also later talks about online gaming and how people can make alternate identities online due to games such as Runescape and World of Warcraft.

Pervasive Games

Today we were sent a a treasure hunt around the arts and humanities building in order to help us understand what pervasive games are. Pervasive games have been split up into four main genres, these are: Treasure hunts, Assassination games, Pervasive LARPs, ARGs.

Treasure hunts consist of hints and rewards, these work by a hint given to the player such as a riddle or map which the player must figure out. Once the player has worked out the hint and moved to the next location the could find either another hint which will tell them to go to another location or a reward for working out the hint.

The rules for assassination games can be found in the book Killer: The Game of Assassination written by Steve Jackson.

Pervasive LARPs (Live Action Role Play) first started to appear around the 1980's, taking part in a LARP will have people playing a certain character and acting as they would. In more recent times LARPs have been heavily fantasy based with people having medieval wars between different races such as elves, goblins and humans.

ARGs (Alternative Reality Games) are more collaborative rather than competitive meaning that people will work together to 'beat' the game rather than against each other. ARGs are like treasure hunts in the way that they cause the players to solve puzzles in order to advance. An ARG that was very popular was the 'I Love Bees' ARG which was used in the promotion of Halo 2.

After we went on the treasure hunt we watched a movie based on a pervasive game, this movie was La Decima Vittima ( The Tenth Victim). This movie was the cause of the assassination game 'Killer' that swept over university campus' all over the United States.

Ancient Game Tweaking

Today we were tweaking an ancient games of our choice by changing the mechanics of the game to help us with our assignment. The ancient game that I chose to tweak was Tablut, the changes to the mechanics that I made were that each player can only move one space at a time instead of being able to move as many spaces (in one direction) as they want. The iteration which led to this dramatic change were that the king could only move one space, I found this very difficult for the king to win so I then thought that it might play better if everyone could only move one space.

This session has really helped me to progress with my assignment and I will continue to iterate Tablut in the same ways as this session.

Ancient Games

Over the course of the first semester we were introduced to a various number of ancient games, these were The Royal Game of Ur, Senet, Duodecim Scripta and Hnefetafl.

The first ancient game that we were introduced to was The Royal Game of Ur, personally I found this the simplest ancient game that we have been introduced to. Ur can be played with either four sided dice or sticks, with the four sided dice are used you have to mark two of the corners. The aim of the game was to get all of your pieces, usually four to six pieces, off the board before the other player.

Senet was the second ancient game that we were introduced to, it symbolised the Egyptian journey to heaven. For this game you need four sided dice or sticks, depending on how many points are showing when you take your turn depends on how many spaces you can move one of your five pieces, also when a you move a certain amount of spaces you get a re-roll. The strange thing about Senet is that you cannot remove any pieces from play (unless they reach the end) instead they just swap places.

Duodecim Scripta was the next ancient game that we were shown, this game is played with two six sided dice. In this game you have six pieces which you have to get out of the starting area by rolling the corresponding number to what space they are on. Only once all of your pieces are out are you then allowed to move your pieces around the board. If you land on an opponents piece that piece is sent back to the start, but if you land on your own piece you can put those pieces together meaning that they could only be taken by a group of the same amount or more pieces. The winner is the player to get all their pieces of the board at the same time.

Hnefetafl was the last ancient game which we were introduced to, this game consists of one team starting in the middle of the board trying to get their king to the corner of the board. The other team starting at the side of the board trying to stop the king escaping. Instead of dice rolls pieces in this game can be moved as many spaces as you want in any one direction. Pieces can be taken by positioning two piece of the other team on opposite sides on the other teams pieces.

The ancient game which I enjoyed the most was hnefetafl so I will use this ancient game to iterate for my assignment.