Play Journal #5: Bioshock

By understanding the narrative plot in video games, were able to uncover the structure of how the story plot in a video game occurs which could be impact by the players decisions on how the story progresses throughout a video game. By looking at Egenfeldt Nelson article, “Understanding Video Games, The Essential Introduction: Narrative”, he explains many different narrative mechanics that impact the way on how players interacts with a video game in which he points out that that most successful mechanics is when the players actions has consequences on a video game’s plot; “The key to a successful mechanics is to make players feel that they are contributing to creating a plot; the most successful narrative experiences happen in games where our actions have noticeable plot consequences” (Egenfeldt Nelson 183).

I believe that the video game “Bioshock” is a game where narrative plays an important role in understanding the plot in which the main narrative mechanic in the game is determined by the players actions in uncovering the plot. For example, throughout playing the game of Bioshock, you start to encounter little girls that are know as “Sisters” in which they play an important role in the narrative plot of the game. When a player encounters one of the Sisters that are protected by bosses called “Big Daddies”, the player must defeat the big daddy first to interact with the sister in which they are given a choice of saving the sister’s or harvesting them to gain “ADAM” which helps the player’s to upgrade their abilities. By the player making one of the two choices, there actions impact how the story plot progresses and unfolds in which determines how the story of the game concludes. If the player decides to save all the sisters, there given a good ending, but if the players decides to harvest all the sister, they are given a bad ending.

Another narrative mechanic that the game includes is collecting audio diaries that are scattered throughout the game in which is optional to the player to collect. The purpose of the audio dairies in the game is to give the player a clearer overview of the game’s story plot in which also uncovers the truth behind the Sister and why they have an important roll in the game’s story plot.

Overall, I believe that Bioshock is a game that demonstrates the importance of narrative mechanics and how the player’s actions can have a positive impact in creating a plot that is interactive with the players in which giving players the freedom of how they want the plot to unfold. In addition, by giving players the ability to control the plot of the story, this creates a narrative that makes players feel important in making the game fun and exciting to play.

Work Cited

Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Simon, et al. Understanding Video Games: The Essential Introduction. Routledge, 2013

Play Journal #3

          Throughout playing many games that have many different gaming mechanics that lets player to progress through the game, the game that I believe that demonstrates the way how gaming mechanics works is Portal 2. In the game Portal 2, the game takes place in a facility where you are a test subject that is forced to solve puzzles by robots in which your main adjective in this game is to escape the facility. The game Portal 2 has mechanics that limits on what the player can do on each level, but it requires the player to solve multiple puzzle solving levels to progress throughout the game that are challenging and difficult to solve. In addition, as the player progress through the game, the game rewards the player by letting them uncover the story plot of the game which is the only object that the player must achieve in the game.

           For example, according to Miguel Sicart’s article “Defining Game Mechanics”, he talks about what defines gaming mechanics throughout many well know game like Gears of war and Grand Theft Auto 4 that have their own unique gaming mechanics; “The influence of this design choice is such that even titles like Grand Theft Auto IV (RockStar North, 2008) have implemented a cover mechanic. Taking cover has arguably become one the features that all triple-A third-person action games ought to have nowadays” (Miguel Sicart). In addition, he also explains that objects in games have their own mechanics which creates rules on have player can interact with an object in the game; “All objects in games have properties. These properties are often either rules or determined by rules” (Miguel Sicart). By observing Portal 2 gaming mechanic and making connections with Miguel Sicart’s article, I believe that the main mechanic in the Portal 2 in on the movement mechanic throughout the game because the player is required to move to complete the puzzles. If the players does not follow the rules of the mechanic in the game, the player will face many consequences that will make the puzzles harder to solve.

           Overall, I believe that mechanic in video games are what creates an interaction with the players which some games let the players have more freedom and some games that restrict on what the player can do. In addition, I also believe that gaming mechanics are what create how story plots in video games are created because by requiring players to uncover the plots of the games story, this will require player to achieve in mastering the mechanics to progress throughout the games.

Worked Cited

- Sicart, Miguel. “Game Studies.” Game Studies - Defining Game Mechanics, http://gamestudies.org/0802/articles/sicart

Play Journal #2

After playing and analyzing the game “Paper Please”, you play a character that is trying to make a living to support his family in which the character gets a job at the border. I found the game to be unique as players only have two main adjectives in which you are to control on who gets to cross the border in the country and to make enough money to help support their family. What I found challenging is how difficult it can be to keep your family alive because any mistakes that you make will affect how much money you will receive at the end of each day which is need to help support your family.

While that game has many important concepts that can be connected to Johan Huizinga’s reading “Nature and Significance of Play as a cultural Phenomenon” in which he talks about many different types of elements of  “play”, I believe that tension of play is important in game. For example, according to Johan Huizinga’s reading, he talks about how tension plays an important role in video games because it cause players to be cautious on making decisions which can lead to consequences that affects the gameplay story plot; “The element of tension in play to which we have just referred plays a particularly important part. Tension means uncertainty, chanciness; a striving to decide that issue and so end it” (Johan Huizinga 105). By connecting this element to the game Paper please, the game is heavily focus on make many different decisions that affects the outcome of the game in which cause players to follow every rule that the games tells you to do. From my personal experience from playing the game and analyzing the element in the game, I believe that I was impacted by this element by cause me to be very restrictive on who can enter through the border with the mindset of making correct decisions.

Overall, the game’s story plot and the gameplay was not to exciting from my personal perspective because the players are limited to what they can do and what they can achieve which causes the game to be not enjoyable. While the player are limited on what they can do, the game mechanics are what cause the player to be interactive with the game and the characters in which there is not many characters that the game introduces. In addition, I believe that the game is heavily focus toward players that want to uncover the games plot and the outcomes that lead to different situations that the game puts you through.

  Worked cited

·       Johan Huizinga, “Nature and Significance of Play as a Cultural Phenomenon”

·       Tekinbaş Katie Salen., and Eric Zimmerman. The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology. MIT Press, 2006.

Play Journal #1 (Pac-Man)

In the world of classic arcades where many people find a lot of enjoyment when playing by themselves or with other players, there are many different kinds of arcade game that ranges from many different type of genre’s and play styles that many newer arcade games learn from. For example, during the classic arcade era, the major traits that many arcades shared were single screen play and infinite play which was a major gameplay style that was used on many different types of classic arcades. While many different classical arcades games uses this concept, the one classic arcade game that I believe that shares many of the same traits was Pac-Man. Pac-Man is a very unique arcade game that doesn’t require a lot of skills to play which allows player of any skill level from beginner to professional to understand the main adjective of playing the game. This allowed many players to experience one of the many different types of arcades game that many still find till this day still enjoyable.

During my experience of playing Pac-Man, I notice many different unique gaming aspects that Pac-man offered while playing. When arriving to the Pac-Man arcade machine, your introduce to a bright yellow machine that has a unique art style logo at the top of the machine. When inserting your credits to play the game, you’re introduce to the Pac-Man theme song that many will find catchy in which it brought back many memories as if I was playing back in the days when I was younger. During the gameplay, your main adjective in Pac-Man is to build up as many points by eating many little white pellets as a little yellow circle while trying to avoid four colored ghosts. Each level have the same number of white pellets to collect, but as you progress each level, all the four ghosts get faster which gets more challenging as you progress. While the game doesn’t have a story line, as a player, I was interactive with the game. There were many times that I died from one of the ghost which the game only gives you three lives, but I always find myself inserting more credits in attempt to achieve the high score in which I know it was not going to be easy because I knew that I was not very skilled at the game in understanding the mechanics on how to avoid the ghost. 

Overall, I really enjoyed playing Pac-man even though there was not much to do in the game, you were limited to a single screen but with never ending level because the game was infinite. With the game having never ending levels, I only had the mindset which was to beat the high score on the leader board and to see other player try their chance of beating the high score.