“Ball Drop One” — pinball without flippers
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games
Pretty much any pinball game you play (whether on the computer or in real life) has the flippers at the bottom which you can use to save the ball from disaster, and guide it where you need it to go… but it wasn’t always the way. Many versions of the game (particularly older ones) involve simply dropping the ball and hoping for the best on the way down.
“Ball Drop One” is an excellent pinball-style casual game, but there are no flippers in this one. You simply drop the ball (with some control over its size), and then largely just watch it interact with different pin-type elements in the game, such as circles which shrink or disappear when you hit them. There are some interactions you can do, almost all of which are exploratory… you just try it and see what happens. There are helpful hints which appear at the bottom of the screen too.
The graphics in this game are fairly basic, but the sound effects are well chosen, and as a whole it plays nicely. You gain points by making lots of bounces and gaining other bonuses, and more points unlocks more levels, so there is a good incentive to keep playing. There is a level editor too, although I haven’t tried that out myself.
A large amount of the game is effectively luck (unless you are ridiculously good at predicting complex bounces), which may frustrate some folks. However, it’s a really nice, quirky little game, which is worth a try. It felt a little uncomfortable to play at first, as you really go in blind and learn as you go, which goes against the grain for me a little! However, I’ve found myself going back to it and enjoying it… so give it a go!
“99 Bricks” — cunning Tetris variant
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games
The classic game “Tetris” has been cloned and re-cloned myriads of times, with very little change in the basic concept. However, here’s one that is truly a great twist on the original idea: the objective of “99 Bricks” is actually to build your tower of bricks as high as you can.
At first, it certainly looks like a basic Tetris game, with the same basic shaped blocks falling, and you can move and rotate them on the way down. However, after a few shapes, you quickly realise there’s some differences here — firstly, full rows don’t count for anything… you just keep building. And second… physics! As you build your tower higher and higher, it starts to get less and less stable, and it starts to sway. You need to be careful to fill in gaps, and not put pieces in dangerous positions, in case they fall and take part of your tower with them.
Oh yes, and the title comes from the fact that you only have 99 bricks with which to build your tower. Mustn’t forget that!
I can’t say I found it addictive as such, but I think the concept is great. Graphics are really good, the controls/response are slick, and the physics is well implemented. The music is not wonderful, but it’s not bad either. All things considered, it’s well worth a try.
Meet Gorrin…
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games
I’ve finally been and gone and done it… I’ve tried World of Warcraft. After a few hours, I have a level 8 Dwarf Hunter called Gorrin. I thought I was being at least a little original, but I’m seeing as many Dwarf Hunters as I am of everybody else put together. Doh!
It’s been an interesting experience so far. I have previously played a little Silkroad Online, so the basics were already somewhat familiar to me. I am struck by how clean and slick many of the graphics and animations are (a few questionable trees and things notwithstanding), although as I always suspected, everything just takes so long to do!
Enjoying it anyway, although I’m finding the balance of ranged/melee attacks quite hard to manage playing on my own (I really should be more social!). Best tactics I’ve found are to hit the bad guy hard and fast from a distance, and keep backing-off while firing more ranged attacks, preferably moving in the direction of an NPC guard who can bail you out if you’re in trouble!
Not sure how willing I’d be to pay £9 a month for the privilege of all this, being as I’m on a student budget again these days… but we’ll see. I’ve got more than a week to try it out for free (although I reckon I should keep my playing strictly to weekends, or else I’ll never get any work done!).
“Twinity” — my initial experience
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games, Software, Virtual Worlds
This evening, I decided to try out Twinity — a new virtual world which is in public beta at the moment. I’m still learning my way round, but it’s looking quite interesting so far… albeit running a tad slowly on my PC! Here’s a review of my first couple of hours playing with it, but be warned, this is pretty long! 
Upon Arrival…
I started in a Welcome Area, which consisted of wide open spaces with information displays and tutorials around. Large texture-based signs load in from fuzzy blobs, but they are remarkably legible, giving all the basic pointers. As an introduction to the world, it definitely needs work though — I think I was only comfortable because I have been using virtual worlds for a while. Total newbies would likely get dazed and confused rather quickly.
Identity
When you first sign-up, you provide your first and last names, and it doesn’t seem to suggest anything other than real names (although I assume you could use anything quite happily). By default, your first name will appear above your avatar in-world, but you can make your last name visible too. I am not sure how wise it is to go by first-names only in a virtual world, given the scope for confusion, but things may change.
Graphics
I can’t say I’m impressed with the graphics in general at this stage, as the system requirements are fairly huge for (quite frankly) not a lot. It’s possible that the system automatically scaled-down the graphics level to suit my lower-end processor, but unlikely, and the only 2 graphics detail settings I’ve found are resolution, and anti-aliasing level.
Interface
The visual element of the user interface is fairly nice and clean, with that rounded-corner web-2.0-feel that everybody loves… or at least, that’s what designers tell us we’re supposed to love. The basic UI is fairly unobtrusive, primarily occupying a small panel at the bottom-middle, with some important buttons. (There’s also some important but small buttons at the top-right.) Everything appears in various windows, which can be moved and closed, but not resized or minimized. It looks like they’ve implemented a totally bespoke interface system, which is impressive, but was probably an unnecessary use of their development time (how many times can the wheel be re-invented?), and it’s not as responsive as I would like, but it certainly does the job admirably.
Regarding control scheme, I think it’s a little unintuitive, and it feels restrictive after being used to Second Life (although SL has unusually good controls) — you walk around with arrow keys or WASD, but your camera keeps a fixed angle/distance as you do that, even if you double-back on yourself. You rotate the camera around your avatar by clicking and holding the right-mouse button, and moving the mouse. You can zoom in/out using the scroll wheel, but I haven’t found a way to change the camera’s centre of focus though, so it seems that you actually have to walk right up to a sign in order to read it… although I could be wrong.
You can also run, by holding the shift key or toggling with Caps Lock, but I don’t think you can fly. Interacting with items occurs mostly by left-clicking on them, and right-clicking can bring up some other information/options. When you are near a seat, a nifty little ’seat’ 3d icon appears over it, which you click to sit down. It means you can’t just sit anywhere, but it’s more reliable where you can.
Appearance
Plenty of avatar customization is possible, and it seems you can even upload your own photographs to create your virtual face. Besides that, it’s the usual maniacally large number of slider controls in various categories, and a certain degree of control over your skin tone. It’s also possible to buy various attachments to wear, including different hair, hats, jackets, trousers, and so on. The selection is not huge yet, but I am sure it will increase as the virtual world matures. (I did notice the somewhat risky “Third Life” T-shirt, although chose not to wear it!)
One thing I will say is that it was unclear exactly whom I was buying the items from, as the menu of items just appeared as part of the process of altering my avatar. I was definitely using my starting supply of “Globals” (the in-world currency) to do it though, and I assume I was just buying them from ‘the game’, so the currency didn’t actually go anywhere… it just got deducted from my account. The great thing though is that you can preview items on your avatar before attaching them, although no customization of the items seems possible (e.g. colour changes).
Currency
Since we’re on the topic, the in-world currency (”Globals”) is intended to work as part of an actual economy, and you can buy more Globals through the website apparently. It seems that you can’t trade Globals back for real-world money, although I have seen job adverts around, suggesting that you can ‘earn’ money in the virtual world, as with MMORPGs. Quite what such jobs entail is a mystery to me, but I shall endeavour to find out.
Animation
The default animations look fairly nice… nothing to write home about, but fairly smooth. Clicking a button on the interface brings up the neat little animations window, which has one particularly nifty feature to check out: moods. You can pick from: Confident, Default, Depress, Drunken, and Relaxed. This will affect the basic way your avatar stands and walks, which is great, although I would like to see a broader range of moods, and/or the ability to explicitly change the animations used (maybe those will come in a later version).
You can also create a custom set of animation buttons (up to 10 viewable at a time) which you push to perform a certain animation/gesture on-demand. As with editing your own appearance, you populate these slots by purchasing stuff with your Globals. There’s already a fairly huge number available, with plenty of dance moves, of course! The animations certainly seem fairly detailed, with facial expressions included in many, which is very nice.
User-Content
There is differing information regarding user-content — some of the support information on the website says it’s not yet possible, and yet there is an interface for it in-world. The interface indicates “you must be a premium member to upload content”, and since I am on a student-budget, I am not even considering paying them anything just now! If/when user-content is enabled though, it seems to support at least avatar attachments and animations, and perhaps other stuff will come along too, such as separate objects. There does not appear to be any facility for in-world creation though, a la Second Life, so it looks like everything would need to be created off-line, potentially with proprietary tools.
Membership
Basic membership is free, and as mentioned above, you can pay to get more “Globals” to spend in-world. There is also a premium membership level, which seems to be free during the public beta period, but which will cost more money later on. What does premium membership get you? Aside from being able to upload custom content (if/when that is implemented), it lets you buy a virtual apartment, which you seem to pay for with real-world money. From what I have picked-up, you can customize your apartment to some degree, and even designate ‘flatmates’ who can customize it too. Eventually, I think people will be able to buy and sell virtual apartments from/to each other, creating an in-world real-estate market.
Communication
There’s not a whole lot of people with whom to communicate at the moment (I should have tried this out with a friend!). However, I’ve experimented with text-chat a little, and it seems to appear as chat bubbles over avatars’ heads. That’s an option I’ve tried in Second Life, but which I didn’t like, because it makes it very hard to follow a line of conversation unless you can negotiate your camera to view all the other avatars. It apparently supports voice-chat though, which is very important. No idea how reliable it is! There seems to be an asynchronous messaging system too.
Conclusion
It’s got a lot of promise, and it seems fairly well-made so far. From the point-of-view of education, I am not hopeful at all, since it looks like custom content creation will require a substantial outlay, and potentially expertise with offline tools (which are often very hard to learn, in my experience). Having said that, though, I have got used to the remarkable affordances of Second Life, so perhaps I am being pessimistic, and teachers could work with far less customization, with more ready-made education packs.
That aside, the text chat system being based on chat-bubbles, combined with the lack of camera freedom, would make discussions of more than a few avatars very difficult to do in text… but perhaps the aim is to encourage voice chat in Twinity anyway. The camera issues would also make it hard to present information to a group of people, or for multiple avatars to use a single resource, since they all need to be close to it ‘physically’ in order to see it.
Attempting a modicum of objectivity (since I have undoubtedly glossed-over many important differences between this and other such platforms), the tag-line of Twinity is “Powered by real life”. They seem to be aiming for a much more real-life-based experience, which means all the above issues of chat bubbles, camera freedom, and even lack of content creation tools, are entirely in-line with the philosophy. They want the virtual world to mimic the real-world in layout, too, with Berlin being their first virtual city. The aim seems to be a good deal of integration with other media forms too, as I have seen in the form of much “Quantum of Solace” advertising! (Consider: how often do you see advertisements for real-world stuff when you’re just out-and-about in Second Life?)
I am looking forward to seeing where Twinity goes. Nobody can predict these things, so I won’t even guess how popular it is likely to be, but it has plenty of potential. Granted, the transition will likely be uncomfortable at first for folks used to other platforms, as it seems to do things in very much its own way, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. A little originality and character in a sometimes-saturated market is well worth the plunge.
Learning Through Play
Posted by Peter | Filed under Education, Games
Through my work and research in the university and on the SLOODLE project, I’ve encountered plenty of mention of constructivism in relation to education. However, considering my wonderful neice (who will be 2 in January), and my practically newborn nephew, I was quite interested by a recent Newswise article about constructivist play for young children.
The principle is that simpler toys encourage greater use of imagination and development of cognitive skills for very young children, but slightly older ones will benefit from more directly educational toys, such as board games and chemistry sets. The article quotes a great example from R. Keith Sawyer:
“For example, if you bought your child the toy cowboy from the movie “Toy Story,” the child will probably already be familiar with the movie, with the character and how the character talks and acts. That narrows the range of pretend play options or scenarios the child will engage in. However, if you get your child a generic cowboy toy, the child might act out scenes from “Toy Story,” but might also do something completely different.”
Watching my niece play with absolutely anything and everything she can get her hands on, from placemates to cuddly toys, certainly bears this out. I cannot suggest what she sees in the toys when she plays, as she’s too young to express much verbally (although for a not-yet 2 year old, she’s doing remarkably well with language… or maybe that’s just my proud uncle-ness talking!). At any rate, she manages to play equally well (if not better) with abstract objects as she does with realstic items.
I see very similar things with a couple of slightly older children at my church: one is about 2 and a half, and the other (who started school this year) is nearly 5. They certainly love acting out superhero scenes from series they watch on TV or DVD, but after church this past Sunday, they seemed to be having a lot more fun pretending an upturned toy table was a boat. It doesn’t look like a boat, nor is it in anyway seaworthy, and the carpet certainly doesn’t look (or feel) like the ocean, but those things didn’t matter to them… it was just a bit of fun. (Perhaps more significantly, they happily involved a bit of superhero stuff in the boat scene, but not the other way round.)
The slightly older kids (particularly the 4 year old) were capable of constructing more complex scenes than my little niece, but it all seems to be part of the same process. It leads me to wonder what learning is actually going on in these cases. Certainly getting the imagination active is great, and learning the difference between fantasy and reality is very important. Perhaps also through doing these things, they are experimenting with relationships, learning social skills. They are also using language to express themselves in their make-believe personae. Most importantly, I think, they are maybe learning to see things from another perspective — i.e. from the point-of-view of their character, rather than themselves.
I’m not a developmental psychologist though, so I’m probably just waffling. One wee thing I will mention though is that similar situations exist in video games for kids and adults of all ages — in bygone days, I remember having lots of fun racing a line around a bunch of dots on an old Spectrum. The hyper-realism of today’s games is great, but not necessary for fun, and can in many ways perhaps impede it.
Studying Games Development
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games
The LA Times is running an article about studying computer/video games development at university-level. It is certainly impressive to see how many institutions are taking up this area, but in line with the quote from an EA employee, as well as many users on Slashdot, I am dubious about the wisdom of quite such enthusiastic uptake.
As was the case with many folks on the Computer Games Technology degree I studied, it seems that too many of the wrong kinds of folks are being attracted to the courses: people who like playing games (which admittedly is an important attribute), but are either unable to develop the necessary skills, or simply can’t be bothered doing the work. In part, I think the problem is people who come straight from high school into university — they are used to being spoon-fed all their education, and have never experienced a significant workload. University and the real-world are full-time endeavours, children… get used to it!
I am certainly all in favour of Higher Education, but only where appropriate. Students undertaking a course where they are likely to fail or drop-out is waste of time, effort, and money for all concerned. Furthermore, unless they manage to change to a different (more suitable) degree, it gives them a pretty bad start for any kind of career.
“Park My Car” — practice makes perfect!
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games
There have been a few little web-games along the lines of “Park My Car“, but it’s quite fun for a quick play anyway. The premise seems to be that you’re a valet parking assistant who has to park fancy cars in designated spaces for the rich and famous. Refreshingly, you actually fail the level if you squish a passing dog or that blind man who just happens to be wandering past the parking space. (Admittedly, there is at least one Mafia-style level where you have to shoot the bad dudes who are trying to shoot you while you park… as if reversing round corners wasn’t already hard enough!).
I actually found this quite a surprising challenge, because it’s got a much more realistic control concept than your average driving game. You control it with your cursor keys, but instead of instantly-turning wheels when you steer, you have to hold the key for a period of time to turn your wheels to the desired direction. Your steering also won’t automatically revert to centre when you release the keys, so it’s rather unintuitive for guys like me who grew up playing racing games on the PC! (That’s not necessarily a bad thing though.)
The graphics are clean and fairly well-made (it’s top-down, 2d), and the sounds/music is OK. I have one criticism of the interface, and that’s the fact that it’s quite hard to see which way your wheels are steering until you actually start moving (I would recommend an on-screen steering wheel or something just to give you a better idea). Also, it’s a little unforgiving in the way you progress through the levels… 3 crashes (even if all you hit was a poor frog) and you have to start over completely. For a casual game, I prefer it to be at least a little easier to get through to the later levels… but maybe that’s just because I’m still rubbish at it!
Theft, Divorce, and Murder
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games, Software, Virtual Worlds
A less-than cheery topic to accompany some interesting virtual activity, starting with the NY Times report of the theft of some virtual inventory in RuneScape (also reported with slightly different details by the Telegraph), in which a 13 year old player was violently coerced to log-in to his account to let the thief (~16 years old) transfer the goods to another account. The incident occurred over a year ago, but a Dutch court ruled earlier this week that it amounted to theft under real-world law, and sentenced the thief accordingly. It’s a tough area to deal with from a legal standpoint, but I think it has been handled well.
A somewhat more bizarre case sees the recent arrest of a scorned divorcee who allegedly murdered her ex-husband. Sounds grim… until you realise she has been arrested on suspicion of (effectively) computer hacking, and nothing more. Seemingly, the pair were only virtual spouses in the Maple Story MMORPG (admittedly, I had never heard of it before). After the ‘husband’ unexpectedly terminated the virtual marriage, the ‘(ex-)wife’ gained unauthorised access to his account, and killed off his avatar in May earlier this year. The arrest itself is very real though, and if charged, she faces a fine of $5000, or a whopping 5 years in jail (though she claims no intent to seek revenge of a more real-world sort).
Pondering…
A comparison of these two cases brings up a fascinating judicial conundrum — isn’t murder worse than theft? On the one hand, you’ve got virtual goods being attributed a real value, so that the legal system perceives virtual theft in the same light as real theft. On the other hand, you’ve got virtual murder, which is completely ignored as the legal system tackles a mere case of unauthorised access to (and modification of) personal data. Why do real-world legal values apply to the one and not the other?
Virtual goods may represent an investment of time, and thus a certain personal value, since it will take time and effort to re-acquire them following a theft. However, does a person’s avatar in an RPG not count for a greater investment of time and personal sentiment? From a purely logical standpoint, it seems like the virtual murder should be treated more seriously than virtual theft… and yet, try as I might, I cannot bring myself to consider punishment for virtual murder as anything but ludicrous! Maybe I just don’t take virtual worlds as seriously as some people.
I’m confused. And I’m glad I never wanted to be a lawyer. 
“My Word Coach” — vocabulary training on DS
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games
It’s been a while since I used my Nintendo DS, so when I was in the shops today, I decided to buy “My Word Coach“. I’ve enjoyed the Kawashima games and so forth, and given my proclivity for linguistic misdemeanour, I thought I’d give this one a go too.
As is fast becoming tradition in this area, the game comprises several mini-games (most of which are unlockable as you go along), which you play for a while each day, to build up your score. Each mini-game involves a series of words, sometimes needing you to guess the missing letter, or match words to definitions, and so on. After a couple of games, it seemed to gauge my level well enough to provide a comfortable mix of vocabulary, such that I was confident with just over half, familiar with most of the rest, and encountered a handful of totally new words from time to time.
A particular feature I like comes at the end of each mini-game: you are shown a list of the words you saw during that round, and you can scroll up and down the list to see the definition of each one. Any words you got wrong during the round are shown at the top with little crosses beside them, so you can easily spot problem areas when you encounter them. I have not yet seen any longer-term reporting regarding particular words (e.g. a word you consistently get wrong), but maybe it’s there and I haven’t found it or unlocked it yet.
“My Word Coach” definitely has a certain character of its own, so it is not entirely leeching off its fore-runners in the field. However, there are areas where it lacks a little. For example, the handwriting-recognition is not perfect (at least seemingly not as sophisticated as the Kawashima games), and the graphical style as a whole seems a little bit dated. However, these things don’t really hinder the process, and I have certainly had my vocabulary taxed a little by it so far.
Conclusion? Best not to draw any final thoughts just yet, since I have only played it for a couple of hours, but my impressions so far are pretty good overall. I am certainly all in favour of any way to improve the nation’s dwindling competence in literacy, and given the recent successes of the Kawashima games at schools up North (Scotland), perhaps this is one effective way to do it.
Slightly Pointless Addendum:
Being the pedant that I am, I will have to take this opportunity to quibble on a couple of words I have seen in the game thus far. Firstly, it defines a “centurion” as a Roman guard in command of 100 soldiers, when in actual fact it was really only 80 or so most of the time. And secondly, it defines “Armageddon” as the final war between good and evil mentioned in the Bible. Well, it’s close… Armageddon is actually the place where the battle will occur, according to Revelation 16:16.
“In The Doghouse”
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games
Here is an excellent bit of innovative gameplay: “In The Doghouse” requires you to get a puppy from one room in a house to another by sliding and rotating rooms around to make a clear path for him. It is 2d (side-on) and resembles the classic slider puzzle in the way you solve it. Wonderfully original concept; I love it! (Graphics and music are good too!)
