Misc. Projects - Small steps on the way to making great games
This page is a collection of games and projects that are too small to warrant their own page. They were made during my time studying computer games development at the University of Skövde, and are not commercial products. Still, they are varied and numerous so at the very least, they serve as a sort of back-drop to my career as a professional game maker.
Kobayashi Academy - Learning the Kanji
During the fall of 2009, me and two fellow designers studying Serious Games formed a team to present game prototypes to aid in memorizing Japanese Kanji. Kanji is a kind of alphabet that contains over 50.000 characters, 1.945 of which are used daily by the Japanese. It is essential to memorize each character if you're to stand any chance in reading a complete sentence, and so our client, Tobias Sehlberg, wanted games that would help students memorize them.
Tobias contacted our University and not long after that, we were assigned to the task, as part of a project course. Fast forward a couple of months and a series of mini games collectively called Kobayashi Academy were finished, with varying depth of gameplay, but all with the same purpose: mask the repetition of Kanji through gameplay itself.
We quickly came to realize that memorization of Kanji was best done through repetition, like any vocabulary list, yet equally as tedious. To circumvent such a problem, we started integrating the repetition of Kanji into gameplay, requiring the player to repeat the Kanji in order to advance in the game.
These games, along with the book Memorizing the Kanji's association technique, are meant to produce some very satisfying results for students who want to study Japanese, but lack the motivation of endlessly repeating vocabulary lists.
Kobayashi Academy is hosted on the University of Skövde's website: http://dsu.iki.his.se/games/2010/kobayashi-academy/
Tobias contacted our University and not long after that, we were assigned to the task, as part of a project course. Fast forward a couple of months and a series of mini games collectively called Kobayashi Academy were finished, with varying depth of gameplay, but all with the same purpose: mask the repetition of Kanji through gameplay itself.
We quickly came to realize that memorization of Kanji was best done through repetition, like any vocabulary list, yet equally as tedious. To circumvent such a problem, we started integrating the repetition of Kanji into gameplay, requiring the player to repeat the Kanji in order to advance in the game.
These games, along with the book Memorizing the Kanji's association technique, are meant to produce some very satisfying results for students who want to study Japanese, but lack the motivation of endlessly repeating vocabulary lists.
Kobayashi Academy is hosted on the University of Skövde's website: http://dsu.iki.his.se/games/2010/kobayashi-academy/
H2O Kongo - Game-based learning about water supply
The Swedish Red Cross had contacted the school and offered a project that could be included in a thesis project, so I signed up the minute I heard it and was put into contact with the Red Cross.
H2O Kongo is a very simple management game that is supposed to inform and increase awareness of The Red Cross' efforts on water and sanitary issues in Kongo.
This project had two goals: deliver a working prototype to The Swedish Red Cross and provide research data on emotional learning.
I made two versions of the game, one with colors, pictures and sound and one version with minimal colors, no pictures and no sound. I wanted to find out whether or not the "emotionally" enhanced version had better retention on test subjects than the emotionally neutral one.
Suffice to say, results were a bit inconclusive because I needed more test subjects to statistically ensure any facts, but the initial results were in the emotionally enhanced version's favor.
H2O Kongo is a very simple management game that is supposed to inform and increase awareness of The Red Cross' efforts on water and sanitary issues in Kongo.
This project had two goals: deliver a working prototype to The Swedish Red Cross and provide research data on emotional learning.
I made two versions of the game, one with colors, pictures and sound and one version with minimal colors, no pictures and no sound. I wanted to find out whether or not the "emotionally" enhanced version had better retention on test subjects than the emotionally neutral one.
Suffice to say, results were a bit inconclusive because I needed more test subjects to statistically ensure any facts, but the initial results were in the emotionally enhanced version's favor.
Trauma - Optical illusions as a gameplay challenge
TRAUMA is my Bachelor's degree thesis project, and is all about messing with your head. The player wakes up to find himself captured by a man who goes by the name of Xandex. He offers to let the player escape alive, if s/he can complete Xandex's games and achieve a high enough score (75) . The game has two different endings, depending on if the player achieves a score of 75+ or not.
The project was about experimenting with gameplay mechanics and visual illusions and trying to fuse the two together. The illusions were to play either a central or a peripheral role in the challenge, making the game harder because of their existence. What's interesting about visual illusions is that it is your brain who makes things "move" and whatnot. The illusions include no animation at all, so part of the challenge is for the player to "unthink" the illusion in order to gain more points and thus escape alive.
My experimentation with illusions and gameplay was successful and very educational. In my thesis paper I wrote that "it works well and is an untapped genre to the casual gaming market. It is important to analyze how the illusions are perceived and how they feel, rather than studying what happens in the brain. There is indeed potential for developers to study and learn to create their own illusions for games like this. (...) The illusions invite to something that players are not used to, namely a challenge that's not programmed; it's their own inability to manage the illusion." (Translated, as the paper was written in Swedish.)
Game 1 and 3 uses illusions "Dongurakokko" and "Rotating Snake" respectively, created by Professor Akiyoshi Kitaoka at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan. I am ever so thankful for his permission to use his illusions in my game, and I urge you to take a trip to his page, where he has tons of these mind-bending illusions! Akiyoshi's Illusion Pages
I was still very bad at programming, so technologically, this game is a mess. If you still would like to try it, here's the link: TRAUMA
The project was about experimenting with gameplay mechanics and visual illusions and trying to fuse the two together. The illusions were to play either a central or a peripheral role in the challenge, making the game harder because of their existence. What's interesting about visual illusions is that it is your brain who makes things "move" and whatnot. The illusions include no animation at all, so part of the challenge is for the player to "unthink" the illusion in order to gain more points and thus escape alive.
My experimentation with illusions and gameplay was successful and very educational. In my thesis paper I wrote that "it works well and is an untapped genre to the casual gaming market. It is important to analyze how the illusions are perceived and how they feel, rather than studying what happens in the brain. There is indeed potential for developers to study and learn to create their own illusions for games like this. (...) The illusions invite to something that players are not used to, namely a challenge that's not programmed; it's their own inability to manage the illusion." (Translated, as the paper was written in Swedish.)
Game 1 and 3 uses illusions "Dongurakokko" and "Rotating Snake" respectively, created by Professor Akiyoshi Kitaoka at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan. I am ever so thankful for his permission to use his illusions in my game, and I urge you to take a trip to his page, where he has tons of these mind-bending illusions! Akiyoshi's Illusion Pages
I was still very bad at programming, so technologically, this game is a mess. If you still would like to try it, here's the link: TRAUMA
Awesome Fighters - Multiplayer madness
Awesome Fighters, despite its corny name, was actually pretty good, as far as gameplay goes. This was the second game I participated in making, in the second Game Project. With a bigger team with bigger knowledge we set out to make the best game the school had ever seen, and outshine all the other teams with our unmatched gameplay.
My role in this project was that of a general designer this time around, concentrating on the actual gameplay and overall usability. I was involved a lot in the pre-production with the game's lead designer, Peter Ilves. We sat down long before the course had officially commenced in order to get a head start. Basic mechanics, fighting classes and skills were violently discussed and designed with paper and pencils.
What made this game so successful was our emphasis on game testing. Our team of designers would spend the better part of some days just tweaking the gameplay to get it to feel just right. At the end of the project we had a lot of visitors from the other developing teams who wanted to play "just one more game". Good times.
Lead designer Peter Ilves is now Game Director for Bloodline Champions, which started its production shortly after Awesome Fighters finished.
Awesome Fighters is hosted on the University of Skövde's website (Swedish only): http://dsu.iki.his.se/games/2010/awesome-fighters/
My role in this project was that of a general designer this time around, concentrating on the actual gameplay and overall usability. I was involved a lot in the pre-production with the game's lead designer, Peter Ilves. We sat down long before the course had officially commenced in order to get a head start. Basic mechanics, fighting classes and skills were violently discussed and designed with paper and pencils.
What made this game so successful was our emphasis on game testing. Our team of designers would spend the better part of some days just tweaking the gameplay to get it to feel just right. At the end of the project we had a lot of visitors from the other developing teams who wanted to play "just one more game". Good times.
Lead designer Peter Ilves is now Game Director for Bloodline Champions, which started its production shortly after Awesome Fighters finished.
Awesome Fighters is hosted on the University of Skövde's website (Swedish only): http://dsu.iki.his.se/games/2010/awesome-fighters/
Boiler - 8 players, one button each
Boiler was the first "real" game I ever participated in making and it was the first Game Project in my education as a game designer. It's a strategy game that only utilizes one button per player, thus enabling up to eight players to battle it out. Each player has a cursor that moves randomly around the battlefield. If a player wishes to deploy a unit, s/he simply presses his/her button and the cursor stops for deployment. There are eight different units to choose from, and they are placed using a simple Morse-code of three signals, meaning there are eight different combinations of these signals.
I took the main role as producer for the game, managing the project as a whole an organizing meetings. I also had the role of designer and illustrator, collaborating with my teammates to bring out the best of the original idea. I also did the (horrible) character portraits and designed the intro movie. I also did a lot of the sound effects. It was a small project, so everybody pitched in where they could be useful, whether it was in graphics or in programming.
The game was awarded with an Honorary Mention at Swedish Game Awards 2007.
Awesome Fighters is hosted on the University of Skövde's website (Swedish only): http://dsu.iki.his.se/games/2010/boiler/
I took the main role as producer for the game, managing the project as a whole an organizing meetings. I also had the role of designer and illustrator, collaborating with my teammates to bring out the best of the original idea. I also did the (horrible) character portraits and designed the intro movie. I also did a lot of the sound effects. It was a small project, so everybody pitched in where they could be useful, whether it was in graphics or in programming.
The game was awarded with an Honorary Mention at Swedish Game Awards 2007.
Awesome Fighters is hosted on the University of Skövde's website (Swedish only): http://dsu.iki.his.se/games/2010/boiler/