Addiction and rules

Rules

A rule within a game is something which the player must abide by if they want to carry on playing the game without any penalties. Some rules can consist of not killing another player during a given time period this means that the rules within a video games are meant to be treated equally as laws in the real world. The reason as to why rules are important in video games is because of the fact that it tells the player how to play and why they are supposed to play that way instead of destroying the gaming experience by breaking these rules. For example in the game rune-scape you are not allowed to use offensive language, you’re not allowed to abuse bugs, and lastly you’re not allowed to “scam” or real world trade.

Addiction.

Addiction is a term given to players who excessively game, people become addicted if a game has many long term goals or is extremely enjoyable. Game designers want to make games addictive because they want the player to experience the most fun out of their game whilst making a lot of money from the game that they have designed.

Difficulties in games

Difficulty and balance

The term balance in video games means to balance the difficulty of the game in order to make it viable for the player to play. It is crucial for the initial missions of the game to be easy and passable for even the beginner in a video game because of the fact that these will be the foundations that need to be built upon by the player as the game progresses further on. As the game goes on in a video game it will mean that the player will then be met with harder tasks to complete, this is done in order to help the gamer improve and hone his/hers abilities. A way game designers will try to balance a games difficulty is to add different difficulties which can be chosen at the start of the game. This will allow the player to set their own difficulty dependant on how much experience they have with the game or similar games. The reason as to why games use difficulty setting to balance their game is to make the game playable for the player. A game that uses difficulty settings is Halo 3, this game goes from ‘recruit’ to ‘legendary’ recruit being the easiest and legendary being the hardest.

Player actions

Different characters have different actions that can be performed by the player. The first action is what the player can do with the character inside of the video game, this means the controls of the character given by the developer of the game. within different games characters can perform different actions which allow them to complete levels or missions. for example in assassins creed the character can run, jump, grab onto ropes, balance on bars, climb and fight the enemies. whereas in FIFA the characters do different actions such as kicking the ball passing shooting tackling and defending. the actions the character can perform are determined before the game is made and depend on the genre and the type of game it is.

The way you control the character varies from game to game for example in the game League of legends you can control your character by using skills which range from character to character by pressing the buttons that are linked to that skill, “q, w, e, r, p, ctrl 1 2 3 4 and so on”, this allows the player to move the character in whichever way he or she feels necessary. The way a player can control its character ranges from the console used in order to play the game on, for example on Xbox one the player can use Xbox Kinect move the character without the use of a controller or a mouse, and it works by using sensors that view the player. Another method in which the player can control the character is using a mouse, this is used in most computer gaming scenarios because it is the most effective method this is also combined with a keyboard in order to increase the range of movements the character can perform (however there are gaming mouse which have all the keys that a keyboard has and you can link those keys in order to control the character). These things affect the gameplay because imagine if you were to play a game using Xbox Kinect and it was a racing game it would be awkward to move around in such a way to control the cars movement so it is better to use a controller in the shape of a steering wheel to control the character.

What is narrative and how is it set within a video game?

Narrative

A narrative within a video game is the ‘story line’ of the game, it is the role the main character has to play in the video game. The reason as to why video game designers use this idea is because it helps immerse the player into the game, it allows more leeway for the designers because the player will understand the ‘narrative’ of the game. The advantages of using narrative inside of games is that it lets the player know and understand the storyline of the game it is what helps develop the foundations of the game inside the players mind in order to help the player and guide them through the game. The two main types a narrative is set within a game is by using cut scenes or full motion video. An example of a narrative for a video game would be in the game Assassins creed, the narrative in this video game is to stop the Templars from doing what they’re doing.

FMV

FMV stands for full motion video it is a separation from the actual game itself. A full motion video’s purpose is to set the story line for the player, it shows the player what kind of task is going to be set for them next. FMV is used in most video games with a given narrative, one game that uses FMV is Halo 3. Halo 3 uses narrative every time a mission has been completed and also as an opening to another task. . A downside to full motion video is that it takes away from the gameplay and doesn’t allow the player to have any control of what’s going on whatsoever. full motion video costs alot of money and takes alot of time away from the designers when they are trying to develop the game. this means that the game itself wont be as appealing to others because of the fact that they spent most of their time designing a 2 minute cut scene. 

Cut scene

A cut scene is an in game interaction that happens sometimes with no player interaction or sometimes having the player doing tasks during the cut scene to make it not take away from the gameplay itself. Cut scenes are used to set a narrative for small events within the video game it allows the user to understand what is happening within the video game without taking away much of the gameplay.  This is an example of cut scenes within a video game , this game is called the Last of us and focuses on the use of cut scenes in order to convey their narrative towards the players. because cut scenes happen within the game because it doesn't take away from the gameplay, it flows with the game play so to speak. cut scenes have become more and more popular in video games as the graphics in video games have become better the quality of the cut scene doesn't take away from the game play.