IMA Documentation

I have not taken an IMA class since 2019, I have not even been in China since then either (very sad). Anyways here to post this external link to The Borgen Project which is a nonprofit I am working at NYU D.C. Our main goal is to pass global poverty alleviating bills in the U.S congress by grass roots network of volunteers (like myself). It is really cool stuff with lots of helpful info so take a visit to The Borgen Project!

Core Game play

In the game, the player need to jump through the platform to reach the destination, in the meanwhile also collecting coin. The player has the special ability to swap the space between himself and any object of the game.

Core gameplay flowchart ：

Highlights:

I changed many of the source codes and templates to achieve the behavior I want:

To make the player able to stand on the side and edge of the platform (as the game shows there are many tilted platform), I changed the 2D collider shape. I added coin in the game so that the play can pick or shoot with a new scriptable object. It is to make the coins will not appear even if the player restart the game. I also changed the behavior of the weapon to make it a space swap gun. This part is the most difficult as I need tp investigate the source code and the structure of the assets to find the place I need to change.

The demo video only shows the fastest way to finish the level, there are many other paths to take with more challenge and coins,

After reading the article, I found the popular mobile games actually follows the design concept strictly, while also in a innovative way. I would like to use the game I’ve playing recently, 王者荣耀, as an example

Axis of obstacles & Axis of abilities in the game

Since the game contains 10 real people and a bunch of Ai troops, the pattern may look very chaotic at first, but a close look shows that in the game, the axis of obstacles is designed to follow the graph in the article:

The design of the crystal tower serves strongly for the cycle and boosting the group war, since, the group war is often focus on destroying or protacting the tower.

At first, the two parties compete to kill the AI troops to earn exp. and money, which is the easiest part. Meanwhile small fights may break, but there are usually severe casualties and the operation is relatively easy. Finally a group war breaks out, which is the most difficult part in the cycle and requires a lot of attention and skills for the player.

At the end of group war, the losing party will face a more difficult start of the cycle than previous start, but for the winners they are not making things easier. Due to the special design of the game map, the next tower to destroy has higher blood, also it is closer to the base of the losing part but further to the winning part, which means the losing part has faster and stronger supporting power under the next tower.

Therefore, the new starting cycle is actually more difficult for both parties.

As for the axis of abilities, 王者荣耀 goes a long way beyond the games listed in the article. 

In one game, the player gradually gets more skills and equipments, but the highlighting part is the abilities of analyzing the warzone situation, making judgement and having fluent operation. Those abilities are not gained in one game, but in playing and practicing in a large number of games. What’s more , the increased ability is not a increased value in the avatar (like increase speed for a plane), but an ability of actual player.

Composite Game

In some ways, the game is actually a composition of action game and education simulation game （养成游戏）,  just as the above picture in the article shows.

While the ultimate goal is to put down the tower in the enemy’s base, to achieve the goal one not only need fighting skills, but also need to earn money to cultivate the hero. Player happily kill AI and get more money to buy equipment (use action game skill to solve ed/rpg problem). In the game players alsoneed to decide what equiment to buy and what route to get money according to the warzone situation and stratigies (use ed/rpg skill to solve action game problem)

Reading Response:

” There are many other games just like this that are making innovative composites that focus on gameplay rather than flashy presentation.”

I was really touched when I was reading the part about the history of indie games and it’s also interesting to think about the roles that both AAA game companies and indie games companies play in the long river of game history. The big game companies, or “commercial game companies” as the article indicated, are the ones who have brought games to a larger stage and more players: those games are well-designed to suit the interest of the public because the company needs to make sure that the game is profitable. However, the indie game companies are more innovative: they usually examine a concept and the indie games are more experimental and creative than commercial games. I can conclude it in this way: the characters or the storyline of the commercial games are designed based on the form of the game. Usually, the design team will search for the most popular types of games and then add other elements, thus the commercial games, nowadays, are very similar to one another and it’s losing originality. However, the indie games are more based on a story the designer wants to tell, or a concept the designer wants to experiment on, and the form of the game are just a method to achieve their goals.

Although it seems like indie game companies are the creator of new concepts, we can not just neglect the influence of those big game companies as well. One problem a lot of indie game companies are facing is profit, and designing a good game is expensive. if the games they create are not very popular or not well-known by the public, the company will probably lose the investment. On the contrast, the big game companies are better choices for investors because the profit is more stable(they have bigger popularity and more products). Therefore, it’s not hard to predict that a lot of indie game lovers were drawn to the game industry by big game companies. 

I’m not saying that exposure is a bad thing for indie game companies – I’d love that good games can have a larger market and have larger fan groups! However,  will indie game companies lose their initial resolution in front of the temptation of profits? Will they be acquired by those large game companies? These questions need more time for examination.

Playing Review:

I have played all of the three platforming games and therefore I’d like to write a long review to compare all of them together.

Celeste & Ori & Hollow Knight:

Difficulty Ranking: Celeste > Hollow Knight > Ori

These three games are all very famous platforming games. However, there are still some differences between them, besides the game difficulty. Celeste, in my point of view, is more about jumping and speed. I know you might think what I said is nonsense because Celeste is a platform game after all. However, what I mean is that the gameplay of Celeste is so strong that it almost makes me neglect the storyline of the game. Celeste also gives me a “super Mario” feeling, although the difficulty of these two games is not on the same level: my purpose when I started playing it is to pass games and defeat all levels, and the fun of this game is just to jump! Jump to the next platform, jump to the next map. However, Hollow Knight, also a quite difficult platforming game, gives me a completely different feeling. In my point of view, Hollow Knight is a soul-like(魂类) game in terms of the game rules and the background story, which means: when I was playing this game, jumping and beating the boss/monsters is just a method to read the stories and the get to know the world setting(世界观设定). I started to play this game last year, and I haven’t passed the game yet, not because I don’t have time or it’s too difficult, but because I don’t want the story to end. I have collected all items and defeated all of the bosses except the last one.  Why? because I feel so sad to see and so reluctant the end of that world. The story is too attractive and it feels so true.

Now, let’s talk about Ori.  I don’t want to compare Ori with the other two games, because I think Ori is a fairytale to me, which contains excitement, adventure, challenges, and tears. The music and the visual styles of Ori are a great help to help the player have that fairytale feeling, From my perspective, the magical thing about Ori is that, if you compare the gameplay or the storyline of Ori to other famous platforming games, they are definitely not the best, but the combination of them makes this game so unique to experience and it has an attraction to make the player feel like Ori is themselves, not just a character.  

I used four nights to pass the first four chapters, then turned on infinite dash and infinite life to pass the others. Even in this situation I still cannot find all the hearts and strawberries.

The game has excellent music. Yet what interests me most is the way it expresses a story and characters.

It seldom has direct story narritation, but all the formation of the character is merged in the environment and in the gameplay. This type of story telling and shaping characters is very novel for me. 

Usually to shape a character, the character faces some events from the outside environment, in handling such events the character expresses itself, and the character may grow up in some critical events.

Celeste differs from the common routine in that, using the special setting of the mountain that “reflect the person” there is no events or obstacles from the outside environment. Madeline, the character is facing and chellenging herself, throughtout the whole game. Madeline is not only the character we control, it is also the challenge we face. All her feeling, thoughts, personalities and even growth are shown not only from the dialog and the character, but also the environment {which strictly speaking, is also the character herself}.

But there is one thing that I dislike about the game.

As the game, the fun of playing it mainly come from repeatitive works: dying and retrying at every chapter, and finally the players are satisfied from mastering a series of operation that can pass the chapter. I think this type of hard fun is not suitable for many people, at least me, because it requires, at least, one have enough time to spend on the game through the repeatitive work.

Many people hear the high ranking of the game. After work they download it and play, then found it is too hard to even pass the first chapter. They can only spend perhaps 1 hour on game every day so perhaps they can never pass chapter 3 (for me I spent 4 hours continuouly on it and I think if I play 1 hour everyday I will forget the feeling to pass the sections I learnt from the previous day). This type of fun is only for those with enough time and patience.