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1.2 - Theme Mind Map/List
1.2 - Theme Mind Map/List
1.2 - Theme Research/Moodboards
1.2 - Theme Research/Moodboards
Kings generally sit at the top when it comes to Medieval power dynamics, other than God and those who spread his message like the Pope and bishops. Although those of God do hold in total as much or more power than the king himself, As the leader of a kingdom they hold great responsibility and rule a large amount, having a lot more impact over the sway of things. Changing outcomes in politics or starting wars. Kings as the head hold the power and therefore can be used as a way to start Power dynamics or purpose for others. With people fighting for their king and country, they give purpose.
Knights are a staple in games in the Medieval theme, taken from Crusades and local guards to full fledged with shining armour Templars. The degree of weaponry and gear is purely dependent on how realistic you want your knight to be and allows for a lot of creativity as realistic knights isn't exactly the most sought after game trait and it would be preferable to have a cool looking knight design. But during the Medieval period there were many different kinds of knights varying from location or country of origin to their ranking.
Castles, the home of the king and the towering stone architecture of defense in the Medieval Era. These locations, based in reality or not give a real sense to scale and Awe in the size or complexity and make great locations to explore interiors or scale the walls. Even to see a towering castle in the distance. The amount of use you can get from a castle location wise is a lot wider than you would 1st think. With dungeons, throne rooms, towers, walls, keeps and more.
Weapons of warfare in the medieval period are generally just thought to be swords and shields however there was actually a much larger range of weaponry used from axes, maces & polearms to to long & short bows. Also weapons don't just come from your standard melee or ranged combat but also cover larger weapons like catapults or trebuchets, used for might & destruction on the battlefield to tear through armies, cavalry or battlements (castles). There is actually a very large range of weaponry to use when it comes to the Medieval period due to how separate countries developed arms and the different functionalities of weapons during melee combat leading to all sorts of shapes and sizes of sword, axe or polearm.
Vikings are generally underlooked when it comes to the medieval era as they are generally seen in their own bubble but were around the same era as the 'typical' knights of England even during the same 100 year period as the Crusades. With an interesting History and a unique set of religion, weapons, warfare and whole new way of living they create great variety in a time of kings knights and honour-ly battle.
1.2 - Game Mechanics Activities
1.2 - Game Mechanics Activities
"game mechanics are the rules that guide the player's moves or actions, as well as the game's response to them. A game's mechanics thus effectively specifies how the game will work for the people who play it. There are no concrete accepted definitions of game mechanics." (source)
Mechanics in Games:
Call of Duty: Recoil
When shooting a gun you receive a certain amount recoil or kick back, this is in spread of shots, gun kick, view kick and visual recoil.
Fifa: Passing
When you point/aim in a certain direction (generally towards a team player) and charge the pass button to charge the shot of passing a ball to affect its aim and speed.
World of Warcraft: Questing
The act of interacting with npcs (non player characters) to be able to pick up a quest/task with certain directives needing to be met to turn in said quest and receive rewards such as xp (experience needed to level up) and items (newer gear).
These mechanics differ because of the genre of game they come from, Call of Duty being a first person shooter requires a level of skill inside of its shooting mechanics so it has recoil to compensate for. In Fifa its the skill charging the pass to get the ball where you want when you want. However in World of Warcraft, the element of questing isn't competitive due to the nature of the game, this being a pve (player versus environment) activity to progress and level it is a set of tasks to progress within the game. All the mechanics as core & integral parts of the game are kept simple to keep simple architypes that define the games genre, There are different variations of recoil in games but call of duty keeps theirs the same for simplicity so everyone can understand how it works with each new title in the series and that the game sticks to the fps genre allowing for players to keep their skill in compensating recoil and instead work around it with other mechanics like weapons customization and the use of movement. In the same way passing and completing quests are simple and stay simple but other factors can make them more complex and subsequently more difficult. E.g in World of Warcraft you can add more and harder steps to complete the quest which makes the quest more complex but the system of 'questing' stays simple.
Take Call of Duty's shooting & recoil, you can easily create a more complex mechanic cycle by adding a new feature such as aim down sights. This then creates a new variable to recoil of whether or not you are aiming down the sight of the weapon or hip firing it, this then subsequently creates new differences in visually you will be able to see further away with a sight and have a clearer picture of where you are aiming on top of then increasing the amount of accuracy you have when shooting, in turn reducing recoil and kick of the weapon as you have it securely steadied. However this mechanic is too good, there is no downside now to aiming down sight so everyone will do it. There we have a trade off by reduced field of view, reduced movement and reduced Hud while aiming down sights. This then creates a variability in the gameplay making neither distinctly worse than the other as it all depends upon other external factors like weapon modifications also tipping the edge in either direction with less time to aim down sights or increased accuracy/reduced recoil while shooting from the hip. While zoomed into a far reaching scope you wont be able to see around you. This creates a good game mechanic which is balanced and adds larger layers of complexity onto the game as even though its a simple mechanic, the trade offs make it complex in terms of balance and gameplay viability creating more player choice.
New game mechanic/cycle: Say for example in this 2D game you have to fire a catapult at a target, a fairly simple mechanic based off of physics where the skill is based in needing to figure out how much force at what direction is needed to fire the projectile at the target which could be anything from an enemy or building. This creates a basic gameplay mechanic of firing a catapult or trebuchet at enemies with the right aim, a new mechanic which creates a dynamic cycle to this would then be having dependent / different ammo types that you throw using your catapult/trebuchet. This then requires an extra layer of skill and change how you use the catapult as you adapt to the new projectile and its new independent quirks, this could be anything from a grapeshot like projectile where it splits mid air to a large heavy boulder where due to the heavier projectile it hits a lot harder but is slower and falls faster. This creates a new cycle with a new level of difficulty in the gameplay loop of just chucking projectiles at an enemy as now you need correct aim, power and ammo adaption which affects the 1st 2 gameplay factors.
1.2 - 2D Game Genres
1.2 - 2D Game Genres
1: Clicker Games / Incremental games :
"In an incremental game, a player performs a simple action – usually clicking a button – which in turn rewards the player with currency. The player may spend currency to purchase items or abilities that allow the player to earn currency faster or automatically, without needing to perform the initial action. A common theme is offering the player sources of income displayed as buildings such as factories or farms. These sources increase the currency production rate, but higher tier sources usually have an exponentially higher cost, so upgrading between tiers takes usually about the same time or even increasingly longer. " This means the games actually don't end as the whole point is to gain score over time, eventually building up your own 'system' so that your points grow exponentially in large and fast amounts. The 'score' for these games can be a wide variety of things but most of the time is money but in the top 3 most popular incremental games: Cookie Clicker, Adventure Capitalist and Clicker Heroes, 2 use a form of money and 1 uses cookies (I think it's obvious which). All play essentially the same way but differ in the way they are marketed and how the more intricate systems of the games effect the overall 'gameplay'. I use the word gameplay loosely as the most input you will put inside of these sorts of games are clicking the mouse a few dozen times before the game starts playing itself only needing you to upgrade the systems to make more of the currency while you are afk (away from keyboard, no personal input). However each of the games have very distinct progression and ways that they build up the incremental stages of the 'gameplay'. For example Cookie Clicker takes a much more casual approach where clicking once rewards you 1 cookie, click enough and save up to buy an auto clicker to click for you and auto give you cookies every set amount of seconds, then click more until you have enough to buy a grandma which incrementally gives you cookies after a set time (costs more so gives more). This then scales to even more expensive items that give more cookies over time. Tie that in with being able to buy multiple of the same upgrade with an increasing cookie cost to gain more cookies every time it ticks to give cookies and being able to buy bonuses that exponentially increase cookie gain by set amounts like 10x and then you have a game which turns into clicking a few times for a grandma or 2 to a gain where you sit back and watch as you gain millions of cookies a second wanting to buy the next cookie making machine which costs a billion cookies. Even with the large upgrades to be made and casual nature, it's easy to sink in hours of time into the simple game as the premise is so simple & easy and comes with rewarding visuals allows for a smooth experience that is rewarding while lacking any sort of demand, wanting for the cookie numbers to rise as high as possible, not wanting to stop. This is very similar to the gameplay of adventure capitalist except the theme changes from cookies to money and now you're a capitalist. There are no large differences between them other than art and theme. However Clicker Heroes, is the most game like of them all and starts to deviate away from the casual nature of the previous 2, including mechanics such as: a wave of enemies to defeat, health bars, Incremental Levels (worlds and levels system to change areas as you progress), Boss battles that have a timer (beat boss in set time), money based system, damage numbers and percentages, heroes, power ups, prestiging (leveling up to a point of reset with a bonus) and many more. In this way the game becomes a lot more engaging while staying relatively simple as you can start to micro manage areas of stats to make sure you're constantly keeping up the highest dps possible to earn money to then again increase your dps value (dps means damage per second). These make it easy sink more time into the game especially with features like Idle where your in game dps tick will still continue to earn you money while you aren't playing the game. Leading to the game to be very popular as it requires minimal effort while gaining maximum play time.
2: Turned Based Strategy - Physics based strategy:
The largest games in this genre of turn based strategy, especially 2D games are the original Pokémon and Final Fantasy games which both used pixel art styles and combat that was based off picking a move/action per turn. This led to increasing developments where there were more real time elements added in Final Fantasy with having to act quickly in deciding moves which made it closer to real time turn based combat compared to Pokemon which advanced and focused on the elements of turn based strategy to decide which move you make will give you the advantage and changes when who comes first in attacking and using special effects to gain advantages.
Pokemon is still one of the worlds largest turn based strategy games whereas Final Fantasy has switched to a real time action combat system. However other more modern games have come out to take the place of Turn Based Strategy. This is games like Civilization (Civ) and the Total War Franchise, which capitalize on the uprising of games like that of the Age of Empires series at the end of the 1900s (1997- early 2000s). However they differ in that they take turn based to the idea of you managing your city, civilization or army on your own turn; then the AI manages their own on their turn (the inbetweens). Meaning the strategy comes in correctly building the structures of your kingdoms and armies to be able to triumph against an AI kingdom. This is different in that it changes a more simple combat approach to turn based where you take turns attacking each other deciding which is the most efficient way to victory and strategize around the enemy. However Total War and Civ capitalize on the micro management of strategizing with everything, not just the combat or creation of a team/army but everything from resource management to settlement growth. Both involve a certain level of skill but differ in their balance of turn based to strategy.
Physics based strategy: Throwing in a curve ball you have games like Angry Bird. Angry Birds is a Turn Based Game where you take turns chucking variations of birds with special birds at fortresses / buildings to destroy it and the enemies inside. The Strategy lies within utilizing your specialized birds correctly in maximizing damage and points. But this relies on the Physics based game mechanics so you correctly position your sling shot to get the right angle and speed to do maximum damage. For as much as it differs from the in depth strategy of kingdom management games or sophisticated combat based on turn by turn choices. It's undeniably a game that requires an amount of strategy and skill to become the best, being able to access the level to decide the best path to victory by utilizing the birds correctly.
My Genre Choice: Personally my choice is a turn based strategy, as they have a lot more freedom and can as simple or creative as I want. Allowing for a choice in complexity with even whether or not there is a proper 'turn' based system or is it just waiting for actions to complete and waiting and feels a lot more engaging than an Incremental game, allowing for more creativity in the game systems.
1.2 - UI Design Moodboard
1.2 - UI Design Moodboard
Going to preface this section with although these games have 3D graphics, they are interchangeable with 2D games as all of them are based in board game roots which use top down maps and the looks are interchangeable compared to the gameplay so the 2D,3D or even 2.5D graphics don't change the game. Even In Civilization there is a separate map screen which is completely 2D for those who prefer to play the game in 2D without the 3D graphics which look nice but can add complication. (the xcom series however does have some 3D environments that can be scaled).
Game: Civilisation 5 (Civ5)
The User Interface (UI) for turn based games is generally more convoluted than most game due to the type of game "turn based strategy" being a game where you take steps in managing, evaluating and executing plans turn by turn for the wide goal of just "winning". In a game such as Civilization 5 your goal is to win by becoming the best/leading country/leader out of everyone else in the game. In this way you are controlling a whole 'Civilization' and in turn it creates a lot of management areas and areas of development throughout the game which then in turn are represented by UI and on the Hud and controlled through the grid based map (made from a bunch of hexagons). This starts with the basics of most turn based games on your normal options, saving actions / placements in turn to load back up later or if you make a bad move, then also a turn counter displayed in some form or another (in Civ5 it shows your turns and the current year of the game, as you are travelling in time towards the future). Then because Civ is a empire management game it opens up a bunch more management option that come with their own UI. This includes but is not limited to: City management (buildings & infrastructure), workers (land improvements, roads, tile management), Buying/gaining land, creating new units for either combat (ranged or melee) or building, or even diplomatic or faith reasons, managing tiles & recourses for bonuses, managing city growth, diplomatic relations, Empire growth & power, Researching new technology for new buildings, improvements and units, managing money, production, city growth & population, happiness, faith and science, actions of owned units, building new cities and the turn based combat. With all of these things to keep track of and micro manage as the game gets slowly more complex as the game builds up over time, more units, more cities, more enemies and more technology; you're forced to start taking your time and each turn can suddenly take 5 minutes as you manage each part of your empire trying to gain the advantage and win via any of the winning endings (by war, faith, diplomatic, science etc: each sort of unit or currency available to be earned with cities can then be used for development towards a win of the same type). This in turn the UI for all these mechanics needs to be easily readable, simple (not overly complex & easy to navigate) and appealing as if all this data was displayed with charts and figures the game would be overtly complicated and you wouldn't be able to understand anything that is going on. Their main way of displaying info is that before you can click the next turn button it prompts you of all the unfinished or unused things you might want to manage or check before switching to the next turn so as not to give your enemies the advantage.
Game: Civilization 6
Civilization 6 is essentially the same game as Civ5 as its the sequel with a few extra mechanics to manage like city districts to hold your buildings, but other than those things it's still the same game and as much it has mainly the same UI except it now is much more efficient because as the game from CIV5 to CIV 6 they added a new art style stemming away from realism and going down a more cartoony look. This in turn stylized the UI for the game giving it the same explorer cartoony look but also a change made is the removal of clutter and increased simplicity of UI, making it much more manageable and readable to newer players. This includes the use of colours to make things more stand out ish and increase clarity in knowing that when you see yellow it means gold. Essentially creating an iteration of the original layout by now with a much more stylized look that emphasizes function and layout to make the game more accessible to newer players to the series so they can easily learn the layout and understand how the game works and its managements mechanics and how to access said UI for those mechanics.
Game: XCom 2
The XCOM series actually has a lot in common with the Civilization series other than it just being turned based combat. But mainly because the game is hex based now being squares rather than hexagons for the same functionality of placing and moving units for combat or work reasons. It also shares in common with Civ that the environment around and on the hex tile has an effect to gameplay as in Civ it affects what your worker can build on it, what resources it gives and holds and also gives different movement or combat bonuses/penalties dependent on landscape (e.g takes a whole turn to cross a river). XCOM has similar mechanics to that and shows it with icons on the hexes (not unlike civ, which has icons for tile resources). In that regard both games then show you managing your empire's units or just your squad in xcom and their position being an important factor in combat giving bonuses and penalties to mechanics such as accuracy and range.
Game: Total War Warhammer 2
The total war series of games (here total war warhammer 2) are very like Civilization however change how combat works majorly and and city management quite a bit. The main differences is that the game moves away from a hex based style and instead uses free but limited movement of characters and the subsequent units attached to those characters, this also on top of cities being set in place already as ruins or owned by enemies, focusing more on upgrading cities as you don't need to build your own. It shares features similar to Civ with a turn counter, needing to complete actions before hitting next turn and also having land/environment having affects on cities and units (for combat and movement). It uses a yellow highlight for movement range for clear map visibility movement wise and uses a fog for areas of the map you cant see. Then cities being represented by banners which link up in zones and show control via a clan banner being displayed next to the banner name (this is also used for other clear visuals like your reputation with the clan that owns the city and whether or not it has walls / defenses and requires a siege to take with a wall like banner). The UI is a lot more complex and more stylized but not to the point of being overly complex or unreadable but rather puts all of itself on you at once with no easy labeling but its still not hard to find the different menus, tabs or info you want or need. Keeping materials tracked and generally displaying important info with a traffic light system of red means bad and green is good.
The general design of level design when it comes to turn based strategy games is a the use of hexes or tiles and most of the time they are top down games controlling some characters or a country and its armies, cities, land and politics. All of the politics sides and cities sides when it comes to buildings and research is all done UI based in menus to decide what goes where but then the level itself is most likely a map, this is done so when controlling combat and where units go you can control over it like a commander on where you want you troops to go for defence or battle. The way battle is conducted in these games is differentiated on the game like in hearts of iron its done with wars of attrition on borders like real warfare trying to simulate real life warfare from ww1 and ww2 era onwards, then Civilization does combats with individual combat units attacking eachother on the grid rather than them piled up on eachother and lastly another example would be Warhammer which does there combat in separate levels/maps that are now real time strategy of simulated war where you face off against armies being the commander of your own giving commands on positioning and how they attack simulating real time warfare where you micro manage your units and how they can be used most effectively to give yourself an edge. All these games are very similar in there original level design of a large map, Civ using hexes to make up the map (taken from its roots in the board game Settlers of Catan), Hearts of Iron being set in the modern world map using real country borders from the times but also using tiles by splitting countries into sections that can be taken when engaging in warfare to set up fronts and so forth and finally Warhammer abandoning the tile type set up but still uses a world map either set in the real world using pre existing city locations or in a fantasy world where the layout has already been set out (difference between total war shogun based in shogun era of japan and real world conflicts that you can control compared to warhammer based in the lore and fantasy world of the warhammer board game series). This is all in comparison to games like xcom where rather than having a much larger world map that you look over you instead use small levels as the game is based on close quarters combat controlling units in these small environments however it still uses similar tile mechanics to Civ and hearts of iron. However stays away from real time strategy warfare of Total war as its a much smaller scale of just a squad compared to an army.
Total War Shogun 2 Map:
from the total war shogun 2 guide by ign (source)
Due note - the level design of the Xcom series has changed over time and the movement in the top down has vied away from using tiles and instead just a set distance similar to Total War and has added some third person views and choices when controlling individual character actions making it more a turn based 3rd person shooter but the game is still focused on the strategy side more than pure game skill but the game has become more 3D.
2 Curveball games in the turn based strategy genre:
Pit people:
And Angry Birds:
Pit people is an isometric 2.5D game which is very similar in nature to xcom being small scale levels that are close quarters combat which is dependent on your squads characters, abilities and weapons where you have a certain amount of movement per turn on your characters and rather than xcom it being your choice how your character acts pit people is based on distance on whether or not their weapons work or if they get certain bonuses. Environment also creates cover and areas for range to excel to add variation.
This is compared to Angry Birds, a completely 2d mobile game which is a turn base strategy because of the strategy required in using your ammo (birds) effectively in the order they come in, each turn or ammo shot having an impact on the level/environment which switches how you might fire your 2nd or next shot.
Both these 2 play very differently to the original map based turn based strategy games where the focus is on small unique level and combat. Although Pit People being similar to XCom as both are location based turn based combat which involve a squad with adaptable equipment + setup for varying gameplay.
This just goes to show the variety in design you can do for turn based strategy games and how there is a lot of open choice in design for levels depending on how large or small you want you game to be and where you want to get the focus of strategy to be in, whether it be in conquering or in combat, where you choose to show the levels of strategy in the turn based gameplay affects dramatically how complex, simple or fun a game can be.
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