Narrative Project - Game Review II: Children of Mana.

The storyline plays a huge part in adding structure to Children of Mana. In it, the protagonist (whom you can choose from four different ones) has to defeat a resurgence of evil that was quelled 10 years ago by a goddess. Of course, because you can choose from four different protagonists, there a four different motivations within the story; Ferrik wants to be a hero like his deceased father, Tamber seeks truth and justice due to her family dying in the Great Disaster (like Ferrik’s family did), though Poppen and Wanderer don’t have strong motivations. Poppen’s could be said to be a want to talk to his mother who died in the Great Disaster, but Wanderer is the character you find more about as the story progresses. Whilst each character motivation doesn’t change the plot of the main storyline, it does add to the game in general. As with books, a good game can’t be made just with a good plotline. The story could be the most unique in the world, but without fully-developed, well-rounded characters that people can relate to and find likable, the game will fail to grip and immerse players.

Children of Mana is full of likeable characters with backstories that help to fill out the plot,
move the story forwards and give players something to invest their time in.

But the basic storyline is fighting off an old foe to save the world. To do this, the protagonist must travel around a lot to complete various tasks, defeating monsters and bosses in lots of different dungeons and taking side quests to grow in strength. This means the game falls into two of Booker’s defined storylines. 

One: Overcoming A Force That Threatens. This gives players a challenging goal to reach and a main objective to the story. Without it, players would just be running around dungeons, killing monsters and there would be no satisfying end to it. A game with an objective like this, no matter how cliche, immerses the player in the game. They have to get to the end of this dungeon, they have to defeat this next boss, they have to catch up to the evil mastermind who keeps appearing just to show them what they’re up against. If they don’t, they let a whole world down and it’ll be the end of humanity. And let’s not forget that just because ‘defeating the baddie’ is a cliche, doesn’t mean it’s not interesting (though there are exceptions I will get to later). Cliches become cliches because people like them and find them engaging. 

Despite being a cliche, having an evil villain gives the game's story a solid direction. This means
players aren't wandering through the game wondering why they're spending their time fighting little monsters. It gives players a true challenge to overcome, therefore making for a more immersive game.

The second of Booker’s storylines that Children of Mana falls into is The Journey. Due to monsters appearing in dungeons all over the world, the protagonist must travel to them in order to advance in the story by clearing each dungeon. By adding this element into the game, the developers expanded the play time, and made it much more interesting (who wants to play in the same area for hours on end?). It also provides a change of pace to the game, because yes, constant dungeon crawling does get a little dull. The change in scenery is a welcome change and gives the player new problems to think about, like how to avoid that spiky area of floor blocking the way and how to get to the other side of the room when it’s covered in slippery ice. Despite the changing scenery having players look at something new every quest, the game does get a little boring. Even though you’re trying to defeat this villain, you spend so much time in dungeons it becomes monotonous. You want to be outside fighting monsters for once, why can’t they appear in a field instead? And yes, how the player interacts with the story is more engaging than Naruto (previous review) because you talk to other characters and have more of a personal interaction with them, it can still get boring just listening to the talk, then reading your pre-set dialogue, listening some more etc. Overall I think the way Children of Mana’s story is presented is much better than Naruto’s is, but it could still do with a little bit of variety.

Dungeons,

Oh look!
Another dungeon.

Dungeons...

Narrative Project - Game Review I: Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations.

In the story mode of Naruto Ninja Storm Generations, the player can pick between different tales/stories to play though.  These stories follow the events of the actual anime and manga, which the game is based off. I’m going to be focusing on one of the first stories which follows young Naruto’s journey from getting his ninja headband to participating in the Chunin exams to trying to save his friend Sasuke who wants to join the enemy in order to get stronger and defeat his brother. 

This storyline incorporates many of Booker’s defined storylines, such as the Tragedy; because Sasuke’s older brother killed all of their clan and family, Sasuke wishes to follow a path of revenge. Then, when Naruto surpasses Sasuke’s strength and growth rate Sasuke decides he must leave their village in order to gain power. Naruto doesn’t have the power to bring him back. Also, earlier on in the game, the village’s leader is killed in battle, landing a huge blow to everyone living there.

The death of the village leader, Sarutobi Hiruzen, landed a huge blow to the people of the village.
 The emotional and physical turmoil created by his death drives part of the story forwards.

This also links into ‘Overcoming the Monster’. The village leader died due to Orochimaru, a defective ninja, launching an attack on the village. The village leader sacrificed himself in order to save the rest of the village. The evil, Orochimaru, survives however and becomes one of the main villains in this story arc, along with the Akatsuki, a syndicate after the power sealed within Naruto. They each have to be defeated once, with the player using different characters from the village to do this following the plot of the anime. In a more emotional sense, Naruto also tries to overcome the monster in Sasuke by forming a close bond of friendship in order to try and purge the vengeance from him.

Sasuke chooses to sever his bonds of friendship, instead choosing the path of revenge and losing himself to
this monster, aswell as to Orochimaru.

Because the storyline just follows the plot of the anime, it immerses the player in the game on the assumption that they are huge Naruto fans and want to re-live the events within Naruto’s life. To an extent, this works. The clips from the anime transition into stills with a voice-over giving the player a quick overview of the story, with battles inbetween to keep them interested and engaged in the game. However, this back and forth between voiced scenes and a battle gets monotonous and predictable. Yes, the story is intricate and it’s interesting to watch some memorable scenes from the anime. Sometimes these even have a very small twist so that they fit into the game better, but overall the story mode isn’t well explained enough for people who have never watched Naruto before, and for those that have it’s just like a shortened version of the anime but with a bit of interactivity laced in. So whilst the narrative does make the game fun and interesting, it gets a little boring and tedious after a couple of hours. I think if it added extra content into the game, like new side missions created just for the game, it would be a lot more immersive.

Animated scenes play out parts of the anime.

Afterwhich, there are a number of stills with text and a voice-over to carry the rest of the story.

Between these stills are battles for the player to fight, making the game interactive.

Mechanical Drawings - Practice I.

Mechanical Drawing Practice I.
We've been asked to take photos of mechanical, scrap and surfaces for our new project: characters. Because I've never really drawn anything mechanical before, I've been practicing by copying out some of the photographs I've taken using different media:

Monday the 6th of January 2014.
Pencils and Fineliner.

Tuesday the 7th of January 2014.
Pencil, coloured pencil and fineliner.

Wednesday the 8th of January 2014.
Fineliner.

Research Task - Recycling.

Recycling Research Task.

I’ve been given the theme of recycling to research its use in the following media: literature, film, game, animation and art.

Literature: The Borrowers by Mary Norton.
In this book, a family of tiny people called Borrowers live secretly in another family’s house. They ‘borrow’ things from the residents, such as thimbles and bread crumbs to survive and make a comfortable home for themselves. By taking and re-using things that the humans in the house don’t really use or would just throw away, the Borrowers are recycling in their own way. Even though The Borrowers wasn’t written with the theme of recycling in mind, recycling does play a major part in the book as taking and re-using items is how the Borrowers survive; essentially it is their mainstay.

A safety pin and piece of string
can be used to scale a desk.

In this illustration from the book, you can see how
various household nicknacks have been re-used and given
new purposes such as the chess-piece ornament.

Film: Waterworld.

A 1995 post-apocalyptic sci-fi film, Waterworld is based on a world where the polar ice caps have melted, flooding Earth so completely that only man-made islands of recycled and re-used scrap remain. Practically everything that the inhabitants of this world own has either been recycled or re-used. 

The headgear has clearly been made out of bits of scrap
material that has been found.

Even this girl's dress has been made from recycled
materials, it doesn't even look as if it's all fabric.

The boats in Waterworld have been made from recycled
materials too.

Game: Pikmin 2.
In Pikmin 2, the main character Olimar must go to the Pikmin planet in order to find 'treasures' that will save his employer from bankruptcy. These treasures however are what most people would think of as cheap things that can be thrown out when they're not used/wanted anymore or have broken. For example, old run-down batteries and rubber ducks can gather a good price. Berries can also be taken and made into little potions that will have different affects on the Pikmin, therefore the berries are recycled in a way instead of just dropping to the ground and rotting. 

Some of the 'junk' that Olimar and the Pikmin see
as treasure.

Animation: Flip Book Animation by Tangy_JJam.
This short flip book animation shows a girl planting a tree and watching it grow and mature. But then the leaves begin to blow away, the branches following and finally the whole thing has disappeared as the leaves and the branches and the trunk turn into sheets of paper, piling up on a person’s desk so that they can write on them, only for the person to scrunch them up and throw away sheet after sheet. The girl watches in horror as more trees disappear to suffer the same fate and as it begins to rain, she too begins to disappear. From the difference in the rain at the start of the animation which were droplets, to the rain at the end which steamed and melted the girl like acid, I think it’s a safe bet to say that the rain at the end was acid rain which is created by excess sulphur in the air due to factories. Trees can help to prevent acid rain by balancing out the components in air.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud8dSDy5lB4

This animation has a strong message: that by wasting paper (made from trees), people are destroying trees which will eventually lead to our own downfall. The underlying message is that if people would waste less and recycle more (instead of throwing paper into a normal bin that will go to landfill), we could prevent this from happening, saving trees and ourselves.

Artist: Miwa Koizumi, Caroline Saul and Laura Healey.
Using and heat gun, Koizumi heats up thrown-out water bottles, creating small aquatic-looking creatures called PETs (PolyEthylene Terephthalate, this is the type of plastic that the water bottles are made from and it can be recycled).
The message could be that despite the fact that these plastics can be recycled, they are still thrown out to go to landfill, or to blow away and end up in rivers and oceans which contaminates the environment and has started to become a part of Earth’s coasts. So Koizumi has recycled old water bottles into something more meaningful.

Miwa Koizumi's PETs.

Caroline Saul also uses plastic to create ‘bulbous forms’ by melting, reforming and colouring plastics that would otherwise go to landfill.

Caroline Saul's Bulbous Forms.

This same kind of method is also used by Laura Healey when she makes her dragonflies. The wings of the dragonflies are made out of old drinks bottles which she cuts into pointed oval shapes and then colours with alcohol inks. Once the wings have dried, she heats them over a flame so that they shrivel up (this effect can also be achieved by putting some types of plastic into very hot water). The wings are then attached to a wire frame that makes up the body of the dragonfly. By doing this, Laura Healey has recycled old plastic to make very organic looking, natural art.

Laura Healey's Dragonflies.

Illustration: Umm...
This illustration shows, in a humourous way, how things can be recycled into something completely different; the now-bicycle that belongs to a small child is shown to have been a deadly weapon that took many lives. 

Recycling can turn one thing into something
completely and utterly different.

Video Game Timeline (Re-uploaded).

Unit 1 - Inventory Task.

Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess - Action/Adventure Game.

There are two types of inventory in this game; one is a 'utility-belt' like inventory that remains at the side of the screen throughout the game and the other is a menu-like inventory that takes up the whole screen.

To the right, you can see the 'utility belt' inventory as it appears during
the game. A limited number of items can be placed in the slots visible
here and they can be accessed by various shortcuts.

The 'utility belt' inventory can be manipulated by the player; they can move items around to suit them and combine certain weapons and tools to make something more powerful. It also allows the player to access weapons and useful items quickly by giving them four slots with shortcuts to access them (e.g. the lantern might be set to the B button so whenever B is pressed, Link pulls out the lantern). This means that gameplay isn't disrupted by a full-screen menu popping up which immerses the player in the game. After all, if you were really fighting a horde of Bulblins, you would not under any circumstances stop and pull out all of your items before picking one to fight with. 

To the right, you can see the 'utility belt' inventory as it appears during
the game. A limited number of items can be placed in the slots visible
here and they can be accessed by various shortcuts.

The 'utility belt' inventory when opened fully becomes a menu-like
inventory.
Not all of these items can be given a shortcut and so won't appear
when the inventory is closed, but the player can choose which items
to give a shortcut to.

The utility belt inventory controls most things that the player can manipulate themself. For example: weapons, bottles (which can be filled with potions etc.), ammunition and other useful tools like iron boots for walking on river beds and Ooccoo who is used when the player wants to leave a cave and return to the same room later. It also includes an 'advice' bit represented by Midna's head (see the up arrow on the inventory of the first image). Midna is there to offer advice, give clues and generally insult you.

The utility belt inventory suits Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess mostly because its fast pace requires the player to pull out items or weapons quickly in order to kill enemies or collect Chu Jelly before another Chuchu attacks. This type of inventory keeps the player immersed in the game and makes it feel more realistic too (as mentioned above).

The menu-like inventory (below) takes up the entire screen, interrupting gameplay. However, since it only controls things that the player can't really manipulate (there are exceptions, like the Zora armour for example), this screen isn't accessed as often as the utility belt inventory meaning that whenever the player might use it, it would probably be when enemies aren't attacking.

The menu-like inventory screen.

This inventory controls items you've collected but can't really manipulate (like the Golden Bugs and Pieces of Heart). It also contains the maps, scents, armour, and main weapons (like the sword and shield). The maps and scents can't really be manipulated either, though the the player can look at the map of their surroundings in detail when in gameplay by looking to the left of the screen or by pressing the 1 or 2 buttons on the Wii remote.

In a way, the menu-like inventory does suit this game. It's dark colours mirror the more mature, brooding style used in Twilight Princess. The thumbnail images in the slots clearly show the items the player has too. However, if the utility belt inventory hadn't been used in conjunction with the menu-like inventory, I don't think it would be suitable for the game as it would be too much of a disruption and would make it harder to switch weapons or pull out items efficiently.

Both types of inventory can be accessed anytime in the game (except for cutscenes) with the press of a button. 

I also think they serve their purposes well; the utility belt inventory is good for fast-paced action where you need to switch weapons quickly whilst the menu-like inventory is good for those times when you just want to check on what you've collected so far. It also doubles up as a save point which is handy since it means the player doesn't have to run around looking for one when they don't have the time to do that. As mentioned above though, if there was one inventory without the other, Twilight Princess wouldn't have worked as well as it did. Without the utility belt inventory you can't access items quickly, but without the menu inventory you can't view items you can't manipulate. And if the two had been combined, it wouldn't have been so neatly set out and it would have been especially fiddly when it came to grabbing a weapon quickly as you'd have to scroll/go through lots of other items like maps and scents.

Looking at these two inventories, I can see that they work well together. However, I don't think I'll need to create two separate inventories at the moment since they're more suited to large-scale games with lots of items of different kinds (like those that can be manipulated and those that can't).

However, I like the styles used; the menu inventory is neatly set out with spaces for items set to be collected throughout the game and the utility belt inventory's accessibility makes it good for taking out items quickly. This would be ideal if the items you needed to grab were necessary to defending against a predator. However, due to the lack of physical slots (there a just empty spaces), a utility belt inventory like the one in Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess could end up looking messy. But, there are other kinds of utility belt inventories that aren't laid out in a circular formation and if there were boxes/actual slots incorporated into it, the inventory wouldn't run the risk of looking a mess.

The moody colours used for the menu-like inventory are also something I would consider using as inspiration for my inventory as I'm leaning heavily towards World of Perpetual Darkness. Therefore, dark colours would suit the rest of the game (even though there isn't actually a 'rest of the the game').

Harvest Moon DS/DS Cute - Farming/Slice of Life Game.

Another game with multiple inventories. It operates solely on menu inventories, however these inventories can be accessed in different ways.

Harvest Moon DS Cute Inventory (Rucksack).

The player's main inventory, which they start off with, is in the form of a rucksack. It controls lots of different things, not just items. First is the save/load screen which allows you to save a game and switch to your other save slot. Next is the 'actual' inventory, represented by a rucksack icon. 

There are three 'pages' of slots, each with 18 spaces (giving you a total of 54 spaces) which limits the amount you can carry around with you, though 54 spaces is a lot (you do have to buy these extra 'pages' though as you only start off with 1). Along with the 54 slots, there a three more coloured spaces to the side:

The red slot holds farming equipment like the sickle and hammer.

The green slot holds ordinary items (like weeds, eggs, flowers, stone etc.).

The blue slot holds items that you wear on you person (like gloves and teleportation necklaces (hey, they save energy that would be wasted by walking everywhere!)).

Every slot except the red and blue ones can hold up to 99 items of the same kind (so one slot could hold 99 pieces of stone, or 99 eggs), but this isn't applicable to farming tools and items you wear on your person.

From the main inventory, you can also view the map of the valley, your farm assets (like how much money you have, how many animals and their names etc.), and finally you can also view the 'Harvest Sprite Stations'. This basically contains channels giving you farming advice, telling you the weather and also the news.

This inventory is always present on the bottom screen whilst gameplay remains on the top screen. The inventory with all the slots will carry anything you can pick up (except your animals. Do not put animals in your rucksack -_-) and all of these items can be manipulated and organised to suit the player.

Other inventories in the game include chests (each one will only take specific items, for example one will only take farming items and another will only take clothes), a cupboard which holds practically anything and a fridge, which only holds food.

All of these inventories have 9 'pages' of slots which technically limits the amount you can keep, but not by much.

All of the inventories suit this game; if a farmer were to carry their things with them, they'd use a rucksack before they'd use a suitcase. And since you have a house in the game, it stands to reason that you'd store things in you house (okay, you might use a wardrobe instead of a chest for your clothes, but the chest suits the rustic feel that the game uses). Since the DS has two screens, using the bottom for the inventory and the top for gameplay is actually very useful; you can use the stylus to move things around in your inventory and use the buttons to command your character which gives you crisper movements than the stylus might. Also, having your farm assets in the inventory is a nice touch since you can easily check your farm statistics (e.g. you know how much money you can spend on onion seeds before you end up broke).

I think that an ever-present menu inventory is good for a slow-paced game like this because it makes things easy to access and you can always see what you have with you. However, this only works with consoles with two screens, or if the screen was split in half to contain the inventory and the gameplay. A screen split in half would actually be very frustrating though, so if I were to use this kind of inventory, I would definitely consider the console it would be used on. The fact that you can organise it yourself is nice though; you can put like items close to each other so you can find them easily. However, the number of slots is a bit excessive for my needs so I'd bear in mind the number of slots necessary for my inventory.

Children of Mana - Fantasy Adventure Game.

The inventory in Children of Mana comes in the form of a 'main menu' that can be accessed at all times from the lower screen on the DS. It allows you to save your file, enter the multiplayer mode and view the world map (doing this is basically a way to travel; you choose a place on the map and go there). 

Main Menu in Children of Mana.

Along with these functions, there are three other more in-depth categories:

Status.

Status: Tells you your current location, level, companion spirit, health points, magic points, attack and defence. It also reminds you of any quests you have taken on but not completed yet.

Gems.

Gems: This category also shows you your current level, attack and defence, but by choosing and highlighting different gems, you can see the effect some have on the amount of damage an attack will do or how well you can defend. For example, the Crystal of Defence increases your physical defence by 4.

Items.

Items: There are five subcategories in Items: weapons, armour, accessories, recovery items and key/special items. As with the Status and Gems, your current level, attack and defence is shown. Depending on the weapon, armour and accessories etc. chosen. attack and defence statistics will be altered. Recovery items can be used in battle to recover health or magic points.

These inventories seem to hold infinite amounts of items, and you don't really carry anything around like a bag or a chest to keep all of these items in.

The inventories, especially the Items inventory, suits the fantasy atmosphere that Children of Mana has because it shows you your attack and defence statistics and how they change when you equip different items. However, accessing the menu means that you can't move your character, therefore disrupting gameplay. Also, all of the categories take up both lower and upper screens on the DS, so you can't see the game anymore which doesn't suit the game very much since there is a lot of battling monsters; I don't think a menu-based inventory was the best way to go. However, the DS doesn't have a huge screen so a utility belt inventory may have been too small with too many pages of information, in which case a menu inventory is much better since it won't frustrate the player.

I think the inventory is a bit annoying though. Whilst I do like all the changing statistics when different items are equipped, if you enter the status inventory and then want to look at the items inventory, you're taken back to the normal screen and have to access the main menu all over again which becomes a bit of a pain. Also, it stops you from switching weapons and armour quickly and means that if you need to use a recovery item in a rush you can't. Getting your character ready for a quest becomes difficult too as you have to go all around the houses to set up gems, then weapons, but you might have forgotten to do something back in the gems inventory so you have to go back to that screen which means waiting for the main menu to load again… It ends up being very time consuming which is not what you generally want from an adventure game.

Bearing this in mind, I'm going to try to make my inventory simpler which shouldn't be too hard considering I won't have so many items etc. to find space for. if it's simpler, it won't be as fiddly or time consuming. Also, I think a menu inventory that dominates the entire screen like in Children of Mana stops the player from immersing themselves in the game somewhat which is something I'd like to avoid.

Intro... thing.

My name is Kira. My cousin got me into games when I was a kid so... yeah. I still can't beat him. My favourite games are Legend of Zelda, Space Invaders and Bomberman. I'm studying games design because I like creating stuff and hope to be a games designer someday. I'm hoping that this course will teach me the skills to do that.

Recently I've been playing Soul Calibur II; I like it because it's mainly comprised of fighting and all the other games I have are plot-driven/follow a storyline so it's something different. Also the graphics and character movement is really good.