07 Dec 2010 - week 11

Entry11.9/12.12.2010


Here is my final draft ready to be criticised:

Space Invaders is a 2 dimensional arcade shooter, where the player controls a turret to defeat waves of enemies. First released in 1978 manufactured and sold only in Japan by Taito, the game was designed by Tomohiro Nishikado; the game was later licensed for production in the US by the Midway division of Bally. The aim of the game is to defeat waves of aliens at a steadily increasing challenge.

The aim of the game is to take control of a scrolling turret and destroy waves of aliens before they reach the ground. The player only has 3 actions that they can perform; move left, move right and shoot. Slightly above the player are shields which can be destroyed when sufficient damage is dealt to them, above those are the aliens. The aliens are the only enemy in the game, as the wave progresses the rate that they drop down, increase speed and reverse direction slowly increases. As the player beats each wave a life is added to a pool and the aliens steadily get more powerful. Although the player can only take one hit so can the aliens, as they become more powerful they shoot more often and aggressively. Their base movement speed also increases from wave to wave, this mean that later waves will require tactics as well as skill as your rate of fire is always the same. As the player destroys the aliens they earn points at random intervals a mother ship will scroll across the highest point of the screen, and can be destroyed for bonus points.

By looking at the different categories that have been pulled from Costikyan, Hunicke and Venturelli, we can break down the games’ core components; these are interaction, goals, struggle, structure, endogenous meanings, pacing and space of possibility, starting with interaction.

A game needs elements that the player interacts with and this interaction must change the state of the game. In Space Invaders the players’ interaction with the world is small but can make a difference; the player can choose to shoot through their shields but this will permanently lose them. As a result of this the player now has more open areas to shoot from but this mean that the aliens’ attacks have a higher chance of contact thus defeating the player. This is the only real choice the player can make to alter the environment, which for some may be too simple and mundane.

‘Games can be susceptible to goal directed objectives to the point that it is a good game despite no win state’. This is true of Space Invaders; there is no real win state rather a seemingly endless waves of alien ships that the player must prevent from touching down with a steadily increasing difficulty. Even without a clear win state, players can dictate their own personal goals which could just simply be to get to level 10 or getting a bit more challenging, make it to level 10 with the shields intact. This adds some replay ability to the game as players will come back to best their previous score. This is a prime example of a game with player driven goals, however because of this it can get boring quite quickly. This is because the player has too much freedom with their goals and with no record of their own goals being recorded, a lot of hard work would only yield so much. Bragging rights to friends and strangers might be a plus for some, but this solely represents how many waves the player survived before succumbing to the horde. Because of this I believe special challenges should have been added that would be recorded somewhere, but this maybe too much of a stretch.

‘Challenging yet possible’. This is a phrase that is used to describe many games, but in many cases doesn’t portray the games true challenge. In Space Invaders, the challenge would start out easy with the aliens barely firing anything and a low start speed. This then changes as the player advances through waves; where the aliens shoot more rounds and more accurately, as well as their starting speed being slightly higher each time. Another unlisted challenge is for the player to dodge incoming fire, as one hit will destroy the tank, but also the rounds their shooting. In space Invaders there isn’t  beam that instantly kills whatever it touches, instead you are stuck with a slow firing weapon whose rounds don’t travel very fast. As a result of this the player will have to learn where these rounds will go so that they can take out the aliens as well as strategies for taking out the higher waves.

‘A games structure shapes the players behaviour, but doesn’t determine it’. In this game all players agree to defend their zone of control by defeating the invading aliens. As such all players are behaving in the same overall manner; to defend at any cost. Tactics and the skill of the players will differ but will have the same purpose. Players will also feel like their playing the same thing over and over again repeatedly, which can get boring after a certain amount of time. Also the game doesn’t give us any real reason to stop the invaders other than a game over, please try again and do better. Not very engaging and very frustrating.

‘Has no real value outside the virtual world that it is found in’. Space Invaders has little to no endogenous meaning; if you fail you lose nothing but a high score and progressing far into the game only yields a bigger score. Although having the higher score is nice and it does make you feel like you’ve achieved something it is all for naught when you realise that despite your progress you’re facing the same thing about fifty times with the only difference being the speed and aggressiveness of your foes. Your ship has no upgrades or power up and only has one single cannon, that fires at a fixed rate.  This means that it takes a lot of skill but also a lot of luck which means that outside of your three character signature and related score is your only legacy on the one machine, making it endogenous meaning minuet.

Pacing is the overall rhythm of the game, by indirectly crafting the player experience through mechanics, aesthetics and dynamics. The threat is generated by the games mechanics which are in this case are only the aliens getting closer to the planet. The aesthetics are the graphics and sound, in Space Invaders the sound of the aliens speeding up as they come closer to the planet creates tension very well. But the graphics do nothing; the aliens don’t even look remotely threatening. The players’ movement impetus is their willingness to progress, which again comes down to the tolerance of the sound as well as the only outcome being a score. The tempo of the game is relentless, at first it’s relatively easy to understand but as you get past level two, the game decides to give the aliens an impossibly high speed and difficulty. Any further than level two the game became to unforgiving and quickly becomes frustrating. The only break you get is the time between waves which only give you enough time to shift yourself before another pointless onslaught by ultra-aggressive enemies.

The space of possibility is a collection of all possible outcomes and actions inside the virtual world. In the case of Space Invaders the player quickly figures out all the patterns of the aliens’ movements with the only surprise being the enemy fire. All patterns are figured out in the first and possibly the second level, after that there are no more surprises and the fun factor quickly diminishes into a boring side scrolling shooter with only a score to keep. Although there is an increasing difficulty, it doesn’t make the game more complex because it is the same pattern just a little faster. The first couple of times you player the game you remember the patterns, the next twenty times you then get impatient and after that the game ceases to be fun and only serves as a reminder to learn when you should put the controller down. Seduction into the game is subtle but it is short lived.

In closing; Space Invaders has some good aspects to it but sadly is hindered by niggling issues such as a difficulty spikes and a lack of immersion. That said these shortcomings can be overlooked by many, but not me; the game has a good concept and ideas but only a limited audience but what they lack in numbers the make up for in loyalty.

I have no word & I must design: Toward a critical vocabulary for games – Costikyan

Formal abstract design tools - Doug Church, Gamasutra July 16th 1999

Don’t be a Vidiot – Costikyan

Space of possibility and pacing in casual game design – Venturelli,Gamasutra July 11^th 2009