For my last blog , I am going to reflect on my experiences using Twine. Twine is a good platform for developing games due to its being relatively user friendly and accessible. The down load for twine is quick easy and requires little space on a person’s computer. This increases accessibility by minimizing hard ware requirements so even the potatoes can run Twine. Twine is also able to be used on almost any operating system, or in the case of Chrome books, there is even a web-based version. For running games, Twine generates an html page so that it can ran on any computer with a web browser, making it not only accessible to its creators but also its players.

In order to create a basic game, a user only needs to know a few Twine native commands. Making the learning curve to getting used to Twine start very low. The other advantage of Twine piggy backing off of html is that it is not uncommon for someone to already know, but also very easy for a beginner to get to for formatting out passages. This also allows for twine games to become very complex if the develop desires, not only can they leverage Twine’s built in variable system but they can use JavaScript to create custom scripts for their game.

Twine has several different styles of native coding it allows. At first glance this seems like a great addition because a developer can choose the style that fits their needs the best. This has its drawbacks though, it is not always clear which style the editor is using and when trying to find documentation and resources on Twine elements the different frameworks are mixed an matched together. This brings us to Twine’s documentation. While it does explain the basic concepts behind different elements. Many times the documentation is very brief and hard to navigate.

Adding external files can be very frustrating. Twine 2 does not allow the user to add any extra files in to the project they are working on, so all images must be uploaded to 3rd party websites and scripts must be typed directly into the passages. This could be seen as an advantage, since developers do not need to understand how to path to other files, but I would say it is an overall detriment. It makes adding any content outside of basic html and text a slight pain.

Overall I enjoyed developing with Twine, its simple design makes it easy to create basic stories, while the technologies it leverages makes it so that the developer can make much more than just a simple visual novel. After using twine for this course I want to continue using it to see how complex of a game I can make.

When Aster Falls is a visual novel that follows the relationship between Rohan and a succubus, Aster. Rohan wakes up on morning to find a succubus in her room who state that Rohan has one the human lottery and this succubus, Aster is going to use her to gather energy for her hive. Upon hearing this Rohan quickly shoots down the idea explaining that she is asexual and not interested in sex. Upon hearing this, Aster is relieved and explains how she is constantly out on missions and does not get a lot of time to relax. Rohan begins asking Aster questions about herself and where she’s from. Aster explains that succubi feed off emotions of love and lust. Through her explanations, the player gets the impression that Aster, might also be on the aromantic and asexual spectrum, as Aster explains that sleeping with humans is more of a job and less about attraction to them. It is important that the game does mention this since it shows the complexities of the asexual and aromantic spectrum. Just because someone has had sex, does not mean they cannot be asexual. While there are many asexual people who do not have sex, there are those who do and even those who enjoy it. Aster also makes it clear that romantic relationships are heavily frowned upon in her society. Aster then asks Rohan if she’s told everyone about her orientation. The game allows the user to either state they have told pretty much everyone their close to or just their friends. This is an interesting decision, since technically either would be reasonable for Rohan to have done and by giving the user this choice, the user gets to feel more like they are playing as the character by giving them some agency on who they are. After this, the user can choose what activity they wish to do with Aster. There are three possibilities, cooking, board games, or watching TV. Through board games and cooking the player becomes to form a bond with Aster. Watching TV does the same as well, but since the player watches a dating game show, they get to learn that Rohan is not aromantic and still looks for romantic relationships. This segment is done well, but it is unfortunate that if a player does not watch TV they do not get to learn as much about Rohan’s identity. This is just a minor thing though, since while they will not explicitly learn as much about it, they can implicitly through the relationship Rohan and Aster build and their actions. Another interesting thing is that eventually, Aster will feed off of Rohan through their romantic relationship. This initially puts Aster off because she is worried Rohan would not be okay with it. This is an interesting choice, since it in a sense shows the validity of purely romantic relationships, but not equating it to less than a sexual one, but it also shows Aster’s confusion on the difference between asexuality and aromanticism. It gives the player another chance to understand these are too separate orientations and not mutually exclusive. The game eventually ends with Rohan and Aster getting together and enjoying their time together. When Aster Falls definitely takes steps to educate its audience on asexuality and a bit of the diversities of the aromantic and asexual spectrum. This does to appear to be its primary focus though, the game definitely puts its emphasis on creating a cute romance between Aster and Rohan. Even though it may not focus too much on educating its audience, it is still able to show positive asexual representation by having developed explicitly asexual characters who are not looked down upon for their sexuality.

https://sad-ghost-studios.itch.io/when-aster-falls (link to the game for anyone who wants to play)

For my research project, I have been looking into asexuality (with a bit on the rest of the a-spec just due to overlap) and its appearance in video games. (And by appearance I mean lack there of.) Upon referencing the LGBT Game archive I have been able to find some references to asexual characters in more main stream titles such as Borderlands and Persona. Which sounds great, but the main issue is that in these tittles the characters are not explicitly stated to be on the a-spec and are just heavley implied to be. While it is nice to see characters who’s dialogs and personalities make them appear to be on the a-spec, it in the end does not do much to help with visibility and education of the public on these orientations. By not making these orientations explicit, it is much easier to sweep them under the radar so that they can still be marketed to unaccepting or unknowledgable audiences with out them ever knowing that a game might contain queer characters. This form of representation, while it is nice to see relatable characters, is disingenuous and sometimes feels as though it is used to artificially make a game seem accepting, when the game itself still hides it as to avoid backlash. Do games with queer characters need to go out of their way to go into every aspect of that character’s identity? No. But, when a game makes a queer character, it should be more explicit than one line about not doing romance. Yes this does get across the point that this character is probably under the a-spec but it can be easily swept under the rug. Things such as characters having pride flags in their rooms (or in the case of the ace community black rings and aro community white rings). While these are still small elements, they are at least elements that once found are indisputable.

While there is historical precendece for hiding queer character to avoid backlash. Or even completey rewriting games to hide queer representation. (For expamples of this read into the Rainbow Arcade about the history of queer games). Are we not supposed to be striving for better? The time for hiding queer representation or putting it in small segments that can be easily edited out and forgotten for unaccecpting audiences is over. I want my representation to be explicit and undeniable. (There are also a few other demands but that’s another blog rant)

References:

https://lgbtqgamearchive.com/category/characters/asexual/page/1/

Rainbow Arcade

Spade Memory is a visual novel that goes through the memories of Wisteria (or Wis), who is an aromantic-asexual. The game begins with the premise that the earth has been attacked by Martians who are devoid of emotion. The humans have a built a resistance and began recruiting civilians to help end the war effort. To form a closer bond with comrades, a memory archive was set for soldiers to log information about their past relationships. This is an interesting premise as it does two things simultaneously. Firstly, it combats a stereo-type that aromantic and asexual people are unfeeling robots. Secondly, it introduces the player to the concept that it is okay to not have romantic/sexual relationships and that other types of relationships can be just as fulfilling. After this short introduction, the player is invited to choose between three paths (which can be swapped at any time): dating, family, and friendship. Dating shows the player Wis’s lack of desire to pursue any form of romantic or sexual relationship. Family gives the player insight into what Wis’s family situation is like and how that affected her sexuality. Her immediate family is in general very open and accepting of Wis’ sister who is a lesbian, although Wis is still nervous about telling them. She is worried that they will not understand. On top of that, Wis’s aunt is openly homophobic making her feel less comfortable. When Wis does eventually tell them, they are accepting. Wis also faces similar worries when around her friends. One of her friends is particularly hyper sexual, which contrasts greatly with Wis’s sex-repulsed nature. Though eventually when she does tell them they are accepting. These interactions attempt the give the player an idea of what it is like to be in the closet as well as the importance of having an accepting community when someone comes out. Other highlights of this game are how it brings up issues, such as bad representation and lack of education. Wis has the option to play a dating sim with her friends. Her one friend really wants her to play it because of the datable characters is asexual. The game starts out fine, but by the end of the game it turns out that said asexual character was actually cursed to be asexual, but by the end the curse is removed, and the character is “cured.” Negative representation can be seen in real life media as well, for example, the medical drama House has an episode where a similar thing happens (well obviously with less magic but the general idea of a character’s asexuality being cured). This plays off the misconception that asexuality means a person is broken and that they can be fixed, which is not that case what so ever. This form of representation alienates the asexual-aromantic community by making their experiences seem invalid. Spade Memory also talks about how Wis learned about aromanticism and asexuality through browsing online forums and eventually finding AVEN (the Asexual Visibility and Education Network) where she learned about the spectrum of sexual and romantic orientations as well as sex positivity scale. This interaction shows the lack of education the average person has on different identities as well as the failures of the current education system to inform the public of these. Spade Memory covers many aspects of asexuality and aromanticism, giving the player a thorough background on not only the information side of things, but also the impacts of the current society on those who are apart of the aromantic/asexual spectrum.

“How League of Legends Could Make the Internet a Better Place” was an interesting read especially considering League of Legends is a game that I have spent a [redacted] hours on. The article was defiantly a little too hopeful for what the new systems it spoke of claimed to fix. The article mentions two main systems that League of Legends has used to decrease toxicity in its game. One is the Tribunal System, which has not been in the game since 2014, but involved players reviewing reports and determining whether or not the reported player should face punishment. This has since been replaced with the other system. The next system the article mentions is the honor system (along with a few other things) , which at the time was brand new, but has since been in the game for about five years (to be honest I swear this system is like two years old, but like this article claims to differ and time is fake). In the honor system players can give other players honor at the end of game for sportsman like performance. This leads to the player leveling up in honor and if a rando (someone not in the player’s party) or two people in the party honor the same person at the end of the game their honor level will be displayed on their portrait the next time they load into game. The article gives the reasoning that “reputation means a lot” so that players will want to be honorable so that they can show off. (Though I consulted with a friend and neither of us are sure if the load screen display still exists, so I would say it might not be the best). The other thing about this honer system, is that honoring players is often more done for people with good scores or carried games and less about how sportsman-like they are. (While yes, if you flame your teammates they probably will not honor you, but when teammates are honoring they are often just being nice to whoever carried — or in my case, randomly clicking cause why not?). The article also mentions other things this new honor system included, such as explaining to players why they were reported and sending screen shots of chat logs. The article claims that this has majorly helped the game from having repeat offenders. From a player’s perspective though, this new system, while it has not hurt the game, is no where close to making “the internet a better place” as the title implies. Overall the game still feels as toxic as when I started (yes I might not get flamed as consistently, but that has more to do with the fact I actually understand how to play the game), if you mess up a game or feed a few kills your teammates can easily turn on you, especially in ranked queues. While changing up the systems might help the numbers slightly, I do not think they will actually make a meaningful impact to players until the culture of the game changes. While players do not like getting flamed and will often complain about the toxicity in the game, it is something they expect. Because of this, flaming is just seen as another part of the game and while frowned upon is not explicitly taboo.

Recently I downloaded Love Nikki which is a dress-up mobile app where the player progresses through levels by competing against AI in attempts to dress a model fitting to a prompt. This app is pretty decent in the sense that it is not too much of a cash grab and has mechanics other than paying. There are not too many adds and both forms of in game currency can be obtained at reasonable rates with out paying for the game. Though in comparison to another fashion related game, Style Savvy, (released for both the DS and 3DS), Love Nikki falls short in entertaining the player and keeping the engrossed in the world. Style Savvy has similar mechanics to Love Nikki, the player still can compete against AI to fit a category but in Style Savvy the main mechanic of the game is finding outfits and items that fit a customer’s style needs.

Tamashii Hiroka has a YouTube video where she discusses the difference in girl games made from the mid 90s to mid 2000s and games made from the mid 2000s to present. Both of the games, I mentioned earlier would be considered in the second category, but they both go along with a topic she mentions (at 9:56 if you wish to jump to the part). Hiroka mentions that a fun part about fashion is the ability to mix and match clothes. Both Style Savvy and Love Nikki allow for this and provides the user with a diverse wardrobe that they can purchase. Style Savvy is able to keep up this illusion of finding the perfect matching outfit better though. In both games when attempting to fit a style the game will give categories that the player should chose from as a hint. As long as a player has some items from these categories they should be able to prosper. Though Love Nikki limits the number of times a player can compete through a heart system that the player exhausts every time they attempt a level. These hearts will grow back, but by either waiting or spending money. (I should note though, that game does give a reasonable amount of hearts such that the player can probably attempt levels for about an hour or so before having to wait.) This limiting of resources makes the player want to attempt to get the best score out of every match and takes away from the joys of finding matching pieces to a theme, switching a focus on putting as many items on as possible that will match the recommended categories (which, let me tell you, has made several high scoring fashion disasters). Since Style Savvy lacks this mechanic of paying and waiting to be able to server customers, with the only real penalty for straying to farm from what the customer desires is the customer might not return (which is not a main concern since the game has numerous NPCs so customers are not necessarily a hot commodity), the game becomes more forgiving on the player for not making sure every item is tagged with certain categories. This allows the player to be able to experiment and fall into the illusion of selecting perfect matching outfits better. Though both games are well designed and are not apparent cash grabs, Love Nikki‘s presence (even though it is small) of a payment mechanic takes the player away from some of the immersion of the game by making the player have to shift their strategy from matching fitting outfit pieces together to putting pieces of specific categories on regardless of how well they match.

Bellow is the referenced YouTube video for your viewing pleasure:

On the recommendation of a friend, I played Missed Messages this break, (among other games, but they are not relevant). This is actually a very short game, one play through will take about ten to fifteen minutes depending on reading speed/ how much the player messes with the game. (If you really want to get through it though, you could probably do it in five minutes). There are only four achievements in the game and in order to get all four would only take about thirty to forty minutes. What is interesting in this game is that in this short amount of time, Missed Messages is able to get across its point as well as give you a good sense of the character you are playing as. Before I get into looking a little into the game itself and how it does this, I would like to note that I think its a good game to look at for this class, not only due to some of the relevant topics it brings up, but also it is not too far off from a game that would be easily doable for the project.

Missed Messages touches on themes of suicide and depression. The game begins with the player character in her dorm room attempting to do homework, but is unable to focus. This is a relatable moment for many college-aged students. The game play does this by not only having the main character mention how she cannot focus, but also by given the player choices in what to do every few moments to show the character’s lack of focus. In order to get more into the character, the player can also bring up Spotify (okay, if it was given it name it would probably be named something like Spotsify, to avoid copyright, but that is irrelephant) and select different songs, which will actually change the background music of the game. This gives the play an idea of what the character would listen to, as well as gives the player some agency. For example, I found the original song annoying so I chose, the more soothing one. The player will begin to messages from a mysterious “Goth GF” which they are able to either accept or decline and respond to. Eventually, if the player messages Goth GF enough, they will be able to go and meet her. At this point the player is able to talk to their roommate for a bit. If it is the first play through, the player has no choice but to either go meet Goth GF or go back to work after this interaction, where the roommate, May, seems very distant and says her good byes to the player before going back into her room. When the player leaves May behind, they will spend the rest of the night with Goth GF and then come back to find out they missed messages from May and note on the door to call the police. From this, the player learns that May killed herself that night and the game ends. On future play throughs the player is able to instead spend the night with May where she will open up about her feelings of loneliness and depression.

The game essentially has two endings, one where May dies and one where May lives. In the ending where May dies the player sees the guilt the main character feels and sees the impact suicide has on those who live on after without that person. In the ending where May lives, the player is able to learn about May’s feelings and how they affect her life. As well as see the struggle May goes through to deal with them on her own. I believe the point of this game is bring awareness to mental illness and how much it can impact our lives if not treated properly.

For those interested, the Steam Link:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/812810/missed_messages/

(TW: self harm, depression, suicide)

In class we talked about controllers and how they affect player experience. Every game will have default mapped controls, but a lot of games allow for players to alter controls to their own liking. In its most basic form this is just button mapping, where the player alters which controls give out which inputs often in some settings screen. Though there are more extreme examples where the player will actually change the controller. A pratical example would be Osu! which is a beat game that the default controllers allow the player to use a mouse to move a cursor and click circles with either “z” “x” or clicking. The player will soon realize that it is easier to click using “z” and “x” than using mouse clicks since the player can put less pressure on the mouse and be able to move it faster. Though, a less apparent change that players will make is to use a drawing tablet with a pen to improve their accuracy.

While some people modify the controllers to make their gaming experience easier, there is also those who alter their controllers for… other reasons. For example, here is a guy who maps toasters to play Doom. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI7tWd7B3iI ) This has little value to improving the play experience, though it does put literal meaning to playing on a toaster. Before continuing on with the point, here is another example of someone using bananas to play Overwatch ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GJ55UIyGvw ). This actually is not necessary, I just found it hilarious. This is an interesting modification for the game since it does not necessarily improve the play experience, but instead transforms it into something else. The play becomes less focused on the actual game play and more on how to effectively use the controls to get the same outcome as someone using traditional controls.

In a sense, the player is redefining the rules of the game by altering their controls. Controls, in games are set up as a means to an end and are supposed to feel fluid so that the player can easily perform actions without putting much thought into the interaction. This can been seen through how similar games have similar control sets and there is a “meta” for how many console controllers are designed. As well as games such as Maplestory, that before creating a new character, the game will ask the player if they are more used to playing Maplestory (which is interesting since it is a platformer that does not use a mouse, so the player would traditionally move with the arrow keys) or other games (where the player would most likely have played using WASD to move). The player is not meant to be thinking about what keys they are pressing they are more meant to be thinking of the actions that need to be performed and what is going on in the game world. By altering the controls though, the player must now focus more on how their controller impacts the game, and playing becomes less about mastering the strategy of the game and more about mastering the controls of the game.

This weeks chapter in How to Play Video Games on World Building mentions Bioshock’s map layout and how it helps build the world. Wolf mentions that the map is fairly linear in the sense that the player will have an entrance to a part of the map and then an exit when they have progressed though that section. The player is never given a full idea of what the map looks like. Wolf claims this helps build out the world. Two other games that also use map layout to help build out their worlds is Pokemon Platinum and Gris.

Pokemon Platinum (and Pokemon Diamond and Pearl if we are going to get specific) is set in the Sinnoh region of the Pokemon world. A large part of this region is the giant mountain, Mt. Coronet. This mountain cuts through the middle of the map with many entrances and obstacles. Throughout the story the player will enter the mountain from different angles and see different parts. There are also obstacles such as walls that can only be climbed with the HM Rock Climb and people blocking paths and refusing to move. These help with the world building and progression of the game. The player gets a sense of the mountain’s importance to the Sinnoh region through talking to NPC’s who live near the mountain and how a lot of Sinnoh Mythology is linked to the mysterious mountain (Dialga and Palkia). When the player enters the mountain for each part of the story they uncover new parts and go into places they have not seem yet. This gives the mountain a large feel to it and makes the navigation of the game more interesting through reusing the same location but with a different layout. This makes the mountain feel very large and like a huge division in the region, giving the region a distinct feeling.

Gris is a platforming game where the player is a girl who is working through some hardship. The player navigates a broken building that can be some what reminiscent of some sort of palace that has broken states of the same girl (assumed to be you) scattered throughout. As the game progresses the player moves from area to areas, though there is no map ever given so it is unclear of whether or not the player is actually entering a new place each time. Especially since part of the progression in the game involves more colors being added and the environment changing. Certain maps seem to almost mirror a more complete version of previous maps. In the end the player gets a view of an entire palace like structure and it is assumed that is the area that you visited, but it is not clear if this is so because some parts seem to be missing. This use of a confusing layout is interesting because it forces the player to reflect on the progress they made and how it led to their final destination.

“Under the Bridge: An in-depth examination of online trolling in the gaming context” brings up the issue of trolling in online video games. The article attempts to discern a solid definition for trolling as well as why trolls troll. This is done through interviews and analysis of previous writings on the subect.

The article begins by stating how previous academic articles have had issues finding an accurate definition for trolling. Which reminded me of one online game I frequently play, League of Legends. Players will complain about trolls in game and how no matter how many times they report them, they still appear. Riot has responded generally to trolls and explained its system in numerous posts. At one point they had a a system where players would review games for where people were reported for trolling and toxicity. Though they eventually discontinued this system because “It’s slow and inefficient” and “It’s sometimes wildly inaccurate.” Now back to the main point Riot has stated that they have been able more easily punish players for being toxic in chat and having inappropriate users names with automation but are still largely reliant on manual reports for trolls. (For reference: https://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/2018/08/ask-riot-will-tribunal-return/). This inability to automatically punish trolls is in a sense similar to the issue the article begins with, an inability to effectively categorize trolling. It is often easy to determine when someone is saying inappropriate things in chat by just detecting a few words and phrases, but for someone who is silent but plays the game in a way that other players do not expect is not as easy. Because what is the difference between someone not understanding a mechanic and dying a lot and someone intentionally misplaying so they do not win? This kind of troll would probably fall under attempting to deceive others in some sense, which was one definition mentioned in the study. Though this would also connect why its hard to detect since it is unclear as to whether the player is new or actually attempting to mess with the game for others.

The article concludes with an experiment that involved interviewing different self-proclaimed trolls and determining why they trolled. An interesting point about this part of the article is how it mentions the age and gender of the trolls when referring to specific trolls in its experiment section. This is mainly interesting because the article does little analysis on either of these subjects save for a statement that, due to ethical reasons, no one under 19 was interviewed and that only two female trolls were interviewed, making it hard to draw conclusions. Though, the article does mention these topics as good starting points for future research and analysis.

Also, if you would like more of Riots responses to dealing with trolls and toxicity:
https://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/2017/01/ask-riot-banished-to-prisoners-island/
https://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/2017/06/ask-riot-practice-tool-stays-solo/
https://dotesports.com/news/how-riot-plans-to-address-autofill-trolls-9034