Pervasive Games

Pervasive Games are games you play in real life a great example would be the movie we saw La Decima Vittima in Eddie's sessions, and another example would be Battle Royale and The Hunger Games where you fight in a death/survival game, where you as the player your objective is to hunt down your opponents (Other people) until you're the sole survivor.

Design Document

Game Scenario

The version of Senet I created is called "Death & Afterlife" and the goal of the game is to reach all five human pieces with a dice of one to six to the finish (Afterlife). The first player to move all their human pieces (souls) to the Afterlife (End) wins the game.

Game Board

The game board is a shorter version of the game Senet, as it has three rolls of four. I designed the board to be a short adventure for the dead to travel to the afterlife, but not without penalites and other mechanics such as the Egyptian symbol of Anubis increasing the playlength of the game.

Penalty Square

Where player pieces are judged before entering the afterlife (Finish).

Anubis had a important role as the Guardian of the Scales, that weighed the hearts of decreased souls, Caroline Seawright "It was here that Anubis, as 'He Who Counts the Hearts', watched over of the weighing of the heart and the judging of the deceased." (October 8, 2001).

Invulnerable and Rebirth Square

This square is where player pieces attain eternal life, and the square near the start where the player pieces go back after failing to get into the afterlife.

The Ankha which is also known as the breath of life, the key of Nile or the Cux Ansata.

The Egyptian symbol represents many different aspects of life such as eternal life, Kristen Wilkerson "Its meaning represents aspects of life itself, such as "zest for life", "eternal life", or "future life". The reason for this interpretation is because the loop is the perfect symbol having neither a beginning nor end and stands for the soul which is eternal because it has sprung from the spiritual essence of the Egyptian gods." (August 1, 2009).

Start Death Square

This square is where the players deceased humans (pieces) all begin.

Finish Afterlife Square

This square is reserved for the player pieces that have made it to the afterlife, after passing Anubis's scales of justice.

Game Pieces

The player has five human deceased pieces and that relates to the theme of the game (Death and the afterlife) as these pieces represent what ancient Egyptian citizens may have looked like during these times. Ancient people having short black hair and white clothing that look like dresses.

With pieces like these its important to know if they're safe to use. These pieces are made of wood and the same size as pawns (2 x 1&1/4) from a chest board, and not recommended to be near children that would swallow them.

Dice

Players will have one dice number of one to six to play with to move around each turn.

Assets

10x human pieces

1x game board (8x10)

100x Cards

2x dice

Gameplay

The game mechanics will require the players some strategic thinking, using the dice based on luck to advance throughout the game. This would give the player a sense of tension against their opponent, and a sign of relaxation after their desired number has appeared on their dice roll.

The game only lasts for ten to twenty minutes depending on how lucky the player, or the opponent is with their number of rolls to achieve their end goal (Afterlife).

Games Britannia Part Three - Joystick Generation

We return to the finale of the documentary series of Games Britannia part three Joystick Generation.

This time round part three covers the topic of hard physical copies, and digital games and the impact it has on our society. The episode first starts off slowly but gradually it builds itself up to finally show the viewer of a popular video game during "their" time as there are other games that have now surpassed it in popularity wise and etc.

Though watching through it covered many great games such as Tomb Raider and Little Big Planet. In one part of the interview he gave a question on what they would like to create and they replied back with Saints Row 3.

It was a great documentary and one to certainally remember.

La Decima Vittima

So one day we saw this strange film called La Decima Vittima which was one of these "That its so bad its good" kinds of things. Though to be honest it was quite hilarious aswell, as it had the entire class laughing too.

So the movie is about one assassin to try and survive from another assassin and the sole surivior of "The Big Hunt" becomes really wealthy and has the chance of retirement. Though throughout the movie you see them killing each other but somehow coming back to life like it was nothing? The deaths were just really confusing overall but really funny too.

Overall though it was great enjoyment.

Tweaking Ancient Games

So we were tasked with tweaking one of the three ancient games we played in class, and I went ahead picking Senet as I liked it the most out of the three games of old.

My first iteration was to remove the sticks movement mechanic as it was kinda confusing, and to simply replace them with a dice number one to six for the player to move round, which was to say the least highly sucessful.

While I added in a battle mechanic to make the game more engaging, and of course to bring alittle bit of the competive side out. While developing this mechanic and giving it a test run with people I ran into a few problems.

During my second iteration I fixed the problem by only allowing the players to fight one piece, if they do not have the same amount of pieces their opponent has on the same square. Its only when they both have the equal amount they fight all whatever number they have one that square. It was sucessful after having people replay it again.

On the third iteration I removed most of the Egyptian symbols on the board, but to only replace them with new ones that kept the spiritual (Death and afterlife) aspect of the game. I moved them to different locations on the board to make things more interesting. Though of course I found a problem within these symbols I placed down onto this playing field.

The next iteration was the fourth where I deicded some cards had to be created or the Anubis judge of the scales would completely be irrelevant, and the Ankh Eternal life symbol would be really game breaking. So if the player answered correctly he would gain eternal life for one turn so that no players would be able to kill their piece. As for Anubis if you answer correctly you can enter the afterlife, but answer wrong your soul is destoryed and you're sent to the Second Life symbol (Near the beginning of the game).

After test running this it was sucessful.

British Museum Trip

Once the coach ride ended I and my fellow classmates found oursevles outside the enterance of the British Museum, and of course to top it all off with a tour guide aswell to show us round the place and etc.

Though I did not show much interest I was itching to look round the place myself to look at old ancient artifacts from the past. History is quite a interesting subject isn't it?

Games Britannia Part Two - Monopolies & Mergers

Continuing where we left off.

Part two of the documentary series is about the history of the game Monopoly which is at least over one hundred years old, and its quite outstanding and mindblowing how these board games can stand the test of time.

During that time Monopoly was called "LandLords Game" and it was solely created as a learning tool, and since that time it was redevelop and created into the famous board game most people know about today, Monopoly.

So far my interest has been sparked ever so more.