泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 _ Conflict in a video game

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

Conflict in a video game

 

I have talked about what I think about the video games industry through my columns. Although I mentioned a game itself a couple of times, there was always the games market at the heart of it. But I want to talk about another topic today.

When it comes to content, there should be a message which connects between a creator and a consumer. It is usually called a narrative or subject. If that is the case, how can the creator deliver the message to the user? When the creator frames a story, he/she generally uses the conflict. Today I'd like to deal with the conflict in a video game.

The conflict can be divided up with many different types of categories. I especially sort it as following: a conflict between +(plus) and +(plus), a conflict between +(plus) and –(minus), and conflict between –(minus) and –(minus).

Firstly, (+)(+) conflict is based on opportunity cost. For example, you choose either the mountain or the sea where you go on holiday. This is the matter that you should pick one out of the two options. In the game, a user makes a decision to choose to level up or collect an item when he/she cannot perform the two mission at the same time. This is the most accessible type of conflict in the game and a game designer makes good use of it to provide strategic fun for players. User's autonomous decision-making skills greatly influence the outcome of the gameplay.

Secondly, (+)(–) conflict is about causation. For instance, you don't want to get fat although you crave something delicious. This type of conflict is progressed by putting at a disadvantage. In the game, a player needs 'heart' to play the game and the number of hearts will be decreased on each round of the game. The gamer having fun thinks about the way to overcome the handicap. At first, the in-app purchase was the standard for a user to be getting out of difficulty. Recently, however, to prevent players from being tired or bored before having fun, game designers use other ways to make consumers return to the game to stop them from migrating to other games.

Lastly, there is (–)(–) conflict, which is about a choice between two obligations. You would neither like to clean a room nor stay in the filthy space. In the game, for example, a user doesn't want to lose the game and to take the same action multiple times on each stage, either. If this happens, a game designer needs to suggest how players get obstacles out of the way, which is the latest type of in-app purchase.

Conflict, the greatly important element in the game, is used for gameplay as well as the storyline. This column shows only a superficial understanding of the conflict in the game, however, I wish it beginning of active and vibrant research on various elements of the game.

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

   (http://www.khgames.co.kr)

    Translation by Kim Ki-hui

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 _ Hit effects of video games

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

Hit effects of video games

 

Anyone who likes a movie probably knows Nowhere to Hide, a 1999 South Korean film. Most people, at least, would have heard of the movie title and watched the trailer with the two main characters' punch scene in the rain and the murder scene on the stairs. The murder scene on the stairs, which is one of the film's most famous scenes, is a tribute to the best-known sequence 'Odessa steps' from Battleship Potemkin, a 1925 Soviet silent film.

The reason I describe the scene tediously is that it is very useful to explain effective directing. Before explaining it, first, let me talk about hit effects led to mentioning directing.

A term 'hit effects' is commonly used in the gaming industry. Although it literally means a feeling of a hit, the point of the word is to make a gamer feel quite real watching action scenes of characters inside the game where nobody actually beat up. It is a very important factor for a fun game, especially in action games.

Hit effects include character movement, hit-effects directing, and sound, etc. Recently a lot of local mobile games focusing on actions have been released. These games show splendid images and spectacular effects which are incomparable to the previous ones thanks to the big advancement in hardware technology. But it is hard to find a game with excellent hit-effects once I play the games.

The biggest reason among lots of causes, as I think, is a problem of directing. With getting back to the 'Odessa steps', in spite of numerous meanings and undertones hidden in the sequence, one of the most important things is good editing to maximize effectiveness. Montage, a technique in film editing in which a series of short static shots and dynamic shots into a sequence, is a very important method for current films. A fighting scene in slow motion in a martial arts or action movie probably help you to understand it. The normal-speed scene after slower speed one increases much more excitement, makes the sequence look faster than it is, and particularly emphasizes the slow-motion scene, which makes motions of the fighting scene much stronger.

Let's get back to the video games. Game developers also need to make an effort to show good directing to highlight the hit effects. Of course, I don't think that this is the only way and hit effects guarantee all the fun from playing the game. But one of the reason there are many hit-effects-lacking games among recently released ones might be developers' lack of efforts to present great directing for animated hit effects. South Korea already has world-class game-resource-related techniques. But I cannot help but think that we are still very far from looking at the whole process. I expect to play an action game which will give me a thrill with exciting and intense fighting scenes.

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

   (http://www.khgames.co.kr)

    Translation by Kim Ki-hui

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 _ Realism in video games

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

Realism in video games

 

A film Obsessed was released not long ago. I usually have many chances to watch movies because I sometimes invest in films as a venture capitalist. The movie reached about 1.5 million views nationwide. It was not a total failure when it comes to box-office record, however, there was harsh criticism for low-grading acting of the main actors. Especially I thought that Song Seung-Heon looked very awkward due to his too dry acting skills.

Recently, at a gathering, I met someone who really loved his performance in the film. He has a similar experience with Colonel Kim Jin-Pyeong—the colonel had to kill numerous enemies—played by Song and he commented that Song portrayed the character very well.

An idea crossed my mind at the moment; What is 'realism' for content? Of course, I don't want to mention realism and hyperrealism here. Including the film at the very beginning, there are developers' reality and user's reality in video games and I'd like to talk about the differences between them.

Did Song act well in the movie? It's very subjective so that there is no right answer to this question, however, his performance has unsuccessfully met the subject which I want to deal with in this column. If the film's intention was not to plainly portray a senior officer who was in a life-threatening situation on the battlefield, it's more important to make the audiences feel like they are watching the war hero suffering metal breakdowns and nightmares due to post-traumatic disorder from the Vietnam War.

If so, what about realism in video games? In spite of some reality distortion to entertain users, it would be within the limits of customer-acceptable realism. Settings—a game character falls to his/her death from a cliff or a sword used for a long time doesn't perform well—make a game more realistic, however, being realistic isn't always a good thing because settings—a gamer cannot enjoy playing the game so that a game character should go to bed from 12 pm to 7 am or the character should go to the bathroom every two hours—disturb a user's playing and wouldn't be fun elements of the game at all. Some game developers try to make an extremely realistic game to show off their technical skills. Of course, some developers fail to do the basics to lower the difficulty of the development and accelerate the project.

There is a literary term 'artistic license'. The poetic license includes the distortion of fact and the alteration of the conventions of grammar for an artistic purpose. Game designers try lots of different attempts in order to entertain users. Some are unrealistic—on the contrary, others are excessively realistic. Unlike truth reality, some scenes seem to be plausible. But, if it is one of the methodologies to please users, it can be called "artistic license for games". Academic discussions are needed to make video games be taken as one of the art genres.

 

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

   (http://www.khgames.co.kr)

    Translation by Kim Ki-hui