<Game Name>
Genre
Identify the gameplay genre(s) the game belongs to.
- Gameplay genre - platformer, puzzle, shooter, sim? Here are three taxonomies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_genres and http://vsrecommendedgames.wikia.com/wiki/A_List_and_Guide_to_Game_Genres and http://www.ferzkopp.net/...
- IGN genres: Action, Adventure, Battle, Board, Card, Casino, Compilation, Educational, Fighting, Flight, Hunting, Music, Other, Pinball, Platformer, Party, Productivity, Puzzle, RPG, Racing, Shooter, Simulation, Sports, Strategy, Trivia, Virtual Pet, and Wrestling.
- Apple App Store genres: Action, Adventure, Arcade, Board, Card, Casino, Dice, Educational, Family, Music, Puzzle, Racing, Role Playing, Simulation, Sports, Strategy, Trivia, and Word.
- Additional descriptors: chainreaction, defense, escape, exploration, hackandslash, match-3, onemorelevel, "push your luck", or addiction/skinner box game? This list of tags at https://jayisgames.com/tags/ might be helpful.
Story
Some games are purely abstract and have no story or theme (ex. Tetris).
But most games at least have a premise to define the action (ex. Your avatar is running from ghosts in a maze).
For your chosen game, discuss the theme (big ideas - if applicable), mood (excitement, fear, ?), narrative (how the player progresses through the game), and premise of the game (what drives the plot).
Esthetics
Graphics style - abstract, cartoonish, photo-realistic?.
Sound - probably pretty simple - 8-bit, ambient, techno, looped, procedural?
Discuss the types of sound the game has: scoring, effect, UI, background, zone (varies by player location)?
Gameplay
Mechanics
What choices can the player make and what can they do?
Here are some compilations of game mechanics you might find helpful:
Control
Be specific, here are many of the options:
- Keyboard and/or mouse
- Gamepad
- Accelerometer
- Touch and/or gesture
Teaching the game
How is the player taught how to play the game? Is this integrated into the gameplay, are there separate instructional scenes, a tutorial, or some combination? Is it obvious to the player how to play the game? See Cascading Information Theory on the SCVNGR game mechanics page.
Player learning
Explain some of what the player needs to learn to beat the game. Be specific and cite actual powerups, combos, and strategies.
Example: In order to master the game, the player should be learning. In playing Boomshine:
- The player learns that they have only one click per level, and it must be timed precisely in order to advance to the next level.
- They develop strategies to keep the chain-reaction going a long as possible. For example, clicking in the corners of the screen on certain levels, and the center of the screen at other levels.
- After completing the game once, they learn that to get their total score higher, they need to maximize their score on each level and not just get the minimum to advance.
- They learn helplessness on the final level, and that a random click is just as good as a well-timed click.
Social Features
High score boards, Facebook integration, sharing, ???
Business Model
free, buy once, ad supported, freemium, pay to play, pay to win, ...
Hardware platform(s) and links
List what platforms the game is available on, and provide working hypertext links a working version of the game or the official homepage of the game. Also cite any reviews or articles you used in this assignment.
Screenshots
Have at least 2 screenshots of the game - use <img> tags. You can either display the images in this section, or somewhere else on the page.
Your in-depth summary and rating of the game
Summarize the strength and weaknesses of the game. You can use an IGN system (out of 10 scale in 5 metrics: Presentation, Graphics, Sound, Gameplay, Lasting Appeal) or another rubric. You can skip assigning a score, but be sure to touch on these metrics in any case.
Be sure to emphasize any unique or addicting features of the game.
About the reviewer
Your name/major/minor/year and what kinds of games you like to play.
Instructions
Overview: Choose a casual game to play, analyze, and review.
Definition: What's a Casual game? Most casual games have similar basic features: (1)
- Extremely simple gameplay, like a puzzle game that can be played entirely using a one-button mouse or cellphone keypad
- Allowing gameplay in short bursts, during work breaks or, in the case of portable and cell phone games, on public transportation
- The ability to quickly reach a final stage, or continuous play with no need to save the game
- Some variant on a "try before you buy" business model or an advertising-based model
Other Common Characteristics: (2)
- Average play sessions of 2 to 5 minutes
- Overall game length a few hours
- Depth of gameplay is emphasized over length - a small number elements are re-combined in unique ways. ex. Plants v. Zombies.
- Repeatability is emphasized over content. Short and exciting play sessions to encourage the player to give it "just one more try"
- Natural play breaks built into game.
- Variety and surprise are built into the game.
Requirements:
- Choose a casual game and claim it in the mycourses discussion thread. One person per game please. Your game can be a web game, console game, PC game, or handheld game. It can be somewhat "less casual" than the definition above indicates, but no AAA titles please.
- Play the game as long as necessary to understand it. Complete or beat the game if possible.
- Write an analysis of the game, cover all of the aspects of the game required in the template above, and summarize and rate the game.
- Post the HTML file to gibson so that it is visible at:
http://people.rit.edu/abc1234/450/game-review.htmlwhereabc1234is your gibson username. Be sure that the page and images show up when you view the file in a browser. - ZIP up and post the page and images to the appropriate mycourses dropbox. This is worth 3% of final grade.
Examples:
- Boomshine - abstract chain reaction game
- Bubbles - avoidance game
- Hundreds -avoidance/"just one more try" abstract iOS game
- Squares 2 - abstract avoidance game
- Particle Blaster - Shooter
- Petals - puzzle game
- Pretentious Game - an abstract game with a strong narrative, and a theme of love, loss and persistence.
- Mondrianism - abstract puzzle game
- Koutack - puzzle game
- Zombie Dice - "push your luck" game
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casual_game
(2) Scott Rogers - Swipe This! The Guide to Great Touchscreen Game Design