Game Development Exercise 1 Game Analysis

Week 2

0361141/Wang Zilong

Bachelor degree in design of creative media/Tyalor's university

Exercise of game analysis

Introduction

Game analysis and design ideas

Definition and classification of games

General games usually refer to those that do not focus on high-end graphics or complex mechanisms, but attract players through simple and easy-to-understand gameplay, clear goals and designs suitable for the general public. According to different game types, general games can be divided into casual, puzzle, simulation, etc. Although they are less complex, they can still provide rich entertainment experience and player interaction.

Core elements of games

1. Game mechanics: The mechanics of general games are usually simple and clear, and players can easily get started. For example, elimination games complete tasks by dragging or clicking, and the gameplay is intuitive and interesting.

2. Goals and challenges: Setting clear goals and moderate challenges can attract players. For example, in puzzle games, players get points by solving puzzles, and can unlock new levels after achieving goals, which motivates them to continue playing.

3. Visuals and sound effects: Although the visual effects of general games do not need to be too exquisite, simple designs and pleasant sound effects can enhance players' gaming experience and enhance immersion.

4. Social interaction: Many ordinary games enhance social interaction through leaderboards, friend invitations, etc., allowing players to increase fun while competing with others.

Advantages of ordinary games

1. Easy to get started: The simple gameplay of ordinary games allows novice players to quickly understand and participate, lowering the entry threshold of the game.

2. Strong adaptability: This type of game can be run on various platforms, including mobile phones, tablets and PCs, making it convenient for players to play games anytime and anywhere.

3. Wide audience: The diversity and accessibility of ordinary games enable them to attract players of different ages and backgrounds, and the market potential is huge.

4. Sustainability: By regularly updating content, activities and new levels, ordinary games can maintain players' long-term interest and increase the life cycle of the game.

Market analysis

In the current game market, the competition for ordinary games is becoming increasingly fierce. Successful ordinary games often rely on the following aspects:

1. User feedback: Timely collection and analysis of user feedback and adjustment of game design to meet player needs are important strategies to keep the game alive.

2. Marketing strategy: Effective marketing can help the game gain more exposure, including social media promotion, cooperative promotion, and game reviews.

3. Update and iteration: By constantly updating the game content and keeping it fresh, it can attract old players to return and attract new players to join.

Game design ideas

When designing an ordinary game, you can start from the following aspects:

1. Determine the target audience: First, make it clear what kind of players your game is designed for, whether it is for children, teenagers or adults, which will directly affect the theme and difficulty of the game.

2. Design simple gameplay: Make sure the basic operation of the game is simple and intuitive, and guide players through a short tutorial. You can consider using classic game mechanisms, such as matching, clicking or sliding.

3. Set clear goals and feedback mechanisms: Set clear goals for players and give instant feedback after completion, such as rewards, achievement unlocking, etc., to enhance the sense of achievement.

4. Add social elements: Design leaderboards or social sharing functions so that players can compete with friends and enhance the interactivity of the game.

5. Create rich game content: Keep the game interesting and playable through diversified level design, prop system, character selection, etc., and encourage players to explore.

6. Pay attention to art and sound effects: Although high-end graphics are not required, a simple, beautiful interface and pleasant sound effects can greatly enhance the player experience.

7. Develop an update plan: After the game is released, develop a plan for regular updates to add new content, fix bugs and optimize the player experience to maintain players' continued interest.

Critical Analysis

Mortal Kombat X 

When we study game character design and conduct critical analysis on existing games, Mortal Kombat X is an example worth noting. This game is known for its passion, violence and unique aesthetic style. It has shown many highlights in character design, game mechanics and cultural expression, and has also caused some controversy.

1. Character Design: Inheritance and Innovation

The Mortal Kombat series has always been loved for its rich and diverse character design. In Mortal Kombat 10, the creators continued the characteristics of classic characters such as Scorpion and Sub-Zero, while expanding the narrative and style of the game by incorporating new characters. For example, the new character Cassie Cage is not only the descendant of the core characters of the series, but also shows more modern elements and sense of humor. This design strategy of combining inheritance and innovation not only makes old players feel familiar, but also provides new attractions for new players.

However, the design of female characters is still controversial. The styling of some characters, such as Kitana and Mileena, although highlighting the visual impact, their overly idealized body shape and costumes are not realistic enough, and the proportions are far from real life. This way of expression may make some players feel alienated, and even trigger discussions about gender stereotypes. Although the development team has tried to improve some designs in subsequent versions, the overall commercial orientation is still relatively obvious, especially in the presentation of female characters, which lacks more diverse expressions.

2. Visual effects and game mechanics

The visual performance of "Mortal Kombat 10" is the best in the industry. Whether it is high-quality character modeling, exquisite scene details, or shocking action animations, they all show excellent technical level. In particular, the iconic "Fatality" special effect has become a unique label of the series, further strengthening the brand identity of the game.

However, this focus on violent aesthetics also brings some problems. While pursuing the ultimate picture, the action details of some characters seem too repetitive, and the interactivity of the scene is slightly insufficient. For new players, the complex combo mechanism may increase the difficulty of getting started, and the unbalanced design between some characters has also led to controversy over competitiveness. In addition, although the game's online mode provides players with rich opportunities for interaction, the payment mechanism for unlocking content and the pricing strategy of some DLC (downloadable content) have sparked some criticism, with players believing that this undermines fairness and increases the financial burden.

3. Player experience and brand identity

Player experience is an important criterion for evaluating a game, and "Mortal Kombat 10" has won the love of core players through its high-level sense of attack and tense combat experience. Mechanisms such as "critical blow" and "X-ray attack" in the game not only allow players to feel the dual impact of vision and psychology in battle, but also make the entire game experience highly recognizable.

However, this experience is not completely impeccable. For new players, the game's difficulty curve is relatively steep, especially when facing the combo system and high-level online opponents, it is easy to feel frustrated. In addition, although the game has established a strong brand identity among the core player group, its over-reliance on violent aesthetics may also form a threshold for some players, limiting its possibility of attracting a wider player group.

Online mode and multiplayer competition are important components of "Mortal Kombat 10". This not only extends the life of the game, but also enhances the interaction between players. However, the settings of some paid content, such as the DLC mode of unlocking new characters or purchasing skins, have been criticized by players. Although this commercialization strategy has brought additional income to the developer, it has also weakened the players' trust in the fairness of the game to a certain extent.

4. Cultural and social impact

In terms of cultural expression, "Mortal Kombat 10" continues the consistent style of the series, integrating Eastern and Western elements into character design and story background. For example, the settings of Scorpion and Sub-Zero draw on the traditions of Japanese ninja and Chinese martial arts, while other characters are inspired by Western science fiction or fantasy. This cross-cultural fusion enriches the narrative dimension of the game, but also triggers controversy about cultural stereotypes in some aspects.

From the perspective of social impact, violent content has always been the focus of controversy in the "Mortal Kombat" series. Although the game is clearly targeted at adult players, its highly visual violent performance has still sparked discussions about the potential risks of teenagers being exposed to violent games. Some critics believe that game developers should further strengthen classification management during the promotion process and provide more guidance tools for parents to reduce possible negative effects.

DRAGON BALL Z Sparking!METEOR

Narrative and Character Depth

Narrative: The game relies heavily on the original Dragon Ball storyline, recreating the main storyline through simplified and fast cutscenes. However, for new players who are not familiar with the original work, the narrative may seem to lack sufficient emotional preparation and detailed description, especially when a lot of background information is omitted in the cutscenes.

Character Depth: The number of characters in the game is very large, but the skill design and background description of each character are limited by the original work, and players are more likely to resonate with familiar characters rather than establish new character relationships through the game.

Game Mechanics and Balance

Battle Mechanics: The game adopts a free 3D scene battle mode, emphasizing quick response and simple operation, making the game very suitable for short-term entertainment experience. However, this mechanism may not be as deep and strategic as other fighting games. For example, the difference in moves between characters is more of a superficial skill effect rather than a complex tactical change.

Balance: With dozens or even hundreds of characters, balance becomes a major problem in the design. Some characters' skills are obviously too powerful (such as Goku in Super Saiyan form), while some ordinary characters lack sufficient ability to compete.

Artistic style and visual performance

Artistic style: The game faithfully restores the animation style of "Dragon Ball" through cartoon rendering technology, with bright colors and exaggerated special effects, which successfully attracted fans of the original work.

Dynamic performance: The impact and visual effects in the battle animation, especially the reproduction of classic skills such as Qigong waves, bring a high visual impact to fans, but sometimes too repetitive animation effects may reduce the sense of freshness.

Player interaction and community impact

Player interaction: "Dragon Ball Lightning" mainly attracts fans of the original work. The community mainly discusses the accuracy of character skills or animation reproduction, but due to the lack of competitiveness in the game, its community atmosphere is more inclined to entertainment and nostalgia, rather than competition and innovation.

Influence: As a fan-oriented game, its success lies in the reuse of IP value, but it fails to fully attract a wider group of players.

Reflection

Ordinary games have a place in the market with their simple and easy-to-understand design and a wide audience base. Through reasonable game mechanisms, clear goals and active user interaction, ordinary games can provide a pleasant experience. Designing an ordinary game requires paying attention to audience needs, creating interesting gameplay and content, and ensuring the long-term sustainability of the game.

1. Design Influence of Mortal Kombat 10

Mortal Kombat 10 is a game with a violent fighting theme. Its character design, combat mechanism and animation effects have given me a deeper understanding of game development. Each character in the game has its own unique fighting style and appearance, which not only helps to shape the emotional connection between players and characters, but also enhances the immersion of the game. For example, the character's action design is extremely detailed, and the sense of attack and special effects give players a strong visual impact and bring a very high gaming experience.

From the perspective of game development, this makes me pay more attention to the connection between the character and its actions and skills. The design of each character is not only about the appearance, but also about how to convey the character's personality and background through actions, special effects and interactive methods. In addition, how to balance the violent aesthetics in the game with the emotional resonance of the player is also a problem that I need to reflect on in design.

2. Design Inspiration of Dragon Ball: Lightning and Flint

As a fighting game based on the famous anime Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball: Lightning and Flint has attracted a large number of fans with its character design and combat style. My understanding of this game is especially in the character design and combat mechanism, which maintain a high degree of similarity with the original work and can well reproduce the moves and actions in the anime. The characters in the game not only inherit the original anime style, but also refine and diversify it on this basis, providing more combat strategies and skills.

"Dragon Ball: Lightning Flint" made me deeply realize that game character design should not only be faithful to the original work, but also innovate and expand. In particular, the interaction between characters and the special skill system enhance the playability and strategy of the game. In my own game design, I will pay more attention to the interaction between characters and explore how to enhance the player's interactive experience through special skills, physical effects and game environment.

3. Personal understanding of game development

Through the analysis of these two games, I have a more comprehensive understanding of game development. The design of game characters is not only visually attractive, but also takes into account the emotional resonance between players and characters, the smoothness of actions, and the balance of game mechanisms. In addition, the game's storyline, world setting and character relationships are also important aspects that cannot be ignored in design.

For me personally, I prefer to focus on how to create a complete and immersive game world through the visual effects, character design, game mechanics and player experience in the game. In the future development process, I hope to combine my own interests and creativity to design game characters and gameplay that are both in line with player expectations and unique.