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Since the days of the great Atari crash, the history of game consoles has been one of increasingly powerful walled gardens. Massive companies exercise tight control over what games can be released on their platform, how often, and at what price. But that model is starting to look a little outdated. We live in a world where iOS is succeeding as a game platform with thousands of lightly regulated titles, where even hardcore games like Team Fortress 2 are making the free-to-play model work, and where PC developers often make more money when they control the price of their own games.
CORE MECHANIC PROTOTYPE Adam Saltsman (@ADAMATOMIC) created Canabalt in 2009 and ushered in the era of the one-touch control, endless runner genre. The game's core mechanic is simply to run and jump from building to building and dodge obstacles that might slow you down.
Those are the kinds of business developments that are motivating the team behind Ouya, a $99, Android 4.0-based TV game console project launching on Kickstarter today. Ouya is promising to provide a more open, hackable, and flexible gaming environment than the console market has ever seen before.
Ouya founder Julie Uhrman—who’s had executive experience at GameFly, IGN, and Vivendi Universal—thinks it's about time the console market learned from the success other platforms have seen recently by opening up. “It’s ironic, all the growth in gaming is moving to mobile platforms, [and] we’re seeing a lot of AAA developers leaving their console shops to go to mobile, yet three out of every four dollars is still spent in the living room, a majority of gaming time is still spent on the TV, and if you survey any gamer they’ll tell you their No. 1 platform is the TV.”
The increasing expense and complications of getting a game on to a console are forcing developers onto other platforms, Uhrman said. It's leading to a situation where the consoles are “stuck with sequel after sequel versus new created games and IP because it’s too expensive and no one wants to take a risk as something new. … We just think the time is really right. Nothing new came out of E3 [hardware-wise], and everybody’s feeling a little tired. It’s interesting because around the time of E3, everyone was asking if consoles were dead. We don’t think consoles are dead, we just think it’s time to rethink the way we do business.”
Hackable hardware
The proposed hardware specs for the Ouya are about what you’d expect for a console that comes in at less than $100. The system uses the same kind of quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor that powers the Google Nexus 7 and Microsoft’s Surface tablets, along with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of built-in storage. That’ll let the system easily run decently complex 3D games at 1080p, but graphically it won’t hold a candle to the Xbox 360 or PS3 (much less their successors, which are expected as soon as late 2013).
What Ouya lacks in raw power, it makes up for with its low price and an open design that seems perfect for hackers and hobbyists. Ouya owners will be able to open the casing with a standard screwdriver to upgrade everything from the RAM to the memory chips, and even to solder additions onto the motherboard itself using “clearly documented test points,” according to a fact sheet. Basic consumers won’t be expected to regularly upgrade the internals like PC gamers, however—Uhrman said developers can be confident in developing for “one chipset that will be totally standard.”
On the software side, every console will come pre-loaded with a free SDK, letting anyone familiar with Android development become a potential Ouya developer without paying any additional fees. The operating system on the Ouya is fully rootable, as well, meaning we’re sure to see a Linux distro for the box roughly five microseconds after it’s available in the wild.
But Uhrman said Android was a preferable option over an open source environment like Linux for one key reason. “Familiarity is key,” she said. “Any time you want to launch something new, you want to remove as many reservations and hurdles as possible... there’s always opportunity cost, and you want to give the best value proposition. I looked at what was out there, and Android is well accepted by hundreds of developers, it’s easy to understand it is not expensive to start developing on, and we’re starting to see a huge movement of developers to the mobile space... It’s something that they know; they’re not learning something new.”
Android roots don’t mean a completely touch-based interface, though. Ouya will include a standard wireless controller with two analog sticks, a d-pad, and eight action buttons, along with a 2-to-3-inch touchpad set in the middle to allow for gesture-based controls. The dual-use controller allows for the accuracy and responsiveness required for standard, joystick-and-button-based console games, Uhrman said. It will also serve as a bridge to let existing Android games be ported to the system easily. She even suggested that the unique controller could lead to new games that use both the touchpad and the standard buttons, which “won’t be available anywhere else” (though we think the Wii U’s tablet GamePad could probably handle them).
Software questions
Ouya’s Android architecture means most existing Android games and apps should work on the system with little to no modification. However, we imagine games designed for a 4-inch phone screen might need some graphical changes before being shown on an HDTV. Ouya owners won’t just be able to pluck any old app off the Google Play store, though—developers and customers will have to go through a proprietary Ouya store. This lets the company take a standard 30 percent fee from all content sold (the store will also provide an “extra layer of security” against piracy through online authentication, a representative told Ars). And while games will be the primary focus for the system, non-gaming apps will also be available on the store, including game-focused live video streaming service Twitch.TV.
The Ouya store will have a minimal approval process that allows a wide variety of titles, Uhrman said, but there will be one requirement that is non-negotiable: every game on Ouya will be free-to-play in some form. That might bring up visions of a system dominated by microtransactions and pay-to-win schemes, but Uhrman clarified that the “free-to-play” portion of an Ouya game could take any form a developer wants. An Ouya game could follow the popular PC and console demo model, for instance, offering a free feature or time-limited version gratis with the option to pay a one-time fee to unlock the full version. “Our only requirement is that the gamer have the opportunity to play some aspect of it for free,” Uhrman said. “We don’t like the idea that you pay $60 for a game and feel cheated. We want anybody to have the opportunity to try the game.”
Precisely what games those Ouya owners will be trying at the system’s planned launch early next year is still a mystery. Uhrman wasn’t ready to confirm which titles or developers would be represented at the system’s planned launch early next year, but a press sheet accompanying the announcement listed supportive quotes from developers including Jordan Mechner (Prince of Persia), Jenova Chen (Flower, Flow), Adam Saltsman (Canabalt), and Markus “Notch” Persson (Minecraft). Images of a prototype menu system provided by Ouya also showed a prototype system with a menu highlighting Minecraft as an option, as well as titles with a more mobile heritage like Canabalt, Triple Town, Dead Trigger, and Shadowgun.
While it seems like Ouya won’t hurt for support from the indie and mobile sides of the industry, it remains to be seen whether the big-name, AAA console publishers will be willing to throw their weight behind an unproven new system (or whether a low-cost, hacker-friendly system can survive and thrive without them). Uhrman thinks the major publishers will come on board, though, because Ouya gives them easy access to an open digital distribution environment without the danger of lowering the value of their games. Unlike mobile phones and tablet platforms, she said, publishers will be able to sell downloadable titles on Ouya for $60, and “it’ll be accepted by gamers, because it’s a television-based game that’s leveraging a real controller and everything that comes along with it.”
Interplay founder Brian Fargo (Wasteland, A Bard’s Tale) told Ars he was skeptical of the idea behind Ouya when he first heard it pitched. But Fargo was convinced to become a minor investor in the project when the founders pointed out how well systems like the PlayStation 2 have continued to sell at the $99 price point. And while independent developers aren’t exactly hurting for opportunities to innovate on platforms like the PC and iOS, Fargo said he’s excited to see these developers get a crack at making games designed for the living room TV with a standard controller.
“I like to support anything that provides more opportunities for smaller developers,” Fargo told Ars. “No one company can compete with the crowd. This is, for the first time, giving the crowd a chance to see what they can do with a console television.”
My first board game mapI have learnt about different game mechanics, how to test a game, how to give out feedback, how to analyze games and how to create your own game. The most interesting part of this class was we had to create our own board game. I had no idea what I wanted to create. Luckily, we can group with someone else to discuss about the paper prototype. During the discuss, there were a lot of ideas and suggestions came out of my mind based on the prototype of my group member. I was really excited about creating my first board game. I also enjoyed the board game testing session in class which I got a lot of positive feedback about my paper prototype.
I really enjoyed taking this class. In my final project, I continued working on my video game prototype with my team member Lisa and one new member Phu. Lisa is still the artist of this game. Phu and I are responsible for coding.After receiving some of the feedback for ““, our group decided to extend the game by adding one more level. Because most of the feedback are saying that the current level of the game is too hard to pass, we decided to add one level before the current one. Instead of adding one more level with the same game mechanics, we came up with a different game mechanics – puzzle solving.We changed our game story a little to fit the new level. Our main alien is locked in a lab room.
He has to escape from the lab room (new level) and then save his friends.The objective of this level is to find out four digits number in order to escape the lab room. There are some hints in the game for you to find out the passcode. You can enter the passcode by pressing “Enter” key.
The passcode has to be in the right order to be considered a right passcode. If you successfully entered the right passcode, you would be moved to next level. Logo of “The Circle”“The Circle” is reading program event that is set up as a offline social network game. All the details of the game is from the book “The Circle” by Dave Eggers. When I arrived at the MLK library 225, I had to download an app called “The Circle”. The downloading and installing processes are good.
I did not have any problem with it. However, after I finished installing the app, the sign up process was terrible. It took me more than 15 minutes to get a confirmation message that I had sign up successfully. Then it displayed an user ID which needed to be activated.
After my user ID was activated, I could actually log in to the app. There is nothing special about the app at that moment. There was only a welcome message. In the next 15-20 minutes, the server was down and everything messed up. I could not log in the app anymore. The sign up and log in process took me more than 30 minutes.
The app designers definitely had to fix this problem. Finally, everything was working and I was guided by two ladies into a stage. Next, some one came up the stage and presented something about the “cheap camera” and I had no clue what was going on.After the presentation, I had to leave early so I did not experience any social games. I heard that this is the first time they did something like this. However, they should have prepared themselves better for the sign up process.
The most memorable part of this event is “WAIT”. Alien Breakout, a fun and challenging video game, designed by Hoang and Lisa.
As you can tell from the name of the game, the designers use alien as their game story. A group of aliens visit Earth but some of them is caught by the scientists. In this game, you control the main alien trying to save your friends and escape from the science lab. The objective is to keep the main alien from getting caught by the scientists and save all your friends in order to win the game.The background of the game is set within a secret lab.
There are three kind of scientists with different abilities. Some scientists can shoot you but they cannot move. Some can run very fast but they do not have gun. The last group of scientists is the combination of the first two types. Those scientists not only can shoot you but they also run very fast. The player cannot attack the scientists but he/she can jump over them and their bullets. The green alien Buddy is located at different position in the game.
The player has to make contact with them in order to save them. After the player save all the alien friends, he/she has to run to the exit door in order to escape from those bad scientists. I have been playing different kind of games from paper, arcade to digital games since I was a child. I love game and really enjoy playing game. However, I have never imagined I could developer my own games before taking the game studies class.In order to make a game, we need three important things: an artist, a programmer and a design document. The document is a specification and requirement for the game. The artist takes care of the front-end of the game and the programmer takes care of the back-end.My partner, Lisa, and I decided to use alien as our game story. A group of aliens visit Earth but some of them is caught by the scientists.
The main alien has to save their friends and escape the science lab. Based on the design story, we named our game “Alien Breakout.” In this project, we use Game Maker to developer our game. Lisa is the artist and producer. She is responsible for sprites, backgrounds, etc.
Those are the images that are used in the game. I am the programmer and designer. I am responsible for action, events and game builds.After Lisa made all the sprites and backgrounds, I started my work. First, I have to create few “Objects” in our game. An object is a entity which can be programmed. Every object has a corresponding sprite (image) assigned to it. Second, I have to create a “Room” which holds all the objects.
Basically, a room likes a level of the game and it is where the game takes place. Next, it is the most exciting part of the game development. I have to add the action or events to the objects I just created. In this part, I have to decide how the player controls the characters, how different objects interact, how to handle events and how to win or lose the game. Figure 1: “Alien Breakout” version 1.0In “Alien Breakout”, we decided to use the arrow keys to control the main character. The player can use double jump by pressing “Up” key two times. In order to win the game, you have to save your friends and avoid being caught by the scientist.After the first game testing in class, the most common feedback of the testers is the game too short and too easy to win.
Our development team all agreed that we need to make it harder by adding more scientists to the game. Figure 1: A bug in “This is the only level”The first game I played was “This is the only level”. You can play this game at If you like strategy game, this game is for you. The objective is to get the elephant to the other side of the map.
There is only one instruction in this game: “Arrow keys.” In stage 1, the game seems pretty easy but you will start to realize the interesting part of this game: only one map and only one song with different control keys. The players have to use different strategies to move the elephant to the other side in each stage. During playing this game, I found a bug in stage 8.
The players are not supported to stand on the red area but somehow my elephant can stand there. When i got to stage 15, I found the most interesting feature of this game: players have to refresh the webpage in order to pass that stage.
It is a super cool feature that I have never seen before. Figure 2: Running with right knee in QWOPThe second game I chose to play was called “QWOP” because of its description “hardest video game ever”. The link for this game is at. This is a sport game which has the theme in racing. The objective of this game is to get your character runs 100 meters. Players can only use QWOP keys to move their characters.
They have to balance their character in order to move forward. After I played this game for 10 minutes, I realized that I can just use Q and W keys to move forward. By using this trick, I can move as far as I want. Since I found the trick, I did not have any motivation to play the game anymore because it became boring after that. My best record is 35.7 meters. Figure 3: Hitting the wall while taking a screenshotThe third game I played was “Canabalt”. You can play this game at.
For me, Canabalt looks like a racing game. There is a simple instruction at the beginning of the game: ” Press X or C keys to jump”. Players have to jump over some obstacles or gaps between buildings to go as far as they can.
Some obstacles will slow your speed when you hit them. You can use this trick to slow the pace because the speed of your character will be faster and faster during the game. Figure 4: “You have to Burn the Rope” video game“You have to burn the rope” was the fourth game I played. Here is the link to that game:. The objective of this game is really simple: players just need to follow the instructions to win the game. There is a hidden instruction in this game. You have to right click on the screen in order to see it.
However, most players can still win the game without that hidden instruction. It took me less than 20 seconds to finish this game.
Because this game ended so fast, i decided to replay it. This time, I tried to kill the boss by the axes. However, the boss can regenerate his health so there is no way you can win this game without burning the rope. Figure 5: God is casting his special skillThe last game I chose to play was “Faith Fighter”. You can play this game online at. “Faith Fighter” is the ultimate fighting game. The most interesting part of this game is that the theme is based on religion.
Just like most of the fighting game, players have to beat their opponent in order to win the game. Each character has some special skills.
There will be an instruction on how to use those special skills right after you pick your fighter. In addition, this game can support 2 players. If you have time, give it a try with your friend.
How long do you think it would take to prototype a game? It could take you few days, few months or only few minutes depend on what type of game you want to make.
You may wonder how much fun a game can be when the designers only spend few minutes to prototype it. The result may surprise you sometimes and so is the game ‘Demon Raid’. It is a fun board game that was designed by Hoang (bad guy) and his classmate (hero). After 15 minutes brainstorming, they came up with an idea of making a fighting game among a big bad guy and four heroes.Demon Raid is designed for 2 to 5 people. There will be 1 bad guy and 1-4 hero(es) in the game. They all fight in a hexagon map.
The objective of this game is really simple: heroes work together to defeat the bad guy and the bad guy tries to kill all heroes. Whoever is still standing in the game will be the winner(s).There are some basic rules and information that the players have to know. Each hero will have 100 HP and the bad guy will have twice the total HP of the heroes. If there is only 1 bad guy and 1 hero, both of them will have the same 100 HP.
Since there could be more heroes than bad guy, the bad guy have the advantage to go first. Heroes need to decide their turn order by themselves. The bad guy will start in the middle of the map and heroes start at the four corners. Because this is a fighting game, it must have some basic rules of combat. The designers decide to use dices as the sole component of the game.
In order to move in this game, every players roll two six-sided dices. They need to choice either number on the dices to be their moves. The players can move in any direction on the map.
When heroes are next to the bad guy, they can attack him by rolling a four-side dice to determine the damage. However, the bad guy can attack heroes with a range of 2 spaces. Figure 1: The original hexagon mapSession 1 (in class):Hoang (the bad guy) and his classmate (hero) pick a token to represent their character. In the first 3rd turns, they are running to each other in order to have the first combat. Finally, the first battle begins.
The hero moves next to the bad guy and punches in his face. The bad guy does not prepare for this sudden attack; he loses 3 HP. He decides to fight back but he only does 2 damage on the hero.
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After few more turns, the hero decides to add a feature to this game to make it more fun. He adds 5 elements: fire, earth, wind, water and nature into the game. There are also 4 spell cards of each element added to the game. Each element will have a corresponding color and damage as shown in Figure 2. Each spell card has 4 damage. When the player is in the right field, he/she can do double damage on the opponent. If the player is in the wrong field, the attack damage will become 2.
In order to get the spell card, players have to roll double with two dices. The players need to hide their spell card and they only show it when they decide to cast a spell. After the spell card is used, the player put it aside. Figure 2: 5 elements added in the game testingAfter 10 minutes, Hoang gets a double on his roll.
Luckily, he gets a fire card and he is standing right in the fire field. He throws a huge fire ball to the hero. It does a critical damage to the hero. So far, the hero has 77 HP and the bad guy has 83 HP. Because of the time limit, they have to end the game. After playing the game, both of the designers decide to change the attack range of the bad guy to 1 space if it is 1 vs 1.
The bad guy will have more advantage when he can attack within 2 spaces but the hero can only attack within 1 space. As you can see in figure 1, there are more nature fields on the map than other elements. Therefore, the fields of the map also need to be change to make the elements more balance.Session 2 (at home):After Hoang revises the rules of the game, he invites Phu to play the Demon Raid version 2. In the updated version, there will be a new map with more balance on the element fields. Figure 3: The new mapIn this new map, the nature element is replaced by poison element.
The fields without any color will become the nature fields. It does not have any special effect when the players use the spell cards on these fields. It can be considered as a safe place when the player does not have any spell cards.There are two participants Hoang (hero) and Phu (bad guy). Since Phu is the bad guy, he can go first according to the rule. Hoang notices there is a problem here. Because it is 1 vs 1, there is no reason why the bad guy can go first.
He revises the rule before the game even starts. If it is 1 vs 1, players roll for turn order. It is up to the players to decide whether highest number go first or the lowest number go first. In this game, hero goes first. Because Hoang is a justice hero, he is eager to kick out the bad guy.
After two turns, he is right in front of Phu. Hoang throws a powerful fist in to Phu’s chest. However, Phu is strong enough to block this attack and it only does 1 damage to him. After that turn, everything is changing. The bad guy keeps getting double in his role. He collects 5 spell cards and is waiting for the hero to get him. The hero is so innocent that he does not realize there are some traps waiting in front of him.
Unsurprisingly, the bad guy kills the hero. Phu still has 29 HP at the end of the game. The bad guy won this game.
After playing this game, Phu has some suggestions. He notices that this game supports up to 5 players but there are only 4 spell cards for each element. There might be a chance that 4 heroes get all 4 spell cards for the same element. Phu suggests that there should be 5 spell cards for each element so that the bad guy still can have a chance to get the same element. Figure 4: 25 spell cardsSession 3 (in class):Hoang and Jun plays the Demon Raid version 3 in the class. In this game, Jun wants to be a bad guy and Hoang is the hero. After Jun learns the rules, he decides to run away from the hero.
His strategy is collecting as much spell cards as possible before making any combat. Hoang still does not learn any lesson from the last game when he plays with Phu, he fails in the same traps. Because Jun mostly casts a spell on Hoang, he ends the game with 22 HP. After playing this game, Hoang realizes that the rules of spell cards need to change to be more fun. Here is the new rule for the spell cards. Figure 5: The new rules for the 5 elementsIn this new rules, every element can be strengthen or weaken in the designed field. In addition, when a player gets the spell card, it has to be faced down.
No one can see the card even the owner. It will be more fun when the attacker does not know how much damage he/she will do to their opponent until the spell card is shown.Although Demon Raid 3 may has some problems in the prototype, it has a really good feedback. If you are interested in playing this game, you are feel free to develop a similar game based on this prototype. Hope you enjoy it!
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