lunes, 24 de febrero de 2020

Christmas 2019!

Happy Holidays to you all, thank you once again for your patience and for listening.

Music from https://filmmusic.io
"We Wish you a Merry Christmas" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

"Jingle Bells" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)

License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

"Wish Background" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)

License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

"Deck the Halls B" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)

License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

"Oh Holy Night" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)

License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

"Angels We Have Heard on High" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)

License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

"The Terminal " by Luca Fraula (http://www.lucafraula.it/)

License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Other music from the Free Music Archive by

Borrtex
Dee Yan-Key
Kai Engel
Podington Bear
Squire Tuck
TRG Banks


Ornament photo from Dreamstime

domingo, 23 de febrero de 2020

My Presentation For DIGRA 2018 - Playing With A Brand: The Brazilian McDonald's Paper Tray Case

I want to share my expanded abstract for DIGRA conference 2018. I'll be in Turin in the next week for the event. =)

• • •

Playing with a brand: the Brazilian McDonald's paper tray case

Keywords:
McDonald's, board game, Facebook bot, paper tray, marketing

Taking communication, marketing and entertainment as leading and intertwining landmarks of contemporary culture, this paper discusses an advertising piece from Brazilian McDonald's restaurants, which uses a gaming interface to cast a branding message to its consumers. Acknowledging the prominence of digital networks in today's mediapolis (Silverstone 2006), where mass self communication (Castells 2009) poses new challenges to understanding current modes of sociability and consumption, our focus will be directed to one promotional board game presented in the paper used to protect the food tray in McDonald's Brazilian restaurants. Created by the Brazilian advertising agency DPZ&T and launched in October 2017, the game uses a "race to the end" mechanic and could be played from one to four players using a Facebook bot.


Figure 1: McDonald's promotional paper tray using a board game with a Facebook bot interaction.

To play the game, one player must scan the special code using the app "Facebook Messenger" in their smartphone. The code starts a special bot that sends quizzes, enigmas, and trivia questions about McDonald's to the players. Each correct answer allows players to advance their pawn in the trail. The player who wins the race receives one special chance to earn a prize (pack of French fries, ice cream etc.) from McDonald's.

In the first part of the presentation, following the thoughts of Fullerton et al. (2008 15-16), we analyze the game design process for a promotional game. Based on information provided by the agency, we discuss the conceptual stage and the necessity to align gameplay with the marketing message; we also discuss how a prototype is created in this case, and how the beta test sessions occurred. In the end, we present technical information about how the final version is implemented with the interface between the board game (in the paper tray) and the Facebook bot (in the smartphone).

In the second part of the presentation, we highlight the strategic use of entertainment languages by companies in their marketing campaigns in the contemporary scenario, and how social media and mobile devices contribute to accelerate the process in this ecosystem. Following the idea that the quotidian is filled with playgrounds (Bogost 2016) where we can access entertainment anytime/anywhere, we discuss how companies like McDonald's are managing these aspects to promote brand and sell products.

In conclusion, we present data and results from the McDonald's paper tray board game. Since the game uses a digital interface, it is possible to collect data from the players, geo-locating information and inserting questions about the brand to test how players know about the company. We discuss how these data collected can be used in future campaigns or new promotional actions using games.

BIO: Vicente Martin Mastrocola, PhD. works as a graduation level teacher at ESPM São Paulo (Brazil); Vicente also works as a game designer, developing games for mobile platforms and analogical board games/card games. In the first semester of 2016, he studied at Paneurópska vysoká škola (Paneuropean University) in Bratislava (Slovakia) as part of his doctorate research.



BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adams, E.; Rollings, A. (2009). Fundamentals of game design. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Bogost, I. (2016). Play anything: the pleasure of limits, the uses of boredom, & the secret of games. New York: Basic Books.
Bogost, I. (2010). Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Castells, M. (2009). Communication Power. Oxford: Oxford Press.
Fullerton, T., et al. (2008). Game design workshop: a playcentric approach to creating innovative games. Burlington: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.
Silverstone, R. (2006). Media and Morality: on the rise of the mediapolis. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

#GoGamers

jueves, 20 de febrero de 2020

Status

Too long without a post.

Hopefully this  won't be the last post on the blog. I am still in draft three of a book, and don't seem to be getting much writing done or even seeing many movie. Distractions and all.

I still have an unfinished story. An unfinished book of parsha shiurim. Several half-baked and nearly baked game designs on the shelf.

However, I am still employed, having a social life, going on a vacation next month. My daughter is married and thriving, my son is thriving, too. Which is all good.

Still have weekly game nights and still get new games occasionally. I just got Concordia, Sushi Go Party, and I am expecting Gentes Deluxe and Haithabu. I am expecting a few thousand new Magic cards soon.

I and my boss have been playing games with three non-gamer coworkers at work every Thursday. It's been half a year, and, aside from Codenames, we have rarely repeated any games. Looks like we may start soon.

The magic of games, those little points, seem insignificant, but it's astonishing how they take a play activity and make people focus on a goal, a start, and an end. It's almost hard to understand why, but it must have something to do with: not only feeling great when you succeed, but wanting others to have a chance to feel great, too. If it didn't, the whole concept of multiplayer games would just fall apart. As long as we still play games together, I think humanity still has hope.

Peace.

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The Alliance Alive HD Remastered Review (Steam)

Written by Alexander O. Cuaycong and Anthony L. Cuaycong


Title: The Alliance Alive HD Remastered
Developer: FURYU Corporation
Publisher: NIS America, Inc.
Genre: RPG
Price: $39.99
Also Available On: PS4Switch



Japanese role playing games have come so far from their once-humble beginnings. The early releases struggled to gain a foothold in the West, but subsequent offerings from such franchises as Final Fantasy 7, Fire Emblem, and Dragon Quest managed to find homes in the hearts of gamers. Intellectual properties like these have reinvented the genre, however slowly, and their success underscores the core tenets of timeless examples: proper emphasis on deep stories, interesting gameplay mechanics, and immensely likable characters.




The Alliance Alive is one such example. First making its mark in 2017 as a Japan-only release on the Nintendo 3DS, Atlus USA saw fit to bring it to other regions the year after. Stripped to basics, it aimed to evoke feelings of nostalgia in gamers, with simple graphics paying homage to the finest RPGs of yore. Compared to the more complex battle systems of contemporary competitors, it focused less on flair and doubled down on the lure and allure of its interface, allowing everyone from veterans to newcomers of the genre alike to enjoy its open-world setting, its smooth combat sections, and its overarching narrative of wonder and fantasy, of struggle, loss, and heroism.

Considering The Alliance Alive's strengths, NIS America's decision to port over a remastered version to the Nintendo Switch, the Sony PlayStation 4, and the personal computer comes as no surprise. With an intended goal of presenting an experience that hews as closely to the original as possible, the remaster introduces the title to gamers on latest-generation platforms. They are presented with varying perspectives: from the vantage points of diverse characters, they must piece together the story of the world around them, of the daemons who rule the world, and of the humans who bear the yoke of servitude. By exploring the vast overworld and traveling from town to town, they are compelled to hone their skills in battle and prepare for the inevitable confrontation against the real enemy that hides in the shadows.




Even at a glance, The Alliance Alive HD Remastered presents itself as more than just another run-of-the-mill JRPG title. It begins with the invasion of daemons fearful of the Chaos energy in the human realm. The occupation triggers the Dark Current, which effectively separates the world's four regions. Barely surviving the cataclysm, mankind finds itself divided and subsisting under the reign of daemonic overlords. The gameplay picks up a millennium hence, focusing on nine otherwise-disparate members of the Night Crows, a rebel force out to gain freedom for the human race. And "disparate" may be too conservative a word to describe the nine given their origins and ideologies; joining Galil, Azura, Renzo, Tiggy, Gene, and Rachel in looking after their own are daemons Vivian and Ignace and beastfolk Barbarosa.

In terms of look and feel, The Alliance Alive HD Remastered is much improved over those of the 3DS version; it sports vibrant colors, richer textures, and a much higher resolution that allow the "solid" watercolor art style of old hand Masayo Asano — who boasts of efforts in SaGa and The Legend of Zelda titles — to shine through. Certainly, it casts the narrative penned by Suikoden series creator Yoshitaka Murayama in superior light, a development that, under Masataka Matsuura's steady direction, cannot be overemphasized.




That said, The Alliance Alive HD Remastered distinguishes itself in its gameplay. Unlike other contemporary offerings in the genre, it puts a greater emphasis on tactics and skills, with the biggest influences on combat being how comfortable characters are with their equipment. While a character may use any weapon of their choosing, the skills and attacks they use depend on their mastery over it. Anyone can use a spear, or a sword, or a staff, but the abilities they have, from devastating Area-of-Effect slashes to more precise stabs, are contingent on their familiarity and proficiency with their combat gear.

Parenthetically, The Alliance Alive HD Remastered brings much-needed depth to the battle system, requiring gamers to strategize properly and distribute their equipment judiciously according to the characters' distinct preferences. It's less about stat points, and more about honing skills. Alongside combat formations, this particular facet eventually shapes much of the game, with characters slowly training to become better in certain weapon types, and then unlocking more and better skills over time. It provides a unique sense of progression, and when coupled with the story's semi-brisk pace, makes it enjoyable to run through.




For the most part, The Alliance Alive HD Remastered boasts of intuitive mechanics. At the same time, it presents challenges that tend to be easy. It likewise lacks keyboard support on the PC, forcing users to play with a controller; it's not a huge issue per se, particularly since there is no delay in feedback, but it does limit options. Moreover, framerate issues seem to randomly pop up every now and then. Nothing earth-shaking, really, and nothing an update patch here and there can't fix so that it runs as well as it should.




On the whole, Alliance Alive HD Remastered is a great game to play, but the relative lack of difficulty and absence of controller support can be a huge turn-off for people looking for a challenging, if fair, JRPG. Nonetheless, it earns major props for its earnest gameplay and interesting storylines. It might not be the polished AAA JRPG offering gamers invariably look for, but it's a nice look back to the genre's golden years, and its unique take ensures some 40-odd hours worth of enjoyment.



THE GOOD:
  • Interesting story
  • Unique combat mechanics
  • Diverse set of characters

THE BAD
  • Lack of keyboard support
  • Framerate issues
  • Lack of a true difficulty curve


RATING: 8.5/10