How to Create a Video Games: Top-Down Process and Bottom-Up Process

                                                        A Brief Intro

Hello,everyone.I'm one of members in this group, my name is Miranda and my Chinese name is Weiye Zhang.Today, I will focus on how  to create video games. First of all ,I will briefly to introduce  two approaches to create games,Top-down process and Bottom-up process. Furthermore,I will analyze a popular game with the one of these approaches

                     

                       (created by Gilliard Lopes,Rafael Kuhnen in 2007)

                                                      Two Approaches

Top-Down Process: it  break down the concept to others layers.A good example is Dragon Quest, the concept of this games is people play warriors to fight with monsters and save the princess. Therefore, when we break down this concept, we can know the content of this game is warriors save princess, the mechanic is the way of fighting monsters and  the base verb is slash action. This approach is better way to create games basing on stories, like role-play games.

Bottom-Up Process: this approach bases on verbs to fill concept. According to a simple verb, designers can give interesting backgrounds and stories to this games. Compare with the Top-Down Process, the content is unnecessary when people use the Bottom-Up Process to create game. There are some types of games basing on verbs. For instance,Racing games and Fighting games.

                                                         Temple Run

Temple Run is  a  popular mobile phone game. Beside, the type of this game is Racing game, so I will use Bottom-Up Process to analyze. Firstly, we start to find the verb in this game. It clearly see that the simple verb is running. The mechanic of this game is avoiding obstacles to run, like jumping over rivers. Furthermore, even though the content is no important in this game, we can clearly know that the content is monkeys want to catch players,because players stole a magic stone.Finally, we can combine each layers to become concept.

 

 

               

                 
reference:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEiSSbeFayBeYezvE4gffDUNF1clenHDv71PewqNSQRgnrAj_QZyi8xkgD1yVj5P6-RiMESFhE_Zb1PzQDlWZKrkoHyn_Xv0XBudCQDTQ-L1Ii9bE-i3GftRcahfmbkL8k-PPXlN9mNbEJtaF92OmMtjGRofotUr9eD40VIx4uNCsEqIwxwO4A=

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Indie Developers and The Indie Scene

Indie Developers and The Indie Scene

The past 5 years have seen a sharp rise in the amount of Independently Developed games, also know as Indie Games. These games are characterized by innovative gameplay, charming art aesthetics and small but dedicated teams. One of the most successful of these teams are Mojang the creators of Minecraft, a property that recently sold to Microsoft for $2 billion. They are a shining example of the huge potential that can be found in creating indie titles. One of my personal favorites is the short but beautiful game of 'Journey'. 

Journey in my mind is one the pinnacles of indie development, showing an indie focus on creating experiences rather than a game in the traditional sense. To describe playing Journey as a spiritual experience would not be a unexpected outcome of playing the small 3 hour title. Beautiful music and visuals combined with a believable but still magical world that interweaves themes of religion and pilgrimage, creates a wonderful experience that I will never forget, and only cost me $10. However the indie scene is definitely not the scene most people outside the gaming space will interact with, that space belong the 'AAA Publishers'. Frequently in the middle of controversy and home to some of the most underhanded industry practices in any entertainment industry, the triple A industry is the land of 100 million dollar budgets and 300 strong development teams. A topic I will talk about more next week.

References

http://kelfecil.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/indies1.jpg

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The Digital Nature Of Modern Video Games

A Brief Intro

I'm Michael Wormald, one of the 4 contributors to this blog. As you have probably discerned by the title, my topic particular topic on the blog is the realm of video games/gaming, and its relation to digital media. I will attempt to cover recent events in the gaming space and show its links to Digital Media as a whole. I have chosen this topic because of my strong interest in gaming, and particularly, those who comment in this space.

Now on to the content. 

No Other Medium Has Embraced The Digital Age Like Video Games

Gaming is at a unique stage in its cycle as a product, and as an industry as a whole. Game publishers are now finding that the greatest level of sales and the highest profits can be found in the digital distribution space. As the internet connecting every household to the world has gotten faster, and the caps on this data have gotten bigger, game companies are realizing they can bypass brick and mortar retailers and sell directly to their consumers. Gaming is unique in its pursuit of complete digital distribution of their products, with music being a close second in this pursuit. 

This pursuit has led to games like GTA 5, (which has a download size of 65GB) being distributed to consumers with not a disc or box in sight. The journalistic and advertising space of video games compliments this, this is due to the fact that they too exist completely in this digital space. In the the forms of websites, blogs, Youtube channels. Put simply, if you are a gamer you are playing through the power of the digital age, even single player games now communicate with servers half way across the globe in order to function. This digital space has created new opportunities for anyone who wants to make games in the form of the 'indie scene'. A new and exciting gaming scene that may be the source of innovation that this industry desperately needs.

References

http://www.depthcore.com/img/artwork/echoes/4938_video_games.jpg

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Who We Are, And What We Are Talking About

Welcome To Our Blog!

The topic we have chosen to talk about is Digital Entertainment and all its Forms. Each of our members will be talking about a different vector of digital entertainment. Throughout his blog we intend to explore the different forms of modern media and how it is distributed to us. Our members are Michael Wormald, Stella Wang, Weiye Zhang, and Ying Huang. 

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