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capstone research 10/19

Monday, October 19, 2009

The capstone is aliiiive! Summary time:

current problem space (general): learning situations with novice learners.

current problem space (specific): novices’ troubles getting better at the fighting game BlazBlue.

how I’m staying ‘human’: activity theory. people’s lives are much broader than my learning situation, and the goals they bring to learning situations aren’t reducible to ‘learn this ____’.

client: game developers. currently, this design will be something handled by those designing, producing, and distributing future copies of BlazBlue.

design approach: help novices reflect on their experiences with fighting games through both high-level concepts of fighting games and specific knowledge of BlazBlue.

design goal: instill informed confidence in novices’ capacity for judgement.

It’s hard to write so little about this project, as opposed to all I could write about. But it’s also very useful practice for framing this project for communication to people who haven’t been hunched over my sketchbook for the past few months.

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capstone preliminary research 7/03/09

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Practice can make a very large difference in competitive gaming; on top of that, in a game like StarCraft practice seems to make a difference at all levels of play. Even the very low ones. I played against Lunch again the other day, and it was obvious that the fact he works a 9-5 job every weekday and I don’t lets me practice much more than him. Or, indeed, lets me practice at all.

So good news, preliminary-research-wise: a new, highly-anticipated game has been released. BlazBlue, the successor to the very popular (along with titles such as Street Fighter, Soul Caliber, King of Fighters, etc.) Guilty Gear series. As a fighting game, its design pretty much revolves around competitive play. One-on-one, 1.5 minute time limit, best-out-of-five wins.

With the advent of this new game, I may take this chance to look into a slightly different problem space, that of competitive fighting games as opposed to competitive strategy games. Lunch-chan, Dingle, and a actually quite a few other people will have this game and we’ll all be at about the same skill level. Unlike StarCraft, your ability to play ‘mindgames’ and trick your opponent does not necessarily have to go hand-in-hand with your mechanical skills. (For example, you can trick your opponent in SC into thinking you’re using a strategy you’re not, but that doesn’t matter if he can expand to three bases and build a bunch of troops before you can expand to your first.) The equivalent of SC mechanical knowledge in fighting games would be your ability to combo. That is, hit your opponent with a string of attacks that doesn’t leave him a chance to recover until you’ve done a lot of damage.

That means a 9-5 job won’t be nearly as detrimental to BlazBlue play as it is to StarCraft.

Okay, it’s early I’m wrapping this up. I guess I should thank anybody who actually reads this, since you obviously have to go through a lot of effort just to get through it >_>  Thanks!

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capstone preliminary research 6/28/09

Sunday, June 28, 2009

A friend of Lunch-chan, Dingle, and myself invited us and a few other people over last night (the 28th) to play some StarCraft, LAN style. The three of us who play regularly were pretty positive the other players, who were all fairly new, would find themselves in deeper than they could imagine.

Had we actually played more than one game of StarCraft, we might have been proven right; however, the technical limitations of technology (namely: it blows) kept us from playing for most of the night, and we just played Team Fortress 2 instead.

But the one game we did play was fun. There were three competitively experienced (relatively) players, two non-competitively experienced players, and one player who had never played SC before.

So teams were broken up like this:
Team A: myself and the two non-competitive players
Team B: Lunch-chan, Dingle, and the newbie

One of my allies had a system32.exe crash right as the LAN game started, so he was out. My other teammate built only troops with ground-to-ground fighting capabilties, then was attacked by aerial units.Which mean…

…it was a 1-versus-3!!! Ho yeah!

I figured my best bet would be to crush the newbie before he learned how to play the game and therefore cause me problems, but he had seriously never played the game before. In the spirit of all of us having fun I didn’t attack him, and he figured out how to play fairly quickly.

The match lasted a fairly long time at around 30mins. The reason I wasn’t steamrolled right away was because I expanded early (scavenging my opponent’s bases) and then built enough troops not to die from the onslaught of Battlecruisers and Mutalisks. But the match was decided when Dingle and Lunch-chan both decided to expand… twice. On top of that, the newbie had finally built up a force and stormed through one of my unprotected bases.

So, all in all, everyone played very well. In the brightest of futures, we may have a few more people interested in learning StarCraft to practice against.

Macro and Micro Takeaways:

Positives: I kept multiple bases running strongly enough to defend against 3 (though in reality more like 2.25) enemies. Macro yay! I kept my Hydralisks alive through some nice Dark Swarm micro. Micro yay!
Negatives: There were still times in which I had over 2k minerals. I used ‘em all eventually, but it would have been nice to not lump up unit production quite so much: instead, make it nice and steady. Macro boo! I lost a hell of a lot of troops to poorly thought-out attacks. “Hmm, he has lots of siege tanks and marines up on that cliff. I should run a bunch of zerglings past there and get into his base! *Every zergling ever dies* Nooooo!” Strategery boo!

Okay that’s it bye

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capstone preliminary research 6/17/09

Thursday, June 18, 2009

“Another thing to consider is this: The more time you spend watching your commands being executed the less time you’ll have to give new commands. The efficient player will always be giving commands but will never be watching them being executed. It’s a matter of trusting yourself with being able to give commands without missclicking and trusting the game being able to function properly.”

-ZerG~LegenD, from the forums at teamliquid.net. (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=72596)

This to me seems to be a problem, though admittedly a short-sighted one. As graphics get better and better, games begin to look less and less abstracted. There’s less to interpret. At the same time, game developers have been taking more and more hints from filmmakers, specfically with regards to making gameplay seem fluid and natural, like films (in general).

So to be a good competitive gamer, you have to be able to play the Game (on a meta level), without watching the game (on a physical level). It’s like trying to take notes on a really good thriller/action/suspense movie for class: taking your eyes off of it in order to jot down a few notes is difficult. Very difficult. Because movies are a visual medium and it’s difficult to experience that medium without sight.

Without watching the game, the competitive gamer looks at it not as he looks at a movie (despite the fact that what he is watching is designed to replicate, in many ways, a movie), but instead as an abstracted representation of his (or his side’s) state of being versus his opponent’s (or opponent’s side’s) state of being.

Hm, I’m not sure how much sense that makes. But what I am sure of is this: “If modern games are becoming more ‘movie-esque’, but competitive games must be experienced in a manner unlike movies, than perhaps competitive games should not be designed like (most) modern games.”

The answer is neither “yes, they should” or “no, they shouldn’t.” But we have the question, now.

Oh, and a played against Lunch-chan four times yesterday and once today (the 18th). I won most, but we figured out a tech that Lunch can take that trumps mine. The problem now comes down to the mundane: execution. We have the answer, theoretically, but Lunch (like most pro StarCraft players), is going to have to practice that build until he’s got it memorized before it will be ‘legit.’

In this regard, I have the advantage. I’ve used the same tech against Lunch multiple times, so I have it practiced. On top of that, today’s (the 18th) game included a shift in that tech designed to retard his current counter-tech. Lunch admits that his current tech is still not hammered out completely, even theoretically (when to expand, how many hatches, etc. etc.), so I’m not completely sure whether the addition of those 1+ Starports was truly a counter to his counter tech.

We’ll see, Lunch. We’ll see.

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capstone preliminary research - 6/14/09

Monday, June 15, 2009

Had another match against Lunch, his Zerg versus my Protoss. He 9 pooled into fast Mutas then rushed to Hive tech. Since he didn’t pressure with his 9 pool, I was a little confused at first. Perhaps after his lings killed my scout he wanted to keep them there to kill any further scouts. Since the jig was up, perhaps he thought I would be prepared for the zerglings (actually, I was. Two cannons). Once I spied his Spire, I quickly threw down 3 more cannons (and then some) into my main, and rebeefed my nat with more cannons. Mutalisks repelled.

At this point Lunch’s tech had worked against him: an early pool which cut into his economy, and never completely recovered. A tech to Mutalisks without a scout to check my base’s defense (a Forge-first FE is fairly well equipped to handle muta harass, especially when it’s followed up by dragoons). However, the switch to cracklings and ultralisks was a great choice on Lunch’s part.

I initially fudged my base: while trying to block my ramp with my buildings + cannons, I accidentally made the gap too narrow for my dragoons to pass through, hemming a few inside. Which also meant that any subsequent dragoons would have to be built outside the base, unless I wanted to destroy one of my own cannons. (I didn’t.) So all my gateways were parked outside my natural expansion. This probably served as a boon, since his cracklings would get caught up in my gateways before they could engage my cannons or get past the wall i’d built. So, my mistake wasn’t totally failureriffic. Nice. Ish.

I ended up winning by further delaying his economy with a few High Templar drops to storm his drones to hell and back, and just taking advantage of the gap in our economies. Even with the gap in our economies, I dropped the ball on the gap between our armies. Mine was bigger (and as protoss, that helps), but it could have been ginormously bigger. I had about 3k minerals and gas most of the time. I blame my shitty wall and therefore shitty gateway placement. Next time, Gadget. Next time.

I want to play against Dingle some more, because I want to play PvT. I also want him to change his handle to something else because I just had to type “I want to play against Dingle some more.” Eeeuuughghh.

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capstone preliminary research - 6/10/09

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Played with Lunch and Dingle today. Honestly, and I suppose to my discredit, I expected to win every game against Dingle; however, he bested me Terran vs. Terran. Admittedly, I’ve played Terran the least of the 3 races, but he straight up had a counter build to mine and I ignored that fact, thinking that my greater experience with competitive StarCraft on the whole would make up for the local imbalance. Dear lord was I wrong.

I had played my Zerg against his Terran right before the TvT. He got some very good Wraith (cloaked flying units) harrassment off, that curtailed production and took out more than a few probes at one of my expansions. His shortcoming came from the fact that he had only one base, and had walled the ramp to it up so tightly he couldn’t get his large tanks through the opening. Victory was mine, and afterwards I told what I thought he could have done in order to better use the advantage he had with his pressure. (Basically, more unit production buildings, and fewer extraneous tech buildings.)

He took it to heart in the next match. We both played pretty good turtle games, and neither of us was able to penetrate the other’s base significantly. However, my scouting eventually showed me that he was massing tanks and goliaths. Ignoring that, I decide to keep producing my mass marines and wraiths in an effort to sideswipe his base. I just played poorly. I should have switched tech to either heavy factory to counter his tanks with my own, or started amassing battlecruisers.

I always, always, always forget how quick Dingle learns.

I had a similar experience that same day with Lunch. We had a match which was fairly onesided on my part, then I gave specific suggestions as to what I thought Lunch could do to improve his game. He took them to heart, and we had an epic match.

I was Protoss, Lunch was Zerg. This time, Lunch knew the map and he used it to his advantage. Rather than bring early game pressure like he usually does, Lunch opted for a slightly slower 12 pool / 12 hatch build which gave him the quicker tech to mutalisks he needed. On top of that, he built additional hatcheries to supplement his army more quickly than in previous games. His mutalisk harrassment was pretty great, and he built lots (and lots) of scourge, low-hit point suicide units that desroyed my scouting/overlord harrassing Corsairs handily.

Most interestingly, I fell into the same traps I had just seen Lunch and Dingle fall into those previous battles: I built too few production facilities. I eventually won the epic duel, but not until I’d completely lost my first two bases and had to emergency evacuate to two completely new ones (which were filled almost solely with unit production buildings); however, if I had built earlier unit production buildings, I would have had enough pressure to keep Lunch’s mutalisks from walking (or flying, rather) all over me.

Had Lunch gone zergling / Ultralisk late game I’m not sure who would have won. Instead, he opted for a more mobile zergling / mutalisk build which worked slightly slower. The Ultraling tactic wouldn’t have made a dent in my Carrier/Arbiter collection, but it probably could have chewed through my bases much more quicker, allowing him to chew through me before I chewed through him.

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capstone preliminary research - 6/8/09

Monday, June 8, 2009

Played more against Lunch’s Zerg today, three matches.

First was a bumbling example of my ineptitude with Protoss. My build order was shabby, bad macro, accidentally built two Cybernetics Cores, pretty much stinked it up. However, it was to my credit that neiher myself nor Lunch knew the map, because it ended up delaying his early zergling cheese to the point where he just recalled his zerglings.

Apparently, he ended up recalling his zerglings because of the same reason the next two matches (both on the same map, Gaia). What has this taught me? That perhaps learning basic conventions of competitive maps is more important than learning specifics. Alternatively, play conservatively and scout hard when you’re in the dark.

“Scout early, scout often” is something you hear quite frequently when surfing for forums on teamliquid.net (or snooping around their new wiki, wiki.teamliquid.net). I suppose it’s true.

What I’d like to improve on is getting the early game with each race to a reliable level. The level of myself and the people I play with is not high enough to warrant the focus on micromanagement that mid-game harrassment seems to call for. I’d better get the basics down before I try being a bad ass.

EDIT: Lunch agreed to keep a journal of his daily experience learning StarCraft for future use as capstone research. Thank you, Lunch.

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capstone preliminary research - 6/6/09

Monday, June 8, 2009

Okay, doing this one in retrospective. Not quite the precedent I want to set, but I’ll take it. On the suggestion of Professor Boling, I’m going to try to start tracking my progress with StarCraft in order to see what sort of insights I could pull to inform, perhaps…. the problem space of a capstone project? I’d also like to get a couple of my friends to keep such a journal if I could. We’ll see.

6/6

My first fights on battle.net with a real human being, Lunch-chan (from hereon just Lunch). The first round (ZvZ) was a pretty amazing defeat on my part: he 5 pool’d me, I tried to micro with my scvs, so he just built more zerglings and went all-in.

The next game I built sunkens and a pool early enough to counter his early rush, then teched to hydralisks and overran him. He asked “I don’t really know what I should have done” and I suggested mutalisks, overlord shipping to expansions, and lurkers. He responded “Oh, I guess so.”

So next battle, again ZvZ, Lunch went mutas then teched to guardians and devourers and by god I had nothing. My hydras were overrun completely by his mutas, fueled by his extra expansion on top of mine. I could have either harrassed earlier or switched my tech to… I don’t know. I could have turned around the game while he still had mutas, but once he made the guardian switch it was all over.

Lunch then switched to Protoss and we had a series of TvP matches which were particularly one-sided. He (admittedly) had no idea how to play ‘toss, while I had limited experience playing Terran. The last match did, however, end with a spectacular cannon wall right outside my base that completely hemmed it in. Short of teching to guardians, there was no way to break out. Seriously, it was like 5 cannons thick. However, I was able to just fly mutas around it, then take out his undefended main and nat. A joke game, but well worth the investment.

6/7

Played 1v2(ish) against the computer. Beat ‘em both. Simple cheese strategies, like bunker rushes or 4 pooling work perfectly against the computer. First computer (protoss) went down to a bunker rush, next computer (terran) started attacking with medics & marines, so i switched my own tech from bio to mech (vultures and siege tanks). Worked like a charm, though my vultures were pretty much slaughtered at every turn.

Which brings me to what I think I’d like my studies to focus on next: micromanagement. I can micro in a very limited sense (get a group of units to kill enemies in a certain order via shift click, get a defiler to lay a swarm, etc.); basically, things I’ve specficially practiced before. But it feels like I should have either been able to keep those vultures alive or at least have had the presence of mind to drop a few spider mines before they bit it.

That’s it for now.

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design discussion 3/6/09

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

matt snyder - sketching

  • drafting as sketching
  • powerpoint sketching
  • social aspect of sketching
  • sketching as philosophy
  • idea ’stealing’

brainstorming stuff

  • individual brainstorming eventually coalesced
  • draw from fantasy / science fiction…
  • …or even suggest non-digital artifacts
  • understand the core before you brainstorm
  • identify constraints, brainstorm, then remove constraints, brainstorm
  • be non-critical
  • achieve a playful ‘brainstorming mindset’
  • personalize ideas (by naming people, you grab their attention)
  • get hung up on one thing and apply it to all ideas
  • quantity will lead to quality
  • “TRIZ” brainstorming operators- get a bunch of modifiers and apply them to each new idea. (ex: add something, take something away, invert it)
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sculpting and design

Saturday, February 21, 2009

So how is the design of a piece of art similar to (and different from) the design of an interaction?

Ha ha. I’m not going to try to answer that question here. But I’ll make a few comments on my experience with design and sculpture, specifically.

Sketching (process)- When Rob (our scuplture prof) explained the first project, I was surprised to learn that we were keeping sketchbooks. There wasn’t really any reason for me to be surprised. In order to gauge our ability to learn and grow as an artist, Rob needed to see our process. Marty Siegel’s class all over again, right? It’s all about your process and your rationale. The artifact or system you design is immaterial (ha ha).

Personae- All of the sketching, and therefore the process of my sculpture design, was based heavily on personae. (This was one of the connections that Chad pointed out during the design discussion group. It has made me question my previous opinions of personae as a design tool.) Not only did I begin with one persona, but I had to create perhaps a dozen more in order to flesh out the original. No step taken in my sculpture design process was made without ‘consulting’ the personae. Now I get why people use them. I suppose the trick that I still haven’t grasped is creating an academically sound persona that guides an interaction’s design in a helpful, reasonable manner.

Target audience- The original persona I worked with on the sculpture was first developed for a game of Dungeons & Dragons with my group of mahjong buddies. …That sounds really, truly nerdy. But I think I’m okay with that.

Anyway, this persona, and therefore this sculpture design, had a very specific target audience. Those mahjong club buddies would get the sculpture, with very little explanation needed. They would look at it and begin to compare it with the character I had developed for the game and begin to make associations and recognize symbols.

However, when it came time to introduce and explain the sculpture to my classmates, I found I had a little more work ahead of me. It was my goal to make people think “this is ridiculous” when they first encountered the sculpture, but I had to get them to move past their first impression and begin to actually experience the sculpture. My mahjong buddies would have no problem with this, but my classmates, who were not intimately familiar with the persona, had trouble with this. I had to preface the presentation with an explanation (and accompanying visual aids) to explain who the persona is and why he would be associated with such a ridiculous artifact.

Rationale- This is the fun part. Rationale in art isn’t always about defense or justification. Like interaction design, there’s a lot of “why did I do it this way instead of that way,” yet the alternatives aren’t taken as lesser options that were discarded in the pursuit of the ‘right’ design. They’re just alternatives.

I’ve had this post open for about a week now, and I haven’t gotten very far on it. It’s time to wrap it up, and come back to it later in the semeser. Adios.

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