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Incorporating Social Activist themes into Game Design

“Computer games are more profitable and popular than ever before and are recognized as a significant cultural medium across a wide range of social, economic, age, and other demographic categories. Indeed, from casual games played on the Internet to The Sims, Halo, Metal Gear and Grand Theft Auto series, the popularity of computer games suggests a ‘revolution’ measurable in terms of financial, social, and cultural impact (retail sales of video games in the US in 2004, for example, exceeded $6.2 billion, not including hardware, peripherals, and related products). Games are a cultural medium, and like other cultural media, carry embedded beliefs within their representation systems and structures, whether the designers intend them to or not. In media effects research, this is referred to as “incidental learning” from media messages. For example, The Sims is said to teach consumerism, one of the values of capitalism: it encourages players to earn money so they can spend it and acquire goods. The Grand Theft Auto series was not created as an educational game, but nonetheless, it portrays its world as a violent place, rewards criminal behavior, and reinforces racial and gender stereotypes .”   (Flanagan and Nissenbaum, 2007)

 There are many challenges faced when making games, especially taking into account the diverse range of humans that exist in this world, and developing for a wide audience, many of which are left out the equation when marketing for games very often. For example, designers may ask themselves:

 “Games targeted at girls are particularly challenging because they can embody larger assumptions about what girls like and how to market to them as a group, and ultimately could support outcomes that might not match a designer’s intentions to empower girls, for example, or promote equity of interest in and engagement with technology. Even the general question “what do girls like” is in itself rife with assumptions proffered through marketing, media, and cultural assumptions; the question itself must be considered with nuance to become useful. “  (Flanagan and Nissenbaum, 2007)

What do girls like? Well. We mostly like the same as games as men, but with us in it, and the roles reversed, so we can play with exactly the same power dynamics too. But really, does it matter? I strongly believe games are for everyone.

One issue, which may be a social structure that I may or may not impose on myself, is that I don’t belong in the game industry, or I’m not nerdy enough, or that my attempts to sub-verse or write a narrative that highlights or shows an experience, is batted aside by others.  “ Computer games are still perceived as an arena created by and for men—in fact, the International Game Developer’s Association confirmed this perception in their CHI 2007 Proceedings • Politics & Activism April 28-May 3, 2007 • San Jose, CA, USA 187 demographics survey, which noted that women comprise only 3 percent of the game development workforce in the United States [19].”  (Flanagan and Nissenbaum, 2007) Sometimes, I feel as if I have to work twice as hard for my work and my game design to be given respect and to be taken seriously.

I hope one day more designers will include themes of social activism in their work, after all if films can tell a wide range of stories and human experience, why can’t games?

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Flanagan, M. and Nissenbaum, H., 2007. A Game Design Methodology to Incorporate Social Activist Themes. CHI '07: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, [online] pp.181,184, 187. Available at: <https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/1240624.1240654> [Accessed 15 December 2020].

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b-s-zoku Final Dialogue and Screenshots

Click here for the full link to the narrative

This is my final narrative for b-s-zoku. Compared to METASPEAK, there was less focus on the branching and choice, although perhaps in retrospect, b-s-zoku would have worked better with less dialogue length wise and more choice, and have the dialogue be more short as that was one of our main complaints - no skip button to move the text onward once having read it. 

Here you can see how we used the game mechanic in Katana Zero to influence our dialogue system. One of my favourite aspects of the game was how emotion was expressed through animation and text colour. 

For our game, I enjoyed using these aspects, for example when someone was shouting or scared, I would use a shaky text animation and red or yellow text, if someone was sad, I used green or yellow text with a wavy animation. It helped the dialogue ‘pack more of a punch’ and when play-testing it with other people, they really enjoyed this aspect.

One of the flaws in the dialogue was the inability to skip text, unfortunately, we were unable to implement it in time, and it made the game seem long and less fast paced than what we would want. If I could make any changes, I would have liked to condense the dialogue to it’s best parts, and carefully run over how words are phrased and reorganise the sentences.

With the ex boyfriend and the mum, I wanted to reflect on my own experiences with my relationships and family, to give them the right tone of voice, which I believe I executed well. With the ex boyfriend, I wanted him to be condescending but also feel shameful after being beaten. Sometimes in life, being ‘cool’ and not showing any feelings, can get in the way of relationships. With the mother, I looked at when major family events have happened, and reflecting pet names and a tone of sadness in her dialogue, almost regretting the situation which has occurred. 

At the end of the game, it felt good to see that all hope was not lost, and give a little backstory to what happened after. I enjoy this in many games I’ve completed, such as Fallout: New Vegas, so I wanted to include an element of that.

Once the credits have rolled, I break the fourth wall by Mikazuki asking ‘Why are you still here?’ And having the option to close the game. I enjoy humour in games, and it was a little Easter egg to those who got through the bugs, and completed the game.

In terms of Game Design, in 1983-1995 Japan dominated the market. Most games known and loved in arcades were created by Japanese developers, often washed out of what we know as game design’s history in the West. Most kids and people, do not know Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Sonic or Street Fighter were all designed, developed and made in Japan, but marketed to a Western audience.

  “Japan dominated the market. With no competition, Japanese developers did not have to adhere to foreign sensibilities when designing games. In fact, this pure Japanese voice in game development is a quality that came under attack with the re-emergence of western-developed games. During the doldrums of the great recession, Japanese developers began to craft games with the western market in mind.7 In conclusion, Japanese games released between 1985 and 1995 represented a distinctive period in the cultural history of Japanese gaming.” (DeMattia, 2020)

b-s-zoku is a look back at the formation of game design, and a creation showing respect and admiration for these games created between this time period.

Overall there was a lot of room for improvement with dialogue, I feel sad that due to time scale and conflicts, people were unable to enjoy our game to it’s full potential, especially as there is a bug that stops the next wave from spawning. In conclusion, despite our possible over-scope for the game, it generally went well and received a positive response, despite it’s bugs.

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DeMattia, G., 2020. More Than Just Video Games: Analyzing Japanese Game Design 1985 - 1995. Postgraduate. Seton Hall University.

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Adapting our Game Design: 

The first thing we needed to adapt was the character design for the main Player. Our feedback resulted in people not feeling as if she was old enough, and more of a younger school-girl, and not the age of a sixth former as we wanted. To improve on this, we gave her accessories, wounds, and makeup to make her feel more as if she was rebellious, as you are not allowed these at school, and the wounds, well, they speak for themselves, she is a tough cookie. As for our Game Mechanics, we received feedback that the controls were difficult, and we chose not to complicate the game with two many extra moves, so we are able to have two players play on a keyboard. Although not having time to perfect this, we do realise that if we were to have more development time, this would be an issue we would have to address.

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Play testing b-s-zoku and Feedback

Our Play testers:

- Fellow Games Academy Peers

- Friends & Family 

- Target Audience 

Why are they important? Testing from peers allows us to get feedback that is criticising game mechanics, design, art and everything that factors into executing a game. Testing from peers allows us to get insight from those who create games themselves, which is vital, and allows us to have suggestions of not just ‘what’ but ‘how’ we can improve our work. Friends and family testing has been very important, as they usually have a fresh view of what makes a game, and their suggestions make it easier for a casual player to play. 

Notably, making a game too difficult can happen if you are a seasoned game player, and remembering that most people are not, is very important to making a game accessible. Testing with our Target Audience (primarily women and young adults) is important to see how they feel about the game, both culturally as it is set in a different country, but as well as seeing if our goal, partially to showcase the way women can be treated, as well as empowering them, is successful.

Play testing methods:

Play testing in this age of remote working, can prove a challenge. To overcome this, We attempted to test as much in person with those that live with us, and also asking people to test online. We created a feedback form which allowed us to see what people thought of our game, anonymously, so that people are honest and upfront. As sometimes, people can feel under pressure to not say what they think if it comes across as slightly harsh criticism.

For the results of the feedback, please click here 

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Let’s Play: Katana Zero

Katana Zero is a fast paced 2D pixel game, with narrative, using time slowing mechanics, stealth and puzzles to defeat enemies. If you die, you return back to the beginning of the level, and have to start over. Making sure you work out how to kill the enemies, whether it’s by interacting with doors and flicking switches to activate lasers at the right time, or picking up items and throwing them at enemies, is the key game mechanic to get through each level. Once complete, you are shown back a ‘CCTV’ like video, sped up, of the player running through the level.

Unfortunately, I found Katana Zero a bit too difficult to play, thus not getting too far through the game, however, the way the narrative and dialogue is shown is what made me fall in love with it. I especially like the way the text is coloured differently and animated to show expression, this is something I would love to emulate in b-s-zoku. As well as this, the way the writer uses their language, runs close to how I enjoy writing, I like swearing, I feel it makes a game seem more raw, I have to remind myself, not to over use curse words however.

I would love to continue to play Katana Zero, especially as I enjoy the world, and the art style as well as the music. Cyberpunk feeling games that are dark and transverse into the otherworldly dark side of life make me excited to discover more and more games with these genres.

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Design and Level Document for for b-s-zoku

Here is my sketch for the layout of the game from start to finish and how the game will play. There will be three levels of the game, one in the morning, early evening, and night. We are able to create three environments by reusing the background asset and recolouring it according to different times of day. 

There will be cutscenes before and after each level to tell the story, these will be simple black backgrounds with coloured and animated text so they are fairly easy to add in using the time frame we have.

Level 1 will be a tutorial with the girl who recruits the player to the gang. We felt it was important to feature a tutorial level to guide the player, as most people don’t read instructions and it was simple enough to do and also have it build in the world i.e being recruited to her gang/ shown how to fight. 

Level 2 is a standard beat em up level, here the difficulty will slightly increase, and the player will get used to fighting waves of enemies. At the end there is a boss who is just a general gangsta, who tells you where the ex-boyfriend will be. He is slightly condescending, which will set the tone for the final level.

Level 3 is the final level. Here the game mechanics will increase again in difficulty, as well as revealing the plot and answering any questions the player might be having in relation to the ex boyfriend and the story. After the confrontation with the ex boyfriend, the mum is revealed to be the leader of their gang, leading to the final, final boss fight. 

Designing a game visually like this helps team mates to see how you visualise the game, and their own ideas can be placed into the game accordingly.

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Initial Conceptualisation of b-z-zoku

This is my initial mapping out of how the game will be structured, in terms of game mechanics and level design. This document mainly focuses on the types of enemies that we will be aiming to feature in the game. 

We will be aiming to include recolours of enemies and weapons to pick up as well. The recolours will have higher health and effectively make the game feel more varied with enemies. 

There will be 3 bosses, a higher level gangsta, the ex boyfriend, and the twist of the story, the mum of the player. 

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Planning b-s-zoku

Who what and why?:

b-s-zoku is a 2D beat-em up game. We are basing this game on some of the most influential beat-em ups such as Final Fight and Streets of Rage which were developed in Japan. b-s-zoku is a nod to the golden era, and gaming’s deep and rich history, much of which is left in the 20th century. b-s-zoku has a standard beat-em up level system consisting of waves and bosses.

The story:

The story focuses on elements of real life situations b-s-zoku girls faced, many of which involve boys. We will be creating a story rich and fast paced environment with narrative and also attempting some world building. We will be adding a twist in the story to catch the player out when they have thought they have beaten the game.

Influences:

Our influences include, River City Girls, Katana Zero, Final Fight, Double Dragon Neon, Streets of Rage and more. These games, especially River City Girls and Katana Zero, include narratives and events, which we also would like to use in our game, to modernise and keep it relevant to the present day.

Game Mechanics: 

Controller support is very important to us making this game! So we shall be prioritising support for this.

We will be adding combos as well, focusing on the basics and if we have time adding more.

Ethics:

We will be researching correct use of language, and also researching culture.

Understanding politics and crime in games, and aim to understand crime in Japan, and it’s history involving the b-s-zoku.

Target Audience:

16+

Game is designed to be easy this is very important for us as easier gameplay will enable those new to gaming, and with us focusing on women who have never ‘gamed’ before. Developing an accessible game creates a doorway for more women to explore games as a form of interactive media they may not have felt was for them. This involves play-testing with this demographic.

Empathy and Character Design:

Invoke hatred towards ex-boyfriend character to create involvement and emotional challenge to beat the game.

We will also be aiming to create empathy for main character as the world seems against her, using condescending dialogue.

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b-s-zoku: One Page Design Document

Title -

B-s-zoku [working title]

Elevator Pitch - 

A fast paced 2D beat em’ up side scrolling game with narrative, set in the late half of the 20th century, where two bosozoku (outlaws) go up against a rival gang to beat them out of the city (to confirm story)

Project Description -

A beat em’ em experience in which 1-2 players are able to fight out rival gang members for their place in a city. The player will go through 1-3 levels fighting various swarms of enemies of varying strengths as the plot is revealed to them. 

Influences - 

Streets of Rage 2 / Simpsons:Arcade / River City: Girls / Final Fight / Scott Pilgrim: Xbox 360 Arcade Game

Story - 

The game starts with one of the player characters getting beaten up by an ex-boyfriend, her sister comes to her aid and together they get recruited by an existing female gang who teach them how to fight, this being the tutorial. Upon learning they’re in a gang, the ex-bf puts a hit out on the sisters, being the main gameplay - fending off attackers through waves of enemies and levels with increasing difficulty. Until the final confrontation,sisters versus the ex-bf, the final bossfight

The game may end with a reveal of the mother being the real leader of the gang. 

Game ends with sisters motorcycle riding off with a sunset background/ animation/ cutscene.

Gameplay - 

Beat em’ up brawler. The player scrolls through multiple responses and chooses the one they believe is the most appropriate or reflective of their opinion, and affects the flow of the story as a result.

Assets - 

Custom 2D interface

2D sprites

Stylised text boxes/ cutscene

Animations (sprites and text)

Immersive action gameplay.

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Our artist Adele Richards, created these mood boards based on the Tokyo environment, as well as the girls from this subculture. We want to focus on the neon colours, and even a Cyberpunk feeling. The subculture has developed in style from the 70′s - now, “In past decades, brightly coloured and/or elaborately embroidered variants of the sailor outfits were also adopted by female members of teenaged Yankii and Bōsōzoku biker gangs.” (Rider and de Vere, 2014) so we are most likely to go with this idea as it fits the time period. We hope to include weapons, such as bats, as they are weapon the girls use, and also knives. 

We understand that this may be a potential over scope for the game, however, we hope to allow room to include as much detail as possible and still have as much of a complete game as we can.

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Rider, G. and de Vere, J., 2014. GAIJIN RIDER - Yanki And Bosozoku Culture... An Outsider Looks In. [online] Gaijinrider.altervista.org. Available at: <http://gaijinrider.altervista.org/Glossary/Glossary_Seifuku.html> [Accessed 11 December 2020].

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The Concept of b-s-zoku

The initial idea for b-s-zoku is to combine the beat-em up genre with female empowerment. For the game, I threw together some ideas on my own MURAL board, with game mechanics, and imagery to stir up ideas with my teammates in our second meeting. Here we can see some reference from 80′s and 90′s arcade games as this is our main inspiration for this game. 

On the bottom right is a list of game mechanics in relation to the beat-em up genre, movement, buffs, attacks and more. I also added some animation sprite sheets from the 80′s, and a lot of reference on Yakuza and Bosozoku women. 

This quote particularly stood out when doing research: “When I was 16, I was dating Bōsōzoku guys. I thought the bike was so cool. I didn’t just want to sit behind a guy rider. Women are becoming stronger now,”  (Voicu, 2020)

For this game, we have roughly decided to go with the theme of getting involved in a gang world, many beat-em ups feature a running theme related to crime, and it fits well for the style of game. Many women in Japan, especially in the 80′s which we will be setting the game in, started their own gangs through dating men in preexisting ones as mentioned in the quote above. 

For this, we will continue research and development surrounding these subject areas, and hone down our ideas for the game.

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Voicu, C., 2020. Bosozoku Badass Girl Gangs. An Outlaw Subculture Of Japan - Drivemag Riders. [online] DriveMag Riders. Available at: <https://riders.drivemag.com/news/bosozoku-badass-girl-gangs-an-outlaw-subculture-of-japan/> [Accessed 11 December 2020].

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Screenshot of Dialogue in METASPEAK

Here is a slice of dialogue in METASPEAK. As mentioned previously, I wanted to create an immersive experience feeling eerily similar to chatting to somebody new online. This is a slice of my personal favourite part of the dialogue, here is one of the turning points in the branching narrative to the more sinister part of the game. At this point, most people that I witnessed playtesting my game started to feel uncomfortable, and then as they carried on playing, started to ask themselves questions about AI, relationships and more. This is a game designed to provoke conversation and thought. 

Another thought to consider about AI is the threat of sex and cyber security. “In addition to enhancing conventional risks, internet-enabled sex toys and sex robots also pose new cybersecurity risks that cannot be fully addressed under existing regulatory processes for other products. Such risks including lax security measures that allow uninvited parties to collect and store usage information or videos, or the potential hacking of remotely operated sex toys.”(Hern, 2016; Burgess, 2018; Devlin, 2018). This could be an interesting component for a game, used in a quest perhaps, in conjunction with humour.

In conclusion to the end of this project, I believe it went well and we had an all round complete game, the thought was simple and all dynamics of the game pieced together. For the future, I believe it would be better to make the game clearer to the player, signalling how to play and making it more obvious your choice. The end game also needs more development, but for a 3 week project, I was very happy with the outcome.

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Burgess, M., 2018. Smart Dildos And Vibrators Keep Getting Hacked – But Tor Could Be The Answer To Safer Connected Sex. [online] WIRED UK. Available at: <https://www.wired.co.uk/article/sex-toy-bluetooth-hacks-security-fix> [Accessed 11 December 2020].

Devlin, K., 2018. Turned On: Science, Sex And Robots. London: Bloomsbury Sigma.

Hern, A., 2016. Someone Made A Smart Vibrator, So Of Course It Got Hacked. [online] The Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/10/vibrator-phone-app-we-vibe-4-plus-bluetooth-hack> [Accessed 11 December 2020].

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Final Twine Document for METASPEAK.exe

This is my final branching narrative for our game. I wanted to make a complex narrative where it feels natural, almost like you are speaking to a real person. I chose to build up the ‘glitches’ in the AI’s speech, so that it slowly breaks down as you continue to talk to it. I wanted to have to options to outright ask personal questions, such as ‘Are you a virgin?’. Something that Dragon Age: Origins did with the character Alistair. This was a huge inspiration in my dialogue, and I wanted to reference back to such a poignant moment in a game I have played. BioWare hits the nail on the head for me with love and sex, its exciting, and so closely real, getting to know a character’s vulnerabilities, and also fighting, suffering and enjoying moments of life, as much as you can in games, together.

I used Twine as a prototyping tool, and it worked very well when it came to implementing the dialogue into the Unity Game Engine. 

There are two distinct branches of narrative. One more platonic, and one more sexual. In any relationship in life, you have that choice, at the beginning, to just be friends, you really can only go down two paths. One usually ending in sex, and the other ending in friendship, or just becoming acquaintances. Sometimes you regret the friendship and wish you were something more, or sometimes you wish you were just friends. 

In the end, all options lead to the same outcome, with slight differences depending which option you choose. I wanted to have this, so it’s almost like a c’est la vie feeling. Such is life. 

I think I would have developed the story further given more time, with more small talk at the beginning, as well as more shorter lines of dialogue instead of larger paragraphs. I also believe I could have pushed the boundaries of the conversation further and made an option for the flirting to be more ‘filthy’. This was my favourite part of designing this game, and I would have loved to tangle the AI and the player up in confusing dirty talk. My friends were disappointed the sexual tension broke quickly in the game.

I never gendered the AI. I wanted the player to experience the game as if they were them and the AI was whatever gender they like in real life. However, as my life experience is as a woman, I do believe I wrote it in the context of the AI being a man. I used many phrases at the beginning of the game which have been said to me before by people in real life, direct messages on Instagram, and even things people have said to me when in the club.

I believe there were many ways to improve the ending of the game also, it could have been built up more, or even glitch animations as they were dying. However, I really like that the game just ends with the application closing

Overall as a first narrative, I had fun experimenting with the game, and although there is a lot of room for development, as a two/three week project I am very happy with the outcome. I have received positive feedback and one of my other teammates wants to publish the game on itch. I liked being able to bend the idea of what a game could be, what it could mean, and how it could make the player feel.

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Final Layout for METASPEAK.exe

This is the final layout we have decided for METASPEAK.exe. In the right are the randomised adverts we put in to make the game feel more sinister, and sleazy, as if you are on the wrong side of the internet. The music player is reminiscent of ones featured on websites such as MySpace and Bebo. To access the game, you select the chat icon with the exclamation mark. The effects on the screen bend it just like a boxy desktop from the 90′s. 

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METASPEAK Desktops in Progress

These are the desktops in progress for our game, in the end after discussion, we preferred the dark theme rather than the light. The dark theme encompasses the eerie feeling the player will experience when playing the game, therefore it being our preferred option.

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User Interface

Our artist Emma, created mood boards for the UI of our METASPEAK game. The UI of old computers, and chatroom of the past was our inspiration for the game. Another inspiration is games and media that look back to that generation of technology, and use it in their work, and seeing how they have taken it, and made it different.

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Chat Box Scene from ‘Closer’

Closer is a film from 2004, about a toxic love ‘triangle’ between 4 people. A writer, a stripper, a photographer and a doctor, in London. At the beginning of the film, it features the writer, talking on a London Sex Anon posing as Anna, the photographer. He poses as her, and sets them up to meet in the London Aquarium. 

As with games, in films, and anything in life, I enjoy anything different and subversive ,  for METASPEAK, I want to look at the early 00′s dating era, the conversations that happen, and the grittiness and filth of it. Underneath us all as humans is the want for love, to be loved, and sex. Exploring how an AI would experience love and want for intimacy, and to be ultimately confused and torn apart by these human desires, is a subject I wish to explore with this project.

The names in Closer’s text box, and anonymity of chatroom online, is a core feeling I hope to include in the game. I feel as if the gender of the AI you speak to shouldn’t matter, as ultimately, our desires and wants are generally similar as you boil them down.