Saturday, July 29, 2017

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Analysis

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Analysis

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Analysis

David Hunter

July 29, 2017

1 Overview

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is an action stealth RPG developed by Eidos Montreal and released by Square Enix in August, 2016.

2 Formal Elements

2.1 Players

The player takes the role of Adam Jensen, a former police officer who has an augmented body. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided’s campaign is exclusively single-player and played from a first-person perspective, while the cover system switches into third-person view. Like many action games, the God of War series being a prime example, the player starts out with all abilities unlocked in a tutorial-like setting, but soon loses most of them in a plot event.

2.2 Objectives

The main objective of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided difficult to define. For most of the game, the player is concerned with figuring out who is behind the attack in the prologue and a second attack at the beginning of the main game. However, this leads the player on a series of what seem sometimes like wild goose chases. The player may attempt to accomplish these wild goose chases in whatever manner they choose: from ghost-like stealth utilizing environmental exploration, hacking and lock picking, systematic silent (deadly or not) enemy elimination, going in guns blazing, exploiting conversation trees, or almost any combination of the above.

2.3 Rules

Like many RPGs, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided features complex rule sets.

2.3.1 Gear

Gear has no skill or level limitations, but the player’s inventory space is extremely limited. Inventory is the classic Diablo style grid, with items taking up different amounts of slots. Ammo and healing items can be stacked, but weapons are none stackable. Weapons can be upgraded in several different ways, but the non-lethal weapons suffer a little in this regard. There are no wearable items, since upgrading Jensen’s augmented body takes the place of choosing armor and accessories.

2.3.2 NPC Interactions

Most NCPs in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided feature extremely limited interaction capabilities. At the lowest level, they have a bark or random piece of chatter that they will say if you try to talk to them. NPCs of slightly higher importance, such as shop keepers and quest related NPCs, have optional dialogue choices that reveal extra information, allow optional quests to be taken, or allow the player change the course a quest will take.

Theft is mostly ignored, but straying into enemy territory will result in assault and aggression from enemy NPCs if they detect you. Attacking non-hostile NPCs will also trigger a hostile response from gang members, police officers, or guards that are nearby.

2.3.3 Stats and Leveling

The player is rewarded with XP for many activities in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Find a hidden area? Get 200 XP. Hack a difficult computer? Get 100 XP. Did you do it one your first try? Get more XP. Do it illegally? Get XP for that. Take out a guard? Get XP. Do it with a headshot? Get more XP for that. Did you do it without the guard detecting you? More XP for that. Complete a mission? Get a bunch of XP. Do it without being spotted? Bonus XP.

2.3.4 Quests

There is a sequence of main quests the player must complete in order to finish the game, and the must be finished in a particular order. In between and concurrently, the player may attempt to complete side quests. The player is informed about some of these directly, but may choose to take action or ignore them. Others are discovered as the player explores the environment and interacts with NPCs.

2.3.5 Combat

Combat features the most complexity. Many of the player’s augs are combat oriented, such as increasing the amount of health, unlocking cloaking technology, unlocking a temporary full-body shield which makes the player impervious, dash abilities which may be used to ram opponents, abilities which eliminate all nearby enemies in one blow, and nano-blade technology which shoots a blade out of the player’s wrist. Supporting abilities like increasing radar radius and enemy tagging are also available.

Making use of these to navigate the environment in the way the player chooses presents an interesting challenge, as not all abilities will be equally useful for all play styles. Making the best use of them during the moment to moment decisions of combat provides a lot of the fun and engagement of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.

If the player dies at any point, they will need to reload a save file.

2.4 Procedures

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided features several commonly engaged in procedures.

2.4.1 Talking to an NPC

Since Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is very heavily story driven, the player will spend quite a bit of time talking to NPCs. Depending on the player’s augmentation choices, they may be able to use CASIE, which allows the player to read the personality and emotional state data of the NPC as the conversation unfolds, letting the player make an informed decision about how to influence the NPC.

Several course altering dialogue choices also appear, influencing the direction the game will take.

2.4.2 Searching an Area & Scavenging

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided features tons of exploration possibilities. It is usual possible to shoot your way through something, there will almost always be a way around it if you observe the environment carefully. Going hand in hand with this, the player can find ammo, health items, energy items, new weapons, quest items, and personal secretaries that contain background information, codes to computers, codes to locked doors. Observation and thoroughness pay off.

2.4.3 Selling Loot

As mentioned before, inventory space is extremely limited, and if the player is attempting a non-lethal playthrough, it simple does not make sense to waste inventory space on lethal weapons, or their ammo.

2.4.4 Leveling Up

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided makes use of the static engine pattern.

Every 5000 XP points automatically gets converted into a ”Praxis” point. This can be used to upgrade to an aug. Two points are required to unlock a new aug, while a single point suffices to upgrade a previously unlocked one.

2.4.5 Managing Health Conditions

There are two main health conditions which the player needs to monitor during combat or stealth: health and energy. Both can be upgraded in several ways, from increasing the total amount available, to making them regenerate faster, to reducing the delay between lose of an amount and beginning regeneration. Health of course determines how much damage the player can receive before dying, while energy determines how much the player may use their augs, almost all of which cost energy to function.

2.5 Resources

These are the main resources in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.

2.5.1 Tangible Resources

  1. Stimkit: Replenishes health.
  2. Biocell: Replenishes energy.
  3. Ammo: Comes in different varieties, regular, EMP, armor-piercing, etc.
  4. Grenades: Can be lethal or non-lethal.
  5. Weapons: Can be lethal or non-lethal.
  6. Hacking Software: Offer various abilities and powerups

2.5.2 Intangible Resources

  1. Health: If health drops to zero, the player dies.
  2. Energy: Used by augmentations. It recharges over time, but the more the player uses it without refilling it with a biocell, the less it recharges each time.
  3. XP: Received as described above.
  4. Credits: Credits are the form of money in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. They can be used to purchase ammo, weapons, health items, and even Praxis Kits.

2.6 Conflicts

2.6.1 NPCs

Jensen can interact with NPCs in friendly or confrontational ways, but obviously not both at the same time.

2.6.2 Stealth versus Guns-blazing

Stealth allows the player the pleasure of outwitting their opponents, while guns-blazing allows the pleasure of overpowering them, but they cannot be pursued simultaneously.

2.6.3 Lethal versus Non-lethal

There are diverse lethal ways to eliminate ones foes, and Eidos has expanded the repertoire of non-lethal means greatly.

2.6.4 Leveling

It is not possible to unlock all of Jensen’s augs in a single playthrough, and in the first playthrough the player will have to make a choice among using and permanently disabling certain augs.

2.7 Boundaries

2.7.1 Map

The maps of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided are usually quite large, and furthermore are featurally dense: that is, they have a lot of features in a small amount of space, forcing the player to filter through the extraneous details and find what really matters.

2.7.2 Leveling

As stated before, it is not possible to unlock all of Jensen’s augs in a single playthrough.

2.8 Outcomes

There appear to be several endings to Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, reflecting the way the player navigates key dialogue choices.

3 Dynamic Elements

3.1 Patterns

This section focuses on game patterns as discussed by Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans in Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design.

3.1.1 Static Engine

The leveling system contains the static engine pattern. Every 5000 XP points are turned into one Praxis Kit, without exception, no matter how many times the player levels up or has leveled up.

3.1.2 Playing Style Reinforcement

The leveling system also contains the playing style reinforcement pattern. As the player plays in a certain way (stealthy, or guns-blazing for instance), they will receive XP, which can be used to purchase augments through Praxis Kits. These augments, if wisely chosen, will allow the player to perform more of the actions which gave them XP in the first place. If a stealthy playstyle is being used, the player may choose to upgrade their cloaking abilities, which makes playing in a stealthy way easier and more likely.

3.1.3 Dynamic Friction

The energy and health meters will recharge automatically after a certain amount of time, but as this happens again and again, they recharge less of the total amount each time, until the player uses a biocell or stimpack to recharge them fully.

4 Dramatic Elements

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided features a story which follows the protagonist Adam Jensen in his job at Task Force 29, which involves hunting down terrorists.

4.1 Characters

Characters almost seems like too strong of a word. Characters, after all, should have character or depth, but little is to be found in the characters of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. They do seem to have rudimentary personalities, but these are not conveyed to the player strongly enough.

4.2 Story

Following a strange attack during a mission in Dubai, Adam Jensen is nearby when a bomb explodes at a train station in Prague, where TF 29 has its headquarters. The rest of the game sees Jensen try to unravel who is really responsible and what their motivation and true aims are. Although stated in this way, it seems like the standard plot of any thriller or spy movie, the game feels unfocused: is your boss the bad guy? Nope, turns out he was being used. How about the Augmented Rights Coalition (ARC)? Surely they must be the bad guys? Nope, turns out they are just being used as well. Who are the real bad guys? The Illuminati. No shit.

5 Conclusion

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided allows the player to explore or not, kill or not, hack or not: it short it allows the player to complete the game in the fashion they choose. It is a powerful and well-designed game, but the story fails to deliver and leaves the player far from satisfied.

Friday, July 28, 2017

The Failure Of Open World Games

Go Anywhere! and Do Anything! seem to be the cries of every open world game out there. Skyrim has reportedly sold over 30 million copies since being released on 2011, November 11. The player can travel around a huge detailed world map and explore hundreds of dangerous and interesting locations. The game features something like 6000 NPCs, each belonging to several different factions. Now, don't get me wrong. When Skyrim first came out, I loved it. I put over 200 hours into it, and enjoyed almost every hour. The quests were interesting, and even just going out in a random direction to see what you could find to do was satisfying and generated its own little adventure. But as you keep playing and playing and playing and playing...you start to realize that it doesn't really matter. You can be the leader of every faction simultaneously: yes, you can be a warrior, a mage, a thief, and an assassin all at the same time, even though these factions all hate each other and have totally different philosophies. In one large quest chain, the player must choose between fighting for Skyrim's independence, or making it part of the Empire once more. The only thing that changes as a result of a dozen hours of questing and listening to NPCs is that the guards in all the cities will belong whichever faction the player supported. And when you look at the individual quests, many of them do not amount to much more than go here and kill something (and maybe take their stuff), with no choice involved besides whether you want to do it or not.

Far Cry 2 was released in 2008, and although not as big as Skyrim, nor featuring as many NPCs, and no, unfortunately it does not have dragons (although it does have malaria...any takers?), it features similar mechanics. I mean, when you play the game, you travel around going to places and killing people, then taking their stuff. Far Cry 3 in 2012 removed a lot of the unique features from the Far Cry series, such as weapon degradation and jamming, the buddy system where you could become pals with NPCs and do missions together with them. They would even suggest alternative ways of completing the missions, and could die, never to come back for that play through. Far Cry 4 in 2014 was really just more of Far Cry 3 in a different place.

Grand Theft Auto V, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, and Saints Row IV were released in 2013. Instead of having one protagonist who goes from place to place, killing people and taking their stuff, in GTA V you play as three such protagonists. Although the heists provide interesting missions and a lot of fun gameplay, the world itself is much the same as any other open world. Sure, you can ride around in boats, cars, motorcycles, airplanes, even submarines, for crying out loud. And yes, you can play tennis, go hunting, play golf, trade stock on a fake stock market, go skydiving, and many other activities. But none of those activities make much of a difference. For example, if you want to buy a store, the only thing that matters is whether you have enough money to do it. You cannot set up a golf date to convince the store owner that you can do something amazing for the store, or that it would be to his/her benefit to sell to you, or that he/she better sell or you will take the golf club and beat them to death with it. And there will of course be zero consequences to your decision. Even the decisions of how to execute heists has zero story consequences. There are, to be fair, numerous smaller consequences, such as building a relationship with an accomplice, developing their skills, or losing them if they get killed during the heist. Those are ingenious and wonderful, but the main story lacks those consequences based on player choice.

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag was widely hailed as a return to greatness for the Assassin's Creed series. Like the games mentioned previously, it features a large open world with many locations, characters and activities, and like the others it similarly lacks in consequences. Oh, there is a mechanic where if you kill an innocent, you will lose "synchronization," which is the series's stand-in for HP. But you cannot interact with most of the NPCs beyond the most basic level, and there are no alternative routes for the player to take in terms of missions.

Saints Row IV suffers from all the same problems as the games above, in addition to being a complete rehash of Saints Row III but with superpowers which make the game less interesting and challenging to play.

Just Cause 3, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, and Fallout 4 were all released in 2015, along with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. If you've read my analysis of Fallout 4 earlier, then you already know my feelings about this game. In short it feels like Bethesda set out to make as shallow a game as possible and still call it an RPG.

Just Cause 3 offers a big open world to explore, dozens of enemy bases to destroy, towns to liberate, and absolutely zero choice or consequence. You can kill all the civilians in a town you are liberating with no penalty. You cannot choose between alternative courses of action for toppling the dictator, there is no choice between doing things stealthily or noisily, there are just optional activities like can be found in Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Skyrim, and Saints Row.

MGS V is something of a mixed bag. Although Hideo Kojima has a clear story that he wants the player to experience, he and his team implemented an incredibly thought out set of consequences based on player actions. As just one example, if you stay in the field too long, the player character begins to stink, which makes them easier to detect by enemies. Or as another, the enemy AI reacts to the player's play style over time, adopting more helmets if the player goes for headshots, or sporting more spotlights and headlamps if the player prefers to attack at night. The player's interaction with enemy NPCs is also a little more nuanced than in the other games mentioned so far. The player can recruit them into their private army, leave them knocked out on the ground, or just flat out kill them. If the player recruits them, they will contribute their skills to whatever section they are assigned to at Mother Base.

Ah, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, the girl next door of open world games. Made by a once small company in Poland, this game (and its non-open world predecessors) opened gamers' eyes to what they had been missing. I won't claim that the The Witcher 3 is a perfect game, but in terms of giving the players choice and then forcing the player to live with the consequences of that choice, few games come close. Although many NPCs are just stand-ins like in the other games, Geralt must periodically make choices, the outcomes of which are not always predictable. As a small example, on wandering around, Geralt might encounter some villagers arguing. If you decide to talk to them, Geralt will learn that a group of bandits is threatening to attack them unless they hand over one of their number, call him Grandpa for now. If Geralt decides to intervene, he can ask the bandits, led by Little Red, for more information about why they have it in for Grandpa, or he could just attack them on principle. On my playthrough, I decided to hear them out. It seems that Grandpa had an arrangement with Little Red: he would give them info about which villagers had some merchandise worth stealing, and he would take a cut. Seems Grandpa got greedy, but Little Red refused to up his cut, and that is when he told some witch hunters about the location of the bandits. I decided that even if Grandpa was a double asshole and deserved to be punished, Little Red and her bandits had no justification for preying on the villagers in the first place, so I killed them. The player receives money and XP either way, or they could just refuse to help the villagers at the first chance, or just never talk to them or encounter them.
As one other example, Geralt is tasked early on with killing a griffin. After investigating different people and locations, he comes across a healer with a victim of the griffin. Geralt can leave them there or decide to help. However, the only medicine powerful enough to help is his witcher potions, and these are often fatal to non-witchers. If the player decides to help her, you do not learn the result until much much later. In a totally different area, you may encounter an army where a soldier will confront you. The griffin's victim was meeting the soldier for a late night tryst when the griffin attacked. The soldier informs you that although the victim lives, she is now a vegetable who does not recognize him or remember anything, and he finishes by saying he doesn't know whether to curse the player or not. I hope you can see that in these little throwaway quests, there is more interesting choice making than in most of MSG V, and all of Saints Row IV, Assassin's Creed IV, Skyrim, and all the Far Crys. And as has been quoted to death, "A game is a series of interesting choices."

Watchdogs 2 was released just last year, in 2016. Set in San Francisco, the player takes control of a hacker called Marcus. He and his hacker friends must take down ctOS, Blume, and Haum, which are several organisations which are using the ubiquity of smartphones, tablets, and other smart devices to gain access to their consumers' private information. There is no conflict. None. ctOS, Blume, and Haum are the bad guys and they must be destroyed or discredited. Period. Every mission allows the player to try to sneak or go in guns blazing, but besides difficulty, there appears to be no consequences either way. The extra activities rival GTA V for their abundance and variety, but whether the player chooses to engage in them or not makes little difference to the game, its course of action, or to how the Marcus develops. In my opinion, as a hacker, Marcus makes as much use of people's smart devices to exploit them as the supposed enemies. You will never be berated for killing a doctor or child in the street, or lose credit among your friends for hacking into ordinary people's bank accounts to transfer funds to yourself. Even death has less meaning than in GTA V, where at least you lost money and where sent to the hospital.

Contrast most of the games above with games like Fallout: New Vegas (2010), Mount and Blade: Warband (2010), State of Decay: Year One Survival Edition (2015), or Total War: Warhammer (2016), (or the above mentioned MSG V and The Witcher 3) to name a few. These games react differently depending on how the player plays. Mount and Blade: Warband can be played as a medieval trading simulator, with the player travelling from town to town, buying and selling goods, and setting up businesses which effect the in-game economy. Or you could become a loyal vassal to a faction, remain a mercenary and hire yourself out to everyone, or start your own faction and become king or queen of that. How you treat NPCs in the game effects how much they like or dislike you, which in turns makes them more likely to take appropriate actions towards you, and thus makes pleasing them or angering them have meaning. Total War: Warhammer allows the player to focus on military might and conquering one's neighbors, on the economy and bribing them into liking you, or one diplomatic relationships, or some combination of those. Even playing as the same race, the player's game could take radically different courses depending one one's choices.

GTA V is widely regarded as one of the most expensive games ever, with a development cost estimated at over $150 million but it offers less in terms of exploration and choice than many less expensive games. Why are developers spending so much money on worlds with large, complicated maps which are filled with meaningless activities, activities which literally change nothing about the game, have no consequences, and make the players learn nothing except how much time the devs spent simulating darts? Why are these large open worlds which continuously promise freedom, choice, and adventure constantly falling short of even being engaging? Where is the open world game that lets you develop relationships dynamically, where your choices have an effect on what happens?

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

More Game Jam Work

I've been continuing my work on Particularly Wavey and Desert Planet. They are both in extremely rudimentary stages at the moment. I will have a complete saving and loading system in place on Desert Planet by tonight, and I will have randomly generated pools of water by this weekend.



Particularly Wavey is currently on hold. Desert Planet needs to be finished by August 3rd, while I have until August 9th to finish Particularly Wavey. As you can see, the light puzzle game still needs some bug fixing, as the refractions still show up even though the light is not hitting the prism any more.



Thursday, July 20, 2017

Game Jam Work

hey all,

I've been hard at work on those next two game jam games. One is a puzzle game utilizing the physics of light, and the second is a survival day about staying alive on a desert planet.

The first game has mostly working reflections, absorptions and refractions as tools the player can use to try to get the correct wavelength of light to hit the target area. I would like to add diffraction, but we will see, as I am not actually sure how to use diffraction, for example, as a way to redirect light, or change the color of it.

The second game is barely started. I have a terrain which I have based on heightmap data of the Sahara Desert, and which I have textured as sand...and that's about it. I spent this morning doing research about how activity level and temperature affect the body's need for water, and I've got some relatively simple equations to help model it.

Why two at once you may ask? Well, the game jam for the light game started last week and continues until August 9th, while the survival game jam started today and continues until August 3rd.

Sunday, July 16, 2017

Far Cry Primal Analysis

Far Cry Primal Analysis

Far Cry Primal Analysis

David Hunter

July 17, 2017

1 Overview

Far Cry Primal was developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft in March, 2016. It is the fifth major release in the Far Cry series, and the fourth to be developed by Ubisoft. Like its predecessors, it is a first-person open-world action game with a heavy emphasis on dynamic events and sandbox gameplay. The main difference comes from the setting: whereas from Far Cry through Far Cry 4, the action is set in roughly modern times, Far Cry Primal is set in 10,000 B.C. Where the previous games feature a large number of ranged and melee weapons, plus many different types of vehicles (including cars, trucks, boats, and hang gliders), in Far Cry Primal the player is limited to two kinds of clubs, three kinds of bows, an upgradable spear, assorted traps and bombs, and a dozen animal companions with various abilities.

2 Formal Elements

2.1 Players

The player takes control of a caveman called Takkar in Far Cry Primal. He belongs to a tribe called the Wenja who inhabit a fictional region in central Europe. They have been hunted and scattered by another tribe call the Udam, in particular their leader Ull. After meeting a survivor of these raids, Takkar begins a quest to give his people a future. This is a strictly single-player experience, and it is played 100% from the first-person perspective. Like the other games in the franchise since Far Cry 3, Takkar has various skills which unlock after receiving enough skill points.

2.2 Objectives

The main objective is to remove the threats that face the Wenja. These are primarily the Udam and Izila tribes, but to meet them Takkar must gather Wenja with skills to assist him. Accomplishing this usually means finding them, performing quests to get them to join one’s village, then gathering materials and performing more quests to upgrade their hut and advance their story line.

2.3 Rules

2.3.1 Combat and Hunting
The player will spend a large portion of time in combat or hunting animals. In either case, the enemies or animals will remain unaware of the player as long as they stay out of their perceptual range. This is influenced by the time of day, the player’s animal companion, and the type of enemy/animal. Depending on the player’s current skills and the type of enemy/animal, the player may be able to perform a takedown (a stealthy one-hit kill) if the player can get close enough.
Otherwise, the combat follows a typical melee combat scenario for FPS games: the player can see what weapon they are holding in their hands, and when the player attacks an animation plays showing Takkar swing or throw his weapon. Depending on the weapon and the enemy, a certain amount of damage will be done. Once defeated, the body can be searched for item or materials, which is especially important in the case of animals, as skins are critical components for upgrading weapons and buildings in your village.
Certain animals may be tamed upon learning the Beast Master skills. These provide different benefits, such as attacking enemies stealthily, marking nearby animals on the HUD, or being ride-able.
2.3.2 Navigation
The player incongruously has a minimap on their HUD, but this can be disabled for a more realistic experience. The world map has the clutter that is typical for Ubisoft games: icons for outposts, icons for plants, icons for animals, icons for quests, icons for collectible x, collectible y, and collectible z, etc. Moving around the world is mostly accomplished on foot, through fast travel to a bonfire the player controls, or by using one of the ride-able beasts. The player may also swim and can use a grappling hook or vines to climb, but the climbing sections are hand-placed and not procedurally generated as in Assassin’s Creed or Dying Light.
2.3.3 Leveling
The leveling system forces the player to accumulate 2000 XP (2500 for higher levels) for actions such as killing an enemy, completing a quest, killing an animal, or discovering a location. This XP is converted into one skill point, which is used to unlock a skill. The basic skills all cost one skill point, but later ones require 2, 3, 4, 5, or sometimes 6 skill points (the requirement generally increases the deeper one goes in the skill tree) in order to unlock.
2.3.4 Equipment and Inventory
As is par for the course on Ubisoft games by now, there is no inventory screen as such. Weapons are unlocked through story progress and optional quests.
  1. Spear: In between the clubs in terms of damage and speed
  2. One-handed Club: Quick but with less damage
  3. Two-handed Club: Heavy and slow but does lots of damage
  4. Bow: Fires quickly but without much damage
  5. Long Bow: Most powerful bow in game with best range
  6. Double Bow: Fires two arrows at once
  7. Meat: Used to lure animals for taming or so the player may escape
  8. Bombs: Come in different varieties, the number is determined by the bomb belt level.
  9. Grappling hook: Used to climb shear cliffs

2.4 Procedures

There are several procedures that the player will engage in during play.
  1. Liberate outpost: This unlocks a new fast travel location. There are many different levels of difficulty and several different varieties of outpost. Some are inside caves, others on cliffs, others still on islands, etc. The number and level of enemies is also different for each. Early in the game, the player receives an owl, which they may use to scout the terrain, marking enemies, and even eliminating some of them. Later, the owl may be upgraded to drop bombs on the enemies.
  2. Hunt animal: Animals provide many materials that Takkar can use, both for upgrading weapons and for upgrading huts in the village. Certain animals are also
  3. Gather plant/wood/rock: Plants, wood, and rock varieties function similarly to animals parts
  4. Complete dynamic event: The world of Far Cry Primal is teeming with dynamically generated events. These could involve rescuing a captive Wenja, killing a group of invading Udam, protecting a group of Wenja from assault, etc. If successfully completely, they usually result in an increase in your village’s population, allows more resources to be collected automatically each day.
  5. Complete quest: These are similar to quests in other games.

2.5 Resources

2.5.1 Abstract
  • Health: Health measures how much damage the player can take.
  • Stamina: This is not explicitly represented to the player in any way. You may only run or swim quickly until your stamina runs out.
  • Breathe: The player may swim underwater for as long as their breathe lasts. This is only indicated by a gasping sound when you are about to run out.
  • XP: XP is awarded for completing quests, killing enemies and animals, and discovering locations.
  • Skills: These include increases in running speed, reduced noise when moving stealthily, unlocking new beasts to tame, etc.
2.5.2 Physical
  • Weapons: The player can carry a limited number of each weapon type. All of them can be set on fire and thrown, with the exception of the bow and arrow, which is automatically ranged.
  • Beasts: The player can tame 17 different beasts. Once tamed, they can be called at will from a menu. If they die for any reason, they can be brought back using Red Leaf plants.
  • Meat: Used for luring animals and for making healing items.
  • Rocks: Used for making weapons and upgrading huts.
  • Woods: Used for making weapons and upgrading huts.
  • Plants: Used for making healing items
  • Skins: Used for making weapons and upgrading huts.
The amount of meat, rocks, etc that the player can carry is determined by the various bags and pouches, and how the player has upgraded them.

2.6 Conflicts

The player experience man versus man and man versus nature in a very intense way in Far Cry Primal. The predators are usually quite aggressive, and even the larger herbivores will defend themselves if they feel threatened. The land teems with bands of hostile tribe members that will kill the player on sight.
The player does not experience much conflict of choice, however.

2.7 Boundaries

2.7.1 Map
The map is quite large, but the player is limited in the actions available in particular areas. For instance, not every cliff or ledge is scalable in every place: the player must pay attention to vine and grappling hook anchor placement.
2.7.2 NPCs
NPCs offer very limited interaction, and the player has little choice of interaction type or outcome.
2.7.3 Items
The player is limited in how much they can carry of various items.

2.8 Outcomes

There is only one outcome possible in Far Cry Primal: the player has killed all the Wenja’s enemies.

3 Dynamic Elements

Far Cry Primal is at its best when it is unpredictable. When you sneak your way through most of an enemy outpost, eliminating sentries as you go, only to stumble across two enemy villagers in a hut fucking. Or when you are hunting deer at night, and your wolf sees an enemy, kills it, and then pees on it. Or when you are completing a randomly generated rescue mission, and stumble upon a really rare lion species, then get ambushed by an Udam raiding party, and must dive head long into a river a hundred meters below you.

3.1 Patterns

This section focuses on game patterns as discussed by Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans in Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design.
3.1.1 Static Engine
The player is awarded XP at a relatively static rate throughout the game.
3.1.2 Dynamic Engine
If the player rescues enough Wenja, they will receive resources each day and an increase to the rate at which they receive XP, making increasing the number of villagers an investment.
3.1.3 Dynamic Friction
The higher skills require increasing numbers of skill points to unlock.
3.1.4 Slow Cycle
There is a dynamic day/night cycle, which affects gameplay in numerous ways. Predators appear in increased numbers and are much more aggressive at night, but it is easier to stay unnoticed by enemies and to take over outposts stealthily.
3.1.5 Playing Style Reinforcement
The leveling system also contains the playing style reinforcement pattern. If you rely on your beasts, you can invest in unlocking better beasts, causing you to rely on them even more.

4 Dramatic Elements

Like the previous games in the series, it features a strong story.

4.1 Characters

Far Cry Primal features an interesting cast. The first character you encounter after the tutorial opening section is Sayla, a Wenja woman who hears the screams of her slaughtered villagers unless she surrounds herself with the ears she cuts off of their murderers. Then there is Wogah, a one-armed tinkerer who pees on you and calls you ”Piss Man,” Karosh, the one-eyed fighter who headbutts his best friends, Tensay, the shaman who makes you drink increasingly bizarre blood potions to induce spirit visions, etc. The voice acting and animation is great, and the fact that a proto-Indo-European language is spoken by all characters really adds to the atmosphere. The only hitch is Urki, who speaks with a deliberately idiotic American accent.
Even the villains are interesting. The main one, Ull, even evokes sympathy at the end.

4.2 Story

The story revolves around Takkar’s quest to remove threats to his tribe. He needs to recruit a hunter, fighter, shaman, builder, and a warrior from each of the two tribes threatening the Wenja. Completing these allows Takkar to confront Ull at the end.

5 Conclusion

Far Cry Primal is different enough from the main series games to be interesting, but not different enough to make the player forget that enemy AI has been carried over from the main series, as have the mechanics of capturing outposts, exploring the map, gathering resources, and hunting animals. Of course, thematically, these mechanics fit the game wonderfully, and the addition of taming animals both fits the setting and is a great new mechanic. It is a shame that more could not be done with the companions, for example going hunting or raiding together.

5.1 Potent Elements

The beasts and the setting are the highlight. The world feels like a primeval, prehistoric wilderness, and the beasts are so much fun to ride, command, and pet.

5.2 Areas for Improvement

The carried over mechanics had already gotten stale in Far Cry 4, and more needed to be done to make this one different. The missed opportunities of the companions, or more management of one’s village, for example, could have changed the game and made it more dynamic.

Thursday, July 13, 2017

Jamerific!

hey all,

So for those who've followed my recent posts on Facebook it is probably clear already, but for those who have not: I'm focusing my energies on game jams. Why would I want to give away games you ask? My first project ever, Digestion, I am selling on itch.io for the low low price of $3 dollars. Since I posted it on May 25th, 2017, it has received exactly 18 views and 0 downloads. Just yesterday, my newest project, Student Clicker received 18 views. The project before that, Cat Control, has been up for about one week and has received 33 views. The project before that, Plant Conquest, has been up two weeks and has also received 33 views.

The message to me is clear: nobody wants to pay $3 for the first game of a rookie game designer/programmer. And should go without saying that no company wants to hire someone like that. So I'm finally doing what I should have done a long time ago: participate in game jams. I worked my ass off on Digestion, spent money on original music and art, and I've got nothing to show for it except the XP. Well, if the XP is what really matters, than let's skip the year's worth of work, and money shelled out for assets, and just make some fucking games.

I've signed up for two more game jams in July and the beginning of August, so expect two more games in the next two weeks.

In other events, in my free time I've been going through Far Cry Primal and Divinity: Dragon Commander. Far Cry Primal follows many of the same formulas that previous games in the series use: trade-offs between combat and stealth, the resource gathering and crafting mechanics, the capturing of outposts, etc. However, it also introduces tamable animals that confer different abilities and benefits that enrich gameplay. The player is tasked with recruiting villagers and special NPCs to join their cause.

Divinity: Dragon Commander is a wonderful and strange mish-mash of a game that combines elements of RPGs, RTSs, collectible card games, turn-based strategy games, and third-person action games. The main fun for me has come from the political questions your character is asked to take a stand on. For example, you will have to decide if marriage should be defined as being between a man and a woman, or if it should be open to any combination of genders. Or, you might have to decide if a certain herb with potential medicinal effects should be legalized or remain illegal. There are dozens of these about freedom of press, gender equality, trade versus the environment, taxing religions, equality of races, etc. Very interesting stuff.


Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Cats Cats Cats

hey all,

I've joined yet another game jam: this one has a minimalist theme, which means no fancy graphics, no crazy sound effects, no complicated controls, etc. Everything must be bare bones. While struggling to come up with an idea, my wife suggested this outlandish idea for a game: you have a bowl of fish and lots of cats come and try to eat them. You need to smack the cats that are not yours, but allow your cat to come through. If your cat can come and get enough fish to be happy, you win. That's it. So, I added a few things, but overall I've kept those basic mechanics.

I hope to have it finished over the weekend, and I hope to make this my first web browser game, but I've had trouble getting that to work in the past. In any case, yet another game jam submission. Yay!