One of the first games I played on a computer was Uncharted Waters 2: New Horizons.
As a quick introduction, the game starts after you select a character, who will have an affiliation to a naval nation - Portugal, England, Turkey, etc.
The main goal is to complete the character's story by completing story quests, that are typically advanced by gaining fame as an adventurer, pirate, or trader.
All characters are capable of being any of these "professions", though their main stories favour a particular type, and, consequently, each character will have skills and abilities that lean toward that type.
Nevertheless, you are free to buck the trend and fulfil your desire to become Captain Jack Sparrow or Hector Barbossa (you can even target other pirates), become a virtual millionaire by trading exotic goods (or run tried-and-tested local trade routes), even sate your wanderlust by exploring unknown parts of the world.
The maps were fairly accurate and remembering important ports' locations and information (like what goods were sold there and where the market was) helped kickstart my education on Geography.
I particularly enjoyed the free-play aspect of the game and still play it from time to time. As it was a DOS game, I've had to use an emulator - DOSBox - to play it on a modern PC.
If you've played this game before, or any like it, let me know!
Your Personality Based on Your Gaming Behaviours
How you play a game predicts how you handle real life.
Resources, exploration, formulating a plan, meeting objectives, identifying goals / milestones, keeping score, etc.
They have their parallels in real life and it's difficult to override your tendencies to do things a certain way.
For example, if you tend to think before you leap, you are less likely to do YOLO things in-game.
If you are an explorer type, you are more likely to go off the beaten path and look for side quests and interesting locations in a game.
If you like to keep updated and current when it comes to consumer goods and electronics, you are more likely to spend your in-game currency as soon as you get enough to acquire that shiny new weapon / armor.
This isn't to say that watching you play a game will allow me to have a complete picture of who you are.
Because context, companions, and frame of mind have to be taken into consideration as well.
But it can give a rough idea of your likes, dislikes, and tendencies. And that's always useful if we have to face off or interact in the virtual world.
Game Design and Making is Much More Than the End Product
I'm currently delving into a series of videos on game design and making.
Not because I intend to join the game-making community (though I'll never rule this out), but because I've been an avid gamer all my life, and I'm always interested in finding new angles and ways to make my lessons more interesting.
To get this out of the way, I think that the word "gamification" has become a grotesquely-overused buzzword that has lost its soul.
And, based on what I've witnessed so far, a lot of "game design" workshops run in local schools are just programming workshops with a gaming front cover.
The principles of making a game interesting, engaging, and fun seem secondary to producing some sort of rudimentary templated game on some standard platform.
Of course, one could argue that the time allocated is too short to produce a fully-fledged game, but then, why are there never board games, card games, or even sport-based games produced by the students in these workshops?
As huge an industry as video and mobile games is, not every game has to be digital.
I have no issue with teaching students programming and platform use, but if that's the goal of the programme, call a spade a spade and say that it's a programming workshop.
Game design and making is much more than just that.
Pokémon Go(es) To Singapore - The Mind Of A Hunter
With Pokémon Go going strong in Singapore, especially with it being launched on the weekend before National Day (a public holiday), Pokéhunters have been plying the streets in search of their favourite digital creatures.
So what exactly makes it so attention-absorbing? Why do people walk with phones in their faces (more than they normally do)?
I decided to find out by becoming a Pokéhunter myself and I can tell you straight up that it was an interesting experience. As mentioned in my previous post, I was never interested, much less a fan of the Pokémon series. No offense to the fans, it's just that I didn't see the appeal.
Pokémon Go, however, isn't entirely branded as a typical Pokémon game. The melding of real-world locations, augmented reality (though I never turned the camera on) and a well-thought-out and well-executed delivery made it a pioneer in what will likely soon become a new branch of gaming.
When I played the game, I found myself constantly wondering about two questions:
1) What Pokémon will I encounter next?
2) Where do I get those elusive Pokémon that I don't have yet?
From the first question came a series of other related thoughts:
1a) Let's keep the game open (with the screen blacked out using the Battery Saver option) so I can be alerted of the next spawn in the area.
1b) Oh! I'm near a Pokéstop. Let's go get some free stuff. (This is when navigating towards the stop requires me to constantly look at the screen, unless I am familiar with the area. It's also necessary on a bus or in a car, which can pass stops before stuff can be collected. Also, this thought becomes more urgent when I run low on Pokéballs. I've never run out, though. Yet.)
1c) There's a lure! Need to get there before it runs out. (This is essentially a combination of 1a and 1b)
From these thoughts, it isn't difficult to see why players of the game glue their eyes to their screens. Thought 1a is particularly absorbing because the capture of a Pokémon, particularly one that you've never caught before, gives the hunter a feeling of great satisfaction (especially if it's rare).
The reward is both intrinsic (satisfaction at a skilled throw of a Pokéball, getting the catch in one try, or finding a rare Pokémon) and extrinsic (a new Pokémon, along with resources for future upgrades). The best part is, there are still many more to catch, so the rewards are available for the foreseeable future, spurring the player on.
Related to the second question are these thoughts:
2a) Let me ask my friends, fellow hunters where they got their rare catches. Or, I could look it up on the internet.
2b) Let's join a hunt with others to get them. If we scan a larger area, we may find it more easily. (The GPS can place two people who are walking side by side in real life a little further apart on the map than they really are. This allows the scanning of more area at a time.)
These seem to encourage a more social way of playing the game. You hope that you can get answers from someone, and that others are having difficulty finding the elusive ones as well, so you will all be in the same boat, so to speak.
To get the elusive Pokémon, my thoughts eventually return to question 1 once I figure out where I might be able to find the missing ones from my Pokédex - an index of all the Pokémon that can be caught in the game.
All in all, the game is sufficiently rewarding to keep playing, not too difficult, so there is a low barrier of entry, and there is a real-life social aspect as opposed to the cyber-social interactions of most other games today.
The creators have brought something fresh and new to the market and consumers, hungry for something other than the 'same old thing, just in different packaging' are clambering all over it. This is something very different, something exciting, something that will spark new industries and products in the near future. As Seth Godin would say, this is a Purple Cow.
Whether you like the game or not, you can be sure that this will have a large impact on many aspects of everyday life. Too early to say? No, it has already begun.
This may be my favourite-looking one. I mean, a unicorn with flames? Come on. How much more mythical can it get?