game invaders

Game Invaders
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Game Invaders
The Theory and Understanding
of Computer Games
Clive Fencott
Mike Lockyer
Jo Clay
Paul Massey
A John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Publication
A Wiley-IEEE Computer Society Publication
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Copyright © 2012 by IEEE. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Game invaders : the theory and understanding of computer games / Clive Fencott [et al.].
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-470-59718-7 (pbk.)
1. Computer games. 2. Computer games–Design. 3. Video games 4. Video games–Design.
I. Fencott, P. C.
GV1469.3.G365 2012
794.8–dc23
2012002566
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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v
Contents
Preface ix
Abbreviations xi
Part I Why Do People Play Games?
1. You Are the One
3
Tools to Think With 5
Getting Started 8
Summary 12
2. Genre 13
What Are Genres? 14
What Are Genres For? 16

Genre Maps 18
Computer Game Genres 19
A Theory of Computer Game Genres 21
Summary 25
Further Reading and Tasks 26
3. Activity 29
The Story of Activity Groups 29
An Overview of Activity Profi les 33
Three Driving Games 35
Calculating Genres 38
Summary 43
Tasks 44
4. Pleasure 45
Aesthetics and Computer Games 47
Spacewar 51
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vi Contents
Zork 52
Pac-Man 56
Comparative Aesthetics 57
Summary 59
Tasks 60
5. Two Rail-Shooters 61
Star Fox and Rez 61
Activity Profi ling and Genre Theory 63
Applying Aesthetic Theory 65
The Method of Game Analysis 67
Tetsuya Mizuguchi, Rez, and Beyond 67
Summary 69
Further Reading and Tasks 70

6. Why Don’t People Play Games 71
What Do We Mean by Games? 72
Resident Evil 73
Why Not Ask the Players? 75
Emotional Models of Play 76
Player Types 79
Demographic Research 81
Why Don’t People Play Games? 82
Conclusions 83
Part II What Is a Game?
7. Just an Ordinary Day 87
The Glass Vial 89
Unrealisms 90
Perceptual Opportunities 91
Sureties 92
Surprises 93
Attractors 93
Connectors 95
Rewards 97
Getting It All Together in SinCity 99
Perceptual Mapping in SinCity 100
AS-OceanFloor 103
Summary 108
Further Reading and Tasks 109
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Contents vii
8. Big Bad Streets 111
Driver School 111
Sureties 113
Surprises 114

Driver and SinCity Comparisons 119
Summary 122
Further Reading and Tasks 123
9. Time to Visit Yokosuka 125
Shenmue 125
Genre and Activity Profi le 126
Aesthetics 128
Shenmue POs 129
PSAS and Cut Scenes 131
Interactive Storytelling? 133
And On With General Aesthetics 134
Summary 135
Further Reading and Tasks 137
10. Meaning What? 139
Semiotics and Signs 140
Pac-Man’s Signs 143
Icons, Indexes, and Symbols 144
Denotation, Connotation, and Myth 146
Syntagms and Paradigms 148
Codes 151
Making Up Pac-Man 154
Filling Gaps 155
Summary 159
Further Reading and Tasks 161
11. All Work and Play 163
The Work of Meaning 164
Signs of Interaction 167
The Mechanics of Interaction 170
The Inside-Out Code 176
Where Is the Player? 178

Summary 180
Further Reading and Tasks 181
12. Big Game Hunting 183
Semiosphere 183
The Code of Interaction 185
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viii Contents
The Myth of Interaction 189
What Is a Game? 191
How Do You Get Out of Here? 192
Big Game Hunting 194
Glossary 197
List of Games 203
Bibliography 205
Index 207
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ix
Preface
Game Invaders and Game Invaders Live (GIL) have interesting histories, and it is
worth a few words to outline them, as they do to some extent explain why both are
as they are.
Degrees in games — video games, as they used to be called — have been around
for about 15 years at the University of Teesside and a few others. When they began
there was very little theoretical and/or analytical material with which to establish
game courses at an appropriate academic level. In the mid - 1990s Clive went in
search of suitable theory, found some, found he had to invent some, and began to
put this together in his teaching: a fi nal year undergraduate course called Game
Futures. The idea was that students thought about the future of games rather than
Clive telling them what that future would be. This was just as well, as Clive didn ’ t
know the future of games and would have wanted a lot more money to tell anyone

who wanted to know if he did. The history of what would become this book and
GIL had begun.
Games people wrote about how to develop games, how to design them, and
what the industry expected, and gradually the academic community got its act
together and suitable theory and analytics began to appear.
In 2003 Clive started writing a book based on what is now much of the book
you now have in your hands. And a publisher got interested and all was going well
until the publisher, or rather the editor Clive was talking to, stopped talking. The
idea of a book was put on hold because at about that time, Teesside University put
out a call for staff who were interested in developing their entrepreneurial sides.
Clive was fed up being messed around by the publishing world and decided that
there might be a business opportunity in selling analysis data on games to game
developers and the like. The university and a regional “ Proof of Concept ” fund
agreed with him, and in 2004 a company called Strange Agency was set up. Jo Clay
was its fi rst, and for a while only, employee while Clive continued with the day job
and the company, which was also a day job. Mike and Paul got involved as software
and database experts respectively and along with Clive, Jo, the university, and the
Proof of Concept Fund became shareholders and board members.
The idea was that the analysis data should be automatically generated and made
available through a software system that accessed data from the company ’ s web
server. The desktop software worked well and data on thousands of games were
collected and made available. People in the games industry were quite interested
and the team demonstrated at trade shows such as E3 and tried to drum up business.
But sales were hard, very hard, to come by and eventually after many trials and
tribulations Strange Agency was wound up in 2009.
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x Preface
Rather than let it all go to the wall, Clive, Mike, Jo, and Paul decided to return
to the original idea of publishing a book. Mike completely rewrote the software so
it ran wholly on the web as a Silverlight application, and the book was rewritten to

incorporate all that they had learned about games analysis. GIL meant that students
and teachers could undertake their own analyses to support the theory and examples
in the book. The current book, web app, and website, a truly multi - media publica-
tion, came into being.
So this book and GIL are the products of people who have worked and researched
in the games industry and taught and researched in academia. This is a truly informed
offering and we hope you fi nd it useful.
Clive Fencott
Mike Lockyer
Jo Clay
Paul Massey
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xi
Abbreviations
AG – Activity Group
CBS – Computer Based Signs
DM Level – Death Match level
DPC – Driving/Piloting/Crewing , in GIL mapping of known genres
DS – Ninitento handheld game console
FADT – Formal Abstract Design Tools
FPS – First Person Shooter, game genre
GI – Game Invaders
GIL – Game Invaders Live
GIS – Generalized Interaction Sequence
HUD – Heads up Display
IGN – Games review web site
IS – Interaction Sequence
MMORPG – Massively Multi - player Online Role Playing Game
MOO – MUD Object Oriented, see MUD
MUD – Multi - user Dungeons and Dragons

NPC – Non Playable Character
PDP - 1 – very early mini - computer from the 1960s: huge by today ’ s standards
POs – Perceptual opportunities
PRS – Pre - rendered sequences
PSAS – Pre - scripted action sequences
QTE – Quick Timer Events as in Shenmue and
RPG – Role - playing game
RTS – Real time strategy game
SNES – Super Nintendo Entertainment System
VE – Virtual Environment
VR – Virtual Reality
Wii – Ninendo game console with motions tracking etc.
Xbox – Microsoft game console
XML – Extensible Markup Language
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Figure 3.1 Activity profi les for Final Fantasy X and Sacred.
Game Invaders: The Theory and Understanding of Computer Games, First Edition. Clive Fencott,
Mike Lockyer, Jo Clay, and Paul Massey.
© 2012 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Published 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
www.it-ebooks.info
Figure 3.2 Activity profi les for three racing games.
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Figure 5.1 Activity profi les for Star Fox Assault and Rez.
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Figure 6.1 Activity profi le and twitch factor for Resident Evil.
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game
fiero
goal
amuse

life
relax
Serious
Fun
People
Fun
open
ended
px
player
experience
Easy
Fun
Hard
Fun
Curiosity
Figure 6.2 Emotional models of play. (Courtesy of XEODesign, />whyweplaygames.html.)
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Figure 7.2 First SinCity screen shot.
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Figure 7.3 Second SinCity screen shot.
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Figure 7.4 Third SinCity screen shot.
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Figure 7.5 Fifth SinCity screen shot.
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Figure 7.7 Entry room on arrival.
Figure 7.8 Entry room after moving forward.
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Figure 9.1 Activity profi le for Shenmue on the Dreamcast.

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sign
signified
signifier
Figure 10.1 Characterization of the sign. (Courtesy of Daniel Chandler, Aberystwyth University.)
Figure 10.2 Two signs for “tree.”
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Figure 10.3 A photograph of a tree.
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sense
SIGN
sign vehicle referent
AC
B
Figure 10.4 Peirce’s characterization of the sign. (Courtesy of Daniel Chandler, Aberystwyth
University.)
Layout
Gameplay
Signs of
Intervention
Interactive
Actor
Controller/
Ghost
Object
Side Effects
LimitsConsequences
Figure 11.1 Relationships between computer-based signs.
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