[Game Review] Super Mario in the 80's

[Review] Super Mario in the 80's

Have you ever talked about the most classic games in 80's and forgotten to mention Super Mario Bros.? I think everyone will say the same " never ever." do you wonder why Super Mario Bros. has become so popular and important to the gaming history? Let see.

Interactivity:
Super Mario Bros. is a classic flatform game, where player uses only 5 keys to do all the control over the character. (go left, go right, go down, jump and fire). Player's job is to guide Mario to avoid or kill the monsters on the way, jump over obstacles, as well as eat power up mushroom, fire flower and invincible star. The game is divide into many scenes with diferent maps and also different monster. It makes the game addicted over time.

Genre:
As it was mentioned before, Super Mario Bros. is belonged to flatform genre, which is classified by the most common move in the game, that is "jump". It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps. This genre can also be divided into two sub-class: sidescrollers and three-dimensional platformers; and Super Mario Bros. is belonged to the former type, where Mario can only move either to the left or to the right.

Concept:
Super Mario Bros.


Goals
The goal of the game is to defeat the boss of the game - xxx to recuse the princess and bring her back to the king.

Challenges
The most challenging elements of the game is monsters design. Since the game is a flatform game, the player has to jump on the top most of the monsters to kill them. This makes the game has its own specific challenge. The monsters are designed to move differently, from horizontal moving, verticle moving to unpredicted-direction moving. The game is also designed as the difficult level increasing over game stage. Therefore, it helps the player slowly adapting to the level of difficulty of the monsters.

Summary:

[Game Review] Space Invader

Space Invader

Came out as one of the hit arcade games in the 70's initially in Japan, Space Invader has earned its glory with a gross profit of US$2 billion worldwide by 1982.
(The game-play is similar to Zaxxon by Coleco in previous review but having more instinct feature)

1. Interactivity
The player has to control a spaceship honrizontally (left and right key) - up down left right compare to Zaxxon, making it easier to look- to advoid the bullet fired from invaders and fire invaders (space or up key).
The player is provided 3 life, which is reduced when hit by bullet fired by invaders or hit the the invaders.
When all the invaders are eliminated, the scene will start again will the number of invaders  on scene set to default.
The game is finished when player's life is reduced to 0. Instead exploring only one shot of Zaxxon, It makes less punishment than Zaxxon's.

2.Concept
The game is design base on the story of a spaceship protecting its planet from the invaders coming from the universe.

3. Goal
Space invaders makes the players urging to achieve a better score (caculated by the number of  invaders killed) to beat the highscore of the game.

4. Challenge
Avoiding attacks coming from the enemies is the most challanging features of space invaders. At first, since the number of invaders on scene is many, avoiding the bullet coming from them is not a easy job at all. However, the game is not getting easier in the late-game when most of the enimies have been eliminated. At the stage, the invaders are getting closer to the player, therefore, the reaction time allowed responses to the attack is decreasing over time and making it harder to advoid the bullets as well as the invaders.

5.Story
Tomohiro Nishikado - Space Invaders designer - drew inspiration for this making masterpiece from  Breakout, The War of the Worlds, and Star Wars. This gives the fact that in the 70's, the theme of space was quite a hit at that time.

In conclusion, Space Invaders is one of the typical classic original pieces in the game development history. One of the most important things that lead to its success is it's story. As the people in that time got infected to the speard of space related products. Space Invader came out as something that can let the players experience the act of controlling spaceship and protecting the earth as what they knew through the books and movies. With this, Space Invader became one of the top arcade games in the 70's.

Sumary

Playlink: Link

Reference: http://www.spaceinvaders.de/

[Game Concept] Race to the end

The game is design based on turn-taking dice rolling concept, where players roll the dice turn-by-turn and move their avatars with the number of step gotten by the dice.

(clicked to view full size)

Introduction:

This game's concept is aspired by the life of people in America, who a lot may start their life difficulty with a low economic situation. They are then trying hard to improve their life by setting a high goal then put all afford to achieve it. 

In this game, the players will start with a basic vehicle - a bicycle, then each round they finish, their vehicle will upgrade to motorbike and then car. The goal of the game is to reach Las Vegas while driving a car to prove their society level.  On their way,   the players may get some obstacles as well as help base on the luckiness of them.

Game's Rules and Elements:

The player:

- can only roll one dice while driving bicycle and motorbike.

- has to roll to two dices while driving car.

- has to pass Las Vegas and continue another round while driving bicycle and motorbike without any benefit.

-  has to pass Las Vegas and continue another round while driving car if the sum of 2 dices is bigger than the number of steps to reach perfectly on Las Vegas.

- only can be announced as the winner if he/she driving a car and reaching Las Vegas perfectly with the  sum of 2 dices' numbers.

Elements:

-Start Position : Place where the game starts.

- Check Point: The player has to move back 1 cell.

-Check Point 2: The player has to move back 3 cells.

-Gas Station: The player can move forward 1 cell.

-Parking Lot: The player has to stop 1 round.

-Highway: The player can roll the dice 1 more time.

-Las Vegas: place where the game ends.

Experiences:

Although the first stereotype impression of this kind of  board-game is that it should be very easy to make. However, it is not that just piece of cake.

After finishing the rough draft of the game, the game test produces some errors. For instance, the elements were put as such when the player reach a  stop that has to move back 3 cells, the cell that he/she moves back to also is a element that requires moving back again. 

Also, it is not easy to think out the elements of the game based on the set theme.

Future development:

If this game was made into digital game, what will it be?

At first, all will be converted into auto mode, such as moving your vehicle back or forward, as well as rolling the dice.

The elements may design to animated ones and also moving background or something similar.

And also, more element should be added in order to increase the game's attractiveness.

[Game Review] Silent Hill Orgins

Silent Hill: Origins

Introduction:

Silent Hill: Origins is one of the famous games of survival video game series developed by Climax Studios and published by Konami Digital Entertainment in November 2007. Silent Hill series have been developed in many video games’ flat-form (PC, Xbox, PS2, PSP, etc). Origins is a prequel to the first game with enhancing graphic and GUI. Set in the series' eponymous fictitious American town, Origins follows trucker Travis Grady as he searches for information about a girl whom he rescued from a fire. Along the way, he unlocks his repressed childhood memories.

Gameplay and game’s emotional:

The objective of Silent Hill: Origins is to guide player character Travis Grady, as he searches the monster-filled town of Silent Hill for information about a girl he rescues from a burning house. As same as other horror games, the main object of the game is the frighten feeling. Monsters can suddenly appear and attack the main character in the stuffy room or on dim road. Gamer have to decide fighting (with their collected weapon such as guns, hammer, metal bar, etc.), running away or death. However, the sub-formula objects also make the game much more interesting.

Firstly, each stage the game will unveil the mystery memory of Travis. Each memory contains surprised or mystory of his childhood. Therefore, it causes the curiosity for gamer.

Secondly, each stage contains several of puzzle-solving from simple to difficult. Completing each challenge will cause gamers the excitement.

Thirdly, when the last memory is found, the sadness memory is unveiled. When Travis family came to this town, the murder of Travis’s mother is actually his father. He was witness that moment and did not believe that fact. It leads his memory lost.

Summary

[Game Review] ZAXXON by Coleco

Game Info Link