The RCS task has been quite interesting. A good number of topics have been covered, and both the important parts and the fun ones shared a good amount of focus. The freedom to pick questions (Especially the “pick an A Question and a B Question”) allowed me to explore topics that I was interested in, rather than just researching a topic I had no care for.

The lectures themselves were quite entertaining. The mix of formal presenting and informal conversation allowed us to both learn about the topic and explore other’s ideas on the subject, which complemented the blog section of the module as it allowed us to start with some predetermined ideas and areas to look into. The assortment of staff giving these lectures kept them feeling new, and held our interest for the module itself across its time. Being provided with the names of scholars, artists, and pioneers of each subject through the lectures and informal conversations provided great research capabilities straight off, a good foundation when mixed with the ideas other members of the class provided.

The use of blogs as a submission form, specifically in a module that sometimes ask for opinions, is quite a good idea. The wordpress page allows us to view the works of our class mates, not only learning more about them (useful early on in the year) but also giving us yet more to work with when it comes forming our own opinions and locating research material. The access to blogs from other courses also gives us a chance to broaden our horizons and learn more about other artistic industries.

All in all, whilst it would of been useful to learn about Harvard Referencing earlier in the module, I have no qualms and can only praise the module.

A) What do you see as the positives and negatives around copyright?

One of the biggest bonuses about Copyright is that it’s applied automatically. This is great for fledgling content creators as they don’t have to worry about paperwork or costs of protecting their work, they can just produce items and move onto the next. However, changes to copyright laws are proposed every now and then that can be counterproductive to these new creators (http://www.mi-pro.co.uk/news/read/music-creators-urged-to-sign-petition-for-fairer-copyright-legislation/022448, an example). What this shows us is that, clearly the current copyright laws are either dated for the modern world or just in need of change due to new realizations or events that have occurred recently.

Another negative of Copyright law is how it falls under Civil Law rather than Criminal Law. This incites people to make infringement claims as they will have the upper-hand from the get go (http://www.techtimes.com/articles/35298/20150225/apple-to-pay-532-9-million-in-patent-infringement-case-smartflash-leaves-court-smiling.htm, for example). This is a highly debatable point however, as if it were moved to Criminal Law the tables would turn and people would attempt to infringe on copyrights as they would be Innocent until proven Guilty in court.

However, the addition of Creative Commons is a great bonus for Copyright Laws. The ability to allow people to know what they can and can’t do with a product through the use of (up to) 3 little symbols. This means that people who create content from copyrighted products outside of the Fair Use and Parody Laws can still produce their content but are no longer required to communicate with the owner over what they can and can’t do.

B) Is it possible to make anything new?

Making something “New” is simply a matter of subjective opinion. Whether we realize it or not, everything in existence affects us in some way, from colors and shapes to more complex items like body language and context. When I’ve created applications in the past, the HCI elements of the application were decided based on how I knew it would affect the user, which I found out from my teachers, who found out from books and research and so on. However, that doesn’t mean that I follow the rules of HCI detailed in those books. Rather, my teachers may of mis-remembered something or ignored another from the book, and I in turn may of done the same when they were teaching me. The result is something similar to the rules outlined in the books, but not identical.

And it is this that I mean when I say that “New” is down to subjective opinion, in that how different an item must be to be considered “New” is decided by each person individually, hence why things like copyright can be difficult to defend and why avoiding infringement can be a nightmare. Everything is based on at least one other thing that came before, and we build upon it with our own ideas and quirks. However, is something new if it’s made from old parts?

“The ship wherein Theseus… had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians… for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question as to things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending it was not the same.”

(Plutarch 1880, 7-8)

References

Musical Instrument Professional, published on 12/06/17, “Music creators urged to sign petition for fairer copyright legislation”, http://www.mi-pro.co.uk/news/read/music-creators-urged-to-sign-petition-for-fairer-copyright-legislation/022448, accessed on 30/11/17

Tech Times, published on 25/02/15, “Apple to pay $532.9 million in patent infringement case: smartflash leaves court smiling”,http://www.techtimes.com/articles/35298/20150225/apple-to-pay-532-9-million-in-patent-infringement-case-smartflash-leaves-court-smiling.htm, accessed on 30/11/17

Curve Finder, published on 13/10/16, “Originality doesn’t exist, only influence and iteration/, http://curvefinder.com/creativity/originality-doesnt-exist-influence-iteration/, accessed on 30/11/17

The Metapysicist, “The Ship of Theseus”, http://metaphysicist.com/puzzles/ship_theseus/, accessed on 30/11/17

A (3)

Behavioral modelling is an important part of NPC development for games. Should emotive modelling be part of that development?

That depends on the Game genre in question. For more gameplay-based genres such as FPS and RTS, most players wouldn’t notice an emotive response from an NPC and most of those NPCs would be “killed” too quickly for there to be any point to them reacting emotively. Whilst an RTS may still benefit from an NPC emulating emotions (e.g. launching an all out assault due to frustration), it isn’t as important as other parts of the AI’s programming and so should be modeled albeit not implemented unless the project has spare time.

However, genres that are more story-based like RPGs and “Narrative Games” (A term for “Walking simulators” posited by Kill Screen), NPCs having emotional response only serves to draw the player in further and so increase the quality of their time spent with the game. It does so as the Player will spend a lot more time with NPCs (They may still “kill” a few but are more than likely to be accompanied by at least a single companion), so the player would have time to appreciate the effect the emotive response may have upon gameplay. As these genres are also typically slower paced, the player also has an increased chance of actually noticing the effect as well.

In conclusion, it depends on the Game’s genre and focus, but it would always be a nice touch.

B (1)

A lot of people are scared by the prospective of AI. What do you think would be the ramifications of us achieving true “strong” AI?

I believe that a “True Strong AI” is only as good as it’s coders. I mean this in two ways: What the AI is given the capability to do; and Human Error.

As was stated in the lecture, what is and isn’t AI is down to intent. This intent also decides what we allow the AI to control. By limiting what the “Strong” AI can interact with and what it can do (via code), we are robbing it of both free will and potentially beneficial learning environments, which is ethically wrong. But by allowing to interact with anything and do what ever it wants, we are creating a Health and Safety hazard for both us and AI, especially a newly created one that is still attempting to learn.

Human Error just emboldens this. When we, as game developers, miss a semi-colon or misplace a decimal point, things go slightly out of wack but we can fix it. What if we made an error to an AI’s permissions? Whilst it could be completely harmless, it could also stir up trouble. Microsoft’s “Tay” AI was allowed on twitter for a day, and that (quite famously) went awry. If an AI was accidentally granted access to the internet, that may be a wealth of knowledge but we have no clue what all that data could do to a “Strong AI”. Whilst the issue could probably be sorted by resetting the AI, if the AI is truly a “Strong” AI, there are Moral implications with such an act.

However, this is not to say that I’m against the existence of “Strong” AI in the future, but I believed that it should be developed much like a Human Child is, in Supervised Learning where we can make sure they’re on the right track and developing a good moral compass (themselves, not encoded) with programmes and the such in place to get them back on track (much like enrichment courses), alongside being tested every now and then to see if their learning is progressing nicely, They should also be subject to the Social Contract and UN Rights upon creation, much as we humans are. This would cause their “Upbringing” to be very similar to that of humans and therefore (theoretically) increase how similar the AI acts and thinks compared to us Humans.

References

Kill Screen, Is it time to stop using the term “Walking Simulator”, killscreen.com/articles/time-stop-using-term-walking-simulator/, 09/11/17

Tech Crunch, Microsoft silences its new A.I. bot Tay, after Twitter users teach it racism [Updated], techcrunch.com/2016/03/24/microsoft-silences-its-new-a-i-bot-tay-after-twitter-users-teach-it-racism/, 09/11/17

A(3)

Monomi Park logo (Credit: http://www.monomipark.com/)

Monomi Park are a 5 man Indie team, their only game being Slime Rancher. Whilst I have only played 1.0.0 onwards, I know a bit about previous versions thanks to the games wikia (http://slimerancher.wikia.com/wiki/Slime_Rancher_Wikia). I love how they developed the game from a simple and happy farming game (The game’s twist being you use a super-powered high tech vacuum cleaner for the farming), into a game with beautifully told story that slowly develops as you adventure through the “Far, Far Range” (Which appears to be the name of the planet upon which the game is set). The story is tale of how the farm’s previous owner had to choose between his love of exploring the unknown or his love for a fellow Slime Rancher. Whilst your character discovers this story by exploring parts of the Range, she receives regular “Star mails” (E-mails) from a friend back on earth, and it slowly becomes obvious that they were very close and maybe even in love.

This heart-felt story combined with the happy demeanor of the slimes, creates a relaxing atmosphere to play in.

A Slime Rancher wallpaper (Credit: http://www.slimerancher.com/)

Looking at the Games Versions, it seems to me that they focus on providing gameplay improvements for players (New areas, game balancing and optimization), then polish up these improvements with story and character afterwards. I like this “Game first” approach as the story takes so so long to unveil that the gameplay takes centre stage a lot throughout the game, with the story providing motivation and backstory as you go.

The happy demeanor doesn’t just belong to the slimes however, as you can tell from flavour text on items and update notes that they care about the project without taking themselves too seriously (their descriptions on http://www.monomipark.com/#crew are a good read).

Side note: I was stuck between the Developers of "Slime Rancher" and "Dust: an Elysian Tail"
I went with Monomi Park as "Slime Rancher" is more recent than "Dust: an Elysian Tail"

B(1)

Has the term “Indie” become meaningless?

I don’t think so, no. In all honesty, I think it’s started to carry a bit of weight. As the years go by, more and more players are being let down by Triple A developers and are migrating to Indie games, which tend to value the community and players more than their Triple A cousins even claim to. Personally responding to Player comments, improving the game through player feedback and conversing with the community is far from uncommon when it comes to Indie development, and players value that a lot. Rather than the term losing meaning, it has instead seemingly become a standard, a bar that Indie developers need to reach and overcome. Being “Indie” seems to come with a responsibility to commune with the community over various media forms and to engage the players both in and out of the games they develop.

To summarize, I believe that “Indie” has become a highly positive word that attracts Gamers but places a responsibility on Developers.

Refrences

Monomi Park, Home, www.monomipark,com, 26/10/17

Monomi Park, Home, www.slimerancher.com, 26/10/17

A: http://twinery.org/2/#!/stories/3c7a08f1-42ee-4f02-86e4-4a87af5ebdcc/play

B: Item: “Descent: Journeys in the dark (2nd Edition)”

Descent is a Table Top RPG played using cards, plastic figures, printed board sections and dice. The way it combines Story and Gameplay comes in its Campaigns that are provided with both the main game and expansions. These gives the “Heroes” an objective (Save an innocent, get to the other end of the map, kill a certain enemy). Success or failure not only determines rewards from an encounter, but also how the story will progress. When the player succeeds, the world remains in a good state whereas failure increase the rate at which it falls apart. Whilst this does create a sense of tension and stakes in each encounter, it works against the “Heroes” as each failure makes later encounters more difficult.

The game does, however, lack a sense of freedom. It moves from one encounter to the next, keeping the player in combat. Whilst this does fit it’s theme of world falling into chaos and darkness, it fails to humanize the “Heroes” for the players, stopping the players from properly connecting to the character they are supposed to be and retracting from the overall experience.

However, the choices a player makes as they level up changes how they have to play the rest of the game, and I have personally witnessed people play in character throughout entire games, which shows that it still has the capacity to engage the players and bring them closer to the action in a way that I either cannot or have not yet discovered.

Refrences

What were the key ideas of the Bauhaus?

The key points of the Bauhaus ideology were the following two things:
1.To bring together the act of creating the product with the act of designing it, so creative products could be manufactured. This was due to the school’s belief that Manufacturing had drawn away from creativity, and so consumers were getting products fit for purpose but not beautiful in design. Given that they believed that form must follow function, this makes sense as they are stating that whilst an object must fulfil its purpose first, it should also be designed to be aesthetically pleasing as well.
2. They believed that art wasn’t purely creative but also an intellectual pursuit, attempting to combine the practical skills involved in Painting and Sculpting with the act of designing something with a use the market needs. This, like above, centres on making the design and creation process a more natural flow via connecting them, as well as following their “Form Must Follow Function” ideology whilst combining many different areas of art.

Do you feel that the ideas could have an influence on contemporary games design?

Very much so, the idea of “Form must follow Function” is one I use a lot, and is very useful. Characters, Vehicles and other such things need to be designed in a way that can telegraph their actions so that the player can understand what is happening, levels need to be designed to work before they look good, and so on. This isn’t to say they should be designed to work then look nice, as “Form must follow Function” implies, as Game Creation is a digital art and so items can be edited after testing, so they can be made to look good first, then edited to work after. But in the end it must simply work as the priority, even if it means reducing the aesthetic quality of the item.

word count: 331 (approx.)

References

The Art Story, Bauhaus, www.theartstory.org/movement-bauhaus.htm, 12/10/17