A New Idea

I’m working out the idea of a new board game I’m planning to create. It’s a game I call “Battle Royal The Board Game”.

                For those of you who don’t know, Battle Royal was a 1999 Japanese novel written by Takami Koushun. It takes place in an alternate universe style Japan (called the Republic of Great East Asia) where, after the World War II, the government became a fascist dystopia like society that pretty much is like 1984’s Oceania. Rock and Roll, homosexuality, foreigners, and anything exported from other countries are completely outlawed. You can’t speak, write, or say anything against the government and people are executed daily. In fact, the National Baseball team is forced to commit seppuku if they lose to the American baseball team (They really hate America, seriously they never stop telling you that). However, the worst of it is the Program.

The Program is when 50 third-year high school classes are isolated every year and each class is required to fight to the death until one student remains. Their movements are tracked by metal collars around their necks which contain tracking and listening devices. If any student should attempt to escape the Program or enter declared forbidden zones a bomb will be detonated in the collar, killing the wearer. If no student dies in any 24 hour period, all collars will be detonated simultaneously. They are all given weapons, food, and water and are then are sent out like animals to kill one another. The winner gets their face on TV, along with all the reported deaths, a card from the leader saying “Thank you for playing” and they leave…..wow, what a rip off. Officially it's meant as a military research project,but it's actually a means of terrorizing the population.

The story follows a class of 42 students, 21 boys and 21 girls, who are forced to go through the program. The point of view follows everyone of the class, but the main characters that are focused on are Nanahara Shuya, the main protagonist who wants to find a way out peacefully, Nakagawa Noriko, who is a friend of Shuya and was the crush of Shuya’s best friend Yoshitoki, Kawada Shogo, a mysterious transfer student who’s hardcore and awesome, Kiriyama Kazuo, a sociopathic gang leader who is perfect in every way as well as the most active member of the game, Souma Mitsuko, a psychopathic girl who uses her body to seduce other players, Sugimura Hiroki, a martial artist who searches for his best friend and crush, and Mimura Shinji, a genius who searches for a way to escape. I suggest you read the book if you want to find out what’s going to happen or you could watch the movies or read even the manga since they are somewhat similar all around.

So anyway, an idea came to me about how to make this into a board game. A map of the island is used at the start of the book (Which I have) so that can be my starting spot to draw on. I can get the photos of the players, the weapons used; have something like a combat system. Put the real rules of the Program into the game and continue from there. I’ll report more of this later on, but it’s good idea to start thinking up game ideas and try to follow them if you can. Board games are some of the best ones to start because as a Game Designer, you should be thinking about all kinds of games and not just electronic ones.

Competitive or Free Riding?

                If you’re a game designer in training like me, you’ve heard many times that the game industry is a very competitive way of business with many other newbies, like me, trying to make an impact so we can get hired. While it’s true that competition is needed for any job, some people just can’t handle the pressure of it and instead want to just spend their time making something they like for their audience.

                My first year studying at Champlain College was one of the best times I ever had in my life. I was given tools and access to programs that allowed me to do something I never had a chance to do in high school that often, express my creativity. I didn’t care if I was the best or if I was the worst, I just wanted to do the thing I love. I had fun and people liked my ideas and work. Sometimes it was better than others, but most of the time it was nothing special. Still I learned and I enjoyed doing it. I was free riding that year and I never regretted anything.

                Not like this first semester however where I went against everything I was. We started programming and game art, two subjects that I feared I was going to do terrible on and as such I worked a million times harder then I normally did. Pressure got to me and I didn’t have a great experience as I wanted to have. Granted I improved over the months, but I was too worried about the grade itself then the quality of the work. I didn’t let my creativity and free roaming sprit fly, I just wanted to pass and was trying to be the best so that I could get that grade because I knew people were better than me. That was one of my many mistakes that semester that I regretted.

                In programming, I was able to actually do well which was a surprise. I thought I was going to be terrible at programming and I put more effort into that then anything because I thought I was going to be far behind. In the end I was wrong, I did well and I managed to do everything on time. Granted I got a lot of help, but I managed to pull a B out of that class. I was filled with worry that I wasn’t going to do good and I would be behind in all the classes, but my teacher didn’t give up on me and said I had the skills and I just need to be more creative. That was when the reality hit me. After I came home, I realized I was too worried about the other students and their work and not about mine. What I should have done was focus on my work the way I wanted it to be and make my audience, the teacher, the only one I should have impressed. Sure having my peers impressed with my work would be great, but I was obsessed with how I would look with others that I blinded myself to what why I wanted to be a game designer in the first place.

                 I love to entertain people and I love to be creative. Video games have always been something I knew well enough about and I was good working with others so I decided to be a Game Designer to entertain people. By being my creative free flowing self last year I was able to do well and have fun doing it. This semester I made the mistake not being myself and worrying about everyone else.

                I’m sure a few of you are like that too. You don’t care about the competition and you work for the love of the work itself. This is who you are and that should not change you. Sure we are competing in our dog eat dog world every day, but that doesn’t mean we should let it take over who we are. So if you are a competitor and you do better trying to be the best then go ahead and do that, that’s how you do your thing. But if you’re like me and you want to entrain your audience with your work your own way, then keep doing it. 

Matthew Reviews: Tron Legacy

                In 1982, a film came out that had Sci-fi fans running to theaters to get a firsthand look at a new movie that combined new technology with computer graphics into a cult phenomenon known as, Tron. Starring Jeff Bridges, David Warner, Cindy Morgan, and Bruce Boxleitner the film was about a computer genius and gamer named Flynn who gets trapped into the digital world (And no there are no cute monsters in this one) by an evil A.I. who is forced to battle his way through cyberspace with the help of a program named Tron, designed by his best friend Allan. What was amazing about Tron was how almost everything was computer generated from the background to the costumes to even the weapons and gear they used. Sure it wasn’t the best story film ever, but the scenes and images were beyond astonishing at its time. If you were a computer geek, this was a film you had to see both then and now. It still remains one of many inspirations for people getting into computers or games, including me. Now in 2010, there is a squeal known as Tron Legacy and while the title really doesn’t suit the movie (I’ll explain why) I guess you can say it’s a good squeal to a good movie.

1.       1. Animation/Imagery

               -Well, this is Tron so this going to be the biggest part of the movie. Half of the reason why the original Tron was so good was because of the computer graphics and the video game colored lights of red and blue. In fact you see a lot of that in this film which makes it sort of symbolic. Red being evil while blue being good like in the last one so there is some familiarity. Now when Tron came out in the 80’s it was beyond amazing for it’s time for the way it looked as a live action film and it brought jaws down to the ground. Now in 2010 when technology has become thousand times better, it’s just pure f’ing amazing. The art is just like what we would expect, it reminds you so much of the old Tron universe, but at the same time it’s new. It’s upgraded to something a lot better and this is mostly thanks to the new technology and skill we have today. The movie takes place in an area known as The Grid. Like the first movie, this area is beautiful but because of the dark plots and manipulations going around it you could say it’s a beautiful cyber-dystopia which fits the plot well. We also get to see our favorite and familiar stuff like the Disks, Lightcycles, Cyber Tanks, and those rails that travel on those beams of light. We also get to see new stuff such as Lightjets, Lightwalkers, and yes, we even see Lightsabers. What’s with all the light? I mean granted the outside of the Grid is nothing but a dark storm and you need the bright lights to see, but couldn’t they come up with  more original names? Oh well.  Anyway, it’s big, it’s grand, and it’s what NYC will look like in the year 3000. The graphics are just awesome.

2. Sound

-The entire music is done by Daft Punk…….that’s all I need to say. If you don’t know who Daft Punk is, please listen to one of their many hits and then slap yourself for not knowing who this amazing duo gifted by God are. Okay, I suppose I should say more than that. Well, a lot of the old songs, music pieces, and sounds from the original movie are redone and placed in this. And the upgrade is phenomenal. I mean the one thing about Tron was that it sounded like a video game world back when we still using Arcades and our NES’s. Now it sounds something you would hear on a PS3 or Xbox 360 and that’s good. Because times have changed and our video games have changed. We want something to sound familiar to our times yet a sense of familiar among the old times. Take the Mario Theme, it’s still used after so many years, but its tones and sounds have changed greatly because we apply new stuff to it to make it better. And that’s what technology is all about, upgrading and adapting. Tron Legacy’s music lives up to its expectations and more.

3.  Story

-Okay this is where Tron Legacy does fall short on. Story plot wise, the original Tron wasn’t good at trying to make us interested. We were mostly amazed at the looks and the music then focusing on the story. We knew a guy who was the most amazing and coolest adult ever got trapped in a digital cyber version of the real world and was trying to battle his way out of it by fighting an A.I. and his army with the assistance of a program who could kick ass named Tron. After that….nothing special. The plot was predictable and it was simple, too simple. Granted a guy getting sucked into a computer is a unique idea, but the problem was it was never taken advantage off. No big surprises, no big plot twists, and sometimes, especially if you didn’t understand computers, you were a bit confused. Tron Legacy kind of makes the same mistakes.

The story starts off back in the 80’s where Flynn, the original protagonist, is with his son telling him about The Grid. A world he’s created with the help of his best friend’s program Tron and a program version of himself named Clu. Now I know what you’re thinking, how can Jeff Bridges look like his old self from the 1980’s? It’s all thanks to CG ladies and gentlemen. Yeah you can tell its all fake, but to be fair it’s a bit better work then other CG faces like that Arnold one from Terminator Salvation. Anyway, we see he has a son named Sam who is just a brilliant and daring as his father. After tucking him in, Flynn goes to work only to disappear and never reappear. To make matters worse, Sam’s mother passed away when he was younger and soon his grandparents as well, leaving him in the company of Flynn’s best friend Alan. Over time the company his father owned, ENCOM, has decided to not follow Flynn’s original idea of free access to information and instead try to give it the highest bidder. Sam, at age 27, doesn’t agree with this and sabotages their latest project before being arrest. Now why doesn’t the son of the CEO and a major stock holder of the company just say “screw you guys we do this my way”? Well the reason…is never fully explained well. Maybe he feels like he’s not worthy of the company, maybe he still blames his father, maybe it has too many bad memories…who knows. Anyway, Alan comes over and tells Sam he got a page from his father’s work place at the old arcade and suggests he goes looking there for answers. Sam does and we get that old nostalgic feeling of seeing classic old arcade games with great hits from the 80’s and 90’s playing on the jukebox. Ah, good times. So Sam finds a special door hidden behind a Tron game and finds the original laser and a computer that teleports him into The Grid where he is amazed at what he sees. This is where the movie really kicks off.

                After being captured by red colored programs, he is suited up, given a disk, and is forced to play games. After fighting in a diskwar tournament, he is soon taken to meet the evil overlord of The Grid….Flynn?! (DUN DUN DUN!!!!!) No, it’s actually Clu, played by a CG Jeff Bridges. It turns out Clu took over Flynn’s Grid and turned it into his own while trapping Flynn in cyber world. It’s later learned that Clu has been turning programs into his “perfect” idea and plans to invade our world through the portal too, of course, take it over. I’m going to stop here because I don’t want to spoil more, but trust me when I say that everything you see will be vary easy to guess what happens. Why? Because the story is short and the plot is too simple. Granted it tries to bring some other sub plots like the fate of Tron(He only makes limited appearances in this film which is strange since his name is on the title), some new form of life called ISO’s which could change the world, and why Clu is who he is, but that’s really not crammed in enough. My guess is that the movie was so expensive on the looks that they had to cut the screenwriting down from their original idea. I mean it’s only an hour and half long. Granted that’s longer than the original, but you would expect it to be at least 2 hours.  Still, it’s a decent story of a kid trying to find his father, but you’re going to be disappointed if you think it’s anything more than that.

                4. Characters/Acting

-Well we got the original movie characters such as Flynn and Alan, as well as his program counterpart Tron for about…10 minutes of total screen time. Flynn is still his old self, but he’s gotten a lot wiser. Hell, he looks like a Zen Obi-wan Kenobi with an 80’s attitude.  What’s also interesting is that Flynn is like God in this Grid like world. He’s able to manipulate and change the world to his liking, but Clu, his self made program counterpart, can also do so. Clu is our Nazi, really he is. He was a program whose job was to help Flynn create the perfect system and change the world together. When the ISO’s, who will be explained in the story briefly, came to the grid it was Clu who thought they were flawed, as well as Flynn, so he staged a coup and took over after killing nearly every ISO (Sound Familiar). Clu is like a Cyber Hitler with an idea of only perfection on his mind and seeks to concur the world to make it also “perfect”.

                New characters include Sam, our new protagonist who is Flynn’s son and is every word of it. He’s brash, bright, charismatic, daring, and bold. Think the old Flynn from the old movie only as a child growing up in the 90’s and millennium. Yet, despite all this the only real emotional scenes we get from this guy are with his father whose he has been hoping to find one day his entire life ever since he was a kid. Other than this, he’s got the personality of a brick. Not a brick of shit, but still a brick. Nothing is really lovable about the guy, but you won’t hate him either. He’s just…there. I mean Clu and Fynn’s acting is well done, but he could have used a bit more practice. Oh and there is a hot chick….who also has the personality of a brick. Makes the two of them work well really. At least they didn’t have much of a romantic relationship thank God. So the acting and characters really could have been better, but for the most part you’ll ignore this because of the pretty lights.

5. OVERALL: IT’S GOOD!

-Sure the story is easy to predict and the characters do have a good amount of blandness to them. But it’s still a movie to see, especially in IMAX. It’s got amazing visuals, the music is great, the fight choreography is done really well, and we get to see our favorite old time classics upgraded to an awesome boost. Go see Tron and judge for yourself if it’s a worthy squeal. But me? I say it is and I give it a 4/5.

I’m Matthew Nunez giving you my word; now it you excuse me…..I’ve got to listen to two robot looking French cyber men making sweet sweet music…..okay that sounded wrong.

Later

And So it begins....

Well, it's the first day and here's the first blog. I don't have much to say at the moment because I'm off to visit an IMAX 3D theater to see Tron Legacy. Having watch the old movie I'm interested in seeing how much these guys did. Does it blow like almost every other squeal or revival that's come out? Or will it rock like the first one? Time will tell.

Later