Games to reality

REALITY (CITY) 1.

ACTORS (MAYOR, PEOPLE, INVESTORS, PLANNERS, SLUM DWELLERS, POLITICIANS) 2.

CYCLES/SYSTEMS (ECONOMICAL CYCLE, POPULATIONS CYCLE) 3.

RULES AND REGUALTIONS

4.

EVENTS AND HAZARDS The city as a system of interconnected parameters

Chess Board Source: Wikipedia

Chinese checkers Source : Wikipedia

Monopoly http://cdn.collider.com/wp-content/ uploads/monopoly.jpg

Mario Souce : Mario Game

4. Players want to fantasize Another fun part of games is ROLE-PLAY. important part of gaming is to imagine the part you are playing and go really into the character.

Games like MAFIA is a good example of roleplaying where players are assigned different roles and they need to negotiate with each other and should be able to convince others who might be the mafia or who might not be. This game works purely on the basis of role-play, a player needs to think like a mafia or a police officer or the doctor or a villager, depending on the role they got.

5. Players want a Dynamic Solitary Experience In a game it is also important that a player is able to retrospect his actions within the game and should also be able to develop tactics on his own.

6. Players want bragging rights This is the main part of multi-player games and even sometimes for single-pllayer games. This is the main reason why most of the people play games for.

7. Players want an Emotional Experience.

There are few games, mostly CHANCE based games where a player also has an emotional experience. For example, there can be a moment in the game where the player won a lottery and in the next moment the player lost everything!

8. Players expect to NOT NEED to repeat themselves.

A game becomes really boring if the players has to achieve the same goal in the same way again and again.

9. Players expect to NOT GET hopelessly stuck.

For a game to work out, it is always important that game is playable i.e. players should be able to play the game otherwise it gets really frustrating if the player is not able to make any progress. In such situations maybe introduction of EVENT CARDS or giving HINTS/CLUES could help.

10. Players expect to DO, NOT TO WATCH.

Plan It Green http://www.planitgreenlive.com/en/login

Suburbia www.pockettactics.com/suburbia

be PLAN IT GREEN game by National Geographic.

In this game the player is responsible for creating an eco-friendly neighbourhood. The players is given tasks which upon completion fetch RATING and MONEY with which more buildings can be built. ii) Multi Player Game with Same Roles - This kind of game seems more fun as players will be competing with each other and the game components in the beginning are disturbed equally among the players.

An example of this type of game is SUBURBIA. In this game each player’s goal is to have your borough thrive and end-up with higher population then the other players. iii) Multi Player Game with Different Roles -In this kind of game it is very crucial that each player gets a fair chance of winning even when the game components are not distributed equally among the players. Also what roles affect the game is also important.

2. On what scale is the game played ?

For an Urban Simulation Game, depending on what aspects of a city to simulate, the scale of the city on which the game will be played becomes really important. The role of players and their goals changes with the change in scale of the city. i) Local Scale - Again an example of an Urban Simulation Game at this scale could be PLAN IT GREEN game. Such scales are ideal for single player games. ii) Neighbourhood Scale - Action! on the real city i.e. the current game, deals with this scale and this scale is suitable for Multi Player Game with different roles, because at this scale different stakeholders or organizations start effecting the overall growth of the city. iii) Borough Scale - SUBURBIA is a game which is played at this scale and like SUBURBIA games at this scale are suitable for Multi Player Game with the same roles, because at this scale it is all about competition.

3. How should the game be evaluated ?

1.Qualitative Evaluation As a city, balance in the components and densities within the city is very crucial. For example, a low density US suburban area and a high density city like Hong Kong can have the same quality. Therefore, evaluation of a city in terms of an index helps in comparing different cities or the progress within a city.

This index is called the Urban Quality Index which will be explained in the following topics.

2. Quantitative Evaluation There are examples of many games where the evaluation is done based on the quantities like population count, money, points, buildings etc.

What is gameplay? Gameplay is the degree and nature of the interactivity that the game includes.

For example, In SIMCITY game the gameplay is laying out a city and observing the citizens that inhabitat the city. In racing games like ROADRASH the gameplay is steering your bike to win the race. In MONOPOLY the gameplay is to go around different cities and buying them etc.

Like mentioned earlier in a Multi Player Game with different players the biggest challenge is to maintain the powers of each player and there should be equal chance for each player to win. Therefore, in this situation the GAMEPLAY and the components of GAMEPLAY like power ups, event cards etc become really crucial.

In REALITY, the major role of each actor is to propose projects and to build them, based on the power and resources available to them.

The GAMEPLAY could be proposing projects and spending your resources or convincing other to invest their resources in your project and build the project.

The project proposed by each player would vary according to their GOAL, as each player is dealing with different dimension of the UQI and different dimensions are calculated according to different types of building. Therefore, the gameplay components could be broadly categorised as : 1. Events 2. Power Ups Events are something that break the monotony of the gameplay and add a new layer of complexity to the game, which is something very common in real life.

Power ups also have similar effect. Furthermore, one never knows when and how does a person gets powerful or a person who has everything loses everything.

Gameplay also includes the steps of Game Experience of the players.

STEP 1 : Setup up the game board according to the scenario.

STEP 2 : Ditribute the four different decks among the players.

Each deck contains : 1. RESOURCE CARDS - these cards help in building the projects from the project cards.

2. PROJECT CARDS - these cards are used to propose a project.

3. POWER CARDS - these cards give special power to the player.

4 . EVENT CARDS - these cards address few events take place in the city both individually and globally.

STEP 3 : Ask the players to draw the top 5 cards from the deck.

As the cards are mixed, so the player doesnot know what cards he/she are going to get.

STEP 4 : The players can start playing the game turn by turn. The turns being 1. CITY PLANNER 2. INVESTOR 3. CITIZEN REPRESENTATIVE 4. MAYOR STEP 5 : The city planner would start proposing projects, if he/she has the project card and the required number of resource cards for the same, if not then the city planner needs to give atleast one reason as to why the project should be built and convince them to contribute their skills.

If the CITY PLANNER or any player in that matter doesnot have any project cards, he/she may choose to unlock plots from the board.

RULE : To unlock plots 2 RESOURCE CARDS are required.

STEP 6 : And so the sequence goes on in a loop.

STEP 7 : After the end of the first turn, housing demand will be introduced. In this the game conductor spins the housing demand wheel, to see how many housing blocks needs to be built in how many turns.

STEP 8 : At the end of each turn, each players gets to pick up 2 cards from the deck regardless how many cards the player has spent in the turn.

RULE : Players can see each others cards.

RULE : Event cards are something that need to be addressed as a team. If failed to address the event, all the players will lose 1 card.

Colour based on the player

RESOURCE CARD

VETO

Type of project

Number and type of resource cards required.

PROJECT CARDS

Proposals for combination of blocks.

SWITCH - USE

POWER CARDS

EVENT CARDS

1. The game is still bit complicated for normal people to unnderstand.

2. It is really important for the game to show the impact of player’s action after each turn. For this reason the game components could be as transparent as possible.

Like for example on the cards, mentioning what branch does the particular effect and at what scale. This also helps normal people in learning concepts of Urban Designing. It is also really important for the players to get constant feedback after each step.

3. Another factor that could be added is change in levels, and with the change the level of complexity and evaluation of the game could change. In this way the players could also grasp the concepts of Urban Designing step by step.

4. The game till now has been trying to simulate the reality, but what is also important is what people or the audience learn from the game.

5. Another development of the game that could be done is to separate who builds the project and who proposes the project.

1.Gaming: The future’s language by Richard D. Duke 2. Is urban gaming simulation useful? by Arnaldo Cecchini and Paola Rizzi, University of Architecture in Venice.

3. Game design theory and practice by Richard Rouse III. 4. Gaming simulation for Urban Planning by Richard L. Meier and Richard D. Duke.

Photo credits : Grob Marie, UrbanThinkTank.

GAME VERSION 1

GAME VERSION 2

URBAN QUALITY INDEX

VARIABLES

WEIGHTING

URBAN QUALITY INDEX

INTERMEDIATE GAME VERSION

COINS For Unlocking Plots

VARIABLE LIST