Dungeon and Dragons

Dungeon and Dragons

Dungeon and Dragon is a role playing game, first released was in 1974. This box contains a fantasy system with a medieval European flavour. The introduction of this concepts has abilities ( such as strength, intelligence, and dexterity) character classes ( elf, human,dwarf,halfing); armor classes. This set includes a brief guideline on using monster as player character. The small box set contains three booklets, volume 1: men & magic, volume 2 : monsters & treasure, volume 3: underworld & wildness adventures, rule of fantastic medieval wargames campaigns playable with pen and paper and miniature figures.

This set can features only a handful of the elements for which game  the game is now made today; there are three classes (celric, fighting-man, magic user) ; four races (human,dwarf,elf,hobbit); and only three alignments (lawful, netural, and chaotic). The rules only applies that playuer have owned and have played miniature wargame chainmail and they have used measurement and combat systems. Combat system is an optional which is included withing the rules and later that it can be developed into sole combat later version.

Stonkers 1983 and Wargame

Stonkers 1983, Imagine Sofware, Wargame ColecoVision

Stonkers was one of the first strategy games that they made in 1983 by Imagine Software.  Interface was really simple and basic controls. There are status information on the screen, depends what the player does, there is a mini keyboard which is designed ZX spectrum, that allows to use a input key in order to  make action, they want to attack, receiving orders, resupplies or taking territory etc.  this has inspired to other developers, because nowadays it’s all about improvement such as visual and mechanics. After one year later  in 1983 another game was released which Wargame that was developed by Coleco, and later it was ported to 8 bit Atari family system. This game  has an outstanding and consirdred  one of  the best game video game ever  to be designed by ColecVision. The beginning of gameplay has nice welcome “ Greeting Professer Falken” appears on the screen. The next scene it allows for the player to choose a challenge level from 1 to 8^th global thermonuclear war. Once the player has been decided the skill level the player choose, then game screen will appear. “The contintental United States is divided into six sectors, each with its own bases and major cities. ICBMs and bombers rain over the North Pole, while submarines inch toward coasts. Defenses consist of ABMs, interceptor jets, submarines and an experimental particle beam satellite that trumps everything else but weaves in and out of sectors on a fixed orbit. US units are individually far superior, but vulnerable to the destruction of interceptor and missile bases. Events proceed in real time in all sectors as defenses gradually crumble.

Enemy presence and the destruction of bases and cities lower a sector's Defense Condition (DEFCON) status. The DEFCON level for each sector is factored into the total DEFCON status. If it stays at 1 for 60 successive seconds, or if at any time all cities and bases have been destroyed, an automated counterstrike triggers global thermonuclear war and loses the game. The game is won by preventing a counterstrike long enough for a cease-fire to be reached. With eight difficulty levels, one game takes approximately four to eight minutes.

The game is visually stark and technical by 1984 standards. As in the original movie, the manual hints that the attack is an imagined result of a computer glitch; the counterstrike is not.”

In 1998 another game Wargame Defcon 1 was developed by bliz interactive studios for the first time in it was in three-dimensional allowing player rotate in180 full turn. It’s another real-time strategy, with almost same mechanics but this time it uses 3D visual gameplay.  Well the main mission of this game is for player to take control of a vehicle in order to take control of  Norad’s conventional as player plunge into battle against the WOPR mechanical troops.

Warhammer

Warhammer

The name of ‘Warhammer’ is gameboard that was designed by Bryan Ansell and it was published by Games Workshop in 1983. The number of players can be set from 2 to 4 players in order to play this game. The visual of this board game contains a fantasy, miniature and war-game, it also comes along with components with dice rolling, modular board and variable player powers. The player can play set of range scale games involving 30 different models, huge battles against other players. Each of the class has its own strength and weaknesses; let’s take example on Wood Elves, they are the most powerful archers in this game, they have good set of range attacks but they have poor defence.

Warhammer has been constantly expanding with updated and re-released ever since the first the game they released in 1983. There are other editions that have been expanded to this game;

Warhammer Second Edition 1993

"The Old World. A dark and grim place filled with peril and riven by war. From the teeming cities of the Empire to the Elf haunted forests to the lofty crags of the Worlds' Edge mountains where Dwarfs battle with Goblins and their vile kin, a shadow hangs over the world, cast by the dark corrupting hand of Chaos. All along its borders, the Old World's greatest nation, the Empire, seeks to hold back the dark tide. But even within the Empire there are enemies. Twisted cultists seek to bring about the Empire's fall, cold-hearted Beastmen stalk the forests, and loathsome Skaven ratmen spread plague and sickness from their suburban lairs.

"In Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, you are unlikely heroes in a grim world of perilous adventure. You venture into the dark corners of the Empire and deal with the threats that others cannot or will not face. You'll probably die alone in some festering hellhole, but maybe, just maybe, you'll survive foul Mutants, horrible diseases, insidious plots, and sanity-blasting rituals to reap Fate's rewards.

"Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is a complete game. All you need to play is this book, some 

Spacewar

Spacewar! Is one of the earliest known digital computer game was developed Steve Ruessell. Steve Russell is an American programmer and computer scientist, most famous for creating Spacewar!. This game can be played up to two players, one of the player gets to control ship called “the needle and “ the wedge” attempting to shoot one another.  The control mechanics include clockwise and counter clockwise rotation, thrust fire, and hyper space. Basically these were controlled using the front-panel switches ( controller input) is intergrated with the monitor. Over the years, a lot of people were insipired by Spacewar!, the game was all about having fun and strategy skills. That core has led to developers and transcend into better visual, not only visual but improve the mechanics. There are so many spaceship games are out there, because of  spacewar! has good influence of war style,  war means battle, and it can be anything as long there is a confliction or collide against each other. Slowly over the years the developers have adapted their own style of games such as Air Buster a shoot em up arcade develop by kaneko and it was published in 1990. Rather having war 

War History timeline

top view explains how the war have started and how it evolved in it's impact.


Bottom view explains how the games were made by taking some history notes and adapting them into their own style.

Air fighter war game

Air Buster

Air Buster is more of an Air fighter, a shoot-em up arcade game, this game was developed by Kaneko in 1990 and it was self-published by company. after one year this game was released in Sega genesis .it does give little reference  about world war II history but the developer wanted to add different plot and a new direction scene. The story of this game falls in the year 2021, there has been orbit space weapon and machinery appears and it was attacking the nations of the Earth. The game can be single or two player modes to play this game and their mission is stop the invasion and its attacks.

Player can has choice to choose one of the two blasters. They both have same standard weapon but essentially it can be upgraded. The blasters fighters can equip one of the seven weapons. There is power ups icon in this game if the player manages to capture “p” icon it will upgrade blasters fire power automatically but it has limit that can be max out and no further than can be upgraded even if the player does capture P again.  There is penalty to lose all  the upgrades, if the enemy  manages to attack the blasters they will lose a life and their power ups and will be reset back to the original state they were

Board game

 Nightfighter is board game that follows the timeline during World War II.  The gameboard was designed by Lee Brimmicombe-Wood, this was published in 2011 and its recommend a minimum of 2 player or more would be better for strategic skills. The playtime is generally for sixty minutes depending the experience skills on players.

The mechanic of this game has dice rolling, a board designed with hex and counter grid. The play is blind system, main objective is to control the forces a while the defending player must find, repair, and destroy any incoming bombers

War history

Battle of the Atlantic

“The Battle of the Atlantic, which lasted from September 1939 until the defeat of Germany in 1945, was the war’s longest continuous military campaign. During six years of naval warfare, German U-boats and warships – and later Italian submarines – were pitted against Allied convoys transporting military equipment and supplies across the Atlantic to Great Britain and the Soviet Union. This battle to control the Atlantic shipping lanes involved thousands of ships and stretched across thousands of perilous square miles of ocean.”

The war has started from 1939 in World War II that they have defeated the Germany 1945. It was sea battleship, submarines were pitted against transporting military and supplies across the Atlantic to Great Britain and Soviet union. The name “Battle of the Atlantic” was founded by Winston Churchill in February 1941

Board Game

 This is a battleship board game that was designed by Milton Bradley Circa in 1984. Very popular game around the world people have experienced of playing this board game. Good thing about this board game it is not complicated as the game board has nice and neat visual. It has grid with numbers and letters. The horizontal of the grid has number and vertical of the grid has letters. Also in this board 3 set of pieces, one of them is ships, the white pieces are to show player have missed the target, the red pieces means hit. A ship can only be destroyed if the red pieces are covered on the ship. Overall this game board is easy to play and highly recommend 12 years of age or above to play the game.

World War History Call of Duty

Call of Duty 1-3

Digital Version

The games were based on ID tech 3 game engine it was released 29^th October 2003. Officially the game was developed by Infinity Awards and it was published by Activision. Call of duty is a first person shooter computer game franchise.  The series was based on PC and later on it expanded to other consoles and handhelds for their success and activeness. This is a digital game with rich graphics and user interface.

 Traditional & Cultural

“World War II (WWII or WW2), also known as the Second World War, was a global war that was underway by 1939 and ended in 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, with more than 100 million people serving in military units. In a state of "total war", the major participants placed their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Marked by significant events involving the mass death of civilians, including the Holocaust and the only use of nuclear weapons in warfare, it resulted in 50 million to over 73 million fatalities. These deaths make World War II by far the deadliest conflict in all of human history” the plot was based on these games but slightly modified and there are additional characters were created by developers.

 Non-Digital games

 The call of duty gameboard which is used by sixty card deck, eight solider cards two mission cards and double sided map. It is real time based card and up to two players that can play the game. Each player will need to  deploy 3 soldiers to battlefield from their squad deck the action cards can only be activated these soldiers as they will battle in real-time. Players can make their soldier to move, cover, attack the enemy within the amount of frags the players have declared to be winner.

The gameplay in real-time players are forced to move about, it is between speed and strategy.” Each player has a deck from which they draw cards one at a time and play them as fast as they can (or discard them if they cannot be played). Certain cards trigger a pause in the action at which time all effects (except movement which is handled as it comes up) are resolved”.

The Magic Circle

“The Magic Circle of a game is where the game takes place.to play a game means entering into magic circle or perhaps creating one as game begins the magic circle of game might have physical component, like the board of a board game or playing field of an athletic contest”. The way player get into and out of the play or game, it addresses the player has entered to another dimension or bring that dimension into our reality one way or anoth

Castlevania mini History

Castlevania History

In the mid-1980s a Japanese publisher Konami was finding the achieved popularity.  One of the arcade like Castlevania was found to be successful. Arcade are around the international and seek the audience as the game got at its reputation and popular. Well the arcade market starting to develop for the home console and starting to ship them immediately as the players want to play at home instead of going to  the arcade.

Nes/ Super Nintendo 1986

 The first Castlevania game was made in the Nes console. With rich colours and has theme so that players can gain the experience what they are playing. The screen shows the player/enemy life bar and player lives. There’s also time limit, however if the player do not reach the objective in time will lose live and going to start from that checkpoint. Checkpoints are really good term for like every games so that the player do not frustrate or doesn’t consume a lot of time.

 Gameplay Mechanics

Since it’s non-linear game the player was free to move around anywhere since it’s wide world to explore around the stage. The player is allowed to roam free anywhere in the game’s environment but some area cannot explored until the player finds an item for e.g. a key to unlock that area to explore. Also its more like RPG elements because this game has a lot more features such as experience level, usable items and collection power ups and abilities, weapons, armour and more special items to find.

N64 console

After the amount of the work they have put, the castlevania game has developed a lot, moving from 2D to 3D (Dimensional). The player can move in three dimensional, also the player can rotate the camera to see any left out screen.

Movement/Attack

The player can walk or run and do 180 turn. The player can jump, while using with analog it can do long horizontal jump. Player will able to attack with its whip, special attacks can be used but requires a  special item drops.

Art Deco

Art Deco

Shaiful Amin

University Central Lancashire

Introduction

Art deco is considered as a mixed style of design and its beautification which is patently an influential visual arts design which initially appeared in France during the 1920s. It flourished internationally during the 30s and 40s. Art Deco form has been evolved in several ways and dissimilar kinds of structures such as social, cultural, political and the economic that assist to form and develop into an Art movement. Art Deco is at times measured as a type of Modernism movement that has been expanding throughout internationally.

Art deco is an eclectic style that unites traditional craft motifs with Machine Age imagery and materials. The main feature of the Art deco is that it is characterized by rich colours, bold numerical shapes and plentiful ornamentation. Art Deco is primarily a blending of artistic and design with multitude shape. During its glory days, Art Deco stood for luxury, glamour, exuberance, and faith in social and technological growth. Art Deco is characterized by application of materials such as aluminium, stainless steel, lacquer and inlaid wood (Bayer, 1992).

The structure of Art Deco is centered on mathematical geometric shapes. It was extensively measured to be an assorted form of modernism which is influenced by various sources. It is far and wide assumed that art deco was a great deal influenced by pre-modern art from, constructivism, cubism, functionalism, modernism, and futurism around the world. The Art Deco style instilled the everyday world with graceful style of its natural (Benton, Benton & Wood, 2003).

Art Deco uses a number of influential forms making it have great impact on a number of designs. To start with, it gives special on geometric forms including sunburst motifs, chevrons, zigzags, trapezoids, rectangles, polygons, and spheres. In the geometric forms, elements are arranged in symmetrical patterns. The most frequently used materials in these forms are plastics, chrome Bakelite, stainless steel and aluminium. Although not common, lacquer, inlays and stained glass are also used. Colour is also emphasized upon as they are made vivid and of high contrast (Bayer, 1992).  

Being a globally-popular style, Art Deco has affected several design areas. The first ones to use Art Deco design were consumer products including cookware, furniture, and automobiles as well as in China clocks, jewellery, and textiles. It also influenced electronics including jukeboxes, telephones and radios. Because of its popularity and being considered an attractive design, it also influenced cinema, graphic arts, fashion, industrial design, interior design, and architecture (Hillier, 1968).

In the 1930s, Art Deco was widely used in public work projects, ocean liners (such as Normandy, Queen Mary, and Ile de France), amusement parks, movie palaces, and railway stations. Use of Art Deco in all these areas was considered a great move because it not only made them look entertaining but also luxurious (Hillier, 1971). Nevertheless, the influence of Art Deco was considered inappropriately luxurious and gaudy during the World War II. During this era, there were austerities imposed that led to its decline in popularity. However, in the 1960s, its rebirth began and more people/ designers began to be interested once more in the designs. Deco is used to date. It continuously influences designers in areas of toiletries, jewellery, and fashion (Benton, Benton & Wood, 2003).

The main areas influenced by Art Deco were jewellery, ceramics and furniture and fittings. Furniture materials’ quality was adapted from France. Many people regarded Art Deco to be very important in the furniture produced leading to the popularity of French designers all over the world. Among the wealthy Americans travelling to Paris during the era of Art Deco, few were interested in the designs because of their entertainment, fashion and style. This influenced the Americans to start using Art Deco designs just as the French do. The style adopted by the Americans from the French was formal style with Ivory and Macassar Ebony (Hillier, 1968).

Since then, Americans started using Art Deco with the materials used by the French designers. This further influenced the British designers, who followed the new design of Americans. It is notable that the furniture from British, America and French designers had relatively different styles. However, all represent Art Deco Insignia (Wood, 2000).

            Lightning also uses Art Deco design. It employs interior lightening design. Most of the designed lights are fitted as table or desk lamps. The designs were placed in places where they could easily be recognized. These included in shopping malls, libraries and hotels. These lighting lamps were the designs of Paul Kiss and Edgar Brandt. Even though these lamps are sellable to date, they are often very expensive and thus unaffordable to many (Benton, Benton & Wood, 2003).

            Most of the furniture used in America if unsigned, affordable and lightly based in French Deco. They use a different form of design from that used by French designers. Because of its originality, it is quite expensive and only affordable to few people (Hillier, 1971).

            Ceramics using Art Deco was noticeable in pots and jars. Even though each designs from different countries have different patterns and textiles, each resembles designs used in Art Deco style. The most recognizable Art Deco design in ceramics is in European ceramics. The modern of these ceramics falls in two wide sections namely commercial ware and studio pottery. Studio pottery includes the works of Wiener Werstatte such as Viennese workshops, which is shown as avantegarde and hand built. These versions have been copied though of a lower quality by Wiener Keramik of Austria and W.M.F of Germany. The commercial ware is made of lower design and quality and thus inexpensive. Egyptian influence was discovered in 1922 by King Tutankhamun’s tomb with Western Art Deco taste. The design has widely been used in ceramics and sculptures in the country (Hillier, 1968).  

            Posters and graphics need to be attractive and entertaining. This has been achieved through the use of Art Deco style. These posters are mostly promotional and thus will attract the audience if they are entertaining and appealing to the eyes. A good example of the posters using Art Deco design is ‘Chicago World’s Fair’ designed by Weimer Pursell. British posters uses Art Deco design as noted by a small group of artists (Benton, Benton & Wood, 2003).          

Conclusion

The unique style of Art Deco has been mirrored in many similar movements. Art Deco could influence later on styles such as Memphis and the Pop art movement. It also had an effect on post modern architecture and styles. Art Deco has also had a noticeable influence on modern design.

Bibliography

Bayer, P. (1992). Art Deco Architecture: design, decoration and detail from the twenties and thirties. London: Thames & Hudson.

Benton, C., Benton, T. & Wood, G. (2003). Art Deco: 1910–1939. New York: Bulfinch.

Hillier, B. (1968). Art Deco of the 20s and 30s. London: Studio Vista.

Hillier, B. (1971). The World of Art Deco: An Exhibition Organized by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, June- September 1971. Minneapolis: E.P. Dutton.

Wood, G. (2000). Essential Art Deco. London: VA&A Publications.