Excavator (A CAWP Arcade Game)

     Excavator is a puzzle game that teaches players the basic planning and three dimensional thinking skills needed to operate a real life excavator. Players must plan and execute digs as efficiently as possible in order to receive the highest rating on each level. All of that may sound complicated, but it is quite the opposite. The game mechanics and art style make this game look and feel magnificent.

     

     We developed this game for the Constructors Association of Western Pennsylvania as part of their Virtual Pre-Apprenticeship program, an online hub for acclimating aspiring construction workers to the different jobs within the industry. Everyone at CAWP has been fantastic to work with, and I know that we at Simcoach look forward to the opportunity to build many more games together. *fingers crossed for Space Excavator*

     

     I highly recommend Excavator to anyone who is looking for a fun and challenging puzzle game. Check the game out at one of the links below, and write us a review to let us know what you think.

Apple Store:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/excavator-game-cawp-arcade/id979703991?mt=8

Google Play:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.SimcoachGames.Excavator&hl=en

Dishonored

     Dishonored is a very cool game for a few reasons: 1) it has successfully coined the term "whalepunk" 2) the player makes the game as difficult as he/she wants depending on which objectives are pursued 3) the various styles of play create so many different experiences making the game very replayable.

     Steampunk refers to a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates technology and aesthetics inspired by 19th-century steam-powered machinery. There is often a wealth gap featured in steampunk fiction where the wealthy get to play with all of the fantastical steam-powered novelties and the poor battle typical old society problems (famine, disease, etc.). Dishonored has a very similar style to steampunk, except everything in the game is powered by whale oil instead of steam, hence the term "whalepunk." Additionally, whale oil is used to create electricity (arc pylons, walls of light). The game does a very good job of featuring the typical steampunk societal issues. The player experiences all sides of Dunwall's economic climate by having to sneak through the city's plague infested streets followed by crashing high society parties.

     I experienced varying degrees of excitement and disappointment during the first few hours of Dishonored. My original strategy was to use my sword and hack through everything in my path, which made the game feel a little flat. I think I killed 15 guards on my first play through of level 1 and received a "high" chaos rating. Seeing the chaos rating and feeling a little disappointed at how one dimensional the game was so far, I started reading through forums to find out if things get better. It turns out that things do get better. Not only do you get different endings depending on your overall chaos rating, but the game adapts to your style of play as well. Killing more characters puts the city on high alert, which increases the amount of opponents you'll face. Using a sneakier approach actually reduces some of the city's plight, and leaves you with less enemies to circumnavigate.

     The game is tough to go through if you choose not to kill characters, but there will be less NPCs to sneak past if you choose to play this way. If you want to hack and slash your way through the game, the system will add more enemy NPCs and hordes of rats, making it tougher to fight everyone off. I received great joy once I learned about the game's adaptive system and immediately replayed the first level as sneakily as possible. The game functions so well as a stealth RPG. I was reminded of the fun I used to have playing Metal Gear Solid and Tenchu Stealth Assassin. Then a new element was introduced, and my excitement fell once again.

     Shortly into the game you are given special powers. These powers let the player see through walls, teleport, possess creatures, push back enemies, summon rats, and more. The player gradually unlocks and upgrades powers as they collect runes throughout the game. I was extremely disappointed when powers were first introduced. When you start the game without powers, it is refreshing and feels like an older game where strategy and perseverance are needed to overcome challenges.  Just when the game was starting to feel original and challenging, here come the same old powers already overused in every other game to hold the hands of impatient players. The player is the one who ultimately decides whether or not to use powers, which again goes back to the player having control of how difficult they want to make the game. With that said, it is very difficult to resist using x-ray vision knowing that it will help you get past a particularly difficult point in a level that you have already failed five times.

     I played the game all the way through as stealthily as possible. I killed one character the whole game (by accident), and was only seen by enemies less than a handful of times. Dishonored was extremely enjoyable for me playing this way. I plan to play through the game at least one more time using a more chaotic approach. I'll have to come back and edit this post once that happens. Props to Bethesda for making a cool adaptive world. I dock you a couple points for lack of originality with the addition of powers, but I understand that the company was trying to keep the market for Dishonored as wide as possible, Not everyone welcomes challenge in a game as much as me. Looking forward to playing again soon.

The Last Starfighter

     Oh man I don't know how I managed to get to my current age without watching this gem. The Last Starfighter (1984) features a young high school age boy who lives in a trailer park community. The boy plays and masters an arcade game at the trailer park, which leads to him being recruited into an intergalactic defense force. The arcade game is used as a device to test the player's competency as a spaceship gunner. Once the player reaches a certain score, they are abducted and turned into soldiers set out to save the universe.The CGI in the film was impressive for how old it was. It must have cost a fortune to implement that kind of technology back then.

     The story mimics almost every component of the hero's journey, which made it very predictable. But it's about a kid who goes from playing a video game to becoming a space gunner, meaning it probably wasn't in the Oscar running to begin with. One interesting thing I noticed with The Last Starfighter was its similarity to Ender's Game (1985), a novel about a boy who is brought up to lead a space armada against an intergalactic force. I wonder if there was any relationship between the movie and Ender's Game or if both were just coincidental products of that time period...

Design Thinking for Business Innovation, University of Virginia

     It's funny the terms that materialize and trend in the business world. "Design Thinking" is another one of those terms. "Design Thinking is seen as offering a new approach better-suited for dealing with the accelerating pressures for growth and innovation faced by so many organizations today." The process for Design Thinking involves asking four questions:

• The current reality (what is?);
• The envisioning of a new future (what if?);
• The development of some concepts for new business opportunities (what wows?); and
• The testing of some of those concepts in the marketplace (what works?).

      Design Thinking follows a process of rapid prototyping and playtesting to come up with products that fill needs for specific markets. This is not something that is new, companies like Apple have just slapped a new name on it and brought it to the public's attention. My company follows a nearly identical process which we mostly refer to as "iterative design." We are constantly adjusting the product throughout the development cycle, essentially meaning that we are never "done" developing. In my opinion it does not matter which of these trends you grab onto, as long as your organization makes a thoughtful plan and sticks to it.
     The University of Virginia's class on Design Thinking is a very high level course, but students still walk away with several tools for developing and marketing new products. The ethnography and storytelling tools for example teach students how to market business solutions in a memorable way and how to properly test those solutions with the target market.
     I do wish they spiced up the presentation of the material a little bit. Class lecture videos were mostly made of a single professor talking in front of a green screen for varying amounts of time. Sometimes industry professionals would give examples of how they used the tools presented in the course. I have been part of other courses that interrupt lectures to test the student's understanding of the presented material. This at least gives the student a little bit of interaction with the material (outside of homework assignments). With that said, I was able to relate to much of what was being presented. I recommend this course as a casual reminder of how to properly plan and execute new solutions for the everyday business professional. Take the class for free here!

Repo! The Genetic Opera

     I am not very familiar with rock operas (other than the occasional Meatloaf song), but I decided to give Repo! The Genetic Opera a try. The film had potential but it favored gore and fan service too much for my taste. I enjoyed the art style along with the music. The setting felt very dark with comic book-like exaggeration, similar to Tim Burton's Batman. The music was pretty good as well. I did not enjoy the extreme gore and oversexualization. It was not uncommon for a character to be sliced open then roll around in puddles of their own blood. The point of these extremely graphic scenes may have been to shock the viewer, but I think they may have taken things a step or two too far. I could say the same thing for the costume design. The idea probably was to portray a future where individuals are so consumed in themselves that they will do anything to maintain their beauty and youth, hence the premise of a company growing profitable by up-selling organ transplants with breast implants and other physical enhancement procedures. I wanted to like this movie, but guts and gore for the sake of guts and gore is not my taste.

Mass Effect 3: Special Edition

     I enjoyed how the story of Mass Effect 3 unfolded. The game used the string of pearls approach, guiding the player along a linear path, interrupting periodically with areas of open gameplay and cinematic cutscenes. The folks at Bioware do a good job of disguising this technique by urging the player to hurry through intense moments using character dialogue. If I were on the way to rescue an ambushed platoon of soldiers for example, I could hear the soldiers bark out over the radio "we're not going to last much longer, we need an evac!" There usually was not a penalty for taking your time in missions like this, but it sure felt like I needed to hurry in order to save lives. Their is a lot of risk in using this rushed dialogue technique in video games, but if done correctly the reward is exciting gameplay. Bioware nailed it.
     Many people complained about the ending of the game, but I don't have a problem with it. At the end, the player is presented with a choice. I won't go into too much detail about what those choices were, but I can tell you that they left me feeling conflicted. Essentially you are forced to settle an argument that is made throughout the entire game, and the side that feels the most "right" is one that you have been fighting against for the entire journey. In the game's final moments you decide the fate of yourself, Earth, and future civilizations. Heavy stuff.
     You can tell that Bioware spent a great amount of time developing the background for each galaxy, each planet, and each alien race (they even went as far as talking about the diets of certain races). This brainstorming into the Mass Effect universe showed through in the artistic detail of each alien species. 
     The graphics for Mass Effect 3 were as expected, good but not great, and I'm okay with that. My experience isn't ruined by a few large pixels. I know the Wii U trails other major consoles when it comes to graphic performance. I am now convinced that the console makes up for what it lacks in the graphics department with the new technology of the Gamepad.
     I chose to buy the special edition and play the game on Wii U to see how the game had been adapted for different technology. Mass Effect 3: Special Edition uses the Wii U Gamepad as the player's omni tool: a digital multi-tool that lets the player control NPCs on the battlefield and see incoming threats. At first I was skeptical of buying the game in this format. I feared that I may get a "diet" version of Mass Effect 3 that had to remove key features in order to support this technology. The truth was exactly the opposite. The Gamepad enhances the battlefield experiences and I found myself relying on the omni tool in crunch situations. In fact I would panic at times when my tool would lose signal or go offline (certain points in the story made it believable that your map should be offline i.e. while underground or after an EMP). The story does an excellent job of describing the omni tool as well. Instead of giving the player an added sense of awareness without explanation, (like a minimap) the omni tool is presented as a perk of being in the alliance military.
     I no longer see the Wii U as a console that can't handle the modern game as well as other consoles, but as one that can take that game and expand upon it. I look forward to exploring this further with Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut.

How I Met Your Mother

   

     After several weeks of binge watching How I Met Your Mother, I have finally finished all nine seasons. Spoiler alert, if you plan on watching the show, continue no further.
     I particularly enjoyed the glimpses into future seasons. By laying the ground work for future events, it never felt like there was a lull in the show. You are always looking forward to how the story progresses toward the next big event. Other shows like Lost and Supernatural have episodes that do not add any value to the plot and seem to serve as a desperate means to stretch the show for another season. By the time the end of that show comes around, you feel like it has skipped out on what originally made it intriguing. But you can't sacrifice all that time you invested without seeing the end, right? How I Met Your Mother was not like this, and seemed well thought out from the beginning with the end in mind.
     Even though the story and character arcs progressed nicely, I never did like Lily very much. For some reason the kleptomania, catch phrases, inability to keep a secret, lesbian fantasies, frequent crying, and very poor decision making skills added up to a character that was more annoying than quirky.  To be fair, it was not just Lily who was annoying. Every character got under my skin at one point or another, especially after watching multiple episodes in a row. I do give the writers credit for character consistency through all nine seasons. Halfway through the show you are able to predict how characters will react to situations because you are in tune with their personalities. That may be why it's sad when the characters move on with their lives and the show finally comes to an end.
     Despite being a comedy with ample moments of ridiculousness, the show comes to a very sobering end. Ted works so hard to find the love of his life, and in the end only gets her for a few years before she passes away. The entire last season takes place at Barney and Robin's wedding and they end up getting divorced shortly thereafter. Barney goes back to giving up on love and starts shamelessly hitting on girls who are half his age. He does ultimately find meaning in the daughter he has from one of his escapades. Lily and Marshall ultimately recover from their spat and grow old together. I guess every character does find happiness, but not without taking some bruises first. The show actually models life pretty well. You live, you love, and you get old fast. How I Met Your Mother teaches us that life is short, and you have to enjoy every moment.