Controversial Games - Muslim Massacre/Postal 2

L3 Extended Games Development
Controversial Games
Tutor: Caitlin, McReynolds
Name: Wyatt, Chapman
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Muslim Massacre Controversy

This game was made by Eric Vaughn also known as "Sigvatr" on the "Something Awful" forums. The game was released in 1990 and although it was out for awhile it on gained an increase in hate on September 11th 2001.

The player follows the path of an American soldier, which is dropped out of a plane equipped with a pistol. Players can find different weapons laying around on the floor though, such as: shotguns, rocket launchers, machine-guns and grenades. To advance throughout the levels, the play must kill every Muslim that comes onto the screen. Once that has been completed there will be a boss fight. Just to top it off some Muslims are dressed as normal civilians, which you still murder anyway.

This picture above is gameplay of someone attempting to defeat one of the bosses within the game. Osama Binladan.

Because of the September 11 plane crashings, people would comment about the game calling it "vile, childish, tedious and desperate to drum-up controversy." Some people even say that the game was made in order to justify a reason for murdering Muslims. Viewer comments on the web site of the Arabic television channel Al Arabiya were mixed; some condemned it, while others viewed it as a reaction to Islamist extremists.

Postal/Postal 2

Postal 2 is a game created by Running With Scissors and was released April 13th 2003. Being the sequel to the internationally controversial, Postal. The game gained publicity immediately because of it's extreme violent nature. In 2004 New Zealand banned postal 2 due to "gross, abhorrent content". On May 1st 2007 Malaysia banned the game because of the games violence and "offensive depiction of cruelty".

Plot - The player follows a character simply called "postal dude", which has red hair, wears a T-shirt with an alien's face printed on, has a trench coat and is quipped with suspicious glasses.

The player is tasked with doing several choirs throughout the week. Starting on Monday, the player can approach each task how they see fit. You could go and buy milk from the store without starting any fights, or you can go on a massacre before collecting your items on the shopping list. The game sticks by the rule of that each mission is only as violent as the player controlling it. Although the gave does advise you to use violence since every character in the game has it in for you. They will either stick their middle finger up at you for no reason, or you could be mugged and assaulted by random people on the street.

When people gave their views on the game, it was quite mixed, surprisingly, but most people went far enough to give the game a zero rating because of the violence, which the developers followed up with "that the amount of violence is up to the players—they may go about their tasks without causing trouble, or they can create mayhem.".

One of the most notifiable parts of the game is the ability to urinate on dead bodies. People stated that this was pushing the line too far, but as it so happens this can only be done if the player chooses to urinate on people or the ability to use a cat as a silencer for your weapon, clearly showing animal cruelty.

In New Zealand the game remains banned, distribution or even buying it for personal use is widely illegal and is considered a criminal offense, punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $50,000. The game received additional negative publicity following the September 13, 2006, Dawson College shooting incident in Montreal. Media coverage regarding the shooter, Kimveer Gill, indicated that he played violent video games. Postal 2 was cited as one of these games, although some coverage by CTV erroneously stated that the game was only available for sale in the United Kingdom. Developer Ryan C. Gordon, who ported the game to those platforms, stated that he feels that the game holds a mirror to the worst aspects of modern society, saying in an interview that the game is a "brilliant caricature of our mangled, disconnected, fast-food society, disguised as a collection of dirty jokes and ultra-violence."

Bob Invaded Space Evaluation

Unit 72/22 Extended Games Development
Tutor: Wayne, Gallaer/Josh, Rai
Game Evaluation
Name: Wyatt, Chapman
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Bob Invaded Space Analysis.

Assignment Objective

The objective of the assignment was to make one out of three games. The games were already picked out for certain people to create. Some people would create a maths game, while others like me would make a Space Invaders clone or Black Jacks card game. One the game had been picked, we could make anything we wanted as long as it was related to the genre we were given.

Bug Report:

• Shooting creates a stream of bullets, instead of one at a time.
• Enemies don't die when shot, or when one is shot they all die.
• Can't stand stay in one place (even with the right code).
• Enemies don't shoot.

Sprites:

Main character (Bob's Ship):

This sprite has the most "coding" within it. Holding the movements of the ship, shoot key and collisions. Although i'm only using the systems icon coding.

Enemy Ship:

The enemy has only a little bit of coding, which consists of movement, collisions and automatically shooting at random times.

Sprite Barrier:

The barrier is used as a shield for the player against enemy fire but you must be wary because the barrier will slowly start to break down as it gets hit.

Sprite Wall:

This sprite only has a collision code, to obviously stop the player and enemies from leaving the area, since it has no other reason.

Sprite Bullet:

The bullet only has a small amount of coding, which is mainly variables, to stop people from being able to spam the shoot key.

Background Picture:

This is the current background i am using for the "Bob Invaded Space" game.

Level Layout:

This is the level design i decided to go with, it's pretty simple. enemies at the top, player at the bottom and some barriers that start to deteriorate, when shot by the enemy.

Target Audience:

- Target Age: Any.
- Target Gender: Any.
- Targeted Gamer: Casual and competitive.
- Predicted Price: Free.

Development:

- Name of the Game: Bob Invaded Space.
- Art Style: Arcade, for a more casual feel.
- The created sprites have a pixel value of 32 by 32.
- Game Dimension: 2D.
- Genre of the Game: Action, casual.

Sound Development:

Plan:

The game i have created is a remake of "Space Invaders" although i called mine "Bob Invaded Space" relating back to the previous game i made "Bob's Gob". The aim, as i think everyone knows, is to last as long as possible by avoiding enemy bullets and in return killing them. Firstly i must choose which game i want to import sounds into. then i should research other games' music ideas and learn from them on how to use the correct music for the theme of the game. Once that is complete, i'll use equipment supplied by the college to record sounds. Then i'll put the sounds onto the computer and using Adobe Audition i will edit them to fit the game.

Music i Envision:

I'm hoping to make a retro, comedy-action themed song, to keep players engaged with the combat but also to prevent them from getting frustrated if they die multiple times.

Other Notes:
- All sounds shall be in mono.
- Software being used: Adobe Audition.
- Sound Effects: PewPew, Beep.

The top image is what it looked like before editing. (Mono)

This is one of the samples of sound i edited and imported into the game. The sound was made for the purpose of informing the player that the spaceship has fired it's bullet. Since i couldn't get a real gun for the sound effects i had to make a foley (artificial sounds) sound. i had this sound start straight the way then had it fade out.

The top image is what it looked like before editing. (Mono)

The next sound is to indicate that the enemies have moved one block lower so that the player can focus on dodging bullets. I only cut parts from this sound, to get the correct "beep".

This is a video of me playing my game with sounds. (there aren't manner since it's space invaders)

File Formats: All recordings i have done started off as "VLC media file (mp3.)" but once imported they were converted to "GameMaker File".

This is the file before being imported into the game.


This is the file after being imported.

Evaluation: overall i am quite happy with how my sounds work with the games style. "beep" was the first sound i did. it adds a slight retro feel to the game, possibly making some of my older audience feel abit nostalgic. "pew" is the sound effect for the gun being fired. For this sound effect i kinda wanted abit of humour so i decided to use my voice for the sound because i figured a high pitched voice saying "pew" would make some people grin. I have to admit though, "pew" doesn't really suit the art style of the game. Although the game is 32 bit, i think the "pew" sound effect should be in a more comical art style.

Did i stick with my plan? I would say that i followed most of it, if not all. I went out in a group and recorded sounds using different objects using the equipment we received, although we didn't gather any objects like i said i would but instead improvised with what i had on me, or around me. As for editing, i only really cut pieces down to fit parts of the game because i didn't feel like it was necessary for me to use any fade in or fade out, loop etc. 

Unit 73 - Game Music Evaluation

L3 Extended Games Development
Assignment 1 - Use of music within games and the methodology of recording and production.
Start Date: 02/02/16
Deadline: 09/02/16
Tutor: Josh, Rai
Name: Wyatt, Chapman
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How do games use music to add an enhanced effect to an atmosphere?

Chase Events (Male Ward Chase SoundTrack Outlast) - Most developers will express the execution of a chase event by suddenly initiating a song with a fast rhythm. This can cause players to panic, as they feel the need to rush, in order to escape. In most cases it would be the correct thing to do, but rushing, along with panicking can make players flustered and may not be able to respond to the situation correctly or slowly.

Outlast is full of moments where it has you on the edge of the seat and with the assistance of music (specifically the link above) and the run down surroundings increasing the intensity of the moment.

Emotional Scenes (Last Of Us -All Gone (No Escape)  - The aim for this song is to make the mood feel as though all hope has escaped, that all the main character can do is give up. This could invoke the player to feel sad. I would say that given the atmosphere and scenery within the game, this music would suit it well within a distressing part of the story.

Finding an item (Zelda chest opening sound) - Zelda - when you find a treasure chest with a new item, a small tune is activated, to inform you that you have have found an important piece of equipment.

My Theory of why music is used in games.

Music and sound FX are so important within a game or film. They are used to enhance the atmosphere.

Using spine chilling music, you can create a game with low graphics, yet still setup a good scenario. SlenderMan for example is mainly thriller based. Nothing really happens but it builds up the music as you go on through the game, to put you off of the objective and more focused on running away. Music can also assist in making the player feel more emotionally attached to a character. The Last Of Us does this exceptionally well. It's a game that is solely focused on character attachments to increase the emotional trauma of the game's story/plot.

Keywords:

Wavelength - The distance between crests of sound waves.

Pitch is perceived as how "low" or "high" a sound is and represents the cyclic, repetitive nature of the vibrations that make up sound. For simple sounds, pitch relates to the frequency of the slowest vibration in the sound. In the case of complex sounds, pitch perception can vary. Sometimes individuals identify different pitches for the same sound, based on their personal experience of particular sound patterns.

Amplitude - Refers to the intensity of sound.
Pitch - How high or low a tone is.
Hertz - The unit for frequency.
Decibel - The unit used to measure the intensity of sound.
Foley - Creating artificial sounds for films or games. an example of this would be if they had a scene where a character slapped another, then they would probably use a slab of meat and hit it with a rolling pin to create the illusion of the person being slapped.
Timbre - The quality of musical sound or voices, from the pitch to the intensity.

Evaluation of 2 Game Songs:

Halo 2: A game about the last remaining spartan (Master Chief) who is trying to save the universe and prevent the activation of the halo rings

Halo 2 - Mjolnir mix (Original Soundtrack) - The song starts off by creating a mystical atmosphere, filling the player with wonder, then it goes into an intense guitar solo, indicating the start of an event that is intense, being fast paste and full of action. Players may feel curious at the start, possibly later on in the song players may feel motivated to try their hardest to complete the task before them, people could feel heroic.

The Last of Us: This game follows the story of Joel. A man who was caught up in the chaos of the outbreak, which ended with him losing his daughter. Later on he is tasked with escorting Ellie to a laboratory, where doctors decide to dissect Ellie in order to obtain a cure.

Last of Us - Main Theme (Gustavo Santaolalla) - for me it sounds like something sad, or dramatic has happened. Maybe something is coming but it cant be foreseen. The song itself has a very distinct western feel to it, especially when its put into context with the game. The music could have been specifically made to go along with the ruined city, which was plagued. Making the play feel just how terrible the outbreak was.

Obviously both games have copyrighted their music to prevent other people or companies from stealing it. In order to use their music in a videos or other media service you would first have to pay royalties or ask for permission and try to obtain rights for free, with afew other ways to use the songs.

Film Analysis - Appleseed Alpha

L3 Extended Games Development
Film Analysis
Tutor: Wayne, Gallear
Name: Wyatt, Chapman
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Film Analysis - Appleseed Alpha

Character Motives:

Olson - To destroy a pre-war machine, which could destroy New York.

Iris - Her motive is also to destroy the pre-war machine.

Deunan - She wanted to venture off to find Olympus.

Briareos - At the start his motive was to just keep surviving without wanting anything else, but near the end of the film he changes to wanting to find Olympus.

Talos - He wanted to use the war machine to strike fear into the hearts of people and cyborgs so that he could create a new world.

Two Horns - Two horns wanted to become the ruler of New York City through money and other means.

Story:

Plot - Deunan (a younge female soldier) and Briareos (a cyborg partner) are trying to survive in a post World War 3 apocalyptic New York City. While doing jobs on the side, Deunan dreams of finding Olympus (the legendary city of hope for humanity).

Beginning - At the start Deunan and Briareos had been set out on a task to obtain a vaccine for Two Horns. On their way back to Two Horns, via. metro train lines, they become under attacked by 3 cyborgs which causes damage to the vaccine. Deunan and Briareos believe that the 3 cyborgs were Two Horns men and that Two Horn is secretly trying to sabotage Briareos. By not bringing back the vaccine they are forced to go on another mission to destroy some drones.

Middle -  This is when they meet Olson and Iris. At that point Olson and Iris did not know about the drones that had gone wild, so Deunan rushes in to save them, while Briareos stayed back to support her. After the drones had been eliminated, Talos and his companions flew to the ceased battlefield in pursuit of Deunan and Briareos' new found friends. After finding no trace of Deunan and Briareos at the site, Talos heads over to the city to see Two Horns. Since Two Horns doesn't know anything about the girl that Talos is looking for, Talos decides to kill Two Horns. Only somehow Two Horns manages to survive. Briareos and his friends set up camp in an abandoned building to stay for the night,  when Two Horns shows up in a tank to kill Briareos. Deunan, Iris, Olson and Briareos fight against them and manage to destroy the henchman followed by the tank. Once that battle had ended Talos shows up and kidnaps Olson and Iris.

End - Briareos, being a cyborg, is able to track Olson, but when they found him they were too late, Olson had been killed and his data on the weapon had been taken, but he did leave behind a data chip for Briareos, so that he could locate the pre-war machine. Immediately they take the jeep and rush to the location. killing 4 enemy cyborgs at the entrance, they rush down the elevator shaft using the jeep. They are then pinned down and struggle to advance to save Iris. This is when Two Horns which had survived the tank explosion, shows up to save the two protagonists from the Tritan forces. Talos end up activating the machine and sets out with Iris (who is held captive) to destroy New York City, what he doesn't know is that Deunan is onboard aswell. She appears infront of Talos and shoots him multiple times, running out of time and being unable to stop the machine through the command console, so they get Briareos to shoot the engine with his rifle on the ourside. Unfortunately Iris had to stay behind to keep the shields down for Briareos to have his opening and ends up dying in the explosion.

Music, FX and Legal Consideration

L3 Extended in Games Design
Start Date: 12/01/16
Tutor: Josh, Rai
Name: Wyatt, Chapman
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List of Music/FX Sources:

• Produce your own.
• NoCopyRightedSounds (NCS).
• Buy the rights to someone elses song/request if you could use it.
• Get royalty free music.

Explaining the purpose of music/FX

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Alot of the music in The Witcher 3 is quite dramatic and fits fight, and chase scenarios well. The music is also very immersive, fitting the setting of the game amazingly, really making the player feel more attracted to the game. The audio soundtrack for when your character is fighting will get you pumped, causing you to want to keep fighting enemies, just for the music. The Witcher 3 - Combat Music

Click this to see other explanations about the moods of music and their effect on the player.

Legal and Ethical Consideration

95% of the time, when obtaining musical content, the user will need permission from the owner because alot of music produces copyright their music.

To do this the user can either pay royalty fees. This means that you will have to pay money to the owner of the music to use it.

If the producer is maybe in a good mood and you ask nicely you could get permission from the owner to use the music for free.

Lastly you could  buy the rights to the music, which could cost more than royalty fees.

Unit 78 - Digital Graphics for Computer Games - Own Brief

Unit 78 - Digital Graphics for Computer Games
Start Date: 03/11/15
End Date: 10/11/15
Tutor: Josh Rai
Name: Wyatt Chapman
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Client Brief

The game needs a protagonist, with a number of enemies.
A background
Import audio into the game for the character, enemies etc.
Needs 5 or more levels.
Must be a 2D platformer.

Own Brief

Plot - Within this game the character sets out to defend his self employed business (BOB's GOB) against demolition workers. Along the way you must equip yourself with the latest technology in cooking equipment and defeat the almighty boss, Jeff.

Development
Name of the game.
Art Style: Cel Shaded merged with an exaggerated side theme, to distort portions of the characters body. (give more creativity to the player)
Create characters, walls and enemy sprites with a pixel value of 32 by 32.
Create a background using Adobe Photoshop, illustrator, or within the game engine.
Make up to 5 levels/rooms. (each room gradually getting harder as the player advances)
Game should be made for PC and mobile devices in mind. (wider audience range)
Create several sounds for when the character dies, collects currency, lands etc.
Games Dimension will be 2D.
The genre of the game will be an action-adventure

Customer
The target audience of the game will be intended for a male audience, aged 14-16 because of a more mature form of humour.
Price of the game. (whether it should be for free or not)

Legal and Ethical Consideration
Copyright/Trade Mark. Make sure to copyright the products title, logo, sounds/music, characters etc.
Make sure that the game is not sexist (treating the female characters with respect and not putting profound clothing on them)

Ideas for the game:

Game Name: Bob's Job
Character Name: Bob Goblineo
About the Character: Bob, aged 44, with a height of 6ft, is a self employed man that works hard to supply for his family. He's been running BOB's GOB (a fast food restaurant, which mainly only sells kebabs) for 20 years and has only started to progress 3 years ago, yet only slightly.
For one of the levels bob's family could be kidnapped, causing him to take a slight detour.

Unit 73 - Sound for Computer Games

L3 Extended Diploma Games Development
Unit 73 - Sound for Computer games
Tutor: Josh, Rai
Name: Wyatt, Chapman
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5 Different Gaming Songs that add emotion:

Last Of Us - All Gone (No Escape)  - The aim for this song is to make the mood feel as though all hope is gone, that all the main character can do is give up. This could invoke the player to feel sad. I would say that given the atmosphere and scenery within the game, this music would suit it well within a distressing part of the story.

Outlast - Male Ward Chase - The game mainly focuses on tense moments and hiding. The music is clearly meant to spark the event that you are in the worst situation. Being chased by an asylum patient that wants to become your friend, with a cleaver in his hand, is obviously not the best situation. Of-course being a smart person, you (the player) decide that it would be best to run. to help assist your brain in realizing that you should run, this tense music suddenly kicks in to help you panic, as you drastically press every object in hope that you can hide within it.

What the developer is trying to create in short is that you have just entered an event where you must run for you life to survive, making the player panic, causing them to struggle to think about how to get away.

SlenderMan - Concealed - SlenderMan is a purely atmospheric game, that relies on eerie music, making you wonder what might be lurking in the depths of the forest. This is just one of the soundtracks from SlenderMan The Arrival. This song would make you think that you had been spotted by SlenderMan, causing you to perhaps panic. Trying to run away, when in actuality you're running towards him.

I would say that the music does achieve it's goal in creating a situation where the player starts to panic, making them paranoid.

Halo 3 - One Final Effort - Near the end of halo 3 there is a moment when you would assume that it's going to be the end, that there was nothing Master Chief could have done. Yet suddenly, this music kicks in as Master Chief thinks of an amazing way to save Cortana and everyone else.

In my opinion the maker of the soundtrack did an excellent job at conveying emotions of hope, bravery and makes the player feel pretty awesome.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Eredin, King of the Hunt - This soundtrack creates a very sinister feeling toward the enemy. That he is the heart of evil, that even Geralt of Rivia struggles to challenge. The king of the hunt. Eredin.

The intent behind the music is to make the player feel as though maybe he should be wary of the hunt, because of their cold hearted nature, followed by their powers.

Why is Music important within game development

Music and sound FX are so important within a game or film. They are used to fully create the atmosphere. Using spine chilling music, you can create a game with low graphics, yet still setup a good scene. SlenderMan for example is mainly thriller based. Nothing really happens but it builds up the music as you go longer throughout the game, to put you off of the objective and more focused on running away. Music can also assist in making the player feel more emotionally attached to a character. The Last Of Us does this exceptionally well. It's a game that is solely focused on character attachments to increase the emotional trauma of the game's story/plot.

Keywords for Sounds:

• Wavelength - the distance between crests of sound waves.
• Amplitude - Refers to the intensity of sound.
• Frequency - 
• Pitch - How high or low a tone is.
• Hertz - The unit for frequency.
• Decibel - The unit used to measure the intensity of sound.

Foley - Creating artificial sounds for films or games. an example of this would be if they had a scene where a character slapped another, then they would probably use a slab of meat and hit it with a rolling pin to create the illusion of the person being slapped.

Timbre - The quality of musical sound or voices, from the pitch to the intensity.

3 Games that use sound as information/speech:

Outlast - In outlast there are tons of chase events, the developers used music to indicate that you are being chased. They used intense fast paste music and heavy breathing. When you find a place to hide and sit there for awhile as the enemy starts to lose interest in searching for you, the music slowly starts to die down, acting as a means to let you know that it's more secure to leave your hiding spot.

Zelda - when you find a treasure chest with a new item, a small tune is activated, to inform you that you have have found an important piece of equipment.

Metal Gear Sold V: The Phantom Pain -  When sneaking around a stronghold in MGS V: TPP and become spotted by an enemy, a high pitched alerting sound will be played to inform you that the enemy is aware of your presence.