Liar’s Dice

Rules and Gameplay:

1. To start the game, players shake their cups with the dice in them. Then everyone slams them on the table with the openings downward, so no one else can see how the dice fell. Players can look at their own dice, but they shouldn’t be able to see anybody else’s. After you peek at your dice, based on what you found you can make a call about how many of any number of dice there are on the table.

2. Players can also change their calls as others make theirs. The calls must be in order to the player on the left. If somebody else makes a higher call than you, you can raise yours, but only if the player that raises it is on the left. The hands are ranked first by amount (5 4’s), then by value (5 4′s). Like (2, 3’s) are better that (2, 2’s) but not (3, 2’s)

3. Eventually somebody will make what the next player believes to be an impossible call.

• If you call somebody a liar and you were wrong, you lose.
• If you call someone a liar and they were, they lose.

4. Any player who makes a call that is shown to be wrong loses.

5.  The calls MUST keep going up until someone calls someone else a liar. This way there is always a loser–the loser will lose some of whatever they were betting. Bets can be re-decided each time, or you can choose to make the bets constant, it’s your choice. The first person who loses a game with no chips (NOT the first person who loses all of their chips).

• On top of losing your chips you lose one of your dice.
• If the person who made the first call calls 1s or aces, ones are no longer wild for that round.
• If it should come down to two players each with one die, then Liar’s Dice becomes “spots”. This means that you both roll and look at your dice, but instead of number of dice you are saying the number of spots. If there is one five and one 3, there are 8 spots. The game continues normally after this.

 

Modified rules:

– Michael’s rule: The player with the least amount gets a leeway of 1 with their call.

– Patrick’s rule: If a player calls a bid spot on  there must be that exact amount of dice on the table or they lose a die. If they are correct then all other players have been caught and lose a turn.

– John rule: if a player wins their own bet they must on subsequent turns reveal one of their own dice; this can stack up until eventually a player is revealing all of their dice and theoretically can’t lie.

– My Rule: if a player can bid all of the die he has such as “Four 3s” while no one else has a “3” and be correct he gets an extra dice as reward at the expense of another player. However if he is caught lying the next time he’ll lose 2 dice instead of one.

Galaga: The Card Game

 

At your disposal:

20 x Offensive Cards

20 x Defensive Cards

5 x 1UP Cards 

17 x Life Cards

Setup:

1) Each player takes 3 Life Cards and places these cards in front of them face up.

2) The rest of the Life cards are then placed to one side. 

3) The Offensive, Defensive, and 1UP cards are all combined and shuffled. The resulting deck is then placed at the center players. 

4) Each player then draws 5 cards from this deck and holds them in their hand.

 

Gamplay:

1) Players decide who goes first.

2) Players draw cards from the deck. 

3) Players can play any of the cards in their hand and target any of the other players with offensive cards.

4) When players have finished playing cards, the player to the left goes next. 

5) When a player runs out of Life Cards they are out of the game

6) The game is won only one player is left in the game (i.e. they are the only one left with life cards.

 

1UP Cards:

When played they gain 1 life. That player takes a life card from the life card pile and places it face up in front of them. The 1UP card is then placed in the discard pile. 

 

 

Combat:

1) Offense

Player targets another player with an offensive card

    – Should that card possess an “offensive #” that is that player’s offensive. Players can play any number of these numbered cards. These numbers are then added up, creating that player’s offensive. 

      Example: Jimmy plays 3 offensive cards that have offensives of 3, 5, and 6, so 3+5+6=14 so Jimmy’s offensive is 14. 

   – There also exist cards that can be attached to these numbered cards to augment their values. These cards are placed below the targeted card so that both cards can be seen. 

   – Special offensive cards that directly affect the targeted player or their defensive  possess some instructions. These instructions are to be carried out immediately unless negated by the targeted player, see Negation. 

2) Defense

When targeted by offensive cards, targeted player plays defensive cards

      – Should that card possess a “defensive #” that is that player’s defensive. Players can play any number of these numbered cards. These numbers are then added up, creating that player’s defensive. 

      Example: Timmy plays 3 defensive cards that have defensives of 3, 5, and 6, so 3+5+6=14 so Timmy’s defensive is 14. 

   – There also exist cards that can be attached to these numbered cards to augment their values. These cards are placed below the targeted card so that both cards can be seen. 

   – Special defensive cards that directly affect the targeted player or their offensive  possess some instructions. These instructions are to be carried out immediately unless negated by the attacking player, see Negation. 

3) Results of Battle

When both the attacking and defending players have finished playing cards and all the instructions for special offensive and defensive cards have been carried out, the resulting offensive number and defensive number are compared to each other and the player with the largest number wins.

 – If the attacking player wins, the defending player loses a Life Card. Put that life card where other life cards are. All the offensive and defensive cards played are put in the discard pile. 

– If the defending player wins, all the offensive and defensive cards played are put in the discard pile. 

4) Negation

When a card is negated it’s placed in the discard pile. 

5) Interference

Players not involved in a battle can play offensive cards on the attacking player’s side and/or play defensive cards on the defending player’s side to “help” them. 

Additional Rules

– Players can only attack other players during their turn.

– Players can only attack one player at a time. 

– When a player is out of the game all their cards in their hand will be placed in the discard pile.

– When the center deck runs out simply reshuffle the discard pile and place the resulting deck in the center. 

 

My Experience:

Turning a simple, arcade style video game from the 8-bit era is an interesting idea, however it’s painstakingly challenging as our requirements allow no liberties beyond turning a video game into a board or card game. We had to adhere to all the aspects of the game Galaga which include the theme, the art style and the goal. The result is a relatively simple card game adapted from a relatively simple space shooter. It all comes down to dealing offensive and defensive cards, very easy to get the hang of like the video game and hopefully as fun.

Neighbours From Hell 1 & 2: Linear Interpolation

Neighbors from Hell and its sequel are strategy games released by JoWood productions in 2003 and 2004 respectively on the PC. You play as a man named Woody who takes revenge on his troublesome neighbor on a new reality TV show by the same name.

The game makes use of linear interpolation. Linear interpolation is used to interpolate between values in a table. It can also be used as a way to animate an object moving between two points by using time as the ratio.

Linear interpolation in game programming is utilized quite often; it has applications in every aspect from AI to rendering and rasterization. Linear interpolation can be seen as a means of incrementally advancing from one point to another by steps. The parameter used for this advancement is denoted as t so we’ll use that. ‘t’ is passed to the parametric equation constructed from the two points to evaluate the line at an arbitrary location. When t==0, the equation evaluates at the first point, while when t==1 it evaluates to the second point. At t==0.5, the result is halfway between the two endpoints.

In this game your character moves around by clicking in different locations, your walk to the point you clicked at and can go through doors or hide through the same action. Your goal is to play several tricks on the Neighbour, you do this by collecting objects and using them to set up pranks and traps. All of this is done through clicks from the left mouse, the right mouse is used for sneaking in areas that require quite such as the presence of the guard dog, this just causes you to mouse slower.

The interpolation isn’t perfect as your movement are limited to certain paths. If you’ve ever play old overhead games like the original Legend of Zelda, your character can’t move diagonally or in a circle, it’s always up, down, left and right. Neighbour’s From Hell’s movement interpolation controls are essentially the same, fortunately the primitive physics don’t hold down the gameplay and controls.

Interpolation is also useful for calculating positions of moving objects over time. If you know that a given object is at one point at time t=0 and will be at another point at time t=1, then the object’s position at any intermediate time can easily be calculated via interpolation. This is useful, for example, in smoothing out the visual frame-rate of your animation cycle.

How far have we come in terms of animation?

A few weeks ago in our Introduction to Graphic Design lecture; we were shown screenshots and footage of the game Uncharted, at one point it was compared to an upcoming animated movie. Our professor brought up a question; will game graphics be as good as those of a modern day animated movie?

The answer to the professor’s question is yes. That isn’t my opinion, that is a valid prediction and a fact. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll notice how much technology has progressed in all realms, video games especially; video game physics has become more complex and malleable, graphics has become much more elaborate and detailed, and the animation is now smoother and more realistic. Things are only going to ascend from here.

I remember years ago when I first bought the PlayStation 3, one of the most anticipated games at the time was Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, as a fan of the series I bought the game. In the back of the box it advertised the graphics as being an interactive Pixar movie, having played the game I can honestly tell you that this statement is quite valid. The graphics and animation were quite uncanny for the time and still are impressive.

The reason I bring that up because since then and up until taking this class I haven’t been able to notice how advanced graphics and animation in games have become since then.  This is because like anything we have a lot of, we tend to take it for granted and not notice how good we have it. Game graphics and animation are rarely heralded for their achievements during its “run”, but rather before when trailers and footage appear and afterwards in future generations when they look back and show appreciation. If you’ve paid attention to past few years, you’ll see that video games today have reached the standards of the animated movies of yesterday.

Since the introduction of consoles like the Nintendo 64, the Sega Saturn and the PlayStation, 3D computer graphics has become a staple of video game animation. Simultaneously, 3 dimensional computer animation was on the rise with the growing popularity of Pixar thanks to their blockbuster hit Pixar. During the nineties there was a popular show by the name of Reboot that last from 1994 to 2001, which was the era of the fifth-generation console, Reboot was the first 100% computer generated television series. 

When you take a look at Reboot today, its animation seems very outdated, even by the standards of the PlayStation era is was quite inferior.

Now you may think I’m being unfair comparing an old television show to a video game, so I’ll try bringing up a movie this time. Compare the in-game graphics of Tekken 6 released in 2009 with some Pixar movies from the first half of the 2000s. While the Pixar movies are superior due to more detail, you have to give credit to Tekken 6 for nearly reaching that same standard in the gameplay.

Going back to my original point, as you can see, games have managed to reach movie standards, but we’re still questioning if games will be up to par with movies. It will, but we won’t notice since movie animation will remain two steps ahead until consoles have video cards and other hardware enough to support games like that and they start having even bigger budgets.

One must also take into account that it’s harder to animate games than it is to animate movies and shows. This is because animators for movies and shows have the luxury of scripts and storyboards in which they know exactly what to animate, animators for games do this as well but only for cutscenes. For the games, they need to animate every situation that the player would get into, often times they’d miss some places which would result in hidden glitches.

Territory Acquisition Game: Pirate WaARRs

 

 

 

The Great Wall, a wall separating the East and the West, slices through the sea. Beyond lies the mysterious lands, filled with untold riches and ripe for the taking! The world belongs to those take it! So raise the colours and conquer what is rightfully yours!

You play a captain of your pirate ship bound for the mysterious lands beyond the wall with full intent on occupying them. But at the same time you must protect the lands you call your own from other pirates to keep them yours. Reign supreme in your own lands or claim the bounty beyond the wall? The choice is yours.

Setup:

1. The way the game is played differs depending on the amount of players (which need to be even) but the rules are generally the same.
2. If the case of 4 players, each team covers 14 of their own islands, in any formation they would like. At least one island must be covered on each row.
3. If the case of 2 players, each player must cover 21 of their own islands, in any formation they wish. At least 1 island must be covered on each row.
4. Each island has 3 sections; each has one island cube on it with the green side facing up representing that it has yet to be conquered.

Gameplay:

1. Each player starts with 2 ships and places their ships on their docks which are represented by the brown colored spaces. Players located on the same side of the center “border” are on the same team.
2. Roll a D4 to determine who goes first.
3. That player then rolls a D4 to determine how many spaces they are allowed move in total. Example: If Alex has 3 ships and roles a 3 he is able to move 1 ship 3 spaces or move all his ships 1 space.
4. That player can then move their ship to any adjacent blue spaces on the board.
5. Once movement has finished play continues clockwise.
6. When a player is placed adjacent to an island that player has the choice of conquering that “slice” of the island. Unless it is already conquered by another player, in that case see Combat.
7. When you have conquered a slice of an island turn the island cube so that your affiliated colour is on top.
8. The game is won when all the islands on the opposing side are completely owned by the players of the opposite side. Example: White wins when all the islands on the Red side are conquered by the Blue team.

 

Other Rules:

• Each island is broken up into 3 sections. Each section is worth 3 gold pieces.
• Gold is the currency used in the game and can be used to purchase additional ships and can be used to bargain with other players for slices of island.
• Use paper to keep track of your gold.
• To pass to the adjacent blue spaces on the other side of the “wall” a player must pay 5 gold to pass.
• Each player can command a maximum of 4 ships total.
• Players must pay 20 gold piece to purchase an additional ship.
• New ships always start at their respective docks.
• Treasure chests are scattered throughout the board, placing a ship over a treasure chest allows a player to draw a single card.
• These cards have the ability to give gold to the holder, take gold from another player, forcibly take a slice of an island, allow a player to pass the border unchallenged, and to take over an entire island at once, wipe them clean of their previous owners, and destroy opponent’s ships, and destroy your own.
• These cards can held in your hand and can be played at any time unless specified.

Combat:

• Two players, an invader and a defender, fighting one another for a section of the island must roll a D6 and the player with the higher role keeps their slice. In a tie defender always wins.
• If the invader loses then they are sent to one of the red spaces on the “border”, the opposing team’s choice of which space they are sent to.
• If the defender loses then they lose that slice of the island.

The game from a design perspective seems to be a rather exciting experience as it makes the player make numerous decisions during play which affect the outcome of the game. I look forward to play testing it and hopefully it does not require too much tweaking.

My Thoughts:

I really like the premise of the game, I’m a fan of pirates and high seas adventures, and I like the idea of traveling to different islands, conquering them and defend them from other players trying to overtake what I worked for. The board is vivid and colorful, despite being simplistic and relying more on iconography and colors, it represents the pirate themed game quite well and is visually appealing to look at.

Northanger Abbey Deathmatch: A Loose adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel with pirates

This game is loosely based on the novel Northanger Abbey by revered author Jane Austen. It takes place within Henry and Catherine’s imagination. Our game is based on a part of the book where Catherine is excited about being able to see a real abbey and Henry adds to her excitement by creating a story about this a mystical gothic place filled with secret passages and mysterious chests. Here’s the twist we added pirates to the game which would accompany Henry and Catherine in the imaginary abbey to sprawl for treasure as the two’s enemies. This brings us to the idea for our game which is a battle between our heroes and the dreaded pirates.

The Rules

Movement is determined by a dice roll and the game requires 2 teams of two people or 2 opposing players. One team is the hero team consisting of Henry and Catherine, the other is the pirates.

The player piece that represent the pirates.

The heroes are represented by cut outs of these two characters.

There are many secret passages in the game; in order to enter one of them you must roll the specific number that on the die. After fulfilling this requirement you then follow the path of the passage to your new position.

Chests are found in side passages on the map. They contain bonuses but are guarded by ghosts. To defeat a ghost you must perform a battle sequence. This consists of first rolling the die for the ghost. This number constitutes its strength. Then in order to beat it you must roll higher than its strength. After you defeat the ghost you obtain the item from the chest.

Chests will contain either a positive or a negative bonus card. Positive ones are what you would expect extra dice roll, extra movement spaces etc. Negative cards however have a more strategic role. Once you get a negative card you put it into your own negative card pile. To add a sense of strategy negative cards are not used on your next turn but are instead called upon by your opponents. For example, say the person playing as Henry got a negative card from his chest that reduced his roll by 2.

The game board during production.

This card would not be used immediately but instead when one of the pirates chooses. So henry might start a turn three turns from when he got the card and a pirate might command him to use his negative card, because the pirate told him to henry must now use his card and lose 2 on his dice roll. The strategy comes in because the pirates don’t  know what the negative card is and it could be completely useless for the current turn. For example, henry might have had a -1 to attack for that turn on the card. In this case unless henry would have had a fight that turn the pirates would have wasted their advantage. Remember Positive cards are used immediately while negative cards are used only at the command of your enemy.

The cards, the red ones are negative, the green ones are positive and the purple ones are trap cards.

While traversing the board, if a pirate and a hero land on the same block they will initiate combat. Combat is a variation of the ghost combat.  Each person rolls and the one with the higher roll (including any card modifications) wins, it will be best 2 out of 3. The person who wins is allowed to continue while the person who loses is forced to stand by and lose a turn thus making this combat slightly more dangerous than the ghost combat. In order to win the game you must defeat your opponent until they run out of lives.

My Experience

We were given a week to make this game, however other projects due within the week would take priority and I had trouble finding a group of people to work with. But fortunately I found a group with my friend Raffaele Collarusso whom I’ve worked with before and Sascha Maurer. We sat around discussing what to do by brainstorming, after thinking of the foundation we came up with the rules. The day after we finally got together and discussed the concept and rules just to make sure we were all on the right page and if there’s anything we can add or cut out. Then we finally got into the process of creating the game by coming up with a path, where to put the treasure chests and traps, and making things visual by adding pieces that represent what they’re supposed & drawing out the surrounding. This was a difficult & tiresome process as it took all day but I’m happy to say that we’re satisfied with the final product, it has a great concept, fulfills the requirement, has interesting rules and mechanics that promise a fun and competitive experience. I hope all our classmates enjoy it.

 

 

 

The art of “Art of Fighting”

Art of Fighting Anthology is a complication of the following games Art of Fighting, Art of Fighting 2, and Art of Fighting 3: The Path of the Warrior released by SNK Playmore (formally SNK) on the Playstation 2.

The first game was released in 1992 on the Neo Geo arcade system and later ported to several home consoles like the Sega Genesis, SNES and the Neo Geo’s own Neo Geo CD. The versions in this complication are the original arcade versions so anything I say here is in regards to those.

Released a year after Street Fighter II, it was not much different from Capcom’s juggernaut fighter, it did offer many innovations which include taunting, the usage of large character sprites and depicting characters getting wounded during the fights. Art of Fighting 2 doesn’t differ much from its predecessor due to only a 2 year gap and no generation differentiation aside from slightly improved animation in terms of fluidity and detail, so I’ll be talking about the first two games up until I mention the third.

At the time the game contained some the biggest sprites in any game, one interesting thing about the game’s camera is that it zooms in and out feature. When the two opponents are as far apart from each other as the game allows, the camera zooms out, but the camera zooms in the closer the two fighters get. The sprite animations are essentially the same as those of Street Fighter II, however they’re stiffer in contrast to Street Fighter II’s much smoother gameplay.

Here’s the game zoomed in:

And here’s the game zoomed out:

The most interesting animation tidbit in this game is the characters getting wounded as they lose health. When you look at the character’s faces you can see blemishes such as blood and swelling. I like this feature because it realistically portrays the result of an actual fight.

This is one of the few fighting games that do this. I’m surprised that not many fighters utilize that detail, especially with how far games have progressed with their graphics and animation. Sure in Street Fighter II they do depict the characters as being severely battered in the aftermath, but that’s only on the character portraits, and only the loser is depicted as being scarred. You may also bring up Mortal Kombat but other than pools of blood flying off the characters with each blow, their skin still doesn’t look punctured and their features remain intact without swelling so it’s still ridiculous. For the record, UFC games don’t count since they’re sports simulators, not fighting games.

I’ve stated this before in my blog on Batman: Arkham City how adding tiny details like torn cloth enhances the mood as it gives the game a more cinematic feel. That detail added in the Art of Fighting series does a lot of service as the games aim to be like movies in their story mode. During story mode, before each fight your character will engage your opponent in dialogue which contains some minor additional animations that include throwing something or striking a pose. Lets not forget the zoom in/zoom out camera that I mentioned earlier. All these features and animations add something to the game which makes it cinematic despite its technological immaturity. By nowadays’ standards it may not seem like anything much but back then it was really something to be fascinated by.

I said fascinating, not well written.

Art of Fighting 3: The Path of the Warrior radically differentiated itself from its predecessors; it still utilizes traditionally animated, hand drawn sprites but this time the game combines 2D sprites with motion capture technology and more computer graphics. This allows for more fluid and believable animation and movements.

When you look at the characters you can see that this installment contains more frames and you can see that when a character kicks you can see it moving all the way as opposed to only drawing three frames to depict rapid movement like in Persona 4: Arena.

The introduction sequence also contains some interesting animations. The main characters are show performing their fighting movesets and you can see the “slow in and slow out” principle of the 12 principles of animation being displayed. Sadly this principle isn’t being displayed during the game. Also in the title sequence there are the characters were depicted in what at first I thought were polygon rendered, computer graphics but they were really regular 2D animations, that’s very impressive on their part.

Unfortunately many of the features in the previous two like the zoom in/zoom out camera and getting wounded as you lose health are omitted in the third installment. However the game makes up for that by having very beautiful backgrounds with moving animations; like in the Quixotec Temple stage you’ll bear witness to wonderfully animated waterfalls and the ripples in the lake as a result of these falls.

Another principle of the 12 principles is being displayed here with the secondary action; the ripples as a result of the waterfalls.

The games have always contained animations in the background to make the gameplay livelier, but out of the trilogy this contains the best by far as it rightfully should, given that it’s the most advanced and latest game.

I’m sure people are wondering why I’m talking about an old game series that is only semi-classic and doesn’t contain computer graphics that we’re studying. The same reason why in filmmaking they study old movies; in many old movies filmmakers would use practical effects and editing tricks in order to get around their limitations, and I feel that the developers of the first two Art of Fighting games had the same mind set. In order to make their game as dynamic as they could with regards to the limited technology of the time, they used a camera that zoomed in and out to copy what filmmakers do in movies where they also shit between wide angle and regular lens. The addition of subtle blemishes to simulate what would happen in a fight and the usage of sprites and dialogue boxes to make up for not being able to have animated cutscenes in order to have a story unfold.

You better appreciate the game animations that paved the way for modern, computer animation, or you’ll have a problem with him.

It’s important to take such things into account in order to appreciate how far we’ve come, much like in filmmakers, our game animating “forefathers” weren’t as lucky to have the technology we do today. But like them we are limited but in terms of time as opposed to technology, so we may have to resort to using subtle hints and tricks to help enhance the game’s aesthetics. Remember, animation isn’t just about what is seen, it’s also about the effect it gives.

My first Game Design Project: A Series of Unlucky Incidents

You play as an unlucky high school student as he goes through the day; however his bad luck never lets his day go as planned. Your goal is to progress with as little mishaps as possible.

How do you play you may ask, here’s how:

This game can be played by either yourself or more people. The only thing you need is a dice, and something to keep score with such as pen and paper. You roll the dice, the higher the number, the worse your luck will be on the scale of 1 to 6 in which ‘1’ is merely a nuisance, while ‘6’ is a disaster make sure you write down what you got in each position.

When you get to the big one, what I call the “Final Boss”, you roll the dice as you would in any other square, but the number you get here will be multiplied by each number you previously got on all the other events, then you calculate the summation of the number you got here with every number you got in the previous turns. Then you will calculate the average of that summation by dividing by 108, it will come out in a number between 0 (lucky) and 5 (unluckiest), if you get a decimal number, round to the nearest whole number. Here is the formula:

Fb = Final Boss dice roll

n = Number of all the previous events

(Summation of) Fb(n)/108

As a result of your luck throughout the game, here’s what happens in the end given all the possibilities, in this scenario you are confronted by burglar:

1. Turns out to just want to know the time
2. Cat and steroid using dog come out, attack you instead.
3. Robs your house, you get blamed for it
4. Gets beat up by crowbar
5. Turns out to be transvestite who found you.
6. Kills you

So you better hope you get a ‘1’ in the end.

Contrary to its appearance, it’s not a “race to the end” game, all players are always on the same position until they finish their turns and move onto the next event. The game is essentially a game of chance with each player hoping they get the lowest number possible in order to make it alive at the end of the day. The game is built more on entertainment value over competitiveness as I’ve included cards that convey what happens when you get a certain number on the dice. Here are two examples:

Freshening up

1. Slips on soap and lands on head.

2. Wipes his hands on dirty towel

3. Used grandpa’s toothbrush

4. Used superglue instead of tooth paste, toothbrush gets stuck.

5. Wipes face on dirty towel, makes it look like he has blackface, gets sue for racial insensitivity.

6. Used whipped cream instead of shaving cream and gets attacked by the cat.

Having breakfast

1. Milk turning out to be spoiled

2. Dead rat found in the fridge being eaten by millions of ants.

3. Chair breaks, spills cereal and hot coffee all over himself.

4. Microwave explodes in your face.

5. Tries to watch TV during breakfast, Barney the dinosaur is on.

6. Accidentally puts laxatives in coffee, gets extreme diarrhea, does not make it in time.

This is done to be humorous in order to add to the game’s entertainment value, by thinking of the average activity a high school student could go through in a day and think of the most ludicrous incident that could occur.

Ligretto: a card game of speed

On the date of 14/09/2012, students Thomas Galati, Dan Gilmore, Professor Narke and myself played Ligretto. It is a German card game where the goal is to discard all your cards first by laying them in the middle of the table, doing this demands speed.

The most important aspect is to have speed. Every player has 40 cards at his or her disposal, from 1 to 10, your goal is to get rid of them as quickly as possible. You may place the ‘1’s on any free position on the table. All other cards can only be played on cards of the same color whose value is one less than that of the card you want to play.

Each player starts with a deck of 40 cards with the same pattern and color on the back. Each deck consists of 10 cards each of red, blue, yellow, and green cards numbering 1 to 10. Players deal different numbers of cards in a face-up Row in front of them depending on how many people are playing in a game (5 cards for 2 players, 4 cards for 3 players, etc.). Players also deal 10 cards into a face-up Ligretto Stack and hold the remainder of the cards as their hand.

When you play, players try to discard all of their cards as fast as possible by building piles in the middle of the table of the same color from a 1 card up to a 10 card. The 1 card to start each center pile can come from a Ligretto Stack, the Row, or the Hand (which is dealt three cards at a time). You’re supposed to place your card on the deck from the order of 1 to 10 for each color. If you don’t have the card you need like the number ‘4’ for number ‘3’ for example, then you need to pick up another card. Once a pile is topped by a ‘10’ card, no more cards can be added. If players reach a point where no one can play any cards, everyone shouts “Ligretto!”and then reshuffle their cards.

When a player gets rid of all their cards, he or she shouts “Ligretto stop!” and the cards in the center of the table are sorted out back to their owners and counted to see how many points each player has earned. Play continues to 99 points.

This was the first and only time I’ve ever played Ligretto, so as a beginner I didn’t have much luck or fun playing it since I had to learn the game while playing. I’m not quick so a game relying on quick thinking and quick reflexes is not something I’d recommend to people who enjoy taking things easy, are a bit slow and prefer to think. However if you’re fortunate enough to be blessed with quick reflexes then you may enjoy that game as it would favor you. It’s a bit complex at the beginning but once you play you understand it better.

Batman Arkham City: An animation milestone

Batman Arkham City is a 2011 game released for the Playstation 3 and X-box 360. It was developed by Rocksteady Studios and published by Warner Bros. Studios. The game uses computer generated graphics as most video games nowadays do. The environments are very vibrant and detailed, the characters look very realistic. Every now and then the game is interrupted for a cutscene, there is almost no difference between them, and the cutscenes are up to date and well rendered, a true testament to this game’s graphics.

As with the source material, the graphics are stylized with a very gothic and dark atmosphere. The city is designed to give the feeling of a dangerous slum where the inmates run the asylum, where no one but yourself is to be trusted and survival is only achievable by the most capable and dangerous individuals. Even though it’s a huge environment you still get the feeling that you’re isolated, that it’s quiet and anything can happen within a heartbeat.

When you fight enemies, you use a Freeflow combat system where the player’s attacks gravitate towards the nearest opponent. You can also use the triangle button to counter your enemy’s attacks, the way you counter the enemies depends on your character’s position as well as the enemy’s method of attack. I bring it up because I find it impressive that they animated so many different attacks with nearly every predicament taken into account.

While playing you’ll notice little details on your character like little bits of Batman’s cape ripped off as you progress. I find it to be a nice touch because it makes the game more realistic and cinematic, it shows all the struggles the player has endured and how critical the situation is.

If you look closely at the characters you’ll notice the attention to detail as you’ll see wounds, sweat, dirt and other blemishes which supports the games nitty gritty feel.

The game’s setting of Arkham City is much larger than Arkham Asylum in the game’s predecessor, it’s been said that it is about five virtual footprints bigger than Arkham Island. The city is large and shelters many villains from Batman’s rogues gallery, because of this areas in the games are design according to the character’s theme and motif, for example in Joker’s turf, you’ll see graffiti on the buildings that fits with Joker’s persona with bright & clownish yet violent and haunting art. The enemies themselves are also very varied, every group wears clothing coordinated with their affiliations; Joker’s henchmen go around wearing face paint and colorful wigs and Dr. Hugo Strange’s underlings would include guards in traditional riot squad/military type uniforms. Even within the ranks of groups, the enemies are varied. They come in all different shapes, sizes, ethnicities, attire and minor aesthetics like tattoos, hair and face paint.

The characters are animated in a very realistic manner; the characters movements and mannerisms mirror that of how humans would behave in real life when they have conversations and engagement in combat, though of course no human being possesses the dexterity of Batman or Nightwing.

Overall the graphics and animation is top notch, in my opinion it can give Pixar Animated Studios a run for its money. The design is provides an excellent atmosphere that accomplishes all the goals of trying to bring the Batman universe to life. There is so much attention to detail in the environment, the characters and in the combat. Video games are considered and art form, and games like this validate the statement.