A Critical Game Analysis of: The End by Preloaded

http://https://youtu.be/tiL5-ptWXBE

Introduction: The following will be a critical analysis of the flash game “The End“. The End is a learning game intended for teenagers with the goal of helping them think about and understand how they feel about controversial topics involving philosophy, morality, and science.

Is it possible to be happy living in the now?

Within this analysis I will address several topics including but not limited to learning elements, formal elements, and dynamic elements.

Learning Elements: The main objective of this game is to help teenagers deal with philosophical concepts that their upbringing may not deal with like death, morality, and things of that nature.

There are a few primary mechanics carried out in two different worlds in which the player plays. There 4 main mechanics that exist as one traverses the levels. There is a jumping mechanic the scale obstacles, a pushing mechanic for large objects like rocks, climbing mechanic for ladders and vines and lastly a shadow solidifying mechanic that makes shadows solid objects that the player can use to interact with the world.

The other world in which the player functions is a card game called Death Cards, in which the main mechanic and clicking and dragging tiles and power-ups.This game’s design encompasses all four processes of learning. It has the physiological effect of helping teens understand their world better which will affect how they function on within their daily activities.

The Death Cards game helps sharpen one’s ability to plan, strategize, and carry out simple mathematic equations. The traveling through maps allows for a player to grasp and experience simple physics mechanics mostly dealing with gravity. Social and behavioral processes are affected by the philosophical questions the game asks. Once the player answers one of these questions and finishes the map they are shown a pie chart with the answers of everyone else in the world which can help them learn social habits and behaviors without having to interact physically with other individuals.

Formal Elements: It is a one player game normally, but players can play other players in the Death Cards option. Players compete in the Death Cards game, high scores among friends who play are displayed as well. Players also interact on a cultural level by seeing other player’s beliefs on important controversial philosophical matters. The game objective complements the learning objectives. This game has found a creative way to engage players in physical challenges for their avatar to get their brain working and then after they succeed they are presented a question that requires them to use their brain to answer a very important question that may change how they view the

world. Having the player solve rather difficult challenges and then challenging their views on the world seems like a great way to empower teenagers to be an active participant in the shaping of their world; something they may not have in their normal everyday lives.

DEATH CARDS

The rules for the player controlling the avatar include how they can interact with the map (movement how they can manipulate the map) and how they lose—by falling long distances, landing on spikes—which will require them to revert to a previous checkpoint and lose some progress. In Death Cards the rules are simply control the majority of the board by the end of the game. Each player plays one tile at a time and if one side of the current player’s tile is higher than that of a tile that is currently owned by the opposing player they gain control of it. It is very similar to Othello in how the tiles are taken. You do not gain any tradable resources but there are artifacts in the game to collect that accompany the philosophical questions the player is asked. The primary conflict/challenge traveling through the map. There are smaller side challenges for the achiever players to collect a certain number of stars before finishing and finishing in a certain time to get extra trophies. The obstacles are well placed so that the players cannot jump to places that require more complicated ways to reach, like ledges in the distance that require casting a shadow to travel across. Another interesting boundary that was built in to control the shadow projection is that if a player is in a light source—which are usually between areas the designers do not want a player casting a shadow—lose their active shadow and cannot cast any while in the light. They also limit the amount of shadows a player can cast at a time to 1.

The game is a pretty long game if you are aiming to get all of the accolades so I have not completed it yet. I have completed a good portion of the game though and the level design is creative enough to keep most players interested if they enjoy manipulation their environment.

Dramatic Elements: The main character is just an avatar for the player that the player can customize, and acts as their medium to interact with the world. The motivation is the player’s interest in these questions and the answers of theirs compared to those of player around the world. The main storyline is not too difficult because the real reward is the artifacts that come with the philosophical questions and where people around the world stand on the issues. There are little challenges like the time challenge and the star collecting challenges that was mentioned earlier in this review to keep players busy. As for the Death Cards the NPC’s difficulty ranges from easy to hard at the players choice and players have the option to play against other players.

From my experience with the game the world consists of portals to alternate dimensions where the biggest question in each world is centered on whichever philosophical question will be asked at the end of the level. The main concept is that the player is a teenager in another dimension trying to get back home and along the way is faced with very important questions. Essentially the player is on a journey to figure out who they are on a deep moral intellectual level.

This game has a linear story because the player does not interact with the game to cause any significant changes to the story itself, they are more of passive navigator than an active participant. This game can appeal to two different player types. It has challenges and ways to increase difficulty for players who are achievers. It has creative maps with fun challenges for explorers. The most the killer play type can engage in is the player versus player in Death Cards and the most a social type player can do is look at the responses of other people.

Functionality and accessibility: I think this is a complete game. The objective and point of the game is made very clear and it is expressed very coherently and fluently. The competitive Death Cards is well balanced. The way the game is setup there is no dominant strategy—at least none that I have come across. The power-ups are well balanced as well and do a great job of counteracting one another. As for the more domineering power-ups they take up more slots which limits how many extra powers a player can use so I would say it is well balanced. The traveling through the levels is fun for a player who likes to manipulate their environment in a creative new way, with the shadows and all. I think the challenging puzzles are a good warm up for the questions that follow and do not obscure the learning aspect. At the point I am at I just want to compete in Death Cards and get all of the questions without traveling through the levels.

Conclusion: This is a very easy to play game that gains difficulty as you get to the higher levels which is good for all payers. With the Death Cards players can actually set the difficulty they prefer. The setting is fun and colorful to keep attention and above all the question that are asked are great for personal development. Add in the Death Cards and you have a game that can entertain 3 of the 4 player types while having a great learning bases that does not take away from the game. If you have the chance it is a good game to experience. Below is a link to the actual game. Thank you for reading my analysis and I hope you come back to read my next blog about the game that I will be working on.

Link to “The End”: http://www.playtheend.com/game

Code Fred: Survival Mode is a good example of how repetition can make a fun and interesting game boring. In this game the player takes on the role of different mechanisms within Fred’s body and has the job of essentially keeping him together while he tries to survive in the wild. For me this game had a very great start. It begins with Fred running along a 2D wilderness landscape being chased by a wolf. It then explains—in a very simple fashion—how adrenaline pumps through the body when one’s life is in danger. Then the player’s first task begins with the games primary mechanic, the player has to click highlighted areas of the screen in order. Once they click the eyes, the brain, and then the liver the first task is complete and a description of what just happened within Fred’s body is given. This process is repeated throughout the game, Fred gets in danger, player saves Fred, and then Fred continues to run. The learning objective of the game is clear and ties well into how the game is played without feeling forced. The only issue I have with this game is the repetitive nature of the game mechanic. Pointing and clicking is all the player can do at every single challenge. The challenges change and introduce new fun aspects of the internal environment of the body but the person that designed the game dropped the ball with the creativity of how the player is allowed to interact with the world. It is clear that this game is meant to appeal to a specific kind of player, the explorer—as it would be referred to in Bartle’s Taxonomy—but even these players would quickly become bored as it only takes the first 3-5 tasks before one sees how repetitive this game is and loses interest. Overall it was a very enlightening game but it limited the player’s ability to interact with the environment with seemingly no good reason to do so.

This week I played a game names Dying in Darfur. It was a very easy to play game that highlighted the struggle the individuals living in Darfur have to go through. The most interesting aspect of the game compared to the other games I have played is how the education is integrated into the game. To be more specific when you have to leave the village to gather water every time you select a character it gives you a little information on how that character will be effected by leaving the village. If you choose the adult women or children it tells you what would most likely happen to these individuals if they were to be captured by the Janjaweed militia. For the adult male you are unable to even take this character out of the village because of the value of an adult male being alive in the village compared to the likelihood and consequences he would suffer if he were to be caught. It opened my eyes to the dangers and choices these people have to make on the daily bases without feeling forced.