An important distinction between playing games and studying games is the ability to reflect upon the game play experience. An useful tool for being reflective is writing, and hence the game session logging (gamelog) assignments ask you to write about your experience playing a game.
You write your gamelogs at a site specially created for this purpose, www.gamelog.cl. To write your gamelog, you log into the site and write your gamelog entry. When you create your identity on the Gamelog site, feel free to select any username you wish, but be sure to indicate which class you are taking (CS 80K or CS 20), and use your real name. This permits us to connect your site id to you for grading.
You are also encouraged read the gamelog entries of other people in your class, as well as other gameloggers worldwide. If you find their gamelogs interesting or controversial, you can write comments about them. The process of reflecting on the gamelogs of other players is also valuable in expanding your understanding of the interrelationships of design elements in games, and players' reactions to those elements. You are quite welcome to keep gamelogging even after the end of the quarter; the value of this activity does not end once the class is over. You get out of gamelogging what you put into it.
Gamelog assignments ask you to play either a game of your choice, or a game from the course's list of classics (each assignment will specify this). For games that are primarily multiplayer, such as Mario Party or Super Smash Brothers, you should play with a friend. You may want to try some games that are outside your comfort zone, ones that are in genres you do not typically play, or older games you have never tried.
For each game, you are to play the game for at least two sessions, each session lasting at least 45 minutes. For some games, you should ideally play longer than this. For example, the tutorial mode in Final Fantasy XII (a game on the classics list) lasts about 90-120 minutes of play. After each gameplay session, you are to write about your gameplay experience in your gamelog. Thus, for each game that you write about in your gamelog, there should be at least two entries.
Why break apart the game play sessions, and hence break apart the gamelog entries? Good question. Past experience with gamelogging shows that having at least two separate posts on a given game encourages deeper exploration of gameplay, since people tend to be more reflective about their second game play session after having written about the first. Players often try different things in their second gameplay session after reflecting on their initial gameplay session. People often confirm hypotheses they have made about their gameplay, or verify observations they have made, or decide on things to try out to have something additional to write about.
Gamelog entry #1:
For your first gamelog entry on a given game, you must use the following template to format your writing. This is the entry you write after playing the game for 45 minutes to an hour. In your entry, be sure to include the heading text "SUMMARY" and "GAMEPLAY" so it is clear where each section begins and ends.
SUMMARY
Write 1-5 sentences providing a brief summary of the game you have played. The main gameplay style and primary goal of the game should be described.
Good Example: In Katamari Damacy the player controls a "katamari," a small ball that picks up any object smaller than it. Objects that are picked up stick to the katamari, and enough objects make the katamari grow. The object of the game is to keep growing your katamari, which eventually rolls up buildings, planets, and solar systems.
This is a good example, since it provides an overview of the core game mechanic (picking up objects with katamari), and the progression of play in the game.
Bad Example: Soul Caliber III is a 2 person fighting game.
Even though this example is factually correct, it is a bad example because it doesn't provide any information on what distinguishes this game from other 2 person fighters. A better entry might describe the Chronicles of the Sword single player mode, and the Soul Arena and Tales of Souls modes.
GAMEPLAY
In this section, you should write 2 to 5 paragraphs about your personal, subjective gameplay experience during the first 45-60 minutes of playing the game. We DO NOT want a play-by-play description of what happened, as that is usually tedious to read and to write, and not terribly insightful.
Things to write about include, but are not limited to:
Good example (written by Jose Zagal, the creator of the Gamelog site, about the game Mario Party 8, for Wii):
I've
been playing this game with my son over the past few days and I have to say that it's been
really fun for both of us. The reasons why it has been fun essentially highlight why I'm sure a lot of people hate Mario
Party. Granted, my experience with Mario Party is limited to this game and only to the "main" boardgame mode...
Anyways, here are some of the reasons why we enjoy it:
1) The outcome is pretty much random, which means that my son (who's 5) can win without me having to play "poorly"
2) There are lots of instances for us to get positive feedback (yay! I won a duel, yay! I won a minigame, etc.)
3) Sometimes we play together, and sometimes we don't (on the minigames)
We only play games that are 10 turns long, which makes the randomness of the end result much more prevalent, but that's ok!
..and so far, I don't think I've won a game yet!
What is nice about this example is that it doesn't focus on giving a play-by-play description of his gameplay, and provides nice details on his personal reactions to the game. It also provides some insight into why he thinks the design of the game contributed to his particular gameplay experience. You can see all of Jose's gamelog entries for more examples of how to write good gamelog entries.
Gamelog entry #2:
For your second gamelog entry on a given game, you must use the following template to format your writing. This is the entry you write after playing the game for 45 minutes to an hour more after the first gameplay session. In your entry, be sure to include the heading text "GAMEPLAY" and "DESIGN" so it is clear where each section begins and ends.
GAMEPLAY
In this section, you should write 2 to 5 paragraphs about your personal, subjective gameplay experience during the second 45-60 minutes of playing the game. This should follow the same guidelines (no play-by-play, etc.) as the first gameplay section.
DESIGN
In this section, you should write 2-5 paragraphs with your observations on the design of the game you have played. The emphasis here is reflection upon the design of the game. It is fine to mention specific aspects of your gameplay in this section, however, the discussion of gameplay must be there solely to provide supporting evidence for your assertions about the design of the game.
Items to discuss can include (pick one or more from this list to address in your entry, you don't need to address all of these for a single game):
Good example (written by William Tuttle, about Gradius for the NES):
I have mixed feelings after playing Gradius. It is a game that does several things well, but also has some setbacks. For the good,
Gradius is an impressive game for a title released in 1986. It has many SHMUP elements that I'm sure were very innovative for its
day. The game play consists of a one man ship fighting endless waves of enemies. The action is intense from start to finish as
enemies are quick and smart as well. The AI of the enemies will lock on to you and shoot and advance from all sides so staying in
one spot is not always a good idea. The game features a simple yet entertaining power up system that involves collecting glowing
red balls. For each ball you grab you can choose a different level of power up like speed boost, missile, laser, and a very useful
shield. This is one of the funner parts of the game play. Another impressive aspect of the game is its visuals, Gradius has a
colorful space theme that is driven by lots of speeding enemies and bright explosions.
Those were the good elements, now its time to mention the bad. For starters this game suffers from the limitations of all SHMUPS:
A narrow scope of game play. The game offers essentially the same experience the whole way through. Press A and dodge is about
as deep as it gets. Another issue is that this game has a steep difficulty curve. It took me several tries to beat the first
level and I couldn't get very far in the second one. While this is one of the important staples of SHMUPS, it also causes non-hardcore
players to become frustrated and discouraged very easily. Also, I haven't beaten the game yet, but I believe there are only
about 4 or 5 levels in the whole game which maybe the reason for the heightened difficulty. Lastly, the music while enjoyable
at first becomes stale quickly and doesn't have the lasting quality of tunes from games like Kirby's Adventure and Zelda.
This is a nice post, since it ties specific design elements of Gradius to his gameplay experience. It provides specific details about the game to back up its points. It also covers both good and bad aspects about the design of the game, covering the powerup system, music, and difficulty of challenge. It also manages to cover all of this ground in two concise paragraphs.
This assignment is inherently subjective: you're writing about your impressions of your gameplay experience, and there is no wrong answer. However, it is possible to write gamelogs that do not follow the template described above. It is also possible to write excessively short, trivial, or non-reflective gamelogs, or to neglect to do the assignment. As a result, grading of gamelogs will be on the following scale:
Even though the conventions for writing on weblogs are very informal, for this assignment you are expected to write in standard English, using standard capitalization (especially of "I" and the first letter of the first word of a sentence) and spelling. Use of paragraphs to organize a sequence of related sentences together are important in making you gamelog entries readable.