LO3: Treatment.

Multiverse:

This is game where you choose what world you want to live in. In this game you have six different scenarios that you can choose from, whether its a zombie apocalypse or a once tranquil place thta has been devastated by an earthquake.

How the game works:

For the game to work the user needs a smartphone with an operating camera, and a internet connection. The AI responds with what the camera picks so that it can protect the user from certain dangers whilst playing the game, one of these dangers are the roads. 

The game works by using the user GPS system to provide a suitable Storyline that is based around their surroundings. If the user is not happy with how overview of the session looks then the user can input her route/journey into the game and it will update the session.

Game Modes:

This game has three game modes, Free Mode, Rush Mode and Story mode. In the free mode the user can play through the game without having to face any enemies and they are free to build up their progress to the best of their abilities. In the Rush mode the user is timed to see how much of the objectives they can complete in a given time, depending on the type of world that they are playing the time will vary. In the story mode the user will have the AI with them at all times to guide them through the story at all times. The story mode will also have all of the features that are included on the game will includes the chase scenes and cinematics. 

Weapons and items:

The user starts of with nothing and to progress in the game the user must collect certain items and weapons in the game which are hidden in the game. To see the items the user needs to the camera and scan the area for them. Each item that they collect gets stored in their inventory. 

Cost:

Games are up there with the most expensive apps because they are rich in functionality and their coding is generally the most technically complex. For this reason, it is difficult to put a figure on just how much a game app will cost to develop, it depends entirely on how complex you want to go. The cost could range anywhere from £10,000 to £250,000 and beyond. All levels of games can be fun but simple or not, code costs cash. Even things like Angry Birds and racing games with their simple gyroscope format can cost in excess of £125,000 and there is still so much to pay on top. Extra things to think about include top scores, online communities and plugging the game into the game center. How do such figures in the US compare to those throughout the rest of the world?  UK website Waracle lists average costs for developing apps for iPhone and Google Android in the UK from between £8,000 and £13,000 for a simple single platform app and between £34,000 and £51,000 for a complex three platform.

Budgeting:

Sumo Digital

These are my questions that I wish to ask Sumo Digital:
Do you think that you would even branch of sport and do a different genre.
Do you get a fair price for your games from companies like Microsoft.

LO2: Understand the importance of reviews for the marketing and promotion of computer console game.

Beyond two souls.

Genre:
The YouTuber said that this is a game that has us in a tug of war between a game in which our actions matter and one which we are simply actors in a story David cage wants to tell.
Target audience:
Not mentioned
Narrative:
It tells the story of Jodie homes, the story covers 15 years of her life from when she was a younger girl to her in her late twenties. She discovers another spirit which she calls Aida.
Characters:
Jodie homes, Willem defore,
Gameplay:
It can be quite difficult as you are constantly going backwards and forwards into her life.
Platforms:
PS3
Personal recommendation of the review: 
The game makes the YouTuber feel very passive. They are also a lot of restrictions that hinder the game.
The choices lack impact.
Unfocused plot.
Poor combat.

Genre:
The genre was not stated.
Target audience:

Narrative:
A far gender tale, Beyond two souls would take place over 15 years and focus on a supernaturally gifted girl named Jodie Holmes.
Characters:

Gameplay:
Beyond two souls starts with Jodie aged eight and it ends with her being aged 23. In between the story takes her around the world as she is recruited by a mysterious government scientist.
Platforms
PS3

Personal recommendation of the review: 

*The empire games review mostly talks about what Ellen page had liked about filming this and why it is a different game from the rest that are out there.

Unit 60 LO1

Favourite games.
FIFA
GTA V
GTA III
Manhunt
The getaway black monday
Driveclub
Mortal combat 7
Matrix
Pokemon Diamond
Bully
Test drive unlimeted.

LO2: Game analysis.

Game title	Tomb Raider	Platform tested:	PS4
Genre What style of game is this? What genre does it belong to? How does it show stylistic conventions of the genre? How does it sit within the genre in comparison to others titles?	Tomb raider is a action adventure game. It is also a third person perspective where you take control of the lead character Lara croft. The game uses a interconnected hub that combines action adventure, exploration and survival mechanics.
Narrative What story is being told through the game? How does the story inform the gameplay? How does the story affect your approach to the characters and your interaction with them? How does the story connect with the target audience?	This game is a prequel to the tomb raider series, the game is about a young Lara who is going on her first expedition on the island of yamatia of the cost of japan. When there, things take a turn for the worst the and now she must fight her way through a cult in order to survive.   This type of the story is different to typical tomb raider storyline, this time the player is made to fee  sorry for Lara as she has to cope with making some tough decsiosns.
Production process How was this game produced? What elements of production are developed specifically to enhance the gameplay? How are elements such as game physics and mechanics managed to enhance gameplay?	The developers of tomb raider  (Crystal Dynamics) was spilt into two teams, the first team focused on the reboot of tomb raider and all of the following sequels and the other teams focused on arcade versions of the game. To enhance the gameplay the developers had used real actors for all of the  characters for the game,  each one had done their piece of acting on a green screen which was then picked up by the computer and then displayed in the game. This explains why the cinematic scenes are so good for tomb raider.
Characterisation How are characters relevant to the target audience? What appeal do the characters have to the target audience? How does the characterisation match the conventions of the genre? How strong do you feel the characters are?	Many people regard Lara croft is the beautiful and intelligent archaeologist and is mainly appealing to the male section of the audience. She is the main reason why many people buy the game. So to ensure that people keep buying the game most of the focus is on her, although all the characters are insanely detailed more of the focus on Lara croft.

Gameplay What challenge is present in the game? How does the level and type of challenge engage the player? What elements of the gameplay are key to the game’s success? How does the gameplay engage with the narrative? How is gameplay consistently evolving to keep the player’s attention?

The main aspect of the game is problem solving, a lot of the time there is no indication of what to do. This encourages the players to explore the land to find things to help him progress. One of the main elements that is key to game’s success is the weapons upgrade, this is because without the upgrades it is impossible to progress and some levels require certain upgraded lessons. The one thing in the game that keeps the player attention is the change in weather, different types of weather has there own dangers.

Platform What platform is this game available for? Is the game more suited to any one of these platforms? How is the game suited to this platform?

The game is available for Xbox 360, Xbox one, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4.

 

Game title	Far Cry 4	Platform tested:	PS4
Genre What style of game is this? What genre does it belong to? How does it show stylistic conventions of the genre? How does it sit within the genre in comparison to others titles?	Far cry 4 is an open world action-adventure first person shooter. One of the conventions of the genre that the game shows is that the player can roam around the island and explore the whole area, the area is big enough to occupy the for around 3 hours. Compared to other games in this genre this game sits on the top of the list, to successfully progress through the game the user has to explore the island to look for things materials to help them craft items.
Narrative What story is being told through the game? How does the story inform the gameplay? How does the story affect your approach to the characters and your interaction with them? How does the story connect with the target audience?	This game it about a young man who has come to a small disclosed island near Malaysia to spread his mother’s ashes. When he gets there he is met by the island’s leader who is known for being a ruthless dictator. After being taken to his palace a group called the golden path comes to rescue the main character. It turns out that the golden path are his allies and he must help them take back the island. The story makes you question the morals of the characters that you interact with as everyone has conflicting views on how to deal with the enemy.
Production process How was this game produced? What elements of production are developed specifically to enhance the gameplay? How are elements such as game physics and mechanics managed to enhance gameplay?	The games development was led by Ubisoft Montreal. Addition development was handled by four other in-house Ubisoft studios. The montreal studio worked on the games campaign, the Toronto studio worked on the Shangri-La segments of the campaign, Red storm handled the development of the competitive multiplayer, the Shanghai studio worked on the hunting missions and the Kiev Studio developed the games game’s PC version. To enhance the gameplay the producers of the game had incorporated some of the previous game mechanics which was rally successful with public. By incorporating and expanding upon those ideas they could make Far Cry 4 an evolution of the series.
Characterisation How are characters relevant to the target audience? What appeal do the characters have to the target audience? How does the characterisation match the conventions of the genre? How strong do you feel the characters are?	Many of the characters in the game have intriguing backstories so, to find out more about the characters the player has to explore the land to find out clues about the character. This appeals the people who are into the adventure side of the game as a lot of features are very well hidden on the game. One of the main appeals the characters have to the target audience is the relationship that they with player and how well the relationship copes with the stress of saving their people.

Gameplay What challenge is present in the game? How does the level and type of challenge engage the player? What elements of the gameplay are key to the game’s success? How does the gameplay engage with the narrative? How is gameplay consistently evolving to keep the player’s attention?

The main challenge in the game is the decision making, all of the decisions that you make affects how the story pans out in the future. So when playing the game you have to be careful not to make the game too hard for yourself. This engages the player as there are a number of the scenarios that can play out which can either benefit you or be detrimental to you. To keep the player attention the gameplay does evolve as you progress through the story, the come into contact with bigger and more dangerous animals and you are given new ways to fight enemies. For example you can ride in on an elephant and make a grand entrance or you could use a cheater to distract the enemies while you sneak in

Platform What platform is this game available for? Is the game more suited to any one of these platforms? How is the game suited to this platform?

The game is available for Xbox 360, Xbox one, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4.

LO1 Business report.

Sumo Digital

Andre Brown

Sumo Digital

Andre Brown

Company Structure:

The name of the company that this business report is based on is called Sumo Digital. Sumo digital is an independent game developing company that is based in Sheffield. They was set up in 2003 and over the course of 12 years they now have two bases, one in Sheffield and the other one in India, Pune. The company was formed in 2003 by four people who had previously worked for Gremlin Games, theses members where Carl Cavers, Paul Porter, Darren Mills and James North-Hearn. In 2007 Sumo digital was acquired by Foundation 9 entertainment and it had joined Foundation 9’s collection of independent studios. As of November 2014 the executive team of Sumo digital completed a buyout, which meant that they had gained independence from Foundation 9 entertainment.

Platform technology:

Sumo digital develops game for a number of platforms and these are:

XBOX	PLAYSTATION PORTABLE
PLAYSTATION 2	PLAYSTATION 3
WINDOWS	XBOX 360
Wii	NINTENDO DS
PLAYSTATION NETWORK	ARCADE
MAC OS	XBOX LIVE ARCADE
Ios	ANDROID
BLACKBERRY	PLAYSTATION VITA
MICROSOFT	XBOX ONE
PLAYSTATION 4

When it comes to getting games ready for release members of the production team the will stay overnight to make any tweaks that they need to do. Alongside editing the game they will have game members of the QA team testing the game. Their main job is to try and break the game so to see if the there are any faults in the game that need fixing.

One of the main things that Sumo digital is mostly known for is making games that have been released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox one compatible for the older generation consoles ( Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3) For example Forza horizon 2 was made for the next generation consoles however Sumo digital had re written the all of the coding that does into the game to make it compatible for the older generation.

Game types:

The company had made a name for its self for the making those 1 pound machine arcade games into a game suitable for the PlayStation 2 consoles.  This was one of their main projects and one of the directors of Sumo said that it was quite difficult to make as they had to drastically change the game from a quick 1 minute game to it having a viable story. One example of this was the game Outrun 2, outrun 2 was originally an arcade game with actual storyline. The main objective was just to drive and drive fast. However the directors of Sega had contacted Sumo ask them to converter the game for the Xbox. This game ended up being quite successful which resulted in Sega returning to Sumo and asking them to produce two more games for the Outrun franchise. Sumo are now working with Microsoft studios and are responsible for converting the forza franchise to the older generation of consoles. The reason for Microsoft wanting forza on the older generation of console is because many people still have the older generations and they still view it as an important audience to target.

Regulatory bodies:

Like all of the other game developing companies Sumo has to follow the rules and regulations that are set by PEGI, PEGI stand for Pan European Game Information and ti has a rating system for video games for age appropriate content all across Europe. Each game has a base age category rating. There ratings are:

                                                                                                   

Since the games the Sumo digital produce all child friendly the rating system doesn’t really affect them much. Most if not all of their games are fit into the three and up category.

Developmental Software:

To create a game like Forza horizon Sumo had to use two different types of game engines for it to be able to run on Xbox 360, these engines are the Drivatar Technology and the Forza Horizon engine which was heavily modified to so it could make Forza Horizon 2.  To make the virtual tennis franchise they had used the Sega Lindbergh arcade system. For this game they had planned to Microsoft’s Xbox 360 as the basis for the arcade board.

LO1 Task 3: Review comparison.

I picked Beyond two souls and I looked at the game reviews from IGN and empire games. I would say that the IGN review is better as it is more detailed and it covered a wider range of subjects about the game. The IGN review is more about the actual gameplay and all of the pros and cons about the game however, the empire games review is more about how the game came about and what the main star of the game (Ellen Paige) thought about the game. Because the IGN review is from YouTube a lot of what was said about the game affected how well the game did on the market, IGN had said many positive things about the game and that had encourage their audience to buy the game. However with the empire games review, that didn't really have as big of a impact as the YouTube video did. This is because the target audience for the game wouldn't really be interested is reading and a lot of the news about games comes from major events which are streamed online.

LO1: Task 1 Games review practise.

After watching the game review there was three things that struck me about the video, these where:

1. There where lots of animations in the video which is more appealing for the audience.
2. He tone of voice was good so that it kept the attention of the audience.
3. He kept it comical