Back to School; Buttons Buttons Buttons

Buttons are the bane of my existence. I keep trying to figure out how to make them via google tutorials and that has proven to be a waste of time. Today, I felt like I began to be on the right track after I got Monica to help me. The task for my game is simple: go to the title page and make a button taking the player to the instructions page. Once I was able to make a button on the "title" page, I was on to the "instructions" page. I discovered that the font was too big on the "instructions" page, causing me to re-write and re-design the "instructions" page. Then going back to the "title" page, I found that I will need to re-design that too. The whole thing sounds tedious but it is helping me become more acquainted with flash, which is a major objective of the class. Although there is a lot of re-doing, I feel that I am beginning to develop a better understanding how to fix things as well as what to do. Hopefully, by the end of the week this portion will finally be cleaned up and completed! Then, it's on to the next challenge!

What is the ESRB anyway?

Since my topic is game censorship, a lot of my blog posts are going to be related to the ESRB. Therefore, I thought it would be useful to take a few minutes to explain exactly what the ESRB is and how video games are rated.

The ESRB stands for the Entertainment Software Ratings Board. It is a non-profit organization that was established in 1994. The ESRB assigns ratings and regulates the advertising of video games that are distributed in Canada and the US. The ESRB ratings apply to video games that are sold and distributed in Canada and The United States. Most major retail outlets and consoles will only support games that have received an ESRB rating. The ESRB rates approximately 1,000 games a year. The ratings exist as : E (everyone), E 10+ (Everyone above the age of 10), T (teens ages 13 and up), M (mature, ages 17 and up), and A (Adult, ages 18 and up).

The games are rated by at least 3 trained analysts who review many different criteria. Their identities are kept anonymous, and are not permitted to have any ties with any distributors or the game designers themselves, in order to keep the rating as an unbiased judgement call. The ratings are based on a questionnaire submitted by the game distributors listing all of the game content, as well as a DVD exposing such content. The DVD includes standard gameplay, differen scenes, graphic content (i.e. violence, sexual content, drug and alcohol use, etc.), as well as scenes that are "locked out" or "mini-games". Once the DVD and the questionnaire is reviewed, the raters must play the game. The raters develop an individual rating and meet with other raters until a consensus is reached. Once a consensus is reached, the rating is turned over to the distributor along with a list of factors which affected the rating. Once this is passed to the distributor it is up to them to maintain the rating or revise the game. If the game is revised the ratings process begins all over again. The publisher also has a chance to appeal the rating if they feel it is not warranted. Once the game is ready to be published, a final copy is sent to the ESRB. The ESRB evaluates the final package, making sure that the rating is properly visible to the consumers. Once everything has been approved, the games are then shipped off and sold in stores.

Snow Week

Being out for a week is great but it has put me behind on our game development. I'm still learning how to create buttons, but it has been useless without being able to sit at the computers, and work. I tried to simply use the time to catch up on rest so I can be completely re-charged and ready to get back to work! Because I have nothing really game design related to post in this entry, I added a nice little video for your viewing pleasure

7 Sins: Banned in the USA

In 2005 Atari released 7 Sins for Play Station 2. The object of the game is to help the main character reach the top of the social ladder by making decisions based on the "7 deadly sins". The game was deemed too hot for the US due to many graphic sex scenes. One scene in particular shows the main character drugging his date, looking up her skirt, and getting into bed with her, allowing the manipulation of her breasts to be simulated by the use of a joystick.
Personally, I think these scenes are a bit over the top. The whole manipulation of the breast thing? Seriously? I feel like people can watch the scenes of the characters engaging in sexual activity without this element of interactivity. From a marketing standpoint, however, I understand why they would incorporate something like that, because 1. sex sells, and 2. any attention is good attention. Audiences hear about a game that is too sexual for the United States, automatically someone wants to see why, and a game is sold overseas. People love to be shocked and entertained; controversy is always interesting. I'm not saying that it's right or moral, but it will make money, and in a business, that's what distributors want. So obviously, they are going to put as much sexual content as possible. As for the whole date rape drug thing, I don't see that it's necessary as there is already an abundance of graphic sexual content as it is. It also sends out a negative message, but if people are still killing in video games, then what's drug use really? In conclusion if a person has any sort of moral compass and wants to make money; the world of main stream game development may not be for them.

Working on our game

This week, we have been continuing work on "food forecast"; Joel has been coding the first scene, Lauren has been working on illustrating the vegetables, and I have been working on the introduction and instructions page. Last semester, we had a mini-tutorial on how to make buttons, and my job is to make a button that takes the player from the "introduction" page to the "instructions" page. Unfortunately, I forgot how to make buttons, so at the moment I am re-learning how to do that using youtube videos and online tutorials. My goal is to finish this task by the end of the week so I can move on to another section. On Tuesday, I found a few tutorials, however none of them matched the flash version I am using in the lab. I am hoping to have better luck working on it, or at least find that I can figure out how to apply the same concepts using trial and error. All of this is a learning experience, and I anticipate that I will be improving my skills as I continue to help work on the coding aspects of our game to the point where everything will become a second nature to me and simple tasks will seem effortless. I'm not there yet, but in time, I am confident that I will be.