The true power of real world tech-wizards

Nathanael Peacock – 07/14

Following the release of Watch_Dogs, the internet has been buzzing with people wanting to learn the ins and outs of hacking. To the point that a google search today of ‘how to’ autocompleted to ‘how to hack wifi’. But the truth is that real life computer hacking isn’t as simple as Aiden Pierce makes it look. Sorry, but an Iphone cannot cut the power to a city block or disrupt a low flying helicopter. But there are real world hackers and they do have almost Watch_Dogs level power over computer systems around the world.

Chicago is currently one of the most surveyed cities in the world. It is of course this fact that lead to Ubisoft centering its game world around that particular American city. A 2011 report from the American Civil Liberties Union criticized the expansion of Chicago’s surveillance systems stating that the“Chicago’s camera network invades the freedom to be anonymous in public places”¹. The same report suggested that the police department has 1,260 cameras at their disposal, but has access to thousands more on trains, buses, ATM’s and in businesses. With more being installed daily. After spending the last few weeks with Watch_Dogs, my writing brain is buzzing with ways that entrepreneurial hackers could use this system to their advantage.

But what is the true power of the modern day hacker? Well most gamers will remember the April 2011 Sony Network Outage, where hackers broke into the Sony network and accessed account information of thousands upon thousands of subscribers. This instance was due to a security leak in Sony’s systems and was quickly fixed. This is par for the cause with modern computer systems, where leaks are found and patched. It is even rumoured that banks and government agencies hire hackers to break into their systems to test their strength.

However, in the real world, hackers have also shown their prowess. In August 2006, two transportation workers in Los Angeles tampered with the transportation network, altering the lights at 4 major intersections by a matter of seconds. The results were gridlock that lasted days. Also in 2006 a man in Virginia, US, reprogrammed an ATM to give out $20 when it thought it was giving $5. Of course one of the most famous hackers in modern memory is Julian Assange and his work with WikiLeaks, exposing vital intelligence from the US war effort in Iraq.

However, the key to the power of the Watch_Dogs universe is CtOS, the system that links all of the cameras, ATM’s and even traffic lights. But is there a real world equivalent? The Issue faced by these modern tech-wizards is that in the real world, although there are important systems such as police surveillance or traffic control systems, they are not centralised. A good hacker could break into a bank account, or the traffic systems, but because they are different networks, one person could not easily jump from one to another. I should preface that last sentence by saying that this isn’t possible, YET.

The monumental increase in national security concerns in the last decade since 9/11, the Bali bombings and the London underground bombings, could lead to city or national security systems like CtOS. The simple matter of fact is that the difference between the smart phone in your pocket and the beefy gaming rig on your desk is all a matter of capacity. Anything running Android can easily be loaded with custom operating systems, and once inside a network (be it by wifi or hard wired) someone with network knowledge could easily access different systems of control.

So there isn’t quite a real world Aiden Pearce running around, but with the steady progression of systems both owned by groups and individuals, a techno-vigilante may not be too far off. Who knows what Watch_Dogs could inspire?

1: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/08/aclu-chicago-cameras-are-_n_820130.html

Female Characters in games – an article

Nathanael Peacock – 07/14

A lot of new information and excitement came out of this years E3. But few things have sparked as much controversy as the Ubisoft conference. Ubi haven’t had the best track record in communicating with their consumers in recent years, with DRM and game issues with their pc ports, to the historical shoe-horn that was Assassins Creed 3. But this years press conference relit an old flame that has been burning beneath the gaming industry for some time now.

Female characters.

Ubi’s biggest blunders from this conference have all come in the form of community interaction. Their presentation would have gone fine, players were excited for the innovations in AC: Unity and the prospect of playing co-op. But some player just happened to notice the lack of female assassins in the game. Ubisoft had a few options when faced with this question, they could have said that they didn’t believe female assassins would work in the new setting, or I believe they should have held to the fact that they have a male protagonist and that was the reason. Instead they took a holier than thou approach and told players that the cost and effort to add feminine counterparts would be too great on the production. This leaves players with two possible views, either Ubisoft thinks its players are too simple to understand the true cost of adding female characters (not to mention that there have been female assassins since AC: Brotherhood, and a female lead in Liberation. Don’t tell me they aren’t reusing some animations or rigging from Connor or Edward.) Or their development is so mismanaged that recreating female characters would cripple their production. Either way, other developers have since stood up and said that Ubisoft is back-peddling, Jonathan Cooper (AC3 Animation Director) said on twitter that creating those characters would take a matter of days, and be relatively simple. Avid fans have since taken to Twitter to call out Ubisoft with #womenaretoohardtoanimate.

However, the Freudian slips did not stop there. Ubisoft’s director of Farcry 3 said that they were inches away from adding female characters as co-op partners. But pulled back because of the effort. And in speaking with Rock, Paper, Shotgun Technical Artist Oliver Couture said that they used a female hostage in the demo for Rainbow Six: Siege because they wanted the player to feel empathy for the woman and feel that “they wanted to protect her”. How astonishingly patriarchal.

But this is not the first instance of female characters and female gamers being relegated to the background. Ubisoft isn’t the only perpetrator here. Why just last year the cover for Bioshock: Infinite was released to raucous disappointment from fans. From a game with a stunningly deep female character, intriguing subplots and a floating city, the cover is another generic, grizzled white guy with a gun. Ken Levine stated that he wanted “The uninformed… to pick up the box and say Oh this looks cool” so we’re at the point where we’re designing games for non-gamers? What is worse is that they relegated Elizabeth to the back cover and put her in a position of needing to be saved.

Just another princess in another castle.

The issue is simple, the issue is clear. Game developers and publishers are still aiming games at the dark ages.

According to the 2014 Essential Facts of the Video Game Industry, collated by the Entertainment Software association; The average age of gamers is now 31. But more interesting than that is that the split is an almost even 48% female, 52%male. But still we get games and art geared towards the underage adrenaline junkies, the 12 year old male gamers who just want to blow stuff up.

So I am calling for support from readers and gamers alike, we need more honesty from our developers, more strong female characters, more depth in our leads. More Sarah Connors and less Princess Peach, more Ripley and less helpless little girls needing a knight in shining armour. I understand that those stories and those tropes have their place, but they should not stand in the way of our growing industry. I for one will not support the alienation of the growing culture of female gamers. I urge you to do the same.

Bioshock Infinite – An exploration of Many Worlds.

Bioshock Infinite – an exploration of many-worlds.

Bioshock Infinite questions the nature of choice, it toys with ideas posed in theories of quantum mechanics and the nature of choice and agency in philosophy. Bioshock Infinite (BI) does this by offering the player a vessel in the character of Booker, a vessel with little in the way of motivation or back story – at least at the outset – a vessel in Booker and a mystery in Elizabeth. Within the world of Bioshoch Infinite, Elizabeth is a means by which to discuss some very complex themes because neither she nor Booker understand her abilities.

In the study of Quantum Mechanics there is a theory known as the ‘Many Worlds theory’, by which whenever there is a choice or an option; a different world is created for each outcome. Simply put if you were to flip a coin there will then exist one world where it lands heads, one where it lands tails. These theories are of course based on our own worlds rules or physics and matter, but with the splitting nature of this theory other theoretical worlds exist where our laws do not apply, where the coin could land on its edge, or float to the ceiling. These theories were first formulated by Hugh Everett in his papers on the “Formulation of Quantum Mechanics”ⁱ. However, when talking about these theories in relation to BI, it is more apt to talk about Bryce Dewitt, a name that should of course be recognizable as the surname of the protagonist Booker. Dewitt was in fact responsible for the title ‘many worlds’ in his paper entitled “the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.”ⁱⁱ. In terms of BI, it is clear that through these theories discussed, Elizabeth is able to reach into alternate times and places to obtain objects that Booker needs for the story, as well as interact with alternate timelines evidenced by the choices that she and Booker make within the story. Focusing on one mechanical choice within the game, the player’s death sequence. It is interesting to note that if Booker dies, Elizabeth revives him almost every time, doing so through the same greyscale filter that she accesses her tears with the same trademark flash; the question then is, if she is reviving Booker by use of her powers, is she reviving the same Booker or pulling one from another world? These alternate realities are often expressed with differences or subtle hints to our own world. Such as an early tear that shows a Parisian cinema showing “La Revanche du Jedi” (The Revenge of the Jedi), which was the abandoned original title of the Return of the Jedi. Elizabeth reaches into an alternate version of our won world where that title remained.

Jane Mcgonigal defines Alternate Reality Games as “games you play to get more out of your life, instead of to escape it.”ⁱⁱⁱ this is not dissimilar from serious games which aim to teach a skill or gain a quantifiable outcome from the player on it’s completion. From this perspective BI can be defined as both an ARG and an ordinary entertainment game. Primarily because the game acts as a gateway or a taste of these quantum mechanical theories and the ways that they could be demonstrated in a real world. The player is then invited to investigate and further sample these theories by following trails of breadcrumbs left by the developers, such as the reference in Booker Dewitt’s name to his namesake physicist.

Comparatively the thirteenth century friar Thomas Aquinas^iv built similar ideas of choice and agency, though viewed through the lens of monotheistic determinism. Thomas Aquinas determined that humans are devised of three aspects, the Intellect, which guides the body, the Will which enacts the choices of the intellect and the Passion which interferes and takes over with raw emotion, overriding the other two. Looking at BI in this light it is interesting to consider Booker as the Will, the physical form in the world and the response mechanism, Elizabeth as the Passion as she gets distracts and is prone to pulling the narrative with bouts of emotion, and finally the player as the Intellect which analyses the situation and directs the action. All three players form a cohesive organism that fuels the narrative and pushes forward the action. Without any one the game would falter. However, Aquinas spoke strongly on the role of destiny. His theory is that God determines the goals of the individual, and then we choose our path to that inevitable goal. This theory is particularly relevant with BI because this is the view that Father Comstock takes; he speaks to Booker suggesting that no matter what he does, his destiny will always be the same, and he will always become the same man. Coming back to the many worlds theory, Comstock draws on the concept of ‘Constants and variables’ where although anything is theoretically possible, there are events that are more or less likely, retaining some semblance of structure throughout the worlds. Comstock’s theory of monotheistic determinism is directly linked to the fanatical religious nature of Comstock’s Columbia, the fanaticism with which Comstock is able to follow his own perceived destiny is the way by which he is capable of leading the people of Columbia. Raising the question, do they choose to follow him, or was it that they always would? This raises a question within the meta-universe of the game structure. Looking at the game from outside the narrative – although a linear progression – it raises the question of choice and consequence by offering alternate universes. Though the narrative follows a set path the player can only wonder at how different the story could have been, how many other worlds the character inhabit and what differences exist. It raises the question within the world of the game production where the designers are having a dialogue about free will; while being a game character essentially removes that luxury. Replacing free will with the illusion of.

This theoretical crossover extends beyond the basic elements of the story where we see Booker as an incarnation of Comstock. If we consider the surprise crossover at the finale when Elizabeth draws Booker and the Songbird into Rapture; it has to be considered that in the finale of the original Bioshock only Andrew Ryan and his clone/son/protagonist Jack can operate the bathespheres after the lockdown. In much this same way only Booker can operate the bathesphere as he and Elizabeth ride it through the crashed city. The implication being that Booker and Comstock are alternate versions of Jack and Ryan. The similarities extend beyond this as both protagonists go on a journey to destroy their elder who built a city based on their own narcissism. Beyond this Atlas and Fontaine must be Daisy Fitzroy who challenges the leader before going insane and challenging the protagonist. Finally Dr Lutece can only be Dr Tenenbaum, looking after the gifted little sisters who must be broken mirrors of Elizabeth, being used for power or saved by the protagonist as well as being protected by the big daddies, all blended to the monstrous Songbird. It is hard to look at a little sister and not see Elizabeth after looking at them side by side, noting the similarities in hair colour, style, and costuming, nearly identical colour schemes. This grand development of the game that has the capacity to reach beyond the individual universe of the individual game and into the meta-universe of the existing stories shows a clear understanding of the many-worlds theory and the possible permutations of these characters and events by the writers at Irrational Games.

Jesse Schell proposes in tandem with various philosophers that all humans view the world through lenses. That although the world is real, our perception can never be, that we “filter reality” and “the consciousness we actually experience is a kind of illusion”.^v He proposes then that this is one of the true gifts given to game designers as they can create the illusions, fool the senses into seeing, hearing and therefor believing something that could be entirely real. But Bioshock infinite poses that if we create enough worlds, one of them must be real? But all of them are real to someone.

References

iEverett, Hugh, (1957), Relative State Formulation of Quantum Mechanics, Reviews of Modern Physics: 29, 454-262, retrieved from http://www.univer.omsk.su/omsk/Sci/Everett/paper1957.html

iiBryce DeWitt, R. Neill Grahams, (1973) The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, Princeton Series in Physics, Princeton University Press

iiiMcGonigal, Jane, 2012, Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, Vintage

ivAquinas, Thomas, 13^th century, also 1920, Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas , Translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican province. Retrieved from http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1075.htm

vSchell, Jesse, (2008) The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, Taylor and Francis Group

Balancing History and Gameplay

Interactive Entertainment Project 2014 – Mia’s Tale

As the final hurdle in our Game Design course with Qantm Melbourne, we are tasked with creating a full interactive game based on a topic of our choosing. Due to my background in History and mythology, we have designed a story around a girl who retreats into a fantasy world following the death of her father, and her mother remarrying. So in the real world we have her mother, father, stepfather and doctor. Whereas in the fantasy world the spirit of her deceased father is the advisor, the mother is the queen, and the stepfather is the Dragon King. The Doctor that the stepfather sends to prove that Mia is insane is The Wizard.

I have been acting as creative lead on the project and lead narrative designer.

Our game takes place in third person as the protagonist Mia explores her fantasy realm, collecting the pages of stories from history and myth. Through this gameplay she collects the Vorpal Blade from Lewis Caroll’s Jabberwocky poem, as well as the Holy Grail from the Fisher King fable and later the Arthurian Legend, and also the Golden Fleece, saught by Jason and the Argonauts. These objects are portrayed in her childish imagination as her necklace (The Grail) her wooden sword (the Vorpal Blade) and her yellow raincoat (the Golden Fleece)

As Narrative Designer it has been my job to properly research the fables in question and ensure that the information that we use is accurate, as well as make sure that the stories we use are interesting from a gameplay perspective. We have decided to portray the story that takes place outside of the fantasy world through a series of hand drawn images told with storybook narration.

Below is an outline of the narrative scenes and their importance within the story.

Act 1:
Scene 1 – Intro Quote Scene
Showing the quote that frames the narrative of the game

Scene 2 – Dr Greyson
Introduces the character of Dr Greyson

Scene 3 – Introducing Mia
Sets up the relationship between Mia and her father

Scene 4 – The Death of Dr Greyson
Shows how Dr Greyson dies, discusses the effect on the family.

Act 2:
Scene 5 – The Mother Remarries
Sets the scene and shows how Mia meets Mr Lancaster

Scene 6 – Mr Lancaster
Introduces the relationship between Mia and her stepfather and prefaces the start of the game.

Gameplay – Until player finds 3 pages. Next scene after third page is found.

Scene 7 – Mia’s Real Life
Shows how the fantasy world is starting to invade Mia’s real world as much as it is invading her fantasy world

Gameplay – Until player finds 6 pages. Next scene after sixth page is found

Scene 8 – The Mother Tries to Help
Shows the mother trying to talk to Mia in the real world, articulating the control that Mr Lancaster has over the mother.

Gameplay – Until player finds 9 pages. Next scene after ninth page is found

Scene 9 – The Wizard Arrives
Mr Lancaster sends a doctor to asses Mia, trying to prove that she is insane and have her committed.

Gameplay – Until player finds 12 pages. Next scene after twelfth page is found

Scene 10 – Mia at Night
Mia’s nightmares break into the real world, causing her to doubt herself and reinforce the importance of completing her quest.

Gameplay – Until player enters the arena of the Dragon King

Act 3:
Scene 11 – Confronting Mr Lancaster
Mia Confronts Mr Lancaster before the final fight. He insults her.

Gameplay – Until after the player defeats the Dragon King

Scene 12 – The aftermath
Mia’s mother finds the two after the fight and saves Mia from Mr Lancaster.

Key to the development process is the idea of subversion. We have aimed to take key narrative tropes and invert them to see how the story plays out. The key to this is the classic ‘damsel in distress’ concept that is so prevalent in modern game design. We have decided that the hero of our story should be a female, pushed to the brink of her sanity and forced to save herself.

It has been very interesting thus far and i will continue to update as we make more progress. Below are some concept images.

Mia Character Design – Jess Rivenell

Enemy Design – Matthew Hore

Antagonist Design – Nathanael Peacock