Title VARIABLES : a gaming experience that breaks the fourth wall inversely Sub Title Author 陳, 嘉駿(Chen, Jiajun) Kunze, Kai Publisher 慶應義塾大学大学院メディアデザイン研究科 Publication year 2018 Jtitle Abstract Notes 修士学位論文. 2018年度メディアデザイン学 第624号 Genre Thesis or Dissertation URL https://koara.lib.keio.ac.jp/xoonips/modules/xoonips/detail.php?koara_id=KO40001001-0000201 8-0624 慶應義塾大学学術情報リポジトリ(KOARA)に掲載されているコンテンツの著作権は、それぞれの著作者、学会または出版社/発行者に帰属し、その権利は著作権法によって 保護されています。引用にあたっては、著作権法を遵守してご利用ください。 The copyrights of content available on the KeiO Associated Repository of Academic resources (KOARA) belong to the respective authors, academic societies, or publishers/issuers, and these rights are protected by the Japanese Copyright Act. When quoting the content, please follow the Japanese copyright act. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org) Master's Thesis Academic Year 2018 VARIABLES - A Gaming Experience That Breaks The Fourth Wall Inversely Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University Chen Jiajun A Master's Thesis submitted to Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER of Media Design Chen Jiajun Thesis Committee: Associate Professor Kai Kunze (Supervisor) Project Professor Tetsuya Mizuguchi (Co-supervisor) Professor Ichiya Nakamura (Co-supervisor) Abstract of Master's Thesis of Academic Year 2018 VARIABLES - A Gaming Experience That Breaks The Fourth Wall Inversely Category: Design Summary The concept of "Breaking The Fourth Wall" is widely implemented in different art forms. Given the interactive nature, video games have the power of delivering Fourth Wall Breaking experience. However, the way in which most video games breaks the fourth wall is fairly close to traditional media such as movie and TV. The potential of the interactive nature in Breaking The Fourth Wall is yet to be discovered. This thesis and project aims at creating a new experience that Breaks The Fourth Wall in a different way, by enabling the player to directly refer to the game itself along with gaming process. Keywords: Game Design, Experience Design, Breaking The Fourth Wall Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University Chen Jiajun i Acknowledgements It would not have been possible to finish this project and thesis without the help and support of the kind people around me, to only some of whom it is possible to particularly mention here. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my main supervisor, Prof. Kai Kunze. It's alway delightful and inspiring talking with him, from where I really got my horizon broadened and gained new perspectives. I'm really grateful for his support and encouragement in my study for the past three years. It's my honor to have Prof.Tetsuya Mizuguchi, to be my sub-supervisor of this thesis. I'd say Prof.Mizuguchi is my life changer. I set up my mind to become a game designer because of Prof.Mizuguchi. His lecture two years ago was where my journey was started, and this project is one milestone of my voyage. Fusion of Activeness and Passiveness, one crucial concept of this thesis, also comes from a lecture by Prof.Mizuguchi. The conversation with Prof.Mizuguchi at EdgeOF, was one of the most inspiring moments in my life. Thank Prof.Nakamura, my third supervisor, Prof.Inakage and Prof.Kato for their critics that motivated me to further develop my ideas and to go an extra step into my research. The idea of this thesis came from a drunk chat with my friend George, I'd like to thank him for providing me advices on this thesis. I also hope to express my appreciation to all the professional game designers who spent their precious time discussing with me about this project. I'd like to particularly mention Zhang Jing, Liu Yu and Wang Jue, who are my former colleagues in NetEase Games and my important friends. I would also like to thank Yi, who has been always supporting me during my hardest time, fighting by my side and making me the luckiest person in the world. Finally my most sincere love and gratitude goes to my parents, who have been always trusting me and supporting my decisions. ii Table of Contents Acknowledgements ii 1 Introduction 1 2 Related Works 2 2.1 Games That Breaks The Fourth Wall . 2 2.1.1 About Breaking The Fourth Wall . 2 2.1.2 Breaking The Fourth Wall in Video Games . 2 2.1.3 Hack n Slash . 5 2.1.4 Pony Island . 7 2.2 Stealth Games . 8 2.2.1 About Stealth Games . 8 2.2.2 Metal Gear Series . 11 2.2.3 Streets of Rogue . 18 2.3 Cheating in Video Games . 20 2.3.1 Introduction . 20 2.3.2 Memory Editing Tools . 20 2.3.3 Cheat Codes . 22 3 Concept Design 24 3.1 Breaking The Fourth Wall Inversely . 24 3.1.1 Two Layers of Experience . 24 3.1.2 Fusion of Activeness and Passiveness . 26 3.1.3 Story and Setting . 26 3.2 Basic Game Mechanics . 27 3.2.1 Hacking and Variable Editing . 27 3.2.2 Stealth . 28 4 Implementation 30 4.1 Game Environment . 30 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS 4.1.1 Orthographic Top Down 2D . 30 4.1.2 Scriptable Tile Based . 33 4.2 Enemy AI . 34 4.2.1 Discussion . 34 4.2.2 Enemy Behavior Modes . 35 4.2.3 Detecting System . 36 4.3 Level Design . 40 4.3.1 Stealth Levels in Top Down 2D . 40 4.3.2 Stealth in Open Environment . 41 4.4 Variable Editing . 41 5 Iteration and Evaluation 44 5.1 Version 1.0 . 44 5.2 Version 2.0 . 45 5.3 Version 2.1 . 47 5.4 Evaluation of Version 2.1 . 47 5.4.1 User Test Setup . 47 5.4.2 Discussion . 48 6 Conclusion 54 6.1 Validation . 54 6.2 Limitation . 54 6.3 Future Work . 54 6.3.1 More Editable Variables . 55 6.3.2 UI Optimization . 55 6.3.3 Efficient Level Generating System . 55 References 56 iv List of Figures 2.1 StarTropics Player needs to dip the letter into water to see the frequency . 3 2.2 Undertale Character in the game mocking the player . 4 2.3 Hack n SlashEditable values and Properties . 5 2.4 Pony IslandEditable values and Properties . 7 2.5 Metal Gear: 4 Directions of Characters . 12 2.6 Metal Gear Solid: Enemy Distracted by Magazine . 13 2.7 Metal Gear Solid V: Identifying The Target . 15 2.8 Metal Gear Solid : Mantis Reads Save Files . 17 2.9 Streets of Rogue : Different Classes in The Game . 19 2.10 JinShan Youxia : Interface . 22 2.11 GTA:Vice City : Cars Move On Water with "Seaways" . 23 4.1 Perspective Camera ......................... 31 4.2 Orthographic Camera without Rotation . 31 4.3 Orthographic Camera with Rotation . 32 4.4 Orthographic Overhead Top Down . 32 4.5 Using Shadow to illustrate Hight in 2D . 33 4.6 Tile-based Level ........................... 34 4.7 AI Behavior Structure ........................ 39 4.8 Editable Objects Changes Colour When Hovered . 42 4.9 Press E to Edit Variables ...................... 43 4.10 Press ENTER to Execute Edits ................... 43 5.1 Interface of Terminal ........................ 44 5.2 Terminal UI Design of Version 1.0 . 45 5.3 Editable Objects Changes Colour When Hovered . 46 5.4 Editable Objects Changes Colour When Hovered . 46 5.5 Terminal UI in Version 2.1 ..................... 47 v LIST OF FIGURES 5.6 Percentage of participants with different levels as gamer . 48 5.7 88 percent of participants consider "Hacking" an ability of them- selves at a high level ......................... 49 5.8 Almost all participants think it's themselves instead of the charac- ter who was "Hacking" the game . 50 5.9 Relatively more participants think they were helping the character instead of playing as the character while "Hacking" . 50 5.10 Most of the participants think they were outside the game at a certain level while "Hacking" .................... 51 5.11 88 percent of participants become strongly aware of the fact that they were the player while "Hacking" . 51 5.12 88 percent of participants become strongly aware of the fact that they were the player while "Hacking" . 52 5.13 88 percent of participants become strongly aware of the fact that they were the player while "Hacking" . 52 5.14 88 percent of participants become strongly aware of the fact that they were the player while "Hacking" . 53 5.15 88 percent of participants become strongly aware of the fact that they were the player while "Hacking" . 53 vi Chapter 1 Introduction VARIABLES is a new gaming experience that breaks The Fourth Wall inversely. With a special story supported depicted along with a set of game mechanics that enables players to hack and edit variables and properties of objects and elements in the game, the players are provided with an unprecedented gaming experience. The mechanics of VARIABLES is a combination of stealth game and function of memory editing software. With a balance of cheating and stealth, the player is enabled to have a Fourth Wall breaking sandbox experience. As there are many properties in games can be reflected by variables, by spotting and editing variables in the game, players are able to change position of game objects, physical parameters in the game or even game rules. In VARIABLES, player needs to play two roles simultaneously, which also makes the real world part of the game story, by which The Fourth Wall is broken in a special way. With the variable editing game mechanics and puzzles that reach out to real world, the player can enjoy the blending experience as a player and a developer at the same time.