Game Review: Destiny 2‘s Starcrossed Exotic Mission
26 January 2024 | Job Application | Game Review
In week 3 of Destiny 2’s Season of the Wish, Bungie unveiled the Exotic mission Starcrossed for the exotic strand bow Wish-Keeper. For my review of this mission, I discussed the story, visuals, audio, mechanics, level design, and any bugs or issues I encountered. Read more…
The Genres of Omelas
15 November 2020 | Swinburne University | Literary Analysis Essay
In The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, Ursula K. Le Guin depicts a utopia dependent on the isolation and suffering of one child. In this essay, I discussed how Omelas is utopian and dystopian fiction, argued that Omelas is fantasy, and discussed its coverage of the theme of ethics present in all three genres. Read more…
Analysing the Structure, Plot and Protagonists of The Natural Way of Things
12 June 2020 | Swinburne University | Literary Analysis Essay
In Charlotte Wood’s The Natural Way of Things, twelve young women who were involved in different sex scandals have been captured and imprisoned for unknown reasons at a secret compound somewhere in Australia. In this essay, I analysed the novel’s structure and plot in relation to narrative tension, discussed the comparative importance of its two protagonists, and analysed their character arcs. Read more…
Enter the Arena: Magic: The Gathering Arena Software Evaluation
3 November 2019 | Swinburne University | Game Analysis Essay
Magic: The Gathering Arena is Magic: The Gathering’s latest digital incarnation and a new entrant into the world of digital trading card games. In this essay, I explored Arena’s efforts “to create the deepest, richest digital card game on the market” and “to create a version of Magic that’s as much fun to watch as it is to play”, and how those efforts impact the user experience. Read more…
Usability Comparison: Magic: The Gathering vs Yu-Gi-Oh!
25 September 2019 | Swinburne University | Game Analysis Essay
The Magic: The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh! trading card games feature similar cards. However, there are small but cumulative differences in their layout and design that allow Magic cards to convey their flavour and function to players better than Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. Read more…
Magic: The Panacea for Gamers’ Needs
8 June 2019 | Swinburne University | Game Analysis Essay
Originally devised to gather the funds to produce another game, Magic: the Gathering invented the trading card game genre. Twenty five years later, Magic is still thriving under by Wizards of the Coast, with over twenty million players and billions of cards printed. In this piece, I discussed how Magic attracts and retains players by addressing all of Barbaros Bostan’s categories of gamers’ needs. Read more…
Restrictions Breed Creativity
24 May 2019 | Swinburne University | Media Analysis Essay
Creativity is broadly defined as “the production of ideas or solutions that are novel and useful”. “Many people believe that the more options available [to creators], the more creative a person can be”. This is claim has little ground to stand on when it comes to constraints and creative technique, as evidenced by the many ways artists use constraints in creative practice, and the creativity that arises from restrictions in other contexts. Read more…
Halo 4: Rampant Defence Mechanisms
5 September 2018 | Swinburne University | Game Analysis Essay
In 2012, Microsoft Studios released 343 Industries’ first major gamic addition to the Halo canon: Halo 4, which sees the Master Chief and Cortana struggle against a new Forerunner threat and Cortana’s rampancy. In this essay, I outlined what rampancy is and discussed Cortana’s symptoms in relation to Freud’s psychodynamic framework of defence mechanisms. Read more…
Passenger or Builder: Ticket to Ride Analysed with Schell’s Tetrad
25 August 2017 | Swinburne University | Game Analysis Essay
Ticket to Ride is a game that attempts to blend its mechanics and aesthetics to reinforce its story to create a fun, combining several parts of Jesse Schell’s elemental tetrad to create an engaging play experience. Though its aesthetics and mechanics do reinforce its story and promote an enjoyable experience, they can convey a very different impression of Ticket to Ride’s story if one neglects to read it beforehand. Read more…
Chess and Caillois – Exploring Chess Using Caillois’ Four Categories of Games
22 April 2017 | Swinburne University | Game Analysis Essay
In 1958, when Roger Caillois published the essay ‘The Classification of Games’ in his book ‘Man, Play and Games’, he provided the world with four significant tools for describing games: agon, alea, ilinx and mimicry. Chess is one of the most popular and revered strategy games in modern history. In this essay, I explored the game of chess in terms of each of Caillois’ four “tenets of game design”, illustrating how each affords players a distinct experience in each game of chess. Read more…
Sam Huffer 