Stop Killing Games - Feasible?

Sign the Stop Killing Games UK or EU initiative!

AAA Devs on Stop Killing Games

Repeatedly, I hear AAA developers argue that it is an expensive and infeasible amount of work, as seen in the recent response of Video Games Europe.[VGE25] While I have my own thoughts and beliefs on their overall response, I want to focus on the idea of it being expensive and infeasible. However, I haven't worked in AAA. I am an Informatics: Games Engineering student. Any defense I bring up out of my knowledge and experience might be written off as naivety or inexperience. So instead, I'm gonna make an assumption, a hypothesis. This assumption is: "If it is infeasible and expensive, then no one would be able to do it." Thus, we won't be able to find examples of games that handled sunset or have sunset plans that comply with the Stop Killing Game initiative despite being affected by the changes.

Are There Games That Comply?

game

how it complies

source

Game 0/0

Last Update: 07.07.2025
(Disclaimer: Stop Killing Games does not intend and can't apply retroactively. These are examples to prove the point of feasibility.)

[VGE25] Video Games Europe. Statements on Stop Killing Games, 2025, https://www.videogameseurope.eu/news/statement-on-stop-killing-games/ (Accessed: 06.07.2025)

Guild Wars 2 WvW - True Camp Value - Part 2

It's been a long time, but I finally found the motivation and time to work down my list. Last time we looked at the true camp value based on the actual points camps produce in the Guild Wars 2's World versus World game mode. You can read up and refresh your knowledge over here. One of the follow-up topics I wanted to go over is the balance aspect, specifically whether or not one team's camps provide a significant advantage over the others.

Answering this requires three equally strong teams. Environmental advantages are hard to quantify. Thus, to reduce complexity, we will assume that landscape plays no role. Under these circumstances, the teams will own structures by distance primarily. The resulting structure ownership will look like this:

Ill. 1: Guild Wars 2 World vs World Theoretical Objective Ownership in an equal match by GreenyNeko (Some graphical elements by ArenaNet)

Notice that the map's owner typically conquers the bordering keeps due to increased priority. Now, we can calculate each camp's true value using our dataset. For this, we consider objects connecting to camps and their color. Applying the dataset yields the following result:

Ill. 2: Guild Wars 2 World vs World Dolyak Points Per 5 Minutes by GreenyNeko

We analyze the balance by summing each team's points from our setup. Shared objects yield a percentage of their points to each relevant team. We will use the unbuffed walking speed values because the speed multipliers become irrelevant and for consistency. The result is:

Team	Total Points	Desert	Green	Blue	Eternal
Green	35.332	2.975	10.79	4.075	17.383
Blue	38.355	2.94	3.575	10.79	21.05
Red	41.567	13.507	4.075	3.575	20.41

We already see an advantage in the matchmaking system. As a reminder, we explained that matchmaking ranks servers from highest to lowest: green, blue, and red. The table reflects this, empowering the lower-ranked teams. The big question is whether or not this is confirmation bias, measurement errors, or fact.

To check this via the null hypothesis. We assume equal team points, and the difference is error based. Thus, the scores' average is close to the truth. Finding a significant deviation from the average disproves the null hypothesis confirming our previous supposition. For significance, we will use an alpha value of 0.05. The mean of the scores is (35.332+38.355+41.567)/3 = 38.418. Thus, we get the following deviations:

• 1-35.332/38.418 = 0.0803 (8.03%)
• 1-38.355/38.418 = 0.0016 (0.16%)
• 1-41.567/38.418 = 0.0820 (8.20%)

Apparently, the difference is significant enough to consider it more than an error. Therefore, we conclude that the teams gain a significant advantage from Dolyaks d inversely proportional to their matching rank r. (d ∝ 1/r)

Lastly, I apologize for having taken so long. I needed more time and motivation to write between theses and seminar papers. Since I swapped to Lost Ark, I probably won't post about Guild Wars 2 for now. I hope you will continue to read my blog to learn about the kinds of stuff I present. :3

Interactive Post: How Long Guild Wars 2 WvW Reward Tracks Take [Updated]

The post is now up to date with the 9th November patch! There's a comparison with the old system at the end.

With Elona neither being green nor dominating any matches, I couldn't finish the World versus World
(WvW) Dolyak research yet. However, I noticed an inaccuracy in Guild Wars 2 wiki's minimum WvW reward track time.

Screenshot of the World vs World Reward Track Tab
from Guild Wars 2 by GreenyNeko

What Are The World vs World Reward Tracks?

Players find the reward tracks in their tab in the WvW window. By playing WvW, they gain participation, determining how much reward track progress they get every 5-minute match tick. This table shows the progress given the variables.^[2]

Map	Tier 0	Tier 1	Tier 2	Tier 3	Tier 4	Tier 5	Tier 6
Core WvW Maps	0	25	60	95	125	160	195
Edge of the Mists	0	19	46	76	90	120	146

The following buffs further increase these:^[2]

Buff	Bonus
Guild Enhancement: World Reward Track	3-10%
Experience Booster	50%
Black Lion Boost	25%
Festival Gobbler Boost	25%
Celebration Bonus	10%
WvW Reward Track Enrichment	5%
Call of War	25%

The buffs sum up to 1.0+0.1+0.5+0.25+0.25+0.1+0.05+0.25=1.5 or 150%. Given that reward tracks need 20000 points, the wiki's supposed minimum estimate is 20000/(195*(1.0+1.25))*5=228 minutes or 3h 50m.^[2]

The Discrepancy

But there are two more sources of reward track progress: Dailies and the skirmish reward track. Since a day has 24 hours and ticks happen every five minutes, we get (24*60)/5=288 ticks. Add that dailies awards players 3*250=750 progress^[1] we gain 750/288=2.60 per tick.

The skirmish reward track gives players one to seven 25 point-rewarding-Instant Reward Track Progress. The amount and frequency depend on the player's skirmish track progress. More on it over at Guild Wars 2: Time Consumption of WvW Pips.^[1]

First Interactive Post! Woooo!

With all the variables, I leave the selection to the reader, allowing them to choose the calculation and result of their interest.

Map

Core WvW maps Edge of the Mists

Boosts

None 3% 4% 5% 6% 7% 8% 9% 10% Guild Enhancement: World Reward Tracks
Experience Booster (+50%)
Black Lion Booster (+25%)
Snowflake Gobbler or Zhaitaffy Gobbler Boost (+25%)
Celebration Bonus (+10%)
WvW Reward Track Enrichment (+5%)
Call of War (+25%)

Pips

Wood Bronze Silver Gold Platinum Mithril Diamond Chest

3rd in Skirmish +4 2nd in SKirmish +5 1st in SKirmish +6 War Score Placement
No Title +1 Bronze (150-619) +2 Silver (620-1394) +3 Gold (1395-2544) +4 Platinum (2545-4094) +5 Mithril (4095-6444) +6 Diamond (6445-9999) +7 Max (10000) +8 WvW Rank
None Commander +1 Public Commander +3 Commanding a Squad
Commitment +1
Outnumbered +0

---

Calculation

^[1] Guild Wars 2

^[2] https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/WvW_Reward_Track

^[3] https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/104411-game-update-notes-november-9-2021/

Guild Wars 2 WvW - True Camp Value - Part 1

I've decided to split my World versus World (WvW) research into two posts. I'll talk about how Guild Wars 2 and WvW works. Then explain what I wanted to research, why, and how. Lastly, I'll show the result using the desert map. The second post will contain the other results and the conclusion I drew from them. I still need time as I'm missing six transitions. In the meantime, let's get this post started.

Guild Wars 2 And World Versus World^[1][2]

Ill. 1: Approximate Points Per Objective And Dolyak Path
With And Without Buffs ~GreenyNeko & WvW Intel

Guild Wars 2 is an MMORPG that allows players to play on different servers within a region. The server's choice barely plays a role in gameplay. In the game mode World versus World (WvW), however, these servers fight each other every week in a three-way match. Each server is assigned the colors red, blue, and green, given their rank. WvW contains four maps:

• Desert Borderland for red,
• two alpine borderlands for green and blue,
• and the eternal battlegrounds shared by all.

While the borderland maps are biased to their color, the eternal battlegrounds aren't.

Score System^[1][2]

The server with the most victory points wins. Servers get these given their war score at the end of a skirmish. There are many ways to get Warscore for the 84 two-hour-long skirmishes. For example, killing another player awards two to five points depending on the buffs. Every five minutes, the game also awards Warscore for each owned object. Type and rank determine the amount, as shown in the following table.

Type	Base	Secured	Reinforced	Fortified
Camp	2	3	4	5
Tower	4	6	8	10
Keep	8	12	16	20
Castle	12	18	24	30

Lastly, the game awards one Warscore when an enemy's Dolyak dies or when your Dolyak arrives at its goal. Dolyaks start at a camp and walk to nearby towers and then to nearby larger settlements if a server owns these.

It is similar to owning a street in monopoly, gaining a bonus for the whole alley. That raises the question, how much the bonus is worth and how it compares between the servers.

Approach And Difficulties

To answer these, we must study the Dolyaks in their natural habitat. Specifically, we need to know Dolyaks' speed with and without buffs With this data, we can estimate the time of buffed Dolyaks. Next up, we have to measure how long it takes a Dolyak to reach its destination. It's exhaustive to get this data as the other servers try to conquer as much as possible. Additionally, they try to kill you and the Dolyak you watch. However, your team can screw up your data too by giving swiftness or superspeed to the Dolyaks, giving inaccurate measurements.

Researching Dolyaks

I've already measured the Dolyaks movement speed in an earlier post. So, the next step is to measure how long they travel from their camp to each objective. I used the program Livesplit for this, which speedrunners commonly use for timing speed runs. When the Dolyak spawned, I started the timer and stopped it when the "war score" marker appeared once the Dolyak reached its goal. With the data gathered, we now need to look at two different cases. When the camp and tower are ours but not the keep or castle, the Dolyak will continuously run between the two conquered objectives. However, if we own all three objectives, the Dolyak will despawn after reaching its goal and respawn about seven seconds later. Next up, we get math involved.

Finalization And Representation

By dividing the point we get through the time it took the Dolyak to arrive there, we get the Dolyak's points per second. We can multiply this by five (5*60=300) to compare to objectives. For the visuals, I've linked the camp with the Dolyaks end goal. Now, for visualizing the data, I'm going to mark the objectives with white-filled black circles.  Then I link the camp where the Dolyak starts with its end goal. Lastly, I add the score objectives and Dolyaks give. We can see the result in the illustration for the desert borderland.

For The Future

Once I have gotten all data, I'm going to write the second post. Until then, this has to suffice. Oh, I'll also write the conclusion in the second post. When will it come? Once, WvW is going well enough for me to get the data.

^[1] https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/World_versus_World

^[2] Guild Wars 2 - ArenaNet

Among Us - Travel Distance

One of the methods that didn't make it into my Among Us seminar paper is distance measuring. Instead of the exact, I used graph distance. Since given the states of the latter one, they aren't compatible.

What Unit Would Our Speed Be?

We define speed as the distance something moves within a specific time frame. In Guild Wars 2, we could convert between in-game units and meters.^[1] However, Among Us doesn't have this to my knowledge. So, alternatively, we need to abstract this by creating a custom unit. We could choose rooms per second, players per second, and so on, but I've decided on the standard vision per second. Thus we can measure rooms in vision distance. Furthermore, if a room's wall distance is higher than one, players can't see it whole within their vision sphere. 

Measurement Of Movement Speed

Ill. 1: The approach to measuring velocity given
 crewmate vision ~GreenyNeko

To measure the velocity, we create a lobby with four instances. While you can do this with friends, it also works using Bluestacks instances. We use the recommended settings for the room (which we can consider as the standard settings). For the measurement, any map with a big room where you can walk in linearly will do. I decided to use the cafeteria of the Skeld. We place one of the players in the middle, and the other player will walk into the vision cone on one side and out on the other side, as demonstrated in the image on the right. A decent way to measure the velocity is to record the player's movement from the stationary player's view and then check how many frames have passed between entering and leaving the vision bubble. With the first frame at 78 (=1.3s) and the last at 335 (=5.5833s) the resulting speed is one player vision in 4.28333s or 1 crewvision / 4.28333 seconds = 0.23346cv/s.

Measuring The Map

Skeld with most distances measured ~GreenyNeko

Now having the player movement speed, we can use it in combination with the time it takes to get from one point to another to determine the distance of walls and hallways. These tools allow us to measure the whole map and use the data to approximate how long it takes us from one spot to another. The image on the left shows the result for the Skeld map. We can do this for the other maps, but I'll leave it at Skeld for this post. When we sum up the horizontal and vertical distances, we get the total distance approximation from one point to another. However, since players can walk diagonally, the sum is an overestimation of the shortest path.

Conclusion

An example of this would be the distance from navigation to the reactor.

Given:

Navigation to Weapons:	0.307cv+0.074cv/2+0.218cv+0.144cv+0.189cv	= 0.894cv
Weapons to Cafeteria:	0.116cv+0.125cv*2+0.237cv+0.198cv	= 0.801cv (guessing missing distances)
Cafeteria to Upper Engine:	1.012cv+0.237cv/2+0.77cv	= 1.9005cv (including the button)
Upper Engine to Reactor:	0.397cv/2+0.339cv+1/3*0.498cv	= 0.7035cv

In total that's 0.894cv+0.801cv+1.9005cv+0.7035cv = 4.299cv 

This would take a player 4.299cv / 0.23346cv/s = 18.414s. With a quick check on mobile and approximately reaching around 18s (Well 20s minus getting stuck twice and starting/stopping the timer), our calculation isn't too far off. We can do this for each room and enter the distances into a graph. Alternatively, we can take an already created graph and sum the distances for it.

^[1]https://www.greenyneko.com/2018/01/guild-wars-2-velocity.html

Self-Experiment: Effect Of Alcohol On Personality

With the exams and seminar paper behind my back, for now, I'm back writing blog posts. A few months ago, while researching personality in psychology, I found a paper on a self-study about alcohol's effect on personality. Given this, I got curious about its influence on my personality.

Disclaimer Regarding Alcohol Consumption

Before I share my research, I want to mention that I - in no way - recommend or encourage alcohol consumption. Excessive drinking is dangerous, if not even fatal. As such, I want to discourage any attempts of copying the described approach here. If, despite all, you still plan to try it yourself, talk to a doctor beforehand to help you stay safe.

Personality Models in Psychology

Most people probably heard about the Myers-Briggs personality types. However, the best is a personality model backed by a lot of research, which is the case for the five-factor model (FFM).  FFM categorizes personality into five dimensions. You can remember these by the mnemonic OCEAN, where the letters stand for openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, respectively. It is widely used and appended with systems like the NEO-PI-R, adding six facets to each dimension.

Meaning of OCEAN^[1,2]

I won't explain the whole FFM in this blog post. However, I do think explaining the domains and facets helps, understanding the results.

Openness: Often short-form for "Openness to Experience" is linked with intellect, intelligence, and creativity. It describes how curious and open people are to new experiences and also how liberal they are.

It is then split into the facets of:

imagination               artistic interests         emotionality              adventurousness       intellect and liberalism

people higher in imagination use fantasy to spice up the ordinary life how much interest and appreciation a person has in art how much people are aware of and able to access their own feelings determines how much people avoid routines and explore or try out new things the interest people have in abstract ideas and thinking hard determining how likely people are to challenge convention and tradition

Conscientiousness: This one is linked with the need for cleanliness, structure, and order. People who end up on the higher end feel the need to be useful and successful and they are careful and plan ahead.

Its facets are:

Self-Efficacy Orderliness Dutifulness Achievement-Striving Self-Discipline Cautiousness

how confident people are in their ability of achievement describes people's organization and cleanliness determines a person's sense of duty and obligation defines how hard a person strives for accomplishments how self-disciplines a person is how careful people are on their decisions

Extroversion: Most people are familiar with the idea of someone extroverted. That's the basis of this domain.

This domain has the facets:

Friendliness Gregariousness Assertiveness Activity Level Excitement-Seeking Cheerfulness

is associated with how open people are towards others describes how much people enjoy the company of others and of how many assertive people take the initiative and lead determines how much people enjoy a busy instead of a relaxed life correlates to the interest in risks and thrills is associated with how strong people feel positive emotions

Agreeableness: Agreeable people are nicer towards other people even strangers.

It has the facets: Trust Morality Altruism Cooperation Modesty Sympathy

determines how much a person believes others are fair or good correlates with sincere and unguarded people behave towards others is how much people enjoy helping others is associated with the will of compromising or forfeiting on your needs for others describes how modest people are gives how much people can feel the pain of others

Neuroticism: Neuroticism is linked to the reaction to negative emotions. People high in neuroticism are more likely to be pessimistic or faster to be affected by stress and negative emotions.

The facets are: Anxiety Anger Depression Self-Consciousness Immoderation Vulnerability

defines how often and fast people become anxious or stressed is how fast or easy people get angry is the tendency to feel depressed determines how much people care about what others think is the ability to resist lust and cravings describes the ability to withstand stress

The Approach

With FFM explained, let's see how I approached the self-experiment. There's a website by a Professor of the Pennsylvania State University which provides a personality test using FFM Neo PI-R given the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP).^[2] To determine the alcohol's effect we'll take the delta before and after consumption. For this, I did the IPIP sober, using the full 300-item inventory for higher accuracy. For the second round, I prepared both cocktails and water. The purpose of the water is to combat hypohydration (water deficit) from the alcohol. Instead of measuring the exact alcoholemia (alcohol level in blood), I stopped drinking once physical and mental symptoms appeared. These include a slowdown of eyes, balance issues, increased talkativeness, and heightened mood. After repeating the IPIP, I compared the results.

The Results

Due to privacy, I'll publish the delta instead of the exact results.

Openness +1	Conscientiousness +0	Extraversion +21	Agreeableness +10	Neuroticism -8
Imagination +12	Self-Efficacy -6	Friendliness +24	Trust +18	Anxiety -11
Artistic Interests +5	Orderliness +0	Gregariousness +22	Morality +21	Anger +0
Emotionality +16	Dutifulness -6	Assertiveness +8	Altruism +0	Depression -16
Adventurousness +0	Achievement-Striving +13	Activity Level +0	Cooperation -5	Self-Consciousness -24
Intellect -22	Self-Discipline +13	Excitement-Seeking +13	Modesty +3	Immoderation +12
Liberalism -7	Cautiousness -29	Cheerfulness +16	Sympathy +5	Vulnerability +5

When evaluating the results, it is important to keep in mind, results from personality tests deviate to a certain degree. Thus, we should only consider significant changes. Let's consider any deltas smaller or equal to five as insignificant.

We often link behaviors such as increased extraversion, decreased cautiousness and decreased worry to alcohol consumption. The changes across the whole extraversion domain reflect this increase. The big drop in cautiousness matches too. Lastly, the decrease of worry appears in the decrement of certain facets in neuroticism as well. Interestingly imagination increased, and intellect decreased. Especially since we shouldn't confuse the latter with intelligence. Another interesting discovery is the increase of immoderation by quite a bit, making it harder to resist drinking more, which results in a vicious cycle.

Conclusion

I rarely get drunk, but it sometimes happens during parties or celebrations. I felt like I'm more lost in thought, occasionally bursting out. I also enjoy philosophy even more than without, which is weird. So, I was interested in the result. Now given it, it seems typical and according to expectation. Non-the-less it is still interesting.

^[1] 2017 Personality 14: Introduction to Traits/Psychometrics/The Big 5 - Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCceO_D4AlY

^[2] International Personality Item Pool Representation of the NEO PI-R http://www.personal.psu.edu/~j5j/IPIP/

Merry Christmas 2020

 Last year I shared some creators that helped me learn about game development. This year I'm gonna pass on some life advice kind of. If you play certain types of games, listen to music, are a bookworm, movie aficionado, or a weeb listen up. This goes out to you.

We Pass On Information By Telling Stories

The anime and manga "Dr. Stone" is an interesting example. In some chapters and one of the episodes, they mention the "100 Stories" that are passed on from generation to generation keeping important information.[1] Even better this is not made up. It actually matches up with real-life as well. Not only did Carl Jung research archetypes consciously or unconsciously hidden in stories, but we also tell our children stories that coincidentally have a moral. You might just do it as a bedtime story because you got one or two read for you or because you liked them but there's more reason for it. Whether it's teaching children not to take apples from strangers[2] or not to steal from others[3]. Another great example is the book "There's No Such Thing As A Dragon", which is also used by Jordan Peterson to illustrate this point. In this children's book, a dragon representing an issue is ignored within the household. Through the action of ignoring it, it grows bigger and bigger causing trouble all around until the family stops ignoring it and deals with it.  This tells us not to ignore problems and solve them, else they might get worse and blow out of proportion.[4] Those are all children's stories though.

This Is Not Limited To Children Stories

But, this is not limited to those. The bible is another example. It contains a lot of stories, instead of facts and you can learn from all of them. Whether it's questioning morals and decisions or showing what is righteous and what isn't. I would even go further to say this is also the case for animes. Seeing how a person has to struggles against being oppressed and abused in all kinds of ways[5], or people dealing with their own psychological issues.[6] Asking the question of what justice is and how it can be twisted.[7] Showing that you shouldn't rely on your talents too much and that regardless of how weird your quirks are you are like everyone else a human.[8] Things like you should think for yourself.[9] And even the topic of racism.[10] These are all examples of life lessons you can take from these artworks and there are probably many more.

So Keep On Consuming... However

Another thing that can be seen in many stories is to keep a balance and this is the case of the consumption stories as well. So, don't overdo it, make sure you balance your life well and wear the title of a weeb, bookworm, or movie aficionado with a smile and stand proud.

With that all being said, sorry for the lower quality I ran out of time from working on other stuff especially focusing all my writing on the seminar paper. I will be back writing blog posts after this semester. (Probably have to take a break for when I write the bachelor thesis too)

And have a Merry Christmas despite the current situation!

[1] https://dr-stone.fandom.com/wiki/100_Stories and Dr. Stone episode 17

[2] "Snowwhite"

[3] "Goldilocks and the Three Bears"

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J54FMA895OA

[5] "Rising of the Shield Hero"

[6] "Persona 4: The Animation"

[7] "Death Note"

[8] "Mob Psycho 100"

[9] "Psychopass"

[10] "GeGeGe no Kitarou"

Among Us Kill Distance

Ill 1.: x0.25 vision,
short kill distance
~GreenyNeko

Searching the right settings for the Among Us survival horror mode, I've analyzed the kill distance. In particular, I couldn't find anything about it online.

Preparation & Approach

Unwilling to bother four friends to start a game, I created three instances with BlueStacks. I hosted the lobby with the phone and filled it with them. For the map, I arbitrarily chose Skeld and decided on the bottom garbage chute since it has lines with a fixed distance. I'll place the imposter at the bottom right and approach with a crewmate until the kill button lights up. Given different settings, I'll make screenshots, which will show an estimated kill distance.

Ill 2.: x0.5 vision,
medium kill distance
~GreenyNeko

Getting The Screenshots

For all settings, I keep imposter and crewmate vision equal. First, I've tested if kill and view distance correlate, which wasn't the case. With this knowledge, I started the first round with x0.25 vision and short kill distance (see ill. 1). I continued with x0.5 vision and medium kill distance (see ill. 2). And lastly, x0.75 vision and long kill distance (see ill. 3). I didn't do any further checks since long is the highest kill distance option, and we already know that other settings don't affect it.

Conclusion

Ill 3.: x0.75 vision,
long kill distance
~GreenyNeko

Looking at the screenshots, we notice a relationship between the two distances. Namely, the kill distance is a bit smaller than the view distance. We could estimate the former to be x0.225, x0.45, and x0.675. The exact gap would require pixel measurements and determining the player's collision box. Unfortunately, the game scales with the device's resolution. Thus, requiring all screenshots on the same. I might do this at a later time. In particular, when I compare it to my estimate. For now, I am happy with this result.

Video Games and BINGO!

A while ago, I got into speedrunning with one of the most popular games, Super Mario 64. Aside from the usual x-star categories, having watched some, you might have stumbled upon bingo. If you haven't, let me explain.

Video Game Bingo

Example Bingo Field for Super Mario 64 generated on
https://www.speedrunslive.com/tools/sm64-bingo/

In a video game bingo, you complete random mini-challenges. These include  100% completing a level, getting a certain amount of lives, or doing something optional. Whether it's for fun, to beat a specific time or battle other people.^[1] You place the challenges in a 5x5 grid, and as usual, you win by getting a bingo, which is a completed row, column, or diagonal.^[2] Though variants of this requiring you to achieve multiple winning conditions like double or triple bingo exist. You might as well do the whole board, but that defeats the purpose of choice. You could also split into teams and work towards a goal together.^[3] And you can do this with any game!

Bingo field created by
GreenyNeko on bingobaker.com

Can You Make Your Game Bingo Friendly!?

Comparing games like Super Mario 64 and Tetris, we notice a limit during brainstorming mini-challenges for Tetris. Thus certain games, are better suited. But why? A noticeable element is the increased optional content. However, in a rhythm game like Osu!, we have lots of options on what songs to play. We notice a lack of diversity when looking at the bingo I made for this game.^[4] Therefore variety in the optional content of a game is key to make a game Bingo friendly.

Conclusion

Regardless of you trying this for yourself or making your next Bingo-friendly-game. It's a fun way to spice up old completed games or having more fun with friends. You can make your own Bingo card, check out others on Bingosync or SpeedRunsLive, or check out videos on people doing those runs.

Have fun and until next time. :P

^[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQF3AyVlNq0

^[2] https://www.speedrunslive.com/tools/sm64-bingo/

^[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3DuqbqpSaY

^[4] https://bingobaker.com#cfa78ff4d69fc7ed

Among Us Meets Hide-n-Seek Meets Survival Horror

Imposter vision hide-n-seek
by GreenyNeko

Halloween is around the corner, and Corona won't ruin the festive spirit. Even if we may not go outside, we can still celebrate other aspects of Halloween. I also plan to celebrate it. First, I planned to stream VR horror games. However, to appeal to all ages, I decided to go with Among Us instead. But it's not a horror game? Well, not if you play it ordinarily.

Classic Versus Other Game Modes

Voting in normal game
by GreenyNeko

You probably know the classic game mode. Players report dead bodies and call emergency meetings. The crewmates find the imposters and vote them off or complete all tasks. Imposters need to kill enough crewmates, blend in, and sabotage the ship. That is not the only way to play the game, though. People are creative and come up with their own rules, just like when we were young. Hide-n-Seek is one of these made from custom rules. The ability to change those also supports this to a certain degree. Now, how does Hide n Seek work?

Hide-n-Seek Mode

Hide-n-Seek plays with only one imposter. With their view and kill distance set to a minimum, they have to find the crewmates and kill them. Crewmates get a head start and hide on the map. Players don't report bodies, don't call sabotages, and don't press the emergency button.  The last person alive wins when the game ends. A variant of this has the players finish all tasks to win. Another changes the game's settings just a little bit to create a scarier atmosphere.^[1]

Barely outside of imposter vision
by GreenyNeko

Survival Horror Mode

For this mode, the same rules as in Hide-n-Seek apply, but with some changes. First of all, sabotaging communications is allowed. Second, the player view distance now should be below x0.75 to improve the atmosphere. However, it should also be higher than the imposters' view to allow playing around them. I've noticed, when the view distance of the imposter and player is the same, it sometimes feels random to die. If imposter and crewmate view is equal, death seems random. Next up, players who die should stop talking, which helps the atmosphere to make you feel more alone as the game goes on. Switching off common-tasks is recommended since these encourage the imposter to wait for players on these. And lastly, I recommend playing on Skeld.^[2]

Atmosphere & Future Steps

We have a small map with narrow hallways and a maniac running around. Players with a limited field of vision going from crowded to alone filled with dead bodies. The gameplay is comparable to Dead by Daylight, where you need to do tasks to win while avoiding the murderer. Due to the increased view distance, you can outsmart them, saving you with a fast-beating heart. Best of all, this is a spooky experience for all ages! Though, this is honestly just a theory. I'll find it out on Halloween 2020 at 3 pm UTC on my stream. Let's see if I can get this post out before, haha. Happy Halloween!

^[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AmongUs/comments/gsm9mu/hide_and_seek_custom_mode/

^[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HryURpJSN4o&t=1h11m14s

Among Us For Language Learning?

Some time ago, I wrote a blog post about language acquisition and games. Instead of making a game now, let's use an existing one. And what better game than the currently popular "Among Us"?

Other games do work as well, though. ("Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes")

Why Among Us?

Among Us Skeld Map With Translation
~ by GreenyNeko

So, why specifically Among Us? Despite its fantasy setting, some of the vocabularies are practical outside of the game as well. Compared to other games, players need to describe the situation as detailed as possible while the imposters try to manipulate information believably. On top of that, the game encourages communication, specifically via voice. The fun and popularity play a role in this choice too.

Language Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis

Summarizing the Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis, we learn a language through comprehensible input. In the game, intelligible communication is fundamental to win the game. Whether or not you're an imposter or crewmate. Being unable to get your point across is sus. In this scenario, language production goes hand in hand with comprehensible input. The talker is the teacher, and the listener is the student. The game's context helps to make messages intelligible. Even with limited language understanding, your game's knowledge helps comprehension expanding your proficiency by filling the gaps.^[1]

How To Get Started?

Technically you can jump right in and figure things out, but you might lose the first few rounds. Alternatively, you can acquire a language by watching other people play. Similar to how kids don't talk at first.

Among Us German Acquisition Comic
~ by GreenyNeko

Possible ways to learn the game's vocabulary would be

• listen to Youtubers play "Among Us" in the target tongue (preferably with subtitles)
• change the game's language to the target language (if applicable)
• translate the game and most relevant vocabulary
• lookup a list of the words

Now gather learners of the target language and a few natives. Among Us requires 4-10 players, but you know the saying the more, the merrier. Lastly, try to only speak in the target language, even if you only use single words. (report, blue imposter, etc.)

Off You Go!

Continuing to play this way will steadily improve your understanding through active listening and thinking. It isn't limited to this game but feels like it's a better one. Good luck with your language learning journey.

Have I mentioned this Among Us research I have going on?
It only takes 10-20 or 30-40 minutes!
>> Click to check it out!

^[1] www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiTsduRreug

Among Us - Can You Find A Venting Imposter On Mira HQ?

Not every research has success, and I used not to post those. Combined with the limited time, having to learn for exams, I didn't write any. Thus, I'll start posting failed research as well. Since you can learn from fails too.

Hypothesis

Screenshot of Mira HQ on Among Us Mobile
With the "Y"-Tunnel circled and the door
log marked ~ By GreenyNeko

Mira HQ is a map in Among Us, that is famous for its Y-shaped-tunnel. Each exit of the tunnel has a sensor, triggering a log when a player passes it, but not when venting. As such, you can't read the imposter from the door logs should be possible. To prove this, we'll look at the Crewmates' sensor combinations and compare them to the possible Imposter combinations. Another question is if the imposter can counter this. But first, we'll organize the information in a useful way. Therefore removing unnecessary details and keeping the relevant (sensors, Crewmate/vent pathing, cardinal areas).

Ill. 1: Crewmate/Vent Pathing in
Mira HQ
~by GreenyNeko

Simplification

We take the MIRA HQ map and draw in the paths between rooms, between vents, and the sensors. (see Ill. 1) However, we still have more information than needed. We only care about the sensors, so we reduce the paths to the north, south-west, and south-east. The result shows how players will trigger the sensors. (see. Ill. 2) From here on out, I will label south-west as west and south-east as east.

Ill. 2: Log Relevant Crewmate/Vent
 Pathingof Mira HQ 
~by GreenyNeko

Crewmember Logs

Given the nodes on the crewmate path (shown in green), they can be west, east, north, or in the tunnel. Additionally, triggering sensors puts it on cooldown for the player. Thus doubling back causes only a single log, not two.

So, we get these combinations:

• WN - The player went from west to north or is in the tunnel.
• WE - The player went from west to east or is in the tunnel.
• NW - The player went from north to west or is in the tunnel.
• NE - The player went from north to east or is in the tunnel.
• EW - The player went from east to west or is in the tunnel.
• EN - The player went from east to north or is in the tunnel.
• N - The player is in the north, or the tunnel. (NN, NNN... N⁺)
• S - The player is in the south, or the tunnel. (SS, SSS... S⁺)
• W - The player is in the tunnel or the west. (WW, WWW... W⁺)

We read NWE as:

• The player went from north to west, doubled back, and went east.

Doubling back makes the logs ambiguous. Thus, we can't tell the player's exact position or path.

We read NWWE as:

• The player went from north to west and then from west to east.
• The player went from north to west, doubled back multiple times, and went to the east.

Imposter Logs

The imposter can use the pink and green paths. Ergo, all combinations we found so far count here too, as well as the ambiguity. But if you think a person vented, you can check the logs. Seeing an imposter in the west, but there is no recent combination of SW/NW, and they appear in the log, they vented. Unsuccessful research? We just solved it! Well, you can't tell the difference if the imposter vented and then double backed on the sensor at the target location. Especially since doubling back is not uncommon on sensors.

Conclusion

Since both imposters and crewmates produce the same log combinations, and imposters can hide venting through doubling back. Reading who vented isn't reliably with a good imposter.

I have planned two more blog posts on Among Us, and if you're interested, I got some research going on. It takes 30-40 minutes to complete.

>> To the research

8bit And 16bit Color Palettes

It took me quite a while to understand how 8bit and 16bit palettes work.

To spare you the search, I've decided to write this guide.

Motivation

Creating authentic 8bit and 16bit graphics requires understanding palettes. There are programs and algorithms, which transform your images into 8- or 16bit. Since algorithms cannot guess the intention behind the color choice and miss the context, creating them yourself is more flexible and results in higher quality. It also prevents the loss of details due to quantization. Additionally, to some, pixel-art is about control, and creating the palette gives such.

8Bit Graphics

During the era of the Nintendo Entertainment System, the technology worked with 8bit. Therefore the color of a pixel is represented by eight ones or zeroes. Today a pixel carries up to 32. You might be familiar with the red, green, and blue or RGB, where we split a color into three components. However, dividing 8bits into three colors is ambiguous. That's why there are formats for palettes. RGB332 is the most common for 8bit. It means we assign 3 bits to each red and green, and two bits to blue. A lighter orange would be 111 100 01, which would be 7 for red, 4 for green, and 1 for blue. That's nearly 0, so almost black.

Comparing the colors.
Left: Black; Right: Our Orange

What Is A Palette

Better idea: We map each RGB value onto a level. 

For example, let's map the following blue levels:

00 -> 0

01 -> 79

10 -> 155

11 -> 255

The color levels (right-hand side) the bits map to is our palette. Back then, hardware limited us to use one palette for all drawn on the screen at the same time. Years later, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System was released. Powered by 16bit, our capabilities increased immensely! A typical format for 16bit is RGB565. Today we use 24bit ("true-color") and the RGB888 format. Some formats use RGBA, followed by four numbers, where A (="alpha") stands for the transparency.

Side note: The sum of the numbers does not need to add up to the number of available bits. Ergo RGB333 is a valid format for 16bits.

Creating A Palette From Colors

Using preexisting colors to create a palette takes three steps. First, choose a format. Then add them to your palette.

Let's use the following colors for an 8bit palette of the format RGB332:

	Red	Green	Blue
Black	0	0	0
Color 2	212	211	198
White	255	255	255
Color 4	248	216	198
Color 5	248	197	198
Color 6	232	173	159
Color 7	97	99	43
Color 8	117	234	73

The format gives us 3 bits for red and green and 2 bits for blue. The formula for the number of representable levels is 2^bits. That is enough for 2³ = 8 levels of red and green each and 2² = 4 levels of blue. However, our colors have six unique levels of blue (0, 43, 73, 159, 198, 255). Therefore we can't represent all eight colors.

Quantization

Quantization, the third step, will help us here. For this one, we'll merge close color levels.

Our two colors:

248 red, 216 green, 198 blue            232 red, 173 green, 159 blue

will then (for example) become:

248 red, 216 green, 198 blue            232 red, 173 green, 198 blue

By choosing a good looking and distinguishable color level, we can optimize this better than an algorithm. Then we continue adding all needed colors and quantify them to our palette. Now with our palette created, we can color the pixel art.

Tips And Tricks

Reminder: In 8bit and 16bit video games, everything on-screen at the same time uses one palette. Therefore use the same palette for all associated sprites.

The difference between darker colors is harder to notice. Thus use less dark color levels.

Examples

Senko Pixel Art, 16Bit Palette (RGB565)
 drawn by GreenyNeko

This pixel art of Senko uses an RGB565 palette with the following color levels:

Color	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	...	32
Red	0	97	126	155	174	197	205	212	222	227	232	248	-	-	-	-
Green	0	46	54	60	83	99	106	163	173	188	197	207	211	216	224	234	255	...	-
Blue	0	43	48	60	73	88	93	101	118	159	175	198	236	255	-	-

Notice that there's still space in the palette marked by the "-"s.

Senko Pixel Art, 8Bit Palette (RGB332)
drawn by GreenyNeko

This one uses an RGB332 palette with the following color levels:

Color	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Red	0	97	126	155	174	197	212	248
Green	46	83	106	156	173	197	216	234
Blue	43	106	175	198

Mobile, Mobile or Mobile Games?

The "graphics" versus "aesthetics" misunderstanding between players and developers isn't the only problem. Even developers confuse each other with terms like Mobile, Mobile, and Mobile Games. Though, this issue arises from the ambiguity of abbreviation. The full terms would be games on mobile devices, games developed for mobile devices, and mobile context-aware mobile games. But what is the difference? Why are they all just called "Mobile Games"? And how to categorize games like Diablo Immortal, Merge Dragons, Weather Farmer, Emulators, Pokemon GO and Candy Crush?

Mobile Games as Games On Mobile Devices

Non-natural input on smart-phone.
https://pixabay.com/photos/game-play-mobile-game-android-game-4622800/

"Games on mobile devices" is the broadest category. If a game is available for a mobile device, such as a phone or tablet, it is a mobile game, more accurately, a mobile device game, which abbreviates to a mobile game. Ported games are a massive subcategory of these. Their typical controls are buttons and analog stick simulations, like in Diablo Immortal or Emulators. As such, they can't belong to the next category.

Mobile Games as Games Developed For Mobile Device

Natural input on smart-phone.
https://www.piqsels.com/en/public-domain-photo-jfxiz

A game designed for mobile devices uses device inputs naturally. Since a game developed for a console is a console game. A game developed for a mobile device is a mobile game. Hence the confusing terminology. An example of natural input on smartphones would be tapping to select an object, or dragging your finger over the screen to move an object. However, natural-input does not match all games. Thus, "one does not simply [develop an MMORPG on mobile]"^[1]. Merge Dragons and Candy Crush are games developed for mobile devices, but not the next one since they don't use contexts.

Mobile Games as Context-Aware Mobile Games

Game using GPS and area context
https://www.flickr.com/photos/140521268@N03/27947940226

When using the device's position, surrounding area, light level, etc.. We get a context-aware mobile game, specifically, a mobile context-aware mobile game. Since it is a game and contains "mobile" twice, it is a mobile game. Researchers are still researching these relatively new mobile games, but they already provide a plethora of possibilities. Their era got initiated by Pokemon GO. And present features such as considering weather-data like in Weather Farmer.^[2]

Conclusion

Now you know about the different mobile games. You understand why they're called mobile games. And you know their differences and what determines their category. Keep in mind these categories do not determine the game's quality, though they relate to their uniqueness. You don't see games using your location or weather on a computer, for example. That wouldn't work well either unless the player is using a laptop.

^[1] Lord of the Rings - One Does Not Simply Walk into Mordor Meme

^[2] Technical University Munich: IN0040 Social Games