About Asura :

Asura is an indie, 3rd person orthogonal, top-down view, Hack 'n' Slash game set in a fantasy world inspired by the richness of Indian mythology. It displays heavy rogue-like elements and a unique procedural skill tree that changes on every play. According to Indian mythology, Asuras are the constantly power-seeking demigods with good or bad spirits. The Asuras keep fighting with the Devas, the kind-hearted good Gods to gain more power.

However, in the context of the game the story goes like : There once was a kingdom, ruled by a peaceful King. One day, a yogi(spiritual master) visited the kingdom and warned the King that his kingdom will face a turmoil unless a sacrifice was made to the god. The king got terrified and ordered his soldiers to search for a sacrifice. While searching, the soldiers cease upon a teenage boy with no history. They take him to the King and start burning him alive. As the fire crawls up through the boy's body, there is a flash of light that partially impairs the sight of all the people in the kingdom. The boy's body turns into ashes and the King is relieved upon dodging a dystopia. But, the boy is saved by the Raskshasas(demon Gods) and they sacrifice themselves to turn him into an Asura(a powerful evil God) to take his vengeance and bring justice to his soul. Personally, I have a knack for the god-like powers and the intense storylines concealed in the Indian mythologies. This brings us to our first point in the critique: the Passion.

As explained by Docspy, " Passion is more than just enthusiasm or excitement, it is ambition that is materialized into action to put as much heart, mind, body and soul into something as is possible." Passion cannot be considered as a mere liking of a particular entity, but it is a pool of intense emotions towards a certain entity that connects yourself with it in an inexplicable way. Passion has many explanations and definitions. In this context, it means the absolute enticement towards a particular thing which excites oneself and brings up his thirst for knowledge and experience in that particular area. This definition of passion, in some cases, leads to our main point : the empathy.

Empathy: Empathy can be defined as putting oneself into the place of another person and trying to experience the same emotions as him. Most of the games today try to bring the 'empathy' aspect more into their game-play. They either make you go through the situations you can connect with/ familiarize with or put you through emotions that you might have felt or sympathize with the situations the particular player is going through. They try their best to make you empathize with your character in every sort of way possible, so while playing you always keep maintaining the magic circle around yourself. They entice you with the story-lines and the game-play and intrigue you in thinking about how the storyline/game would become more interesting as you proceed. The passion towards a certain aspect in the game (it can be the power, the character or the environment) gives rise to and proliferates the empathy. The empathy further fascinates you into maintaining your interest and keep putting your mind, heart and soul into the game. But, how can the empathy be classified? How do the designers use it in the games? There are various types of empathy listed below:

1) Emotional or Affective empathy:

The affective empathy can be explained as the emotions you go through when you witness the experience of a certain entity(person, character, etc.) going through a particular situation. Games build up these emotions by serving you with some familiar story-lines/ environments, heart-warming or heart-melting scenarios. They would build up a back-story for your character and walk you through it, familiarizing you with him. They would also bring a character which you are already familiar with and make you explore the boundaries of the character as well as the environment. There are further 2 types of emotional empathy:

- Sympathy :

Sympathy is defined as the gathering of emotions when you see another person suffering or experiencing something painful/ heart-breaking. You try to understand the situation the other person is going through and feel bad that this is happening to that person. Games use this type of empathy to make the player feel the intense emotions and curiosity of the character. The game : 'Ori and the will of the wisps' conveys the same genre where you are introduced to a back-story of an alone alien creature named Ori, who is away from his planet and he find a companion on the current planet. You(as Ori) have a good time with your companion but, due to some circumstances he dies. The designers walk you through the whole story and then the real game-play begins. By making you empathize with Ori, the designers make you play through the story and let you connect with your character.

- Situational:

The emotions which pour out due to the self revolving feelings of discomfort or anxiety which replicate(to some extent) to the experiences/situations of the character can be tagged down into situational empathy. Games deepen these emotions by mixing up the sympathy and the situational empathy to create a game-play which maintains the interest and the curiosity of the player to a great extent. One among such games is 'Anew : the distant light', where an alien child is stuck all alone on a planet and is in search of his parents. Another part within this type is the decisional empathy, where the emotions you face are a result of the type of decisions the character is made to go through.

- Environmental or Story/ Character-based empathy:

The enormous amount of emotions you go through when you familiarize yourself with the world around you, the character you are playing, the terms used for all the spectrum of entities used in the game, basically the overall structure of the game can be classified into this category. 'Asura : Vengeance' intrigues me to my core as I find all the things mentioned above at one place. Alike most of the Indian kids, I have been hearing about stories from Indian mythology from everyone around me. The intensity of the stories was so intriguing that I had always pictured the forms of its execution. Playing as a character in the environment I am familiar and most comfortable with, proliferates my empathy level and makes me feel proud, excited, curious and interested throughout the game-play.

2) Perspective-based or Cognitive empathy:

The familiarity you feel when you develop a tendency to imagine and understand the psychological perspectives of a certain character and his surroundings fall under this category. All the first person shooter games use this empathy to make the player stay interested in the character.

Each and every game introduces empathy to different levels and extents. The game only blossoms if the players can connect with the characters, environment and the game-play in a way which motivate the curiosity in them to always reach out for something more. Asura, helps me build up all the set of emotions I feel comfortable with all under the same roof. Similarly, each player has his own genres and interests which tickle his passion and likings in a certain way. The game should concentrate entirely upon the intended target audiences' empathy and passion points and should consider/ look out for all the set of emotions he needs to go through, and is comfortable with, and walk him through them step by step. I would like to end by quoting Georgios K. Yannakakis and Ana Paiva from 'Emotion in Games' as 'Games are designed to offer affective experiences which are influenced by player feedback and players are willing to go through e.g. frustrating, anxious, and fearful episodes of play to experience involvement and powerful emotional gaming.'

About CHIP N DALE :

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers(CnD) is a single-player as well as 2-player cooperative 2D platformer video game released in 1990 and developed and published by Capcom based on the Disney animated series. In the cooperative mode, the two characters - Chip and Dale have the ability to walk, run, jump, pick up objects, throw them at enemies, pick each other up and throw them at a certain height, etc. to complete the levels and defeat the bosses cooperatively. Another similar game is Contra : where 2 players coordinate with each other, shooting the enemies to complete the levels.

Cooperative(Co-op) Gameplay: A co-op is a type of mode in which 2 or more players play a game as a team, mutually cooperating with each other to defeat enemies or to successfully achieve a certain goal. It is a mode in which both the players are dependent on each other at a certain level to get a job done. There are different types of coop modes: 2-player, multiplayer, 2-player competitive, multiplayer competitive, etc. There are different behaviours which suggest coop gaming can prove to be superior to competitive gaming in some aspects. These are:

Psychological: It can be easily observed that gamers who tend to play competitive games have greater levels of tension, anxiety, depressing conditions than that of the cooperative gameplay gamers. Usually, competitive gameplay always creates an environment of constant tension of winning and being better than everyone else. In contrast, cooperative gameplay offers interaction with other team members, a group activity of achieving a particular sum of goals which proliferates the success-rate of the group as a whole. Maller J. B. (1929) found that, “competition between groups will bring forth greater effort than individual work without competition." Very little focus is implemented on the individual success and winning and behemoth importance is given to the gameplay where gradual/step by step progression is made towards attaining a particular goal by mutual cooperation and highly strategized team-work. The individual competitive gameplay demonstrates the loneliness of a player and gives sprouts to the aggressiveness and riling up behaviours. Conversely, cooperative gameplays bring out the engagement of the player into the game, just to enjoy the interactions and communications with other players as well as the gameplay while completing the allotted tasks, without fully focusing on the individual growth and pressurizing intensely on being superior to every other player. In Cnd coop mode, both the players have to exhibit great mutual coordination while making use of each other as another object, not crossing each other's paths while attacking enemies, giving each other equal opportunities to kill the enemies(each enemy dies when hit 2 times with an object), etc. There is also a combination of these two modes: the cooperative-competitive gameplay mode. Here, the players play in groups to compete with other groups to achieve a certain common goal. This mode gives rise to another kind of behaviour discussed below.

Pro-social: Coop gameplays make players get involved with other players to share limited number of resources. Coop gaming makes a player more generous to his teammates and learn to make proper use of the resources while making them available for other teammates too. Also, the players help those from the opposite competing teams in providing the resources they currently need. In a study at Texas Tech University, Assistant Professor of Journalism and Electronic Media John Velez stated that "The NBA Street Homecourt study also showed that players who were good teammates were more likely to give money to someone on the other team without expecting anything in return during a round of the prisoner’s dilemma game." This suggests that, in a cooperative game, players tend to socialize more and are more calm and fair rather than being vigorous at the gameplay. In Cnd, the players communicate with each other and make equal use of the resources to shoot down the enemies and overcome obstacles.

Cultural: Cultural behaviour implies to the status a particular player maintains in his network of people or the teammates. In a single player competitive game, an individual has a lot of pressure to constantly keep balancing his status. He has to keep pushing himself and even an occasional downgraded play exacerbates his overall accumulated status. This, in turn, affects the psychological behaviour of the player and he becomes more aggressive. As opposed to this, in a cooperative game, the player can relax upon the intense pressure and does not have to keep maintaining the status at every point of the game. He works in co-ordinance with his teammates and even if he loses track at times, the teammates help him to catch up with them. The players don't have to maintain their status around each other, just their coordination plays a key role during the game.

Perks of Co-op gaming:

Engagement: In competitive games, the player's intensity of engagement in its character is more than in coop games. But, the time period of the engagement is more in the coop games. Player engages himself by communicating and coordinating with his teammates while completing the current tasks in order to achieve the long-set goal. Interacting with other players and strategizing their way towards the goal, two-folds the essence of a particular game. For example, in CnD single player mode, a player starts getting bored after a certain period of time and patience. But, the two player coop mode helps bring out new challenges based on teamwork and balance of the tasks. Thus, engagement is a concomitant of a better gameplay and interaction.

Player's partial strength: Sometimes, it happens that a particular player's strength lies only in some areas of the game. Here, coop gaming plays a major role. The players can divide the tasks among themselves according to their superiority and priority levels in doing certain tasks. The players have to carefully allot specific tasks to the appropriate teammates in order to attain the goal. They have to balance the see-saw of their strengths and weaknesses with the other teammates. A single player's downgraded gameplay can affect the overall gameplay of the team and hence, they have to maintain the level of the play by putting in different styles of gameplays throughout the game.

More Enjoyment: We can all agree that games are more fun when they are played in a group with some interactions, give and take of ideas and communicational teamwork. Some of us might disagree on this, but coop is considered more constructive than the competitive games. Enjoyment is basically a factor of interactions and constant unpredictable feedback from either the game or the players playing the game. Playing a same game over and over again in coop mode involves more thrill and dynamic changing expectations than playing it in competitive mode. For example, playing Counter Strike with bots(Artificial Intelligence) is always proven to be inferior to playing it with other clans.

Dynamic Strategies: Different changing strategies have to be applied at different levels of the game. Different perspectives and thoughts for the game are shaped and brought up while playing with other players. The players learn from the fellow companions and apply those things further in the game. There is a very less predictability factor over the behaviour of the gameplay of team members or the opposing players too.

In conclusion, cooperative gameplay (be it a 2-player, multiplayer or cooperative-competitive) has proven to be more effective and engaging. 'Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers' was one of the first cooperative games that brought about this evolution to the gameplays. The player made proper use of its partner which accounted in more enjoyment and engagement in the overall process.

Fascinations Of Poker:

There are multifarious types of poker played throughout the world in different styles and with different set of rules. But, here I will be talking about Texas Hold'em Poker- the well known gambling card game that has its stiff stature because of its roots which are drained into the epic battle between 'luck' and 'skill'. It is a perfect combination of 'Agon' and 'Alea' as discussed by 'Caillois' in 'Man, Play and Games'. I have seen people play a variety of card games, involving both luck and skills. But, most of them are not played with as much fervour or intimacy as Poker. So, why does Poker stand out from the rest? Yes, that brings us to the main aspect of Poker- 'Greed'.

Greed: Unless and until you have some entity that is on a thin line which you have to protect, seriousness doesn't build up in a game. I have seen my friends play Poker with Chips/monopoly money instead of the real currency. This particular game ends up either with everybody just giving up on the game or just playing a golden round: the one who wins the last round wins it all. Some economic entity that belongs to you gives rise to seriousness. Seriousness leads to developing knowledge and a set of skills. This gradually leads to profit/loss back-and-forth. And the resulting checkpoint is the greed for more profit. Greed to have a level of power which is better than the rest is the base-line for the gamers to engage into the game and come back for more. So, it is important to understand what greed is, what things in Poker help bring it out and how it can be inculcated in other games too. Mystikan in the Urban Dictionary defines greed as : "The desire to own or control resources more than others". These resources can be directly chopped down to the term 'capital'. Capital cannot be limited to just the monetary power of a person. There are different parts and classification of capital. Capital mainly is of 3 types as follows:

1) Economical: Economical capital can basically be defined as a common entity that defines a person's power of economic resources. It can be in the form of money(cash), chips, rewards, assets, property, possessions etc. Economic balance provides a sense of power/safety/confidence, an ideal position from where the game doesn't seem to play you, but you play the game. The greed for economical power keeps pushing a person forward into the dangerous territories, his risk-assessment ability gradually mitigates.

2) Social: All the resources which emerge from the maintenance of a network of relationships of mutual appreciation or existence for a particular time-period, fall under the social capital. A person has to maintain(or initially build) his social status, his image of proficiency among the varied entities involved in the network.

3) Cultural: The resources acquired by the person in terms of his knowledge, education and skills are included under the cultural capital. It is the most important of them all as the social and economical capitals' are wholly dependent on it. A person achieves a higher social-status in the durable network he is a part of through the economical power which in-turn is dependent on his skills and knowledge that he develops over time.

The centroid equivalent of these capitals' brings out the greed aspect in a person. If the person wins, he receives all the capitals. This encourages him to go for more than he usually needs, thus proliferating greed. On the contrary, if he loses, the capital he gained all through the game mitigates to a certain point. This puts him in a state of inferiority and urges him to opt for more in order to achieve balance. Thus, if a person becomes intimate in this game, the greed aspect is inevitable. Now, we ought to understand which points in Poker help unfold the greed aspect.

A] Keeping the mystery alive, without fully killing the possibilities: Poker conceals the possibilities initially and gradually unfolds the cards. It is very difficult to maintain the mystery and the winning possibility at the same time. There is a thin line: go more towards one side, player becomes skeptical of his wins and on the other, player starts losing his interest and fervour in the game. Maintaining this thin line, helps in urging the person to play more just to check out the possibilities. His constant calculations about the winning probabilities and the greed to earn the capital, forces him to choose greed and go forward with the game. The regret to fold from a potential-win game restrains him form quitting the game.

B] A good game always has two discrete pathways to win: The game doesn't block a player's win with just one path to success. Even if the player doesn't have the luck aspect, he can still go through with his skills. For example, if the player receives cards in random order and there is no possibility to win, he can still use his skills to play a bluff that would make the other players quit the game. It all depends on how you make a proper use of your luck and the skills. A person develops skills through observation and practice. Once he wins with those skills, he becomes greedy for more, for now he knows their appropriate use. So, more than one possibility to win encourages a person to ignore the risk and go for more.

C] Levels of winning: Poker has a sequence of different possibilities of wins rather than just a single one. For example, a flush sequence beats straight, a four-of-a-kind beats flush, etc. Thus, when a person having a straight sequence loses to flush, his urge and greed to gain his power and capital back two-folds. Also, the conscience of multiple levels of winning makes the person go beyond his comfort zone. It helps him calculate the next winning strategy and gain some cultural capital in terms of knowledge about the other people sitting at the table. This increases the sense of confidence in him for the next game and gradually hones his skills.

D] Sense of Power: As you win through the game, a sense of power keeps developing in the background. This is directly related to the capital earned. If you win a game, your economical and social power increases. If you lose a particular game, your cultural power increases, which might help you develop strategies for the next big thing. Overall, as the power increases, your greed to gain more of it superimposes with it too. A sense of power gives rise to confidence and protection, which ultimately leads to greed build-up and you becoming more and more comfortable in your game. Thus, a player has to be alerted frequently with his sense of power along each step of the game. He has to be made aware of the situation of his capital so that his involvement surges on a regular interval.

There are many other faces to greed which can go a lot more deeper. But, limiting the discussion to the boundaries stated above, I would like to end it with a famous line spoken by Gordon Gekko: "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind." So, the real question is: 'Greed: Good or Bad?'.