؜I started my capstone by looking back at my life and finding the things that were most valuable to me.

I came to two things, playing and watching hockey, and playing and creating videogames.

You'd imagine that a hockey video game would be the perfect intersection of these two hobbies. But no

The large corporation, Electronic arts that makes the "NHL" series of games has continuously dropped the ball with their newer entries. With a multitude of glitches, lackluster gameplay additions and predatory monetization practices, the quality of the games has fallen off a cliff.

Specifically I really wanted to hone in on the most popular mode of these NHL games, which is called Hockey Ultimate Team. In this mode, players spend real world money, being able to spend upwards of $100 U.S. dollar on currency to open up a single "card pack" with a random chance of getting their favorite players, or a worthless one. The worst part is that this mode is predominantly targeted at children, while still having these gambling mechanics. Due to this modes ability to rake in a ton of money, the other modes of NHL games without gambling have been left to rot as all the development time is spent on HUT. This mode, to me at least represents everything wrong with modern hockey games.

“How are microtransactions designed to be as addicting and profitable as possible?”

“What is the current state of hockey video games?”

“What does art look like that uses your current skill set?”

Background

Gambling in videogames is fun, but can become unethical quickly

Secondly I had that...

Games where you can buy individual loot boxes without any spending limit in place, as well as games where items can be sold for real world money cross into unethical territory. Games can also be unethical if they are highly addicting, even if they do not have those monetary factors.

From this observation I read a research paper about these gambling mechanics, how they operate and tried to decipher what was fun about it, you know what is good game design, and what is unethical and preditory

For my game I want to find the balance between randomness and fun, and unethical gambling

Background

؜Older hockey games were more popular and also higher regarded than their modern counterparts

؜With these three research questions I came to three observations, the first of which being... (read slide)

I found that the older hockey games offered a model of buying the game once, and then you’d get all the content forever. Now in modern games you have to pay additional money for a competitive advantage in many of the modes. The ballooning development costs of these games due to the licensing for real world teams and players, as well as their gigantic scope requires cutting corners in order to keep profit margins. And finally for the reason of delice is that when other game developers stopped making hockey games due to these increasing costs, the void of competition allowed EA to price gouge its users while also decreasing the amount of effort they spent on the games.

Background

Creating a realistic art style will be difficult for me, so I should pursue art that uses my skillset , and is more forgiving

My final observation was

Retro graphics allow for a lower fidelity across the board on assets while still looking appealing by being stylish and colorful.

؜Thesis

؜These themes will take form in this project, which is a hockey videogame made in the Godot game engine. It will tackle issues of monetization, gambling, and addiction, all of which heavily affect sports videogames, especially hockey video games. It will be smaller in scope, focusing only on one mode. Its visual style will use pixel art for the characters, and 3D objects for the environment creating a modern-retro contrast. And it will contain player packs, but without monetization factors and with checks in place to make sure players aren't spending too much time on the game. Other sports have had successful alternative indie videogames to challenge big companies, it's time someone gave hockey a shot.

Octopath Traveler

SquareEnix

Visual Precedent

Retro Bowl

New Star Games

Gameplay and scope precedent

Expected Outcome | Precedents

؜Balatro

New Star Games

Gambling mechanic prescedent

From this thesis I gathered three different precedents that represent what I want different parts of the project to look like

Advisors

Quincy Birkenhead

Production

Ben Ferguson

Economic Theory Advisor

Mason Cotton

Game Development

؜Siena Jekel

Artistic Advisor

Methodology | Primary Research

؜Retro Hockey Games

؜Contemporary Hockey Games

I played older hockey games that are highly regarded to see why people love these games so much, and what features I should use for my game

I played contemporary hockey games to see if there is a gap in the market for an old-school styled hockey game. See what works in current games and what doesn't

؜My primary research consisted mostly of playing various hockey games. The best retro hockey game I played was NHL 94, which I found really fast paced and enjoyable. It didn't implement all the rules of the hockey, but that meant the game rarely halted and was non stop arcade action. The simplicity of the controls also allowed me to get right into the game

The modern games were the complete opposite, I found them sluggish and overly complex. The game had whistles (which stop the game) constantly, which is realistic, but it doesn't make for a fun videogame (at least in my opinion.

Gambling

Graph

Randomness:

How much control the player has over the game

Psychological:

How many "dark patterns" and

manipulative techniques are used

Monetary:

How much money is involved

Methodology | Primary Research

Retro Bowl

Balatro

EA NHL

Precedent Analysis

Retro Hockey

The shape I'm aiming for is one similar of Balatro.

Methodology | Creation

Game Design Document

Programming in Godot

؜3D Model to Pixel Art

I will create a text based game design document that will allow me to have a tangible vision for the game. It will consist of the game's technical specs, art style, gameplay mechanics, design pillars, controls, user interface, and user experience.

The programming will be done in GD script, which is the programming language the Godot engine uses.

I will create flow diagrams for my state machines in Figma which will help me guide the code before I make individual parts of it

The art assets will be created using a technique of rendering 3D models into 2D pixel art, allowing me to create 8 different rotations of the same character using a programming language instead of hand drawing each angle.

Methodology | Testing

General Testing

Art Critique

I will create the gameplay mechanics in godot, and test them with non-hockey fans to find bugs and polish the game

First, before I commit to an art style I will have the NuVu community and the NHL community give me art critiques. This will allow me to rapidly iterate on my art style before I create a ton of assets for the game.

Methodology | Final Outcome

Methodology | Final Outcome

Methodology | Final Outcome

؜Reflection

Working by yourself is really hard

Learning how to ask for help is a great skill

Next Steps

Implement missing animations

Refine art pipeline for scalability

Add in a goalie

Add in changing player stats through player cards

Have other people plot the game on the gambling graph

Special Thanks

؜Bryson Sean Guthrie

Ryan Ferguson

Gabe Murray

؜Thank You!