Analysing Games &

Sways 17.1
Old School Top
Down Games
MODERN GAMES
(Top Down)
Mood Board
GAME ANALYSIS: Bomber Man 3
+ The game is very old and is considered a retro game by today’s standards, but
despite that, this game is better than some of the modern games of today!

+ As seen on the left, this is the main menu of the game, it is very cartoonish and
pixelated, the pixelated design could not be helped or was intentional since the
technology back then was not as good as technology of today.

+ The resolution of the game was great back when it was created, but in today’s
standards where HD pictures and videos are the new normal

+ The advantages of this menu is that it serves it’s purpose, it stands out, it looks
very cartoonish, which is still widely used on games made for the younger
audience. And the advantage of this is, it is very nostalgic, people who used to
play this game before would be keen to play this game again.

+ The disadvantages of this, it’s very old, it no longer serves a purpose as the
game is no longer available, even if it’s available on archives, very little people
would be aware of the website the game is being preserved on. And the
resolution is low, which makes players of today think this game is poorly made,
and some people may find the font very weird and ugly.
Game Analysis:
Bomber Man 3
(Page 2)
As seen in the photo to your right, this is a cutscene
of a retro video game (bomber man 3), which is an
advantage since many video games of today do not
even have cutscenes.
Advantages of this photo, is that it’s a cutscene,
suggesting that the game is very well made, which
makes players want to continue to play the game
because there is a story to learn instead of just
gameplay. And also the game’s concept may be
simple, but it is a very fun game.

Disadvantages of this photo is, the resolution, it is

very pixelated, and in this age, pixelated photos
mean they are low resolution. And the lack of
dialogues makes it confusing on what is going on,
hence gets boring when you cannot figure out what
is happening. And it can no longer be played unless
you know an archive website that has preserved the
game.
GAME ANALYSIS: Bomber Man 3
(Page 3)
+ This is the main place where the gameplay takes place, it is very old
looking as the game itself was released in 1995.
+ Advantages are, it is not overly complicated, with a simplistic HUD, there
are not too many distractions from the gameplay, another advantage is, it
is easier to recreate than modern games since most modern games have
more complex graphics and use 3D models, and another advantage is, it
is a top down game, making it less complex to make.

+ A disadvantage of this is, the game is it’s simplistic HUD, half of it is

empty, they could have reduced the size of the HUD instead of taking up
the entire top of the screen, and another disadvantage is people will think
the colour of the HUD is ugly looking, despite the game having a lot of
colour green, the green HUD just doesn’t fit. Another disadvantage of the
gameplay is, you cannot change keyboard controls the game is a bit
confusing, leading to the player to accidentally trap themselves in the
wrong end of the bomb.

+ Since the game was originally made for Super Nintendo, it is not
supposed to be played in a computer.
GAME
ANALYSIS:
Bomber Man 3
(Page 4)
+ A second part to the photo, it shows the
gameplay as an example, you may not notice
it, but the game is well made that the
developers added an explosion effect for the
bomb, and a death animation for the
enemies, which is generally impressive for a
game released in 1995 (advantages)

+ Another advantage is, power ups, power ups

enhance the experience of the player by
adding buffs and nerfs to the player
GAME ANALYSIS:
Bomber Man 3 (Page 5)
+ This is the settings options, the advantage of this is
that, it is simple, not overly complicated settings
like many games have today

+ A disadvantage is, there is no valuable option, both

options are just about sound but it does not work
unless this game is played on a super Nintendo,
which I don’t think you can play on it anymore,
hence why this game is on archive.
GAME
ANALYSIS:
Bomber Man
3 (Page 6)
This is Level 2 of the game, the introduction is an
advantage on its own as having multiple levels in a
game would provide a purpose for people to keep
playing the game, and to prevent players from getting
bored and stop playing the game, and as a bonus,
you get different enemies as you progress in the
game, from jumping

A disadvantage of this is, it looks similar to Level 1,

making it quite boring.
GAME
ANALYSIS:
Bomber Man
3 (Page 7)
This is the game over page, an advantage of this, is that it fits for it’s
purpose, that is making the game kid friendly as children of generation
Y would be the main audience of this game. Another advantage is, the
game over screen is cartoon-ish, and the 90s were a good time for
cartoons as Anime was less relevant at the time. Another advantage
is, there is a password system to recover progress just in case you
accidentally selected ‘End’ rather than ‘Continue’

The disadvantage is, it is cartoon-ish, teenagers and older people

won’t be too interested on the game as it looks like something out of a
television, and the interests of older kids would be more towards action
style fighting games, rather than a game like Bomberman.
GAME
ANALYSIS:
Bomber Man
3 (Page 8)
This is the recovery/password page, this is the very page where
you could recover the progress you don’t intend to lose, the
advantage to this is, it gives players the chance to retrieve their
hard earned progress.

A disadvantage of this, is that if you forget the password,

everything you just did to get to the level you are on is
permanently lost, as there are no backups at the time since
computer technology has not yet reached that level of
advancement.
GAME ANALYSIS: Bomber Man 3
(Strengths and Weaknesses)
+ There are many advantages to bomberman, such as the graphics, at the time this is the graphics
many players have to play with, so to no surprise, it is an advantage. To counter this (a
disadvantage), the graphics is bad, it looked terrible, which limited the potential of the game since
games are constantly coming out with better graphics and the fact the resolution was not even
updated didn’t help at all, it is now 2022 and as seen in the archives, the game’s resolution is still
very pixelated! I feel bad for the Gen Y kids who had to put up to games like this, while the
resolutions of TV’s back then would look like HD compared to this.

+ Another advantage of bomberman is, that it has a cutscene, showing the events of before the game,
making people curious on the lore of the game, making them play the game. A disadvantage to
this is, it’s a game aimed for kids, not many kids would be interested to watch the cutscene, heck if
they knew how to skip it, they would do it immediately, only when the kids grow older, they realise
they skipped the lore of the game. In addition, the lack of dialogue makes it feel like we’re watching
mute nuggets travel the void and reach some world we don’t even know if it’s related to them or not,
the audience would have no clue what is going on other than watching a bland, short video that
doesn’t even have any captions or voice lines.
Game ANALYSIS: Bomber Man 3
(Strengths and Weaknesses 2)
+ Another advantage to bomberman, is the charm of it, the simplistic design, the HUD, the icons that tell you how many
enemies and lives are left, and also a timer to indicate how much time you have left, which is a disadvantage as it
indicates how impatient the game is, children are playing this game for god’s sake, their minds are still developing,
hence they cannot react as fast. So our enemies are chess pieces? The developers added the icon of our character
beside the heart icon to indicate our lives, yet they didn’t think to do the same for the bad guys? No wonder half of the
the HUD is so empty.

+ An advantage about the gameplay is, it is very simple, just place a bomb, move to a safe place, and repeat until you
could corner an enemy and blow them up, the game is fast paced and exciting, with the primary purpose is to recover
pieces of a puzzle to trigger a boss fight. To no surprise I am going to counter this with another disadvantage, the
game gets increasingly more difficult, the poor children are not going to enjoy the torture of a timed game, especially
when they encounter flying enemies and jumping enemies, speedy enemies are no exception too. And some parts of
level 2 have this covered section which is a pain as it hides the enemies that are trying to kill the player. To the credit of
the developers, the AI (aka the enemies) are very smart considering modern games suffer from dumb AI syndrome so I
give the smart AI as an advantage to bomberman, which is also a disadvantage as it makes the game very frustrating
when the enemies suddenly turn left or right at the last second before the bomb explodes. And keep note that the main
audience of the game are children, so this makes the game quite difficult for them.
GAME ANALYSIS: Bomber Man 3
(Strengths and Weaknesses 3)
+ An advantage of Bomberman, is that it has a death animation for the character and the enemies, and after the enemy has been
eliminated, they drop power-ups which is advantage #2 power-ups are very useful to help assist the player at making the game easier to
play each power-up. To counter the advantages, it's time for a disadvantage, the death animation is literally just the character fly up with
crossed eyes before falling off the map and the enemies just smile, which is not very pleasing to look at considering as it disappears into
oblivion, it gives me a sense of it looking at the player. Another advantage about Bomberman is, it has multiple levels, it suggests that it's
not this endless gameplay on the same level just with alternating enemies. A disadvantage to this, is that if you look at the screenshot,
the level looks similar to level 1, just with added infrastructure that is not doing any favours to the player either.

+ An advantage for the animated deaths is that, it shows that the developers had put effort into it, rather than making the character/enemy
flop when caught in the blaze of the explosion of the bomb. A disadvantage for the power-ups is, that it is annoying when the bomb gets
buffed considerably, causing clueless kids to misjudge the size of the explosion of their own bomb, and this sometimes happen without
picking up a power-up! This point may be invalid as I have only tested the game on an archive, not play it on an actual Super Nintendo.

+ Another advantage for Bomberman, is it has its own ‘game over’ screen, another evidence that time and effort has been invested into the
game, it means that the developers have spent quite a bit of time creating the game, and since technology is quite limited at the time, it
adds to the extra level of difficulty of developing the game. A disadvantage to this, is that the screen is a cartoon style game over screen,
it means it is intended for young children, not adults or teenagers.
LINK TO THE GAME AND SWAY
Super Bomberman 3 | Play game online! (playclassic.games)

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RESEARCH TASK 3

Sway – Linear Products

SWAY ANALYSIS
+ Sway is another presentation app created by Microsoft, it is very different from powerpoint, and it is similar to
powerpoint, but has less tools to make
+ Sway uses and is compatible for presenting photographs, but unlike powerpoint, it has a graphical background, and can
be animated, sway has a lot of animation to make presentations more interesting than boring old powerpoints. And
another feature of the sway, are animated flipbooks! Once clicked, the animation will bring the page you just read to the
back so you can read the page behind it, or optionally you could just click the full screen icon and have a non animated
version of it.
+ And another feature of sway, is that you could watch videos on the sway presentation rather than having to have to click
a link to have to watch the video on YouTube, and it is optional as you could still watch the video on YouTube. Another
feature is, you can add an actual tweet into the presentation, with working links and information button (twitter). It also
have some features found on word and powerpoint, such as the ‘bullets’ button, it is used to create bulletpoints.
+ It’s layout is unique, as no other office 365 app as far as I know, have a layout like Sway, because of the animated
ribbon like rectangle, where it pops up as you scroll down. And you can even add a mini background picture that plays
like a video on top of these.
+ And a feature of Sway that powerpoint doesn’t have is, embed, the presentation could be embedded to be a website,
whereas a powerpoint could not. In addition to this, Sway has a navigation button on the bottom right and you are met
with a taskbar like, layout and hovering the mouse on one of the content will trigger a small animation.
SWAY ANALYSIS (Page 2)
+ Sway is fit for teaching as, the animated backgrounds, all the images that can be used, and the
ability to watch YouTube videos on Sway means that the video will play quickly as you don’t need to
load up YouTube and watch ads, and it could be embed into a website for anyone interested to
check it out in their own computer, rather than a presentation.
+ Sway is very informative, it has animation to make it stand out, to make people actually read/listen
to the lecturer.
+ The main audience of Sway are teenaged students, the presentation teaches them the value of the
environment and why they should contribute to preserving it, it would be an effective way of
presenting since, the background animations, the layout, and all of the videos would entertain them
and not make them fall asleep. The reason it is mainly suitable for teenagers is, younger school
children would get bored since presentations are very wordy, children have tendencies to dislike
reading a lot of text, while adults would more likely be disinterested or would just ignore it outright,
hence why the particular Sway I chose would only positively impact teenagers.
SWAY ANALYSIS (Page 3)
Sway’s reliance on animations makes it stand out positively, the layout, and the
popup texts make it a better way of presentations, it has accessibility view, which
would make it easier for those who find it difficult to read because of the layout. The
navigation bar is unique and is satisfying to use, encouraging others to use it. It is
easy to share as it has a button to do so which makes it easier to use, rather than
highlighting the searchbar + Ctrl C

Sway has it’s own downsides too. The lack of tools in the toolbar means that the
lecturer/presenter would be restricted to using the pre-existing tools Sway can offer.
The layout is very distracting and disorienting which would reintroduce distractions
to the presentation which would make powerpoint a better option when it comes to
layout and simplicity. The small font cannot be read easily, making it especially
harder to read when it is presented online or by a projector.