The Audio of Bad Fur Day

The subject of today's blog is audio.  Audio is a key feature in all video games.  It can drive the plot narration as well as give the character guidance throughout the story.  In short, the better the audio, the more immersive the game is.  In the case of Bad Fur Day, the audio is spectacular in many ways.  For those who are hearing impaired however, the cut scenes will be explained through subtitles. 

Game Audio Formats

The Nintendo 64 used the USF (Nintendo Ultra 64 Sound Format) for their video games.  

USF.  The vast quantity of audio that is in Bad Fur Day is impressive for the technology available during the 64 days.

Sound Effects

To get some inspiration to write this blog, I attempted to advance in my game a bit farther.  One of the things that stuck out in terms of the audio was the sounds made when I failed to give Conker a breath of air when he was under water.  His chocolate life bars made crunching sounds as they were taken away because of the lack of oxygen.  Conker makes disturbing noises as his body goes limp as well.

Some other sound effects I experienced while playing were the sound of Conkers hands splashing as he was swimming.  Also the sound of a waterfall became the only sound being played as i went underneath it.  All other sounds, including the background music faded away.  These are only a couple of examples that show how immersive the audio makes this game.  I can't stand drowning, mainly because of the sound it makes.  I actually dread hearing the sound.

Most of the sounds in the game are very realistic.  The developers did not try to make the sounds themselves comical throughout the game.  If they were comical it was because the visual that accompanied them was comical as well. 

Music

One of the most impressive aspects of Bad Fur Day is its sound design.  It is so cool because depending on what kind of atmosphere you are in the audio adapts.  For example in one scene the theme song will be played by strings, but when you go into a more country atmosphere, the theme song is played by banjos.  In 2001, Bad Fur Day actually won the best sound award at the BAFTA awards.  

Voiceover

Bad Fur Day contains a lot of characters.  Each character has its own distinct voice that adds to who they are as a character.  A few examples of this are the grim reaper, who starts off with a deep booming voice, but then you find out he is really short and has a scratchy small voice.  The catfish that appear in the game, who are snobby rich fish have voices that reflect this.  The Panther king has a deep voice that is smooth and similar to the low purr sound a cat makes. 

Looping

Just like many similar games for the Nintendo 64, Bad Fur Day uses a lot of looping.  This may get repetitive after playing for a long time.  It is especially frustrating when I get stuck at a certain portion of a level but for the most part Bad Fur Day keeps the sound fresh.  As i mentioned before the loop will change to fit the atmosphere.  When the situation is suspenseful the loop and/or song will change to accent it.

Gameplay

Rules

The rules of play linked to gameplay, specifically victory conditions and loss conditions.   In Bad Fur Day the character wins by completing all of the challenges in the game.  Winning is bitter sweet however because of the death of Berri, our main characters girlfriend along the way.  The Loss conditions are explicit in the story mode of Bad Fur Day because it is single player.  In the multiplayer modes however, there are implicit loss conditions.  Characters lose because of competition between players and NPC's.

Interactivity Modes

Bad Fur day is a game that has an intense level of Player-to-Game interactivity.  The player is constantly interacting with the environment as Conker.  In multiplayer, the developers created a great possibility of Player-to-Player interactivity.  In one particularly fun multiplayer game, players work together on teams to be a squirrel and storm the beach or to be a teddy and prevent the squirrel from storming the beach.  The player must communicate with his or her partner to effectively work together to win..

Challenges

Implicit/Explicit

Two types of challenges that are in the game are implicit and explicit challenges.  There are many explicit challenges in the game such as outsmarting and riding a mean bull to help complete a challenge. Implicit challenges that arise in the game are maintaining a good sense of direction.  The levels can get a little jumbled in ones memory and can make completing challenges even harder. 

Perfect/Imperfect Information

In Bad Fur Day the character is given imperfect information the majority of the time.  The boss's in the game all have weaknesses that are somewhat logical but the player must figure out what they are by trial and error.  This method that the game uses can be frustrating if the player can't figure out what the game wants the player to do.

Intrinsic/Extrinsic Knowledge

One of the main sources of Intrinsic knowledge are the games many cut scenes that give the player a look into the life of Conker.  As far as Extrinsic knowledge goes, it will help if the player has knowledge of things like the ability to drown if the character does not breathe fresh air.  The player will also benefit from having knowledge of many of the other stories or movies that the game satires, such as The Matrix.  I'm not sure if previous knowledge of The Matrix would help the character be better at the bullet time action but it would certainly make the sequence more entertaining for the player.

Spatial Awareness

As I said, the player must maintain a good sense of his or her environment otherwise s/he will get lost and frustrated.

Micromanagement

Micromanagement occurs throughout the game in challenges that are harmful to the health of Conker.  The player must maintain a focus on the number of lives Conker has left, as well as the amount of health Conker has left.  The player must manage his or her lives and take risks accordingly.

Reaction Time

It almost seems silly to mention how the game relates to Reaction Time because it is so obvious.  Throughout the game, the player better be awake otherwise Conker will be maimed by the many hostile characters in the game.  The player has to react very quickly to complete all of the challenges that arise throughout the game.

Balance

The game has a prevalent style of balance.  There aren't many random events in the game that are disappointing set backs that frustrate the player.  For the most part the challenges are consistent, fair, and fun.  My only complaint some of the time is that it can be a little hard at times to figure out the weaknesses of some of the bosses.  This can create a lot of frustration of the player gets stuck at a certain point in the game and can't figure out how to get past the specific point in the game.

Strategy

The game doesn't necessarily contain multiple strategies.  The main strategy is to complete the challenges efficiently and as quickly as possible so as not to waste time. 

Levels

Goal

The player is usually given the goal in cut scenes in Bad Fur Day.  It is very seldom that Conker is thrown immediately into harsh situations without a cut scene to explain the circumstances.

Flow

The developers made sure that Conker only has access to certain areas of the game by creating barriers such as guards that need to be bribed or seemingly invincible characters that get in the way of your path.  The player may not always know what challenge s/he needs to complete, but s/he will always understand if s/he can't get past a certain area as a result of a blockade.

Duration

The only issue relating to duration is that the more novice player may not have the patience to complete the many challenges that make up the vast levels of Conkers Bad Fur Day.  There are some levels in the game that may take much longer than 45 minutes to complete.

Availability

There are multiple levels available on occasion.  This may be confusing to some characters who aren't sure which tasks to complete first, but it enables the gamer to have more freedom to choose in what order tasks are completed.

Progression

This ones pretty simple.  The games challenges get harder as the player advances in an s-curve.  Not all of the challenges may be the most difficult at the end of the game but towards the end of the game the average challenge is going to be much more difficult than at the very beginning of the game.  

Time

Time is Limited.  It is just a part of the setting.  Time does not pass in the game at the same rate as real life.  When playing the game at night, or for hours at a time, the game remains in daylight.

Space

Bad Fur Day takes place in many environments.  These range from outside in a nice rural area to inside a dung beetle mountain, to the lobby scene of The Matrix.

Perspective

The games perspective is third-person.  The player may also press a button and move the view from 3rd person to first-person to get a better view of the surrounding environment.  The only set back to having a 3rd person POV is that it may be difficult at times to judge the distance between platforms such as ropes that Conker must leap to and from. 

Terrain, Materials, Radiosity, and Effects

Bad Fur Day is one of the last games that came out for the N64 console.  It was made by the company Rare who is famous for squeezing out all of the possible fruits of a console.  Bad Fur Day is a game that looks good.  The people at Rare made a lot of progress in this particular area in this game.  The use of lighting in Bad Fur Day is impressive for the game being on the Nintendo 64.

Scale

The main character in the game is a squirrel.  This squirrel is about the height of a bull that is fought in one challenge.  This is an example of how size was distorted to accommodate the player.  The developers wanted the player to play as a squirrel but knew that if the squirrel was the size of an actual squirrel this would limit gameplay options or at least change them.

Boundaries

In terms of boundaries, it is worth it to mention that Bad Fur Day is one of the few games that doesn't consistently use fog to create boundaries.  When Conker is on a tall structure, he can look around and see the entire world.  This means he can see the castle of the Panther King as well as the beach where the war is going on as long as they each are in realistic sight.

Realism

Bad Fur Day isn't a game that looks real in terms of todays standards.  Looking back on it however, for its time, it is semi-realistic game in terms of how it looks.  As I said before, the lighting is magnificent.  The movement of the characters are also very smooth.  In terms of the level of realism in the story, Bad Fur Day is not realistic at all.  The story is completely ridiculous and hardly seems practical. 

Interface

The interface in Bad Fur Day is incredibly simple. Compared to the games of today, playing as Conker is an easy task.  The player doesn't have to be a very experienced gamer to pick up the controller and start playing.

Since Bad Fur Day was released on the Nintendo 64, a controller is used to control Conker.  This is a manual interface.  The buttons used to control Conker don't really change throughout the story mode, but there are a little variations when playing 

multiplayer.  During the story mode the buttons are 

as follows:

a: jump

a while in the air:  tail spin hover

b: hit with frying pan

bottom c:  changes the camera view to behind Conker

right and left c:  spins the camera to the right or left

top c: nothing

r: view from perspective of Conker

z: crouch

l: skip cut scene

start: pause the game

joystick: moving the character

note: While Conker has a weapon however, which is mainly in multiplayer games, b is used to take it out, z is used to use it, and r is used to aim.  

All of these buttons seem pretty straight forward to me, they seem like the typical buttons for a Nintendo game, just like Mario, a is jump, and b is attack.  I think if I were to hand a young kid a controller and asked them to try to jump and attack their instinct would be to press these buttons almost immediately.

The active and passive interfaces in the game are also incredibly simple.  During most of the story the only thing on the screen that isn't part of the game's world is your health bar, which is made up of six floating pieces of chocolate.  Also in the passive interface is a lightbulb which appears every time you are able to press b to initiate a context sensitive ability.  As for the active interface, when you press start, your health is shown, as well as the number of lives you have left, and the amount of money you have.  This is the screen also allows you to choose to continue the game or to quit, which automatically saves your progress up to a fairly close checkpoint you have passed through. 

note:  when Conker has a weapon, and during certain multiplayer games a radar is put in the top right of the screen, and the weapon that you

 have is shown on screen as well.

One of the things that makes this game so great is it's unexpected maturity level coming from a Nintendo game.  This game breaks the console specific rule because Microsoft and Sony are both companies that seem more likely to have a game with adult humor like Bad Fur Day does, but as far as the interface goes, this game could be on any console.

There are a couple more things about the interface that I would lik

e to mention.  One is that there are talk bubbles during cut scenes so that the gamer can read the things that s/he couldn't hear.   Another aspect is the active interface that appears when the console is started.  The gamer is in a center of a bar.  The joystic

k is used to rotate the camera to different areas of the bar to choose which saved game to continue, multiplayer, options, or which chapter of the game to skip to.

There you have it, the interface of Bad Fur Day.  It is successful because of its simplicity.  The gamer doesn't have to worry about a plethora of menus or items.  He or she just has to worry about money, number of lives left, and health.   There is no possible way for the gamer to be confused by any clutter on the screen because of how straightforward the game is. 

Rules

Rules govern the gameplay and story in Bad Fur Day just like in every other game.  From the beginning of the game the rules were made clear.  By pressing all sorts of buttons we figure out that Conker is hungover, and since he is hungover we have difficulty completing the most basic task of walking.  Soon after when we beat our hangover we learn the rules about opening doors when you have to complete a very simple challenge to get a key to the door.  

One of the most interesting features of the game is that you are given a very limited array of weapons to use throughout most of the game, except for when you find a 'context-sensitive' button.  This button allows you to magically do whatever you need to depending on the situation.  For example, when fighting the Giant Poo Monster you are able to throw rolls of giant toilet paper.  This rule of not being able to use special weapons all of the time makes it exciting to  wonder what kind of things you'll be able to do.  I replayed one of my favorite scenes the other day.  It was the scene that follows the cut scene imitating the lobby scene in the Matrix.  I remember watching the cut scene and wondering what kind of tricks i would be able to pull out of my hat.  What i was able to do was to do cartwheels in slow motion while shooting up the room.  The creators of the game managed to create a rule in which it would make sense to only be able to do shooting slow motion cartwheels consistently.

Throughout the game it is set that there will be cut scenes to fill in pieces of the story.  These cut scenes go in order, and are set so they play as certain actions are completed.  For the game to function properly the gamer will have to complete the tasks required in order, in a free roaming environment.  To do this in an environment like this, rules must be made so that the gamer does everything in order.  The game manages to do this and still give the character a bit of freedom by having major goals that have to be completed in order as well as having other challenges at a lesser level that don't have to be completed in order.  The game is also set up so that when completing larger challenges, there are clear cut steps to completing the tasks at hand.

Another fun examples of the way that the game playfully changes rules.  At the beginning of the game when you went in water, floaties appear on the arms of Conker.  Later in the game Conker finds 'Confidence Pills.'  These pills allow Conker to not wear floaties and swim underwater.  The ridiculousness of the cut scenes that depict Conker understanding the change in rules is one of the things that makes this game so enjoyable.

One of the other rules of the game is that Conker is made happy by finding money.  Each time Conker gains money he makes a smart comment or greedy joke about money.  The money comes in handy though later in the game when it is required to pay off different characters like talking barrel's or guards who don't realize that the red squirrel they're supposed to be watching out for walks right up to them without them realizing it.

The rules in Conker's Bad Fur Day are based upon the situation in most cases.  The main rules however are mainly in place to insure a set story is told to the gamer.  The rules also help keep the gamer immersed in the game.  This is done by switching up the gameplay to make the game more exciting just like in the Matrix scenario i explained earlier.  

Characters

Over the course of the story of Bad Fur Day, Conker has relations with a plethora of other characters.  Conker forms several character triangles as well as changing as a character himself

One of the main character triangles is between Conker, his girlfriend Berri, and the Panther King.  Throughout the story Conker is pitted against the Panther King who is after him, while trying to get home to his girlfriend.  During the story however the Panther King gets ahold of Berri, completing the triangle.  A triangle can also be formed between the Panther King, Conker, and the Panther King's mad scientist Professor Von Kriplespac.  The Panther king and Professor Von Kriplespac will do whatever it takes to get to Conker, who will do whatever it takes to thwart their plans.

Although in this replaying of the game Conker has not changed that much thus far, the cut scene at the beginning shows a Conker who is much different from the one that I am playing as right now.  At this point in the game, he is annoyed that he isn't at home, but he's still making jokes and not getting too upset about anything, but in the cut scene he is very, very angry and bitter about something.  From playing before I know it's because Berri dies in his arms at some point during the game.  It is safe to say that Conker becomes less and less of a happy character as his troubles grow, and his need to get to Berri, and later avenge Berri increase.  This growth as a character is key to making the player get hooked and more immersed in the game. 

The story

Conkers Bad Fur Day is an unusual tale of a squirrel who becomes king after having a really, really bad day.  The game starts with a lengthy cut scene narrated by Conker, beginning with him sitting in his throne with an angry look on his face, and then proceeding to the night before when he had too much alcohol and got lost.  Conker's only goal is to get back home to his girlfriend Berri, but to do so, he must run around many different environments to complete tasks for various characters who help him to get closer and closer to home.  The strong point of the story is the adult humor that goes along with it.  The game was created by Rare, but unlike other Rare games, it has an attitude.  Rare had received criticism because many people thought the game was just going to be another platformer with cute animals.  What the critics got was a game full of crude langauge, violence, and many sexual themes.   I always find it amusing when the characters say things like 'arse' and '@#$%^&', and when Birdy, the scarecrow who teaches you a couple basic buttons of the game sells you a manual for the game says something along the lines of 'love long time, you love manual long time.'  In my opinion, the story is one of the reasons I enjoy this game so much.  Conker is probably my favorite character from a video game because of his persistence, and the humorous way he deals with conflict.  It's definitely a nice change to play a game as an unlikely hero who is a smart***, instead of the stereotypical unlikely hero that has perfect morals.