Task 1: Genre types and examples.
Genre Name
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Genre Description
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Genre Example
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FPS
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An FPS is a First Person Shooter. What this means is that you are viewing the world through the characters eyes. What you would commonly see in first person would be your characters hands and weapon (if you are holding a weapon). FPS games usually include you killing enemies.
|  COD: Ghosts and Battlefield 4Call of Duty: Ghosts is an FPS game. A game in which you are playing as a character where you are part of a “crippled nation fighting not for freedom, or liberty, but simply to survive”. The story behind the game is that the “balance of global power have been redrawn forever” and you are part of a group who are known as “Ghosts”.
The gameplay also takes place in different places. For example, when you first start off the campaign you are an astronaut up in space and then further on in the story line you are under water defeating enemies.
The engine that was used to make Call of Duty: Ghosts was the IW engine (Infinity Ward). This is an engine was specifically designed for the Call of Duty series. Battlefield is another FPS in which you could say is in competition with the COD series. However, what makes Battlefield 4 so different from COD is that you as a player can take control of what happens to the environment around you. The environment is destructible in single player and multiplayer. Battlefield 4 is commonly known for the changeable environment in both game modes.  |
Horror
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Horror is a genre in which intends for the gamer to feel frightened, or see something gruesome, tense etc. Horror games usually use music to help bring across the emotions the gamer is meant to feel.
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The Outlast and Until Dawn
The Outlast is a “psychological horror” game which takes place in an asylum for the “mentally ill”. You play as a journalist who is trying to find out what is happening exactly inside of this asylum. However, there is an outbreak. The mental patients are all around inside the asylum, some chase after you and try to kill you whereas others just do strange things. A common thing you will see in this game is blood, guts and gore.
Until dawn is another horror game in which uses the "butterfly effect". Whatever decisions you choose in game will determine how the story plays out. There are many different story lines that you could end up playing and you either have the choice to kill a few of your "friends" or try to keep them alive. Until Dawn is about "eight friends (who) are trapped on a remote mountain retreat and things quickly turn sinister, they start to suspect they aren’t alone."
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Fantasy
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Fantasy type games involve improbable things and actions. These actions are things you cannot do in the real world or contain objects that aren’t real. Fantasy games are very imaginative games, they contain a lot of characters and usually magic (dependant on the game).
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Final Fantasy 13 and The Last Remnant
Final Fantasy XIII is a hybrid game, falls under the genres of fantasy and RPG (role playing game). In this game, you are playing as a character viewing in 3rd person. The story line uses chapters and you have to complete each chapter to progress. Along the way you will encounter enemies and you will be introduced to the battle system when you first fight. The battle system requires button combinations. Furthermore, whilst battling you can summon “Eiodolons”, use magic and weapons. The setting certainly proves a great example for it being a fantasy type of game, you are in an “utopia” in the sky, a world called the Cocoon which was created 13 centuries ago however “peace and prosperity” is no more in that world.
The Last Remnant is a game which is made by the same game developers that made the Final Fantasy series. This game contains four different races in which live in the same world. These races are Mitra, Yama, Qsiti and Sovani. The world that they live are filled with "Remnants" and these Remnants are ancient mysterious artifacts. This artifacts power begins to awaken and creates chaos. After thousands of years, a new journey awaits for male character in particularly in link with these awaken remnants. As you progress through this game there are quite a few of quests which appear and you can either choose to do them or not. There are also quests in which inform you that they are about to become permanently miss-able or not.
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Dance/Rhythm
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These games involve you dancing to some beat and you having to correctly do the moves in which appear on the screen. Your moves are monitored by some kind of device. E.g. a dance mat, a remote, Kinect etc.
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Dance UK and Guitar Hero
 A classic game on the PS2 which fits into this genre is Dance UK. With this game you have to purchase a dance mat. You would use the mat to select which song you want to perform. Then whilst the music plays a series of arrows will appear on the screen. These arrows slowly move out towards the arrows which are on the mat, on the screen. When the arrows reach on the mat on the screen then that is when you use your foot on the correct arrow on the dance mat. The difficulty is based on which song you choose.
Guitar Hero is a game in which you have to use this guitar made specially for a console to complete a series of moves to music. You have to press or hold the coloured buttons in time when the coloured icon slides down the guitar on the screen. You can choose which songs that you want to play, the higher the difficulty of the song, the faster you will have to press the buttons. It can become very difficult very fast.
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RPG
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RPG, known as Role-Playing Game is a genre in which you play as a character and you have a certain role to play in that game.
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Pokémon Games and Skyrim
A good example of a RPG is Pokémon. You create a character at the beginning of the game and you are introduced into the world of Pokémon. It pretty much has the same start in every single Pokémon game. You have to follow the story line in order to progress, to visit different cities and places, and sometimes to even visit a different region (a region in which is usually only accessible in another game). Your role in the game is to simply try to catch every Pokémon and become the Pokémon league champion.
Skyrim is an Action-RPG. Skyrim is an open world RPG in which you can complete certrain quests when you want to. You first start off in the back of a horse carriage and you appear to be under arrest. You play as someone who has to complete quests, take on dragons and learn about the dragonborn
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Survival
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Survival games rely on you to keep your character alive. Some survival games require you to start from scratch, this meaning you need to build your own home and grab your own resources. Whereas, other survival games (hybrid genres) just rely on you to keep your character alive. These types of games usually fall under the genres horror/survival games.
|  Minecraft and ARK: Survival Evolved An example of a survival game in which younger children would be would be Minecraft. Minecraft is available across a lot of platforms. Within this game you start off with no resources at all other than a map. In order to survive you have to keep an eye on your health and your food bar. Players have to build a home/base area for them to stay in overnight as the “mobs” (monsters) come out only at night or in caves. You have to grab the resources yourself and create different objects in which can help you survive. There are also design elements to this survival making it very enjoyable.  Another example would be Ark: Survival Evolved. This game is about you keeping your player alive on an island filled with dinosaurs. There are many things you have to keep an eye in order to survive, such as; Food, Water, Stamina, Health, Weight and fortitude. The weather can deeply affect your survivor. The heat gradually lowers your health and water and the cold can lower your health and food. You will have to grab resources, level up and make a base for you to survive in. Staying along the coastline is safer than staying the forests and mountains. You can tribe up with other people this allowing them to access the base and any storage boxes you have got. A great way for you survive on this game would be to tame quite a few dinosaurs. It is a lot easier to get around the map with dinosaurs. |
Puzzle
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Puzzle games are there to test your knowledge and skill. The majority of puzzle games have different levels. The more puzzles you do the harder it gets. Additionally, some puzzle games use the puzzles in order for you to progress. If you cannot complete the puzzle then you cannot move forward in game.
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Portal and Candy Crush Saga
There are two examples in which fall under the genre of puzzle, two very different but similar games. The first example is Portal. This game is played on the PC and you have to buy it from steam. Portal is a game in which you use two settings of the weapon you are given. There is an orange setting and a blue setting. Both settings when used creates a “Portal” in the wall in which you can walk through. When both portals are placed down you are able to access different areas of the room in which you could not access before. In order for you to progress you have a set of obstacles to get through and you have to possibly open doors and place blocks on things to trigger something to reach the end goal.
 Another example of a puzzle game would be Candy Crush Saga. This game is commonly played on smartphones. Candy Crush Saga is a puzzle game in which you have to select the same type of candy in a row more than 3. Your objectives do change when you are progressing higher in the game. Your objective could possibly be to reach a certain score or it could be to get some amount of fruit to drop down. |
Sport
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Sport type games involve different types of sport in which you can play that you could not possibly play in the real world, such as professional basketball or football. Some of these sport games allow you to play as a professional in which sport their profession is in.
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FIFA and Football Manager
 A very popular sport game series is FIFA. FIFA is a sport game in which its game-play revolves around football. You get to choose which football team you play as and then you play matches. In the match you can switch between football players on your team. You can also play against other people if you want to. "Football Manager Classic 2015 lets you take control of any real-world club, from a selection of 117 leagues from 51 nations across the globe, and guide them to glory on your Tablet. You make all of the key decisions. You decide who plays and who sits on the bench and you’re in total control of transfers, tactics, substitutions, and delivering instructions" Football manager is a sport game as you are able to manage a football team. You get to basically take the roll of a manager of a team of your choice. You get to make all of the important decisions such has pushing tasks to your assistant manager or doing them yourself and you can hire people to help you, you also get to choose what kind of training your team does and when they do it.
http://www.footballmanager.com/content/football-manager-classic-2015
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Simulator
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Simulator games are used to mimic what you can do in the real world. These games are designed for gamers in general or for the disabled so they can get a feel of what they want to do in the real world.
|  Sims 4 and Farming Simulator An example of a simulator would be the Sims series. The Sims 4 in particularly comes with a lot more features than the previous series. In The Sims 4, you are able to create a character in which can look like anyone, there are so many features you can change about your character. Then you will start off the game by buying a house with the limited amount of money you have. Further into the game, you can develop relationships and friendships with whom you please and then get a job. The money you get from the job is used to pay for food, bills and whatever else you want to purchase. The best feature about The Sims 4 is that now you can actually attend the work place you are working at and do the tasks yourselves.  Another example of a simulator would be the Farming Simulator. In this game, you get to see what it is like being a farmer. What you get to do in this game is tend to the crops, look after the animals and cultivate your land. You are also able to expand your farm. This game is available on a lot of gaming platforms such as Xbox One, PS4, PS3, Xbox 360, PC, 3DS and PS Vita. |
Tower Defence
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Tower defence games are games in which you need to stop enemies from reaching your base/place/goal. You would most likely have to build obstacles to stop them from getting to your area.
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Plants VS Zombies and Bloons Tower Defense
  Bloons Tower Defense is a PC game in which involves the player popping the balloons before they get off screen. The balloons will follow a particular pathway and you have to earn money to buy things to stop the balloons from getting through. There are all sorts of different things in which you could buy such as monkeys which pop the balloons for you. This game is slow to start off with but as the waves increase it gets harder. This is a very fun and quick game to play |
Task 2: Good and bad aspects of gaming
Good that computer gaming brings
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Bad that computer gaming brings
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Benefits (hand-eye coordination, brain thinking)/thinking and strategy skills:There are many different genres of games in which can improve some skills. Such as puzzle games and strategic games. COD is a great example for team work developing. To win most of the games you have to work well in a team. Usually you give one another call outs and tell them where the enemies are and so on. Working in a team on this game will help you win the game so resulting in success. Other games such as the Professor Layton series are puzzle games. About every few minutes in the game there are puzzles that you need to complete to continue with the story line. These puzzles involve using maths and English skills and problem solving skills. Another problem solving game is portal. Every level you do is a puzzle and you have to reach your end goal for you to progress. Others say that video games have health benefits from playing video games. Apparently it can reduce stress and depression, improve your decision making skills and can provide pain relief (emotional and apparently physical).
http://theweek.com/articles/466852/7-health-benefits-playing-video-games |
Social Isolation and separation from reality:
Video games can result to social isolation. People can isolate themselves from others because they want to play a particular game or complete a certain level. This takes them away from reality and puts them in this gaming world of their own. However, some games do “help them engage with friends and community”. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7619372.stm Apparently, Nottingham Trent University has done research on gamers who can and can’t tell reality from fantasy. Their research has revealed that some gamers are so stuck into the fantasy world of a particular game that they are unable to distinguish the real world now. One story is that a 15 year old called Simon, had admitted in an interview to “wanting to use a gravity gun” to retrieve something from his “fridge”. http://metro.co.uk/2011/09/20/nottingham-trent-university-researchers-gamers-cant-tell-real-world-from-fantasy-164943/ |
Future impact/Impact on ‘mainstream’ application development:
Games have already came a long way and development of them is phenomenal. Something called the Oculus rift has took a huge step up from playing games on monitors and TVs. The Oculus rift is a headset that you wear over your eyes and you are put into a virtual reality. With this you are given a controller or two controllers (one for each hand) and you use all of your body. The way your head moves, the games moves with it, so if you look left, then your character looks left too. I feel like with this newer technology, more gamers will not be able to define what reality is and what reality to them isn’t anymore. This link is a review on the Oculus rift and explains what you use and how you use it.
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/gaming/gaming-accessories/oculus-rift-1123963/review I believe that this will leave a positive effect in society as it does involve moving your body so therefor it does keep you active. On the other hand, I think that the games made for the Occulus rift could lead to social isolation or separation from society as they are immersive games. You are physically blocked off from seeing the real world and your eyes are constantly focused on the game. |
Concerns such as excess playing time: They are many concerns about how much time a child spends playing video games. There are various articles and much news coverage on how much time people spend on playing video games. Furthermore, many parents worry about their children spending too much time on a game and wonders what the effects are.
http://www.babycenter.com/404_can-spending-too-much-time-playing-video-games-hurt-my-child_69631.bc This article is accordingly written by a development psychologist and lists the psychological effects of what could happen to child when it grows and what the child is currently missing out on. Many games do offer a time where you can take a break, for example, Animal Crossing new leaf 3DS. In South Korea, they have a law which is called the “Cinderella law” which is also known as the “Shutdown Law”. Also in South Korea, they are people that are so addicted to playing games and spending so much time on playing the games that people have become seriously injured or have died in result. This link explains what the “Shutdown Law” is and tells you some of the stories of what has happened to people’s lives due to playing games excessively. http://geography.about.com/od/culturalgeography/a/South-Korea-Computer-Gaming-Culture.htm |
High score listings:
High score listings can either leave you with a positive psychological effect or a negative one. High score listings are nearly in every game, especially competitive ones. If you are top of the leader board you are most likely to feel better about yourself than be bottom of the leader board. To find out that you are bottom of the leader board, you might feel pretty down about it although some gamers can revert that feeling from being down and changing it to determination of wanting to retrieve a high score. I am one of those particular gamers. A gamer who in which is at the top of leader board would feel “pleased” with themselves. According to this source of information, researchers had found out that someone who did “supposedly the best on the task, people had lower self-esteem than those who were the top performing on the losing team – even if they did better”.
http://www.psychologyofgames.com/2012/07/the-psychology-of-high-scores-in-edge-magazine/ |
Costs
There are direct costs and indirect costs. Many gamers spend a lot of money buying games and such. The things which costs are the consoles, PCs, upgrading parts of a PC so the game runs better, paying for broadband, paying electricity bills, buying DLCs for that particular game, paying to get rid of ads and so on. “Video games are a fun hobby, but no one ever said it was an inexpensive one: a brand new video game for the Xbox can run you $60, and a hardcore gaming rig can cost upward of $2000”. A lot of people do tend to spend a lot of money buying things so that they can progress in their game or make the game perform better (PC). The indirect costs include time. Gamers spend quite a lot of time playing a game. During this time, gamers lose out on development and interaction within reality. The costs of time integrates with the concerns of excess playing. There are costs in which effect children, they can either be really exhausted and late for their next day in school, and they lose out on playing outside and interacting with family members. There is also costs in the real world after playing so many games for many hours, this link is a story in which a guy had lost his girlfriend and job due to spending too much time playing videos games and kept wanting to play Everquest. http://kotaku.com/5384643/i-kept-playing--the-costs-of-my-gaming-addiction?utm_expid=66866090-52.r5txldOmRkqnbJxnyozIeA.0&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co.uk%2F |
Competitive games:
Competitive gaming can leave a few psychological effects. If you are on a team of 5 or 6 (dependant of the game) and you are the one that makes the team lose, not everyone is really going to be nice to you after the match. Possibly, constant losing could lead to aggressive behaviour, this resulting in them losing their temper on when they lose a match.
However, there are some psychological benefits in competitive gaming in which may boost self-esteem and developing social skills. When winning a lot of matches, gamers tend to feel quite happy whereas others might be quite boastful which will aggravate the players in which are losing the matches. http://www.contentedwriter.com/psychological-effects-of-computer-gaming-on-individuals-and-society/ |
Sound:
Sounds can produce emotional reactions from the gamer, in horror games particularly, they use sounds to make the gamer feel fear and to notify you that something is happening or going to happen. For example, the game “The Outlast” when you get caught by one of the mental patients, the music is very tense and loud, you hear the breathing of your character is very harsh and you can hear the fear breathing. Sound is very important in horror games in particular as you would want to portray those sorts of feeling to the gamer in which the character is experiencing, this making the game scarier.
http://www.amplifon.co.uk/resources/playing-with-your-mind/ Scary games in particular can leave quite a harsh psychological effect as it can ultimately scare the player so much that it affects them in life. I personally don’t like to play horror games due to the amount of gore in them and the tense music, it gets me too tense and scared to even make me want to play the game and I believe that leaves quite a negative psychological effect on me. This link below is the soundtrack of the game "Outlast". |
Fun:
Casual gamers play for fun whereas competitive gamers play to win. However, overall, the majority of gamers do play games for fun. What makes games fun is the fact that these games let you do things that you can't necessarily do in the real world. For example, the game called "i am bread" this game is a steam game where you are slice of bread and the objective is you need to become toast. This is a very fun game as you need to move yourself around a certain room and find something you can "toast" yourself on/in. With other games, that you play as a certain character, you are able to act out that characters life in an unusual world. The fact that games designers make the games fun to play leaves a very positive emotional effect on the gamer. |
Peer Pressure:
A lot of gamers are peer pressured into buying a certain game. They usually get peer pressured by their friends. Their friends would get them to buy a particular game because they need someone to play with or because it’s an amazing game and they should buy it. Also, there is peer pressure to not play a particular game or buy one. This is because of someone telling you the game is bad or telling you not to play that particular game and so it results in the gamer not playing it in case their friends notice. There is also a huge amount of pressure to buy the latest consoles and to choose the right one. As there are console wars, people would tell you to buy a particular console because they don’t the other one which is out; for example Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
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Educational Value:
Many games do have educational value, there are dedicated games in which children/adults can learn from. There are games which are specifically made for educational purpose.
"Epistemic games are computer games that are essentially about learning to think in innovative ways. They’re designed to be pedagogical tools for the digital age where the player learns to think like professionals by playing a simulated game of such professions as management, engineering, journalism or urban planning."
There are also games which are made to teach a particular skill or problem. The maths website in which I used when I was in secondary school was cool maths games. A lot of these games help develop many maths skills in my opinion. I feel as if educational games do have a big impact on society more now than before.
http://www.coolmath-games.com |
Leveling:
Leveling leaves a positive but also negative psychological effect on gamers. Let’s start with the positives. The positive effect it can have is self-achievement and achievement in the game. In the majority of games, they have a leveling system in which you can improve your particular character over time or completely levels you can get rewards from. Leveling might make the gamer feel pretty happy about leveling up stats and such. However, the negative effect this can have is the addiction of wanting to carry on leveling up. Therefore, the gamer staying awake possibly to finish their game or not attending to any other duties except from trying to complete a certain level. To conclude, leveling can have a positive psychological effect and a negative psychological effect. A good psychological effect is enjoying leveling up in a game and a negative effect could be you may lose your job and how close you are to family and who is around you, being too determined to complete a level.
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Expectations:
The majority of gamers have certain expectations for particular games that they are interested in. I believe that series such as COD receive very high expectations each time they bring out a new COD game every November. Gamers like to see many improvements and better graphics each time a new game comes out. As a gamer, I always have high expectations of newer games to have better graphics and fairer gameplay. Furthermore, gamers who have played a previous series of a certain game leave comments and reviews in which the game designers can read and take ideas from. I believe that game expectations leave a positive effect on the society in which they can improve their games and possible employ more people to help make these improvements.
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This is the sketch idea of the first level containing sprites and items which the player needs to collect and arrows showing which way the character needs to go, which way the platforms move and which way the catflap opens.
The main character that I have created called "Unicat" was something that i created using Photoshop. There are other sprites that i have created but these sprites were created using Paint, the small snakes which you can see on the black platforms and then the boss called CatSnake which is in placed in the last level to create difficulty. The first level that i have drawn out was designed in Paint as it was a simple way of creating a sketch of the platform game idea i had. The clouds background was edited in Photoshop and is a still image throughout the game. The graphics for this game are not meant to be amazing as it is only a small platform game made for the PC. I wanted this game to be a platform game as it would be cheaper to make and is relatively easy to play. Platform games are easy to play because, the majority of the time you can see where you need to be heading and you can see the pathway of how to get there. The visual style of this game is cel-shaded however the background is photo-realistic (The clouds image is a photograph just edited a different colour). I wanted to contrast these two visual styles together in game as i thought they looked pleasing to the eye. The main character is a playable character whereas all the other sprites in game are NPC's. Furthermore they all fall under the cel-shaded style and so do the items in which you need to collect.
This is an image of the final level which contains the boss "CatSnake" and displays items the player can collect, moving platform directs, a health bar and the snake sprite.
Task 4: Game Play Concept
The main objective is for Unicat to pick up pieces of string
in an environment to make the ancient ball of string to restore peace. Additionally, Unicat needs to defeat the evil CatSnake who is the boss contained in the boss level. CatSnake is the villain in which holds the final piece of string in order to re-create the ancient ball of string in which was valued so much by everyone who lives in cloud 5. Each
level has a certain amount of pieces of string for the player to collect and
they may have to get over some obstacles which are blocking the path to reach
the magical cloud. (I.e. snakes!) There are many different items in which can be collected throughout the game. Here are a list of the items in which can be obtained and a note on the checkpoint created in game.
Unicat: (Main Character)
Unicat is a magical creature. It is a cat with the powers of a unicorn. Unicat has the ability to kill snakes with its horn. Once it has collected enough power gems in which is contained within a snake, it is able to use its special ability which makes the Unicat invincible for 5 seconds. Unicat lives in the world of cloud 5 and the world was peaceful until the CatSnake took over, drained the pool of magic and tore apart the ancient ball of string. Unicat must retain all of the string in order to restore peace in the world of Cloud 5. She originated from Cloud 5, what makes her so special is that she a cross-breed of a unicorn, a Pegasus and a cat which are three species which live in Cloud 5. The three species in which live in Cloud 5 donate a few pieces of their magical hair each year to a pool of magic to keep the ancient ball of string protected. When Unicat was just a cat, she fell into this pool of magic and as she grew up she managed to grow the horn of a unicorn, the wings of a Pegasus and the keep the body of a cat however, she couldn't grow large enough wings the size of normal Pegasus wings so she cannot use them.
Unicat is a magical creature. It is a cat with the powers of a unicorn. Unicat has the ability to kill snakes with its horn. Once it has collected enough power gems in which is contained within a snake, it is able to use its special ability which makes the Unicat invincible for 5 seconds. Unicat lives in the world of cloud 5 and the world was peaceful until the CatSnake took over, drained the pool of magic and tore apart the ancient ball of string. Unicat must retain all of the string in order to restore peace in the world of Cloud 5. She originated from Cloud 5, what makes her so special is that she a cross-breed of a unicorn, a Pegasus and a cat which are three species which live in Cloud 5. The three species in which live in Cloud 5 donate a few pieces of their magical hair each year to a pool of magic to keep the ancient ball of string protected. When Unicat was just a cat, she fell into this pool of magic and as she grew up she managed to grow the horn of a unicorn, the wings of a Pegasus and the keep the body of a cat however, she couldn't grow large enough wings the size of normal Pegasus wings so she cannot use them.
Snakes: (Villain):
The snakes are the evil small minions of CatSnake. They follow CatSnake’s orders and try
to stop Unicat from retrieving all of the pieces of string and getting to the
castle where CatSnake is based. They can bite Unicat which results in Unicat’s
health going down. The Snakes managed to gain entry to Cloud 5 by capturing a Unicorn when it was visiting a different Cloud and took off a part of its horn. They released the Unicorn soon after they had access to Cloud 5. (No Unicorn was harmed, it managed to grow its horn back after a while).
CatSnake was firstly a Cat that lived in Cloud 5 however, he was banished before he turned in a CatSnake. It still remains a mystery on how CatSnake became part snake and how he managed to turn all of the Snakes against the Cloud 5 dwellers and to take orders from him.
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