Reading Hinkles article reminded me much of Doug Churches article about FADT but instead we are intoducted to MDA
Mechanics Dynamics Aesthetics
The Mechaics being the only thing the game designer has control of ( like in Challeneges for a games designer, when Braithwaite says that Mechanics is 'how things work'
Dynamics is how the rules interact with each other. I have the most trouble trying to understand the full concept of Game Dynamics, but an example I can use to describe it is Tetris, the mechanics is if you get a full four row of bricks, they disappear, the dynamics of it is the increasing speed of the falling bricks, and the the challenge for the player to try and get a full row of bricks . And finally Aesthetics, at first I thought this meant the overall look of the game, but in games designer vocabulary it means something more then that case.Aesthetics is what the player emotional feels towards a game and their emotional response and connection to a game. When i found this out i thought to my self, what games that i have played cause me to have an aesthetic response to it? I remember once playing Mario on the original gameboy, and i could see a green warp tunnel... but i had no idea how to get to it...what emotional reaction did I get from that?...feeling like a failure because I thought I knew all the secrets about the game.
Hinkle says that designers and players have a different perspective to MDA, he use's a a flow chart to show what he means.
Designers ------------------------------>
Mechanics Dynamics Aesthetics
<------------------------------- Player
As the designer you ONLY have the control to make the mechanics, as it is the designer sets the rules, the dynamics is something happens because of the set of rules the designer has made, and the aesthetics is totally up to the player. A game designer cannot make a game for everyone to enjoy.. It is just like Doug Church said in The Gamesutra 'game designers can discuss "fun" or "not fun," but often the analysis stops there' As games designers, we are trying to rid the gaming world of simple and vague worlds like 'fun'
As the player, they are more interested in the aesthetics of the game, as it is the reason they have purchased the game, though once they have completed the game, whose to say that they don't replay the game to look at the dynamics or better yet, the mechanics of the games.
Reading this article gave me a better understanding of the formal vocab in the gaming world, and have a clearer ( yet not a full understanding) of the word dynamics.
As for the systems used in the article, i think that it is a successful way to make a good game.
These are good notes, i like the way you are applying the readings to the games you play. With tetris, the increasing speed of the falling blocks is another mechanic in the game. It is a rule, as players clear lines the speed of the falling blocks will increase. Dynamics is more like the tactics the player uses to respond to this mechanic. For example if the blocks are falling very fast, do you risk waiting for a long single line of blocks to clear 4 lines at a time, or do you try to clear any lines you get.
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