Tuesday, 29 November 2011
Friday, 25 November 2011
MUD players
Last we had had to read a Popcap article written by Richard Bartle about MUD (Multi-user dungeon) and how the players of the MUD effect the game.
Bartle first explains to us about the 'stereotypical' MUD players which he dubs them as playing cards.
Achievers- players who create achievements within the game text ( diamonds)
Explorers- Players who explore the game world (spades)
Socializers- players who socialize with other players (hearts)
Killers-the players main reason for player is to impose on other players (club)
These players are not unique to their category, Bartle says that they have to switch between each player type to get what they want.
With Achievers they give challenges to themselves to complete or are interested in doing stuff in the game/to the game. To complete a challenge they would have to explore a certain type of area in the game to receive an item. This also goes for solciolising, by talking to other players they will gain information and discover what other players know, lastly, they would have to become a killer at some point to rid of rival achievers.
Explorers tend to enjoy surprises given to them in games and try to figure how things work. Scoring points is necessary (achievers) to get to other places in the game and by talking to other players they can be informative as a source of a games idea.
As the name suggests Socializers are more interested in the people, the game is only a setting where they all get together. Because socializers are about the the people who are playing it, by achieving points the socializers can access information on other people. Exploring the game world is necessary to understand what everyone else is talking about and becoming a killer can form relationships with other players.
Lastly (and I think the most simple one) we have the Killers, these players feel power with every kill the achieve, but to get powerful they would have to gain XP (achievers) exploring the land allows them to discover new ways to kill people as well as new enemies and (as Bartle says) they only socialize to taunt other players.
Interest Graph
This intereast graph shows how the different MUD players are 'sorted' into sections.
After explaining the MUD players Bartle tells us that a balance is needed with the types of players. If a MUD has a particular large number of the same payers, it could drive away other player, this is also vise-versa as these groups of people rely on each other.
Reading thought the 26 page article I disagreed with most of what Bartle stated, because his article is out dated, in these times his article would be irrelevant, but since he wrote the article when MUD's just came to life, his article could be seen as draft for MUD's for the future. Some of his statements still apply to MUD's now-a-days, like the balancing system of the different players, but by only having four types of players, i think that over the years new player types have been created.
Bartle first explains to us about the 'stereotypical' MUD players which he dubs them as playing cards.
Achievers- players who create achievements within the game text ( diamonds)
Explorers- Players who explore the game world (spades)
Socializers- players who socialize with other players (hearts)
Killers-the players main reason for player is to impose on other players (club)
These players are not unique to their category, Bartle says that they have to switch between each player type to get what they want.
With Achievers they give challenges to themselves to complete or are interested in doing stuff in the game/to the game. To complete a challenge they would have to explore a certain type of area in the game to receive an item. This also goes for solciolising, by talking to other players they will gain information and discover what other players know, lastly, they would have to become a killer at some point to rid of rival achievers.
Explorers tend to enjoy surprises given to them in games and try to figure how things work. Scoring points is necessary (achievers) to get to other places in the game and by talking to other players they can be informative as a source of a games idea.
As the name suggests Socializers are more interested in the people, the game is only a setting where they all get together. Because socializers are about the the people who are playing it, by achieving points the socializers can access information on other people. Exploring the game world is necessary to understand what everyone else is talking about and becoming a killer can form relationships with other players.
Lastly (and I think the most simple one) we have the Killers, these players feel power with every kill the achieve, but to get powerful they would have to gain XP (achievers) exploring the land allows them to discover new ways to kill people as well as new enemies and (as Bartle says) they only socialize to taunt other players.
Interest Graph
This intereast graph shows how the different MUD players are 'sorted' into sections.
After explaining the MUD players Bartle tells us that a balance is needed with the types of players. If a MUD has a particular large number of the same payers, it could drive away other player, this is also vise-versa as these groups of people rely on each other.
Reading thought the 26 page article I disagreed with most of what Bartle stated, because his article is out dated, in these times his article would be irrelevant, but since he wrote the article when MUD's just came to life, his article could be seen as draft for MUD's for the future. Some of his statements still apply to MUD's now-a-days, like the balancing system of the different players, but by only having four types of players, i think that over the years new player types have been created.
Tuesday, 15 November 2011
Casual games
' Causal games will be considered the game possibly of pick up and play'
Venturelli states that causal gaming should be made up of short bursts of gameplay but enjoyable in the long run.
As well as that they should have a polished mechanics, interface design, good balancing and close attention to detail.
In his article he gives us different 'ingreadants' that he thinks are important to casual gaming.
Pacing- ' The rhthem of a game. This 'crafts' the players experience to create different emotions. Much like in my older posts, where the designer can't make player feel they way they want them to. They can only use the mechanics of the game to influence the player.
Related concepts within pacing:
-Threat- Where the player feels like they are in a sense of danger
-Tension- perceived danger. the player becomes the weaker side of conflict
-Movement Impetus- The will/ desire of the player to move forward in the game level and not quit
-Tempo-The intensity of the game. The time taken between each decision the player makes. the shorter the tempo, the more erractic the game.
Space of Possibility and Player Exercise:
Venturelli states that causal gaming should be made up of short bursts of gameplay but enjoyable in the long run.
As well as that they should have a polished mechanics, interface design, good balancing and close attention to detail.
In his article he gives us different 'ingreadants' that he thinks are important to casual gaming.
Pacing- ' The rhthem of a game. This 'crafts' the players experience to create different emotions. Much like in my older posts, where the designer can't make player feel they way they want them to. They can only use the mechanics of the game to influence the player.
Related concepts within pacing:
-Threat- Where the player feels like they are in a sense of danger
-Tension- perceived danger. the player becomes the weaker side of conflict
-Movement Impetus- The will/ desire of the player to move forward in the game level and not quit
-Tempo-The intensity of the game. The time taken between each decision the player makes. the shorter the tempo, the more erractic the game.
Space of Possibility and Player Exercise:
Venturelli states that when we all play games, we sub-consionsly looking for a pattern. When there are no more patterns to figure out there essentially is no more 'fun' in the casual games.
He uses the example of nouts and crosses, becasuse there is such a small area to play on, the game possibility outcome is very low and so you can easily get board, where as chess is quite the oppersite, there is not pattern (unless both players are using staragies). Another one would be connect four, you could essentially call it a much larger version of nout's and crosses, but because it has a larger player space, both players have the large choice to use which ever space they want.
Venturelli then says that is the player is forced to take an action that doesn't let them asset every other possible outcome, it could leave the player feeling like they have missed something out in the game, leaving then to get angry, so instead of forcing them to take an action, just limit the game space they are in. By limiting the space of possibility, which altogether limits the game Pattern, this makes the game clearer to the player. If in one level you have to compete a certain mission, and to complete that mission you have to obtain a certain item, and to get it you have to talk to a person who lives somewhere far away and the only way to get there is a griffin. With all this going on in one level (in ca casual game) it would easily confuse the player, ad Venturelli said
'Casual games are meant to be fast and Organic'
To back up his statement he says that in each level, instead of adding or subtracting certain mechanics, you should replace. by replacing you would have a much smoother and related level to the one before.
Venturelli studies the casual games of 'peggle' and 'Plants Vs Zombies' he states how they use the same ingredients in each game to make is casual. In both games they have a level one which is pretty much impossible to lose at, these levels slowly introduce the players into the game with out a mass instruction tutorial, after each level it gets consecutively harder, and you get more weapons the higher the level.
Because of these ingredients they create a perceivable pattern of continuous play meaning that in games once you realize a pattern and master it, in the next level there is still a pattern, which could be the same but with replaced mechanics, which could include new weapons, new enemies, life points. With these changes to the mechanics it makes the player want to complete the pattern/level essentially making them play longer.
From reading Venturelli article i wonder is all arcade games are causal games, they have a certain level which introduces you to the game mechanics, they are normally fast when you play and it defiantly has the perceivable pattern of continuous learning as it always manage's to make me pay £1 to play the game again
Wednesday, 9 November 2011
Why Chance and Skill is an Important Component in Games
The question we had to answer this week was how chance and skill is important to a game and how the games designers use the skill and chance tool to their advantage.
-CHANCE- 'If a game is easily solvable it loses the game aspect'
Just like Leblac, Braithwiate and Schreiber (Will be calling these two B&S from now on) dissects the two tools and shows us whats inside each tool that we can specifically use to make a game more interesting to the player.
First off with chance, we have Competitive, which I think is one of the most important of all others. The competitive allows less experienced players a higher chance of winning thus making the players more interested in the game. I have sometimes wondered to myself, when playing chess if i should just throw a dice for an instant win... maybe those times when I have stormed off and knocked the board over may not have occurred if a 'bit' of chance was introduced.
With chess I have seen many upon many different types of strategies to win a game, but with Variety a strategy would be useless if a game doesn't allow you to carry it out, either because the dice didn't roll on the number you want, or the dealer didn't give you a picture card. With variety, it forces the players to think outside their strategy box, by not going with their usual way of play, variety increase's the experience for the player as well as their knowledge of the game. From variety you get Enhancing Decision Making
'Essence of most games is the decisions that the player makes.'
I totally think this statement is true, because variety makes you change your strategy plan, you have to make the important decision that can either help you or destroy you in a game. Like in a 4 way Yu-Gi-Oh game, you can help the player who is at the disadvantage (Low on Life points) by attacking the opponent who is killing them, this could gain the confidence of the disadvantage player, who can help but you give the other player a reason for them to kill you. From experience I tend not to be the nice guy since it always back fires and I generally get ambushed. with this tool, it makes the player more drawn into the game by making them think hard about the decision they are about to make and weighting up the consequences of their decisions.
Our last dissected tool from chance and luck is Dramatic Moments. I wouldn't say that this is a tool, I would say it is a dynamic of a game. Say you have plan to build a mass load of hotel's on Mayfair, you have just the right amount of money, you know that players are close enough to soon land on them and you have a slight feeling that the next chance card is going to say Advance to Mayfair, but what is holding you back? The dice are. You have to roll a 5 to land on either Park Lane. You roll, and from the moment the dice leave your hand to the moment they land on a number, that is where the Dramatic moment is taking place.
Now that B&S have taught us what is inside chance, they now move onto the Mechanics of them. The most obvious one being Dice. We all know that dice are random, but the more die you add to your collection teh more it reduces the randomness since getting two six's is much more easier then getting four six's. Dice also have a cashing out system, which is a blessing in some case's, sometimes you need to get 2 double six's in a row to win the game, lucky for us previous rolls don't effect future ones.
Another common mechanic is Cards. These are more versatile then dice, but because you have a set amount of card's in a deck, the probability lowers with each card drawn. e.g if you were playing the exciting game of 'The guy who picks the highest card wins, and ace of spades is the highest' if the opponent picks a king of spades, its doesn't take a genius to work out that you will probably lose.
Surprise surprise, we have a reference to MDA, in this case it's called Hidden Information. Thou it does sound like Fog of war, it has a very different impact. with Hidden information you have the information , you just don't know which information is correct, so what do you do? you ask random questions to the the right one, Guess Who? is based on this mechanic. Using Hidden information in video games can be a dangerous choice, because if they want to deploy a strategy and a random element which you don't know is about to happen stops them from making a move, it would leave the player annoyed. Just like in FF-XIII where the main character has a special sword which greatly helps you kill a monster, but there is no way of making it help you, the sword's special only happens at random times, for me this made the game very repetitive and annoying.
Children and Gambling Games.
At first I wondered why B&S focused on the two games, but when I had finished reading the section I didn't realize that they both have the same technique used in them to attract players.
With Children Games the designers mainly (if not only) use chance and luck, since children are not the best at playing skilled games. I have noticed that when children play games you can tell that they think it is a skill of their for rolling three six's consecutively, by saying words before they throw the dice, or throwing them in a certain way (without looking like they are cheating)
Of course in Gambling throwing the dice in a certain way would lead to you being thrown out of a casino. With gambling the excitement is not only winning the game, but the physical aspect of gaining money out of luck. Though the cleverness used in gambling is the rather large amount of choice you get when playing, in roulette its your decision to place as much chips on a number, if your decision to fold or bluff at poker, it's your decision to twist or stick. With the amount of choice in a game who wouldn't think that they were in control? But it is just a use of illusion, making the player think that they have a certain 'vibe' going on.
-CHANCE- 'If a game is easily solvable it loses the game aspect'
Just like Leblac, Braithwiate and Schreiber (Will be calling these two B&S from now on) dissects the two tools and shows us whats inside each tool that we can specifically use to make a game more interesting to the player.
First off with chance, we have Competitive, which I think is one of the most important of all others. The competitive allows less experienced players a higher chance of winning thus making the players more interested in the game. I have sometimes wondered to myself, when playing chess if i should just throw a dice for an instant win... maybe those times when I have stormed off and knocked the board over may not have occurred if a 'bit' of chance was introduced.
With chess I have seen many upon many different types of strategies to win a game, but with Variety a strategy would be useless if a game doesn't allow you to carry it out, either because the dice didn't roll on the number you want, or the dealer didn't give you a picture card. With variety, it forces the players to think outside their strategy box, by not going with their usual way of play, variety increase's the experience for the player as well as their knowledge of the game. From variety you get Enhancing Decision Making
'Essence of most games is the decisions that the player makes.'
I totally think this statement is true, because variety makes you change your strategy plan, you have to make the important decision that can either help you or destroy you in a game. Like in a 4 way Yu-Gi-Oh game, you can help the player who is at the disadvantage (Low on Life points) by attacking the opponent who is killing them, this could gain the confidence of the disadvantage player, who can help but you give the other player a reason for them to kill you. From experience I tend not to be the nice guy since it always back fires and I generally get ambushed. with this tool, it makes the player more drawn into the game by making them think hard about the decision they are about to make and weighting up the consequences of their decisions.
Our last dissected tool from chance and luck is Dramatic Moments. I wouldn't say that this is a tool, I would say it is a dynamic of a game. Say you have plan to build a mass load of hotel's on Mayfair, you have just the right amount of money, you know that players are close enough to soon land on them and you have a slight feeling that the next chance card is going to say Advance to Mayfair, but what is holding you back? The dice are. You have to roll a 5 to land on either Park Lane. You roll, and from the moment the dice leave your hand to the moment they land on a number, that is where the Dramatic moment is taking place.
Now that B&S have taught us what is inside chance, they now move onto the Mechanics of them. The most obvious one being Dice. We all know that dice are random, but the more die you add to your collection teh more it reduces the randomness since getting two six's is much more easier then getting four six's. Dice also have a cashing out system, which is a blessing in some case's, sometimes you need to get 2 double six's in a row to win the game, lucky for us previous rolls don't effect future ones.
Another common mechanic is Cards. These are more versatile then dice, but because you have a set amount of card's in a deck, the probability lowers with each card drawn. e.g if you were playing the exciting game of 'The guy who picks the highest card wins, and ace of spades is the highest' if the opponent picks a king of spades, its doesn't take a genius to work out that you will probably lose.
Surprise surprise, we have a reference to MDA, in this case it's called Hidden Information. Thou it does sound like Fog of war, it has a very different impact. with Hidden information you have the information , you just don't know which information is correct, so what do you do? you ask random questions to the the right one, Guess Who? is based on this mechanic. Using Hidden information in video games can be a dangerous choice, because if they want to deploy a strategy and a random element which you don't know is about to happen stops them from making a move, it would leave the player annoyed. Just like in FF-XIII where the main character has a special sword which greatly helps you kill a monster, but there is no way of making it help you, the sword's special only happens at random times, for me this made the game very repetitive and annoying.
Children and Gambling Games.
At first I wondered why B&S focused on the two games, but when I had finished reading the section I didn't realize that they both have the same technique used in them to attract players.
With Children Games the designers mainly (if not only) use chance and luck, since children are not the best at playing skilled games. I have noticed that when children play games you can tell that they think it is a skill of their for rolling three six's consecutively, by saying words before they throw the dice, or throwing them in a certain way (without looking like they are cheating)
Of course in Gambling throwing the dice in a certain way would lead to you being thrown out of a casino. With gambling the excitement is not only winning the game, but the physical aspect of gaining money out of luck. Though the cleverness used in gambling is the rather large amount of choice you get when playing, in roulette its your decision to place as much chips on a number, if your decision to fold or bluff at poker, it's your decision to twist or stick. With the amount of choice in a game who wouldn't think that they were in control? But it is just a use of illusion, making the player think that they have a certain 'vibe' going on.
Thursday, 3 November 2011
zotero
The result I got from Zotero (edit 27/03/2012)
Books:
Bell.R., 1979. Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations. Mineola, New York : Courier Dover Publications
Fullerton, T., 2008. Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games 2nd ed., Morgan Kaufmann.
Journal articles:
Jacobson, J. & Hwang, Z., 2002. UNREAL TOURNAMENT FOR IMMERSIVE INTERACTIVE THEATER. Communications of the ACM, 45(1), pp.39-42
Books:
Bell.R., 1979. Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations. Mineola, New York : Courier Dover Publications
Fullerton, T., 2008. Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games 2nd ed., Morgan Kaufmann.
Contributors:
Chandler, H.M. & Chandler, R., 2011. Fundamentals of Game Development, Jones & Bartlett Learning
Chandler, H.M. & Chandler, R., 2011. Fundamentals of Game Development, Jones & Bartlett Learning
Salen, K., 2006. The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology, MIT Press.
Journal articles:
Jacobson, J. & Hwang, Z., 2002. UNREAL TOURNAMENT FOR IMMERSIVE INTERACTIVE THEATER. Communications of the ACM, 45(1), pp.39-42
Price, C.B., 2008. The usability of a commercial game physics engine to develop physics educational materials: An investigation. Simulation & Gaming, 39(3), pp.319-337.
Monday, 31 October 2011
Uncertainty and Inevitability
Our task last week was to read an article by Marc LeBlanc, it was about ‘Tools for Creating Dramatic Game Dynamics’. We had to read to see what tools were used. For the task I thought that it was another article about MDA, but in someone else’s words.
My theory was only partly right. In my last article it was clear that the designer of a game only has control of the mechanics, nothing more. In LeBlanc’s article he says the same about creating ‘Dramatic Tension’ in a game.
“We can only create the circumstances from which drama will emerge”
He then goes on to say what MDA is to him (which I still think Braithwaite and Schribier have a better way of explaining what it is)
The First tool we learn is ‘Aesthetic models’ which LeBlanc refers to as a yardstick to tell designers is the have achieved their design objective, but I think a better example is a spirit stick. If you tip it too far left or right (too much or too little) you have not achieved what you want, in our case being dramatic. To make a more visual example to make an aesthetic model, he introduces us to the
“Dramatic arc”
The Dramatic arc is a general rule to make a game dramatic. With the climax at the highest point, the player will have to go though some sort of conflict. With the word conflict, it doesn’t always means battling with enemies in an RPG; it could challenge the player’s stamina (the T.V show Wipeout), test a player’s knowledge (you can find this in any game, at the pub, brain training or Prof. Layton) or see how fast a player’s reaction is.
LeBlac says the Drama is a product of two factors, saying that a game cannot achieve dramatic tension without these factors.
Uncertainty: When the outcome of the game is unknown (normally at the start of a game).
Inevitability: Nearing the end of the game, and the winner is pretty much clear.
Thou these factors give us a lucid meaning of creating dramatic tension; he dissects into two phases into a more detailed feature.
Force and Illusion is uncertainty split into two separate aspects.
Force is when the mechanics limits how much a player has an advantage over the other. We can see this example in Mario Kart Double Dash, when a player in 1st place in the race, the mechanics will not allow them to gain an accelerator if they run into a cube, whereas, if you are one of the clever lucky few, who linger at the back, you gain some of the best weapons to win.
Illusion is a talented way to manipulate a player perspective in a game. Within illusion you can find Hidden Energy, Escalation and Fog of War. Again in Mario Kart, hidden energy can be found when you are in one player mode. You have to complete a map in the shortest time. You have the hidden energy of 3 single mushrooms which boost your speed. I personally go on the baby park map, where it is only an oval shape. Once I have completed the map, I can go against my ghost and try to best my last score. Say in my second attempt at the map I use the mushrooms to give me an early lead with my ghost, I am at the advantage by being in the lead yet my ghost has 3 mushrooms to boost up their speed, and I have none. On the final lap, my ghost uses the booster mushrooms to get a head start, and I am unable to catch up with it since I wasted my mushrooms at the start. The Hidden energy tool at first seems like it should be part of the Inevitability tool, but the uncertainty kicks in when you know that the other player has a greater advantage over you, with this uncertainty in the players mind it is creating a test for them to use their skill to beat the other player.
You get weapons In Mario Kart to try and get 1st place and depending on what place you are in, the weapon can either aid you greatly or do nothing, this is where Escalation is being used. Without the weapons Mario kart would just be a normal racing game where the change in positions is quite slow throughout the game, but with weapons the position of each player can change within moments. If you are one of the ones at the back, and you are receive a Bowser shell (when released it skids around the race track and squashes anyone that is in the way, which slows them down greatly) you have a much higher and faster chance to overtaking a players and change the scoring positions .With Escalation, your position (score) changes faster over the course of the game with the weapons used.
Fog of war is slightly different from Hidden energy and Escalation. In Mario kart you can see the other player’s game view, but with Fog of war you are limited to what information you get. In the P.C game, Total Annihilation, Fog of war is heavily relied on as an uncertainty tool.
You start off as a single commander placed in certain point on the map. Even though you have the whole basic map given to you, unless you have scouter’s at your deploy, you know nothing about the other player’s army size, where they are placed on the map or how much energy and metal they are producing. By limiting the information you have, players can’t predict the game out come as the constant uncertainty of how big the other player’s army is always on the mind, making the game last longer. Once a player has produced a large enough army, they automatically gain more information of the map and with that; they have a greater success in winning the game.
Other types of Illisonary Uncertainty include Decelerator, Accelerator and Cashing Out. The Decelerator is an object that slows a player down, thus changing the pace of the player in the game. By slowing the leading player down it gives the losing player hope, but the accelerator kicks in right after the leading player gets over the obstacle, this is where the truth is revealed and the giant difference is once again established and the uncertainty element has vanished into inevitability.
With Cashing out, the game reset after each round. At first I couldn’t think of a game using this technique and how it is connected to uncertainty, but playing Street fighter I became aware of the cashing out tool and how it created uncertainty. In Street fighter you have to K.O an opponent to win a round; once you have won 3 rounds you have won the game. The uncertainty is the fact that I have blistered my thumbs and cramped my hand in round 1… only to have to go though it twice over to win the whole game. With the resetting of the HP and the special bar, the opponent has a clean chance to win the round and even out the score.
LeBlanc gives us a wide range of Illusionary uncertainty, but only gives us 2 Force factors…which in to Illusionary factors hasn’t got as much variety, but the outcome is just as important.
Negative Feedback: making the game ‘close’ by making the scoring function as close to 0 as possible. (If you think of a racing game and the distance between the 2 cars is 7 metres, the smaller the distance the more tension is created between the 2 players’s)
Positive Feedback: Making the difference in score as large as possible (In Mario Kart, if you give a golden mushroom to the racer in front) this feedback gets rid of uncertainty and brings the game to a faster climax.
With negative feedback I think it is an important tool which gives back a dramatic tension, but with positive feedback I don’t think it is something that is needed. At the start of a game, if a player is guaranteed to have a massive head start, and have a great deal amount of success, then the dramatic tension is lost from the starting point.
As LeBlanc said once he introduced Uncertainty and Inevitability
“Tension relies on these two factors in combination-neither is sufficient by itself”
Just by reading LeBlanc’s article I am able to understand that the uncertainty tool is something that is important to create drastic tension, however, if we just stick to uncertainty the player would soon get bored or the feeling that the game would never end, ultimately making them quit the game. So I counter the ‘problem’ Inevitability is produced.
The main tool that is used is the Ticking Clock. This clock gives the player a HARD visual on when the game is about to end. In Ghost Recon, when you play split screen a small timer is always shown in the centre of the screen, thou it is miniscule the meaning of it shows the player that the game is coming to a conclusion.
The Ticking Clock isn’t just limited to the time on a screen. Other types of the Ticking Clock include the shrinking of a deck of cards (e.g Yu-Gi-Oh), the MP in final fantasy games, the game view (in bomber man, when then stage gets smaller and smaller until a winner is found) even in scrabble with the decreasing about of letters in the bag and the triple word spaces.
These types of ticking clocks could either be renewable or non-renewable; this changes the strategy a player makes. In Final Fantasy you can renew your health with items that you collect or buy. Knowing that you can renew your health easily relaxes the player. Though it does not create a massive dramatic tension, it makes the player try out more exciting strategies and lets them try out different dynamics of a game. In Yu-Gi-Oh you cannot renew the cards that have been sent to graveyard; because of this you know that you only have one chance to use a card. This non-renewable clock forces the player to think much harder with their strategy on how to go about the game, as well as loading a great amount of tension each time a monster is sent to the grave; you notice the fall of the deck and the decreasing health you get every time you take a direct hit from the enemy.
With the ticking clock function, I think it goes hand in hand with force and illusion tools, together they make a game which incorporate the dramatic tension, but also tells the that they have a limit.
In conclusion to LeBlanc’s article, I think that these tools effectively create dramatic tension in a game. Before the article I didn’t think that that Tetris had a ticking clock tool ( when you get higher) or that in Mario party it has a cashing out and a escalation tool at the same time after the players complete a game.
PLEASE CAN THE COMPUTER GAMES COURSE GO ON A TRIP IN EUROPE?
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
MDA ..another formal approach to Games design?
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.
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.
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