Developing a New Major

Image by irina slutsky via Flickr

ch2

games are worthless until people play them – I like that – the designer has to create experiences for the player, game itself is just bits or pieces of cardboard till people play

but experiences are hard to define because they’re so much a part of us, so familiar – and because each person experiences stuff differently

game enables experience game is NOT the experience, game just a means to an end – and we’re not even there when they have the experience, they can’t share the experience with us

and game non-linear (books/movies are linear so the thing we create is pretty much what htey experience) – and player has control over paths and speed thru teh game and attention paid to the game. stuff happens randomly. All that adds to the experience tho- freedom of choice, feelings of friendship, feelings of accomplishment…

he thinks anthro, psych, and design are big fields for game designers

- psych – behavioral experiments let us try to examine players experiences (to test objective reality), and behavoralism lets us take qualitative introspective approach (to examine subjective reality)

- anthro – holistic approach to people and culture – not just thinking/feeling but doing, culture, physical state, cultural anthro, also both quantitative and qualitative research methods

- design – (he defines this broadly – artists industrial designers choreographers architects authors…), don’t have public research methods so hard to use their techniques to understand experiences, but they all try to design stuff for people to experience and enjoy. They use qualitative methods to understand design

introspection – examine your own experience (which you can understand and know) – can analyze memories of past experiences,  or do the expeirence twice  (the first time just do the expeirence and the 2nd time take notes and analyze the experience)can lead to false conclusions because just because something feels true doesn’t mean that it is and what’s true for you may not be true for other people – - so practice expressing what you like and don’t like in details, not general feelings, say why something is bad – think about how it made you feel, what it made ya do what it made you think of

here’s an idea i like – look for the essential experience of your game or whatever yoru game is about – you can imagine a lot of experiences (he uses the example of playing in the snow and throwing snowballs), you can imagine how you felt, was else was going on, sounds, what you were wearing – look for the essential elements that sum up the desired experience, don’t have to be true to life, essential things played up — you know these are the elements you don’t want to dink with as you make the game if you want this particular experience – talks about Wii baseball (see the picture at the top of the post) -> the develoeprs decided that swinging the baseball bat was the essential experience they wanted to highlight and other stuff didn’t matter to the game (like stealing bases or having 9 innings)

experiences are not reality – it’s reality filtered thru our senses. thru our minds but they feel real and meaningful which is good thing for us

Ch3

he says it’s not world ending if we don’t have one definition of game – it’s good if designers owrking together stop and come to an agreement to save time later

he says hard to define because tech keeps changing what’s possible, because we haven’t thought about what makes a good game/bad game = not time yet for standardized terminology since we don’t know for sure what processes we’re talking about, and basic terms like play & game & experience aren’t clearly defined either, still worth trying to define them because that forces us to think more clearly – just realize that definitions will probably be incomplete

his definition (and process)

- a game is something you play (a toy is something you you play with – game play more complex than toy play, toy is an object you play with but you could also just mindlessly play with a household object and that wouldn’t make it a toy really – so a good toy is an object that is fun to play with)

- fun – is it just pleasure, enjoyment – however there are lots of experiences that are pleasurable such as eating a good meal or lying in the sun but those things aren’t fun so fun is pleasure with surprises because surprise is usually something we enjoy – but there are things that are fun that don’t involve surprise and things that are surprising htat aren’t fun but surprise has something to do with fun

- play – he has several definitions from other people – play is the aimless expenditure of exuberant energy, used to be a theory that said play got rid of surplus energy, he doesn’t agree with the use of aimless because play can have lots of goals; another definition said play refers to those activities which are accompanied by a state of comparative pleasure, exhilaration, power, and the feeling of self-initiative – he doesn’t think this definition is complete; play is free momement with in a more rigid structure – he thinks lots of things are covered here that we wouldn’t normally consider play; play is whatever is done spontaneously and for its own sake – but things like baseball games are play but not spontaneous, he does like the 2nd part of the definition – we play because we like it and he thinks that’s important – Mary POppins says in every job there’s an element of fun we just have to find it, we work because we’re obligated to, we play because we can, we have the freedom to play; play is a manipulation that indulges curiosity (this is the definition that hee likes most but it still has flaws since we do lots of things out of curiosity that we don’t normally consider play like experiments

longer definition of game – games are entered willfully, games have golas, games have conflict, games have rules, games can be won or lost

another – a game is an interactive structure of endogenous meaning that requires players to struggle towards a goal (player is active, not passive) – so 3 things to add to the list – games are interactive, games have challenge,  games can create their own internal value

another – a game is a closed, formal system, that engages players in structured conflict and resolves in an unequal outcome – big points are that players get engaged by the game, they’re mentally immersed, and “a closed formal system” means there are boundaries to the system so 2 more for the list – games engage players and games are closed formal system

games involve problem solving, puzzles – people like those – like fin out how to defeat other player before they get you, if we remove roblem solving then no longer a game, just an activity – maybe it’s a simple definition = a game is a problem solving activity – except it’s too broad – so limite it to a game is a problem solving activity approached wiht a playful attitude

summary – here are the definitions he likes in the end

• fun is pleasure with surprises
• play is manipulation that satisfies curiosity
• a toy is an object you play with
• a good toy is an object that is fun to play with
• a game is a problem-solving activity, approached with a playful attitude

he has theses lenses – one about surprise and one about fun – questions that designers should ask themselves while they make their game – what will surprise players of my game? does the story have surprises? the rules? the artwork? the tech? and What parts of my game are fun adn why? and what parts need to be more fun

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