we classify games by what makes them differenet from each other – games for kids/games for adults, indoor games/outdoor games, games that need equipment/games that don’t need equipment, games for girls/women and games for boys/men
says we also need to look at what games have in common – what makes them all games – some structural [...]
Archive > December 2008
reading notes – avedon games as structure
reading notes – Lazzaro Why we play games and other articles by Lazzaro
her company – xeo design – studies emotion, games, fun , “role of emotion in games”, “ways to create emotion other than story cut scenes”,
some of the questions their research tries to answer – “what makes failing 80% of the time fun? Do people play to feel emotions as well as challenge? If emotions are [...]
reading notes from Brathwaite and Schreiber Challenges for Game Designers
book full of non-digital exercises for game designers – good to do in class when ya don’t have cmputers or not everyone can program yet
ch1 – Building Blocks
what’s a game – lots of definitions – an activity with rules, a form of play sometimes involving conflict, most games have goals but not all, defined start [...]
reading notes from Dunniway & Novak Gameplay Mechanics
we’re not using this book in class this semester but some of the chapters will make good extra info
gameplay mechanic = rule/feature that influences how the game is played, anything a player can do in the game like fight/ drive/jump/shoot, big mechanics like fighting made up of smaller mechanics like punch, kick, slice, stab, throw [...]
reading notes – Goffman – Encounters
has a chapter called Fun in Games (p. 17-84)
“games can be fun to play and fun alone is the approved reason for playing them. The individual, in contrast to his treation of “serous” activity, claims a right to complain about a game that does not pay its way in immediate plasure and, whether the game [...]
reading notes – ch3 about archetypes in Christopher Vogler’s Writer’s Journey
ch2 was about the framework of the her’s journey, this is about archetypical characters and their function in the story, if you understand the archetype the character is supposed to play then you know if htey’re doing as much as they can in the story, characters take on different archetypes over time – mentor is [...]
reading notes – ch2 of The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler
christopher vogler – The writer’s journey – based on the hero’s journey by Joseph Campbell “The Hero with a Thousand Face” that identifies timeless patterns from mythology – this author says using hero’s journey is good tool for analyzing problems in stories and to create stories that will ring true with audience and be entertaining, [...]
reading notes – I play like a girl (from Azeroth book)
I Play Like a Girl by Nancy Berman
women role play all the time in their lives – make believe
been an increse in women playing RPGs – usually female characters are as good to play as male characters – different powers but female characters have powers
“over the last 2 decades much time and more than a [...]
reading notes – ch6 Gameplay (novak)
Image via Wikipediagameplay = choices/challenges/consequences players face, one guy says game lay and story are the same so gameplay goals and the emotional goals of the story should be the same (not sure I buy that one yet), challenges linked together, types of challenges usually related to game genre, fans of certain genres expect certain [...]
thoughts on changing qualitative class for the spring
topics to include
writing – editing for wordiness, organizing paragraphs
working in a team
more readings to give them examples of how to use their data, good writing how to organize paper, and background & theory
that when doing interviews in a group everyone should ask all the questions – you might have 4 questions to ask for your [...]
