improving players’ choices – by tracy fullerton and some other folks – her game design owrkshop is a good book – in 2nd edition as of 2009
choice is an important aspect of fun in games
choices have to have consequences to be meaningful choices, should affect whether they win or lose – because players want to [...]
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reading notes – giving players choices
emotioneering article
we read this after the lazarro article on emotions
huge differences between movies and games – but both want to make things interesting and make them deep
emotion in movies – movies are linear – series of scripted circumstances that occur to a character, in a specific order with exact timing set up by the writer, writer [...]
do bono info from wikipedia – to use in class doing brainstorming
Initial Ideas – Blue, White, Green, Blue
people take on roles during hte brainstorming and brainstorm session goes thru stages – that’s the blue, white, green,blue
green is the creative phase, blue is when ya think/talk about the process, white is the factual statement phase
there are other phases (other hats) for other kinds of group sessions – [...]
reading notes: Origin and oddities of cards from Jacoby & Morehead 1957
early playing cards were chinese – and they were either actually money or they were used as money and cards interchangably – almost hte same size, the same designs
origin of gaming and cards by catherine perry hargrave (article in this section)
“so much has been written in this wrold of ours about men’s work, and so [...]
reading notes – ch8 Novak – interface
big questions – main components of game interface, diff between passive/active interface, between manual/visual interface, importance of usability, questions from the end of the ch – #10 – define the visual interface style of a fave game, #6 – choose a game and suggest at least 3 changes to the interface to make it more [...]
reading notes from the Azeroth book about WOW
ch1 – Elegant Game Design by Scott Cuthbertson
notice on the WOW splash screen – only Blizzard name – no Vivendi or universal logo (wonder if that’s still true with the activision merger?) – they have a very strange relationship (unique) with their publisher -they get to delay game launch till they’re satisfied that it is [...]
reading notes – ch12 Novak – Marketing & maintenance
big questions – what role do advertising, pr, sales and promotion, customer support have in the game industry, how can we build and maintain fan communities, questions from end of chapter#6 – find some player communites around your fave game (or maybe the video game they’re analyzing) – and see if/how develoeprs are connecting with [...]
reading notes – ch9 Novak – Audio
big questions – why is audio an important aspect of game development, how do we use voiceovers, sound effects, music differently and effectively , how is game music different from movie music?, would be cool to have them record their own sound effect using their mics and garageband – could do as a group – [...]
reading notes- ch7 Novak – levels
big questions – what is level design and how’s it related to gameplay, how can we make game environments real?, from end of chapter#1 – define level design and how it relates to gameplay, story and character development; #3 be able to define the different perspectives; I’d like them to do #9 – find some [...]
reading notes – dunniway & novak – gameplay mechanics – ch 9
game scan be linear – do all the missions in a particular order, picking up skills and weapons along the way, with more difficult challenges as they go along, as designer you have to think how you’re going to help the player move thru the game and what you have to make available along the [...]
