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reading notes – ch10 Novak – roles & responsibilities – team

big questions – team roles & responsibilities, from end of chapter #1, #8
publishers – activision, thq, atari – they fund, market, and distribute the game. smetimes they have their own in-house development teams to actually create the games – EA publishes and develops games
third party developer – when a publisher goes to another company to [...]

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reading notes – ch5 of Novak – Characters

some big questions I like – how are game characters diff from characters in other media? what are some character tyeps/archetypes?, what are several purposes of dialogue in games? – questions from teh end of hte chapter – #4 – pick 3 fave game characters – why do you like them, what are their types, [...]

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reading notes ch4 Novak – Storytelling

key questions that might make some good discussions – how are game stories different from stories in movies/tv – (could we compare games based on movies wiht the movies?), what is interactivity, how does story affect immersion in a game, – at the end of hte chapter be able to answer #1 (good discussion quesion [...]

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reading notes – Konzack Rhetorics of Computer and Videogame Research

I really liked this chapter from The Players’ Realm by Williams and Smith – the author looks at a variety of “rhetorics” around videogames – different ways of talking aboujt and thinking about videogames that usually seem to exist just one at a time in people (they’re either all narratology or all ludology for instance) [...]

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education of a game designer ch from crawford’s on game design

get a degree – credibility, teaches you how to learn, saleable skill – and gotta have combo of CS and H&S & media
have realistic expectations – most peopel will never design a hit game, mostpeopel in the industry get paid crap wages, work long hour – – because there are so many other people who [...]

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common mistakes ch from chris crawford’s on game design

several big mistakes
- don’t obsess about cosmetics unless they add to the central game play – lots of games have realistic blood, but it doens’t add anything – the blood isn’t slippery for instance. same with big piles of bodies – they look cool – but if the enemy can just walk thru them with [...]

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creativity ch from Chris Crawfor’s on game design

creativity comes from being able to make associations between differen tthings, combine them in new ways
so best way to be creative is to have lots of association to be able to recombine – “you want to populate your mind with a wonderous and colorful diversity of ideas..” (p. 99)
- gotta read – everyting and anything, [...]

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reading notes – interactivity chapter from Chris Crawford’s on game design

fun hard to define, no word in any other language, we have lots of words for humorous and enjoyable and playful but hard to sumup fun – “informality, enjoyment, and near-vulgarity that our word ‘fun’ connotes” (p. 71)
the key point – the reason for being – of games is at first look “play” – that’s [...]

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reading notes – challenge ch from chris crawford’s on game design

challenges expand our identity, show who we really are
challenges take part in a specific context, a “setting , the conditions under which the challenge is presented” (p. 37)
we take on most challenges are voluntary
“it’s easy to ruin a good challenge by exploiting loopholes in the rules” – can’t make reams of rules to prevent cheating, [...]

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reading notes: fun chapter from chris Crawford’s On game design

ch3 is on play – altho he goes back and forth between play and games kind of willy nilly (games = metaphorical, play = safe), comes aroudn to fun at hte end of hte chapter – says fun concept is changing as society changes, that it has a different meaning in different contexts and gives [...]

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