notes about fun portal

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theme – boardgame (retro look, simple, what’s the goal for getting to the end), pinwheel (bright colors, click on the pieces to go to info on different kinds of fun, animated), pie chart (bright colors, click on pieces, graphs not normally associated with fun), amusement park (each “land” in the park is a different kind of fun or a different to experience fun (read, do, talk), map (of what? Funland), puzzle with pieces turned over till you do stuff, game to test specific kinds of fun, blue sky with fluffy clouds

could organize around types of fun – cooperative, compeititve, discover/explore, create, pasive fun

could organize around read & do research/study fun  (bibliography, passive – reading, links), experience fun/do fun (videos, games, puzzles, competitive fun, talk about fun/social fun (cooperative fun, forums, twitter feed)

maybe create a consumer end firs tand then a separate research portal

maybe have activities for different kinds of fun (do fun), people vote on them (social) and we report results (research on fun)

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ideas for fall – game class

do a news portal

podcasts/recordings with summaries of news stories and current topics of interest in the field

game related links and annotations

bios of key figures (how to make different from wiki entry?)

make ads for game (the boardgames, games they like, top 25 most important games

juniors add industry profiles, info on interesting jobs, make ads for games made by students

bios of all the students, links to their own home pages, their blogs

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ideas for fall senior seminar

They need to find examples of that kind of fun to put on  the portal

interview on tape someone from another field talking about fun

only do 5 or 6 reading summaries

need som better directions for their presentations – no powerpoint, need to lead discussion – talking points memos?

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reading notes – ch7 Rollings & Adams on Gameplay

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their definition of gameplay – one or more causally linked series of challenges in a simulated environment

simulated enviornment – because we stop playing when we leave the game, the game is separate from life, from real life

challenges rather than choices – they thought choices too broad, couldinclude choosing to go to the movies, in games there’s some kind of challenge – a puzzle to solve, a monster to fight, come in different forms and difficulty levels, genre limits the types of challenges and genre players don’t want untypical challenges(ex: HalfLife FPS includes a level that’s basically a bad platformer

challenges can break the immersion, breaks our suspension of disbelief

most game challenges are mental, could be simple physical – hand-eye coordination, reflex tests – physical usually limited to hands and wrists (DDR? Wiimote?)

explicit & implicit challenge – explicit = intentional challenge designed by the designer, meant to be a chaenge, more imediate, intense; implicit challenge = something not specifically designed into the game. it’s just something that emerges from teh game play, more drawn out & less focused than explicit challenges

logic & inference challenges – test player’s ability to assimilate info, to use the info to pick a best course of action that yields max benefit tothe player at all times. logic works when you have perfect information (like chess – pieces all out in the open). Some pattern recognition games are perfect info – you have specific goal, known playing field, known pieces to put on that field. Hard to create compelling perfect info storiesImperfect info – not enough to be logical because ya have to fill in the gaps around what ya don’t know, gotta guess about what to do – like cards – you don’t knwo what cards the other person has or what’s still in the deck. Information gets better as you consider the hands being played/cards others are taking. “fog of war” is example of imperfect info – can see only the stuff  in your immediate vicinity; could show hte terrain in gray or black. Could make it part of  a mystery story – figure out stuff and more things are uncovered – play to human curiosity

lateral thinking challenges – extension of inference, makes hte player draw on previous experience and combo it in new nad unextected ways. Can also be instrinsic and extrinsic in terms of where info is gained (intrinsic = gained in game owrld and other knowledge isn’t useful – other than a walkthru or some other kind of cheat info) – says Half-Life uses extrinsic knowledge lateral thinking problems (figure out that monster has very acute hearing and can track you soy ou can use noise as a diversion)

memory challenges – player has to remmeber stuff from earlier int he game. Almost all intrinsic (dont have to rely on memory of real owrld events). Ex: Simon game, lots of kids games. have to remember layout of complex tunnels

intelligence-based challenges – player’s IQ, not found too often on their own – hybrid wilth others. more intelligent players will do better at these puzzles than others.

knowledge based challenges – not players intelligence, but their knowledge (intrinsic and extrinsic). Trivial Pursuits is big examples – extrinsic knowledge. don’t see very often inthe pure extrinsic knowledge form. Role play and adventure games use intrinsic knowledge challenges

pattern recognition challenge – humans are natural pattern seekers – sometimes seeing patterns when there is none (like seeing animals in clouds) – tetris – see patterns in the tiles so you can fillup the lines – could have the player search a room for a hidden door that looks just lsightly different from the wall around it. Platformers where you need to see the pattern to know when and where to jump

moral challenge – high level challenge – should you save your teammate even if it means going against hte captain’s wishes and it jeopardizes the mission, kill the little sisters or not. Powerful challenges but not many used – most games see stuff in black and white terms, playground morality. most people don’t suspend belief enough in a game to make hte moral choice seem real. Black& White – player is god and can be any kndof god – evil, helpful, controlling

spatial analysis challenges – almost always implicit. combo of memory and inference challenges. usually 3D games (tough doign 3d on 2d surface)

coordination challenge – time jumps for hte character across chasms iwht monsters, shooting games, timing is a big factor, fighting games – hard to balance games based solely on physical dexterity because palyers have uneven skills

reflex/reaction time challenges – timing abilities , usualy in combo wiht other kinds of challenges, tetris, centipede, platformers, fps, most action games – not in turn based games adventure games or rpgs

physical challenges -  – usually only with special hardare – like ddr or hte bongos or steering wheels

applied challenges – (above are hte pureplay challenges, applied are when you combo htem into real challenges inthe games)

races – be first to do something – reach a goal, build something, competition without conflict

puzzles – primarily mental challenges, s/t a lock that when opened gives access to another piece of hte game,usually untimed because people have different mental capacities. Bad game play = correct solution not made clear at the outset, ot clear how puzzle works or what you’re trying to achieve, should be some indication of what order things need to be done in

exploration – can be a challenge or people could just be sighseers (but sightseers don’t see the entertainment value ofthe game for very long. could have obstacles – like locked doors/puzzles you have to solve, have to get hte key somewhere int hegame. Another obstacle = trap – might ckill the avatar or reduce their health points – actually poses a threat t hte player (lock doesn’t pose threat) – good to have some traps tha tthey can deactivate (players think it’s cool to outfox the game)

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reading notes – Adams & ROllings ch8 on the design process

interface info starting on p. 232

talks about screenb layout (decide after you plan out the main gameplay)

main view in center of the screen is the game world – you have to decide if yu’re going to obscure it with overlays or just have it by a subset of hte window with menus on teh side/top

they came up with 9 typical screen designs on p. 235 -can use as the start for designing layout.

need a balance between the amount of game world visible and amount to feedback and controls — smaller your screen, the more important this decision becomes – decide what htey need to kow from teh core mechanics, what kinds of feedback needed for that kind of mechanics, do you need to display any warnings — feedback, controls, interface should be drive3n by gameplay, by what you want player to do

what player needs to know – where am I? what am I actually doing right now? what challenges am I facing? (could be text telling you to solve a puzzle or you could just see the monster coming to get ya)Did my action succeed or fail?Do I have what I need to play successfully? (resources they control and can use)Am I in danger of losing hte game? (health points, alarms, warnings) Am I making progress? What should I do next? (don’t have to hold their hnds but give them some clues about what htey can do next) How did I do (emotional reward for success – could be text, animation, sounds, score screens)

is there any additional/optional info you want to display (maybe on demand display instead of all the time) – maps, another view of hte world – could put it on the screen with overlays or windows

what players want to do – move, look around, interact physically with npc, pick up objects, manipulate things ya can’t pick up, make stuff, destroy stuff, order characters around, have conversations with npc’s, customize characters/vehicles, talk to friends in multiplayer games online, pause, save, set game options, end the game (all these are verbs like in the text adventure game)

kinds of feedback – numeric counters (can be hard to read depending on teh typeface and size), needle gauges lke speedometer, power bar, colored lights, icons, text indicators, position on minimaps, color

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reading notes – game design workshop ch8 has info on interface

chapter on prototyping – interface part starts on p. 235

interface conveys info to the player, how player controls the game, needs to be as easy to understand as possible

need to think about what special  – let form of interface derive from the function/the gameplayformal features your game has – then design accordingly – don’t wnat it to look just like every other game – (or do we – familiar genre-specific controls can help user get started quicker)

interfaces are metaphors – example of the desktop as metaphor on computers, helps user figure out what they’re supposed to do. could be related to the theme of the game – circus game has a ringmaster, rings, popcorn, performers. COuld use metaphors like a mall, a train, a farm. interface can get in thte way if it has distracting elements — exercise to do in clas s- take a metaphor possibility like farm and list all the elements and how they might fit into a game 9what part of hte metaphor might we use for the help system, for reporting their score)

natural mapping – making the game thing look like something we know from the real world (nad it works the same way to convey info – like needle moving down or to the left like needle in a gas gauge to show decreasing gas/power. Quake has a face to show health state – as health decreases the face becmes bloody and bruised. naturla mapping makes it easy for user to scan the thing and get hte  info quickly

group related interface elements on the screen and always put them in the same place on the screen so player knows where to look from screen to screen

interface needs to provide some kind of feedback that an action attempted by the player has been accepted – feedback could be visual or aural

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notes on maslow hierarchy

he wa working on a “needs-based framework of human motivation” – people motivated by unsatisfied needs, lower needs have to be met before higher needs can be considered. While satisfying lower level needs we’re pretty selfish – we have to think about our own survival – but not true for everybody right – might give food to a child even if you’re starving, might give up creature comforts in order to do a job we really love but that doesn’t pay very well. When we move into self-actualization we can be more unselfish/more other focused

original hierarchy physiology – safety – social – esteem – self-actualization (self-actualization in his original plan was the only growth need and the rest were deficiency needs)

self-actualized (?actualizing) people were problem-focused; 2) incorporating an ongoing freshness of appreciation of life; 3) a concern about personal growth; and 4) the ability to have peak experiences

new pyramid – added a need above self-actulaization and 2 more deficiency needs

1) Physiological: hunger, thirst, bodily comforts, etc.;- need coping info

2) Safety/security: out of danger; – need helping info

3) Belonginess and Love: affiliate with others, be accepted; -need enlightening info, relationship development info

4) Esteem: to achieve, be competent, gain approval and recognition. – need empowering info – how to develop their ego

5) Cognitive: to know, to understand, and explore; – need edifying info

6) Aesthetic: symmetry, order, and beauty; – need edifying info

7) Self-actualization: to find self-fulfillment and realize one’s potential; – need edifying info

8) Self-transcendence: to connect to something beyond the ego or to help others find self-fulfillment and realize their potential. – need info on how to connect to things beyond themselves and how to edify others

he’s studying motivation – and he realized you can’t focus on just one aspect (like biology or need for achievement)

he was one of the first to do his research on humans nad not just be theoretical or animal research based

he realized that not everybody followed same pyramid path, personality types like introversion and extroversion might affect path – here’s a table from the 2nd article – needs reduced to 3, start at bottom

A Reorganization of Maslow’s and Alderfer’s Hierarchies

Level Introversion Extroversion
Growth Self-Actualization (development of competencies [knowledge, attitudes, and skills] and character) Transcendence (assisting in the development of others’ competencies and character; relationships to the unknown, unknowable)
Other
(Relatedness)
Personal identification with group, significant others (Belongingness) Value of person by group (Esteem)
Self
(Existence)
Physiological, biological (including basic emotional needs) Connectedness,  security

could apply to games in a nmber of ways

- it’s talking about the players – can we help them fill any needs with our game -  not going to actually give them food or money or shelter from playing (unless they’re plying competitively then I assume they’ve filled their basic needs and have moved on, can help with other focused needs by giving them practice with interpersonal relationships and by helping them make new relationships with multi-player games. We talked about the fun of discovery and exploring – and that fits in with the need to know and understand.

- it could be the content of the game – the player might have to help the characters move up the need hierarchy – related tothe player of course – fun’s not an explicit need but it ties in with the idea of learning skills for survival (games might help with the basic needs by teaching the player how to do them better), The sims did this in later editions – they changed the focus of hte actions from basic physiological needs (eating) to more social needs, you could have them find things that address different needs over hte course of the game

- it could help us create better NPCs -we could figure out quests and actions that seem motivated by these needs, game developers could use it to model characters, set up situations – applies to creating characters for linear content too – make characters more believable

- it might help marketing

the decision making article talks about automating some of the more basic decisions – those could be considered the game version of deficiency needs – we want them fulfilled so we can move on to being self-actualized, to having fun, to thinking about others

article to add for the future

Jensen, Jennifer, “Deeper Character Motivation” http://character-development.suite101.com/article.cfm/deeper_character_motivation – using the hierarchy of needs to create better characters, writer knows more than the character, how can you convey that info to the player/viewer

quote from it

“With these basic needs in mind, writers can deepen their characters by determining how the things a character wants (revenge, romance, a promotion, to solve a mystery, to hold a marriage together) are caused by what he or she really needs.

  • A bully doesn’t pick on someone just to be mean. Does it make him accepted with his friends? Is the other worker is a threat to his job? Does he think he’ll be seen as powerful if he forces someone into submission?
  • Is the village wise woman completely altruistic in helping others, or does she need the acknowledgment of others or the self-respect that comes with giving advice? Does she need the empowerment and control the position gives her? The status within her group?
  • And does the corporate power broker simply enjoy the challenge and excitement of business, or does he need the outward show of respect to feel accepted? Or is he driven to success to make up for a past failure?”

naother one to add – http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/01/what_comes_afte.html and his earlier post on user enchantment – http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/03/user_enchantmen.html and

HEre’s a graphic from that article – hierarchy of needs of users – they first need software that meets their needs (does what they need done, works without bugs), then they need usable software (efficient, interface makes sense), then they want “flow” – they want to be engaged, they want it to be fun to use and if we can give them that it will create passionate users and we mess up the enchantment/engagement if the interface gets int he way of the story (ties back to the theming of the experience) – the user/player/media consumer wants to be enchanted – they want to be swept up in the story – they’re a co-conspirator anxious to be led along to more engagement – unless we mess it up – games/media needs to stay out of hte way and let the user do what htey want to do, don’t wnat to be aware that there is interface/mediating media

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reading notes – giving players choices

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 win – motivated to do stuff to try to win, move closer to winning/sets them up to lose (lose = lose points along the way, lose inventory, lose the game), drama doesn’t come from teh story but from the choices – more important/critical decisions = more drama/more tension, don’t have hte same level ofdecisions over and over (don’t want hte game to get repetitive), don’t let the player get caught in a looop of bad situations and impossible choices over and over and over – shake things up with unexpected events to change their circumstance – game has to recognize if player is stuck and do something different (might give a clue, point to a hidden resource that will change the game power balance — but don’t want random events to seem arbitrary or to wipe out your player’s hard work – so the bigger the event coming (the greater the chance of catastrophic damage tot he player) the more warning you should give or ways around the big bad event

should be choices all the time – otherwise game has nothing going on and that’s boring

want to have no inconsequential decisions at all if you can help it (blue cloak/red cloak – why choose if they don’t give ya different abilities), some minor and necessary, lots of important and critical – have a variety to make the tension go up and down — they recommend looking at inconsequential and minor decisions to see if they can be reworked to become more important end if not then eliminate them to highlight the really important decisions – means don’t make them micromanage every single resource in the game every moment of the game, maybe add feature to automate some tasks

list of decision types from the article

Decision types

  • Hollow decision: no real consequences
  • Obvious decision: no real decision
  • Uninformed decision: an arbitrary choice
  • Informed decision: where the player has ample information
  • Dramatic decision: taps into a player’s emotional state
  • Weighted decision: a balanced decision with consequences on both sides
  • Immediate decision: has an immediate impact
  • Long-term decision: whose impact will be felt down the road

nice example from the article about how to make a decision more important – “The key to making this decision interesting is for the player to know that the golden arrow is the right choice, but also to know that if he uses the golden arrow now, he won’t be able to use it later when he has to fight the evil mage. To make this decision truly dramatic, the player must be put in a position where both paths have consequences. If the player doesn’t use the arrow now, his faithful companion, who is not immune to dragon fire, may die during the battle. However, if the player uses the arrow, it will be much harder to destroy the evil mage later on. Suddenly the decision has become more complex, with consequences on both sides of the equation….the decision is a combination of the previous decision types. It’s an informed decision because the player knows a lot about situation he is in, it’s a dramatic decision because the player has an emotional attachment to his faithful companion, it’s a weighted decision because there are consequences balanced on both sides, it’s an immediate decision because it impacts the battle which is taking place with the Dragon, and it’s a long-term decision because it impacts the future battle with the evil mage. All these combine to make the decision of whether or not to use the golden arrow a critical choice in the game, and this makes the game interesting.”

type of decision – “Dilemmas are the situations where players must weigh the consequences of their choices carefully, and in many cases, where there is no optimal answer. No matter what the player chooses, something will be gained and something will be lost. Dilemmas are often paradoxical or recursive. A well-placed dilemma and trade off can resonate emotionally with a player when encountered during the struggle to win your game.” – examples – cake cutting, prisoner’s dilemma – in each case can construct a payoff matrix (programmer needs to do that to build the consequences into the game)

another type of decision – puzzles – “There’s an innate tension in solving a puzzle. If you tie this into a system of rewards for solving the puzzle and punishments for failure, the puzzle transforms into a dramatic element.” – not just in puzzle games, lots of fps games have puzzles – “plant bombs, unlock doors, find medical kits in a labyrinth of rooms, and figure out how to use weapons and explosives in just the right way…advances the player towards his overall goal. If a puzzle doesn’t enable progress, it’s a mere distraction and should be redone or removed. A puzzle may also advance the storyline. You can use the puzzle to tell the player something about the unfolding plot. ”

another kind of choice – path thru the game – if just one path then no fun, no decisions – “consider treating the structure in a more object-oriented approach. Giving each type of object in the world a simple set of rules for interaction, rather than scripting each encounter separately often leads to creative and unusual results.”, can have several objectives for payer to choose between to give them different paths thru the game (civilization games do that – playes can choose to advance science or military or farming…)

don’t need puzzles in multi-player games to build tension – competition with other players

rewards & punishments = consequences- “you don’t want to punish players so much that they stop playing your game. But often, the threat of punishment, if not the actual punishment itself, carries a dramatic tension that can add layers of meaning to even the most trivial choices a player makes.” – 3 levels of rewards – “Rewards that are useful in obtaining victory carry greater weight. Rewards that have a romantic association, like magic weapons or gold, appear more valuable. Rewards that are tied into the storyline of the game have an added impact.”

rewards and punishments related to anticipation – talks about skinner boxes and operant conditioning – we anticipate a reward when we do things that in the past have given us a reward – could be created thru limited visibility (can’t see more territory till you’re ready to develop it)

also related to surprise – somthing happens they weren’t anticipating, thngs happen randomly, but not so often that they’re not longer valued, have to seem to happen wihtin the realm of possibilities (talks about foot soldier with 1 to 5 kill power and ogre with 1 to 20 power – could randomly happen that hte foot soldier occasionally kills the ogre – would be a good surprise for the foot soldier)

rewards & consequences related to progress – gotta give them something to keep them going to the next level, give them some payoff for finishing a quest/leveling up, talks about mini-arcs = think about how long players are going to stay at your game at any one time and within that itme period they should be able to feel like they made some progress, moved thru a mini-arc that ends with something memorable or pivotal in the game story

need some big reward at the end – they made it thru the whole game, want some closure, want some big reveal – could be an animation that’s way cooler than the rest of the game, find out something about the character that you didn’t know

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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 creates characters and then sets up moving experiences for those characters. Mechanisms: control order of events, control timing between events, create characters with whom the audience can identify and put hte characters in moving experiences

games nonlinear, calls them multi-linear/multi-path with some events happening in a set sequence and others occuring in any n umber of possible orders and other events are optional and some players might not ever see them no matter how cool the writer thinks they are, and events show up at times set by the player, not the writer/designer. In games the player is the main character – you can’t make him feel anything and you can’t make him change, can’t make him buy into the role. we’re going to create a character with a rol nad hte player “inhabits” them

reasons to put emotion in games – expand variety of people who want to play by making games more than just fun diversions and give them the range of emotions of other media; deeper emotions will make games seem not so amateurish by making them compre more favorably to movies; emotions get people involved in the game and that will increase and improve word of mouth chatter about game; this will lead to more loyal customers; and more immersive media will get better press coverage and therefore more sales; don’t want to leave money on the table by players who heard it had a bad unengaging story; creative team will be more inspired to produce better game; emotional content and more complex games are a competitive advantage; don’t want to come in last -0– and maybe most important reason – because designers want to create art

quote on p. 16 – “my feeling is that a game without a story is better than a game with a bad story, because anytime a player is taken out of their connection to hte game it gives him the opportunity to walk away from the game entirely” – how do you react?

players don’t want to feel trapped by the story, forced into actions at a specific time just because that’s  what the writer thinks is best – “Gamers want to feel like they’re playing a game, not being played by it” (p. 19)

story not the only way to make games emotionally immersive – which is good because there are many games where player can play without experiecing what the writer considered as the story

have to learn ways to help the player identify with the role their character has to play, identify with the personality of the character, create an environment that encourages the player to take on these roles – might be why main character is the hero – who wouldn’t want to identify with the hero

writer/designer can create incentives to encourage player to follow the story the designer has set up

character has to be set up with minimal dialogue in many games, but dialogue can convey emotion

cut scenes are the least game-like elements – take the player out of the game

games created differently than movies – game ideas created by a group sometimes long before a wrter comes on board, idea changes as the game is developing, situations and setting might be established and the writer has to work with them

writer has to write npc dialogue – game not over till all of this is written – and it’s the writer’s job, not some flunky

have to be creative nd not use same old techniques over and over so have to know what’s being done in other games

integrate the story with the gameplay  mechanics, make th eplayer care about the game world, create complex relationships between the players and npcs, keep player motivated to play thru to the end of hte game

comic book writers have other different problems when trying to write for videogames – not a quick fix to just hire comic book guys – but many of them can’t create rich characters and stories tho there are cool things to take from comic books in how they combine words and pictures

key is the writer has to be the best writer regardless of medium, gotta understand the medium and how it’s different from movies or tv or comic books – not always the big name writer. insist on reading a script they personally wrote – not a group write, not a rewrite because ya can’t tell what the personal actually wrote

emotioneering – techniques that can create for a player a breadth and depth of emotions in a game, emotioneer has to move the player thru interlocking sequences of emotional experiences without the player noticing wiht the game is doing – more than dialogue (but not cliches or wooden dialogue)

gotta make things interesting & deep where interesting = unique, imaginative, original and deep = emotional depth, layered, soulful, complex — deep isn’t always the same as interesting

p. 465 (start of ch5.2) – talking about creating fun and mentions creating immersion – does he think fun = immersion, talks about how people want a sense of play and fun in their games

Game Developers Conference 2005 entrance
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p. 467 – types of fun – combat, travel, competition, kinetic thrills, sports, being God (bldg & managing cities/resources), exploration & discovery, collecting and building sets of items, torturingg, when different roles have different powers/abilities, self-expression, taboo thrills, building machines, having superhuman abilities, sotry, humor, bartering, changing the landscape/building in the game world, training na NPC to do hat you tell it, balance (?), solving puzzles, keeping pets/npc’s alive, sei-randomly generated actions, dancing, role playing, nonlinear structures, emergent gameplay, choosing what side to play (good or evil), timed missions, mini-games, socializing — list came out of a workshop at Game Developers conference (so from a bunch of game designers

can create new games/new kinds of fun by combining several of these kinds of games – doesn’t always work but it can spark creative game design -gives examples of GTA which combbo’d driving, stunts, combat, flying, chases…

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notes for critical game analysis week 4

going to talk about character and work on pyramid game

Monday – quiz on character chapter

Monday – come up with 2 characters from a videogame you like – a protagonist and an antagonist – jot down how they move, what do they carry/what are they identified with, how you know they’re the antagonist/protagonist, are they animal/historical/fantasy/licensed/mythic, what archetype are they? – hero, shadow, mentor, guardian, trickster, herald, how do they look – does look signal something about their role, differentiate them from other characters

archetypes are good kinds of stereotypes – people recognize them from other media so know how they should act, want to avoid simple stereotypical characters – one dimensional, always act the same, could think of archetypes as aspects of the hero’s character and as the hero goes on the journey they add those character aspects from the people they meet till at hte end they’re a more complete personality, fairytales  have lots of other archetypes – good mother, hunter, wolf, witch, prince/princess/greedy innkeeper, the eternal child (like peter pan)- they have very specialized function in the story

what about girl charcters? lots of game develoeprs talk about wanting to make games more attractive to girl players – girl characters in rpg’s seem to be a lot like male characters – they both have powers usually so sometimes it’s good to play as the girl character – - – but in other types of games girl characters are non existent or too sexy, girls don’t necessarily want games with female leads (especially the way the leads or the female characters are now)

we have to give players time to get used to/being comfortable with their character chocies – do some simple missions, hang out with others with similar characters because that character is how they interact iwth the game world

lots of games get ideas about charcter types from D&D and other rpg’s – orcs, mages, fighters, and druids

game development team can brainstorm and work together on creating characters, naming chracters deciding what htey look like

Monday – play a few more pyramid games – point out that wednesday we start creating games so focus on the game play and how games add small things to change – we’re looking orm something original. Not going to work on it forever – a week to make the game, test, change. Need to turn in the final rules, tester comments and details about how you changed to deal with them, pictures of your game setup

Wednesday – what chraracter archetypes do you identify with most/prefer in your games and why? How do the character arechetypes correspond to the hero journey steps? which is better for immersion – voice over or text bubbles (what if voice doesn’t sound like player expects)?

Wednesday – time to work on pyramid game

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