Hey there,
First and foremost information here is, what exactly is a game.
Well a game is a structured form of play, purposefully made for entertainment and fun, but can be used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work which is a from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements.
Where as a game design is:
The art of applying design and aesthetics to create a game for entertainment, educational, exercise, or experimental purposes. The elements and principles of game design are also applied to other interactions, in the form of gamification.
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| Donkey Kong (1981) |
That is all the information I had required before read the articles provided by my teacher. Here are some pieces of information I have collected in certain articles provided.
Four Basic Ways of Generating an Idea by Vasiliev Ilya
Game design starts with an idea. I spent some time studying the question, and have found four techniques that game designers use with creating ideas. There are, of course, more techniques, but many of them are designed to solve problems rather than to generate ideas.
The techniques are:
- Concentration
- Brainstorming
- Scamper
- Ramsey
First thing, unless you have well-developed programming skills you are going to have a much better chance of achieving something. The most important thing is to get to where you actually play the game. All the idea generation and other things is effectively heads in the clouds daydreaming that almost anyone can do but which does them no good if it doesn’t result in a playable prototype.
They say the best way to start out is to make a variation of an existing game, because it takes a lot less time and work to get to the point where you can play it. It is best to pick a type or form of game that is fairly common, not one that is unusual to the eye because unusual forms are frequently more difficult to achieve, that’s why they’ are said to be unusual.
When a playable prototype has been created you should play it yourself, before you inflict it on other people. You can be super excited towards the creation but in reality it will be like almost every other initial prototype of a game, it will somewhat suck.
The really hard part of making a game is a last time of improvement that takes the majority of the time. This is a process of play testing, evaluating the results, modifying the game to improve it and going through the whole cycle again and again and again.
Finally, the game is never really done, you just come to a point where the value of the improvement is less than the cost of the time required to achieve it.
Games have four properties. They are a “closed, formal system” they involve interaction; they involve conflict, and they offer safety.
Some of the elements mentioned that seem to be common to many games include:
- Games are an activity.
- Games have rules.
- Games have conflict.
- Games have goals.
- Games involve decision making.
- Games are a form of art
Well those are the information points that stood out for me and I decide to share with you.
Thanks for Reading.
- Tochi
Hi Tochi! Honestly I love your blog it looks amazing! I really love your academic style writing so far. I can't wait to see what your game ends up looking like in the future, Here's a tip someone gave me when it comes to academic writing - If you're quoting an author or something eg "games have four properties" just have their last name and the date of the article in brackets so - "games have four properties" Schreiber (2009) it looks fancier ;) I hope you had a lovely day !
ReplyDeleteI like the way you have broken down the concept of "what is a game" and your comparison of a game to work, this is not something i had considered in depth but i have to agree that there is a defining line between work that needs to be done and work that is enjoyable and done to relax or for enjoyment in games.
ReplyDeleteHi Tochi, really enjoying the blog so far. You seem to have the academic style of writing down. I liked the way you opened the post with a direct definition of "what a game is". This worked great to transition into the rest of the blog post. I also loved the use of bullet points as it broke up the heavier reading for me.
ReplyDeleteHey Tochi! Your games design blog is really well structured and has a lot of useful information! You have a lot down about how the features of how a game works and I think that your analysis of the games design post really gets to the important information and key elements! Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteHi Tochi I just read your post and your game design blog is so well structured it was so easy to read, you had so much helpful information. I can't wait to see what your game turns out to luck like. your academic style of writing is great and the GIF you have used are so eye catching. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteHi Tochi. I like your blog layout and aesthetic, it's very visually appealing and easy to read. I'm interested to see what you have to say about scamper and ramsey techniques, they were new to me and I found them really interesting. I like how you use gifs in your blog to make it feel alive, definitely something I'm gonna think about adding to my blog. I found it interesting to read about how a game has to be made by someone with programming intelligence and all the conceptualization is just the fun easy part.
ReplyDelete