This is another blog post based off of The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell, specifically the part of the book where he discusses the difference between games and the experience created from game play. Basically, he explains that the game itself doesn't matter as much as what the player gets out of it as they play; the game is just the physical pieces that make it up, but the experience that the game creates because of how the player interacts with it is the real purpose of the game. This is important for game design, because we have to consider more than just the physical mechanics of the game, but also how the players will interact. This post is about analyzing the difference between a game and the experience, and I'll be using one of my favorite games Animal Crossing.
I chose this game series as my example, because in theory, the game seems silly and simple. Basically, the premise of the game is to walk around town, sell things, decorate your house, buy things, talk to animal neighbors, and make money - pretty much socializing with people and economics (sounds fun, right?). Yet, this game is pretty popular, and I definitely enjoy playing it. I used to spend hours and hours playing, just running around doing some mundane task like shaking fruit off of trees to sell at the market, and I'd enjoy every second of it. Why? Because the game designers knew how to motivate the player. I wanted to buy that new house upgrade, and if collecting fruit for three hours was what it was going to take then I was going to do it. There were so many different goals that you could work towards, whether it was completing a new outfit, helping out your neighbors, catching all of the fish or bugs, or making your town look nice, and all of them had different rewards, that were, well, rewarding. The designers really did take into account what motivates the player, as well as how long they're likely to pursue a goal before giving up. Getting enough money for a house upgrade could take days, but it always felt within reach, and there were always other tasks to complete along the way. One great feature of Animal Crossing is the real time aspect of it. Depending on what day, month, and season you play in, the gameplay can be completely different. New bugs and fish will appear, and different events would pop up on different days. It made the whole world seem more real to have these types of things happen. It makes sense that this game is really about the experience since it is all about interacting with your neighbors, or your friends online too. There's no linear storyline, the game is completely up to the player as long as they stay inside the game's rules. I think this opportunity to create your own experience in a world with so much potential is what makes the Animal Crossing experience so interesting. While there isn't much that I'd change about the Animal Crossing series, I would say that there is room for improvement in the future when technology allows for these changes at least. I think the game would be most successful if it keeps building on the idea of letting the player create their own experience within the system. The more variety that is allowed, the better the game would be. I feel like it would be a lot more immersive with more dialogue since it's usually just your character listening to the neighbors blabber on. I know it's pretty much impossible to currently add more dialogue, but in the future I think it would greatly improve the game. Overall though, Animal Crossing is a fantastic example of the difference between the game itself and the experience it creates.
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For Game Design, we were assigned a textbook, The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses by Jesse Schell. The first chapter discusses the skills a good game designer needs, emphasizing that there are two different kinds of skills: skills that one is good at (the minor gift) and skills that one loves doing (the major gift). This blog post will be about analyzing my own skills, which category they fit into, and what I need to work on to be a better game designer. The book lists many of the skills a game designer needs, and I will do my best to go through most of them.
Talents: These are the skills I think I'm good at, more from practice than from natural ability though. Though I only have basic knowledge of it right now, I think I am pretty okay at animation. Yes I still have a lot to learn, but with the knowledge I currently have, I think I do pretty well. This will be good for games with cut scenes, or just for running animation and such. I'm not too bad at brainstorming either. I can usually come up with ideas fairly quickly, or at the very least build off of what other people have come up with. This is useful for conceptualizing, and changing things when they don't work. I've had a lot of practice with creative writing from trying to write a novel and greatly improved over the years which should help when coming up with a plot. I think I am good enough with basic mathematics to consider it a skill since I can work pretty quickly. This is good for calculated formulas in games. Weaknesses: I have almost no knowledge of how business works at all which could be bad for selling the game. Though I don't mind public speaking, I appear incredibly nervous (even though I don't feel that way) making me not so great at it. Also, despite being confident in my mathematics skills, from the little bit of game design I've done in the past, I've found myself to be terrible at designing a balanced system where neither the player or enemies are too over-powered. Love: I am very interested in learning more about animation because it fascinates me. Hopefully, this will help me stick with it and learn it for better walk cycles, cut scenes, and just making the world look alive. I'd want to learn more about cinematography, which would be good for cut scenes and presenting the world to the player in an interesting way. Creative writing is something I've been doing for a while, and that I find really enjoyable, which is good for coming up with a game's plot. History is very interesting to me, and though I need to learn more about world building, it could be very useful for that. Psychology is so cool, I just love thinking about how the human brain works. Psychology is good for trying to figure out what the player likes, how much you need to instruct players, and what the player will do. I really like visual arts, even if I don't always make very pretty pictures. This is good for graphic design, game covers, player models, and story-boarding. I'm also pretty interested in programming, which is good for designing the rule system of the game. Dislike: I am not particularly interested in the business or economic aspect of making games. I know it's important to get the game to sell, but I am not personally very interested in it. I like listening to music, but sound design is also something I think I'd rather leave to someone more passionate at it, and who has more talent with it. As I said before, I'm bad at building balanced systems, which is partially due to me not really liking the technical aspect of game design. My brain is not wired for it, and it isn't really interesting to me. I think I could become interested in it if I saw how it actually affected some games that I like, but for most part the example technical systems are for FPS games and other games I don't really play. Overall, I think I'm more suited for the story-boarding and conceptualizing aspect of game design that the technical side of it, but who knows, that could completely change as I learn more. |
AuthorHi, I'm Abi, a DSA student who likes games, drawing, writing, and acting. Archives
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