Week 9 Reading and Writing

 Overall Thoughts

This weeks post is about how well the reading and writing these blog post are working out for me. So to give you the straight up answer, yes I have enjoyed writing up the blog post as they have helped me reflect on the things I have read about in previous weeks, where usually I would just read something and then move on with my life, the blog post have been a nice way of looking back on the information  in my own words and take it in that bit more.

While I have enjoyed that aspect , the amount of reading on the other hand coupled with having to complete other modules for me felt a bit much and I struggled to find the time to get them fully complete which was a shame because I am very interested in it and would have liked to have had more time to read through them.

Learning unity: To be honest I am struggling with unity, I don't like learning from online videos as I do have so many questions as to why this works or why that works ect, saying that though the unity tutorials have been easy to go along with I just wished they explained things in more detail. I am a fussy learner and I am set in my ways unfortunately and learning to make a game this way, which in itself is a task and a half has caught me off guard and I am suffering because of it. While I know that the help is there if I need it from my class tutor, I just feel like I am going to be an annoyance if I was to ask for help.  

Looking forward though I am still currently in the early stages of developing my game and I am hoping to get it finished as I don't like starting something and not see it through, my game may not be the best but if I get it completed to a stage where it is playable then I will call it a success. 

Other than the unity tutorial being pre recorded videos to learn off there is not much I would change with how the module is being delivered, there is much information to digest in what seems like a short period of time and I am feeling a bit overwhelmed by it solely because of the time constraint.

If there is one thing I could change about the module it would be the way that we are being thought unity, like I said previously I don't do "online" learning the best and know that my learning is taking longer than what it usually does as a result.      

Game Decisions

 Game Decisions

Image

This weeks reading was about Flow in video games, it is a theory by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. It is applied when creating a video game to keep the user engaged.  

What is Flow? Flow is a psychological theory that game developers incorporate to keep players playing. It is a way of getting hold of a player and keep them playing  for hours upon hours, that is the hope of course. Flow can be implemented by presenting a challenge to the player based on their skill level, it usually starts off simple so as to not scare the player into thinking they are not going to be able to play on but instead make them feel like the are learning how to play and are feeling a sense of achievement from doing so, On the flip side the challenge cannot be too easy as the user may get board and made feel like they are not being tested enough and stop playing. If the challenge being presented to the user is proving to be adequate and is keeping them engaged then the player will be in a state of hyper focus, which is the state of mind that game developers want you to be when playing their game. Once the player is in this state any external awareness is rendered mute to them as they are fully focused on completing the challenge that the game is presenting them. Developers must be conscious of how they try and implement the flow state in video games as it can be the make or break of the game being fun or not.

Image

I have looked at this topic further and have found some useful resources should you look to delve deeper into it.

the first is another blog post about flow theory and what surrounds it, you can find it HERE!  

second is an article that goes into detail about the cognitive psychology around game design, you can find it HERE!    

I found this nice video about flow and how gamers enter into it, you can watch it HERE!

Games MDA

 Understanding Games

This weeks reading was on MDA which stands for Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics. These three components when combined together make up a great portion of a video game. A designer must be conscious of how the three work in tangent with one another and design the game on how they work off one another. 

The Mechanics are the base component, this involves what the player is able to do in terms of gameplay. The game might have multiple mechanics such as walking, running then sprinting to name a few, the mechanics have to make sense in order for the dynamics of the game to make sense. 

The Dynamics of the game are what the player is going to experience when playing, for example the PC game Escape from Tarkov is an open world survival shooting game, it involves the player having to battle it out with other players to attain resources in order to complete quest and earn money so they can purchase better equipment. Having this objective style gameplay makes sense with the mechanics such as shooting and running.

The Aesthetics are what is going to evoke an emotional response from the user, if it is a horror game it would make sense for it to not have a lot of bright colours but instead be very dark and give the user a sense of not knowing where they are going.

In my opinion, even though the Mechanics and the Dynamics have to have a close relationship to one another I can settle for a game giving me any sort of dynamics, Ultimately for me it comes down to the actual mechanics of a video game that entices me to buy it. I want to see games that have challenging mechanics and ones that a person has to put time into in order to get better at the game, but that's just me.

Here are some articles I have read to help get a better all round understanding of the subject.

This Article by Mike Stout talks about the problems that developers face when making a game and some of the ways he goes about improving them for the user. you can read the article HERE!   

This one by Marco give a more short and sweet version of what MDA is and what it entails. You can read it HERE!

This Article talks further and a little more in dept as to what MDA is. You can read it HERE! 

Game Elements

 Game Elements

This weeks reading was all about getting a better grasp of the thought process that goes into making a video game and to understand the component parts and how they combine to form an end product for a consumer.

The first article "What are the qualities of games" was a very interesting read and I found it to be really informative about the components that have to fit together from the beginning of the design process in order to have a functioning game that makes sense and is fun to play. Once the designer has these components in place and is happy with how the game is going to be played it is important for then to be able to carry out a critical analysis of the game to understand what it is that is making the game an enjoyable experience for the user and what can be added or removed in order to improve it. The article gives an insight into what sort of questions a designer should ask themselves in order to analyse the game as a whole and I found it very informative as I would not have thought about asking some of the questions that is stated in it, so I will use this information going forward with my own project.

Going forward it is important to begin a prototype of your game and get a feel for how it plays. The video(Which can be found here!) talks about how it is one thing to have your game idea on paper but if you really want to see if it is going in the right direction, make a prototype! Here you can get answers to some of the questions you may have as a designer such as " do the game mechanics make sense" and " do the components of the game fit together". If the answer is yes then its all well and good but if it is a no then changes can be made, I get the feeling that it is a fail forward kind of approach, which I think is a good way to create something that works.

                                                                                Image