This article by Doug Church is about how game design has been trailing behind in its evolution, which he believes is due to its lack of a common language to be employed when analysing games. In his article titled Gamasutra, he states how “the primary inhibitor of evolution is the lack of a common vocabulary”, their needs to be a shared language of games design that can be applied to any game of any genre.
He lists a few tools that are common in most games, however there are many more that are not included and that as time progresses the list of tools will increase. Controls are a major tool that shapes gameplay; he states how you can play one game with one set of controls and another, similar game with a completely different set of controls. It’s these controls that shapes player behaviour in a game, once they gradually get to understand the games consistent controls, they will start to develop their own game play styles, experiment and take risks with the games physics and laws, planning on how to reach the next area for example.
Perceivable consequences can make or a break a game. A game reacts based on your actions and input and moreover, you understand why it reacts the way it does. The player can take a chance, take the left or right road can be totally random, only to find that they took the wrong path and are now dead. This can leave the player frustrated as, how could they have known on a random decision? But in that form of free roaming game, it is that element of surprise and not knowing that can make a game great, but they draw heavily from storyline which is another tool that defines a game.
Story has a massive effect on a game; it’s hard to play any game without a theme and story behind it. Even generic sport games are based on real life which has its own unique story to it. Intention and perceivable consequences can often take a backseat with a heavily scripted and story driven storyline, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In recent open world sand box games, the same situation of going left or right is still in the game, and you have to guess which is the best, but you have that other option to explore the game world provided for you and finding that hidden manuscript that details the movements of a gang or rogues so you know that they are down that right path. This can add a huge sense of realism to the game, the option to research everything and go into every situation totally prepared or take to the unknown – the faster path to just complete the storyline with a harder path set before. Giving that option, the player can use intention to choose their own path through the storyline of the game.
Intention is another tool that Church talks about. The player will have some means by which to complete the tasks set before him, planning ahead with the intent of being able to pass any future obstacles with ease, moving forward with a purpose. Accumulating goals is a great away to give the player an option on how to move ahead, planning ahead on how to accomplish each goal.
There are many other tools which Church doesn’t go into great detail about, such as cooperation, conflict and confusion, but the three big ones he talks about is intention, consequence and story. They are involved I would say most if not all games of the past decade and are only going to be so much more over used now that the topic of games design is being more precisely researched with more and more people discussing the topic.
SM – iHK
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a very interesting discursive response to the Church article. I enjoyed reading this.
ReplyDeleterob
Hi Stefan,
ReplyDeleteI see you've shifted to Roman numerals ...
Hopefully, some posts relating to some of the material in Intro to Critical Games Studies won't be too long in finding their way into your new numbering system ... ?
Hi we are reading a number of articles on games design. It would be good to see you blogging regularly about them. It will really help you to lock down your understanding of the material.
ReplyDeleterob