Rouse Reading

This reading was all about what players want out of a game. As soon as I saw the title of the reading it got me thinking, both as a player and a designer. I tried to think, as a player, what do I expect out of a  game and I also tried to think about what aspects I put into a game for the player as a designer.

Some things I had thought of came up in the reading such as I want a challenge and I want a bragging experience. He has a good list of different things players look for in a game. I couldn't find one thing on the list I disagreed with, but it is noteworthy that one game will not have all of these items listed. One I had never thought of is the one having to do with social games, mostly because I don't play many multiplayer games. But games like League of Legends or Team Fortress 2 not only give players a challenge but they also allow them to socialize with other players and have bragging rights in the community the game provides.

Not only does Rouse talk about what the player wants, but he also goes into what a player needs and expects to play a game. With this list I think you could apply all of the concepts to one game. All in all it mostly seemed like a list of things to think about when trying to design a good game. It got into things like a feedback structure, consistent rules, and having an achievable goal.

All in all the main thing I thought about during this reading was the fact that I think the industry really panders to certain types of gamers, while ignoring others. I see so many games focus completely on the challenge or the bragging rights and not so much on the exploration or immersive quality. This is not to say that I can think of one group of gamers that is being completely ignored, but I do think the industry plays favorites.

There is a Rouse in the House!

This reading talked about what players want. It was broken down into bullet points, which makes for easy bloggin’. He talks about how the creator of Pokemon wanted to make a game for himself rather then make it for everyone. That is an interesting thought, Now if only everyone made games like this.

He talks about why do players want to play. Players want a challenge, while socializing, and bragging to their friends and the world that they are the best. Players want en emotional experience that they can explore and fantasize. Sounds like me playing Madden.

It was interesting while reading each section; I was trying to think about a bad example and a good example of every element that was mentioned in this reading. I found it interesting that the author said that Sim City 3000 should be thought of as a “software toy,” rather than a game as there is no explicit goal. No wonder why it never got played in the library growing up.

Rouse also talks about what players expect. They expect a Consistent World, expect reasonable solutions to work. Expect Direction, and they expect to accomplish a task incrementally. They expect to be immersed, while expecting some setbacks, they should expect a fair chance but should not need to repeat themselves or get hopelessly stuck. The player should do work rather than hopelessly watch; as they do not know what they want but know they know when it is missing. Mentioning the game Grand Theft Auto almost seems fitting to go here. It took a long time to end the game, and crazy stuff was always happening. Ah, good times.

A Rousing Article

Richard Rouse goes through, in an easy to read format, the basic desires and expectations of gamers.

He says that Gamers want:
A Challenge
To Socialize or, alternatively, A Dynamic Solitary Experience
Bragging Rights (which fits into the social dynamics outlined above)
An Emotional Experience
To Explore
To Fantasize
To Interact

Giant, lazy, bullet-point lists aside, I find the aspect of fantasizing to be one of the greatest elements of modern video games.  There are two things in particular that Rouse talks about in relation to fantasizing that particularly caught my attention are that "computer games provide a good medium for players to explore sides of their personality, that they keep submerged in their daily lives".  Games have the capacity to be an introspective tool, allowing people to discover themselves in ways that are not available to them in their ordinary life.  I remember when I played Fable 2, there was a particular point of the story that faced me with a moral dilemma.  I had been placed in a situation where I was posed with having to choose between allowing a foolish young woman to lose her youthful body and become an old woman or to take that curse upon myself and become hideously scarred.  Normally, I play the stock hero who takes all the burdens upon themselves, in a completely fantastical and impossible way.  This time, though, I chose to not intervene and risk bodily harm to myself.  I remember justifying it to myself as the woman being a one-time write-off NPC character whom I felt no emotional contact to and therefore had no obligation to them as a person.  The judgement I cast on her was entirely unheroic and showed that, in the end, I would sacrifice my time, my blood, my effort and even my life to achieve a lofty end-game goal but that I wouldn't sacrifice my physical beauty to preserve the quality of life for a stranger who had made a mistake.  To this day, I still ponder on what my choice at that moment says about me as a person and whether or not I like what it means. This feeds right back in to Rouse's statement that games allow players to engage in socially unacceptable behavior in a safe environment.

Players Expect:
A Consistent World
To Understand the game-world's bounds
Resonable solutions to work
Direction
To Accomplish tasks incrementally
To be immersed
Some setbacks
A fair challenge
Not to need to repeat themselves
Not to get hopelessly stuck
To do, not to watch

Adam's Game Balancing

Learning to balance between a game that is too difficult to play, is too unbelievable and one that is too easy and too unrealistic is the key theme within Adam's piece, Game Balancing. There is the difficulty level to consider, for example, for it must be difficult enough that it serves the situation of the game by addressing the character, the player, and then constraints appropriately. Within every game, the mechanics guide the balance within play. The action and procedure lead to a satisfied interaction within the game.

Consider space, the environment which the player is interacting. There is the physical and the digital space, depending on the type of game play. From this environment, you learn what to expect from the boundaries that are constricting your space. For example, if you were playing on a football field you wouldn't consider that catching/throwing the football across the field into the stands would be acceptable play.

The objects, attributes, and states are anything that interacts with the player. These can be the visible objects as well as the characteristics of the items in play. There's the ball, but then there's the items in your way or items that prevent/enable you to play within their context.

The actions and interactions between the players and the objects are the oprative moves and the resultants of those moves. So in the beginning, there is the action, and after that action has been made there is the resultant. What action you decide to make has a consequence leading to a better understanding and mastering of the mechanics within the game.

The rules, overall, are the foundational, behavioral and social constructs in the game. There are the rules made by the game, but then there are also the social dynamics within the participants that lead to mutual agreements or disagreements. Behavioral rules tie well within the social dynamics in the sense of a maturity with how other rules are being handled. Each player becomes aware of how other players are abiding by the rules. This could reflect well with the idea of 'cheating' or just finding 'loopholes' within the structure that allow a player to have an advantage from considering and acting upon and idea another player didn't consider. (I believe that might be Bogost...)

Adams - balancing

Very cool reading. Adams really breaks down all the elements that make a game balanced. I really like breaking it up between PvE and PvP. But most of the time I was reading it, I just kept thinking about SC2. It's a game I like to play occasionally, and it's probably the most balanced game I've ever played. In fact they recently released the bata for SC2 - Heart of the Swarm, so it's not balanced yet. There are a bunch of new units, so lots of people will play it for a while, and eventually it will reach a point where it's completely balanced, in fact they already removed a unit because it was too powerful. Then eventually some actual strategies will start emerging, eventually leading to "standard play" with each race match-up. That's not all the stuff Adams talks about, but that's what I could immediately connect to a game.

Adams Reading

This reading was all about mechanics.

The first mechanic was space. Obviously the player must be able to fully understand and move around in the game, or the constructed, limited space the designer has created. There is also the idea of spaces within spaces, such as levels or rooms or confined areas in the game itself. After this mechanic came the idea of objects, the things gamers will interact with in your space. With objects come attributes  or the information about the object. Gamers always want to know what the best gun is or what sword will do the most damage. However, all these attributes should not be obvious. Along with attributes come stats, and those gamers are very familiar with. These interactions with these objects in the space are actions, which is the third mechanic. These actions are anything a player can do in the game, and event the simplest step and movement must be considered. These actions must be confidened, and so the next mechanic are the rules that constrain them.

All in all this reading was very interesting. Some aspects of mechanics that were talked about I already knew, but the reading went into details I hadn't even though of. Other aspects it brought up I had never through about, such as all the different types of rules that need to be thought about, not just the written. Also the mind boggling idea of the space a gamer has inside the game. I also found myself thinking more about how all the objects in my game are going to interact, and the unitended consiquences of these interactions.

Adams Family Readings

In the mechanics reading Adams talks about various game mechanics including Space, Objects, Attributes, States, Rules, and Actions.

Space is the “magic circle of gameplay.” It defines the various places rthat can exist in a game and how those places are related to one another. Adams says that game spaces are generally discrete or continuous, have some number of dimensions and have bounded areas, which may or may not be connected. A game with fancy aesthetics can fool you into thinking that its functional space is more complex than it really is, think a monopoly board.

Objects are characters, props, tokens, score, or anything that can be manipulated in your game. Objects are nouns of game mechanics. Objects generally have one or more attributes of which are often the current position in the game space.

Attributes are categories of information about an object. A car has maximum speed and current speed as attributes, and each attribute has a state. A state helps define that attribute. Actions are the verbs of game mechanics.

Rules are what define the space objects actions and consequences and goals. They make possible all the mechanics. Adams defines the most important rule as the object of the game. You must be able to state your games goal and state it clearly.

In the Game Balancing Reading Adams goes in and talks about the difference between fairness and difficulty. As well as what is a balanced game. Adams defines a balanced game as having meaningful choices. The players must perceive that the game as fair. The difficulty must be consistent. Then Adams talks about dominant strategies in video games and the relationships among player options. Transitive describes a relationship among three or more entitles with advantages or disadvantages to a choice. Intransitive relationships works more like rock paper scissors.

Adams talks about PvE (player vs environment) and PvP (player vs player) and making the games fair. Adams says that PvE games should be fair, where a stalemate should not occur. Players should not have to do research outside of the game world to win the games.

A point that Adams talked about was fairness to a game. We can relate to that whenever we play a game I think that is why we have the difficulty settings. It is unfair to start out all games on difficult especially if it is your first time playing.